Tag: Drama

Every Day I’m movie watching.

M-m-m-movie watchin’, movie watchin’.

Every Day is the boringly titled movie about a relationship, that sucks, and has problems, yet the problems aren’t too…interesting.

Liev Schreiber plays the dad. He works for a company, as a writer/editor. His boss is Eddie Izzard, who used to be a full time bachelor but is just now settling down, and constantly freaking out about it. He also works with Carla Gugino, who may be trying to seduce him. And by may be, I mean definitely is.

His wife is played by Helen Hunt, who also has to bring in her father to their household. He has…something wrong with him, making him all loopy, and in a wheelchair. But he is old, so he is also normally angry. Because aren’t all old people?

They also have two sons, the younger a kid who likes to play the violin, and thus has concerts for the parents to go to, and the older, someone who recently came out of the closet a few months prior, despite knowing for many many years.

And yeah. A few weeks in their life, and maybe a rekindling of their relationship through these “Troubling times”.

You have to believe that Izzard is the type of guy who can be in charge of a magazine.

What’s to conclude about this movie? Not much. Some stuff happens, then some more stuff happens. Not really present is any comedy, except from how ridiculous Izzard is. The drama, while present, is there, but insignificant.

What is left is a movie that had not much happen, and then left no impact on my life. Woo!

Midst the bigger releases this week, I saw Like Crazy and was most curious about it. After all, the other ones were the previously reviewed (and hated) Immortals, a remake of Footloose, and the most hated movie of 2011, Jack and Jill.

Not that I am basing my opinion on a movie before watching it though. That’d be bad (and human). >.>

But yeah, Like Crazy, also featuring the words before it “I want you” “I need you” “I love you” and “I miss you”. Pretty neat, and yeah its an indie romance story.

It also features some kissing. So kids 5-9 will not like it.

Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones. The former, an American (hah) who likes to draw and design things. The former, a girl from Britain, on a student visa. Well they get infatuated with each other, go on a date, have some dirty American sex. He even meets her parents who come for a visit. But she decides to stay a bit longer over the summer, and they live together. Once she goes back for a few months for weddings and stuff, she plans on flying back to LA. Well. She can’t get through customs.

For overstaying her student visa, she is now, in fact, banned from entering the USA, even though she now has a tourist visa, and is sent back to London.
Well that sucks.

The movie is basically their relationship. It has, for the closest description, montages of their relationship. A lot of music and them doing things, or not doing things depending on where it is in the movie. It goes into a long distance thing, and then them seeing other people, trying to get rid of the ban. Then, marriage! Still doesn’t lift the ban. Then rifting apart, kind of living in both cities still, maybe also dating?

But what happens when the ban finally does lift? Can they live a normal life together?

Or will it just be a constant awkward turtle?

The other members of this relationship are Jennifer Lawrence and Charlie Bewley, and involve even more awkward working relationships and possible proposals.

Some things you might ask yourself. Why doesn’t he just move to London? Yes. Why not. Because of course that’d be ridiculous. Trying to figure out how much each member are really into this relationship is hard to grasp. When they fight, it is of course pointless, but most fights are. But one of the reasons he doesn’t go is he gets a successful design business in LA that would be hard to start in London (cough).

The ending thankfully while kind of expected, also went a different route. I both loved and hated the ending, and wouldn’t want to spoil it. But it definitely was emotional, and uneasy feeling. However, I think it moved kind of slow during other parts of the movie, and felt like the relationship was forced at points. The chemistry was definitely there between the two main stars, and it felt real.

Yes! Finally. Who hasn’t been waiting to watch The Way, the first Emilio Estevez directed movie ever? I know I have. I mean he has the look and everything down pact.

One step closer to finally becoming a true hipster.

Emilio is also in this movie. He is a guy who doesn’t want to finish working on his PhD and instead wants to walk The Way Of St. James, a catholic pilgrimage to Santiago, to the burial place of St. James. It has a lot of different routes, and can take between weeks and months depending on the path you pick. People apparently hike this all the time, with tons of hostels, churches, homes open along the way, with lots of guides depicting the different places to stay. So yeah, he was going to do that, but while hiking alone one portion, a storm hits and he dies. Shit.

