I was very excited to see the American Reunion movie. I saw American Pie just after college and remembered it was quite funny.
Jim, Michelle, Oz, Heather, Stifler reunite for their high school...
There are a bunch of movies that don't have their own thread, and maybe don't merit one. And I'm sure you guys have seen them. So I figured I would create this thread to discuss these movies falling through the CHUD conversational cracks.
In this thread...
The Smurfs
Crazy Stupid Love
The Change-Up
Sarah's Key
Mr. Popper's Penguins
The Devil's Double
The Guard
Another Earth
Larry Crowne
Monte Carlo
The Trip
The Future
Anybody see any of these?
The Smurfs - Exactly what you'd expect. I had no idea kids loved Tim Gunn so much. Near the end I thought the only thing this film needed was a Joan Rivers cameo. And then... well, you know. Jayma Mays is cute. So so cute.
Crazy Stupid Love - I understand this has gotten very strong reviews. I didn't buy a single minute. It's a good cast, and they get to be kinda fun in spots, but man. The miserable machinations of the script were kinda unbearable - you know all these wacky subplots are going to be related somehow, and you KNOW things are going to be resolved in a big speech. I never bought Carell and Moore as a couple. Gosling and Stone, I get.
The Devil's Double - Uday Hussein's body double. Sick, old-school exploitation. Nice to see Lee Tamahori is alive. Dominic Cooper's going to get a lot of heat off this. He plays Hussein like Bugs Bunny with an erection.
The Guard - Pretty funny. Wouldn't say it's a game-changer. Brendan Gleeson and Don Cheadle as a buddy cop duo, and it's amusing. Liam Cunningham and Mark Strong are the bad guys, and they get some really funny dialogue.
Another Earth - In love with Brit Marling. So can't comment.
The Future - Miranda July - UNPLUGGED. You already know if you'll like it or not.
Last week I saw The Devil's Double and I managed to enjoy it despite (or maybe because of) its trashy nature. Of course, the stuff involving transsexuals was the product of the imagination of Tamahori (but of course!) and I don't quite know if the Baghdad discotheques in the late 80's and early 90's looked quite similar to American clubs in design and patron clothing and they blasted You Spin Me Round (Like A Record) and Relax, but I still enjoyed this in your face true story with the feeling of both Scarface and Caligula mixed in.
Yeah, a sick little movie. I bet it will catch on with a small cult on DVD.
Currently without a thread:
Spy Kids 4 - Anyone seen this? I've never seen any of these movies.
One Day - This piece seems to condemn this thing pretty well, I doubt I will ever see it.
5 Days Of War- Renny Harlin does the Russo-Georgian War. Bizarre cast, including Val Kilmer, Andy Garcia and a one-scene cameo from Heather Graham. I thought this was alright, but the critics weren't fond of it. Definitely turns some moments of the conflict into an action movie.
Amigo - The new one from John Sayles. This is kind of a big deal, right? I haven't seen the last few from him.
Flypaper- Indie comedy from The Hangover writers. Patrick Dempsey and Ashley Judd in the middle of a bank robbery. Also, Tim Blake Nelson and Pruitt Taylor Vince playing the eight hundredth bumpkin character of each of their careers.
The Last Circus - I guess this has a few small threads so far, but I can't say it enough - fucking CRAZY movie.
also, apparently something called "The Worst Movie EVER!" was released on a screen this weekend. Box Office Mojo makes it look like, um... ONE person saw it. Which can't be right, right? Found the trailer.
From your list, I've seen the BBC series of The Trip, and I understand the film is basically the six episodes cut together, with some editing.
For anyone not familiar with it, the premise is that Steve Coogan is playing himself as a self-important "comic actor" (as opposed to "comedian") with an uncomfortable personal life; while waiting to hear from his agent about a "major series for HBO," he's about to embark on a TV series reviewing bed-and-breakfast type hotels in the north of England. When his girlfriend won't make the trip with him, he rings up Rob Brydon, playing himself as Coogan's happily married friend and (in Coogan's eyes) envious, less-talented rival.
Both men are brilliant impressionists, and if you get nothing else out of the film, you'll love some of their one-upmanship segments.
