Tag: Cynthia Nixon

First of all, you are welcome, because I almost started this review with a Rihanna reference, so I saved you from this joke.

Secondly, this movie came out months ago. And after my screening, on August 22, I totally forgot I had seen it. It was a replacement screening that night, I meant to see Good Time but it got moved around. And later that week, we had a hurricane hit my city, which put my site into a flux for awhile, with some reviews taking forever to get published.

As of 2-3 weeks ago, I thought I had finally already caught up with all the missed reviews, but holy crap, I missed this one. So sure, I am writing it over three months after watching it. And I have fallen asleep while setting up this review. What I am getting at is that I definitely did not enjoy this film, and the whole experience behind just getting it on this website has been a trainwreck.

Kind of like falling in love with a friend for five years. A bad idea that only sometimes works in movies.

Thomas Webb (Callum Turner) is a boy, living in New York, and he is trying to make it on his own as a writer. Well, maybe writing, maybe something else. But he is going to do it on his own, not with the help of his rich parents. His dad (Pierce Brosnan) is a straight up publisher, his mom (Cynthia Nixon) mostly just stay at home depressed at this point.

Webb is secretly in love with his book loving friend (Kiersey Clemons), but she has a boyfriend. He also lives in a tiny crummy apartment, where he gets a new neighbor (Jeff Bridges) who is extremely nosy and a bit of a drunk. Who the hell talks to their neighbors? He reluctantly talks to the stranger, because hey, why not, he has someone new to vent to and talk about his problems with.

A some point, change actually starts to happen in his life. He finds out his dad is having an affair, with a coworker. A younger woman (Kate Beckinsale). Time to get all obsessed and stalkery without having a plan on what to do with this new information, Thomas!

Also starring Tate Donovan and Wallace Shawn.

Maybe if he pushes her she will realize she is being a total butthole.

It is really hard to put into words just why The Only Living Boy in New York is so bad. Partially, I am sure, thanks to writing a review months after watching the movie.

Let’s start with the actors. The lead we are given is an incredibly whiny and privileged boy, and for him to feel like he is the center of the world (With another character encouraging this thought process) is incredibly unexciting. Your main character doesn’t have to be likable in order for a film to be good, but to watch a rich white 20 something complain so much, despite having everything given to him on a platter is exhausting and a bit painful. Bridges and Brosnan give very little to this film and mostly feel like phoned in performances. Beckinsale is the only main performer who feels like she gives a damn about a good performance, but the plot and story make her character behave completely erratically so it is hard to tell.

Story wise it is also poor. Main character complains, tries to use the friend zone, s someone, and then changes a lot of people’s lives seemingly accidentally. I am not sure how much he learns by the end of it, in terms of actual character growth. The side characters are bland, are not believable, and technically, nor is the lead. It is just like watching rich paint dry.

The Only Living Boy in New York is a film that is not as good as it thinks it is. Sure, it is not as delusional as something like The Room, as there are actually well done locations, camera work, and editing. But this is still an inexcusable mess of a story that no one should have to put up with at this point in time from professionals.

0 out of 4.

Adderall is a drug designed to help those with ADHD calm the fuck down and get their work done. That is how I understand it at least.

Adderall is also a drug that goes around college campuses or weird professions, where the user will take it in order to focus more on a task. The amount sold under the table on colleges increase more around final exam times. So yeah, people might use it to “study better” or finish an essay or stop looking at their facebook every few minutes. It has also been used by journalists and writers, I am sure.

Basically, the plot of Limitless is the guy takes Adderall5000 and his extreme focus lets him do a shit ton of things. What fun!

The Adderall Diaries, if anything, is a shitty title to a movie. Adding Diaries to something is just unoriginal. This one is based on a book, but the book came out in 2009, so it was already past the point when Diaries was a cool thing to add to a title. So I am going into this movie pretending it is just 1995 and the title was cutting edge.

Of course I was six then, so I probably thought this was how to ride a motorcycle.

Hans Reiser (Christian Slater) might have killed his wife. Who knows. That is what the trial is for.

For some reason, this case drives the interest of one Stephen Elliott (James Franco). He is a writer, who writes stories based on his life. He had a rough child hood, with a dad (Ed Harris), who was abusive, left him to make him homeless, and eventually died. He has a book deal, an advance from the publishing company and more thanks to his wonderful agent (Cynthia Nixon).

But he has writers block. So he wants to write about this case instead. It drives close to home. Not that anyone wants any of that True Crime shit right now. They want his personal stories. While watching the case, he meets Lana Edmond (Amber Heard), a journalist. They start doing stuff together.

Oh and hey. His dad isn’t dead. Stephen lied about that. This creates problems, as other big moments might be lies as well. Add to the fact that he isn’t writing, no one wants the new stuff, and more, his life might come crumbling down as well.

Also featuring Jim Parrack and Wilmer Valderrama.

A VHS tape? Man, getting my head set in the 1990’s is actually pretty easy.

Last year, Franco starred in True Story, where he played a guy who might have killed his wife and kids and a journalist, Jonah Hill, was trying to tell his story. And now he is a writer, trying to get the story of a guy who maybe killed his wife.

Similar? Yes. Annoyingly so? Still yes. Franco loves independent films. So much that he is more of these indie films than he is bigger well known films, and that includes the stoner ones. And for the most part, all of these films he is a part of just seem to be incredibly lacking. It might not all be Franco’s fault…it could also be his agent specifically picking lesser roles.

