Tag: 3 out of 4

Thank goodness this film is called Burnt. Based on the title and poster, of Bradley Cooper in a chef’s outfit, I can make inferences though. It is about a angry chef, that was wronged and he wants revenge. Maybe. He could be a Gordon Ramsay like character and his life could come crashing down.

I am happy it is called Burnt, because it used to be called Adam Jones. Movie titles where it is just a fictional characters name are already bad ideas, because they don’t mean anything. And if you character is Adam Jones? One of the plainest damn names of all time. It didn’t feature a cool name like Enrique, Pierre, or Sadrik. Just Adam. Jones.

Naming aside, it turns out Adam Jones wasn’t the original name either. The original name was Chef, and we all know why that title was eventually changed. Hell, the plot of Chef was the first thing I thought of when I heard the word Burnt. As long as it is as good as Chef, we should have nothing to worry about.

Hey, it has food in it! Another similarity!

If you didn’t already guess it, this film is about Adam Jones (Cooper)! Turns out Jones used to be a big deal. He lived in Paris and worked for one of the finest restaurants and eventually its head chef. While he was in Paris hear earned himself TWO Michelin Stars. Which is a pretty big fucking deal. But he did some bad things. He was on almost every narcotic, and it messed with his brain. He burned bridges and disappeared from his friends, his coworkers and lovers.

He actually put himself into exile. He shucked oysters for two or three years in New Orleans, getting clean, sober, and his focus back. And now he is ready to take the cooking world by storm again. This time: London. He wants the third Michelin Star. He wants to be one of the all time greatest chefs. He just has to try and reconcile a lot of relationships and find good talent to help him get there.

Obviously it won’t be easy to fix all the issues. He left Tony (Daniel Brühl), a Maître D’ and close friend, in a shambled restaurant. He ruined his good friend and former sous chef, Michel’s (Omar Sy) new restaurant. There is the daughter of his former mentor, Anne Marie (Alicia Vikander), who he was dating at the time. He has a now rival chef, Reece (Matthew Rhys), who used to be a coworker and is now a Three Star chef. And there is Helene (Sienna Miller), a great young chef who he wants to take under his wing, but refuses to work with the guy based on his reputation. She also has a daughter, Lily (Lexi Benbow-Hart).

Here are some more important-ish people. Some of his new chefs are played by Riccardo Scamarcio and Sam Keeley. Emma Thompson is a psychiatrist who has to monitor his blood for any narcotics. Uma Thurman plays a big deal food critic in London. And Sarah Greene is the Hostess for their new restaurant, basically a little Tony.

If I get a plate that has fingerprints on it, I send the whole thing back, personally.

It turns out that my guess on him just being Gordon Ramsey was pretty accurate. Not British Gordon Ramsay, but American shitty TV Gordon Ramsay. He owns like 3/4 of Fox reality shows at this point, and Fox has the worst reality shows. They commercial break at tense moments or cliff hangers, they encourage language just so it can be bleeped out, and half of the episode is a recap, or the intro/outros that transition with the commercial breaks, which tell you what you will see and what you just saw. Except this is a movie where adults can see adults do adult things, so we get to hear the glorious Fucks and so on. One long scene early on during a particularly upsetting service, it is like just a big Hell’s Kitchen break down.

But thankfully after that moment, it gets better. He becomes less Ramsay and more actual character. He has growth in this film, he does’t yell 100% of the time, but he maintains the same passion and drive throughout. It was nice to see his highs and his lows. It was not as nice to see his stunt double clearly in one scene, and in another scene, have his face bloody with a piece of skin falling off and in the next scene a minute or two later, magically only a small cut. Those were dumb moments.

I think Cooper did a good job leading a film that wasn’t a straight up comedy. His French was also surprisingly good, that is, to a lame American’s ears at least. Thankfully, the rest of the cast was really great as well. Let’s give them their own sentence, shall we?

Miller was good as the main female lead, and she wasn’t a typical romance pretty face – she rocked it. I usually see Brühl in more interesting roles, but he helped carry the film and the restaurant with his simplestic and seemingly perfect performance as the best Maitre D’. Sy I don’t see in a lot of films, but this is the second French-ish role. His character had nice surprise and intense moments. And Rhys was a limited role, but brought his own unique intensity to it all.

Yay acting! Are there cliches? Sure. But it is a well done cooking movie that doesn’t make one feel stupid for not knowing how the fancy foods work. It tells a fun story and doesn’t turn into a sappy romcom ever. Yay food!

