Author Archives: Jay

The Martian

In Andy Weir’s sci-fi novel The Martian, astronaut Mark Watney gets accidentally left behind on Mars. You can read my review of the book at Quickie Book Reviews (yes, she reads too!). Weir self-published his book on Amazon and it did so well that a real publisher acquired the rights, and that release did so well that some studio bought the rights to make it into a stupid space movie starring Matt Damon.

Which is all well and good. The book itself is pretty heavy on sciency stuff but I think the overall themes of isolation, preservation, and space panic will translate pretty well on film. And Matt Damon’s got some serious experience being left alone on a planet (although as I recall, that one didn’t go so well). Then yesterday I heard Jessica Chastain was added to the cast, and I instantly worried that this was beginning to feel too much like an Interstellar sequel. Also rumoured to be starring: Kristen Wiig, Kate Mara, Michael Pena, Jeff Daniels, Sean Bean, and Donald Glover. Add director Ridley Scott into the mix and what could go wrong? It’s a super starry mix, all reportedly working for less than their normal fees just to “get this thing made.”

So what do you think? Interested in seeing this one? It’s slated for release November 2015.

Update June 2015: The trailer’s just been released, and people are psyched!

Mr Peabody & Sherman

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The Assholes are too young to feel nostalgic about this movie. I can’t comment on how it stands up to the original stuff, I can only say how I felt about it as a stand-alone movie starring characters that I first heard about in 2014.

I take it that the source material, 4-minute shorts contained as a side piece to the Rocky & Bullwinkle show, was one of the first “ironic” cartoons made for kids. But in 2014, snarkiness is now a fait accompli if an animated movie is going to be have much success at the box office, and by that standard, Mr. Peabody and Sherman is actually quite innocent.

Mr. Peabody (voiced by Ty Burrell) is exceptional. He’s a genius, and an Olympian, a Nobel-Prize recipient, and Harvard know-it-all (he was valeDOGtorian, in fact). Finally he’s found himself an actual challenge: raising his adopted (human) son, Sherman, who mysteriously calls his father Mr. Peabody. We are treated to a little montage of their lives together thus far (set sweetly to John Lennon’s Beautiful Boy). And then launched into plot: Sherman is 7 now, and attending school where he is bullied. He gets into a fight with the bully and bites her. Mr. Peabody is very surprised at this behaviour and learns that the intolerable thing that the bully has accused Sherman of being is – a dog. That little moment is a delight in animation. We can read the hurt on both their faces – the father and his pain at being the thing that his son cannot stand, and the son and his shame for wanting so badly to not be like his father. If only the movie could provide us with more such moments.

Alas, it’s time for the action. And in case you didn’t guess, Mr. Peabody, genius inventor, has a secret time machine that allows him to teach his son about history and the world first-hand. But when left alone with the bully, who just happens to be a cute blonde, nerdy little Sherman tries to win her affection by spilling the secret, and like that, they’re off to Ancient Egypt where complications await them.

It’s basically a sweet film, great for kids, and it’s hard to argue against a talking dog. It’s just that this dog has no bark, and no bite. He’s all bowties and cuddles. Pop this one into the DVD player for the kids, and go have a martini all to yourself.

Scrooged

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If you’ve seen Scrooged then you might know, and if you’ve never seen it you still may have guessed, it’s not a great movie. It’s not bad, but there are better Christmas movies out there. In fact, there are better Dickens-inspired Christmas movies out there. But do you know what this movie has and others do not? Bill Fucking Murray.

The man’s a legend, so any movie he deigns to appear in has immediate cool factor. And in Scrooged, you get 4 Murrays for the price of 1: three of his brothers appear in this movie with him, one playing his brother, and another playing his dad! (The third plays “party guest” – you can’t win em all).

Murray plays the would-be-Jacob-Marley character, and there’s no one better suited to play such a depraved, misanthropic, crotchety role. That’s him at his best. So why then did director Richard Donner muddy it up with gimmicks, forced laughs, and production values that nobody asked for? It feels like Donner didn’t trust his leading man, but this movie would have been a heck of a lot funnier if Murray had been allowed off his leash.

