Mistress America: Greta Gerwig Charms Again...Kinda

I've gotta give Noah Baumbach credit: he's very much a film auteur.* In the same way that Hitchcock fixated on Grace Kelly and Woody Allen used Mia Farrow in every damn thing for a time, Baumbach has the same sort of fixation with Greta Gerwig. Much like in Frances Ha Baumbach makes Gerwig a central quirky character of Mistress America, trying to find her way in the crazy city that is New York.

We're best friends probably!

The plot follows young Tracy (Lola Kirke), a college freshman who has just moved to NYC to go to school, but who's having a rough time fitting in. The boy she likes doesn't like her back, she can't get into the prestigious lit society, and she's having a terrible time making friends. At her mother's urging, she calls her soon-to-be stepsister to try and make a new friend in the city. Instead of an awkward encounter over coffee, Tracy is swept off her feet by the spontaneous and jubilant Brooke (Greta Gerwig). Getting wrapped up in a tornado of amazing city experiences, Tracy and latches onto Brooke and her plans to start an incredibly unique restaurant in Williamsburg. But just when things start looking up for Tracy, Brooke gets the news that she's lost funding for her project. Trying to remedy everything and save the dream restaurant, Tracy, Brooke, and a motley crew of friends work out what's to be done.

So...let me just say right off the bat that I did like this movie, but it wasn't what I dreamed it would be. Thematically, Baumbach maintains the sort of girl-centric themes that make his other films, like Frances Ha and Zoe Versus, so comically endearing and quirky.

LOOK HOW QUIRKY WE ARE

But this isn't Frances Ha. And I think it's hard to go from a movie that you really love, like Frances Ha for me, to a movie that's just...similar. Instead of seeing the movie objectively I feel like I got kind of wrapped up in how Mistress America (which is a damn good title by the way) wasn't like Frances Ha.

Principally, I did not really like the main character. While I think we're supposed to feel endeared to Tracy for being so young and so attached to Brooke so quickly, there was something I found mildly weird and annoying about her. I can't tell if it's my annoyance with high and mighty hipster kids or if she's supposed to be that way on purpose but I just didn't really empathize with her very much.

Brooke, too, is a bit of a letdown. While the movie takes efforts to maintain a lightness despite its complex themes (something I want to commend Baumbauch for, honestly), there's almost a lack of heaviness to the movie that makes it read a bit oddly. Like why is Tracy acting so weird towards her guy friend all of a sudden? How is Brooke a high-functioning adult with so much A.D.D. in regards to her lifestyle? Why is Brooke so mad at Tracy? What are the consequences here? What's going on?

"We're not sure either..."

However, I've got to say, if there's one thing that I did enjoy about the movie, it's that Baumbach is again a trailblazer in making women's films. Instead of pursuing predictable tropes like Brooke or Tracy falling in love with some boy and having that be the central driving theme, it's nice to see a plot that centers around girl friendships and girl identity without taking itself too seriously. Tracy and Brooke spend the film trying to find what makes them happy and, while the film ends without any sort of profound conclusion, it's nice to see these themes play out with them in the spotlight. To elaborate, many times we see female characters try and "find themselves" through romance, but this movie gives them the vehicle of female friendship.

I dunno. Cool theme-wise but the character of Tracy seemed a bit too complex for Kirke to pull off without seeming like she was trying too hard.

7 outa 10, mostly for Baumbach. Not bad, but not as good as Frances Ha.

*Sorry, Breaking out the hoity-toity film lingo again. A film auteur is a director with a marked film style who makes the film according to the way they see it. Or, as defined by our favorite lazy source for everything, Wikipedia: "In film criticism, auteur theory holds that a film reflects the director's personal creative vision, as if they were the primary "auteur" (the French word for "author")."

Trainwreck: An Unsuccessful Anti-Romcom

Amy, Amy, Amy. I was counting on you to flip everything upside down, poke fun at romcom tropes, reverse the typical commitment-phobia trend, and have a ton of misadventures with weird guys and too much booze. But Trainwreck wasn't quite the fun-fest I thought it was going to be.

Our plot:

Amy is a (wait for it...) trainwreck. Idolizing her dad, she makes a joke of how her life revolves around sleeping around, smoking weed, and drinking too much.

BUT ALL OF THAT IS ABOUT TO CHANGE.

In typical romcom format, the girl gets swept off her feet by a guy. In this case, the guy is a sports surgeon named Aaron (Bill Hader). And then Amy is forced to reevaluate her life choices.

