Mini Reviews

The Drop
Stars: Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace, James Gandolfini
Plot: An adorable abandoned pit bull plays a pretty big part in this story about a robbery at a bar used as a drop location for the mob.
Thoughts: I wanted to write a full review for this movie right after I saw it but I couldn't quite find the right words to describe how much I loved this damn movie. Based on a short story by Dennis Lehane and featuring superb performances by Hardy and Gandolfini, The Drop is easiest the best slow burn crime thriller I've seen since Mystic River.
Grade: A

Palo Alto
Stars: James Franco, Emma Roberts, Nat Wolff,  Jack Kilmer
Plot: A bunch of bored teenagers drink and party and mess around with strangers and teachers.
Thoughts: What a waste of time and talent. It's not that this movie was bad, just sort of boring and unnecessary.  It has it's moments - Kilmer, son of Val, is crazy cute the way his dad once was and Wolff is phenomenal,  stealing the movie with ease. But mostly it's a bore.
Grade: C

A Long Way Down
Stars: Pierce Brosnon, Toni Collette, Aaron Paul, Imogen Poots
Plot: Based on the novel by Nick Hornby, the movie follows four strangers who meet and form a pact when they all try to kill themselves on New Years Eve.
Thoughts: It's a fine adaptation of a fine book. The casting is pretty right on and all of the acting surely elevates a plot that somehow feels less ridiculous on screen than it did on the page. This movie is not anything special or amazing buy it's nice and Poots is my new girl crush.
Grade: B-

The Other Woman
Stars:Cameron Diaz, Leslie Mann
Plot: A successful lawyer finds out her boyfriend has a wife and then the wife and the mistress bond when they realize he's cheating on them both but it's with Kate Upton so they are all, sure, that makes sense.
Thoughts: I found this movie mostly infuriating, disgusting and slightly offensive. However, it has a few charming parts, most of which concern Mann who I adore. I would just about watch her in anything. Obviously.
Grade: D+

This is 40

There are three things every Judd Apatow movie has in common. The first is that they are all very, very funny in a raunchy, balls to the wall sort of way. The second is that they have a surprising amount of honesty and heart. The final thing is that each movie is approximately twenty to thirty minutes too long. Now, my boyfriend says Apatow is like a rock star - they wrote 15 songs for a new album and it doesn't matter if three of them aren't as good and drag the rest of the album down, they are going to include all of them. And while Apatow is definitely the comic voice of a generation and sort of the father of the current comedy scene, he isn't Scorsese or Spielberg so there is really no excuse for how bloated all of his movies feel. He needs an editor to tell him no. He has the ability to create the modern American comedy but, instead, his movies are just good instead of being great.

This is 40 is a sort of sequel to Knocked Up. Five or six years later, we meet back up with Deb and Pete, played by Leslie Mann and Paul Rudd. It is their shared birthday week and both are turning 40. Pete is handling it better, or at least, not lying about his age the way Deb is. There isn't so much a plot as just a bunch of stuff that happens, which is actually more realistic. Its called life. Pete has a failing record company and he thinks signing an old failing Graham Parker will help revive things. He also has to deal with his mooch dad (Albert Brooks) who has high blood pressure, a new wife and toddler triplets. Deb struggles with re-establishing a relationship with her deadbeat dad (John Lithgow) and the possibility of hottie employee Megan Fox who may or may not be seealing from her chic clothing store. Then there are their precocious children, played by Apatow and Mann's real life daughters Maude and Iris. Maude plays teen Sadie, obsessed with Lost and her changing body and crazy mood swings. Iris is 8 year old left out Charlotte, responsible for some of the best one liners. There is also an appearance by Jason Segel as his Knocked Up character.

There is a lot going on in this movie and, at over two hours, its east to see where they could have trimmed a minute here and a minute there. The super funny script and the great performances sort of make up for it though. Albert Brooks is so great as Pete's mooch dad, but Mann steals the show. She is funny and sweet and brings a levity to the raunchy comedy. Deb and Pete were easily the best thing about Knocked Up, so I'm really glad Apatow decided to give us another look into their lives. They deserve to be the stars of their own movie. Apatow most certainly has a gift for making characters feel real and lived in and for portraying even ridiculous scenes honestly. I just really wish he would learn to edit his movies down just a tad. But, I guess when you are ruling the box office, you can do whatever you want.

