A very good exercise in remembering to breathe when things are tense, because this whole darn movie is tense so there is a lot of breathing practice. Excellent acting–it’s not often we get a film where just one woman occupies the screen for the majority of the movie. This was one of those movies that is just very well done.
Cost: $8.50
Where watched: Regal Tigard 11 with mom.
I enjoy a few things about Simon Pegg/Nick Frost/Edgar Wright films: they tend to combine genres in new and exciting ways; they are incredibly silly while also being a bit moving; and mostly I enjoy them because they are funny all the way through. I saw the preview for this movie upwards of five times, so I was very familiar with those funny bits, and yet there were still more funny bits sustaining the entire length of the film.*
Cost: $4.00 (though I spent another $5.00 for Kombucha on tap)
Where watched: The Academy Theater (first time!) with Matt.
*One would expect this in a comedy, but it’s rather rare, actually. Most follow the pattern of a bit of funny sprinkled here and there held together with vast swaths of not-funny. It’s the worst when they’ve exhausted all the funny parts in the previews.
And after marinating in a rare two hours of all-women-being-awesome-on-film, it’s kind of head-shaking that not 24 hours later I was, by choice,* watching a complete and total boy-humor movie. And this movie is packed with boy humor encompassing pretty much every boy-movie cliche: poop, weed, masturbation, extraneous gore, urine, romance, alien invasions, random big action sequences, well-hung demons, and flirting with being a bad-ass. For something that was designed to make you think that a bunch of pot-head, 20-something name actors wrote this while they were high, it was pretty top-notch, managing to pack a whole lot in to a tightly-scripted movie that had me gasping for breath through my laughter several times.**
Cost: free due to birthday present.
Where watched: Laurelhurst. With Matt
*I picked it as the movie Matt would take me to for my birthday. Really.
**Seriously, if you are tuned into the boy humor, this movie is FUNNY. I can recommend it.
About three-quarters of the way through this movie the thing I was enjoying most about the film finally became clear to me. I love that this was entirely a film about women, so much so that there were really no men present.* Those fabulous actresses, so often relegated to the girlfriend/whore role,** just got to sink their teeth in and do some damn fine acting.***
Cost: free from library.
Where watched: at home.
*In nearly every other book-to-movie transitions the fleshed-out female character is shunted aside for the men to take center stage. I’m looking at you, Gone Baby, Gone. Here, the men, much more present in the book, were almost completely eliminated.
**And yes, the black women were stuck being the maids AGAIN. So frustrating! I’m holding out for a future where we not only have many movies with fully-developed female characters as a matter of course, but also movies where the people of color don’t have to disappear into the standard tropes of servant/cannon fodder/magical guides for the white people.
***Bryce Dallas Howard was something of a marvel. “Who is that woman playing Hilly?” I kept wondering. And then was aghast it was she, who I had always kind of written off.
This was a good season, filled with the usual high-caliber dramatic tension set amongst the High School football field. However, the series ending was so disappointing it colored the entire season and I feel cheated. How could a show built on the foundation of struggle give every single character exactly what they wanted in the end?
Cost: free from library
Where watched: at home, with Matt
So the thing about addition when it is just happening and there is no start or finish is that addiction is really boring. And this movie, though packed with good performances by hamster-eyed Gosling and the various women/girls in his life, is boring. I was drinking a bit of whisky whilst watching and the movie just kept going on so long I only knew it had ended when the credits presented themselves to me, that’s how little happens in this movie.
Cost: free from library
Where watched: at home, with two fingers worth of Jack Daniels when I maybe should have just had one.
Important porn warning: this movie is about porn and addiction, which I knew and was ready for, but I didn’t imagine that there would be so much porn imagery in the film itself.* I liked that Joseph Gordon-Levitt was so tightly wound that he was hard to watch–kind of the guy version of the pretty girl making herself ugly to get the Oscar nomination. I thought the addition issue was captured quite well and overall, this was a good solid film, and I heartily approved of the ending.
Cost: free (early birthday present)
Where watched: Living Room Theater with S. North.
*”I’m having porn flashbacks!” my movie-going companion texted me later.
I think when someone spends nine years and interviews over 150 people, they shouldn’t really limit themselves to ONE documentary about their subject. Every topic the movie introduced brought up many questions that were not answered and that resulted in an incredibly frustrating semi-portrait of the recluse-when-it-was-convenient-author. Also, having so few pictures of the subject meant that they repeated themselves a lot with images, which was distracting.
Cost: $9.00
Where watched: Living Room Theater, with Kelly.
Having seen this film, I feel as if I must make the following point very clearly: People–I’m quite serious here–feel free to recommend movies to me; especially perfectly done romantic comedies that are actually FUNNY as well as ROMANTIC and take nimble turns of plot I don’t really expect. This movie has been out for TWO YEARS and someone just mentioned it to me this summer, which is a shame because due to the excellent caliber of motion picture (acting/plot/bevy of talented performers) I feel that my life would have been changed, and for the better. So don’t hold back; if you see a movie you think I will like, by all means let me know what it is.
Cost: free from library
Where watched: at home with Matt in the same room, but not really paying attention the first night. Then sitting next to me on the next night when I convinced him to watch it, instead of just listening.
