First Circle: 2010 documentary about the American foster
care system directed by Heather Rae. It
centers mostly on children being removed from homes with meth labs in Idaho. It was
interesting, but perhaps too narrow in focus.
There was a lot I didn’t know about the foster care system – babysitters
and sleepover require background checks, and even haircuts have to be approved –
but it felt like just dipping a toe in.
I wish there had been more, but it was decent.
The World’s End: 2013 sci fi comedy directed by Edgar Wright
and starring Nick Frost, Simon Pegg, Martin Freeman, Paddy Considine, Eddie
Marsan, Rosamund Pike, and Pierce Brosnan.
As teenagers, Gary King and his chums attempted and failed at an epic
12-stop pub crawl known as the Golden Mile.
Now in his late 30s, Gary hasn’t really moved on – I mean, he’s still
wearing his Sisters of Mercy T-shirt – while the other boys have grown into
responsible, relatively sober adults. He
convinces/guilts the old gang into taking another shot at the Golden Mile, but
when they arrive back in their hometown it seems a lot has
changed. The townsfolk seem strangely .
. . robotic? Soon their pub crawl turns
into a night of reopening emotional wounds, revisiting past crushes, and, you
know, fighting for survival.
It was
really good, but my least favorite of the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy (the
other two being Shaun of the Dead and
Hot Fuzz). The acting is brilliant – Frost and Pegg
continue to impress me. And Eddie Marsan
is just fantastic; he’s been given smallish roles in blockbuster movies like
the Sherlock Holmes redux with RDJ, but he shines brightest in smaller films like this. The
scene where he’s confronted by his former bully was an emotional sucker punch
and it just made me so happy to see him with enough of a role to stretch his
legs. Anyway definitely see it, but be
prepared for it to fizzle out at the end.
The Grey: 2011 thriller directed by Joe Carnahan and
starring Liam Neeson, Frank Grillo, and Dermot Mulroney. John is a solitary, melancholy hunter at an arctic oil drilling site, literally keeping the wolves at bay
while working side by side with guys he describes as “men unfit for mankind” –
fugitives, roughnecks, drifters, and the like.
During a flight back home the company plane
crashes, and he has to get his fellow survivors organized if they're going to make it back to civilization and fend off the wolf pack that's closing in on them.
It wasn’t what I had expected. At all.
There’s a lot of waxing philosophical about death, religion, and family. It was better than I thought it would be, but
not amazing and fairly predictable.
Maybe give it a shot if you’re looking for an action movie filled with
bearded men scrapping in the hinterlands and talking about atheism.
The Last Days of
Disco: 1998 dark ensemble comedy
directed by Whit Stillman and starring Kate Beckinsale, Chloe Sevigny, Chris
Eigeman, Mackenzie Astin, Matt Keeslar, Jennifer Beals, and Robert Sean
Leonard. Alice and Charlotte are
twenty-something’s in early 1980s New York, working at a publishing house
together, living in an apartment together, going to awful clubs together, and
secretly competing with each other while surrounded by Wall Street assholes and
Studio 54 assholes and whatever.
I kind of hated it. Charlotte (Beckinsale) is an insufferable
human being, and Alice (Sevigny) has no personality and no spine. Was I supposed to empathize with these
people? I only kept watching because I
hoped something awful would happen to them. But instead I had to sit through a series of endless speeches delivered flatly by shitty characters. Eigeman as the
lady-killing scoundrel Des is the only redeeming part of this movie, and only
because he provided occasional comic relief.
It was depressing and pointless and you shouldn’t bother.
 |
| I can't even look at you in that dress. |
Tonight You’re Mine
(a.k.a. You Instead): 2011
romantic comedy directed by David MacKenzie and starring Luke Treadaway,
Natalia Tena, Mathew Baynton, and Gavin Mitchell. Adam and Morello are lead singers
in two bands performing at T in the Park, a Scottish music festival. When their initial meeting immediately turns into a tiff, a passing preacher decides it would
be cute to handcuff them to each other.
Now they have to get their bickering in check long enough to find
someone who can remove the handcuffs, all while dealing with their significant
others, performing, and handling
band conflict and drunk managers. Will they
learn to cooperate?
Despite
my aversion to music festivals (too hot, too loud, too many people) and the
fact that it’s REALLY predictable, I still liked it quite a bit. Tena, who you may recognize from her role as
Nymphadora Tonks in the Harry Potter movie series, is always a delight. And the skinny indie electropop front man
character suits Treadaway nicely. Give
it a try.
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