Movie Review: Celeste and Jesse Forever

1 Reply

“When we can’t change a situation, we’re forced to change ourselves.”

Leave it to the Sundance sweetheart to give us hope about love while strumming the tune of “Love Stinks.” “Celeste and Jesse Forever” is the first foray into screenwriting by actress Rashida Jones (and writing partner Will McCormack). If Ms. Jones decided to quit her day job, I wouldn’t mind, as she’s found herself a great new talent.

The opening of “Celeste and Jesse” almost had me groaning, as its opening looked like a slideshow made on Instagram, or a book called “What Hipsters in Love Do.” Luckily, the rest of “Celeste and Jesse” is neither of those things. Rather, “Celeste and Jesse” is something of a chameleon. At first sight Celeste (Rashida Jones) and Jesse (Andy Samberg) seem like a perfectly happy, perfectly sane couple. However, what they are doing is not at all normal, as they are actually getting divorced. The first scene, in which the two of them playfully fight over a cigarette in the car is so well done that it totally through me off once the big revelation came around.

This little secret is revealed at dinner with their friends Beth (Ari Graynor) and Tucker (Eric Christian Olsen), who are getting married soon. Beth and Tucker smooch at the table as Celeste and Jesse talk to each other in faux Russian accents, revealing exactly what kind of couple each of them are. It is the smooching couple that gets most annoyed, as Celeste and Jesse have yet to learn how to spend time apart.

While the two are visibly comfortable being just friends, it is apparent as to why they couldn’t make it as a couple. Celeste is the hardworking one in the relationship. She’s a trend analyst (that’s a thing) working at a small company with her partner and gay best friend Scott (Elijah Wood, in a bit of perfect casting). She has a book coming out called “Shitegeist” (a title that I wish I had thought of), which sadly doesn’t make it past the back shelf on opening day. Piling on to her professional troubles, her company takes on the obnoxious teen popstar (Emma Roberts) who she dissed on TV. While this is a relationship story, it is truly about the development of Celeste.

Jesse, meanwhile, is a slacker. As a grown man, he is not a slacker in the sense that he lays on the couch with a bowl of cereal while watching cartoons. He is more of a slacker in the sense of laying in bed all day with a bag of chips while sobbing to the Beijing Olympics. He’s a talented artist, but he can’t even finish a logo for Celeste on time.

Nothing says ‘bad relationship’ like a faulty IKEA cabinet.

After a while, you will start to realize that “Celeste and Jesse” is not a he said she said kind of story. As Jesse gets involved in another relationship, it becomes reliant on Jones. She shows a lot of strength both in handling awkward moments, of which there are plenty, as well as some of the sadder ones. There is a scene later on in which she gives a toast at a wedding. It works so well because it is played straight and the thematic element is played subtlety. It is exactly how the ending speech of “Crazy, Stupid, Love” could have turned out.

“Celeste and Jesse” certainly has some poignant things to say, and it says them all well. In ways, “Celeste and Jesse” made me think of another Sundance entry from a few years back, “Paper Heart,” which explored whether or not a relationship can be accurately portrayed on film. Maybe it is hard to get the complete picture, but what “Celeste and Jesse” wants to show is that it’s actually a very good way to show post-breakup turmoil.

To me, “Celeste and Jesse” felt very different from a lot of films coming out today, and some of its greater strengths proved to bring out some of the weaknesses of modern Hollywood. For example, none of the characters seem to serve simply as exposition delivering devices. Sure, many of them are there to tell the two leads how respectively crazy they are being at times, but those conversations always come out in the funniest and most delightful of ways. What I am trying to say is that every character deserved to be there.

At times, I could have sworn that I felt characters going off script. At times, it feels like a more understandable version of Mumblecore. As much as I (and I’m sure most other writers) enjoy long monologues, it is nice to hear responses that sound like they were delivered on the spot. Just listen to how Jesse feels about his middle name being Mordecai. You may be able to guess his response, but that doesn’t make his answer any less funny in its honesty. Speaking of which, Samberg can definitely play something besides over-the-top, and I get the feeling that his Jesse is somewhat like his offstage persona. That’s a good and bad thing.

“Celeste and Jesse” never demonizes any of its characters, but it is quite good at pointing out the flaws in those who seem flawless, and the good side in the people we often resent. While Celeste’s job is to predict future trends and know how every type of person behaves, she does not understand how to treat a boyfriend because she will just try and mold them into whatever she desires. Maybe the most interesting idea to come out of the entire film is that there is value in solitude, and a sense of maturity that arises when one realizes a time in their life in which they should be alone.

Speaking of flaws, this film does not come without them. Despite a short 90 minute running time, “Celeste and Jesse” drags on a little bit at times. There aren’t necessarily any bad scenes, but there are many scenes that do not advance anything and linger just a little too long. It is also a sufferer of Multiple Ending Syndrome. Just as the film seems to have hit a logical end, after it has said everything that needs to be said, it tacks on another scene. The short finale is somewhat fitting, but what came before it was much more powerful. Some of have said that some of the film’s individual scenes overpower the whole. That statement is only half right if you look at this more as a breakup mosaic.

Over 20 years ago, “When Harry Met Sally…” pondered whether or not a man and a woman could be just friends, and answered with a big, fat “no,” giving millions of guys in the friend zone hope. “Celeste and Jesse” explores this same topic, but with an answer that might make Chuck Klosterman happy. Celeste and Jesse’s struggle might show that it is possible for a man and a woman to love each other as friends. From there, I’ll just let “Celeste and Jesse Forever” speak for itself.

If you liked this movie, you’ll also like: Paper Heart, Tiny Furniture, Your Sister’s Sister, I Love You, Man, The Puffy Chair

Movie Review: Ruby Sparks

Leave a reply

“Ruby Sparks” begins with the most terrifying moment in any writer’s life: the moment of staring down a blank page. It is also an exciting moment, because a story is about to be born. But, it is more terrifying because now you have to think of ideas, and a lot of them will end up being terrifying.

If this quirky (that’s a very good word to use here) film does anything right, it is capturing what it feels like to create a unique character, and then have the character and story engulf your own life, and become a part of it.