Um...that's kind of it.

The nice thing about Trainwreck is that it tries to stand the familiar trope of romcoms on its head--that being that the girl is completely taken by the guy and then has to make him see that commitment is the only way to live your life. By contrast, Amy is vehemently against being stuck with someone and Aaron (Bill Hader) is adorable in trying to win her over. As a couple, they are refreshingly normal in a lot of ways. Amy isn't overly emotional or being played by some ridiculously hot actress who ends up with somebody as humdrum as Bill Hader. And it's nice to see that whole thing work out for them in the end.

(I'm sorry, Bill Hader, I'm not insinuating anything here but you are 

really unusually ordinary looking for a romantic lead, bless your heart.) 

But for all the hype that they make in the trailers about how she sleeps around and drinks too much and does dumb stuff like that, the movie doesn't spend a ton of time indulging in Amy's behavior. Honestly the movie doesn't really revel in her terrible ways at all. And unlike movies that just roll in that kind of thing like Bad Santa or Bad Teacher (hmm...maybe they should've called this Bad Trainwreck...), Trainwreck seems to have too much heart to fully endorse its own joke. Amy's bad behavior, on the contrary, comes off as childish and inappropriate as opposed to funny. She has this fantastic boyfriend, a renowned surgeon, and while he's off doing responsible surgeon things she's hungover and smoking weed. It's supposed to be funny, but somehow it's kind of not.

Actually, come to think of it, I think the major problem with Trainwreck is that it tries too hard to be a romance when it should be more of a comedy. Whereas in Appataw's other movies you have ensemble casts building relationships and creating identities of their own, there just seem to be a TON of bit parts in Trainwreck. I barely recognized Tilda Swinton, who absolutely murders it as Amy's boss (I mean, duh, she's Tilda Fucking Swinton, why is she even in this movie?), John Cena has a hilarious bit part as her freakin boyfriend in the beginning, and one of the things I enjoyed most about the whole movie were the one-liners by LeBron James. But none of these characters really end up getting fully developed.

SERIOUSLY, HOW IS THIS TILDA SWINTON???

Unlike Appataw's Knocked Up or 40-Year-Old Virgin, there isn't any group of friends huddling around Amy. This seems to be a key component missing, as we're left to judge her behavior ourselves without the sounding board of any other people, besides the watery office colleague (Vanessa Bayer), her silent sister (Brie Larson) and her father (Colin Quin). Without the group banter, which makes Knocked Up and The 40-Year-Old Virgin work so well, we're left to view Amy as a black sheep against the personalities of the other women characters who are either super conservative or don't have personalities at all.

Juuuust the twooo of uuuus.

Long story short, Trainwreck has too much heart to be a good comedy and too much raunch to be considered a good romance. Caught in the middle, we're left with some heavy character development that seems too heavy for a night of fun, and a lot of small, funny bits that don't quite string together to form a cohesive plot.

Eh. 6 outa 10. There were some funny parts, and Bill Hader is super endearing as the doofy, earnest sports surgeon, but this isn't as funny as I thought it was going to be.

Magic Mike XXL: This Time Strippers Are Just Strippers

Before we dive into this review, before y'all put on your Judgement Glasses, let it just be known that I saw this movie for free and had I not been invited to go see it with a colleague, I'd probably just wait to watch it on my parents' cable at 3am like any self-respecting human being.

Okay, let's do this.

Magic Mike (Channing Tatum) has made his original dream of designing furniture (don't act like you haven't seen the first one) into a reality. Making custom pieces and selling it has become his new employment and his days of stripping are over. Until he receives a phone call from some of his old buddies who are still in "the business." Heading down to Myrtle Beach (of all places??) for the year's national Stripper Convention (I sincerely hope that this is a real thing), Mike decides to make one last hurrah for all of stripperdom.

This poster kind of says it all, doesn't it?

-Sigh-.

Where...to start....

So...the interesting thing about this round of gratuitous six-packed men parading around with their six packs grinding on things and showing off their six packs, is that they don't even have to pretend that there's a message in this movie.

Except six packs. 

Six packs are a very important part of the message of XXL

I actually genuinely liked Magic Mike, the original, because it had something to say about being in a shitty industry and wanting to get out of it. The stripper part was shoved in our faces, sure, but there was also a lot of exposure--pun only partially intended--of what this kind of an industry can do to you (spoiler alert: bad things). Magic Mike also took pains to have a soul, featuring a sweet romance and letting Channing Tatum show off the adorable awkward-in-love acting chops that all of us ladies melt over.

