Tag: Katie Aselton

Everyone reading this has a big regret. It is the same collective one. You know. Not investing in Bitcoin decades ago when it was just starting out. The same thing you said probably a decade ago, and maybe said a couple of years ago. If it keeps going up though….should you invest now? Hard to say.

It’d be easier to guess and get lucky with the next bitcoin, but there are a lot out there, and no one is reaching that same level of price, so its a hard battle.

But what does that have to do with the movie Silk Road? No, not the ancient one. The new one, that was for drugs on the internet with bitcoin! Ah yes, the story is full circle now. Sure, I would love a movie about the start up and take down of one of the most infamous “websites” out there.

Need this film to make at least this much money to break even.

Ross Ulbricht (Nick Robinson) is one of those types. You know. A libertarian. He believes in lots of freedoms and getting away from the federal and local governments as much as possible. And probably, sometimes, he believes in non libertarian ideals as well, but that’s one of the perks of being a libertarian. Being able to claim to be different despite being just like everyone else.

Anyways. He is good at computers, and likes bitcoins and thinks all of this is the future. So he ends up setting up Silk Road. An Amazon for drugs and illegal stuff! Nothing really bad like assassins for hire, but weed, LCD, fun stuff. And thanks to encryption, the dark web, and bitcoin, he can set this whole thing up and even have the drugs mailed through the US postal service right to people’s doorsteps. Ah yes. Freedom.

But the government ain’t going to let this one slide. They will have a crack team (heh) of FBI specialists who know the internet to try and trace him and bring him in. And they will also have Rick Bowden (Jason Clarke), a DEA agent close to retirement who also has huge money issues, trying to figure out how to stop it despite being mostly computer illiterate and his much younger boss not caring about what he works on.

Also starring Alexandra Shipp, Jimmi Simpson, Katie Aselton, Lexi Rabe, Darrell Britt-Gibson, Daniel David Stewart, and Paul Walter Hauser. 

“What the fuck is the internet?“

If I had to guess, Silk Road wanted to be the next Social Network with some Catch Me If You Can action. People avoiding arrest and starting tech revolutions. Hip young people out to save the world. Violence and drugs and maybe even a little bit of sex.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t end up being as good as either of these films. It is a lot less witty and pretty bare bones on the plot. I liked parts, I hated parts, and I really thought a lot of information was skipped on the true story elements. I don’t even know if that is true. It just feels like a lot of it was skipped around or ignored or just accomplished during montages. And in terms of a police cat and mouse game with Ulbricht, well, it is really just mostly avoidance until a couple things get let up, and that is it.

Fun fact, Robinson and Shipp were previously in the movie Love, Simon, in definitely not a relationship, but they are in one for some time in this movie.

Back to this movie. It is such a good story in real life, but I think the movie tries to remain neutral in all of the story telling, so it can’t really fully give me a really wow granting storyline. All of the acting is just fine. It was good to find out about the DEA agent who decided to be a dickbag about this whole thing a well, but it doesn’t make this version of the story interesting enough to ever warrant a rewatch unfortunately.

Synchronic has probably one of the best movie posters I have seen of this year. Check it out. I don’t know anything about this movie going into it, but it captivates a lot of imagery. Is it about time travel? It is probably about time travel. Maybe.

The film is directed by Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson, who have worked together before, but got relatively famous in the indie community for directing The Endless a couple of years ago. That was a film I wanted more out of, and probably need to give a second chance viewing.

But they love dealing with the mysterious, and the drama, and the fantasy, so I am sure, sure…that this movie is about time travel. Probably.

OH ALSO! The directors care about safety, and don’t actually want you to go to theaters if it isn’t safe enough. That is pretty awesome and will hurt their line and maybe their status in the business, but hey, they have morals damn it.

Well, there’s no proof of time travel in this picture. Unless they time travel to night time of the same day.

Steve (Anthony Mackie) and Dennis (Jamie Dornan) are paramedics down in New Orleans, and this movie has nothing to do with Katrina (yay!). It is just a setting. A lot of their job unfortunately is working with people hurt and dying of drug overdoses, given the location of their city. Nothing against people with addictions, it is just a same to see so many young lives lost and stuck.

Steve has his own worries going on, about his future career, and about his life, after being a bachelor for so long. His partner has a wife (Katie Aselton) and kids, the oldest Brianna (Ally Ioannides) is turning 18 and wants to move away for college. What the hell is Steve doing with his life?

Well, at the same time, a new designer drug hits their area, named Synchronic. Nice name. It gets a real unique feeling but has side effects, of course. Shit starts getting wild around them, like, their world changes. Sometimes people feel like they are going to a completely different part of the world in a different time. Like…time travel. But sometimes, young people don’t return for some reason.

