Posts by Kimberly «
Let’s Talk About…Tabloid
TABLOID (2010/IN THEATERS)
From: Kimberly
To: Sarah
So Sarah. After this very short, almost slight documentary was over, I turned to you and said, “Um, that was kind of mean.” Upon further reflection, I stand by my one-sentence review. The title is apt–Errol Morris has made a tabloid-style documentary about beauty queen Joyce McKinney who, overcome by an obsession with a devoutly Mormon man who disappeared from her life to go on a mission (the extent of their relationship is unclear, and he refused to be interviewed), gathered a motley crew to find him, whisked him away to a cottage where she shackled and had sex with him, and eventually was arrested for abduction. It’s a fascinating story, and McKinney is such a funny and charismatic storyteller that for a while I found myself believing everything she said and waiting for the other talking heads (reporters from the Daily Mirror and the Express, a young Mormon, and one of McKinney’s friends who initially helped her with the “abduction”) to prove her wrong. As the story moves forward you start to realize that McKinney is probably delusional, definitely troubled, and maybe doesn’t deserve to have this part of her life rehashed for the amusement of reporters who have the gall to laugh when recalling her suicide attempt. Yuck.
Trailer Trash: Study Reveals Chris Pratt Featured in 50% of Future Redbox Rentals
Come join us for a discussion of the trailers we’ve been privileged to experience over the last month or so. Are they tantalizing nuggets of the hits of tomorrow? Or harbingers of Green Lanterns to come? We do not know! But we will assume that we do, because it is our way. Have YOU seen a trailer lately? Do tell. In the Comments, please—we can’t hear you from our cubicles.
Kimberly: Sarah! After our thwarted attempt to watch alien teens on jet skis in I Am Number Four and a successful (“successful”) solo viewing of The Road last night, I am ready for a romantic comedy that does nothing more than make me feel unattractive and poor! How about What’s Your Number? A Marie Claire cover line, brought to glorious life by Anna Faris (recent subject of a adoring New Yorker article) and featuring Joel McHale (why do I find it so distressing when he kisses girls?), Chris Pratt (awesomesauce), and Captain America wearing a hoodie without a top underneath at the 1:57 mark and wielding a Stratocaster like a true shredder at 2:13. Hm, that is a lot of awkward narration. And a really gross OB/GYN joke. I think we have a free Redbox rental on our hands.
Let’s Talk About…Super 8
SUPER 8 (IN THEATERS/2011)
Warning: The following discussion is spoiler-heavy—although, come on, we all know that a Spielberg homage is going to have an alien in it, right? Whoops.
From: Kimberly
To: Brian
Brian! Quiz! What is the thing that Steven Spielberg loves the most? A) Characters staring into the night sky with childlike wonder. B) Fat kids. C) One dead parent. D) Aliens finally going home, as string-heavy music swells in the background. E) Hating mean old military stiffs. All of the above! And writer/director J.J. Abrams includes all of these elements in his sweet tribute to Spielberg movies (the ‘80s ones), Super 8. As we know, Steven, who never met a leaden framing device he didn’t like, pushes my buttons. When the Amblin Entertainment logo pops up before a movie, it earns well-deserved boos in every theater I’ve ever been in (that I am doing the booing is beside the point). But put his formula into the hands of Abrams, who seems to respect the intelligence of his audience a little more, and it makes for a nostalgic movie that deserves summer blockbuster status. Enjoying the loaded-with-meaning father/son hugs, occasionally cartoonishly evil henchmen, hero’s zooms-in, and slightly-too-knowing-for-their-age kid dialogue is virtually guilt-free, and I look forward to many years of half-watching this on nonpremium cable. Read more »
Ebertfest Days 4 & 5: Saint Tilda Appears
Two SMLs appear in this photo. Can you spot them? (photo courtesy of Ebertfest)
Ebertfest Day 4 was an interesting mix of awesome and weird, starting with a mid-morning screening of Jennifer Arnold’s uplifting and, indeed, awesome 2010 doc A Small Act, which tells the story of how poor, young Kenyan Chris Mburu’s life was forever changed by elfin Swedish schoolteacher Hilde Back’s “small act” of kindness, funding his education by paying only $15 a month via an aid program. Now an ambitious, successful, and well-educated Harvard grad, Mburu has started his own Kenyan student aid program, named after his childhood benefactor Back. The film follows his attempts to contact her personally, and the relationship that ensues, in addition to closely detailing his own foundation’s work. It’s the latter that adds a surprising amount of tension and suspense as Arnold focuses on a few likely aid candidate children as they take an aptitude test and wait agonizing days for their scores, and in turn, their futures. Hilde Back’s Q&A appearance received the biggest standing O of the festival. She is adorable and tiny and real firecracker—view the Q&A here.
