Tag: Catherine Keener

Sometimes film titles tell you what the movie is about. So you’d think A Summer In Genova was about a summer in Genova.

And it is! Hah, tricked you. But it is also about a mom dying.

Annnd sadness.

Colin Firth is a college professor. But in a car accident loses his wife, and he becomes a single parent. His older daughter, Willa Holland, is in her mid teens, and the younger daughter, Perla Haney-Jardine, probably about 10.

So they move to Genova, for a bit. Why not, Italy helps get over mothers. Well, the whole movie Firth is sad. He flirts with a student there, and also another professor, Catherine Keener. The older daughter starts having sex with everyone in Italy, and the young daughter is mostly alone, and sometimes sees the ghost of her mom. Causing another car accident.

Annnd movie.

Annnnd more sadness.

Seriously. That is about it. Them three grieving in different ways I guess. The daughter wanders off a lot, and keeps getting found by the dad. Following a ghost. Causing another car accident was weird. Then it pretty much ended.

I mean, honestly I found it boring. Didn’t really feel that emotion. And thought none of the stories really felt connected and kind of pointless. Made it feel like a documentary. After all, indie-ish, so the cameras weren’t fantastic. Maybe it was secretly just a guide to Genova? Whatever it is, not too good.

My original interest in watching Cyrus was not because of its all-star cast (exageration maybe. But at least one person in it was in a Best Picture movie, and the other has now been nominated for best supporting actor, so…). Nope, I watched it because it was previewed on another movie I liked, surrounded by previews of other movies I liked. Very simple idea.

You just have to for some reason not skip the previews.

“But if you skip the previews how will you know what to love!?”

John C. Reilly is not Cyrus! No, his character is John. That is convienient. Jonah Hill is Cyrus, be he comes in later.

John is miserable and divorced, has been for years. And now his ex-wife is getting married, and she wants him to come to it, and go out with them to a party to try and meet people. He strikes out on everyone, and bares his heart and soul to one chick, and even she runs away. But not Marisa Tomei. She was eavesdropping and figured she’d give it a go on that drunk guy.

And they have sex! Hooray! They are also super honest about everything. Except that she has a 22 year old son who lives a home (What a loser!) He finds this out on a surprise visit. Tomei is not there, just Cyrus. He shows him his techno, and hey, they talk about the fact that John had sex with his mom. Fun!

The story unfolds weirdly, with the relationship going pretty quickly, but Cyrus seems to be upset, and plots to get John out of the house. Small things, like stealing John’s shoes, lying to his mom, and other tactics that someone who is 22 shouldn’t be up to. John confronts with his ex-wife over all of this, played by Catherine Keener, but refuses to be as honest in his own relationship.

This builds up until a physical altercation at his ex-wife’s wedding, and possibly an end to this fling of a relationship.

Did I mention the techno?!

The movie definitely doesn’t follow the normal format. If you were to stick this idea into a machine to determine if it’d be a success, you’d probably get a yes! But it would also probably assume there was a lot more jokes in the movie. I think about two scenes in the movie I actually found funny. The techno scene, and a late night threatening scene about being knocked out.

Everything else was kinda of blah. Too real, not too funny, not too serious either. Just was, you know, blah.

Where The Wild Things Are is a “classic children’s book” about nothing at all, really. Just a wild kid, who gets punished, and has a lot of imagination. That is about it. Pretty simple!

And man, his imagination is quite the party.

But theres more. Before he wears the wolf costume, and goes to wild land, Max (played by Max Records) is weird at shit. Starts snowball fights and cries when he loses. Then he bites his mom (Catherine Keener) and gets grounded. Then somehow, WILD LAND.

Lot of weird wild things, mostly looking like the books. And they all seem childish too. The “main one” was voiced by James Gandolfini.

So plot? Eventually Max becomes king, just by saying he is King mostly, and by lying. And he is bad at it. Eventually he is lonely and goes home. The end.

This movie is kind of fucked up. Not at all a kids movie. Kids might like it just because “Ooh, wild people!” in costumes doing stuff. But the kid in the movie is pretty damn near insane. He seemed psychotic to me. He is horrible at home, from what we see, and he is more horrible when he has no one to tell him what not to do. He even seems to laugh at the pain he ends up causing to the wild things.

The wild things are also screwy, they all are just depressed individuals. I am not sure what the movie is going for, but it is not a good feeling, that is for sure. It is very deep, and uncomfortable, and I hated it as it happened.

There is pain in his eyes.

By all means I may have missed the point, but this is definitely not a movie I was hoping to see a giant deeper meaning behind. The only reason I expect a better story from something like Transformers is that they have had series (namely Beast Wars) where about halfway through the first season, the writing in the show kicked it up a huge notch and became a work of art. But this went from kids book to movie, 50~ years later almost.

Just felt odd the whole time, and I did not have a good experience.

Hey look, another movie about Trust. This time it is less subtle though.

“See, even I waited until Rapunzel was 18 before tappin’ that. This I cannot condone.” – Flynn

Story is like any other. Liana Liberato has a birthday for turning 14! She already likes to text, but he got her a new MacBook. And really, that’s where the problems start. Damn you Mac! She starts talking to some boy Charlie, who is a couple years older, and also into Volleyball. Gives her tips to train and make the team. Yay. She also likes him kind of now. Especially since he returned pictures. Too bad his phones camera doesn’t work for iChats or whatever. Also it turns out her is a sophomore in College. Also he lied about that. Now he is a grad student. Okay that is a lie too.

Through months of chatting though, she doesn’t care that much, but when she meets him at the mall and he is in his 30s or 40s. Well. That is kind of weird. Reluctantly, she goes with him, gets food, etc. And then, YOU KNOW what happens.

Needless to say, when her parents Catherine Keener and Clive Owen find out, they flip out. In completely different ways. The important to the movie scene happens a little less than halfway through it too. Not the conclusion. It happens quick. Instead the movie is more about the aftermath of it. How the girl thinks the guy loves her, her dads problems with anger and not trusting anyone, and the mom trying to fix everything.

Said creepy pedo is Chris Henry Coffey, and he hasn’t been in much, but he is sufficiently creepy. Jason Clarke is the FBI guy in charge of helping find him.

Apparently telling them to take a seat works both on predators and the predatorees.

Everyone does a pretty good job acting in the family. Especially the girl. Probably follows some sort of “Stages” after a trauma, but I don’t know that stuff. Clive reminded me of Russell Crowe, just wanted to go everywhere and fight everyone. Seemingly it had just the right level of creepiness to make you go “Wtf!” and keep watching.