Tag: Toni Collette

Let’s all take a moment to cry about the fact that we lost James Gandolfini this year.

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Are you feeling better? No, me neither.

It does suck. He played a similar character in most movies, but there was some talent there too. Even if he didn’t do anything else, he at least gave us The Sopranos, and that is all we can ask for.

So that is why I went to see Enough Said, his last major role/film release, before, you know. Let’s just get into it.

We will always remember him as a man who loved to eat.

Eva (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is a massage therapist, and living a lonely life. She has a daughter, but that daughter is about to graduate high school and move off somewhere to college, and she her ex husband is now newly married while she hasn’t found anyone.

So Eva goes to a party, that her friends invite her to, where hey she can hopefully meet some new clients or a guy, even if none of them look attractive to her. At the party she meets two unique people. Marianne (Catherine Keener), a real life poet for money, who might need a masseuse. And Albert (James Gandolfini), a single man, works at a TV history museum, and live a quiet and simple life.

He asks her out on a date. Aww.

Eventually Eva realizes that her two new friends/lovers aren’t strangers, but ex husband and wife as well. All she can hear from Marianne is negative thoughts and attributes of Albert, which seem to be affecting her own relationship with him! Of course she also keeps this knowledge a secret, as she feels bad for Marianne not having any friends. Coupled that with her daughter leaving, she reaches out to the younger friend of her daughter to really bond with, quite awkwardly.

Also featuring Ben Falcone and Toni Collette as her friends.

What? He also loved movies I guess. That’s good. He used to be in them.

Damn it. His final starring role, and it is not the best movie of the year.

It is awkward sure, awkward enough to make a decent movie. But it follows a pretty obvious path, and there aren’t many surprises in store. The plot line with her daughter never really felt finished, but once it got to the weirdest point, it just stopped mattering I guess?

The acting was good from the three main leads, everyone was a basically normal human being, so it wasn’t too difficult. I guess it is worth noting that Gandolfini wasn’t a gangster, so he must have been acting here too right?

The story is a decent one, but it basically just stays there. Just a decent, okay movie, nothing special. I guess, I have said enough about this movie now. Har har har.

Jim Rash and Nat Faxon wrote The Descendants, and graced our screens with its presence in 2011. It was nominated for Best Picture and eventually won Best Adapted Screenplay. It basically made these writers pretty hot commodities.

That is why I was excited to see The Way, Way Back, their next film. No George Clooney this time, but they have plenty of other actors to fill his void.

Look, here are three now!

Summer can suck. Especially if you are Duncan (Liam James). Your parents are divorced, your dad just moved from NY to CA, and your mom (Toni Collette) is dating the biggest douche in the universe, Trent (Steve Carell). Unfortunately for Duncan, he has to head out to Trent’s summer beach house to pretend to give this new family idea a chance.

Did I mention Trent is a douche? He talks down to Duncan, constantly goes off with his friends (Rob Corddry, Amanda Peet) to get drunk or high or both. It is basically his personal summer vacation, where Duncan and his mom are afterthoughts.

But eventually, Duncan finds friendship in the local Water Park. Slacker manager Owen (Sam Rockwell) has decided to take pity on Duncan, give him a job and help him find a purpose in this long dreadful summer. With the help of Owen and the other workers (Maya Rudolph, Faxon, Rash), Duncan learns that there are non sucky things out there in life.

That is great, sure, but will this new found joy in life at all help him with his horrible home situation? Will it help him woo over the neighbor girl (AnnaSophia Robb), who has to deal with her constantly drunk mother (Allison Janney)?

Oh god. He is staring into my soul. What do I do!? Just act natural. Ho hum…AHHH!

Comedy/Drama movies are actually quite hard to pull off successfully. After all, even the strictest of dramas tend to have some minor elements in comedy, and vice versa. But most movies labeled in this category are clearly still one genre over the other, or even worse, weak in both areas to try and find a balance. One of the best examples I could list of a real comedy/drama would be 50/50, a film that made me both laugh and cry.

Nat Faxon and Jim Rash wrote a decent comedy/drama with The Descendants, very enjoyable, but it could have been more dramatic. For The Way, Way Back, they decided to amp up their game, and created a much better film. Not going to lie, I cried three times during it. I can’t say I relate specifically to the scenes in this film, but thanks to an excellent build up with terrific acting from everyone on the cast, the emotions quickly took over.

Steve Carell had to play the biggest jerk in the world, and he pulled it off well. It was quite surprising. Sam Rockwell and Allison Janney carried the comedy for me, while at the same time their characters felt real. Everyone felt real. I love real, even though real characters lead to uncomfortable moments.

