Serious Movie Lover

Sarah and Kimberly (at left; the Rest of the World, at right) are nothing if not “gals on the go.” They barely have time to honor each other via Luna bar and pick up a new pair of jeggings, let alone finish watching Center Stage for the tenth time. They are dancing as fast as they can! Wasted Weekend is a weekly discussion of the films they watched, half-watched, or turned off in disgust during the previous few days. We hope you still respect them after reading this.

Kimberly: So Sarah. I did something over the weekend that I swore I would never do, let alone admit to our large and loyal international audience (Greetings, reader from Poland who searched for “real rapee” and found us!). Here goes…I watched The Ugly Truth. It was streaming on Netflix and curiosity got the best of me, OK? Believe me, I learned my lesson. The lesson being that Gerard Butler may have the worst agent. How many terrible romantic comedies will this guy have to karaoke through before they realize he is best at bellowing, throwing people into pits, and having abs? Synopsis! Butler is a piggish local news personality in the vein of Howard Stern. (Side note: Why can’t any movie get a Howard-esque character right? Either the charm or the humor is always absent.) Katherine Heigl is his bad-tempered news producer foil. For some reason I cannot hate Heigl. Maybe it’s leftover goodwill from Knocked Up, or maybe this—I find her uptight act kind of charming in small doses and with the right script. 27 Dresses was not awful! (Please follow the jump so I can redeem myself.) Read more »

Sarah and Kimberly (at left; the Rest of the World, at right) are nothing if not “gals on the go.” They barely have time to honor each other via Luna bar and pick up a new pair of jeggings, let alone finish watching Center Stage for the tenth time. They are dancing as fast as they can! Wasted Weekend is a weekly discussion of the films they watched, half-watched, or turned off in disgust during the previous few days. We hope you still respect them after reading this.

Sarah: Kimberly! It’s been a while since we talked about our weekend viewing habits. I’ll get started by telling you that I flipped to Ratatouille on Disney and was unable to turn it off for the remainder of the film. Have you seen this? Perhaps the thought of a rat cooking food seems unappetizing to you? Wrong. This movie is delightful AND makes me very hungry. The title dish in particular is mouth-watering. And Patton Oswolt, whose stand-up act is ridiculously profane, is very sweet and funny as our hero rat chef. I had a couple of problems with my viewing experience, however. First, why do all the Parisians speak English with French accents, except the main doofy human and the rats? I found this very confusing. Second, the commercials on the Disney Channel are probably the most irritating commercials I have ever seen outside of a Golden Girls marathon on Hallmark. So many weird shows full of bad adolescent actors trying to be wacky. Kill me. Read more »

Sarah and Kimberly (at left; the Rest of the World, at right) are nothing if not “gals on the go.” They barely have time to honor each other via Luna bar and pick up a new pair of jeggings, let alone finish watching Center Stage for the tenth time. They are dancing as fast as they can! Wasted Weekend is a weekly discussion of the films they watched, half-watched, or turned off in disgust during the previous few days. We hope you still respect them after reading this. 

Kimberly: Sarah! I was forced to work on a freelance project over the weekend (fascists), so I thought I’d have Alan Cumming’s Ghost Writer, which I recorded on IFC a few weeks ago, playing in the background—it was completely distracting in the most unpleasant way you can imagine. I think Cumming is very entertaining (just refer to him by his last name only and snicker for minutes!), but his character (a music teacher with operatic ambitions who tortureporns David Boreanaz for about an hour for “trick”ing him, then steals a manuscript from his bag, magically gets it published, and becomes famous) is a miserable, whingey baby who cries, screams, and wears a disgusting tank top—he is the personification of every characteristic I find inexcusable in a companion. In the last 10 minutes of this hyper, zoom-lens-happy film, Boreanaz haunts Cumming from beyond the grave, utilizing sarcastic asides and heavy cheekbone-highlighting makeup. So if you die before your time you come back as a drag queen. Neat! When I can comfortably say that the star of TV’s “Angel” and “Bones” is wasted here, you know a true cinematic disaster has taken place. I should also note that Henry “Blank” Thomas costars. Begone, harbinger of mediocre pretension and a cut-rate budget! (FYI, this movie is also known as Suffering Man’s Charity. Beware!) Did you watch anything that required liberal use of the mute button? 

