Tag: Kathryn Hahn

This Is Where I Leave You is one of those movies that I really didn’t care about seeing right away. I knew I could wait for it, despite liking quite a few members of the cast.

What was my beef? I call it Jason Bateman fatigue. A lot of people in this movie, but his character gets to be the main character, and for the most part, his last several years of roles have been very very similar. The Switch, The Change-Up, Identity Thief, Bad Words, Horrible Bosses. He is generally an asshole character who likes to make fun of others and has bad things happen to him. Sure he is a dick, but people are usually bigger dicks, so his dick-ness is justified.

Either way, I am super tired of him because he always gets lead guy status, thanks to Arrested Development I guess (which is also the same character).

I am tired of what feels like him lazily acting on the screen. It was fine the first few times, but now I really don’t know why I expected anything other than the dead dove.

But we have female on male violence, so I guess it can’t be too bad.

Can we look at that image closer? I think I got a stunt double in here or something, because man, that looks nothing like Tina Fey or what I would imagine Tina Fey looks like mid punch.

Mort Altman is dead. He is survived by his wife (Jane Fonda) and four kids. He was an athiest, but apparently he wanted a Jewish ceremony at his death and have his family sit shiva. That is an older tradition where the family literally sits for a week (outside of food/sleep/etc) to talk and honor the dead. People are meant to visit them throughout the week as well, to allow the stories to be said in a more natural way and to pass on the legacy of the individual. I learned about it at first from Weeds.

So we have Judd (Bateman) who is about to get separated from his wife (Abigail Spencer) because he found her in bed with his boss (Dax Shepard). Wendy (Tina Fey) is upset over her husband (Aaron Lazar) for being too busy with work, not able to stay, but also having to deal with kids and former lovers. Paul (Corey Stoll), the oldest, who wants to take over the family business cannot seem to get his wife (Kathryn Hahn) pregnant. And Phillip (Adam Driver) is younger, reckless, and dating a much older woman, a psychiatrist (Connie Britton), who actually was inspired by their family to go into her field.

What? Oh yeah, their family was written about by their mother in a book, so people know all about their lives. In a way, this makes it very similar to Peep World, but no one watched Peep World.

And yeah. Shenanigans. Also with Ben Schwartz, Debra Monk, Rose Byrne and Timothy Olyphant.

Shenanigans I say!

Overall, This Is Where I Leave You is a typical dysfunctional family comedy film. Maybe with more physical punches between and from siblings, but nonetheless, a lot of this is pretty typical.

TIWILY does attempt to do some things differently. With Bateman’s story line, there are unexpected elements behind it and they were a bit refreshing. But Driver’s plot was incredibly standard, Fey’s seemed like filler, and Stoll’s was underdeveloped.

The best part of the film is actually Jane Fonda! Her character is hilarious and really helps mesh the whole movie together. If you needed a reason to check this movie out at some point, Jane would be your reason.

A lot of it is predictable, a lot of it is okay. Overall, it just feels like too much. None of it feels realistic, to have so many things happen this way in a week, so it is hard to relate to any of the characters, at least from my point of view.

Shh. Go away. Review is over~.

Alright, cool, Spelling Bees are still a thing. I never got into spelling correctly. You probably knew that from my reviews. But to be fair, I have enough problems with the English language as it is, which is why I kind of hate spelling bees. I just consider most of those words made up, basically.

So we have Bad Words, which for whatever reason got a limited release as if it was some po-duck indie movie. Took it a few weeks to come out in my town, up against Captain America: The Winter Soldier, so clearly they didn’t expect anyone to come see it.

I don’t know if the words are bad, but the sportsmanship definitely looks bad.

Guy Trilby (Jason Bateman) seems to be an unreasonable asshole. He is mean, condescending, doesn’t want to talk to interact with others and is extremely vague. He also has been entered into the Golden Quill national spelling bee.

Making his way through the ranks, pissing people off along the way, he is finally going to nationals. He had found loop holes in their guidelines, and since he never finished the eight grade, he is eligible. Hell, he even has a sponsor, an online news paper who has lawyers at their disposal to help fix any issues. Jenny (Kathryn Hahn) is his personal reporter, who gets to have the exclusive interview/article after it is all over and done with the hopes of finding out just why this man needs to do this.

Is he just really bitter? Did he fail at spelling bees as a kid? Rough upbringing? Does he hate children? Well, you won’t know until the last third or so.

But there is a cute kid character of course, Chaitanya Chopra (Rohan Chand) who seems to lack a caring home. So sad.

