Tag: Alec Baldwin

Ohhh, box office failures? Guess I have to see it.

Much like you all, I never heard about the movie Arctic Dogs coming out to theaters. It wasn’t given to the press. If it had an advertising budget, it went up someone’s ass.

Arctic Dogs went to theaters on November 1st, and completely bombed. It opened in over 2,800 theaters and currently (at time of writing) has the worst amount earned in an opening weekend for that many theaters at just $2.9 million. Completely, and utterly destroyed by its competition.

But surely an animated film about some doggos can’t be that bad?

Oh. Foxes. Maybe. Never mind.

Swifty (Jeremy Renner) is an arctic fox, living in, well, the Arctic. He is super white, blends in with the snow, and thus, others seem to just ignore him and let him do his own thing.

Oh, yeah, this is a animals as humans movie. And the coolest animals in this small town are the Arctic Dogs super hero animals. What do they do? Oh. They deliver mail and packages to other small towns. Cool.

So naturally Swifty wants to be an Arctic Dog sledder, despite being a fox. And he meets the weight requirements, but isn’t really strong. So he is sent into the warehouse to help stamp packages, looking on the outside in.

Well, one time, Swifty has to send out a package. And it is to a weird Walrus recluse (John Cleese) who has Puffins working for him, all weird. And apparently that is enough for the Walrus to get rid of all the Arctic Dogs, just in case.

Now it is up to Swifty to deliver the packages, and, maybe, one day, also save the day.

Also starring Alec Baldwin, Anjelica Huston, Heidi Klum, James Franco, Laurie Holden, and Omar Sy.

Yep, Walrus on a robot spider bod. The ladies love it.

You see, Arctic Dogs isn’t bad enough to warrant its record. I mean, it is bad sure. But it is straight to DVD bad, not let’s scorn this movie so it never tries this nonsense again, bad.

Voice casting, most of it is uninspired. Not even John Cleese could save it with his wonderful words and accent. Hero is generic. We have had plenty of times someone who wants to be something, that he literally shouldn’t be able to do, but does it anyways because perseverance. But they keep doing it with animals or inanimate objects so that the real message is lost.

At least this time in this movie he didn’t just train hard enough to eventually get the job and prove people wrong. No, he got the job because all of the others were captured. Why? Because of plot reasons that don’t make at all any sense. Why would the villain want to take out all of the mail delivery dogs, when he still needs to get mail delivered to finish his evil plot? … … … Ohhh, because of poor writing.

Our female lead has the personality of Engineer, which is at least slightly different than the personality of scientist. And she unknowingly helps the bad guy the whole time, because I guess she isn’t smart enough to know what she is building? And there could be plot resolved from this earlier, if the main characters could talk better.

Oh, and let’s not forget the bad guys motivations. He is used to represent Global Warming, because its great to have a single source for the blame and make things fixable.

I just…I don’t know why the plot is so, so, so, so bad. The animation is definitely okay/average. But the terrible plot, nonsensical decisions and overdone tenants of the story line make this a disaster from the start. Good thing no one watched it.

Welcome to a Movie Roundup! A movie roundup features a few films that I didn’t feel like making full reviews for, but needed to get basic reviews out there for completionist reasons. It also helps me deal with my backlog. It may have a theme, and today’s theme is Mainstream 2018 (Part 1)! Basically, the popular movies I had missed, and need to really review, or else.

Being on a movie round up doesn’t mean a movie is inherently bad, or good, or meh. I can feature any rating on here! So don’t assume the worst! I will also just post the reviews in alphabetical order.

In the face of this movie, I expected the worst. I thought this movie had to be a typical January release, something similar to
10,000 BC. But alarmingly, it came out in September, and when I finally got to see the movie it mostly met my expectations. It was surprisingly not amazingly bad, just regularly bad.

Gross CGI landscapes to recreate the before time, and a pretty uninspired storyline about the bringing together a “dog” and a man. The other sad aspect of this movie is that people might watch it and go, “Oh, so that’s how it happened! Domestication!” and take this movie as fact. That would be a shame. And I don’t know if people actually say that, because I barely know people who have seen it, but this straw man stands in my mind. A forgettable film, like most dog films.

