Movie theatre air conditioning saved my weekend
I tried to slow it down to save up for the upcoming long weekend, but this weekend's heat wave turned my apartment into a sauna in the afternoon, so...movies, it was. Actually, the first one of these was last weekend.
#64 - This Is The End - While attending a party at James Franco's house, Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel and many other celebrities are faced with the apocalypse. [imdb]
So this one was totally silly, and once you buy into the conceit, pretty funny. More gigglesnort funny than laughing out loud, for me, but it was consistently entertaining all the way through. It's a true disaster movie, just one where we follow the group that chose to hide away rather than the ones out there doing things. This group happens to respond in a particularly hysterical fashion, for both definitions of the word. The caricatures of themselves part worked pretty well and grew nicely into their ultimate roles, with Danny McBride as a very effective villain, although I think Craig Robinson was my favorite overall. And they actually built a nice, coherent and internally consistent story around it all.
You should see this movie if you haven't yet, but you should avoid reading about it much more, because you might get spoiled for cameos that are better left hidden. Happened to me, alas.
You should also know that there was way more body fluid humor than I was anticipating (and I really should've anticipated it) but even some of that was funny, in particular the extended exchange were you could totally see Seth Rogen snickering from the back. My very squeamish friend enjoyed it immensely.
#65 - Monsters University - A look at the relationship between Mike and Sulley during their days at Monsters University -- when they weren't necessarily the best of friends. [imdb]
Well, this was just totally adorable. The translation of the college experience into the Monsters world worked exceedingly well, bringing in everyone's favorite movie cliches but also a lot of reality that the rest of us will appreciate. The majority of my sold-out audience was too young to have a university education, but they didn't seem to mind all the stuff that was included for the rest of us. Once again, Pixar finds the right balance to make a movie for everyone.
Moreover, the story of Mike and Sulley's beginning, but especially of young Mike Wazowski, was compelling and relatable. Mike's really the main character this time around, and I'm glad they went with that instead of Sulley. One could speculate about the likelihood of common experience between the creators and the little undermonster, and for that matter, most of us. So yeah, that worked well.
Plotwise, things go mostly as you expect them to with some extra dramatic twists. It's not a problem because in some ways, that's what we want to see in a freshman year movie. They cut a clear but not entirely as expected path to becoming the monsters we know from the first film.
Except for a truly scary female dean, it was pretty much all dude=monsters. They made sure that the groups in the competition were evenly split between frats and sororities, but I remained unimpressed with the lack of effort to diversify. It's just sad at this point.
Oh yeah, and even though the theatre was sold-out and I was only about five minutes early, I snagged a prime center seat because I was a singleton. Lone wolf movies FTW.
#66 - The Bling Ring - Inspired by actual events, a group of fame-obsessed teenagers use the internet to track celebrities' whereabouts in order to rob their homes. [imdb]
My hopes for this movie had been tempered by the mediocre reviews, and that's about accurate from me, too. This movie wanted to be much better than it turned out. I think a stronger cast could've helped, a lot, but nobody was really up to it except for Leslie Mann, and her role as the indulgent, oblivious mother of Emma Watson's character was in no place to carry the film.
It wasn't bad, it just didn't go very high or far in the storytelling. The kids were introduced as failed teenagers and they left pretty much the same way -- which is accurate to the story, sure, but we really didn't get much more from it than the headlines and a lifestyle showcase, so nothing that isn't already on TV.
Anyway, it's serviceable enough, but it's skippable.
If you just want to know the Y/N: Y to the first two, N to the third.
#64 - This Is The End - While attending a party at James Franco's house, Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel and many other celebrities are faced with the apocalypse. [imdb]
So this one was totally silly, and once you buy into the conceit, pretty funny. More gigglesnort funny than laughing out loud, for me, but it was consistently entertaining all the way through. It's a true disaster movie, just one where we follow the group that chose to hide away rather than the ones out there doing things. This group happens to respond in a particularly hysterical fashion, for both definitions of the word. The caricatures of themselves part worked pretty well and grew nicely into their ultimate roles, with Danny McBride as a very effective villain, although I think Craig Robinson was my favorite overall. And they actually built a nice, coherent and internally consistent story around it all.
You should see this movie if you haven't yet, but you should avoid reading about it much more, because you might get spoiled for cameos that are better left hidden. Happened to me, alas.
You should also know that there was way more body fluid humor than I was anticipating (and I really should've anticipated it) but even some of that was funny, in particular the extended exchange were you could totally see Seth Rogen snickering from the back. My very squeamish friend enjoyed it immensely.
#65 - Monsters University - A look at the relationship between Mike and Sulley during their days at Monsters University -- when they weren't necessarily the best of friends. [imdb]
Well, this was just totally adorable. The translation of the college experience into the Monsters world worked exceedingly well, bringing in everyone's favorite movie cliches but also a lot of reality that the rest of us will appreciate. The majority of my sold-out audience was too young to have a university education, but they didn't seem to mind all the stuff that was included for the rest of us. Once again, Pixar finds the right balance to make a movie for everyone.
Moreover, the story of Mike and Sulley's beginning, but especially of young Mike Wazowski, was compelling and relatable. Mike's really the main character this time around, and I'm glad they went with that instead of Sulley. One could speculate about the likelihood of common experience between the creators and the little undermonster, and for that matter, most of us. So yeah, that worked well.
Plotwise, things go mostly as you expect them to with some extra dramatic twists. It's not a problem because in some ways, that's what we want to see in a freshman year movie. They cut a clear but not entirely as expected path to becoming the monsters we know from the first film.
Except for a truly scary female dean, it was pretty much all dude=monsters. They made sure that the groups in the competition were evenly split between frats and sororities, but I remained unimpressed with the lack of effort to diversify. It's just sad at this point.
Oh yeah, and even though the theatre was sold-out and I was only about five minutes early, I snagged a prime center seat because I was a singleton. Lone wolf movies FTW.
#66 - The Bling Ring - Inspired by actual events, a group of fame-obsessed teenagers use the internet to track celebrities' whereabouts in order to rob their homes. [imdb]
My hopes for this movie had been tempered by the mediocre reviews, and that's about accurate from me, too. This movie wanted to be much better than it turned out. I think a stronger cast could've helped, a lot, but nobody was really up to it except for Leslie Mann, and her role as the indulgent, oblivious mother of Emma Watson's character was in no place to carry the film.
It wasn't bad, it just didn't go very high or far in the storytelling. The kids were introduced as failed teenagers and they left pretty much the same way -- which is accurate to the story, sure, but we really didn't get much more from it than the headlines and a lifestyle showcase, so nothing that isn't already on TV.
Anyway, it's serviceable enough, but it's skippable.
If you just want to know the Y/N: Y to the first two, N to the third.