How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

Written by: Peter Straughan (screenplay), Toby Young (book)
Directed by: Robert B. Weide

Apparently there is no shortage of books to be optioned into movies. How To Lose Friends is the “based on a true” story tale of a guys transition from small time journalist to hob knobbing with the A-listers in Hollywood.

Sidney Young (Simon Pegg) runs a small celebrity magazine in the UK. Not so much glorifying them like say, People, but exposing them as the people they are. Word of his magazine travels to America where big time editor Clayton Hardig (the Dude himself, Jeff Bridges) wants Sidney to come in and write for his swanky celeb rag Sharps Magazine. Clayton is an idol to Sidney who always loved his no holds barred approach to celebrity news.

Sidney has a series of misfortunate events when he gets to town, one of which includes ruining several pages of Alisen Olsen’s (Kirsten Dunst) handwritten manuscript at a bar. The next day he finds out that he will be working right next to Alisen in room one (the bottom rung of the ladder) at Sharps. Sidney’s lack of charm sends him into the shit more than once while he tries to learn the ropes from Alisen. He just has the hardest time getting his shit together. Then he’s at a party where he meets Sophie Maes (Megan Fox), a hot young starlet who is destined to be the next big thing. Her manager Eleanor (Gillian Anderson) has an unspoken deal with Sharps magazine to get her clients out there. Sidney has to figure out how to play the game right if he ever wants to have a chance at Sophie Maes or to move up to the next level and impress his boss.

After the movie I felt kinda meh about it. I love Simon Pegg but this wasn’t a Simon Pegg movie (see: Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) so it was just ok. Yeah there were some laughs here and there but after a while youre like “oh come on nobody can screw up THAT much”. But then I got home and IMDB’d it and sure enough Robert B. Weide is a producer of Curb Your Enthusiasm so that’s why every thing seem so familiar to me.

Mediocre movie. But I did love that Jeff Bridges has that long silver hair. I mean he looked pretty good bald in the best movie of the summer (if you don’t know what I’m talking about then you haven’t been reading my movie reviews) but it was good to see good ol Dudemeister with long hair again, even if it was salt and pepper colored. That was about my highlight of the film. Seriously. Meh.

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist

Written by: Lorene Scafaria (screenplay), Rachel Cohn (novel)
Directed by: Peter Sollett

We follow a bunch of quirky teens on their awesome Friday night in the great city of New York. Nick (Michael Cera) is getting over the horrible break up between him and Tris (Alexis Dziena ). His bandmates Tom and Dev decide that he needs to get out of the house which is difficult until they overhear their favorite band Where’s Fluffy is going to be in the city doing a random show at some random hour sometime that night. Awesome.

Norah (Kat Dennings) and her friend Caroline (Ari Graynor) are also super psyched about going to see Where’s Fluffy so they plan to hit the town. Tris asks about their plans because she plans to go out as well. Then she gossips to Caroline about her loser ex and his sappy mix cds he keeps making her. Unbeknownst to Tris, Norah thinks they are great and has been swiping them from the trash everytime Tris chunks them.

As fate should have it all the kids end up at Nick’s band’s gig. Tris has a new guy on her arm and she makes fun of Norah for being alone…again. Norah fakes having a boyfriend and randomly picks the bassist from the band, our buddy Nick. Caroline is off getting trashed so Dev and Tom offer to take Caroline home while Nick and Norah get acquainted. Which works great until they lose her. The rest of the night involves gay male cabaret, throw up, and a trip to Electric Lady studio, among other things. If you’ve had a night that lasted till 6am before, you know you end up seeing some ridiculous things.

For some reason I thought this movie would be more focused on the music. I suppose it’s the “Inifinite Playlist” part. Yes Nick is in an indie rock band and they see another band and chase another band all around town, and even listen to The Cure on the ipod in the car. But there wasn’t much soundtrack wise. At least not that I was paying attention to.

Michael Cera plays the character that he is great for playing. That awkward kid we met as George Michael on Arrested Development. That is him. And he is good at it. And I won’t get tired of watching it. Kat Dennings is good at the odd man out teenage girl. I don’t know who Ari Graynor is but she is hilarious and plays drunk as good as an actual drunk. The supporting cast of teens is pretty accurate. I suppose. I don’t know any teenagers. And if you are into any indie hipster anything, there are a few cameos that you will love.

Luckily this movie was not as…trendy…as Juno was. A lot of people had issues with the dialogue in Juno, which could very well be accurate, but again I know no teens. These kids seemed real to me though. They were into their music and that’s all they wanted to do. They were funny and sincere and had great close friendships. Well at least friendships you could really relate to. I would call this a slightly less cool teen version of Garden State. Yes. That’ll do.

