Author Archives: Matt

While We’re Young

Alright! Another Noah Baumbach movie!

This is what I thought when i first heard about While We’re Young. It’s only when I IMDBed him that I realized that I had really only seen one of his movies. I missed Greenberg. I don’t know how but I missed Frances Ha. But I saw The Squid and the Whale. Baumbach’s 2005 family drama was funny in the saddest way possible and I guess it left so much of an impression on me that I began to think of myself as a fan. But apparently not enough of one to actually watch his other films.

I did manage to catch his latest- While We’re Young- last week though. Like The Squid and the Whale, it’s funny in a sad way but much more laugh-out-loud funny, while TSATW was more cringe out-loud funny. Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts play Josh and Cornelia- a forty-something married couple who are finding less and less in common with their friends that have little to talk about other than all the babies that they’re having. Josh starts worrying that his best days are behind him when he discovers that he has arthritis arthritis but all that changes when he meets Jamie and Darby- a couple of sensation-seeking twenty-somethings played by Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried. Hungry for new experiences, Josh and Cornelia spend as much time with these new friends as they can and their relationship moves in some surprising directions.

Adam Driver has a weird presence on screen and I’m not sure how I feel about him yet but he and Seyfried are fun to watch as the young couple with surprisingly old-fashioned tastes. They believe it’s better to build a desk than to buy one. They have an extensive record collection while their older friends keep all their music online.. Baumbach doesn’t understand youngsters today any better than Josh does though and the forty-somethings get all the best moments. He manages to keep Stiller’s instinct to overplay everything to death mostly under control and Watts, in her fourth film since we started this site six months ago, is better than she’s been in a long time, especiallyl when she’s dancing to Tupac.

While We’re Young works best as a comedy about two people trying to be young again and is smart enough to keep it simple and relatable . It loses its focus by the end with a lot of bizarre turns in the last half hour but still gives us a lot to think about- especially when I realized I, at the age of 33, related to Josh and Cornelia a lot more than I did Jamie and Darby. Guess I’m due for another sacred puking ritual.

Chappie

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A revolutionary new robot named Chappie, programmed with the ability to think and feel, winds up in the hands of three thugs on the rough streets of the Johanessburg of the future. The eager-to-please bot descends from sweet and innocent to hard-core gangster when the gang lifestyle becomes all he knows.

In the Johannesburg of the future where crime is kept under control by an elite army of police robots, a revolutionary new robot named Chappie, programmed with the ability to think and feel by a well-meaning engineer, is hunted by a ruthless and ambitious ex-marine looking to use the the technology for his own greedy ends.

A revolutionary new robot named Chappie, programmed with the ability to think and feel, learns that his battery, which only lasts five days, is irreplacable. Angry with his maker who seems to have created him just so he could “die”, Chappie must race against time to uncover the secrets of human consciousness and figure out how to transfer his own consciousness into a new body before his battery runs out.

By my count, there are at least three ideas for a movie here. One or two of them may even be good. Neill Blomkamp didn’t seem to know which of these three movies he wanted to make though so tried to cram them all into one that he called- you guessed it- Chappie.

It’s hard to argue that this blend of Short Circuit and RoboCop is anything but a complete mess. The plot is so needlessly complicated that Blomkamp barely has any time to develop any of his ideas or explore any of the themes that he seems to promise at the beginning. All the different subplots make dramatic shifts in tone unavoiadable as Chappie takes us from sappy to gritty and back again, ending with a final shootout that is hilariously and shamelessly over-the-top. Some of my favourite movies mix styles and juggle multiple storylines but this mix is more noisy than eclectic.

It doesn’t help that South African hip hop artists Ninja and Yolandi Visser are cast as Chappie’s gangster Mommy and Daddy. They’re entrusted with much of the emoitonal impact of the movie (so badly acted that they reminded me of the Jackie Chan movies that I used to watch dubbed into English when I was in high school) while Oscar-nominated actors Hugh Jackman and Sigourney Weaver are given almost nothing to do.

