November 2, 2013 -- In a world where everyone is working in the Hollywood voice-over industry, the late Don LaFontaine was the king. He did the lion's share of movie trailer voice-overs, those short, compact videos you see on TV and in theaters before the main show starts. The idea is to get try to get the viewer interested in paying to see the movie being advertised in these trailers. This movie is about the competition between voice-over artists for lucrative movie trailer work after the death of LaFontaine.

Carol Solomon (played by Lake Bell, who also wrote, directed and produced this film, and who actually has done some voice work in Hollywood) is a voice coach and part-time voice-over artist. She is also the daughter of one of the top voice-over artists in the industry, Sam Soto (played by Fred Melamed). Soto is about to receive a lifetime achievement award. Carol would like to have a career like her father's, but this business is dominated by male voices. One day, she does a temporary sample movie trailer voice-over, filling in for a major voice talent, Gustav Warner (played by Ken Marino of “Wanderlust”) who is ill.

The producers of the trailer like Carol's voice work, and she gets the job. Gustav Warner is stung losing the voice-over job to Carol, and he plots his revenge. There is a big job coming up to do voice-over work on trailers for a major four-movie franchise, “The Amazon Games,” based on a wildly popular series of books (think “Hunger Games” big). Carol finds herself in the running for this job, along with her father and Gustav Warner. The in-fighting among the three is vicious.

So what's the big deal about getting this job? As one character puts it, movie trailers are watched by billions of people all over the world. If your voice is on that soundtrack, your voice becomes the voice of an enormously popular series of movies. Your voice becomes encoded on millions of video disks. It is not just a major career boost, a shot at fortune and fame. It is a kind of immortality.

This smart, funny comedy is not just about voice-overs, it is about the massive egos of men who tend to lose sight of what is really important (family for instance) in the pursuit of their careers, in this case, Sam Soto and Gustav Warner. It is also about a sound engineer, Louis (Demetri Martin) who is in love with Carol, but is too shy to show it. It is about Sam Soto kicking his daughter out of the house to make room for his new girlfriend, a woman less than half his age, Jaimie (Alexandra Holden of “The Hot Chick”). It is also about Carol and her sister, Dani (Michaela Watkins of “Enough Said”) both making big mistakes and dealing with the consequences of their actions.

Although Sam Soto is a typical broad, sitcom-type self-centered movie father, most of the other characters in the movie are more believable. The humor stems from the interplay between these characters, spiced up by a lot of movie industry inside jokes. Geena Davis, who has a small role as a movie executive, gives an insightful speech about what is wrong with a franchise like the “Twilight” film series and the negative ways women are depicted in movies. I don't know if there are any real movie executives like this, but it would be nice to think there are some.

Aside from Geena Davis and Eva Longoria (who plays herself in a few scenes) there are no actors in this film that most people would recognize, and it is a pretty low-budget movie, but it is funnier and better crafted than a lot of well-known Hollywood comedies. The acting is very good and the movie is funny and heartwarming throughout. This film rates a B.

Click here for links to places to buy or rent this movie in digital formats, or to buy the soundtrack, posters, books, even used videos, games, electronics and lots of other stuff. I suggest you shop at least two of these places before buying anything. Prices seem to vary continuously. For more information on this film, click on this link to The Internet Movie Database. Type in the name of the movie in the search box and press enter. You will be able to find background information on the film, the actors, and links to much more information.

Copyright © 2013 Robert Roten. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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