Ted 2

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Seth MacFarlane/Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Seth McFarlane (Voice), Amanda Seyfried, Jessica Barth, Morgan Freeman, Giovanni Ribisi and John Carroll Lynch

If you found the foul-mouthed, pot-smoking teddy bear from Ted amusing, Ted 2 will most likely be your creme brulee. I thought there was no way I would ever see a sequel after the gag response I had during the first movie. I really don't mind a bear who swears and tokes; the idea seems like fun but there was something revolting about Ted that I can't quite put my finger on. It isn't the crude, moronic humor--hell, most American movie comedies have that in common. At least this iteration was more gleeful in its pursuit of the obscene. I don't know if the sequel is better or I was better prepared to expect less, but Ted 2 seems less painful and bit more palatable than its predecessor. It's still imbecilic, mind you, but it manages to coax a few chuckles.

All you need to know about the story is that John (Mark Wahlberg) and his teddy bear chum Ted (Seth MacFarlane-voice) are still paling around, watching T.V. together and pulling sophomoric stunts, like pelting joggers and bicyclists with apples from a building rooftop. Their banter is often crude, as you might expect but they manage to be funny every so often.

Ted and his human wife Tami-Lynn (Jessica Barth) have set up a home in their modest apartment while earning a meager living as grocery store clerks. When the film begins, we see their marriage has hit a rough patch. Unsure of how to remedy marital strife, Ted seeks the counsel of a co-worker, who suggests the couple have a baby. Excited by the prospect of being parents, Ted and Tami-Lynn search for a sperm donor (Ted is unable to share procreative duties, for obvious reasons).

Ted hatches a hair-brained scheme to steal a sample of New England Patriots' quarterback Tom Brady's semen for his wife's fertilization. Ted and John break into Tom Brady's mansion, where they find the snoozing quarterback, only to be caught and literally thrown out. The scene is fairly amusing, as Brady's recent scandal also takes a satirical jab. Ted then approaches Sam Jones (he of Flash Gordon fame) to solicit his seed, only to be told his years of drug use have rendered him unable to comply. Further travails ensue when Ted learns Tami-Lynn's womb is overly stressed from years of drug use, which makes artificial insemination moot. Adoption becomes the logical alternative.

But Ted and Tami Lynn's problems only accrue when they learn the state refuses to recognize him as a human being, thus denying him the opportunity to adopt. Ted's diminished citizen status also means cancelled credit cards and terminated employment.

Undeterred, John and Ted hope to sue the state for his civil rights by seeking legal representation from a novice lawyer named Samantha L. Jackson (Amanda Seyfried); whose name becomes a source of merriment. Her woeful lack of pop culture knowledge also makes her a target for John and Ted's ridicule.

A trial by jury follows, which ends badly for Ted, as he is denied person status. Still determined to prove otherwise, Ted, John and Samantha seek out the legendary lawyer Patrick Meighan (Morgan Freeman) for more high-profile representation. Meighan's impassioned speech, which compares Ted's situation to the infamous Dred Scott case, tests the boundaries of good taste. Somehow it manages to not seem like a transgression in a film that often skirts the periphery of offensive, ethnic humor.
The film also comes close to being misogynistic but it manages to narrowly avoid that pitfall too.

While a smoldering romance between John and Samantha begins to blossom, Ted's fate hangs in the balance (not really, is it ever in doubt?).

The gags and jokes in the first half of the film wane in the second as the earnestness of Ted's civil rights case assumes center stage. As aforementioned, the jokes are mostly puerile but to quibble about that would be ridiculous. No one comes to a Ted movie expecting Moliere-like wit.

The numerous cameos are fun. One of my favorites involves an appearance by Liam Neeson as he queries Ted about buying a box of Trix cereal while standing in the checkout aisle.

Mark Wahlberg is a real sport for his willingness to muck about in a film that celebrates dumbness in all its incarnations. Ditto for Amanda Seyfried and Morgan Freeman, who manage to emerge with their dignity intact. Maybe I'm being too stodgy. Ted 2 is too harmless and inconsequential to be pilloried further.

