what happened?

Beginners (dir. Mike Mills)

This movie is very beautiful, funny, and sad. It has a dog who talks in subtitles. The first scene that made me cry was when the dog said, “tell her the darkness is about to drown us unless something drastic happens right now.” That is one of those lines that makes me ache with jealousy and admiration for the writer, and it is timed so perfectly in the film, with such faithfulness to how we experience grief. Several subsequent lines made me cry, even ones said out loud by human actors. Ewan McGregor is wonderful. Christopher Plummer is wonderful. Melanie Laurent is wonderful. Cosmo the Dog, who shares a name with a certain llama I know, is wonderful. I wish somebody had told me to see this sooner, I wish I had seen it in the theater, but really I think I watched it at the perfect time, when I am living in relative solitude, when I have gone an entire day without speaking to anyone but my dogs. Beginners is very personal and specific; that level of detail cracks open a world of relateable experience, hence all the crying. This a perfect short story (life story) of a film.

Apparently I Wrote This Whole Thing About the Movie Thor and Saved It in a Folder Labeled “Drafty Bullsthit [sic], Etc.” and Forgot All About It Until I Went File-Purging Last Night. So of Course it Belongs on the Internet. This is a Title.

Remember that time I went to see Thor, despite having no prior knowledge of the story beyond Vincent D’Onofrio’s starmaking turn as the auto mechanic in Adventures in Babysitting? WELL HERE’S WHAT I THOUGHT OF THE MOVIE.

From what I can gather, having seen the film all the way through to the post-credits clippymajigger, Thor is the blonde, space alien version of Encino Man. At the beginning of the movie he makes his daddy mad (what your daddy doooo?) and gets banished to Earth, where some science-folk pick him up and try to pass him off as their Human Friend who is Totally Not a Viking from Space, Seriously You Guys, We Swear. But then shit goes down, as shit always do, and some shady government guys come after him, and it is ON. Meanwhile, back in space, Thorncino Man’s smaller, darker, OBVIOUSLY ADOPTED I MEAN DUH brother Loki has hurt feelings and turns to the only means he has to express them: evil. Some other stuff happens, too, like Stringer Bell gets encased in ice for a while, but don’t worry you won’t recognize him as Stringer Bell until the end credits and it’s better that way or else you’ll be all YO STRING, WATCH YOUR BACK, which will distract you from the plot. You know what, nevermind, I wish the whole movie had been about Stringer Bell.

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IN WHICH I SPOIL THE FUCK OUT OF COUNTRY STRONG, BUT YOU WEREN’T GOING TO SEE IT ANYHOW, WERE YOU?

(So unnecessarily long but I have SO MANY IMPORTANT THOUGHTS on this thoroughly unimportant movie)

The male lead in Country Strong is wicked hot. In real life I go for schlubby beardos with poor social skills, but in PG-13 movies about white people and their problems, I like wicked hotties with strategic scruff. This particular wicked hottie talks all mumbly and works his mouth real purty around a microphone. Apparently he is also the star of the new TRON movie? I don’t think I can see TRON now, because I don’t want to see this handsome fuck in anything more high-tech than denim on denim and a busted amp. I also don’t want to know what his real name is. I don’t even remember his character’s name. All I remember is the part where he leans on a doorjamb and says, “Tell me what you want.”

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Hey remember a couple months ago when I went to see The Town and then I came home and wrote this “review” and then I forgot all about it until just now when I was cleaning up files? Also remember how it is super, super crass, like, I kind of offended myself.  Well LISTEN to THIS!

By the Time You Read This, I’ll Have a Beard
The best part of The Town is any part when Ben Affleck speaks at length in his Boston accent.  I don’t usually go for Afflecky types, but put him in Boston with a tight t-shirt and an accent, and I’m ready to drop and give him twenty.  BJs, I mean.

The second best part of The Town is when Jeremy Renner is walking down the street in a police uniform, and then he whips around and starts shooting a machine gun.  I don’t usually go for machine-gunny types, but if it’s Jeremy Renner, wee little humorless Jeremy Renner, I am ready to drop and give him forty.  Dollars.  I will pay forty dollars to blow him, is what I mean. 

The third best part of The Town is Jon Hamm (something about fellatio).

The Town commits the worst sin in movie writing, exposition in dialogue.  At one point Ben Affleck says to Jeremy Renner, “You’re like a brother to me!  Your family took me in when my dad went away!”  What if Jeremy Renner had said, “Seriously?  They did?  Man, I had no idea.”  Then what if they had kissed.

