Category Archives: Movie Review

Movie Review: The Last Picture Show

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“You ain’t ever gonna amount to nothing.”

The first and last shots of “The Last Picture Show” are nearly identical. However, one is in reverse of the other. The movie marquee, once presenting the next showing, is now empty. After the last picture show has ended, there is not much left to do.

“The Last Picture Show” is such a vivid and knowledgeable portrayal of life in a small Texan town, that it would seem only to come from memory. Yet, director Peter Bogdanovich grew up in Kingston, New York, a place bearing no resemblance to rural Texas. He’s just that good of a filmmaker.


“The Last Picture Show” takes place in the fictional town of Anarene where football is king. This was long before “Friday Night Lights” ever came to be. Except here, none of the action takes place on the field, so glory is even harder to find.

From start to finish, “The Last Picture Show” is powered by the country tunes playing on everyone’s radios, primarily those of Hank Williams. In Anarene, which becomes a character itself, the greatest means of escape are the pool hall and the movie theater, especially that movie theater.

“The Last Picture Show” is a coming of age story in which the teenagers mature in a world that is not vibrant or cultured but instead rather bleak. Think the opposite of “American Graffiti.” As the film progresses, the culture diminishes more and more.

Instead of beginning with dialogue, “The Last Picture Show” starts off with the voices of disc jockeys and the music on the radio, perhaps the guiding voice of that generation. “The Last Picture Show” primarily follows the town’s star football players Sonny Crawford (Timothy Bottoms) and Duane Jackson (Jeff Bridges). Sonny is kind and sensitive and in a relationship with a girl he does not love (Sharon Taggart). Their relationship will not last long. Duane, meanwhile, is confident, handsome and popular. He is first introduced while dating the beautiful Jacy Farrow (Cybil Shepard), Anarene’s equivalent of a movie star; a goddess wearing a scarf. In this drab setting, she is a human oasis.

Everything is in order until trouble comes during Christmas. After a holiday party, Sonny befriends and later has an affair with Ruth Popper (Cloris Leachman), his football coach’s wife. Ruth is miserable and despises her husband, but says she married him as a way of angering her parents. At a time when Hollywood favored youth rebellion against those who raised them, “The Last Picture Show” actually ends up being about a sacred respect for one’s elders. After all, everyone feels a need to rebel at one point or another.

That is what makes this film such a unique coming of age story: it is as much about the adults coming of age as it is about the kids. Coming of age, after all, is the act of discovering how one is supposed to act at a given time in their life. This act can occur more than once during one’s life.

The boys all end up vying for the affection of Jacy. This will eventually lead to each of their downfalls in one form or another. “The Last Picture Show” is less a story as a whole as it is a mosaic of little stories that fall together into a vivid, haunting, yet beautiful, whole. A road trip to Mexico that happens entirely offscreen and a pool hall given to Sonny in an inheritance are just two of the many threads tied together to make a whole. These events don’t need to be seen to have an impact. Watching “The Last Picture Show” brought to mind “On the Waterfront” and the disenfranchised teen rebels of “Rebel Without a Cause.”

Like these movies, “The Last Picture Show” also has a strong emphasis on the little moments that are often ignored in everyday life, yet can’t be ignored in front of a camera. Moments like the one in which Ruth struggles to get her shirt over her head felt improvised, like the moment in “On the Waterfront” when Terry (Marlon Brando) fiddles with Edie’s (Eva Marie Saint) glove. There is something funny and tender about moments like these that make the characters feel vulnerable and achingly real.

In a way, “The Last Picture Show” is not about the loss of innocence leading into the Korean War, but rather about how that innocence was never there to begin with. In Anarene, there is no difference between public and private lives. Jacy and Sonny’s impulse marriage begins partly because Jacy is bored, and partly because she wants to be the talk of the town.

“The Last Picture Show” contains some outstanding work from multiple actors who would continue to make a great impact on cinema. Bridges creates slick, confident characters who you always want to follow, no matter how egotistical or lazy they may be (the lazy part refers to a different movie, of course). So many sides of each character are seen and at one point or another, everyone of them seems either emotional or emotionless. For example, the film’s most indelible scene comes during skinny-dipping at rich boy Bobby’s (Gary Brockette) house. As Jacy gets up in front of everyone to undress, her insecurity is seen in the way she clumsily undresses, and at that moment she becomes more than a spoiled, shallow beauty queen. It might have helped that this was actually Shepard’s first nude scene. No one ever feels like they are acting: they seem to feel so free and comfortable in the skin of their characters that they are simply just existing in their roles. That also comes from the screenplay written by Bogdanovich and Larry McMurtry (who wrote the book that this film is based off of), which is so deeply invested in the local dialect. “The Last Picture Show” comes closer to achieving naturalism as most films ever will.

Despite the lack of culture in Anarene, the bits and pieces of cinema and music throughout aid in telling this story. Think about the clip of “Red River” shown in the theater. Bogdanovich chose it for a reason. Hank Williams’s “Why Don’t You Love Me” is a perfect sendoff song and it provides a melancholy epilogue about how hard it becomes to enjoy what we used to enjoy as we age. Not that the haunting last images needed to be explained, but the song certainly provides the right backdrop.

It would probably be hard to see something like “The Last Picture Show” get made nowadays. Bogdanovich has no shame ending without something uplifting to cling onto. However, that is what helps make the story feel so much more real, as it acknowledges that life doesn’t always end with a big, bright ribbon tied to it. Even the healing and uniting power of movies, which the boys depend on, can’t be relied on anymore, as the theater closes its doors. “The Last Picture Show” will remind you that sometimes closure is not the most rewarding way to end a movie.

Here’s an Idea Hollywood: A modern day update of “The Last Picture Show” about the closing of a small town video store. Boom. I expect to be paid now.

