Tag: Comedy

Last Christmas is Good Holiday Movie

Last Christmas

Last Christmas

Directed by Paul Feig
Written by Emma Thompson and Bryony Kimmings

The review:

Gosh darn if Emilia Clarke* isn’t the reason to watch this perfectly fine entry into the holiday movie glut.** It’s best to wander along with the movie, rather than to try to figure things out.*** This is a film that checks its boxes, doesn’t aspire to be more, and might be something to add to your regular holiday viewing.

The verdict: Good

Cost: $1.80 from Redbox****
Where watched: at home

Consider also watching:

Further sentences:

*She’s so darn charismatic! And she sings!
**Which I watched in June because in December and January I was too busy doing Oscar movie prep/catchup.
***Indeed, this is basically the same plot as a movie that also uses a pop song for its title. I will not reveal the name of said movie here, as people watching this film will have probably already seen that film.
****My Redbox DVD came with a TON of extras, all introduced by director Paul Feig, who seems to have inherited Garry Marshall’s nice-guy mantle.

Questions:

  • Should films centered around the winter holidays break from their pleasant nature?
  • What was your favorite placement of a George Michael song in this film?

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

Filmed on location in London. In order to avoid crowds interrupting filming, many scenes started filming around 2 a.m.

Other reviews of Last Christmas:

Last Christmas

Zoe Deutch Sparkles in Buffaloed

Buffaloed

Buffaloed

Directed by Tanya Wexler
Written by Brian Sacca

The review:

Zoey Deutch flexes her I’m-a-legit-actress-not-just-an-offspring-hack muscles* using not only tons of charisma to make us like a tough-gal character, but also also employing a Buffalo-style accent.** While Deutch is engaging, the story swings and misses a few times,*** though does a great job at illustrating the problems with regulation in the American debt collection system. Overall, this was a solid film with a lot of engaging performances**** and a reminder of why it’s best to avoid debt whenever possible.*****

The verdict: Good

Cost: $1.80 via Redbox
Where watched: at home

Consider also watching:

Further sentences:

*She’s the daughter of director Howard Deutch and actress-director Lea Thompson. Once I learned who her mother is, I had a moment of “well of course she looks familiar!” I’ve enjoyed her in a bit role in Everybody Wants Some! and as a the lead in Before I Fall, which was a movie I enjoyed quite a bit and I feel like not many people watched. She was also the assistant in Set it Up, which was one of a bevy of solid Netflix rom-coms I watched in the summer of 2018.
**I will leave it to the residents of Buffalo to determine how well she did at said accent.
***That Deutch’s Peg Dahl becomes part of the problem is where the story lost me. I can only cheer on a debt collector for so long, despite how very likable she is.
****Judy Greer! Plus, Jermaine Fowler was of interest.
*****I mean, universal healthcare would help, for one. No one should be harassed by debt collectors for trying to maintain their health.

Questions:

  • At what point did Peg Dahl make the wrong move?
  • What parts of this movie did you find believable? Unbelievable?

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

Most of the suits Peg wears were purchased at Goodwill.

Other reviews of Buffaloed:

Buffaloed

The Lovebirds is Packed with Laughs

The Lovebirds

The Lovebirds

  • Directed by: Michael Showalter
  • Written by: Aaron Abram, Brendan Gall

The review:

The Lovebirds pairs Issa Rae and Kumail Nanjiani in a hilarious movie that pushes all the comedic buttons. I think the key to this film is that Rae and Nanjiani play a couple that isn’t in sync any longer, but hasn’t moved to full-on hatred.* There are a lot of amusing fish-out-of-water setups, and the two really shine when they are improving how to be tough guys, rather than the advertising exec and documentary filmmaker that they are.**

The verdict: Recommended

Cost: Netflix monthly fee ($8.99)
Where watched: at home.

Consider also watching:

Further sentences

*This is important. Tuning in for 90 minutes of angry people snapping at each other, no thanks. But 90 minutes of two people who disagree about a variety of things yet still respect each other leaves room for a lot of laughter.
**I laughed so very hard at this film from the first disagreement (We would win the Amazing Race) to the last one. I laughed all alone in my house the first night, and then all over again the next night when the boyfriend and I watched it together.