Waiting for Mufasa to show up takes forever.

When I first heard this title, I really assumed it was sort of a joke. I didn’t know it was based on a book of the title, or why it was called that, but it just felt off. I thought it would be some sort of exploitative film that was a comedy no one would watch, and hey, it feels good to be wrong. A romance more than anything, this is a film about an outsider being brought into the world of ridiculously rich Asian people in Singapore. So we get all of the wealth, luxury, and snide comments with some back stabbing.

On its whole, it could have been a forgettable romance film. But the lavish sets went all out to display a lifestyle most of us can only dream about, while also bringing in new cultural elements to American cinema. Having the lead be the mom from Fresh Off The Boat was great, and showed she has at least some range. The ending teared me up too. And damn it, it is great in general to see different people on our romance movies. Bring on this wave of Asian-American films, damn it.

Out of the three adjectives in the title, I’d prefer the middle one myself.

“More Mission Impossible? I thought we were done with those,” said no one really ever. Or at least said people who hadn’t been watching them. I will go on record and say the only one I didn’t get enjoyment out of was the second one, and that one has a lot of stranger things going on. I just didn’t see them until I was already an adult, so it took me awhile to appreciate them. Because lets face it, there isn’t another successful American action franchise that is going into this level of detail and craziness for its stunts. It wants Cruise to do most of the work.

He is never going to be the level of some of our older or past martial artist stars, with the long choreographed fight scenes, but its at least a step in the right direction. This film is still exciting, but overall, it feels uninspired. It just isn’t as good as the last two modern MI movies. The stunts aren’t as sexy, even if they have bigger overall stunts. It doesn’t fill me with as much awe, and the story line just gets excessive as it attempts to continually top itself. The ending also feels really clunky and I never really feel that sense of dread that it is going for. A good attempt at an action movie, I just expect a bit more now from the franchise.

The biggest stunts are helicopters? Eh, I’ve seen helicopters before.

I am a huge Ocean’s Trilogy fan, and a huge Steven Soderbergh fan, and so even if the director wasn’t really involved, I was hoping to love this one. Heck, the stars are there too, with a lot of big names.

I will say it feels gimmicky, and not equal, to just go the opposite direction and make it an all female cast. It doesn’t feel natural, just like an all male heist would be with the large numbers (which is why technically the two sequels had…one woman in on the heist). In the movie, it does seem to make a lot more sense, given just the nature of the crime and the talents they needed to pull it off, so that is the good news. The biggest issue overall is just that the movie feels forgettable when it finishes. No one person stands out in acting, and the various twists to show how it was pulled off are for the most part guessable, especially thanks to the title.

I still hope they can do more. Go for it. Just lets raise the stakes.

Yep, eight people, like most of the advertising, spoiling a twist.

Finally, a film people maybe thought initially was a joke. A high budgeted comedy (and slightly action?) movie, about people playing tag, that has gone on with very specific rules for decades, and one person who never, ever gets tagged. So many stars, so little time, and such a ridiculous concept (based loosely on a real story). I wanted to enjoy it and was intrigued by the trailer. But like a lot of modern comedies, I think it really just needs a group of people or slight inebriation to really fully enjoy.

I’d prefer a comedy I can find historical alone, and this is clearly one meant for you to enjoy with your own group of friends, which is fine, but limited. Again, with a large cast, no one really feels like a standout, and some people seem to be doing the same sorts of character they are always type casted into. The ending also went a really strange place. Unexpected, sure, but something that feels almost like a complete genre switch.

Mainstream movies may be a broad title, especially when you compare them to the other quick themes I put together, but hey, its my themes suck it. I originally would have done genre, but too many films are multi-genre that I didn’t want to deal with that hassle.

If you are a person, you are supposed to love Elvis. That is the rules. That is the rules I heard growing up again.