Movie Review: 21 Jump Street

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If Hollywood wants to continue remaking movies, then remakes must declare themselves as being one. That helps in making “21 Jump Street,” a modern update of the TV series that made Johnny Depp a star, so good.

Early in the movie, when Chief Hardy (Nick Offerman) is assigning mismatched officers Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) to a new job as undercover officers at a local high school, he notes that the people who make these assignments lack creativity and instead steal old ideas from the 80s. The studio was truly a good sport on this one.


“21 Jump Street” might as well have been called “Not Another Cop Comedy.” It is more “MacGruber” than “Starsky & Hutch,” with a hint of “Hot Fuzz.” “21 Jump Street” works because it knows all of the beats that a cop comedy should go through, yet it is funny and self-aware at each of them. Call it a post-modernist cop comedy, if you want to be all English major about it.

Schmidt and Jenko go back a long way. In high school, Schmidt was president of the juggling society and Jenko was a jock. Jenko frequently beat Schmidt up. However, they form a tight, unlikely bond at the end of high school and go into the police academy together. Schmidt is always the smart one and Jenko, well, he looks and acts like a cop. Or at least the kind you would see in a movie.

The duo find their lives as cops surprisingly dull; they mainly patrol a park while riding bikes and stop kids from feeding the ducks. The scene of them trying to stop a group of drug pushers shows just how many possible ways there are to make riding a bike funny.

Schmidt and Jenko prove to be hopelessly incompetent as cops. Because of their youthful looks, they are placed in a program that puts under cover cops in high schools, under the jurisdiction of the tough Captain Dickson (Ice Cube). It was Ice Cube’s performance here that made me remember what a good actor he can be, and almost made me totally forget those “Are We There Yet?” movies. But I digress. Anyone who watched the show will already know that 21 Jump Street refers to the abandoned church (not sure how it was in the show but here, they worship some kind of Korean Jesus) where all of the undercovers meet. Schmidt and Jenko are assigned to the same high school they once went to in order to bust the kingpin of a potentially deadly new drug. Jenko can’t wait to return, and Schmidt is quite afraid.

Schmidt and Jenko find out that this is nothing like the high school experience they had. Now, veganism and tolerance are popular. So Jenko has a particularly hard time fitting in, especially when he inadvertently commits a hate crime on his first day.

Schmidt, meanwhile, has a much easier time fitting in. He enrolls in a drama class and takes the part of Peter Pan in the school’s latest production. One of the funniest scenes in the entire movie comes during his audition. Soon enough, he gets in on the cool crowd by befriending Eric Molson (Dave Franco, who shows that talent runs in the family).

“21 Jump Street” is the kind of movie that has been done so many times before, and it knows that. And while the plot beats are pretty predictable, it is the way that the story and all of the jokes are done that makes it a winner. Everyone should know from the start that at least one of them will have a relationship with a student, and at least one of them will pursue a teacher. But what is funny about it the fact that the teacher (Ellie Kemper) is actually the pursuer and the fact that the relationship that forms between Schmidt and fellow drama student Molly (Brie Larson) is actually kind of sweet. I give credit to the stellar screenplay by Michael Bacall, a highly talented writer who is also responsible for “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World” and “Project X.” He has a good ear and eye for the way teenagers talk and act nowadays, the kind that most writers lack. With this movie and the past two mentioned, Bacall has made himself an indispensable comedy writer.

Usually, two directors working on one movie would seem like a bad thing, like the old saying of too many chefs in the kitchen. But Chris Miller and Phil Lord are a dynamic directing duo, and perhaps both of their sensibilities contribute to the very even balance between comedy, drama, and action throughout. Miller and Lord, with the combination of Bacall, hysterically play with audience expectations throughout. They will only blow something up when they feel like it. It is as if they are shouting “F**k You, Michael Bay!” in certain scenes.

“21 Jump Street” serves partially as a vehicle for Channing Tatum’s comedy career. Seriously, who ever thought Tatum could be this funny? This is the same actor who starred in the “Step Up” movies and was once a male stripper. As Tobias Funke might say, “this is ripe for parody!” Tatum is a standout because he is such a great team player, willing to mock his own appearance for laughs. I don’t know if I could ever see him doing standup, but I could definitely see him acting in more movies like this. Mark Maron could make a great WTF Podcast about him.

Perhaps to the shock of everyone, Tatum gives the movie its heart. Despite once being a jock and a bully, Jenko is sensitive and a loyal friend. Think of him as more Troy Barnes than Andrew Clarke.

Tatum and Hill play off each other well, and they gave me enough reason to want to see the sequel mentioned at the end that may have only been a joke. This is the rare occasion when I actually would not mind seeing a comedy get a sequel. That is, as long as they don’t “Austin Powers” it and make it exactly like the original. If there were to be a sequel, I would hope there would be more scenes with Offerman’s police chief, who is criminally underused here. I suspect that many of his original scenes had to be left out during editing.

I find much joy in the financial success that “21 Jump Street” has had at the box office, and by the end of next week, it will likely cross $100 million. On the one hand, this could drive studios to continue on the sequel/remake trend as an alternate for producing original ideas. Or, this will make them realize that what truly makes a good comedy (or a good movie, in general) is to take a lot of risks, and hire a good writer. “21 Jump Street” is not a short movie, and a large chunk of it involves Schmidt and Jenko going through the side effects of a drug over the course of one day. Yes, it becomes totally necessary that we see the disgusting way in which they try and expel the drug from their bodies. A stupid comedy with a few laughs will do well its opening weekend, break even, and then be totally forgotten about. One that is as funny as “21 Jump Street” will merit repeat viewings.

Movie Review: The Hunger Games

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Before I start this review, let’s get something out of the way: I have not read “The Hunger Games” or any of the other books in the series. I cannot compare the film adaptation to the original book. Therefore, I will be reviewing “The Hunger Games” as a movie, not an adaptation.