Questions:

  • Which of the outfits Rae and Nanjiani wore do you think provided the most humor per scene?
  • What’s another out-of-sync-couple captured on film that you enjoy?

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

(also the only IMDB trivia item)
Paramount had originally planned to released the film theatrically on April 3, 2020, but decided to release it on Netflix due to the Coronavirus pandemic and widespread theater closings.

Other reviews of The Lovebirds:

The Lovebirds

Beanie Feldstein Dazzles in How to Build a Girl

How to Build a Girl

The review:

Beanie Feldstein has been on my radar since her supporting work in Neighbors 2* and I don’t think any other actress could pull off the brash (and somewhat fantasy-based) confidence of Johanna Morrigan/Dolly Wilde in Coky Giedroyc’s How to Build a Girl. This is the rock star trajectory movie** but with a teenage girl as its center*** and with the job in question rock critic, not rock star.**** While the film itself is predictable (see: rock star trajectory) that doesn’t make it any less fun.

The verdict: Recommended

Cost: $6.99 (a VOD price point I can afford!)
Where watched: at home

Consider also watching:

Further sentences:

*Don’t think Neighbors 2 is for you? You might reconsider when you read my list.
**Humble beginnings; early failures; early success; wild success; drinking and drugs; moment of truth; better understanding of life and their place in it.
***And having a teenage girl at the center of a music-focused movie means this is an automatic Recommended movie. There aren’t enough portrayals of girls making music.
****This brings up inevitable comparisons to the other teenage rock critic movie: Almost Famous. This is smaller in scope and more focused on the rock critic herself and not the bands she reviews.

Questions:

  • Can we have a rock star movie without the rock star trajectory, or would there not be enough plot?
  • Was there a point when you weren’t on Dolly’s side anymore? If yes, when?

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

There wasn’t anything good, so I’ll tell you that Caitlain Moran wrote the screenplay and the book on which this is based. Her book How to be a Woman is incredibly funny, especially for women born around 1975, when she was born.

Other reviews:

The Half of It is a Fully Great Movie

The Half of It

The review:

Alice Wu’s charming and moving The Half of It is a 100% fully great movie, and it’s very good-ness has me wondering why it’s been 16 years since her first feature.* Things this film does well: captures the environment in “Squahamish,” Washington;** catching the small feelings of longing that aren’t quite kept hidden; being funny and poignant; starting with a situation that wasn’t a good idea, and kept getting worse, all the while not turning me away from choices made by characters. If you like subtle performances, movies about teenagers, movies about small towns, or movies with Becky Ann Baker,*** cue this movie up tonight!

The verdict: Recommended

Cost: Netflix monthly fee ($8.99)
Where watched: at home

Consider also watching:

Further sentences

*Saving Face was released in 2004. The time between movies directed by women can be maddening.
**Good job, New York State! You pulled off Washington’s overcast and green environment like a pro.
***Mrs. Weir in Freaks and Geeks and also Lena Dunham’s mom in Girls. She plays a high school teacher in this film.

Questions:

  • What other films can you think of that involve beginning voice-over narration tell us that things aren’t going to work out?
  • What’s your favorite small-town movie?

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

The opening monologue is the story told by Aristophanes in Plato’s Symposium. Aristophanes was a comedic playwright at the time of Socrates and Plato and is considered the greatest Greek comedic writer. The Symposium is a dialogue about a dinner that Socrates attends. During dinner Socrates, in typical fashion, begins to ask questions of his host and the other guests. The dialogue centers on the topic of love, each interlocutor attempts to answer the question what is love? Aristophanes’ story tells of how humans use to be whole and the gods got jealous and split us apart. We spend our lives searching for that other half. According to Aristophanes, our other half could be someone of the same or opposite gender.

