Tag: Imogen Poots

In 2019, Netflix dropped a delightful yet strange movie called The Two Popes. One of the popes, the old pope, was played by Anthony Hopkins.

And now, Anthony Hopkins is starring in a different film, called The Father. Huh, I guess he played a father, technically, in multiple movies. That isn’t that impressive, lots of people play fathers. But are they all the papacy?

I really did go into this movie thinking this movie would be about Catholicism in some amount. Turns out it isn’t and it is just about a dad. What’s up with that?

Yeah it is about a dad. You can see him lounging in a dad chair.

The Father is about a father (Anthony Hopkins) who is getting up there in age. Hey, the actor Hopkins is older and a father as well. Nice type casting.

He lives in his flat, maybe alone, maybe with his daughter (Olivia Colman) hard to remember sometimes. He is pretty sure she watches over him and helps things out, but she is trying to get a new person to help out. An in house caretaker (Imogen Poots). You see his daughter has found someone and they might be moving to France. And yeah, they don’t even speak English in France, why would she do that?

At least an in home caretaker would allow him to stay in his flat, very important to him. But he hates all the past caretakers, he lashes out, he screams, he is not a good guy in his old age. Maybe this one will work. Maybe.

Also starring Olivia Williams, Rufus Sewell, Mark Gatiss, and Ayesha Dharker.

Oh shit, he is in the Red Pope Robes. What does that mean for the church?

I’ve seen movies about dementia and/or Alzheimer’s before. I am not sure what specifically this one is about. I don’t know anyone thankfully close to me who has gone through this and had to see the deterioration over time, so I only have movies to help me in this regard.

And honestly, The Father has to be one of the better movie depictions of what might be going on in someone’s head during dementia bouts over time. We are trapped in this father’s head along with him. And we are there to try and figure out what is the truth, what is old news, what is being forgotten, and just who everyone actually is.

Despite me wanting to hate him, Hopkins was amazing in this role. Just absolutely amazing. I want to hate him because I see this as the only threat to Chadwick Boseman winning an Oscar. If Hopkins ends up getting best actor, I guess I won’t be too mad, because this is the sort of role that should definitely warrant it. But he already has an acting award, share that stuff.

Colman also gives a pretty good performance, but her role is far more limited compared to Hopkins of course. Colman continues to give good performances in everything she does lately. She is hitting a career high at an interesting time in her life and I am all for it as well.

The Father is a dizzying maze of how your mind eventually may betray you, along with the rest of your body. And life sure does suck at some points.

The Art of Self-Defense hit a few festivals before it got its wider release. I had so much hype built up towards it that I will say, right now, I might have liked it more had my expectations been more regular. And that sucks.

It does have a lot going for it. A24, a quirky film where Eisenberg can showcase his talents, and more.

And you know, its about karate! We haven’t had many dojo based films in awhile. The last one I really remember is The Foot-Fist Way. It was another smaller indie film with a weird humor sense. And it was okay. Maybe the real reason this came out is Cobra Kai. People love that series.

Punch

Casey (Jesse Eisenberg) is a little bitch. Maybe because he has a common lady name, but he is passive, quiet, and lonely. He lives at home with a little tiny dog. He goes to work. He doesn’t go on vacations. Gosh. He is an accountant. Gross.

Well one night he gets home and realizes he is out of dog food. Having to walk to the store in the middle of the night is scary, more so with recent reports of motorcycle people running around and beating people up. Sure enough, he gets mugged, put into a small coma, and in drastic need from rest.

While he is away from work, he wants to change his life. No, not a vacation. Getting a gun! That will help defend himself. But there is a waiting period. While waiting, he instead finds a karate dojo, led by Sensei (Alessandro Nivola), who talks in such a charismatic way. He makes Casey feel special, he gives him goals in life, he gives him a meaning. He is also going to help him become a better man.

But the more and more involved he gets in the class, the more Casey is realizing he is in something bigger than he bargained for.

Also starring Imogen Poots, Steve Terada, Phillip Andre Botello, and Hauke Bahr.

Kick.