Chappie is tough to swallow and leaves an even worse aftertaste but I give it credit for trying. Nothing that Blomkamp attempts here really works but, as we approach yet another summer of uninspired blockbusters, it’s easy to feel almost thankful for an action movie that dares to aim so high. I don’t think we’ll see another quite like it this year.

Thursday Movie Picks: Dance Movies That Aren’t Musicals

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Matt

As usual, Wandering Through the Shelves has given me an excuse to catch up on movies you probably wouldn’t believe that I have missed- movies that I probably never would have sought out without this weekly challenge. The most crucial check off of my bucket list this week was Footloose, which until this week all I knew of was the Kenny Loggins song of the same name and Chris Pratt’s summary of the plot in Guardians of the Galaxy. I now know that Kevin Bacon understood what no one else in Beaumont did; that dancing has a way of helping you blow off steam like nothing else can. Not even Tractor Chicken.

Footloose may not be my favourite movie about dancing but it shares a philosophy of dance with some that are. My first pick is Billy Elliot (2000), whose main character is an 11 year-old boy with lots of reasons to want to blow off steam. His mother is dead, his father is distracted by the 1984 Miner’s Strike, and boxing doesn’t seem to be working out for him. It’s only when a no-nonsense ballet teacher (Julie Walters) takes him under her wing that he finds his voice, confidence, and an outlet for his frustration. (Like Kevin Bacon, he does a lot of angry dancing). It’s touching and very funny.

Taking a page from Billy Elliot, inner city New York fifth graders learn several styles of ballroom dancing in the 2005 documentary Mad Hot Ballroom. The film follows a pilot project with the NYC Department of Education that aims to expose students to dances from around the world including the tango, foxtrot, and merengue. Like Billy Elliot, it’s surprisingly funny, with lots of Kids Say the Darndest Things Moments. Plus, it’s hard not to crack up seeing the discomfort of 10 year-old boys having to dance with a girl for the first time. Just as importantly though, the documentary lets us bear witness to a program that gives these kids a unique opportunity to learn about the arts, other cultures, and the opposite It may just make you want to dance too. At the screening I attended ten years ago, I passed a couple swing dancing right there in the theater.

Not every movie about dancing will make you want to get up and dance though. My third pick is Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler (2008), which to me follows two kindred spirits who whose bodies are exploited in one way or another for the entertainment of others. As the title suggests, Marisa Tomei’s aging stripper is not the central character in The Wrestler but it’s a memorable one, especially when contrasted with Mickey Rourke’s aging wrestler. Both characters are seeing signs that it’s time to make a clean break. She manages to walk away by the end, getting a chance to see what else life has in store for her, even if the wrestler isn’t so lucky.

Sean

Footloose – My favourite scene in this movie is and will always be the tractor scene, which is one of the few in this movie not involving any dancing or head-bobbing at all. Even before I saw the movie the soundtrack was part of my life – a kid on my bus had the soundtrack and insisted that the driver play it every single day. Which would have been fine except that every day I heard the same two songs before my stop so it got a little bit repetitive. But the movie and especially the tractor scene are still great.

Black Swan – this movie is creepy and crazy and awesome. I don’t even know how to describe it or do it justice. It’s a must see and it’s about dancing so that works out really well.

House Party – it is because of this movie that I knew in 1990 who Kid ‘N Play were even though I had never heard any of their songs. It was everything a white kid needed to know about house parties and rap battles and b-boy dancing. And everything I needed to hold a (brief) conversation with all the white kids in my high school rocking fades and Raiders hats and jackets. We watched it recently and I really didn’t remember any of it but it’s fun and it has a few recognizable faces in addition to Kid ‘N Play, including both Martin Lawrence and Tisha Campbell, pre-Martin.

