Tag: Comedy

Yeah, yeah, I know what you are thinking. “Didn’t you just review this movie?” Nooo, that was The ABCs Of Death! This is the sequel! You see, The ABCs of Death came out like, last year or 2012, depending on who you ask. This one is new, it is fresh, and that is why I had to rush it out before Halloween. On the same week as the original.

The concept is of course exactly the same. In The ABCs Of Death 2, we have 26 new short stories, one for every letter of the alphabet, with some repeat directors, some new people, and overall, a lot less subtitles.

If the man on the left represents this franchise and the woman represents the average film goer…

With the second iteration, I feel like I should note that the overall tone of the movie seems to have changed a lot. Technically it is still a horror comedy, but there is a lot lot less comedy and a lot more tales going for a serious horror/thriller short. Like, a lot of them.

For instance, guess how many of these shorts are about farting and dying from farts? Well, 0, which is definitely less than the first film.

Here are some other notable differences – Every short is a story, and there are no meta stories unlike the first film. I think there are more animated/claymation/etc shorts than the first film, of which I think only had a couple. This one didn’t have a lot either, but there were more. And of course, one of the shorts made me want to throw up, everywhere, and still makes me feel comfortable.

And it definitely wasn’t the bros versus hoes segment.

Seriously. I am going to do my best and not tell you what any letter means. And it will be simple, because I am typing this and not talking directly to you. Z. The ending of this film is fucked up. Super fucked up. Like. Really really cringe inducing, gross, yucky yuck, bllaarrrghghghghg. I had to send my loved one out of the room when it was happening so that she wouldn’t experience any of it and refused to tell her about it. It was just that bad and even describing it doesn’t feel like the right thing to do.

And you know what? I guess that makes it kind of awesome. They wanted to freak me out, they did, and that is hard for a lot of horror films to do. Z will unfortunately stick with me for a long time, but that also speaks out to its uniqueness.

In other news, on a whole, I think I technically disliked this one more than the first. I thought the first was okay, and overall, this one too was okay. There is so much diversity and stories, it is hard for a single bad one to drag it all down, or a great one to elevate it. There is just so much average, that after watching it, I can only really remember a few of them anymore. The extremes.

I know I am mostly alone when I say I disliked this one more than the first, as most people liked how it was less humorous, but I thought the humor aspects gave the first one some sense of identity. I think it has to either embrace the comedic element more fully and equally, or get rid of it completely and go straight 26 tales of fright and terror. That is what I think a future movie needs to do. With the time constraints, they should’t have issues actually making tiny terrible tales, I just don’t want half of them to feel half assed.

Every once in awhile, a new movie concept comes out, and people liked it. In this case, I am talking about V/H/S, which decided to add outdated technology plus short horror films into one. It was an anthology. Made up of five or six smaller horror stories, good ideas that wouldn’t have been good if dragged out over 80-90 minutes. Brilliant!

Shorts are hard to make and require you to do a lot in a short amount of time.

Well, The ABCs Of Death took the idea of a horror anthology and went several steps further. Five to six shorts? Fuck that. Twenty-Six shorts is what people really want.

Yes, in case you didn’t get the gimmick, that is one for every letter of the alphabet.

Like Stab. Or Betrayal. Or Fetish.

This is really a hard series to really describe. After all, I could just tell you what each clip is called, as they each have the alphabetic name/theme going on, but that kind of gives it away. The movie shows you the short and then tells you the name afterwards. The titles themselves kind of give things away and ruin a lot of the surprise.

However, there are sill some awesome titles. Like Hydro-Electric Diffusion, WTF, and Toilet.

Given 26 directors, these range in many different ways. We have one animated short, and a claymation short. Two of the shorts are meta and aware that they are a specific letter / feature the people making the short. I guess both wanted to be original, and bam, now they are not unique.

And the genres range as well. Some of these are entirely humor based, some are going for creepy and weird, some are going for horror, and others? Well, others are just down right disgusting.

And arguably, some people would consider some of these “hot”.