In the holiday mood? Feeling Christmassy? Read Jay’s review of Love Actually here, and be sure to cast your vote for all-time favourite Christmas movie. Expect more Christmas reviews in the days and weeks to come.

Mixed Nuts

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A small group of dedicated counsellors are working a crisis line on Christmas, even though they’re about to get evicted. It features an all-star cast: Steve Martin, Rita Wilson, Madeline Kahn, Adam Sandler, Liev Schreiber, Anthony LaPaglia, Juliette Lewis, Rob Reiner, Joely Fisher, and Garry Shandling. Victor Garber lends a voice, tiny Haley Joel Osment can be spotted, and Jon Stewart and Parker Posey play yuppie rollerbladers who are comparatively not worthy of top-billing.

I watch this movie without fail, every year. Admittedly, this is in part because for the past 7 I have found myself working at a crisis line on Christmas.

Now, the thing that you must understand about this movie is that it is bad. Quite bad. But lovable.

Rita Wilson is a goofball who probably shouldn’t be in movies. She’s way too earnest and tries too hard. She seems to mistake acting for clowning and all her lines are shouted, all her gestures hammy and over the top. But writer\director Nora Ephron had just finished making Sleepless in Seattle with Tom Hanks, and may she owed him one (Wilson is his wife).

But just so that Wilson doesn’t feel left out, the others join in on the sub-par acting. Steve Martin resorts to slap-stick. Adam Sandler does a bit with a ukelele that feels like an SNL sketch just wandered randomly onto the set. Juliette Lewis, never the last to board the crazy train, goes balls-deep in the fruitloop department. She delivers her lines as if she’s reading a book to a group of small, not very brightl children. Maybe they’re all just trying to get noticed? Too many cooks in the kitchen? Tooo many clowns at the circus?

This movie is SO bad that it actually uses a recording of the Jingle Cats doing “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” Fruitcakes are abundant, both literally and figuratively. Liev Schreiber wears a dress and does a fierce tango in his feature film debut – oh what a career that man could have had! And by the way, who taught Juliette Lewis how to empty a gun?

But to me, all the bad pieces add up to a silly, fun movie, exactly the kind of thing I need in between depressive, suicidal callers when I’m at work early on Christmas morning. Madeline Kahn is perfection, and Rob Reiner, as the straight man, is pretty fun too. And despite the many problems, Nora Ephron is still Nora Ephron, and this movie is full of quotable lines. Is this required Christmas viewing? Certainly not. But if you’ve got a dearth of Christmas cheer, or hours to fill at work over the holidays, then give it a try. You may even find it becoming a Christmas staple.

Don’t forget to vote for your favourite Christmas movie!

Michelle Pfeiffer’s Still Got It

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Have you noticed on the radio lately that Michelle Pfeiffer has mysteriously reappeared into our collective consciousness?

Vance Joy’s song Riptide makes reference to her – “I swear she’s destined for the screen\ Closest thing to Michelle Pfeiffer that you’ve ever seen.” Which I’m guessing is a hipster compliment.

And then Mark Ronson’s song Uptown Funk (featuring Bruno Marks doing all the hard work) does the same –

This hit
That ice cold
Michelle Pfeiffer
That white gold

So what’s with all this Michelle Pfeiffer worshipping? She hasn’t done anything recently, so I’m assuming there’s a nostalgia factor here, but Michelle’s heyday was arguably the late 80s, maybe early 90s. Bruno Mars was BORN in 1985. Vance Joy? 1987, which means they weren’t even ALIVE when Scarface came out. They would have been in diapers for The Fabulous Baker Boys. They were still pre-pubescent for her Catwoman role in Batman Returns, for christsakes! Even Dangerous Minds is “before their time” and she was already sporting Mom jeans by then. Michelle was born in 1958, which makes her 56, and OLDER THAN MY MOM. And I’m not saying she’s not hot, because, hello.

