Michigan's Missing Glove
My Two Cents on Away We Go.
Leave a Comment
In this feel-good film, committed but unmarried couple Burt (John Krasinski) and Verona (Maya Rudolph) discover they’re expecting and that Burt’s close-by parents are moving to Europe for two years, starting just before the baby’s due date. Burt and Verona consequently set out on a transcontinental quest for the best place to raise their child: Among their friends? Near their families? In Canada? How about Arizona? Or should they settle down by themselves in the one place that feels most like home?
Two years ago, Judd Apatow’s Knocked Up tried to make unexpected pregnancy comedic. Diablo Cody’s Juno tried to make it quirky. Both had their positive attributes but tended to drop the ball in strategic spots – Knocked Up relied too much on drug-related humor, Juno on a hipster lingo that devolved into alphabet soup.
Away We Go succeeds in finding the right balance of comedic, offbeat, and heartfelt. The film is star studded, with such names as Maggie Gyllenhaal and Jeff Daniels playing minor roles. No two characters are the same, but every single one breathes. You will have formed an opinion of every character you’ve met (or haven’t met) by the end of that hour and a half you spend in the theater. The film – itself new and inventive – plucks at the heartstrings, whether through a sentiment you identify with or a particularly great still (Away We Go is LOADED with beautiful cinematography). The only thing I can find to complain about is: why did Away We Go just open in “select theaters”? It’s truly a film everyone can enjoy.
But in the words of Reading Rainbow‘s LeVar Burton, don’t take my word for it! See what the critics at Rotten Tomatoes have to say. (Though I do highly recommend buying a ticket whether or not what they say over there is good. 
)
Tags: Away We Go, Dave Eggers, Diablo Cody, Jeff Daniels, Jim Gaffigan, John Krasinski, Judd Apatow, Juno, Knocked Up, LeVar Burton, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Maya Rudolph, movies about pregnancy, Reading Rainbow, Rotten Tomatoes, Sam Mendes, TOO MANY LINKS, Vendela Vida
Of Ramen and Roaming
2 Comments
Brief post since I’m hanging out with Dustin (who happens to be cooking Ramen… at midnight…), but we’re visiting NoVa tomorrow! Yay!
The trip was scheduled since Dustin needs to take a math placement test for the fall, but we’re going to make a day of it: head up to George Mason in Fairfax so he can show me around, then he’ll take the test while I find some cozy nook in which to read. After the test, we were going to go to D.C. (a short train ride away), but the test is at one specific time each day, and tomorrow that time is 2:30-4:30pm. Instead, we’re driving to nearby Arlington to see the new John Krasinski/Maya Rudolph film Away We Go (apparently “select theaters” in Virginia means “two hours away”). But yeah. It should be a fun day. I promise you pictures!
Tags: Arlington, Away We Go, DC, Dustin, Fairfax, John Krasinski, Maya Rudolph, Northern Virginia, NoVa, Virginia
Ooh, let’s see how far we can take one metaphor about sex!
Leave a Comment
“What? We can make a full-length feature film about rape, domestic violence, and bipolar disorder out of it? AWESOME!” Said the Warner Brothers producers of A Streetcar Named Desire in 1951.
I didn’t care for the film, which cannot be called entertainment of any kind. Maybe it was because Netflix sent the Original Director’s Cut (which wasn’t allowed in theaters due to gracious censoring in the 50s), but Vivien Leigh was just plain disturbing as Blanche Dubois – and not in the deliciously harrowing way Gloria Swanson was as Norma Desmond. She shrieks histrionically at small upsets like an overly fizzy Coca-Cola, and her true fits made me want to throw her down some stairs, kick her in the chest a few times, and then give her some lithium for the ol’ manic-depressive. Plus, I was disturbed that I found the brutish Stanley Kowalski, played by a young and thus far unknown Marlon Brando, highly attractive. I guess I can’t be blamed, though. Brando was RIPPED in ’51! I mean, the studio even tried to use him to disguise Vivien Leigh’s disturbingly realistic performance and lure in audiences. (Seriously. Watch the clip: BRANDO! The man who lives with two women!)
So aside from Brando, I didn’t really care for it. What a waste of Netflix. Anna says Tennessee Williams wrote to be read anyway, so maybe I’ll have to try his plays in print form… once I work up enough patience to deal with him again.