I will do my duty to defy expectations by not talking a lot about how this movie was in terms of the genre. Because it turns out, that ruined it a bit for me. What you can and should know is that it is a Dark Comedy very much so based on the genre.

This is a swell role for Eisenberg. He is able to definitely to act his way into this character and it feels like a natural fit, unlike a lot of other recent roles. Poots really dives down into her character as well, and was unlike any other role I’ve ever seen her in.

I think Nivola is the real star and talking point here. That character is just so unique, brave, and twisted. It is hard to describe and compare him to other roles that might seem similar. It is just bizarre, and I love it.

A lot of surprises are in store for The Art Of Self-Defense, but ones that are welcome to the Sports karate genre of film.

I haven’t met a giant in my life yet, but I would be sad if I had to meet it then immediately kill it. They seem rare, and I can’t imagine they are all inherently evil.

But I Kill Giants is a film that definitely has a specific message and propoganda attached to it. Who kills these giants? An elf? A regular human? Is it maybe a collective “I” which doesn’t really makes sense as a type it?

Needless to say, I better see a damn giant in this movie. Or if not a living breathing angry giant, at least a dead one.

Yes, be on the look out for those Zombie Giants. They are the worst.

Barbara Thorson (Madison Wolfe) is not considered to be one of the cool girls at school. She is incredibly nerdy, including being a fan of dungeons and dragons. Besides believing these dragon forces to be real, she also is quite certain that giants are real.

Not just above average people or Sasquatches. But large forces of nature meant to cause harm. Most people don’t open their eyes enough to embrace these threats, and just blame them on tornadoes, earthquakes, or various storms. But they are there. And there are worse giants! There are titans, even bigger and meaner, and yes like the ones from Greek Mythology.

Barbara spends most of her time in her town, setting traps and bait out to track giant movement. She has saved her town a few times and given up grades and a social life to do so. But a new girl in town, Sophia (Sydney Wade), from Great Britain befriends her and helps her on her quest, despite all of the doubt.

While this goes on, a new guidance counselor at the school (Zoe Saldana) is set out to make sure she can actually help Barbara instead of just discarding her as crazy.

Also starring Imogen Poots, Rory Jackson, and Jennifer Ehle.

With a weapon like that, who’s crazy now?!

I Kill Giants is the type of film that feels like when it was written, it was extremely creative and original and a lot of people would have loved its ambition. But then A Monster Calls happened. It happened at the end of 2016, and it is extremely similar. It deal with grief, and large fantasy creatures to help deal with that grief. It involves kids, and parents, and bad things.

I feel bad for I Kill Giants, because I think I would have liked it more if I didn’t already love A Monster Calls. I am not saying there isn’t room in this very specific genre for more films. It is just it wasn’t different enough for me to love it as much as A Monster Calls.

We have a different gendered main character, who does an amazing job (You go Wolfe!). Some different fantasy lore, but overall, the motives behind the fantasy are almost exactly the same.

In other good notes, Poots does a great job as older sister trying to hold everything together, despite limited screen time, and this is possibly the best Saldana has ever acted.

In the end, if you liked A Monster Calls, you will probably like this one as well. If you haven’t seen it, then just think of this as a girl version of A Monster Calls and make a decision to watch at least one of them before you died old and cranky.

When the first poster was released for Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, I felt like my life had changed.

It looked amazing. I wanted to see the film right then and there. The tagline was just four words and felt like the most brilliant thing ever.

But the poster came out in February with the movie not coming out until early June! What a torturous few months it has been. I’ve had to watch three superhero films before I could see a potentially life changing film. But I guess that the date ended up being a good one. It is the real start of the Summer films (because counting May is stupid), and hopefully the film would have enough party in it to last me through the months of excessive blockbusters and explosion heavy films.

This doesn’t mean that I will go in praising it no matter what of course. Just look at X-Men: Apocalypse, my most anticipated comic film of the year, and it left a disappointing taste in my mouth. Going in excited means it is very easy for it to crash, that is all I am saying.

How they were able to get an Adam Levine hologram for this movie I will never know.