But the truth is, these random song lyrics are the most relevant she’s been in over a decade. She’s probably not hanging on a lot of dorm walls right now, is all I’m saying.

So, internet, what gives?

Frank

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Jon (Domhnall Gleeson) is a slightly dorky guy on a beach, free-associating song lyrics, trying to hit on something that sounds like music. Instead he stumbles upon the scene of a suicide attempt, a raving lunatic being hoisted out of the sea. The hypothermic man is taken away by ambulance, leaving his bandmates scratching their heads around their van – how will they play their show tonight without their keyboardist? But wait! Jon plays keyboards! So he shows up that night to a gig and finds that this group isn’t just some unknown indie band, it’s an ultra-unknown and perhaps unknowable avant-guard indie band that’s lead by Frank (Michael Fassbender), an enigmatic man never seen without his papier-mache head, and Clara (Maggie Gyllenhaal) a super angry woman with bad haircut and a grudge against her theremin.

Back at work the next day, Jon’s life seems even more dull and meaningless than ever. His latest sandwich is the highlight of his twitter feed. So when his phone rings and it’s the band asking him to join them again, he jumps at the chance. Only this time it’s not for a gig, it’s for an indeterminate recording session in a remote cabin in the woods. At first Jon is elated to be part of Frank’s charismatic genius, believing that Frank can summon untapped corners of Jon’s own musical aptitude, but things are not easy with the music or between the band members. Ever the optimist, Jon gamely decides that this experience will substitute for the traumatic childhood he never had, fuelling and giving direction and “theme” to his songwriting.

Or so he thinks.

This movie never does what you expect it to, even after setting up parameters pretty much right away indicating that this is not exactly going to follow a straight and narrow path. It’s quirky and weird but also kind of sombre and introspective. It doesn’t hide behind easy choices, and as a device, the papier-mache head actually seems to unmask people’s true feelings rather than obscure them.

Michael Fassbender gives a surprisingly solid performance from behind his huge head. He plays that aloof, outsider rocker genius thing awfully well (almost as well as Maggie Gyllenhaal does the sour bitch, and that’s saying a lot). But the movie debunks\demystifies the glam-nutbars in a band thing, and Jon is soon learning just what it means to be the only straight one around.

In a World…

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Carol Solomon (Lake Bell) makes a living (more or less) doing voice work and teaching celebrities to perfect their accents. She’d like to break into her father’s business doing voice-over work for movie trailers, but the industry doesn’t want a female voice. But a huge gap has been left by the death of Don LaFontaine (the real-life king of voice-overs) so she finds herself competing against her childish and jealous father, an industry giant, who champions his smug protegé, up-and-comer Gustav, to revive the “In a world…” work.

This film does a lot of things well, but I really enjoyed watching a woman try to break into a male-dominated industry, and witnessing the different things that need to fall into place in order for it to happen. Unfortunately, there’s also a lot of back-stabbing and sabotage that goes on as well, some of it by Carol’s own father, a man who believes that there is no place for women in his workplace (and that things were better off when there weren’t women in any workplace, period).

But this is not some heavy drama about sexism. I mean, first of all, there’s Eva Longoria, as herself, learning how not to sound like “a retarded pirate” (this is her attempt at a Cockney accent). Longoria seems pleasantly game and wins some major not-taking-herself-too-seriously points. Then there’s this: (are you sitting down? you may want to sit down.) DEMITRI MARTIN and NICK OFFERMAN in the same movie. In the same scene! In the same several scenes! I nearly fainted from the awesomeness. They play the good dudes who actually believe in Carol and want to help her succeed.

This movie is Lake Bell’s baby – she wrote it and directed it. She casts this movie like it is her baby, like she knows she has to get everything perfect, and does. She surrounds herself with talent and milks it for every ounce, but she’s no slouch: listen carefully and you’ll hear her own voice-over work sprinkled throughout the film. Girl’s got chops. The script is a lot of fun, there’s a lot of great lines, and great opportunities to showcase herself from every angle.

Watch out for Lake Bell – she’s been popping up in random places over the past few years, but with this effort, she’s truly made herself known.

