Just Like Heaven (2005)

  Hey, look at that!  It's one of the three romantic comedies I own!  I can't even really take credit since I didn't buy this.  It was part of the group I got from the Bowen's.

Recently widowed David (Mark Ruffalo) moves into an apartment in San Francisco but finds that the previous tenant (Reece Witherspoon) just won't leave.  The catch is that David is the only one who can see her.  She doesn't remember what happened to her or even what her name is but is adamant that she is not dead.  In order to get any peace, David has to find out what happened to her.

See, that makes it sound like it's not all squishy and whatnot.

I normally hate anything that remotely resembles a rom-com but this managed to sneak by my defenses, mainly because of the ghost story element.  Witherspoon can be really charming when she's not being a grating shrew while Ruffalo nails just being a regular guy.  Supporting turns from Donal Logue and Dina Waters don't hurt.

Shanghai Knights (2003)

  This has not aged well.  The novelty of putting Jackie Chan with random American co-stars was already waning with this sequel.

Chon Wang (Jackie Chan) has settled into Carson City, Nevada and is prospering as the town sheriff when he receives word that his father (Kim Chan) has been murdered and the Emperor of China's seal has been stolen.  His sister, Lin (Fann Wong), has tracked the killer to London.  Chon knows he will need help so he convinces his old pal Roy O'Bannon (Owen Wilson) to go to England with him.  The pair run into a snag when they discover that the assassin (Aiden Gillen) is a member of British royalty who has teamed up with the Emperor's bastard brother (Donnie Yen) to clear the way to their respective thrones.

Owen Wilson has never been more annoying than he is here.  His wheedling tone and lack of any redeemable qualities grated on my nerves starting around the ten-minute mark.  The only thing this movie is good for is giving us Aaron Johnson, a villainous turn by Donnie Yen, and an emo Littlefinger.  Still doesn't make it worth owning.

Jurassic World (2015)

I re-watched this to see if it really was as good as I remembered or if I was just ecstatic from a good theater experience.  It was the movie.  It is absolutely worth owning if you somehow missed it in theaters.  Maybe you were on the fence about it and the glowing reviews from everyone, everywhere didn't somehow make your mind up for you.  Go.  Buy this movie.  Marvel at how Chris Pratt tames dinosaurs.  Wonder if there's anything Chris Pratt can't do.  Secretly move Chris Pratt higher up your mental list of "Celebrities I'd Sleep With Given a Chance".  Original review posted 21 Jun 2015.    I was on the fence about this, as you'll remember from my review of the original Jurassic Park, but I was swayed by nostalgia and some really positive reviews.  I am so glad I went to see this.

Despite the tragic failure of the original park, a dinosaur zoo was just too good of an idea to waste.  Billionaire Simon Masrani (Irrfan Khan) has taken the reins from John Hammond (Sir Not-appearing-in-this-film) but leaves most of the day-to-day running in the hands of his right-hand-woman, Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard).  She is a no-nonsense businesswoman with an eye on the bottom line at all times, leaving her no real room to babysit her two nephews, Zach (Nick Robinson) and Gray (Ty Simpkins), who are visiting the resounding success that is Jurassic World.  But theme parks have to be constantly improving, which means bigger, meaner, more crowd-pleasing dinosaurs. Animal trainer Owen (Chris Pratt) is asked to inspect the paddock of their newest creation, the Indominus Rex, after he has done such a good job with the velociraptors, but Indominus proves to be more than just the sum of her parts.  And then, folks, we are back to the carnage.

This movie was so. much. fun.  Christy and I went for her birthday and just had a blast watching it.  It is truly a worthy sequel to the original.

Seven Psychopaths (2012)

  I have decided that I just don't like Martin McDonagh's movies.  Granted, this is only the second one I've seen but I hated both of them.  Seven Psychopaths is slightly funnier than In Bruges but that's like saying gonorrhea is less deadly than syphilis.  They're both horrible.

Marty (Colin Farrell) is a writer struggling to come up with a plot for his new screenplay when he gets involved in his buddy Billy's (Sam Rockwell) scheme of kidnapping dogs for reward money.  Billy took a Shih Tzu belonging to gangster Charlie (Woody Harrelson) and Charlie wants his dog back by any means.