Only a little more embarrassing than starring in “Bones” for 6+ seasons.

Sarah: Why yes, in fact, I did! Have you ever seen Ultraviolet? Are you aware that it makes absolutely no sense? I half-watched the whole thing on Sunday, and I have nothing to show for it. Milla Jovovich is a renegade spy (or something?) in a videogame-looking dystopian future in which some people have a bad blood disease and some people are maybe vampires (or something?). And she adopts a cloned boy who is a carrier of the antidote, and they ride around on her motorcycle, and her hair keeps changing colors. The end! The most enjoyable details were the clearly low-budget attempts to make this future world come alive. Apparently, in the future we’ll all hang out in white-walled warehouses sparsely decorated with patio furniture. Also, when the inevitable outbreak of a deadly virus begins, we’ll want to be sure to pick up a pair of tiny nostril screens like those worn by the villain in this movie. Don’t bother covering your mouth! Just the nose holes will do! Also, for someone who gets into a LOT of sword battles (digital, future-y swords only, obviously), Jovovich’s midriff-baring wardrobe seems like a really poor choice. That’s prime stabbing area, there. Anyway, skip this one in the future for sure. What else for you? Read more »

Sarah and Kimberly (at left; the Rest of the World, at right) are nothing if not “gals on the go.” They barely have time to honor each other via Luna bar and pick up a new pair of jeggings, let alone finish watching Center Stage for the tenth time. They are dancing as fast as they can! Wasted Weekend is a weekly discussion of the films they watched, half-watched, or turned off in disgust during the previous few days. We hope you still respect them after reading this.

Sarah: Welcome back from the holiday weekend, Kimberly! While honoring our nation’s veterans by sitting around and sweating mostly, I caught a couple of movies worth mentioning. First, I watched Fantastic Mr. Fox on DVD. So much fun! This adaptation is perfectly suited to Wes Anderson’s sensibilities. It’s quirky and smart, and so great to look at. You know I am a big fan of Pixar movies (not counting Cars. Boo, Cars!), but the insanely detailed stop-motion animation Anderson chose for this movie is a welcome respite from CGI. It gives the movie an old-school feel, but with really pretty digital clarity. It’s fun to listen for voice work by all of Anderson’s usual suspects, too. Again I say to you: Bill Murray, delightful in everything. I look forward to watching this movie many more times. What did you watch?

Bill Murray sleeping on the set of Fantastic Mr. Fox. Literally.

Kimberly: Sigh. I went to Sex and the City 2, OK? There, I said it. The healing begins now. What can I say about this that hasn’t already been said in some of the most hilariously angry (and yet, still dismissive) collection of reviews I’ve enjoyed since Gerard Butler released his last movie? Not being a fan of shallow, boring drama queens (ie, most women), I was never a big SATC watcher. But I felt sorry for fans of the show as this movie trudged on. No one should have to watch characters they have grown to love over the years do things as culturally insensitive as sing “I Am Woman” to a karaoke crowd in Abu Dhabi—thereby EMPOWERING ladies to dance/thrust in public, despite the glares of their male oppressors—and say things like, “He’s Lawrence of My Labia.” When the ladies gawked at and joked about women wearing burqas and rode around Abu Dhabi in four separate cars it struck me that there was an ugly, very conservative message buried not too deeply in the script that was a little too Hannity-esque for my liking.

Defeating centuries of female subjugation…with sass!

The only scene that didn’t ring false was between two characters who had a drunken bonding session about how hard motherhood is, and how much harder it would be without nannies. See how even that is offensive and gross? 146 minutes of that shit. In the front row, far right. In front of a bunch of men who hooted and gasped every time a baby or new outfit appeared on screen. They also got up to go to the bathroom like 100 times! So how did you spend the rest of your holiday weekend?

Sarah and Kimberly (at left; the Rest of the World, at right) are nothing if not “gals on the go.” They barely have time to honor each other via Luna bar and pick up a new pair of jeggings, let alone finish watching Center Stage for the tenth time. They are dancing as fast as they can! Wasted Weekend is a weekly discussion of the films they watched, half-watched, or turned off in disgust during the previous few days. We hope you still respect them after reading this.

