THE BOY WHO DRANK TOO MUCH (1980)

Elizabeth

On Monday night, Chris and I finally got to do something we wanted to do: we saw one of our favorite comics, Doug Benson, at a Master Pancake showing at the Alamo Drafthouse. Master Pancake is basically a Mystery Science Theater-esque group of guys who make fun of shitty movies. Last night was a “choose your own pancake” where people brought movies to watch. Doug Benson wanted a St. Patrick’s Day theme, meaning it could really include anything at all Irish or involving drinking. Someone brought The Boy Who Drank Too Much.

This is a made-for-TV movie from 1980 starring Scott Baio as a high school kid who plays hockey and drinks. It’s crazy. There’s not much to say about it from our end because we weren’t really watching the movie. But it’s goofy enough to be worth watching, especially if you take the Doug Benson route and insert a lot of dick jokes and/or come up with a drinking game for it.

Since we didn’t really watch this, Chris really doesn’t have anything else to add, so we’re just going to leave it at that. Also, we’ve taken a bit of a movie break this week – we’re in the middle of both Twin Peaks and True Detective. We’ll be back to movies extremely soon!

ASS BACKWARDS (2013)

Christopher

I really wanted to enjoy this movie but it ended up being worse than I had ever expected. I don’t think I laughed once in this film. It’s so boring and the plot could not be more uninteresting. I love a lot of people involved in this movie but maybe writing movies isn’t really what they should be focusing on.

Elizabeth

Oh, Ass Backwards. What happened? I wanted so much to like you. I like so many people that are in you. But you are so terrible. Why???

But yes, Ass Backwards is terrible and that was very disappointing. I think June Diane Raphael is legitimately, genuinely funny. I’m honestly not really familiar with Casey Wilson, but June being in it was enough to make me watch it. But. UGHHHH.

So June plays Kate and Casey Wilson play Chloe, two women who were once in a child beauty pageant together and lost. They get invited back to compete again in an anniversary show, so they take a road trip back to do it. It’s sort of like taking Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion and taking out 100% of the humor and charm. Ass Backwards has been done before and so much better. As much as I want to support June, this is absolutely not worth it. You’re much better off listening to her podcast with her husband, Paul Scheer, and Jason Mantzoukas called How Did This Get Made. Listen to that, don’t watch this!

THE CARTER (2009)

Elizabeth

The Carter was definitely really interesting to watch. I went in knowing ehhhhhh little to nothing about Lil Wayne. I didn’t even know he was from New Orleans, which is where I’m from, if that tells you anything.

But yeah, I think Lil Wayne might be sort of crazy. Which is perfect for a documentary. It’s just so crazy to see what’s in a normal day for someone as famous as he is. Sometimes he seemed like he was a caricature of himself, and other times he was surprisingly insightful. It was also just sort of crazing hearing about all these New Orleans connections that I didn’t know about, like how he went to McMain for middle school. That’s crazy! Or that he was in the group that had the song “I Need A Hot Girl” which I definitely remember from around middle school, but I guess was more local to New Orleans. It’s just interesting.

I didn’t really enjoy the long parts of him just rapping; his actual stage performances were interesting to see but I just didn’t care for the rapping. Probably because I don’t like Lil Wayne, though, so I’m not a great authority on it. The Carter is definitely worth watching. Lil Wayne is someone that is sort of untouchable to me, in that I don’t like his music and I didn’t know anything about him, but he’s suuuuper famous. So if you’ve ever been curious as to what Lil Wayne is all about, The Carter might be a good place to start.

Christopher

I love this documentary. Lil’ Wayne is so crazy and so interesting I love just watching him be for an hour and a half. I remember watching this in college and needing to be somewhere and people being mad that we were late but them ending up watching it because of how weird it can be. One of the things I love most about the film is that it shows, at least at that part of his life, how he isn’t surrounded by naked women 24/7 as his lyrics and music videos indicate. He’s a complete workaholic, it’s crazy. All he does is drink, rap and watch ESPN.

If you are at all interested in Lil Wayne watch this! But if you think he’s this great guy or something don’t because I can’t say you’ll leave the movie thinking the same.

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY (2009)

Christopher

I put off watching this forever. So much so that I’ve known what the ending is for some time; it was definitely explained to me a few times by Elizabeth. Overall I thought this film was scary or at least tense. It remained me of The Blair Witch Project at times, not as good but just having crazy stuff happen around our protagonists but never actually seeing who the real villain is. I really enjoyed this movie but I can’t say it has me wanting to watch the other ones, although if presented the opportunity I’m sure we would.

