Movies at Home

First: Those of you who said The Heat was hilarious are now on my list. Seriously, I adore Sandra Bullock, and I've never been so bored by a supposed comedy.

Second: The World's End. I really liked it, especially thinking about it as a metaphor for alcoholism/addiction.

Spoiler:

Third: Cloud Atlas. Oh, I really liked this. I mean, I can see all the problems, but for me, it really worked.

Fourth: Now You See Me. This was fun until, like, the last fifteen minutes. Then it all fell apart into a mess of "must have a twist!" The twist makes no goddamn sense. None.

Fifth: The Family. How did a movie with Robert DeNiro, Tommy Lee Jones and Michelle Pfeiffer get so buried away? It wasn't brilliant, but it was fun enough. Certainly enjoyed it better than The Heat.

Sixth: Elysium. Here's a good reason why a lot of movie sci-fi is a mess: you have a setting that exists only as a metaphor, and one that is inherently unstable by design (such that a revolution can be enacted literally by the push of a button.) But more to the point, you have a movie where setting in and of itself is mistakenly viewed as a replacement for story. There was no story, just setting... and a half-cooked one at that.

I watched Over Her Dead Body as I was killing time before going out last night. It was a dull, flat, obnoxious rom-com starring Paul Rudd, Lake Bell and Eva Longoria. I loved Gabby from DH, but this bitchy role was too obnoxious. I love Paul Rudd but he was not charismatic in this one.

I watched The Spectacular Now and spent a least 2/3 of the movie wanting to smack Sutter and shake Aimee. I was sorry the movie ended

Spoiler:

I love that title, I have no idea what that movie's about.

First: Those of you who said The Heat was hilarious are now on my list. Seriously, I adore Sandra Bullock, and I've never been so bored by a supposed comedy. wrote:

Yeah, I have to agree, though I thought it started out strong. Then again I did not like Bridesmaids much either, so I probably was not the target audience for this one.

naughty zoot wrote:
Yeah, I have to agree, though I thought it started out strong. Then again I did not like Bridesmaids much either, so I probably was not the target audience for this one.

I didn't like The Heat, either. And I typically like Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy...but it was mostly boring. I think I laughed like once. I did like Bridesmaids, though.

Fourth: Now You See Me. This was fun until, like, the last fifteen minutes. Then it all fell apart into a mess of "must have a twist!" The twist makes no goddamn sense. None.

My husband and I picked the twist pretty much from the beginning. It was a fun movie, though.

We watched Gangster Squad on the weekend and it was fine. I remarked that it just made me think of The Untouchables and my husband said it made him think of The Magnificent Seven, so the story wasn't really anything new. Emma Stone's make up and wardrobe were stunning though.

I watched Jack Reacher today, and I was not impressed. I wish Tom Cruise wasn't the go to action guy for half of the films.

Olympus Has Fallen, the second White House in peril movie that came out this summer. This is the one with Gerard Butler. After some initial thoughts about the tarts, their real doll of Gerry, and giving interviews to the press about how hard it was to get chocolate off of said real doll, I really liked the movie. It was dumb and fun and Gerard Butler kicking ass. And he's good at that, even if boy is aging hard.

I finally got around to watching Pitch Perfect thanks to a free Cinemax weekend. Or maybe it was HBO. Whatever. Anyway, I liked everything about it except for Anna Kendrick's gigantic teeth.

I could have done without the throwing up scene in Pitch Perfect.

salamandersam wrote:I could have done without the throwing up scene in Pitch Perfect.

That scene bothers me so much because - well, it bothers me for many reasons, actually. The obvious reason is that it's so gross. But also, it's in the middle of the really cool build-up to the climax of the film so I hate skipping it, but it's so gross I want to skip it every time. And even aside from being gross, the vomit distracts the girls from the argument that they should be having, which is that Anna Camp's character screwed herself and Brittany Snow's character over by throwing up last year during the performance, and she's been overly controlling and crazy in an attempt to make up for it. I mean, they don't need to spell it out so exactly because no one talks like that, but the throw-up fight is just... a horrible idea.

I really love the movie, too. I think that's why that scene makes me so angry!

Watched Admission, which may have been a mistake considering where we are in the college application process. It was okay, but sadder and less funny that I expected. Paul Rudd was earnest, Tina Fey was Tina, and the boy who might be Tina's son was goofy and very good.

I watched that over the weekend, and it was about 1000 times more interesting than the book was, so at least it had that going for it. (Though I think 90% of that was casting.)

I was irked by the whole focus on nothing but Princeton. You've got this clearly brilliant and offbeat kid and you're only having him look at 1 college? I realize that Tina Fey's character worked for Princeton, but still. Besides which, he's so obviously Hampshire College material.