Sarah: So, there has been a disturbing amount of Golden Girls reruns being viewed in my house lately. The Hallmark Channel airs like 40 episodes a day! The giant flow-y outfits are mesmerizing! I’m lucky to have any movie-related viewing to discuss with you at all, frankly. I did manage to watch the first hour of Quantum of Solace, though. I really liked the first Daniel Craig Bond movie, but this one makes no sense at all. This isn’t even the first time I’ve seen it, and I still had no idea what the hell was going on. The action sequences are well-edited and fun to watch (I love a good old-fashioned boat race!), and Craig makes such a great Bond. But after the first few fights and explosions, I was mostly just confused. And after they switch continents for the third or fourth time, it’s just annoying. Archeology seems to be involved? Or ecology, maybe? And the CIA is in league with the bad guy? But maybe not? The newest installment is having production problems, too, which isn’t helping this negative momentum at all. For shame, MGM. I’ll be sad if this is the last movie in the series. Maybe you had better luck in the plot arena this weekend?

I don’t know where you’re running, James, but you look good doing it!

 Kimberly: Hopefully they won’t take a break and recast again—I am having visions of Robert Pattinson as Bond and it is not good. Though I haven’t seen the “Girls” in a while, I made the terrible error in judgement of watching No Such Thing. I have often praised Hal Hartley’s early ‘90s films (The Unbelievable Truth, Trust) for their odd dialogue and cacophonous scores (also composed by Hartley)—they have a very distinct personality that I found pretty intriguing, particularly when I was just a young film snob. But I don’t think he’s grown a bit in the past 20 years—in fact, maybe he has some brain damage? The plot for this movie (an Icelandic monster kills the fiancee of our heroine [Sarah Polley], who tries to travel to Iceland to investigate, is in a plane crash and temporarily paralyzed, quickly recovers and successfully makes the trip, brings the monster back to New York where they become famous [which involves Polley wearing bondage gear for press conferences??], he goes back to Iceland, doctors euthanize him) makes no sense. I cannot emphasize this enough. Characters conveniently appear on continents where they were not five minutes prior. News producers have control of the FBI. Please, even Roger Ailes doesn’t wield that kind of power. No one behaves like a real person—they’re all caricatures who chain smoke, wear pigtails, or drink straight from liquor bottles instead of having personalities. And as insane as the plot sounds, it’s still painfully dull. Honestly, I can’t even convey. It exhausts me. I don’t often feel sorry for actors because, you know, they’re actors, but this entire crew deserves our pity. Helen Mirren’s shameful performance is testament to the theory that actors are only as good as their director. And poor Julie Christie has the wear these goggles…I can’t talk about it. Because I am trying to be a more positive person (as you can tell), I offer this small comfort: I assume this set is where Polley met Christie, whom she cast in Away From Her, which we both love for a good, solid cry. (Side note: When you google images for “no such thing,” this comes up. Internets, don’t ever forget how much I love you.) Read more »

Sarah and Kimberly (at left; the Rest of the World, at right) are nothing if not “gals on the go.” They barely have time to honor each other via Luna bar and pick up a new pair of jeggings, let alone finish watching Center Stage for the tenth time. They are dancing as fast as they can! Wasted Weekend is a weekly discussion of the films they watched, half-watched, or turned off in disgust during the previous few days. We hope you still respect them after reading this.

Kimberly: So I finally got a chance to watch Turn the River, written and directed by my Teen Beat crush Chris Eigeman. We’ve followed him from Metropolitan to Kicking and Screaming to Gilmore Girls and suspected he was melancholy and twisty inside, and I’d say this confirms it. Famke Janssen stars as a mother who gave up parental rights to her now-adolescent son not long after his birth, though they’ve secretly communicated through letters and sweet rendezvous in a local park in recent years (the only scenes in this film that aren’t heartbreakingly bleak). We slowly realize that his father (played by Matt Ross of Big Love, unsettlingly intense here, as usual) is becoming increasingly abusive, and Janssen is working on a plan to hustle enough cash to take her son to Canada and start over. Rip Torn (oh, that poor man) is a bar owner who tries to help, but he (and the audience) have a sinking feeling that the plan is doomed from the start. Eigeman does a wonderful job creating a mood of panic and aching sadness for these characters, and I’m not just saying that because I hope he finds this on a late-night self-Google search and comments, thus making my life. Did any of your crushes do good this weekend?

