Formula: Killing Them Softly + Marley & Me
Why I Saw It: 90% of the movie is Tom Hardy and a puppy. Need I say more?
Cast: Tom Hardy is becoming one of my favorite actors. Since Inception, I liked him in anything I've seen him in, even an overall uneven movie like Lawless. He pulls off a strange balance in The Drop of being both a character that says a lot who is also pretty quiet. It's James Gandolfini's final movie role, so that's an interesting factor. It's a fine role. Nothing fancy. It's not a showy role. Only remarkable in that it's his last. Noomi Rapace does solid work too. It's all more plot-driven than a character study.
Plot: It's the first screenplay from the guy who wrote the books for Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone, and Shutter Island, which should tell you enough. Bob (Hardy) is a bartender at his cousin Marv's (Gandolfini) bar. The movie begins by explaining how drop points for the mob in New York work and goes on to show how Marv's bar is one of the rotating drop points where the money for the city is collected. It's clear immediately that Bob has done some things he's not proud of, but he's more or less a good guy now. One night, he finds a puppy in the trash can of a woman's house. He keeps the dog and bonds with the woman (Rapace). The story gets some extra layers from there: ex-boyfriends, unsolved murders, a cop doing some digging around. It's all a very small story and I was struck by how tense it got at times, in a large part thanks to Hardy's very paced delivery. As I mentioned earlier, he's a guy with a lot to say, but he's not a fast talker. It's an interesting choice. By the end, everything in the movie is much more tied together than I expected. It reminded me a lot of Killing Them Softly with the small scale and grittiness. I preferred this though and I'm not completely sure why. Probably because of the puppy.
Elephant in the Room: How's Hardy's accent? Yeah, he puts on a Brooklyn accent. Well, it's the accent of a guy who grew up in Brooklyn. It was distinctive and not in a bad way. Hardy seems to do that well. Again, I tend to like Hardy's decisions as an actor and this falls in line with that. As you can tell, I struggled to locate the elephant for this movie.
To Sum Things Up:
One of the very few upsides about the September doldrums in the box office is that there's a movie or two that I'll get to see that I wouldn't otherwise. I saw Prisoners last year and Killing Them Softly the year before (noticing a pattern). The Drop isn't an awards contender, nor will it gain a cult following. It's simply a solid movie that's fans of the genre will enjoy.
Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend
The Pitch: People are questioning how much of a badass Stallone is after doing Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot, so we need to do something that will remind them of that. How about mountains?
What Took Me So Long: I assumed that if I'd seen Vertical Limit, there wasn't much value in seeing this too.
Why I Saw It: (Club 50) Apparently, I've been on a Stallone kick lately. More appropriately, working down my list of movies, I realize how successful that man has been in the box office for several decades. No, the thing I found the oddest, but most refreshing in the movie is that Michael Rooker is a good guy for the whole thing. I thought Hollywood set his range of characters from outright villain to eventual anti-hero. Granted, I've not followed his entire filmography so I'm certain I've missed a dozen counter-examples.
Why I Wish I Hadn't: The obstacle of the movie was too contrived. The plot was reverse engineered so they could find an excuse to have as much climbing action as possible. It's not as ridiculous as, say, Battleship, but in that case, it was contrived to the point of being clever. This is just lazy. The bags each have trackers. They are scattered through the mountains. There's a plane crash that necessitates Stallone and friends using their climbing skills amidst gun fire.
Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend
The Pitch: It's like the crude version of Her.
What Took Me So Long: I didn't trust it, being Joseph Gordon Levitt's directorial debut, so I opted to wait until it left theaters to see it. Besides, if I saw it in theaters, odds are, it would've been alone and that would be awkward for a movie based on masturbation.
