We're two weeks away from Oscar Sunday. Time is of the essence. Let's move.
I start by recognizing something that often happens when I do this countdown: No matter how hard I try to write down and keep track of every movie I see over the year, I inevitably forget a couple. That happened with the next movie I am going to review, a buddy rom-com called That Awkward Moment. Since this movie-despite all of its talent and attempted charm-actually ranks below ones I have already reviewed, I will review it at its deserved number and then list the new rankings for what I have done already. It's complicated, but I promise we'll get through it together.
The new #46 That Awkward Moment
When Mikey's (Fruitvale Station's Michael B. Jordan) wife requests a divorce, Jason (Zac Efron) and Daniel (Miles Teller) rush to his side to comfort him, bro-style. They make a pact to go woman-free for a while, but soon discover that women are harder to remove from their diet than gluten. Jason meets Ellie (Imogen "yes, this is my real name" Poots) at a bar, while Mikey kicks it to an attractive lady and gets her number (naming her "glasses" in his phone, ugh) and Daniel hangs out with his "wing woman" Chelsea (Mackenzie Davis). Jason wakes up in Ellie's bed, fully convinced she is a prostitute until he and Daniel are at work pitching their book cover idea to a new author (guess who?) Within no time, all three dudes are back in relationships and trying to hide their transgressions from one another. The strength and seriousness of the relationships vary (including Mikey's attempt to get back together with his wife) but all seem to fall victim to mediocre situational writing. The jokes rarely land, but the trio are all reliable as usual, and the romantic plot lines are nice enough. These three actors are too talented to be spending this much time in Schmaltzville, USA.
So with this new ranking having been decreed, it now looks like:
#45 The Animal Project
#44 Under the Skin
#43 We Don't Wanna Make You Dance
#42 Mr. Peabody & Sherman
#41 Happy Christmas
#40 Love is Strange
#39 Into the Woods
#38 The Hundred-Foot Journey
#37 Non-Stop
#36 The Judge
Everyone good with that?
#35 Men, Women & Children
Before Jason Reitman decided to take a critical nose-dive with Labor Day, which I never actually got around to seeing, the four films to his name were Thank You For Smoking, Juno, Up in the Air and Young Adult. Hell of a track record to have. If Labor Day took him down a peg, then Men, Women & Children took him down an entire rung in the eyes of his peers and the moviegoing community; it was in theaters for less than 4 weeks and took in just under $500,000, thanks in large part to a collection of harsh reviews. I personally liked it more than I expected. Sure, to a degree it was a hot mess, and those who called Reitman's latest "preachy" and "pretentious" weren't necessarily wrong--just wasn't nearly as lousy as people made it out to be. The movie follows five teenagers (the only one I recognized being Ansel Elgort, from The Fault in Our Stars) and their parents (Adam Sandler & Rosemary DeWitt, Jennifer Garner & Jason Douglas, JK Simmons & Tina Parker, and single parents Judy Greer and Dean Norris) as they navigate the brave new world of technology. Plot points include: Judy Greer's character taking scandalous pictures of her daughter(Olivia Crocicchia) and posting them on the internet to get a following; Tim (Elgort) quitting the football team to focus on his computer RPG and corresponding avatar and his dad (Norris) trying desperately to figure out why; Don and Helen Truby (Sandler & DeWitt) brushing off the boredom of their shaky marriage and simultaneously using internet dating services to hook up with escorts; and Brandy's (Kaitlyn Dever) mother Patricia (Garner) working to control every aspect of her daughter's life through wanton technology paranoia. The kids, of course, are texting and Facebook messaging and tweeting and sexting until there is no discernible human communication. Maybe, amidst all of this voyeurism, self-indulgence and narcissism, two people can find a way to forge a connection. Just maybe.
#34 Obvious Child
Perhaps Jenny Slate's best work up to this point was as an animated talking seashell named Marcel with Shoes On who posed and answered such delightful questions as "Do you want to know what I use for skis?...Fingernails from a man." Here, Slate steps out on her own, as comedian Donna Stern, a foulmouthed truth-teller with a penchant for uncomfortable feminism. She wakes up not long after a one-night stand to find that she is pregnant. Her decision to have an abortion becomes the focal point for the rest of the running time, as she struggles with it, uses stand-up to deal with it, comes to accept it and grow from it. Her jokes are only funny some of the time, but her performance was real, and ultimately the story was satisfying.
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