I'm Going to be Famous! Also You Can Win Free Movie Tickets Soon!

Hi again everyone!

So I have two big announcements that I felt deserved their own post.

1. I have been approved for a press pass to cover the last week of the New York Film Festival!!! While I obviously would've loved to cover the whole thing, I can only take off a week because of my job. I will be in NYC for October 7th through the 12th (at least!). The films that I will be covering (assuming that the house isn't filled by the time I get there, which it hopefully won't be!!) will include:

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (Possibly! If I can make it by 10AM on Oct 5th!)
12 Years a Slave
All is Lost
Nebraska
The Invisible Woman
Only Lovers Left Alive
Blue is the Warmest Color (La Vie d'Adele)
Her

Really looking forward to a great week of nerding out! Big big thanks to my lady Bronwyn for helping me get this far!

2. Okay, so not as big of an announcement, but I wanted to also publicize that I am two posts away from having written 100 posts! I began this blog in 2010 because I missed my film classes and, thanks to you guys, I'm getting almost 1,000 pageviews every month! As a way to thank you all for reading, I'm going to be giving away a $30 Fandango gift card to a lucky reader. Directions for entry will be included in the 100th post. Thanks so much to you guys for staying interested in my movie rants!

And, for good measure, it wouldn't be a Large Popcorn post without a picture:

This old thing...

Safety Not Guaranteed: A Sneaky Romance

Once again, I will reiterate that I am not one for movies that are full of sappy feelings. What does that entail? Any movie that involves a vampire romance, anything based on a Nicholas Sparks book, and usually anything with a kissing scene that takes place in the rain (Except for Garden State. That movie is sacred.). I do not like being assaulted by gushy unrealistic feelings.

I don't like to ugly cry, okay...

That being said, I had no idea that I was about to watch a romance when I turned on Safety Not Included. I didn't know it until about an hour through. And it was really nice.

The plot first follows Darius (as played by, my personal favorite, Aubrey Plaza). Darius is a lonely girl who has a somewhat pessimistic view on life. She works at a magazine in Seattle as an intern, where she is stepped on by her boss and largely ignored by her coworkers. But when an opportunity arises for her to get out of town and investigate a story lead with a lead reporter, she seizes it. The story, proposed by a head reporter named Jeff (played by Jake Johnson, my other favorite), is to follow a personal ad that has been placed regarding a man looking for a partner to travel through time with. They hope to get an ironic take on the story and hopefully talk to the guy who assumedly put up the post as a joke.

But the guy, a man named Kenneth (played by Mark Duplass), is no jokester. As Darius poses as the potential partner, they train for the upcoming time travel together. And what initially begins as a totally posed relationship morphs almost imperceptibly as the two of them share their innermost desires for going back in time.

So freakin' cute.

This movie was fantastic. And the things that I loved most about it were its tongue-in-cheek humor and its low-key approach to the over-sapped romance genre. It takes you through a romance almost the way that they seriously happen. Not with a girl that spends $1000 to show up in an airplane on the off-chance that her potential soulmate is leaving at the exact same time. Not with intense conversation followed by mouthy kisses in the rain. And not with a wordy speech about how that person was "right in front of them the whole time only they were too stupid to see it" (seriously, how many movies have used that line??).

Ugh. Enough, please.

This movie takes a very cautious approach to their romance. Actually, you know, I wouldn't even really call it romance, I would call it attraction. You get to see interactions between Darius and Kenneth get more and more personal as they share feelings, spend time together and do really dumb stuff. (In all seriousness, I feel like 75% of a relationship is enjoying dumb things together. Just sayin'.) And yet through that whole time they end up forging a really strong bond, ensuring one another that the other is never being made fun of, is always taken seriously, and is never alone. And that is the core reason why this movie was amazing.

Love them.

Also interesting was Jeff's little side story. While Darius is off doing the grunt work for the story, Jeff is off trying to reconnect with his old high school sweetheart. While in his life he gets a lot of "action," as it were, he unexpectedly falls in love when he discovers who his high school sweetheart has become. Instead of looking for a one-night stand, Jeff ends up getting a glimpse of what he could've had if he had taken life more seriously when he was young.

It involves a better life. And some really amazing-sounding food.