Other reviews:

The Half of It

Crooklyn Captures a Place and Time

Crooklyn

The review:

Spike Lee’s Crooklyn is a solid family drama* with an excellent soundtrack and a charming montage of games urban kids used to play in the early 70s. It’s also got a trio of stellar leads in Alfre Woodard & Delroy Lindo as the parents and Zelda Harris as Troy, the only girl among the five siblings. It’s not the most plot-driven of films, but the energy running through the characters is enough to keep things moving forward.

The verdict: Good

Cost: $3.99 via Google Play (The subtitles were bad. A bit behind and trying to do too much)
Where watched: at home

Consider also watching:

  • This is apparently the only movie about black families
  • I’ve just googled for 10 minutes and I get:
  • *Movies for families to watch
  • *Movies about white families (sort of)
  • *Spike Lee movies
  • Gah!

Further sentences:

*With a lot of yelling (you have to be okay with yelling families, which I am) and an attitude toward animals I couldn’t stomach.**
**One scene with a cat, and two scenes with a small dog. Both are played as funny.

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

The “disorienting” view when the family is in the country was created by shooting in widescreen without anamorphically adjusting the image.

(I include this trivia item as a public service because I wasn’t sure if it was a glitch on my TV)

Other reviews:

Crooklyn

Men in Black: International Delivers

Men in Black: International

The review:

F. Gary Gray continues the entertaining series with Men in Black: International.* Aside from getting to see Chris Hemsworth on screen,** I totally went for the setup of this film and Molly/Agent M’s story.*** There are aliens and fight scenes and cool hardware and all the things one would expect from the franchise.

The verdict: Good

Cost: $1.80 via Redbox
Where watched: at home

Consider also watching:

Further sentences:

*I’d had a hard day, and I wanted only to be entertained. My expectations were low, and this film easily cleared that bar.
**Always a treat, and even more so when the movie makes fun of his eye-candy status with in-movie jokes plus a winking Thor reference.
***I like someone who is a striver, and Tessa Thompson captured the excitement and uncertainty of being the new person at the dream job.
****I think I’ve only seen this third one. But you don’t have to watch them in order or anything. Another plus.

Questions:

  • What’s your favorite thing about the MIB franchise?
  • Is it a good use of your time to watch a movie that you will mostly forget a week later?

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

The MiB Agents have been wearing the same standard issue Hamilton Ventura watch since the beginning. The iconic Ventura watch was first released in 1957.

(I googled. It’s about $875 for that watch.)

Other reviews:

Men in Black: International

Kicking and Screaming is More Like Napping and Mumbling

Kicking and Screaming

The review:

Noah Baumbach’s Kicking and Screaming is full of really low-energy, quasi-adult men dithering about things for ninety-six minutes that feel more like three hours; it has not aged well.* Now that it’s not the 90s, well-educated white guys who can’t figure out what to do after college are not quite the selling point they once were.** It was interesting to see actors in their younger years,*** and I really enjoyed looking at the details of the craftsman bungalow**** the post-college students lived in, but this is not a good film.

The verdict: Skip

Cost: Netflix monthly fee ($8.99)
Where watched: at home

Consider watching instead:

Further sentences:

*It reminds me of Swingers in that regard, though this is if you took Swingers, extracted all the humor, the whirling friendships, dialed down the energy to 10%, and eliminated the fun swing dancing scene.
**This has a Metascore of 75, which is pretty high. The last boring movie I watched (One and Two)had a meta score of 47. I can only think that those reviews must have been from 1995, when the movie was released.
***Eric Stoltz is always fun. The big surprise that the main character, Josh Hamilton (Grover) is someone I’m familiar with as Clay’s dad in 13 Reasons Why and also Kayla’s dad in Eighth Grade. I would not have noticed, except I started looking up things on IMDB before I was finished watching it. The true sign of an uninteresting film.
****The floors needed redoing, but man, those built ins! To die for!

Questions:

  • Did you happen to watch this in the 90s? What did you think?
  • Can you think of an equivalent slacker movie with women as protagonists?

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

The film was almost accepted in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, but Noah Baumbach refused to cut 15 minutes as they requested, and the film was ultimately rejected.

