Tag: Alia Shawkat

Daa-daa-daa dadaDAH-dahdaahhhhh.

I Love Lucy is an iconic show in TV and American Pop Culture History. When there were barely any channels, it was basically the most watched thing ever. Around the world, people (non-kids) can recognize Lucy Ricardo and Ricky Ricardo, and maybe they can recognize her wail as well.

Now of course, for me, this is where I get to say I have never seen a full episode of the show. I have just seen clips. Never searching them out either. They just love showing clips of the show in documentaries, in movies, in other shows. How else will you know what decade it is without an I Love Lucy on the TV set in the background?

I do love Aaron Sorkin though. And I know that his fictional behind the scenes look at the making of an episode of I Love Lucy combines some of my favorite Aaron Sorkin based moments. People will argue about scripts and the writing. People will make last second changes. And people will have a lot of things going on in their heads at the same time, often switching between them on a moment’s notice in their dialogue so we have to keep up.

So let’s go Sorkin. Teach me about the show from a fictional perspective based on reality.

You don’t have to be a real red head to play Lucille Ball. She wasn’t a real red head! D:

Lucille Ball (Nicole Kidman) runs her show with an iron fist and an attention to detail. She won’t let sloppy writing affect her show, because she wants her shows jokes to be believable, and not just playing dumb to the camera. Lucille Ball is quite smart and clever, damn it, even if she plays a bit of a silly simple potato. 

Her Husband, Desi Arnaz (Javier Bardem) also helps run the show, running different aspects. He keeps the money coming in, he deals with the press stories that affect them, he warms up the audience, he keeps it a smooth sailing ship. They are the perfect couple, fictional or otherwise. Or are they?

In this week on I Love Lucy, we have to deal with a lot behind the scenes. A sudden pregnancy and how it will affect the show. Reports of Desi cheating on Lucille. A bit of the sketch that just won’t work. Side characters feeling inadequate. And oh yeah, reports that Lucille is a communist. 

Hopefully they can tackle these issues while also putting on a good show for the audience, and hopefully they can stay on air this early into their second season. 

Also starring J.K. Simmons, Nina Arianda, Alia Shawkat, Jake Lacy, Tony Hale, Clark Gregg, and Nelson Franklin. 

Is this the real life? Or is this just grape smashing? 

I am old enough, and have seen enough movies, that I know what to expect when going in to an Aaron Sorkin movies, and this is basically what I expected going into an Aaron Sorkin movie. But this is only his third movie where he has both written and directed it. The first one, Molly’s Game, didn’t remind me a lot of his previous work, outside of the dialogue. The Trial of the Chicago 7 did remind me a bit of his past work, since it was a courtroom drama, but it still wasn’t fully there. 

Being the Ricardo’s reminds me of older Sorkin. It reminds me of his TV shows specifically, basically all of them. Yes, even Sports Night. And Steve Jobs. It has a hectic feel, despite being over the span of a week. It has layers to it, we also get a lot of flashbacks of the couple as they met, and their careers before the show. It feels like the classic Sorkin, the one who only wrote and didn’t direct. He was able to capture the style that his writing dictated in all of those works, and I am all here for it.

I don’t have any real basis for who should have been cast in these roles or who should not have, because I don’t know the old show. But I did learn a whole lot, and while going back to look things up, I was shocked how much wasn’t made up. Just the timing of things are really what was changed. 

Kidman and Bardem are wonderful together. I want them to be different people and be in a real chaotic relationship together. The rest of the cast was good too, and I was surprised at how much it highlighted other people who worked on the show and the producers. 

Being the Ricardos feels like a movie that should be made for fans of the show, but it made me a fan of the show. Will I go and watch it? Hell no, let’s be honest. I ain’t got time for that. I got enough of it from clips. But I will say I appreciate the real Lucy, Lucille Ball, a lot more than I just assumed before. 

Opening the festival was Blaze. Now, last year the opening film was LBJ and about a famous person I actually heard about before, with bigger names attached, and a goddamn amazing director.