Sam Rockwell is the best part of this film by a long margin.  Again, that's not saying much and it's certainly not a reason to actually watch it but he is.  The movie strives to be as meta as possible, even going so far as to have Christopher Walken's character say something about how all the female parts are terrible.  And they are.  Which means one of two scenarios occurred while writing:

1)  Martin McDonagh intentionally wrote horrible parts for all female characters in this movie just so he could make that joke or

2) Someone gave him that feedback during a draft review and he thought "ha, that's funny" and wrote it in.

Either way, it's a dick move considering he hired actresses like Abbie Cornish, Olga Kurylenko, and Gadbourey Sidibe and then gave them almost nothing to do.

Don't give your home theater The Clap.  Don't watch Seven Psychopaths.

The Leopard (1963)

  Italian cinema is a difficult thing for me.  On the one hand, it's almost sublimely beautiful with an incredible focus on fashion and cinematography.  On the other, the themes and motifs are incomprehensibly dull, usually treatises on fleeting youth or glory, that I find interminable.

The Prince of Salina (Burt Lancaster) is a bastion of the Old Guard of Italian nobility facing the modern age of 1860's Sicily.  The Prince just wants everything to stay as it has always been but knows that the future will be in the hands of men like his nephew, Tancredi (Alain Delon).

I don't really know a lot about the history of that time in that particular region so a lot of the subtleties were lost on me.  It was also very weird to see Burt Lancaster dubbed over in Italian and sharing the billing with Delon, who is French.  It was such a pretty movie.  I wish I could say I enjoyed it more.

The Jungle Book (1967)

  I haven't seen the new live-action remake.  I'm intrigued by the idea but I just don't see how it's possible to capture the spirit and liveliness of the original.

Mowgli (Bruce Reitherman) has been raised in the jungle by a wolf pack from the time he was an infant.  When the decision is made to reintroduce him to humans, Mowgli is not in favor.  Bagheera the panther (Sebastian Cabot) tries to reason with him, but Mowgli much prefers to hang out with Baloo the bear (Phil Harris).  Bagheera is just trying to keep Mowgli from coming to the notice of Shere Khan the tiger (George Sanders), who hates men and would cheerfully eat the boy.

This is a classic for a reason.  There's an undefinable quality to it that just endures through the decades.  You shouldn't need to be urged to see it; you should already own it.

Star Trek Beyond (2016)

  I was on the fence about seeing this installment after the clusterfuck that was Into Darkness but my optimism eventually won out.  I'm glad it did, too, because this was a much better movie than its predecessor.

When a lone survivor (Lydia Wilson) crashes into the Federation center with a story about how her entire crew is stranded on the other side of a dangerous nebula, the Enterprise mobilizes into action.  They discover too late that a new enemy waits on the other side of the nebula and the crew is separated on the surface of an uncharted planet.  Krall (Idris Elba) has lured them there to recover an artifact on board and takes the majority of the crew hostage to force Kirk (Chris Pine) to give it up.  But James T. Kirk is not the kind of man to back down from a fight and with a little help from another stranded alien, Jaylah (Sofia Boutella), he and Scotty (Simon Pegg), Chekov (Anton Yelchin), Bones (Karl Urban), and Spock (Zachary Quinto) decide to take Krall head-on.

This really benefitted from having Justin Lin in the director's chair instead of J.J. Abrams.  Lin understands kinetic style, thanks to his work on the Fast and Furious series and the space battles really bear witness to it.  I also liked the forced one-on-one among the crew.  It kept the story moving and still allowed for character development.  I was less thrilled with the close-in camera work on the hand-to-hand fight scenes.  If you're a regular reader, you know that is one of my pet peeves.

The humor is nicely spaced throughout, thanks to Simon Pegg who co-wrote the film, no doubt and there is a really lovely little tribute to Leonard Nimoy.  It was bittersweet to see Anton Yelchin in what is most likely his last completed role.  I would have liked for him to have more screen time in light of that but of course they couldn't have known while filming.  The buzz from ComiCon is that they will not try to recast the role for the 4th film, out of respect, and will simply retire Chekov from the crew.  That's a ways off, however, so I hope they stick by it.

