Tag: Patton Oswalt

Unicorn Boy is part of Make Believe Seattle, and it is playing on Saturday, March 25, 2023. 

As has come up in many reviews before, my high school mascot was the noble Unicorn. So, did that make me a Unicorn Boy? Am I still a Unicorn Boy now? I will say yes to both.

I was of course very happy to pursue a film with a title like that, as I need more movies that are about unicorns or at least unicorn adjacent. For some reason it is a market overly saturated in TV shows, video games, and books. But not movies. I wonder why is that. Do movie watchers not like Unicorns? I hope that isn’t a stereotype.

Stereotypes make me make these faces.

Matty’s (Matt Kiel) life is currently spiraling downward. He has friends, fineeee. But he broke up with his girlfriend. It was a little awkward the timing too. It was after she said she loved him. And he panicked shortly after, and broke up with her. Okay, sorry, it was a lot of awkward, not a little. Don’t worry, Matty realized he missed her greatly. Life wasn’t as good without her. So he could just like, call her back and apologize and they could reconnect. Surely that would work.

Well, several voice mails later, sure enough, he is not able to get ahold of her. Wild right?

Unfortunately, while in a bathroom at a coffee shop, Matty gets sort of abducted by a unicorn, and brought to a strange colorful, rainbow filled world. This unicorn, Prince Purpleton (Sarah Natochenny) also doesn’t talk much and seems to be…uhhh, broken almost. And messy. Hard to describe. But Matty is brought back to their palace, where he learns that there might be a giant Unicorn running around, threatening things. But no one believes this story but the prince. The king (Patton Oswalt) is extremely passive and the queen (Maria Bamford) is mean. What is going on, how does this effect Matty?

Well it effects him a lot, apparently. Especially when he gets revived in the bathroom, and he is taken from the Unicorn world, and he spends a majority of his time trying to get back, to help his new friends, in a world that seems to be better than his own.

Also starring Sethward, Parvesh Cheena, and Harold Perrineau.

Messy rainbows, a picture.Unicorn Boy is a lot. A lot of interesting voice work, a lot of interesting colors, and certainly a lot of interesting facial expressions. Honestly, when cartoons focus on extreme facial reactions to events, it reminds me back to Ren and Stimpy, and I never really love it. It makes me make an extreme facial reaction and I never really get over it. And I never got used to in in this film either, which leads me to looking away from the characters more than watching them, which is a strange position to be in, and might be my own personal preference.

But the best news about this movie, is that the story totally works and is worth exploring and watching. My own biases on animation aside, I think Unicorn Boy not just tells a relatively unique story, but an important story. It tackles quite a few issues. In general, grief and depression, finding yourself, dealing with different levels of abusive parents, and of course, determining that the body you are in is not the body that matches you. You know what I mean? I think you do.

And to go with the story, the voice acting itself was top notch. Our lead, Matty, is voiced by the director, writer, and main animator of the movie. Sethward is his real life friend in some comedy group, who got famous from America’s Got Talent. But we also got a few celebrities for roles, and of course, the voice of Ash Ketchum. An impressive lineup for an independent animated film.

Unicorn Boy is a movie for a lot of people, and a lot of people can probably interpret it different ways. But regardless of which way you interpret it, you should be able to recognize that it is definitely done with heart and humor in mind.

3 out of 4.

Illumination entertainment keeps putting out movies, and they keep remaining less than stellar and below average, sometimes even bad and horrible. They rose to fame with Minions and forgot that if they want to compete with the big boys they need good stories, not just retreads of old movies.

The first Secret Life of Pets was basically just Toy Story, but with pets, and more violence to make it worse. Fun.

And in between the movies, we had all the bad Louis C.K. stuff, after they already announced The Secret Life of Pets 2! Oh no, will they recast the dog or replace him completely? They went with recasting. And they must have focused entirely on the recasting, because they couldn’t even come up with a single good story for this sequel to exist, with technically limitless possibilities.

Just dogs doing dog things.

Max (Patton Oswalt, a change!) and Duke (Eric Stonestreet) are now good pals, living together, being great. But there is going to be a change in the house. An addition??? Yes, a baby. Something that changes their lives, but something Max feels very protective over. And before the kid can go to school, they take the dogs to a farm to hang out? To have a vacation, I don’t remember at all.