This movie makes a great commentary on the importance of time in relationships; all relationships, really. While Darius and Kenneth want to go back in time to fix the things that rocked their foundations and Jeff wants to relive his youth, both story lines urge the audience not to waste time. That you should take advantage of youth while you have it but also that you should look forward because it won't last forever. That actions and nonactions have effects. And that relationships (and specifically a lack thereof) build who you are.

A really really wonderful movie. A great romance without being over-the-top, and an ending that just might've convinced me that I need to actually buy this movie and watch it several more times.

9 outa 10. Really really spectacular.

The Supermarket Says It's Halloween, So Here's Some Scary Movies

Around this time is when I start getting my seasons muddled. The calendar says it's August, the weather is telling me it's time for back to school, and my supermarket says that it's Halloween.

Flag or treat! Happy Labor-ween!

However, since I'm feeling particularly autumny today, I thought I'd share some trailers that I'm looking forward to scheduled to come out between now and Scary Movie Season.

Passion starring Rachel McAdams and Noomi Rapace
Release date: August 30th

I mean, first of all, it has Rachel McAdams in it. Second of all, it has Noomi Rapace in it. Also it looks like a corporate murder drama that reminds me of both All About Eve and American Psycho.  Got okay reviews, but I'm mostly just curious to see how it ends. Who doesn't like a good murder mystery?

Insidious 2 starring Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne
Release date: September 13th

If you haven't seen this trailer yet, you clearly haven't been in a movie theater and/or in front of a TV in quite a while, have you? Well, either that or you can't handle the trailer and so shut your eyes/change the channel. This latest installment of the highly creative horror movie follows Mr. Lambert as he struggles to eliminate the dark spirits that have followed him after the first movie's conclusion. I'm dying to see what the deal is with that freakin' horrifying old woman.

Gravity starring Sanda Bullock and George Clooney
Release date: October 4th

Different flavor of horror film a la Open Water. Sandra Bullock is an astronaut that gets hit while repairing something on the outside of a space station and is left to drift in open space waiting for someone to rescue her. Not a bad idea, but I'm curious to see how they'll take a nightmare like this and stretch it out over an hour and a half without losing the audience. Also a little hard to tell from a teaser preview like this though. Disclaimer: not for the motion sick.

Carrie starring Chloe Moretz and Julianne Moore
Release date: October 18th

Mixed feelings about this one. If you've ever seen the original movie, it's going to be hard to warm up to this remake. I'm especially confused about why they picked Chloe Moretz for the title role. That girl's pouty mouth and pretty face hardly harken to the image of the original scrawny ginger, Sissy Spacek. Still, I'm intrigued by Julianne Moore's role as Mrs. White. And the special effects in this one should be a step up from the original for sure, which should make for some pretty scary stuff.

Oldboy starring Josh Brolin and Elizabeth Olsen
Release date: November 27th (okay, maybe not Halloween season, but still the fall, right?)

This movie. So torn. I feel like similar to Let the Right One In and its American remake, Let Me In, this one is going to get rave reviews at the expense of a movie that's already been made. The original Oldboy, a South Korean masterpiece of creep-cinema, is the finest case of cinematic mind-fuckery (pardon my language, but really, that's the only way to put it) to date. It will be interesting to see if Spike Lee can deal with the fact that the fans will be watching his every move. I'm also really interested to see if he'll keep the original ending. If you're ever looking for a movie that will leave you uncomfortable for an entire week, watch the original.

Welp! That's all I got. Why is it that scary movie season is getting so sparse these days? What a serious bummer! More scary movie reviews in the archives and foreign horror also found on this post: http://largepopcorn--nobutter.blogspot.com/2011/10/top-ten-foreign-horror-movies.html.

 Also, dear readers, I am always willing to take suggestions from you guys. If you think there's a horror movie coming up that I've missed that you'd like to see reviewed, let me know. Last year I ran out of horror movies so if y'all could help a sister out this time around I'd be much obliged. Thanks!

The Spectacular Now: SO Many Emotions.

Those of you that have been following me a while should notice that there aren't a lot of emotional dramas on here. (Unless they're free. Then I'll see whatever's thrown at me.) But if I'm paying for a movie, I'm not trying to walk out of it all puffy eyed and have to go home and listen to Adele for a few hours. This being said, I did not really want to subject myself to The Spectacular Now. But my friend Lauren really wanted to see it and I admit I was curious because it got such rave reviews. All told, it ended up being pretty good.