Ever since Conner4Real (Andy Samberg) was born, he was dope. He could play the drums at 1, he could make the mad rhymes, and he had the best two friends ever: Lawrence (Akiva Schaffer) and Owen (Jorma Taccone).

They made the group The Style Boyz and their hip hop music was everywhere. It inspired tons of modern groups. Lawrence made the lyrics, Conner was the front man, and Owen made the fat beats. Then Conner gets to real, too big, gets his own verse on a song with another artist and does his own solo album that sells a shit ton. And this documentary is about the release of his second album, his world wide tour, and his relationship with his girlfriend, Ashley Wednesday (Imogen Poots).

It is also about the rise and fall of being a popstar and how it can be hard to fall when you were up so damn high.

Tim Meadows plays the manager, Sarah Silverman the publicist, and James Buckley/Edgar Blackman the yes men groupies. Chris Redd is Hunter the Hungry, an upcoming rap superstar, and Joan Cusack is Conner’s mom. Also a shit ton of cameos, of artists playing themselves mostly.

I hope my future groupies will make sure I never leave the house looking like that.

Going into Popstar, I actually didn’t even know it was going to be a Mockumentary. And I love Mockumentaries, one of the rarest genres out there, so it was definitely a nice surprise. And since I have gone out of my way to watch quite a few recent pop tour documentary films (Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, Justin Bieber 2, One Direction, Justin Bieber 3) I was very familiar with the current summer concert line up types of film. Early on in the film, it is was quite clear they were sort of parodying Justine Bieber: Never Say Never film (and the title is similar too, obviously), going to extremes with his backstory and even including Usher!

Add in the fact that we got original The Lonely Island music, with a shit ton of cameos and outrageous humor, you are left with a pretty dang funny feature film. So many quotable lines, plenty of vulgar language and we get an actual human penis in this film. Not a prosthetic dick and not even for a quick flash. They earned their graphic nudity rating.

My favorite scenes actually are where they parody that strange TMZ show where they just badly gossip in their office. They parody it only a few times, but man, I practically laughed nonstop.

If I had complaints, I would say it started to drag a bit near the end. That is kind of disappointing, given the film is under 90 minutes, The film isn’t surprising with the direction it takes, we practically know how it will end, so getting to that point just takes its time.

Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping is start to finish over the top comedy and a great release in this season of blockbusters, sequels, and cinematic universes.

Cmz

A green room is the place in a theater/auditorium/bar where the band and performers can hang out before their gig. To relax, to prep, to snort cocaine, whatever they fancy. And that is where a large portion of the movie Green Room takes place. Fancy that!

And here I just thought that director, Jeremy Saulnier, really liked color movies after also directing Blue Ruin, which I never saw.

Not knowing much about the current punk music scene, or the current nazi skinhead scene, I had actually no idea what to expect with a movie like this one. But in retrospect it makes perfect sense for the Dead Kennedys song Nazi Punks Fuck Off to be featured.

Fuck off or get fucked up. That’s my make motto. In role playing games.

The Ain’t Rights are the biggest punk rock band currently in a van with their logo on it! Yeah, people love them! They don’t have a lot of money and they have to siphon gas just to drive around to their gigs. With Pat (Anton Yelchin) on guitar, Sam (Alia Shawkat) on bass, Reece (Joe Cole) on drums, and Tiger (Callum Turner) as their lead vocalist, there ain’t nothing that can keep them from rocking out.

They even have a radio interview with a Mohawk wielding Tad (David W. Thompson) and a gig, neither of which go so well. To make it up for them, he has hits up his cousin Daniel (Mark Webber) in Portland, and they get them a guaranteed stack of cash to perform an afternoon show at some small isolated venue! Sweet! Except it is actually a Nazi skinhead bar, not their preferred clients, just people who really like punk rock music.

Well, they play, they get paid, and get ready to bail, when unfortunately, one of them accidentally finds this chick Emily (Taylor Tunes) dead in their green room. Now the band find themselves locked in there with another witness (Imogen Poots) and Big Justin (Eric Edelstein). The club manager (Macon Blair) handles the cops and contacts the owner (Patrick Stewart) about the incident, but things still seem quite fishy. In fact, the band feels like after everything is settled, they might be taken care of as well.

