Really, Wanderer? Twins?! There’s got to be more out there than I was able to think of but I’m still drawing a complete blank. Well, an almost complete blank. I came up with these three.
Dead Ringers (1988)– I rarely know what to say about a David Cronenberg movie even immediately after watching it so the fact that I didn’t get a chance to rewatch this bizarre story of twin gynecologists with a bizarre relationship puts me at a huge disadvantage. What I do remember is that both twins- one devilishly charming and the other wracked with social anxiety- are played to perfection by the great jeremy Irons. They may look exactly alike but we can always tell them apart by their posture and body language.
Adaptation (2002)– Speaking of werid movies about twins, weird screenwriter Charlie Kaufman dreamt up a twin brother for himself and got that nut Nicolas Cage to play both of them. Much like in Dead Ringers, Charlie is socially awkward and especially shy around pretty girls while Donald has an almost pathological lack of anxiety. Donald may be a big goof but Charlie has a lot to learn from him. Adding to the weirdness, fictional Donald Kaufman gets a writing credit on Charlie’s screenplay (and even gets nominated for an Oscar because of it).
The Skeleton Twins (2014)– The gimmick of having the same actor play twins can be a lot of fun but if that doesn’t work casting two actors who were born five years apart and look nothing alike will work too. Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader play estranged twins who reunite after Milo’s (Hader) suicide attempt. I’m still not completely clear on why their relationship is so strained or why both twins are pretty messed up but the sincerity of both SNL alumni surprises even a fan like me.
racist shit! Sean and I had the unfortunate experience of being stuck in front of a chatty group of seniors when we saw Lee Daniels’ The Butler. Those boomers could not tell any of the black people apart. When a black guy showed up on a family’s porch in military uniform, one old guy told the others, who needed help following the plot, in full confidence, that it was the son, when in fact it was another soldier there to tell that their son was dead. And you should have heard their discussion when JFK was shot! I mean, these people LIVED through this time period, do they really need help remembering that this guy was assassinated? Assassinated dead? Like, all the way dead? Yes, yes they did.
I should have known better than to get my hopes up. Mediocrity is as good as we have gotten from Adam Sandler and Kevin James over the last five years plus, and even that “height” has been rarely obtained. But then the Pixels trailer hit and tapped into that latent 80s kid vibe that Wreck-It-Ralph and Ready Player One both nailed, and I suddenly had this irrational hope that this movie would make me feel the same way, despite who was behind it.
halfway house, and to loads of mood-altering medications, and in his quest to come back to them, he agrees to care for his girls while his wife goes off to NYC to get a business degree and a real shot at a job. She’s putting an awful lot of faith in a man who, most days, doesn’t seem capable of caring even for himself, but this is what he needs, and what their family needs, and needs must.
Also hilarious is John Cena as Amy’s sort-of boyfriend. His movie theatre confrontation is probably the funniest scene in the movie. There are certainly other funny parts but as Jay reminded me, Judd Apatow seems to focus on drawing out funny character stuff rather than trying to cram a scene full of laughs. And I think that works here.
e it seems the reason we don’t see/feel the connection between the leads is that Bill Hader is so restrained. He seems to be actually acting, which I kind of feel bad criticizing him for. It’s not that he’s bad, not at all, but it feels off when John Cena and LeBron James are making me laugh more than Bill Hader.
ASSHOLES WATCHING MOVIES 