He was called The King of Rock and Roll, because people went nuts for him. His moves, his words, his sex aura. He was a musician famous across the world despite only playing in America. He was in the army for a couple of years. He was an actor for a long time after that as well. And eventually, he died, and then fat people in suits pretended to be him for decades after that.

I don’t have any strong feelings about Elvis. I knew the famous songs growing up but didn’t care for it. Just like I didn’t care for The Beatles. I am too young and carefree to care for the trailblazers. It happens. So I have never been crazy about Elvis, and honestly, wasn’t crazy about this documentary.

What I did know, and have learned in the past, is that Elvis didn’t invent Rock and Roll. It is very apparent, if it wasn’t at the time (it was) that Elvis was just singing and playing music already played and made popular by black people at the time. But because Elvis was white, he was able to make it popular, more acceptable (despite plenty of protests) and it elevated him into superstar status on the shoulders of others.

Of course, this is all information they go through in the documentary too. It is just what I really knew going into the movie, so I was ready and waiting to see how they would treat this subject.

By having people sit in his old car.

Technically, this documentary as the filmmaker going around with the actual automobile owned by Elvis at one point, and having famous people and musicians sit in it (some of the interviewees include Ethan Hawke, Alec Baldwin, and Chuck D). Some of them are telling his history, some telling how he was perceived, and some just want to get that vibe. But we get to hear them talk, amongst other interviews of people talking.

Despite it being the “point” of the documentary if you describe it in a line, it ended up having very little to do with the overall message and purpose of the documentary. More of it was on just Elvis and his history and life. And, as they make it abundantly clear, it is also a bit about the history of America, how it changed with the times and as it got to where we are now. It has several montage things that lead us to (you guessed it) the presidential election. And the documentary is trying to relate all of this to the life of Elvis.

And well, uhhh. It kind of never really connects for me. It feels like two completely different aspects. The life of Elvis, and then this other stuff, that is not at all gone into tons of detail. It tries to be bigger than it is and just seems to fall flat on my end.

I like that they tried something new, but it has to be a lot more straightforward to drive those bigger and bolder points they were hoping for.

What can I say as a prelude about Paris Can Wait besides…no, fuck that, I wan’t Paris now. But I am not rich, so I guess I will definitely be waiting.

The film is directed by Eleanor Coppola, yes, that Coppola. A woman more famous for being the wife of Francis Ford Coppola, and the mother of Sofia Coppola. This is a woman who has been knee deep in films for a large portion of her life, but surprisingly, this is her first time directing a non documentary. At this point of her life though, Eleanor basically has no reason not to go for it.

Paris Can Wait is a semi-autobiographical film, loosely based on a trip she went on a long time ago. Eleanor is adamant that a lot of this film is made up, but the spirit and story is true and one she has always wanted to tell in film.

And yes, that does mean Alec is playing a fictional Francis.

This is a story about Anne (Diane Lane) and Michael Lockwood (Alec Baldwin). Michael is a big time film producer or director, they are extremely wealthy, and Anne is mostly along for the ride. Their daughter is now on college, and Anne’s clothing shop had closed down recently, so she doesn’t have a lot going on in her life.

She is on a vacation with Michael, right after the Cannes film festival. They have to head to a city for a shoot crisis first, but then they will head to Paris to continue with their vacation, assuming Michael doesn’t get too distracted. But before they get on the plane, Anne says she would rather not go with him for the next leg. She has a splitting ear ache and knows she won’t get to hang out with him until Paris, so why not just meet him there?

Well, their French confidant and helper, Jacques (Arnaud Viard) apparently has to head up to Paris for some meetings and is willing to just give Anne a ride. Michael and Anne reluctantly agree. It is only about an 8 hour drive, so she should be in Paris by dinner and can just wait in their apartment for him.

And then they stop for a fancy lunch and he says they will need to make hotel reservations. Apparently Jacques is more the scenic route type of guy, wanting to show Anne all of the wonderful countryside that France has to offer. And food. Fucking food. So much food. The 8 hour trip turns into a 2 and a half day roam, with Jacques wanting to take it all slow and Anne rushing to Paris for…For what, really? Just an empty apartment and a missing husband.

