#34 Everything Must Go
When Adam Sandler took on and nailed the role of Barry Egan in Punch Drunk Love, it was certainly not the first time a comedian had made the transition to drama, but it was one of the more successful forays in recent history. A few years later, Will Ferrell, known up to this point for only the most physical and high-volume type of comedy, toned it down considerably to play IRS auditor Harold Crick in the very good Stranger than Fiction in 2006. This year, he again went against type in the dramedy Everything Must Go, a film based on the Raymond Chandler short story "Why Don't You Dance?" He plays the part of Nick Halsey, a businessman who finds himself fired due to his alcoholism. He gets home and finds the doors locked, the locks changed, and all of his possessions on the lawn. At first he is resistant--he's pissed off, confused, and in desperate need of beer. With the help of neighborhood kid Kenny (C.J. Wallace, son of the Notorious B.I.G.) and his pregnant neighbor Samantha (The Town's Rebecca Hall), he comes to discover the situation is a blessing in disguise. By putting all of his stuff on sale, he gets the chance to reinvent himself. Ferrell is a delight as always, bringing levity to an otherwise grim situation, and his slowly-accepting character arc is believable especially as his relationships with Kenny and Samantha begin to change. The movie makes you wonder-how do you begin to prioritize your things when you don't know how to prioritize your life?
#33 A Better Life
It was good to see the relatively unknown Demian Bichir receive an Oscar nomination for his work in A Better Life, the latest from director Chris Weitz (About a Boy, American Pie). Bichir is humanity personified as Carlos Galindo, a Mexican-American gardener who sleeps on the couch in a one-bedroom apartment that he shares with his son Luis (Jose' Julian, also impressive). They are scraping by. Luis is missing classes and starting to run with the wrong crowds. Carlos' business partner is heading back to Mexico and wants him to buy him out of the business, thus getting the truck and all of the gardening tools. After borrowing money from his sister, he buys their way towards a better life. Immediately after, while on a tree pruning job, his new co-worker jacks the truck. He gives chase but to no avail. He finds Luis--playing hooky at a friend's house--and they go on a hunt to get the truck back. I had a few problems with the story; I didn't feel the Luis character would be so easily swayed away from the dark side considering what he had been getting into and his contentious relationship with his father. Other things came across as much more realistic. One thing is for sure, though-Demian Bichir is deserving of all the accolades. He spends the movie exhausted yet hopeful, resilient in the face of defeat, cognizant of every reality in his limited life. He only wants the best for his son, and their scenes together, showcasing the inevitable push-pull of single fatherhood and adolescence, are remarkably powerful.
title
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Monday, February 6, 2012
2011 Films:#36 and #35
#36 Cedar Rapids
Straight-laced Tim Lippe of small-town Wisconsin (Ed Helms, erring on the side of Andy Bernard) has never been to a "major metropolis" until his boss sends him to represent the company at a regional insurance convention. Now he's off to majestic Cedar Rapids, Iowa (population-125,000) and all kinds of temptations await him. He wants to keep his word to his boss and stay away from legendary salesman and party hound Dean Ziegler (John C. Reilly), but they end up as hotel roommates. He wants to keep his word and stay true to his "pre-engagement" with his 7th grade teacher Mrs. Vanderhei (Sigourney Weaver), but he finds himself under the spell of insurance dealer Joan Ostrowski-Fox (welcome back, Anne Heche). Isiah Whitlock (Sr. Clay Davis from The Wire? Sheeeeeeeiiit) plays Ronald, the third roommate, who does his best to keep Dean and Joan at bay with by-the-books anecdotes. But before too long, Tim gives way to their outlandish peer pressure and gets in tune with a side of himself he never knew he had. Helms is great as the wide-eyed and conflicted lead. I loved when he arrived in Cedar Rapids and became flabbergasted by the buildings and his rental Chevy Cobalt. I thoroughly enjoyed his sobbing call to his pre-ancee', worried that he would turn into a philanderer. The convention veterans entertain, but none more so than John C. Reilly, who I would watch in every movie, if only it were possible.
#35 The Adjustment Bureau
The members of the Adjustment Bureau can travel through doors. By that I mean they have the power to go in the door of, say, a pet store, and come out on the the 90th floor of the Empire State building. As is often the case with sci-fi, you find yourself more disbelieving of the ordinary story elements than the extraordinary, like how you can be totally okay with a monster made from a pillar of smoke on LOST, but skeptical of the fact that Matthew Fox could wear the same sleeveless tank for a week at a time. Starring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt's cleavage, The Adjustment Bureau (based on the Phillip K. Dick short story "The Adjustment Team") follows politician David Norris (Damon) as he prepares a concession speech in a men's room, where Elise (Blunt) is hiding. She tells him to be honest in his speech. They make out. She runs off. He tries the honesty thing. It works and propels his career. Then they meet again on a bus; she gives him her number. He is excited about the number. Walking into work, he encounters men who have frozen his co-workers with some sort of technology and are wiping out memories. This is the Adjustment Bureau. They are an agency tasked with keeping people on their supposed "life paths" without any sort of veering off course. Richardson (Mad Men silverfox John Slattery) and Harry (Anthony Mackie) are the team captains, if you will, and though they represent our antagonists, they are far from sinister. They say he is destined for big things but not if he is dating Emily Blunt. Then we come into classic conflict territory: Love or career? Destiny or pre-determined course? Gray bowler hat or black bowler hat? Despite the hokeyness, I actually kind of liked the film. A friend of mine said the weakness of the movie is essentially that no man in their right mind would consider giving up the possibility of being president for a girl he made out with for thirty seconds in a bathroom. Though Huey Lewis would disagree (awesome "Power of Love"" reference) I tend to side a little bit with my friend, especially finding myself not buying the "wealthy politician rides the bus every day for three years trying to cash in on what could best be described as a craigslist 'missed connection'" plotline. But the acting is there, the use of the doorway portals make for plenty of exciting chase scenes, and you actively want to know how the situation plays out, leading the viewer to almost forget that Emily Blunt is in the same low-cut dress for the last half of the movie. That could never happen!
That'll do it for today. More tomorrow.
Straight-laced Tim Lippe of small-town Wisconsin (Ed Helms, erring on the side of Andy Bernard) has never been to a "major metropolis" until his boss sends him to represent the company at a regional insurance convention. Now he's off to majestic Cedar Rapids, Iowa (population-125,000) and all kinds of temptations await him. He wants to keep his word to his boss and stay away from legendary salesman and party hound Dean Ziegler (John C. Reilly), but they end up as hotel roommates. He wants to keep his word and stay true to his "pre-engagement" with his 7th grade teacher Mrs. Vanderhei (Sigourney Weaver), but he finds himself under the spell of insurance dealer Joan Ostrowski-Fox (welcome back, Anne Heche). Isiah Whitlock (Sr. Clay Davis from The Wire? Sheeeeeeeiiit) plays Ronald, the third roommate, who does his best to keep Dean and Joan at bay with by-the-books anecdotes. But before too long, Tim gives way to their outlandish peer pressure and gets in tune with a side of himself he never knew he had. Helms is great as the wide-eyed and conflicted lead. I loved when he arrived in Cedar Rapids and became flabbergasted by the buildings and his rental Chevy Cobalt. I thoroughly enjoyed his sobbing call to his pre-ancee', worried that he would turn into a philanderer. The convention veterans entertain, but none more so than John C. Reilly, who I would watch in every movie, if only it were possible.