Jay

Sean doesn’t know how to describe why he likes Black Swan? Let me give it a try, and I only need two words: Lesbian sex. But sure, let’s call it “dancing.” I prefer “dancing” to dancing myself, but I am quite partial to Billy Elliot, that little scamp! I was a bit of a mean little knock-kneed ballerina myself, once upon a time, and I relate to the toe-tapping need to dance although admittedly I’m not much of an angry dancer these days. Angry baking? Sure. Angry showering? All the time. But dancing I save for the happy times.
Cuban Fury – Bruce (Nick Frost) was a child salsa prodigy but gave up the swivelling hips when bullies tore the sequins from his chest and taught him a valuable lesson in humility: salsa’s for pussies. He hasn’t danced in 25 years. He lives a lonely life, bullied at work by his manager Drew (Chris O’Dowd). But then the office gets a new boss, Julie (Rashida Jones), who happens to be a dancer herself and suddenly his passion is reignited. All three of these people are comic heroes of mine, and the movie works purely on that level alone. But I also really love the atypical-dancer motif, which is only acknowledged by others in the film. Salsa may have you thinking more Antonio Banderas than Nick Frost (are you picturing Patrick Swayze and Chris Farley doing their Chippendales act right now?) but Frost does the legwork (and the foot work!) to make the dance come alive. Although I’m not sure I needed to see him wearing quite so many silk blouses, I’m a sucker for Latin music (and Latin music mixed tapes!), and I go absolute batshit crazy for a dance-off.

Waiting for Guffman – One of Christopher Guest’s genius mockumentaries, this one tells the tale of Corky St. Clair, a fabulous wannabe-Broadway director trapped in small-town Missouri, where he gets to put on a low-budget historical musical for the town’s anniversary. As usual, his talented cast mostly ad-lib their way through the movie, which makes for crazy good times, but my favourite is when Christopher Guest is attempting to teach choreography to a bunch of bozos. Corky’s patented dance moves are irresistible and I dare you not to smile. Eugene Levy couldn’t do it – he had to be hidden way in the back during filming because every time Guest danced it would set him off into a fit of giggles that took too long to recover from. It’s so earnest and deadpan I don’t know how any of them ever make it through a scene – I know I never do.

Gotta Dance – This documentary follows a for-true-real experiment by the New Jersey Nets – one year they put together the NBA’s first-ever all-senior (as in citizens! 60+ and creaking hips all the way) hip-hop dance troupe. I suppose this is a pretty good counter-point to Matt’s documentary with the kids since this one introduces us to a crowd of people who thought their ship had sailed. Some are discovering dance for the first time, others have enjoyed a little soft shoe in the kitchen for so many years the linoleum’s worn out. Two of the troupe’s over-80 members are grandmothers of Nets cheerleaders, and their stories are among my favourites. We get to know all of them, including one dowdy school teacher who develops a Beyonce-like Sacha Fierce alternate ego for performing. They’re fun to watch, even as some let their 15 minutes go to their heads, but they’ve all got commendable energy and spirit…but when they’re out on the court at half-time with thousands of people half-paying attention as they pee and get hot dogs, will they even remember the moves? Or will the racy Jay-Z lyrics trigger seizures? Anything can happen, folks!

Bonus Pick: Happy Feet The songs are great and the feet are happy…and so am I when I’m watching this.

The Versatile Blogger Award

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versatilebloggeraward

FilmMunch has been kind enough to nominate us for the coveted Versatile Blogger Award. Despite our hesitation to celebrate some blogs over others, I have decided to graciously accept 1) so FilmMunch knows how much we appreciate the nomination and 2) because I really had no good ideas for a post today and am happy to have something to write.

Here are the rules:

Thank the person who gave you this award. Oscars Style!
Include a link to their blog.
Next, nominate 15 blogs/bloggers for The Versatile Blogger Award. (I will be breaking this rule, and nominating much fewer than that!)
Finally, share 7 random things about yourself.