Why I Saw It: I like Joseph Gordon Levitt. If not for Premium Rush, he'd probably be on my "I need to see whatever he's in as soon as I can" list. I like Scarlett Johansson. She's having a McConaissance of her own still and I'm on board for it. Julianne Moore manages to stay busier than nearly any actress I can think of, and she always adds something to her roles. Hey, Brie Larson's in this too, although she barely has any lines or anything to do. Still, she's there. The story is better than I expected as well. All the ads painted it as JGL trying to better himself for Johansson and I love that it invert's that expectation by pointing out that she's actually pretty toxic. This role is a weird cross section of her roles in Her (female lead for a man in love with a machine) and Under the Skin (man-eater).
Why I Wish I Hadn't: Those accents. Good lord, those accents.
Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend
The Pitch: Jack Nicholson turns into a Werewolf...No, I don't know why he signed on either, but he's on board, so let's get this made.
What Took Me So Long: When the cover alone looks this bad, there's little motivation to go out of the way to see it.
Why I Saw It: (Club 50) I mean, Jack Nicholson. That alone gives just about anything a pass. In the moments when he isn't completely bored, he's fun to watch. Michelle Pfieffer at peak attractiveness is there and a young James Spader plays the villain..uh, that's about it.
Why I Wish I Hadn't: It wasn't particularly scary. It's wasn't particularly exciting. It's wasn't particularly funny. It wasn't particularly campy. No matter what they were aiming to do with this, I think they missed the mark. I'm kind of baffled that this is from the director of The Graduate and was made in between Regarding Henry and The Birdcage. It doesn't fit anything.
Verdict (?): Strongly Don't Recommend
The Pitch: It's like Rashomon for the Gulf War.
What Took Me So Long: I can't be the only one who finds the titles of war movies so generic that I forget which ones I have and haven't seen.
Why I Saw It: (Club 50) It's an intriguing idea for a story, but much like Groundhog Dog, it's tougher to pull off than it seems. They have to tell the same story over and over again without it getting dull. That's tough, and they do it pretty well. Each story has its own shade and enough changes that it feels functionally different from the version before it. Denzel plays a good alcoholic, recovering or not (it nearly got him an Oscar for Flight).
Why I Wish I Hadn't: Meg Ryan's accent. Other than that, I was a little irritated how they buried the lead with Washington's actions in the Gulf War. It made for a nice reveal at the end that earned him a medal of honor, but it makes the rest of the movie in hindsight work around mentioning it too hard. Small quibble. Much better than I expected.
Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend
The Pitch: Let's make a movie of all the leftover ideas from the first Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.
What Took Me So Long: I wanted to avoid the risk of being in a theater full of children, so I waited for Netflix to bring it to me.
Why I Saw It: (Club 50) The first movie was cute. It had characters like Flint (Bill Hader) and Sam (Anna Farris) who were hard to dislike. It told a simple story and filled it with clever jokes, developed from a ridiculous concept (kind of Lord & Miller's specialty, I'm realizing). The sequel continues that, even with the law of diminishing returns in effect.
Why I Wish I Hadn't: I can promise you that within a couple weeks of watching this, I won't be able to tell the two movies apart. They are the same thing with the same beats and similar punchlines. I can't fault it too much for that because no one had delusions of grandeur regarding the movie. One thing that I couldn't stop from bothering me is why some food is alive and adorable, but most is fine being set decoration. That goes back to the first movie too and I need to drop it, since it questions too much of the conceit of the movie.
Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend
The Pitch: A romance about a dying girl. That hasn't been done before, right?
What Took Me So Long: I saw The Fault in Our Stars recently enough that there wasn't a pressing need to see something this similar, but I do like Dakota Fanning.
Why I Saw It: It's been fascinating watching Dakota Fanning grow up. She's never really taken time off since she started over a decade ago and the beats of her career haven't followed formula. I mean, she hasn't even been "rebellious". She started with I Am Sam, has done Houndog and The Runaways, but nothing to the level of Alyssa Milano or Drew Barrymore. I almost got the sense that she did this movie just because she wanted to play British and she didn't do a bad job with that. I was just happy to see Jeremy Irvine again after War Horse (a movie I think has been unfairly dismissed) and he has nice chemistry. Paddy Considine shows a greater range of emotion than I'm used to from his work in Edgar Wright movies. For anyone who is a fan of this kind of movie, it has all the things you need.