Once you write someone out on a piece of paper, it’s hard to erase them. That’s what Calvin Weir-Fields (Paul Dano) will find out as he crafts his dream woman. Calvin is a novelist who peaks early and has trouble replicating his earlier success. He also has a troubled love life. As in, he doesn’t have one. Calvin’s brother Harry (Chris Messina), who’d have been put to much better use if he served a purpose other than exposition, is there to constantly remind him that he could have a good relationship if he just went to the gym more often.

But Calvin’s only company is a small dog he bought to make friends. With great responsibility comes great irony, and the timid dog runs away whenever people try to pet it. In his loneliness, Cal keeps dreaming up a woman. Ruby Sparks (Zoe Kazan), a red head with personality, inexplicably pops out of his dreams and into reality.

“Ruby Sparks” rightfully follows the Woody Allen principle, in that it doesn’t try to explain why something so crazy happened. All that matters is how people reacted to it. Imagine if they spent all of “The Purple Rose of Cairo” explaining how someone could leap out of a screen at a movie theater. Likewise, imagine if they spent all of “Ruby Sparks” trying to explain how Ruby came to life. An event like that almost defies all explanation. Luckily, we get none. Unfortunately, Calvin does have to spend a lot of time convincing people that Ruby came from his imagination. Understandable, I guess.

“Ruby Sparks” is a fantasy in every sense of the word. Not just because an imaginary person cannot simply come to life, but it is every male writer’s desire to write a plausible female character. But there is a catch to the creation of Ruby. Calvin must write down everything Ruby does, and every emotion that she feels. That might sound like every man’s dream, but it also means that one wrong word can send Ruby into a tailspin. That also happens to be another way that the film rightfully captures the writing process, as crafting a flawless sentence takes more thought than one would ever think.

I heard a discussion on a podcast once which postulated that anytime there is a story-within-a-story, the story within must be bad in order to bring out how good the actual story is. I always thought this was a good and logical rule, but “Ruby Sparks” breaks from it and mostly makes it work. Ruby is, by most standards, a good character: she is well developed, unique, and three dimensional. She has quirks and personality that go well beyond the surface. At one point, a certain character tells Calvin that all he really ever wanted was to have a relationship with himself. Calvin at first seems as blank as the Kubrickian white walls of his house. Yet, we find that Ruby is literally a chunk of him unleashed.

“Ruby Sparks” is the kind of risky story that Hollywood rarely takes its chances on anymore. Yet, it isn’t totally radical. The idea behind it is a nearly flawless movie concept. When someone asks what would happen if a writer’s creation came to life? my immediate response is what? instead of who cares. The idea feels a little bit like a throwback to the screwball comedies of yesteryear (in fact, it’s poster feels reminiscent to that of “Arsenic and Old Lace”). A throwback of this kind would include a light-hearted and funny spirit and a smart story. “Ruby Sparks” has the latter but oftentimes, it lacks the former.

The main flaw of “Ruby Sparks” is that it sometimes seems to forget that it is a comedy and leans towards too much self-seriousness. I appreciate that it tries to go for a darker twist, but it never prepares us for it. Calvin’s visit to his mother and step father goes on for a little too long, and doesn’t serve much for the rest of the film. However, it was really funny when Antonio Banderas put his glasses on the dog. Things get darkest and strangest towards the end. At that point, it almost lost me. There is a scene that should be there. It shows how Calvin tries too hard to control everything in his life down to his relationships. However, the way that it is presented feels more off-putting than it should.

Obligatory mention that Antonio Banderas is the Nasonex Bee.

“Ruby Sparks” is the first film that director duo Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris have made since 2006′s “Little Miss Sunshine.” Here, they maintain that same attention to little details. Yet, “Ruby Sparks” lacks that same balance of dark humor which separated “Little Miss Sunshine” from every other indie road trip film. “Ruby Sparks” is about halfway to being a dark romantic comedy that comments on romantic comedies that is unlike any other romantic comedy.

Zoe Kazan, who plays the titular Ruby, wrote the script. When looking at it through that lens, the film becomes a little more meta, and I appreciate it more. Perhaps the fact that a woman wrote a well thought out male character who wrote a well thought out female character means that perhaps gender doesn’t (or shouldn’t) matter so much anymore in Hollywood. Maybe the whole Battle of the Sexes (another feature of screwball) has finally ended. However, movies would be a lot funnier if kept going on.

The Movie About Dognapping You’ve Always Dreamed Of: Seven Psychopaths Trailer

1 Reply

I only post trailers for movies when it is something I am irrationally excited for and have irrationally high expectations for.

Today, the trailer for “Seven Psychopaths,” the new film from Martin McDonagh, was released. McDonagh’s last film was his 2008 directorial debut “In Bruges” which remains one of my favorite films of the past five years. “Seven Psychopaths” has McDonagh re-teaming with Colin Farrell, whose abilities as a comedic actor remain severely underrated. It also stars Sam Rockwell and Christopher Walken, who are two of my favorite actors, as well as Woody Harrelson, who I like most of the time. It also has Gabourey Sidibe (Precious) sitting on a toilet, just in case you were dying to know what that looks like.

The story seems to revolve around criminals who kidnap people’s dogs, return them, and then collect the reward money. “Seven Psychopaths” could be somewhat less dark than “In Bruges,” if there are as many animal reaction shots in it as the trailer seems to portend. However, based on “Bruges,” McDonagh is not one who will let criminals get away with their wrongdoings unscathed.

Are you as excited for “Seven Psychopaths” as I am? Have you seen “In Bruges” yet? If your answer to the latter question is no, go rent it right away. Watch the trailer for “Seven Psychopaths” below:

Analog This: Breaking Bad a.k.a. The One Where They Rob a Train

Leave a reply

SPOILERS AHEAD!

This week’s episode of “Breaking Bad,” entitled “Dead Freight,” once again proved that the show that is never bad just keeps on getting better.

Obviously, somebody had to pull out the Jesse James comparison once the only solution to the methylamine shortage turned out to be a train robbery. This is not surprising, as Walt is starting to believe more and more that he is Jesse James. Here is someone who will push it to the very end without the fear of death. Maybe it’s time something bad happened to him, something that will finally make Heisenberg cease to exist. And that final straw may have come loose tonight.

