Category Archives: Movies

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On The Couch #35: Shutter Island

In honor of Halloween, all of October’s On The Couch movies are going be creepy, kooky and all-together spooky. This is going to be hard work for me, as I’ve never really been a fan of horror movies; I’ll take a good comedy over a good horror movie any time, mainly because comedies don’t give me nightmares. But a theme’s a theme, so away we go…

Shutter Island isn’t a horror movie, but it has a lot of the traits of a modern horror movie (creepy children, unsteady camera work) while avoiding the most common pitfall among modern horror movies (bad screenwriting). Shutter Island is written very well, and like The Usual Suspects, benefits from multiple viewings (or in my case, the two featurettes included on the Blu-Ray that serve the same purpose as watching the movie again, but for a quarter of the time required).

If we didn’t finish watching Shutter Island at 1 AM, I would have been very tempted to immediately start it up again from the beginning, and really, what’s a better compliment than that?

Back to creepy children for a minute. Is there any horror movie cliché that still manages to frighten more than a ghost-like child who says something ominous is a high pitched voice? I don’t care how much this horror film trope has been overused, creepy children still freak me out. I saw a very pale kid with blue lips asleep on his mother’s lap on the subway a few weeks ago and I was convinced he was either going to a.) dart straight up and say something ominous right before plunging our subway car into the depths of hell or b.) try to eat the other passengers, zombie-style. Either way, I was scared. Mothers of New York City: leave the horror effects to Hollywood! Feed your kids some fruits and vegetables so that they’ll stop looking like they’re demonically possessed or like flesh-hungry zombies.

Creepy old people with stringy hair are almost as freaky as creepy kids.

Leonardo DiCaprio shows in Shutter Island why he is now my favorite actor. Because of the movies I’ve seen him in this year: Shutter Island, Blood Diamond and Inception, I’m willing to give Leonardo DiCaprio a free pass for his next few movies. I won’t need any marketing other than his name, the title and the release date and I’m there.

Shutter Island has a really slow build. Julie, Bryan and I got together to watch it on Friday and not all of us made it through the whole movie awake. The problem with falling asleep during the slower parts of Shutter Island though is that once Shutter Island pays off, it pays off big and quickly, with a lot happening in a very small amount of time, which makes explaining what happened to your sleepy companion a bit difficult. Thank goodness for the featurette in the special features, which can double as cliff notes for anyone who takes a side trip to Slumber Island.

Slumber Island: Not a creepy kid in sight.
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At The Theater #33: The Social Network

And the Academy Award for Most Over-Hyped Movie of the Year goes to…The Social Network.

Forgive my snark. The Social Network was great and I think that Aaron Sorkin is very deserving of a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination. Sorkin accomplished the double-impossible by making legal depositions and emails sound fascinating. But this movie is seriously over-hyped right now. Is it a good movie? Definitely. Is it “the Citizen Kane of this generation?” Not in my opinion.

The greatest thing to come out of The Social Network is Jesse Eisenberg stepping out of Michael Cera’s shadow. For some time now, he’s seemed like the poor man’s Michael Cera. But he really holds his own in this movie, and didn’t remind me of Michael Cera once.

Was Sean Parker involved in the casting for The Social Network? That’s the only explanation I can come up with for Justin Timberlake being cast in the role of Parker. Don’t misunderstand me, Justin Timberlake’s acting in this movie gave me yet another reason to be jealous of him, but Sean Parker is no Justin Timberlake. If anything, Parker looks more like Jesse Eisenberg…or maybe Carrot Top.

Admit it. You’re not sure if this is a picture of Sean Parker or Carrot Top.

The casting decision that took me out of the movie the most was that of Brenda Song as Facebook co-founder Eduardo’s girlfriend, Christy. After her second scene, I turned to Julie and said “Is that the girl from Zack and Cody?” One: Yes, it is. Two: Yes, I’ve watched The Suite Life of Zack of Cody on more than one occasion. Three: No, I don’t have any children that I can blame this one on.

Yes, I’ve also seen The Suite Life on Deck.

If you haven’t seen The Social Network yet, you really should. It’s a fascinating story about the start of a website that you’ve probably checked your news feed on more than once today.

The Facebook Movie definitely beats the Twitter TV show.

In my very early Oscar call, I think The Town should win best picture over The Social Network.

