I don't know whether to help you or euthanize you.

Crazy, Stupid, Love

(2011)

Glen Ficarra and John Requa wrote Bad Santa and wrote/directed the amusing and unrestrained I Love You Phillip Morris. They're directing from someone else's script here, and in PG-13 territory, but for a Hollywood romcom this is still a cut above most Jennifer Aniston/Katherine Heigl crap.

Steve Steve Carrell (excellent, effortlessly transtioning from hilarity to gravitas within scenes) is told by Julianne Moore that she wants a divorce. He ends up frequenting a bar where pick-up artist Ryan Gosling takes pity on him and teaches him how to score with the chicks. Gosling meanwhile is smitten with cute Emma Roberts, who isn't remotely hooked by his babe-baiting technique.

Which all sounds a bit cheesy. Which it would be if not for the performances. Certainly, a sub-plot involving Carrell's son's obsession with the babysitter and the babysitter's obsession with Carrell is unnecessary filler and unconvincing. And Kevin Bacon's suitor (of Moore) has hardly anything to do. Better catered for is Marisa Tomei's recovering alcoholic one-night stand, who proves to be unforgivingly caustic towards Carrell. There's also a third act twist that I didn't see coming, even though I knew that there was a third act twist coming. It's a clever development too, even if it ends up leading nowhere especially original.

***

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She writes Twilight fan fiction.

Vampire Academy (2014)
My willingness to give writer Daniel Waters some slack on the grounds of early glories sometimes pays off (Sex and Death 101) and sometimes, as with this messy and indistinct Young Adult adaptation, it doesn’t. If Vampire Academy plods along as a less than innovative smart-mouthed Buffy rip-off that might be because, if you added vampires to Heathers, you would probably get something not so far from the world of Joss Whedon. Unfortunately inspiration is a low ebb throughout, not helped any by tepid direction from Daniel’s sometimes-reliable brother Mark and a couple of hopelessly plankish leads who do their best to dampen down any wit that occasionally attempts to surface.

I can only presume there’s a never-ending pile of Young Adult fiction poised for big screen failure, all of it comprising multi-novel storylines just begging for a moment in the Sun. Every time an adaptation crashes and burns (and the odds are that they will) another one rises, hydra-like, hoping…

Life is like a box of timelines. You feel me?

Russian Doll Season One
(SPOILERS) It feels like loading the dice to proclaim something necessarily better because it’s female-driven, but that’s the tack The Hollywood Reporter took with its effusive review of Russian Doll, suggesting “although Nadia goes on a similar journey of self-discovery to Bill Murray’s hackneyed reporter in Groundhog Day, the fact that the show was created, written by and stars women means that it offers up a different, less exploitative and far more thoughtful angle” (than the predominately male-centric entries in the sub-genre). Which rather sounds like Rosie Knight changing the facts to fit her argument. And ironic, given star Natasha Lyonne has gone out of her way to stress the show’s inclusive message. Russian Dollis good, but the suggestion that “unlike its predecessors (it) provides a thoughtfulness, authenticity and honesty which makes it inevitable end (sic) all the more powerful” is cobblers.

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Django Unchained (2012)
(MINOR SPOILERS) Since the painful misstep of Grindhouse/Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino has regained the higher ground like never before. Pulp Fiction, his previous commercial and critical peak, has been at very least equalled by the back-to-back hits of Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained. Having been underwhelmed by his post Pulp Fiction efforts (albeit, I admired his technical advances as a director in Kill Bill), I was pleasantly surprised by Inglourious Basterds. It was no work of genius (so not Pulp Fiction) by any means, but there was a gleeful irreverence in its treatment of history and even to the nominal heroic status of its titular protagonists. Tonally, it was a good fit for the director’s “cool” aesthetic. As a purveyor of postmodern pastiche, where the surface level is the subtext, in some ways he was operating at his zenith. Django Unchained is a retreat from that position, the director caught in the tug between his all-important aesthetic pr…

We’re not owners here, Karen. We’re just passing through.

Out of Africa (1985)
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The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)
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Rejoice! The broken are the more evolved. Rejoice.

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Shyamalan has seized on a horror staple – nubile teenage girls in peril, prey to a psychotic antagonist – and, no doubt with the best intentions, attempted to warp it. But, in so doing, he has dragged in themes and threads from other, more meritable fare, with the consequence that, in the end, the conflicting positions rather subvert his attempts at subversion…

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Starship Troopers (1997)
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You use a scalpel. I prefer a hammer.

Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018)
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Just make love to that wall, pervert!

Seinfeld 2.10: The Statue
The Premise
Jerry employs a cleaner, the boyfriend of an author whose book Elaine is editing. He leaves the apartment spotless, but Jerry is convinced he has made off with a statue.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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