I'm a huge fan of Coogan and Brydon to begin with, and was on the floor laughing for most of this. Apart from that, though, the rivalry that Coogan and Brydon have crafted (and the just-this-side-of-Alan-Partridge persona that Coogan affects) actually make for some nice conflict; Coogan has one solo scene (it involves a mirror) that is just a pitch-perfect encapsulation of the piece. Brydon's one of the most naturally funny people working today, and his sunny domestic disposition is the perfect contrast to the dour, success-obsessed Coogan.
I was actually surprised by the ending: it works, but it's not at all what I expected from these two.
Mm, yeah, just saw The Trip. Surprisingly bittersweet ending. I liked it a lot. Anyone know of the BBC series that spawned it, and if its any better?
Apparently the new Polish brothers movie came out in Seattle last week. Who knew?
Billy Bob Thornton, Ed Helms, Tea Leoni, Kyle MacLachlan. Manure salesmen.
Apparently this, and the Polish brothers' "Stay Cool," have been on the shelf for more than a couple of years. Hence, this is directed by "Larry Smith" and "Cool" is from "Ted Smith."
Also, "Brighton Rock" comes out this weekend, which has ALSO been on the shelf for a couple of years.
"Higher Ground" - Vera Farmiga's directorial debut. She plays a born-again Christian.
"The Caller"- Rachel LeFevre stalked by a caller from thirty years ago on her phone. Stephen Moyer and Luis Guzman are in this, and it looks direct-to-DVD, but Samuel Goldwyn is apparently giving this the same release they gave "Assassination Games."
I would imagine the weekend's three major releases will get their own threads, but maybe not.
Mm, yeah, just saw The Trip. Surprisingly bittersweet ending. I liked it a lot. Anyone know of the BBC series that spawned it, and if its any better?
I may not have been clear in my post just above this one: the movie is an edited version of the actual series. But it cuts out a fair amount (107 minute runtime versus roughly 180 minutes for the TV series). The complete series is brilliant.
Yeah, my phrasing was iffy, that's what I meant to ask: what did they cut? Is the series that much better, or even essential? I'd be curious to see, but I don't know if I want to watch the whole trip again if the differences are only negligible.
Then again, I love (the unrelated, I know) In The Loop, but have yet to watch an episode of The Thick of It. So I guess that's my pathetic level of dedication.
Yeah, my phrasing was iffy, that's what I meant to ask: what did they cut? Is the series that much better, or even essential? I'd be curious to see, but I don't know if I want to watch the whole trip again if the differences are only negligible.
Then again, I love (the unrelated, I know) In The Loop, but have yet to watch an episode of The Thick of It. So I guess that's my pathetic level of dedication.
And I haven't seen the film yet, so I can't say what was cut, but given that the film is just over half as long as the series, I'd watch the series if I had to choose.
As for The Thick of It: get cracking (if you have access to it-- Youtube?). Some of the actors playing different roles will take a bit of getting used to, but it's sheer brilliance, and Capaldi, of course, is worth the price of admission (so to speak) on his own.
So yeah, only one person actually saw that Worst Movie Ever. Prophetic title.
Did anyone see Columbiana or Our Idiot Brother? I actually really liked the latter. It's genuinely funny and sweet, and I think a lot of people can relate to having that type of person in your family. I think Paul Rudd plays it far more nuanced than the dopey ads would suggest, and the movie's got a murderer's row of talent - Adam Scott KILLS in his few scenes, and Kathryn Hahn was just PERFECT as Rudd's hippie ex. She's hilarious, would love to see more of her.
Surprised to see A Good Old Fashioned Orgy sneak into theaters this weekend. I kinda thought they should've gone wide with that this weekend, they could have had an opening in the ballpark of $15 million. It's pretty funny, actually - I missed out on most of the summer's R-rated comedies, but it's gotta be at least as funny as some of them, though it doesn't approach Bridesmaids.
I guess they were snakebitten with Jason Sudeikis and Tyler Labine as the leads, because no one really likes them, right? Labine was pretty funny though, and Martin Starr and Nick Kroll get some good bits, as does Lake Bell. Will Forte is, AGAIN, wasted, as is Lucy Punch, as the couple who decide to crash the orgy and then... vanish? But it's one of those movies with a lot of funny people riffing off each other, and they don't at all shy away from the actual orgy, or the implications therein. Consider it The Big Chill, but far less insufferable, though completely lightweight.