I will admit that I ignored “The Hunger Games” for most of its popularity because I associated it with the tweenage wasteland of “Twilight.” “The Hunger Games” does not deserve to be put into that category because the story is much more mature, the characters are more complex, and if the movie is any indication, Suzanne Collins is a much better writer than Stephanie Meyer is. The difference is that Collins seems to write about teenagers from the perspective of an adult, and Meyer with the prose of a fifth grader.


Plot description is probably irrelevant for all fans of the novel, but hopefully people unfamiliar with the books will go see it, too. “The Hunger Games” takes place during an unknown time in the future in the nation of Panem, which was once the United States. After a rebellion (which hopefully will be explained in the next film), Panem has been divided into districts. Our main focus is in the rural District 12 which, like the rest of Panem, is in ruins. Each district seems to be closed off to protect the people from each other. Apparently in the future, people are no longer to be trusted.

In District 12 lives Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), who for the rest of this review will be known as Catnip. Teenage Catnip cares for her younger sister Primrose (Willow Shields) and her mother (Paula Malcomson). Her mother is never given a name, but it seems like something we really should know.

Catnip is young but mature beyond her years, assuming the role of both hunter and gatherer for her family. Her skill with a bow and arrow will come into play later on. On a related note, it’s kind of awesome when a dystopian movie uses primitive weapons.

To punish the people for the rebellion, each year the government hosts The Hunger Games, in which a boy and girl from every district is chosen for an arena battle to the death. The names are chosen at random in a lottery-type system. Prim, eligible for the first time to compete, is chosen to represent District 12. Not wanting her younger sister to have to face death, Catnip offers herself up in Prim’s place. And with that, “The Hunger Games” shows that it is not one of those “Chosen One” narratives a la “Star Wars” and “The Matrix.” In this world, no one is that special.

Catnip makes quite an impression on everyone with her brave sacrifice. Chosen alongside her is Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), who will be referred to as Pita for the remainder of this review. In his first interview before the Hunger Games begins, Pita declares his love for Catnip on national television. Awkward.

“The Hunger Games” is as much about media hype as it is about the actual Hunger Games. This is what elevated the story for me the most. I have always assumed that one day, someone would make a reality show about people killing each other, and that is essentially what the Hunger Games is. The Games serve to both unite and distract the Districts. They are all united in watching the games together, yet they all root against each other. As Roger Ebert wrote in his review, “Reality TV is the opiate of the masses.”

This story, essentially, is about a world in which the most important thing is getting other people to like you. Catnip learns this during her publicity tour, but I liked her from the start. Lawrence plays her with the same brashness, wisdom, and self-assurance that originally made me notice her in “Winter’s Bone” in 2009. This character is not trying to break any female stereotypes, she just shows the kind of strength and bravery worth admiring in any human being. Think of her as a teenage version of Ripley from “Alien.” Like Ripley, she assumes a mother-like role for just about everyone she can.

One of my biggest problems with many action movies is that they will let the hero win everything, but never give them much struggle. However, Catnip is one of those plausible heroes I have seen on screen in sometime. She has to overcome a lot in order to win. And while everyone else around her is an actor, she is a reactor. Everyone else is trying to simply hunt or be hunted, while Catnip uses the tools provided by the world around her in order to win. She is not only strong, but also smart. I will continue to follow this series, and even read the books, because of her.

“The Hunger Games” is a well above average summer blockbuster playing in March. We all know the hero will survive until the end, yet there is still doubt and suspense every time Catnip is in peril. That is what good filmmaking is all about. Thank you for that, director Gary Ross, who also wrote “Big.” These two movies are not related in anyway, but I just felt the need to point this fact out.

Ross brings this world to life. The outside is bleak and mechanical like any dystopia, yet everything inside is bright, colorful, and fast-paced. Caesar Flickerman (Stanley Tucci), who acts like the Jeopardy host from “Slumdog Millionaire,” looks like he blue himself.

Bringing a popular novel from page to screen is never easy, and some things are certainly lost in translation. Even as someone who has never read the book, I could tell that much had to be taken out. So much of the movie is setup, yet much more could have been done to introduce the world. I would like to know more about the other districts, as well as District 12. An adaptation should be inviting of new followers, and not exclusive to those familiar with the original.

Apparently in the novel, Catnip was gaunt and starving. Lawrence is a great choice for Catnip, but she does not appear as either. Also, the Hunger Games at times seemed rigged, and it would have been really interesting to delve more into the people who were orchestrating the games. Everyone else fighting besides Catnip had absolutely no personality. Maybe it will be revealed in the next chapter, but who exactly is the villain of the Hunger Games.

But now, let’s get back to Pita. In order to make a love story engaging and emotional, both lovers should be equally interesting. To be honest, Pita might as well have not been there. Nothing about his skills, nor his backstory, are fully elaborated. In the end, it is possible that the two are not even in love, as Catnip has another love interest at home. I smell a love triangle!

See the image in full here.

But I digress (briefly). “The Hunger Games” seems to be leading to the point that their is a difference between relationships and personalities formed by the public, and those that are actually real. However, it would have made more sense had their love not seemed so force. I am not calling this deliberate, this is definitely a flaw.

Unfortunately, the movie loses some steam towards the end. Seriously, those giant dogs looked like something out of “Ghostbusters.”

However, I hate to slip into such negative territory with this movie. Here, I believe the positives overpower the negatives. The second the games begin, we are immediately drawn in the scary and unpredictable idea of death at any moment. I can’t remember the last time I went to a movie and heard such a mixed emotional response from the audience. At some points, there was genuine laughter, and at other points, sniffling. I am not sure if this movie provided everything about the “Hunger Games” universe that it was supposed to, but I can’t wait for the installment to find out more.

Movie Review: A Seperation

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Who would have thought that a slow burning film in Farsi would merit a second viewing? “A Separation,” the winner of this year’s Oscar for Best Foreign Language film, is also one of the best films to come out of 2011. It merits such interest and praise not only for the country for which it came from, but because it is the kind of challenging fair that does not get make it to theaters enough.

