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Crazy, Stupid, Love wasn't bad. It was way too long (the part with Ryan Gosling/Emma Stone should have started up earlier) and the part at the end where

Spoiler:

Jessica gives the son naked pictures of herself

was way squicky. I know it's what Kids These Days do, but there's no reason to make it seem peachy-keen. I am glad that

Spoiler:

the son backed off on being all stalkery, and that's when Jessica softened to him, rather than her just being worn down by relentless pursuit.

I did love that Ryan Gosling's purpose was mostly to be hot and charming, and Emma Stone's purpose was to be adorable and charming. Both of them performed admirably. Also, Josh Groban? Is he trying to be an actor now?

I watched The High Cost of Living on netflix. First, a warning, I suggest no pregnant snarkers should watch it as it is about a very sad/bad thing that happens to a pregnant lady.

Spoiler:

She's hit by a car at 8 months pregnant and the fetus dies

A French-Canadian actress I'm not familiar played the lady compellingly enough to watch the whole thing, unfortunately, the movie also has Zach Braff as her co-star.

I loved Scrubs, but I've yet to see Braff in another role I can stomach. He reeks of douche, even though I think the role was supposed to be well-meaning douche. And he definitely can't pull off gold-hearted drug dealer, as this role (kind of) required. He just looked like a dirty douche. And his taste in movies, between this and The Last Kiss, are of him doing BAD things to women and the movie dwelling on his pain rather than hers. So he even has douchey taste in roles.

I "rented" Tucker & Dale vs. Evil on Amazon for Halloween. It's sort of the Shaun of the Dead of slasher films. On the one hand, it was funny, I enjoyed it, and I'll probably try and watch it again. On the other hand, Shaun of the Dead is waay better. Although it has a lot of good laughs, it doesn't do nearly as much with its concept as it could, and it veers too far into seriousness in its third act. Also, the last three seconds sort of soured me, to the point I'd recommend everyone turn it off after a certain scene. So sort of a mixed bag, but I don't regret the rental!

I've got Wide Sargasso Sea waiting for me now, but I can't seem to bring myself to watch it. Soon, though.

My mom has been recommending Derailed to me for a while now, so I finally got around to watching it. I was surprised at how entertaining it was and how many twists and turns there were in the story along the way. A few of the plot twists were somewhat predictable, but I enjoyed the ride, and a Clive Owen movie is never a complete waste of time. Giancarlo Esposito had a small role in this, and it was strange to see him as a fairly mild-mannered (he smiled a couple of times!) police detective after recently watching him as the ruthless Gustavo Fring on Breaking Bad.

Apollo 13 was on TV last night and every time that movie comes on, I get sucked in, wanting to know the outcome. Such a good movie.

We rented Attack the Block on a whim, because it said it was by the folks who did Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead. Except it wasn't funny, the main characters were jerks (in the first scene, we see them mug and threaten a young woman!) and we ended up turning it off in the middle.

Mr. Mom was on cable this morning, I seriously debated coming to work late and watching the whole thing. Michael Keaton is so awesome in that movie and I love little Frederick Koehler (aka Chip from Kate & Allie), he was a really talented child actor.

I tried to watch Push because of Chris Evans, but goddamn, I was so bored after 40 minutes, that I deleted it from my hard drive. Camilla Belle irritates me and always looks so sullen or angsty. In the case of this movie, she was right to be both, but man, I can barely stand watching her.

Yeah I have a love/hate thing with Push. I love it because I think Chris/Dakota are pretty great together and he looks really hot, but the annoying screaming guys and Camilla Belle, are just so terrible. So very very terrible.

Yeah, I pretty much just only watch that movie the whole way through because the last 30-ish minutes, Chris Evans is all scruffy and bloody and dirty.

Yeah, that movie is just not worth it for even some Chris Evans gawking.

bloomtoperish wrote:Yeah, I pretty much just only watch that movie the whole way through because the last 30-ish minutes, Chris Evans is all scruffy and bloody and dirty.

Now, ya see, if I knew that, I would've at least skipped to those scenes. As it was, the movie was just a massive hole of suck, so my eyes glazed over, and I had to stop watching based on my assumption that nothing sexy or interesting might happen.

Finally got around to watching Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, which I mostly enjoyed in spite of finding Scott Pilgrim to be really, really irritating. How much of that was Michael Cera's doing, I do not know. But I am so tired of him.