After all, dead bands sing no tales.

Did you know he was knighted? That comes with a sword and ranks in horse riding! OP Boss!

As I mentioned before, I am basically illiterate when it comes to modern punk rock scene and skin head culture. But Green Room is just oozing with details that it is impossible to not pick up on them. The director didn’t just have an idea and winged it. This is a guy who knows what he is talking about. Everything just feels authentic (Editor’s Note: Yes, I can say I don’t know anything about it and call it authentic) and natural. This isn’t a group of dumb ass rockers who commit every horror mistake in the book to be slashed down by the menacing Nazis. No, they all have personalities. They are all pretty smart. Hell, at least four or five of the main Nazis are also complete characters with realistic motivations.

I’m not saying the skinheads aren’t really the bad guys. They totally are! Just that their actions make sense and you can see other motivations behind their actions outside of just movie evil.

The whole film is a cohesive unit together. No one really stands out in my eyes more than any other. Hell, my favorite acting might have just been Big Justin the door guard. Not a slight against Stewart or Yelchin, both of whom I was excited to see in the film, it just feels like everyone is on the same level and I am not watching one great performance in a movie, just one really good movie.

It is gory and gross. But I would be hard pressed to call this a horror film. Just a thriller for the most part.

Green Room is realistic and tense, definitely worth the price of admission.

I cannot stand Terrence Malick films. No I haven’t seen a lot of them. I haven’t even seen The Thin Red Line.

But I have seen The Tree of Life and To The Wonder. The former I couldn’t get behind at all, despite some lovely visuals, and the latter was just a complete train wreck from my point of view.

Some people call him pompous, some just refer to him as art house, and I just cannot stand his movies as of right now. So sure, I will give Knight of Cups a chance. But I am going in with a huge bias on my shoulders that I cannot shake. I will never get the time I lost from To The Wonder. Never.

Given the director, you have to assume every shot, no matter what, is actually a metaphor.

Also given the director, describing the plot of the film can be a bit tricky. So let’s run to IMDB for some help:

A writer indulging in all that Los Angeles and Las Vegas has to offer undertakes a search for love and self via a series of adventures with six different women.

Our writer is of course Rick (Christian Bale), whom is apparently good at his job and sought over, but he cares not about his job that much. He cares about his past and who he is going to fuck next. And that means he has more than six relationships in the film, as there are a lot of unnamed girls without speaking roles.

The six women include: Nancy (Cate Blanchett), his ex-wife, Elizabeth (Natalie Portman), a museum enthusiast, Helen (Freida Pinto), a model, Della (Imogen Poots), a free spirit, Karen (Teresa Palmer), a stripper from down under, and Isabel (Isabel Lucas), who, I dunno, likes beaches I guess. They all like beaches though. Beaches are kind of a big thing here.

Oh and he has family! Wes Bently plays his brother, Brian Dennehy his dad. Antonio Banderas has some role of significance, if you can call it that. But I don’t know what or why. Some rich guy.

There has never been a more metaphor-y beach.

I tried, I really did, to understand this movie from a different light. To think about the bigger themes that he might be getting at. To imagine the scenery as its own character. This was all advice people gave to me about Malick movies. Despite my hatred for the last two movies, I knew I had to watch this one do my best to review it fairly, because only watching movies I will probably like does not make me a great film critic.

But this movie just felt like a waste of time. It is two hours long and it felt like it was over three hours. The film felt like it was about to end three separate times before it finally showed the credits. The story that was told could have ended at any moment, because it is hard to say that there really was an actual ending they had in mind. It was all very spiritual and airy. Rarely do you see any character actually talking. Most of the dialogue is spoken over scenes of characters living and interacting with each other. And of course other dialogue is made by never seen characters, some talking poetically, or telling random stories, or…just who the hell knows.

Knight Of Cups is a confusing film. It is broken down into sections named after Tarot cards, which is also where the title comes from. And if you try hard, you might figure out why a section with the characters in it is called The Moon, or Freedom, or Death. Knight of Cups is presumably made so that you can derive your own opinions on the film based on what you get out of it.