First, our acceptance speech. Thank you. Thank you. Wow (with a humble Meryl Streep giggle) we really weren’t expecting this. So many people to thank. First, FilmMunch.com. It’s encouraging to think that you may have been enjoying reading our posts as much as we’ve enjoyed yours. It’s an honour to be nominated by someone who is haunted by the same Dumb and Dumber image as I am.

7 Random Facts

1. I have watched some twisted shit in my day but the scene that took me the longest to shake was the zipper scene in There’s Something About Mary. After that, I started getting dressed as carefully as I would disarm a nuclear weapon.

2. The only thing I fear more than my own pants is plane travel. The first time I went to Los Angeles, I arrived stoned out of my mind. Turns out there’s a bigger difference than I thought between one Ativan and two Ativan.

3. I got a part in a local independent film once as The Goth. I had a whole musical number and everything. Unfortunately, the prodcution ran out of money halfway through the shoot and my scenes were never filmed.

4. We love working on this site together and are hoping to continue for a long time. The last project I can remember us all taking on together though was when we all went out and bought expensive guitars together and those are mostly collecting dust so we’ll have to see how it goes.

5. Luc and his wife are the reigning champions of The Amazing Race Minden, ON Edition. Jay organized a gruelling race for my birthday last year. We all raced pretty hard but Luc took home the trophy because he was willing to dive into the cold lake with his clothes on, injuring his back in the process.

6. The first movie I ever watched was called Follow That Bird, a Sesame Street movie that I can barely remember except that Big Bird for some reason turns blue at some point. I discovered last month that Jay and Sean are the only people in the world to have the movie in their collection.

7. I am still serious about getting a dog in 2015.

We’ve encountered many exciting blogs since we started ours but in thanks for their encouragement and enthusiasm lately, we would like to nominate the following blogs for the Versatile Bloggers Award.

A Fistful of Films

Rambling Film

Big Screen, Small Words

Sweet Escape with The Divergent Series: Insurgent

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I rented Divergent when studying Movies Based on Young Adult Novels just a few weeks ago. There were enough dicks, assholes, and maniacal Kate Winslets that the movie managed to hold my attention from beginning to end just because I couldn’t wait to see them get what was coming to them but I can’t say it left me wanting more. I decided to check out the second part in the series not out of a need to find out what happens next but a yearning to return that magical place with alcohol and comfortable chairs.

Knowing about my quest to find the perfect drink for each movie, Jay suggested a virgin daiquiri to get me in the spirit of young adult fiction. Point well taken but we’re here to drink so as a compromise I settled on something called Sweet Escape, which combined vodka, pineapple and strawberry liqueur, and strawberry puree. I regretted getting two when I saw the waiter bringing them on a tray all to themselves. So tall. So orange. So embarrassing. I’ll admit that they were delicious but the sweet fruitiness got to me after awhile and, partway through my second one, I realized a little Sweet Escape goes a long way.

So it is with young adult fiction, especially when you’re no longer a young adult and say things like “twittering”. I got through Divergent without much trouble. The premise that in the future we will all be forced into five factions based on such uninspired personality types sounded like that of an eighth-grade English assignment but there were enough talented actors involved ( pretty much phoning it in in most cases but still) to make it more interesting than it really should have been. Quickly into the second installment though, I realized that a little Divergent goes a long way.

Insurgent gets off to a pretty good start. The sequel picks up shortly after Divergent left off so, knowing the drill already, we’re spared the usual voice-over exposition and get right into it right away. Tris, Four, Caleb, and Peter have been hiding out in the peace and love commune among the Amity faction, led by a well-cast but not well-utilized Octavia Spencer. The Amity commune is a fun setting and Tirs and Four’s harrowing escape when the evil Eric inevitably show up was well-exectued.

Soon, we’re thrown much deeper into Divergent mythology. Too deep for someone like me who rolled his eyes at the basic premise from the beginning. The film starts to shift its focus to the Factionless and Candor- factions we were only peripherally aware of in the first- and to a hidden message from the Founders that could change everything. All of this is unavoidable. What would be the point of creating this world if we’re not going to explore it? But soon after my sweet drink started to overwhelm me, shortly after the escape from Amity, I began to lose interest in this world.