This one is about a vague country star who never reached his full famous potential, died pretty young, and is directed by Ethan Hawke, who has not done a lot of directing.

This is a good film for a biography, because I would rather learn a shit ton about someone who I haven´t heard everything before. Biographies should actually teach us about new people things. That is, assuming their story is actually worth hearing. I´m looking at you boring biographies about famous people that are just…well, shit.

Oh cute, matching outfits with no one around to say its cute.

Blaze Foley (Ben Dickey), or Michael if you knew him before he was trying to become a famous singer, had a soul that was built for telling stories. These stories were generally musical in nature, which made it a good thing that he also could play that guitar. He had a life of growing up with song, thanks to his family being part of a traveling family band.

The story that we hear about in Blaze is his whole adult life’s tale. About how he met his future wife, Sybil (Alia Shawkat), a Jewish actress who appreciated the woods as much as this large cowboy. In fact, they lived in a shack in the woods for several years rent free, living off the land and no electricity.

We get to see him moving to the big cities with the intention of selling his tunes and making it famous in the country music scene. Including leaving his wife behind to tour with a friend (Josh Hamilton) in an old truck down the south. And also their move to the bigger city of Chicago to tackle the blues crowd, since he figured his music was sort of country and the blues, given how sad they all were. We also get to see him get a record contract, and coincidentally, let that all go to shit as well.

This is all juxtaposed with his final concert, which was recorded life, the day before he was shot and killed protecting a friend.

Also starring Wyatt Russell, Sam Rockwell, Charlie Sexton, Steve Zahn, and Kris Kristofferson.

Life is like being on the back of a truck. You know, fast and no seat belts.

Blaze is a slow burn, which is not what the title implies. Blaze implies a film where everything happens quickly and maybe even burns out, well before it should have. Which is a good metaphor for Blaze the person. But is it a metaphor if its his name? I don´t know how hyperboles work.

The film telling the story interlaced among big moments, early moments, and still ending with the natural ending was a great choice. Getting to hear his ¨friends¨ tell stories about his life provided a great tool for exposition, and the fact that the rest was presumably based on his wife´s book of his life gave it a very personal touch.

As a music fan, I can say it was a bit of a low point for me. I never was really engaged in the many songs sung, as they were all so slow and soulful, and felt more akin to background music while the stories unfolded. Hard to change the music if it is based on a real source though.

Overall the story just felt okay to me. The reason it ended with such a high rating though was due to the acting, especially from Dickey and Shawkat. I don´t actually know Dickey from anything else, but he transformed into this Blaze character, along with all of his imperfections. It never felt like an actor, it just felt like this artist I was completely unaware of.

Blaze is well acted, and tells the story of someone you also likely don´t know. It is debatable if it is a story that needs to be told, but hey, they told it anyways.

A green room is the place in a theater/auditorium/bar where the band and performers can hang out before their gig. To relax, to prep, to snort cocaine, whatever they fancy. And that is where a large portion of the movie Green Room takes place. Fancy that!

And here I just thought that director, Jeremy Saulnier, really liked color movies after also directing Blue Ruin, which I never saw.

Not knowing much about the current punk music scene, or the current nazi skinhead scene, I had actually no idea what to expect with a movie like this one. But in retrospect it makes perfect sense for the Dead Kennedys song Nazi Punks Fuck Off to be featured.

Fuck off or get fucked up. That’s my make motto. In role playing games.

The Ain’t Rights are the biggest punk rock band currently in a van with their logo on it! Yeah, people love them! They don’t have a lot of money and they have to siphon gas just to drive around to their gigs. With Pat (Anton Yelchin) on guitar, Sam (Alia Shawkat) on bass, Reece (Joe Cole) on drums, and Tiger (Callum Turner) as their lead vocalist, there ain’t nothing that can keep them from rocking out.

They even have a radio interview with a Mohawk wielding Tad (David W. Thompson) and a gig, neither of which go so well. To make it up for them, he has hits up his cousin Daniel (Mark Webber) in Portland, and they get them a guaranteed stack of cash to perform an afternoon show at some small isolated venue! Sweet! Except it is actually a Nazi skinhead bar, not their preferred clients, just people who really like punk rock music.