#35 The Adjustment Bureau
The members of the Adjustment Bureau can travel through doors. By that I mean they have the power to go in the door of, say, a pet store, and come out on the the 90th floor of the Empire State building. As is often the case with sci-fi, you find yourself more disbelieving of the ordinary story elements than the extraordinary, like how you can be totally okay with a monster made from a pillar of smoke on LOST, but skeptical of the fact that Matthew Fox could wear the same sleeveless tank for a week at a time. Starring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt's cleavage, The Adjustment Bureau (based on the Phillip K. Dick short story "The Adjustment Team") follows politician David Norris (Damon) as he prepares a concession speech in a men's room, where Elise (Blunt) is hiding. She tells him to be honest in his speech. They make out. She runs off. He tries the honesty thing. It works and propels his career. Then they meet again on a bus; she gives him her number. He is excited about the number. Walking into work, he encounters men who have frozen his co-workers with some sort of technology and are wiping out memories. This is the Adjustment Bureau. They are an agency tasked with keeping people on their supposed "life paths" without any sort of veering off course. Richardson (Mad Men silverfox John Slattery) and Harry (Anthony Mackie) are the team captains, if you will, and though they represent our antagonists, they are far from sinister. They say he is destined for big things but not if he is dating Emily Blunt. Then we come into classic conflict territory: Love or career? Destiny or pre-determined course? Gray bowler hat or black bowler hat? Despite the hokeyness, I actually kind of liked the film. A friend of mine said the weakness of the movie is essentially that no man in their right mind would consider giving up the possibility of being president for a girl he made out with for thirty seconds in a bathroom. Though Huey Lewis would disagree (awesome "Power of Love"" reference) I tend to side a little bit with my friend, especially finding myself not buying the "wealthy politician rides the bus every day for three years trying to cash in on what could best be described as a craigslist 'missed connection'" plotline. But the acting is there, the use of the doorway portals make for plenty of exciting chase scenes, and you actively want to know how the situation plays out, leading the viewer to almost forget that Emily Blunt is in the same low-cut dress for the last half of the movie. That could never happen!
That'll do it for today. More tomorrow.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
2011 Films: Re-Scramble
Even amateur movie geniuses make mistakes sometimes.
Here's what happened. I keep all the movies on a list and cross them out as I go. When I transferred the list to a word document, I missed a few. Thus, I have to re-rank with the three I neglected to review and everything that I have written about previously will get pushed up accordingly.
Here goes.
#50 Take Me Home Tonight
It's 1988. Topher Grace and Anna Faris are academic twin brother and sister (fraternal) who are overqualified for all that they do. Matt (Grace) works at a video store at the local shopping mall and the Oxford-bound Wendy (Faris) dates rich clod Kyle (Parks & Recreation's Chris Pratt). Matt's high school crush Tori (Teresa Palmer) comes into the store and he blows it right around the same time his best friend Barry (Dan Fogler) gets canned from his job. Lucky for them, cinematic magic has provided the two with a chance to get the girl and get back on track respectively, this in the form of a blowout party hosted by Kyle. One of the big draws to his parties is that he has "the ball", a giant American Gladiator-style sphere that immediately ups one's status in the machismo department. Arriving in the party in a car stolen from Barry's dealership, they figure it's time to get busy livin'. The movie is kind of funny--Topher Grace is affable as usual, and the big-boned Fogle is a good counterpart--but it's nothing worth writing home about.
#45 Cowboys and Aliens
One thing I love about Jon Favreau's Cowboys & Aliens is that there is absolutely no pretense. The film is about a bunch of cowboys and a bunch of aliens. We start with Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig) waking up in the middle of the desert with a strange futuristic contraption attached to his wrist and no idea what happened to him. He rides a horse to the town over and there clashes with Percy Dolarhyde (Paul Dano), conveniently the son of cattle farm owner Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford). Both end up in cuffs and Woodrow, who believes Lonergan's gang robbed him previously, tries to use his sway to spring his son and keep Lonergan chained up. Before this can happen, a giant spacecraft descends on the town and starts stealing people, including Percy and consummate Western hottie Ella (Olivia Wilde). Differences are of course put aside, and with the help of Lonergan's alien laser wrist weapon, they ride off to take down the spacecraft. Craig and Harrison bring their usual acting chops and the rest of the gang is passable. The aliens are of a pretty decent CGI quality, especially their creepy extra set of hands. Watch the movie, for sure--just don't expect anything more than cowboys firing their antiquated guns at futuristic space technology and green slimy bodily fluid occasionally going everywhere.
#42 One Day
This much-maligned film actually came out better than I expected. The premise is that Emma (Anne Hathaway) and Dexter (Across the Universe's Jim Sturgess) hook up at the end of college and we, the audience, see them each and every year on the same day-July 15th. They make a pact to see each other on that date despite the relationships they form outside of their own. Emma ends up with a fledgling stand-up comic Ian (Rafe Spalls) and Dexter, a host of a terrible MTV style request show, ends up married to fortune, drugs, and a rich spoilbrat named Sylvie (Romola Garai). Eventually their married lives begin to hit the skids, and Emma and Dexter work towards reconnecting. Their chemistry is good--at times it's hard to believe she still cares about him during the early '90s coked-out club era--and of course we as the audience root for it to work out. Just about everybody has the "one that got away"; in this case, the one that got away is always right in front of them. At least once a year it is, anyway.
With the re-working, the new rankings are as follows:
#55 I Don't Know How She Does It
#54 Hall Pass
#53 No Strings Attached
#52 Thirty Minutes or Less
#51 Bad Teacher
#50 Take Me Home Tonight
#49 Unknown
#48 The Lincoln Lawyer
#47 Paul
#46 Cars 2
#45 Cowboys & Aliens
#44 Win Win
#43 X-Men First Class
#42 One Day
#41 Horrible Bosses
#40 War Horse
#39 Limitless
#38 Friends with Benefits
#37 Source Code
Enjoy the Super Bowl. Back with more soon.
Here's what happened. I keep all the movies on a list and cross them out as I go. When I transferred the list to a word document, I missed a few. Thus, I have to re-rank with the three I neglected to review and everything that I have written about previously will get pushed up accordingly.
Here goes.
#50 Take Me Home Tonight
It's 1988. Topher Grace and Anna Faris are academic twin brother and sister (fraternal) who are overqualified for all that they do. Matt (Grace) works at a video store at the local shopping mall and the Oxford-bound Wendy (Faris) dates rich clod Kyle (Parks & Recreation's Chris Pratt). Matt's high school crush Tori (Teresa Palmer) comes into the store and he blows it right around the same time his best friend Barry (Dan Fogler) gets canned from his job. Lucky for them, cinematic magic has provided the two with a chance to get the girl and get back on track respectively, this in the form of a blowout party hosted by Kyle. One of the big draws to his parties is that he has "the ball", a giant American Gladiator-style sphere that immediately ups one's status in the machismo department. Arriving in the party in a car stolen from Barry's dealership, they figure it's time to get busy livin'. The movie is kind of funny--Topher Grace is affable as usual, and the big-boned Fogle is a good counterpart--but it's nothing worth writing home about.
