Tag: three sentence movies

This was on an internet list of good romantic comedies you’ve never seen.  I found it to be an amazing cataloger of mid-80s clothing and hair, and a sweet love story for “older” people.  It was also kind of a snooze, but that might have been because of the wine.

Cost: free from library
Where watched: at home.

(I’ve always liked the title, though.)

poster from: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094921/?ref_=nv_sr_1

I like all of these actors, so poor reviews be damned, I watched this.  It was not horrible.  But it wasn’t exactly good, either.*

*Might I recommend some better movies with these actors?  Two Night Stand features Miles Teller and is quite good.  Me and Orson Wells features Zac Efron and is also good. I haven’t been able to make myself watch Fruitville Station with Michael B. Jordan, but I have seen all of Friday Night Lights and he’s quite good in that.

Cost: again I found it for free on the internet. It was cold.  I didn’t want to go to the video store.  I also didn’t want to pay to stream mediocrity either, especially because it wasn’t available to stream and I would have had to pay $9.99 to buy it and own it forever.  I’m terrible, I know.
Where watched: at home on the computer.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2014/that_awkward_moment.html

Boy howdy, did I hate this movie.  The “friends” were terrible–they make the Heathers from Heathers look like the best friends you would ever want.  There wasn’t nearly enough Rebel Wilson and though I was intrigued enough by Lizzy Caplan to see what else she’d been in, this was mostly a waste of my time.

Cost: free from library.*
Where watched: at home.

*I grabbed this movie because it was written and directed by Leslye Headland, who directed Sleeping With Other People and the remake of About Last Night, both of which I enjoyed.  I hated this enough to watch the DVD extras and found out that Headland was happy to have created such complex female characters and I will agree with her.  Her characters were complex in a way that I mostly couldn’t relate to (Caplan’s character was the exception) and thus made me want to run far, far away.

I like unlikeable female characters, (see: Young Adult, Adventureland, The Runaways) but there has to be something about them that hooks me.  These ladies did not.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2012/bachelorette.html
(Also this poster does not properly sum up the movie.)

Thanks to The Next Picture Show Podcast, I watched this incredibly brutal story with a plot similar to the Hunger Games books written by Susan Collins.  It was a much more violent movie than I usually watch*, but I appreciated the realistic range of feelings expressed by the teenagers.  That said, I’m happy to have watched it, and don’t plan on watching it ever again.

*I needed a palate cleanser after finishing it, but alas it was past my bedtime.

Cost: $3.00 from Videorama
Where watched: at home.

poster from: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0266308/?ref_=nv_sr_1

I found myself wondering, as I watched the final installment of the Hunger Games franchise, what else that cute Sam Claflin had been in.  This was my answer and it was a satisfying piece of predictable fluff.  It turns out I had attempted to read the book at some point, but had wandered off before I got very far.

Cost:  I’m embarrassed to say that I found this on some free internet site and watched it there. It involved folding two sheets of paper to block out the ads.
Where watched:  On my computer, while making the rolls for Thanksgiving dinner.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2014/love_rosie.html
(The first two posters listed are actually quite good in a cheeky poster sense.  But the above is how I’ve always seen it packaged.

This movie has vaulted to the top of my Incredible-You-Must-See-It movie list* as it contains a story that won’t stop–but never goes overboard–and incredible acting and also LIBRARIANS!**  I found the story to be upsetting in that way that means it happened in real life, and no one did anything.***  The “upsetting” means a bunch of people aren’t going to see it, but that’s a shame because this is the kind of movie that won’t leave you in the best way possible.

Cost: free due to birthday gift card from brother
Where watched:  Regal Fox Tower

*You know this list lives in my head, right?  It doesn’t really exist in written form.
**The librarians aren’t really part of the plot, but it’s really cool to see pre-digital newspaper research. It almost makes up for the sad feeling one gets when one thinks of what was to come for the newspapers.
***I mean really, the levels of complacency in this film are gasp-inducing.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2015/spotlight.html

If you’ve seen the first three, you might as well finish off the quadrilogy, right?  It provided everything one could ask for* and in a manner that keeps with the book.  I was not blown away, but did enjoy myself.**

Cost: $9.00
Where watched: McMenamin’s Baghdad Theater with Matt.

*I mean, within reason.  I could ask for Phillip Seymour Hoffman to not overdose, so he could do his final scene in this movie and not be replaced by Woody Harrelson reading a letter from him. But I know I’m not going to get that.
** I was also glad that we happened to have the last book sitting in the back of Matt’s car so that we could compare and contrast the book/movie ending.
(Also, I always pictured Phillip Seymour Hoffman as Haymitch, not Plutarch.)

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2015/hunger_games_mockingjay__part_two.html

Once, long ago, in the throws of a depression, I watched a movie called Last Night and man, did it stick with me in a god-I-hated-and-was-disturbed-by-that-movie kind of way.  But it’s also made me continually seek out end-times movies just to see if there is anything better.  This was well acted and engaging,* but still left me with the completely depressed feeling that all is not well.**

Cost: free from library
Where watched: at home.

*Although it skimped on a ton of detail.  Where were they getting their gas?  I can’t imagine gas station attendants would still be coming to work.
**I should perhaps give up thinking that such movies can be anything but depressing.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2012/seeking_a_friend_for_the_end_of_the_world.html

I ran across this movie on a list of really great romantic comedies you haven’t seen* and I ordered it because the library had it.  This movie epitomizes two things: 90s’s independent film** and dating in Boston when in your 20s.*** I remember adoring the soundtrack and the structure of the movie, and, sadly, neither one of those things lived up to my memories.****

Cost: free from library
Where watched: at home.

*Although I saw it in the theater when it came out in 1998.  Something went wrong with the sound, so the first couple of minutes were spent getting them to fix the sound, and then listening to people argue with the attendant that they should just start the movie over.  He wouldn’t (or couldn’t) and drink coupons were passed around, though I never got one.  There was much grumbling.  So this viewing, I finally heard what was said in the first few minutes.
**And man, did we put up with some not-so-great film technique when watching 90s independent films.  Viewing it from this decade, I found the shoddy film making and iffy acting rather distracting.  (Although Hope Davis and Philip Seymour Hoffman were fine.)
***Like Hope Davis’s character, Boston wasn’t a great town for dating for me, either.  But I was enchanted with the depiction of smoking in bars–I had forgotten we could do that–and just how not great looking the guys she dated were.  Also, I used to drink at the Bern, which is her go-to bar.  It wasn’t my go-to bar, but probably second-tier.
****Which doesn’t mean I totally pan it, but I would say it’s a so-so movie, and worth watching as a time capsule.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/1998/next_stop_wonderland.html