Review: Demolition

DIY the pain away.

Davis (Jake Gyllenhaal) loses his wife in a tragic car crash. While sitting in the ICU, he gets his candy stuck in a vending machine, and ends up writing a series of letters explaining his predicament to their customer service department. Karen (Naomi Watts) reads them and becomes concerned, and reaches out to him. Davis realizes that he was coasting through his life previously. He was always told he didn't pay enough attention, and now he's finding that to be true. Aside from writing letters to Karen to cope, he also starts to crave working with his hands, and disassembles quite a few different things.

I felt like this movie had something interesting to say, but then ran out of those things about half way through. For a film as short as this one, it drags in the 2nd half. Davis goes from coping with his own trauma to trying to figure out what's going on with Karen's teenage son, and while it provides some nice moments, it mostly felt forced. Like they needed a bit more drama and hey, moody teen always works.

Gyllenhaal is good, but when isn't he? There's moments in this film where I'd even call him great, but I just wanted more. I wanted my attention held. I'm not sure what other route they could've taken this film, perhaps it would've been better as a short?

Recommended: No

Grade: C+

Memorable Quote: "Well...that's different." - Davis (Jake Gyllenhaal)

Rambling TV: Better **** Chuck, VIP Players clubs + more

I'm so glad The Walking Dead is over, none of my shows pissed me off this week. It's been so long.

Better Call Saul

While Mike continues to creep on the Salamancas, Jimmy is working hard to screw over Chuck.

Howard and Chuck took Kim's big clients away from her, so while Chuck is having a panic attack over his electricity allergy, Jimmy takes a bunch of his documents to a copy store and changes the addresses around. I feel almost as corrupt as Jimmy here. I should feel bad for a clearly mentally ill man being taken advantage of....

but I don't

Fuck Chuck.

Agents of SHIELD

After last week's spectacular filler episode, Mac sits this one out and we end up with an hour full of character development and plot advancements. That was nice. (And we also saw that damn space ship again)

Daisy encounters another InHuman, Charles,  that can make you see the future by touching you, and in those visions, someone always dies. It was profoundly sad to listen to this guy's wife talk about how he walked out on them because he knew he'd never be able to hold his baby girl without her crying because of the visions.

Malick also beat the shit out of Daisy before getting touched by Charles and (seemingly) seeing his own end. 

We saw Andrew again, still attempting to control what Lash does to him. He had some great scenes with May. There was also a sweet Fitzsimmons moment at the end. That has to be good, right?

Vinyl

Poor Jamie, she gets kicked out of her aunts apartment, takes a tumble down those stairs, and ends up having to stay with Kip. He's being surprisingly sweet about her homelessness too. I always get the feeling (until tonight) that he barely cares about Jamie. But he seemed to here.

Andrea comments at a staff meeting that she can get Hannibal to come back. Cece notably leaves the room, and it turns out later it's because she's pregnant with Hannibal's baby. This prompts Andrea to literally go on a "why are all the women that work here twats?" rant about Cece getting knocked up and Jamie sleeping with the lead singer of her first act. This was my only issue with a very good episode. I felt like there was a serious undertone of "WOMEN AMIRITE?!" that I just found kind of gross.

Especially when Andrea's point gets proven later on when Jamie has the most predictable threesome in TV history. 

Speaking of Richie, he was actually not an asshole in this episode. He had these sweet moments with his children, and then again with Cece when she told him her news. It was kind of surprising.

Zak gets a phone call at the end of the episode from the casino he and Richie stayed at in Vegas telling him he's a VIP member. When someone points out that you'd have to spend 50k to earn that, Zak puts the pieces together that Richie gambled away the money, hunts him down and punches him in the face. The episode ends with Richie confessing to Devon that he killed Buck Rogers. Olivia Wilde really nailed that scene, her facial expressions were horrifying and perfect.

SNL

I think SNL broke the record for the amount of times "vagina" was mentioned during a broadcast. They had Russell Crowe be a creepy perv in essentially every skit.

Rambling TV is a weekly series were I ramble semi coherently about the things I watched on television. Click those gifs to be redirected to their makers. 

Indie Gems: I Smile Back

Putting up a good front.