While Max learns to be a better dog, he leaves a toy with Gidget (Jenny Slate) who has a whole big adventure with cats because of that.

And also Snowball (Kevin Hart), now a nice happy pet, likes to pretend he is a super hero. And by doing that, he has to help save a white tiger from a mean circus guy, which puts them on the run from these scary wolf guys who want the tiger back.

Also starring Harrison Ford, Tiffany Haddish, Lake Bell, Dana Carvey, Bobby Moynihan, Hannibal Buress, and Ellie Kemper.

Hey, that’s not a real cat. You’re a phony!

What do I mean when I say no single good story? Because this film needed to have three main stories instead, and loosely (read: Badly) bringing them together at the end to pretend this was a coherent thought.

It started off with our leads, but to be honest, the main story seems to really be about Snowball and the tiger. It is the plot that at least sort of brings everything together.

None of these stories on their own are enough to carry this movie. It keeps switching between plots, and honestly, the Max plot just feels like filler, and the Gidget plot has amusing moments, but not enough to be worth it. Hart’s character was the best part of the first film, and so it makes sense for him to have a bigger role, but he was less confident and exciting than the first film, for whatever reason.

I also complained that there was excessive violence in the first film, or at least violence being the solution to the problems. And well, same here. I also complained that we had too many pets driving vehicle ridiculousness, which was a theme for movies that year, and they only sort of did it this time.

Overall, this movie feels like they wanted to just make it a TV series, but were given a bigger budget and put a few ideas together. Gotta rush out those sequels, or else they might have to make more Despicable Me movies!

0 out of 4.

Sorry to Bother You is one of those films that sort of snuck up on me with a roar. I heard idle mentions of it earlier in the year, but didn’t go out of my way to do further research.

I knew the star. I guessed the theme. And yet none of that would prepare me for the trailer.

The trailer felt very fresh and told me that this. Would be a movie with a lot going on. A sort of extreme satire, maybe very political, but whatever it is it has a message and will be both subliminal and superliminal with that message.

I was excited and ready for this screening, without really knowing what it might give me.

I am getting a Japan / sumo wrestler headband vibe here.

Cassius Green (Lakeith Stanfield) is your regular, down on his luck, poor, brother. He is living in a garage in the house of his uncle (Terry Crews), with his long term girlfriend artist (Tessa Thompson), and they aren’t having a lot of luck making money.

But Cassius is able to get a job working as a telemarketer, working for commission. It is better than nothing. And he has the promise that if he does good, he can go to the top floors of the company. He can ride in the special elevator. He can be a “power caller,” and make the big bucks. No one really knows what they sell up there, but it ain’t magazines and book sets.

Cassius is told to just stick to the script, don’t get out of line, and make money. Once he makes money, he can make more money and more and be a success for once. Especially if he taps into his white person voice.

Starring David Cross, Patton Oswalt, Lily James, Forest Whitaker, and Rosario Dawson! Or at least their voices. Also starring Jermaine Fowler, Steven Yeun, Omari Hardwick, Armie Hammer, Robert Longstreet, Danny Glover, Kate Berlant. and Michael X. Sommers, that would be their voices and their bodies.

This is how white people drink champagne.

Strangely enough, the trailer for Sorry To Bother You only gave you a slice of the whole story, so I tried to do the same with my plot. There is a whole lot more that goes into this story. Topics of slavery (multiple levels) , class warfare, poverty, selling out, and American indifference to clear wrongs in the world. This movie coming out now is extremely well timed given the border problems that keep getting swept away by other media distractions.

It is not a film to use subtle clues to drive the point home. No, these clues are obvious, with a hammer. Fuck, one of the most uncomfortable scenes was the precursor to a “rap” where the chants, the disparity of the cast, made everything all too real and uncomfortable.

Stanfield is amazing in this film as our lead. His senses will probably always align with the audience on the scale of what is right and wrong and when to finally draw the line. Oh yes, you will know when that line is drawn. It was good seeing Yeun in a role very different than his previous work. Thompson was great. Hardwick was as well, despite more limited time, and Hammer was a blast going full crazy CEO for this film.