Each season of “Breaking Bad” reminds me of the Tortoise: slow to start, taking its time at the beginning, and then taking off and not stopping. Tonight was like the taking off point kicking things into high gear. This momentum should get us through the remainder of this final season.


In one of tonight’s first scenes, Walt paid an unexpected visit to Hank’s (Dean Norris) new office. Walt breaks down and opens up about his fears that he is not a good father and a bad influence, as Skyler (Anna Gunn) told him in last week’s episode. The fact that I bought it for a quick second shows either my naivety as a viewer or Walt’s now uncanny ability to fool others. Of course, it was a rouse, and when Hank gets up to get Walt a cup of coffee, Walt hastily bugs the place. As Heisenberg, Walt is no longer guided by a need to protect his family but rather as a need to keep his business going. As he notes in the preview for next week’s episode, he’s in the empire business. In season one, he talked about leaving his family money to survive long after he died. Now, all he wants is a legacy for himself.

The one thing that currently makes Walt and Hank similar is that they are both good at hiding information that the other has no clue about. There have been many subtle hints so far this season that Hank knows about Walt’s secret criminal life. Hank’s words of wisdom to Walt seemed almost strained. This could foreshadow that Hank’s kindness toward Walt was an act, as Hank is probably the only genuinely good character on the show. Look how good he was with Walt and Skyler’s baby. The “Breaking Bad” team is slowly, slyly building up to a showdown between Walt and Hank. Bloody or not, I’m sure it will be one of the most memorable moments in television history.

But let’s get back to the heist at hand. With all of the methylamine barrels being tracked, Walt, Jesse, and Mike needed to find the miracle chemical elsewhere. So Lydia (the basket case who might be the most irritating character in the show’s history) suggests that they rob a freight train where they can find all the methylamine they need. At first, it seems like a suicide mission. But then, Jesse comes up with a way they can rob the train and not get caught. And while it’s kind of insane, it actually works.

This season, Jesse has become the man with the brilliant plans. Walt always talks about leverage and in case Walt ever wants to dispose of Jesse, Jesse has this leverage over him: Walt has the crazy needs and demands, and Jesse has the plausible execution. In an earlier episode, Jesse finds an old test of his from when he was Mr. White’s student. The words “NOT APPLYING YOURSELF” were scrawled across it. Jesse may not want to be a criminal, but when he applies himself, he is actually a pretty good one.

This is not the first time “Breaking Bad” has taken form of a heist film. They did it earlier this season, when they absconded evidence using magnets. During season two, in one of my favorite episodes of the entire series, they staged a drug bust and hired a fake Heisenberg to go to jail for them. Now, they were using a broken down truck to stop a train. That works. The next step for them is to drain the train of just enough methylamine for them to start their new business, but not too much so no one would notice that any of it was gone.

I hope “Breaking Bad” keeps doing heist episodes every once in a while, because they show off the absolute best and worst of the characters, as well as the best of the creative team behind the show. By setting the stakes so unrealistically high, the characters must think in ways they would usually never think. While most heists onscreen usually unfold with the predictability of the plan, “Breaking Bad” always draws its heists out and adds in unexpected obstacles. In the aforementioned false-Heisenberg scheme, another bald man accidentally gets involved in the middle of the crime. In “Dead Fright,” the unexpected obstacle is Walt’s hubris, which becomes more frightening and unpredictable with every passing week.

Part of the robbery involved Vamonos Pest Control’s (this season’s Los Pollos Hermanos) Todd (Jesse Plemons) pumping water into the barrels as Jesse pumped methylamine out of the freight car. Meanwhile, Saul’s henchman (Bill Burr) blocked the train with his truck. Once the truck diversion can hold no longer, Walt still doesn’t have enough methylamine. Instead of settling for what he has, he insists that they keep pumping, despite the fact that Jesse is under the train and the train has started to move. We now know that Walt will sacrifice the people who care for him so he can get exactly what he wants. It’s not so much that Walt thinks he will get exactly what he wants, but that he will do anything for it. Surprisingly, this isn’t so different from the Walter White of season one. Remember the “I’ll do anything for my family” mantra? Well, now it’s just “I’ll do anything for myself.”

The second the phrase “train robbery” was mentioned, I got giddy in the kind of way that a twenty-year-old probably shouldn’t. John Ford would be proud of those stunning shots of the railroad slicing through the wide open desert. The cowboys of the old frontier would rob trains for money and any other supplies they needed to live off of. That is what Walter was doing. But then again, they could have cooked with cough syrup. Clearly, Walt is still a man who thrives off of the idea of danger.

Speaking of western motifs, the Jesse James comparison came up once again. A few weeks ago, Mike tells Walt, “just because you shot Jesse James, doesn’t mean you are Jesse James.” But with this train robbery, Jesse James comes back once again. If anything, comparing Gus to Jesse James and Walt to Robert Ford might make a little more sense. If “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” taught me anything (besides the fact that snow looks pretty), it’s that Jesse James was still a hero despite being an outlaw, and even if his death would be better for the country’s safety, he would be missed by many. However, at this point I doubt that Walter White will be missed by anyone if someone pulls the trigger on him. If that was to happen, I am still betting that Jesse will take on the role of Robert Ford in this modern western folktale.

As the train passes over Jesse, barely missing him, I squirmed in fear that the show might off him in that moment. Because that’s how good “Breaking Bad” is: even when you know it’s not the right moment to kill a character off, you still get the feeling that any moment could lead to their demise. But after the robbery turns out to be a success, Jesse gets to yell “yeah, bitch!” This is his equivalent of a battle call of victory.

The celebration couldn’t last long. The episode began with a boy we never met scooping up a tarantula in the desert and then riding off on his dirt bike. Knowing this show, I should have known this was another instance of Chekhov’s Gun. The boy from the beginning appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Everyone on “Breaking Bad” has the ability to commit murder. Without a moment’s hesitation, Todd takes out his gun and shoots the little boy. Mike told them that every successful heist leaves no witnesses, but he never said what to do with children. It was a tragic moment, and one that brought Jesse to tears, while Walt just stood there silently. Past Walt would never have allowed that to happen. Next week, Heisenberg will probably conclude that it was “either him or us.”