XXL by contrast owns up to it's commercial, excessive name. Instead of focusing on Mike's actual life, we get to watch as he powers up for one last strippery party of drinking, drugs, nudity, and general debauchery.

Instead of reading like Magic Mike's cautionary tale of what not to get wrapped up in, Magic Mike XXL hits you like a drug and alchohol-fueled night out with a surprising lack of consequences.

The one thing that I did find hilarious about XXL is that it makes a lame attempt at giving these guys the chance to express their dreams for after they're done stripping. But--get this--the way that they express these dreams is through (drum roll): stripping. The huge finale gives these guys the chance to strip in acts that feature their coveted futures.

Spoiler alert: not actual wedding.

This isn't to say that Magic Mike XXL isn't a good time. While I hit my limit at watching these guys grind into women's ecstatic faces (I really don't get it.) there are plenty of laughs and plenty of glorious male eye candy to keep you entertained for the full 2 hours.

Which, let's be real, is probably why people went to go see the original one.

All in all, XXL lives up to its name. Hope you're into well-defined abs and Channing Tatum dance routines.

Reasons to watch:
1. Channing Tatum's dance to "Pony"
2. Channing Tatum's dance at the end
3. Channing Tatum's dance in Atlanta
4. Channing Tatum.

Sorry, not sorry.

5 outa 10. I could do without the male thongs.

I'm embarrassed to show this trailer. But, here you go:

Jurassic World: Because the Park Just Wasn't Big Enough

I don't think I really have to say it, but I'm never insanely jazzed about sequels. The bulk of them lack the flavor of the originals and get caught up in details that are totally irrelevant and don't add anything to the plot, characters, or larger message (see also: remakes).

However, for the obvious theater bait that Jurassic World is, it actually ends up being a really decent film.

Basically, they sidestep the fact that the last three films had made the park abandoned and at this point, in the world of today the park is an insane success a la Disney World with prehistoric animals. This new park is run by workaholic Clare (Bryce Dallas Howard). The dinosaurs are maintained to the point that people don't find them insanely interesting anymore. To combat the public's boredom, they manufacture a new dinosaur to shake things up a bit. Needless to say, the animal is smarter than they've bargained for and they soon have to track it down before it starts killing everything in its path. As Clare tries to find her nephews, who are at the park on a visit, she's joined by raptor research scientist and trainer Owen (Chris Pratt, you beautiful bastard). Together the four of them band together to try and shut down the rogue dinosaur and escape the horrors of the park.

GTFO.

Once more, it's beyond me why you'd want to try and upstage the great Steven Spielberg, but hey, you got your Chris Pratt, you got your genetically modified plot, and you've got a few other tricks up your sleeve, so at least you're not attempting to mimic the insane greatness that was the original. You're doin' pretty good.

Jurassic World's success also leans heavily on the fact that director Colin Trevarro keeps the content pretty fresh. Even though a lot of the movie is given away in the trailers, there's still enough in the actual film to keep you on your toes.

Characterization isn't horrible either. While we see some predictable tropes from the workaholic aunt who finally realizes the value of her family to the kids who are sent away because their aprents are getting to divorced to even the hidden agenda of a certain mercenary, they're vehicles for the plot and effects and that ends up being okay. Dallas Howard and Pratt have a surprising amount of chemistry, which was a nice addition to the movie, and little elbow nudge bits keep the audience interested without getting carried away.

I guess my point is this: Jurassic World doesn't reinvent the wheel, but instead innovates what's already there. We want to see more of this franchise because: 1. The first movie is so good and 2. because dinosaurs are hard to keep interesting outside of this sort of plot. I mean, think about it, besides Disney, who has had the balls to tackle dinosaurs since Steven Spielberg invented that market in the 90s?

But instead of the old characters in new situations like the other sequels have relied on, this one takes a fresh approach with new characters, a modern plot (genetic modification couldn't be more relevant right now), and insane CGI innovations that make them that much scarier.

Like holy crap, do yourself a favor and click on this. The details are insane.

Long story short: Jurassic World is a damn decent sequel. Even if it doesn't live up to the impossibly high standards of the original, it makes the same social commentary that the original does, entertains, and is impeccably executed in terms of special effects.

8 outa 10. I was pleasantly surprised.

Obviously I don't have to show you the trailer at this point, so here's a clip.