His dad, Martin Sheen (in real life and the movie, oh man!) is an eye doctor and gets the news of the death and flies to Europe to identify the body. Despite disagreeing with his choices that lead up to that point, he decides to take a few months off of work and hike the trail himself, planning on placing his sons ashes along the way until he reaches Santiago. He also plans on going alone, despite his old age and what happened to his son. He is kind of grouchy. He isn’t religious himself, bu raise Catholic, and doesn’t want anyone to realize his business.

He meets travel companions (Despite his best efforts), including Joost the Dutch man (Yorick van Wageningen), looking to lose a little weight and feast upon the best meals in Europe. Sarah (Deborah Kara Unger) is a Canadian smoker (trying to quit, but barely), and also has had some bad relationships in her past. Jack, the Irishman (James Nesbitt), is a crazy writer who has had writers block for months, and needs inspiration, but finds meaning in every little thing.

Along the way they also deal with having to camp out due to creepy home owners, keeping to a schedule, getting arrested, losing their packs to water or thieves, gypsies, and a lot more. Oh yeah, and dealing with each others problems. Also figuring out why exactly they are on the journey, and whether or not is different than their original reasonings.

Oh what shenanigans these four get in to!

I am not a religious man, nor does this movie push any religion on to you. Most of the reasons for people walking the path involve religion, but it also shows it doesn’t have to be about that.

Martin Sheen is playing a pretty old guy, who really just needs to find himself and take a look at his own life. Old dogs can learn new tricks, in this movie.

Overall, I think it was really a beautiful film. The people all have a lot of depth to them, and although there are a few stereotypes in the other characters they meet, these travelers aren’t complete cookie cutter people. But yes, the Dutch guy does have drugs. That one is definitely there. What started out as a son telling his dad he should travel more, turned into a great journey of discovery.

I have no idea how to end this review.

Honestly, when I first heard about Valkyrie, I just assumed it was another fictional plot movie about people killing Hitler. But this time, the accents don’t exist, and Tom Cruise wears an eye patch!

AN EYE PATCH GUYS! What! Pirates up in this place, killing Hitler and the Nazis. Sounds wundebar.

Oh, it was a real thing and failed attempt to kill Hitler? Oh okay. My bad, history.

I hope you will accept this crooked hat as a proper assurance of my badness.

Let me tell you know. They don’t succeed in killing Hitler. But you knew that. Hitler killed himself near the end of the war. Not via a plot of some German soldiers!

Movie begins with Tom Cruise looking normal. But thanks to an air strike, he loses an eye and his right hand.

Operation Valkyrie is a plan set in place involving using the reserve army to maintain order during a national emergency. They realize that if they can activate it, it might be a way to pull off a coop and get rid of the Nazi regime in Germany. But the only guy who can pull the button, won’t do a thing with Hitler still alive.

Alright, simple enough, kill Hitler, pull off the operation, end the war from the inside out. Boom!

Bill Nighy, Kenneth Branagh, and Tom Wilkinson are some of the officers involved in doing this stuff. Character names are hard, because they are all german and stuff. Except for Tom Cruise. He is supposed to be German, but talks like Tom Cruise.

A lot of the film is planning and setting up. Because a lot of time was spent in real life too. They do succeed in pulling off Operation Valkyrie, but did they successfully kill off Hitler? Nope. Of course not. So their plan probably won’t work. And it might mean pretty bad things.

Like giving up their rare trading cards!

Movie was a lot better than I imagined. Actually bought this thing about a year ago but just…continued to never watch it. Gotta love that.

I wasn’t bugged by accents of course, but that was a big complaint people had years ago. The attempt was interesting, but not as straightforward as I would have liked. Or as action-y. Not sure why they devoted a whole movie to an act of failure. Successes must be running low, eh?

It was slow at times too, so I think they could have probably cut a lot of the movie out and still told the story correctly. It would have made it a better experience overall for me, at least.

Fast Food Nation is a movie based on a book. Have I read the book? Of course not, reading is for squares.

But clearly with a title like that, it is a movie that you KNOW has a message. The book is just a simple book talking about why fast food is bad, and giving examples and facts. This is a fictionalized story telling tales of individuals involved in the industry, from lowly cashier, to vp, to illegal immigrant workers in the cow killing plants.

And Fes!

Easiest way to describe the movie is a quick sentence on all the plots I guess.