The poster that emo hipsters will post up in their lockers

this back-to-school season

The plot surrounds high school senior Sutter Keely (what a great name) as he tries to transition from high school into adulthood. Sutter begins as a fun-loving party kid with a drinking problem and, after meeting a girl unlike anyone he's ever met before, ends up having to question aspects of his life that include his estranged father, his drinking, his plans after high school, and the general way that he lives his life.

Goddamnit they were adorable.

The acting in this was superb. Sutter, as played by Miles Teller (who seems like a hybrid of Jonah Hill and Vince Vaughn) , is so believable as a kid that doesn't want to grow up. He reminds me of a bunch of guys I knew in high school. So happy to be in the "spectacular now" that they don't realize that actions have consequences and that youth doesn't last forever. When he first meets Aimee, he keeps her at arms' length as he tries to win back his ex-girlfriend, Cassidy. Which is a total dick move. But then as the movie goes on, you realize that this guy purposefully keeps things from being serious in his life. A fear of rejection by those he loves and a sort of adorable naivete keeps him living life with uncertainty and without plans. He is then faced with the decision of whether to keep living for fun or to live for something with depth.

Or to live with recurring hangovers.

His girlfriend Aimee, as played by Shailene Woodley (who I freakin' loved in Descendants), was also amazing. Starting out as a shy overlooked girl, she is completely charmed by Sutter and (small wonder) falls head over heels in love with him. Their chemistry almost hurts your heart in the way that only uncomplicated high school love can. Oh god the feels.

So many feels.

I liked this movie because it comments on so many different aspects of what millennials seem to be having trouble with, myself included. We are marketed to by popular culture (anyone see dem VMAs?) to live life in the moment because #YOLO (kill me.) and party our heads off and drink and not worry about the future. But Sutter's story sheds light on the fact that you really just can't live like that. His relationship with Aimee for example, which is something with a lot of depth, is something that he takes for granted until it's almost too late. This movie reminds you that while it's fine to be a charismatic person with a tendency towards partying, everyone should have their limits and realize that the worthwhile things in life take a little cultivation and...well...love.

8.5 out of 10. A really introspective movie. So many feeeeeelings.

OH GODDAMNIT THIS TRAILER EVEN MAKES ME EMOTIONAL

Let me also say that I know that high school kids nationwide are going to take this movie and turn it into a big stupid quote-machine for reasons why people should live in the "spectacular now," but keep in mind that the title is a little ironic. It had to be said.

For a Good Time, Call: Phone Sex and Friendship

Welcome. Bet you found yourself reading this post because of the title.

I saw the trailer for For a Good Time, Call and thought it looked kind of fun a while ago, so when I saw it on HBO tonight (yes, I'm fancy), I was pleasantly surprised. Now, even though the movie's two main characters start a phone sex line, it's not really all about the phone sex. Let's get into the dirty (not really) details.

Like clean undies. 

Not dirty...just suggestive.

Katie and Lauren (most common names ever) meet during an unfortunate scenario in college. Katie is hammered and Lauren is not (who hasn't had one of those situations before?) and gross things happen involving pee. Potential for friendship has been shut down. Fast forward ten years later and Lauren, whose boyfriend has just dumped her, is looking for an apartment. One thing leads to another and she ends up having to live with Katie. Despite a rocky beginning, Lauren and Katie's friendship starts to grow (strangely enough) after Lauren discovers Katie's phone sex business. Lauren, having difficulty finding a job, uses her organizational skills to help Katie grow the business and pretty soon their friendship becomes as profitable as their phone sex line.

Which apparently ends up making $12,000 in two months

Career change anyone?

This movie was raunchy for sure, but it ended up being a hilarious look at modern friendships between girls. It's set up as a love story, but the love story is about female friendship. Even though (spoiler alert!) Katie ends up getting a boyfriend and Lauren learns to be independent by the end of the movie, their friendship almost gets treated like it would in a romance movie. They finish each others' sentences, they share secrets, they parade around naked, they worry about each other, they fight, and they make up. Kind of shows you that even though romantic love is intimate, sometimes nothing can be as personal as a friendship between two girls. We tell each other everything and we understand our own. Even though there have been a lot of chick flicks in the past that have touched on this, I thought that For a Good Time, Call was surprisingly the most accurate I've seen in a while. I like that movies are turning away from the sappy "WE'LL ALWAYS BE SISTERS *cries silently*" kind of girl love that we've seen before and have turned it into a more realistic and less eyeroll-worthy kind of romp.