Chris works so hard, but is often distracted by fond thoughts of Kimberly.

Sarah: Oh, good for Digger Stiles! I always knew he was a smart one. I’m sorry to say that no crushes of mine did nearly that well for me this weekend. To whit, I watched way more than I meant to of A Life Less Ordinary and now have to ask you: What the hell is this movie? Ewan McGregor would be the crush in question here, and really, what the hell is this movie? Have you seen this? Ewan and Cameron Diaz are a kidnapper and his victim, respectively, who are coerced into falling in love by angels played by Holly Hunter and Delroy Lindo (who I knew as “that guy from Get Shorty” until two minutes ago)? And they know they really love each other because Diaz shoots him in the heart but he doesn’t die? And then they get married and Ewan wears a kilt. In an attempt to be fair, I tried imagining what my 1997 self would have thought about this movie, and, even though she would have probably been much less grossed out by the hammy “is true love fate or choice?” theme, I like to think that she still would have appreciated some semblance of plot organization. Danny Boyle directed this right on the heels of Trainspotting, so maybe he was tired of editing or something. Probably the most disturbing detail is the fugification of dreamy McGregor, whose haircut here is so similar to my current haircut that it’s upsetting. I’m hoping you watched something a tad less chilling? Read more »

Sarah and Kimberly (at left; the Rest of the World, at right) are nothing if not “gals on the go.” They barely have time to honor each other via Luna bar and pick up a new pair of jeggings, let alone finish watching Center Stage for the tenth time. They are dancing as fast as they can! Wasted Weekend is a weekly discussion of the films they watched, half-watched, or turned off in disgust during the previous few days. We hope you still respect them after reading this.

Sarah: So how was your weekend of TV viewing? There seemed to be a surplus of sporting events on, and yet, I was able to catch a couple things of note. First, I watched the last hour of the catchily-titled The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford on AMC. I like this movie a lot. 2007 was so crowded with good movies that stuff that came out earlier in the year, like this and Zodiac, were almost totally overlooked come Oscar time. But this is packed with really good performances. Casey Affleck got a well-deserved supporting actor nomination for playing the titular coward who mistakenly thinks killing the famous outlaw will result in his own fame. Brad Pitt lets his face look old and tired and gives a really calm, still performance as Jesse James. And supporting work from Sam Rockwell, Jeremy Renner, and Pawnee City Planner Mark Brendanawicz (AKA Paul Schneider) is all excellent.

Hmm…I wonder if they’ll give me an Oscar for this Benjamin Button thing my agent just sent over.

Set in and around Missouri (heeeyy!), I think the cinematography is gorgeous. IMDB tells me that’s because the cinematographer was Roger Deakins, who works on all the Coen brothers’ movies and was nominated in 2007 for his work on this and that year’s best picture winner No Country for Old Men. Not too shabby a year for Roger. And for all of us, really. I saw so many good movies that year. Sigh. Anyway, I know the narration throughout TAOJJBTCRF really bugged some people, but I don’t mind it so much. Any Westerns on your roster this weekend? Read more »

Sarah and Kimberly (at left; the Rest of the World, at right) are nothing if not “gals on the go.” They barely have time to honor each other via Luna bar and pick up a new pair of jeggings, let alone finish watching Center Stage for the tenth time. They are dancing as fast as they can! Wasted Weekend is a weekly discussion of the films they watched, half-watched, or turned off in disgust during the previous few days. We hope you still respect them after reading this.

This Italian poster adorned Kimberly’s wall for many years. What a weirdo.

