Tag: Chris Messina

I hope this movie is something seen by all. I hope it remains in the conversation for decades to come. I hope people refer back to it with quotes and references and we remember its name.

Why do I care so strongly about this film? Just because of the title. It is a bit awkward. I Care A Lot. Oh okay.

But the awkwardness is fine. Because it has the words “a lot” in it, and maybe, maybe, if people see this movie and write it out and get it in their brain, they will stop trying to create the “alot” creature from hyperbole and a half.

One of those pet peeves is all.

“I’ve heard of ‘Binders of Women’ before, but this is ridiculous!” 

Getting old can be hard. Your brain can leave you behind, your memories can fade, you can become violent and really needy, but if you have no one to help you, what are you supposed to do? You kids, if you have them, might be able to take care of you. Or they may be too busy. You might get put in a home, but your kids may be too busy to handle your affairs, your doctors, and all of that.

So sometimes, you will get a court appointed guardian who will legally serve your best interests. These interests sometimes go against the interests of your family, but maybe that family might be trying to milk you dry and increase their inheritance? An unbiased third party is often useful.

Now if the unbiased third party is ALSO trying to scam you, then there is a problem.

Meet Marla Grayson (Rosamund Pike). She is that person trying to scam you. She knows the doctors, the judges, and is often trying to get appointed to people she can legally milk dry while getting kickbacks and looking like they are caring for their appointees. And in this film, she lands a big whale. Someone with no family to bug her and a lot of wealth.

But it turns out that Jennifer Petersor (Dianne Wiest) is not who she appears to be. And she does have a son (Peter Dinklage), who just so happens to be a mob boss in hiding, who doesn’t appreciate what is happening to his mother.

Also starring Alicia Witt, Chris Messina, Eiza González, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Macon Blair, and Nicholas Logan.

If a photo shows strong facial hair game, I must always comment on said facial hair. Rosamund Pike knows how to play a sinister lady character for sure. Have you seen Gone Girl? You should see Gone Girl. It is great. Her character isn’t as conniving and evil as Amy, but it is still a really evil character who has close to no morals in I Care A Lot. It is like the movie title is…a lie! So it is easy to see why she won a Golden Globe for her performance in this film. But I wouldn’t be lying if I didn’t mention I would have preferred Maria Bakalova. Oh well, as long as Music didn’t win anything, we are all winners.

I Care A Lot is a very intense film and one that won’t be for everyone. There are very strong shifts in terms of what kind of film it is, especially the larger second act. There is a chance you might love the beginning and hate the rest, and other similar situations. I was fine with all of them, and I prefer my films to keep me guessing, even on tone. It never rustles my jimmies.

I really enjoyed Pike in her role, and is the only one worth mentioning. Even Dinklage couldn’t match her, but he did have more limited screentime.

Honestly, this movie’s existence is a strange one for those who hate moral issues. We have bad person vs bad person. There isn’t a clear person to cheer for, even if they are the antagonist, they are still a shitty human being. I now assume that things like this movie depict happen in America on the regular, and well, I hope John Oliver does a special on it so I can get the facts and start caring more.

Because it is on Netflix, this one is pretty easy to recommend for at least offering us something new. Mob stories are played out, but this is clearly a fresh take.

3 out of 4.

Yay Cake!

Finally a film to give me what I want, which is cake, cake frosting, really anything cake related. This film will put cake so high up on the map, kind of like what the film did for Butter (and for Jennifer Garner‘s accent).

Hopefully it shows cake in all of its wonderful forms. The Wedding Cake, the Birthday Cake, the Cupcake Cake, the Cheesecake, the “just because we want a cake, fuck you!” Cake. I also hope it covers up some of the dark past for cakes, because this should celebrate the cake, and not focus too much on the negatives.

“I just love cake so. Damn. Much.”

