Tag: three sentence movies

I enjoyed Russel Brand’s performance in Paradise* and decided to close out my evening of movies with a re-watch of this film. I love this film for depicting a guy who suffers a breakup and is, well, sad.** It’s also quite funny in the early 2010s way that involves a lot of raunchy humor.

Cost: Netflix monthly fee $7.99
Where watched: at home

Also consider: Superbad, I Love You, Man  

*What has become of Mr. Brand?*** He was everywhere for a while.  Perhaps his classic debauched rock star-equse persona is not needed in movies right now? He also wrote a moving piece after Amy Winehouse’s death that is worth reading. An excerpt: 

Now Amy Winehouse is dead, like many others whose unnecessary deaths have been retrospectively romanticised, at 27 years old. Whether this tragedy was preventable or not is now irrelevant. It is not preventable today. We have lost a beautiful and talented woman to this disease. Not all addicts have Amy’s incredible talent. Or Kurt’s or Jimi’s or Janis’s. Some people just get the affliction. All we can do is adapt the way we view this condition, not as a crime or a romantic affectation but as a disease that will kill.

**This seems rather obvious, but seeing a man react with sadness to the loss of a relationship isn’t a mainstay of cinema–even when used as a comedy device. Mostly they aren’t being broken up with, or they react in anger, or with violence.

***Apparently of late he’s been living his best life in Ireland.

This film falls into the category of Interesting Premise Poor Execution. I had several questions about the main character* that weren’t answered early enough for me and the question marks those unanswered questions distracted me from the plot, which wasn’t fully formed. The acting is good and I even like what I think Diablo Cody was getting at with her story, but this is a great example of everyone doing their level best and still the finished product is mediocre.

Cost: free from library
Where watched: at home

*Her name is what? Is it Lamb? I thought Lamb was a nickname. Just how old is she exactly? My guess was 18, but I think she was older because she had apparently finished college? Why does she have all this cash, and what sort of person in 2013 America still thinks it’s okay to carry a roll of large bills in a tote bag?

A Venn diagram of my sense of humor and Sasha Baron Cohen’s sense of humor would show two separate circles with room for a multilane highway between them, so there was no way I was going to like this movie.* And I didn’t.** I do admire Mr. Baron Cohen’s ability to never break character and to ask the questions that elicit such terrible answers.

Cost: free from library
Where watched: at home in preparation for 2019’s Filmspotting Madness

Instead consider watching: Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Clueless

*His humor comes in two parts: taking advantage of perfectly nice people (the humor coach, the dinner party people) which pisses me off; or exposing the dark underbelly of normal-seeming people (the guy at the rodeo, the frat brothers) which I don’t like to be reminded of, much less find funny.
**At one point Matt came home. I paused the movie and mentioned where I was. He laughed, grabbed what he needed and left. I resumed watching. The sum total of laughs at the Orange Door for the duration of this movie: that burst of laughter from Matt.

Recommended by Bo Burnham during an interview on Filmspotting #698, I immediately queued it up because the one-two punch of Joe Swanberg and Jake Johnson have worked well for me in the past. Johnson brings a lot of nuance to a character who could have come off as unlikable and the movie illustrates the problems of a gambling addiction while following a fairly standard plot, but managed to keep me engaged. I especially appreciated Aislinn Derbez’s performance and how her character was written.*

Cost: Netflix monthly subscription fee ($7.99)
Where watched: at home

*Most single moms in movies set their standards aside once a man enters the picture. See: Crazy Hart

Also consider watching: Drinking Buddies, Rachel Getting Married

Just as I enjoy the airport reunion scene at the beginning of Love Actually more than I do the rest of the film, so did I like the montage of coming out videos that brought this movie to a close more than the rest of the movie itself.* This film is populated with either characters so abrasive I did not care about them or characters so one-dimensional I could not care about them. If I’m really reaching for one redeeming thing, it’s that this movie is a good example of someone trying so hard not to be who he really is that his actions are incredibly painful to watch.

Cost: Netflix monthly subscription fee ($7.99)
Where watched: at home

Consider watching instead: Love Simon, Trick

*The only really fun thing about this movie was the introduction of a character. The music playing was “Sister Christian” by Night Ranger, but the subtitles had the word to “Heaven on Earth” by Belinda Carlisle.  Perhaps they couldn’t get the rights?

 

 

I had conflated this movie with The Three Faces of Eve, and spent twenty minutes wondering when the multiple personalities would begin. Once I let that go, I settled in for a movie that’s called a classic for a reason. For a film that is, “all about the women and their men,” this manages not to fall too deeply into terrible 1950s-era stereotypes and also includes a ton of good lines.*

Cost: free from library
Where watched: at home

Also consider watching: Sunset Boulevard, A Star is Born (1937)

*”Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy night,” was a quote I had heard and a clip I had seen, but in context, it’s brilliant. And that is only one example.

And now for our scratch off poster:

Do you want to scratch your movie poster itch? Get the scratch off poster here.

From the sequence where Jessica Willams has her own earbuds-in dance party–stopping only to eat a PBJ–I was all in.  This movie is funny, sweetly romantic and includes two lead actors who play off each other extremely well. Like Ibiza, this also has a really great ending.*

Cost: Monthly Netflix subscription ($7.99)
Where watched: at home

Also consider watching: Maggie’s Plan, In a World, The American President, Going the Distance

*This new style of romantic comedy ending deserves a good feminist film criticism essay.  Who will write it?

 

In watching Oceans 8 with Matt, I learned he had never seen Oceans 11, 12 or 13 and that situation needed to be remedied. Just as Soderbergh had hoped, this movie remains a pleasure from beginning to end.* I’d also forgotten about the use of Elvis’s “A Little Less Conversation” in the soundtrack, which was the perfect amount of Elvis for this Vegas film.

Cost: $2.99 via Google Play (but free due to Google Survey credits)
Where watched: at home with Matt

Also consider watching: Logan Lucky, Now You See Me

*The dialogue! The costumes! The machinations of plot!  The Mormon twins opening scene where they are racing monster truck vs. a radio controlled monster truck!

 

There is a slight chance that my viewing of this film suffered from overly enthusiastic critics, but perhaps not. While the acting was good, I was never captivated by the story, possibly because Reverand Toller’s mental state made it hard to get a good sense of him, which put a lot of distance between me and the character I was supposed to care about, which left me a little bored.* I did enjoy the stark landscape of upstate New York in winter and the clean white lines of the Dutch Reform Church.**

Cost: $6.00
Where watched: Laurelhurst Theater with S. North (Two people walked out of this showing!)

Consider watching instead: A Ghost Story, Manchester by the Sea

*I also watched this in the 1:00–3:00 p.m. segment of the day which is a good test if the movie can hold my attention. It didn’t. I took in some of it with my eyes closed.
**I also have an opinion about THE ENDING, which I won’t express here do to spoilers.

I found the first Ant-Man movie to fall in the “eh” category of superhero films, so I’m not really sure why I went to see this, though I’m glad I did. There are so many funny things in this movie, both sight gags and scripted comedy. It also was a movie where the villain was sympathetic; her motivation had to do with survival, not some form of world domination.

Cost: $8.00
Where watched: McMenamins St. Johns Cinema

Also consider watching: Thor Ragnarock, Spider-Man: Homecoming