Kimberly: So did you manage to avoid the sunshine and all that pesky vitamin D (a little rickets never hurt anyone) and see anything interesting over the weekend? I watched Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me in lovely HD. I was a huge “Twin Peaks” fan as a pretentious teen, and I recently rewatched the entire series on the Crime and Investigation network (a real network that also shows “Nash Bridges” reruns—imagine the bidding war with USA that took place!) and although it’s totally obtuse and infuriating, like much of David Lynch’s work, it’s also gorgeously shot and occasionally thrilling. When this prequel (covering the last week of Laura Palmer’s life) was released I made two of my high school pals see it with me in the theater—I promised them it would be scary fun and they didn’t need to be familiar with the series to understand it. Boy were they mad at me afterward! About as mad as when I begged them to see The Crying Game and swore it had a really fun twist. It’s almost as if I didn’t want friends. Anyway, it’s no wonder this isn’t shown on cable often, because it would make zero sense to the uninitiated. But if you’re familiar with the series, it really holds up, once you get past the (maybe purposefully—curse you, Lynch!) off-putting opening 30 minutes featuring the always atrocious acting of Chris Isaak. It moves the focus away from the entire town and zeros in on the incestuous Palmer family during the last week of Laura’s life (so it’s a real upper, is what I’m saying)—which worked out well considering Lynch had alienated much of the original series cast by the final season. Sheryl Lee is amazing—she plays innocently sweet prom queen just as well as loony, drug-addled prostitute (H’wood’s two favorite lady roles, rolled into one!). She was a bit long-in-the-tooth to be a teen by this time, but she pulled it off beautifully. And man, is she an excellent terrified screamer. That shit haunts my dreams. The Los Angeles Daily News even proposed she receive an Oscar nod. Which is almost as good as an Oscar nod! She was quite a find for Lynch, and it’s a shame that she seems to be relegated to Lifetime roles and TV guest spots as of late. Hopefully you watched something delightfully incest-free? 

Sarah: Incest? No. Weirdos? You bet. I avoided the outdoors long enough to catch most of Home Movie on IFC. I watch this one whenever it pops up. It’s a short-ish (66 minutes) documentary introducing five weirdo families and their weirdo homes. There’s a flute-playing family of hippies who bought and remodelled an old missile silo, an inventor who built hilariously unnecessary robotics into every aspect of his home and lives with a “personal assistant” who speaks with the dead, a delightful old lady who lives in a giant tree house in Hawaii, and a redneck alligator wrestler living on a houseboat in Louisiana. The highlight of the movie, though, is a couple who have remodelled every inch of their home to suit the fancies of their 20-odd cats. They admit that they’ve devalued their house by over $50,000 by adding stuff like flame-shaped holes in the walls that lead to a series of brightly painted walkways up and down the walls and a giant carpeted ramp leading up into the ceiling. These people are fantastically crazy. I saw them on a recent episode of “Cats 101” on Animal Planet (I watch only the most sophisticated television), and apparently they’ve recently been hired by a local cat shelter to design a large kitten play area. Best job ever, y/y?

Read more »

Sarah and Kimberly (at left; the Rest of the World, at right) are nothing if not “gals on the go.” They barely have time to honor each other via Luna bar and pick up a new pair of jeggings, let alone finish watching Center Stage for the tenth time. They are dancing as fast as they can! Wasted Weekend is a weekly discussion of the films they watched, half-watched, or turned off in disgust during the previous few days. We hope you still respect them after reading this.

Sarah: So Spring finally showed up this weekend! It was so pretty outside! My dedication to wasting time inside with bad cable was challenged, but I fought through it and managed to watch some notable garbage. First off, a wise friend of mine clued me in to some fine original movie programming on SyFy, and I caught the end of Ice Spiders. I missed the setup, but the plot was your typical “evil scientists vs. Olympic ski team battling it out for the good of mankind” scenario. We’ve seen it a thousand times! But this time, there were giant scary spiders to contend with. Except, it seemed like there were only like three spiders total? And yes, they were large, but they weren’t THAT big. Like about the size of a golden retriever? So not that scary, really? Anyway, the ski team had to lure the spiders into the snowboarding half-pipe by skiing for their lives, and then they blew the spiders up or something. The SyFy Moral™ for this one was that the government is always up to no good. And sometimes, even if you blow up the mutant spiders, they’re still going to cover it all up so no one will get the real story, leaving you and your ski team to just shake your heads and head off to dinner with your new scientist girlfriend. Obligatory mildly recognizable C-list casting: Dr. Michael Mancini AKA Thomas Calabro.