This film is dull, but in a slow burn way. Franco’s character is all over the place. There are quite a few sub plots and they don’t seem to mesh together fully. There are some tense moments. There is a lot of yelling. There is some classy text over the screen to make sure you are a paying attention. But overall it just feels like the entire story is pointless.

At least in True Story we had great cinematography and a better story. This one just doesn’t seem cohesive and I am left wondering why quite a few scenes even happened.

1 out of 4.

When doing my “What random shit should I review in between new releases?” run, I walked by Rampart and knew I had to watch it immediately. There is only one reason I know about this movie, and that is because of its horrible PR campaign to promote it.

Basically, on Reddit, Woody Harrelson did an ask me anything before this movie came out. Yes to promote it, but he apparently forgot it was an ask me anything. He only wanted to answer questions about the movie, ignored basically everything else, answer only a dozen or so questions, and most of them badly. One response he said “…i consider my time valuable.” So, the internet was scorned, lots of boycotts against seeing the film, and now no one really knows anything about it.

Don’t fuck with the internet?

Basically, that hobo is the internet, and Woody Harrelson is Woody Harrelson. This is based on the Rampart Scandal. What is that? Exactly. In the 1990s, the Rampart Scandal involved evidence of the LAPD having huge amounts of corruption and misconduct. Over 70 officers were found guilty of being dicks and abusing their power. Pretty serious deal.

Like Dave Brown (Harrelson). He hates everyone equally, so he feels like its okay for him to be a bigoted, racist, sexist, scumbag who beats his perps. I mean, he murdered a serial date rapist. That makes him a good guy right?

Well, he lives with his two ex wives (Anne Heche, Cynthia Nixon). Both of them are sisters, both had a kid with him. Yep, very scumbag.

But a video surfaces of Dave beating up a person who got into a car accident with him. He says it was assault with a deadly weapon, the people think otherwise. This leads to a bigger investigation, and more potential bad stuff Dave has done. They want a forced retirement, he wants to fight it. Silly Dave.

Also featuring Ice Cube, Sigourney Weaver, and Ben Foster.

Do you hear that? That silence? Yeah, those are the fans.Good thing the internet chose to boycott this movie. After all, if they didn’t, we’d have all went and seen it, giving them money, then hating it afterwards. Better to hate it before hand, because an actor doesn’t know how to internet, I guess.

Woody actually did a lot for this role apparently (according to the AMA). Lost weight, had to get in a new psyche of a complete asshole. But I would say most of his recent roles have been assholes to some degree anyways. I can’t imagine it was that hard.

Basically, the movie is just kind of boring. Drama with some action elements. I like dramas! I understand their pacing. This one was not done well is all.

Unfortunately, it will be remembered for all of eternity, as that one movie that pissed people off, not by the content of its character, but by the way it advertised its colors.

1 out of 4.

I can say that I honestly only watched Lymelife because I saw Alec Baldwin on the cover. Of course he was wearing a suit too.

Because that is all Alec Baldwin has to do nowadays.

Well its a suit of clothing at least, right?

This movie is more about a little rich~ kid named Scott (Rory Culkin). They used to live in Queens, but have moved out to Long Island, and are kind of big on real estate. Also this is the 70s.

Apparently Lyme disease may have just started recently, or it doesn’t have a real cure or something. Can mess you up for years. One of their neighbors (Timothy Hutton) got a deer tick while hunting two years ago, and has never been the same. Kind of sick a lot. His wife (Cynthia Nixon) has to bring home the bacon on her own, and makes it all kind of weird on their daughter (Emma Roberts).

Scott kind of has a thing for her too, but she is way more popular than him. Speaking of having a thing for people, Scott’s dad (Baldwin) is having an affair with her mom. Yay! The mom doesn’t enjoy being married to a sick guy. Scott’s mom (Jill Hennessy) knows something is up, but she just seems crazy to Scott. It isn’t until Scott’s brother returns temporarily from the army (Kieran Culkin. Yes real life younger brothers to Macaulay) for her birthday does Scott realize the truth about his father.

This causes a lot of family strife amongst both groups. Even more bad things happen when they find out Mr. “I am diseased” father hasn’t been going to his job interviews, mostly enjoying the whole “stay at home and do nothing aspect” of his life. Doesn’t mean he takes kindly to cheating. Factoring in all of the parents issues makes Scotts little crush seem insignificant. Doesn’t mean he was going to stop crushing, just puts it in perspective for him.

The end of the movie is full of betrayal, families rekindling and others splitting, new love, and maybe a gunshot or two.

See them bundled? It’s because they don’t want ticks. And its cold. And they might have just had sex.

I should have told the plot in a more straightforward way. My bad. But this movie was pretty intense.

The last five minutes I was scared. A lot of comparisons are made in regards to this movie and American Beauty, but they are pretty different. I guess they kind of both talk about the American Dream and sex with a neighbor (kind of neighbor). But one is a mid life crisis, and the other is a teenage boy. Who’s dad may be going through a midlife crisis. Either way, affairs are bad, and having people with guns mad at you is bad. So in those last five minutes when I was scared, it still wasn’t that predictable.

And most importantly, I wasn’t left without an answer. The plot lines were all finished. I wouldn’t say in a nice neat little package, because of some of the implications afterwards, but definitely felt like a full movie which was good.

I thought a lot of the acting was great, especially from Hutton, Baldwin, and Nixon. Rory would later want to bang Emma in Scream 4, because all of those people are in the same movies for some reason.

3 out of 4.