#45 Cowboys and Aliens
One thing I love about Jon Favreau's Cowboys & Aliens is that there is absolutely no pretense. The film is about a bunch of cowboys and a bunch of aliens. We start with Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig) waking up in the middle of the desert with a strange futuristic contraption attached to his wrist and no idea what happened to him. He rides a horse to the town over and there clashes with Percy Dolarhyde (Paul Dano), conveniently the son of cattle farm owner Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford). Both end up in cuffs and Woodrow, who believes Lonergan's gang robbed him previously, tries to use his sway to spring his son and keep Lonergan chained up. Before this can happen, a giant spacecraft descends on the town and starts stealing people, including Percy and consummate Western hottie Ella (Olivia Wilde). Differences are of course put aside, and with the help of Lonergan's alien laser wrist weapon, they ride off to take down the spacecraft. Craig and Harrison bring their usual acting chops and the rest of the gang is passable. The aliens are of a pretty decent CGI quality, especially their creepy extra set of hands. Watch the movie, for sure--just don't expect anything more than cowboys firing their antiquated guns at futuristic space technology and green slimy bodily fluid occasionally going everywhere.
#42 One Day
This much-maligned film actually came out better than I expected. The premise is that Emma (Anne Hathaway) and Dexter (Across the Universe's Jim Sturgess) hook up at the end of college and we, the audience, see them each and every year on the same day-July 15th. They make a pact to see each other on that date despite the relationships they form outside of their own. Emma ends up with a fledgling stand-up comic Ian (Rafe Spalls) and Dexter, a host of a terrible MTV style request show, ends up married to fortune, drugs, and a rich spoilbrat named Sylvie (Romola Garai). Eventually their married lives begin to hit the skids, and Emma and Dexter work towards reconnecting. Their chemistry is good--at times it's hard to believe she still cares about him during the early '90s coked-out club era--and of course we as the audience root for it to work out. Just about everybody has the "one that got away"; in this case, the one that got away is always right in front of them. At least once a year it is, anyway.
With the re-working, the new rankings are as follows:
#55 I Don't Know How She Does It
#54 Hall Pass
#53 No Strings Attached
#52 Thirty Minutes or Less
#51 Bad Teacher
#50 Take Me Home Tonight
#49 Unknown
#48 The Lincoln Lawyer
#47 Paul
#46 Cars 2
#45 Cowboys & Aliens
#44 Win Win
#43 X-Men First Class
#42 One Day
#41 Horrible Bosses
#40 War Horse
#39 Limitless
#38 Friends with Benefits
#37 Source Code
Enjoy the Super Bowl. Back with more soon.
Friday, February 3, 2012
2011 Films: #43-40
Let's go.
#43 War Horse
In December of 2010, I got my giant tonsils taken out. They had caused years of, up to a few months before, un-diagnosed sleep apnea, a pulmonary disorder that causes you to stop breathing in your sleep. As a result of my shitty quality of sleep, I would fall asleep in other places throughout the day, such as classrooms, meetings and movie theaters. Since the surgery, I had yet to fall asleep in the theater--until I saw War Horse. Even a genius like Spielberg can have an off-day (see: War of the Worlds), and though I thought Tintin was great (more later), I did not care for this one as much. It is one of those films that seemed as if it were made exclusively for an elder generation. Horses have always been symbolic of beauty, grace, freedom. War Horse, both in it's use of Joey the horse and it's sprawling England landscape, was definitely a pretty film. Spielberg teamed up with his longtime cinematographer Janusz Kaminski (with him since Schindler's List in '93) and created some fantastic shots, especially towards the end. Newcomer Jeremy Irvine plays Albert Naracott, a farm boy who bonds with the horse that his father buys at the market without permission from Albert's mother (Emily Watson). It becomes apparent that the family will not make rent on the farm unless they can plow the field for crops. Enter Joey and Albert, who miraculously get through the tough soil with a crowd of naysayers watching including the shifty landowner (David Thewlis, of Remus Lupin fame). Then World War I comes rolling along and with it, the need for horses and young men. Albert's enlisted in the army, Joey is bought by a colonel, and the rest of the film follows them as they try to find each other through the landscape of mud and trenches and explosions. The last hour of the movie was engaging and easy on the eyes, but the middle hour was molasses-slow and worthy of a decent nap. To paraphrase Billy Madison: "War Horse? More like Bore Horse."
#42 Limitless
In an episode of The Simpsons, Homer stumbles upon Henry Kissinger's glasses in the bathroom of the Springfield Power Plant. Immediately feeling smarter, he says in the mirror "The roots of any two sides of any two sides of an isosceles triangle is equal to the square root of the remaining side." A voice from the stall shouts at him "that's a right triangle, you moron!" On Seinfeld, George gives up sex and becomes a genius, looking up from Tolstoy to casually answer tough Jeopardy! questions. In Limitless, Bradley Cooper finds yet another way to quickly improve his I.Q. He stars as Eddie Morra, a bum of a writer who, during the exposition portion of the film, is shown being late on turning in a draft of his novel, being late turning in his rent, and being dumped by his girlfriend. Wandering aimlessly through the streets in "what does it all mean?" fashion, he runs into his ex-wife's brother, who is hard at work on a new drug. He gives Eddie a sample and the effects are apparent immediately: he impresses his landlord's wife with his sudden confidence and knowledge of the law, and they of course do the deed. From there, he churns out hundreds of book pages on his laptop, cleans his apartment, buys suits and starts working as a stock trader. He becomes the prodigal son of the market, gaining the attention of top exec Carl van Loon (Robert DeNiro). Things look great, but he is against the clock as he starts to realize his supply of NZT-48 (really?) will not last forever, and eventually the wrong people might find out his secret. It's kind of a silly concept and a far fetched execution, but it is a fun movie if you are in the mood for mindless (or is it mindful?) fun.
#41 Friends with Benefits
Jamie (Mila Kunis) is a corporate headhunter who recruits Dylan (Justin Timberlake) to her company, and both recently single (Timberlake is dumped in a funny cameo by 'John f***in Mayer!'-obsessed Emma Stone), begin hooking up. Both believe that the mutual attraction and dedication to avoiding any kind of relationshippy talk will override their emotional baggage. As you can imagine, it doesn't, and everyone--Jamie's mom (Patricia Clarkson), Dylan's gay friend Tommy (Woody Harrelson, great as ever), and Dylan's sister (Jenna Elfman, annoying as ever)--begins to call them on it. She comes to visit his family in California "as friends" and she gets dragged into the family weirdness; Dad (Richard Jenkins) has Alzheimer's and is slowly losing his grip on just about everything, especially his pants. Things thus get strange and relationshippy in a hurry and their "rules" begin to come into question. This is a movie that spends so much time trying to be self-reflexive of its own cliches (flash mob dance numbers, "this is so like college") that it ultimately ends up hitting on those very cliches it wants to avoid. That's okay, though. It's fun and the Kunis/Timberlake chemistry keeps it interesting.