Surprised to see A Good Old Fashioned Orgy sneak into theaters this weekend. I kinda thought they should've gone wide with that this weekend, they could have had an opening in the ballpark of $15 million. It's pretty funny, actually - I missed out on most of the summer's R-rated comedies, but it's gotta be at least as funny as some of them, though it doesn't approach Bridesmaids.
I guess they were snakebitten with Jason Sudeikis and Tyler Labine as the leads, because no one really likes them, right? Labine was pretty funny though, and Martin Starr and Nick Kroll get some good bits, as does Lake Bell. Will Forte is, AGAIN, wasted, as is Lucy Punch, as the couple who decide to crash the orgy and then... vanish? But it's one of those movies with a lot of funny people riffing off each other, and they don't at all shy away from the actual orgy, or the implications therein. Consider it The Big Chill, but far less insufferable, though completely lightweight.
Yeah, I was about to make a thread. I could see why people liked all those Rat Pack movies. Sometimes personalities are appealing enough that a threadbare plot or script can be paper overed. There aren't many jokes in this thing, but I really like the actors in it (though there could have been A LOT more done with Forte, and others, Kroll, Bell, etc). Sudekis was pretty great. He's a throwback, a funny person with confident boisterousness that you just don't find too much in the comedy scene anymore. Overall, fun, but slight.
Last thing, did anyone else feel that the really pretty brunette of the group was pretty much an Olivia Munn stand-in?
The Guard is the funniest comedy I've seen since In Bruges. Brendan Gleeson's maybe-really-smart-maybe-really-dumb character is a stroke of genius and between he and Cheadle and the rest of the support cast it might even be comedically stronger character-wise than In Bruges, although In Bruges maybe pips it for going a little deeper with that whimsical existential streak and Colin Farrell's eyebrows. (I need to see both again to be sure.) (The films, not the eyebrows.)
I thought I was going to cough up my gall bladder I was laughing so hard. A really, really strong comedy that deserves to be seen at least as much as any other this year and probably more.
Larry Crowne is an Orange Mango Smoothie of a movie. Cute, quick, worthless, harmless.
There's one baffling scene, though. In the ten minutes it takes Crowne to get a new haircut in his sleeping room, a group of 20 somethings that have never before been to his house completely redecorate his living room and it looks as if they threw everything away and spend at least 10.000 bucks on new stuff. For this friendly 40+ guy they just met. I wish I was in such a nice vespa gang.
I did see Abduction. Hilarious movie. I have a lot of sympathy for the Dragon Tattoo guy, who played the villain and had to hiss the line, "You'll be responsible for the deaths of all of your friends... on Facebook." I have no idea why he paused when he said that.
Speaking of hilarious, also caught the new Nicolas Cage effort "Trespass." Pretty much what you'd expect. Though Cam Gigadent has these soft gauze romantic flashbacks with Nicole Kidman that look like perfume commercials. Ben Mendelsohn from Animal Kingdom does a good villain role. It's Joel Schumacher. You kinda know if you want to see it or not.
Surprised there was no noise about the release for Texas Killing Fields. Sam Worthington is alright in it, but it's pretty much a low key southern crime procedural, nothing special. If you want to see Jessica Chastain, she's in like a dozen other movies this year.
I will say that Take Shelter seems to unfortunately have come and gone without a second thought, and that's sad, because Michael Shannon's performance is my favorite of the year.
So for awhile I was confusing "Restless" with "Like Crazy" until I saw the former, the new Gus Van Sant. I understand most opinions were kinda rough about the movie, but I thought it was alright. Not exactly one of Van Sant's best or more interesting movies, but sweet, kinda sad. Henry Hopper is the lead, and he seems just as troubled and haunted as his father was at a young age. Looking forward to Like Crazy, anyone seen it?
"Margin Call" was pretty great, I see it's playing at a lot of places and On-Demand. It's the early days of the financial crisis, and it's really upsetting and well-acted. While I don't know what sort of accent Paul Bettany was going for, he was really great, and it was nice to not see him fighting vampires. Also, for once, Kevin Spacey plays the corporate guy with a conscience.