Well, they play, they get paid, and get ready to bail, when unfortunately, one of them accidentally finds this chick Emily (Taylor Tunes) dead in their green room. Now the band find themselves locked in there with another witness (Imogen Poots) and Big Justin (Eric Edelstein). The club manager (Macon Blair) handles the cops and contacts the owner (Patrick Stewart) about the incident, but things still seem quite fishy. In fact, the band feels like after everything is settled, they might be taken care of as well.

After all, dead bands sing no tales.

Did you know he was knighted? That comes with a sword and ranks in horse riding! OP Boss!

As I mentioned before, I am basically illiterate when it comes to modern punk rock scene and skin head culture. But Green Room is just oozing with details that it is impossible to not pick up on them. The director didn’t just have an idea and winged it. This is a guy who knows what he is talking about. Everything just feels authentic (Editor’s Note: Yes, I can say I don’t know anything about it and call it authentic) and natural. This isn’t a group of dumb ass rockers who commit every horror mistake in the book to be slashed down by the menacing Nazis. No, they all have personalities. They are all pretty smart. Hell, at least four or five of the main Nazis are also complete characters with realistic motivations.

I’m not saying the skinheads aren’t really the bad guys. They totally are! Just that their actions make sense and you can see other motivations behind their actions outside of just movie evil.

The whole film is a cohesive unit together. No one really stands out in my eyes more than any other. Hell, my favorite acting might have just been Big Justin the door guard. Not a slight against Stewart or Yelchin, both of whom I was excited to see in the film, it just feels like everyone is on the same level and I am not watching one great performance in a movie, just one really good movie.

It is gory and gross. But I would be hard pressed to call this a horror film. Just a thriller for the most part.

Green Room is realistic and tense, definitely worth the price of admission.

Not growing up in the 1980’s, I didn’t have a lot of exposure to the Pee-Wee Herman character.

Heck, all I knew about him was the 1985 movie Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, which I had seen once, and Pee-wee’s Playhouse, a kid show I never saw. I just now learned the character had been in a Cheech and Chong film and used to be a stage act that was very adult oriented. He was toned down a bit for the movie and especially the kids show.

So I was pretty indifferent going into Pee-wee’s Big Holiday, a made for Netflix follow up almost twenty years later. And since it was rated PG, I let the kids watch it with me. I knew there might be some crude jokes hiding in the background, but as long as Reuben didn’t bust out his Pee-wee to pleasure himself during the movie, I figured nothing would really be a big deal.

Although I like where this is going.

Pee-wee Herman (Paul Reubens) is still up to his old hijinks. He loves Fairville, but he is afraid to leave it. Everything he needs is in this small town anyways. But then he meets Joe Manganiello (Joe Manganiello). Pee-wee and Joe hit it off right away. They agree on the best candy. They like the same things. They were BFF soul mates. And plus, Pee-wee had never heard of Joe before. He never saw Magic Mike!

So Joe invites Pee-wee to his birthday party, except it is in NYC on the other side of the country. And he tells him to not fly by plane, because he cannot discover himself that way. He has to road trip it up and he has five days to get there. And if they were really friends, he would want to go to his birthday party.

Pee-wee has never taken a holiday before from work. But after receiving a sign, he takes his car and crosses the rail road tracks.

And along the way bad things happen! He runs into three lady bank robbers (Jessica Pohly, Stephanie Beatriz, Alia Shawkat), a novelty item salesman (Patrick Egan), a farmer (Hal Landon Jr.) with nine daughters, Grizzly Bear Daniels (Brad William Henke), some extreme hair stylists (Sonya Eddy, Anthony Alabi, Dionne Gipson, Darryl Stephens), and a crazy rich lady (Diane Salinger).

Also Richard Riehle and David Arquette are in this one too.

One shake can change a man forever.

I really wasn’t sure what to expect for this film, outside of zany antics and maybe some celebrity cameos. I was definitely disappointed on the cameo front, because there was…one I guess. But I was not disappointed in Joe Manganiello, the super cameo.