Claire Bennett (Jennifer Aniston) isn’t actually a cake aficionado, but more of a hurt and depressed lady. She lost a child in a car accident, where she herself got pretty injured. She has a lot of back troubles and even goes to a therapy group for people experiencing lots of pain. The story begins a whole year after the accident and right after Nina Collins (Anna Kendrick), another member of the group had committed suicide.

But things aren’t going good for Claire. Her kid gone, her marriage to Jason (Chris Messina) in ruin, her back all sorts of messed up. Her back hurts so much, she can’t drive, and her housekeeper Silvana (Adriana Barraza) puts up with constant complaining and pessimism to drive her too.

Basically, Claire hates everything and maybe she hates things enough to do what Nina did. She ended it all and is probably better for it. Can’t Claire just do the same? Before she decides, she should investigate by hanging out with Nina’s old lover (Sam Worthington) and her son. That sounds like a perfect idea!

Also featuring a bunch of other women and one dude: Mamie Gummer, Felicity Huffman, Lucy Punch, and William H. Macy.

“Two rules, man: Stay away from my fuckin’ percocets and do you have any fucking percocets, man?”

Yeah, I know, it sucks that this film had so little to do with actual cakes. But to be fair, there are a couple cakes in it! I am pretty sure I saw too, but part of me also thinks I might have made up one of the cakes to fill my cake void.

The story we did get with Cake can really only be described as okay. The main issue with it was that it didn’t tell the narrative in the easiest of ways to follow. We had to watch Claire wallow for so long without knowing the details behind things. It is hard for one to emotionally connect with a character without getting better information on why they are so repugnant, angry, and basically given up the will to live.

That being said, Aniston does some mighty fine acting here, probably the best of her career. She is raw, emotional and full of flaws, but again without that connection, I didn’t care about her journey. The only other character given a lot to work with is Barraza as the housekeeper, who also does a fantastic job and is definitely someone the viewer can relate to and pseudo cheer for throughout the film. At the same time, her character makes so many aggravating choices given how Claire acts, it is still not one to save the film.

The other men and women involved with the project don’t matter as much in the film, so they can only help it so little.

If you want a well acted Drama from a famous A-lister, this could be a good bet. But if you want something that will really tickle your emotions and take you on a journey, this one will just leave you in the parking lot.

2 out of 4.

I often find that when all you do is talk about movies, people tend to suggest them. Of course I will watch a movie if someone suggests it to me, but with Ruby Sparks something even stranger happened. TWO people recommended this movie to me, potentially within a few weeks apart. Well, of course I have to see it now.

I also realized why I didn’t watch it right away. Sparks? That title is too close to the title Sparkle. I hated that movie.

I could write a better movie than Sparkle for sure. It would be about some sort of mythical creature that Sparkled under strange circumstances. I am sure that’s an original concept.

Calvin (Paul Dano) is a genius. Alright, he doesn’t like that word. But he dropped out of high school once he wrote what many consider to be the next great American novel, and he quickly rose to fame and success. But now, almost ten years later, he is in his late 20s and he still has one novel under his belt. He has released a few short stories and novellas, but nothing of any real length or magnitude.

Some genius indeed. It must all be getting to his head. In fact, he has to see a psychiatrist now just to sort through his feelings of loneliness.

But then one magical night, he has a dream. A dream of a girl, with red hair, and a quirky attitude. She is perfect to him. So he writes about his dreams and turns it into its own new story. Yes, this is the one, his next great novel! Who cares if his brother (Chris Messina) thinks the story is dumb.

Calvin really is a genius. His brain is so powerful, that one morning he woke up and found the literal girl of his dreams in his kitchen. Ruby Sparks (Zoe Kazan). In the flesh. Based on everything he wrote about. How can that be? People can’t just be created! Or can they? Truly only a genius (or geniuses, in some cases) could create a person without even trying. It gets weirder when he realizes it is not in his head. It gets creepier when he realizes that whatever he types comes true. Yeah, you know what I’m talking about.

Annette Bening and Antonio Banderas play his mom and step-dad, while Steve Coogan has a small role as “other older writer dude.”