We have a story of illegal immigrants coming from Mexico (and elsewhere), featuring Wilmer Valderrama and Catalina Sandino Moreno as a married couple going up to Colorado. They both go to the meat factory, Wilmer cleaning up the stuff at night with pressure hoses, and Catalina cutting beef, but quickly switching to hotel work.

Greg Kinnear works for the head guys and introduced The Big One, a new item to the fictional food company. It is doing well, but for some reason, the meat has higher fecal counts than other meats in the fast food market, so he has to go to Colorado to find out why. He also deals with Bruce Willis, a high up guy who brought his company and the meat company together. Oh, and Kris Kristofferson as the owner of the cattle ranch where they get the cows, and knows the truth about the factory.

There is also Ashley Johnson, a cashier at the restaurant. She learns about doing something important with her life, from her uncle, and is also kind of smart. She wants to quit her job, thinking it is bad, and become an activist. And also, Avril Lavigne has a small role as hippy lover too! Whats up Avril!?

“Well right now I am miserable, because it is such a damn cold night.”

Sooo, parts of the movie were interesting, sure. The problem? The last half hour.

First off, Greg’s plot line ends with a good 35 minutes to go, but doesn’t really end. They stop showing what happens with him, and he doesn’t really make a decision with what he finds out. Which is annoying.

The eco-terrorism route fails as well, and ends pointlessly. What do they learn? That they probably can’t do jack shit to help cows out. I guess.

About Fes? They had the best story, I guess. I hated what happened, but it also felt like it just didn’t end. The girl does get a job on their kill zone, and they do that more just to show companies killing cows (head things) and slicing their necks post death, blood and guts falling out. I DON’T NEED TO SEE THAT SHIT.

It is gross. I can understand that an animal died (hopefully at least) to enjoy my burger/steak, but I don’t have to watch the butcher work. We are civilized now. I don’t have to hunt myself. They aren’t even implying the cows live in bad conditions necessarily, just seems like the plants for the processing are lame overall.

So it was a movie with a message, and it failed horribly in my mind. Plots that started and went no where (talk about robbing the store? Where’d that go?), and then just a mess at the end. But hey, if there is graphic scenes it will work right?

Smart People is a movie about “smart people”. Titles, straight to the point. I think the point is that normally, smart people in movies tend to be so smart, they tend to be pretty awesome. The real people with problems are the not as smart people. Smart people get to be doctors and save lives, or any number of things. But they usually help the dumb in movies, right?

Smart people may be smart, but are they happy?

And why do they look like hobos?

Dennis Quaid plays a university professor, teacher of some sort of literature and maybe some history too. He is really good knowing his shit, but he isn’t good as people. He is pompous, self centered, and a “misanthrope” (word of the day, bitches!) and can’t remember a single name of anyone he has ever taught. Mostly because he doesn’t give a poop.

And then he has a seizure. Bam, wake up in hospital, and under the care of head er nurse Sarah Jessica Parker. Another former student he can’t remember, who was so scorned by his meanness (despite her also crush) she switched to Bio/pre-med. Because of his seizure, he cannot drive himself for at least the next sixth months. That’s horrible. His daughter, Ellen Page, doesn’t want to drive him, mostly because she is in her final year of high school and freaking out about college.

But (thankfully?) his no good, beatnick, brother in law, Thomas Haden Church also has shown up again, looking for money, and willing to be his driving bitch. Also he has an older son who goes to the college he works at, Ashton Holmes, but who cares about that one. This is the Quaid and Page show!

Because of his wife dying a few years earlier, their home life may have been a mess. Page now cooks most of their dinners (and seems to be good at it). But somehow he goes on dates with SJP and you know what? He is bad at it. An asshole. Eventually with the realization that he is an asshole, he tries to change himself. But yet, still assholish. There is also the other plot with Page being all alone a lot, not friends, and finding (too much) comfort in her uncle, who wants her to have a good time. Damn high schoolers, always falling in love with their uncles.

“I KNOW right!”

One second. Can we talk about how weird it is that Ellen Page keeps having these roles where she is underage and falling for or having older men fall for her? Juno, she is pregnant and attracting older men. In Super, she wants Rainn Wilson‘s character. And don’t even get me started on Hard Candy. For all of these movies (Except for Super) she is underage too.

Creepy.

I like that the movie has a dysfunctional “smart family” for once, and it is a nice change of pace. After about 2-3 minutes into the movie, I had already wanted to punch Quaid in the face. His character is very hatable. It doesn’t really change until the end.

