Tag: Drama

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

An autobiographical, quirky movie too.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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!

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

Turns out that Then She Found Me, a movie I had never heard of and found in a cheap bin and bought for the actors involved, is the first movie directed by /The/ Helen Hunt.

But she is also the main character too. Obviously she can’t completely escape the starlight, just yet.

“Quit staring at me with those dead eyes, you church bitch!” I think thats the quote there. Might be confusing it with something else.

Helen Hunt is getting married! Yay! She is in her late 30s, but is finally getting hitched to Matthew Broderick, a fellow elementary school teacher. She has no idea who her biological parents are and was adopted herself into a Jewish household, so for all intensive purposes, she is Jewish. She also really wants a baby before its too late, and really really doesn’t want to adopt herself.

Well ten months later, she is still not pregnant and it is looking rather grim. So Broderick does what every insecure man does and leaves her, not wanting that life. He also just quits his job, thinking it’d be weird teaching a class right next to hers. Ya think? So she goes to live with her brother (Ben Shenkman) where she also gets some strange news. Her mother (Bette Midler) has found her and wants to meet. (I am 85% sure that is the reason of the title!).

Turns out she is a local celebrity who does a talk show early in the day that Hunt has never heard of. Midler want to reconnect with her lost daughter and make up for all the years lost, despite the fact that she is now an almost forty year old woman. Who, if you forgot, is going biological clock crazy and really wanting that kid. It also so happens that she meets Colin Firth, a single dad with two kid, who is not socially awkward, but britishly honest, I guess.

Oh, and when Broderick broke up with her, she had sex with him before he left, and guess what. Got pregnant. But now she wants nothing to do with Matthew who left over that very reason, and might be in love with Colin. Dramaaa.

Colin also has a filthy fucking mouth in this movie.

More stuff happens, but that is end of the movie spoilers. I assure you it has to do with love and babies though. And maybe even her mother!

The movie is clearly very dramatic, and at points I loved it, and other points I hated it. Generally that fluctuated with whether or not Colin Firth was on the screen. His character was awesome, and the mom was annoyingly not. The dialogue also went back and forth between awesome and horrible, this time across all actors.

Despite partially interesting plot, it also gave me you know, boring plot. I guess that was the major problem with this movie. Back and forth between interesting and boring. Probably just like real life. Too real if you ask me.

Definitely another movie I bought, just on the cover.

Sunshine Cleaning shows two women, carrying…the title of the movie, behind some caution tape.

Oooh, how mysterious. And possibly illegal? Here’s hoping for some dead bodies.

Oooh, definitely going to have some dead bodies.

Amy Adams is a single mother working as a maid in a cleaning service. But hey, at least she has a job. Her sister, Emily Blunt, is a slacker and fails at a lot of things she does.

Only real job is that she gets to occasionally babysit Amy’s son (Jason Spevack), while Amy goes to her “class”. And by class, we of course mean having sex with her former high school sweetheart, Steve Zahn. He is a cop and married with kids, but hey, affairs are fun. And he will totally probably leave his wife for her someday, right?

Yeahhh…

Well thanks to her inside connection, she hears that crime scene cleaning can be a pretty nice business, monetarily speaking. She is going to need new money for her kids private schooling, since he has a lot of behavioral problems at public and is getting kicked. But until then, the grandpa, Alan Arkin, will be able to look after him and teach him real world smarts.

Enlisting her sister as an employee, and figuring out the right paper work, they open up Sunshine Cleaning! You know, to clean up dead people blood and stuff. They also get the help of Clifton Collins Jr., a one armed man with a cleaning supplies shop. The film however makes the main characters recollect a lot on their own mothers suicide, and go on their own miniature journeys to self discovery.

Emily Blunt also starts a lesbian relationship with Mary Lynn Rajskub…because she saw her in a picture at one of the houses they were cleaning. Yeah, definitely weird.

Needless to say their methods improved throughout the movie.

This film was definitely a lot more dramatic and sobering than I had thought. With such a colorful and sunny cover, it all kinds of come out of no where. There are some amusing moments, mostly between the grandfather and the son. Well, the grandfather and everyone really. Alan Arkin is the hidden star of this film, and is a nice surprise to watch.

I personally didn’t like a lot of the moments with Emily Blunt’s character, not because she is a screw up, but just…weird slow motion falling and sad time parts. There was this weird montage moment in the middle that just felt way overly dramatic and kind of stupid. In my mind at least.

The ending was a good one though, and most of the characters ended up pretty well. Some plot lines I don’t think they answered as well as they should have though.

Definitely a movie that I only heard about once before, and just kind of said “eh, fuck it! Lets watch.”

Can’t say I expected much out of 4.3.2.1. Just knew it was some sort of drama/action movie, involving maybe a heist and four different girls with their own storyline.

Which, I guess, is a lot to know about it. Also a British movie. But overall, expected something average and found it to be pretty good.

Look at how unique and different they are!

Beginning scene quickly introduces us to the main characters. When they walk away from the diner, it breaks into each character separately, telling their story for the next three days (Friday-Sunday), until they meet up all again.

First, Shannon (Ophelia Lovibond) goes hoem to find her parents getting divorced. Or at least her mom is leaving them. It was all in a note, but one of her friends accidentally got it. Over her weekend she has a depressing time, no one to hang out with, and gets attacked by muggers in the street over some diamonds she supposedly has. Thinking her friends no longer like her, and other problems, she wants to commit suicide.

Cassandra (Tamsin Egerton) is going to NYC to meet her internet boyfriend. This also has a Kevin Smith cameo on the plane, out of no where and awesome. Turns out her internet boyfriend isn’t real, but a prank. Well she doesn’t like that.

Kerrys (Shanika Warren-Markland) is a lesbian! And doesn’t give shit about nobody. She watches Cassandra’s place for the weekend, is the bitch of the group, and has far too many people piss her off this weekend.

Jo (Emma Roberts) is an American, and is from a well off family. But with her father injured from work, she has to work some night shifts at a local convenience store. A manager she never seen before is up to shady things with the safe, and also other possible crimes.

I have been watching a lot of movies with Emma Roberts recently. Go figure.

Felt weird talking about the plot outline, without wanting to give them away. But how was the experience?

The first storyline I was kind of confused at what was going on. The other girls appear in each storyline, whether in person, or phone call or text, but obviously you know the least about whats going on with just the first storyline. As the story goes on, more and more holes are filled in and you know more about the characters. Get to experience the actions as each member, instead of omnipresent movie watcher.

So overall I would say it started off slow and weird, but definitely got better. Also, “Strangely enough”, each woman character after the first was pretty strong of a character. They all had to do “something” action-y, some more than others. Whether it was tying up and kicking the ass of online predators, chasing people out of a house with a sword, or beating up people at a bar.

Not only that, but the action was generally real enough. And the drama.

Ending was a bit of a let down with all the build up, but most of the stuff I just really enjoyed. Surprisingly.