I do not know how “A Separation” got by in Iran, a country bound by such heavy censorship, but that makes this filmmaking effort all the more bold. Yet, it makes no sweeping political statements, it is just about the hardships of life as it is.


“A Separation” deals with a conflict that any American, or let alone any citizen of the world, can relate to: keeping a family together. It begins in a court of divorce, and the rest of the movie will take place in and out of various courts of law. Nader (Peymon Moadi) and Simin (Leila Hatami) look to divorce. Nader was never abusive, and they never really fell out of love. Simin wants to leave Iran and look for a better life, and Nader wants to stay and take care of his father (Ali-Asghar Shahbazi), who has Alzheimers. His father is mostly bedridden, and breaths only through an oxygen tank. All he wants is the morning paper, and if he doesn’t get it, he will even dodge oncoming traffic for it.

The family is part of an established upper class. There is little association with politics and any social or political views the movie projects are done so subtlety. Maybe that is because writer and director Asghar Farhadi wanted to separate himself from the regime, or because there is something closed off and sheltered about the country’s upper class. However, education seems to be a prime concern amongst them. The education of their 11-year-old daughter Termeh (Sarina Farhadi) is of utmost importance, and she is also one of the factors that tears the marriage apart.

While Simin is gone, Nader hires Razieh (Sareh Bayat) to take care of his father. Razieh is of a lower class and despite her deep devotion in helping Nader’s father, she is treated poorly. Nader even accuses her of stealing from him. This is a woman that is so honest and faithful that at one point, she won’t even tell a lie that will benefit her, because she will be swearing an oath on the Quran.

In an instant, “A Separation” transforms from a family drama of staggering devastation to a he said-she said Iranian version of “Rashomon.” After some unfortunate circumstances that lad Nader to physically push Razieh out of his apartment, her subsequent tumble leads to Nader’s trial for killing an unborn child. Depending on how you look at it, he may be innocent, guilty, or something else in between.

“A Separation” is shot in such a simple, beautifully uneven style that it resembles a documentary. Farhadi is the fly on the wall, capturing every event while being as objective as possible. There is also almost a complete absence of a musical score. In a film, music usually tells you how to feel in a certain scene. The case involved has so many sides that using music to tell the audience how to feel would be a major cop out. “A Separation” is not about cop outs. This movie shows a lot, including every mundane detail of a day. And yes, there is even a loving closeup of an overstuffed suitcase being zipped up.

This is all fitting, as “A Separation” never attempts to glorify nor vilify the director’s homeland. It doesn’t provide the brightest vision though, either. If “Slumdog Millionaire” was about filling Mumbai with pulsating energy, then “A Separation” fills Tehran with urban pessimism. I would relate this most to the Chilean movie from 2009 “The Maid” about a maid who loses her grip on reality after finding out the rich family she has served for years might replace her. “A Separation” has less of the painful things-fall-apart feeling of that film, but it certainly shares a similar mood dealing with class warfare.

“A Separation” is a portrait of a country that always seems to be in turmoil. Just like Nader’s marriage, it is constantly caught in the middle and splitting apart. In one scene, Nader admonishes his daughter for speaking in Arabic as opposed to Farsi. In another scene, one of Termeh’s textbooks recalls a time in the country’s history when the only two classes that existed were “royalty” (which she then changes to “upper class”) and “everyone else.” Everyone seems to go either one way or another and in that light, it is hard to choose because as the main incident of the movie shows, life has more than two right answers.

When “A Separation” concludes, there is no sigh of relief, only the discomfort of uncertainty. That is what makes the whole thing so unsettling, and ultimately so rewarding. There is some blatant separation symbolism at the film’s end, but that doesn’t make it any less effective. There is a key decision made at the end, and it is fitting that we never know the outcome. Either way, one character we like will be hurt, and the other won’t be, and vice versa. This is one of the most stirringly objective narratives I’ve ever seen on film.

However, being so objective is hard. Every person involved in the trial of “A Separation” has the best intentions, and they all live their lives according to the same religion. Yet in the end, it is only our own personal feelings that can provide us with the moral compass for this story. I hope to see more movies like this, that challenge us to choose our emotional response, rather than feeding it all to us.

Movie Review: Friends With Kids

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Let’s clear one thing up right now from the trailer of “Friends with Kids”: this is not a rom-com. This is not even a comedy about love. It is more along the lines of a dramedy with some awkward laughs, and a lot of babies ruining things. Man, do children ruin everything.


The main group of friends of “Friends with Kids” like to talk. A lot. About everything. I guess that’s what 30-something Manhattanites are supposed to do. In a fancy restaurant, two couples and two best friends discuss the mundane. Platonic best friends Jason (Adam Scott) and Julie (Jennifer Westfeldt) remark how much they hate the parents around them who bring their kids to a restaurant like this, to which Alex (Chris O’Dowd) and Leslie (Maya Rudolph) announce that they plan to have a baby. Some brief, yet awkwardly hilarious tension ensues.

Four years later, Alex and Leslie have two kids. The other couple Ben (Jon Hamm) and Missy (Kristen Wiig) are also knee deep in babies. Ben and Missy weirdly seem to share a brain. Alex and Leslie meanwhile, are two very different personalities. Leslie is more uptight and stern, and Alex is the complete opposite. They fight a lot, but it is always clear that they love each other. As Alex, Chris O’Dowd chews up the scenery and brings humor back to having a foul mouth. He shows off the comedic skill that he could not in his nice guy role in “Bridesmaids.”

At this point, Jason and Julie are still single. They both want children, but without marriage, as they see it tearing as tearing apart the personal well being of their other friends. On impulse, they hatch the plan to have a baby while simply remaining friends. They are both the kind of people who believe they can have it all, so they decide to take part in this social experiment. The real lesson here: never have a baby before doing your research.

