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Safety Not Guaranteed (At The Theater 2012 #7)

This is looking like it’s going to be a great summer for big summer movies. It started very strong with The Avengers, Pixar just released a new movie and the upcoming blockbusters The Amazing Spider-Man and The Dark Knight Rises both look like they’re going to be awesome. Because of this, it might be easy to overlook a small budget movie like Safety Not Guaranteed when you’re planning your next trip to the movie theater. But overlooking Safety Not Guaranteed would be a mistake, as it is currently my favorite movie of this year.

Starring actors from three of the best shows on TV, Aubrey Plaza (April on Parks and Rec), Jake Johnson (Nick on New Girl) and Mark Duplass (Pete on The League), having a story involving time travel, and with music by Ryan Miller of Guster, this movie could not have been more directed at me without making overt Star Wars references. I’ve been excited to see Safety Not Guaranteed ever since I first heard about it a few months ago. Then I saw the trailer and started counting down the days until the movie opened.

The League is my new favorite show and I can’t stop talking about, much to the chagrin of any of my friends who don’t watch it.

Safety Not Guaranteed is a very funny movie that has a lot of heart. The humor is great and the characters feel like very real people. I liked how fleshed out everyone was. Aubrey Plaza gives a great performance as Darius, the magazine intern who helps Jake Johnson’s Jeff attempt to interview Mark Duplass’s Kenneth. I thought that Darius and Kenneth had great chemistry together. They have a reverse Taming of the Shrew-esque relationship and I spent much of the movie waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I loved the slow-moving car chase.

On a side not, it’s amazing how badly the wrong pair of glasses can make you look. The gaming laptop toting Arnau (played by Karan Soni) is a really handsome guy when Jeff gives him a five minute makeover. I wish somebody had done that for me in 10th grade when I was sporting over sized gold rimmed frames that helped cement me in the geek camp.

If you like Doctor Who, I think you will really like Safety Not Guaranteed. It’s like watching a Doctor Who episode from the point of view of one of The Doctor’s companions. Can this guy really travel in time? Is he just a nut? Darius and Kenneth reminded me a lot of Rose and The Doctor.

Does that make the beat-up yellow Trans-Am the TARDIS?

If you haven’t seen it already, my recommendation is to make Safety Not Guaranteed the next movie you see. You can check out the trailer below.