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Monthly Archives: September 2017
Movie Review – Home Again (2017)
Ugh…why did I waste my time on this stinkburger?
Oh, I know. Because the East Randomtown Cineplex was all sold out on “It” tickets.
BQB here with a review of the poopfest that is “Home Again.”
If I wanted to write a parody of a romantic comedy, I would start with some vapid, surface level characters – beautiful people with beautiful people problems. They’re rich and successful but they’re still sad because, I dunno, they’re not getting rich and successful in the exact way they’d like to be. And they’re hot and attractive and have lots of dating options but can’t quite decide, out of the large pool of people who want to bang them, who to bang.
I’d add some boring, long drawn out conversations – a lot of “tell” instead of “show” and presto – a perfect romcom parody.
“Home Again” has all that and more. Had they added a laugh track, it would have been the comedic event of the fall, poking fun at all of the romantic comedy tropes but alas, the rub is, this was a serious attempt at a romantic comedy that just fell flat.
Other than about an hour too long, I’m not sure what this movie is about.
The set-up is that Alice Kinney is a newly separated mom who has just moved her two kids to LA to live in the sprawling LA estate left to her by her wealthy Hollywood director father after his passing. Oh, and her mother is a retired movie star played by Candace Bergen. But the fact that Alice is rich and the offspring of Hollywood royalty is completely glossed over. She’s struggling really hard to start her own interior decorator business and her client, played by Lake Bell, is being mean to her, and somehow you’re supposed to feel bad for Alice even though she’s rich enough that she could tell Lake to eat a bag of dicks if she wanted to.
During a 40th birthday celebration, Alice parties and meets three dudes. They’re aspiring filmmakers including Harry, Teddy, and George (Pico Alexander, Nat Wolf and Jon Rudnitsky.)
The dudes are on the verge of a major movie deal – and you’re supposed to feel sorry for them because Hollywood suits are totally screwing with their artistic vision, even though, you know, we normal people, if offered any kind of Hollywood deal, would gladly suck a bag of dicks for it and let the suits know they can feel free to shit on our vision as much as they want as long as they back up the money truck to our houses.
Feeling sorry for the dudes because they have no place to stay, Alice allows the boys (all twenty somethings) to crash in her guest house. Over time, a romance blooms between Alice and Harry.
It’s complicated because Alice hasn’t quite resolved things between her ex, Michael Sheen. And Alice’s daughters start to get attached to the dudes, seeing them as quasi-uncle type figures.
At this point, the whole thing meanders and farts around, leaving the audience unsure as to what the hell is going on, what the point is, or if there even is one.
Perhaps the point is that older women shouldn’t feel ashamed if they fall for younger men. Younger men shouldn’t necessarily even feel ashamed if they fall for older women. Maybe age is just a number and as long as everyone is an adult of consenting age, then who cares?
The problem is at no time is that issue ever really explored. A friend of Alice’s points out that older men go for younger women all the time so why shouldn’t Alice do the reverse? True, but keep in mind that men are led by their boners while women are led by a desire for security. Thus, an older man can hook a young babe as long as he’s willing to be treated like a human cash machine. An older woman can snag a young guy as long as she’s still hot.
Reese is still hot, so it’s not like Harry’s really putting his ass on the line. Further, at one point in the film, Alice goes on a date with a “man her age” and the 40 year old man is presented as a bald, bearded, unemployed, bumbling oaf. The rub seems to be that women like to complain a lot about how men see them as objects and kick them to the curb when they get older even though its not their fault that time robs them of their beauty. The date with the “man her age” is presented as though Alice is really going to be fucked if she can’t make it work with Harry, otherwise she’ll have to settle for a bald old piece of shit even though, I mean, yeah it’s not like that fucker could have a brain or a heart or a soul because fuck him hair stopped growing on his head.
Men should stop pretending like older women can just will their knockers to not be saggy anymore. It would just be great if women could stop pretending like older men could will hair back on top of their bald heads. Let’s just all agree that time fucks us all over real good and agree to be nice to one another in spite of it, OK?
At any rate, the whole issue of May/December love between a young man and an older woman could be explored. It raises a lot of questions. What if Harry wants kids? Alice already has two and she might not have much time left to have another. Will Alice’s health decline before Harry’s? Will Harry spend his prime years taking care of a sick old lady? Harry may be a pretty boy but he has some depth. He wants to succeed on his own. Will it be too easy for him to just let Alice take care of him? Oh wait, she’s a struggling decorator and you’re supposed to ignore her massive house.
