Tag: Drama

Conversations With Other Women

I personally feel a bit British just saying the title of this movie.

Conversations With Other Women.

It feels so proper, and pretensions.

Yet at the same time, so adulterous.

Talktalk
While also potentially having a lot of talking.

And by that I mean tons of talking. That is all the movie is! But good dialogue is good.

Aaron Eckhart is at his sister’s wedding. He finds Helena Bonham Carter. one of the bridesmaids, and she is British!

Now is good time to note that this movie is “split screened” with a left and right side. Most of the time, each camera is focused on both of their faces. They happen to be near each other the whole movie too, so its good for their conversations.

They also have some sex that night, despite the fact that she has a husband (Ex husband) and two kids in London. He is in a lot of different relationships, random ones, even young girls. But maybe they also knew each other in this past and this is fate?

Oh hey, and Olivia Wilde has a role as drunk bridesmaid, and Thomas Lennon as weird video camera guy. And some quick flashbacks of the man and woman, played by different people in their yuoth.

Example
What’s that? You said you wanted an example?

Well, as expected, this movie has a lot of dialogue. Like, aside from some strategic awkward silence, it is mostly a night long conversation with the two leads. Not a whole of lot of women, unless you consider Helena to be the other woman.

But was it interesting? Well kind of. But also slow.

I mean hey, give it a shot if you like banter.

2 out of 4.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

I would definitely describe my feelings towards Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close as..”Wait, what?”.

Never heard of this movie when it came out. Just saw that it had a really long feeling title, and that it was nominated for best picture. I also heard the term Oscar bait being tossed around, but besides that I had no idea who was in it, nor did I remember it ever being in theaters.

So yeah. Blank slate watching indeed!

close
Okay, so its about a kid who is ashamed of his face. Who yells a lot?

Oh, there we go, its a 9/11 movie.

Oskar (Thomas Horn) is a kid with Aspergers living in New York City. His dad (Tom Hanks) seems to be the only one who ‘gets him’. They go on scavenger hunts, looking for clues of the missing sixth Burrow of NYC, and other seemingly useless items. They are designed by his dad to get him talking to others and branching out socially.

But then the towers are hit and his dad is killed in WTC. Lot of confusion. Lot of anger and denial. Mad at his mother (Sandra Bullock) who he has never been close to. But one day, while looking in his father’s closet he accidentally knocks over a vase, inside is a key. Huh.

He goes to a locksmith to figure out to what, and the locksmith says it can be anything, hard to say. But there is one clue, the word “Black”. Clearly that is a last name for someone and maybe they have the next clue. Time to find and talk to every Black in NYC (over 200) and hopefully one day find out where the key goes to, to solve one last mystery!

Also featuring his grandmother (Zoe Caldwell) who lives next door, her mysterious guest (Max von Sydow) and he lazy doorman (John Goodman).

3D?
They missed out not making this movie in 3D.

Don’t you dare quote me on this, but I have a feeling this might be one of the cases where the book is better than the movie. Ahh! Not that I read the book. But it must be.

The overall plot and what goes on is interesting. But what bugged me more would probably be how the story was told in the movie, and other decisions a director might decide. Having every other scene be a flash back to 9/11 got old quickly, instead of giving us the full story, and dragging it out longer.

Because I definitely found the search for the missing lock interesting, both his interactions with strangers and his weird relationship with old guy neighbor who doesn’t talk at all.

The kid did a pretty good job. Had a lot of quirks with the way he talked, and seemed like more than just a kid who talked a lot, and didn’t know manners. So he was pretty awesome.

Interesting story, but a lot of scenes edited in ways clearly as “oscar bait” which just made me mad.

2 out of 4.

War Horse

Somehow, when Steven Spielberg makes a movie, people take notice. But when I heard about War Horse? I thought meh. Whatever. Horse movie. Animal movies in general just seem weirder to me. And the last two Horse movies I saw (both racing) were incredibly boring to me.

That’s why for this movie, that I’ve had access to for a month, I am finally watching. Just never felt like the right time to watch it.