The Seeker: The Dark is Rising (2007)

  This was not a good movie.  I think it was one of those YA adaptations that was supposed to be a series but never got off the ground.

Will Stanton (Alexander Ludwig) learns on his 14th birthday that he is actually part of a secret cabal of warriors fighting against the Dark.  Will is a Seeker, someone with the power to shift through time to locate six signs that will defeat the Dark representative, the Rider (Christopher Eccleston), for a thousand years or so.  But suddenly developing superpowers is a lot to take in when you're barely a teenager and Will struggles with his changing identity.

I can only assume the books are much better or no one would have let them get to be a series, either.  The plot of the movie is incredibly simplistic and a little boring.  Will manages to locate the signs with little to no actual opposition and the Rider does more posturing on horseback than anything menacing.  The whole thing felt very rushed and strangely without consequence.  It lacked anything remotely resembling creativity and everyone is better off now that it's been consigned to the scrapheap of history.

War Horse (2011)

  You know what's harder to watch than a war movie?  A war movie with animals.  I swear, the Oscars try their best every year to kill me by nominating shit like this.

Albert (Jeremy Irvine) and his horse, Joey, have a special bond, so much so that when Joey is sold to the British army on the start of WWI Albert enlists just in the hope of finding him again.  Joey is originally under the care of Captain Nicholls (Tom Hiddleston) but his wartime experience soon devolves from there.

I had to keep pausing the movie and walking away because I refused to be emotionally eviscerated.  No, Mr. Spielberg, not today.  It didn't work but I think I deserve points for trying.

Look, if my PTSD-having ass tells you that this is hard to get through, you should believe it.  I don't even like horses.  It is kind of refreshing to see a movie about WWI, instead of WWII but all war movies fuck me up.  This is absolutely a one-and-done kind of film.  It's beautifully shot, the score is lovely, and there are a score of really talented actors in it.  If you are one of those people that needs a good cathartic cry every once in a while, go ahead and throw this on.  I will be shocked if you need to see it twice.  God knows I don't.

The Secret of NIMH (1982)

  I cannot tell you how many times I watched this as a kid.  When I was old enough, I remember tracking down the books through the school library and being very disappointed because they were not nearly as mystical as the movie.

Mrs. Brisby (Elizabeth Hartman) is a widowed field mouse living with her four children in a cinder block in Farmer Fitzgibbons' field.  She knows they have to move before plowing time but her youngest son has pneumonia and will likely die if exposed to the elements.  In desperation, she turns to the rats of NIMH, a group of hyper-intelligent escaped medical experiments, for help and runs smack dab into the middle of a coup as Jenner (Paul Shenar) plots against the rats' leader, Nicodemus (Derek Jacobi).

The animation is not as crisp or clean as modern movies but this film holds up very well despite that. You are most likely in the age group to feel nostalgic about this, rather than coming to it for the first time but there are always holdouts.  If you had not seen this, you missed out on something vital as a child.  I don't know if you could capture that feeling again as an adult but it's not too late to show it to the newest generation.  The world could always use more people raised on The Secret of NIMH.

Dazed and Confused (1993)

  When I saw Boyhood, I was underwhelmed to say the least.  I could not understand why people were going on and on about this stupid movie.  The same goes for all of the "Before" films with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, also directed by Richard Linklater.

This is not the exception.

High schoolers celebrate the last day of school for the year in 1976.  Some do it by physically assaulting incoming freshmen (Ben Affleck) and some prefer the emotional abuse route (Parker Posey).  Pink (Jason London) just wants to hang out with his various groups of friends and drink, smoke pot, and generally behave like a teenager.

That's it.  That's the movie.  There is no plot.  Just a bunch of kids on the last day of the school year.

I cannot tell you how many times I have heard quotes or references from this movie.  Hell, I don't know if Matthew McConaughey would have a career if it wasn't for this movie.  You might love it.  A lot of people do.

I don't.  I could not relate to any of the characters, their choices, or the time period.  It was as alien to me as life on the ocean floor.  That's just how it goes, I guess.

