Tag Archives: alcohol

The World’s End

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worlds end

Director: Edgar Wright

Writer: Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright

Starring:  Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Martin Freeman, Paddy Considine, Eddie Marsan, Rosamund Pike

Tomatometer: 90/88/80 (all critics, top critics, audience)

Spoiler-free Summary: Gary King is a drunk man-child.  His happiest memory involves a somewhat legendary, yet unfinished, pub crawl that took place 20 years earlier.  In an attempt to recapture his glory days, Gary rounds up his four former mates for a second stab at the “Golden Mile”.

Two Cents: There are two types of comedies in Hollywood.  Most comedies fall into the lowbrow bin (Happy Gilmore, Old School, Caddyshack, etc.).  A few can be considered highbrow (just about anything from the Coen brothers, Wes Anderson, or Woody Allen).  Somehow, Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright have managed to carve out a third category – hybrow, a hybrid of the two brows.  I could have gone with “unibrow“, but that’s already taken.

Sure, if we discussed it for a few minutes, we’d come up with a few other films that could be considered a perfect cross between low and highbrow humor, but I’d argue that most of those films, more likely, are either low-end highbrow or high-end lowbrow.  In the interest of saving time, let’s get back to the task at hand.

It takes a true genius to turn a debaucherous pub crawl into a piercing look at middle age.  Luckily, this movie had a few geniuses pulling its strings.  Simon Pegg is probably most recognizable for his supporting role in the two most recent Star Trek movies and the last two Mission: Impossible installments.  However, that’s just a watered-down and Hollywoodified version of the British actor.  The real Pegg only comes out to play when he’s teamed up with his pals Edgar Wright and Nick Frost.  In three films together, this trio has reached a level of writer-director-actor chemistry that is extremely rare in today’s Hollywood landscape.  DiCaprio and Scorsese have it, Burton and Depp have it, but there aren’t many others.  (Note: Technically, The World’s End is part of a trilogy, which also includes Shaun of the Dead  and Hot Fuzz, but each of the three movies can stand firmly on its own.  I prefer to look at them as separate films, simply because I want more!)

No matter what ridiculous scenes might show up in a script, the most humorous part of any comedy is its dialogue.  If the dialogue doesn’t feel natural and witty, a comedy has no chance at being truly funny.  Dialogue is what separates a movie from a YouTube clip.  The World’s End is oozing with clever and hilarious lines layered with boatloads of subtext, the mark of truly gifted writers.  Still, the movie never gets bogged down in being funny.  The 12 pubs on the crawl serve as a spectacular device for briskly moving the story forward and creating believable opportunities for the introduction of supporting characters.

I don’t want to give away any plot points, so I’ll keep this review brief.  The acting is great, the jokes are top-notch, and there’s even a surprise visit from Bill Nighy’s voice.  What more could you want?

Should I/Shouldn’t I: You may feel ill-equipped to watch The World’s End, if you haven’t yet seen Shaun and Fuzz.  Rest assured, that won’t make much of a difference.  If you’ve been waiting for a truly funny comedy that doesn’t rely exclusively on “toilet humor” and the f-word, but still makes you long for your teenage years, this is it.  

Sundae Rating: Two scoops with whipped cream

The Spectacular Now

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Director: James Ponsoldt

Writer: Scott Neustadter, Michael H. Weber

Based On: Novel (The Spectacular Now) by Tim Tharp

Starring: Miles Teller, Shailene Woodley,

Tomatometer: 90/95/82 (all critics, top critics, audience)

Spoiler-free Summary: Sutter is a high school senior floating through life in a drunken stupor. After he passes out on a random front lawn, Sutter is rescued by a shy classmate, Aimee, whom he’s never noticed.  Sutter spends the remainder of the school year trying to help Aimee break out of her shell.

Two Cents: Have you ever seen Reign Over Me?  Don’t worry, barely anyone has.  It’s a movie with Adam Sandler.  You’ll notice, I didn’t call it an Adam Sandler movie. ROM is nothing like Jack & Jill.  It’s about a guy who loses his wife and children in a plane crash and, subsequently, goes a tad nuts, understandably.  Starring opposite Don Cheadle, Sandler gave an incredible performance that was unlike anything he’d done previously. The most impressive part of Sandler’s performance was the fact that no one saw it coming (except for director Mike Binder, I guess).  Sure, Sandler has wasted his time with some awful comedies, but his remarkable performance in ROM forever altered my opinion of his acting abilities.

Miles Teller doesn’t possess the data sample that Sandler did before 2007, but, based on his previous work (Project X, 21 & Over, Footloose), his performance in The Spectacular Now is almost as surprising as Sandler’s was.  Teller’s Sutter starts out as a fun-loving, drunk high schooler you might encounter in any other teenage romance.  As the movie plays out, though, Teller reveals more and more about Sutter’s troubled past and the tension that’s constantly bubbling below his calm and freewheeling surface.  Teller is the kind of actor who seems so natural that you don’t quite believe he’s really acting at all.  If he didn’t seem so nice, I’d hate his guts.

I’m embarrassed to say it, but I must admit that someone from ABC Family has some serious acting chops.  No, it’s not Joey Lawrence.  Shailene Woodley escaped obscurity (unless you’re a female tween) with her breakout performance in The Descendants.  In that Oscar-winning film, Woodley played a teenage girl fighting to prove her adulthood.  In Spectacular, she plays a teenage girl timidly assessing hers.  Although the characters sound similar, they are markedly different.  She was really good in the former, but she truly nails it in the latter.