Three movies this week! And they were all good movies! Yes, I know I’m behind. I’m doing my best to catch up. Expect more multi-movie weeks as we get closer to December.

It seems fitting that with this post I’ve now added the ability for you to like these posts on Facebook using the button below. Click it. Your friends will be impressed.

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At The Theater #32: It’s Kind of a Funny Story

The good, free movie streak continues! Julie and I had the chance to catch a free advance screening of It’s Kind of a Funny Story, a coming of age movie set in a mental hospital.

Zach Galifianakis is great in It’s Kind of a Funny Story. He brings a lot of heart to his role as the mentor of the main character/troubled teen Craig. While writing this blog entry, I realized that I’ve liked every movie I’ve ever seen that had Zach Galifianakis in it. Maybe this is because I’ve never seen What Happens in Vegas.

ATTENTION ALL LOST FANS: Jeremy Davies is in this movie and he’s as charming as hospital staffer Smitty as he was playing Dr. Faraday on Lost. He’s also much more coherent here and in my opinion, gets the best line of the movie when he overhears some of the patients questioning the hospital’s point system.

Jeremy Davies makes me want to wear more silly hats.

Emma Roberts is very cute in this movie. Am I the only one who confuses Emma Roberts and Emma Watson? When I saw that Emma Roberts was in this movie, I expected Hermione Granger to come on screen. When she didn’t, I kept trying to figure out why Emma Roberts looked familiar. Right, the Nancy Drew trailer.

Never saw it. Will this be #52?

I don’t want to spoil what I thought was the best part of It’s Kind of a Funny Story, but it is the back story of Solomon, a Hasidic patient in the hospital. I’ll spare you the details, but days later, I’m still laughing to myself about that scene.

Should you see It’s Kind of a Funny Story? I think it is a very cute movie. It reminded me a lot of Garden State, right down to the indie-music-heavy soundtrack. While Broken Social Scene was playing during one scene, I asked Julie if this was The Shins of this movie. If you liked Garden State, I think you will like It’s Kind of a Funny Story. If you didn’t like Garden State, maybe you’ll want to wait for the DVD on this one.

Truth in advertising.
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At The Theater #31: The Town

I flied solo for the first time during this movie watching project when I caught The Town on a rainy afternoon at Brooklyn Heights Cinemas. This is the first time I went to see a movie by myself since I saw A Hard Day’s Night at Film Forum about 10 years ago. Before that, I don’t think I had been to the movie by myself since I was in junior high school, when I saw movies alone regularly in the summer 1990 (the last being either Problem Child or Total Recall) at the two small movie theaters in Pearl River, NY. On a side note, I was hugely popular in junior high (Liar!).

On another side note, how sad is it that both of those Pearl River theaters are now gone? Any readers of this blog remember those theaters? Okay, one wasn’t that great, but the nicer one had such a classic old-style movie theater vibe that’s hard to find in these days of multi-story megaplexes.

On a third side note, what’s with me going to the movie theater alone only during years that start new decades?

I know people who refuse to go to the movies alone, just as I know people who refuse to go to a restaurant alone. While I would much rather see a movie or dine with a companion, I recommend doing either alone both from time to time. There are definite advantages to seeing a movie by yourself: there’s no compromising on what movie to see (The Town), the show time only has to work for one person (me), and you get to pick out whatever snacks you want (small popcorn with butter and a regular Dr. Pepper, please) . But while this is freeing, there are definite downsides. You’re responsible for all the popcorn you choose to buy (luckily I had the foresight to order a small). Also, don’t expect a stranger to fill you in on what you missed while you were in the bathroom (that medium Dr. Pepper made the last 20 minutes of The Town excruciating). And when the movie’s over, there’s no one with whom to talk about the movie (except you, faithful blog reader, but even this is a mostly one-way street).

In order to get to 52 movies for the year, I expect I’ll be seeing a few of them by myself from here on out. But it really is much nicer to go with someone else.

The Town is about a 1960s ad exec and an ageless smoke monster teaming up in the FBI to take down Daredevil and an Iraq war veteran, who have turned their back on the law and become bank robbers. You’d think the smoke monster would wipe the floor with the bank robbers, but he’s surprisingly ineffectual during the climatic gunfight. Wait, I might be mixing up some roles…

Don Draper doesn’t get Mad (Men), he gets even.