Laney (Sarah Silverman) is her own worst enemy. It's hinted that she's suffered from some type of mental illness for awhile. Possibly depression and bipolar disorder. At this point in her life, married to a supportive husband, Bruce (Josh Charles) with two children, she's just being destructive. She drinks too much, sneaks into her bathroom to snort cocaine, she's having an affair with a friend. After all of this comes crashing down, Laney goes to treatment in an attempt to get things back to normal.

Silverman was a surprise SAG nominee for this role, though after seeing it, it's no surprise at all. She was great. I knew she had dramatic chops in her when I saw her supporting role in Take This Waltz. Here she commands every second of screen time and was so believable in playing an addict. An especially weird one, mind you. There's a few really uncomfortable scenes in here. Josh Charles is also very realistic as the supportive husband whose patience keeps being tested. 

If I had one issue with the film, it was the ending. The run time is only 80 or so minutes and I felt like there was more that could've been covered. It was poignant, but I wanted a bit more resolve from it.

Grade: B

Memorable Quote: "Don't fall in love" - Laney (Sarah Silverman)

Thursday Movie Picks: So Bad It's Good

This week's theme from Wandering Through the Shelves is something I love. I fucking LOVE campy movies. We film fans spend so much time being lost in these amazing films and trying to decipher them. Sometimes it's nice to just sit back and watch something so bad it's good.

1) White Chicks

I've written about this film being my guilty pleasure before. I had a nice time seeing this with friends in high school and I still love it. I don't care how terrible it is. I will laugh at Terry Crews in this movie for the rest of my life. "Eaaasssssy White Chocolate."

2) Sleepaway Camp

I love campy horror films. This film is pretty terrible, but the ending is actually really surprising. I didn't see it coming at all. I think I was 14 or 15 when I saw this. It's all over the internet, so even if you haven't seen it you probably know it. Still, it's something else. 

3) The Room

I participated in this "So You Think You Can Review" tournament over at The LAMB about four years ago. Two people were given the same movie to review and people voted on who they thought wrote the better one. I was given The Room, (and shockingly advanced to the 2nd round with this thing) I watched it sober, and hated every minute. I mused towards the end that this was probably better under the influence, and I was right. Watching it again with a few beers and a few friends made this movie hysterical. Now it's hysterical to me with or without booze. It's SO FUCKING BAD. You have to see it. 

Bonus

Review: Eye in the Sky

Kill first, protocol later.

Eye in the Sky spans three countries. In England, we have Col Katherine Powell (Helen Mirren) who has been tracking an English citizen turned extremist for six years, and has finally found her in Nairobi. She's holed up in a house with a bunch of explosives and two men putting on suicide bomber vests. General Frank Benson (Alan Rickman) is also in England, communicating with Powell while he sits in the room with the Attorney General and other powerful members who are not used to war. On the ground in Africa is Jama Farah (Barkhad Abdi) who is flying a little beetle with a camera inside to see what the terrorists are doing. In the United States, there's Steve Watts (Aaron Paul) and Carrie Gershon (Phoebe Fox) who are operating a drone high in the sky above the house. But when they're given orders to shoot, conscience gets in the way and everyone finds themselves between a rock and hard place.

Without the cast, I'm not sure if I would've seen a film like this. It's gotten zero marketing, and I wasn't even 100% sure what it was about going in. I just knew that I wanted to see Alan Rickman again, and I'm glad I did. I'm not sure I've ever seen a "war movie" that's taken place solely in front of computers. You would think something like this would be stagnant but it manages to be very intense and keeps you on the edge of your seat a few times. 

It's sad watching Rickman, knowing we won't hear that beautiful voice of his in anything new after this and Alice Through The Looking Glass. He's good here, his character is a soldier so he keeps it calm even when he's in a room full of indecisive cabinet members. Helen Mirren is fierce as Powell. She commands so much power that she subtly imposes on the people below her. Aaron Paul, man, no one cries like Aaron Paul. He does so much with his eyes, it's just wonderful. It's nice to see Barkhad Abdi again, even if he doesn't get to stretch his acting talents very much. Other actors are a bit wasted, Iain Glen shows up, quite literally, to take a shit and deflect a question. 

Eye in the Sky is a quite little thriller, but one that should definitely be seen.