I will say though, if I had seen this as a kid I don’t think I would of been able to sleep for weeks. There was nothing worse than bad stuff stuff happening to characters in films and never being able to see the bad guy. I cannot imagine how many times I stopped watching movies as a kid because I was too scared and ended up being more scared of what I imagined the rest of the movie being than what actually happened. I should have just toughed it out.

Elizabeth (spoilers!)

Out of our aforementioned similar movie experiences, Paranormal Activity was mine. I saw it in theaters, thought it was super scary, and thought the last couple of seconds of the movie ruined it. Seeing it again now, I more or less feel the same way.

Paranormal Activity is weird because so many of its problems could be fixed so easily. While I believed the relationship between the two main characters, Katie (Katie Featherston) and Micah (Micah Sloat), I just thought they were sort of annoying, especially Micah. The thing about Paranormal Activity is that it’s not the couple’s house that’s haunted, it’s Katie herself. And Micah, while concerned, is so pigheaded that he refuses help (even if no one could actually do anything). He also lies to Katie and masks it as a non-lie: he wants to buy a Ouija board, but a medium told them that if they engage with the spirit(s) and try to communicate, it’ll open the door to let them take over (or something). Katie makes Micah promise that he won’t buy a Ouija board, and he does. And then lo and behold, he comes in with a Ouija board, his excuse being that he didn’t buy it. Ugh, I hate shit like that. What an asshole! AND THEN, while they fight about it, the Ouija board bursts into flames all on its own! And they’re barely concerned! Annoying.

But yes, I think the ending is terrible. I think Paranormal Activity is famous now for its minimalism; there is no monster or ghost, we don’t see any CGI, everything is just subtle. And it works so well and is soooo scary. So then, in the last scene, the fully possessed Katie kills Micah off-camera and hurls his body toward the camera. She’s covered in blood and sniffs his body. Then she turns to the camera, gets close to it, and her face turns into a weird CGI thing and the movie ends. Uhhhh what? After the entire movie having no real special effects, is it really necessary to squeeze one in in literally the last couple of seconds? The alternate ending on the DVD has Katie slit her throat instead, which I don’t like, but is still better than the theatrical, I think. There’s another ending floating around that I saw after I saw the movie the first time that I think is far better.

All in all, I do think Paranormal Activity is pretty great. It’s scary and fun. But honestly, The Blair Witch Project takes a similar theme and does a much better job with it.

THE ORPHANAGE (2007)

Elizabeth

Last week Chris and I discovered we had had similar movie experiences in college. We had both scene a horror movie in theaters that we loved but thought was ruined by the ending. We then discovered that I hadn’t seen his movie and he hadn’t seen mine, so we spent a night watching both and seeing how we felt about them now.

For Chris, his movie was The Orphanage. This was one I had wanted to see for a while, but just sort of missed. It reminded me a lot of Pan’s Labyrinth, which I love, mostly in that I think they’re both movies that can be fairly scary in the moment, but in the end are much more sad than they are scary.

I really liked The Orphanage because I liked the story. It wasn’t quite the stereotypical haunted house/murderer thing like other horror movies. There isn’t much (if any) jump scares, which I always appreciate. The movie played a lot on anxiety; most of the action revolves around a couple’s missing child. I guess now that I think about it, the ghost children in the house had been murdered, but there wasn’t a murderer after anyone anymore, not really at least.

There were some weird/annoying things about the movie, like how Carlos (Fernando Cayo), the husband of Laura (Belén Rueda), our protagonist,  leaves her in the house alone on her insistence. She wants him to, but the house is huge. Couldn’t he just stay in a far away room? Because she’s obviously all fucked up at this point. Another thing I thought was weird was this subplot of HIV. We find out that Simón (Roger Príncep), Laura and Carlos’ adopted son, is HIV positive, which makes his disappearance worse because he needs medicine. But then later it’s implied that the medium Laura goes to for help is also HIV positive, and maybe Laura is too? It was really unclear, and maybe it’s a translation issue. I think they wanted to make it seem like Simón was closer to these dead children because he was a child with a terminal illness, but that was sort of lost on me. It was just weird.