Seriously though, The Town is awesome. Go out and see it in the theater. I will be very surprised if this movie doesn’t get nominated for an Oscar. As my snack stand order was being rung up, the ticket-seller/concession counterperson/movie-booker (seriously, while she was pouring my Dr. Pepper, she was on the phone ordering future movies for the theater – that’s multitasking!) said, “This one’s really good, you’re going to like it,” referring to The Town, not the Dr. Pepper. At least I hope she wasn’t referring to the Dr. Pepper. Don’t get me wrong, the Dr. Pepper was enjoyable. I just wouldn’t expect someone to get that excited about a fountain beverage.

Listening to the dialogue in The Town, I started to get a feeling that Ben Affleck was largely behind writing the cute dialogue in Good Will Hunting. The conversations between Affleck’s bank robber Doug MacRay and his hostage turned girlfriend Claire had the same vibe as Will and Skylar’s date in Good Will Hunting.

The highlight of the movie for me was the interrogation scene between Jon Hamm as an FBI agent and Ben Affleck’s theif Macray. Jon Hamm lets out the most exaggerated Boston agent ever while making fun of MacRay. It’s awesome.

The Town is definitely the victim of its own marketing campaign. When I first heard the title and saw the poster, I thought it was a horror movie. Maybe the name The Town reminds people of The Village. That can’t help. The trailer for The Town cleared up what genre the movie is, but didn’t do much else. The trailer made The Town seem like it was Heat 2.

Filmmakers, do your best not to associate your movie with this one.

The Town is a much better heist movie than Heat. Affleck is 2-for-2 as a director. If he keeps this up, Affleck may become the Martin Scorsese of Boston crime movies.

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On The Couch #34: Taking Woodstock

Now that I’ve seen Taking Woodstock, I’m really surprised by all the negative reviews I remember it receiving when it was first released in theaters. I enjoyed it very much. Ang Lee hit all the right notes in taking this huge event that was the Woodstock concert and bringing it down to the level of how it affected one small town family. Were people expecting a broad comedy because Demetri Martin is in it? Demetri Martin’s stand up can be subtle, so I think he’s a perfect fit here. In this movie, he reminded me a lot of Zach Braff in Garden State with his mannerisms, and they kind of look alike too. Somebody cast these two as brothers. I promise you at least one ticket sale.

Taking Woodstock: Come for Demetri Martin, stay for Liev Schreiber in drag.

Demetri Martin being in this movie was my main reason for wanting to watch it. His stand-up special, Demetri Martin: Person, and his TV series, Important Things, are both hilarious. Seriously, go watch them both.

Dear Comedy Central, Season 3? Please?

When I saw Jonathan Groff’s name in the opening credits, I was excited. I’m a big fan of Spring Awakening. I then forgot he was in the movie until the end credits, when I was trying to find out who played Michael Lang and found out it was Jonathan Groff. Throughout Taking Woodstock, I kept thinking, “The guy playing Michael looks really familiar. Who is that?” I don’t know why my brain completely erased the fact that Groff was in the movie.

Maybe I’m just not used to the vest and mop of curls?

One of my favorite activities (or annoying habits depending on your point of view) is that I like to use the IMDB app on my iPhone to look up trivia about the movies I watch and then share said trivia with my friends. Okay, I can see how this is annoying, but I don’t do it during the movie unless it’s something we’ve all seen a hundred times, so it’s not that bad, right? Right?

In any case, IMDB has a great piece of trivia about Taking Woodstock that I had to share with you (Because I care. And because I can’t stop sharing IMDB trivia. I have a problem. I acknowledge it). The producers of Taking Woodstock had a hard time casting extras, because they wanted people that didn’t look like they went to the gym every day, and had pubic hair. I found that hilarious. I can picture the casting director saying “Okay, I like your lack of muscle tone, now let’s see that forest.”

No Woodstock movie is complete without the orgy on acid scene.
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At The Theater #30: Easy A

What’s the only thing better than a free movie? A free movie that you already wanted to see. I’ve lucked out on quality free movies this year, now batting three for three with Easy A. I probably would have seen Hot Tub Time Machine if it wasn’t free. I definitely would have seen Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World if it wasn’t free. And I was planning on seeing Easy A once it came out, but luckily Bryan, Julie and I were given the opportunity to collectively save about $36 AND see Easy A before its release date.