Force Majeure

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Sweden’s official submission for best foreign language film at this year’s Oscars is a real doozie.

A big thanks to Ottawa’s Bytowne Cinemas for bringing it here. This film is not an easy one to catch, but worth every effort.

A beautiful blonde family is on a ritzy, picturesque ski vacation in the French Alps. The workaholic father Tomas (Johannes Bah Kuhnke) is taking some much-needed “family time” – that is, until the second day, when an avalanche threatens the family and he saves his own hide, leaving his wife and kids for dead. Luckily, the avalanche was controlled and everyone’s fine – well, everyone’s uninjured. Physically uninjured. But everyone’s hurt.

This film is a fascinating look at what happens to this family now that it’s been confronted with an awful truth. What are these primal instincts? Can we blame them for our actions? Can we count on them? Who can we count on?

After the movie, a small group of Assholes met up at Maxwell’s Bistro on Elgin to debrief, and boy did we need it. The director, Ruben Östlund, is a master at manipulating tension. The fallout unfolds slowly. He uses blank spaces to let the tension mount. It sometimes feels pressurized, unbearable. But every uncomfortable scene is worthy of comment. Together they piece together a larger portrait of a relationship that is being redefined quickly.

What happens when your spouse lets you down so profoundly? What happens when you let yourself down, when you fail to live up to your own values? Can a relationship really be measured by a split-second decision?

The film holds a mirror up to our own relationships, and we ask ourselves what we would have done. And if we’re asking honestly (because of course in our guts we all hope we’d do the right thing) we have to wonder: at our most base self, our most primal self, are we heroes, or are we survivalists?

There are flaws to this movie. The children, though clearly shaken and probably scarred, are hardly dealt with. They intuit that something is wrong with the family unit, and they want to comfort and protect their father from whatever he’s going through. But their own confusion and anger is never given a voice. Focus remains on the couple, and we are constantly reminded of just how intimate our eavesdropping is, although the wife, Ebba, ( Lisa Loven Kongsli) seems to find it easier to voice her disbelief and criticism in public rather than in private.

It’s awkward. Oh man is it awkward. Imagine being at this dinner party. Your friend of many years, it turns out, is a huge coward who saved himself and abandoned his children for dead. You feel sorry for him. Do you comfort him? Comfort her? Make excuses for him? Identify with him? Question your own motives?

This movie is unafraid. It’s not pretty, but we aren’t allowed to look away. It’s not enough just to break the marriage open, now we have to go inside and poke around. It’s terribly invasive. It’s provoking. It’s exactly the kind of movie I adore – one that makes me question everything.

Because whether we collectively condemn or forgive Tomas, our judgments are based on what, exactly? Gender stereotypes? Expectations of filial duty? Idealization of romantic love? Physical bravery? Basic instincts?

This movie is a much better look, psychologically, into the makeup of a marriage than Gone Girl. The characters are more relatable. But that’s also why it’s so much more difficult to sit through. It’s not just a movie. It’s a mirror.

(I hope many of you get the chance to go see it, and I hope you all come back here to chat about it in the comments. If you haven’t seen it, beware – comments may contain spoilers.)

Killer Joe

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I’m so shell-shocked from this movie I’m having trouble writing about it.

When Chris, a not so great guy from a not so great family ( Emile Hirsch) has a stash of drugs stolen from him by his mom, he has to come up with cash quick, or he’s dead. He and his father, Ansel (Thomas Hayden Church) hatch a plan to kill the mom and collect on her life insurance policy. And Chris knows just the guy to do the job – Killer Joe, a Dallas detective who happens to be a hit-man on the side. Too bad they can’t afford to pay his retainer…until Joe spots Chris’s sweet little sister Dottie (Juno Temple) and decides that sexual collateral will do just the trick.