“Dead Fright” ended with a very “Breaking Bad” shot in which the tarantula that the little boy had collected in a jar struggled to get out of the jar which lay next to the boy’s lifeless body. Perhaps it shows that Walt’s evil is becoming an inhuman force of nature itself, which drags in and kills anyone that gets in its way. As the tagline for “The Dark Knight” touted, welcome to a world without rules.

Side Observations:

-Anna Gunn is killing it this season. In earlier seasons, she got a lot of the same flack January Jones got on “Mad Men” after Jones’s Betty decided to kick her adulterous husband out of the house. Gunn’s Skyler was also faced with the tough choice of tearing her own family apart in order to protect her children. However, the difference between Gunn and Jones is that Jones has the personality of a doorstop. Gunn has gotten to show her true colors ever since Skyler broke bad. In season five, she is proving herself to be one of the few people who can stand up to Walt. She claims to be Walt’s hostage, but she acts like anything but that. 
-Lydia tells Walt that there’s an “ocean of methylamine” on the train. Maybe I’m the only one who felt this way, but I was immediately reminded of Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) proclaiming, “there’s a whole ocean of oil under our feet, and I’m the only one who can get to it!” in “There Will Be Blood.” These two pioneers of the American West have a lot in common, including an unstoppable desire to build empires while putting their families at risk. Based on the flash forward that opened this season up, Walt is likely going to end up in a similar, lonely place that Daniel Plainview ended up in. In a perfect world, Paul Thomas Anderson will be asked to direct an upcoming episode.
-Once again, everyone was addressing Walt Junior (R.J. Mitte) by his old nickname of Flynn. This time, he didn’t seem too pleased about it, and it had nothing to do with the fact that he didn’t get to visit an omelette bar like I had wrongly predicted would happen this week. Perhaps the nickname was made to totally separate him from his father. The poor kid didn’t even understand why he couldn’t see his father anymore. When the secret finally comes out, I don’t think Flynn will be standing at his father’s side.
-Saul Goodman, who was absent this week, must have felt pretty left out. As the guy who always knows a guy, Saul is usually an instrumental part of helping Walt and Jesse get out of the messes that they create. 
-Walt, Jesse, and Mike make an awesome team. Their dynamic is very clear at this point: Walt and Mike fight over who’s right, and then Jesse comes up with the idea that saves them. I hope next time Jesse comes up with a great idea, it is accompanied with one of the graphics that included a bunch of light bulbs and the word IDEA that used to appear on “Rocket Power” anytime someone thought of something.
How Jesse comes up with his best ideas.

Movie Review: The Campaign

Leave a reply

“The Campaign” didn’t necessarily need to exist. Jay Roach could have just shot footage of Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis together in the same room, and I still would have bought the ticket. However, the fact that “The Campaign” gives them a purpose makes it all the better.

At this point, political satire has nailed down all of the main points pretty well: politicians will do anything they can to win, and they will also take any excuse to label their opponents as Communists. But the devil is truly in the details, and the challenge is in finding ways to make stale jokes seem fresh. The best example might be when Cam Brady (Will Ferrell) accidentally punches a baby in the face. The baby punching isn’t the funniest part; the fact that the scene is played out in slow-motion really seals the deal. And here I thought that showing the clip on every single talk show would make it less funny in the actual movie.

At the beginning of “The Campaign,” Ferrell’s Brady is going around telling everyone from auto workers to Filipino amusement park ride operators that they are the “backbone of America.” Political junkies will be surprised by how well versed writers Chris Henchy and Shawn Harwell in American political jargon. This isn’t quite “The West Wing” penned by comedy writers (“Parks & Rec” and “Veep” are more in that league). It’s more like if “Step Brothers” focused on a bunch of Washington insiders. That is very high compliment.
I think this is my favorite performance that I have seen from Ferrell in quite a few years. He is in his element as a Ron Burgundy-type politician with less of a heart. Cam Brady is a congressman for a small district in North Carolina. His years in Washington have turned him into a corrupt womanizer. Despite a sex scandal involving a voicemail on the wrong person’s machine (to be far, who still uses an answering machine?), Brady runs totally unopposed.

In Washington, the Motch Brothers (which sounds an awful lot like Marx Brothers when said out loud), senior congressmen played by Dan Aykroyd and John Lithgow, look for a way to bring cheap, illegal Chinese labor to the Carolina district. Aykroyd plays a version of one of the men who made him homeless in “Trading Places.” How the tables have turned. The Motch Brothers’s plan is almost a cartoonishly evil plot. I could picture them coming up with this on Looney Tunes before getting blown up by some disguised dynamite.

The Motch Brothers decide their plan will succeed if they bring their own player into the race. They go with Marty Huggins (Galifianakis), who takes ‘inexplicable choice’ to a whole new level. Huggins, who is a variation of Galifianakis’s Seth Galifianakis, is the effeminate tourism director of Hammond. He knows many interesting facts about the town, such as the one regarding the time that Rosie Perez stopped in town because she needed to use the phone. They say people resemble their dogs, and Huggins is essentially a pug walking on its hind legs. His family, meanwhile, could have their own reality show. Galifianakis is a great comic actor because everything he does as Huggins perfectly fits the character right up to the way he runs, which can be better described as skipping with style.