The character of Scott Pilgrim could be irritating and immature in the comics, but overall pretty understandable and he had his moments. When I saw the movie in the theater, I was suffering from Michael Cera Fatigue and he was my least favorite thing in a movie otherwise chock full of awesome. I wonder what it would have been like with someone like Jesse Eisenberg or Jay Baruchel or a smaller-name actor in the lead role.

I heard Scott Pilgrim was good, so I've been meaning to watch it. Of course, it doesn't hurt that the movie also has Chris Evans in it. Even if I'm assuming he has a much smaller role in that one, it's gotta be more bearable than Push, right?

Scott Pilgrim is almost worth it just for Chris Evans' scene alone. Brandon Routh's puts it over the top and everything else is just icing.

Whoa, Brandon Routh is in that, too? Yup, gotta watch that sh*t soon.

Buried

Oh, man, what a great and masterful bit of faux-Hitchcock in the gimmicky tradition of Rope. Ryan Reynolds is superb and the whole thing is nailbiting and intense and all kinds of crazy claustrophobic. At one point, his character is unscrewing the lid of a flask while watching a snake that's creeped into the coffin with him and he drops it and at that precise moment my phone rang. That's the kind of awesome thing you remember for years.

Unfortunately, the whole thing is punctuated with the most bullshit "gotcha" ending and then the end credits are covered by - no lie - the most shit-kickingest bit of banjo-picking dixieland I can remember hearing. What. THE FUCK. I'm usually a "don't let the end ruin the journey" guy when it comes to movies and TV shows, but GOD DAMN, that was just the worst. I kinda sorta hate Rodrigo Cortes right now and I don't know jack all about him.

Everytime I hear anything about Buried, it involves a lot of shock over Ryan's performance, so it's made me extremely curious to watch the movie myself. The fact that it's such a simple premise and yet supposed to be so unnerving really piques my curiosity.

Oh, I'm totally not shocked by it. Ryan Reynolds is the shit (and here is my whiteboy backpedal where I emphasize that I mean "the shit" to be a good thing). I've loved him (and Nathan Fillion) since Two Guys and a Girl, so I knew he had this kind of thing in him. What amazes me isn't the fact that he makes it work but that you literally do not leave the coffin for the entire movie. You could almost do this on stage as a one man show (and now someone's probably going to tell me that someone has). Every single frame of this movie, even when he's using his zippo or flashlight or the light of the cell phone is more than half just pure black. And yet it's mesmerizing.

Right up to that last thirty seconds and the goddamn credits.

I've always known he's adept at comedy (Two Guys and a Girl, FTW!), but to hear that he did a wonderful job with such an intensely dramatic role really surprised me.

So one of my guilty pleasures is the action subgenre forced to fight. A bunch of people are forced to kill each other for the entertainment of the organiser, and sometimes shown to the masses. I suppose the biggest names in this genre would be Battle Royale and The Hunger Games, by way of example.

So I just watched Steve Austin's The Condemned. This is terrible. The action is violent enough, but the tone is nauseatingly preachy. It has an almost anti-violence message. First the organiser's girlfriend acts all horrified when people - criminals rescued from death rows around the world - start killing each other. Then, when one of the female players is (possibly, they never actually say) raped by the evilest player, the head tech guy is sickened. There's a journalist who interviews and bashes the organiser beforehand, then bashes the viewers afterwards for enjoying it!

This is pointless. When you start insulting the viewers, should they start feeling bad about themselves? I don't. I feel annoyed, but nothing resembling guilt or shame. Except for watching a movie that can't decide its tone, maybe.

Yeah. Avoid this one unless you want to be insulted.

laddical wrote:What amazes me isn't the fact that he makes it work but that you literally do not leave the coffin for the entire movie.

Next to his performance, that's the bit about Buried that I thought was brilliant, and why I wanted to see it in the first place: how, in a movie culture that is fueled by non-stop action shots and seizure-inducing fast editing, can a movie be successful in one static setting? I loved that the movie totally pulled it off, both from a filmmaking point of view and acting. Kudos to the director and to Ryan.

Does anyone know the final production costs of that movie? It sounds like it's Ryan, a coffin, and some lighting equipment. Oh, and cameras, of course. (And yes, I'm being facetious. I know there are still a ton of people working behind-the-scenes and all that who had to get paid.)

The premise of never leaving the coffin for the entire film is what drew me to watch it. I wanted to see how they pulled that off. I kind of hating the ending too, but it's overall a very well done film and it stayed with me for a few days afterward. Reynolds gives a fantastic performance. I'm a fan of his and still going into it, I wasn't sure if he could pull it off. But to me, he did.