Horse of War
And you know, Horses a- aww look at it’s eyes.

The movie is about 140 minutes, and packs a lot in it. It starts from humble beginnings, the birth of the horse on the farm. Learning to walk and run. Once it is old enough it is taken to an auction in the city. Albert (Jeremy Irvine) convinces his dad (Peter Mullan) to bid on the horse, despite it being a colt and them really needing a nice plow horse. But when the landlord tries to drive up the price, the dad stubbornly out bids him, using all of their money (and making it hard to pay the landlord his rent). The mom (Emily Watson) is mad, but they agree to pay the full rent by autumn and want to plow an extra rocky field to make the money.

But first the horse needs training, and is trained to follow a call. Can’t jump well, but can run fast. If only he can teach it to PLOW though.

World War I comes about, and due to the rent circumstances, the horse is sold to the army. Albert is pissed, but the officer (Tom Hiddleston) claims he will protect it as if he did all the raising himself. In training with another officer, the horse meets another horse, a darker bigger horse, who might be going on the adventure with it.

The horses find themselves switching sides, to be cart bearers for the Germans (with Leonard Carow), an old man jam maker (Niels Arestrup) and his granddaughter (Celine Buckens), back to the German side to face the gruesome heavy artillery duty (under Nicolas Bro). Many close calls over the years.

But will he ever get to see Albert again as promised, who is now a soldier (with Robert Emms and Benedict Cumberbatch as other soldiers).

horse
Horse BFFs.

This film is also based off of an old children’s book in the 80s, and a play that came out about 4-5 years prior. Not an original Spielberg picture.

But boy was it powerful.

The only thing I really knew about the tale was that it featured a “lot of different stories” and that made some people uninterested in it. Well, sure, quite a few plot points end up happening, but at least its all the same horse. Not a whole bunch of “War horse” stories (well, because it is in so many different horse positions, we get to see them all, but still one horse show). To me it felt like an entirely epic Homeward Bound, without talking, just how the horse changed so many lives.

I got way more into it than I would have guessed, even crying near the end. Sad things occur. Since you know, it is a war after all.

I do think that they could have put more effort into making sure we knew the many different characters, and how they related. I had to wiki some of the characters at the end, not knowing how they all mattered for the story. That was the landlord’s son? Oh okay.

3 out of 4.

The Squid and The Whale

Uh oh, The Squid And The Whale? You know that means it will be a quirky movie.

An autobiographical, quirky movie too.

squid
Jeff Daniels looking like a hobo? Must be artsy too.

This is supposed to be a story about the youth of Noah Baumbach. Who is that? He is a writer, who works on a lot of Wes Anderson movies. I mean, hey, if you want to make a movie about your life, go for it.

Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney are going to get divorced! Jeff is a pseudo famous writer, who used to be a big shot. Now he just works at a university, having a hard time writing about great work. Laura got better at writing thanks to him, and is even about to get a nice book deal! But that isn’t the cause for concern. They argue a lot, so it is divorce time.

Their two sons, Jesse Eisenberg and Owen Kline, obviously don’t like this. They have joint custody (without lawyers) so have figured out the schedule for the two to go between their home with the mom, and the dads new home.

Jesse is pissed off at the situation, and blames his mom, thinking she is mad at the father for not being as successful any more, and even more mad when he finds out she cheated. Owen sides more with his mother, as he only really knows his father as teh stay at home / teacher guy who has never really been a success and drinks a lot. The mom begins to see Owen’s tennis coach (William Baldwin) and the father pursues a current student of his (Anna Paquin).

Jesse also starts dating Halley Feiffer, who is someone he is interested in, but thinks he can do better. (Yeahhh). He also claims to have written the song “Hey You” by Pink Floyd, playing it at a school talent show (this is the 80s). Eventually he has to see a school counselor (Ken Leung, from Lost!). By the end, when he is able to conquer his own fears and see the Squid/Whale exhibit at the Natural Museum, he realizes the truth of his situation, and how blinded he had been the whole time.

Head
ALSO look at that head!

