Furious 7
Holy hell. Where to begin? The latest installment in the greatest action movie franchise of the century was preempted by the tragedy of Paul Walker's untimely death as producers scrambled in order to figure out a way to make the movie work. The result was a weird balance of callous efficiency (extensive use of CGI and body doubles to continue filming scenes with the Brian O'Conner character in a post-Walker world) and heartfelt tribute (ending the movie on a touching dedication to Walker that all but broke the fourth wall and let the film itself acknowledge the reality of the loss). A cynical person would say that the movie cashed in on a tragedy, but really, what were they supposed to do? Ignore it entirely? Elsewhere in this one we had a standard contemporary action movie with big fights, fast cars, and ridiculous gimmicks and stunts. Several cars parachute out of a cargo plane, another car is drive out of the hundredth floor of one skyscraper and into the ninetieth floor of a second skyscraper, and two more cars are driven directly into one another - twice - as their drivers play the ballsiest game of chicken ever seen. The Rock flexes out of a cast. Vin Diesel collapses a parking garage by stomping on its upper deck. Jason Statham murders something like fifty people in order to break into a hospital. You know how it goes.
They Came Together
Here's a trope-laden romantic comedy spoof made by a bunch of funny people. It was easily worth the hour and a half I spent watching it, but it's such a simple satire that takes aim at such low-hanging fruit that it's hard to give They Came Together more than the slightest nod of approval. The whole thing feels like it was thrown together in a month or so. Don't get me wrong - it works - but it's difficult to rave about a movie like this one. All the same, I enjoyed it plenty, and it's worth checking out if you're looking for a quick and mindless comedy.
Annie Hall
Molestation controversy aside, I've just never been able to get into a Woody Allen movie.
Noah
Here's an interesting one where Darren Aronofsky tackles the biblical story of Noah and his ark. It felt like two separate movies entirely. The first half focused on Noah' attempts to keep his family safe from what appeared to be literally every other person on the planet. Noah was aided by giant stone golems who seemed like a cross between Autobots and Ents. He begins to build his ark and gather animals, and then the rains come, and everyone else is dead and gone. There was some typical Aronofsky weirdness here, mostly in the form of the giant stone golem Autobot Ents, but it wasn't a very exciting or thrilling movie. All of that changed in the second half, when Noah, convinced that God wants to see the human race wiped out, decides that none of his sons may ever father any children. Except, wouldn't you know it, Noah's daughter-in-law is already pregnant, with twins, right there on the ark. What follows is an intense family drama where Noah vows that if the children are girls, he's going to have to kill them. No one else on the ark is really on board with this idea, and yet they're all trapped there in the same ark, plotting and scheming and trying to figure out which of their family members it's best to try to kill. This was easily the better part of the movie, not just because it added depth and insanity to the characterization of Noah, but also because it left me legitimately wondering how the whole movie would end. I mean, would you put it past Aronofsky to completely rewrite the ending to the legendary story in favor of a darker, stranger, and generally different conclusion? All in all, this was a long and messy and not-so-great movie, but that final act pulled the whole ordeal upward and out of "total bust" territory.
Blackfish
Yikes. This was legitimately disturbing. Going in, I knew I was about to see a documentary about how fucked up SeaWorld is in all the inhumane things they do to their captive orcas. I was not prepared to see footage of orcas attacking trainers, or to see interviews with the family members of trainers who had been killed by captive whales. To even describe what's contained in Blackfish beyond that is to begin to "spoil" the experience of watching it, so I'll stop here. But, holy shit. Harrowing!
Don Jon
I'm still not sure what to make of this one. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a Jersey Shore stereotype who leads a very fulfilling life - with a catch! He's hopelessly addicted to Internet porn. Then Scarlett Johansson enters his life, infatuating him immediately. They begin to date exclusively - with a catch! She says he's not allowed to look at any Internet porn. What follows is a very R-rated romantic comedy of sorts. I'm just not sure it ever gets anywhere. JGL and Johansson are fantastic at playing over-the-top Jersey stereotypes, and you can tell they're having all kinds of fun. But the movie never really seems to come down one way or the other on whether or not it's okay for a guy in a relationship to watch porn. The movie never really explores what it would do to a man to masturbate several dozen times per week, and how that would affect his relationship. There's a rom-com lampshading effect in play, where Scarlett Johansson's character is hooked on romantic comedies while JGL dismisses them as bullshit fantasies, but the film never actually draws a direct line between what romantic comedies do for some women and what hardcore porn does for some men. This wasn't a bad movie, but I didn't walk away from it thinking it had explored its own material nearly as much as it could have.
Harmontown
After he was fired from running his own show, Community, in 2012, Dan Harmon began doing a regular podcast (called "Harmontown") which he likened to live therapy sessions. Harmontown, the movie, is a documentary about Harmon taking to the road for live recordings of his podcast. The result is something I can't imagine has much broad appeal, if any, but it's always nice to get a closer look at the minds behind your favorite TV shows, and that's exactly what this is. Limited appeal, but right in my wheelhouse. Check it out if Harmon's sense of humor is one that you enjoy.
Tiny Furniture
A lot of people can't stand Girls because they can't stand Lena Dunham. What I think they usually mean is that they can't stand the character she portrays, Hannah, a self-centered and sometimes malevolent person. I'm a fan of the show - or at least someone who's been watching from the start and hasn't bailed yet - but even I can't always tell how much Hannah is meant to be an extension of Lena Dunham and how much she's supposed to be more of a broad New York millennial stereotype. At any rate, I was pleasantly surprised by Tiny Furniture, the indie movie Dunham made that got HBO's attention in the first place. The general narrative is the same; a college graduate struggles to find a direction in life now that it's time to join the workforce. But at least for me, Dunham's character in this one - Aura - felt a lot tamer and more relatable. She's 22 and a lot more timid and quiet about her whole ordeal. Rather than living in New York while being supported by her parents from afar, like Hannah in Girls, she moves back in with her mother and sister (played by Dunham's real life mother and sister) and resumes hanging out with her best friend from childhood (Jemima Kirke, also in Girls). Aura is a far more tolerable character than Hannah, if anyone out there wants to give Lena Dunham another shot despite not liking her in Girls. (I'm not sure there's any intersection on that particular Venn diagram, but, hey.)
So long, until we meet again!
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