Unfortunately, areas do feel a bit clunky and jarring. Especially in the end, time seems to go by strangely and not everything seems to have the same attention to detail as earlier on in the film.

Sorry To Bother You will be looked back as an important work, with extreme topics in order to get the point heard loudly.

3 out of 4.

The Circle came out earlier this year, with some amount of excitement. It had two big stars in it and it was told to be a modern thriller. Or even a technothriller , a thriller about technology. Ooooh, spooks.

And yet when it came out, it actually created no buzz, was swept under a rug, and forgotten about.

I probably would have never reviewed or remembered this film, if it wasn’t for my review of The Square. I decided I wanted a mini shape theme. First squares, then circles.

The Circle really enjoys circles.

Mae (Emma Watson) hates her temp job, hates answering calls, without benefits, and fear that she won’t be needed the next day. But her best friend, Annie (Karen Gillan), has the hook up. Annie works for The Circle, a company that you may as well consider to be Google/Apple of this fictional world. The CEO, Bailey, (Tom Hanks) is super famous, he is trying to help the world, and has the sweetest place to work. Annie is high up on the chain, she goes to all the top meetings.

Well, The Circle is hiring new customer support agents. It is what Mae is already doing, but this would be for a legit company, with benefits, helping her out immensely. And of course Mae gets the job! She knocks it out of the park!

She is initially worried about doing a good job and fitting in. She is slow to accept new things, so she finds the culture in The Circle to be overwhelming. Everyone loves doing stuff there, they have groups upon groups, they have so many weekend and night events. She is getting slightly shunned for just not spending more time at work off the clock. When she is pressured enough, she accepts the social aspects of the Circle, starts sharing her whole life, and eventually goes down a path she never figured out before.

But is it good? To be so open? You know the answer is probably know.

Also starring John Boyega, Patton Oswalt, Ellar Coltrane, and Glenne Headly/Bill Paxton as Mae’s parents.

What a goddamn good cup of hopes, dreams, and secrets.

First sad note, both of the people who played her parents totally died this year! Paxton and Headly! Shit, is this movie cursed? Do we have to be on the watch for Boyega, Watson, or Hanks? Oswalt has already had a rough time recently, so I certainly hope he doesn’t get involved with the curse.

When it comes to this film, it is about as subtle was a laughing and dancing clown. It is obvious where the film is going, but somehow it goes an even stupider route to get there. By ending it on a supposed happy note, it seems to have also avoided any longer lasting points about society.

The big shocker event that happens near the films climax is almost laughable. The entire thing could and should have been prevented, it didn’t make sense that it was happening. A goal was achieved, and yet it became excessive for no reason. I wanted to laugh, it became so cheesy. The spiral downward up to that point was extremely chill as well. To refer to this as a thriller, when hardly any sinister things really occur is just lying.

The Circle wanted to be socially relevant and give us something to think about. Well, it was slightly relevant, and I am left only thinking on so many things they could have done to make this movie better.

1 out of 4.

Nerdland on initial glance looks like some late night show on Adult Swim or Comedy Central. Looking at its concept history, I am sure that at some point that was the goal as well. It definitely features people who have worked with these networks in the past, and an art style that is detailed and…well it is hard to describe. Rough around the edges? Chaotic?

Maybe even grotesque. Yeah, grotesque. That is how this film looks, and it has an adult tone. Sort of a Heavy Metal crudeness to the whole thing. So I am expecting, ass and titties, hard language, maybe even hard violence, despite a simple nice sounding title.

I mean, who wouldn’t want to live in Nerdland?

Well, Nerdland doesn’t look to clean, which I guess I should have expected.

John (Paul Rudd) and Elliot (Patton Oswalt) are best friends, living together in an apartment in Hollywood hoping to make it big. John is an aspiring actor, kicked out of an acting class, and taking that as a sign he had nothing to learn and was ready to star. Elliot is an aspiring screenwriter, who had a pedophile teacher who hung out with him a LOT, so he figures he is great at writing.

And they are not famous. They have side jobs that they keep losing, an apartment they cannot clean, and strong dreams of success when they both are complete sex craved losers. They think they have pseudo-girlfriends in Sally (Kate Micucci) and Linda (Riki Lindhome), but really they are just creepy and talk to them while they are at work.