I am talking super disgusting. I am talking I had to pause it after a short and come back to finish the movie an hour later. I just didn’t expect some things to happen. Some people with fucked up imaginations out there is all I really have to say about that.

I definitely think 26 is too many shorts in one package to get a real good feeling about this movie. Because they range so dramatically, you might have a dramatic thriller piece, followed by something completely absurd, followed by a slasher, and it can be exhausting.

However, on the flippy side, because of it is format, it is one of the best movie types ever to let you take breaks if you feel like it and come back days later and not feel like you will forget things. You could watch one a day and you will still get the same basic experience. So that is cool.

I will note that going into it, I didn’t know so much of it would go for strange/humor, I thought this would be a straight horror film like V/H/S. So at least that differentiates it from that series as well. Overall, it is an average film with a bold concept. And also very fucking weird. This is the type of film that may be more enjoyable in a group, with everyone trying to guess what the word theme may be.

Judging movies by their title is a time honored tradition.

Like All Cheerleaders Die. K. This sounds like a slasher horror. Because it is going for girls, probably has a lot of naked girls, probably a B grade film, and probably excessively gore-y for whatever reason.

Well, turns out I was completely wrong about this movie. Almost every single aspect that I could derive from the title. Still a horror, just not a slasher. High quality feeling film with only some meh special effects. Not really super gore-y. Kind of amusing at points, but no where near the end. And only a little bit of eye candy.

So basically I was wrong. Dead cheerleader wrong.

Bet you I can’t go through this whole review without a Heroes reference.

Everyone liked Alexis (Felisha Cooper). She was going into the summer of her senior year, ready to take over the cheerleading squad and lead them to victory. But while performing a hard stunt for Maddy’s (Caitlin Stasey) video project, she smacks hard to the ground on the head. And you know. Dies.

This tears everyone up, but not everyone equally. Aka, Tracy (Brooke Butler) is now dating Terry (Tom Williamson). Terry apparently isn’t missing Alexis too much, because they were hardcore dating too. And Tracy was Alexis’ best friend! So Maddy wants to get back at them, because she used to be friends with Alexis a long time ago, and really hates Terry. Her plan is to join the cheerleading squad, destroy it from within, and also ruin Terry’s life while she can.

But that might not be the main plot of the film. Jealousy can be a serious thing, on all accounts. So when Maddy, Tracy, and two other girls (Amanda Grace Cooper, Reanin Johannink) are killed from a traffic accident caused by Terry, shit starts toget serious. Especially when Maddy’s ex girlfriend, Leena (Sianoa Smit-McPhee) is close by when it happens. Since she practices paganism, she attempts to bring them back, and well. It works. Just, they are different now. They are undead. And things are about to get a lot more hectic.

Also featuring more dudes as football dudes. Leigh Parker, Chris Petrovski, Nicholas S. Morrison, and Jordan Wilson.

Who knew Geology could be used for such diabolical purposes?

As I already mentioned, thus spoiling the end of my review, I definitely found this to be a lot better than I thought based on title alone. It has its issues, most movies do. But here is what it had going for it:

An original plot. Interesting characters. Multiple important plot lines. A villain who seemed like a huge dick, but also someone anyone could imagine. Funny at times. Not low budget and not going the easy way out at any point. And characters I could actually care about.

Go figure. I don’t have a lot to say after the fact either. I do hope they try to do more of these and continue the story line. I think the end left that open, or it could have just been their way of saying shit is still weird.

A pretty decent and newer film, perfect for the Halloween season. Watch the cheerleaders, save the world. (Fuck! So close!)

I have wrote before about the secret feud that must exist between Zach Braff and Josh Radnor. They both were the stars of long running comedy sitcoms that were ingrained in pop culture. They also both directed movies, Braff had Garden State and Radnor had HappyThankYouMorePlease. Both, very indie drama/comedies.

But then Mr. Radnor changed the rules. No longer willing to just copy Mr. Braff, he went and directed a second movie called Liberal Arts. Not only that, but the very indie movie dealt with sex. That is a huge game changer.