Generally, when actors play parodied versions of themselves, I laugh. Like most of the cameos in Entourage. Or Matt LeBlanc in Episodes. Manganiello knocked it out of the park.

The bromance between him and Reubens, sure it is artificial, but it was a joy to see. Every time Pee-wee went to sleep he had visions of the party, but in slow motion and (spoilers) and they were hilarious. This film made me like Manganiello more than it made me care about Pee-wee.

As for the rest of the film, it had its moments. Most of the people are just extreme charicatures, like Pee-wee himself, so it is generally always moving. I enjoyed the Amish scene and the bank robbers added an element I didn’t expect in a PG movie (male strippers)!

A fine enough movie to distract you while you play on your phones, but not something you’d every really want to just sit down and watch again and again.

“Final Girl” is a term given to the last surviving female in a horror movie. This woman may have been in danger the whole movie. But somehow by the end she has enough gumption to slay the killer, or escape the building, or whatever. Hell, Ripley is a Final Girl.

Enough horror film had this happen for it to become a trope at least. I actually never heard about it until this year. Not just because of the movie The Final Girls that I am about to review, but because there was another movie also out aroudn the same time called…Final Girl. Yeah. It is pretty damn easy to get these ones confused. I haven’t seen such close titles for real unrelated movies since A Late Quartet and Quartet.

Now I will see Final Girl, some day. I have to given how easily it is to mistake The Final Girls. But to make matters even more confusing, they also share an actor. Somehow, Alexander Ludwig decided it’d be a good idea to be a lead in both films.

With an amazing shocked face like that, there’s no question how he landed the roles either.

Amanda Cartwright (Malin Akerman) was in a series of horror films back in the day, but now she is just struggling to find a job. All people remember her for is her role in Camp Bloodbath, now a cult classic, but a movie she doesn’t like too much. But this isn’t her story. You know, because she dies in a car crash early on in the film. Her daughter, Max (Taissa Farmiga) was also in the car but she survived.

Since then, life has been lame. Her best friends brother, Duncan (Thomas Middleditch), has apparently promised that Max would show up to a special screening of Camp Bloodbath. She agrees, reluctantly, as long as her friend, Gertie (Alia Shawkat) comes along. Chriss (Alexander Ludwig), a male friend who is totally into her, also comes along, which means the local bitch, Vicki (Nina Dobrev), who used to date him tags along as well.

And since this is hard to explain, I will be succinct: Some shit went down, and now they are trapped in the movie. Good news: Max can reunite with a version of her mother, that’s cool! Bad news: a masked man is trying to kill them all! But now that they are in the movie, it is harder to predict what would happen. Their mere presence changes the plot line for good, so they can’t rely on their movie knowledge to win this one.

Other campers are played by the likes of Adam DeVine, Angela Trimbur, Chloe Bridges, and Tory N. Thompson.

Honestly the only thing you need to be good at in a horror movie is your scared face.

Remember Cabin In The Woods? That was a genre bending, horror comedy that a lot of people didn’t know how to react to, but has eventually been accepted as a great and unique film. Cabin in the Woods is hard to define. The Final Girls is not hard to define, because I can look at it and say “It is like, Cabin in the Woods, kind of!”

A comedy horror means two things: It is usually funny, and it is usually not at all scary. They all just become parodies of horror without the fear behind it and this is honestly no exception. There are maybe “scary” moments, sure, but no one watching it will find it scary as per the norm.

Instead, The Final Girls should be judged on its comedy and it should be valued highly. Witty and fun, the cast of characters, and movie character stereotypes allow a lot of good deaths that follow and exploit common horror tropes. This is a PG-13 movie, which I feel limits some of the extremes they could have gone to, which is a shame. But the final fight scene felt nicely epic, some of the deaths were pretty creative, and the constant allusions that they were in a movie and not just a strange story were a very nice touch.

Overall, The Final Girls is a pretty good movie experience, and I hope they don’t mess it up with sequels. Hell, I like Alexander Ludwig now, and that is after I also saw When The Game Stands Tall.

