Tag: Indie

You know, the title of the movie is way to easy to joke. It is obviously asking for it. It can’t not be intentional. Good Dick? Gahh.

“Good dick? I know nothing of it. But give me a second and I will find something “great”, baby.”

Alright, so the beginning is a bit creepy. Main dude Jason Ritter is working at a video store. Clearly living the life. A girl comes in, Marianna Palka, rents some porn and leaves. He is INFATUATED with her. He uses the computer to find where she lives to accidentally run into her and ask about coffee. He lies about why he is there (aunt in the complex) and continues to try to ask her out.

She continues to say no. This continues up to a point where he lies about his aunt’s death and for sympathy she invites him in, but even has a knife just in case.

Just in case what? Rape. Holy shit, jokes aside, but Flynn from Tangled may be right! This guy is a creeper and that girl should stab him.

Somehow eventually he pseudo moves in. The girl clearly has no interest in him or sex with anyone, and is super weird. But for some reason this guy is super patient and relentless and doesn’t understand the meaning of no.

The rest of the movie is him trying to, more or less, erode her down like a river, until she likes him too. Also to try and figure out why she is so weird.

I refuse to google “Good Dick” to find a picture of this movie.

Tom Arnold also has a small role near the end, but is a pretty good one.

If you get past all of the weird creepiness, it is an interesting story. I think it tried to be real, but just felt like the opposite. If there is anything I have learned, it is that big romantic movie gestures just get the cops called in real life. But damn it, the ending is so interesting once you find it out! Ahhh. What a dick movie.

I first heard of this movie from Joseph Gordon-Levitt himself. He came to UNC on some weird tour called HitRecord, and showed the preview for Hesher for fun. When I saw it, I thought “Well, that is shit.”

Thankfully enough, I was wrong! This movie was a lot better than I thought, if not weird. It also definitely earned its R rating, so maybe my review should fucking too? I think I only need to say fuck twice to earn an official R. Well done, self!

Hesher is a loud mouth metal psychopath like person, who also is a homeless drifter. He of course befriends a kid and lives his family (dad / Rainn Wilson) who have recently lost the mom, and teaches them how to live life again through unconventional means. Sounds like a bad sitcom? Yes.

But this was pretty fantastic. Lot of violence, some OH WHAT scenes, and language and sex. Also Natalie Portman plays a nerd girl.

I prefer my Natalie to be Nerd Natalie. So does Thor.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt pulls off this role, and I don’t think anyone could have expected that. I mean, this is the wing flapping, invading earth, cobra commanding JGL here. How dare he gain the ability to grow long hair and listen to metal. But it was very captivating, and off beat.

The only reason this movie caught my eye is thanks to accidentally seeing its trailer in another movie. Oh great, another sitcom star trying to do a big indie movie that is kind of comedic that he wrote and directed, with some low name actress who has been in fantasy related movie who will probably become big later on.

Not going to lie. That comparison was way too easy to make. This time the sitcom star who wrote/directed the movie is Josh Radnor of How I Met Your Mother, the woman is Malin Akerman who was previously in Watchmen. Saying she is going to be a big star later on though I can’t prove yet.

“I wear my sunglasses inside, so I can, so I can…

As of course this being an indie comedy, I was expecting to enjoy most of it and have a bad ending. By bad I mean one that just stopped. Indie movies love not having that “Hollywood everything wrap up” ending, when they don’t realize that having no ending at all makes the last minutes spent watching it just feel kind of pointless. I kind of lied up there too, Akerman is actually not the love interest, but the bald best friend (gross). Kate Mara, my new favorite ginger crush is though.

Thankfully this movie actually did end, because Josh Radnor said I deserve it!

The story is a bunch of 20somethings in NYC and their love lives, more or less. All of the storylines complete themselves by the end (but one. That is kind of up in the air), so that is good. People can be happy it turns out! The storyline involving subway kid was all unexpected and sufficiently awkward for me to watch. So yeah, this movie was better than I thought it would be, and I laughed out loud some times. Which is a weird thing to do alone!

I first thought this movie would be some lame Indie movie that was just trying to be like real life and bore me. But actually it got pretty interesting after the first ~15 minutes. Paul G is a volunteer wrestling coach at a high school, and lawyer. He also becomes the official guardian of an old dude and puts him in a home…as his grandson he never knew about comes to down to escape from his pseudo messed up mom (Played by Beth from Detroit Rock City. Whoaaa).

I am pretty sure that is the original draft of The Simpsons as well.

Anyways, the kid joins the wrestling team, does good, and continues to have family issues. Was a very real story, but super interesting. Movie has some comedic elements, but the kid actor really did fantastic in his role. I IMDB’d him and he has only done this role. Never acted before this. Used to be a great wrestler himself but had some spine injury or something. Alex Shaffer would be a very interesting person to watch to see if he continues to act, because he was very believable.

The ending had everything just fit into place, almost forced, but overall just a very enjoyable film. Of course before then everyone gets mad at each other, the kid doesn’t do as good at wrestling, and almost leaves his small town. But thankfully not only does he find a new family to live with, he also finds something he can excel at, and enrich the lives of others. You could even call it a Win Win situation.

“I see what you did there.”

Also, the wife is played by Michael Scott’s lover in The Office.

Alright, this is an indie movie that I probably never would have noticed until a friend of mine saw it and liked it. She said I probably wouldn’t enjoy it.

Shows what she knows. I mean, once I saw that it starred Kat Dennings, I had to see it, no matter how weird indie, chick flicky, it may turn out to be.

What big “eyes” you have.

Another way to describe this movie is as one where Kat Dennings has sex. A lot. Like. Constantly.

Kat is a high school girl, and new to the area. So what does she do? She tries to seduce the teacher and get high a bunch. The teacher is played by Josh Lucas, who was also recently in The Lincoln Lawyer. While getting high she also gets somewhat involved with a random junkie. That random junkie of course being played by Reece Thompson. Oh what a crazy adolescenes she lives!

The movie has a lot of smart dialogue, and interesting plot. It is also filled with a lot of flashbacks and, you guessed it, daydream fantasies. I am mad that all Kat Dennings is doing now is some stupid show. It has a laugh track, which lessens the overall amount of awesome it could achieve.

When I daydream, I generally don’t think of movie plots, but of how big Kat Dennings’s…eyes are.

3 out of 4.