What about Alice? Will Harry understand her point of view when he didn’t live during the time period she grew up in? Will he be able to understand her in any meaningful way? Will a woman who has been through it all ever be able to see a babe in the woods just starting out as her true equal?
Getting some answers might have made the movie great, but all of that is glossed over. Instead, we are offered a rather lazy excuse of a breakup. A Hollywood hotshot keeps Harry in a meeting to make his movie for a long time, causing him to miss some shindig Alice invites him too. She’s pissed and feels unloved so she dumps the lad, even though, you know, the average guy watching the movie is like, “Um but he’s in a meeting to make a movie and that like never happens so give the guy a break.” Thus, all of the older woman, younger man issues are left on the floor, unexplored.
So then I thought the point of the movie might be that it is possible to cultivate happiness out of a non-traditional family. SPOILER ALERT – the film ends with Alice happy to be around the three dudes who are just going to be her friends and he ex-husband who is just going to be her friend. In true Hollywood style understanding of a relationship, Alice will just be everyone’s friend forever, content to have nothing more out of her young suitor or her ex-husband, and I dunno, I guess she’ll just spend the rest of her life looking for that special romance where the guy shoots fireworks out of his ass and everyday is Mardi Gras.
That’s always been the problem with rom coms. They just don’t play well in Peoria. It’s love as understood by Hollywood people who have it all and can afford to navel gaze about their love lives well into eternity.
As for the rest of us, some tired old trailer park broad isn’t going to relate to a rich bitch who dumps a guy because he came home late from his once in a lifetime movie meeting deal. Maybe if Harry had coldcocked Alice in the face because she drank the last beer and ragged on him for being unemployed, then you know, the average trailer park movie viewer might understand.
The rest of us in the real world gave up on perfect love long ago. Just give us someone who we’re 95% percent sure isn’t going to stab us in our sleep and they can attend as many late movie deal meetings as they please.
STATUS: Not-shelf worthy. I took one for the team and saw it so you don’t have to. Seriously, don’t take your date to this. If I were a woman and a man were to take me to this movie I would give him no pussy.
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Movie Review – The Glass Castle (2017)
It is possible for your parents to be dicks…and loveable…at the same time.
I know. #MindBlown, right?
BQB here with a review of “The Glass Castle.”
Based on the biography of journalist Jeanette Walls, this movie is a family drama/tearjerker/coming of age story/quasi-Oscar bait though it’s a bit too early for award season.
Brie Larson, and her younger alter ego, Ella Anderson star as adult and child versions of Jeanette, respectively.
Her parents, Rex and Rose Mary (Woody Harrelson and Naomi Watts) are, for lack of a better description, total buttholes who are utterly incompetent when it comes to parenting.
Rex drinks. Rose Mary dreams. Both parents are like adult versions of children with their heads stuck in the clouds. Neither of them is capable of holding down a job which means they roam the countryside, squatting on vacant properties or living outdoors. Worse, just when they start to make it in a community, Rex will inevitably do something stupid that requires the whole clan to pack up and haul ass out of town lest they get on the bad side of the law.
Rose Mary fancies herself an artist, spending all her time painting instead of, oh I dunno, making sure her children are fed. Rex considers himself a great thinker/philosopher and constantly rants and raves about all of his deep thoughts about the world, but can’t figure out how to earn a steady wage. He’d rather spend his time designing a grand castle made out of entirely of glass, an achievement he hopes will one day prove to the world that he isn’t a total loser.
And losers these parents are. Rex and Rose Mary (but mostly Rex) are constantly making bad decisions that put their children into harm’s way but the rub is at the end of the day, they love their children and both have their high points where they endear themselves to children.
Thus, a quartet of young cherubs, lead by young Jeanette, are put in a tough position. They hate their parents for putting them through hell…but they also know their parents are doing their best that their limited, roomy brains will allow and the harm they cause is unintentional.
In short, Rex and Rose Mary suck…but they can’t help it. And there’s the lesson that maybe a lot of viewers can relate to. Unless you have super awesome perfect parents who are great at everything then at some point in your life, you might just have to suck it up and admit that your parents aren’t always right about everything, so sometimes you’ll have to learn to tell them no and strike out on your own (when you’re adult, of course.)
