Dann in reel life: Awesome moratorium

Here's a sampling of dialogue from several current movies. See if you can pick out the common denominator:

“You'll do awesome!” — an airline attendant in “Cedar Rapids.”

“Rebecca is an awesome roommate!” — Minka Kelly in “The Roommate.”

“That was awesome!” — a bikini girl in “I Am Number Four.”

“This is awesome!” — Paul Levesque in “The Chaperone.”

“Your dad's really awesome!” a bus kid in “The Chaperone.”

“Awesome! Awesome! Awesome!” — Adam Sandler in “Just Go With It.”

“That was awesome!” — a backyard kid in “Hall Pass.”

“You're awesome at sex!” — Tyler Hoechlin in “Hall Pass.”

Apparently, screenplays today don't get made unless they're peppered with Hollywood's favorite lame and generic exclamation, “Awesome!”

I blame Jeff Spicoli.

Back in 1982's “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” Spicoli uttered that single word and not only created movie immortality for himself, he gave screenwriters one of the most overused and unoriginal catchphrases of the last three decades.

Did you watch the recent weekend “Glee” marathon on the Oxygen channel? Me, too. I quit counting the number of times somebody shouted “Awesome!” after five.

Remember last year's charming rom-com “Easy A”? It used “Awesome!” eight times.

When unimaginative screenwriters need an easy, brainless exclamation for their characters to shout, all fingers point to “awesome.”

Enough is enough.

“Awesome” had a great run. It outlived “Twenty-three skiddoo.” It surpassed “Groovy.” It outpaced “Where's the beef?” It triumphed over “Fo' shizzle my nizzle.”

But memo to screenwriters: It's a cliché. It's lazy. It's boring. It's old.

Even Jeff Spicoli hasn't uttered it since 1982.

Oscar at Schaumburg!

It's your last chance to see how the Academy Awards will go down according to Dann and Raymond's Movie Club when James Bond novelist Raymond Benson and I predict the winners at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 24, at the Schaumburg Township District Library, 130 S. Roselle Road, Schaumburg. See clips from all 10 best picture nominees, plus others. Free admission! Go to stdl.org or call (847) 985-4000.

P.S.: If you can't make that one, Raymond will be going solo for an Oscar preview at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 23, at the Indian Trails Public Library, 355 Schoenbeck Road, Wheeling. Call (847) 537-4011 or go to www.indiantrailslibrary.org.

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Don't ‘Drive Angry'

Early warning! Summit Entertainment has set its only press screening of Nicolas Cage's new 3-D action movie “Drive Angry” for 9 p.m. the night before it opens Feb. 25. Talk about a corporate no-confidence vote.

Dann knows his ABC

Join me for a special segment about the Academy Awards on ABC 7 Chicago at 11:20 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 24. We'll chart which best picture nominee will win Oscar's big enchilada. Go to abc.com.

Reel Life review: ‘The Chaperone'

The first thing that Ray Bradstone (WWE superstar Paul Levesque) does minutes after getting out of prison? He steals a car from his former bank robber buddy Larue (Kevin Corrigan).

So much for Ray's announced turning over a new crimeless leaf and adhering to his philosophy of “Confront it, tell the truth, and put it behind you.”

Stephen Herek's “The Chaperone” has its heart in the right place as far as a kid-friendly after-school TV special goes. It's the head that goes a little wonky.

This badly written, amateurly acted, poorly directed comedy combines the premise of Arnold Schwarzenegger's “Kindergarten Cop” (a bodybuilder supervising children) with the manic stunts of “Home Alone” and comes up on the short stick of common sense.

After seven years in the tank, Ray wants to reconnect with his daughter Sally (Ariel Winter), who gives him the cold, bitter shoulder. Through a silly turn of events, Ray winds up as the chaperone of a school trip to a museum, and he's unaware that the bank money from Larue's latest heist is on the bus.

Firecrackers fill in the plot holes.

“The Chaperone” is rated PG-13 for language and violence. 113 minutes. ★ ½

Reel Life review: ‘Kaboom'

“Kaboom” was inspired, according to director Gregg Araki, by cult figure John Waters who, while giving him an award for the film “Mysterious Skin,” remarked that he would like to see “an old-school Gregg Araki movie.”

So, after a spell of films closely approximating mainstream movies, the cult indie filmmaker of “The Doom Generation” and “Nowhere” whipped up “Kaboom,” which can best be described for Araki newcomers as “Donnie Darko” as filtered through Kevin Smith, except that the people with the animal heads are real and involved in a conspiracy to destroy the entire planet.

Smith (Thomas Dekker), a film studies major, has the same dream in which he sees sexy women in a hallway, then spots a red box behind a door.

Even Araki underestimates the memory of his viewers by unnecessarily flashing back to these images when Smith spots them later on, as when he sees the animal-men knife his dream redhead to death. But he can't be sure it happened since he was under the influence of spiked brownies at the time.

“Kaboom” has cults, mysteries and conspiracies, populated by his best friend with benefits, London (a sassy Juno Temple), a French lesbian witch (Roxane Mesquida), Smith's maybe-hetero-maybe-gay roommate Thor (Chris Zylka), and Smith's abusively absentee mom (Kelly Lynch).

The funniest dialogue in “Kaboom” can't be printed in a family newspaper; neither can descriptions of several adults-oriented scenes, all stitched together by Araki's bouncy, wonderfully gimmicky editing and an anarchistic sense of anything can happen at any time.

“Kaboom” opens at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago. No rating. 86 minutes. ★ ★ ★

Reel Life review: ‘Certifiably Jonathan'

Somehow, a regular, old-fashioned formula documentary didn't seem like a proper tribute for groundbreaking funny man Jonathan Winters. But Jim Pasternak's mockumentary “Certifiably Jonathan” certainly is.

Chicago's own Nora Dunn joins other famous funny people (Jim Carrey, Robin Williams, Sarah Silverman, Jimmy Kimmel, Tim Conway, Howie Mandel and Jeffrey Tambor) and other celebrities in a wacked-out look at Winters' attempts to get his new paintings into the New York Museum of Modern Art.

Turned down, the distraught comedian-turned-artist takes a noose to the museum, determined to have at least something of him hanging there. (Fans know that Winters spent eight months during the 1950s recuperating from a nervous breakdown, later diagnosed as bipolar disorder.)

Winters, 78, is glimpsed in his glory days on black-and-white TV shows where his quick wit, uncanny vocal sound effects and improvisation skills were at full power.

In “Certifiably Jonathan,” the influential comedian proves he's still got it.

Note: This 2007 movie was made before the 2009 death of Eileen, Winters' wife of 60 years, whom he makes constant references to.

The film opens at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago. No rating, but acceptable for most general audiences. 85 minutes. ★ ★ ★

• Daily Herald film critic Dann Gire's column runs Fridays in Time out!