Tag: Jason Spevack

Jesus Henry Christ

I chances of me finding out about Jesus Henry Christ and watching it were probably pretty low. Just looking at a bunch of titles for 2012 movies, knowing I have been not on the new side recently, and saw it and thought. Huh. Why not. Title alone.

Turns out it is based on a short story and produced by Julia Roberts. A star backing an indie movie, watch out!

I also think it has a limited release on theaters starting…well today. Whoops!

JHC
This picture actually shows most of the plot.

This is a story about a boy named Henry (Jason Spevack). Henry is an only child raised by his single mom Patricia (Toni Collette), whom he calls by name. Patricia is a feminist and protester throughout most of her life, thanks to weird incidents in her youth. Thanks to a tragic (Drunken) accident, her mom was a killed, and she was raised solely by her dad Stan (Frank Moore) and four older brothers.

What Henry doesn’t know is that he was a “test tube” baby, and has no idea who his biological dad is. But his grandfather might, thanks to protesting. Hell, Patricia was mad that he came out a boy. But at 9 months when he was already able to talk, they figured something was up. Even getting kicked out of kindergarten for being too advanced, and then kicked out of a private catholic school for trying to disprove the bible.

Thanks to crazy genetics, he can remember everything he has seen, making himself pretty advanced.

Either way, thanks to his grandfather, he finds out that his most likely father is a professor at a local university (Michael Sheen), who has recently published a book entitled “Born Gay or Made That Way?”. Which features his daughters face, Audrey (Samantha Weinstein), a he experimented with her upbringing (also a single father), by making her entirely gender neutral to see..well, what happens. Besides the whole, ruining his daughters life with a book about her maybe being a lesbian.

Turns out it isn’t that simple, he could have a different father, but that guy is dead. That dead guy? Also might be Audrey’s real father too. So all four of them get to do fun parental tests to find out just who i related to who.

In a nutshell, a “dysfunctional family comedy” where the family might not be a family at all.

finger bang
A family that needle pricks together…

Not only is this another indie quirky family comedy thing where every character is a very specific extreme that will never happen…it is also shot, differently.

Weirdly?

Hard to describe. But I loved the cinematography (And the plot and actors/actresses, etc). Just felt unique, and slightly different, but not like “Whoa, get off my screen Hipster!” different. Maybe it was all very subtle. Or maybe they just had to do it to save money, because its an indie film.

I have no idea, but it was definitely a very interesting movie to watch. I will for sure get it once it comes out on DVD/Blu-Ray/whatever new technology disk.

3 out of 4.

Sunshine Cleaning

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.

Blue suits
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.

Sunshine Cleaning
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.

2 out of 4.