So one thing to note is all the characters do a really good job in this movie. But most notably the different kids reaction to the divorce, and the eventual realization of why they take the sides that they take. But more importantly, Eisenberg’s character acts a HELL of a lot like his later portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network. The level of assholery it is there, and he is an intelligent character, just not as intelligent. But the way he talks to his girlfriend? His reaction towards others?

Sure he is a bit more emotional, but besides that, I would not be surprised if they saw this film and gave him Zuckerberg because of it. It is weirdly similar.

The character’s have different names from the director, which I guess is him making it less of a biography and more of a story, but I have to assume Jesse plays the director, and not the little kid.

It is a pretty touching movie that doesn’t hold itself back at all, and really relies mostly on the actors and emotions.

3 out of 4.

The Vow

Why the hell is Channing Tatum in so many Romance based movies?

A guy who’s face that screams out “Big dumb strong man” doesn’t seem to be romance movie material. Or at least once every awhile. But damn. I feel like that is 2/3 of his movies.

In The Vow, not only is he the main male lead, he is kind of the only romantic character in the movie. So weird.

Tatumm
You can tell, because there are no pictures of anyone else out in the rain.

The movie begins with Tatum and Rachel McAdams, driving at night with lots of snow. Aw, they are married. How sweet. Rachel has to leave, so she unbuckles, but before getting out of that car, she gets her kiss on. And then a truck slams into the back of their car, and she goes out the window.

What the heck!

Yeah it sucks. Then she gets into a coma, and well, some amnesia happens. She forgets the last few years of her life, but not everything. Definitely everything involving her husband. What does she remember?

Going to law school, being close to her parents (Sam Neill and Jessica Lange), and being engaged to someone else. What?! Her old fiance, Scott Speedman, whom she left to move to the city and find her own way.

Tatum has a hard enough time providing evidence that she ever even loved him (in the form of a voice mail and their wedding video (and their vows!)). He is all weird and different, and she doesn’t like the idea of living with a stranger. She also finds it odd that he doesn’t seem to know her family well. What if he is just an intense stalker and going to kill her?

What she doesn’t know is why she ever left her home, her rich life style, law school, and fiance, to move to the city, become a sculptor, and you know, fall in love with Tatum and stuff. None of her family feel like bringing it up either, not even her sister , Jessica McNamee, who is also about to get married.

Will she ever remember her past? Or will she be all, whatever.

The vow
There is an amnesia clause in vows, right?

So, somehow this ended up being a decent romance movie. I’d imagine losing someone you loved (and who loved you back) would suck, especially if it was via amnesia. Especially if she used to be an entirely different person, who also was kind of a bitch. Understandably, at least. No one likes not knowing anyone around them.

This is based off of a real couple, and even given a factoid based off what happened at the end. The ending to the movie? Well, I thought it was kind of a let down. I guess they wanted to go away from a more obvious turn of events so we wouldn’t guess what happens. But still. Eh.

But the beginning, starting with the accident, and flash backs to when they met and their marriage? That was all very cute. But Tatum’s character is a total dumbass, who does a few things that are quite horrible in the movie, and that was also annoying to watch.

And then again? Some other things were not. Sooo….Yeah.

2 out of 4.

Gran Torino

Gran Torino was meant to be Clint Eastwood‘s last movie as an actor!

But now that I see his imdb, he is supposed to be acting in something called Trouble With The Curve later this year. Huh. Looks good too. My definition of good is “sad”, by the way.

Gran Torino
Turns out a Gran Torino is a muscle car from Ford. From AMERICA!

The movie opens with the loss of Eastwood’s wife.. There is a gathering at his house, with “Friend” and “family”. The friends being mostly superficial, and his family thinking he is a curmudgeon who doesn’t care about anyone. Not really true. He cared about his wife! And his car. He fought in the Korean war, and used to live in a community of hard working class (White) citizens.

But this is Detroit, and the jobs have left and it has become poor. Now his entire neighborhood is poor Asian people, more specifically Hmong. He also has to deal with a young Catholic priest (Christopher Carley) who really really wants him to be all religious like his wife, but he hates that some young guy is trying to make him do anything.

