Shop Talk
By BOP Staff
November 4, 2013
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Edwin Davies: The most recent film I saw in a theater was Enough Said, which I've seen some slightly lukewarm responses to but which I thought was a pitch-perfect romantic comedy. Admittedly, the story hinges on a plot point which is very contrived and takes a long time to reveal itself, but the lead performances by Julia Louis-Dreyfus and James Gandolfini are wonderful; natural, funny and real. It's a really lovely film.
At home, I caught up with 50/50, which more than lived up to its reputation as the Terms of Endearments of our time, and The Perks of Being A Wallflower, which so perfectly captured how I remember my teenage years that I wanted to travel back in time, show it to myself and say, "See! Someone gets it! Oh, also, invest in Facebook."
Jason Barney: I saw Gravity this weekend and really liked it. Most of the film was very visually appealing and it made me think about the limited negative reviews I had been exposed to. There are a couple of holes in the film, but nothing major, and I think it has rightly earned all of the praise, attention, and box office support it has gotten. Oddly enough, the film highlights something most people have little awareness of....the amount of trash we have already left in orbit above us. If people knew how bad it was they would be shocked.
Max Braden: I've been pretty absent from the theater since the summer. There were enough movies I wanted to see, but it just turned out to be "when I get around to it." I did catch my favorite movie of the year at the tail end of the summer. The World's End was exactly my kind of comedy. The first half is like one glorious stream-of-thought monologue and then it just gets hilariously crazy. I loved the '80s('90s) references, especially the Sisters of Mercy tribute. The one thing that didn't work for me was the very last scene, that was weird.
I've been big into auto racing the last year or so, although mostly Le Mans format, I was interested in the historical F1 rivalry shown in Rush. But I felt really let down by the movie. It was mostly the cinematography; it looked like they were trying to cover up a limited budget for environments so everything was shot in close up, which reduced the sense of speed for most of the action. It didn't feel very Ron Howard to me. The final race in Japan was pretty exciting, and Bruhl was good.
The only movie I saw in October was the one everyone else saw: Gravity. I actually went to Space Academy when I was in high school, so Gravity is inevitably only 90% as good as Space Camp, but visually Gravity is very exciting. My only problem - both for enjoyment and plot reasons - was that George Clooney wouldn't shut up.
Max Braden: Here's a series of ups and downs I've seen on DVD this fall:
G.I. Joe: Retaliation: You know, this wasn't as eye rolling as the first movie. The Rock continues to at least elevate the movies he's in. Bruce Willis was also a decent addition, but he's better in R.E.D.
Admission: I like Tina Fey, I like Paul Rudd, I wanted this to work, but it just felt flat. It fell in that nebulous area between drama and comedy.
Arthur Newman: Dysfunctional romances like this appeal to me. I still can't decide though if the chemistry between Emily Blunt and Colin Firth was actually there or if they're just good actors.
Empire State: I rented this mostly for Dwayne Johnson, but it's not really his movie at all. It also isn't really Liam Hemsworth's movie either, since I don't feel he can carry projects as a lead (the main reason I think Paranoia failed). Michael Angarano is kind of crazy good as a character you want to smack.
The English Teacher: Julianne Moore is kind of a love-her or ugh actress for me, and I'm especially "ugh" when she plays a character with no backbone. I hated her character in this movie.
Love Is All You Need: This romance surprised me. I thought I'd find it boring and generic and Mamma Mia-lite, but Trine Dyrholm is just lovely in this, and I didn't hate Pierce Brosnan. He had one of the best kiss-off monologues (to another character) I've heard in the movies in a while.
Peeples: This was also one that surprised me. I expected a vapid Tyler Perry comedy, but I don't know what the magic was, it turned out to be casually entertaining.
The Great Gatsby: The first half of this movie was way over-stylized, even for Baz Luhrmann, especially with the obvious green-screen backgrounds. It got better in the second half, and I did like Joel Edgerton's performance.
After Earth: After depressing my expectations to their lowest point, I found this movie to be a decent enough action flick. I watch plenty of indecent action flicks, though, so I'm not saying this was great by any means. The character accents were a distraction.
Disconnect: A bit like Crash, this is a depressing movie in that you can expect this sort of behavior and exploitation of kids is all too frequent in the real world. Jason Bateman does a good job in a straight up dramatic role.
The Look of Love: I like Steve Coogan and Anna Friel, and I wanted to learn about Britain's Hugh Hefner. Interesting enough, I guess. It reminded me of Helen Mirren's movie Love Ranch.
The Colony: This is kind of action flick I tend to watch that makes After Earth look exciting. I think the mostly-mute, mostly-indestructible, mouth-breathing cannibal villain was misunderstood and probably just had a nose and throat cold.