After another unsuccessful attempt at reaching the big leagues and getting embarrassed, the two decide to put their fates in their own hands and get famous in a day. No matter the cost. No matter the effort. No matter the depths. And they will use their friend The Nerd King (Hannibal Buress), who runs a comic emporium, to get some help.

Also starring the voice work of Mike Judge, Charlene Yi, and Paul Scheer.

The Nerd King is not the ruler we need, but he is the ruler we deserve.

Grotesque is my word to best describe the film, but crude would be a high number two. A lot of this film seems to want to go to extremes, not for great reasons, but just because they wanted an extreme animated film. Not as bad as The Human Centipede levels, but high enough to realize that you are just going to get some fucked up shit.

And yet it all seems to make sense coming from the minds of our two losers heroes. They are typical beta males who feel friendzoned and think the world is out to get them for their intellect, not for the fact that they are complete assholes. It is almost like a character study, just taken to extremes so that maybe some similar people out there in the world and on the internet can see themselves in John and Elliot and maybe grow the fuck up.

At the same time, in their attempts to become famous, the film stalls out and becomes a bit of a drag. Watching them try a few different schemes to get famous all peter out isn’t as interesting as it seems. It does garner more interest in the end, as it starts to piece together a better narrative, but really, this film is just so extreme it is hard to derive a real message out of it.

Well, don’t be a fucker. That is one of them.

2 out of 4.

In attempting to catch up to some of the bigger movies of the fall that I missed, I will note that I completely forgot about Keeping Up With The Joneses. It came and it went. It had advertising, I am mostly certain. Definitely.

Not many people went to see it either. It was a bomb on a relatively low budget, and now I am talking about it months later mostly because it has a short enough run time for me to fit it into my schedule last week.

Also, because I liked the actors involved.

Look at them all together. Short. Tall. Hairy.

Jeff (Zach Galifianakis) and Karen Gaffney (Isla Fisher) live a quiet suburban life with their two kids. Jeff works as an HR rep at some tech company (and lives near a lot of his coworkers), Karen designs bathrooms, sometimes. Their kids are off to summer camp, so they have the house to themselves! That means sex very quickly and then mindlessly hanging out the rest of the night.

But then, they get some new neighbors. The Joneses. Tim (Jon Hamm) and Natalie (Gal Gadot). They are perfect, they are tall, they live amazing lives, and now they apparently want to settle down.

Karen, however, doesn’t trust them. Something seems off about them. They are a bit too friendly. She thinks they are spying on them!

And yeah, she ends up being right. They aren’t really friends. But what do they want? What do they need? Are they good spies or bad spies?

Also featuring Patton Oswalt, Ming Zhao, Matt Walsh, and Maribeth Monroe.

Spies get to wear fancy clothes and show off their assets.

To be fair to this film, which I don’t really want to type a lot, the idea for a comedy action film isn’t completely bad. It just didn’t have a lot extra going for it. I barely laughed at any thing. I would note in my head that a scene was potentially amusing, but it just never really pushed the funny bone like I had hoped.

Hamm is a wonderful comedic actor, given how serious his bigger roles have been. But he felt wasted. Gadot was given the entirely serious role plus sex appeal, so she wasn’t given any potentially funny moments, which is just poor writing. Fisher’s character was mostly one dimensional. They wrote her as a bored housewife, so she played a bored housewife. And Galifianakis at least had some sort of development, but again, he only had a few recurring joke stereotypes.

The ending was of course a mess, when they had to bring in the more action/spy elements. It weakens an already weak comedy film.

Two genres is hard, you have to be willing to go hard into both, not just a little bit into both. Because then you are just left with a dud, a master of none, and a film people will forget about in a few months time.

1 out of 4.

2015 (which feels like a long time ago), had a few horror comedies all released in the span. You know, October-ish.

There was Cooties, the only one I ended up watching, that didn’t blend its horror and comedy well enough to warrant a rewatch ever.

There was Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse, which I didn’t see, still haven’t seen, so I am not sure why I brought it up.