His neighbors have a son and daughter, played by Bee Vang and Ahney Her. Bee is pressured to join a local gang by his cousin, and his initiation is to steal the Gran Torino from his neighbor. Fortunately for him, he gets caught. The gang pressures him to do more bad things, but Clint chases him off, which makes the neighbors love him.. To make up for the almost crime, he is sent over to work for Clint around his yard and house. He eventually makes it so that Bee must do yard work elsewhere and help his neighbors, making the overall community better.

Escalation continues between the gang and Bee, until Clint tries to intervene and beats up a gang member. They don’t like that at all, so they perform a drive by on the house on the neighbors house, and hit Bee and kidnap his sister. Needless to say, this makes him very angry and wants real revenge. Real hate demands real killing. But Clint knows what it is like to kill a man and doesn’t think he should have to live his life knowing that too. Can he put an end to the gang violence and redeem himself to all parties at the same time?

Eastwood
What kind of dick would try and bring violence to an old man too?

I probably owned this movie for over a year before I finally watched it. Was never in the mood for a serious race relations movie. Because all I really knew about it was the racial thing. After all, half of the dialogue seems to be full of racial slurs.

I also liked it a lot. Made what is a weird small occurrence seem like the grandest of causes for someone to fight for. I think most of the time, a gang wouldn’t care that much that a cousin doesn’t join them, they care more if they decide to leave the gang afterwards. But man, I really wanted them to be punished, and was stoked to see Clint Eastwood be the punisher. Kind of.

Really well acted, and if you don’t get emotional by the end, then you just probably weren’t paying attention.

3 out of 4.

Notorious

Honestly, I feel like half of my movie reviews involve me admitting something that I previously didn’t know. It may come as a surprise to you, but my musical knowledge isn’t focused in the hip hop/rap movement/wars of the early 90s.

Believe it. The first Tupac song I heard was Changes? Maybe? Its music video seemed like a screensaver slide show, and came out years after he “died”, so not sure. Similarly, the first Notorious B.I.G. song I heard was that Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems song, and then I’ll Be Missing You. All made popular after death, and not really his stuff.

Clearly, I have been missing out. But yay for the chance to learn some things!

Not dead
I am well aware though that Tupac isn’t dead, but the Ivory Coast goal keeper.

Did you know Notorious B.I.G. had a son? It’s true. And his son, Christopher Wallace, plays his dad in this movie. His dad when he was 10-12 year range at the beginning. That is both awesome and weird at the same time. He was also the kid in Everything Must Go.

Either way, he was also born Christopher Wallace, to a single mother (Angela Bassett) who tried to raise her boy right. Morals, Christian, you know, all of that. But he likes to rap. He starts of dealing drugs, lots of crack, and when his girlfriend is pregnant, he has to raise the stakes for his crack dealing. But also, still rap battles.

He also meets (who will later become) Lil’ Kim (Naturi Naughton) at this time, who’s real purpose in this movie is to be naked a lot. So he is cheating on his girl, and drug dealing, causing him to get kicked out of house. Eventually he is caught with drugs and guns, and put in jail for awhile until bail happens, and he vows to turn his life around. He makes his first big hit, and get signed by Sean Combs (Derek Luke) as long as he gives up the crime. But the album still takes awhile to happen…

He eventually starts his album when Puff Daddy makes his own company, and meets Faith Evans (Antonique Smith), a singer, and marries her. You know, ignoring his old gf/kid, and Lil’ Kim. Can you see this is setting up to be bad? He also meets and befriends Tupac! (Anthony Mackie), but when he gets shot (and doesn’t die) he blames Biggie, P. Diddy, and the label. They start to feud with the tracks and records. East Coast / West Coast. Very bad things.

You know how this ends. Tupac dies, Biggie feels like he is to blame for it (no shit kind of), and tries to quit rapping. Still being bad with all three of his women. Eventually shot and killed himself. Then everyone listens to Hypnotize for the rest of time!

Peace
Bad Boy Records really just wants peace.