Bone Tomahawk (2015)

  Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you that rarest of all beasts:  a Christy pick that I didn't hate!  

I was mildly curious to see how a Kurt Russell movie could fly so low under the radar.  I figured that this was some low-budget crapfest he did that got released around the same time as The Hateful Eight in order to capitalize on the marketing.  But it's not a terrible movie.  I have no idea why this didn't get more press.

A drifter (David Arquette) wanders into the town of Bright Hope and is pretty much immediately shot by the sheriff (Kurt Russell) for being shifty.  The town doctor is a drunk so the sheriff calls on Mrs. O'Dwyer (Lili Simmons) to fix up the drifter and leaves her in the care of his deputy (Evan Jonigkeit).  overnight.  Unfortunately for all concerned, the drifter had pissed off a bunch of cave-dwelling cannibals before he came to town and a party of them track him to the jail, taking the deputy and lady as a bonus.  The sheriff and his backup deputy (Richard Jenkins) put together a party of men to search for the captives consisting of the town dandy (Matthew Fox) who has a serious hate-on for Native Americans of all kinds, and Mr. O'Dwyer (Patrick Wilson) who isn't going to let a silly thing like a broken leg keep him from getting his wife back.

It reminded me a lot of The Descent, except with less moments of abject terror.  Like, if The Hills Have Eyes had a nicer cousin or something.  You don't really see Western/horror as a genre crossover very often so I would recommend it on that basis alone.  It helps that all of the leads are excellent and the gore effects are very well-done.

Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (2001)

  It may surprise you to know that I actually watched Jimmy Neutron back in the day.  Usually while hungover eating French fries and hoping I wouldn't die, but that's not the point.  The show was clever and funny, a good mix of kid and adult humor.  I was expecting more of the same from the movie but, sadly, the magic is gone.

Jimmy Neutron (Debi Derryberry --which is the cutest name ever) is a ten-year-old boy genius who is misunderstood by his classmates.  He doesn't let that bother him, however, and is as excited about possibly contacting alien life as he is about the opening of a new theme park in town.  He sneaks out of the house to attend the opening with his two best friends and completely misses that aliens have locked on to his coordinates and kidnapped all the parents to sacrifice to their alien chicken god, Poultra.

This is a thing.  Human sacrifice.  In a kid's movie.

Initially stoked, the kids grow weary of having no rules and turn to Jimmy to lead the rescue.

I found myself woolgathering throughout the movie.  No matter how many times I tried to pay attention, I kept wandering off in my own head.  That's the only reason I can't give this a glowing recommendation.  I would say pick up the TV show if you're interested but leave the movie for the elementary schoolers.

Savages (2012)

This was an awful movie that managed to be full of action and still bored me to pieces.

O (Blake Lively) is paramour to two rising stars in the pot growing business.  Ben (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is the botanist/humanitarian while Chon (Taylor Kitsch) is the muscle.  But the boys are getting pressure to cut a deal with a Mexican cartel led by La Reina Elena (Salma Hayek).  She has O kidnapped to ensure their cooperation but all that does is piss them off.

I don't even know what I hated most about this movie.  It could have been the vapid and unnecessary voiceover at random intervals as O narrates things we can see happening.  It could be the absolute waste of excellent actors.  Or the dull seen-it-a-million-times storyline.  But as I reflect, more and more of my ire is leveled against the fake-out ending.

**SPOILERS (maybe) FROM THIS POINT ON**

Okay.  The fake-out "this is how I wished it had happened" or "it was all a dream" or "this is a version of the future that hasn't happened yet but it will if you don't do x, y and z" ending is such a bullshit thing.  On the rare occasions where it has been pulled off successfully, it is amazing and I am 150% sure that is why people still attempt it.

It does not work here.

First, all you've done is jerk the audience around.  No one likes that.

Second, you've now created an unreliable narrator.  If I can't trust this character's version of the ending, how can I trust anything she's said up to this point?

Third, her "this is what I wish had happened" version is so stupid and self-destructive that it makes me want to punch her in the throat.  Honestly, if you'd rather bleed out with your two boyfriends than admit that eventually one of the three of you is going to become dissatisfied with your current arrangement, you don't deserve to have either of them.  It is such a spoiled 22-year-old who's never worked for anything kind of wish.