Funny Games (1997)

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Director Michael Hanake has an explanation for what makes his controversial 1997 film different from more recent torture porn movies but I’m not buying it.

Haneke was frustratingly vague in his comments during the DVD bonus features of the intentionally ambiguous Caché. Usually a fan of leaving his films open to interpretation, he was unusually forthcoming though on how he would like Funny Games to be interpreted. On the surface, the film tells the story of a home invasion where two surprisingly privileged and aritculate young men barge in on a married couple and their young son at their beautiful cottage and proceed to torment them both psychologically and physically for the rest of the movie. What’s strange is that, the longer this continues, the more clues we get that the two psychopaths are aware that they’re in a movie, especially when they look directly into the camera and wink at the audience. “Hey, don’t look at me. This has got nothing to do with me,” we’re meant to protest. Or does it? Are we, as an audience to such sadism, somehow complicit in it? The film has a habit of giving us lots of warning every time something awful is about to happen, giving us ample time to get out while we still can and Haneke the chance to ask haters “Why the hell did you stay til the end?”.

Horseshit. Shame on you Michael Haneke for shaming me for sitting through your movie and keeping faith that you were going somewhere with all this. Sure, i got the sense that Birdman was mocking me for appreciating it but at least that was funny, thought-provoking, and wasn’t nearly as gut-wrenching an experience. Commenting on sadism isn’t a good enough excuse to bring something so sadistic into the world and, as many critics have already pointed out, not without it’s hypocrisies.

While I resent Haneke for insinuating that he’s smarter than me, I may not buy that this is the anti-horror film that Haneke claims that it is. I see it more as a cinephile’s horror film filled with the director’s signature long takes, an excellent setup, and fantastic performances (especially by Susanne Lothar and Ulrich Mühe as the couple in peril). Today’s horror fans that are used to liberal use of gore and torture may find I’m overstating the depravity. In fact, almost every act of violence occurs offscreen. Taking advantage of the power of suggestion and anticipation is a lost art though and Michael Haneke has found it. Every act of cruelty in the movie begins with a long build up filled with clever wordplay. I was literally on the edge of my seat and feeling queasy throughout the entire experience of watching it.

Funny Games is a brilliantly executed and punishing work of suspense and is perfect for those looking for a perverse thrill. I just don’t buy that it’s anything more than that.

Teen comedies

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Ladies and Gentlemen, we’ve made it to another Thursday! This week our friend at Wandering Through the Shelves had us exploring teen comedies, which means that one of us actually sat through Porky’s. True story.

Matt

Thanks to Wandering Through the Shelves for inspiring me to watch so many great movies this week. The term “teen comedy” made me wince at first until I realized how many of them I actually love. I really struggled to get my list down to 3 this week.

American Graffiti– Set in 1962 during the last night before two high school grads head off to college, four friends spend one last hilariously wild night driving around the strip trying to get laid, find someone to buy beer for them, and give a clingy 12 year-old the slip. Most teen comedies are made by filmmakers looking for easy money but, in 1973, few people thought there would be an audience for this story and Universal apparently sat on the finished film for months before finally getting around to releasing it. It became a surprise hit and one of my favourite movies of all time. Filled with energy from beginning to end- not to mention the music of the 50s and early 60s-, it’s like Superbad just with less dick drawings. It’s a rare thing to see a teen party movie made by such a celebrated and talented filmmaker (George Lucas).

Heathers- “Dear diary. My teen angst bullshit has a body count”. The genre doesn’t get much darker than this. Teen murders made to look like teen suicides inadvertently brings much-needed (albeit phony) attention from the students, faculty, and media to this very real problem. Director Michael Lehmann and writer Daniel Waters apparently made the movie partly as a reaction to the John Hughes movies that they despised and it doesn’t get much different from Pretty in Pink than this. I found the dream-like tone disorienting at first but I was quickly won over by the twistedly hilarious writing and a great lead performance by Winona Ryder.