So Braff looked at Radnor, knowing he had to direct another movie to get back at Radnor’s arrogance by jumping the line. He decided to direct and write a film called Wish I Was Here, trying to out indie the latest indie movie of Radnor. Braff just had to use the power of Kickstarter to do it. On plot alone, he might have done it too. Braff was attempting the very rare, and usually very good, indie family road trip movie.

With at least one Turkleton by his side.

Now, this is a story all about how Aidan Bloom’s (Zach Braff) life got flipped-turned upside down. Hmm, not entirely true. One could argue it happened after his mom died and left a sizable sum of money to his brother (Josh Gad) who seems to be wasting it all. One could say it has been bad for the last couple years, as he is a struggling actor, unable to find work in LA, living in a shitty home. His wife, Sarah (Kate Hudson), is working at a shitty job with annoying coworkers and is taking out her frustrations on her husband who isn’t providing income.

But at least his kids (Joey King, Pierce Gagnon) are going to a good school. They are in a private Jewish school, thanks to funding from his father (Mandy Patinkin). But even that is about to change. Looks like his cancer is back, and he wants to use the rest of his savings for a risky procedure to maybe get rid of the cancer for good. Maybe.

Well, Aidan didn’t have a good life in public school, so agrees to home school his kids. But does he know how to teach them? They are quite different, and he wasn’t the smartest in school either. But with so much in his life going sour, Aidan really doesn’t even know what to do. According to the Rabbis he is failing, that is for sure.

Also featuring Braff’s friends. You already knew Donald Faison was in here, but what about his Garden State buddies, Jim Parsons and Michael Weston? Natalie Portman was presumably busy.

Braff literally carried around his Kickstarter money until the film was finished. Every last scene.

I know a lot of people were disappointed with this film, calling it “Not Garden State” but this film wasn’t going for Garden State at all. Garden State was about depression, this film just has depressing subject matter. I was completely wrong with the genre though, the trailers made it seem like a road trip movie, and there is some traveling, but most of it takes place around LA.

It is about a man trying to cope with his existence, with what his family expects of him, with what others expect of him, and whether or not he truly is the reason that everything in his life is falling apart.

The film also has a strong indie feel, especially when Braff gets caught up in his imagination (not like JD). But it doesn’t feel so indie that I am pissed off by the end, wondering what the entire movie was about. That’s an indie stereotype. This film sort of celebrates the bizarre of every day ordinary life and of raising a family. And it does a decent job at the story it wants to convey.

Funny and serious, Wish I Was Here was better than I thought it would be, and certainly better than Liberal Arts, which I have to compare it to. Just arguably both of these gents had better first films than their second films.

What if I told you that sometimes movies are called different things in different countries. That wouldn’t surprise you in the slightest. You knew that.

After all, it is Gojira in Japan, and Godzilla in America. “Hey that doesn’t count, that is just another different language!”

Alright fucker. How about Frozen? We got the clever/unique title, while countries in Europe got stuck with the generic The Snow Queen, which the movie is “based upon” (aka, both have a woman with ice powers and…?). “Well, that one changed its name to appeal to different cultures where The Snow Queen story originated, to get more money!” Okay. Well, I don’t blame them for that I guess. I do blame them for saying it has anything to do with The Snow Queen, but I digress.

That leaves us with the movie for the day, What If. No question mark. It’s original title in Ireland/Canada was The F Word, and for whatever reason that title was found to be too risque or something for American audiences, so we get a much more romantic comedy-esque name to maybe get the ladies in? I don’t know. It is fucking stupid. If I hear it was the MPAA’s fault for alluding to maybe the word Fuck, I will be angry though.

See, there isn’t even any fucking in this scene. That would be impossible for them in their positions.

Relationships are hard. Just ask Wallace (Daniel Radcliff), who is finally getting over his ex girlfriend Megan after like, 3 years. So he is going to Allan’s (Adam Driver) party, his best friend. That is where he meets Chantry (Zoe Kazan), Allan’s cousin. They have some intense conversations, both of them a bit awkward, but it is nice.