Fourth,  the "real" ending is so banal.  If you can't top the fake ending, why would you even bother?

Avoid.

The Notorious Bettie Page (2005)

  I really enjoyed this movie.  Gretchen Mol was absolutely luminous and this might be the best role I've ever seen her in.

Bettie Page (Gretchen Mol) is a good Southern girl trying to make it as a model in New York City in the 1950's.  Her work takes her in an unexpected direction when she meets Irving (Chris Bauer) and Paula Klaw (Lili Taylor), a brother and sister photography and distribution team, who ask her to pose for "specialty" pictures.  Thus, the Pin-up Queen of the Universe was born.  Bettie went on to be one of, if not the most famous fetish models of all time, despite the Klaw's being called to stand in front of a Congressional hearing to defend themselves against charges of sending "indecent" material through the U.S. Mail.

The 50's were a horrible time when having a spanking fetish was lumped in with ritual murder as far as mental health diagnoses went.  Any expression of sexuality that was not the accepted standard was criminalized, leaving a lot of good people punished for being different.  Movies about the 50's, however, are just fine and dandy.  Especially this one.  I also enjoyed seeing the many cameos from people like David Strathairn, Jared Harris, Norman Reedus, and Sarah Paulson.  If you can located this one, give it a whirl.

The Secret Life of Pets (2016)

  I haven't been very impressed with this year's selection of animated films.  The nicest thing I can say about this one is that it was okay.

Max (Louis C.K.) is less than thrilled when his beloved owner brings home a new stray.  Duke (Eric Stonestreet) is big and obnoxious but is absolutely determined not to be forced out.  While at the dog park, Duke and Max get separated from the others and wind up being picked up by Animal Control.  They are then rescued by a psychotic rabbit named Snowball (Kevin Hart) who wants all the abandoned pets to revolt and kill their human masters.  Meanwhile, Max's friend Gidget (Jenny Slate) gathers all the pets to search New York City for the missing dogs.

It's a cute movie.  There's nothing surprising about it or really memorable but it's watchable.  I'm guessing it has a low replay value, however.  All of the really cute introductory moments with the animals were in the trailers.  I was hoping this would be the breakout hit for me after Zootopia was so disappointing but that does not appear to be the case.

Enough TV to Rot My Brain

I have been watching so much TV lately.  Old, new, one-season wonders, established shows, hits and misses.

From my personal collection, I have been working my way through season one of Jericho, which was given to me by the Bowen's.  It concerns the residents of a small Kansas town that survives multiple nuclear weapons being detonated in U.S. cities.  With no infrastructure or outside help, the townspeople must examine their resources and do what they can to survive.  I don't remember when this aired (IMDb says 2006) but I do know that it was one of those shows that got cancelled, then brought back by a rabid fanbase.  It's an okay show but I'm not over the moon about it.

Summer is a slow time for my DVR.  I only have a couple of shows being recorded right now.  The one I'm most excited about is Preacher on AMC.  Based on the graphic novel, a small town preacher (Dominic Cooper) is accidentally gifted with a godlike power.  He wants to use it for good but the original owners are determined to take it back.  I cannot stress enough how awesome this show is.  There's vampires and explosions and bar fights and some weird side story about a cowboy.  So awesome.

I'm also watching BrainDead, which is about brain-eating alien bugs infiltrating Congress.  I've only seen a few episodes but it's pretty funny.

I was originally excited to watch the new American Gothic but it's been pretty disappointing.  I thought it would have more of a horror vibe but it's a pretty standard murder mystery.

Since I keep running out of shows to watch, I've been hitting up the On Demand section to fill in some of the gaps.  I watched the first season of Outlander and thoroughly enjoyed it.  A nurse from 1944 on holiday in Scotland gets accidentally transported back to the 18th century in the middle of the Jacobite Rebellion.  I had read the first few books in the series and was amazed at how faithful the show was to the source material.  Starz has an absolute winner on its hands.