Julie gives birth and at first, the arrangement works out as well as they imagined it would. Then, problems arise when they both do what they set out to do: raise a child, and date other people at the same time. Jason gives in to his shallow tendencies and dates the beautiful, but empty Broadway dancer Mary Jane (Megan Fox, who hopefully didn’t call anyone Hitler on set), and Julie dates single father Kurt (Edward Burns), who is so perfect to the point of being an absolute bore.

“Friends with Kids” is an eclectic mix of Woody Allen and Robert Altman: it combines philosophical musings on love and relationships with bountiful overlapping conversations, with a profound love of New York City. The writing is often times sharp and full of wit, and lets the conversations drag on just before their breaking point. Rarely does a movie driven more by talking than plot get made, and rarely does it ever actually work.

Romantic comedies like to ask the question a lot of whether to people can be a couple without being in a relationship. In fact, it happened twice last year (“No Strings Attached,” “Friends with Benefits”). When it comes to romance, there are two rules that Hollywood lives by: true love exists, and if two friends have sex, they will eventually fall in love. “Friends with Kids” falls under the latter rule, but goes further than that. No two friends can raise another human being together without feeling the bond of love. This is why surrogate mothers exist.

Putting an image of Megan Fox in an article is a guarenteed way to increase the amount of hits you get.

But I like “Friends with Kids,” and the fact that it doesn’t just fall under the rules, but asks questions about why they mean, and why they are even there in the first place. This is not a movie where big events happen, but rather the story unfolds in walks through Central Park, dinner parties, and ski trips.

The dialogue has a very rapid fire that can be hard to keep up with. This is why I assume that five of the six deft actors in the cast are best known for work on television. Scott, usually a great supporting actor, steps up to the plate in his first true leading role. He takes his kind, nerdy role in “Parks and Rec” and the alpha male cockiness of his role in “Step Brothers,” and uses it all for Jason. He sells his ending speech with the genuine emotional breakdown that comes along with it. Scott is one of the best actors out there today; this guy never phones it in.

A few big problems that “Friends with Kids” has is that sometimes, it does reach the breaking point on conversations. The whole movie seems to be an experiment about a social experiment but sometimes, it does drag on a little too long. There is something of an underutilization of the actors, which ultimately leads to trouble with the story itself. For example, Hamm and Wiig are gone for a majority of the movie and when they come back, their marriage is inexplicably in shambles. And why does a character rendered as meaningless as Hamm’s Ben, get the honor of giving the speech that proves to be the turning point of the movie? Someone should have watched Don Draper’s Guide to Picking Up Women.

Westfeldt provides a look on love, marriage, and family that is funny, entertaining, and most importantly, honest. The honesty part is hard to come by nowadays. It is hard to get me to see a romantic comedy, and I’ll admit that what made me want to see “Friends with Kids” most was the cast. The ending is just about what you would expect it to be, but how it gets there is much more important. This is a comedy about the reality of romance, not the movie version of it.

Movie Review: Chronicle

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Apparently, when you put together two genres together that didn’t need another entry (superhero; found footage), something good can happen. 

“Chronicle” is like taking a philosophy course, albeit an introductory one where you only go to half of the lectures. That doesn’t mean it isn’t intriguing, it just means that there could have been a little more substance to stick around for. 


Like many found footage movies, “Chronicle” begins with a camera reflected in the mirror, looking directly back at the audience. Misfit Andrew Detmer (Dane DeHaan) uses his camera to block out the outside world, just as the lock on his door blocks out his drunk and abusive father from continuing to make his life miserable. His only real friend is his cousin Matt (Alex Russell), who drives him to school every morning and rambles on about reading Schopenhauer. In between philosophical lectures, he tells Andrew to put his camera away, and to actually start interacting with people.

At a party one night, Andrew meets his female counterpart, a blogger (Ashley Hinshaw), who also films the events around her, but with a purpose. Every male blogger in the world just found their new MPDG. Matt and Steve (Michael B. Jordan, no relation to the other Michael Jordan) find a strange hole out in the woods with a glowing light coming out of it, and they bring Andrew along to film it. They get a bit too close to the light and next thing they know, Andrew has to buy a new camera.

The switch in quality of Andrew’s camera is also the movie’s shift in story. After no explanation of what happened immediately after finding the light (perhaps for the better), the three friends find that they have obtained telepathic powers. Like the other recent found footage movie, “Project X,” the most realistic part of the movie occurs in its early stages. Like anyone with newfound super powers, they test out their abilities. And while Andrew could try and save his dying mother, he instead blows girls skirts up and messes with bullies. Because what else would a high schooler want to do?

The so-called “testing” portion takes up a seemingly long, but actually very short, time in the movie. These scenes showcase some of the most impressive special effects I have seen in a movie in a quite a while. Watching the Seattle Space Needle be built of Legos, and then get torn down, is a stunning visual, and it offers some terrifying foreshadowing. Another scene in which Andrew tears a spider to bits, makes you wonder both how it was made, and what it means. It definitely portends to his psychotic side. Not looking too deep into it, it is a mind-altering sight.

Unlike most superhero movies, the heroes aren’t fighting for some cause, or against some villain. Rather, they are fighting against themselves. When one obtains powers, both a hero and a villain are created within them. If I am understanding Schopenhauer right, then it is our personal will which one we will actually become. Perhaps the battle over control of their powers is just representative of the problems of teen angst. We’ve all gone through it, but not in this way.

“Chronicle” goes deep, but perhaps not deep enough. At times, director Josh Trank gets a little too caught up in the movie’s unique special effects, and forgets to push the story forward. However, we are given a disarming yet frightening performance by DeHaan, who with just his eyes can control our emotions the same way Malcolm McDowell did with his glare in “A Clockwork Orange.”

