You watch the trailers, you read the reviews and you think you know what you’re getting when you walk in the theater. Not so with Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive. Case in point, when I went to see it over the weekend, there was a group of rowdy teenagers in the back, probably 15-17 years old. I thought for sure we were going to have problems with them, that I might have to see Drive again because a bunch of kids ruined it (I’m still mad at Sasha The Crying Baby for wrecking Iron Man). Not so with Drive. The opening scene is so tight and tense that those kids shut the hell up and remained quiet throughout the rest of the movie. Whatever they though they’d be seeing when they bought tickets, Drive turned out to be something different. I know it wasn’t what I was expecting. At all.Continue reading “Drive is not what I expected”
Category Archives: Reviews
50/50 is a rare treat
Lainey coined a term, “Hollywood Sliding Doors”, to describe the what-ifs of casting. Like that Gwyneth Paltrow movie Sliding Doors, in which dual realities play out—in one plot Gwyneth got on the Tube in time to get home and catch her boyfriend cheating. In the other plot, she just misses the train and continues on with her worthless partner (it’s a good movie from Gwyneth’s glory days). Hollywood Sliding Doors is about imagining what a movie would be like if the casting played out differently. The truth is most projects pass through several hands before getting made. You hear stories of actors sticking with something for years—current example is Brad Pitt and Moneyball—but usually casting is an ongoing process until production begins. Actors outgrow roles, they get pregnant or have to go to rehab, they commit to multiple projects and end up having to choose between them—the reasons for Hollywood Sliding Doors are myriad.Continue reading “50/50 is a rare treat”
Contagion, or How Gwyneth Paltrow’s Cheating Ass Kills Us All
I took in Steven Soderbergh’s Outbreak remake, Contagion, over the weekend. Actually, I need to stop calling it a remake of Outbreak. Contagion has more in common with Soderbergh’s Oscar-winning Traffic than it does the Dustin Hoffman/Rene Russo Ebola soap Outbreak. Overall I enjoyed Contagion. It’s a tight thriller that achieves moments of suspense and real-life “this could totally happen” feelings. You all know my obsession with preparing for the zombie apocalypse—the events of Contagion are actually way more likely to happen and now I’m afraid of touching my face, doorknobs, and other people.Continue reading “Contagion, or How Gwyneth Paltrow’s Cheating Ass Kills Us All”
Tucker and Dale vs. Evil: It was worth the wait
Here’s a case study of how everything can wrong for a movie that should have zero problems hitting theaters.
Tucker and Dale vs. Evil premiered at Sundance 2010 to overwhelming praise. When I say “overwhelming praise” I don’t mean that most people liked it or pretty much everyone thought it was good. I mean I have never heard a bad word said about this movie. It has a perfect 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. When I say “overwhelming praise” I mean exactly that. It’s a tsunami of love for this low-budget horror parody. So why did it take 18 months to reach an audience? Well, to be fair, anything that comes out within 2 years of being lensed isn’t that a big of a problem. There are a lot of decisions that go into when a movie is released—something can be in the can and ready to go but marketing says it’ll float better in six months so you wait. Or, if it’s a festival prospect and it’s finished after September, it’s waiting until the festival season begins again the following year. So partly the delay isn’t a huge thing because 18 months from filming to viewing isn’t too bad.Continue reading “Tucker and Dale vs. Evil: It was worth the wait”
Our Idiot Brother, or Paul Rudd can ACT
Our Idiot Brother is an okay movie, a pretty good comedy, and a stellar vehicle for star Paul Rudd. He’s so funny, and the last decade has been spent largely in the comedy world (he co-created and wrote Party Down, thus earning him Platinum Status in the Comedy Club), so it’s easy to forget that Rudd is a good actor, not just a good comedian. Our Idiot Brother is a testament to Rudd’s acting chops, though it’s also a showcase for his timing and delivery skills (look for the way he catches himself and backs up to the hand sanitizer in the ballet studio scene). If you’re a Rudd fan, this movie is a must. But if you’re not a Rudd fan, I’m not going to break your arm to make you see this movie. It’s sweet and keeps it mild insights limited to things we know—we should believe in each other more, let kids be kids and accept our siblings for who they are.Continue reading “Our Idiot Brother, or Paul Rudd can ACT”
Arthouse Audit: The Guard and The Whistleblower
The Guard
Did you like In Bruges? I loved In Bruges. Written and directed by Irish playwright Martin McDonagh, In Bruges is my favorite kind of comedy—dark dark dark. The Guard is the directorial debut of screenwriter John Michael McDonagh, Martin’s brother. It has a lot in common in with In Bruges—clearly the brothers share similar taste. Though the tone is similar, The Guard is slower-paced than In Bruges, and less slick. The story centers on Sergeant Boyle (Brendan “Mad Eye Moody” Gleeson), a small-town police officer, or “Garda”, in Connemara, Ireland. Sergeant Boyle is a Columbo-type. His sense of humor is inappropriate, and he’s openly racist and consorts with hookers. But he also takes his dying mother (Fionnula Flanagan, The Others and one of my all time favorite comedies, Waking Ned Devine) out for a night on the town.Continue reading “Arthouse Audit: The Guard and The Whistleblower”
A lesson in comedy-movie making
Or, what was wrong with 30 Minutes or Less.
Depending on how familiar you are with improv and/or sketch comedy, you may be aware that all scene comedy is based on “games”. As a stand-up, these games didn’t have much to do with my act, but knowing them and being good at them definitely made me a better comedy writer (especially “the rule of three” and “topper”, which you can see applied to my writing all over this blog). These games are basically formulas for creating a scene and the problem with knowing the formula for anything is once you know how to make something, all you ever see is the formula, not the end product. Which means that something has to be really, really good in order to transcend the formula.Continue reading “A lesson in comedy-movie making”
Cinesnark 