Just another Ebertfest party: Ebert "chats" with Hilde Back and Tilda Swindon. (Photo courtesy of Ebertfest.)
The second half of Ebert’s unofficial African Social Crisis Double Feature, Life, Above All—a well-intentioned but ultimately somewhat condescending story set around the AIDS crisis in South Africa—did not connect nearly as well with SML. This story of a young girl struggling to care for her mother and younger half-siblings—all in denial that the mother is suffering from AIDS contracted from her drug-addicted second husband—while attempting to attend school, parties, and not fall into prostitution like her orphaned and shunned best friend, is given short shrift by a contrived (somewhat) happy ending (after nearly stoning the family to death when the mother returns to the house to die [after being exiled for months], it takes just a short speech from a neighborhood biddy to turn the crowd into a supportive, teary, choir that sings an uplifting tune to the family over the closing credits), betraying the complexity of the issue and implying that all we need is neighborly love to overcome decades of ignorance. A movie like this can unintentionally diminish the very cause the director claims to support. Meh. SML skipped the Q&A (you can view it here, I guess) and the de rigueur standing O in favor of a second visit to nearby Merry-Ann’s Diner. LIKE.
Let’s Talk About…Super
It's Showtime. At the Apollo. Tonight!
SUPER (2010/IN THEATERS)
From: Brian
To: Kimberly
So, Kimberly: ANOTHER real-life-average-Joes-become-super-heroes movie. After sitting ALL OF THE WAY THROUGH Kick-Ass, and hating myself for it (but mostly hating the makers of Kick-Ass), StL boy-done-good writer/director James Gunn’s new foray into this ever-blossoming genre, Super, wasn’t all that appealing to me. But when word came ’round that Gunn would be attending the opening night screening at St. Louis cinema’s crown-jewel, The Tivoli, and there would be a Q&A to follow, I bit. I like Q&As. They are weird.
As was with Kick-Ass, Super has polarized critics and audiences alike, mostly due to the bait (comedy-romp) and switch (blood-soaked, ultraviolent drama) of its ad campaign. The thing is, it is both a quirky black comedy AND a bloody, ultraviolent indie drama, and it’s very good. YES, the violence is balls-out exploitative, duh. This is the guy that wrote Tromeo & Juliet and wrote/directed the awesomely slimy horror-comedy Slither, not to mention the deadly serious fast-moving-zombies script he wrote for the top notch Zach Snyder Dawn of the Dead remake. (Uhhh, we’ll just forget that he also wrote the nearly unwatchable Scooby Doo movie [herewith referred to as, appropriately enough, Doo], though it did bring him some kind of recognition for being the only screenwriter to open two number #1 movies in two consecutive weeks. I forgot Doo was such a big hit! No matter, for me it will always remain number, um, two, in my book.) But Super‘s ultra-realistic violence is presented in such a weird, often lighthearted way (at least until the last act, which shifts gears from black comedy to just plain deep black. None more black.) that it disturbs and unsettles, which seems to be what the director was shooting for. Is he interested in making a point? That’s open for interpretation, maybe, but I’ll personally take it as an above-average, often darkly funny character study about sad, mentally unbalanced oddballs spiraling into violent, bloody madness. It worked for me in a way that Kick-Ass did not, mostly due to this film’s being grounded so well by Rainn Wilson’s heart-wrenching performance as Frank, a heartbroken and kinda dumb diner cook who, after being dumped callously by his wife (Liv Tyler) for a strip club owning sleazebag played to the nines by Kevin Bacon, is inspired by a whopper of a holy vision to become a red-suited, brutally pipe-wrench wielding, evil-fighting superhero called Crimson Bolt. As violent and weird as Super is, with Wilson’s gonzo performance at its center, it is definitely not without heart. And while the coda might be too uplifting or neatly tidied-up for some, it totally worked for me. So there. 
Let’s Talk About…Monsters
Uh, probably just keep walking.