I also watched the first season of Orphan Black.  That show was so intense I found it hard to binge-watch.  I kept needing time to process everything that I was seeing.  Sarah (Tatiana Maslany) is looking for a way out of her problems when she sees a woman who looks exactly like her step out in front of a train.  She swipes the woman's identity but soon discovers that she's actually one of a series of clones scattered around the globe for unknown purposes.  Such a good show.  I highly recommend this one.

Moving to my Netflix queue, I've been watching season three of Moonlighting.  This is by all accounts the best season of the show and it has been utterly charming.  There's been a lot more fourth-wall breaking by the two leads, Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis, as well as their signature banter.

On the server, I saw the first season of HBO's Rome, which was very good.  I'd never seen Ray Stevenson in anything I really liked before this but the bromance between him and Kevin McKidd was excellent.

I had never even heard of Rubicon, a one-season gem from AMC's 2010 lineup.  Will (James Badge Dale) is an analyst who discovers a secret code in crossword puzzles that leads him to uncover a global conspiracy.  The ramping of paranoia and suspense-building is really great.  I was sad to think that there wouldn't be any more episodes when it finished.

I also watched season two of Red vs Blue, a show based on characters from the video game Halo.  I didn't think it was as funny as the first season but it was still pretty good.  Glad to see Tex again.

I tried to watch Rurouni Kenshin but I just couldn't get into it.  It's supposed to be about a samurai who gives up his life of bloodshed to wander Japan and right wrongs to atone for the harm he's caused.  I might have been able to appreciate the philosophy or action sequences but it kept trying to be funny by showing the main character being flustered by the main female.  I found it so irritating I turned it off after three episodes.

Currently, I'm watching Saiyuki Reload, which is much more serious in tone.  Four badasses are traveling across the continent to India to stop the revival of a huge demon.  The dialogue is a little stilted but at least it's not aiming for slapstick.

Whew.  You see what I mean?  That's enough TV for a while and I'm barely scratching the surface.

Safe (2012)

  This is what I chose as my follow-up for Flowers of War.  A nice, violent Jason Statham movie that didn't require any brainpower.

Mei (Catherine Chan) is a 10-year-old math prodigy kidnapped by the Triad and smuggled to America.  Her job is to be a human calculator for all the illegal dealings so that nothing is traceable.  The big boss (James Hong) gives her a numerical code to memorize and sends her to a meeting, but she is attacked by rival Russian gangsters and only saved by the arrival of a one-man killing machine:  Luke (Jason Statham).  Luke is a former cop and cage fighter --because of course he is-- whose life has hit rock-bottom thanks to those self-same Russian gangsters.  In Mei, he sees his chance at redemption.  So they set out to solve the code and keep the Chinese, the Russians, and the corrupt ring of cops chasing them from getting it.

This isn't bad, as Jason Statham movies go.  The side characters aren't annoying and the action seems logical enough.  Otherwise, it's the fun kind of ridiculousness, perfect for when you can't think about the horrors of the world any more.

The Flowers of War (2011)

  I'm not going to lie, this movie fucked me up.  It kicked the everloving shit out of me.  It's so good but it's so painful I don't know that it's worth it.

In 1937, Japanese forces invaded and took control of the Chinese city of Nanking.  A group of Catholic schoolgirls and a group of high-priced prostitutes both take refuge in a cathedral that has been kept free of most fighting, thanks to the presence of a Western priest.  The priest has died, however, and the mortician charged with his burial (Christian Bale) is the only white guy left.  Both groups of women know that they need him to have any chance at escape but with a Japanese commander (Atsuro Watabe) aware of the schoolgirls, such a chance is very slim.

The history of non-combatants in an occupied zone is almost never a pleasant tale.  Tensions run high at the best of times and at worst, you get war crimes of unspeakable depravity.  Considering that this is commonly referred to as "The Massacre of Nanking" or "The Rape of Nanking", you can guess on which end of the scale it falls.  I'm deliberately being glib because if I think about it too much I'll get all sad again.  But it should be sad.  We should look on these events with a collective horror and they should lurk in the back of our minds as a warning of what we are capable of doing to the most defenseless.

I'M NOT CRYING, YOU'RE CRYING.