If you are guessing the ending from the description, well, you are wrong. Eat it. Ending was a nice way to end the movie, and not as cliche’d at the same time. After all, these are smart people. They can figure their lives out, right?

Oooh. What is that? Another surprise movie for me. Before last night I had no idea there was ever a movie based off of the Stanford Prison Experiment.

Please read about it. There is a good chance you have heard of it before, but just might not remember it.

But yeah! The Experiment. A modern and fictionalized exaggeration of real events. Go go go!

Hooray science!

In case you are an asshole who doesn’t know about the experiment and didn’t click the link, it was a social experiment done at Stanford. A group of guys were chosen to be inmates, and a group of guys chosen to be prison guards. It was an experiment that was supposed to last 14 days, but lasted only six before the plug had to be pulled. Why? People adapted to their roles super quickly and performed things they didn’t think capable. Forms of tortue, abuse, no physical violecne only mental. Prisoners became complacent and passive and only obeyed orders. It worked way too well.

So yeah, that is happening here too. Adrien Brody is a very passive guy, kind of a hippy, but needs money. So does Forest Whittaker, who lives with his mother. They befriend in the original application process, because in this experiment they are offered $14,000 for fourteen days of work. Of course Forest becomes one of the guards, and Adrien a prisoner.

In his cell, Adrien is bunked with Clifton Collins Jr., a guy who seems to know how to be a prisoner already, and Ethan Cohn, a fat diabetic graphic novelist looking for new material.

The main mean guard (At the start) is played by Cam Gigandet, who quickly takes in his new role. They are given five rules that the prisoners must abide by, and the knowledge that if a prisoner breaks a rule, they must punish them accordingly (non violently). If they don’t within 30 minutes, a red light will flash and the experiment will be over and they will not be paid.

The real question is, how far will this experiment go? How much are humans different than animals, really?

“Mmm. You got a pretty (Shiny) mouth.

Just kidding, those aren’t the real questions. You know how far they go.

I liked that the movie relied not on special effects or any CGI, but just the actors themselves. A lot of them do very good jobs, showing the emotion that both sides go through, and change into their stereotypes.

BUT. It is pretty different from the actual experiment. Films change actuality. But in this case, I think the actuality is a cooler story than the film version. In this movie there was attempted rape, death, and yeah, some physical violence. Also some nice urinating on people stuff. Gross right? That kind of stuff didn’t happen in the real experiment. (Would it have happened over six days? Maybe. Have to wait for an unethical country or Texas to try it again).

Had it made it “realer” in terms of what happened in the 70s, I think it might have been a better movie. The ending also seemed to take away from some things. Was pretty unnecessary.

Sometimes film titles tell you what the movie is about. So you’d think A Summer In Genova was about a summer in Genova.

And it is! Hah, tricked you. But it is also about a mom dying.

Annnd sadness.

Colin Firth is a college professor. But in a car accident loses his wife, and he becomes a single parent. His older daughter, Willa Holland, is in her mid teens, and the younger daughter, Perla Haney-Jardine, probably about 10.

So they move to Genova, for a bit. Why not, Italy helps get over mothers. Well, the whole movie Firth is sad. He flirts with a student there, and also another professor, Catherine Keener. The older daughter starts having sex with everyone in Italy, and the young daughter is mostly alone, and sometimes sees the ghost of her mom. Causing another car accident.

Annnd movie.

Annnnd more sadness.

Seriously. That is about it. Them three grieving in different ways I guess. The daughter wanders off a lot, and keeps getting found by the dad. Following a ghost. Causing another car accident was weird. Then it pretty much ended.

I mean, honestly I found it boring. Didn’t really feel that emotion. And thought none of the stories really felt connected and kind of pointless. Made it feel like a documentary. After all, indie-ish, so the cameras weren’t fantastic. Maybe it was secretly just a guide to Genova? Whatever it is, not too good.

Hooray! With the review of The Quiet, I finally get to have at least one review for every letter of the alphabet! To be fair, I thought this movie also came out in 2007. Damn it. I just really didn’t feel like watching The Queen (it is also outside of my range).

Also the stars of this movie are bit more attractive than the star of The Queen.

The movie is told from the point of view of Dot, played by Camilla Belle. Why is she so quiet? Oh because she is deaf/mute. Sucks! She can read lips though. After her dad dies she goes to live with her godparents, Martin Donovan and Edie Falco, and their daughter, Elisha Cuthbert. How handy that they are around the same age!