One of the many stops just to eat.

Honestly, I didn’t think I would watch The Boss Baby until at least this summer when it was out on Redbox to rent.

When I first heard about the film with a poster, I just hoped and assumed it was a joke. Then a teaser trailer and a real trailer happened. Then advertising in a lot of places. They are going full on with this movie, they are serious that it is real.

Just, honestly. Come on, fuck you Dreamworks. Your animation style for your not Dragon/Panda movies is usually terrible. Your plots are bad and simplistic. You will seemingly never reach the Disney/Pixar level of work if you continue to come up with shit. A talking baby that is secretly a CEO? Just, god damn it, Dreamworks.

Like someone saw Baby Geniuses or those E-Trade commercials and thought it was the perfect idea to make some money.

The only person here who isn’t trading stocks must be the kid sitting alone!

Our story starts with Tim (Miles Christopher Bakshi), a 7 year old kid, in love with the world. He has an overactive imagination which helps his play time as an only child. His mother (Lisa Kudrow) and father (Jimmy Kimmel) also spend a ton of time with him, even though they are both marketing workers at a place called Puppy Corp, which makes puppies or something. Oh, and he is about to have a baby brother.

Tim thinks his brother showed up on his own in a Taxi. He is already wearing a suit and a briefcase. He is a “boss” baby (Alec Baldwin), in that he immediately bosses around the house. He demands things of the parents. He takes up all of their love and attention and soon Tim feels alone.

But also, yeah, Tim finds the baby talking at one point. Perfect English. Being kind of a dick. Turns out this baby is from a place where babies come from. He was put into their management team, instead of given to a family, because he was the cream of the crop. They even have a special bottle formula to stay as babies forever, to help take care of baby interests.

And he was sent here on a mission. A spy mission. A deadly mission!? No, just a mission.

Steve Buscemi plays the Puppy Corp boss, and Tobey Maguire is the narrator/older Tim voice.

The sock straps freak me out seeing them on a baby.

I know the bias is coming out, but this was a terrible film. This is the worse thing Dreamworks Animation has put out since Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa. I somehow even liked Turbo more than this film.

Technically the whole thing is structured from an unreliable narrator, as we find out he is telling this story decades later, and we already established he has a big imagination, but it was too wild and over the place.

First of all, the plot is shit, the twists are shit, the mission, the backstory, it is just extremely poor writing. The comedy from the film mostly comes in the form of violence and arguing, between an adult baby and a regular kid. There is a scene where Tim records a baby meeting, which begins a way too long chase between the babies and him, to get the tape back. It is way too extreme and violent against the babies, I could barely stop rolling my eyes.

The baby also seemed to have some sort of magical powers as well that they never escaped. He could apparently teleport in the house to out of the house to in the house, because he kept appearing faster than he should have. And guess what, that is just still bad writing.

The animation wasn’t consistant. Eyebrows would get ripped off of a character, and somehow they showed them back the next scene, while acknowledging another character still having the ripped off eyebrows. Things would be thrown onto the ground and disappear a second later. The tiny inconsistencies between frames in a scene really made it look like a shoddy C grade performance. The parents forgot to act like parents at the end, for plot convenience, and didn’t question why their kids were suddenly in Vegas.

As a note, this film has references to other movies. We got an Indiana Jones scene, several Gandalf quotes from his alarm clock Wizzie, and even Baldwin quoting his famous lines from Glengarry Glen Ross. But references on their own cannot carry a movie, do not constitute real jokes, and are the second lowest form of comedy. Right above slapstick.

They really struck out with this film.

Head injuries are serious things. Because your brain is your most important organ. You can’t survive without your brain, so things that hurt your brain are literally the worse. And vague things like concussions become scary nightmares.

These may sound like facts, but that is because your brain is telling you they are. If you asked any organ what was the most important organ in a body, they would name themselves. What games are you playing, Brain? Making us do shit to appease you? I’m on to you.