“The Campaign” is a little like a political “My Fair Lady,” with Huggins learning how to walk, talk, and dress like a politician. Dylan McDermott gives a subtlety hysterical performance as Huggins’s campaign manager. He’s a man who often acts much more like a spy. Perhaps one of the funniest scenes in the movie is when he shows up in Cam Brady’s shower, seeing as he doesn’t even seem to open the curtain in order to get in.
Will Ferrell continues to amaze me in the sense that he always seems to star in the projects that he wants to star in. He seems to enjoy putting himself into “gross-out” stories with a very heavy social context. Even when he doesn’t write a movie, it seems as if he did. And now, I’m starting to feel the same way about everything Galifianakis does as well. After all, Galifianakis is a native of North Carolina. However, Ferrell isn’t actually a scumbag in real life.
“The Campaign” goes beyond the politics that push the plot forward. Roach allows a lot of the humor to come from the moments when the characters aren’t campaigning. In simplest terms, it’s about a lot of odd, funny characters doing odd and funny things. “The Campaign” may be a plot-oriented comedy, but something that stood out to me was that it was willing to take a break from itself in order to show the Huggins family dinner. And when one of his children starts confessing his darkest secrets, it appears that everyone goes off script. And for that it works all the better.
The living embodiment of Awkward Family Photos.
“The Campaign” obviously comes out during an election year, and it was definitely released at this time for a reason. It shows a sense of unabashed idealism that can only be found in a movie. However, that is the end. The means show a more bitter look at politicians. This time, there is no knight in shining armor. Everyone realizes that the only way to win is through dishonesty. Yet, despite all of Marty Huggins’s idiosyncrasies (to put it lightly), he becomes the movie’s hero because he is the innocent. Every comedy needs one. He is the only man in the room who actually wants to make good things happen. 
To me, “The Campaign” wasn’t as subtlety brilliant (there, I said it) as “Step Brothers.” And it definitely didn’t have all of the memorable one liners of “Anchorman.” And as far as political satires go, it doesn’t quite reach the top on a scale of one to “Election.” It doesn’t reinvent the wheel on political satirizing, but then again, I never should have assumed it would. It crams more laughs into 85 minutes than any other comedy this summer. And it wasn’t a sequel, prequel, remake, or comic book adaptation of any sort. 
Sometimes, a good comedy doesn’t have to tell a story that hasn’t been told, but rather make us laugh at jokes we’ve never heard. “The Campaign” may be flawed, and maybe it would have been  better with Adam McKay in the director’s chair, but I can say this: it certainly is pure. The political parties of the two candidates are mentioned only once and never again. Maybe that’s because campaigns are rarely about actual issues nowadays. Regardless, this is a comedy about the ridiculousness of American politics that anyone of any ideology can sit down and enjoy. That is, as long as you have a sick sense of humor.
If you liked this movie, you’ll also like: Anchorman, Step Brothers, Walk Hard, Zoolander, Trading Places

Movie Review: Jeff, Who Lives at Home

Leave a reply

Finally, a slacker “comedy” where no one utters the words, “what are you going to do with your life?” Instead, there is a fair heaping of “get your ass of the couch.” I find this much more reasonable and realistic.

“Jeff, Who Lives at Home” is a nice film that’s also more than a nice film. It’s about a slacker, but it’s also about a hero. To my greatest surprise, this is a refreshingly irony free ride.

Jeff (Jason Segel) is 30 and still living in the basement of his parents’ house, which drives his widowed mother Sharon (Susan Sarandon) crazy. Jeff has but one simple task for the day: buy a new wooden panel for the broken door. Even this proves difficult for Jeff. While Jeff is a slacker, he certainly isn’t lazy. Let’s call him a very motivated stoner lost in his own little world.


The first words to come out of Jeff’s mouth, which are stated like a confession into a tape recorder, that he watched “Signs” again. Jeff finds meaning in it that no one else can. Jeff believes that the world is ruled by some sort of invisible cosmic order, and everything around him serves as a sign. It is a testament to how careful Jay & Mark Duplass are with their characters that this comes off as enriching rather than ridiculous. It is also important to add that this brief monologue is given as Jeff sits on the toilet, a private place that could fittingly serve as a suburban slacker’s confessional.

Jeff is the complete opposite of his brother Pat (Ed Helms). Pat is the perpetually angry, middle class office drone that can be found more often in a Mike Judge movie. Pat only gives off the appearance that his life is together, when in reality his marriage is falling apart. His wife Linda, brought to life with Judy Greer’s genuine pathos, feels neglected by her husband. He buys a Porsche when all she really wants is to go on one romantic date at a fancy restaurant. Pat refuses to be around those “snobs” even for a second.

The fact that the two brothers pair up on a quest on this irregular day turns out to be a coincidence. It’s the kind of coincidence that Jeff would claim has a greater significance in the larger scheme of things. While in his basement domicile, Jeff receives a phone call from someone who has dialed the wrong number (which basically seems like the only purpose that land lines serve nowadays) looking for Kevin. Jeff deviates from his trip to Home Depot and instead tries to find out who Kevin is. After running into Pat, Jeff and him witness Linda having lunch with an unknown man, and pursue them to find out whether or not she is having an affair.

There is no limit to how funny someone’s lack of sneakiness can be.

Set in Louisiana, where the Duplass Brothers grew up, “Jeff, Who Lives at Home” is basically about ordinary people on an ordinary day, save for a few big twists. However, it would be a fallacy to say that nothing happens. Nothing is still something. A prolonged conversation about how to keep the love between two people alive can be considered the world on an insignificant day. “Jeff, Who Lives at Home” is really about one regular dude with big ambitions. Those ambitions do not exactly include starting a new life, but rather finding more purpose in his existence than there actually is. This fits the Duplass Brothers’ approach to filmmaking very well, as they always find that even the most mundane events can be turned into interesting stories.

Surprisingly, “Jeff, Who Lives at Home” is more drama than comedy. I guess I should have come to expect that from the Duplass Brothers at this point. They tend to use comedic actors even when the material bends towards something darker and much more serious. Perhaps they cast this way because the best comedic actors seem to be prepared for anything, and “Jeff, Who Lives at Home” constantly veers towards the unexpected.

Helms has played someone who is afraid of life (“The Hangover”) before, but he has never been this hard to root for since he first joined “The Office” as Andy Bernard and found ways to get on everybody’s nerves. At first, it is frustrating in how close-minded Pat is. Helms does well in keeping Pat  in a little delusional universe until fate crashes into him. Strangely, it is easy to root for him when he tries to win Linda back. When he sees that his wife feels no reason for them to be together anymore, he realizes every reason why they should be.

Segel, meanwhile, gives one of his best performances to date. He turns Jeff into one of those people you want to have in your life not necessarily because they provide anything useful to you, but simply because they give you a more positive outlook on life. Jeff will surprise you more and more as the film moves along. He can be at once child-like yet also more mature than anyone else around him. While his sheltered lifestyle cuts him off from real human interaction, it also makes him less likely to hurt others intentionally. And when he is listening to others, you can feel that he is giving his full, undivided attention. People with no real problems tend to be much more helpful to those who do.

The hilarity of “Jeff, Who Lives at Home” lies in little moments that pack a big punch. In a testament to how vital the actors are, Segel’s height turns into a recurring joke. In one scene, Jeff can’t even hide behind a vending machine without the top of his head sticking out.