And sure enough, Brianna goes missing. Did she take the drug? Is it time for experiment drug taking to save a life?

Okay, this also isn’t time travel. This is just normal day time, booo.

As I already stated, I did see their first film The Endless. And despite not getting fully entrenched in that film, I can say visually it is obvious these are the same directors. A lot of it stylistically feels the same, despite having a higher budget this time around for better equipment (and the low equipment was likely part of the appeal of The Endless). It still contains that ominous air of mystery and music around the situation, asking us to wonder how much of it is real and where is the story going?

Mackie absolutely slays in the lead of this film. He feels so emotional and real. We get all about his business and this entire film feels personal to him. I don’t remember if we have ever seen this side of him before, but Mackie does have a lot of smaller films to his name, they aren’t all just Avengers an cop movies, so I can’t say I’ve seen them all.

The drug is relatively unique and I love, LOVE, the rules associated with it and the methodology put into it by the characters to discover just how things worked. It didn’t answer all the questions, but enough to get the job done.

This is a film about finding your purpose in life, whether you are read for it or not. Accepting a destiny that is hard to fathom until the moment really shows itself. How can you better yourself or your surroundings when so much shit is falling apart in front of your eyes?

Synchronic has some great visuals that are limited in nature, you have to wait for them and earn them (outside of the opening scene). It doesn’t overwhelm you with special effects constantly, it is a lot more grounded in reality. It is a fresh and unique film and one that is worth at least one gander, if not two.

Bet you never heard of Fun Mom Dinner!

With words like that, it sounds like an absolute blast! It has fun! Mom! And dinner! The exclamation points are provided by me, free of charge!

First things first, it looks like it is trying to be a quick cash grab for those Bad Moms fans, which I am sure there are dozens of them. Or at least enough dozens to make a sequel worthy. There have actually been a lot of girl group films this year, with also Girls Trip and Rough Night both happening this summer. I wonder if this is all a result of Bad Moms, or are women just being catered to in films finally?

If so, I apologize that the movies they are throwing at you seem to be so shitty.

A less famous version of Bad Moms, no way?

Being a mom is hard and usually it lacks fun. So some mom’s like to go out once a month or so and just have fun, drink some booze, and make sure they aren’t surrounded by kids 24/7. Namely it has been Melanie (Bridget Everett), a high intensity mom who volunteers a lot and is rules happy at the school, and Jamie (Molly Shannon) who is divorced, loves Instagram, and also very involved. But they want to invite Emily (Katie Aselton) to their ranks on the next night. She is relatively new to their school, seems involved and seems nice.

Emily seems to think it will be a good idea. After all, she does want a break and she does need new friends. She just asks if they can bring her other mom friend, Kate (Toni Collette), who has been bringing kids to that school longer. They actually know about Kate, as she has been downright rude most of the time and pretty stuck up when it comes to hanging out with moms. But they agree, in honor of the spirit of their night.

After some husband convincing, the ladies are off, and of course, their plans are not going to go as expected. Thankfully, I am sure, they will grow with each other on this crazy night of theirs and no one will get hurt.

Also starring some dudes like Paul Rudd, Adam Scott, (both of them were producers) Adam Levine, Paul Rust, David Wain, and Rob Huebel.

I will agree that unicorns and Cheez-Its is my kind of party.

I went in expecting Fun Mom Dinner to be a worse version of Bad Moms. And what I got instead was not something worse than Bad Moms, just something just as as bad as Bad Mom’s.

And that is really all I should have to say. It has a lesser production quality, more people in it, an occasional laugh, but an incredibly forgettable story.

What was it about again? I forgot, especially since this review is coming out many weeks after the fact that I wrote this. I don’t want to read the middle part later again. They have more drugs and alcohol than expected, we have to watch the dads actually be fathers (shocking), and people make mistakes. Thankfully, they come closer through the experience.

I honestly don’t have anything really to say about this one. It wasn’t the worst film of the year, it just wasn’t close to being good.

Final day of Blackweek which also means I can pick almost anything I want! After all, since Black Mass isn’t out yet, I don’t have any other super new 2015 movies to review.

And I really had no idea what I wanted to watch. So as I often do in this situation, I went to Netflix and just searched around. This time was a bit easier, as I also got to search for the word “Black” and narrow down my results pretty significantly.

The reason I settled on Black Rock is for a few reasons. One, I didn’t have any horror-esque movies this week, just a thriller. And honestly a lot of horror movies have “Black” in the title. Secondly, out of all five or so movies I could have actually picked from that fit all my requirements, this is the only one I had heard of. With people I knew in it. And it wasn’t made for TV!