#40 Source Code
Source Code--or as I like to call it Groundhog's Day With a Bomb on a Train--is the second offering from David Bowie's son Duncan Jones. His first, Moon, was an awesome mix of sci-fi and psychosis with Sam Rockwell battling against Sam Rockwell while marooned on a space station(The marquee on the Uptown Theater read SAM ROCKWELL & SAM ROCKWELL in MOON). Source Code, while possessing an interesting concept, did not quite grab my attention as much as Moon did. Jake Gyllenhaal starts the movie as teacher Sean Fentress, who wakes up on a train in the North 'burbs of Chicago across from fellow Chicagoan Christina Warren (Michelle Monaghan). He is confused by her calling him Sean, and can't seem to grasp what the hell she's talking about. Then a bomb goes off on the train and they explode. Don't worry, this is not giving anything away. He wakes up in a chamber of some sort, facing a television screen with Captain Goodwin (Vera Farmiga) looking down at him. She says "Your name is Colter Stevens, military helicopter pilot." "Ah, that makes more sense," Gyllenhaal thinks to himself. She goes on to say that he will be assuming the body of Chicago resident Sean Fentress via a time-loop program called source code in the hopes that in enough tries at eight minute intervals will allow him to stop the bomb from exploding, thus saving lives and changing the course of history in the process. And from there we have Groundhog Day with a Bomb on a Train, Gyllenhaal learning more and more with each eight-minute jump into Fentress's body, each time retaining enough information to help for the next time. There are cool plot twists and turns along the way and Gyllenhaal and Monaghan become this version's Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell as their relationship develops via ongoing bomb explosions. I ended up needing a few things explained to me after this one was over and I'm not sure if that was a function of my not paying enough attention or the concept being over my head; unfortunately the confusion directly correlated with my enjoyment. I think that I would like to watch this one again because I have the feeling it would make more sense the second time around. A good head-scratcher.
#43 War Horse
In December of 2010, I got my giant tonsils taken out. They had caused years of, up to a few months before, un-diagnosed sleep apnea, a pulmonary disorder that causes you to stop breathing in your sleep. As a result of my shitty quality of sleep, I would fall asleep in other places throughout the day, such as classrooms, meetings and movie theaters. Since the surgery, I had yet to fall asleep in the theater--until I saw War Horse. Even a genius like Spielberg can have an off-day (see: War of the Worlds), and though I thought Tintin was great (more later), I did not care for this one as much. It is one of those films that seemed as if it were made exclusively for an elder generation. Horses have always been symbolic of beauty, grace, freedom. War Horse, both in it's use of Joey the horse and it's sprawling England landscape, was definitely a pretty film. Spielberg teamed up with his longtime cinematographer Janusz Kaminski (with him since Schindler's List in '93) and created some fantastic shots, especially towards the end. Newcomer Jeremy Irvine plays Albert Naracott, a farm boy who bonds with the horse that his father buys at the market without permission from Albert's mother (Emily Watson). It becomes apparent that the family will not make rent on the farm unless they can plow the field for crops. Enter Joey and Albert, who miraculously get through the tough soil with a crowd of naysayers watching including the shifty landowner (David Thewlis, of Remus Lupin fame). Then World War I comes rolling along and with it, the need for horses and young men. Albert's enlisted in the army, Joey is bought by a colonel, and the rest of the film follows them as they try to find each other through the landscape of mud and trenches and explosions. The last hour of the movie was engaging and easy on the eyes, but the middle hour was molasses-slow and worthy of a decent nap. To paraphrase Billy Madison: "War Horse? More like Bore Horse."
#42 Limitless
In an episode of The Simpsons, Homer stumbles upon Henry Kissinger's glasses in the bathroom of the Springfield Power Plant. Immediately feeling smarter, he says in the mirror "The roots of any two sides of any two sides of an isosceles triangle is equal to the square root of the remaining side." A voice from the stall shouts at him "that's a right triangle, you moron!" On Seinfeld, George gives up sex and becomes a genius, looking up from Tolstoy to casually answer tough Jeopardy! questions. In Limitless, Bradley Cooper finds yet another way to quickly improve his I.Q. He stars as Eddie Morra, a bum of a writer who, during the exposition portion of the film, is shown being late on turning in a draft of his novel, being late turning in his rent, and being dumped by his girlfriend. Wandering aimlessly through the streets in "what does it all mean?" fashion, he runs into his ex-wife's brother, who is hard at work on a new drug. He gives Eddie a sample and the effects are apparent immediately: he impresses his landlord's wife with his sudden confidence and knowledge of the law, and they of course do the deed. From there, he churns out hundreds of book pages on his laptop, cleans his apartment, buys suits and starts working as a stock trader. He becomes the prodigal son of the market, gaining the attention of top exec Carl van Loon (Robert DeNiro). Things look great, but he is against the clock as he starts to realize his supply of NZT-48 (really?) will not last forever, and eventually the wrong people might find out his secret. It's kind of a silly concept and a far fetched execution, but it is a fun movie if you are in the mood for mindless (or is it mindful?) fun.
#41 Friends with Benefits
Jamie (Mila Kunis) is a corporate headhunter who recruits Dylan (Justin Timberlake) to her company, and both recently single (Timberlake is dumped in a funny cameo by 'John f***in Mayer!'-obsessed Emma Stone), begin hooking up. Both believe that the mutual attraction and dedication to avoiding any kind of relationshippy talk will override their emotional baggage. As you can imagine, it doesn't, and everyone--Jamie's mom (Patricia Clarkson), Dylan's gay friend Tommy (Woody Harrelson, great as ever), and Dylan's sister (Jenna Elfman, annoying as ever)--begins to call them on it. She comes to visit his family in California "as friends" and she gets dragged into the family weirdness; Dad (Richard Jenkins) has Alzheimer's and is slowly losing his grip on just about everything, especially his pants. Things thus get strange and relationshippy in a hurry and their "rules" begin to come into question. This is a movie that spends so much time trying to be self-reflexive of its own cliches (flash mob dance numbers, "this is so like college") that it ultimately ends up hitting on those very cliches it wants to avoid. That's okay, though. It's fun and the Kunis/Timberlake chemistry keeps it interesting.