Guess what! I’ve learned something today. And that shit can get complicated when you add in drugs, weapons, and dirty hos.

I’m looking at you Lil’ Kim. But then again, she is a real person, and apparently hated her portrayal in the movie. I wonder why.

I thought parts of the movie were entirely cheesy. Despite a supposed biography, it just felt, weird at times. The narrator changed too, mostly Notorious throughout, until the end when it was his mom talking about his legacy.

But it was also interesting at the same time. Again, I really didn’t know most of the songs, but I recognized Hypnotize every time they played it (four? Maybe I am counting the menu too). So hey, want to know about Biggie Smalls? Watch the movie. Don’t? Ignore it. Easy.

2 out of 4.

The Social Network

Everyone knows about The Social Network.

Everyone. I mean, come on. You do. You all probably saw it. But damn it, I wanted to write about it anyways.

Because sometimes you just want to write about a greatm ovie.

BU girl
And it’s all because of some BU girl.

Also I should note that I recognize that this is mostly a work of fiction, and based on true events. But you know, might as well write about it as if it is real.

Mark Zuckerberg got dumped by Erica Albright. He also talks, a lot. He goes to Harvard and can’t understand why he got dumped. So he did what any reasonable guy doe, gets drunk and makes a website to compare all of the women in college to one another, and crash the Harvard network.

This gets him noticed by the Winklevoss twins, two olympic rowers. They have the idea of making a Harvard based social networking site, and by making it a lot more exclusive than something like Mypace. You have to get invited, have to have the harvard.edu, no weird band people etc. They want Zuckerberg to fix the site and make it live for them. But he is inspired by it. And kind of takes their idea.

Getting one of his roommates, Eduardo, to invest in his project and have a third stake in the company, he eventually makes The Facebook and becomes instantly “popular” on campus. The decide to expand to local colleges and hire some other people to work for them. Eduardo wants to get advertisement for their site to make money, while Mark just wants the site to be cool and grow. Advertisements aren’t cool.

They also eventually meet Sean Parker, the founder of Napster, who immediately befriends Mark and pisses off Eduardo. He convinces them to move to LA to set up a company, and weasels his way in. Despite being broke at that point, he now knows a lot of people helping facebook get into the door. Lots of conflict, and lots of people get pissed off.

The movie is told with the twins and Eduardo currently suing Mark for different reasons, and their pre court hearings are used as the device for telling the story, up until Eduardo gets tricked out of the company. Rashida Jones is also in this movie as “Random lawyer helpful person” who preps people before they go in front a jury.

JT
No idea why he is seen as a bad influence.

I realize how ridiculous going over the plot actually is. I mean, its about the invention of facebook. That sounds very uninteresting in itself. Whod have thought there was lots of drama behind it? Intense drama at that.

When I first heard about it, I thought it was dumb, but the previews were so well made and epic looking, I just had to watch it. And it did not disappoint. Despite being two hours, I feel as if the movie goes very fast and flies by for me, which I think is a sign of a great movie. The acting is great, the dialogue is great, but that is expected when Aaron Sorkin is writing the dialogue.

If for some reason you still haven’t seen TSN, you need to. But I am pretty sure there doesn’t exist anyone in that category.

4 out of 4.

The Ghost Writer

What’s this? The Ghost Writer is actually based off of a book called The Ghost by Robert Harris, some British dude?

What is more surprising is that I actually knew about the book before the movie, and own the book. Me! Reading! Hah!

Only reason I have the book is because the author currently has 2/3 of a fictional trilogy of Cicero going on and it kicked ass. So I bought more of his books. Tried to read a different one and kept getting bored. Whoops. Political stuff and I don’t get along too well.

Books
To books! They are the future.

Ewan McGregor is hired to finish the memoirs of Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan) a fake former prime minister of Britain. His character name gets to be The Ghost! Because he is a ghost writer. It is supposed to be an Autobiography but, you know, it will be mostly be someone else writing it from his notes. This is going to be a sure hit, and lots of money.

Especially since Adam Lang might be prosecuted for war crimes, by illegally detaining possible terrorists and giving them to the CIA for torturing. Yikes. A lot of people don’t like that.