Anyone else find it funny how Ruby is always wearing red? And how she and Superman are never in the same room?

Yeah, so I really fucking love strange quirky movies like this. Pretty easy to learn that given my rating record. Watching this movie made me want to watch Stranger Than Fiction right after it. Another well acted quirky movie about the truth being determined by what someone rights. Who knew there was a whole drama about this!?

I found myself flailing while I watched this movie. My mind raced ahead of itself, so once I was given new information, I always assumed the worse. Having complete and utter power over someone? That can lead to many dark dark places, and I assumed each one would be touched upon. Thankfully, each one wasn’t touched upon, because I didn’t feel like crying that night. But the scene where the power finally got to the head? Shit scared me, and it did it in away without having to go the hard R rating that most of us are probably imagining. Which is great, when I rewatch this movie, I can not flip out as much and STILL enjoy the process they go through.

Besides, this type of stuff is every (male?) fantasy. Since Frankenstein, the idea of creating a person has always been intriguing. So why not?

I think this film is excellent on all cylinders, and exactly the type of thing I’d watch again and again.

4 out of 4.

Oooh, a quirky movie. Reading the back of the cover, An Invisible Sign looks like it is supposed to be a made up woman version of A Beautiful Mind. I loved A Beautiful Mind, it made me cry, and the twist took me off guard.

Clearly this movie can only bring great things!

WARNING WARNING: QUIRKINESS OVERLOAD.

Mona Gray (Jessica Alba) loves numbers. She is 20 something though, and can’t find a job, because she is so dang weird. By weird, I just mean OCD, but no one else really notices that, they just see her being strange. When she was a kid (Bailee Madison), she had no friends, but had a math teacher (J.K. Simmons) who really got it. She didn’t know how to show her appreciation, and didn’t think he cared, so she egged his car. Typical kid stuff.

Well, he eventually quit and runs a hardware store. Not at all important to my current description.

Now she is a loser because she live with her parents even though she is right out of college. But hey, she can teach elementary school math maybe! I am sure the kids wont make fun of her either.

Alright, okay, this is nothing like A Beautiful Mind. Fine. For some reason a guy likes her (Chris Messina), while her mom (Sonia Braga) is overly stressed, because her father (John Shea) can’t function on his own anymore. There is still hope. One student, one little girl (Sophie Nyweide) might be the same sort of prodigy she was. Can she be the one who saves her life from the mundane?

Yep. Numbers everywhere. Nerd alert folks.

The ending of that description sucked, but I just needed it to stop. Typing out the plot of the movie made me sleepy, and I wanted to be sure it was finished before I got my nap on. Because woo, is this movie boring.

It has some heart to it sure. It has an interesting (ish) concept. But it decides to give it to you while smothering you with the softest pillow known to man.

In addition to that, the ending was completely bonkers. She was not qualified to be a teacher, so couldn’t even handle the one class level that seemed to pay attention to her. In fact, the ending is full of so many bad things, there is no way to like it even if you got past the bore.

Almost also feels like a strange version of Matilda, but from the teachers point of view, and no awesome magic. Or evil people. Or Danny DeVito.

1 out of 4

My 666th review is Devil. Need I say more?
God, I’m so fucking clever.

Hey look, some people in an elevator.

The movie begins with a person jumping off of a skyscraper and landing in a car, pretty far away. Okay. Like, super far. But Detective Bowden (Chris Messina) is on the case! After investigating, he sees that a skyscraper has a broken window, so we are good to go.

But uh oh, the elevator has stopped! That sucks. Must be out of repair. There are five people on it too, a security guard (Bokeem Woodbine), a salesman (Geoffrey Arend), a mechanic (Logan Marshall-Green), an old woman (Jenny O’Hara) and a young woman (Bojana Novakovic).

And uhh, the Devil might actually be one of them in disguise? Hell, they might all be bad people too, and needing to repent for their sins. That is what one of the security guards thinks (Jacob Vargas), and an older non religious guard (Matt Craven). Watching it all go down, except for when the power goes out randomly.