These movies don't have their own threads, anyone seen:
Only seen trailers for J. Edgar. I never liked Leonardo DiCaprio's acting, he's always had this phony intensity that annoys the piss out of me. I know he probably has his fans here. I have to ask though, am I the only one who thinks he looks ridiculous in this film? Like absolutely fucking ridiculous?
-"Friends With Kids" has about half the cast of "Bridesmaids" in it, but it only reminded me how I would rather be watching "Bridesmaids". Same thing you've seen before, big city hipster couples, and the rom-com set-up where two people perfect for each other refuse to acknowledge the fact. Megan Fox and Ed Burns play the perfectly fine Baxters who have to look lame in comparison, and we're all in some alternate universe, where Jon Hamm isn't leading multi-million dollar franchises, but instead playing the uncaged drunken friend in forgettable movies like this.
-"Salmon Fishing In The Yemen". It's Lasse Hallstrom. It's EXACTLY what you'd expect. Kirsten Scott Thomas is fun as the ball-busting press secretary or something, but she's just there to make sure it's not all sweet and syrupy and boring (except that it is). Ewan McGregor and Emily Blunt are cute together. You could do worse for a date movie.
-"Being Flynn" has Julianne Moore and Robert De Niro somehow getting together to make a Paul Dano. It was a hard obstacle for me to overcome. De Niro gets to be tough and funny in this, as Dano's distant dad now driven to homelessness- its his best performance in years. Unfortunately, we're stuck with wayward loser and abuser Dano, who is dreadfully uninteresting and full of himself. Also, he quite easily beds Olivia Thirlby, despite the fact he looks like an albino's used q-tip.
-"Albert Nobbs". Still waiting for the person who can come forward and say they didn't fall asleep. For Female Sexuality 201 students, but little for anyone else, and it straddles a line between high camp and stuffy boredom. Glenn Close looks like she's playing geriatric Tintin.
-"Pariah" - Really really good. The scope seems a little small and TV-ish (if this was a Showtime Original Movie, no one would bat an eyelash), but the performances are on-point, and it's both powerful and funny. It's about a young black high school girl coming to terms with her own homosexuality. People compared it to Precious, but this isn't as ridiculously operatic, and the girl's family seems comfortably middle class, maybe lower middle class. Really good stuff.
-"Boy" is the highest grossing New Zealand film in history, and I can see why. It's from Flight Of The Conchords ally and Eagle Vs. Shark director Taika Wahiti (who also played the best friend in Green Lantern). It's a coming-of-age story about a boy who finally meets the father who abandoned him, idolizing him even though he's a low-level drug dealer with no ambitions or cash. It's actually pretty sunny, lots of goofy laughs as the boy dances a lot to Michael Jackson, chases girls, and plays games with the father he never expected to have. Wahiti plays the dad with the right mix of menace and bumbling ineptitude.
-"Let The Bullets Fly" is the highest grossing Chinese movie of all-time, and it's ridiculous. Some sort of mistaken identity stuff between gangsters, with Chow Yun-Fat stuck in the middle as the bad guy. It's manic and wacky in fits and starts, but it's mostly quite slow and boring, and it seems dependent on humorous wordplay, which doesn't translate to non-native speakers.
-"The Snowtown Murders" is a nasty nasty bit of business, an Aussie true story about a wannabe vigilante who targeted pedophiles and sexual predators, regardless as to whether he had any hard evidence or not. It's convincingly grimy and well-made at times, but man, this is a tough sit. Some of the grisliest moments of violence I've seen in a long while. Also, rape. Count on rape.
-"This Is Not A Film" ended up on a lot of best-of lists last year, and it will do so this year as well, since it debuted stateside in 2012. It's a really interesting anti-documentary, as we see Jafar Pahani under house arrest, awaiting a decision on his appeal to a twenty year prison sentence. His crime? Making subversive movies in Iran (I am paraphrasing). He is facing a six year ban on filmmaking as well, hence why he has a friend come in and shoot him on a (crisp) IPhone as he goes about his business, a natural storyteller forbidden to tell stories the way he wants. I really thought this was going to be boring, but it really wasn't, I highly reccommend it for anyone who wants to see something a little off the beaten path.