And what I get out of it is a big waste of time. Sure, there are some well shot scenes. A whole lot of beaches, and some Californian mountains and death valley. But if I cared about well shot pictures of nature, I’d be watching Planet Earth, not a film that should have a basic story.

James McAvoy is a fun Scottish man. He has risen pretty well into fame territory, but he doesn’t let that get to his head (I think). He still does the indie movies. In fact, it seems like half of his movies are big Hollywood numbers, and the other half are indie. He really loves that shit. He is a man who loves to get into a character, a man who will work with a low budget, just to tell a story.

Maybe he was just humbled after Wanted though, who is to say.

But despite his recent performance as Professor X, again, he has now given us Filth, which is a perfect name to describe this bat shit insane movie.

How insane? Well, let’s just say you wouldn’t want to smell his finger anytime soon.

Bruce Robertson (James McAvoy) is a man who knows what he wants, and gets what he wants. He is a Detective Sergeant in the Edinburgh police force, but there is a new spot opening for Detective Inspector, a big promotion. There are quite a few people competing for the spot (Jamie Bell, Imogen Poots, Brian McCardie, Emun Elliott, Gary Lewis), but they all have faults. Exploitable faults. Faults that Bruce can use against them, playing a massively deceptive game to showcase their faults to his boss (John Sessions), making them all inept to fill the highest role.

The good news is he has been tasked with finding out who killed this Japanese student, who was beaten mercilessly on the streets. Great. Shouldn’t be too hard, and will allow him to set up his multiple schemes to destroy the lives of everyone around him.

Even his friend Clifford (Eddie Marsan), who he tends to bully. He has been calling his wife harassing her sexually, just to get a ruse out of them. What a guy right?

A lot of this can be “blamed” on the fact that his wife, Carole (Shauna Macdonald), took his daughter to visit families during the holidays. Because of course this is around Christmas time. If there wasn’t a lot of pressure for Bruce to solve the case and get promoted, he’d be able to take a vacation and all. Blamed is sarcasm here guys. Because he is a scumbag, he does scumbag things.

And Jim Broadbent is in here, so you know he has some sort of comical zany role.

No, nothing about this looks comical OR zany.

I am trying not to fill this review up with adjectives that all mean the same thing, so instead I will reiterate how insane this movie felt. The Bruce character seemed to have no rhyme or reason for most of his actions. He was rustling jimmies just for the heck of it. But this movie isn’t just some sick guys fantasy about hating his coworkers or something. No. There IS a point to the madness, and it was explained very well with hints throughout the end. I really enjoyed the ending. In fact, the ending actually has a similarity to Wanted, go figure.

It was hard to look away for most of the film, a definite plus, mostly because the viewer would have no real clue with where it was going. Thankfully, when it had to be dramatic, it did a decent job at those scenes as well.

Outside of McAvoy, I am a bit surprised at how well Eddie Marsan did. He is generally a side character in most movies, much like this one, but this performance of his was quite different from his other roles. He also had enough make up that it took me awhile to even recognize his (normally) very recognizable face.

Overall, Filth is definitely a unique movie, telling a unique story, but not something everyone may appreciate. Still not even sure if it is the type of film I could comfortably watch again. Well, maybe once. But no more after that.

Need For Speed as a movie? Originally, I thought the idea was terrible. After all, most video games turned into movies are terrible. Although, with something as vague as a racing game with non-important plots, the only thing they really need to keep consistent is the race aspect.

Then they added Aaron Paul to the project. America’s sweetheart after his stint on Breaking Bad, ready to make his mark on the movie world. Now with his voice narrating the trailer, channeling his apparent inner Batman, this becomes a movie about more than racing. It becomes a movie about revenge.

And of course a rag tag group of friends overcoming the odds.

Tobey Marshall (Paul) is a small New York city mechanic and amateur racer. There was a falling out between him and Dino Brewster (Dominic Cooper), who was able to leave the town and become a professional racer, even driving in the Indy 500. What happened? Well, it wasn’t ever really said, but it must have involved Anita (Dakota Johnson).