Keep hitting the ice spider with your ski poles! That ought to do it!

 Kimberly: SyFy better watch it with the subversive content—Big Brother is watching. I watched the spider-free The Children’s Hour on Saturday afternoon with the windows open, so it counts as outdoor time. Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine star as friends running a boarding school together. When one of their charges starts a rumor that they are lesbefriends, all hell breaks loose—it was 1961, after all—the parents pull their children from the school, and scary townies start ominously driving by in their pickups (it’s unclear whether they’re considering torching the place or just hoping to see some hot girl-on-girl action, but super creepy nonetheless). In the last moments of the film MacLaine reveals that there was some truth to the student’s lie—she is in love with Hepburn. Then Hepburn goes for a quick walk and MacLaine kills herself. Holy yikes. Very mixed feelings about this one. Though I appreciate that MacLaine doesn’t play the character as sexually predatory, her revelation turns her into a ranting, raving lunatic and her suicide feels like an inevitability (and a relief for everyone). Hepburn is then portrayed as some kind of hero for not only enduring the rejection of the town, but the advances of her friend. It makes me sad to think about young gay men and women watching this movie in the ‘60s and walking out of the theater feeling hopeless. On a lighter note, a very eye-catching James Garner (who, it should be noted, looks nothing like Ryan Gosling as a young man, duh) plays Hepburn’s fiancée. Cutie pie alert. Read more »

Sarah and Kimberly (at left; the Rest of the World, at right) are nothing if not “gals on the go.” They barely have time to honor each other via Luna bar and pick up a new pair of jeggings, let alone finish watching Center Stage for the tenth time. They are dancing as fast as they can! Wasted Weekend is a weekly discussion of the films they watched, half-watched, or turned off in disgust during the previous few days. We hope you still respect them after reading this.

Kimberly: When will the hurting stop over my loss of premium cable? I checked the guide to see what movies were showing on Saturday night (traditionally prime DVRing time) and this was the evening’s lineup: Rocky III, Jurassic Park III, Problem Child, and something starring Hilary Swank. I choose death. On Sunday I caught about an hour of Soul Men, starring Bernie Mac and Samuel L. Jackson as Motown legends on a ca-razy road trip to the Apollo. Notables: (1) Both actors do their own vocals and are in no way good singers. (2) The surplus of Bernie Mac boner jokes. If Bernie Mac boner jokes were currency, I would be sending you this Wasted Weekend dispatch from sunny Dubai. (3) A raunchy and cringey cameo by the usually wonderful Jennifer Coolidge (featuring that damn boner again), who—namedropper alert—was recently made up by a makeup artist pal of mine for a local news show. Apparently she is quite sassy and her hair could use a deep conditioning treatment. FACTS. The late Mac was his usual endearing self in this role, managing to make lines like “Sorry, I’m wearing these tight slacks” hilariously quotable. He was obviously ill and underweight, though, which was a sad bit of reality in an otherwise light, throwaway movie.

Um, you probably should not buy this.

Sarah: Aw, rest in piece Bernie Mac! That movie also claimed the life of Isaac Hayes, yes? DANGER. I’m sorry to tell you that the pain of basic cable programming will never relent. Case in point, my viewing of the second half of Disturbia this weekend. I realize that I am not the target audience for this movie (dude, I am SO OLD), but are there really people who find Shia LeBeouf sexually attractive? Ew, I feel creepy even typing that. He’s still got that boyish face, circa Holes, and this movie insists on showing me numerous tight shots of him tonguing a young, scantily clad lady. Shudder. Anyway, aside from all the icky, this is trying to be sort of a Rear Window for the digital age, which I’m 100% sure was the pitch for this thing. It’s totally predictable and sloppy, but the surprisingly corpse-heavy final act was effective enough that I was especially watchful for serial murderers when walking my dogs that night. They could be anywhere, Kim. What else did you watch? Read more »