Superbad- Sometimes less dick drawings isn’t necessarily a good thing. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg started working on this script when they were 13 and it shows. The pair have never written anything else so far that felt so personal. It’s filthy as it gets and quotable as hell (“The funny thing about my back is it’s located on my cock”) but what’s most impressive is that it never forgets what it’s really about. Two best friends who have been joined at the hip for years are experiencing lots of separation anxiety knowing that they’ll be going to different colleges next year but can’t bring themselves to talk about it. It’s excruciatingly awkward to watch at times but also pretty sweet. And did I mention that it’s quotable? “This plan has been fucked since Jump Street and it’s all because of that used tampon Fogell.”

Jay

Well Matt and I have come to our very first agreement – Superbad. The chemistry between Michael Cera and Jonah Hill is supergood, and though neither likely attended much actual high school, they sure capture the awkwardness with great gusto.

Saved! Set in a private Christian high school, Hilary Faye (Mandy Moore) is lead singer in the Christian Jewels. Mary (Jena Malone), her best friend and band mate, begins to pull away as she discovers that her attempt to degay-ify her boyfriend Dean has resulted in a not-so-immaculate conception. She finds solace in the school’s only alternatives – Jewish bad girl Cas (Eva Amurri), Roland, the paralyzed atheist (Macauley Culkin), and Patrick, the skate-boarding pastor’s son (Patrick Fugit). It’s got all the familiar trappings of a classic teen comedy – the cliques and the outcasts, the bumbling parents, and the prom – they just happen to be coated thickly in Jesus. And on that level, it’s a great subversive critique of religion. Hypocrisy and high school – can you imagine a better pairing?

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off I’m expecting to see this on each and every list today because Ferris is the seminal teen comedy. We may as well have stopped making them, or at least seeing them, after this point, and nearly all that are made can’t help but reference it. Ferris Bueller, at the age of 17, knew how to take a day off. How many of us can say the same even now?

Jawbreaker Bonus pick! This is not the best movie, but it’s a sentimental favourite. The Mean Girls of the 90s, three of the school’s most popular girls (Rose McGowan, Rebecca Gayheart, and someone else) accidentally kill the prom queen in a kidnapping prank. A cover-up of the crime is discovered by the school nerd (Judy Greer) and only the promise of a makeover and popularity will keep her quiet.

Sean

Teen Wolf – I first saw this movie before I was a teenager at a slumber party. I don’t remember much from that first viewing but I remember loving it. I mean, wolf Michael J. Fox was pretty much the best basketball player ever. And watching it now adds a whole other level of comedy because it’s so dated and so cheesy but so great. Probably the worst sports scenes ever filmed though.

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure – this is without question one of my favourite movies ever. I remember renting it for a week (along with a rental VCR of course) and watching it over and over and over. The history presentation is both the most awesome and most stupid climax to a movie but I always wished I could put together something as randomly great for a school project or anything in life.

Dazed & Confused It’s the last day of school in small town Texas 1976. The seniors are hazing the freshmen, and everyone is trying to get stoned, drunk, or laid, even the football players that signed a pledge not to. “Alright, alright, alright!” in the scene at the drive-in was Matthew McConaughey’s first line ever spoken on camera and is now basically his trademark. His production company, JKL Productions, comes from Wooderson’s life credo: Just Keep Livin’!, so it’s safe to say that this movie was as big for him as it was for us. This movie is one of the best ensemble casts of my generation. Absolutely everyone is in this movie – it’s unbelievable how many familiar faces are here. I can’t say whether Dazed and Confused properly captures the 1970s teenage experience but it is so timeless and universal that the time period doesn’t matter. Richard Linklater really captures what it is to be a teen while taking us on a hilarious ride. Incidentally, the other movies on my list are more personal favourites and I don’t pretend they are actually good movies, but this one is not only good, it’s great. If you haven’t seen it you need to.