But honestly, I sort of loved The Orphanage. I can see why Chris or anyone else would have problems with the ending; it doesn’t negate what happened before, but it’s not really connected to the supernatural stuff, either. But the very end, like the last 2 or 3 minutes, were great, I thought. This is definitely worth seeing, especially if you like horror movies but don’t appreciate shit jumping at you for no reason.

Christopher

This was the second time watching this movie but I have to say it wasn’t as scary the second time around. I remember watching this in theaters when it came out and a few people from college and I went to see it. I remember everyone being freaked out by Tomas and most people finding it hard to sleep that night, except I think everyone had decided that the end was pretty terrible and ruined the movie.

Watching this film for a second time, I mostly found this movie to be boring and frustrating. The movie really isn’t a horror film; it’s kind of a family film in many ways but really, really sad. I will say though that watching it again and thinking about it more the end makes more sense to me now. I still think it’s dumb but it makes sense.

DIRTY HARRY (1971)

Elizabeth (spoilers!)

Dirty Harry might be as nearly perfect as you can get when it comes to badass cop movies.

Fortunately, I really didn’t know much about the movie before we watched it, and we got to see it at a special screening in theaters, so that was awesome. The story follows cop Harry (Clint Eastwood) while he tries to track down and catch a serial killer, Scorpio (Andy Robinson). That’s really all there is to the plot, but let’s dig deeper, shall we?

I love Harry because he’s steely while still being sympathetic. I don’t like movies about seemingly invincible cops, or cops who seem just as cold as whomever they’re trying to catch. Harry comes off as fairly cold, but he’s really not. He’s constantly risking his life for other people, some he knows, some he doesn’t. When someone is murdered, Harry feels it. When the bag is lifted from the head of a young boy whose face was shot off, Harry doesn’t just stare back at the body coldly; he flinches, he’s disgusted, and he’s angry. He’s like Liam Neeson’s character in Taken, except he won’t just kill everyone who gets in his way (even if maybe he wants to). He has morals and rules, even if they’re sometimes just forced on him by the police force. But still, they’re there. Also, Harry single-handedly foils a bank robbery with one gun while eating a hot dog. FUUUUUUUUCCCCCKIN COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!

I also love how Dirty Harry keeps you guessing, but in an unexpected way. Even though we don’t really know anything about Scorpio, he’s revealed to use pretty early on in the movie. So the first half of the movie is about Harry trying to catch Scorpio, even though we know who and where Scorpio is. So when Harry does catch Scorpio not too far into the movie, I wasn’t really sure what the plot was going to be after that. Which I loved! Because then the movie became a broader version of the original story; Harry caught Scorpio, but without a warrant and Scorpio is let go. So now Harry has to try to keep Scorpio from killing, all while trying to abide by the rules of the police force, which is not as easy as you would think. Harry’s character is really shown to us in this second half, because he takes it upon himself to stop the killer, whether the police department is going to help him or not. And he does stop the killer, of course, and it’s awesome.

Dirty Harry is also really funny and super scary. I’m really glad I didn’t watch it when I was younger. What makes Scorpio so scary is that he seriously doesn’t give a shit about whom he kills: men, women, children, black, white, gay, straight, even a priest . . . it doesn’t matter who he’s going for, just that he’s going to kill someone. And of course, he also kidnaps, rapes, and murders a 14 year old. We don’t see any of that, just the aftermath, but that’s bad enough. Poor Andy Robinson. What a total creep. But to counter that, the movie is really legitimately funny and it mostly comes from Eastwood. Harry does not give a fuck, for better or for worse, and it’s entertaining no matter what.

I’m sure most people have seen Dirty Harry, but it’s worth watching either way. SOOOO GOOOOOOOD!!

Christopher (spoilers!)

This is the third time I’ve watched Dirty Harry and even though some of the plot was difficult to believe, I still think this is such a great cop film. I remember watching this when I was really little, I’m not sure why my parents let me even watch it actually because the killer horrified me. There were many sleepless nights due to him. Then, I ended up watching this movie again in high school and from that experience I remember thinking that it was such a 70s film because of all the shakey zoom in/out shots. Watching it as an adult I think what I loved most about the film is how it’s kind of in two different parts. The first half is the killer doing his thing, killing, and Harry trying to catch him, but after half the movie, the killer is caught by Harry but allowed to be free because of Harry’s “do as he pleases” attitude. From there it’s all about Harry trying to catch the killer mess up.