Also, LOVE the Ryan Adams cameo at the end.

Grade: B

Waitress and Knocked Up

Waitress - Waitress is the kind of movie that I can't imagine anyone NOT liking. It's a thouroughly likeable and refreshing story. It's cute and sweet and funny, really just a wonderful gem of a movie. Written, directed and co-starring the late Adrienne Shelly (who was murdered earlier this year), the film follows Jenna (Keri Russell), a waitress at a pie diner in a small Southern town who is in a very unhappy marriage to Earl (Jeremy Sisto). She's secretly saving money in hopes to leave him but then she learns she's pregnant (after one lone drunken night). Jenna is not exactly happy about having a baby but she forms a bond with her sexy yet dorky doctor (Nathan Fillion). Soon, they are having an all out affair despite the fact that both are married and she's with child. Meanwhile, back at the pie diner, her waitress friends Becky (Cheryl Hines) and Dawn (Shelly) are having romantic highs and lows as well. Becky starts an affair of her own with the cranky manager of the place and the unlucky in love Dawn meets a weird suitor who just may be her Mr. Right. Throw in the ever fiesty and adorable Andy Griffith and you've got a wonderful little movie. I'll admit it does drag a little in the middle and seems a bit contrived now and then but mostly it's a movie with a huge heart. It's as sweet as all those pies that Jenna makes during the movies (and if you like pie, this movie will probably make you hungry... lucky for me, i prefer cake). Russell is finally becoming the movie star I always knew she could be. I have loved her since her Felicity days when she was the poster girl for shy, dorky girls in love with boys who don't even know they are alive and Waitress is the perfect vehicle for her. The entire cast is wonderful and they take the already solid script to a really great place. Cheers to Griffith for being the perfect scene stealer. It's more like, scene blessing, if you think about it. All in all, Waitress is the kind of movie that you really can't help but fall in love with a little bit.

Grade: A-

Knocked Up - First of all, comedies should not be close to two and a half hours long. And the worst part? It felt like it was even longer at times. Sure, it was funny. Sometimes it was very, very funny. But for every laugh out loud funny moment, there were about five long, drawn out, overly cliched boring parts. Let me start this over... Knocked Up is a romantic comedy that is more comedy than romance about a hot journalist (Katherine Heigl) who has a drunken, unprotected one night stand with a dorky slacker (Seth Rogen). Eight weeks later, she finds out she's knocked up and contacts dorky slacker Ben in order to tell him the news and maybe get to know the father of her baby. In the course of the movie they fall in and out of love and have many a sometime funny adventure. Here's the thing about the romance angle though: I didn't buy it for a second. It's not that I don't think a hot girl like Alison could fall in love with a dorky guy like Ben because I totally, one hundred percent do. And Ben was actually adorable and funny and charming. It's just that, the script kept telling me they were really learning to like each other and falling in love but it never really showed me that. Maybe it's because I just don't like Katherine Heigl but I couldn't really connect with her character. The best part of the movie for me was Alison's sister Debbie (Leslie Mann) and her husband Pete (Paul Rudd). They are married with two kids and always fight, never want to sleep together, and just don't really get along all that well. Mann is hilarious as she accepts the fact that she's getting older (eventhough she doesn't want to) and Rudd all but steals the show when he goes to Vegas and takes mushrooms. All in all, the movie was good but by no means great. Perhaps it's just a matter of taste, though. I tend to prefer my comedy with a little more darkness instead of slacker/stoner/gross boy humor. Still, I felt the movie was very uneven and the big laughs really couldn't save it from the parts when it just seemed to drag on and on forever. As far as unexpected pregnancy romantic comedies go, Waitress is a million times funnier, more romantic and just plain better.
Grade: C+