Caché

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Here’s a film that couldn’t be more different from the teen comedies that I’ve enjoyed watching all week. I’ve been hard at work catching up on all the movies I missed to prepare for Wandering Through the Shelves’ Thursday challenge but I took a break from all the dick jokes to rewatch one of my favourite movies from 2005 (one of my favourite years). Last week’s challenge got me thinking about The Piano Teacher and the films of German filmmaker Michael Haneke.

While I admire the technique and honesty of The Piano Teacher and Haneke’s more recent and Oscar-winning Amour, watching them can feel like chores due to the former’s unpleasantness and the latter’s sleepy pacing. Here, though, is a movie that I can honestly say that I enjoy watching. Even though he’s asking tough questions about class, reality, and deception, he is generous enough to structure Caché like a thriller. It begins with Georges and Anne (Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche) watching and discussing a videotape that was inexplicably left at their front door. The video is simply a two-hour wide shot of their beautiful Paris home. It might just be a prank by one of their teenage son’s friends but, still, it’s pretty creepy. Somebody seems to be trying to show them that they’re under surveillance. Well, the tapes keep coming and the footage starts hitting closer and closer to home and it starts wreaking havoc on Georges and Anne’s seemingly happy home.

One of the things that make Haneke’s films so unsettling is he’s not fond of easy answers and there’s always a lot I still want to know when they’re over. The mystery of who’s sending these tapes and why kept me riveted from start to finish but is never fully explained. As I always do when I’m afraid I might be missing something, I ran to the DVD bonus features looking for answers and it turns out the director is as vague in interviews as he is in his writing. He said that he likes to leave things open to interpretation because reality is.

Fair enough. When I invest so much time in a whodunnit, I like to know who dun it but Caché still gives us a lot to be thankful for. Haneke’s examination of a marriage full of secrets is made even more compelling by the performances from the two leads and, unlike most Marvel movies, viewers who stay through the credits will be rewarded.

Get Hard at Cineplex VIP Cinemas

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The days of sneaking rum into my Coke and worrying that everyone in the theater can smell it are over. Not only will the friendly staff at Cineplex VIP Cinemas not judge you for having a drink with your movie, they’ll bring it to your seat with a smile and a debit machine. If there are three things in life I enjoy they’d be movies, going out for drinks with Jay and Sean, and being called a VIP and on Saturday I got to enjoy them all at once.

There are a lot of drinks to choose from on the menu and it has me thinking about the perfect pairing of drink and movie the way sommeliers talk about food and wine pairings. I know beer makes me ready to laugh, wine makes me sentimental, and martinis make me feel smart. I also know that margaritas that are mixed by Sean sometimes make me throw up so it’s a good thing that I didn’t see any of those on the menu. So for Get Hard- the new Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart comedy- I thought a Heineken would help get me in the right mood.

I’m not sure if I chose the wrong drink or the wrong movie but Get Hard didn’t make me laugh nearly as consistently as its trailer did. We saw Focus at a packed pre-screening a few weeks ago and the preview seemed to be a big hit with the entire crowd, with many of us laughing well into the next preview. All of those same jokes got worked on Saturday’s crowd (although maybe not as well) but there weren’t many new ones in the finished film.

10 Movie Moments That Took My Breath Away

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Andrew’s Fistful of Moments blogathon stumped me at first. He has challenged us to name some movie scenes and moments that took our breath away. I have seen a lot of movies and have had many kinds of emotional reactions but here are 10 that come to mind almost immediately. The rest of this post will be filled with spoilers so read on at your own risk.

Jurassic Park- (1993) I think this is where I started to love movies. I was 11. I’d like to think I would know if a Tyrannosaurus was getting close but Steven Spielberg was generous enough to give us a hint: a close-up of a puddle in the mud as the ground shakes. Despite lacking the gift of stealth, this dinosaur scared the shit out of me. It was the first time I remember being stressed at a movie and liking how it felt. My mom told me later that I was literally on the edge of my seat throughout the last half of the movie.