Well no one cares about Dot at her new school. Cheerleaders make fun of her, including a younger Katy Mixon. Yet somehow, star football player Shawn Ashmore (of course, that is all he did in his roles) develops feelings towards her.

So whats the point of the movie? Oh, just some father/daughter rape plot line. Not just a one time thing, it is implied that it has been happening for years. The mom might know about it, explaining why she is on tons of pills and a zombie (not a real zombie). But what about Dot. Does she have her own secrets? Yes. Yes she does.

Flynn gets uncomfortable when incest is involved.

Turns out people are horrible, dirty things. A lot of people in private love telling Dot their secrets when she can’t read their lips. Feels good to get things off their chest to someone when they cant understand/hear/know you are talking at all. Which is good for creepy monologues.

Lot of comparisons also to Beethoven in this movie, since Dot plays the piano. Kind of weird, but the deepness they tried to convey didn’t really happen.

Overall I was interested in the story. I think the movie went on a bit too long after a big climatic part. Always a drag, when they don’t know how to end a movie really. Took a little bit to actually get going too. Typical high school scenes abundant (a dance, school lunch seating problems, snoddy cheerleaders, a biology lab involving a dissection). Obviously Camilla Belle isn’t also deaf/mute, but she did a good job “not reacting” to things around her based off of noise.

Watch? Not watch? Do what you want. I will note I really thought the cover said Eliza Dushku. I think about 30 minutes in I realized that she wasn’t coming. Whoops.

Hugo won the award this year for “Most Nominations at the Oscars”. Fuck you, its a thing. They only won 5 of the 11 though, and all for the unimportant things like Sound Editing and Sound Mixing (This is where the Sound Editor and Sound Mixing people tell me to eat a bag of dicks, and then storm off into the night).

Which is surprising. Usually that movie that has the most nominations seems to be a shoe-in for winning Best Picture. But it didn’t. But why? Here’s what I think.

The people who choose who wins are not children. Just kidding. Its true, but thats not why. CALM DOWN READER.

Story is a weird one to describe (That’s why!) so here is an attempt. Hugo (Asa Butterfield) is an orphan boy who lives in a train station in France. His father was a clock maker, made him love movies and such, then died in a museum fire. He was taken in by his uncle, a lame watch maker, and taught to run to the clocks in the station / main bell tower, and then the uncle disappeared. So now on his own, he has decided to live in the train station in secret, work the clocks, and fend for himself.

There is also an automaton/music box thing that he believes belonged to his dad, so he is trying to repair it by stealing knickknacks and repairing parts. Some people don’t like that, mainly the chief inspector of the railway (Sacha Baron Cohen) who hurt his leg in “the war” and Georges Méliès (Ben Kingsley) a toy shop owner. He also meets a girl who likes books, Isabelle (Chloe Grace Moretz) who is (Gasp!) the granddaughter of the mean toy shop owner. Boo!

I feel like I am giving away too much if I go further, although you still don’t know what it is about. This movie is about…movies, the birth of them. The first movies were all short, but one French dude made all these amazing sci-fi/fantasy epics, for the time. The stories were weak but they were imaginative at least, and had “magic trick” illusions thanks to nice editing. Some were even partially colored, thanks to painting the actual strips.

But most of these movies were lost thanks to the war, needing money and selling the strips for cash. Damn.

Also kind of based on the true story of the film guy, and his actual work is shown in the movie too. Emily Mortimer and Christopher Lee also have some small roles in the film too (small to me).

I’m saying the dog and the mustache were more important overall. In my eyes.

What’s good about this movie? A lot! This is like a fantastical world created from this movie, based off of a book. Which is based off of kind of true events. Minus the boy and stuff. But still. It looks amazing, if not also kind of fake at parts unfortunately. Acting was good, and by the end it felt like a great journey.

I think the problem people might have with it is figuring out what the movie is just about. An hour into it, you still really won’t know. It is hard to explain, because it takes awhile to get to the actual essence of the film. While watching I had to guess where it was going. My guesses were wrong because the clues given didn’t help at all.

So maybe direction could have been a bit better in my mind. And honestly, I felt bad for the Inspector from the first scene. He was supposed to be some mean guy, but never really showed off as that until later.