Oh no, they’ve gone and done it. Netflix has bought the movie, Beasts of No Nation, from the film festivals and decided to release it. Fuck the big studios. They want to get in on that game too. They paid 12 million to distribute the film, and since it is Netflix, most of you can see it. Hell, if you prefer films in theaters, you can go see it on the big screen instead. It has a limited release, because none of the big chains would show it. They demand at least 90 days before the film gets released online, or they won’t show it. Because theaters are dying and all that jazz.

But yeah! They wanted a good film to try and win awards to help legitimize their business. Making their own TV shows is cool and all, but releasing their own movies is another. Note, they did not make this film. They just paid to distribute it. The next film that Netflix will release at the same time as theaters is Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: The Green Legend. So regardless of quality, BoNN is in some good company. Hopefully. I guess The Green Legend can also suck.

Needless to say, this film probably won’t win any Oscars. Those are run by the Academy, and so many of them are stuck in their ways, they are probably firmly against things like Netflix trying to join their game and hurt the money studios can make in theater ticket sales. Since ticket sales are the end all be all in movies making money, outside of the few that can go cult status and coast on DVD/Blu-Ray sales for decades.

There is a joke there, implying DVDs or Blu-Rays will still be a thing decades from now.

Maybe they will be things in other parts of the world. But I doubt they make much in the African DVD Sales Department.

Agu (Abraham Attah) is just your typical boy living in a typical civil war torn African country. This one is unnamed, because it is a fictional story, but hey, you can probably imagine it all. He likes to sing and dance with his friends. He hangs out on the streets, because the schools were closed due to wars. Oh well, at least the local police force from Nigeria is keeping things calm in their village.

You know, until it doesn’t. Next thing they know, danger is everywhere, and it is hard for them to get their loved ones to safety. Try as he might, Agu’s dad is only able to get his wife to safety as he is unable to find a car for his boys. And sure enough, when the “government army” comes rolling in, they assume the villagers are actually working with the rebels and get shot. But Agu was told one thing. To run into the bush and to survive.

And that is when Agu meets the Commandant (Idris Elba). Turns out he has his own army as part of the rebel force. He is always recruiting too, especially if they are younger. In fact, there are quite a large number of children in this army, so it is easier for Agu to really get involved when the officer directly above him is only a year older than him. And hey, if they are staying in line and being obedient, he should too. They have food, shelter, camaraderie. AND YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE? The government killed his family, damn it. Why shouldn’t he join the rebels? Where he is loved and can continue to be loved if he just, you knows, shoots the innocent villager or two.

Other main-ish child soldiers are played by Annointed Wesseh, Kurt Egyiawan, and Emmanuel Nii Adorn Quaye.

Look at me. Look at me. I am your daddy now.

Running at around 147 minutes, Beasts of No Nation is basically your typical war film. Those are always long fuckers.

However everything else about it is pretty different from your standard war drama. Usually in those films when they talk about people just being kids, it is due to the dead bodies of a village they find, or an eighteen year old recruit heading overseas to kill the bad guys. BoNN dealing with actual child soldiers reflecting an actual reality of some African countries adds a constant level of fright into the whole equation.

At the same time, because of this being in the news (hah, not TV news of course. But internet news and stuff) so much and for so long, it also feels like a lot of the surprise is and shock factor is already gone. Do you remember Kony 2012? I fucking do. I got caught up in the hype and ordered one of those paint the town red packages. A week later I realized that it was a terrible program and was able to fight tooth and nail to cancel it and get my money back. But still. That was a super big thing for like, a whole month almost.

I wish now more than anything that it could have never happened. Because once people realize that yes, it is shitty there, but three dudes form San Fransisco are not the best holders of our money to do it, people kind of got fed up with the child soldier thing and then promptly ignored the real problems that are still occuring. If that had never happened and then BoNN came out, it could lead to a lot better and positive PR in order to help stop the civil wars over there. Then again, blah blah, USA needs to stop interfering with countries trying to do their own thing because we cannot police the world.

What I am getting at is the situation is hard in real life for the rest of the world, and it is much harder for those living in those areas, which the movie does an incredible job of showcasing.

Attah and Elba do a good job at the helm of the film, and their relationship is convincing and a bit scary. Elba is such a smooth talker that I almost wanted to shoot some fictional villagers for him. But make no mistake, despite the bigger headline, this is Attah’s film and story and it is a great one. Due to the subject matter, it was a lot harder for me to find myself completely emotionally invested in the situation, and from some sudden changes in the plot’s direction, I did find it harder to understand just what was happening in the story. But on future re-watches* I’d probably be able to relate and understand it all a lot better.