They’re all wondering where her Zombieland shotgun is hiding.

Easy A is very funny. The plot is basically Can’t Buy Me Love, but from the girl’s point of view. While Emma Stone is great as Olive, the main character of Easy A, the real stand outs are some of the grown-ups. Stanley Tucci is awesome as Olive’s dad. I’ve gone on and on in the past about how fantastic I think The Tooch is, but seriously, I think he’s the only one who could have played the role of Olive’s dad. He fills Olive’s dad with subtext. Without the subtext, the characters lines would come across as arrogant or cocky. But coming from Stanley Tucci, they’re a self-effacing arrogance, which turns out to be very funny and charming.

The Tooch lays down some fatherly wisdom.
…And kinda looks like he’s checking out his daughter’s chest. Not cool, Tooch, not cool.

Thomas Haden Church is the other adult who really brings his A game to his role in Easy A. He plays the teacher that every teacher watching this movie wants to be (I’m pretty sure I saw Bryan jotting down notes). Church’s Mr. Griffith is smart, can joke with his students without seeming like a joke himself and even pulls off cliches well. If I was still in high school, I’d want as my teacher Easy A’s Mr. Griffith over Glee’s Mr. Schuster any day of the week.

I was very happy to see Dan Byrd in this movie. As soon as he came onscreen, I blurted out “Justin!” It doesn’t matter how famous Dan Byrd gets in his career; I will always refer to him by his character’s name on Aliens in America (just as Thomas Haden Church will always be Lowell no matter how long Wings has been off the air).

Despite what this photo might have you believe, Easy A is more Can’t Buy Me Love 2 than Grease 3.

In a year full of plenty of stinkers, Easy A is definitely worth seeing, even if you have to pay to see it.

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On The Couch #33: The Ugly Truth

About three quarters of the way through The Ugly Truth, I sat bolt upright, turned to Bryan and Julie and said “This movie is terrible.”

I’m pretty sure that the only reason we made it all the way through The Ugly Truth is that right before starting it, we watched about five minutes of Taintlight on Netflix instant streaming. Taintlight is a Twilight parody that is, in terms of quality, on the same level as The Room, but without the unintentionally funny parts that keep people coming back to The Room. Taintlight’s average rating on Netflix is one star. One star! Netflix doesn’t let you rate a movie any less than one star. The only reason we even turned it on is because we were trying to figure out if with this movie Netflix was now streaming soft core porn. It’s not, I think. There plenty of soft core porn set-ups in the first five minutes, but they don’t pay off. Taintlight is a failure on every level. The acting is terrible. The writing is worse. If you make it all the way through Taintlight, let me know. I’ll nominate you for whatever is the movie watching equivalent of a Purple Heart.

Taintlight: Making The Room look good since 2010.

It really is a stretch to call The Ugly Truth a romantic comedy. For one, there’s not much romance between the main two characters. Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler spend most of The Ugly Truth hating each other, but (and SPOILERS here…if you care) after two sips of a mixed drink and a Latin dance, Katherine Heigl is all over Gerard Butler in the hotel elevator like a drunk bridesmaid at a wedding after party.

Enroll now is Gerard Butler’s Dance School and learn how to send a woman from hate to lust in one easy to master dance routine!

The story in The Ugly Truth comes across like the first draft of a bad spec script. The writing is completely on the nose. No one means anything other than EXACTLY what they’re saying. The funniest parts of the movie are all in the trailer, and the trailer wasn’t exactly big on the jokes.

Avoid this movie. Not only is The Ugly Truth bad, but after playing the movie, my PS3 refused to run the Netflix instant streaming disc. The Playstation 3 basically said “Taintlight? The Ugly Truth? No. No. No. No more. Uh-uh.” I originally blamed this problem on the recently released PS3 firmware update 3.42, but I’m more than certain that Taintlight and The Ugly Truth are the real culprits here.

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On The Couch #32: It’s Complicated

I didn’t really want to see It’s Complicated at first, but when dad’s other suggestions are Death at a Funeral (No!) and $5 a Day (Huh?), it seemed like a good pick.