“Jeff, Who Lives at Home” is not perfect, and it never tries to be. There is something positive to be said about imperfection, and Mark and Jay embrace quick cutaways and blurring in and out of focus. They also don’t mind letting the camera run longer than it should, a technique that more directors should embrace nowadays. However, a big flaw that the film could have done without is Sharon’s story, in which she tries to figure out who her secret admirer is at work. This part of the plot isn’t necessarily bad, it just feels out of place in a film in which a series of random coincidences connect so well. It actually ends up being kind of intriguing until the big reveal.

“Jeff, Who Lives at Home” is filled with revelations that are surprisingly significant despite seeming so simple. By the end, Jeff is disappointed to find out that his destiny isn’t so unique after all (he is only half right). After some major occurrences, Jeff finds himself back in nearly the same place he was at the beginning. While most films of this nature would include a montage of clips of the main character righting a series of wrongs before their love interest finally agrees to take them back (see: “Knocked Up,” “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” “Bridesmaids”), “Jeff, Who Lives at Home” decides to cut us off just as the change is about to occur. The Duplass Brothers like to do that (see: “The Puffy Chair,” “Cyrus”), but it’s never worked as well as it is here. Maybe just knowing that it happened is good enough. Maybe change isn’t about going to the gym or bring someone you love a bouquet of flowers. Maybe it’s just about doing something good without being told to do so. 

Bane: Before and After

Leave a reply

Before seeing “The Dark Knight Rises,” I thought that I would be pondering questions about morality and Batman’s place in the world. Instead, I just wanted to know what Bane’s (Tom Hardy) voice sounded like before Christopher Nolan altered it.

But thankfully, as it always is, YouTube was there to answer my prayers. Thanks to gangsterturk25 (I don’t even want to know what that means), we can now know what Bane sounded like before and after. And while Bane was harder to understand in the original version, that voice still seemed so much more fitting. That is both because a man in a mask shouldn’t be easy to understand, and Bane should be scary and unintelligible. His old voice sounds closer to Sauron and Darth Vader. His new voice, as many on the Internet have perfectly noticed, sounds like a less-than-stellar Sean Connery impression. And when he says “your punishment must be more severe,” he sounds like an excited game show host announcing who the winner is. Believe me, Tom Hardy will impress you once “Lawless” comes out later this month.
Watch the video below. That opening plane crash sequence is so much more awesome when you forget about the fact that it has nothing to do with the rest of the movie.

The 2012 Sight & Sound Poll: Is Vertigo Really the Greatest Film of All Time?

Leave a reply

Every ten years, the British Film Institute’s Sight & Sound Magazine releases a list of the top ten films of all time. For every year from 1962 until 2002, Orson Welles’s “Citizen Kane” was hailed as the greatest film ever made. And for the past fifty years, it has become conventional wisdom that “Citizen Kane” is indeed, the greatest film ever made.

This time around, Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” was crowned as the greatest film of all time from votes by 846 movie experts. I am not sure what constitutes a “movie expert” in BFI’s eyes, but it certainly isn’t Pete Hammond or Brett Ratner.

Now, I don’t consider myself a complete movie expert just yet. I don’t think I’m completely certified until I’ve seen at least one Robert Altman film that isn’t “Popeye.” I should also check out “Lethal Weapon” already. But I can say that “Vertigo” is an excellent film, and one that is worthy of the growing influence it has gained over the years. Most people probably don’t remember that “Gigi” (just one letter off from being “Gigli”) won Best Picture that year. However, no one will ever forget that “Vertigo” didn’t even get nominated. As a filmmaker, getting a spot on a list is actually a much bigger honor than getting a chunk of gold in the shape of a naked bald dude.


Personally, I might not have chosen “Vertigo” as the best film ever made. It is not even my favorite Hitchcock film. Personally, I would have to go with “Rear Window,” which represents everything that a film should be. It contains a perfect balance of horror and humanity alongside a series of vignettes both heartbreaking and hilarious. It might not be his most landmark directing, but it is his greatest feat as a storyteller.

But this is not a piece about “Rear Window.”And I am not trying to sound smarter than the Sight & Sound voters (but if you told me I was, I would not turn away the compliment). “Vertigo” has influenced the way that films are made in both the biggest and smallest of ways. The famed vertigo shot, known technically as a dolly zoom, used to visually depict Scottie’s (Jimmy Stewart) fear of heights is something of a tiny marvel. The shot would be imitated many times over, perhaps most prominently in “Jaws.”

This is the closest that anyone would come to seeing a naked lady in theaters in 1958.

“Vertigo” could be considered one of the first psychological thrillers ever made. Or at least one of the first to go into reality-twisting dream sequences out of nowhere. The first time I ever saw “Vertigo,” I was in seventh grade. I had yet to see “Memento,” “Fight Club,” or “Mullholland Drive,” so the idea of a character being totally fabricated throughout was still foreign to me. I will admit that I didn’t quite understand the appeal of “Vertigo” the first time around. Catching it on Turner Classic Movies sometime later, I finally understood what was so damn special about it. Also, I cannot neglect to mention that this is the creepiest and most compelling performance that Stewart ever gave. “Aw, shucks” this certainly was not.

Compiling a list comparing any aspect of culture, whether it be film, television, or music, is not as easy as it looks. There is a fine line between subjectivity and objectivity, and it seems to be just fine to messily walk the line between both at all times. Is “Vertigo” both objectively and subjectively the greatest film of all time? I will have to give it another watch through, but I still find it hard for it to be objectively so. While it definitely deserves a spot in the top ten, I still see “Citizen Kane” as deserving that top spot. Even though it is not subjectively my favorite film of all time, I can say with no doubt at all that most great cinema we see today would not exist without it.

As for the rest of the critics’ top ten list, I feel ashamed to say that there are quite a few films on it that I still have not seen. However, I have been hearing more and more about “Tokyo Story.” Thanks to this list, “Sunrise: a Song for Two Humans” is officially on my radar. A great thing about lists like this is that you can come away from them with a few new films you have never heard of.

“The Searchers,” which earned a spot on the list, has continued to gain more and more prominence with each passing year. To think that it jumped from spot 96 to spot 12 on AFI’s Top 100 list. One thing I will never understand is the appeal of Fellini’s “8 1/2.” It certainly is not a bad film. However, his beautiful “La Dolce Vita” deserves to be the defining film of his career. While “La Dolce Vita” is filled with a similar level of chaos and bright colors, it also has memorable characters to latch on to.