Hey look, an action scene.

Although not the director, it shouldn’t surprise anyone to find out that M. Night Shyamalan is involved with this picture. There might be a twist by the end, but I felt like I had the whole thing figured out as soon as I saw the cast. Might have had some twists and turns, but really, it is all pretty obvious. Don’t worry, someone is the Devil. They don’t pull a The Village.

But the acting is bad, Chris Messina, what the hell are you doing? Your character barely changed tone the whole movie. Not even during your sob story. Logan Marshall-Green I would say is the best character, while the rest of of the cast just didn’t give a single fuck.

Jesus Christ, the Devil is bad.

Not flipping over the table bad. But just bad enough for me to not even write 400 words about it. How could I? The plot is the devil on an elevator!

1 out of 4.

I am shocked that it took me so long to watch Vicky Cristina Barcelona. First off, it has actors/actresses I like in it. Second, I actually kept putting it on my schedule, and just putting it off. Thirdly? Someone once called it ‘Ménage à trois: the movie” to me. I mean, seriously. How did I just not stop what I was doing and watch it immediately?

The other fun note about this movie? While I worked at Blockbuster, there was like, eighteen copies of this movie for sale the whole time. Eighteen! I ended up buying a Wal-Mart copy, because it was the same price and new.

Is this the trois moment? Is it?!

Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) are going to Barcelona! And now we have the movie title. They are going to stay there for a few months with relatives of Vicky (Patricia Clarkson, Kevin Dunn) because they have a big house and their children are all gone. Sweet. Vicky actually has a legitimate reason, some how her masters studies involves Spain. Cristina is just there for the support and adventure!

They also have different views on love, complete opposite, so much so that the narrator deems it important! Cristina is a free spirit, and rushes through things, flames out quickly. Vicky likes real romance and patience and long commitments. That explains why she has a fiancé (ramping up the French here people. For a movie about Spain) with Doug (Chris Messina).

But one night at a museum, they run into a local artist Juan (Javier Bardem), who looks like he just wants to seduce whoever is easier. Even invites them to an Island for awhile. Clearly things are going well for Juan and Cristina, but she gets sick, so Juan has to spend a lot of time with Vicky instead. Moment of weakness, and boom, sex. Awkwardness arises when Cristina then gets better and continues her relationship with Juan, whoops. Even moves in with him. He kind of likes both, with Vicky realizing that she doesn’t love her husband anymore.

But nope. Then the crazy ex-wife Maria (Penelope Cruz) shows up. She has to stay with them too, because she is on suicide watch. And well, maybe Juan has feeling still for her. And Vicky. And Cristina.

Damn, that is a lot of lovin’.

Yeah, jokes on you, that previous picture had Cruz not Hall.

Of course this is a Woody Allen movie. For whatever reason I didn’t know that before hand, but now that I do afterwards it makes perfect sense. He does have that mini obsession with Scarlett Johansson after all, like a lot of men. Most of us don’t put her in movies though.

This film was definitely both quirky and natural, which is a weird feeling. But after it all, I wondered what was the point. Is it to live life however you want, regardless of what other people think? To always question where you are in life? I don’t even know.

What I did see was an okay story, that did go places I wasn’t expecting, but doesn’t seem like the type of film I’d ever see again.

2 out of 4.

When you hear about Greenberg, you will notice a few things. One is that Ben Stiller is involved. Ben Stiller seems to be a very polarizing actor, in that some people think he is okay, yet some people hate him with ever fiber of their being. I don’t know why those are the two options, but there you go. Definitely never seen a Ben Stiller fan boy though.

Second thing you will notice is that it looks serious, and Ben Stiller + Serious is scary.

Yeah, Stiller’s face is all up in this movie.

Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller, but you knew that) is a 40ish year old male carpenter, who was living in NYC and had a nervous breakdown. Sure he was in a mental hospital for awhile, but hey, no one is perfect. He is invited to come down to LA to stay for a few weeks, where he used to live, to take care of his brother Phil’s (Chris Messina) dog for him while he is away. Simple enough! The dog does have some problems though, so his brother’s assistant, Florence (Greta Gerwig) also helps.

Both of them are kind of awkward, and going through some rough times, so a relationship starts to build. Kind of. Through Greenberg’s mental disorders, he seems incredibly narcissistic and mean, and blunt. So hey, not many friends. He used to be in a band but quit when they were about to sign to a label, being super cynical. He still has one old friend at least, Ivan (Rhys Ifans), who helps him with Florence, but other friends doesn’t forgive him for killing their dreams (Mark Duplass). Oh, and Florence is a main character too, and has her own friends for weird support (Merritt Wever).

Whoa, yeah that was easy to describe. Mentally unstable guy goes to LA, maybe starts a relationship, wants to fit in.

And maybe a clearly amazing birthday party too.

When the Greenberg character first appeared, I imagined him like an older version of a lot of Jesse Eisenberg characters. He acted very similar to a few of them, which was surprising, until I found out the director who did this also did The Squid and the Whale, starring Eisenberg as a character similar to this. So yeah, guess that wasn’t hard to figure out.

I then noticed that Greta Gerwig was in it, and she was just in a review I did for Baghead. And holy crap, she apparently gets naked in lots of movies.

After those two not at all related to the movie thoughts, I watched the movie, and well, it was okay. Stiller did a good job acting I thought, and was a big ass too. Disorders are big problems, especially when those don’t realize that you can’t filter your own information before yelling it, or just speaking your mind. Stiller shows the frustration greatly, and it builds up and leads him to more destructive habits.

But I also thought it was a bit slow, and lacked any real character development. I think more things should have happened than everyonce in awhile his character yelling at another. But that was just me.

2 out of 4.

Again, a movie with a thousand tags. But I will explain it very simply for you so that is all makes sense. The plot of Away We Go it turns out is pretty damn simple to understand. More time for analysis (if I choose). Hooray!

It’s about love. And finding your love’s vagina.

John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph are an unmarried couple, but guess what, they are having a baby. She doesn’t want to get married, but still truly believes they will be together forever. They had moved to be closer to John’s parents (Jeff Daniels and Catherine O’Hara) to have some sort of relative in the babies life, since her parents are dead.

But when she is 6 months in, they find out they are moving to Belgium. For two years. Making their living arrangements kind of pointless. Afraid that their lives are fucked up and bad, they agree to go on a mini vacation to different parts of the country to visit their other family memmbers and friends, to see if they would be good places to live.

First to Arizona, to see Maya’s old boss and her husband / family (Allison Janney and Jim Gaffigan) who seem to be drunk a lot, and not too happy with life, and her sister. Then to Madison, for a job interview, where they also meet John’s cousin and husband (Maggie Gyllenhaal and Josh Hamilton), who are way too extreme on the hippy side.

Then to Montreal, to visit their mutual friends (Melanie Lynskey and Chris Messina), who have adopted many children, due to the unfortunate nature of Melanie’s ability to have a child (multiple miscarriages). Finally, a trip to Miami, to visit John’s brother (Paul Schneider) and help him out of a bad situation.

The whole time they are traveling they are dealing with their own problems, and wondering about their own inadequacies. And by both of them, I mean Maya. Because John is way too swell of a person, and optimistic, he is constantly making things better, all while looking like a hipster.

Exhibit A.

Their final destination choice I will let remain a mystery. Because fuck you, that’s why.

I thought the movie was pretty enjoyable. I laughed a lot more than I expected, thinking it would be a lot more heavily drama-nated. But man, there was many great scenes, and it all felt incredibly real. Hopefully their love in this fictional universe of the movie carries on after the birth and throughout their whole life. You are given a nice feeling that they have found true peace and happiness with their decisions, and everything will work out for the best.

Also, a lot of vagina talk.

3 out of 4.