#40 Source Code
Source Code--or as I like to call it Groundhog's Day With a Bomb on a Train--is the second offering from David Bowie's son Duncan Jones. His first, Moon, was an awesome mix of sci-fi and psychosis with Sam Rockwell battling against Sam Rockwell while marooned on a space station(The marquee on the Uptown Theater read SAM ROCKWELL & SAM ROCKWELL in MOON). Source Code, while possessing an interesting concept, did not quite grab my attention as much as Moon did. Jake Gyllenhaal starts the movie as teacher Sean Fentress, who wakes up on a train in the North 'burbs of Chicago across from fellow Chicagoan Christina Warren (Michelle Monaghan). He is confused by her calling him Sean, and can't seem to grasp what the hell she's talking about. Then a bomb goes off on the train and they explode. Don't worry, this is not giving anything away. He wakes up in a chamber of some sort, facing a television screen with Captain Goodwin (Vera Farmiga) looking down at him. She says "Your name is Colter Stevens, military helicopter pilot." "Ah, that makes more sense," Gyllenhaal thinks to himself. She goes on to say that he will be assuming the body of Chicago resident Sean Fentress via a time-loop program called source code in the hopes that in enough tries at eight minute intervals will allow him to stop the bomb from exploding, thus saving lives and changing the course of history in the process. And from there we have Groundhog Day with a Bomb on a Train, Gyllenhaal learning more and more with each eight-minute jump into Fentress's body, each time retaining enough information to help for the next time. There are cool plot twists and turns along the way and Gyllenhaal and Monaghan become this version's Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell as their relationship develops via ongoing bomb explosions. I ended up needing a few things explained to me after this one was over and I'm not sure if that was a function of my not paying enough attention or the concept being over my head; unfortunately the confusion directly correlated with my enjoyment. I think that I would like to watch this one again because I have the feeling it would make more sense the second time around. A good head-scratcher.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
2011 Films: #47-44
One of the problems with being so selective with what you see over the course of the year is that even the lowest films on the list do not necessarily suck, they just happen to be not as good as some of the others. I have a feeling there will be some backlash with the defenders of #45:
#47 Cars 2
I don't know if I am alone here, but the Cars franchise to me is the least appealing of the Pixar lexicon. For one, Larry the Cable Guy is obnoxious and he plays probably a more important role in the story of the sequel than Owen Wilson's Lightning McQueen. He has his moments in this one, to be sure, but something about the notion of talking cars makes a whole lot less sense to me than talking toys. I think the concept of Cars 2 is entertaining in theory; the slow-witted Mater the tow truck (Cable Guy) becomes Lightning McQueen's pit chief in the international grand prix and ends up dragged into an international spy-car conspiracy. But basing the majority of the plot around a one-trick pony is ill-advised as Mater's jokes and mannerisms wear thin in a hurry. Michael Caine voices a spy named Finn McMissile and gets to shine in a cool opening James Bond knockoff, and John Turturro lends his talents as a slick Italian racecar looking to take down McQueen. The races themselves are colorful and pleasing on the eyes, while the rest comes across a little more dull.
#46 Win Win
I have a couple of friends that swear by American Splendor, which stars Paul Giamatti as comic artist Harvey Pekar in his first big lead role. I get that Pekar's voice and demeanor is supposed to be annoying, sure, but Giamatti's performance in Splendor was at times unbearable. With Sideways, there is at least the goofball antics of Thomas Haden Church there to balance the neuroses, but when Giamatti is left to his own devices, he is hard to take for a full 100 minutes. Win Win stars Giamatti as Mike Flaherty, a lawyer and wrestling coach and Amy Ryan as his doting but always skeptical wife. Just as he is set to underhandedly lock down an inheritance from an old man who he had been "legal" caretaker of, his grandson and unstable mother come into the picture. The grandson, Kyle (played by real-life New Jersey state champion Alex Shaffer), also happens to be a fantastic wrestler. So the question becomes-can Flaherty turn the situation into a win-win on all accounts? Some of the scenes between Giamatti and Shaffer work really well and the wrestling sequences entertain. It just seems to me like Giamatti is a better actor to take in supporting roles, where the dosage is significantly smaller.
#45 X Men First Class
A supremely overrated movie, in my humble opinion. Those who have claimed "best in the franchise" have, I believe, become so fascinated with the coolness of an X-Men origin story that they have overlooked the fact that the dialogue is atrocious, the plot plods along sluggishly, most of the action sequences aren't that great, and neither are most of the actors. Of course there's the "Well, you don't go to comic book movies for dialogue and acting," argument, but when you are up against the likes of Sir Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart (and to their credit, Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy hold their own), you will probably fall short. The story follows the formation of the X-Men and the Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Mutants in the background of the early 1960s and the Cuban Missile Crisis, a time when Charles and Erik worked together rather than shooting telepathy and metal things at one another. The film's baddie Sebastian Shaw (played with cheese and sleaze by Kevin Bacon) is planning to hijack the nuclear warheads for his own devilish purposes, and it just so happens that he and young Magneto (Fassbender) have a bit of a history--thus the Professor X/Magneto team-up aspect of the film. The dynamic between X and Mags is well understood by McAvoy and Fassbender, and they play it just right. Professor X, still hopelessly believing that there is good in all mankind, struggles to cope with his abilities, while Magneto tows the line between right and wrong, a man constantly fighting against his own resentment and anger. Jennifer Lawrence and Nicholas Hoult are decent (but have both been better) as young Mystique and Beast, and January Jones as Shaw's right-hand lady is once again not very good, despite the outfits. Three things saved this movie for me: 1) The aforementioned duo of McAvoy/Fassbender, 2) The final action sequence in or around Cuba, and 3) What is probably the most bad-ass character death of the year near the end. Without them, we're stumbling towards Wolverine territory. Need I say more?
#44 Horrible Bosses
Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, and Jason Sudekis play Jason Bateman, Charlie Day and Jason Sudekis in the comedy Horrible Bosses. No, they play Nick, Dale and Kurt, respectively, but it never feels like they step much out of their comfort zones. Horrible Bosses has plenty of funny moments, but I feel that it could have been better. You get what you expect from the title--they have horrible bosses, and they want to have them killed. Bateman's works in corporate under the always-entertaining Kevin Spacey reprising his comically-mean act made famous in Swimming with Sharks. Day spends his shifts rejecting the sexual advances of a dirty-minded, dirty-mouthed dentist played by Jennifer Aniston. And Sudekis works under the ingrate, pony-tailed, coke-sniffing heir to Pellit Chemicals (Colin Farrell). Essentially, you have the three leads playing the straight man to their superiors. Thus, the scenes in which they interact with the bosses work well, and the scenes with the three of them together plotting work less, the kind of humor that makes you say "that's funny" rather than actually laughing. Their consigliere on the murder project is M.F. Jones, the always capable Jamie Foxx. He did time in prison, but for bootlegging Snow Falling on Cedars, not anything tough. They hire him on anyway, and of course things go quickly awry. A good-enough premise, but Bateman is exactly as smart-assed and easily defeated as Michael Bluth, Day is exactly as excitable and high-pitched as he is on Always Sunny, and Sudekis is as exactly as smarmy (Thanks, Ben) as he is in everything he has ever done.
More later today!
#47 Cars 2
I don't know if I am alone here, but the Cars franchise to me is the least appealing of the Pixar lexicon. For one, Larry the Cable Guy is obnoxious and he plays probably a more important role in the story of the sequel than Owen Wilson's Lightning McQueen. He has his moments in this one, to be sure, but something about the notion of talking cars makes a whole lot less sense to me than talking toys. I think the concept of Cars 2 is entertaining in theory; the slow-witted Mater the tow truck (Cable Guy) becomes Lightning McQueen's pit chief in the international grand prix and ends up dragged into an international spy-car conspiracy. But basing the majority of the plot around a one-trick pony is ill-advised as Mater's jokes and mannerisms wear thin in a hurry. Michael Caine voices a spy named Finn McMissile and gets to shine in a cool opening James Bond knockoff, and John Turturro lends his talents as a slick Italian racecar looking to take down McQueen. The races themselves are colorful and pleasing on the eyes, while the rest comes across a little more dull.