Blindness

Written by: Don McKellar (screenplay), Jose Saragamo (novel)
Directed by: Fernando Meirelles


There’s random guy (Yusuke Iseya) who discovers he suddenly has become blind while waiting at a stop light. A thief (Don McKellar) takes him home and steals his car. Blind guy’s wife (Yoshino Kimura) comes home and sees he has made a mess and takes him to the doctor’s office. The doctor (Mark Ruffalo) examines him and sees no real cause for his blindness, yet is baffled because Blind Guy describes everything as white, where normal blindess is simply an absence of light, not an abundance. Doctor goes home and tells his wife (Julianne Moore) off the bizarre case. They go to bed and the next morning Doctor finds himself seeing the same white abundance of light. Such is the case for every person that was in the doctor’s office that day plus everyone that they came in contact with and so on and so forth.

Within hours government vehicles have come to take Doctor and the immediately effected into quarantine camps. His wife, who miraculously can still see, decides to go with him since she doesn’t really know where her husband is going. They soon find themselves surrounded with the people who were in the doctor’s office the day before. Freaky outtie. Anyway, over the course of the week the camp soonn is busting at the seams with those infected. The majority of the movie is about the groups survival in the camp and eventually their “freedom” into a country gone blind.

Good lord this movie was hard to watch. I don’t just call these people by their character traits simply because I forgot their names. That’s how the movie is set up. There’s a lot of different races in the main focus group. The country is never named. I suppose this is done so you just look at the situation and the characters and see how this would be if it happened anywhere in our modern world. It really reminded me a lot of Children of Men. But Children of Men was better. I don’t remember cringing watching it like I did with this movie. I guess it was just too intense. Rape scene, horrible filthy stuff all over the place, you really just felt the hopelessness the people were going through. And yeah everything aint all sunshine and roses but shit. I was all hyped up to see it like oooh this is gonna be good and I just had to shake myself off after I saw it. Good thing I hopped into a perkier movie afterwards (see: review for Nick and Norah…..

…Now)

Burn After Reading

written and directed by: Joel & Ethan Coen

Linda (Frances McDormand) is a mid 40s trainer at a gym. She is obsessed with her image and is consulting a doctor for cosmetic surgery, which she can’t afford. She is single and is testing out dating online. Her co-workers are Chad (Brad Pitt) and Ted (Richard Jenkins).

Osbourne (John Malkovich) is a CIA agent who has just been fired from his job due to a drinking problem. He is married to Katie (Tilda Swinton) who is a high powered…whatever and seems to be always irritated with him.

Harry (George Clooney) is an ex-government body guard who has never fired his weapon. His wife is a successful children’s book writer and when she’s doing book tours he looks for dates online. But he’s also doing Katie.

Since Osbourne has been fired he decides that he should write his memoirs. His disc is found by Chad in the gym and Chad thinks that he has stumbled upon some giant FBI secrets. He and Linda decide they can hold the information for ransom, or sell it to some Russians for money. Either way they want to get paid. They find out the disc belongs to Osbourne and thus begins their blackmail.

Harry is being pressured by Katie to leave his wife, since she has a case to leave Osbourne because of his current lack of employment. He is increasingly paranoid that he is being followed. And hooks up with Linda on a couple dates after an online match up.

I think that about covers how the characters are intertwined in the movie. It’s not confusing at all, but it gets a little gruesome as the film progesses and they all interact in a way that can only be called a “clusterf*ck”.

I wouldn’t say that you have to be a fan of the Coen’s movies to appreciate this movie, but you do have to get dark humor. But if you are a fan, then this is more like Fargo, less like The Big Lebowski. Clooney plays erratic pretty well. I might be biased since I love Brad Pitt, but his character cracked me up. Makes me want to squint and accuse people in a low, serious-sounding voice. I think Frances McDormand is a great actress, and she plays her character well, but she’s such a goofy woman. I was happy to see J.K. Simmons in the movie, although its just a short while. He plays a fast talking, highly irritated CIA officer. I was sad to not see the Coen regulars Steve Buscemi or John Tuturro in this one, but I can’t really complain. I’ll definitely be buying this one when it comes out on DVD.

Choke

Written and directed by: Clark Gregg
Book by: Chuck Palahunik

Ok so I was super psyched when I learned that they had optioned the movie rights for a bunch of Chuck P’s books. Choke was the first book of his that I read, and compared to the rest, it’s pretty “light”.

Victor Mancini (Sam Rockwell) works at a historic recreation site. One of those places fieldtrips go to see how people lived in the 1800s. He and his best friend Denny (Brad Henke) often get in trouble for going out of character. He uses his money to support his mother Ida (Angelica Huston) who is has gone more nuts than she used to be and needs the care of a high priced facility to stay alive. Historical re-creaters don’t make that much money, so for additional income Victor has come up with this plan to choke on his food in high priced restaurants. The people who save him keep in contact with him over the years and are clued into to “hardships” that Victor faces, and therefore send him cash to help him out. Oh, and he’s a nymphomaniac who picks up chics at the N.A. meetings.