-My favorite movie in release might be "The Sound Of Noise". I like how I described it to one of my girlfriends, when I said, It's about these terrorists ("Oh?") who go to random places and disrupt public activities ("Oh!") by playing music ("oh"). They're all percussionists, so it's a little like "Stomp!", but the characters in the film are actually performing the sounds you hear, which is pretty cool, especially considering the whole thing is done like a heist film, particularly a funny "rounding up the ideal candidates" scene. Also, they're being pursued by a tone-deaf cop named AMADEUS.
Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (3D). Whether or not Walden Media actually has a religious agenda, Vanessa Hudgens in khaki shorts is proof of a benevolent god.
The Secret World of Arrietty. Incredibly sweet and not a little sad. Familiar territory for Ghibli but there never can be enough movies about brave little girls.
I watched A Thousand Words its first weekend I believe, and the small crowd there for it seemed to sincerely enjoy it. I doubt I would have laughed as much as I did if it weren't for them, as I relaxed a bit and decided to enjoy it too, even though I didn't have the highest expectations. But I felt pretty good about the movie, and its message (which didn't feel overbearing) coming out of the theater. That was enough to make me expect at least one critic to give it a favorable review on metacritic (I read about the 0% on rotten tomatoes later), but I guess my standards are different then they used to be. Feeling pretty good coming out of the theater might be all I'm looking for nowadays, and that's not a jab at anything. I've just needed a little "light" in my life lately, and A Thousand Words was it for that moment.
So, a lot of films out there that don't have their own threads.
Has anybody seen...
Jeff, Who Lives At Home
Footnote
The Deep Blue Sea
Kid With A Bike
4:44 Last Day On Earth
?
Other stuff out there:
Goon - I understand this has been VOD for awhile now. My cross to bear is that I never saw Slap Shot. But I thought this was the funniest movie of the year so far. Seann William Scott is a kindly shortbus dude with a knack for beating people up who joins a losing minor league hockey team. There's less emphasis on the sports cliches of wins and losses and more on the absurdity of the extreme violence. Allison Pill is super cute, and Liev Schrieber is more intimidating in this than he was in Wolverine.
Intruders - Major step down for Juan Carlos Frasnadillo after Intacto and 28 Weeks Later. Ghost story with Clive Owen, just the latest example in how he seems to not be paying much attention to his career. Dual ghost story, lots of unfinished, high-falutin' ideas about how we manifest our own boogeymen, and a stupid twist ending. A plus: Carice Van Houten naked.
Detachment - Tony Kaye's latest. Bonkers, delirious movie, often unpleasant, plainly ridiculous. I really enjoyed it, but it operates in this heightened dramatic world where everything is delivered with a sledgehammer. James Caan is kinda awesome as a pervy teacher, and Kaye's daughter Betty Kaye is actually quite good as a goth student who falls for Adrien Brody's "principled" substitute teacher. A great cast (Christina Hendricks, Marcia Gay Harden, Bryan Cranston), with the feeling that most of their best stuff was on the cutting room floor.
Turn Me On, Dammit - Cute Danish teenage girl wants to get laid by any means necessary. Kind of an endearing, low-key R-rated sex comedy. Barely a movie - cuts out before the seventy minute mark.
Seeking Justice - Very far down the list of preferred Nic Cage vehicles. Wife January Jones gets raped, and he accepts an offer from bald Guy Pearce to "take care" of the assailant. Later, they call in a favor of Cage that involves murder. Guy Pearce is everywhere at once, but he's kind of droll and bored the whole time, as is Cage. This is pretty low-temperature stuff as far as suspense thrillers, though there's a couple of decent chase scenes. Not poorly made, just dull.
Natural Selection- Decent indie, with Rachael Harris from The Daily Show as a Christian suburban mom who takes a road trip to find her husband's biological son via artificial insemination, only to find he's a drug addict and a criminal. Kinda funny small indie, nicely shot, decent performances. Nothing to write home about, though John Diehl fans will be pleased to know John Diehl gets naked.
