Monthly Archives: December 2011

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On The Couch 2011 #30: The Adjustment Bureau

I really liked The Adjustment Bureau. The film has a cool, metatextual theme of what happens when characters start rebelling against their writers. The men, or snazzy dressed angels depending on your belief set, of The Adjustment Bureau guide humans throughout their lives. The adjusters walk around with their notebooks that show how peoples’ lives will turn out depending on what actions they take. The adjusters use their powers over reality to shape the lives of people in order to make those lives fall in line with “the plan.” The plan could also be seen as a story outline for someone’s life.

The movie immediately brought to mind Grant Morrison’s Supergods, where the writer talked about inserting himself as a character in his comic books. This was most notably done in Mr. Morrison’s run on Animal Man, where the title character realizes he isn’t completely in control of his own life and meets his writer.

Is this the closest a comic book character comes to meeting God?

When Matt Damon’s character finds out that the sharply dressed men of The Adjustment Bureau are messing with his life, and preventing him from being with the woman of his dreams, here played by Emily Blunt, he rebels. He does everything in his power to exert his will over the will of his writer. It would be as if Dorothy decided she didn’t want to take on the Wicked Witch of the West and would rather run off with the Scarecrow to raise an adoptive horde of Lollipop Leaguers while flipping the bird to Frank L. Baum.

Emily Blunt’s dress gives the Red Dress of Awesomeness a run for its money.

John Slattery seemed like a very easy casting choice, as he didn’t even have to change out of his Mad Men wardrobe to be in The Adjustment Bureau.

The Adjustment Bureau or Mad Men?

The stand-out performance goes to Anthony Mackie, playing an adjuster with a crisis of conscience. Apparently you can fuck with one guy’s life only so much before you start thinking twice about it.

I want to shop at their store.

One thing that struck me about The Adjustment Bureau was that there were no women in the Bureau. Guys, come on, it’s 2011. Women can wear fedoras too.

I loved that this movie used real New York City locations as much as it did. From the new Brooklyn Bridge Park to the contemporary ballet company Cedar Lake, real New York City locations are all over this movie. A cool special feature on the Blu-Ray allows you to transverse the secret doors around New York City overlaid on a map of Manhattan.

Like other movies based on Phillip K. Dick stories, The Adjustment Bureau follows the theme that “you’re not paranoid if they really are out to get you.” And it does it really well. If you haven’t seen The Adjustment Bureau yet, I highly recommend it. One warning though, it may make you want to buy a fedora afterwards.

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On The Couch 2011 #29: Captain America

There were too many comic book movies this year. As a lifelong comic book reader, I never thought I would say that. But it’s true. There were too many, and they were released way too close to each other. X-Men: First Class and Thor were both great, but when Green Lantern came out to middling reviews, it transformed all the I-gotta-see-all-these-movies momentum I had for comic book movies into “Eh, maybe I can wait for Netflix on a couple of these.”

That said, Captain America is wonderful. I rank it a little under X-Men: First Class, which I loved and a little above Thor, which I really liked. Marvel had a banner year for movies this year and I am super-excited for next year’s Avengers movie. Joss Whedon + Mark Ruffalo + RDJ’s Tony Stark = I will not be waiting for this movie to hit Netflix!

I cannot wait for this movie!

The CGI in Captain America is really cool. At first, I thought another actor was playing Steve Rogers before he was injected with super soldier serum. But then I realized no, that’s Chris Evans, special-effected in a reverse-Hulk way to make him much punier than he actually is.

If this movie was made 15 years ago, would the producers have approached Chris Evans with “Look, Chris, the CGI isn’t there yet. Would you mind losing 90 lbs for the early parts of the movie?”

Stanley Tucci continues to be the King of Supporting Actors, playing the German refugee scientist Dr. Erskine, creator of the Super Soldier formula.

The Tooch does it again!

If you are a Captain America comic book fan, there are so many Easter eggs dispersed throughout this movie. My second favorite was seeing the original Human Torch encased in glass at the World’s Fair pavilion. My favorite was when Dr. Arim Zola was first shown, and his face was seen distorted through a lens as if it were on a screen, foreshadowing his appearance in the comic. It sent my geeky heart aflutter.

Did you catch this brief appearance by the original Human Torch?


I really recommend seeing Captain America, as well all of the other Marvel movies that are leading into next summer’s Avengers.

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At The Theater 2011 #15: Melancholia

Wow, that was a boring movie. Hard-core boring. Like Human Centipede boring. I’ve never rooted for a planet to smash into the earth the way I did in this movie. Dear Lars von Trier, how do you make a movie about a planet hitting the earth so boring?
This should be exciting!
I wanted to fall asleep in Melancholia, but I fought against it. And it was a hard fight. But I was convinced that if I fell asleep I would miss the one exciting scene in the movie. So I stayed awake for the whole movie. That exciting scene never came. I’m convinced half the theater was asleep when the credits were rolling.

I’m not going to completely hate on Melancholia. It’s a beautifully shot movie. It’s as beautiful as it is boring. The cinematographer deserves an award.