In the end, The To-Do List will just be known for Aubrey Plaza‘s first lead role in a film, and nothing more.

Huh, that sentence would have made more sense at the end of the review, but I think it is too late now. Now the bias is set. Now you know where I am going with it. Oh well.

But I guess you already knew the movie might suck.

Brandy Klark (Aubrey Plaza) is your typical Boise, Idaho native. Her parents are pretty strict (Clark Gregg, Connie Britton), because her dad is a judge, so she was raised correctly. It is 1993, no internet to corrupt her, so she became Valedictorian of her graduating class. But she never really learned anything about sex or the human body. Only what she was told by her “slutty” friends (Alia Shawkat, Sarah Steele).

But after being forced into a college party, she sees someone. Rusty Waters (Scott Porter), an older guy, playing guitar. Oh em gee, so dreamy!

In fact, he almost has sex with her on accident. Oh snap! But he still doesn’t. She thinks it is because she isn’t an expert at sex, despite being an expert at everything else she does. So she makes a list of things to do over the summer, to elevate herself to sexual maturity, so that one day she can have sex with Rusty Waters. No matter who gets in the way.

Like her friend Cameron (Johnny Simmons) who clearly likes her. Also in the movie is Bill Hader as the pool owner, Rachel Bilson as the older more experienced sister, Donald Glover as a token black guy, and Andy Samberg as some local band guy.

See, there he is. At a House Party. Looking like Kid.

Really, just really, I got the feeling that no one really tried in this movie. Let me take a step back.

Aubrey Plaza does not act the same way she does in Parks and Rec, and other live interviews. That is presumably how she is. No, this character isn’t brooding, or sarcastic. It is just a overachieving girl, who wants a boy. So there is definitely acting in this movie.

It was definitely going for comedy, because it had a few amusing moments and a lot of shenanigans ended up happening. But nothing really struck a chord with me. IMDB tells me everyone is over 25 playing teens as part of the joke, but it isn’t a good joke. Why? Because that happens all the time. If they wanted to make that real joke, they should have gone even older. Make it super awkward.

Some situations were “Sex-awkward” which I guess is the main selling point. Virgins doing stuff! A nice girl being “slutty!” Oh the humanity. I will admit they were the most amusing part of the film, but even they fell short to me. But hey, Clark Gregg is in this movie. As a Conservative Judge! That sure is nifty.

In the end, The To-Do List will just be known for Aubrey Plaza’s first lead role in a film, and nothing more.

You know who we need more in our lives? Hugh Laurie. That is who you were going to say, right? After all, House M.D. ended a year ago, and he hasn’t been in many movies recently, outside of voice work. It is almost not fair!

Which is why when I heard about The Oranges I jumped immediately to the nearest rental place to give a go. I also immediately recognize people from Arrested Development, Gossip Girl, The O.C., The West Wing, and The Big C. That is a lot of show people in this movie!

Why so gloomy Alia? You upset that you don’t get cover treatment despite being the narrator? I understand those feels.

In New Jersey, we have two families, The Ostroffs and The Wallings (on Orange Drive!). They have lived across the street for some time, and their families are best of friends. David (Laurie) and Paige Walling (Catherine Keener), with their children Vanessa (Alia Shawket) and Toby (Adam Brody). Toby is successful and moved out, Vanessa is not yet successful and still living at home. She is also the narrator! At least she has that going for her.

Across the street are Carol (Allison Janney) and Terry Ostroff (Oliver Platt), the latter kind of obsessed with his best friend David. They have one daughter, Nina (Leighton Meester), who hasn’t been home in five years, off at college and partying everywhere. But one Thanksgiving, she returns, after having recently broken up with her long term boyfriend.

Well, instead of hooking up with Toby, like her mom strives hard for, she falls into someone else’s lab. David Walling! (Again, Hugh Laurie, the neighbor dad). Heyyy, that’s weird.

Shit quickly hits the fan clearly, once everyone finds out what is happening. Marriages get ruined, people hate each other, and Vanessa just feels incredibly awkward.

Yeah, so basically this is good clean inter-family fun.

