Movie Diary
Because we spent our first Valentine's Day together snowed in, watching scary movies and eating Chinese food, my wife and I order Chinese and watch a scary movie every Valentine's Day, and this was our pick this year. I really enjoyed it, they had a lot of fun with the 'Groundhog Day as a horror movie' conceit (including a little meta nod to Groundhog Day at the end) but it had its own structure and its own twists that made it its own thing. Wild that one of Michael Landon's kids grew up to write and direct scary movies.
b) Peter Rabbit
I took my kid to see it, and I found myself comparing it a lot to the last movie I took him to, Paddington 2, which is way better but overall more similar than it is different. Will Gluck directed two of my favorite comedies of the last 10 years, Fired Up! and Easy A, and his work in children's films still retains some of the wit and pacing of those movies, even if the overall sense of humor is a lot cornier and more broad. I'll be happy when he does some more live action movies about adults, though.
c) Band Aid
I really adore Zoe Lister-Jones and am bummed that she's stuck in a show as mediocre as "Life In Pieces," so I'm glad that she's continuing to write and star in her own indie films, including this, her directorial debut. This movie pairs her with another very likable sitcom star, Adam Pally, as a couple who try to deal with their troubled marriage by starting a band and turning their fights into songs. It's got a lot of really clever and funny moments and also winds up pretty emotionally affecting at the end, although it kind of felt like they let Susie Essman kind of do a monologue at the end to tie up all the movie's themes instead of working it more gracefully into the story.
I like to say that Emily Blunt has great taste in projects and that I've loved just about everything she's been in aside from just really liking her as a performer. But I'd say this is definitely on the low end of her filmography, suspenseful and well made but still ultimately really maudlin and heavy-handed and dreary where I was hoping there'd be a bit more mystery or element of surprise. Certainly not remotely as good as its most frequent point of comparison, Gone Girl. I thought it was funny that Darren Goldstein has a small role in this, because the only other thing I've seen him in is "The Affair," which is very similar in a lot of ways.
e) The Mummy
It's weird to feel kind of defensive about them moving on from the Brendan Fraser Mummy movies and rebooting with Tom Cruise. But Cruise has become kind of reliable for these old-fashioned low expectations action flicks, and this one turned out well, good visual effects and amusing comic relief with an undead Jake Johnson.
I think this is one of those movies where the title is so hilarious and infantile-sounding that it's hard to totally take it seriously even though it's pretty decent. Movies where people's perception of the world gets distorted so that they do terrible or self-destructive things always really creep me out. I really had a crush on Jenna Kanell from an episode of "Shots Fired" she was on and she's good in this as well, kind of thought the parts with her were more interesting than the main plot with the protagonist.
g) Arsenal
John Cusack was never exactly a superstar but I feel bad for the guy that his career has drifted into this aimless sea of undignified direct-to-DVD/VOD genre flicks. And I feel like this movie where he shares top billing with Nicolas Cage really just brings into startling relief that that's where he is, he's in Cage's world now, making crappy action movies with Adrien Grenier.
I feel like this movie was kind of designed to appall adults merely for existing, and in a way I think it's cool that kids movies can still do that in the post-Pixar age of extremely acclaimed and tasteful animated features. Like, the TJ Miller interview where he ridicules himself for taking the job, and the Jordan Peele interview where he ridicules himself for losing a role as a poop emoji to Patrick Steward, kind of exist as much in the public imagination now as the movie itself. But my kid liked it and it was kind of charming in its own proudly absurd way.
I started watching this with my kids and we have yet to finish it. I really have no idea who Tintin is or why Steven Spielberg wanted to make a movie of it, but my toddler thought his dog was cute. But as impressive as the animation is in this movie, it's still on the wrong Polar Express side of the uncanny valley and kind of weird to watch.
j) Heathers
As someone who's pretty well versed in '80s movies, cult comedies, teen movies, and Winona Ryder movies, this movie has always been a weird blind spot for me where I'd managed to not see it even though I've seen pretty much every other movie it shares a fanbase with. And since there's a TV version debuting soon, I figured it'd be a good time to finally catch up. I kind of feel like the darkness of its satire was more entertainingly daring than outright funny, but I appreciate the odd unique clash of different tones.
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on Tuesday, February 27, 2018 at 9:43 AM.
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