Moar reviews!
May. 8th, 2011 03:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
next_to_normalMovies, this time.
I'm with Lucy
Monica Potter stars as Lucy, recently dumped in a crowded elevator and looking to get back in the dating game. The movie follows her on five blind dates over the course of a year, with the foreshadowing that she'll end up marrying one of the guys. Most of them start out disastrously (it'll definitely hit your embarrassment squick if you have one), but they all turn out to have their pros and cons, and more than one leads to a relationship. It's told in a non-linear fashion, cutting back and forth to the different dates, to keep you guessing as to which one she'll end up with. (Granted, it's kind of obvious pretty quickly who it is, but I do appreciate that the movie makes an effort to portray all the guys as legitimate possibilities, despite some ignominious beginnings.)
It's a fun, fluffy little rom-com, and I could sympathize with Lucy, having been on many first dates recently, not all of them enjoyable. I only really know Monica Potter from Parenthood, and her character is not always the most sympathetic there, but she's got a kind of cute Julia Roberts thing going on in this movie that suits the romantic comedy plot. As for Lucy's many suitors, David Boreanaz has unfortunate orange hair, but John Hannah and Henry Thomas are both pretty adorable.
Catfish
This one's a documentary following the relationship between Nev, a New York photographer, and Abby, the 8-year-old artist who does paintings inspired by his photographs. Through Facebook, Nev begins a correspondence with Abby's whole family - in particular, Abby's older sister Megan, on whom Nev develops a serious crush - but he soon begins to suspect that something isn't quite right when certain details don't add up and the family becomes somewhat evasive. He sets off on a trip to Michigan to finally meet them and find out the truth.
I think this was marketed more as a thriller or something, like you're supposed to think Nev is in some kind of danger in trying to find out who he's really been talking to all this time. But it's actually more of a mystery unraveling that, in the end, is really sad. The story will probably resonate with anyone who's encountered sockpuppet identities around the interwebs or who's used an online persona to escape from the frustrations and disappointments and banalities of real life. It's also a fascinating exploration of the connection that can develop between people online, even when they're not completely honest with each other.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
Hilarious, mind-bending fun, starring Tim Roth and Gary Oldman as the peripheral Hamlet characters who are thrust into the spotlight here and must muddle their way through Shakespeare's tragedy while not having the slightest idea what's going on. As Hamlet's supposedly dearest friends, they've been summoned to Elsinore to determine the cause of his malaise - only they have no memory of Hamlet or of anything else, and can barely keep straight which of them is Rosencrantz and which is Guildenstern. The pacing is somewhat inconsistent, and some scenes really drag, but the Abbott and Costello-esque banter and existential debates between the two title characters are clever and well-suited to Shakespeare's fondness for wordplay. Some knowledge of Hamlet and comfort with rapid-fire Elizabethan dialogue required.
See You in September
A group of neurotic New Yorkers form a support group when their therapists all go on vacation for the month of August. In what is perhaps meant as a metaphor, the group spends their first session literally unable to escape their problems after being duct-taped to the furniture by armed robbers. They actually seem to make some progress during the forced interaction, and decide to continue the group therapy with alternately hilarious and bizarre results. The group deals mainly with relationship issues, which stirs up gender-based conflict - the men, for example, agree that sex is a means to decide whether it's worth pursuing a relationship with a woman, which the women understandably object to - which ultimately results in a bet that couples up Lindsay and A.J., described by one of the other group members as "Fear of Commitment meets Fear of Abandonment." Although it's a pretty cliched rom-com set-up, anyone who's been in therapy will probably find something to identify with during the group therapy sessions. Overall, it's pretty silly, but good for a laugh if you're bored.
I'm with Lucy
Monica Potter stars as Lucy, recently dumped in a crowded elevator and looking to get back in the dating game. The movie follows her on five blind dates over the course of a year, with the foreshadowing that she'll end up marrying one of the guys. Most of them start out disastrously (it'll definitely hit your embarrassment squick if you have one), but they all turn out to have their pros and cons, and more than one leads to a relationship. It's told in a non-linear fashion, cutting back and forth to the different dates, to keep you guessing as to which one she'll end up with. (Granted, it's kind of obvious pretty quickly who it is, but I do appreciate that the movie makes an effort to portray all the guys as legitimate possibilities, despite some ignominious beginnings.)
It's a fun, fluffy little rom-com, and I could sympathize with Lucy, having been on many first dates recently, not all of them enjoyable. I only really know Monica Potter from Parenthood, and her character is not always the most sympathetic there, but she's got a kind of cute Julia Roberts thing going on in this movie that suits the romantic comedy plot. As for Lucy's many suitors, David Boreanaz has unfortunate orange hair, but John Hannah and Henry Thomas are both pretty adorable.
Catfish
This one's a documentary following the relationship between Nev, a New York photographer, and Abby, the 8-year-old artist who does paintings inspired by his photographs. Through Facebook, Nev begins a correspondence with Abby's whole family - in particular, Abby's older sister Megan, on whom Nev develops a serious crush - but he soon begins to suspect that something isn't quite right when certain details don't add up and the family becomes somewhat evasive. He sets off on a trip to Michigan to finally meet them and find out the truth.
I think this was marketed more as a thriller or something, like you're supposed to think Nev is in some kind of danger in trying to find out who he's really been talking to all this time. But it's actually more of a mystery unraveling that, in the end, is really sad. The story will probably resonate with anyone who's encountered sockpuppet identities around the interwebs or who's used an online persona to escape from the frustrations and disappointments and banalities of real life. It's also a fascinating exploration of the connection that can develop between people online, even when they're not completely honest with each other.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
Hilarious, mind-bending fun, starring Tim Roth and Gary Oldman as the peripheral Hamlet characters who are thrust into the spotlight here and must muddle their way through Shakespeare's tragedy while not having the slightest idea what's going on. As Hamlet's supposedly dearest friends, they've been summoned to Elsinore to determine the cause of his malaise - only they have no memory of Hamlet or of anything else, and can barely keep straight which of them is Rosencrantz and which is Guildenstern. The pacing is somewhat inconsistent, and some scenes really drag, but the Abbott and Costello-esque banter and existential debates between the two title characters are clever and well-suited to Shakespeare's fondness for wordplay. Some knowledge of Hamlet and comfort with rapid-fire Elizabethan dialogue required.
See You in September
A group of neurotic New Yorkers form a support group when their therapists all go on vacation for the month of August. In what is perhaps meant as a metaphor, the group spends their first session literally unable to escape their problems after being duct-taped to the furniture by armed robbers. They actually seem to make some progress during the forced interaction, and decide to continue the group therapy with alternately hilarious and bizarre results. The group deals mainly with relationship issues, which stirs up gender-based conflict - the men, for example, agree that sex is a means to decide whether it's worth pursuing a relationship with a woman, which the women understandably object to - which ultimately results in a bet that couples up Lindsay and A.J., described by one of the other group members as "Fear of Commitment meets Fear of Abandonment." Although it's a pretty cliched rom-com set-up, anyone who's been in therapy will probably find something to identify with during the group therapy sessions. Overall, it's pretty silly, but good for a laugh if you're bored.
no subject
Date: May. 9th, 2011 01:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: May. 11th, 2011 05:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: May. 9th, 2011 05:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: May. 11th, 2011 05:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: May. 9th, 2011 04:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: May. 11th, 2011 05:03 pm (UTC)