And familiarity leads to happy reviews because I can name drop facts or past reviews the actors have been in! We call that movie synergy.

We call this boat workingy.

Girls just wanna have fu-un. That’s what they really waaa-a-aa-aannnt. And to not die. But back up a bit.

Sarah (Kate Bosworth), Lou (Lake Bell), and Abby (Katie Aselton) have been friends since they were kids. And when they were kids, they used to go to a local island to play games, build forts, do outdoorsy things, probably experiment sexually. I don’t know, I don’t know what kids do on islands. The only book I read about it was pretty fucked up though.

They have some issues now, but they want to put the past behind and enjoy each others company. Well, while out gallivanting and arguing, they run into three hunters (Will Bouvier, Jay Paulson, Anslem Richardson), and hang out with them. They party with them! These guys all fought in the war too, but they are back. And then they DRINK with them. Well, one of our ladies gets flirty and starts to make out with one of our dudes. But he goes farther than she wants, and won’t stop when she wants him to stop. So she flails and hits him on the head with a rock.

Fatally. A black rock, maybe. Who can tell, it was night time. Other two hunters don’t like this and beat up the ladies and don’t know what to do. Well, they end up escaping, so now dudes with guns are looking for them on an island and they don’t have anything to help them. Ruh roh. Fucking hunters.

This is how you all must feel, having received zero movie synergy after my tease up.

Wait wait wait wait wait let me check something. The rating. “Rated R for some strong violence, pervasive language, sexual references and brief graphic nudity”.

BRIEF GRAPHIC NUDITY MY ASS (heh). That means a flash of a body. There was about ten minutes of naked women in the last 30 minutes of the movie. Nothing was brief about that. Did the MPAA not watch that? It was a very surprising scene, needless to say. It was a scene that you’d imagine as being very quick but you know. Ten fucking minutes. It is an eighty minute movie. A huge percentage of it is just nakedness.

Speaking of how long this movie is, I honestly feel the biggest issue is that it should be even shorter. There was not enough story to make it last. The first part of the movie, the set up, the trip to the island, the chick bonding. I don’t remember how long that lasted, but it just seemed to drag. It obviously started to speed up once we introduced the dudes, but the intro was slow.

Overall, I was surprised by how brutal the whole movie felt. It wasn’t a normal thriller/horror, as it was going for a realistic vibe. And it showed. You see the ladies up there? Beat up, cut up, black eyes. It only gets worse. Simple things seem to take people down and nothing is super movie like.

It was so real, I definitely wouldn’t want to watch it again, let’s say that. But also, not fantastic enough to warrant a second viewing either.

Here is a tip, if you see a movie with only 1 or 2 people tagged in it, chances are that movie is an indie movie. Gotta love those low budgets.

Roughly half of the movie is this one scene.

In the case of The Freebie, there is only two people involved really. Why? Because the movie is about a couple who have been together for awhile now. But they aren’t having sex.

Dax Shepard and Katie Aselton (probably recognize from The League) are the couple in question. They both seem to be pretty content with their relationship, but just…something is missing.

They have weekly or something dinners with other couples, who talk about relationship stuff. And during the meeting Dax gets the idea of “The Freebie”. Or at least a fear he has that he might never have sex with another woman ever again, except for his wife. Alright, my summation of it is way more shallow than how it came out, my bad. Imagine the better way of saying that with no offense to his wife.

Eventually they decide to have one night where they can do whatever (or whoever, amirite?) and let there be no problems. Just for one night, just to see. Hopefully to never talk about it again and live out their marriage. By now you might think how can a movie only be about this? Well, it is 77 minutes long. Pretty damn short. It pretty much is just about that. The build up, the night, the aftermath.

It also has tons of talking. Like. Most of the movie. Discussion. It is slow. This will easily turn off people who want more than just two people talking like “Real people”. Afterall, don’t you go to movies to escape real life. (I don’t agree with that statement. My real life just happens to be movies.)

It also may have later inspired Hall Pass. But who knows really.

But of course I ended up really liking the movie. I thought Dax and Katie did great job of being a “Real couple” with real problems that cannot be easily fixed with just a night of shenanigans. The ending in fact made me HATE Dax, who I was enjoying seeing him do a more serious role. I yelled at the laptop I watched it on during a scene, even if I was in a public place. What the hell is wrong with him?

Grr!

If I had to change one thing, it’d probably be the length. I am sure they could have added something else to make the movie longer. Just a bit.