Also, Chantry has a long term boyfriend of course, Ben (Rafe Spall), which throws Wallace off guard. Normally that information is given earlier in a conversation. But he is fine with being friends. She believes a man and a woman can be friends with no hidden motives. And you know what? Wallace is fine with that too. Fuck it.

Basically, this is a retelling of The Wedding Singer. Chantry even has a sister (Megan Park) interested in Wallace. Wallace is heartbroken after a long relationship ended. Chantry things she is in a relationship forever, but one that might start having issues. And there is at least one wedding occurring, when Allan hits it off hard with Chelsea (Mackenzie Davis).

It just has a lot less music and singing and no Broadway musical adaption yet. I say yet, because we all know Mr. Radcliffe loves Broadway.

He also loves diners, if you look at every poster for this movie.

This isn’t your grandmothers romantic comedy. This is a a romantic comedy for a more realistic newly mature movie watching crowd. Wait. It is only PG-13? Hmm. I figured it was R, but now looking back, I guess no real cursing or other adult stuff happened.

I say realistic, but in the end, this is similar to a lot of other romantic comedies, just with slightly different approaches. After all, the F word in questions ends up either being “Friendship” or “Friendzone” depending on how you look at the movie. Friendzone is a rather ugly word now, because it is pretty sexist in most cases, and used by people who think that being nice to the sex they are attracted to should eventually lead to a relationship and of course sex. Because not every relationship starts with friendship, a lot start romantically first. Unless its the movies.

So should I punish the movie for going the technically same cliche route of friendship with the intention of friendship leading to something more? Or should I ignore it and enjoy the acting, the chemistry, the comedy, and the ridiculousness of it all?

I like the ridiculousness route. Woo romcoms! Woo What If! A bit of it seemed forced, but I loved how uncomfortable everyone acted when they were forced into slightly romantic situations. I literally live off of awkwardness, and this movie may have extended my life at least 4 days.

And So It Goes is one of the many films I decided to skip the pre-screening and wait a lot longer to see it. I had nothing better to do that night, so I went home instead of watching the movie.

I just couldn’t justify waiting hours in line. Look at the main poster. The title is just vague enough to make it about anything. Brought to us by Rob Reiner, this film wasn’t even really advertised in any way.

Sure his last film he made I really liked, Flipped. I found it adorably cute. But he also did The Bucket List, which just seems to pander to the viewer in the worst ways.

I make sure to show my biases before a review, and most of the time I feel pretty neutral. But man, this movie has an uphill battle as it just looks like a pointless, slightly emotional, predictable, waste of time.

Alcohol? That would totally give this film an edge if they didn’t look so happ (y.

Oren Little (Michael Douglas) is a mean old grouchy old man, and a real estate agent. He is incredibly wealthy, had a son who is a disappointment to him, and he doesn’t like to talk about it. He is ready to retire, sell his old house for several millions, and get away from everything and live out of his life in bliss elsewhere. But for now, he is living in a building he owns, an apartment complex. You know, it’d be weird to sell your house if you still lived there and didn’t want it to seem that way.

But then Mr. Disappointment (Austin Lysy) shows up at the home’s door step, ruining a potential buyer. Apparently the kid has some more bad news. He will be serving time for 6-8 months and needs someone to watch over his daughter. Whoa whoa. Oren has a grand daughter?! Soon to be 10 Sarah (Sterling Jerins) needs someone to look up to, and she might as well assume her grandpa will help out in that department. But of course, he doesn’t want this shit.

Thankfully one of his neighbors isn’t so entirely sick of Oren’s shit to ignore the daughter. Which is where Leah (Diane Keaton) really comes into the picture. A widowed lounge singer now, she tries to assume the best about people and usually she is wrong.

Can she with the help of the girl maybe turn this grouchy old groucho around?

I dunno. You be the judge!