To “Those Wonderful People Out There in the Dark”
2 Comments
I told my grandparents about my quest for cultural expansion, and they assisted me in getting Netflix (for all those wonderful obscure and/or old movies Blockbuster and the library never have)! Yay!
So tonight we saw Sunset Boulevard. What a great film with such wonderful acting! I think that upon touchdown in L.A., any and all airlines should be required by law to show all young aspiring starlets this film. They should know that a career can stop. And that it should be let go of, not held onto in a house “held in slow paralysis.” (Gah, and what great writing! The only thing I didn’t like was they stole the “pool thing” from Gatsby. You do not steal from Gatsby. *evil Norma Desmond eyes in the direction of the long dead Sunset Boulevard producers*)
Gloria Swanson was chilling as the infamous and goosebump-inducing Norma Desmond. She had wonderful quirks one would expect from a silent film actress: the overly expressive movements, the melodramatic eyes. I think the worst part was that her emotionally needy personality reminded me of someone I (unfortunately) know. And there was this wonderfully creepy thing she did with her hands. Even when romantic with Joe Gillis (played by William Holden, who was fiiiiiiine – especially when topless), she curls her fingers one by one, very possessively, around his bicep. Like a talon. I demonstrated – quite poorly – on my mother, and even though the demonstration was poor, it gave Mom the shivers. And I know for a fact I’ll have to sleep with the lights on tonight.
Does anyone else think they should film a remake with Meryl Streep as Norma Desmond? She'd do a bang-up job. Only problem: how do you flatteringly ask an actress to play a delusional fading star?
In other news, one of Hot Topic’s managers called me this afternoon just before we left the house for a dip in the pool. They want me to come in for an interview on Monday at 3:15! I told her about my availability being only seasonal because of school, and while she said I’d have fewer hours than those folks who can work through September 7, I’ll be fine as long as I can work Christmas holiday as well (which I’d offered to do). Hopefully the … fifteenth? … time’s the charm! Just kidding. More like the second or third. I think I’ll nail the interview just so long as I don’t show up like this.
All right, Mr. de Mille ... I'm ready for my close-up.
Chilling.
Tags: Gloria Swanson, Hot Topic, job hunt, Norma Desmond, Summer 2009, summer jobs, Sunset Boulevard, William Holden
Angels & Demons
2 Comments
Went to see the Ron Howard film tonight – it was great. Full of rollicking action-packed adventure. And you just have to love how all the statues in Rome pointing to each other makes everything so easy! 
(I’m kidding.)
I haven’t read the book in about three years, but as far as I could tell, the film stayed close to the original. I used the Wikipedia article on Dan Brown’s novel to refresh my memory – there were parts at the end I thought had been changed for the screen – and the film ended practically the same as the book. Major changes a reader-cum-theatergoer may notice are: the addition of current event subtext (at one point two St. Peter’s Square crowd members squabble in Italian over whether or not God sanctions stem cell research), a change in the number of Preferati killed (yay for the MPAA and their ridiculous ideas of how many deaths constitute a PG-13 rating), and a change in… *ahem* the nationality of the Camerlengo (the fictional late Pope’s prodigy and righthand man) from Italian to Irish.
In the name of the 26 Catholic counties! Erin go bragh!
For those of you who know how Angels & Demons eventually comes together, may I just say, “Why’s it always gotta be the Irish priest?? And ‘Patrick McKenna’?? Could that name BE any more Irish?”
…but that’s just me being facetious. This film was great, and I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoyed the novel, The Da Vinci Code (book or movie), or Indiana Jones because, let’s face it, Dr. Robert Langdon is the next Dr. Henry Jones.
Tags: Angels & Demons, Dan Brown, Ewan McGregor, Illuminati, Ron Howard, The Vatican, The Vatican City, Tom Hanks
So…
1 Comment
…has the title song from the Mamma Mia previews driven anyone else nuts yet? Because it’s happened to me. It’s driven me so insane today I actually thought of going to see it. And so that I’m not alone… I’m going to be evil. *plants link to YouTube preview*
But no worries… in the words of The Joker [all praise be to him], ”why so serious”?? ;] Out of the movies opening this Friday, I will be at The Dark Knight of course.