Needless to say, everyone is on edge when he comes to town. But he just wants them to fix up a very fancy car for him, offering them a quarter of the selling price. After fixing it up, they get into an argument, and agree to race for the entire profit of the car. Pete (Harrison Gilbertson) joins them too and they use very fancy European future cars! Well, Dino starts losing near the end, clips Pete, and Pete begins one of the longest craziest crashes I have ever seen. Seriously, the crash is more ridiculous than anything on The Blues Brothers.

Dino doesn’t go back to the crash, though. Tobey goes to jail, wrongfully accused of manslaughter. Once he gets out, two years later, he has two days to drive to LA to get accepted into a secret big time car race. During that race, he will enact his revenge on Dino, while hopefully also proving his innocence. How? Good question.

He has his crew with him (Scott Mescudi, Rami Malek, Ramon Rodriguez), and Julia (Imogen Poots), a British car enthusiast. Also starring Michael Keaton as the mysterious Monarch who runs the mysterious race and a car racing internet show.

Also, some shit gets fucked up.

Need For Speed clocks in at 130 minutes, which is over two hours for you anti-math people out there. It features arguably four races. You know, your standard intro race, your plot causing race, your race across the country, and your secret invite only race. The largest one is of course the cross country one, featuring drivers trying to stop Tobey from getting to California thanks to Dino putting out a hit on him. Kind of ridiculous to publicly do it, being an “innocent” man and all.

Despite the long run time, it didn’t feel like it dragged on. It felt good for the characters to actually have passion and drive for something other than just racing. That’s right. There is a plot that matters in this racing movie. It is what Fast & Furious 7 has the potential to be (but looks like the screen writers are messing that up too).

I would say Need For Speed is a step in the right direction for the racing movie genre. It wasn’t secretly disguised as a super hero movie with cars. It was about racing and revenge. That is all. The chemistry between the actors was pretty good, and honestly, a lot of the plot felt unpredictable. Except for the cool helicopter scene in the trailer. I wish they didn’t spoil that, that would have been epic if I didn’t know it was about to happen the entire time.

Yeah, I liked it overall. Definitely made me want to “floor it” as I left the theater. I even considered for the first time in my life to buy a non-Mario Kart racing game, which is presumably what EA is hoping for with this movie.

That Awkard Moment at first glance appeared to just be another dumb buddy comedy at the end of January, but then I really looked at the three main actors involved.

Sure, Zac Efron early on was typecasted as a pretty boy who could sing, but he has been in some more serious roles recently, with The Paperboy and Parkland. Also, shut up, I like him a lot in Hairspray. So he isn’t a terrible actor, he just was in some terrible movies early on.

Miles Teller busted onto the scene more recently. First, he was the boy in the very sad Rabbit Hole, then he was the best part of the Footloose remake, the best part in 21 and Over, and starred in the incredible The Spectacular Now. This guy hasn’t made many poor decisions at all.

Finally, we have Michael B. Jordan, who recently wow’d audiences with Fruitvale Station, but was also awesome in Chronicle, Parenthood, and now rumored to be in the Fantastic Four reboot. Not to mention he sometimes sounds like a young Denzel Washington.

All I am saying is, this film might not deserve to get written off so quickly.

But, then again, it might just be another stupid comedy.

The story, it’s a simple one. Mikey (Michael B. Jordan) has recently found out that his wife Vera (Jessica Lucas) has been cheating on him, with her lawyer. Her lawyer is a Morris Chestnut looking motherfucker (when really it is D.B. Woodside, who yeah, looks like Chestnut but is also somewhat famous).

In order to help cheer up their friend, who has been in a relationship for many years, his best buds Jason (Zac Efron) and Daniel (Miles Teller) all agree to stay single for as long as possible now. Because women are evil! Relationships are stupid! And all that other stuff.

Unfortunately at the same time, Jason meets Ellie (Imogen Poots), an intellectual sort who has been trying to make it as a writer. She is different from the rest of the girls on his “roster.” Daniel also realizes that Chelsea (Mackenzie Davis), his forever wingwoman is actually also kind of special, so they begin a secret relationship. At the same time, Mikey is trying to patch things up with Vera, despite her cheating ways.