* – Hah. I won’t rewatch this. War stories take too much out of me and time. Still haven’t seen Saving Private Ryan since I was like 10.

When I first heard about the movie title, Time Out Of Mind, I thought it was a completely ridiculous title. When I found it was also the name of a Bob Dylan album from the late 90’s, I still thought it was a ridiculous title.

Is it supposed to be a drunk guy getting a saying wrong? Is it someone so completely lost that they can’t even sentence right?

Or does it want to go one step further? Does it want the viewer to over analyze the title so much that they, too, become Time Out Of Mind? Shit. This is too spooky for me. I hope it doesn’t cause me to obsess too long over this, so that I can’t focus at work, lose my job, become homeless, and wander the streets looking for spare change and someone to give me a sandwich or something.

When being a homeless person on the mean streets of New York, it is best to use the buddy system.

His name is George (Richard Gere), and he is homeless. But those are words you wouldn’t ever hear him say. No, life just sucks a bit right now. He has made bad decisions and has no job sure, but he isn’t some homeless asshole.

He had a place to stay, but bad things happened and the person who owned it is now evicted. He can’t stay there, he can’t stay anywhere. He tries to just sleep in ER lobbies, but even they throw him out.

So sure. Fuck it. He will go to the official center for homeless men. He has no ID of any sort because his wallet was stolen while he was sleeping outside, so that is a big issue. There is no way he can get a job, he is too old. There is no way he can do much of anything without the proof that he is even alive. I should also mention he has a daughter, Maggie (Jena Malone), but she hates him and his inability to face his own reality.

Also helping him cope with his situation include Steve Buscemi for a whole 1-2 scenes, Kyra Sedgwick, and Ben Vereen, who more famously voice the preacher bird in Once Upon A Forrest.

If you lose your buddy, you’re gonna have a bad time.

Time Out Of Mind is a strange movie. Turns out I have seen both other movies directed by Oren Moverman, The Messenger and Rampart. The difference between those movies of course is that the former was amazing and emotional, and the later was just a boring mess, now made famous by a bad AMA on Reddit. Thankfully, if you can sit through it, Time Out of Mind falls closer to The Messenger than Rampart.

Time Out of Mind is slow, it is bleak, and it doesn’t take you on a wonderful journey. George’s life just plain ole sucks and barely anything positive happens to him in the film. In this way, it is almost brutally realistic (don’t worry, nothing super graphic in the film). Moverman uses a lot of longer takes with the camera a bit farther away than normal from those acting. This helps as a constant reminder that George is just a very small piece of an ever moving and non caring city that makes his home, adding to the overall bleakness of his situation.

Time Out Of Mind is also not the movie for everyone. I was on the verge halfway through of pausing it to do something “fun” for awhile, not even sure if I was liking or hating what I saw. But what really turned the whole thing around for me was Vereen. He acted the shit out of this movie. He went full on into his character, a babbling homeless man who has lost his wits but befriends George. Gere’s acting was fine, but his character was a bit uninteresting in his constant pessimism. But Vereen though, he nailed it. Watch it for Vereen. And to make you sad about America. But mostly Vereen.

Buy It! – This movie is available now on {Blu-Ray} and {DVD}.

What’s that? Oh, it’s October! That means we are supposed to be getting a lot of horror movies, right? Where the fuck are they?

Oh, there are some horror comedies, and a lot of horrors from the summer are coming out on DVD. But not a whole lot in October, because the studio people hate us. The last few Octobers have been mostly shit as well.

So thank goodness, early October, we have the chance of something wonderful. We have Crimson Peak, directed by my man, Guillermo del Toro. That man loves scary stuff. Sure he is some times hit or miss with his work, but damn it, he at least has the passion enough for me to trust his work and not judge it from crappy trailers.

I haven’t reviewed a single horror film all month (Goodnight Mommy I did in September!), so hopefully Crimson Peak gets me on the right foot and scares the Hellboy out of me.

Oh no! It looks like those bricks are covered with the remains of Hellboy 3!

Traveling back about a hundred years, Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska) believes in ghosts. Her mom died when she was a child, and one very frightful night, her ghost visited her and warned her about Crimson Peak. Of course it was just childish nonsense. Now, she is an adult and living with her father (Jim Beaver), in a nice Buffalo mansion. She considers herself to be an author, but not stupid romance, instead nice dramas and ghost stories even. In reality, it is hard to define her work by a single genre.

Her dad wants her to be set up with a local boy, an eye doctor, Dr. Alan McMichael (Charlie Hunnam). But Edith is a bit more interested in a stranger to their town, Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston). He came for a loan. His families business is in ruins, collecting red clay for bricks below their mansion. He has made a device to help dig it out, but he just needs capital to get the working parts in order.

