August 2010

This week: a good movie and a delightfully bad one.

Get Low (2010)

Robert Duvall stars as a mysterious, widely-feared hermit who decides to have a funeral party while he's still alive and invite the entire town to come tell stories about him. Bill Murray co-stars as the money-hungry owner of a funeral home who decides to take on the task, since the town's been a bit low on folks dying lately. The premise sounds very screwball, and the movie is funny, but it's not a comedy. It's a solid drama with some funny characters.

A lot of the runtime is devoted to funny character moments, but the film goes serious as it approaches the central tragedy that has kept the hermit, Bush, sequestered alone in his cabin for decades. The shift in tone is effective and not unexpected.

It's easy to categorize this type of movie as Oscarbait, but Get Low is a little tougher than the usual fare of that kind. Still digestible, but not the mush we're usually served when it comes to Hollywood dramas.

Piranha 3D (2010)

"The slough-to-tit ratio was very high." --Max

When you hear a title like Piranha 3D, you form certain expectations. Piranha 3D took those expectations and turned them into a delicious smoothie made from the shredded flesh of insufferable douchebags. I like to think I have a fairly strong stomach these days, but there were parts of this movie that made me genuinely nauseous. It's kind of surprising that it managed to get an R. Was the ratings board asleep? Blind? I'm not sure I have ever seen this much human carnage in a film. Ever. I don't think I'll be able to eat meat for a few days.

There's also a lot of nudity. Sexualized nudity. This is a classic teenage horror movie in that sense--you get your T&A, and then you get your blood 'n' guts. It's knowingly ridiculous and cartoony, but it definitely plays to phobias. There is at least one kill that will really bother you if you've ever had long hair.

The 3D is so-so. Post-conversion (rather than filming in 3D) shows its weakness whenever they try to show a chain-link fence or tall blades of grass. Still, I think it's essential to see it in 3D. When it works, it really works--and the cheesiness is to the benefit of this kind of movie.

I know I said in the intro that this movie is "delightfully bad." That's not quite right. It's very good at hitting what it's aiming for. It's not a serious movie. It is, at points, scary and uncomfortable, and the rest of the time it's fun. That's how horror movies should work.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (2010)

I like the books. I like Edgar Wright. I like Michael Cera and Jason Schwartzman. And I love this movie.

Instead of seeing The Expendables this weekend, I actually ended up seeing Scott Pilgrim twice. That's how much I like it. It's pretty rare for me to see a movie twice in theaters, but I think this one actually improves with multiple viewings. There is a lot going on in it--not much of a surprise if you consider that Wright had to compress six graphic novels' worth of material into roughly an hour and a half. But he succeeds wonderfully. Scott Pilgrim has a breakneck pace but never seems rushed.

This film is very funny all the way through, visually stunning, highly stylized and emotionally resonant, at least if you've ever had your own evil ex. It's both very loyal and very not-loyal to the source material--it certainly carries the spirit of the original series, and a lot of the fun lines, but I think it handles some of the details better, especially with regards to the ending. And Michael Cera, for all the nerd doubt, does a great job as the obliviously douchey Scott Pilgrim.

Go see this one in theaters. It's good. There's been a lot of talk that this movie will probably end up getting a cult following on DVD, but I think part of the experience will be lost on DVD (which is true of most movies, to be honest, but this one in particular).

I only hit one of my list of movies this weekend. This week I may hit Winter's Bone or The Other Guys, but it might not happen since I have plans for much of the week. My friend Max will be in town just in time for a concert on Thursday and Scott Pilgrim on Friday, though. I am so excited for Scott Pilgrim. You don't even know.

The Kids Are All Right (2010)

I'm not actually familiar with the director, Lisa Cholodenko. From her IMDb page, I've determined that most of her past work has been in television, on programs I've never watched, and a few movies I've never seen. If all of her work is as good as this, though, I'd like to see more.

The film is about a family headed by a lesbian couple who conceived using a sperm donor, and how their household is disrupted when one of the children turns eighteen and contacts her biological father. The mood fits nicely into the mold of "quirky indie family comedy," but it was a bit more emotional than I usually expect from that genre. Not that it was maudlin (it wasn't), but there were difficult issues in it that I didn't necessarily expect to see in a comedy. There is even a major plot point that will probably bug anyone who's familiar with common male perspectives about lesbians, but it is not what it seems. Everything is handled with sweetness and sensitivity. In the end I can't see this movie offending anyone, except maybe people who dislike the fact that homosexuality exists at all.

I already missed my second Sunday Movie Roundup, but I have a good excuse: I was out of town visiting my bro-for-all-eternity Beckey, her boyfriend Seth, and their roommate Danny, all of whom are supremely awesome. I hadn't seen them for something like four years, I guess because I am a terrible friend. But I will be better in the future.

As it turns out, while I was in Austin, we watched a lot of movies (one new, the rest mostly '80s movies). So I have something to talk about after all!

Despicable Me (2010)

We saw this in 3D (because it was not playing in 2D) at the Alamo Drafthouse, Austin's famous theater/restaurant chain. I wasn't expecting a lot from it, and maybe that's why I found it pretty delightful. The basic premise--a supervillain protagonist--appealed to me right out the door, and Despicable Me kept things sharp, clever and fun for most of its runtime, even when the plucky orphan girls got involved. It dropped the ball toward the end, when the story veered off into saccharine sappiness that was on the border of embarrassing.

I felt like I got my money's worth out of it, but it's more of a DVD rental kind of movie, if you were thinking of seeing it.

Rad (1986)

This is an '80s teen movie centered around BMX bicycles. There is a scene involving BMX bike stunt dancing at a high school dance. To be honest, I kind of feel like this is all you need to know.

This is the movie we watched that I remember the least about. We didn't actually finish it. We were drinking, and I pretty much hit a peak of drunkenness sometime toward the end of this film. Did the main character win the big BMX race? We may never know (but I suspect he did).

Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)

I was the one who suggested Fast Times. Because I love Fast Times. It's one of those movies where everyone's kind of a jerk, and most of the characters are always lying or manipulating or, at the very least, fronting, and they are near-constantly thinking about and talking about sex. Basically it is one of the most realistic movies about teenagers ever made.

Revenge of the Nerds (1984)

It is probably a crime that I had never actually seen Revenge of the Nerds before. Not even heavily edited on TBS. Yet I was already familiar with the plot through cultural osmosis: nerds are kicked out of their dorm by frat boy jocks, nerds form their own frat, war ensues based on the jocks' irrational hatred of nerds.

This movie has a strange definition of the word "nerd"--they are mostly conventional science- and computer-loving doofuses, but they also include a flamboyantly gay guy and Booger, who defies categorization, unless "delightfully skeezy" is a social category now. (Note: Everyone present during the viewing of this film agreed that they would have sex with Booger if given the chance.)

The whole thing is basically a cartoon, and it will be sort of baffling to anyone who has actually been to a real college (where exactly zero people go to the homes of nerds to scream, "NEEEEEEEEERDS!"). But it is a funny movie, and part of that is because so little of it has any basis in reality.

I hope you have enjoyed the Mostly '80s Teen Movies Edition of the Weekly Movie Roundup. There are a few movies in theaters I'm hoping to catch this weekend, and a few more coming out next weekend. Here's what I'm looking forward to over the next couple of weeks:

• The Kids Are All Right


• Winter's Bone


• The Other Guys


• Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World


• The Expendables (guilty pleasure, sorry)


• Tales from Earthsea