This movie will be a classic forever and I feel rightly so. I’m not sure if they are supposed to be good, and I feel like I have seen at least one other, but I think the plan is for Elizabeth and myself to watch the sequels soon. We’ll keep you posted.

FAILURE TO LAUNCH (2006)

Christopher

I thought this movie was way too much fun to watch. It’s so crazy, maybe not as crazy as Holiday in Handcuffs, but this movie is about a thirty something year old who will not move out of his parents’ house and his three friends who are the same way? Where is this land of crazy older single males? Also having SJP as the main female is always a rough choice but she’s always so awful it makes her scenes fun to watch.

This movie is crazy, on Netflix, and should be the movie you watch this coming Friday!

Elizabeth

Here’s the funniest part of Failure to Launch: it includes two Oscar winners and one Oscar nominee! Which is funny, because Failure to Launch is a total nightmare of a movie.

First of all, I’m from New Orleans and Failure to Launch‘s Wikipedia page says that the story takes place in New Orleans but I completely missed that. The only thing that stood out as being New Orleans is a scene that takes place at Zephyr Field, which I just thought was weird. But there’s also a scene in which Tripp (Matthew McConaughey) and his friends Ace (Justin Bartha) and Demo (Bradley Cooper), which are the characters’ names for real, go surfing. Sooo a lot of weirdness with the location here.

Anyway, Failure to Launch is about Tripp, who is 35 and still lives with his parents, Al (Terry Bradshaw) and Sue (Kathy Bates). Ace and Demo still live with their parents, too, and they seem to have some weird club based around it, except just with the 3 of them. Al and Sue find out about Paula (Sarah Jessica Parker), who has made a profession out of being hired by parents to date sons who still live at home, build up their confidence enough to move out . . . and then dump them? Sounds sort of prostitute-like to me, although Paula insists she doesn’t sleep with her clients, but at the very least is definitely con artist-like.

Naturally, Paula and Tripp sleep together and fall in love. Ace finds out about Paula’s job and blackmails her into setting him up with Paula’s roommate, Kit (Zooey Deschanel), whose sole purpose in this movie is to be sarcastic. Demo also finds out about Paula’s job and tells Paula that the reason Tripp still lives at home is because he had a fiance who died. Paula is SHOCKED because this was NOT SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN. Uh, what? I guess it’s weird Tripp’s parents didn’t mention to Paula that Tripp had some trauma issues, but why Tripp still lives at home has nothing to do with the fact that Paula was still hired by his parents to date him and convince him to move out. But Paula makes it seem like she was deceived for not knowing about the dead fiance. Whaaaaaaaaaaat? Does no one care that Paula still tricked Tripp into falling in love with her? Ha ha, nope! Well, except Tripp, but that doesn’t last very long.

In the end, everyone is happy and together and living on their own. Failure to Launch does a good job at showing the stereotypes of men being giant babies and women being meddlesome and emotional. One can only hope to have a relationship based on as much deceit as the one in Failure to Launch. Yay!

ON THE LINE (2001)

Elizabeth

I knew On the Line was going to be bad because I remember when it came out and I had zero interest in seeing it then, even though it came out in 2001 at a time when I was prettyyyyyyyyyy obsessed with *NSync. If you don’t already know, On the Line stars Lance Bass and co-stars Joey Fatone, two members of *NSync. And I really loved Lance Bass. And despite all that, when it came out, I did not want to see it. Was I smarter as a 13 year old than I am now? Hmmm . . .

But I will say, On the Line was sort of great to watch because it’s so pathetically terrible. Sammy Sosa is also in it, as himself, which is bizarre (granted he only has one line, but still). The characters are borderline retarded, there is no chemistry between anyone (except maybe Lance and Joey), the characters are mean . . . it’s just weird.

I do think this is worth watching though, because it’s such a weird time capsule of 2001. It’s sort of bizarre.

Christopher

I had no idea this movie ever existed. If I had known there was kind of an NSync movie, I would of wanted to watch it far before now, probably the same weekend Elizabeth and I watched Spice World.

This movie is super dumb. It’s hard to not notice the main characters’ lack of chemistry with the love interest. It’s hard to ignore Joey being a moron and farting all over the place. It’s hard to remember most of this movie actually.

On The Line was mostly boring but I think it’s worth checking out. If nothing else you can listen to a How Did This Get Made episode after!