Also starring Philip Baker Hall as the president of the Golden Quill, Allison Janney as the also high up member of the organization, Ben Falcone as a reporter, and Steve Witting as the proctor.

If you missed it, he literally pisses everyone off.

If anything, I can definitely say that Bad Words was different. It was Bateman’s first time at the directing chair for a movie, so presumably he put a lot of himself into this movie and really made it his way. It was pretty short, less than 90 minutes, going for a simpler story to tell.

But there were times when I still felt like it was a bit too long. Strange, I know. They had a lot of him hanging out with the kid, doing crazier and crazier things, and I was just sitting there wanting the next stage of the competition.

There were definitely times I laughed a lot, but technically all of the jokes were the same. It was Guy Trilby being an asshole to the people around him. He was good at insulting, but there was literally no other outlet for humor which just kind of annoyed me.

The ending was chaos, had some technical issues from what I could see, but still ended basically the way I would have expected.

I guess aspects of this movie were a bit on the Black Comedy route, but they didn’t go too far with that either. Overall, I think the movie was just okay. Had some laugh out loud moments, a lot of technical errors or goofs, and just something that probably wouldn’t interest me the second time I tried to watch it.

The first trailer for The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty is probably one of the best trailers of the year. Watch it, if you haven’t.

The next one was far more typical of a trailer, but it was still decent. Even better, the song in the trailer was actually used in the movie, a rarity these days.

The only thing I knew about this movie is that it took forever to get made, and it is based roughly on a short story written by James Thurber in the 30s. The next decade, it actually had a movie adaptation as well. I am pretty sure this is nothing like the short story, but eh, who gives a shit.

Look at all the fucks I give about the short story.

Walter Mitty (Ben Stiller) manages the negative assets of the Life magazine department. I don’t know what that means, really, but it involves receiving the print rolls of cameras, and using the negatives to put in the magazine. He only has one employee, Hernando (Adrian Martinez), so it is pretty slow, and only one photographer still uses an actual camera. That photographer is of course Sean O’Connell (Sean Penn), a freelance photographer, and one of the best in the biz.

However, when the announcement that Life magazine is switching to an online only format, with some asshat manager Ted Hendricks (Adam Scott) coming in to handle the downsizing, it is unfortunate that Sean sends what he calls the epitome of Life magazine and an image that must be on the front cover. Especially since he telegrams the heads of the office and inform them of it too. The only reason it is an issue, of course, is because the picture in question seems to be missing from the film.

So what is a constant day dreamer to do? Why, go and find Sean in person of course, even if it means traveling halfway around the world to do so. At the same time, he is trying to build up his online dating resume, to do something cool with his life, to win the interests of one of his coworkers, Cheryl (Kristen Wiig).

Starring Shirley MacLaine as his mother, Kathryn Hahn as his sister, and Patton Oswalt as an overly helpful E-Harmony customer service representative.

I mean, I am a huge Adam Scott fan, but this beard is terrible.

Well, as expected, this movie sure was purdy. It had scenery from Greenland, Iceland, Afghanistan and more. Beautiful as fuck, really.

Not only was it pleasing on the eyes, both in terms of his fantasies and actual exploits, but it had a great soundtrack as well. Every time a new song played, it felt perfect.

Ben Stiller gets a lot of flack amongst my friends, but I always tend to enjoy him. I mean, did you see him in Heavy Weights? He treated this movie like a child, it being only the fifth movie he has directed. Everything really works together in this movie, and one of the best parts is that once the missing picture is found, it isn’t disappointing.

Sean Penn has only a small role in this movie, but his character was amazing in his only few scenes. Incredible impact for such little screen time.

As the film progressed, the day dreams became fewer and farther in between, and you get spoiled by most of them from the trailers. During the long fight scene between Ted and Walter, the CGI was a bit shaky, I am guessing because there weren’t any other action shots to worry about.

Overall, The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty is a great feel good movie, about living in the moment, and doing something important with your life. Yay happiness!

Watching the trailer for We’re The Millers, it is clear that it could be hit or miss. There are moments in there that make me laugh every time I see it, and those that make me think it will be the worse film ever.

I like Jason Sudeikis as a comedy actor. The problem is, he hasn’t proven himself yet as a leading man in a comedy movie. He is fine as a side kick, or part of a trio, but his only real venture as leading man was in A Good Old Fashioned Orgy, which ended up being less than stellar.