Much Ado About Nothing: In the first 30 seconds, the Shakespearian dialogue in the modern setting so put me off that I wanted to quit the movie. But I stuck with it. I'm still not sure if I like Amy Acker, but she was right for the role, and Nathan Fillion was really funny. By the end...yeah, I think it actually works.
Kim Hollis: Like everyone else, I saw Gravity, and I think I've already commented here how much I liked it. It's one of the best films I've seen in some time.
I also had the chance to catch up on a bunch of stuff while on vacation. In advance of Halloween, I watched Mama and The Conjuring. Mama is one of the best horror movies I've seen for a while. I really liked the kids in the film, and I also appreciated that they didn't try to give some lame, real-life explanation for what was happening. It just was. Along with The Woman in Black, we've had two pretty terrific ghost stories over the past couple of years. The other scary movie I watched was The Conjuring, which probably suffered a bit from having been seen right after Mama. It was more deliberate and not really as scary as Mama, but I liked the way the story was told and that it allowed some ambiguity that leaves some things up to the viewer's imagination.
Another double feature of sorts was the double-punch of Melissa McCarthy comedies. The Heat was a lot of fun. Clearly, McCarthy and Sandra Bullock enjoyed working together, as they had great chemistry. McCarthy's stream-of-consciousness weirdness can be really fantastic in the right setting, and it worked here. Bullock is more the "straight man," but still shines. Identity Thief, on the other hand, was just horrible. It had some redeeming moments at the very end (I guess) but I found it to be mostly hateful and totally unfunny.
Finally, I saw two other movies that were just incredibly awful. A Good Day to Die Hard was noisy, joyless, and pointless. I think there could have been a good story in putting John McClane with his son (or both his kids), but this wasn't the project for it. There wasn't even much humor to save it.
The other horrible film was Movie 43. I wasn't expecting much from it, but I got next to nothing. Justin Long is sort of funny in one sketch, but that's about all I could find to redeem it, and the rest of that same sketch Long was in was not good. At all. Along with that, Naomi Watts and Chris Pratt utterly humiliate themselves, while Dennis Quaid acts crazed for some reason. The opening vignette with Kate Winslet and Hugh Jackman goes on way too long, particularly because the (one-note) joke isn't funny in the first place. Avoid these last three at all costs.
David Mumpower: Turbo is a genteel movie that is clearly a Cars knock-off straight down to the Radiator Springs clone that springs up midway through the film. Still, as far as derivative projects go, Turbo has a heart and some dazzling visuals that share a certain similarity with Speed Racer. By that, I mean it is cinematic Ritalin. Like Speed Racer, Turbo skews very, very young and there aren’t a lot of adults who would find it to be a passable usage of their time. I was braced for worse so I was pleasantly surprised.
A Good Day to Die Hard is the converse in that I lowered my expectations so much that I did not believe I could possibly be disappointed. This is the only Die Hard movie that I didn’t watch on opening weekend, and I followed that by never watching it the theater. The reviews and comments from friends scared me so much that I decided to wait for what I consider to be the optimal setting for movie watching, my sofa. Alas, there is no setting, not even a white sand beach, which could counteract the abject failure of this catastrophe. It is unworthy of the Die Hard name. In fact, A Good Day to Die Hard is the sequel Michael Bay never made but easily could have. It is nothing but a series of pointless explosions and randomized gun fire. The fifth Die Hard film is exactly the sort of over the top, brain dead title that the original title lampooned. I thought that Die Hard with a Vengeance missed the mark, but it’s The freakin’ Godfather compared to this monstrosity. The only real shock for me is that I watched an even worse movie the following week, because A Good Day to Die Hard seemed like a strong candidate to be the worst film of the year.
The Internship is like Turbo in that it is very well intended. It is exactly the same movie that Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn have both made together as well as with Ben Stiller, Will Ferrell and the other flagging comedians against whom the new generation of movie goers is rebelling. But…I liked it. I may have liked it a lot. There is a Quidditch scene – you heard me – that lingers in my head because it is so off the wall funny. It reminds me of that quirky fuzzy wall sequence in Get Him to the Greek. It’s chaos comedy, but it works. The Internship tells a paint-by-numbers story that offers few real surprises yet I find it quite engaging. It’s comfort food.
The Hangover 3 is a good news/bad news scenario. The good news is that I was not as offended by it as some of the other BOP staff have been as stated in their reviews. In fact, I found it much less obnoxious than the second Hangover movie, one of the angriest titles I have ever seen. This project is a glorified victory lap for the cast, as there are very few aspects of true storytelling involved. It’s just another extended misadventure that starts horribly with that dead giraffe that everyone hates. By the time the movie gets to the finish line, a bit more heart has been shown as the producers’ fondness for the characters shines through in the end. I always felt that The Hangover was wildly overrated while The Hangover 2 is the very reason why “sequel” doubles as a swear word for many. The Hangover 3 is another money grab, but if it had been the second movie rather than the third, I would likely have a much higher opinion of the franchise as a whole.