It should also be noted that Ewan is the second Ghost writer brought in because the last one who was doing it drowned. Which kind of sucks. This involves getting to stay in their resort house, all gated and protected, with the assistant Kim Cattrall, and Lang’s wife, Olivia Williams, to make sure he doen’t do too much bad stuff. But Ewan begins to find weird clues, including a phone number that calls the man who is bringing charges against Lang! Ewan also checks the GPS of the former writers car, and decide to visit the last place he visited. Huh, its a Pulitzer prize winner who has been dealing with the CIA since the 70s (Tom Wilkinson).

Is it possible that the former prime minister might have been a CIA agent this whole time?

PM
He might be! Depends on how charismatic he is.

From what I can tell, this was a well directed and acted political thriller.

Unfortunately, I are dumb with politics, as I already mentioned. I knew this was also a fictional jab at Tony Blair and his friendliness with the US, and that maybe people are mad at him.

But I don’t know. I don’t know anything about Tony Blair or what the UK did during 9/11 and Iraq/Afghanistan wars. Seriously. So I’d say that if you know about all this stuff, this might be a better movie for you. If you don’t know a damn thing, it might be confusing.

I read a plot outline on wikipedia as I watched to make sure I was not missing thing as it was happening (which I was). Just general things I didn’t understand and made the film more confusing to me. Sometimes a guy just needs things spelled out. Hah.

After reading what I had just watched, turn out it was kind of interesting. But because of just being about things I have no knowledge in, it made the film just a movie.

2 out of 4.

Ingenious

Ingenious is described as “A rags-to-riches story of two friends, a small-time inventor and a sharky salesman, who hit rock bottom before coming up with a gizmo that becomes a worldwide phenomenon.”

Now what did they make?

A bottle opener, that says a phrase when you open a bottle.

Yep. A movie about those guys.

guys
These guys.

Dallas Roberts is the small-time invent and Jeremy Renner is the sharky salesman.

At the beginning of the film they are selling novelty watches. Dog based ones that has a different thought in a sleeping dogs head throughout the day (for different dog types) and the same for a golfer. Pet owners love that shit but they have problems getting money to make a whole lot of different dog ones.

But Dallas then invents the “random lotto” number watch, thinking that will be a big seller. But turns out people also don’t care about that. The dog idea is the only potentially successful one they have, but need financing. They go to a “Infomercial King” in Richard Kind to try and get it sold, but don’t reach an agreement and he steals their idea.

Dallas is also into gambling, which Jeremy constantly convinces him to do (jerk friend) and they end up wasting their investments more. This makes his wife leave him, but don’t worry, Jeremy’s wife never leaves him. (By the end they might get back together).

He randomly makes the bottle opener that says a phrase, they get lots of money for it, and live happily ever after. Literally, because this is a “True story” and apparently that novelty item is the 4th most successful one, after the Hula Hoop, Frisbee, and the supersoaker.

alcoholic
Because for whatever reason, people love it when their bottle opener says one line?

By “rags to riches story” this really is a story about two guys who want to get rich quick in what appears to be the lamest way possibles. Novelty watches and a bottle opener? Big dreams guys.

I’m not saying what they didn’t do is remarkable, I mean, I haven’t made billions of dollars doing anything (yet!), but still, seems like a weird idea for a movie. Think about how much more exciting those other three novelty item movies could have been.

My bigger complaint though is the pacing. Out of an 80 minute movie, only the last 30 deal anything at all with the bottle opener. That means we have 50 minutes of movies dealing with them having not enough money to make novelty watches.

They do a lot with these watches, and do lawyer stuff, and everything. But really? 5/8 of the movie is about the other failed item, and 3/8 is about what they actually did that is important? What the fuck movie.

After 30 minutes I assumed they very successful item was a damn watch that had a dog on it, and it was just confusing. This is not something that should be a secret, and so…out of nowhere. Which is what it felt like.

As a real story, maybe its interesting. But as a movie, it is an incredible let down.

1 out of 4.