Why I Wish I Hadn't: I'm pretty tapped out on teenager cancer stories based on books. Even when the acting is solid and the emotional beats are earned (which they were in this movie), I don't have anything left unless it's doing something different. This was a solid, by the numbers story. Cancer is a very easy way to invoke carpe diem for a story about a teenager. While I love me some seizing of days, I'm more curious to see a new angle to approach it. I'm also holding a slight grudge against the movie because it's the first time that I can remember relating to the parents' perspective more than the child's and that made me feel old. Damn you Dakota Fanning! Always being younger and more successful than me.
Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend
The Pitch: A movie about the experience of watching an Arnold Schwartzenegger movie. I saw Twins and Junior. I know the guy can do comedy.
What Took Me So Long: Something about the title "Last Action Hero" scared me away from it. Whatever it was, that title sounded too high-minded for it.
Why I Saw It: (Club 50) I've always thought Arnold does a good job with comedy, especially when used to contrast the action. It's no coincidence that True Lies, Kindergarten Cop, and Terminator 2 are my favorite of his movies since they give him a chance to do some of both. I appreciate the self-awareness of the entire movie and the numerous attempts to turn the action genre on its head. At its best, this movie could been a Mel Brooks movie after Charlie Kaufman did touch-up on the script.
Why I Wish I Hadn't: Sadly, it was painfully self-aware. For meta-humor to work, the punchline can't be that it is meta. You have to be able to do something with it. Too much of the movie is spent explaining the mechanics of dramatic irony and reminding us that we're watching a PG-13 movie, so Arnold can't say what the kid put on a piece of paper. It also felt a little disingenuous that it went harder after the franchises like Die Hard and Lethal Weapon than anything Arnold was in, like Commando or Predator.
Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend
The Pitch: I heard the other day that the Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon probably existed at the same time. I wonder if we could make a movie about that?
What Took Me So Long: I tend to avoid animated movies in theaters due to the kid factor.
Why I Saw It: (Club 50) Well, there's the Emma Stone of it all. Even animated, I'll see something with her name in it. Overall, I was impressed with some of the restraint the movie showed. I fully expected to see a T-Rex by the end of this and there wasn't one (like, say, in Ice Age).
Why I Wish I Hadn't: I have to learn to let science go for these movies better. Every time the Nic Cage caveman threw modern man Ryan Reynolds with physics defying strength, I shuddered. Maybe if they toned it down, just a little, I'd be less distracted. There was a cleverness to certain "discoveries" that I appreciated. The utter lack of understanding of fire and where light comes from was entertaining and a beat smarter than I expected to see. Largely, it's just a little too generic for my taste. I already can't keep jokes from it and Ice Age straight in my head until I think "Did a wooly mammoth do that?".
Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend
The Pitch: The hot Cosby daughter wants to get naked in a movie but only if it's weird, with a lot of voodoo.
What Took Me So Long: This always looked weird to me. Bad weird.
Why I Saw It: This movie is part of a long tradition of child actors doing "an adult movie" to show how grown up they are (I'm looking at you Alyssa Milano and Drew Barrymore), so I've always known about it for that. As it turns out, this is just an all-around bizarre movie as almost all movies that include the word "voodoo" are. It reminded me a lot of Black Snake Moan but more allegorical. Had I paid more attention while watching it, I'd almost call it clever.
Why I Wish I Hadn't: Then again, the main character is named Angel and he's working for Louis Cyphre. The movie's not subtle and clever indeed is too strong a word for it. It would be nice two see a movie with voodoo that didn't come off like the screenwriter read a two paragraph encyclopedia (it's like Wikipedia in book form for those of you born after 2000) entry about it. I spent too much of the movie with pictures of Mickey Rourke from The Wrestler pulled up wondering what happened to him.
Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend
