Review: (500) Days Of Summer

So the other weekend we watched (500) Days Of Summer, a quasi-romantic comedy in which a greeting-card writer named Tom falls in love with an administrative assistant named Summer. Unfortunately Summer doesn’t fall in love with him. (This is not a spoiler.)

Review: “District 9″

So over the holiday last week, we watched the movie District 9. Originally my wife had declined to screen this film, but after hearing from several friends about how good it was, she agreed to go see it. I had also told her it was supposed to be good, but apparently, after suggesting she might like Hellboy because it was made by Guillermo del Toro (she is a huge fan of his Spanish-language movies like The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth), suggesting she might like Kung Fu Hustle because because it was “probably like a Jackie Chan movie”, and trying to convince her that Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome is a classic of 80s filmmaking, I lack credibility. Go figure.

Reviewus Interruptus: “Slumdog Millionaire”

So the other night, my wife was feeling lazy and wanted to watch a movie. We went through the On-Demand options, watching the trailers … Confessions of a Shopaholic … Duplicity … Slumdog Millionaire … she thought they all looked interesting but decided she wanted to see the best-picture winner, so we bought Slumdog Millionaire. Unfortunately it immediately started with our young hero being subjected to “enhanced interrogation techniques” and went downhill from there.

gest revyoo of marley and me by dennis the vizsla dog!!!

hello dadas nice reederz all three of yoo sorry dada that was a cheep shot its dennis the vizsla dog hay gess wot??? dada has askd me to come and do a gest revyoo of the faymus dokyoomentry marley me and dupree wot we watchd this weekend and — wot???  oh dada sez the dokyoomentry wuz akchooaly calld marley and me sorry my bad ennyway dada shoor i wil lend yore silly blog sum of my star power ok heer goze!!!

Review: “Sherrybaby”

This weekend we finished up watching Sherrybaby, a film in which Maggie Gyllenhaal expertly plays a blonde-haired, blue-eyed train wreck in a halter top. Sherry has just been released from prison after a stint for drug-related offenses, and spends the rest of the movie trying stay clean, hold down a job, and reconnect with her daughter (who is being raised by her brother and sister-in-law).  Sherry seems to have only one way of relating to most men (hence the halter top); she’s spoiled, immature, narcissistic, and repeatedly displays staggeringly poor judgment.  She fights, she lies, she manipulates; in particular, a scene in which she hijacks a dinner party to sing “Eternal Flame” is simply excruciating.  At one point I said to my wife, “I keep waiting for her to make the right decision, and she never does.”

So now that I’ve made this movie sound unwatchable, let me add that it’s riveting.  The performances are uniformly excellent, from Maggie Gyllenhaal (who’s in every scene) down to Ryan Simpkins as her daughter, Alexis.  The film is gritty and believable but not sentimental and manages to let you see just how bleak Sherry’s situation is without being utterly depressing.  The contrast between Sherry’s tawdry life of motel rooms and halfway houses contrasts sharply with the upper-class life of her father (his house is a palace in comparison) in a way that at first seems sad, but ultimately becomes infuriating. The pacing is just about perfect; when my wife said, “How did she get so messed up?”, we found out ten minutes later.  Stop reading my wife’s mind, Laurie Collyer!

Sherrybaby put my wife to sleep in a little over an hour, at which point she made me turn it off so we could finish watching it later.  It took us about two weeks to get back to it (we’ve been busy with the now-local Fred Astaire lately), but we finally did.  You may find it painful to watch Sherry make one bad choice after another, but stick with her until the end of the film.  It’s worth the ride.