At one point, Andrew describes himself as the apex predator: he is the top of the food chain, and therefore can do whatever needs to be done to survive. With great power comes great responsibility. This famous line from “Spider-Man” now makes absolute sense to me: when one obtains great power, they are responsible not just for what they do, but for whom they become. It is not just his slide into insanity that makes Andrew so disturbing, but rather the fact that he believes he is justified in his actions.

This is a very intense and absorbing moral dilemma. However, it leads to one of the film’s bigger problems: the complete disregard of all of the other moral dilemmas that could have come about. Andrew’s sick mother seems only to be in the plot as a means to anger his father more. But what would be the implications of Andrew both trying to kill his father, and save his mother? The world will never know. All we know is that he is a good son, and he tried. You’d think someone with telepathy would try a little bit harder.

The final battle is one to be remembered. The battle between cousins Andrew and Matt is very powerful, but would have been more so had the story delved into Matt further. Certainly, he is more complex than to serve simply as the good guy of “Chronicle.” In moral dilemmas, good guys shouldn’t be so easy to define.

Without giving too much away (because, I do hope readers go see this movie), “Chronicle” ends in an underwhelming way that is something of an injustice to the rest of the movie. While Matt seems to be doing a good thing in where he has gone to, a more ambiguous ending would have made a lot more sense here. Watching him fly off into the sunset, like a cowboy who can levitate, would have hammered the whole point across. The new powers the three friends obtain were supposed to make them more popular. In the end, great power is more alienating than no power at all.

Josh Trank’s First Feature:

Movie Review: Project X

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There is a code of objectivity that all journalists are supposed to abide by. As a self-proclaimed film journalist who tries to live by these rules, there are times when my objectiveness goes right out the door. With something like “Project X,” there is no other way to approach it.

“Project X” contains pretty much everything I usually hate in a movie: its sexist, stupid, overlong, and incredibly unrealistic. I did not hate it, and I did not love it either. However, I enjoyed just about every single minute of it.

“Project X” falls into the subgenre of the mockumentary genre, under the kingdom of comedy and or drama, known as the found footage footage movie. I just wrote that last sentence because it made me sound like a scientist. Anyway, it is less hilarious than “This is Spinal Tap” but more developed than “The Blair Witch Project.” Three best friends in high school, all incredibly unpopular, decide to throw the party of the century in order to get noticed. They hire someone (Dax Flame) to film the whole experience for them. He turns out to be a pretty bad fly on the wall, and the party becomes both a success and a disaster.


Thomas (Thomas Mann) is all but unheard of by most of the student body. Thomas is at the crux of turning 17, a birthday that is pretty insignificant because it provides no drivers license, legal drinking age, or any others rights of passage into adulthood. However, it would allow him to finally see “Project X” in theaters.

On the eve of Thomas’s birthday, his parents go away for the weekend. I know it’s their anniversary that weekend but come on, what parents would leave their son at home alone on his birthday? His dad lays out a series of ground rules, and most importantly forbids Thomas from touching his Mercedes while he is gone. From there, it is obvious that the Mercedes will not be in good condition by the end of the night.

Of Thomas’s co-dependent best friends, Costa (Oliver Cooper) is the most instrumental in orchestrating the party. Costa is a little too confident in himself, and he is definitely not the marketer nor the ladies man that he thinks he is. However, the kid does pull out a pretty good defense, albeit an obvious one, when keeping the cops away. Think of him as a cross between Neil Schweiber and the creepy son from “World’s Greatest Dad.” Costa’s self-confidence is unearned, yet it works and is foul and degrading way of talking leads to many guilty laughs. Once he gets a better script, Cooper will become a big star.

Costa creates as much trouble as he gets into. He is like any Jewish kid I have ever known who thinks they are a lawyer just by default. He always manages to ruin Thomas’s life as he tries to make it better, because he is overall a bit too selfish. One of the movie’s primary problems is that this conflict is blatant, yet goes mostly unacknowledged throughout, and it tries to resolve itself through archetypal declaration of bro-love kind of scene. “Project X” has a lot of fun with the story at hand, but it never does anything new with it. Everything set up at the beginning of the movie will obviously come back to haunt the characters.

The two other best friends, JB (Jonathan Daniel Brown) and Kirby (Kirby Bliss Blanton), may also achieve big stardom. The awkward, overweight JB is the movie’s McLovin, and that’s why he is so easy to root for. But the biggest downfall of “Project X” is how it attempts to turn Thomas and Kirby’s friendship into a love story. It is as implausible as it is predictable.

Despite its unoriginality and predictability, the movie’s self-awareness and charm won me over at parts. “Project X” taps into gold in its first 30 minutes. It is at this time where the movie actually feels realistic. Yes, the kids are offensively vulgar, but they talk the way most teenagers and college kids talk nowadays. I don’t know what that says about our sick society, but “Project X” never attempts to be any kind of statement. All it ever wants to be is wish fulfillment.

When looking back at “Project X” I realize the very best of it lies in individual scenes, rather than the movie as a whole. Take for example how hilariously uncomfortable and creepy the sit down with the drug dealer is, as James Blunt’s “You’re Beautiful” plays in the diegesis.

A lot of the movie’s utter insanity starts off as fun, before it actually becomes utterly insane. The party’s 12-year-old security guards are scene stealers, and while it is morally offensive to cheer them on as they tase an innocent father, you don’t have to feel too bad because the party has to go on somehow. “Project X” asks you to think like a teenage boy. So yes, there will also have to be topless girls at this party.

The documentary style of “Project X” lends itself well to the story, but it does break away for the format quite a few times. The movie as a whole is a great time until it goes down hill at the end, and succumbs to Multiple Ending Syndrome. No movie that is under 90 minutes long should ever feel like it drags on. But what can I say, this review is only going to be half negative. I ate up almost every minute of “Project X,” and I found myself in fits of laughter at times, laughing at things that had no right to be that funny. Even when the dog gets high, I laughed. The spirit of anarchy throughout works.