So, Concussion. A film about head trauma and the NFL. The NFL supposedly didn’t like this movie to protect their players from hearing about the probably brain problems they may have in life. Yay controversy. It definitely sells tickets.

Science used to sell tickets on its own merit.

Dr. Bennet Omalu (Will Smith) is a smart man, and you should most definitely listen to him. He has like, seven degrees, both PhD and masters levels. He is smarty smarty smart. And he is generally a coroner, finding out big mysteries as to why people die.

Omalu ends up getting quite a strange case in his current city of Pittsburgh. Mike Webster (David Morse) is a famous ex-center for the Steelers, loved by everyone in the city, and now he is dead. He was having some issues near the end, going a bit crazy, alienating his friends and family.

Needless to say, Omalu spends a lot of time figuring things out. His brain had deteriorated and no one could explain it. Eventually, science happens everywhere, and he determines it must be due to the thousands of small (And large) blows to his head. Blows accumulated through youth play, high school, college, over a decade in the NFL, and of course practices for all these things. He had tiny concussions and they lead to problems most people just described as early Alzheimer’s.

This is bad news for the NFL, so they ignore the crap out of his results, make him seem like a liar, and bury him in the media. Yay PR machines.

Also featuring Alec Baldwin, Albert Brooks, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Eddie Marsan, Mike O’Malley, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, and Luke Wilson.

He is making that face because Luke Wilson is playing Roger Goodell.

Speaking of selling tickets, to promote this movie, Columbia promised free tickets to any NFL players who wanted to see it in theaters. After all, they have a lot of twitter and instagram followers, so that is free press. I have two problems with that. One, NFL players make shit tons of money, even the bench riders. They can afford a movie ticket. And two, they should have offered it to High School or College players, people who make no money from the sport and are young enough to get out of it if they are truly worried about saving lives with this film. Columbia went for the cheap and shit route.

Now, the good news about this movie is that Will Smith actually acts. He isn’t just playing a cool version of himself or an action version of himself. He is playing a foreign (African) doctor, who doesn’t care about football or American things, just science. It was great to watch him actually try after seeing Focus and v.

Unfortunately, the rest of the movie fails to live up to its subject matter or potential. According to news reports, the NFL was involved heavily in the editing of this film. The filmmakers didn’t have rights to NFL press reports or team names/logos, or any of that. In order to make it seem more realistic, they wanted all this in the film. So they had to offer concessions and leave parts out in order to get the logos. So the NFL helped make this film and now they don’t get attacked as hard.

Do they still look bad? Sure, but they come across as unrealistic cartoon villains, not actual bad real live people. The film doesn’t go strong on the science, strong on the PR campaign, strong on anything but Smith’s accent. And now we are left with a mostly boring and pointless film that won’t change anyone’s minds when they are facing potential millions.

It has been awhile since I have seen a film set mostly in Hawaii. Godzilla, Big Eyes, Battleship all had elements in Hawaii. But the last full on Hawaiian film was The Descendants and it was really fucking good. So if I compare all films set in Hawaii, Aloha has to have some pretty big strides to catch up to the top.

And it has to do it with controversy!

What controversy? Well, casting controversy of course. The last films to receive this much internet anger was The Last Airbender and Exodus: Gods and Kings, but to be fair, they received criticism for more than just casting choices. In this film, Emma Stone, a very white woman plays a Hawaiin. Why is that an issue? Because internet people claim white people can’t be Hawaiian of course.

Oh, they mean native Hawaiian. Fair point, sure. But she is also playing someone who is just a quarter Hawaiian, so one of her parents is only half Hawaiian, and fuck everybody she could totally qualify as someone who is a quarter Hawaiian. Saying she doesn’t look it enough is stupid complaint when she is claiming barely any Hawaiian ancestry. Just because she isn’t in real life quarter Hawaiian doesn’t mean she can’t play one on a movie and be believable. It is called mother fucking Acting. Damn it.