I give It’s Complicated an A, for awkwardness. Watching It’s Complicated with my parents was at times more awkward than going to see The Hangover with them. If you know one thing about It’s Complicated, it’s probably that the movie is about people in their upper-middle-ages having sex. People around my parents’ age. Shudder.

Why do people in movies always have so much clothing on post-coitus?

When John Krasinski first appeared in It’s Complicated, I thought they were wasting his comedic talents, since he seemed like little more than a background character. But John Krasinski ended up having the funniest scenes in It’s Complicated. His reaction to finding out about Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin’s affair and his efforts to keep this secret from their children are hilarious. Definitely not wasted casting and I’m very glad they cast him for this part.
 

Don’t rent Denise Richards: It’s Complicated by mistake. Trust me.

 
I liked It’s Complicated more than I thought I would. If you’re stuck at a Red Box trying to decide between this and Green Zone, go with It’s Complicated. Especially if your parents are with you.

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On The Couch #31: When in Rome

I was very surprised by When in Rome. Surprised I saw it. I wasn’t expecting to watch it this year. When in Rome’s poster is just dumb looking. Why’s Kristen Bell biting her finger with that silly look on her face? Why is Rome colored taxi cab yellow?  The preview didn’t help. It made When in Rome come across like a not-so-great romantic comedy that I’d end up catching on TBS one lazy Sunday afternoon.

It was my brother’s fiancé’s pick at the Red Box on this particular rainy Cape Cod evening, which caused When in Rome to move up dramatically in my lifetime movie watching queue. Sorry TBS. Sorry lazy Sunday afternoon.

You want to watch a movie named When in Rome, but you’re not a fan of Kristen Bell? The Olsen twins have the solution!

Out of the two romantic comedies that take place in Italy that I’ve seen this year, When in Rome wins over Letters to Juliet. When in Rome’s main strength over Letters to Juliet is that Kristen Bell and Josh Duhamel have infinitely more chemistry than Amanda Seyfried and Christopher Egan (Any chemistry is infinitely more than no chemistry, right? I know at least one math teacher reads this blog. Can you check my work?).

Kristen Bell and Josh Duhamel are clearly excited that I liked When in Rome better than Letters to Juliet.

When in Rome is also funnier than Letters to Juliet. Even considering Letters to Juliet’s unintentionally hilarious Grandma-likes-to-watch scene, When in Rome still wins. This is mainly because of Will Arnett and John Heder, who are very funny as two of Kristen Bell’s mystically-motivated suitors.

Dax Shepard’s funniest scene (shown here) is in the deleted scenes.

Now that I’ve seen When in Rome, I kind of want to watch Leap Year. I don’t know why these two movies are linked together in my mind. Maybe it’s because both When in Rome and Leap Year came out around the same time this year, have very blah-yet-eerily-similar posters and feature pretty American girls heading to Europe for love. Hopefully Leap Year is more When in Rome and less Letters to Juliet.

Going solely by posters, you might think Leap Year is the same movie as When in Rome, only greener.

When in Rome gets a thumbs up from me, but I still can’t figure out why Kristen Bell is biting her finger like that on the poster.

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On The Couch #30: Green Zone

When the producers of Green Zone saw The Hurt Locker, they must have said “Fuuuuuuuuucccccccccckkkkkkkkkk!” Compared to this year’s Oscar winner, the Green Zone comes across as clichéd and by the numbers.

Better movie.

I think any action movie starring Matt Damon is going to suffer from two inherent problems.

Problem #1: It probably won’t be as good as The Bourne Identity. Even The Bourne Supremacy had this problem. Matt Damon starred in a near-perfect action movie when he was in The Bourne Identity. I think it might be as good as it gets for Matt Damon action films.

Better movie.

Problem #2: In action movies like Green Zone, you’re getting MattScreamy (he really yells a lot in Green Zone) as opposed to MattDreamy (see Hunting, Good Will). If my girlfriend’s reaction is accurate to the wider population, people prefer MattDreamy.

MattScreamy
MattDreamy

This was our second Red Box pick in Cape Cod. The three days of rain we had in Cape Cod made us good friends with the local Red Boxes. This time we picked our movie ahead of time on the website, which prevented others from experiencing from us the most frustrating thing about renting at a Red Box, which is being stuck behind someone using the machine who has no idea what they want and just keeps scrolling through each screen (aka us during our previous Red Box trip).