Face/Off- (1997) I was 16. I’ve been excited about movie my whole life but this was the first time I ever thought about how they were made and the first time I became a fan of a director. The whole movie worked for me but the scene that did it was a mostly slow-motion shootout with “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” playing on a young boy’s headphones. The ironic use of the song, the lighting, the cinematography of Nicolas Cage flying through the air firing two automatic weapons. Nobody but nobody could film mayhem like John Woo did. It was violent but nice.

American Beauty- (1999) I was 18 and couldn’t believe what I was watching. “And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it and then it flows through me like rain and I can’t feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life. You have no idea what I’m talking about, I’m sure. But don’t worry, you will”. Cue an Elliott Smith cover of The Beatles’ Because. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen this movie where somebody doesn’t join in reciting along with Kevin Spacey’s final monologue. It’s usually me that chimes in but not always.

It’s a Wonderful Life (1947)- I wasn’t born yet. When I was just finishing high school though I went through a mad rush of trying to catch up on all the classics that I had missed out on account of not existing yet. It’s a Wonderful Life may to this day still be my sentimental favourite. George Bailey really did have a wonderful life and he finally comes to appreciate it on Christmas Eve, stumbling home through the snow yelling “Merry Christmas, Bedford Falls!”. I watch it every Christmas and start crying every time at some point in the last five minutes. If I’ve managed to stay strong though the part that gets me is “Attaboy, Clarence”.

The Sixth Sense (1999)- Someone had already ruined the ending for me but my favourite part isn’t the twist anyway. Haley Joel Osment has seen dead people all along but finally comes clean to his mom at the end while stuck in traffic.At first, she’s furious with him for wasting her time with such a story but she’s won over by his intimate knowledge of her conversation’s with her mother’s grave. “She said you asked her a question and the answer is: ‘Every day’. What did you ask her?” Toni Collette cries as she struggles to say “I asked if I made her proud” and I always cry along with her. Her performance is far better than the film’s notoriously hammy writer-director deserved.

One Flew Over the Cookoo’s Nest- (1975)- Billy (Brad Dourif) is so pleased with himself about last night’s partying that he can finally stand up to Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher) and isn’t even stuttering anymore. He resists her attempts to burst his bubble until she hits a nerve. “What would your mother have to say about this?”. And the stutter’s back. Nurse Ratched makes me so mad.

Vertigo- (1958)- I spent a long time trying to get Kim Novak’s scream in the final scene out of my head and I will not go through it again. I’ve rewatched the movie several times but stop it before the end.

Wall-E- (2008) Three words: “Computer: Define “dancing”.

Memento- (2000) My friends and I watched it on DVD and enjoyed the experience so much we kept pausing it so we could work together trying to piece the whole thing together. Then comes the ending. We had never considered that maybe our trusted narrator was lying to us and to himself. How many lies have I cleverly planted in my own memory and how many lies have we left behind in our writings for future generations to believe. Christopher Nolan’s best film.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind- (2004) After spending so much time reliving painful and ugly moments between Clementine and Joel, I was quite disarmament when we stumbled upon a beautiful and tender one. It seems to catch Joel off guard too as he finds himself pleading with the guys erasing his memory to just let him keep this one. Now I often call this my favourite movie but the first time I saw it, I wasn’t sure what to make of it at first. This scene is the exact moment where I realized I was loving it.

Grapes of Wrath- (1940) This is probably my favourite book adaptation of all time. It’s made of so many tragic and hopeful moments, most of them almost directly from the novel. Director John Ford knew better than to mess with Steinbeck. If I had to pick just one scene,it would be the Joad family piling into a truck leaving the only hope they know after Ma Joad burns the family souvenirs they didn’t have room for.