#46 Win Win
I have a couple of friends that swear by American Splendor, which stars Paul Giamatti as comic artist Harvey Pekar in his first big lead role. I get that Pekar's voice and demeanor is supposed to be annoying, sure, but Giamatti's performance in Splendor was at times unbearable. With Sideways, there is at least the goofball antics of Thomas Haden Church there to balance the neuroses, but when Giamatti is left to his own devices, he is hard to take for a full 100 minutes. Win Win stars Giamatti as Mike Flaherty, a lawyer and wrestling coach and Amy Ryan as his doting but always skeptical wife. Just as he is set to underhandedly lock down an inheritance from an old man who he had been "legal" caretaker of, his grandson and unstable mother come into the picture. The grandson, Kyle (played by real-life New Jersey state champion Alex Shaffer), also happens to be a fantastic wrestler. So the question becomes-can Flaherty turn the situation into a win-win on all accounts? Some of the scenes between Giamatti and Shaffer work really well and the wrestling sequences entertain. It just seems to me like Giamatti is a better actor to take in supporting roles, where the dosage is significantly smaller.
#45 X Men First Class
A supremely overrated movie, in my humble opinion. Those who have claimed "best in the franchise" have, I believe, become so fascinated with the coolness of an X-Men origin story that they have overlooked the fact that the dialogue is atrocious, the plot plods along sluggishly, most of the action sequences aren't that great, and neither are most of the actors. Of course there's the "Well, you don't go to comic book movies for dialogue and acting," argument, but when you are up against the likes of Sir Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart (and to their credit, Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy hold their own), you will probably fall short. The story follows the formation of the X-Men and the Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Mutants in the background of the early 1960s and the Cuban Missile Crisis, a time when Charles and Erik worked together rather than shooting telepathy and metal things at one another. The film's baddie Sebastian Shaw (played with cheese and sleaze by Kevin Bacon) is planning to hijack the nuclear warheads for his own devilish purposes, and it just so happens that he and young Magneto (Fassbender) have a bit of a history--thus the Professor X/Magneto team-up aspect of the film. The dynamic between X and Mags is well understood by McAvoy and Fassbender, and they play it just right. Professor X, still hopelessly believing that there is good in all mankind, struggles to cope with his abilities, while Magneto tows the line between right and wrong, a man constantly fighting against his own resentment and anger. Jennifer Lawrence and Nicholas Hoult are decent (but have both been better) as young Mystique and Beast, and January Jones as Shaw's right-hand lady is once again not very good, despite the outfits. Three things saved this movie for me: 1) The aforementioned duo of McAvoy/Fassbender, 2) The final action sequence in or around Cuba, and 3) What is probably the most bad-ass character death of the year near the end. Without them, we're stumbling towards Wolverine territory. Need I say more?
#44 Horrible Bosses
Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, and Jason Sudekis play Jason Bateman, Charlie Day and Jason Sudekis in the comedy Horrible Bosses. No, they play Nick, Dale and Kurt, respectively, but it never feels like they step much out of their comfort zones. Horrible Bosses has plenty of funny moments, but I feel that it could have been better. You get what you expect from the title--they have horrible bosses, and they want to have them killed. Bateman's works in corporate under the always-entertaining Kevin Spacey reprising his comically-mean act made famous in Swimming with Sharks. Day spends his shifts rejecting the sexual advances of a dirty-minded, dirty-mouthed dentist played by Jennifer Aniston. And Sudekis works under the ingrate, pony-tailed, coke-sniffing heir to Pellit Chemicals (Colin Farrell). Essentially, you have the three leads playing the straight man to their superiors. Thus, the scenes in which they interact with the bosses work well, and the scenes with the three of them together plotting work less, the kind of humor that makes you say "that's funny" rather than actually laughing. Their consigliere on the murder project is M.F. Jones, the always capable Jamie Foxx. He did time in prison, but for bootlegging Snow Falling on Cedars, not anything tough. They hire him on anyway, and of course things go quickly awry. A good-enough premise, but Bateman is exactly as smart-assed and easily defeated as Michael Bluth, Day is exactly as excitable and high-pitched as he is on Always Sunny, and Sudekis is as exactly as smarmy (Thanks, Ben) as he is in everything he has ever done.
More later today!
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
2011 Films: #51-48
The countdown continues!
Essentially everything from here on out may have redeeming qualities, even if it is this far down the list.
#51 Bad Teacher
Much was made of the very public breakup of Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake a few years back. Thank goodness for the rest of us though--they were able to make it work and thus churn out a crap movie together! Should Bad Teacher be called Pretty Bad Movie? Possibly, though at times Diaz's antics made me laugh. The set-up: She's Miss Elizabeth Halsey, a completely shallow and self-centered gold-digger who gets dumped by her gold-diggee and goes back to work as a teacher in order to save up for breast implants. Along comes substitute Scott DeLacorte (Timberlake), an innocent young do-gooder looking to advance his career and she wants him. Unfortunately for Miss Halsey, gym teacher Mr. Gettis (a super-underutilized Jason Segel) is pursuing her, and model teacher Ms. Squirrell (Lucy Punch) lands Mr. Delacorte. Once she hears that a cash bonus will be given to the teacher whose students post the best test scores, Ms. Halsey will stop at nothing to wreck Ms. Squirrell, steal away Mr. Delacorte, and get the money she needs. Cameron Diaz has a few pretty hilarious one-liners and Segel is reliable as always, but he deserves far more screen time and Timberlake's nerd was sort of tough for me to buy.
#50 Unknown
Liam Neeson's The Grey marks the third straight year in which he has starred in a January film that is solely a vehicle for him to kick some asses using, as said in Taken, his "unique set of skills". This installment of the Liam Neeson January Action Film genre unfortunately features another January in actress January Jones, who, while very attractive, is untalented as hell behind the camera save some decent work in Mad Men. Unknown follows Neeson as Martin Harris, a renowned biochemist set to give a talk in Berlin. As he and his wife (Jones) arrive at the hotel, he realizes his briefcase with all of his identification was left at the airport. On the way back to the hotel, his cab crashes into the river, he ends up in a four day coma and checks out of the hospital to go back deliver his report. When he gets there, his wife no longer knows him and is now on the arm of fake Martin Harris, played by Aidan Quinn. From there, a whole lot of "But..but...you're my wife!" and "No, I've never met you before," ensues. With no one believing him, he goes to track down the cab driver (Diane Kruger) and start getting some answers via the kicking of asses. There is definitely a conspiracy here, and he's going to figure it out, dammit, or else his name isn't Liam Neeson.
#49 Lincoln Lawyer
Matthew McCounaghey is Mick Haller, a defense attorney who works out of his Lincoln Town Car. He is hired to defend Hollywood playboy Louis Roulet (Ryan Phillipe), who has been charged with an assault on a prostitute. Over the course of the investigation, Haller's cop buddy Frank Levin (William H. Macy) makes some interesting discoveries that put both he and Haller in danger. From there, the Driving Defender (you see what I did there?) fights to stay alive and stay one step ahead of his pursuers. McCounaghey turns in a good performance, as does William H. Macy (as per usual) and there are some exciting moments, but for the most part the resolution feels kind of flat and predictable.