“Project X” is polarizing in its demographic reach, but for once, can’t us guys get something more or less just for us? Something that’s vulgar, unintelligent, and even kind of real? Sorry, “Twilight” still doesn’t work for us.

Movie Review: Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

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That I had not seen “Walk Hard” up to this point is a mystery even to me. This is the kind of comedy that throws everything at the wall to see what sticks and for the most part, it all does.

“Walk Hard” is somewhere between “Walk the Line” and “Ray” with a dab of every other musician’s life story that has ever been made into a movie. Even The Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine” can be seen in the mix.
“Walk Hard” is basically the typical biopic movie structure in simplest form. It begins as Dewey Cox (John C. Reilly) prepares to go on stage, his face bathed in spotlight. But he can’t go on yet, because according to Sam (Tim Meadows, with some great deadpan delivery), Dewey Cox, “has to think about his entire life before he goes on stage.” Flash to years earlier, when Dewey was just a young boy on a southern farm faced with the childhood tragedy of accidentally slicing his brother in half with a machete. Haunted by accidental murder and his father’s disapproval, Dewey decides to become a musician.

Dewey becomes a sensation with his provocative country jams, which cause some to dance and others to punch priests in the face. He marries Edith (Kristen Wiig), who keeps telling him he won’t be a famous musician even when he actually becomes one. Soon, Dewey will fall for June Carter stand-in Darlene Madison (Jenna Fischer), and leave Edith for her. Dewey’s marriage ends in a reveal that manages to be uncomfortable and hilarious.

One thing I have never really expressed here is my deep admiration for Johnny Cash, and my deep discontent for some of the ways in which Cash’s life is portrayed in “Walk the Line.” The biggest problem I’ve always had with “Walk the Line” is the way in which they demonized Cash’s first wife, and totally abandons her character in favor of Cash’s relationship with June Carter. “Walk Hard” actually does a much better job in judging its character, mainly in what an oblivious idiot he is and how someone like him really can’t function in society.

Knowledge of the history of American music is not required to enjoy this movie, but it would certainly help. When the end of the 1960s rolls around, Cox’s music begins to resembles that of Bob Dylan, prompting the film to briefly mimic “I’m Not There.” After hanging out with The Beatles in India (with uncanny impressions of the Fab Four), he turns into an LSD addict and tries hopelessly to create his opus. The over-the-top orchestra, which includes a few animals, is funnier when you realize that Cox has turned into Brian Wilson when he was making “Pet Sounds.”

“Walk Hard” does to the biopics of the 2000s what “Spinal Tap” did to the “Behind the Music” documentaries of the 1980s: it skews them by becoming one of them. “Walk Hard” proves what is wrong with the format by following its formula and then reducing each trope to its most basic terms. For example, Meadows’s Sam is the character who is always introducing Dewey to a new drug, first by telling him that he shouldn’t try it, then by telling him how much it will benefit his life to a degree that he can’t say no. Biopics consist of a lot of characters who serve as nothing more than plot points in order to introduce the subject to the next thing that will ruin their life.

Another part of what makes “Walk Hard” work is that it not only talks like a biopic, but walks like one as well. The sets and costume choices all match each time period they are a part of consistently. The Lifetime Achievement Award ceremony seen later in the film looks and feels exactly like a real lifetime tribute to a musician. This goes to show that the only people who can satirize the life of a musician the right way are those who truly admire music. Therefore, it comes off as more truthful than mean-spirited.

The movie sometimes loses its satirical edge when it veers into more crass, over-the-top comedy. Now, I am not against crass, over-the-top comedy when it isn’t just thrown in for the sake of being there. Here, it is thrown in for the sake of being there.

While watching “Walk Hard,” I was frequently reminded of “MacGruber” (released after “Walk Hard”), another genre-mocking genre entry. That movie also went over-the-top at times. However, as seen most prominently in its sex scenes, it served more as a way to knock down everything we hold near and dear in movies. In “Walk Hard,” perhaps the penis that suddenly appears on the side of the scene was meant to make fun of unnecessary gratuitous humor, but in the end, it came off as exactly that. The movie also loses a little steam following Dewey’s LSD rampage.

Despite this, “Walk Hard” delivers the kind of laughs you rarely get, the kind that forces you to stop and recompose yourself. Imitation is supposedly the sincerest form of flattery, and the pseudo-Cash ballads resemble many songs from the Man in Black in ways that only someone who deeply admired his work would know. And if Jack White wants to make a cameo in your movie, then something must be going right.

Movie Review: Me and You and Everyone We Know

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“We are all a little weird and life’s a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible to ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.”
-Dr. Seuss

Few movies could be as polarizing, yet as undeniably well made, as Miranda July’s “Me and You and Everyone We Know.” Some will angrily walk out of it believing they have just seen the typical, nonsensical Sundance entry. Others will take a queue from the opening credits, which are placed against a man setting his own hand on fire, and be prepared for the totally unexpected.

“Me and You and Everyone We Know” is told in a series vignettes that sometimes overlap, and sometimes don’t. July plays Christine Jersperson, the perky and awkward performance artist who has a day job as a driver for Elder Cab. She struggles to sell her art, which consists of videos of her acting out various dialogues, usually concerning people in love.

Richard Swersey (John Hawkes), who had set his hand on fire in the first scene, foolishly thinking he could pull off a magic trick, is recently separated from his wife and he tries his best to bring his two sons up right. His two young boys take to the Internet and form a twisted relationship in a chat room, while two neighboring and insecure teenage girls vie for the attention of a creepy man who lives next door. They may all vary in age, but they are all dumbfounded by the seemingly meaningless direction of life.