This film is trash. Trash trash, not trailer trash. Don’t be fooled by the actual trailer park. These people aren’t just hicks, they’re actual filthy, morally bankrupt people. This fact is established very very quickly – it’s immediately vulgar, over-the-top vulgar, and that’s before the beaver gets flashed in your face. Chris’s stepmom (Gina Gershon) has no boundaries and apparently no pants. Letts, the playwright, is adept with fucked up families (think August: Osage County) but this one takes the cake.

So I was repulsed by this movie, and this from the girl who didn’t blink once while watching Sin City a few weeks ago. My revulsion was knee-jerk and I went straight for the “bad movie” label – bad, bad movie. But I didn’t turn it off. And as I watched more, I realized that the badness is on purpose. It’s the point. You’re not supposed to like these people. This film is showing us a very dirty, seedy class of people. The badness is actually pretty expertly done, which doesn’t mean it’s easy to watch.

Enter Matthew McConaughey, a southern gentleman and a breath of fresh air. His demeanor is calm, his drawl is polite. He injects the movie with a much-need hit of stillness that lets us catch our breath after all the frenetic coarseness. The audience wants to eat him up which is a very effective device because it turns out he’s just as morally reprehensible and probably the most soulless character yet. He just has a more polished facade.

There’s so much tension in this movie that occasionally a giggle will bubble up, guiltily, without relieving even an ounce of the tension. This movie will make your jaw ache. It’s brutal. It’s sadistic. There so much fetishistic sexual cruelty that you won’t know where to look. If you’re comfortable exploring dark, nasty, demented sides of people without every really scratching the surface, then by all means, you won’t do better than this movie. I sort of hesitate to call it exploitation cinema, but isn’t that what it means? To be a voyeur in this condemnable underworld and enjoy watching the bloody violence and perversion vicariously? But Killer Joe has the capacity to really catch people off guard, and not in a good way. (You won’t ever eat fried chicken again.) It’s provocative but doesn’t really attempt to teach us anything. The characters are not remotely redeemable, but neither is the movie. Galling, outrageous, and ultimately superficial. And as polarizing as the movie is, just wait til you get to the end.

(And if by chance you’ve landed on this site just needing to talk about what you’ve seen, then please take the chance to do so in the comments. Assholes Watching Movies is providing a public service: vent, ask questions. Others be forewarned that there may be spoilers.)

The Christmas Consultant

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This year, Sean and I are getting on a plane pointed south for Christmas. We are fleeing snow and obligation and we’ll be sipping daiquiris instead of eggnog on a sandy, sunny beach.

This doesn’t really let us off the hook, though. Unwilling to forgo seeing our precious niece and nephew’s gleeful faces on Christmas morning, we’re hosting a pre-Christmas at our place before we leave. Sean’s birthday is in December, which means we’ll only have about a week between it and our little gathering to do the decorating, the baking, the shopping, the wrapping, the writing and sending of Christmas cards, cleaning the house finding the perfect tree, cleaning the house again of all the pine needles we’ve dragged in, the event planning. The event planning. Parties at our house aren’t some relaxed affair. They involve more courses than people, games with prizes, presents galore, and confetti cannons at the least. Luckily our jobs go on hiatus for the month of December. Ha. In fact, lots of jobs, including mine, go haywire for the holidays. And work brings its own obligations: office Christmas parties, and white elephant gift exchanges, and avoiding Linda’s fruit cake. So who among us couldn’t use the services of a Christmas consultant?

That’s what workaholic Maya (Caroline Rhea) figures when her new job is incredibly demanding, a dozen rogue relatives are on their way, and a big party has been promised in order to impress an important client. So she hires Christmas consultant Owen (David Hasselhoff) who oozes Christmas out his pores. He probably leaks Christmas carols out his butt. He grows tinsel out of his head. He’d really like to remove the reindeer antlers up Maya’s butt, but listen: she’s a working, harried mom trying to do it all and in swoops an obnoxious overgrown elf trying to mansplain her family’s Christmas to her. He’s getting lots of credit while also creating lots of havoc. Not to mention resentment, though come to think of it, resentment is kind of like a holiday staple. So maybe you should invite David Hasselhoff over for dinner this year. He can’t be much worse than your aunt Theresa.