Every once in a while my wife and I sit down to burn through months worth of movies in a day or so. This Sunday we are burning through Chef, I wish I was here, Skeleton Twins, and The Signal. Instead of writing multiple pages worth of review on each movie, I have decided to write one small blog with a quick 1 paragraph review of each movie we watched. I hope it works.
Chef
I was super excited about this movie when it came out and watching Jon Favreau on Top Chef made me want to watch it even more. The movie was really entertaining and did a great job at pulling at the heart strings. The one major downside of the movie is that all relationships outside of the father and the son's are extremely rushed and a little unrealistic. The main plot of the story revolves around the father and the son's struggling relationship. That part they nailed perfectly. The other part they got absolutely correct was the food. My god if you are a foodie or you love watching the food network this movie is for you. It is absolutely beautiful the appreciation they show for food. The most creative aspect was how they physically showed social networking and specifically twitter. I think Mr. Favreau struggled to find an end to this movie. Unfortunately it came quick and was a little self serving and corny. Overall the movie is extremely good, definitely a story about the journey and the food, but suffered from a bad ending.
Wish I Was Here
Zack Braff is a person i would love to have a beer with. Unfortunately this movie just did nothing for me. There was a time in my life where this is the exact style of movie I would have loved. Hell, I remember when indie movie became a genre and we had greats like I heart huckabees, little miss sunshine, garden state, etc. Movies like this are about characters, relationships, and emotions. These are usually aspects of a greater movie. Like most indies it really lacked substance. I wanted to love this movie, but it had one of the more annoying aspects of these kinds of movies: annoying unrealistic quirkiness. This included the "genius" brother who is smart but lacks the ability to relate to humans, the angst-y teenage daughter, struggling father who just doesnt get it, and way too much swearing. I mean I swear a lot, but this seemed over the top. I dont know when movies like this stopped holding my attention but unfortunately after 45 minutes we turned it off.
The Skeleton Twins
I was warned ahead of time that this was not going to be a quirky indie movie, but I had absolutely no idea how dark this movie was going to be. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but it was absolutely, 100%, a movie about suicide and depression. It was a beautiful movie along the lines of, but not nearly as good as "Perks of Being a Wallflower". I personally love to see comedic actors do stuff outside of comedy. Will Ferrel and Adam Sandler have never been better then when they take on the serious rolls. One challenge of this movie is that as good as Bill Hader is its tough to not see Stephan (snl character) come out during the movie, not the entire movie, but at times. The ending the movie felt perfect, it was kind of a twist that i didnt expect, but it was perfect. I will say overall the movie was amazing, the acting was great, but it was a really dark movie.
I am Santa Claus
This is a bit of a bonus movie. Since we dipped out early on "I wish i was here" we had a little extra time and watched this on Netflix. We usually enjoy burning through documentaries. This leads to some great examples like "Waiting for Superman". There are also some really good ones that are super uncomfortable and sad like "Confessions of a Superhero". This movie falls in a different category. The movie itself is ok. The awkward uncomfortableness isnt too bad, but it is definitely present. The main story follows Mick Foley trying to become Santa, which is more heartfelt than anything. Then there are other people who are followed and there is a combination of sad, but good, sad, and good. Overall its better than a lot, but not as good as some of the best documentaries. I would say its worth watching because its not too uncomfortable and overall tugs at the heart strings.
The Signal
My buddy Cam told me about this movie, and I was excited. My wife doesnt care for sci-fi and decided to sit this one out. The movie was really good in a similar fashion of district 9. It is a movie that feels like a high budget film even though it was probably made on a shoe string. The story is good but the real show stealer is the cinematics. There were some shots that blew my mind. The concept is pretty trippy and has a cool horror/sci-fi feeling that keeps you guessing until the end. Truthfully i have no complaints about it, I did dose off two times for a couple minutes, but I dont think that has to do with the movie. Its really cool, but a little slowly paced. The story is creative and original and a good twist ending kept me guessing. I hope we start seeing much more like this and district 9 in the near future.
That is my day of movies. It was a good one and I hope on the next day we watch nightcrawler, what if, boyhood, i origins, foxcatcher, and more.
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