It really isn't necessary for me to say more; the trailer says it all. Mr. MacFarlane, can we bury the teddy bear once and for all, please?

A Million Ways to Die in the West

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Seth MacFarlane, Charlize Theron, Liam Neeson, Amanda Seyfried, Giovanni Ribisi, Sarah Silverman, Neil Patrick Harris, and Wes Studi

One wouldn't see Seth MacFarlane's A Million Ways to Die in the West for the sweeping vistas or characters with contradictions and dark, ulterior motives usually found in John Ford westerns. But if you happened to be looking for a film that lampoons westerns with crudely-served scatalogical humor, or skewers the prevailing myths of the old west in the same manner, then A Million Ways to Die in the West is what you're looking for.

From an original script by MacFarlane, Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild, A Million Ways to Die in the West tells a revisionist, deconstructive story of the west that is gleefully anachronistic. One knows what one is in for with Seth MacFarlane, particularly from the theatrical trailer, so no illusions about sophisticated humor, please.

Set in Arizona in the 1880s', Seth MacFarlane plays a cowardly sheep-farmer named Albert who detests everything about living in the frontier and says so in a soliloquy itemizing the kind of things that can kill you in the west in a way that is more perspective-from-the-future. It is a running gag in the film that Albert is a terrible sheep-farmer, as his herd is usually scattered all about, including the roof of his home.

Albert is in love with his sweetheart Louise (Amanda Seyfried) but the relationship sours when she grows tired of his character flaws and his inability to be a competent sheep-farmer. She falls in love with the town dandy, Foy (Neil Patrick Harris) who owns a shop that serves men with mustaches. Albert's lack of facial hair is a subtle jab at his lack of masculinity, which Foy exploits one day when Albert wanders in the mustache shop. MacFarlane always cuts a strange figure in movies with his bizarre, blemishless, alabaster complexion but it serves him well here; his smooth skin a comic reminder that a hairless face is something to be avoided in the frontier west

Unable to win Louise back, Albert is helped by a tough, tall, beautiful blonde named Anna who enters the town to rescue her brother from the jailhouse. Anna is married to the most ruthless, intimidating gunfighter named Clinch (Liam Neeson) who discovers his wife has kissed Albert, which leads to a High Noon-like confrontation later in the story. In the meantime, Anna helps Albert to overcome his love for Louise.

The story is secondary, most of the time, to the sight gags and jokes about the old west and the culture. One of them-and an amusing one-is the talk about having one's picture taken and how noone is supposed to smile. Albert shares a story about how he heard someone in Texas actually smiled during a photo, which seems outlandish and unbelievable to Anna and Albert. Another involves Albert's best friend Edward (Giovanni Ribisi), a morally upstanding young man who refuses to bed his fiancee Ruth (Sarah Silverman) before their wedding though she is a town prostitute who is visited at least ten times a day by clients--a fact known to everyone and Edward alike. It is quite funny to listen to Edward and Ruth talk wholesomely about saving themselves for marriage then hear her called gruffly by a saloon patron upstairs for sex, to which she promptly and dutifully complies; leaving Edward sitting pathetically at the table. The jokes are hit and miss and for the latter half of the movie, the story's almost serious narrative kills the momentum of the comedy as if MacFarlane forgot the movie is supposed to be a raunchy farce.

A Million Ways to Die in the West has its inspired moments but they seem too scarce. I'm not averse to humor dealing with bodily functions but films like MacFarlane's seem to use it as a crutch; betraying the famine of ideas that must have beset the screenwriting. A scene involving a duel between Foy and Albert, which ends up with the former defecating in the street seems borrowed by scores of gross-out comedies, including the recent Bridesmaids.

The cast rides along with the raunch and silliness. Sarah Silverman is quite amusing, as is Wes Studi's Cochise and Neil Patrick Harris with his foppish, annoying, handlebar mustache.

The film does have its John Ford, sweeping vistas of the desert southwest, which are breathtaking and unusual for a farce like MacFarlane's.

It made me chuckle at times but not enough. The film is one more missed opportunity but I've seen worse, which isn't exactly olympian praise but hardly a categorical dismissal. I'd like to see him try again, but next time remember to be more generous doling out the gags.