Enough Said

Summary:  Eva is a divorced mother of a girl getting ready to head off to college.  At a party, she meets both Marianne and Albert.  Marianne become her new massage client and friend, while she starts dating Albert, who also has a daughter heading off to college.  Marianne's constant complaining about her ex husband leads Eva to realize Marianne is talking about Albert.  Marianne unintentionally leads Eva to become over critical of Albert, when she once really liked him.  Hi-jinks ensue.

OaTs:  Being a lover of romantic comedies, especially ones that don't follow the usual mold, I found myself really wanting to see this movie.  For no other reason that wanting to see a good, lighthearted movie.  They don't come along often enough for my taste.  This fit the bill quite nicely.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus is fantastic as Eva.  A nice combination of neurotic and relatable.  James Gandolfini, in one of his last films, is a lovable yet flawed everyday-man.  Catherine Keener as Marianne was perfect for her eccentric character, whose occupation was that of a poet.  No lie.

I appreciate movies that value middle-aged actors instead of the young, hot, and trendy actors.  Here, you have actors in their prime telling a story of the average middle class adult that is just quirky enough to be an interesting film.  No one would be interested in a story that follows these three characters through their everyday lives, so the Three's Company type of misunderstanding is a nice way to get us involved and interested in them as people.  It was nice to see adults playing adults and not action heroes, parents in the background, or bosses who only serve as plot devices.  Especially in a comedy where adults usually play, essentially, children in adult bodies.

I really appreciate when I can watch a comedy, or even just a lighthearted drama, without feeling like my intelligence has been insulted.  This was a nice way to spend an afternoon.  The best word I can find is "pleasant," which is not a word you can use to describe many movies.  It works here.  (8/10)

2013, thus far

I'm almost embarrassed to admit how few movies I have seen this year.  It's a very small list:

Admission (7/10)
The Company You Keep (8/10)
Star Trek Into Darkness (9/10)
42 (8/10)
The Great Gatsby (6/10)
Monsters University (8/10)
Despicable Me 2 (7/10

And then the re-releases of Jurassic Park (10/10) and The Little Mermaid (10/10).

Wow, am I behind.  There is a loooooooooong list of films I really want to see right now, and now that I'm not saving money for Disney World anymore, I'm going to head back to the theater here soon.

Admission:  Tina Fey and Paul Rudd are always a good time.  A good movie, but nothing too special.

The Company You Keep:  Loved.  Latest directorial effort from Robert Redford.  I know I am biased toward him, but that doesn't matter.  I really liked the movie.  Great actor after great actor kept popping up.  I couldn't believe such a cast could ever be assembled.  If you like a solid suspense tale, this one is for you.  Especially if you value the greats like I do.

Star Trek Into Darkness:  A lot of Star Trek purist didn't like the alterations that were made.  I never watched the old movies and shows, so I don't have that point of reference.  All I can say is that I loved it.  It was fun and fast moving and the cast was great.  What more do you want from a summer blockbuster?

42:  I wanted to love this movie so much more than I did.  I liked it, but it didn't grab me like I was expecting it to.  I love baseball, especially baseball history.  I'm so glad this movie was made, and it was really solid.  I'm still holding out for a really great baseball movie.  Moneyball and Trouble with the Curve lately haven't done it for me.  This was better.

The Great Gatsby:  I'm growing a bit weary of Leonardo DiCaprio and all his accents.  He keeps picking these characters that I simply can't sympathize with, therefore don't find all that interesting.  This movie was a bit too much.  I didn't quite buy into it.  I'll always love Joel Edgerton, though, and found him quite charismatic as Tom.

Monsters University:  Solid movie from Pixar.  Fun to watch, and I loved the story of how Mike and Sully met.  I just had a problem with it:  At the end of Monsters Inc., you learn that laughter creates more power than screams do.  It was hard for me to really invest in a story that I knew wouldn't really matter.  Why should I care how great of scarers the monsters are when they are going to end up trying to make kids laugh instead of scream?  On its own, I think it was really good.  But with my love of Monsters Inc., I found it hard to separate it and appreciate it on its own.  I'm trying to, which is why I gave it a higher score.