This looks like they were photoshopped next to each other, their chemistry is so nonexistent.

Brian Gilcrest (Bradley Cooper) used to be a great military person, and then he left! Turns out the military pays close to jack in pay, so he sold his skills to a private contractor, Carson Welch (Bill Murray) who wants to go to outer space! Brian loves space and wants to go one day. I think. Either way, he heads to Hawaii for a few days, where he used to be a big deal. People told stories about him. Blah blah blah.

He is happy to be back. For whatever reason, Allison Ng (Stone) is being assigned to follow him and help him out on his meetings. She is in in the military and young but full of spunk.

Fuck. I am dying typing out this review. The movie was so boring. Here are the only other important plot points.

Brian and Tracy (Rachel McAdams) used to have a thing like 12 years ago. They make it VERY obvious that her oldest daughter is his kid. But she is married now to Woody (John Krasinski) and they have at least one more kid. So hopefully they don’t rekindle anything, would be dickish. At the same time, Allison starts to like Brian. There is also a big controversy over the native Hawaiians and using their land to send rockets into space, as they are worried it will end badly.

Also featuring Alec Baldwin and Danny McBride is a full fledged military men!

The sexual tension is high when Cooper looks apathetic while coding.

What the hell happened to you Cameron Crowe? Seriously? What in the fuck? He gave us Say Anything…, Jerry Maguire, and Almost Famous! These are good to great movies right? Because the last thing before this one was We Bought A Zoo which was incredibly average in every single way.

And now? Now we have Aloha. Which sure had controversy which I gave no cares about. What I care about is a good entertaining movie, but Aloha is neither good nor entertaining. While watching, I couldn’t help but wait for the point of the movie to come across. Are the military supposed to be bad? Are private contractors? They sort of answer it by the end, but it almost seems like that was an after thought despite allegedly being the main plot line. What is more annoying is that most of the conflict in the end also seemingly comes out of nowhere. And it is resolved with a couple lines of dialogue, again, as an after thought.

As for the relationship angle, one never really goes anywhere and the other is also extremely forced. It is like all of the actors involved are just uncomfortable the whole movie. No one has a desire to be great in this film, it is probably just a quick paycheck for everyone and a free trip to Hawaii. You know, the Adam Sandler reason for acting. Not even Kenny Fucking Powers can save this movie, because he might be in 3 scenes. Maybe. Everything is wasted in this film that is technically quite full of talent and entertaining people. I’m going to go watch The Descendants again.

There isn’t much new to say about the Mission: Impossible series that I didn’t already say in my Ghost Protocol review weeks ago. I watched the other four movies in the series, some were good, some were bad. More importantly, the last one was good, so the series is on an upswing and I can be excited!

Tom Cruise puts out exciting movies. He can be a bit crazy, but by damn does the man know how to entertain an audience.

Part of me secretly hopes that this time, in Rogue Nation, the mission actually ends up being impossible and they lose. That would be a nice plot twist and a fantastic way to end the franchise. A bit of a downer, but man, what IDGAF attitude they would have!

Your mission should you choose to accept it: Die in the movie and NOT return for a sequel.

Remember the Syndicate? Of course you don’t! They were mentioned at the end of the last movie but vaguely and that they were bad people. Turns out they are very, very bad people. So bad that Ethan Hunt (Cruise) got captured by them relatively early on in the movie, with innocent people being killed. He doesn’t know a lot about them, they are a very secret organization, led by some guy (Sean Harris) that he of course knows next to nothing about.

All he knows is that he only is able to escape thanks to the help of a woman (Rebecca Ferguson). But just like previous films, due to all of the chaos of events going around the IMF, they officially get disbanded. The head of the CIA (Alec Baldwin) has brought all usable resources into his division, including Benji (Simon Pegg) and Brandt (Jeremy Renner). Luther (Ving Rhames) figured he’d rather retire than work for the CIA.

And now Ethan is on his own, being hunted by the CIA and the Syndicate, the latter of which no organization actually believes exists. A typical Tuesday for him I’d imagine.