Well shit. The movie ended up being a pointless, slightly emotional, predictable, waste of my time. Incredible. I looked up to see a few stats and saw that this movie had a budget of 30 million.

30 million to make? What? There were like five sets in the entire picture. How much money did Michael Douglas and Diane Keaton demand? It must be at least 15 million of that price, because everyone else involved was no names anyways.

The neighbors I didn’t tag or talk about because they all don’t matter. Their plot lines in the predictable movie are also predictable. They keep getting themselves involved in Oren’s life until he realizes he must not hate them either after all. Yay family. Yay friendship.

Apparently money doesn’t buy happiness, which is the theme of the movie. But that isn’t even true by itself. Because everyone knows that money definitely helps happiness. If he was poor, Oren couldn’t have handled that kid or gotten it on with Diane Keaton. There was also a very awkward scene with the girls mother, but it was less than a minute of screen time and ended very awkwardly. Awkwardly in terms of story telling, as they glossed over a lot of what must have happened and she was seemingly never talked about again. Kind of fucked up.

Shame on you movie. Shame.

Another day of planned movie watching was foiled by my inability to remember to bring my movies to my movie watching location. So I had to improvise, yet again, and yet again, I went for one that I could find that was super weird.

So hey. Attack of the 50 Foot Cheerleader. Ah, clearly that is a throwback to one of the more famous original Sci-Fi B-Movie Drive-In Theater of all time: Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. This is just a more specific version of a woman, with a completely different plot, and probably a few elements that would have never made it on film in the 1950s.

Like boobies.

However, both may have had obvious references to Gulliver’s Travels. Who knows.

Cassie Stratford (Jena Sims) is “ugly” and a boring nerd in college. Sure, she somehow has a job as a researcher that has helped develop a new chemical that can increase the strength and attributes of an object. Kind of also restoring its use. Pretty vague. Going to be used to make plastic surgery stay good longer.

But Cassie is “ugly” and going for a sorority that her mother was in and is trying to be a cheerleader. That is the only way her mom will pay for college (because he job doesn’t and presumed smarts don’t help with that). Things are obviously going badly, so of course Cassie puts some of that formula into her blood stream. Next day, she is sexy, confident, and athletic. Now she is able to impress most of the sorority and cheer squad! Well, not the head person of course. Brittany Andrews (Olivia Alexander) is totes jelly and angry about it all. She loses her popularity, especially when Cassie grows taller making her seem a hulking amazon woman.

Yep, looks like the drugs have some adverse side effects. In fact, Cassie might grow so big the government has to get involved. Oh no, not the government!

Thankfully she has her nerdy yet hunky coworker Kyle (Ryan Merriman) looking out for her to fix things. And her super down to earth roommate Jett (Sasha Jackson) for some form of support!

Spoilers: This movie does end with a giant woman cat fight.

I’ve done these strange college sex comedies films before. Most recently it was The Coed and the Zombie Stoner, which was a surprisingly entertaining film for the genre, with an original plot line, some acting, some funny jokes, and more. This is a completely different type of movie. It is one of those movies trying too hard to be a B movie and instead just making a boring piece of movie.

Unlike others in the genre, it isn’t really ever funny. They go for some shocking scenes and sudden naked moments to get their laughs, but all of it just feels forced and yawn inducing.

And it also features some terrible CGI just to remind you that they are going for B Film status. It was even made by Roger Corman, the asshole who makes all of these terrible movies for Sy Fy. It is his first 3D movie too. I didn’t watch it in 3D, but it was made obvious by some incredibly awkward scenes and camera placements that they wanted the items to jump out of you.

The entire thing ends up being an unfunny, unoriginal waste of time that fails to live up to its genre.

Seduction is all about the hair wiggling.

What? You can’t wiggle your hair? Then you have to wiggle your hips. Can’t wiggle your hips? Then wiggle your fat stacks of cash, because that is the only other way you might be able to seduce someone.

Thankfully, I have the first two going for me, so I don’t need a guide to seduction, which hopefully The Grand Seduction isn’t about. I’d imagine it could be about seduction on a big level, like maybe a thousand people at once.