And Freaks of Nature, which didn’t even get a theatrical release as far as I can tell. And of course, I decided to watch it before Scouts Guide, because it has my second favorite character from Sky High.

This movie unfortunately doesn’t have Bruce Campbell.
I unfortunately say that about most movies I see.

The town of Dillford is a strange place. Here, and maybe elsewhere in the United States, humans, vampires, and zombies live in peaceful coexistence. Sure, there are things that bother people, and you have bigots, but for the most part they can live and not kill each other.

That is until the aliens come. Because a fourth entity can only mean trouble. Everyone begins to fear the other side, and soon, all out chaos erupts in the town, with friends fighting friends and no one knowing what the aliens are up to. It is up to three teenagers to save the day. Who I will talk about so I can tag a lot of actors.

Dag (Nicholas Braun) is our human hero, and a bit of a lame dude. He is super in to Lorelei (Vanessa Hudgens), but she just uses him to store weed in his house. His parents (Bob Odenkirk, Joan Cusack), think he smokes as well (like them!) but no, he doesn’t.

He used to be good friends with Ned (Josh Fadem), a smart guy. Ned is pissed off at his family (Ian Roberts, Rachael Harris, Chris Zylka), who are into sports and meat and hate smart kids. So eventually he decides to say fuck it, and let a zombie bite him. Less pressure that way.

And then there is Petra (Mackenzie Davis), a girl who was called a slut despite never really having sex. And she thinks she is about to have sex with a Edward Cullen looking dude (Ed Westwick), but he actually wants to make her a vampire. And well, screw it you know. He wants to be with her forever. Well, let’s just say he is a dick.

Also featuring Denis Leary, Mae Whitman, Keegan-Michael Key, Patton Oswalt, Pat Healy, and Werner Herzog.

Gotta get those website clicks somehow.

For a straight to DVD, probably low budget, comedy horror, I found myself laughing way more than I expected. It was never scary, because horror just means “has vampires and zombies in it” sometimes. And that is okay. Clearly this is a movie not meant to be taken seriously and provide a good time.

And damn it, it does. While also giving me the necessary high school angst that is necessary for movies set in that age group. Sex scandals, bullies, sports, drugs, and teachers being dicks. We get all of that plus zombies and vampires! And sure, an alien or two.

There isn’t actually a whole lot to say about this film as a whole besides it being a good time. Our leads are okay, in particular I am becoming a decent fan with Mackenzie Davis. I’ve seen her now in two movies with a lead, the other being That Awkward Moment, and enjoyed the crap out of her characters. Her side characters have been fine too. Out of everyone in this cast, I hope she breaks out soon.

Braun, you are a funny dude too, but keep to the smaller movies. You thrive in them.

I want more silly movies like that. Let’s make a sequel folks. But you know, more horror tropes.

3 out of 4.

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!

3 out of 4.

Patton Oswalt isn’t given a lot of movie roles, and really, that makes sense. He is a weird guy. A decent stand up comedian, but just in general a weird guy.

So when I see that he is actually the star of a movie, and not just a best friend/side character, I jumped at the opportunity to see what the heck Big Fan would be about.

Sports! I like sports!

I also like camaraderie! Yay sports and people! Yay!

Paul Aufiero (Oswalt) is a big fan (title drop) of the New York Giants. Like, really big fan. He goes to all of their home games. Never goes into the stadium, tickets cost too much, but he watches the game in a tv in his car with his bud Sal (Kevin Corrigan). He can’t afford tickets because he has a job as a parking attendant, just sitting in a booth, taking money. He listens to a New York radio sports show, and calls in every night to give his opinion, and trash talk another caller Philadelphia Phil (Michael Rapaport). He just spends most of his shift writing down what he is going to say, so he can impress his friends.

His favorite player is the QB, Quantrell Bishop (Jonathan Hamm) (Not an actual existing player), and basically he worships him as a hero that will get them to The Super Bowl. So when he and Sal see Quantrell hanging with his crew, they get all giddy and decide to follow him so they can meet him. And they follow him for awhile, accidentally. Like, many miles. And go to a club. And then a strip club. But finally they introduce themselves! Yay, they are drunk and happy, so they don’t care how white and awkward these fans are.