If anything, this film might just cement Eustace from The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader as a young comedic genius. Stranger things have happened.

“We’re not even a real family. She is just a washed up actress from a 90s Sitcom!” Whoa, Jason. That’s cold.

David (Sudeikis) is a guy in his mid thirties, still dealing pot. It’s a good life for him. But when he gets robbed of his stash, cash, and back up cash, he finds himself in a pile of trouble. His boss Brad (Ed Helms) doesn’t care and sort of wants to kill him! Unless he heads down to Mexico, grabs a shipment of drugs for him, smuggles it across the border. Sounds easy when the other option is death. Plus, he will earn an extra $100k. Nice!

The problem is, he looks like a drug dealer and in no way can smuggle it across the border on his own. Until he realizes that white middle class families on vacation never get searched! He just has to rent and RV and a group of people to play his family.

He hires the weird kid downstairs, Kevin (Will Poulter), the homeless girl on the street, Casey (Emma Roberts), and the stripper down the hall, Rose (Jennifer Aniston) to play the various roles of the Miller family. Nothing could go wrong!

Sure they get to Mexico, and find out that they are actually stealing the marijuana from a Mexican drug lord (Tomer Sisley). Sure, the amount of drugs is several thousands of pounds worth. But they can probably still pull it off.

Hitmen, spiders, engine failure, dogs, DEA, and another RV family (Nick Offerman, Kathryn Hahn, Molly C. Quinn) are just some of the other problems they will face on the road.

I’d let Nick Offerman sexually wet willy my ear any day. Even Tuesday.

After viewing We’re The Millers, I think that Jason Sudeikis was able to run this movie like the comedy veteran I always knew he could be. It works. It really does.

Yes, this movie has a lot of foul mouthed humor. Cursing, sex jokes, genitalia jokes, incest jokes, it has them all. The unfunny scenes I alluded to in the trailer mostly turned out pretty decent, which is a big relief.

Almost every time Will Poulter was on camera, I found myself laughing. He used to be an annoying asshole kid in a bad Narnia movie. But now he plays the awkward teenager so well, that everything the put him through just tickled my gills.

It wasn’t a perfect movie. Sitting there, a lot of character actions and decisions seemed illogical. If the script was stronger overall, they could have avoided those type of moments. I don’t think they really knew what to do with Emma Roberts as her role in comparison was really limited. Such a shame.

Now if you excuse me, I am going to go blast my old TLC records up and start planning my own fake family vacations.

Wanderlust is a movie I really didn’t know much about. But Paul Rudd, I am sure it is good.

Something about hippies, and lots of sex. Not expecting much, but potential for a lot, hooray! Too bad its previews began with lies!

This scene is no where in the movie. This scene is a lie. Yet this scene was heavily publicized.

George (Rudd) and Linda (Jennifer Aniston) are a couple in NYC! Just bought a “micro loft” which kind of sucks, and well, George’s company goes under and he loses his job. Yes, right after they bought the place. Linda doesn’t really work, but has different projects. Well they are fucked, so they head down to Atlanta on a really long and annoying road trip, to visit George’s dick brother, Rick (Ken Marino) and wife. But due to stress, and being tired of the car, they stop at the first place they find, a bed and breakfast.

Where they find a naked guy, Wayne (Joe Lo Truglio) and immediately try to run, messing up their car. So they have to stay, thankfully he is the only nudist. And in the middle of the night they are woken up by strange sounds, a party downstairs. Full of drugs and craziness. Turns out this is a place where a bunch of free spirited people live and just be happy.

Currently lead by Jesus looking Seth (Justin Theroux), the place features everything. Truth circles, sex orgies, whatever. But when a government company is planning on using the land to build a casino, because no one can find the original deeds to the land, what will happen? Lots of shit. Other hippies include Malin Akerman, Lauren Ambrose, Kathryn Hahn, and an elder, Alan Alda.

And because you wanted to make sure there was more naked people in this movie.

Wanderlust had all the potential to be an amazing film, but to me fell short when it only relied on dicks and lame sex jokes. That is dicks in the “hey we will keep showing you dicks” sense, and the “hey, a few of these people are super dickish, and thus funny” sense. The sex jokes end up disappointing, probably due to the lack of sex that actually occurs (aka none?).

Although moments did make me chuckle, I found them to few and far in between. It is hard to find a likeable character in this movie, and the ending just doesn’t seem fulfilling.

Not much else to say. Paul Rudd, stop doing very similar characters. I want some variety damn it.