I honestly don't remember what this movie was about. I think it was pretty unnecessarily confusing, though.
Also, I've never liked that SAM'S VERDICT thing that I do. Probably time to stop doing that and just making people judge what I say by what I say instead of a one sentence summary. If I want people to read a one sentence summary, I'll write them a one sentence summary. What idiot made it a requirement, anyway?
PS: Dollhouse season 2 is super duper good. Like, super duper. Get on that.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
The Blind Side
This is the one with Sandra Bullock doing a southern accent. Quite admirably, I might add. If you’d seen her in lots of other stuff it might be hard to adjust to, but it sounded natural enough to me.
The previews make this look like another bad sports story movie. Southern white woman takes in poor black kid, buys him stuff, fixes him up, makes him a football star, and then the cast of characters together overcomes whatever twist begins the third act. I’ll be honest, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. The Blind Side follows this plot to a tee but turns out to be enjoyable all the same.
Hold that thought: it bothers me how much I seem to open these reviews with a paragraph like that one. I describe some stereotypical movie formula, say that whatever I’m reviewing fits said formula like a glove, and then follow that up with a “but it wasn’t that bad”. Apparently formulas work. That must be why Hollywood keeps using them.
Back to the review. Actually, do I even need to go back to the review? If you’ve ever seen a movie about a disadvantaged person coming from behind and overcoming obstacles to become some sort of hero, you know exactly how this movie will go. And holy balls is there a lot of movies about that. There’s a lot of books, comics, verbal tales, etc about that. That’s, like, one of the most basic story arch-types. It’s a good’un. This one doesn’t stick out much, but it does have uniquenesses(amases). Sandra Bullock’s character is great. It’s not a new character, but she plays a mean tough modern woman doing what she thinks is right. The story focuses a lot more on the home life of the characters rather than football, which I prefer.
Yeah.
On the flip side, there’s some probably racially insensitive black thugs, a really dumb excuse for the cops to get involved with our heroes, and some really odd “look at us, we’re in a southern movie; isn’t that wacky?” moments. Like, they hire this old woman to tutor the poor black kid when he needs better grades to get into college, and there’s this awkward moment where Sandra is about to hire her. The tutor lady goes “now before you hire me, there’s something you should know… I’m… I’m a democrat”. This is set up as a total *gasp* moment, which is kind of weird. I felt kind of offended for southerners.
Anyway, it was good.
SAM’S VERDICT: It’s the good version of exactly what you‘d expect from the back of the DVD box.
The previews make this look like another bad sports story movie. Southern white woman takes in poor black kid, buys him stuff, fixes him up, makes him a football star, and then the cast of characters together overcomes whatever twist begins the third act. I’ll be honest, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. The Blind Side follows this plot to a tee but turns out to be enjoyable all the same.
Hold that thought: it bothers me how much I seem to open these reviews with a paragraph like that one. I describe some stereotypical movie formula, say that whatever I’m reviewing fits said formula like a glove, and then follow that up with a “but it wasn’t that bad”. Apparently formulas work. That must be why Hollywood keeps using them.
Back to the review. Actually, do I even need to go back to the review? If you’ve ever seen a movie about a disadvantaged person coming from behind and overcoming obstacles to become some sort of hero, you know exactly how this movie will go. And holy balls is there a lot of movies about that. There’s a lot of books, comics, verbal tales, etc about that. That’s, like, one of the most basic story arch-types. It’s a good’un. This one doesn’t stick out much, but it does have uniquenesses(amases). Sandra Bullock’s character is great. It’s not a new character, but she plays a mean tough modern woman doing what she thinks is right. The story focuses a lot more on the home life of the characters rather than football, which I prefer.
Yeah.
On the flip side, there’s some probably racially insensitive black thugs, a really dumb excuse for the cops to get involved with our heroes, and some really odd “look at us, we’re in a southern movie; isn’t that wacky?” moments. Like, they hire this old woman to tutor the poor black kid when he needs better grades to get into college, and there’s this awkward moment where Sandra is about to hire her. The tutor lady goes “now before you hire me, there’s something you should know… I’m… I’m a democrat”. This is set up as a total *gasp* moment, which is kind of weird. I felt kind of offended for southerners.
Anyway, it was good.
SAM’S VERDICT: It’s the good version of exactly what you‘d expect from the back of the DVD box.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Lars and the Real Girl
Nice. Nice.
So Lars is an anti-social guy. Kinda weird. Actually, it turns out he's SUPER weird when he orders a Real Doll and starts insisting "Bianca" is his half Danish half Brazilian girlfriend. Yeah. There's a brother who's gruff and mad about the whole thing and who looks like Sylar. There's a sister in law who's very maternal. Actually breathing love interest at the office. Creepy friend as a cubical roommate. Kind old woman psychiatrist. And so on. The plot is predictable - every side character gets a scene or three depending on their importance in which they interact with Bianca and Lars. Lars ends up falling for the office girl who has had a crush on him since before she appeared on screen, they go on a date, and eventually he finds a way to remove Bianca from the picture.