Despicable Me 2 - Fun.  Nothing more.  Nothing less.  Just fun.

That about sums it up for what I've seen so far this year.  Really pathetic.  But stay tuned for what's to come.  There's a lot of great stuff out there in theaters right now ready for me to see.  I just need to find time to do it.

2012

So I kinda sorta lost track of this blog last year and most of this year.  I would write most of my entries while at work.  As a receptionist, you have a lot of free time on your hands.  One job I had wouldn't allow access to blog website, so I stopped.  I really hate that I didn't keep up with it for a little over a year now, but I'm back.  Let's see where it takes us.

I left off in June of 2012.  A lot happened after that in the world of film.  Let's start with my favorites:

1.  Argo (10/10)
2.  Skyfall (10/10)
3.  The Impossible (10/10)
4.  The Sessions (10/10)

Then there's the middle group.  Movies I liked, just not as much:

1.  Silver Linings Playbook (8/10)
2.  Anna Karenina (9/10)
3.  Perks of Being a Wallflower (9/10)
4.  Brave (8/10)

And I hate it when movies don't quite live up to my expectations:

1.  Lincoln (7/10)
2.  Zero Dark Thirty (7/10)

There are the ones I was indifferent toward:

1.  The Avengers (6/10)
2.  Trouble With the Curve (6/10)

And some that were just fun:

1.  Pitch Perfect (7/10)
2.  Hope Springs (8/10)
3.  The Amazing Spiderman (8/10)

Then there was Amour.  I actually didn't really like it at all.  So much darker than what I like to watch.  I don't mind serious films if there is some uplifting little piece of it to hold onto.  Not my type of film, but many people loved it.

I don't feel the need to dwell on any of the categories but the first one.  So here we go.

I loved Argo.  I looooooooved Argo.  I've loved Ben Affleck as a director ever since Gone Baby Gone.  One of my favorite movies of the past decade.  The Town was good, but definitely my least favorite of his three films.  Argo is completely different.  It's a historical drama/suspense film that played right into my wheelhouse.  I found it completely engrossing.  I have a huge love of American history, and this explored a time period I'm more unfamiliar with than others.  I'm not used to my favorite film of the year being recognized by the Academy, but it was.  A pleasant surprise, and in my opinion, well deserved.

Skyfall reminded me why I loved Casino Royale so much.  The second Bond film with Daniel Craig, Quantum of Solace, didn't do it for me.  I was skeptical about this one, but was beyond delighted in the outcome.  Great, great action movie.  And it has a little more.  A little more humor.  A little more humanity.  A little more refinement.  All around, a new favorite.

The Impossible was one I wasn't expecting to love so much.  I went to the theater to see Zero Dark Thirty, which was sold out.  I bought a ticket for the next day and went to see The Impossible instead, which played at roughly the same time.  It was difficult to watch, but I'm so glad I saw it.  It was an incredible story about a family vacationing in Indonesia when the tsunami hit on December 26th, 2004.  Naomi Watts as the mother was a force to be reckoned with.  She was my pick to win the Best Actress prize, but the movie wasn't widely seen.  The boys who played her three sons were miraculous.  I don't remember ever seeing such performances from young boys.  I highly recommend this film if you haven't seen it.

The Sessions was my favorite from Sunday.  John Hawkes is my favorite actor right now, this movie is the reason why.  He can do anything and be anybody.  He was completely overlooked come awards season, but I still think he was the best of the year.  I'll watch anything with him in it.  And Helen Hunt was fantastic.  You don't get great roles for women over 40 years old very often, and this one is one of the best in recent memory.

As for some of the others, I'd like to say that I really enjoyed Anna Karenina.  Joe Wright is one of my favorite working directors and he did something really special and different with the classic story.  And Brave, while not being the best Pixar has ever done, was a really great movie for young girls.  And older girls like me.

I didn't have as many FAVORITE films this year as I have in years past, but the ones I loved, I really loved.  Please check them out if you haven't already.