I feel like I've just had a whole post dedicated to Zhang Yimou's unerring eye for color.  This film is so incredibly beautiful just visually that it makes the moments of horror stand out all the more.  And he doesn't shy away from the visceral, more than willing to leave the camera on a stark detail.  Like seeing something traumatic in real life.  Your brain can't encompass all of the scene so it just takes little bits at a time, focusing on a trivial detail while it struggles to cope with the enormity of the wrongness.

Actresses Ni Ni and Zhang Xinyi channel heartbreaking strength and fear and Christian Bale is always fantastic but he reaches such depths of compassion here.  I am shocked this didn't get an Oscar nomination, to be honest.  I really think it was overlooked unfairly.

I do recommend this.  It's too good not to, but for the love of Jesus, have something happy to watch afterwards.

S. Darko (2009)

Happy 4th of July, everyone!  Here's an... actually holiday-relevant film.  Huh.  I suppose it had to happen sooner or later.    Too bad it's such a shitty one.

Samantha Darko (Daveigh Chase) has never fully come to grips with what happened to her brother, Donnie.  She's just kind of wandering aimlessly through life with her friend, Corey (Briana Evigan), when their car breaks down in a small town.  Then Sam starts to get visions of a terrible future and the end of the world.

Honestly, this movie is so lame I don't even want to waste words on it.  I loved Donnie Darko and clearly so did the people behind this "sequel".  But loving something doesn't mean you're going to be good at it and this is at best a shittier Run Lola Run and at worst an appalling piece of banality masquerading as philosophy.

August: Osage County (2013)

  Watching this movie was like taking a Brillo pad to my soul.  Bad families are a perfect hell and this one is worst than most.

The Weston family have gathered together for a funeral but there'll be more than one body on the floor by the time it's over.  Matriarch Violet (Meryl Streep) is a vicious-tongued drug addict with no discernment between friend and foe.  Her eldest daughter, Barbara (Julia Roberts), is struggling with the dissolution of her marriage and trying to raise a teenage daughter (Abigail Breslin) of her own.  Ivy (Julianne Nicholson) is trying to keep her new relationship a secret.  And Karen (Juliette Lewis) is trying to flaunt her's as much as possible.  Violet's sister Mattifay (Margo Martindale) keeps throwing her two cents in as much as possible, while denigrating her son (Benedict Cumberbatch) at every opportunity.  Her husband, Charles (Chris Cooper), just wants to get through the funeral without bloodshed.

The men in this movie mostly just try to desperately hang on to the walls of this sinking ship while the women have knock-down fights over the placement of the deckchairs.  Ain't family grand?

This is based on a play by Tracy Letts and I'm sure it's amazing live.  I don't necessarily know if I'd be down for that.  I can only hate myself so much in a given day.  Still, I think it's important to have films like this.  For some people, it exorcises demons of their own fucked-up childhoods and for the rest of us it reminds us our families aren't that bad.  This get's the "soul-scarring" tag because I didn't hate it but I sure as hell couldn't love it.

Hyde Park on Hudson (2012)

  There is absolutely no reason to watch this movie unless you seriously love Bill Murray.  And I mean like you're a relative or something.  The only reason it was in my queue at all is because it was nominated for a Golden Globe.

Daisy (Laura Linney) is a distant cousin to President Franklin Roosevelt (Bill Murray) and is invited to spend time with, i.e. have an affair with, him while he spends his summers at his mother's home.  She is also there to witness the first visit of an English king (Samuel West) and queen (Olivia Colman) to American shores.  They have come to ask FDR for support on the eve of WWII.  But mainly this is about how FDR couldn't keep it in his pants.

When you think about Presidential sex scandals or even just Presidential philandering, FDR is not the first name that probably jumps to mind but he was quite the lothario.  One of the relatively few biographies on my shelf is about one of his mistresses, Lucy Rutherford.  This was set after her time but she does get a mention.  I suppose it's less of a moral outrage if you believe that he and Eleanor had what amounted to an open marriage because she was a lesbian.  He looks downright progressive in that light.

As I said, this is not a great movie by any stretch and I can't recommend it in good conscience to anyone.