Chest bumps are more fun than listening to

 characters overanalyzing their love lives

Highlights of the movie:
-When they reenact the choreography from Dirty Dancing
-Katie's huge confession to Lauren
-Justin Long as the gay(?) friend
-Cameos from actors like Seth Rogan, Kevin Smith, and Ken Marino as the clients
-The "I love you" scene
-What Lauren gives Katie before she sets out to meet one of their clients in the flesh
-The pink phones. I want one.

I need.

Lessons in career decisions, making the best out of life's lemons, trying things that are out of your comfort zone, and being a good friend.

7 out of 10, surprisingly. Light comedy with a raunchy finish, but sweet and actually pretty funny.

Elysium: What a Coincidence!

What else to do on a Sunday but go to the movies? Just discovered that the theater near where I've just moved is craaayyyyy. I kind of felt like I was in a movie theater from the future. The concessions stand had a digital soda fountain and the seats are assigned. Not to mention the fact that the seats are CUSHIONY RED RECLINING THINGS.

Seriously, how the hell did it take so long for 

someone to think of this?

But after I got over the initial shock of this spaceship facility, I settled down to watch tonight's feature, Elysium.

Elysium takes place in the future, 2154 to be precise, and at this point in time, Earth has been abandoned by the wealthy in favor of living in a space settlement called Elysium. While Earth is covered with disease, bad air, filth, and overpopulation, Elysium is immaculate and convenient, complete with robot servants and total healthcare machines that can cure anything from a paper cut to leukemia. We are shown the life of a guy that lives on Earth named Max. Raised by nuns, he grows up to become a bad boy stealing cars, but by the time we catch up with him he is reformed from all that and trying to make an honest living working at a factory that makes droids. After he gets stuck in a room where he's exposed to high levels of radiation one thing leads to another and he ends up hijacking the mind of an Elysian and being the one man that can change the futures of the people that live on both Earth and Elysium.

The wheeel in the skyyyy keeps on tuuurrrrniiiinnn

So woah, right off the bat there's a LOT of stuff going on in this movie. It got off to a pretty good start; they show you that robot police keep the citizens of Earth in order cruelly and without humanity, that people rely on thieving to get by, and that there's little to no promise of upward mobility. Interesting commentary. But then they introduce plot point after plot point and things get a little...over-ambitious.

Parallel to Max's story is the Elysian president's, focusing on her ruthless way of fighting refugees from gaining illegal access to Elysium, which is by blowing them up before they can land there. We also see   a whole string of events involving illegally employed agents from Elysium sent to "take care of" Max and other refugees, Max's childhood friend and her daughter, and computer hackers.

Another case of Could Have Been Cool But Wasn't. Sometimes you can't squish everything into a two-hour movie and this was definitely the case here. Instead of the story flowing as we get to know a little bit more about the characters, it seems to jump from conflict to conflict and coincidence from coincidence. Like:

"Oh crap, I have radiation poisoning, get me to Elysium, please!" 

"Well that is certainly convenient because I happen to have this chip where I can hack into the minds of the wealthy! I'll send you to hijack the vehicle of an Elysian and maybe we can find something useful in their minds to use for our own benefit!"

"Great! Let's get her installed!"

"Glad we could accomplish that despite the rampant disease and obvious lack of hygiene in this establishment (not to mention your progressive death from radiation poisoning). You have survived the installation of mind-hardware and mechanical exoskeleton!"

"Hooray! Let's hijack this gentleman!"

"Quite! My goodness, his mind is full of hacker software that will overthrow the entire political system of Elysium!"

"Again, sir, I say how convenient!"

"Indeed!

So easy we should've done it two hundred years ago!

As the guy sitting next to me put it "Well, that's all very convenient isn't it?" It was just kind of like they worked a little too hard to find a happy ending. And each progressive event just felt a little too good to be true.

Thematically it's a very interesting commentary on our world and the United States. Earth citizens are so desperate for healthcare that they pay a fortune for the chance to fly to Elysium and break into the homes of the wealthy to use their health machines. Also an interesting commentary on immigration as the Earth citizens we see all speak a mixture of Spanish and English while the Elysian elite speak a mixture of clipped English and French. Their philosophy of keeping people out (blowing them out of the sky) is met with little controversy and, at best, a slap on the wrist. What does that say about us as a country? Makes you think about the different methods people talk about to "keep people out of our country brawrawrarwaarr."