In order to move forward as a medium, film must constantly change. That includes our view of its past. It is good to see that not everyone is going to agree that “Citizen Kane” is the greatest film ever made. A conversation between contrasting voices is how better, more informed opinions are created.

Along with the critics’ list, the BFI also releases a list in which directors get to choose the top films. This year’s directors’ list includes a few masterpieces that were wrongly neglected from the critics’ list, such as “The Godfather,” “Taxi Driver,” and “Apocalypse Now.” I guess the people who actually make the movies must know better than the people that review them.

View the lists here.

Movie Review: Your Sister’s Sister

Leave a reply

“Your Sister’s Sister” opens with an unusual eulogy. Jack’s (Mark Duplass) brother Tom died one year earlier, and friends and family gather to honor him. But Jack isn’t satisfied with all of the kind words, as Tom was a jerk who acted kind to get ahead. And for that, Jack respects him. This is mainly what “Your Sister’s Sister” is: a lot of people talking about what they think is wrong about conventional wisdom. And if you can tell from this first scene that you won’t like this, then you can get out.

In “Your Sister’s Sister,” the characters talk. And they talk. And then they talk some more. It is the very definition of Mumblecore. However, Mumblecore is a terrible name. The characters aren’t mumbling and bumbling about nothing, they are actually having deeply thought out, entirely realistic conversations.

Duplass, in his second great performance of the summer (the other being “Safety Not Guaranteed,” also set in the Evergreen State), plays lovable jerk Jack. As goes the indie movie formula (in which all characters in any film are in some kind of rut), Jack is in a rut. He’s mentally unstable and not financially secure. Understanding his unease, his platonic best friend, Iris (Emily Blunt), suggests he ride his red bike out to her parents’ isolated vacation house and do some soul searching. But alone time isn’t going to work for him. When he shows up, Iris’s sister, Hannah (Rosemarie DeWitt) is already there. Naturally, Jack is a little too awkward to just ring the doorbell, and naturally Hannah is going to freak out about a random stranger looking at her through the window.

According to common film knowledge, no platonic friendship between a man and a woman can exist without a little sexual tension. But we’ll get to that after Jack and Hannah drown their sorrows in a bottle of tequila. Hannah is a lesbian and just went through a bad breakup, but that doesn’t stop her from sleeping with Jack.

Things get awkward when Iris shows up for a surprise visit.

While watching “Your Sister’s Sister,” I wasn’t always sure if I was actually watching a film; more often, it felt like a play. Other times, it just felt like snippets of real life. Besides the opening and a few scenes in the woods, the whole story essentially takes place in one location. There couldn’t have been a more intimate, and often uncomfortable, way to get to know these characters. In such a short span of time, we learn more than we probably have any right to know. We learn about all of their insecurities, including Iris’s weakness for guys with skinny jeans, as well as her love for Jack. But if you were looking for something worse than that, Hannah is a vegan. As the film will show, anyone who is on a strict diet of dried up bananas needs to eat a dollop of butter every once in a while.

“Your Sister’s Sister” director Lynn Shelton that also scripted the film, though the dialogue was mostly improvised. Shelton’s last film was the Sundance hit “Humpday.” That was another film about a platonic friendship gone too far. Shelton’s films stand out because she takes odd relationships and makes them normal. She lets the characters be honest and be themselves, and she does that by staying as far away from them as possible. “Your Sister’s Sister” is 90 minutes of conversation, and it ends up being profound because it is so realistic. It never sounds like a bunch of actors reading off lines from a script, but rather like friends and family who have known each other far longer than we have known them.

At times, Shelton takes on qualities of Woody Allen. There are many still, long takes, which last minutes at a time. If something is going well, then it will not be disturbed. Part of the watchability is also in part to the chemistry between the actors. Blunt is allowed to shine here and show subtle humor and a kindness in her demeanor even when some of her actions may seem selfish. DeWitt and Duplass (who I sometimes like more as an actor than a director) hit it off instantaneously because they both seem open and willing to do anything in their work. Each character has some sort of secret shared with another character, and all three of them serve as puzzle pieces in a web of unexposed truths. Even with all of the talking, “Your Sister’s Sister” is actually about something.

“Your Sister’s Sister” is a funny film because Lynn Shelton is an effortlessly funny storyteller. However, she is never trying to be. The humor comes out at very small, very brief moments, and it all depends on how you can relate to it. In a scene in which Jack and Iris sleep in the same bed, they find each other waking up to the other’s feet in their face. I personally happen to find this idea very funny, and the fact that they eventually laugh it off and shrug it off is so perfectly in character for the two of them.

I will not give anything away, because I very much hope you go to see this film, but all I will say is that it ends on a note that will intrigue some and anger many others. At first, I felt unsatisfied. But then, I realized it had to end that way. There is no way this story could end with any audience member feeling totally satisfied by knowing everything. In an interview, Duplass, describing his approach to filmmaking, described his love of documentaries and that they often capture the best moments unintentionally and with the worst quality. He says he applies that to narrative films and in a way, Lynn Shelton puts that ideology to good use. In one way, the entire film is saying that there are certain details in life that are better left unknown. Therefore, the viewer too can remain partially in the dark.

Even though the characters talk so much, they come to realize that there is still so much unsaid. As one of the more inventive love triangles I have seen, I could listen to the characters of “Your Sister’s Sister” talk all day.

Don’t trust this poster, which makes it look like a bland Lifetime movie.

Movie Review: The Dark Knight Rises

Leave a reply
Welcome back, Batman.

“The Dark Knight Rises” will elicit hours worth of conversation. However, it won’t be about the political subtext ripped from today’s headlines as you might have expected. It will consist of a lot more pondering about where Christopher Nolan went wrong, and how the finale of a masterful saga could be such a dissapointment.


When Christopher Nolan first brought “Batman Begins” to the world, he was introducing a brand new Batman to a new generation of fans. Then, when “The Dark Knight” came out, he had made something unlike any action movie made before it. In “The Dark Knight Rises,” he tends to rely on all of the uninspired tropes that he was once so good at ignoring. 