Lars and the Real Girl is marketed as a comedy, and I guess it is. It's... light-hearted, I guess. There are some funny moments. I think it's less a comedy and more just a story. A well told story, at that. Whether or not you like the premise, and I think you do, it's a well told story. The pace is oddly slow; the moments that could have made for an odd-ball million dollar budget shitty rom-com are instead played for emotion, and it shows. By the end of the film, I was cheering for everyone even though most of them were pretty one or two dimensional. The acting, the script, and everything else made me emotionally invested in the characters in a way that not many movies have in the modern day. I didn't expect everything to work out in the way I do a lot of the time, I really wanted everything to work out. Spoiler alert: it did.
Okay, reality check, the premise is stupidly unrealistic. Lars' "delusion" is weird and more a good gimmick for a movie than something that could actually happen. Let's suspend our disbelief for that, though, and take one step closer. If Lars did start dating a Real Doll named Bianca, I don't think the whole town would be so supportive. Someone would be an asshole and shoot him down. There's dozens of people working together to support his insanity in the film, and that just seems... not likely.
But maybe that's the message of the movie - people are willing to love and support each other like that. Maybe we forget how much (most) other people are willing to help when we need them. We forget how much they care, and how much we care about others.
In the end, it doesn't matter whether the plot is realistic or not, because I believed it enough as I was watching the movie. The story was told well enough that I didn't notice or care about the plot holes enough to worry about them. I was too busy thinking about Lars and the people in his life. Most movies are ridiculously fake, and we go to them for the spectacle. This is a movie that's just pretty fake, and I watched it to hear the tale and listen to what the writer had to say. I liked what I heard.
SAM'S VERDICT: Well told, optimistic, and cute. Unless you have an aversion to that last one, you'll probably like it.
Also, what is up with these girls I keep seeing in the movies? Evidently there's some pretty girl in every shy guy's life who is just not noticed by said guy but who would be perfect for him. Have I always been that oblivious or has Hollywood LIED TO ME YET AGAIN?
...probably both.
So Lars is an anti-social guy. Kinda weird. Actually, it turns out he's SUPER weird when he orders a Real Doll and starts insisting "Bianca" is his half Danish half Brazilian girlfriend. Yeah. There's a brother who's gruff and mad about the whole thing and who looks like Sylar. There's a sister in law who's very maternal. Actually breathing love interest at the office. Creepy friend as a cubical roommate. Kind old woman psychiatrist. And so on. The plot is predictable - every side character gets a scene or three depending on their importance in which they interact with Bianca and Lars. Lars ends up falling for the office girl who has had a crush on him since before she appeared on screen, they go on a date, and eventually he finds a way to remove Bianca from the picture.
Lars and the Real Girl is marketed as a comedy, and I guess it is. It's... light-hearted, I guess. There are some funny moments. I think it's less a comedy and more just a story. A well told story, at that. Whether or not you like the premise, and I think you do, it's a well told story. The pace is oddly slow; the moments that could have made for an odd-ball million dollar budget shitty rom-com are instead played for emotion, and it shows. By the end of the film, I was cheering for everyone even though most of them were pretty one or two dimensional. The acting, the script, and everything else made me emotionally invested in the characters in a way that not many movies have in the modern day. I didn't expect everything to work out in the way I do a lot of the time, I really wanted everything to work out. Spoiler alert: it did.
Okay, reality check, the premise is stupidly unrealistic. Lars' "delusion" is weird and more a good gimmick for a movie than something that could actually happen. Let's suspend our disbelief for that, though, and take one step closer. If Lars did start dating a Real Doll named Bianca, I don't think the whole town would be so supportive. Someone would be an asshole and shoot him down. There's dozens of people working together to support his insanity in the film, and that just seems... not likely.
But maybe that's the message of the movie - people are willing to love and support each other like that. Maybe we forget how much (most) other people are willing to help when we need them. We forget how much they care, and how much we care about others.
In the end, it doesn't matter whether the plot is realistic or not, because I believed it enough as I was watching the movie. The story was told well enough that I didn't notice or care about the plot holes enough to worry about them. I was too busy thinking about Lars and the people in his life. Most movies are ridiculously fake, and we go to them for the spectacle. This is a movie that's just pretty fake, and I watched it to hear the tale and listen to what the writer had to say. I liked what I heard.
SAM'S VERDICT: Well told, optimistic, and cute. Unless you have an aversion to that last one, you'll probably like it.
Also, what is up with these girls I keep seeing in the movies? Evidently there's some pretty girl in every shy guy's life who is just not noticed by said guy but who would be perfect for him. Have I always been that oblivious or has Hollywood LIED TO ME YET AGAIN?
...probably both.
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