Poltergeist: A Letdown of a Remake

Let me just straight-up say that I was not expecting this movie to be a winner. First of all, why anyone would attempt to remake anything done by Steven Spielberg is beyond me. Second of all, when you try to remake a movie like Poltergeist, you can't just slap a bunch of the regular horror fodder on the screen and expect people to be okay with it.

Anyway. Mandatory brass tacks:

The family (don't remember their names) has just moved to some development somewhere because the dad (Sam Rockwell) has lost his job as an executive at John Deere (somehow, the director wanted to get some product placement in there?). Anyway, the fam is freshly moved in and weird stuff starts happening (how craAaAaAazy!) like the little boy's room has a creepy little room in it filled with boxes of old clown dolls, the older daughter's iPhone gets fried, and some other less creepy stuff. Then (as if I had to say it) little Madison gets sucked into the TV and all hell breaks loose (pun intended). As the family tries to get her back, enlisting the help of a university's paranormal investigation team, they learn more about the sinister nature of the land they now own.

Spoiler alert.

Here's the thing: the original Poltergeist is a classic horror movie. And it's not really because of all the freaky stuff that the house inflicts on the family within it: it's the family itself. The chemistry between all of them, the false sense of normalcy that hovers over them, the way they band together when Carol Ann goes missing, the way that the parents love each other, and even the connections that they make with the various people that try to help them. It's great acting. And it's scares that have nothing to do with immediate threats of danger, and everything to do with saving their kids from evil. And that is what's missing from this remake.

There is no chemistry in this family. Roles are played flatly and even bit parts that are supposed to endear them to the audience fall to the wayside as the parents get bewilderingly glib after their daughter disappears.

"Wow, in the TV huh? Weird. We should probably get her out of there. At some point." 

Additionally, and this is a bigger problem with horror movies these days in general, they make everything WAY too complicated. We don't care that the family has no money. We don't care that the dad lost his job. We don't care why you moved here. We actually also don't care that you moved here at all. In fact, I would argue that it is the absence of conflict that makes the original so scary and so unsettling, and the excess of conflict that makes the newer version so boring. The family'd been living in the house for a while in the original, making the scares that much more random and unexpected, while new house horror isn't exactly groundbreaking.

Actually, I think that is my general problem with this movie. It tries too damn hard at something that came across as effortless in the original. The thing that so many neglect to acknowledge about good horror--especially otherworldly horror!-- is that it doesn't demand a lot of complexity. The nature of it is that it's inexplicable, so the goal of the director shouldn't be to make the inexplicable especially complicated. We should have the gist of what it is and then get absorbed by the performances and the scares.

See??? Look at how normal!

The original Poltergeist can be summed up in two sentences: "Our daughter just got sucked into another plane by an evil presence in the house. We will do anything to get her out of there."

By contrast, the new version would go something like this: "We really have no money right now and this house is all we can afford and weird things are happening oh man where'd our daughter go... Good thing we never interact with anyone outside our home. Wait, let's enlist some paranormal experts. Here's some jokes about paranormal things, haha, we are all surprisingly well adjusted despite the fact our daughter is lost in the spirit realm--wonder how she's doing in there--anyway, here's this guy to explain what's happening and give us a haphazard way to get her back, some serious CGI effects, blah blah blah, some thoughts about the nature of fear, aaaand welp that's all folks!"

"Oh also, here's a box of clown dolls. Because normal."

(Wtf, why would you have a box of clown dolls in your new house,

why would you not get rid of those -- NOT NORMAL. ENOUGH WITH THE

WEIRD SCARY DOLL TROPE.)

4 outa 10. Not the worst I've seen but comparitively just a terrible idea.

The D Train: Um...What.

The D Train is one of those rare flicks that I saw without knowing anything about it outside of the trailer. Ths ticket was free and it had James Marsden in it.

In hindsight, I should've done a bit more reading.

The plot follows Dan (Jack Black), a run-of-the-mill kind of guy who married his high school sweetheart, took a job out of high school, and had never moved away from his hometown. He is trying to oganize his upcoming 20-year high school reunion. Understandably (because who really thinks about high school that often when you're in your late 30s), he's having trouble getting people into it. But a ray of hope appears in the form of his former classmate Oliver Lawless (James Marsden), who he sees in a national commercial for Banana Boat sunscreen. Flying to California to try and recruit him, Dan weaves an intricate web of lies to get Lawless to come. But um...Dan may have bitten off a bit more than he could chew... And Oliver might not be the guy that Dan idealizes anyway.

Talk about opposite ends of the spectrum...

How...to describe...the turning point this movie took...