The final installment of this Batman trilogy has a muddled plot that shines at certain points. It takes place six years after the death of Harvey “Two-Face” Dent (Aaron Eckhart) and the disappearance of the caped avenger, after Batman takes the fall for Dent’s death. Gotham is now in a time of peace. Deprived of his heroic identity, Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) spends his days living in isolation in Wayne Manor. During this time, Wayne has become crippled as his family empire crumbles. He hosts parties that he doesn’t attend. He grows a beard and never comes out of his room. While people think that he has turned into Howard Hughes, Wayne actually manages to keep most of his sanity intact.

It’s sad to say, but “The Dark Knight Rises” manages to share the same plot as “MacGruber”: a hero is shunned by society, goes into hiding, can’t get over the loss of his one true love, and is eventually called back into action because he is the only one who can defeat the latest threat to the world. Wayne has refused to move on with his life, which sends his loyal butler Alfred (Michael Caine) packing. What Alfred, as well as Christopher and Jonathan Nolan, neglect is the fact that Batman is Bruce Wayne’s true identity, and not the other way around.

With The Joker and Two-Face out of the picture, the latest threat to Gotham is Bane (Tom Hardy), a psychopath in a mask that makes him look like a prawn from “District 9.” Bane, like a demon emerging from hell, was raised underground where he gained unmatchable strength and a dark view on humanity. Now, Bane raises an army of lower class warriors in the sewers of Gotham, as he prepares to wage war on Gotham’s wealthy, and restore power to the people.

Bane is certainly a frightening looking villain. Too bad he couldn’t actually be one of the most frightening. Bane’s voice had to go through some altering in the editing room to make it more audible. However, his new voice sounds less like Darth Vader and more like Gandalf. A man preaching about the destruction of a city should not sound sagely. In addition to that, some damage is done by providing too much of Bane’s backstory. Besides Ledger’s performance, what made The Joker work so well is that so little was revealed about him. There is not enough mystery surrounding Bane. He should have been elusive, not wimpy. Hardy is a very talented actor (see “Lawless” when it opens in August), but this was not necessarily the best showcase for his talent, especially when all of his facial expressions are masked.

“The Dark Knight Rises” makes a fatal mistake by setting the stakes monumentally high. Among the many new things that it introduces is Miranda Tate (Marion Cotillard), the newest member of the board of Wayne Enterprises, who helps build a nuclear reactor below Gotham that will give the city clean energy. However, Bane turns it into a bomb, with the intent of blowing Gotham to smithereens. The class warfare powers the film at the beginning, and brings it eerily close to today’s headlines. However, adding in the total destruction of Gotham makes the conflict too big. Recall the two boats in “The Dark Knight.” Every time I watch it, I become deeply invested in which boat could blow up because it is a smaller conflict, and we get to know everybody involved.

On a more positive note, there are a few new characters who add to the story. One of them is John Blake, a young cop played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. It may be partly because Gordon-Levitt can do no wrong in my book. Also, he is an engaging new perspective on the battle for law and order in Gotham and in the end, one move he pulls off very much evokes Marshall Will Kane of “High Noon.” Also introduced is Selina Kyle, better known as Catwoman (Anne Hathaway). Catwoman is like a Robin Hood for Gotham’s needy. She is a stealthy thief who only meets her match when she first tries to mess with Bruce Wayne. While a failed “Catwoman” movie was made a few years back, Nolan’s Catwoman could merit her own spinoff.

Unfortunately, like many of the great aspects first set up in “The Dark Knight Rises,” it is eventually ruined by the time the film’s nearly three hour run time comes to a close. Her moment of redemption felt contrived and out of place. Catwoman is constantly straddling the line between hero and villain, as she works mainly for herself as opposed to the greater good, so why not just make her a straight up anti-hero?

The contrived fate of Catwoman pretty much sums up most of the other mistakes made by “The Dark Knight Rises.” I do not want to give away too much, so I will just say that there might as well have been Ewoks dancing around.

As everyone expected, “The Dark Knight Rises” is visually striking, even if the action scenes are clunkier than those from its predecessor. It is also the cinematic equivalent of a lingerer: it spends too much time in places where it could have gotten itself out of much quicker. Bruce spends an awful lot of time trying to escape a hole in the ground. Montages were invented for a reason, and could have been put to good use here.

The weaknesses of “The Dark Knight Rises” expose Nolan’s weaknesses as a filmmaker, which were often visible in his other works but always redeemed by his strengths. For example, his characters have a habit of explaining too much when they could just let their actions do all of the talking for them. This was the biggest flaw in “Inception,” yet the striking visuals and action sequences covered up for it. In “The Dark Knight,” it worked because their words were so powerful and were so on point thematically. “The Dark Knight Rises” is at its best when its imagery evokes history. The trials and storming of the houses of Gotham’s rich feels like politics straight out of the Robespierre era. Meanwhile, watching cops trying to dig themselves out of rubble is a heart-wrenching reminder of the events of 9/11. Nolan needs to trust his abilities as a filmmaker, as well as the intelligence of the audience. That way, we will never have to see an exchange like this ever again:

 BANE: So, you came back to die with the rest of your city?
                                   BATMAN: No…I came back to stop you.
The real root of all of the problems of “The Dark Knight Rises” lies in the fact that it is a Batman movie that barely has any of Batman in it. The problem with the final installments of many trilogies is that they must struggle to rap up an entire story in a satisfying way. The ending of “The Dark Knight Rises” might have been satisfying in the past. However, because this trilogy redefined the way we look at superheroes, it just feels like it defeated itself.

Side note on the location of Gotham City: In “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight,” Gotham was modeled almost entirely after Chicago. “The Dark Knight Rises” switches to New York. This makes some sense, as to evoke the tragedies of 9/11, as well as Occupy Wall Street, but it is so obviously a different city to the point of distraction. We know it’s not a made up place if the Brooklyn Bridge, Freedom Tower, and Empire State Building are all visible. Also, the Los Angeles skyline graces the backdrop of another shot. These are three very different cities.

How I Rank Christopher Nolan’s Films (excluding “Following” and “Insomnia,” which I have yet to see):
1. The Prestige
2. The Dark Knight
3. Memento
4. Inception
5. Batman Begins
6. The Dark Knight Rises