Bet that healthcare you got is pretty convenient... :X

Anyway, cinematically political agendas aside, it could have been really really cool. It made an excellent social commentary on the United States (Are we Elysium? Or are they making statements about big business in the US?) but too convoluted to be good.

5 outa 10. Sorry, Matt Damon.

Also it bothers me that in the trailer they make it seem like his hydraulics are what make him special. That has nothing to do with how they're going to overthrow Elysium. Just sayin.

Blue Jasmine (Seriously Blue. And Also Crazy.)

Had a "me party" yesterday and went into Philly to see such sites as the Philadelphia Art Museum, Ultimo Coffee's new coffee shop on Catharine St, The Continental, and (of course) The Ritz 5 movie theater, where I saw Woody Allen's latest Blue Jasmine.*

May I firstly say that I love Woody Allen as a director? The jazz music, the black and white 20's style intertitles and alphabetical credits, the funny/tragic realistic characters--you had me at Small Time Crooks. He is truly a craftsman and I tend to love everything that he puts out. Even To Rome With Love, haters. (Although, as a side note, I frequently ignore all of his 80s-90s films that include Mia Farrow as a headliner. Except for Hannah and Her Sisters.) I kind of pre-loved Blue Jasmine right after I saw the trailer. So let's get to it.

Jasmine (née Jeanette) has just moved in with her sister. She has just suffered a nervous breakdown following her husband (Alec Baldwin) being charged with fraud and subsequent prison suicide. After a life of luxury (Actual luxury. Like five houses and a personal jet.) she is staying at her sister's lower-middle class apartment and trying to figure out her life. But Jasmine has never had to do this before. She states more than once throughout the movie that Hal, her husband, swept her off her feet before she could graduate from college.  Resultantly she doesn't have any life skills. And has never had to be a real adult.

Pre-real life. Like an episode of Downton Abbey.

After a friend of Ginger's finds her a job as a receptionist at a dental office, Jasmine begins taking computer classes with the dream of eventually getting a degree in interior decorating online. But when one thing after another happens at the dentist's office, she quits and approaches a WASPy friend with the question "Do you know any men?" The rest of the movie is spent with her quitting everything to become a rich man's girlfriend, lying to him about her past and masquerading as a qualified interior decorator, which (predictably) doesn't end well. Her story is also cut up with vignettes from her past life, hosting parties, telling friends how she and her husband met, talking to their adopted son, listening in on deals that her husband was making, etc.

This movie was fascinating for a number of reasons. In some ways it reminded me of The Queen of Versailles, the real life tale of the Segiel family and their fall after the recession. But Jasmine, in a lot of ways, is so much more pathetic. Here we have a look at the inability of the rich to function in lower-middle class life. Relying on the increasingly imaginary "American Dream," Jasmine originally plans to pull herself up by her bootstraps and go back to school. However, faced with the harsh reality that school costs money, she then realizes that she has to fund it by getting a job appropriate to her resume (which is presumably blank).

Don't we look ravishing today.

After becoming uncomfortable with things at her menial job, she moves onto the only thing that she knows how to do: relying on a man. And this method of survival, which is pretty archaic in this day and age, does not end up panning out. We see her struggle through her life in denial of her surroundings and acting a bit like lost child looking for her mom. Or, rather, a lost wife looking for her husband.

By contrast, her sister Ginger is totally happy being a member of the lower-middle class. She bags groceries, she has two nice kids, and a boyfriend who is a mechanic. When Jasmine comes in like a tornado of judgement, though, Ginger starts to falter and question her romantic and lifestyle choices. It's a hard road back to reality for Ginger, but she gets her happy ending. Jasmine not so much.

It's ok though. She's got her vodka.

This movie seems to be making an interesting commentary about women's options today. Whereas in the 80s women may have been excellent trophy wives, it seems to be less and less acceptable for a woman to function today without an actual function. Even stay-at-home moms do more than Jasmine does. And while she's not a bad person, she doesn't seem to have the first idea as to how to pick of the pieces of her life. It also tells the eternal moral: money isn't everything.

Excellent excellent acting by Cate Blanchett. I totally believed that she was going off the deep end. If for nothing else, I would recommend the movie for her excellent acting.

8 outa 10. 

I literally had to go through this entire post and delete all of the times I'd written Blue Ivy. Thanks Jay-Z and Beyonce. Rude.