Movie Diary
a) The Art Of Organized Noize
I wondered initially if maybe this should've just been a movie about Outkast or the Dungeon Family in general, but I'm glad that it was done more from the perspective of the production team, as sort of a Standing In The Shadows Of Motown for the hip hop generation. The direction and storytelling aren't anything fancy and impressive and there's not a lot of archival footage outside of music videos, but they've got interviews with pretty much everyone you'd want them to talk to, and you got some pretty fascinating anecdotes. I never liked the later Outkast stuff as much as the early records, so it's nice to hear from the producers who they kinda left behind when they made Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, and the Goodie Mob albums are so underrated that it's great to hear more about the stories behind those.
b) Pixels
I've gotten pretty good at avoiding Adam Sandler movies, especially the Happy Madison ones written by his sidekicks like Tim Herlihy. But this movie had a fun premise and cool-looking effects and a better than usual supporting cast (Peter Dinklage, Michelle Monaghan, Brian Cox, Jane Krakowski), so I tried to give it a chance. There was a lot of stupid unfunny Sandler stuff, but it was relatively bearable.
I was one of the people who jeered at the "Herman's Head" premise and the kind of hoary battle-of-the-sexes vibe of the first Inside Out trailer, so I was surprised when it got a lot of praise as one of the best recent Pixar movies. But yeah, it was pretty good, a lot of smart casting and clever world-building and heart-tugging storytelling. There were times when I felt like the convoluted situation going on in Riley's head was really not that funny and wish they would've gotten the main story back on track a little faster, but still, pretty solid.
d) Entourage
I watched all 8 seasons of "Entourage," even as I was painfully aware of how sharply the show dropped off in quality after the first two or three seasons, so if I could stick to the end just to see how bad it could get, I felt obligated to do so with the movie as well. It was really pretty stupid and worthless, even by the standards of the later episodes, though. I think Jeremy Piven got a couple moments that made me laugh out loud, but that was about it.
e) Poltergeist
The original Poltergeist felt kind of huge and ubiquitous in the '80s but I don't think I'd ever actually watched it from front to back. So I did that a couple days before I watched the 2015 version, just to be able to compare and contrast. And really, the original hasn't dated incredibly well, so I don't mind that they went for a pretty different vibe with the remake and modernized it, they did a good job of incorporating present day technology into the story. Sam Rockwell seemed kinda overqualified to be the generic concerned dad, though, and visually the CGI was a lot less interesting and memorable than the effects in the original.
f) Pitch Perfect 2
My wife loves the Pitch Perfect movies and watches them so often that they're growing on me. I think the second movie might be a little funnier than the first, which kinda makes sense with Elizabeth Banks directing, it was pretty cool that she got that gig.
g) Avengers: Age Of Ultron
Everyone gets so worked up and angry and Marvel/D.C. partisan talking about superhero movies now and I kinda just wanna stay out of it. I've been mostly pretty into the Marvel movies, and this one was definitely too long and less fun than the first Avengers flick or the last Captain America flick, but I didn't think it was as fatally flawed as a lot of people made it out to be. The ending unveiling the weak ass B team Avengers was so uninspiring, though.
h) The DUFF
Easy A is definitely the best high school movie since Mean Girls, but this might be the best high school movie since Easy A. It hits a lot of the same notes as those two movies, but does a good job of being its own thing, Mae Whitman is really charming.
i) Mirror Mirror
This is one of the lesser known movies Kathryn Bigelow made in those 18 years between Point Break and The Hurt Locker. It's based on a novel, and the source material is pretty ambitious, jumping between a modern day story and a murder committed a century earlier, and I can imagine the book paralleling those two stories well, but the connective tissue feels a little thin in the film. Elizabeth Hurley looks amazing, but Sean Penn has that awful mustache to balance it out.
Another movie that Dr. My Wife picked that I found myself enjoying, I liked that they didn't make a big deal of doing some crazy new twist on the Snow White story, they just added a little more humor and music with a good cast.
j) The Weight Of WaterThis is one of the lesser known movies Kathryn Bigelow made in those 18 years between Point Break and The Hurt Locker. It's based on a novel, and the source material is pretty ambitious, jumping between a modern day story and a murder committed a century earlier, and I can imagine the book paralleling those two stories well, but the connective tissue feels a little thin in the film. Elizabeth Hurley looks amazing, but Sean Penn has that awful mustache to balance it out.
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