Horrible Bosses Golf Weekend

Various locations in and around Woodland Hills and Los Angeles, CA

  Yeah, I wish...

by Fat Guy

I had fairly low expectations of this movie going in, and went to see it primarily because it happened to be in theaters on one of a handfull of nights my wife and I have had a babysitter in the 4 years since my son was born, plus the fact that Jennifer Anniston was supposed to play some kind of oversexed maneater.  I couldn't tell you why my wife agreed to see it, other than the fact that she's a champ.

Imagine my shock when it turned out to be the funniest movie I'd seen since The Hangover two years earlier.  My wife loved it too, but she's got a guy's sense of humor.  The writing (from the It's Always Sunny guys) is hysterical... belly-laugh-out-loud funny through pretty much the whole movie.  The storyline and acting walk a refreshingly semi-believable line between reality and absurdity, somehow managing to largely avoid the typical farcical downfall of going completely over-the-top (with the exception of Colin Farrell as the bald, coked-out boss' son).  Kevin Spacey plays a great bit role.  I've always been a Bateman fan, and he's fantastically understated playing Nick.  Jamie Foxx plays one of the great character names of all time (Motherf*cker Jones) to the hilt.

Oh, and did I mention Jenn Anniston as an oversexed maneater?  Her entire performance as a man-hungry dentist is a midlife-crisis fantasy for all us Friends fans from the '90's.  Not only is her character a complete pervert, she strips down to just a lab coat and panties in the office, and there's also an extended black-garters-and-stockings voyeur scene in which she deep throats a banana and a popsicle (hard to believe that body is on the north side of 40).  Plus there's a brief sex scene with her bent over the dentist's chair.  All in the name of comedy, of course.

And some of the things that come out of her mouth in this movie will make your jaw drop open.  It's hard not to sound like a horny teenager when talking about her in this role, so I'll just go with it and call her Horrible Bosses character a total boner factory.

So if you haven't seen it, put it on your Netflix queue immediately. 

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If (or after) you have seen it, here's how to do a golf weekend like Dale, Kurt, and Nick would:

Head for Woodland Hills outside Hollywood, and make your base of operations the T.G.I. Friday's (5919 Canoga Ave) where the boys hung out and hatched their triple murder plot.

Crash at the nearby Warner Center Marriott Woodland Hills (www.warnercentermarriott.com) to be stumbling distance from Friday's.  It's where Dale (Jason Day) should have taken Dr. Julia Harris (Anniston) for an after-work romp, had he been human like the rest of us.

These working schmucks wouldn't have been able to afford high-end golf, so go tee it up at nearby Balboa MGC (www.ci.la.ca.us), near the intersection of the 405 and the 101.  An easy walk, with conditions you'd expect from a Los Angeles city muni.  It can be crowded on weekends, but a nice pace of play during the week.

For something a little more upscale, head about 20 minutes away to Lost Canyons GC (www.lostcanyons.com, $55-$99) for their Sky and Shadow courses by Pete Dye.  Both are tough, with the Sky being the easier of the two, and both are good values for L.A. golf.  Play either one from the Whites, and pay the $2 surcharge for the GPS. It's worth it.

Other Filming Locations:  "The production team attempted to find locations 'that people haven't already seen a hundred times in movies and on TV', aiming for the film to appear as if it could be taking place anywhere in America 'where people are trying to pursue the American dream but getting stopped by a horrible boss.' "Comnidyine" was represented by an office building in Torrance, California, with the crew building the set on a vacant floor.  For "Pellitt Chemical", the production team found a 'perfect landscape of pipes and containers' in Santa Fe Springs, surrounding an unoccupied water cleaning and storage facility. To take advantage of the surrounding imagery, the warehouse required an extensive series of overhauls, including cutting windows into concrete walls and creating new doorways to allow for visuals of the warehouse exterior and provide a setting for the final scene of Sutherland's character. The bar scene where they meet with Jones was staged in downtown Los Angeles." [Wikipedia/VisualHollywood.com]

[Fat Guy Note: I have not taken this trip or explored any of these courses/locations. As always, proper research and reservations are required. I'm just the idea guy on this one.]