Watched Blue Jasmine last night (thanks, internet!). I really liked it, and Cate Blanchett was so, so great. She deserves every accolade she's getting. Sally Hawkins was great, too, and I was glad she wasn't overlooked in the Oscar noms.

Even if the only magic you like in movies is the sort in Harry Potter movies, if you have Netflix, you should totally watch Deceptive Practices: The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay. It's awesome documentary all about the magician Ricky Jay (who's also been in a few David Mamet movies), and it is seriously fascinating. I knew he did magic, but I had no idea that he's also one of the best of the best at slight of hand. Among the fun facts I learned: he got into magic because his grandpa was an enthusiastic amateur magician, he left home at 16, he attended Cornell for a while, he's studied aikido, and Shel Silverstein wrote him a poem (which he recites).

You combine all that with the fact the guy can throw an ordinary playing card hard enough to penetrate the skin of a watermelon, you realize he's definitely not a guy you would ever want to mess with. It's worth watching just to see some of the truly cramazing stuff he can do with just a pack of cards.

I watched Mitt, streaming on netflix. It claims to be a behind-the-scenes documentary following Mitt Romney for 6 years between 2008 and 2012. But...it really doesn't feel like it's breaking new ground if you're a political junkie who already consumed most media about 2008 and 2012 elections. It also, for a documentary, doesn't seem to have a thesis beyond "Mitt Romney is rich, religious, and awkward, and people don't like him for any or all of those reasons"...and then proceeds to show Romney being rich, religious, and awkward.

Most of the reviews I've seen of it say it humanizes him, and it does show that the Romney family is very close (and some of his sons are quite handsome). But I don't think it contributes much at all to the political tale of Romney. If anything it just reinforces the existing caricature and it definitely doesn't answer any political questions. I mean, I don't think voters did or did not pick him based on his species. Mitt would be way more interesting if it tried to prove anything besides Mitt Romney is human.

I saw This is the End for some fucking reason and it was a bad idea. I think I got it confused with World's End and decided to watch it instead of automatically sending it back to Netflix because I saw the trailer and it was kind of funny? I don't know. The trailer was the best thing about this movie. So stupid. The only time I actually laughed was at the end when

Spoiler:

That was kinda funny.

I watched This Is the End on Starz on Demand last weekend and thought it was just gross and stupid. I did like what happened to James Franco in the end, though, but I don't like Franco so there's that.

I also watched Silver Linings Playbook which I liked quite a bit. I thought Bradley Cooper did a good job of portraying manic and I liked the evolution of Pat and Jennifer Lawrence's relationship. I didn't realize there would be quite that much dancing, though.

The only good thing about that movie was the Backstreet Boys singing in heaven.

Twenty Feet From Stardom is worth seeing, if for nothing else, for the story of the backing vocals for Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter".

I just watched The Lone Ranger and while it isn't the horrible disaster I'd been led to believe it would be, it still has a ton of problems. The two train action sequences (the second scored to "William Tell Overture") are great. The movie is actually trying to say interesting things about the mythology of the west and the western but doesn't entirely succeed. One of the reasons it doesn't succeed is definitely Johnny Depp as Tonto. It would have been much more powerful with a Native actor in the part. And there's just a lot of strange stuff happening. Like what is the point of Helena Bonham Carter's character at all! She has an ivory leg(!) with a gun in it(!!) and is from an even stranger movie.

I watched Rush which I really enjoyed, even though I know next to nothing about car racing. Aside from being just really entertaining, it LOOKED great. And by that I mean that the way it was filmed was interesting, but the movie goes all in on the 70s, and comes out looking fabulous. It probably helps that Chris Hemsworth is one of the few guys who can rock long-ish blond hair and shirts unbuttoned practically to his navel without looking ridiculous. He's just SO magnetic, you can't help staring at him, which is actually the point of his first scene in the movie. He just walks into a hospital after having a fight at the racetrack (over another guy's girl, of course) and every thing just stops as all the woman ogle the hell out of him.

Daniel Bruhl was also great as Niki Lauda the other main driver in the story who is basically the opposite of James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth). He's a brilliant car builder and tactician, whereas James is all guts. James loves to party, and Niki really doesn't seem all that interested in it. All he wants to do is WIN. His personality is also pretty abrasive, which makes him not very popular among the other drivers (which becomes a key point in the story). Anyhow, it's a fun, grown up movie that's well worth your time.

I ordered Dallas Buyer's Club on demand last night and I cannot believe I waited this long to see it! I liked it. A LOT. I got engrossed in the story. I thought the 2 main characters were well fleshed out. There's so much tell in such a compressed amount of time though.