I like that the relationship wasn’t some overly sexualized thing Sure, big age difference, known each other for over 20 years, many other issues, but it felt like they actually might have cared for each other.

Buuuuut outside of that, I thought the movie missed the mark completely. Even though the two characters just want to be happy, the movie goes about it in such a strange way, I don’t find myself caring about any of the characters. I also thought the ending was pretty bad, not a fan of really any of the conclusions.

It just isn’t that funny. Hard to say anything else about it. Hugh Laurie was okay. However, the movie is skippable.

I think a lot of my reviews coming up will be from my “box of weirder things” in the corner of my room. And by weirder, I just mean lesser known.

Bart Got A Room I picked by grabbing randomly, but originally bought it because hey, when has William H. Macy ever disappointed? The answer is never, damn it. If you have a real example, I will ignore it and just say haters gonna hate.

But then again, Macy isn’t the main character.

The main character is Danny (Steven Kaplan), hah. You thought his name would be Bart. A few months before Prom, and he is starting to think of what to do. Sure, everyone expects him to go with Camille (Alia Shawkat), one of his neighbors and best friends since pre school. But he wants it to be more of a romantic thing. So of course he instead thinks about asking the sophomore he takes to and from school every day, Alice (Ashley Benson).

Well that doesn’t work, and he already told Camille it was a sure thing. Awk. Oh well, it is still a few months before prom, he can easily find another woman and not have to weirdly go back to Camille and ask her, right?

His parents are also recently divorced (Macy and Cheryl Hines) and dealing with their own relationship problems at the same time. The potential of a new step parents, and the potential of a sexfreak (oh guess which parent each applies to).

The movie also has a “music video” attached to it!

First off, this movie is pretty short, about 75 minutes in length. So the story moves fast, as you can tell, since it doesn’t have that much going on with it. I loved the beginning, the quirkyness of it all felt funny in an embarrassing way. And the constant face palms at our main character, trying to make prom something more than it is, because even BART got a damn room and date.

But eventually the film lost its uniqueness, and the last third is kind of disappointing. A lot of predictability, and eh, just was a let down with the buildup. Opening hooks are great, but endings are the last impression, damn it.

So it is an okay movie, but you know. Could have had a stronger finish.

Dun nun nun nun nun. Pew pew. Whip it good.

I immediately apologize for doing that. But for some reason I cannot delete it. Oh well.

When I first heard of this movie, I thought it was lame. Mostly because Drew Barrymore annoys me half the time, and she was in charge of it. Similarly, this might have been Ellen Page‘s first big release after Juno. Not sure.

So plotwise, Ellen is a loser in Texas! Her mom makes her do beauty pageants, but she doesn’t want to. Teen angst. Her friend, Alia Shawkat, tells her to man up and stop doing shit like that. Before I go on, her life at home is different. Her dad is there, but never fully around. It makes it seem like he is living in a van (where he has a TV for sports and stuff). But why is he in the van? Maybe its because he is Daniel Stern, and thus no one wants to be near him.

“Want to join me in my van, little kid?

So yeah, she goes to a roller derby event, loves it, and Kristen Wiig tells her to try out.

Sorry it took so long to get to the actual plot. That took awhile. She does, but she has to lie about her age to do so. I am sure that won’t come back to haunt her.

Through some miracle she makes the team, but is never played. Until she starts to play, and her small frame allows to score the heck out of some points and actually let her team win a game or two! Then they all become the best of friends! Then rising action, climax, end of movie.

Oh, and Jimmy Fallon is the announcer at all these games.

“A movie about mostly girls, and you show pictures of two dudes? That’s sexist.” – Gorgview.com reader.

Unfortunately for my Drew Barrymore dislike, I liked her movie. The conflict near the end was obvious, but it was also was kind of just swept under the rug too. That kind of bugged me.

Ellen’s transformation from “Okay mother” pageant girl to kick ass “celebrity” who learns to take control of her life is a good one. There is morals too in the story, and not just loose ones. That is a plus. But it was also entertaining and funny. Besides, it is also kind of a sports movie, and who doesn’t love sports movies?