Also featuring Jens Hultén as henchman who speaks and Saif Al-Warith as henchman who doesn’t speak, but has a nice beard.

If you look closely, you will notice reversed gender roles!

M:I 5, if I can call it that, was an action movie done right. We don’t have lamely on a mission killing an entire island worth of henchmen, or people running around just yelling shitty puns. No, the action scenes in this film have depth. It helps that a lot of the stunts are done by Cruise himself, which just adds to his action star credibility. The plane scene is the famous stunt scene, which is funny in context of the film based on how little it matters. The underwater scene was one of the best scenes, as well as the motorcycle/car chase.

For the plot, it has the normal twists and turns that the franchise tends to offer, but I think it falls apart a bit near the end. Things get almost too convoluted. Thankfully it doesn’t completely ruin the film which spends the rest of the time before it building up your good graces with cool scene after cool scene.

Ferguson plays the best Mission: Impossible lady star of the five films. She is a kick ass, bad ass woman, who has her own motives for doing everything. She isn’t just a lame plot device for Hunt, like a Bond girl.

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation is definitely one of the best action movies of the year at this point, and probably one of the better non Superhero action movies from the last few years. Go and see and be entertained.

Buy It! – This movie is available now on {Blu-Ray} and {DVD}.

Still Alice is another one of those movies that got leaked from Sony ahead of time. But no one cared about Still Alice. They only cared about Fury and Annie.

Personally, I hadn’t heard of the movie at all. It sounds creepy I guess.

But then I heard about buzz for best actress and maybe supporting actress, so I figured I’d watch it earlier than planned. I need all the help I can get in the potential Best Actress category. For whatever reason (sexism?), the movies that get nominated for Best Actress don’t often get nominated for a lot of other rewards. Last year is a poor example, and I might be talking out of my ass, but I think it is true.

At the very least, when I look back on the nominations for Best Actress in the past, I notice that I have seen significantly less of them than others. That sucks. Maybe I am just not as interested in super great female acting performances? Hard to say.

Either way, I am ready to be wowed, way more than I was ready for Mr. Turner.

And more than I am ready for a walk on a beach. I am never ready for a walk on the beach.

This is a story about Alzheimer’s Disease. Some people argue it is the saddest of the diseases. It is sadder than Cancer, AIDS, and definitely sadder than Alcoholism. It definitely worked for Barney’s Version, which was a lot better than the cover gave it credit for.

Dr. Alice Howland (Julianne Moore) is some sort of Psychologist at some sort of university. She is big in career. She is married to Dr. John (Alec Baldwin), also a smart person, who also has some sort of university/scientist based job. They have a nice family too.

Three whole kids! None of them are half. A daughter (Kate Bosworth) who is infertile, sure, but married and going to get one of those science babies with her husband (Shane McRae). A boy (Hunter Parrish) who also is successful with college and all. And a third child. Ugh. A younger daughter (Kristen Stewart), who doesn’t want to do college and wants to be an actress. Gross gross gross.

Either way. Alice starts to forget shit. Sometimes blurry vision. She talks to a neurologist (Stephen Kunken), and yep. She has an early form of Alzheimer’s, rare genetic version. Which has its own complications.

And you know. Other sad things!

Like Vests, the saddest articles of clothing I could imagine.

Ah shit. Sadness. Like man. I cried a couple times. Damn empathy. I used to not feel sad over getting older type stories. But here we go. Getting older. Having a family. Genetics. Diseases. Losing and forgetting memories.

I already mentioned that I liked Barney’s Version, for whatever reason the only Alzheimer’s based movie I could thing of. It was great for Paul Giamatti in the titular role, but it is not something I have ever tried to watch over the last three years. Maybe in another five I will watch it again. But man, Still Alice was really really damn good. The story itself shows the decay in a natural and fantastic way. Also a bit scary. Not a thriller, but man, losing the memories that you are trying so hard to maintain. Being such a smart individual and losing what made you feel unique and special? That is scary. I don’t want to get old and have that happen to me. I don’t want my parents to forget I exist.