MONSTERS (2010/DVD)
From: Kimberly
To: Brian
Brian! As you well know (you lucky fella), I have a very reasonable fear of many forms of apocalypse(apocalypi). Zombies, terrorist attack, Jesus returns a la Rambo for his final vengeance–I try to be prepared for any scenario. Have I toyed with the notion of converting to Mormonism for access to the emergency food stores? It’s best we don’t discuss it–they may be watching. And so! I have a love-hate relationship with this type of movie–love the adrenaline rush while I’m watching, hate knowing that I will be peeking across the horizon for approaching giant-squid-type aliens for the foreseeable future.
Enough with the talk therapy–time for a plot summary. It’s been six years since a ship returning from one of Jupiter’s moons crashed into Mexico, releasing pesky space dust containing extraterrestrial life forms. They quickly grow up giant and start multiplying, as randy aliens are wont to do, and do not mix well with the residents. The military has started bombing/quarantining sections of the country, and a photographer named Andrew is recruited by his American publisher to escort his tourist daughter Amanda back to the States. Read more »
Let’s Talk About…Bandslam
The Glory Dogs didn't stand a chance.
BANDSLAM (2009/DVD)
From: Brian
To: Kimberly
Kimberly! So our Win Win screening date was canceled by the man (in charge of delivering prints), big whoop. Thanks to your vigilance in DVRing every stupid thing playing on the Showtime Showcase (!) a few weeks back, we had what appeared to be several dozen terrible movies to fall back on. And fall we did. Into Bandslam. The surprising thing was, graded on the For What It Is curve, 2009′s Bandslam is not even half bad! There are more than a few genuinely funny moments in this breezy, well-paced 110 minute story of a new-kid-in-school music nerd (TOTALLY into Velvet Underground = instant indie rock cred) who, after impressing a former prom queen/cheerleader-turned-rocker classmate with his wikked band name dropping abilities, takes on the challenge of “managing” her band with the goal of winning an annual tri-state, high-school affiliated battle of the bands called BANDSLAM. (!) The reward? $10,000 and a record contract. Seems reasonable. Read more »
AMC! BPS! USA! USA!
- “*This* is how Ruffalo tweets. Ca-caw! Ca-caw!”
As is our tradition (two years running!), SML will be attending the AMC Best Picture Showcase this Saturday and tweeting our every piddly thought. Will an old lady file her nails next to us again? Will we blow our complimentary $10 gift card on Mini Charleston Chews and spend much of 127 Hours doubled over in pain? How many jokes about chow-dah can we make during The Fighter? Follow us and get the answers to these fascinating questions! This weekend’s man-child–fêting lineup includes Toy Story 3, 127 Hours, The Kids Are All Right, True Grit, and The Fighter.
Let’s Talk About…the Oscar Nominations
What happened to his eyes?!
From: Kimberly
To: Rebecca, Sarah
Happy Oscar Nomination Day, guys! I assume we all started our mornings with the traditional refreshing of our Oscar lawn statues? It’s a good way to get in the mood. So what do you think? I was thrilled to see Winter’s Bone get so much love, particularly the acting nods for tough girl Jennifer Lawrence and the always fascinating John Hawkes (who is long overdue for some red carpet action). I predict a surprise win for him over critical (but not Academy) favorite Christian Bale. Very odd that Ryan Gosling’s work in Blue Valentine was ignored–maybe his outspoken accusations of misogyny in Hollywood (related to the NC-17 controversy) rubbed too many people the wrong way? Keep your mouth shut, pretty boy! I’ll be rooting for Jesse “Cat Lady” Eisenberg for Best Actor because I love an underdog. (And a cat lady.) And a personal thanks to the Academy for nominating The Fighter–it’s good to work at least one nap into the Best Picture Showcase.
Any thoughts on big snubs? Was DiCaprio good enough in Inception to have deserved a nod?
Lylas,
Kimberly
Crushing Love
BLUE VALENTINE (2010/IN THEATERS) Have you ever heard that the characteristic that most draws you to a person is usually the thing that eventually makes you hate them? Derek Cianfrance made a whole movie about this concept! And man, is it depressing! Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling are just as fascinating as you’ve heard as a couple crumbling in present day, and falling in love about five years prior. You’ve overheard this couple’s tense grocery store conversation in the frozen foods aisle and tried to pretend that you didn’t. You’ve felt sorry for their cute kid and wondered what drew these two angry people together in the first place. Read more »