 SPOILERS FOLLOW AFTER THESE TWO BEAUTIFUL, BORING STILLS…
So beautiful…So boring…



Melancholia is told in two parts, each named after one of the two sisters in the movie. The first part, Justine, is about Kirsten Dunst’s character Justine’s wedding, held at the massive estate of her sister, Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and her brother-in-law, John (Kiefer Sutherland). The wedding doesn’t go well. The bride and groom arrive hours late. Justine is never where she’s supposed to be. Oh, and she fucks some other guy on John’s lawn. So it’s not surprising when her new husband bolts at the end of the night. If only I had his foresight.

Don’t be fooled by the smiles. This is the wedding from hell.

The second part of the movie, Claire, is where the movie really becomes doused in Nyquil. Justine, super-depressed, moves in with Claire and John. Justine can’t take of herself, so Claire does. John seems to hate Justine, and as the movie progresses, so do I. Oh, and remember that entire first half of the movie you just watched? It has almost nothing to do with the second half.

When John realizes that the rogue planet Melancholia is not going to do a fly-by and will actually hit Earth, he offs himself. How could you betray me like that, John? Didn’t you think about the viewer, fighting as hard as he could to stay awake, clinging to your snark to get through the movie? Thanks for nothing, dick.

If you suffer from insomnia, Melancholia is a relatively cheap cure.

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On The Couch Bonus Round – Runaway Bride

Note: I already saw Runaway Bride, so I’m not giving it a full write-up, but I just felt I had to share. -TNM

I watched Runaway Bride on TBS over the weekend. I saw this movie when it was in the theater and don’t remember it being this bad. The funniest part of that movie is definitely Richard Gere’s New York accent. Who thought this was a good idea? Richard Gere’s accent in Runaway Bride is like the New York version of John Cleese’s French accent in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Watch the first 20 minutes of Runaway Bride next time it’s on TV. But don’t watch more than that. The movie is just as schlocky as Princess Diaries 2. Actually, forget I said anything. Turn on Monty Python and the Holy Grail instead.

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At The Theater 2011 #14: The Muppets

I wanted to see a movie with my cousins who were in town for Thanksgiving. We range in age from 21-36, so the only movies that were off the table were ones that one of us had already seen and ones we had no interest in seeing.

The Muppets was a universal pick, even inspiring a lively discussion at the Thanksgiving dinner table about how good the soundtrack is.

One of the songs in The Muppets is written by Flight of the Concords. If you’ve ever heard a Flight of the Concords song before, you’ll have no problem recognizing it as their song moments into it. I’m not complaining. It’s a great song, and so are they.

The Muppets has two major things going for it with its lead actors. I’ve liked Jason Segal since Freaks and Geeks. He and Neil Patrick Harris are the two best parts of How I Met Your Mother. I was happy to see that he was both starring in The Muppets and that he wrote the screenplay. Forgetting Sarah Marshall, also written by and starring Segal, is one of the funniest movies of the past decade. And Amy Adams is as adorable in this as she is in Enchanted. I need a movie where Amy Adams and Zooey Deschanel out-adorable each other for an hour and forty.

The reigning king and queen of adorable?

But the best part of The Muppets? That’s easy. It’s the cameo appearance by Dave Grohl. There are some really cool celebrity cameos in The Muppets, but Dave Grohl’s is definitely the most awesome, partly because Dave Grohl is so awesome and partly because he’s playing an Animal stand-in in a grisly, low-rent Muppets tribute group.

Animool!

My only complaint about The Muppets is that by the middle of the movie, I felt like I was being given a guilt trip by a Jewish mother mixed with the Catholic Church for the Muppets falling out of popularity. They hit that particular guilt button a lot throughout the movie.

But that’s a small complaint. I loved The Muppets and strongly recommend seeing it.

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At The Theater 2011 #13: Tower Heist

I liked Tower Heist much more than I expected to. I thought it would be okay, but after seeing it, I found myself recommending it to different friends. And each time, their reaction was along the lines of “Really? Are you sure?” To be fair, I would have had the same reaction before I saw it.

The marketing for Tower Heist didn’t do it any favors. Neither the trailer or poster left me really wanting to see it. But it was getting good reviews, I had just run the NYC Marathon the day before and wanted to laugh for a couple of hours without having to walk around. That and I tend to like movies with Ben Stiller.

Tower Heist made me laugh a lot. Eddie Murphy is back to being funny Eddie Murphy, who I think last made an appearance in the highly underrated Bowfinger. Gabourey Sidibe showed off her funny side playing a sassy Jamaican maid. I’m glad I got to see her in this, because I still have no intention of seeing her in Precious.

Rent it.


And if you’re really into the Ocean’s 11 set of heist movies, you’ve got Casey Affleck here to make you feel right at home.

Major spoilers about the ending follow after this photo of the highly addictive iPhone game Tiny Tower, which I admit has nothing to do with Tower Heist, but if you haven’t seen the movie yet and want to go in fresh, read no further!

Someone should make a Tower Heist mod to Tiny Tower.

The only problem I had with Tower Heist was at the very end. How did they get that damn car out of the pool and out the building?! This is the scene I wanted and needed to see! Even if it’s just a quick montage through the process, I needed to see this. Maybe Ocean’s 11 spoiled me, but my favorite part of heist movies is seeing how it all comes to together for the thieves and how they pull it off in the end.

I also wish that one of the crew members opening up their mysterious package with a solid gold car part in it looked confused instead of excited. Think about it. There’s no note, just a box with a gold transmission in it. Would they even know it’s gold? “What the hell is this?” I just think that would have been funny.