Also, Julianne Fucking Moore. Before this movie, I could only guess that maybe Rosamund Pike might win it from Gone Girl. Despite how great she is in that role, Moore is so much better. I haven’t seen Wild. I haven’t seen Cake. But I can’t imagine any performance as good as hers (and I was equally vocal about Cate Blanchette eventually winning last year).

Kristen Stewart was in this movie, and I didn’t think she will win any awards, but she wasn’t terrible or anything. Some of you might be thinking that you are surprised she was in a 4 out of 4 movie before Robert Pattinson. But you’d be wrong, because I really really enjoyed Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Woody Allen sure is an interesting man. He is now 77 years old (This is a 2013 review, for you future readers ten-twenty years from now), and still churning out interesting and diverse movies. I personally find it hard to watch some of his films, usually the overly romantic ones. I have rented You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger now twice, and you know, still haven’t seen it. Very apathetic.

So while the trailer for Blue Jasmine didn’t appeal to me right away, I went anyways, because it is easy to finally see something if you pay money and sit in a public room with others.

Ah, bliss. Being rich. Not love.

Jasmine (Cate Blanchett) has recently left her husband. Hal (Alec Baldwin) was a real estate tycoon in NYC, who was into some shady tactics. Eventually he got arrested, and so all of their wealth was frozen and taken by the government. Shady shit. Jasmine was left with nothing thanks to this, so she is moving to San Francisco to live with her sister and her kids.

Her Sister, Ginger (Sally Hawkins) is also recently divorced. Her former husband Augie (Andrew Dice Clay) seems to be in a rough shape, with most of their money “stolen” by Hal and Jasmine, apparently. But Ginger says family is family, and even if Jasmine wasn’t really there for her at all throughout her wealth, she would be with her now. Ginger is now dating (Bobby Cannavale), who looks like a younger, funnier version of Hal. He wants to move in with her, but now Jasmine is there. Ugh.

Jasmine has a “plan”. She wants to go back to school to finish her degree, but she has no money. So she found out she can take interior decorator classes online, clearly her forte, but she also doesn’t know anything about computers. So she will have to take a class on that. Jeez. She also has to find some horribly job, possibly serving others, in order to help buy food, rent, and classes. Life is horrible.

Jasmine is in a rough time of her life, yet she also still feels above even the smallest of tasks. Will she be able to get back on her feet through hardwork and dedication, or will she get lucky again?

Also starring Louis CK and Peter Sarsgaard, but I don’t want to tell you who.

I bet Louis CK said yes to this role as soon as he found out Woody Allen was calling.

Cate Mother Fucking Blanchett. She is in a lot of things, and is often considered a great actress. This is by far the best performance I have ever seen her give. Really fantastic. This is (in August) the best performance by a lead actress I have seen all year, so right now I have to assume she is going to win an Oscar for her role. Seriously. Just seriously. Fucking fantastic. I can’t even describe how great she did at this role.

I am not sure what is psychologically wrong with her character. Maybe she is a sociopath before the divorce, but afterwards (/during it) she seems to have a nervous breakdown, which messes her up for most of the movie. Talking to herself, having an inability to relate to any other person or her own situation, it is just out of control. But Cate Blanchett owns that role.

I am also impressed with Andrew Dice Clay, who had to play a purely dramatic emotional role. I like that Bobby Cannavale is basically a younger looking Dice Clay, it says a lot about the sister character, without using any actual words.

Overall, this movie is incredibly depressing and at some points heart warming. But that is great, given its drama category. I was able to laugh occasionally, but those moments weren’t the main focus. The arguments between couples felt real, and it made it almost painful to watch. I also like that the story was broken back and forth from “now” and pre-marriage.

My biggest problem with this movie is that in the second half it feels very repetitive. Arguments and dialogue repeat themselves pretty often, despite the ever advancing story.

Outside of those gripes, this movie ended up being way better than I expected, and I find myself against surprised at what Woody Allen can do.