Until they mention where they first saw him. Then it got weird. Then Quantrell, on a drugged up outburst, knocks out Paul and beats him up pretty hardcore.

Huh. Three days later in the hospital, Paul wakes up, his hero betrayed him, and very much so injured. His favorite and best player also suspended indefinitely for the actions he helped cause.

But maybe there is a chance? Maybe he doesn’t have to press charges, and Paul can save the season still for the Giants…

Marcia Jean Kurtz plays his mom, who he lives with, and Gino Cafarelli plays his ambulance chasing brother.

Patton picked the shirt that would offend some people, but gain him the most respect.

Big Fan was listed as a comedy, but was definitely far far far more heavy on the drama, and should be considered a dark comedy, more than anything. While watching it, part of me was getting pissed off at the plot, watching it unfold, trying to figure out why the character would be that dumb. Why he would make those decisions. Why he would be so blindsinding by fan loyalty to do the actions he did.

Then it hit me. All of the feelings I was feeling were exactly the feelings the movie wanted me to feel. Repetition in that sentence yo.

When I thought even more about it, I was almost a bit excited at what the movie was hinting at, ever so slightly the entire time, and it made sense. The actions that followed the beat up made perfect sense. I was in the wrong, not the movie.

But it was done in a subtle, yet crazy way for it all to work.

The ending was a bit shocking at first too, as the conditions kind of built up to the final show down, and once that too was revealed, I found myself laughing at the absurdity and darkness of it all. The movie accomplished everything it wanted, with its small budget and mostly unknown actors. Well done, Big Fan. Well done.

3 out of 4.

know why Jennifer’s Body sucked? I mean, it was written by the same person who did Juno (and Young Adult)! But these two movies were also directed by Jason Reitman, who passed on Jennifer’s Body, and also directed things like Up In The Air and Thank You For Smoking.

Director beats Writer. I think Science just proved that?

It’s the Hello Kitty shirt that should really speak to you here.

Charlize Theron is a very successful writer in NYC! And by very successful, I mean she has written books as part of a series, but didn’t create the series. Although he name is on the inside flap as the author, the series creator still gets front cover status. It is found in the “Young Adult” section of a book store. Oh well, still cool. Especially since she is a girl from a small town in Minnesota, where most people just stay put and live there their whole lives. Yeah!

But now she is getting depressed (and may have been an alcoholic for some time). She just broke up with her long term manfriend, and her high school boyfriend is now married just had his first kid. And the series is ending, so she has to write the final book, and then figure out what else to do with her life. Seems like a good time to visit her home town! Oh, and plot to win her old love back. Who cares if he is married and has child?

First she meets Matt (Patton Oswalt), a kid who she barely knew in high school, who was taken to the woods and had his legs and dick beaten by jocks with crowbars, for being gay. But once they found out he wasn’t gay, it was no longer called a hate crime and they barely got into trouble. He says her plan is stupid. But she tries anyways to recreate how she looked in high school, and how they would do young people things, like getting drunk at a bar! But Buddy (Patrick Wilson) doesn’t want to.

But she keeps trying. Even going out to to the naming ceremony for the son. Yes, she does it all in front of his wife (Elizabeth Reaser). Even goes to the wives local garage band concert. Questionable motives indeed.

But can she succeed and win over her former lover? Or will the whole town think she is crazy?

Life is simpler in Minnesota. Phones with cords.

So, the dark comedy part of this tag means pretty dark. Minus the death elements in a lot of dark comedies, but man. This humor is based off of extreme awkwardness, meanness, and past situations you didn’t see coming. Also the uncomfortableness of the main character being a depressed drunk, who does seemingly crazy actions.

I wasn’t surprised by what happened at the end, it made sense, but I was surprised at the way it happened. Which was the totally uncomfortable way. (Word of the the day, uncomfortable).

I thought Charlize Theron (an actress I normally don’t care for) did a great job in her crisis, and truly believing all of the crazy things that she did. Thought it was her destiny to get back with her Buddy, and wouldn’t let logic or reason get in the way. Patton Oswalt did a pretty good job, most of his roles are comic relief funny fat guy, but his character was super damn important in this movie, and had a lot more subtle humor.

3 out of 4.