#48 Paul
As a duo, Nick Frost and Simon Pegg have a history of taking on the supernatural and turning it into comedy. Their breakout hit, 2004's zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead put them on the map and their careers have both grown considerably from there. Pegg used the momentum to turn in whip-smart tech-y roles in the Mission Impossible series and as Scotty in the Star Trek reboot, while Frost has been thrown more often than not into the dunderheaded big-guy role (see Pirate Radio). Along with Hot Fuzz, Paul marks their third time starring in a film together, and their chemistry continues to work. Paul follows Graeme(Pegg) and Clive (Frost), two space-obsessed nerds who leave Comic-Con to go try and track down famous alien sites such as Roswell and Area 51. Along the way, they come upon a car crash and there encounter Paul, a slacker/stoner alien voiced by slacker/stoner Seth Rogen. They agree to give him a ride in their RV as he regales them with stories of being Spielberg's advisor on E.T. and running from the government as they are trying to get the information out of his brain and a grasp of his regenerative powers. The rest of the story follows the gang (joined by a repressed and religious Kristen Wiig, the daughter of the RV park owner) as they try to outrun the government operatives (Jason Bateman and Will Hader) and get to the place where Paul's ship first crashed. Some gags work, some fall short, and all in all it is the weakest of the Pegg/Frost trio. Still an entertaining watch and a fun concept.
More tomorrow!
Essentially everything from here on out may have redeeming qualities, even if it is this far down the list.
#51 Bad Teacher
Much was made of the very public breakup of Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake a few years back. Thank goodness for the rest of us though--they were able to make it work and thus churn out a crap movie together! Should Bad Teacher be called Pretty Bad Movie? Possibly, though at times Diaz's antics made me laugh. The set-up: She's Miss Elizabeth Halsey, a completely shallow and self-centered gold-digger who gets dumped by her gold-diggee and goes back to work as a teacher in order to save up for breast implants. Along comes substitute Scott DeLacorte (Timberlake), an innocent young do-gooder looking to advance his career and she wants him. Unfortunately for Miss Halsey, gym teacher Mr. Gettis (a super-underutilized Jason Segel) is pursuing her, and model teacher Ms. Squirrell (Lucy Punch) lands Mr. Delacorte. Once she hears that a cash bonus will be given to the teacher whose students post the best test scores, Ms. Halsey will stop at nothing to wreck Ms. Squirrell, steal away Mr. Delacorte, and get the money she needs. Cameron Diaz has a few pretty hilarious one-liners and Segel is reliable as always, but he deserves far more screen time and Timberlake's nerd was sort of tough for me to buy.
#50 Unknown
Liam Neeson's The Grey marks the third straight year in which he has starred in a January film that is solely a vehicle for him to kick some asses using, as said in Taken, his "unique set of skills". This installment of the Liam Neeson January Action Film genre unfortunately features another January in actress January Jones, who, while very attractive, is untalented as hell behind the camera save some decent work in Mad Men. Unknown follows Neeson as Martin Harris, a renowned biochemist set to give a talk in Berlin. As he and his wife (Jones) arrive at the hotel, he realizes his briefcase with all of his identification was left at the airport. On the way back to the hotel, his cab crashes into the river, he ends up in a four day coma and checks out of the hospital to go back deliver his report. When he gets there, his wife no longer knows him and is now on the arm of fake Martin Harris, played by Aidan Quinn. From there, a whole lot of "But..but...you're my wife!" and "No, I've never met you before," ensues. With no one believing him, he goes to track down the cab driver (Diane Kruger) and start getting some answers via the kicking of asses. There is definitely a conspiracy here, and he's going to figure it out, dammit, or else his name isn't Liam Neeson.
#49 Lincoln Lawyer
Matthew McCounaghey is Mick Haller, a defense attorney who works out of his Lincoln Town Car. He is hired to defend Hollywood playboy Louis Roulet (Ryan Phillipe), who has been charged with an assault on a prostitute. Over the course of the investigation, Haller's cop buddy Frank Levin (William H. Macy) makes some interesting discoveries that put both he and Haller in danger. From there, the Driving Defender (you see what I did there?) fights to stay alive and stay one step ahead of his pursuers. McCounaghey turns in a good performance, as does William H. Macy (as per usual) and there are some exciting moments, but for the most part the resolution feels kind of flat and predictable.
#48 Paul
As a duo, Nick Frost and Simon Pegg have a history of taking on the supernatural and turning it into comedy. Their breakout hit, 2004's zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead put them on the map and their careers have both grown considerably from there. Pegg used the momentum to turn in whip-smart tech-y roles in the Mission Impossible series and as Scotty in the Star Trek reboot, while Frost has been thrown more often than not into the dunderheaded big-guy role (see Pirate Radio). Along with Hot Fuzz, Paul marks their third time starring in a film together, and their chemistry continues to work. Paul follows Graeme(Pegg) and Clive (Frost), two space-obsessed nerds who leave Comic-Con to go try and track down famous alien sites such as Roswell and Area 51. Along the way, they come upon a car crash and there encounter Paul, a slacker/stoner alien voiced by slacker/stoner Seth Rogen. They agree to give him a ride in their RV as he regales them with stories of being Spielberg's advisor on E.T. and running from the government as they are trying to get the information out of his brain and a grasp of his regenerative powers. The rest of the story follows the gang (joined by a repressed and religious Kristen Wiig, the daughter of the RV park owner) as they try to outrun the government operatives (Jason Bateman and Will Hader) and get to the place where Paul's ship first crashed. Some gags work, some fall short, and all in all it is the weakest of the Pegg/Frost trio. Still an entertaining watch and a fun concept.
More tomorrow!
Monday, January 30, 2012
2011 Films: #55-52
Welcome to the 2011 edition of Mulhern at the Movies.
"We're going to make two movies with the exact same plot, and get this--we'll release them at the exact same time. Don't worry, it's going to be awesome." -Hollywood
Portman/Kutcher's version of the "let's be friends who have sex with each other and try and pull off the whole no emotional ties thing" is weaker than the Timberlake/Kunis version. Natalie Portman is in her medical residency who wants something not serious because she has no time. Kutcher is a production assistant on a TV show who is young and wants to be unattached. Uh-oh. Is it possible-and I'm just throwing this out there-they will come to realize they need each other?
More movies tomorrow. See you then!
As some of you know, I have a had a pretty exciting few months. I finished up my graduate schooling and am in the process of obtaining a teaching license. The last two months of my student teaching took place in Moshi, Tanzania. And I spent a week in Barcelona on my way home.
That said, I am currently piecing together income as I wait for my license to arrive. I am tutoring twice a week at a middle school, subbing at my old job, Minneapolis Kids, and have begun writing a food column for the Minneapolis edition of examiner.com, entitled This Way to Delicious. For a shameless plug, the first article is here:
The spotty employment that was recently more like unemployment has been beneficial for my creativity, and almost as importantly, has allowed me to catch up on all the movies I have missed while I was out of the country.