Needless to say, he didn’t expect to find love in Buffalo. Thomas and his sister, Lucille (Jessica Chastain), are a bit weird, but their family has been through rough times, so it makes sense. Eventually, after some circumstances, Edith finds herself whisked away to Great Britain to live in their home. A deteriorating building with a lot of quirks due to its location.

And you know. Some ghosts maybe. Some really creepy shit. And a whole lot of secrets.

Special shout out to Burn Gorman, who played a small role as a Private Investigator. I normally just say “also featuring” but I enjoyed his 3 scenes a lot more than just a “featuring” line.

Shit Lucille, you need to clean that mirror or something.

Crimson Peak is like an old timey horror movie, in almost every way. It isn’t your modern horror film that cares about the number of jump scares it can fill in and how many people they can kill by the end. In fact, the plot itself as it unravels won’t feel new. There are elements taken from other stories that sure, may have done it better originally.

But Crimson Peak excels in the areas that the older styled movies had no chance in. First of all, HOLY FUCK, this is a pretty movie. The use of contrasting colors is so heavily used that it almost feels like the entire set was made by a darker Wes Anderson. The oozing red clay splattered around the mansion (that yes, looks like blood), does a great job of constantly enforcing the mood and history of the house. The snow, the green and blue hued windows. It is all so damn beautiful.

I wasn’t aware the movie was being release on IMAX, which unsettled me, as it would make it harder for me to cover my eyes if the screen was that much bigger than normal. Thankfully, the attention to detail that del Toro is known for when it comes to set design shined so well on the giant screen.

You know what else the older movies didn’t have? Jessica Fucking Chastain. I can admit that Chastain is a good actress, but I never really thought she was great. She was good in a lot of recent movies, including The Martian, The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby, A Most Violent Year, Interstellar, and sure, Zero Dark Thirty. Honestly though, they never seemed to push her into the excellence category. It just took a Drama/Horror/Fantasy for me really respect her. She went so hardcore into her character, by the end I couldn’t believe that someone who generally plays such quiet characters could be pulling it off.

The actors are of course good to fine in their own ways, all playing their roles wonderfully. But Chastain stole the damn show.

Crimson Peak will be frightening at only some points, strangely graphic at other parts (involving insects!), but for the most part, del Toro just wanted to tell a romance/drama story. Sort of. This is only slightly a horror, so those who are expecting a lot more in the scream department will be disappointed. In this film, there just happens to be ghosts and dead bodies along the way.

Sometimes it takes a long time to get your documentary filmed and published. Like, let’s say, for example…oh…I don’t know…The Wrecking Crew!

The director, Denny Tedesco, started getting film for this project in 1996. I was seven years old when he started this documentary. At that point in my life, I doubt I had even seen a documentary. The film was completed twelve years later, in 2008. He went and showed it at some of the festivals and people loved it. The issue with his documentary was that it was basically impossible for him to get a distributor. You see, this documentary uses music. A LOT of music. And all of the music is owned by a corporation or person and they need to pay those people money to use the song in the documentary. This suddenly makes the documentary costs several hundred thousands of dollars before they can even start selling copies!

Needless to say, no one wanted to front load that bill. So they raised a lot of the money on their own. Roughly $300,000. Somehow that still wasn’t enough. It was 2013. So he turned to Kickstarter. Using the story he wanted to tell, he was able to raise $300,000 more dollars to pay off the fees and make the film even more snazzy. And now it is on Netflix for us to enjoy.

Enjoy what though? All this intro and I don’t tell you about what it is, like some sort of movie slut.

Well. It is about music. It is about most of the famous songs that you know and love from the 1960’s and 70’s. Back when bands didn’t necessarily know how to play instruments that well and companies were figuring out how to sell an image and look more than talent. They needed to make hit records fast and didn’t have time to spend weeks in the recording studio when there is all that touring to do. That is where The Wrecking Crew came in, the most famous recording studio band of all time.

And you forgot all of their birthdays. 🙁

The name The Wrecking Crew was just a nickname for a lot of these people. They weren’t an official cohesive group that worked together, but technically each individually signed musicians who knew how to play their instrument well, could read music fast, and could improv on the fly to make a tune better. Sure, a lot of these guys were hired over and over again, so they grew to be friends and had that bond, but technically any of them could be replaced at any moment. This documentary does its best job to talk about as many big members of this crew as it can, based on who is still alive. It even gets a few of them talking to tell stories about musicians from behind the scenes.