I really don't think I can do it without spoilers, so here we go:

BELOW BE SPOILERS, YE BE WARNED

I don't know whose idea it was to make Oliver Lawless have sex with Dan after a great night partying in L.A. Or whose idea it was to make Dan keep trying to be his friend after that. Or whose idea it was to make this entire movie a giant cringe-fest.

I don't know whose idea any of this was, but I was not into it.

Like who wants to see Jack Black have sex with anyone, let alone the impeccable James Marsden? The shock factor is significant, and while it tries its best to make this black comedic moment funny, I really just did NOT see it coming and felt like the aftermath read as unrealistic. Well...not as unrealistic as James Marsden having sex with Jack Black...but pretty unrealistic.

Okay, I had to get that off my chest, let's try to analyze this without mentioning it ever again.

OKAY IT'S SAFE NOW

Here's the thing: the movie tries to make a commentary on how we all feel after high school without giving us any context to how high school actually was for Dan and Oliver, and that is a damn shame for two reasons:

1. Everyone likes a good flashback sequence.
2. We'd actually understand these guys a little better.

It's hard to sympathize with these characters when we don't know the circumstances that lead them to be who they are in the present. We also don't really get a lot of context for who they were in the past. Consequently, we see Dan become increasingly, and SO UNCOMFORTABLY, obsessed with Oliver's lifestyle and coolness, which just grosses us out, and we see Oliver reveal himself to be more and more of a terrible human with each scene, which isn't very fun either.

Though he IS pretty fun to look at...

Like, I get it. The end game is that no one in high school (or life even, if you wanna go down that road) is as self-assured as they seem. Cool kids are usually harboring troubles of their own (if we are to learn ANYTHING from John Hughes movies) and nerds feel underappreciated.

It's hard to shed the identity that you develop as a teenager, but you don't have to hold yourself to that standard. There's more to life than being well-liked. You just gotta find your groove.

At least, I think that's what it's saying. I got distracted by a PARTICULAR SCENE (spoiler-readers know what I'm talkin' about...)

4.5 outa 10. I hate cringe-humor movies.

Far From the Madding Crowd: 19th Century Soap Opera...In a Good Way

It really bugs me when people get all down about "the world of today" and how people eat up things like the lives of the Kardashians or the latest Lifetime movie. Honestly, people have always had a flare for drama; it's not something that's limited to poor taste today. Women used to get flak for reading too many novels including works like Far From the Madding Crowd, a movie that basically plays out like an 1870s soap opera (much to my delight!).

When we first meet Bathsheba Everdeen (not to be confused with Katniss), she's helping out her aunt on their farm. Bathsheba is a headstrong girl, unusual for the times, and likes to do whatever she wants. When she meets Gabriel Oak, a neighbor, they seem to strike a chord with one another and he promptly asks her to marry him, but she declines. Not long after, they have a reversal of fortunes, with Bathsheba inheriting her uncle's farm, and Gabriel becoming a worker for her. The movie then follows her as she makes terrible romantic decisions with a soldier and a gentleman, and Gabriel has no choice but to be her friend and offer her advice.

Lolz dating hasn't been invented yet.

One of the really neat things about this film is how progressive it is for a period piece (which, it must be noted, may or may not be due to artistic license taken with the original material, the novel Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy). Many examples of this kind of era drama end up punishing the feminine protagonist for being wayward or careless with romance, but it's nice to see that while Bathsheba makes a lot of different mistakes that affect her wild personality, she escapes unscathed for the most part. And for being set in the 1870s, it's impressive that she takes charge of the farm that was given to her in the same manner that most men would. I found this really refreshing.

Damn it feels good to be a gangsta.

But again, the driving delight in this movie is its overblown drama. It involves love triangles, untimely death, fakeouts, honor, jealousy, and everything that one might find in a trashy novel. But it's executed pretty well. When she meets the soldier, she's taken by his devil-may-care attitude and soon becomes smitten. But on the other side of the coin, her neighbor Mr. Boldwood can offer her the stability that every woman at this time would've wanted. What's a mid-19th century girl to do!?

If Nicholas Sparks had been around in the 1870s, he could have written this piece. But the fact that it's set 150 years ago keeps it from getting overly sappy and dragging. The sets, cinematography, and especially the great acting by Carey Mulligan keep a delightfully unrefined tale from getting stale, predictable, and eye-roll inducing. And anything set in the English countryside is going to be gorgeous.

7 outa 10 for this chick; but you might not love if you're not into romantic drama.