July, a former Portland based performance artist in real life, has created a movie that is itself a piece of performance art: every scene depends on an audience reaction in order to get it going to its intended effect. There are so many different scenes that push it to a limit, whether it be the hand burning or the goldfish scene. In the memorable yet perplexing goldfish scene, a goldfish in a water-filled plastic bag is tossed from car to car on the highway. In a way, it shows how helpless each character in the ensemble is to the unfolding of their own story and in the way that the fish’s survival depends on the movement of each car, so does each character depend on the actions of one another.

July is just as good of an actress as she is a writer and director. She displays a delicate emotional vulnerability that is funny and sometimes sad. While her speaking manner is awkward and timid, her presence is always inviting. When her and Hawkes are on screen together, they share an uncomfortable chemistry that makes it seem as if each of them was a puzzle piece that was meant to be together. Creating this can be tough, but these two actors rose to the occasion and succeeded. 
Watching “Me and You and Everyone We Know” made me think of Todd Solondz’s “Happiness.” Just as that movie was about the many eccentric lengths people go to in order to find happiness, this movie is about the crazy lengths people will go in order to find what they think is love. In the end, love is not some universally known feeling. It is something that can only be shared amongst a select group, it is what connects me and you and everyone we know. 
“Me and You and Everyone We Know” is filled with many deep and powerful images that might not hold as much significance on a first viewing. I began to appreciate the film more during round two. You will begin to notice little things, such as one image at the beginnings that mirrors a painting shown at the end, and the combination of those two is rather remarkable. I would not call this a nice little movie, as some of the characters do things that wouldn’t necessarily make them likable. However, it is a movie that is very quiet and mature throughout all of its humorous instances. It is not a concluding resolution, but rather a concluding feeling, that defines everything. Movies don’t do that often enough. 

Movie Review: The Purple Rose of Cairo

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Warning: The following review contains some content that many would consider to be spoilers, mainly because it is hard to discuss this film without giving a lot of the story away (especially the ending). So if you haven’t seen this movie, just go rent it right now based on this sentence alone. 

When I was younger, I was one of those kids who thought I could free the miniature people trapped inside the TV set. Luckily, my parents never let me play with a hammer.

Woody Allen probably never had a hammer either, but he did have the ability to write a superb script. “The Purple Rose of Cairo” combines Allen’s gift for realistic fantasy story telling with chaos theory. The result is one of his finest films.

Cecilia (Mia Farrow) is a wishful thinker and a bit of a dreamer. That might be because she lives in Depression era New Jersey (any era New Jersey would probably be bad enough), has an abusive husband (Danny Aiello), and works a dead end job as a waitress which she is eventually fired from. Things like this would want to make anyone want to escape into the comfort of a good movie every single day.

Cecilia frequents the action-adventure-romance picture “The Purple Rose of Cairo.” Enough is seen of this movie’s story that “The Purple Rose of Cairo” becomes a movie-within-a-movie with the movie within it also being called “The Purple Rose of Cairo.” Hope your head doesn’t hurt too much yet, because the main character of the movie within a movie, the explorer Tom Baxter (Jeff Daniels) literally walks off the screen and into Cecilia’s life.

Tom is the kind of man that could only exist in Cecilia’s dreams: he’s strong, brave, and romantic. Meanwhile, she’s used to a weak-willed alcoholic. The best part of this whole act is that there is absolutely no explanation for it. It is similar to the way that Allen goes to no length to explain Gil’s ability to travel back in time in “Midnight in Paris.” Save the science behind it for a J.J. Abrams movie. All that matters to Allen is the ensuing reactions if seemingly impossible situations such as a movie character coming to life were to happen to an ordinary person.  

In accordance to Chaos Theory (sorry, there has to be at least a little background philosophizing here), the movie-within-a-movie’s story cannot go on without the presence of even a minor character such as Tom. This leaves the characters in the movie within to partake in much philosophical kvetching. Meanwhile the actor playing Tom, Gil Shepherd (Daniels, again), is left to ponder his next career move after this debacle occurs, and he eventually, like his own character, finds himself falling for Cecilia after they meet.

“The Purple Rose of Cairo” might be Allen’s saddest movie. Well, almost every one of his movies ends on some sort of note of melancholy. However, this is one of the few that leaves its protagonist with too many problems and too little hope. Maybe the funniest thing about this movie is that even though it tells us that movies provide the best form of escape, the bigger movie itself is as far from escapism as possible.

This is a movie that tends to also be really funny at times. I love the way the characters attending the screening of “The Purple Rose of Cairo” interact with the characters on the screen. Everyone is so surprised as to what as happened, but no reacts in any over-the-top way. Reacting as little as possible to a situation that requires a more emotional reaction is always funny. Escapism is okay as long as we know that we are escaping into a realm of fiction, and not into a realm of reality.

“The Purple Rose of Cairo” is a great black comedy about the absurdity of reality. Every one of its characters, even the minor ones, are memorable in some way. Farrow steals the show as the abused mess of a woman, and she is absent of the high-pitched shriek voice that she would have to take on two years later in “Radio Days.” She also owned the ukulele before Zooey Deschanel and her army of hipsters decided to take it over. Daniels also gives my favorite performance I have ever seen him in (“Dumb & Dumber”) in two different roles, one being the overly confident pseudo-intellectual that Allen so frequently mocks.

The scene in which Tom Baxter first jumps off the screen, even by today’s standard of special effects, still feels magical and jarring. Maybe it is the way he so suddenly changes from black and white into color.

The conclusion of “The Purple Rose of Cairo” is one that is beautiful even in its sadness. Cecilia seems to have become more self-aware, yet she remains just as sheltered by the cinema. After Gil leaves town without telling her and she realizes her husband won’t change, she returns to the theater and watches Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing with a sense of both desolation and wonderment. Perhaps it was at that moment she understood that that was the best her life would ever get: to sit inside a theater and watch two people who don’t exist feel a sense of happiness that she would never get to feel. Maybe every once in a while, being drawn in by the flashing light of film from a projector can be a good thing. It can heal wounds and make the pains of life feel just a little bit better.