The chemistry between the two leads is not of legendary status, but it’s natural enough that you’ll want to see more movies with these two stars together.  (Sweet!  I just found out they’ll be starring in Neil Burger’s Divergent, in 2014.)  I’d argue it’s just a few hairs short of Noah and Allie’s in The Notebook.  I’d probably lose pretty quickly, but I’d still make the argument. Okay, now, I’m debating it in my head.  This has taken a sad turn.  Back to business!

The beaten-down-by-life performances from Jennifer Jason Leigh and Kyle Chandler, though small, are the perfect complements to the youthfulness exhibited by Teller and Woodley.  Ponsoldt does a marvelous job of capturing the very moments when teens begin to realize that teens are depressingly close to becoming adults, who are lightyears away from being teens.

There are a few problems with this film, but they mostly revolve around the unsettling ubiquity of armpit sweat stains.  I have to assume those were included on purpose.  Either that, or they were filming during an unprecedented, Georgian heatwave.  I didn’t love the film’s attitude toward drunk driving, but I grew more comfortable with it as the movie played.

Should I/Shouldn’t I: Teenage romance is one of the most important experiences in any person’s life.  Unfortunately, these days, it’s refreshing just to see a movie about one that doesn’t involve an immortal or a superhuman.  This movie’s got a whole lot more than that going for it.  The plot is realistic, the characters are deep, and Teller and Woodley (who shared a Special Jury award at Sundance) are worth the price of admission.  Sadly, I’m not sure either Teller or Woodley possesses the necessary “look” to become a bona fide Hollywood star, but they’ve each certainly got the talent (by far, the less important ingredient, unfortunately).  God, I hope I’m wrong!  I’ll put ten bucks on Teller becoming the next John Cusack.

Sundae Rating: Two scoops with whipped cream

Spring Breakers

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springbreakers

Director: Harmony Korine

Writer: Harmony Korine

Starring: James Franco, Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez, Ashley Benson, Rachel Korine

Tomatometer: 68/62/56 (all critics, top critics, audience)

Spoiler-free Summary: Four girlfriends, studying at a less-than-prestigious institution of higher education, pool their money for a spring break trip to Florida.  In order to make up for the group’s fiscal shortcomings, three of the girls rob a local restaurant.  Once in Florida, the girls party too hard, subsequently becoming involved with a visionary gangster named Alien.

Two Cents: The casting for this movie is incredible.  I don’t mean to imply that the acting is of a remarkable quality.  Obviously not – Vanessa Hudgens is in the movie.  Rather, the decision to put “Vanessa Hudgens”, “Selena Gomez”, and “Ashley Benson” on the poster contributed greatly to Harmony Korine’s success at shocking viewers with his story of a spring break vacation gone wrong.  Korine does a fantastic job of juxtaposing the carefree and insane-in-the-best-way spirit of the ideal spring break trip with the seedy, dark misadventure into which it can turn.  No doubt, many moviegoers will see the names of two Disney starlets and a Pretty Little Liars regular and assume that Spring Breakers is the Saved by the Bell: The College Years of the High School Musical franchise.  That assumption could not be further from the truth.  In fact, a group of six young girls (high school age) sat in front of me at the theater.  They were giggling with anticipation during the previews, yet left the theater en masse about 25 minutes into the feature presentation.  Sorry, girls, but this is your future.  It happened to Gabriella, and it’s going to happen to you.  Yes, your dads will be pissed, but your moms will be jealous.

Korine’s exhibition of the two sides of the spring break coin was so masterful, it actually reassured two strong feelings I’ve been experiencing for a long time:

1. It’s a damn good thing I never went on a “real” spring break vacation.

2. I am a moron for never going on a “real” spring break vacation.

For two reasons, I could not be happier with the timing of this film’s release.  Firstly, I was in Austin, last week, for the SXSW festival, but I didn’t have a chance to see one of the hyped-up Spring Breakers screenings.  Secondly, James Franco’s (a guy whom I want so badly to be awesome) street cred needed some MAJOR redemption after his worthless performance in Oz the Great and Powerful.  Thankfully, I made up for my mistake, and Franco more than made up for his.  As Alien, Franco updates his hilarious turn in Pineapple Express by adding emotional depth and a degree of menace.  Though he often brushes against the line between great acting and SNL-worthy foolishness, Franco always manages to pull himself back in time.  Not only does he steal the show (not a difficult task, considering the cast around him), but the man who can do anything proves that he will be a force in Hollywood for quite some time.  He also looks the sexiest he’s looked in years.

Let’s talk about the girls for a beat.  Vanessa Hudgens was awful, but she certainly achieved her goal of distancing herself from her mouse-eared past. Gomez was surprisingly decent.  I thought she would be terrible, but she was actually not good.  Impressive work.  Benson is the class of the group, and she may have a future in mainstream movies, but I won’t be betting my penultimate Snickers bar on that.  Rachel Korine was on the wrong side of eh, but I guess that’s to be expected, considering she’s the only member of the cast who had to jump through two noteworthy hoops to get the part – agree to multiple nude scenes and marry the director.

Should I/Shouldn’t I: The best thing about Spring Breakers is Harmony Korine’s direction.  Although the story unfolds like a choir girl’s revenge fantasy (a la Quentin Tarantino), Korine does a praiseworthy job of keeping the film gritty and entertaining.  The third-best thing about this movie is James Franco’s performance, if you like boobies.  If not, it’s the second-best. If you’re a fan of High School Musical, Wizards of Waverly Place, or Pretty Little Liars, or if you’re pissed at Justin Bieber or Zac Efron for dumping your favorite actress-dancer-singer, that shouldn’t be the reason you see this movie.  If you’re starving for the first legitimately good movie of the year, that’s a pretty fair reason to see it.

Sundae Rating: Two scoops with whipped cream