The film moves back and forth between young Jeanette dealing with her young parents shenanigans, and an older, more mature Jeanette who has overcome a life of poverty and parental stupidity to become a well-to-do gossip columnist.
As older Jeanette looks back on her youthful memories, she must come to terms on whether or not to make amends with her elderly parents now that they are, God help her, squatting in an abandoned New York City building because…poor Jeanette…her parents just won’t leave her alone.
Perhaps you don’t have parents as crazy as these two, but I think many people have a love-hate relationship with their families. Perhaps they have said or done things that have harmed you in some way…and yet they have probably also done things that have helped you along the way. Such is the deal with Rex, whose drunkenness, day dreaming and constant failure has ruined the lives of his children and yet, at times, he offers words of wisdom or provides grand gestures that helps them.
Sometimes it is possible for parents to suck…and yet be loveable…because they don’t mean to suck. They just can’t help but not suck.
Brie shows off her acting chops and she’s still holding strong as the hot new actress to beat. We see a more fragile side of Naomi Watts than we’re used to as she appears as a weathered old lady at some points in the film.
Woody Harrelson steals the show as the Dad you love to hate…or even…hate to love. He’s a dick…he’s nice….he’s mean…he’s evil…he’s a drunk…but he wants to change….he’s a failure….but he has it in him to be a success…he sucks…he doesn’t want to suck…he’s a walking contradiction in terms.
Overall, the suggestion seems to be that to ever be truly free of all the family drama in your life, you need to move the fudge away as soon as your eighteen and not look back. Forgive your parents for their failings and love them for their goodness because, chances are, yes, there were times they failed you but maybe they didn’t mean to or they were trying their best but were limited by their own personal issues. Still, was it all bad? Surely, you can rustle up some love for them too.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy.
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A Question
Is the Wu Tang Clan something to fuck with? Discuss.
How are you 3.5 readers?
Sorry, got nothing again today.
Movie Review – War Dogs (2016)
Guns, money! Money, guns!
BQB here with a review of “War Dogs.”
David Packouz (Miles Teller) is a young man in his twenties, facing a problem that many young men face, that of money. It makes the world go round and without it, his world is barely turning. He’s a massage therapist, barely making ends meet while he deals with old men who expect him to rub their disgusting rear ends. Worse, he’s trying to become a bed sheet salesman, but no one will buy what he’s selling.
Enter David’s old high school friend Efraim Diveroli. Efraim’s started a small business, buying and supplying small amounts of guns, ammunition, supplies to the U.S. military during the Iraq War.
Out of a desire to keep the bidding process open, the government has a website that provides details for all manner of government war related purchasing contracts and if this movie is to believed, any old schmuck off the street can bid and win and make moolah, assuming he can provide what the government is looking for.
Efraim and David become partners and at first, it would seem, legit entrepreneurs who are making dough off of a solid business idea. Alas, as you might expect, they get greedy, taking on bigger contracts they have no business getting involved in, and digging themselves deeper and deeper into an international world of gun running corruption in order to obtain the goods they need to fulfill the contract.
Shady characters, crooked third world businessmen and even mobsters are all faced by these two Miami dudes who are just trying to live the American dream. Ironically, the movie even suggests that the U.S. government may be semi-aware of some of the practices their bidders are involved in, i.e. if you ask for a larger than usual amount of an item, you must sort of know that whoever provides it is doing so illegitimately.
But there’s the rub. It’s a don’t ask, don’t tell world. The government doesn’t ask how they get the stuff and the dudes don’t tell. In the process, they make mad cash, but are the profits worth it? Will they survive?
I gotta be honest, I didn’t expect a lot out of this one. The trailers seemed like it was going to be a preach fest about the ills of the Iraq War. While we can debate ad nauseum over the pros and cons (mostly cons) of that war, that’s the whole point. Like most Americans, I’m tired of hearing about it. The war has been USA’s been long itch case of crotch rot for years so while I’m not saying important people shouldn’t still be discussing it, I just didn’t know if I had it in me to devote two hours to re-hashing it.
Truth be told, it’s a modern day rags to riches cautionary tale, reinforcing that old adage that if it’s too good to be true, it probably is. Like any story where ordinary dudes rise up by doing unsavory deeds, you root for the dudes at first, until they start crossing lines and then not so much.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy.
Happy Labor Day, 3.5 Readers
3.5 readers, I just want you to know that I spend all year long laboring for your amusement so really, you should be wishing me a Happy Labor Day for all that I do for you.
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