While visiting his mother one day (who by the way, never remembers who her son is) Victor runs into a new nurse Paige Marshal (Kelly McDonald) who has a few ideas on how to help Victor’s mother recover, which includes Victor getting her pregnant. The sex is right up Victor’s alley since he’s slept with most of the nurse/doctor staff there anyway, but it proves to be difficult and Victor thinks that he might be developing some sort of feelings for Paige. He also learns that his mother wants to reveal to him who his father is but won’t tell him since she doesn’t recognize who she is talking to.

Although it had been a while since I read the book, from what I can remember the movie sticks pretty closely to it. Of course there is more detail in the book. Chuck goes into Victor’s sex addiction a lot more. There is more story with Denny and his addiction (Denny too is a sex addicted, but he gives it up for rocks). And the ending is different. There is always something lost in translation between books and movies, but all in all Choke does the story justice.

Angelica Huston was a great mother Mancini. They have several flashbacks of Victor’s upbringing and how Ida would take him on random adventures. She plays crazy a little too well. I liked Sam Rockwell as Victor. He was as dirty (literally) as Victor comes off in the book. I also liked the guy who played Denny. I don’t remember ever seeing him in anything, so maybe that’s how he played Denny well. I really do wish they would have went into Denny’s story more. I might have to re-read the book to remember why exactly I liked Denny so much. And my only other complaint is that there wasn’t enough Choking. I mean that’s the title. There was so much more behind it in the book. Dude choked A LOT. But in the movie I think you only get about 4 instances. They should have at least eluded to him choking more and his system behind it. The movie has it seem like more of a hobby than an actual secondary income.

There are plenty laughs in the movie. It’s not a downright comedy, but Victor’s interactions with the old crazy women in his mother’s care facility had me in tears. It’s plenty nudity and sex in the movie, since he is a sex addict. And Chuck Palahniuk has a sick and twisted mind and I’m glad they let people like him share it with the world.

The Family That Preys

Written and directed by: Tyler Perry

Ahhh another movie written, directed, produced by, starring, set designed, etc by Tyler Perry. I can’t stand his plays and rarely see his movies, but this one was one I willingly checked out.

The movie opens with Charlotte (Kathy Bates) hosting a wedding for her best friend Alice’s (Alfre Woodard) daughter Andrea (Sanaa Lathan). Andrea is a little snooty. Nothing is good enough for her and she complains despite everything being free. It annoys her sister Pam (Taraji P. Henson) but Alice calms the girls down. During the reception Andrea and her new husband Chris (Rockmond Dunbar) are re-aquainted with Charlotte’s son William (Cole Hauser) who runs his mothers prominent construction business. He tells the newlyweds that they should approach him about a job.

Fast forward to about 4 years later, we find Alice and Pam working away in Alice’s diner. In walks a fashionably dressed Andrea to pick up her son. The sisters argue about money and Andrea’s lack of help in the family business. Meanwhile Chris and Pam’s husband Ben (Tyler Perry) are discussing plans to start their own construction company.

One afternoon William comes over to his mother’s house to discuss a new business merger, but finds her interviewing Abby (Robin Givens) for the position he was hoping to take over. He’s quite pissed. But with Abby in place Charlotte takes this time to get a new Caddy and begs her friend to take a cross country trip with her.

William continues to work in the business as if he were in Abby’s role. It is becoming apparent to Abby (and the receptionist at the office) that there is more than meets the eye between William and Andrea. Ben and Chris decide that they want to ask their boss for a loan to start up their own business, but while doing so, Chris learns that his wife has been keeping a giant secret from him.

I am not sure if there are any lessons to be learned from Tyler Perry’s The Family that Preys. It wasn’t as entertaining as I wanted it to be. It’s not like I had extremely high hopes for the movie, but I did like Why Did I Get Married, so I was looking for something on par with that movie. It was different to see Sanaa play a bitch. She’s usually nice and bubbly. Taraji was pretty solid, as she is in most of her films. Tyler Perry wore this godawful wig. I don’t know if that was necessary for his role. I know construction workers can be a little unkempt at times but it was damn near distracting. I guess he didn’t want you to see him as himself…whatever.

Kathy Bates and Alfre Woodard seemed to do whatever they could with the material that was given to them. The story didn’t drag, but it didn’t mesh well together. When Alice and Charlotte make their cross-country tour it’s like they left Atlanta, and then stayed in Arizona for 3 weeks. That’s not cross country, and what the hell is there to do in Arizona for 3 weeks. It could have been a movie about a bi-racial Thelma and Louise, or a story about a woman cheating on her husband with her boss. But the two together…not so much.

It wasn’t awful, and if you’re a Tyler Perry fan then you might enjoy it, but for me it was just meh.