CAPTAIN PHILIPS (2013)

ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATIONS

• Best Picture (Scott Rudin, Dana Brunetti, and Michael De Luca – Producers)
• Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Barkhad Abdi)
• Best Film Editing (Christopher Rouse)
• Best Sound Editing (Oliver Tarney)
• Best Sound Mixing (Chris Burdon, Mark Taylor, Mike Prestwood Smith, and Chris Munro)
• Best Adapted Screenplay (Billy Ray)

Christopher

This movie was crazy. I didn’t really expect to enjoy it but I thought it was great! I think I must really like movies involving modern day pirates. I think I’m alone on this but I have always thought of Life Aquatic as my favorite Wes Anderson movie. But anyway, Captain Philips held my attention all the way through. Before we watched it I thought the movie was going to drag on, I really couldn’t imagine what the story was going to be the whole time. But it worked in every way! I really don’t have a lot to say except I loved it so if you haven’t seen it yet, check it out! It’s at Redbox at least.

Elizabeth

I really did not want to see Captain Philips when it first came out. Pirates are too scary and it just seemed way too stressful. But Chris pointed out that it was probably going to get nominated for Oscars, so I knew I would have to see it. But I’m glad it did get nominated, because it was really good.

Captain Philips is not as stressful as I thought it was going to be, but I mean that in a good way. I guess it helped that I knew Captain Philips (Tom Hanks) wasn’t going to die because the real Captain Philips is still alive. But the pacing of this movie was so good because it wasn’t relentless, but still kept you going. I liked that it focused a lot on the pirates, especially Muse (Barkhad Abdi) and what their situation was. That helped the movie avoid an ultra “Go USA!” tone that would have really gotten annoying. I also liked that they didn’t really focus on anyone’s family – the most you see is Philips’ wife in the beginning. We don’t need to check back with everyone’s families like they do in The Perfect Storm (which I hate) because we understand how worried and upset they must have been without needing to spend time seeing it. I also loved the relationship of Philips and Muse – they seemed to be weirdly equal, but then not at all equal, all at the same time.

Also, Captain Philips makes Tom Hanks look like a total badass, but also like a nice dad type of character. Who wouldn’t want to see that?

PHILOMENA (2013)

ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATIONS

• Best Picture (Gabrielle Tana, Steve Coogan, and Tracey Seaward – Producers)
• Best Actress in a Leading Role (Judi Dench)
• Best Original Score (Alexandre Desplat)
• Best Adapted Screenplay (Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope)

Elizabeth (spoilers!)

I guess I’m not 100% sure how to feel about Philomena. It’s the kind of movie that I would feel guilty for not liking because it’s based on a true story and has good performances. But still, I feel sort of blah about it.

The story of Philomena is fairly tragic, and although it did happen, seems overly sappy at times. Philomena (Judi Dench) was sent to a convent as a teenager because she was pregnant. After giving birth, she was forced into hard labor there as payment for staying. While she was there, the nuns adopted out her son without telling her. Fast forward to old lady Philomena, who tells her story to Martin (Steve Coogan), a writer who sets out to help her find her son. Turns out the son was an American who had died 9 years before of AIDS. They then find out that he had tried to find his birth mother and went back to the convent, where the nuns told him that Philomena had abandoned him and they didn’t know where she was, even though she checked in with the nuns every few years. They also find out he’s buried in the convent’s cemetery. The end!!

I guess the biggest problem I had with the story is why we were supposed to care so much about this particular person. They repeatedly say that Philomena spent her whole life searching for her son, but in the beginning we see her tell her daughter about the existence of her son for the first time, some 50 years later. So she did go back to the convent to try to get their help to look for them, but saying she spent her whole life looking for him seems far fetched. He was a senior official for the Reagan and first Bush administrations. Would he have been that hard to track down? The movie takes place in present day, sooooo there’s the internet and all. I don’t know, I guess I just wasn’t that convinced. It’s a sad story but I just wasn’t really that interested.

Christopher

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I saw this movie but I think in the end I was mostly bored. I left this movie asking too many questions. Namely, why was this made into a movie. I enjoyed most of the story but I ended up feeling like it was just a bunch of crazy coincidences. I didn’t really care too much about Philomina the person. I would say, if you’re interested, watch this, but there were way too many other incredible movies that came out in 2013 to watch first.