Other reviews:

Kicking and Screaming

That Thing You Do! Does it Well

That Thing You Do!

The review:

Tom Hanks’s That Thing You Do is a gentle pleasure of a movie from start to finish, capturing all that was shiny about 1964.* In this breezy movie, Tom Everett Scott (Guy Patterson) is the anchor to the Wonder’s skyrocketing fame, while Johnathon Schaech (Jimmy) is a “serious” musician teed up to have problems with fame.** Liv Tyler’s big speech falls flat, which I’m blaming on the writing and not the performance,*** and there are a few things that cause discomfort in 2020,**** but overall, this movie is a good distraction.

The verdit: Good

Cost: $3.99 via Google Play
Where watched: at home (as a palate cleanser after watching Monster. I had no idea I would get to see Charlize Theron twice in one night. She plays a girlfriend.)

Consider also watching:

Further sentences:

*This is a baby boomer nostalgia film for sure. Which doesn’t keep it from still being fun.
**More fun than the both of them: Steve Zahn as Lenny the guitarist.
***This is a male-centered film.
****There’s a little bit of Magical Negro going on with Bill Cobbs’s Del Paxton, and Obba Babatundé’s Lamarr would have been nice to have something to do besides be the cheerful servant.

Questions:

  • How long will that song be stuck in your head?
  • Which is your favorite time the Wonders (or the Oneders) perform “That Thing You Do”?

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

Including full versions, alternative versions, live versions and snippets, the song “That Thing You Do” is heard eleven times in the movie.

Other reviews:

That Thing You Do!

Men, Women & Children is Worth Missing

Men, Women & Children

The review:

Men, Women & Children continues to prove that I love Jason Reitman when paired with Diablo Cody’s writing, and not so much any other time.* Which is not to say I didn’t enjoy watching this film; I spent my time trying to figure out why this was such a bad movie.** This movie is populated with actors I adore*** yet it was a terrible, terrible film.

The verdict: Skip

Cost: free via Hoopla, the library’s lesser streaming service. 13 Going on 30 is on there now. Watch that instead.
Where watched: at home

Consider watching instead:

  • The Meyerowitz Stories (Serious Adam Sandler!)
  • Laggies (More Kaitlyn Dever!)
  • The Ice Storm (really brutal Ang Lee!)
  • Boogie Nights (Porn stars! But through Paul Thomas Anderson’s lens)

Further sentences:

*Juno I love. Young Adult I love. Tully I adore (and why haven’t you watched it yet?) Up in the Air left me cold. Granted, I still need to see Thank You for Smoking, Labor Day, and The Front Runner to have a clear picture, but so far non-Cody-written films aren’t winning.
**My verdict: it might be a book-to-movie problem. It’s certainly a too-many-characters problem. With about ten character arcs, people get flattened to one personality point. Because the movie is about sex and the internet, every single character interaction save one couple has to do with sex. Ansel Elgort and Kaitlyn Dever were my two favorite characters because their interactions had nuance. (And they had nothing to do with sex.) As someone who is interested in depictions of sex in film and books, this was fascinating. Update! I read the first section of the book on which the film was based to see if the characters were more well rounded. They were not and the dialogue was wooden. This was not a book-to-movie-problem, the story wins in no formats. (Though maybe interpretive dance?)
***Rosemarie DeWitt! Judy Greer! Emma Thompson! Jennifer Garner! Kaitlyn Dever! Serious Adam Sandler!

Questions:

  • Have you seen this? Did you find anything redeeming?
  • What do you think the key to a good ensemble cast movie is?

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

Writer, producer, and director Jason Reitman felt so much of the acting in this movie was based on reactions to texts, chats, and photos that using dummy screens with no text would not suffice. The production team had to create very realistic-looking versions of popular websites, all on their own tightly controlled software, with which the actors and actresses could interact in real time. According to Reitman, they spent “the same amount of budget on creating the digital world as we did creating the physical one. People know what Facebook looks like better than they do a hotel lobby, you stare at it all day, so it had to be convincing.”

I did think this was one aspect that the movie did well.

Men, Women & Children