Recommended: Yes

Grade: B

Memorable Quote: "Never tell a soldier he doesn't know the cost of war." - Ge Frank Benson (Alan Rickman)

Rambling TV: The Walking Cliffhanger, Agents of F.I.L.L.E.R + more

The Walking Dead

Well, we made it. The season finale of what I'm going back and forth on as being the worst season of TWD to date. (Season 4 was pretty terrible, it might still be worse, but this was terrible TV too)

And how does TWD reward you after it's hyped its new big bad all season? With a finale of filler and a massive cop out ending. I really hope critics and viewers continue to call out the show on their bullshit. The ended a lackluster season with a pathetic attempt to get big ratings for their season premiere, even though anyone following filming spoilers will know who the person is that died in May. It's too bad Negan can't bash all of our brains in for putting up with this show. I feel bad for everyone that doesn't read spoilers and didn't know this was coming. Gimple knew Negan was going to be the very last moment of this season, so he stalled, he dragged out stories, he gave come characters personality transplants and forced arcs that made zero sense all so we could build up to this moment where we don't even get the proper pay off. It kills the momentum not knowing who died. It's disrespectful to the actor to turn their final moments on this TV show into a gimmick.

Also Gimple, this better be rock bottom for Carol. I know you think it's awesome to take the woman that went from a domestic violence victim to a capable survivor and assassinate her character, service her for Morgan, shoot and stab her, and isolate her from her family, but this shit needs to stop. It's not good story telling. Just like it wasn't good story telling when you made Rick into Shane 2.0 during his Jessie story. Or when you skipped all of Carl's trauma over getting an eye shot out. Or when you gave Daryl yet another recycled man pain story. Or when you had Michonne kill a kid and not even think about it for another second. Or when you decided you weren't going to touch up on Glenn having to kill people for the first time at all. 

tl;dr fuck Scott Gimple.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan is fine though. 

Better Call Saul

I just wanted to scream "Noooooooooooooooooo Kim" during this entire episode. That's the problem with prequels, knowing where certain characters end up makes things hard to digest at times. Mike's scenes with his daughter in law are heartbreaking because we know Mike dies and Kaylee doesn't get any of the money he was saving for her. Kim wanting to practice with Jimmy is a tough pill to swallow because he is going to become Saul.  It doesn't make the show any less good, but it can be slightly frustrating.

Agents of SHIELD


This is the first episode of this show that I've disliked in a while. It was pure filler. While I like Mack, and was happy to learn a bit of who he is outside of SHIELD, nothing happened in this episode. All the important stuff was just kind of tossed in towards the end. 

Vinyl

Devon, get your shit together.

Actually, everyone on this show, GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER. 

Except you, Lester. You good. 

Rambling TV is a weekly series where I ramble semi coherently about the things I've watched on television. Click those gifs to be redirected to their makers. This week's post was brought to you by pure, unadulterated hatred and wine. The two other things besides movies that fuel me. 

Indie Gems: The Broken Circle Breakdown

Love. Hardship. Bluegrass?

Set in Belgium, Didier (Johan Heldenbergh) is a banjo player in a blue grass band that falls for a tattoo artist named Elise. (Veerle Baetens) They're so different, but he takes to her free spirit and she takes to singing in his band. Eventually they have a daughter, Maybelle (Nell Cattrysse) who develops, and later dies of cancer at only 6 years old. This drives Didier and Elise further apart and their conflicting beliefs on faith do nothing to help.

It's interesting to see American bluegrass in a film from Belgium. Heldenbergh also wrote the story, which was originally a play. It got lukewarm reviews when it first came out a few years ago, so my expectations were fairly low, but I was surprised despite it's flaws how much I enjoyed it.

Heldenberg and Baetens have excellent chemistry, so it makes it that much harder when life starts driving them apart. The story is told in fragments, frequently jumping around in the narrative. I think that style works for a film like this, but I think they should've tweaked the order. It's easy enough to follow where we are in our time line until the end. While Faith is in the film's synopsis, it doesn't play a huge role like I expected. At one point Dieder goes on this cringe worthy George W. Bush ran about stem cell research that feel so wildly out of place.

It's not a perfect film, but I liked the story even though it's overwhelmingly sad at times.

Grade: B-

Memorable quote: "Since you won't get a tattoo..." - Elise (Veerle Baetens)