Funny enough, we can all thank Brian Wilson from The Beach Boys for basically setting this up, using different musicians to make his Pet Sounds album. What? Didn’t know about that? You missed my review of Love & Mercy then (which I only just saw mere weeks before this). The efficiency and professionalism made these people work hard for their money and helped create such fantastic music.

Back to the front, Danny made this documentary because of his dad, Tommy Tedesco, who was one of the main guitarists from The Wrecking Crew. He wanted to tell his story, and didn’t get a chance to show it to the world before his death. If you want more name drops, the most famous member of the crew ended up being Glen Campbell. Yeah, he got super damn famous and started as a studio band jockey!

I didn’t do a lot of talking about the details of the documentary, because hey, it is on Netflix and you can easily watch it for yourself. Just hearing the music and hearing their stories is a blast on its own. Overall I didn’t find it life changing in anyway. It was light, easy, and fluffy. Yeah, I said fluffy damn it.

A good documentary that a lot of people should watch. I appreciate the effort and passion that went into it and it really shows on the screen. Now give me more more documentaries about people who did all the work for others, or something. Yay the little guy!

I would consider myself a fan of Adam Carolla. He is a man’s man, and not just because of his role on The Man Show.

But in general, he is like a old man’s Nick Offerman. He knows a lot about cars, building stuff, and…being an adult? I guess.

Either way, I was very upset when he was kicked off from Celebrity Apprentice, because he probably should have won it after Penn Jillette.

Damn it, I keep getting side tracked. Carolla made a movie, starring himself, funded by a shit ton of people. Whatever site he raised the funds on let him reach past his goal to fund the film. It even broke a record for whatever that site is. And now that I will see Road Hard, I will have seen and reviewed all two movies he has ever been the main star. Big numbers there.

He might even be able to afford his own Waffle House franchise.

Adam plays Bruce Madsen, a man with a manly name, who has gone through a lot. Well, most recently it feels like, he has gone through a divorce. That is a shame, but it is what it is. Sure, he isn’t living in his amazing house anymore that his TV career paid for, but at least his kids are happy. And fuck. They are smart too and wanting to go to college? What is up with that?

You see, Bruce used to be famous. He got super well known for The Bro Show on television. This lead to a lot of money and other TV show opportunities. It ended up being better for his co-host, Jack (Jay Mohr), whose career skyrocketed and is now hosting one of those late night television shows. Damn, that sucks for Bruce! Needless to say, the jobs aren’t coming as easy for Bruce as they used to be. People are starting to only remember him being really good on that Celebrity Barn Raising show.

So Bruce has to go back into stand up comedy, his roots. He has to travel around doing small time shows, that don’t sell out, but do okay because he is that “guy who used to be on the TV!” And college is expensive. He needs a big break to get his career off the ground. He needs to get back into TV, getting a steady pay check to enhance his resume. He needs something to get him back out of the comedy clubs to land back on his feet.

Featuring Diane Farr, David Alan Grier, Philip Rosenthal, David Koechner, Cynthy Wu, Larry Miller, and Howie Mandel as himself.

In this picture: Literally not landing on his own feet.

I think I can speak for all Adam Carolla fans when I say this movie is him at his finest. Hell, if you couldn’t tell, this is literally him playing himself. I tried to drop off enough hints in the intro, but he made a fictionalized version of himself, dumped a few more shitty moments on it, and called it a movie. Regardless of one’s skill, you probably know how to play yourself in most situations so the acting should just come natural.

I hope there is no bad blood between him and Kimmel in real life. That will make me sad.

Back to to film! Not surprisingly, I enjoyed this tale. It is a simple one, but it has some good comedic moments, features jokes in the form of stand up comic acts, and has good supporting characters who also make me laugh.

Sure, because it is a simple story, it doesn’t really end up too surprising by the end. It just tells a simple story solidly, and I can respect that. Like a well crafted stool. Or a…movie that isn’t shit.

Yeah. Much like that.

Divorce sucks. No way to sugar coat it. It breaks up families, people start having trust issues, children get fought over, you know.

There are some pros I guess. For the kids, they get two Christmases, and everyone knows that means more toys. And you don’t have to spend much time ever with someone you presumably hate!

But, in America, getting a divorce is actually very hard. From alimony to child support, from splitting of assets, to the legal code, it can get very confusing very fast. In fact, a lot of people out there seem to be making assloads of money over the break up of couples.

It isn’t a bad thing that people make money off of doing a job, that should be expected. What is unexpected is the lengths the entire system goes through to make sure your divorce hurts you in the wallet as much as possible. Which is really what Divorce Corp. is all about.

So what kind of shady shit is going down? Glad you asked. Obviously the documentary goes into extreme amounts of detail and personal anecdotes, so watch it for the full picture.

See? It is a giant office building behind a church? Fuck your subtle metaphors.

First of all, the family court law has gotten very complicated over the last few decades. It used to be relatively simple, but due to increase in complexity, for really no reason at all, it is basically impossible to represent yourself in court. You are basically forced to hire a lawyer regardless of how amicable your divorce will be. And of course, the divorce court lawyers can cost anywhere between 500-1000 dollars an hour.

If children are involved, Child Support isn’t a set in stone amount, it is based purely on the difference of income and how much custody the parents have. So, if someone has 100% custody, the other parent has to actually pay a lot more. This actively encourages couples to fight it out. Fighting it out makes the trial take a long time, which racks up the hourly fees, in order to earn money to probably just pay off your lawyer fees. The two lawyers probably know each other or are friends, and they both know the longer they take, the longer they get paid.

It is a shitty situation to be in. But that isn’t the end of it.

The court can appoint people to come in and monitor both households/parents. I don’t remember what they are called. These people have a fee as well, and the judge can force a couple to pay for them. These people aren’t neutral, can be friends with one firm, and can say whatever they want to make one parent seem bad. Of course, they have also been shown to accept bribes and more. Yayy.

These things are just the bottom of the barrel. I actually had to pause the documentary 20 minutes into it, sort of shocked with how fast and hard the information was coming at me. The whole thing is kind of disgusting and can make you just afraid of stepping outside.

Why only a 3 out of 4? Well, it is definitely dense and very detailed, but at the same time, it still just felt a bit one sided. Most of the anecdotes they showed have a lot of the “he said, she said” element, and for all I know, the people in these situations were bad. The evidence at times could easily have been hidden from the viewer.

Clearly the documentary has an agenda, and the agenda seems like a good one. But I feel like things can’t 100% be as bad as described everywhere. Maybe some parts of the country are just worse than other parts. Maybe. Hopefully.

When I grew up, I feel like I went and did sleepovers all the time. Probably just selective memory happening. And you know, barely remembering elementary school things anyways.

I didn’t realize until later that it is probably used as a way to give the parents a break from their kids for a whole night. And then the other parent would pay it back later and watch the kids overnight at their house. Plus, the kids think it is awesome. It is a win-win-win.

The Overnight is about a sleepover for little kids. And by that, I mean a kid sleepover from the parents point of view. And by that, I mean the parents are also sleeping over. And by that I should clarify that no actual sleep happens. In fact, the kids aren’t actually relevant at all in this movie. The beginning of my intro was merely a red herring to fill up space. Suck it!

This photo is also a red herring, as no one in the movie is actually Amish.

Being an adult in a new place is weird. Making new friends can be weird, because no one knows how to do it as an adult. Your friends become people you work with or that you somehow meet due to your kids knowing. You can’t just show up to a group of people in a bar, say you are new in town, and be instantly accepted. Like a kid could do on a playground. You just can’t.

That is the situation Alex (Adam Scott) and Emily (Taylor Schilling) find themselves in. They have a young boy and have recently moved to California. They have no friends, which is especially bad on Alex who might just be a stay at home dad. I can’t remember. Either way, AJ does get invited to some kids birthday party, so they attempt to go and meet new people to have new friends.

Well those people are dicks and Alex doesn’t talk to them. But a boy starts playing with his kid, so that is good. And the dad of the boy notices Alex and Emily so he does the responsible adult thing and introduces himself. Kurt (Jason Schwartzman), who thinks Alex and Emily are just swell, so he invites them over on this very same night for a pizza dinner they had planned. That way their kids can be better friends and Kurt can tell them about the area. Yay play dates and pizza!

They soon after meet Charlotte (Judith Godrèche), his French-esque wife, and everyone hits it off great! Good food, drinks, and conversation. But Charlotte and Kurt realize that our newbies are overstressed from the kid at home and recommend letting him sleep for a bit while they have fun, that way they can get a nice break for awhile. Sounds good. But as the night goes on and the alcohol continues, things get a little bit weirder and a little bit naked-er.

Yep, we’re about to talk about penises everyone.

That’s right. The male human penis. Not really a staple of cinema yet, but it definitely appears in comedy probably the second most across all genres. That is of course, after the porn genre. If you haven’t picked up my not so subtle text, I am heavily implying that both Scott and Schwartzman drop trou for the whole world to see in this film.

But that is only kind of true. Sure, in the movie, we get dick. But we get fake, prosthetic dicks. Neither dicks in the movie are the real actor dicks. But they sure are realistic, so it might as well be their real dicks.

Speaking of dicks, this movie is about a bunch of actually good people (not dicks, get it?), but the couples are just experiencing relationship problems. So of course the weird events that begin to unravel involve their bodies and their own desires, but not in the creepy “Wait, is this just a porno?” way. Everything is a lot more natural. I won’t go out and say realistic, but natural.

The Overnight is not a rip roaring comedy with tons of gags and slap stick and poo jokes. No, it is just putting a relatively normal couple of people in what most people would describe as bizarre night of events. At times it is deep, loving, and sensitive — none of those are supposed to be read as innuendo.

Overall it is a well acted film and my only major complaint would be that not enough ended up happening throughout the film. A lot of personal conversations, a good amount of amusing moments, and enough real moments to let this film be a relatively unique experience.

Today we are going to flash back to the year 2010. Animal Kingdom was nominated for a shit ton of awards, including an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Not only was it nominated for a shit ton of awards, it also won a shit ton of awards. It is a highly decorated, Australian crime drama film.

Fast forward a years, to the end of 2011. I saw Animal Kingdom in a Blockbuster on Blu-Ray for sale. I bought it, thinking it looked interesting and determined I would watch it shortly. I mean hey, it won awards, it must be good!

About a week later, I was about to make good on my promise, put it in the PS3 and started to watch it. Twenty minutes later, I had to stop the film as I realized I had no idea what I was doing, I was too busy multi tasking, and then I got tired and said I would get back to it eventually.

WELL EVENTUALLY IS FINALLY HERE TODAY, FOLKS! I have owned it on Blu-Ray for almost four whole years and I have wanted to watch it since I bought it. Clearly, there is no better film I could have picked to showcase on the last day of my Fucking Finally week.

Given the title, it should come to no surprise to you that everyone runs around on all fours.

This is a story about a family. A family who all happen to be criminals.

J (James Frencheville) lives with his Mum. Or at least he did until she OD’d. Now he is going to movie into a home with his grandmother, Smurf (Jacki Weaver). Don’t worry, that is just a nickname.

Also in the house are a few of his uncles! There is Baz (Joel Edgerton), good at robbing places. There is Craig (Sullivan Stapleton), who sells drugs and makes quite a living off of them. The oldest uncle, Pope (Ben Mendelsohn) is not in the home, he is in hiding and wanted by the police. And the youngest uncle is Darren (Luke Ford), who kind of just exists and does what he is told.

Somehow, with this noble family of thugs, a bad thing happens. Baz gets shot and killed by the police, for “no reason.” This pissed off the brothers. They wanted to get even and kill a couple cops. And using J to steal a car, they set up a trap and got their revenge.

Well, now J is involved with his family way deeper than he ever planned. Suddenly, a detective (Guy Pearce) is investigating them. They have a family lawyer (Dan Wyllie) telling him to not say a thing, everyone assuming he will be the weak link that gets them nailed.

J just wants to hang out with his girlfriend, Cole (Laura Wheelwright). And more importantly, he doesn’t want to die from crooked cops, angry family, or AIDS. He didn’t mention the last one, I am just assuming.

She has the grandma sweet guilt look down pat.

[Editor’s note: The ending of this review was lost hours after I originally wrote it. The ending of this review might be shit as I try to badly recreate it. It just sucks ya know?]

First and obvious question, was the film worth the wait? Yes, thank goodness, it was still an enjoyable film. Now I will admit, one of the main reasons I still wanted to watch it was because of Edgerton. I didn’t know who Edgerton was when I first tried to watch this movie because I hadn’t yet seen Warrior. But now that I know him, I want to see more of his movies. Little did I know his character would die in the first 15 minutes. Oh well.

Acting wise, everyone did a pretty good job. I am happy it focused a lot more on the drama aspects instead of an action movie. The first 45 minutes were a bit slower than I’d like, but the last hour was still captivating despite the lack of “pew pews.”

I am happy to report that I don’t regret buying the Blu-Ray. It adds some prestige to my shelf, as I don’t have many Australian films anyways.

Movies in 2014 brought us some incredibly new and wonderful experiences. Boyhood took 12 years to film, doing a little bit each year to watch the actors grow old. Birdman was edited in a fine way to make it seem like just one long continuous shot. Both fantastic films, my 1 and 2 from the year.

But there was another movie that was unique last year that interested me. The Disappearance Of Eleanor Rigby. On its own, it doesn’t seem like that innovative of a film. However, it is collectively three films in one.

On the surface it is just about a relationship. Specifically, the three versions are called Him, Her, and Them. Him is the plot from mainly the guy’s point of view and Her is the girl’s point of view. Them is a more typically told story, telling bits and pieces of their sides and is a much more standard film.

And I wanted to see it all of 2014. I wanted to watch it as soon as it hit Blu-Ray. It has been on Netflix for months, all three parts! Welcome to Day 3 of my Fucking Finally week.

First comes love…

Conor (James McAvoy) and Eleanor (Jessica Chastain) have had a long relationship. They even married! Serious stuff. But no one would describe their lives as remarkable. Eleanor came from an academic family, but left her PhD program in Anthropology, when she got pregnant. Conor is the son of a restaurant God in NYC, who also has bad relationships, and is now attempting to run his own restaurant without his dad’s help.

But then one of the worst things happen. They lost their baby boy, really young. Their grief came in different ways, driving a wedge between them. After a few months, Eleanor wants to take a brake from their relationship, frustrated where things are going, and that is really where our story begins.

In Him, we mostly get to see Conor flailing about trying to deal with his emotions by repressing them like a motherfucker. They still come out in bursts, like when he has attacked unruly customers. His best friend and chef (Bill Hader) is even getting sick of his shit.

Conor sort of starts to stalk Eleanor a little bit as well, following her around but never having the courage to talk to her until he resorts back to a kid in middle school and passes her a note, quite creepily. His story also features Ciaran Hinds as his father, and Nina Arianda as an employee who has feelings for him.

Then comes stalking after heartbreak and sadness…

In Her, we don’t even see Conor for the until the awkward scene above. James McAvoy is barely in this film and it is definitely all about Eleanor.

It starts with her injury and then her going on her own to the hospital. Eleanor decides to go home with her parents and sister. The mom (Isabelle Huppert) is French through and through, always seen with a glass of wine. Her dad (William Hurt) is still a psychologist at the local university, and her younger sister (Jess Weixler) has a little boy of her own, but no man or boyfriend in her life. She was already living with the parents still. Her family tries to get her help, but can’t seem to provide enough help on their own, the awkwardness of the whole situation. Some psychology degree, am I right?

So she does go to the local college to take a few classes. There she develops a nice bond with another psychology professor (Viola Davis), who is able to talk to her like a real person about normal things, since she knows nothing about Eleanor’s last few months. Her time alone allows Eleanor an attempt to find herself, and interact with Conor on her own terms in her own ways. Slowly, surely, and eventually full of hope.

In Them, it is the longest of the films at just over 2 hours. However, it is literally just everything you seen before. You still get the scenes between them, but this time you also get some of their individual scenes.

Them is packaged in a way so that it can be their complete story in a regular time frame for a regular movie. A movie about sadness and grief and how two different people cope. Technically, some of the scenes between them we see from a few different angles, but it is just a cram packed version with less individual detail on each character. Although, when watching it, it still felt like it featured a lot more of Her than Him.

Then comes alcohol to end all of the sadness!

Five hours, twelve minutes. That is how long watching these three movies took overall. That is if you want the full experience. The good news? You don’t have to see all three for the full experience!

In fact, you shouldn’t watch all three, and definitely not in the same week. You should only watch Him and Her, or Them, not all three. If you just watch the first two, you will get a very unique experience and you will get it in three hours, nine minutes. A much more reasonable amount of time. If you are feeling lazy or want a very regular saddish drama, then just go for Them. Its like a not very effective cliff notes.

Now, I watched them in Him, Her, and Them order because it just seemed to make sense. I knew the films were about the woman leaving, so it makes since to keep some mystery and watch Him before Her. Doing so allowed the film to answer questions are different times and felt like the best experience.

This only matters if you care about my recommendation of course. The best experience would just be Him and Her, no Them, because it is mostly repetitive. It sucks that I cannot wipe Him/Her from my memory before Them to give an unbiased review of it. But Them on its own didn’t feel like a great movie. Obviously I had the issues of it being full of scenes I had already seen (does that sound weird?), but it also cut out a lot of other scenes that I felt were necessary.

That’s right. Watching the condensed two hour version felt lacking. Shocking discovery, I know.

Them is Shit. Him and Her combined are a good experience. If you were going to watch just one of Him and Her, it won’t be good. It would just be odd and you don’t want to be odd.

Oh yeah, for whatever reason, the movies end differently. I have no idea why this happens, but Her has the best ending, in my ever so humble movie reviewer opinion.