Yeah, that would be a grand seduction, wouldn’t it?

Or maybe it is on how to form the sexiest three way known to man?

Tickle Head, a quaint small island village in Newfoundland, Canada. Shit, even the setting for this film is arousingly seductive. It used to be a nice place to live, where the locals mostly fished their way into happiness, earning a living and a decent wage while doing what they loved. They are the type of people who live there their whole life and don’t ever want to leave.

Like Murray French (Brendan Gleeson)! His dad had a lot of kids, a loud loving wife, and earned his life of small town luxury. That is all Murray wants to do, too. But the fish cant be fished anymore for a wage, so all the men and town and Murray line up to collect their welfare checks and feel down right miserable.

But there is hope. Indeed. There is talks of a petrochemical company setting up a factory there. The mayor is offering a lot of incentives. They don’t want to work at a petrochemical company necessarily, they just want to work, no matter the job. The only (major) issue is that the town doesn’t have a doctor. They have been trying to get one for eight years but no one wants to live in their small community.

Well, through some underhanded means, they are able to line one up! Dr. Lewis (Taylor Kitsch), a cricket lover and doctor has to spend a month in their small town. If they can convince him that they are a special and unique place and like all the same things he does, then they can have him live there. Then they convince the company to come. Then they can earn a living. Yes. How excellent.

Also with random townspeople, like Mark Critch, Liane Balaban, Gordon Pinsent, and Matt Watts more.

“And this is where we stare out into the sea, noting the loneliness of existence.”

Without a doubt, I can say I probably learned a lot about seduction from this film. Getting that small village of only a hundred or so individuals to work together for a month on a common goal. Sure, some may see the entire thing as deceit or a lie. Some may say that it the spying on his phone line is down right despicable. Some may say a lot of things, but by golly, it was entertaining.

I was quite surprised at how funny I found this whole movie. I put off watching the film for at least 2 days thinking it would be boring or elitist, but it was really none of those things. This is actually a remake of another movie, translated to Seducing Doctor Lewis, which came from the wildly distance area of Quebec. Sure, some would say it is weird for a country to remake a movie from the same country, but 1) Quebec is nothing like the rest of Canada (basically, it is their Texas), and 2) America remakes its own shit all the time.

The Grand Seduction has a lot of charm, wittiness, and charisma, while also maintaining that uncultured small town vibe. Which, I guess is even more so the point of a film titled like this one.

Brendan Gleeson is turning into an entertaining actor, and to think he is only turning 60 next year. Kitsch is playing a role unlike a lot of his other things as well.

If I was this movie, I’d be able to end this review less awkwardly too. Let’s just say that.

I am pretty sure I first saw a trailer or heard about The Dirties sometime in the early half of 2013. The only reason I remember it is because it was endorsed by Kevin Smith and I saw a featurette for some reason. I was interested in seeing it, because Kevin Smith told me to be, but just not interested enough in seeing it to go find it right away. Or anytime soon at that.

But hey, that is why dicking around on Netflix is a good thing.

Which is why I found myself laying down last Thursday night on my living room couch bed, watching a very meta movie, and eating my Americone Dream Ice Cream.

Because I was born into this lap of luxury.

Matt (Matt Johnson) and Owen (Owen Williams) are you typical shitty high school students. They think they are cool, but they’re not. They think that they are funny, but they’re not. They think girls should like them, but they shouldn’t. Matt in particular is kind of a huge ass face. He is just projecting though. Because they get bullied. By bullies. Some, sure, uncalled for harassment, but other times, their own fault.

They are in a film class, which involves learning film techniques and of course making their own movies. Their dream project is called The Dirties, a hard R picture, full of violence, swearing, violence, and vulgaralities. However, the extreme low quality and edits they had to make just make them seem like even more laughing stocks.

Fuckers. Someone should teach them a lesson. For real.