Yeah, some bet, right? Not even a prize or anything. No reason for it.

Bet you didn’t expect to see two shirtless men in this review, did ya?

In That Awkward Moment, the one thing I can be glad they didn’t do is say the movie phrase a lot or make it a recurring theme.

There were some awkward moments, but some of those moments were also incredibly sad and depressing. Although a lot funnier in the first half, it goes hard into the romance angle on the second half. Not fully reaching the RomCom levels or anything, but it is still actually a Romance Comedy.

And the reason why I enjoyed it so much is because of the talent involved. Not just the three guys I mentioned above, but also Poots and Davis. Davis was not as important of a character and hasn’t really been in anything else, but she really played her role well. Poots did a good job (and/or the writer) by not portraying a stereotypical woman character, in a male dominated movie.

The chemistry between the three male leads was also incredible. Being an audience member, I really felt like I was just hanging out on the couch with them and joking around. The bromance was real. Teller played a similar role to his roles in every other movie. I found Efron to show a large emotional range, more than I am used to, especially in the second half. Jordan did good too, despite his character being in the most depressing of the three situations.

What can I say? Talented actors can make a dumb concept movie entertaining and good.

Hey, did you read my review of Quartet? Probably not. Well, long story short, it wasn’t good.

I also noted my confusion over thinking it was a different film, called A Late Quartet. Realizing there were two different films of similar themes and titles around the same time cleared up all my confusion. It totally isn’t my fault I thought they were the same thing, but I will take the blame like a real pseudo-anonymous internet person.

It is dvdsreleasedates.com‘s fault, I swear! I am innocent!

The Fugue Quartet is a pretty big deal. That is two violins, a viola, and a cello, for you music noobs out there. For those music experts, they are also a made up quartet, so don’t go looking for them. They were made decades earlier, and have been kicking ass for a long time.

But poor Peter Mitchell (Christopher Walken), the quartet’s founder and cellist. But he is developing Parkinson’s disease, so his playing days and living days are both soon to be over. After telling the group, certain issues and drama arise, which can break apart the very fabric of the group.

Robert (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Juliette (Catherine Keener), second violin and viola, met via the group, fell in love, got married, and had a daughter Alexandra (Imogen Poots). Well, Robert is thinking about asking the group if the two violinists can split shift their duties, apparently a big no no in music groups. Even worse, his wife thinking the other dude is better than him.

The other dude being Daniel Lerner (Mark Ivanir) a very talented violinist, who they get to also teach Alexandra some tips while she finishes high school. Unfortunately, he decides to give her a different, extra tip.

Can they find a replacement for Peter? Can love survive the marriage or the strange agely different affair? Can Daniel let Robert play some better violin? WILL THE EARTH CRASH AND BURN FIRST? Why is Wallace Shawn in this movie?!

They are about to perform? MY BODY IS READY!

What happens when you take four incredible actors and make them act in a movie? You get good acting! Okay, I never heard of Mark Ivanir before, but he was just as vital and good in this movie as the other big three.

For Christopher Walken, he is still in tons of movies, but it seems more often than not they are making him play a joke version of his actual self. It gets kind of annoying, and you can tell he isn’t trying too hard. In this film, he gets to play a real role and act, and does it well. He had a very emotional moment near the end in particular.

Philip Seymour Hoffman had to play a man realizing he isn’t the best, and that everyone around him knows it. He doesn’t want to be the best second violinist in the world, he wants to lead the group darn it.

Catherine Keener had an amazing scene with Imogen Poots, mother to daughter, and it was so shockingly realistic, it hurt me so.

This movie lets classical music be the back drop and score, making it a bit fancy. It also created an atmosphere making the viewer feel as if they have known the group their whole lives, instantly knowing everyone personally.

More importantly, it shows the group playing music as well. Quartet didn’t really show the people singing. Obviously the actors didn’t play the songs themselves, but it looked like it. We didn’t just get a big tease for a grand show, and then you know, not get it. Fucking Quartet.