The Town was fun, but I don’t think it was intended to be.  What Affleck needs to do is let loose a little bit, drop the strained, serious subplots, and make a  real shoot ‘em up, fuckfest of a film.  I’m talking Face/Off style shit.  I want to see Ben Affleck, shirtless, flying sideways with a gun in each hand, shooting a bad guy while a flock of white doves rises behind him and a chorus of inner-city youth sings a gospel version of “Dirty Water.”  I then want to see Ben Affleck make sweet love to a bangin’ dame.  Somewhere public, maybe.  Like a bench in Boston Public Garden, I don’t know, we’re spitballing here. 

I don’t want to harp on this Affleck-is-attractive thing, but it’s kind of like when you’re an awkward teenager who crushes on the nerdy boys at school, but then one day in drama class or whatever, Dave the basketball star asks about your little brothers, because one time you told him about how good they are at basketball, and suddenly you realize that this jock is hot and also kind of nice and maybe it’s okay to be attracted to a traditionally attractive person?  This is just an example, having no bearing on reality, although Dave W. I looked you up on Facebook and you’re still super-handsome so if you want to get together for some NSA, you know, whatevs.

Quit looking so much alike, Mae Whitman and Alison Pill!  You just lost me a dolla bet.  I hate you both, except really I like you and think you’re super pretty and good at acting, so if you want to be friends I’d be okay with that, as long as you give me one dollar. Fifty cents from each of you would be fine.

P.S. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World rules.

In Which I Rank The Stars of The Major Motion Picture Inception, In Order of Attractiveness

1. Marion Cotillard girrrrrl I wanna have your babies and then they grow up to be me and I look like you trust me this works.
2. Joseph Gordon-Levitt (he hangs out a lot with these Russian clowns?)
3. Cillian Murphy, you got sparkly eyes.
4. Juno
5. Ken Watanabe
6. Sir Michael Caine
7. Tom Berenger (retroactive ranking for Major League, luh u 4evs Jake Taylor!)
8. Leonardo DiBabyface
9. Lukas Haas, you’ll always be Amish to me.
10. Some British guy.

The Backyard Movie Club & Reading Series, Part 1

Look at my movie theater!

Look at the Doug Memorial Seat!

Look at the beautiful writers who read their work pre-film!

Look at all the people who came to watch Wet Hot American Summer!

Summer 2010 is the BEST.

Up in the Air

I reeeeeally didn’t care for this movie, and I’m sick of it being all in my face. All of a sudden I understand how people who hate Lost in Translation feel, except fuck those people, right, because Lost in Translation is about loneliness and connection, and Up in the Air is about boring shit happening to boring people and let’s allude to crazy-fun sexytime but only show a lady’s perfect, dry, unblemished ass.  And here is an overt message about how NO, YOU REALLY NEED PEOPLE IN YOUR LIFE, GEORGE CLOONEY!  And here is a total mis/under-use of Danny McBride.  And Zach Galifianakis is the best part of the movie but he’s not really in it, is he?  The only other good parts are the “real” interviews with “real” people who have lost their jobs.  I would rather watch a documentary about those people than learn about how poor, handsome George Clooney has his nonexistant heart broken by a lady who SPOILER ALERT OH GOD YOU HAD NO IDEA is married with kids.  Whoop de freaking surprise, Reitman.

Oh plus it was boring and slow. I like boring and slow, fucking The Remains of the Day is one of my favorite movies to watch by myself, because nobody else will watch it with me, because it is a slow, boring, British feelm.  But Up in the Air, I don’t know, it was like boring + slow + fuck you people and your bullshit problems + can’t we just let Jason Batemen be adorable Jason Bateman? Let’s not pretend he’s some great serious actor.  He’s FUNNY.  Let him be FUNNY.  I watched Extract on DVD tonight (what up RedBox, one dolla wut wut), not particularly good, didn’t hate it/didn’t care for it a whole bunch, but at least it was Jason Batemen being fairly Jason Batemany, which let’s be honest is what he’s best at (also, loving Nintendo and the word “dastardly”).

The point is, I am right and most major movie critics are wrong and can Colin Firth just win every award this year for his performance in A Single Man, because seriously, talk about break your fucking heart, he is, if I may borrow a term those major movie critics love, a revelation.  Also the little kid from About a Boy is in it and kid ain’t so little anymore, if you know what I mean, what I mean is he is smoking effing hot and he gets naked for a sec so you should check it out. It’ s a darker movie than that, don’t go in thinking it’s all Colin Firth being great and cute boys being naked, but everything needs a hook, right?

Fuckin’ Hollywood.