By Oscar time, I will have seen 55 movies this year. The breakdown is as follows:
In theaters: 32
At home: 20
On an airplane: 3
2011 was another solid year for film. Franchise films and comic-book movies of course continued to smoke everything else in the box office, with Harry Potter 8, Transformers 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean 4 each hauling in over a billion dollars worldwide. Two very impressive newcomers in Jessica Chastain (The Help, The Debt, The Tree of Life, Take Shelter) and Michael Fassbender (Shame, A Dangerous Method, X Men First Class) made big waves with their performances. Directors we haven't heard from in many years (The Descendant's Alexander Payne, The Tree of Life's Terrence Malick) brought us great new films, and first-time directors (Bellflower's Evan Glodell, Stuck Between Stations' Brady Kiernan) showed a ton of promise in their ballsy debuts. And for the first time maybe ever, a silent film in The Artist is the front-runner for the academy's best picture of the year.
2011 was also the year that Ryan Gosling got his due. He is the best young actor in Hollywood, and it's not even close. Fresh off of last year's Oscar snub for Blue Valentine (the best performance of the year), he turned in critically revered performances in The Ides of March, Crazy, Stupid, Love and Drive. The Golden Globes, who have characteristically been more apt to take note of Gosling than the Academy, nominated him twice-for Ides and for Crazy, Stupid, Love. He was nominated for the fantastic and barely-seen Half Nelson in 2006, eventually losing to Forest Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland, which was also a snub in my opinion. People are finally taking notice of just how good this kid is, and it is about damn time.
I plan to crank out 5 write-ups a day over the course of the week so that I can get moving. Movies 55-31 will be short reviews, 30-21 will be a couple paragraphs, 20-11 a couple more, and so on.
Ready? Go.
#55 I Don't Know How She Does It
The "working mom tries to balance her life and family" plot is so contrived and predictable that it borderline offensive. The ensemble backing Mrs. Broderick is decently talented. Greg Kinnear is the beleaguered husband, Christina Hendricks is the Sex and the City-like pal, Pierce Brosnan is the powerful business tycoon that she forms a new partnership with, and Olivia Munn is her no-nonsense assistant. SJP gets a new job, flirts with Pierce Brosnan, goes out of town a bunch on business, neglects her needy artist husband and by association her children, and freaks out about everything. There are also misplaced The Office-style interviews with many of the characters assessing the situation, which add next to nothing to the movie's direction. At one point, her character runs out of time and needs to bring a dessert for some parent-teacher thing, so she buys an apple pie and smushes it up so it looks homemade. Gah. The Carrie Bradshaw era is over for Sarah Jessica Parker, and instead of finding ways to get out of the working-girl typecast, people like me find themselves predicting and saying her exact dialogue while eating on international flights trying not to get bread crumbs everywhere because the butter is not soft enough. Did other passengers look at me? Absolutely. But it didn't change the fact the script was hokey enough to literally say out loud beforehand.
The "working mom tries to balance her life and family" plot is so contrived and predictable that it borderline offensive. The ensemble backing Mrs. Broderick is decently talented. Greg Kinnear is the beleaguered husband, Christina Hendricks is the Sex and the City-like pal, Pierce Brosnan is the powerful business tycoon that she forms a new partnership with, and Olivia Munn is her no-nonsense assistant. SJP gets a new job, flirts with Pierce Brosnan, goes out of town a bunch on business, neglects her needy artist husband and by association her children, and freaks out about everything. There are also misplaced The Office-style interviews with many of the characters assessing the situation, which add next to nothing to the movie's direction. At one point, her character runs out of time and needs to bring a dessert for some parent-teacher thing, so she buys an apple pie and smushes it up so it looks homemade. Gah. The Carrie Bradshaw era is over for Sarah Jessica Parker, and instead of finding ways to get out of the working-girl typecast, people like me find themselves predicting and saying her exact dialogue while eating on international flights trying not to get bread crumbs everywhere because the butter is not soft enough. Did other passengers look at me? Absolutely. But it didn't change the fact the script was hokey enough to literally say out loud beforehand.
#54 Hall Pass
The Farrelly Brothers steady downhill tumble since the Dumb and Dumber era continues in possibly their most ridiculous premise to date. Rick (Owen Wilson) and Fred (Jason Sudekis) get permission from their wives to have a week off of marriage to help spice up their lives. The wives-Christina Applegate and Jenna Fischer, are good actresses who are underutilized despite subplots in which they form relationships with other men in the absence of the party boys. As you can imagine, they do drugs, get drunk, try to hit on women with varying success, and learn valuable life lessons along the way. Been done before, and much better, by their frat pack brethren in Old School.
Jesse Eisenberg? Aziz Ansari? Danny McBride? What could possibly go wrong? A lot, actually. It's possible that this movie ended up being a victim of my higher expectations, or maybe I was in a pissed-off mood at the time. Who knows. Either way, I laughed a couple of times, chuckled a couple of times, and was disappointed a lot of times. Eisenberg and Ansari play Nick and Chet, high school friends, pizza delivery driver and substitute teacher respectively. Danny McBride's character Dwayne is almost exactly like Kenny Powers in every way, just not any of the funny kind. Then there's Nick Swardson, obnoxious as ever as Dwayne's younger brother. In order to kill their father and inherit his millions, they first have to raise 100,000 to hire an assassin. So they order a pizza out to a secret lair (junkyard), knock Nick out, strap a bomb to his chest and order him to rob a bank. Yeah, I thought it was kind of stupid too.
The Farrelly Brothers steady downhill tumble since the Dumb and Dumber era continues in possibly their most ridiculous premise to date. Rick (Owen Wilson) and Fred (Jason Sudekis) get permission from their wives to have a week off of marriage to help spice up their lives. The wives-Christina Applegate and Jenna Fischer, are good actresses who are underutilized despite subplots in which they form relationships with other men in the absence of the party boys. As you can imagine, they do drugs, get drunk, try to hit on women with varying success, and learn valuable life lessons along the way. Been done before, and much better, by their frat pack brethren in Old School.
#53 30 Minutes or Less
Jesse Eisenberg? Aziz Ansari? Danny McBride? What could possibly go wrong? A lot, actually. It's possible that this movie ended up being a victim of my higher expectations, or maybe I was in a pissed-off mood at the time. Who knows. Either way, I laughed a couple of times, chuckled a couple of times, and was disappointed a lot of times. Eisenberg and Ansari play Nick and Chet, high school friends, pizza delivery driver and substitute teacher respectively. Danny McBride's character Dwayne is almost exactly like Kenny Powers in every way, just not any of the funny kind. Then there's Nick Swardson, obnoxious as ever as Dwayne's younger brother. In order to kill their father and inherit his millions, they first have to raise 100,000 to hire an assassin. So they order a pizza out to a secret lair (junkyard), knock Nick out, strap a bomb to his chest and order him to rob a bank. Yeah, I thought it was kind of stupid too.
#52 No Strings Attached
"We're going to make two movies with the exact same plot, and get this--we'll release them at the exact same time. Don't worry, it's going to be awesome." -Hollywood
Portman/Kutcher's version of the "let's be friends who have sex with each other and try and pull off the whole no emotional ties thing" is weaker than the Timberlake/Kunis version. Natalie Portman is in her medical residency who wants something not serious because she has no time. Kutcher is a production assistant on a TV show who is young and wants to be unattached. Uh-oh. Is it possible-and I'm just throwing this out there-they will come to realize they need each other?
More movies tomorrow. See you then!
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