Major props as well to Liam James. I can’t say I recognized him in anything before, however he pulled off the awkward/lonely teenager role really well. But hey, apparently he was Young Shawn in the Psych flashbacks, so that is kind of cool.

You know what would be a bad idea? Telling you how little I knew about Mr. Hitchcock and the films he has made. Same story as the other famous things, they are just so old, I haven’t got to them yet. But hey, maybe a movie about Hitchcock would actually be better not knowing much about him. I don’t know any silly rumors about his life, I feel like an open book ready to learn!

Holy fuck, look at him! Look at his face! His Hitchface.

Instead of a full biography movie, this one also focuses on a smaller, potentially more significant part of his life, such as the recent Lincoln film. Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins) was already a wildly successful director, having just released North By Northwest. But he is getting old, shouldn’t he retire by now?

Wait a minute. The entire time I watched this movie, I wondered who the hell was playing Alfred in the movie, because I couldn’t recognize him as anyone famous. ANTHONY HOPKINS. Just so you know, it didn’t sound like Hopkins, nor did it look anything like him (in my eyes). See the picture above. Damn, give them a make-up award, stat.

Anyways, after that movie, he needs a new project, but has run out of ideas. Tired of the same old crap. His wife (Helen Mirren) who has helped him make all of his movies is starting to work on a script with another man! Some lame Whitfield Cook (Danny Huston) fellow. Despite that, and his secretary’s (Toni Collette) best efforts, he has found himself interested in a book called Psycho. Why not have a horror film made by an established great director? Then it might not be complete crap!

Why not also how he may have tortured Janet Leigh (Scarlett Johansson), his main actress or the film, and a former star of his, Vera Miles (Jessica Biel), who had to go and get pregnant/start a family on him. What the hell.

Spoilers? Nope. Psycho ended up being his highest grossing film, and arguably most famous one. Then he died a few years later, after making a few more big ones of course.

We also get a remake of the shower scene! But less gratuitous violence and nudity. After all, acting and shit.

After seeing Hitchcock, I can say that I kind of want to watch Psycho now. And North By Northwest. Maybe Rear Window, but after that I am probably good. The film is most likely littered with tiny references to his various movies and TV series, but not knowing them didn’t get in the way of enjoying the movie.

I already stated how great Hopkins did in the role, but hey, I will do it again. Maybe he overacted and everything was over the top, but I really enjoyed the performance. How close he was to the actual Hitchcock I will never really know. The making of Psycho is actually an interesting one, and learning of his personal problems and obsessions was pretty sexy as well.

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!

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.

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.

Fright Night! Rawr vampires! This is of course a remake of a movie with the same name. I don’t know anything about the older movie though. Besides it also had a “comedic” element to the horror trope and was self aware of that fact. I am sure it is a fine movie, and I have probably seen a few parts of it before on TV. So I think I would rather just assume that this new version and the original are only similar, and not actually alike.

After all, this movie had to come up with a reason why cell phones do not work.

“WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT ROAMING FEES?!?

The movie begins with a death! After that, yay school. Anton Yelchin is the main character, who used to be a big nerd but now is trying to be all “Cool” and shit. His old friend, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, thinks that their third friend not showing up to school is a bad sign. He thinks a vampire got him! But Yelchin is too cool for vampires. He doesn’t listen to him. You know. Until Chris also disappears.

So he starts to get all paranoid. Could his neighbor Colin Farrell actually be a vampire? (Yes). I know I know, its crazy. He is way too charming to be a vampire.

Unfortunately, of course, no one believes him either. Not even Peter Vincent (played by everyone’s favorite new doctor, David Tennant), the bad ass vampire hunter on TV and in Vegas shows.

It isn’t until Colin openly attacks his home, with his mother, Toni Collette, and girlfriend, Imogen Poots (can we all laugh at her name for a second?), inside does he finally get any help.

Now, I am not one for normally watching “Scary” movies. But the new releases this week were not plentiful, so I gave it a chance. This movie is definitely not scary, but more kind of bad ass. It was very very entertaining. No one is going to win any best actor/actress awards from it, but you will definitely have a good time.

Here is a scene of people not having a good time.

Honestly, all the vampire tropes you want will be in this movie. They didn’t invite a new vampire or anything silly. I was surprised at how much was actually packed in the movie. Halfway through, I thought the film was climaxing, but it got more and more intense instead. Which definitely was a good feeling.

I don’t think you will leave feeling screwed at the ending either. The worst part of some movies is the buildup of how powerful the bad guy is, but in the final fight something easy takes him down due to cockiness or love or something. But in this movie, the vampire proves he is a badass, and the final fight is actually worth it.

Probably would have been better if I watched this at night, instead of noon time though.