And boy howdy. Wouldn’t it be hilarious and fun, if for their movie, they actually killed the biggest bullies in their school? People would understand. They’d get the joke that the movie became reality. They wouldn’t care if they ensured people they were only going for the bad guys. Yeah. Ha ha ha. That’d show them.

Also Krista Madison as the love interest of Owen, who really finds her a cootie patootie.

Holes in your jeans mean you mean business.

The Dirties was an uncomfortable movie throughout its run, but for many different reasons. There was the awkward teenage aspect which is almost always cringe worthy. There is the unsettling transformation as our friends start to drift further and further apart. And then there is the school shooting, still with a twinge of teenage awkwardness to make the entire thing hard to watch. I can only think of using the term “unsettling” again.

Its very low quality gives a more realistic approach to it all, as it is a fake documentary of them making movies and makin plans. Given that, we have a guy always watching them with a camera, who isn’t a character we get to interact with. Was weird in that regard.

But not as weird as the ending. Oh man, that was shocking and brutal. Such a realistic portrayal of the school shooting, watching a twisted revenge fantasy play out in all of its glory. It was just messed up man. Awkwardly shocking to the final scene.

Other interesting aspects are that the characters are pop culture fanatics, so there are tons of references to other movies and tv shows in here. Hell, they even made the final credits interesting because of it.

The Dirties is not a movie with everyone, and a lot of people will find the style very strange. So I’d suggest just trying to watch it, and if you don’t think you’d like the low budget narture of it it all, then just move on, no worries. But if not, finish it and maybe you will feel uncomfortable.

Although the words are completely different, whenever I read the title The One I Love, I think of the final song from Grease.

You know. You’re The One That I Want. It bugs me so much that I try to sing the movie title to the same tune and it just falls apart so badly that I feel sad and wonder why would my brain betray me like that.

Either way, I went in knowing this was similar to a romantic comedy, but in no way like a romantic comedy. What a great description!

And it stars the guy from The League and the girl from Mad Men. No, the other girl.

Ethan (Mark Duplass) and Sophie (Elisabeth Moss) are having marriage problems. Their love seems to have floundered. They used to feel great in each others company and spontaneous, but now they argue all the time and don’t know how to rekindle their relationship. Also, Ethan did cheat on her in a moment of weakness. That is important.

So now they are seeing a marriage counselor (Ted Danson), who recommends to them a weekend getaway in a house in the middle of nowhere that he knows about. He has told them it has helped many couples find their love again there and saved many marriages. It has a 100% success rate and is just a magical place.

When they get there, it is okay and they try to give it a shot. And then they have sex!

Or at least they think they do. Sophie says it was great but Mark says he doesn’t remember it. Whatever, it must be some dumb perverted joke of his, always messing around. Oh that Mark.

But the next morning, Mark goes to the guest house and sees Sophie making breakfast with bacon which she is totally against. This can’t be real. Especially when he goes back to the regular house and sees Sophie there as well.

Yep. Things are getting weird. Are clones involved? Evil spirits? Magic? Aliens? Voodoo? Why are they seeing replicas, damn it?! And how can multiple versions of your loved one help you love them more?

I am not talking about increasing the frequency of love here.

MOTHERFUCKING DOPPELGANGERS. This came out of no where! I just liked the somewhat uncomfortable artwork. But another movie to come out this year about Doppelgangers? We had Enemy and The Double? How many more can there fucking be? Doppelgangers of Doppelganger movies. If there are more, seriously, let me know so I can watch them.

This movie was full of surprises. It just seemed to keep getting weirder and creepier the more it went along. It had some great paranoia / jealousy going on, along with fantastic conversations about relationships. Given some sort of magical element, it adds philosophical talk too, in terms of what constitutes as cheating / lying when there exact duplicates running around.

I was very entranced watching this movie and loved every minute of it. Yes, even the parts pre-magic. They were interesting as well damn it. The best part of it is that despite these fantasy elements, it still felt incredibly realistic of its portrayal of real people in a really odd situation.

This movie was a complete surprise for me to watch and I am glad I did.