Friday, August 30, 2013

What I've seen lately...






































You're Next
It's a fun slasher/home invasion movie. You grow a love/hate relationship with the family that is being terrorized that you start to wonder who you're rooting for, but that's part of the fun. Bonus: there's finally a badass female character. Downside: she's has a back story for her badassery, instead of just being a good ol' badass.

Jobs
I tried not to see Ashton Kutcher while he portrayed Steve Jobs, I really did. You could tell he put effort into learning Jobs's idiosyncrasies and speech, but it just wasn't enough. I left wondering whether or not I was supposed to like Jobs or not. They didn't sugarcoat his demanding personality, but even in his selfish moments they seemed to portray him as a victim. Seems it couldn't find a balance between an emotional drama and factual biopic.

Lovelace
The moment it ended I thought, "you can tell dudes made this movie." Of course a lot of the film concentrates on her time in the porn industry, which was very brief in reality, and shortly touched on her life after porn.  When she does leave her abusive husband, she isn't shown as a strong woman who saved herself; no, no, it is the men that come to save her *massive eye roll*

Elysium [contains spoilers]
The story and writing was predictable and not the best. As much as I love Jodie Foster, her character was simply a plot device that I'm sure the writer had no idea what to do with her but kill her off once she had done her duties in the film. Nonetheless, it was entertaining and solid. The standout to me was Wagner Moura who plays the role of Spider. I'm excited to check out more from him.

In a World...
With a cast that includes the writer/director herself, Lake Bell, along with Nick Offerman, Michaela Watkins, Rob Corddry, Ken Marino, Tig Notaro, Demetri Martin, and more, I was expecting it to be a lot funnier. Don't get me wrong, it had some good chuckles in there but with so many "dry" comedians, I had high expectations. Not sure if it's a direction or editing thing, but some scenes were cut short, including one of the few "romantic" scenes (the karaoke bar if you see it), that I felt short changed. Maybe in the DVD extras we'll get the extended version of that scene and maybe some cut improv between the great cast.

I'm So Excited [contains spoilers]
I've only seen a handful of Pedro Almodovar's movies, and of course the movies in that handful are of the American critically acclaimed variety. I've read I'm So Excited is similar to his older, campier movies, but this was just not that fun for me, including a scene that had the theater I was in laughing their heads off when the character was clearly raping another passenger. But hey, I guess she was a virgin who wanted to get laid, so it's ok???

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