Claire's blog

VIDEO: MOVIES: REVIEW: About Time (2013)

Claire: 4/5 stars, 8/10.
Carolyn: 4/5 stars, 8.6/10.
Native ratings: 4.0/5 stars Netflix, 7.9/10 IMDB.

This was a nice time-travel romance movie. The ultimate point was pretty much the same point as most sappy movies, but they managed to use the gimmick of time travel to really show this point in a unique way. And of course, messing with the spacetime continuum always makes a movie more interesting. Always. And romances need something to make them interesting, otherwise they’re just too intolerable. Why the fuck do you think they put vampires & werewolves having epic battles into the middle of Twilight? Everyone interprets as pissing on vampire-genre, but I interpret as improving romance-genre with fuckin’ monsters and shit.

But I digress.

This movie was at the very least interesting. Time travel was more, uh, Quantum Leap style, I guess, if you had to describe it in terms of a pop culture reference. No hottubs or DeLoreans or stargates here. Very subtle. A good type of time travel for the introspective.  The romance was alright. The family-stuff was marginally tolerable. But all the elements came together to still make a good movie.

Random comment 1: Of course if a movie is a time-travel romance, it has to have Rachel McAdams, right? Apparently that is a rule.
Random comment 2: Claire rated this pretty much exactly how most people did. A rarity to come by.

Carolyn’s thoughts: Someone described this as Groundhog Day for chicks, which isn’t quite accurate. This made me think of Click in some ways. It got me thinking about my dad dying, though, but not in a depressing way. It touched some heart strings.

Directed & written by Richard Curtis (Bridget Jones’s Diary, French & Saunders Live and 1 ep of French & Saunders, 1 ep of Doctor Who).

Domhnall Gleeson (Bill Weasley in the Harry Potter movies, Dredd, Boy Eats Girl) as Tim.
Rachel McAdams (The Time Traveler’s Wife, Mean Girls, Wedding Crashers) as Mary.
Bill Nighy (The World’s End, Hot Fuzz, Shaun Of The Dead, The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows Part 1, Underworld movies, Pirates Of The Caribbean movies, Jack The Giant Slayer, Total Recall remake, Wrath Of The Titans, 1 ep of Doctor Who) as Dad.
Lydia Wilson (1 ep of Dirk Gently) as Kit Kat.
Lindsay Duncan (Alice In Wonderland, 1 ep of Absolutely Fabulous, 1 ep of Doctor Who) as Mum.
Richard Cordery as Uncle D.
Joshua McGuire as Rory.
Tom Hollander (Hanna, Pirates Of The Caribbean movies, uncredited in Byzantium, 2 eps of Absolutely Fabulous, 1 ep of Family Guy, 1 ep of Aqua Teen) as Harry.

LINK URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2194499/combined

VIDEO: MOVIES: REVIEW: Europa Report (2013)

Claire: 4.4/5 stars, 8.4/10.
Carolyn: 3.6/5 stars, 7.6/10.
Native ratings: 3.2/5 stars Netflix, 6.5/10 IMDB.

Carolyn’s thoughts: This was a pretty good sci-fi.  Not that suspenseful, but it told the story well.  Not much to the story, though.  A manned space shuttle launches to see if they can find life on Jupiter’s Moon, Europa.  Halfway to Jupiter, their communications get knocked out so they don’t have contact with Earth, but they decide to continue their mission anyway.  I think it could have been better if there was more suspense or action, but it was interesting.

Claire: This was definitely a bit calmer than most. Sure, we have death and violence, but none of it is really sensationalized in a Hollywoodesque manner. Some might say that makes this movie more tasteful, but for me, it just makes it have slightly less to offer, in an almost old-fashioned way. But that’s okay. I get it. They wanted to stick to true science fiction — not horror/action — and it worked.

Directed by Sebastian Cordero.
Written by Philip Gelatt.

Starring Daniel Wu as William Xu.
Sharlto Copley (Oldboy remake, District 9, Murdock in The A-Team movie) as James Corrigan.
Christian Camargo (Twilight: Breaking Dawn movies, The Hurt Locker, National Treasure 2) as Daniel Luxembourg, engineer.
Karolina Wydra (Crazy, Stupid, Love) as Katya Petrovna, scientist.
Michael Nyqvist (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo movies (original)) as Andrei Blok, engineer.
Anamaria Marinca (1 ep of Doctor Who) as Rosa Dasque, the pilot.
Embeth Davidtz (Mary Parker in The Amazing Spider-Man movies, the remake of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Army Of Darkness, Bridget Jones’s Diary, Schindler’s List) as Dr. Unger, the CEO of the company.
Isiah Whitlock Jr. (Goodfellas, Gremlins 2) as Dr. Pamuk.
Dan Fogler (Take Me Home Tonight, Fanboys, Kung Fu Panda, Horton Hears A Who, 1 ep of Robot Chicken, 1 ep of Ugly Americans) as Dr. Sokolov.

LINK URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2051879/combined

VIDEO: MOVIES: REVIEW: Uncle Buck (1989)

Claire: 3.2/5 stars, 7.2/10.
Carolyn: 3/5 stars, 7/10.
Native ratings: 3.6/5 stars Netflix, /10 IMDB.

I seriously haven’t seen most John Hughes movies. I hadn’t even heard of this one until Jesse mentioned we should get it.

This was somewhat funny, though a lot of the humor did fall into the somewhat sappy humor-category of “look at the odd father figure do odd things, haha”. I feel like this kind of humor is genetically programmed on some sort of level, which diminishes its value a bit.  Maybe the whole movie was just too family for me.

Anyway, I thought it would be a “John Candy Vs. A Family” comedy, but now I know that it was actually a “John Candy Vs. A Teenage Girl” coming-of-age story with comedic moments.  I guess I didn’t know where the story was going to be going. Hell, this may be a rare movie that I would have liked to have seen a trailer for, first. But then I think it would have just ruined the best funny moments.

I’m glad I watched this, though I think it probably would seem more profound AND funnier to a younger viewer.

Carolyn: I saw this when I was young, and I remembered it being funny. I don’t remember how much I liked it at the time, but it was probably about the same as now. Nice light-hearted family comedy about John Candy learning that he can be a family man if he wants to be…

I think as a kid, it didn’t seem so short-attention-spanny to me. For example, the birthday party scene happened so fast that it felt like it was just stuck in there, and I think as a kid, that was a funnier scene. Now the movie seems really rushed, but still funny, and maybe it is good that it is rushed, because it doesn’t get stale.

Directed and written by John Hughes (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Pretty In Pink, Home Alone movies, Flubber, 101 Dalmations, Vacation movies, Planes Trains & Automobiles, She’s Having A Baby, Mr. Mom).

John Candy (RIP) as Buck Russell.
Macaulay Culkin as Miles Russell.
Jean Louisa Kelly (3 eps of Mad About You) as Tia Russell. She got pretty hot.
Gaby Hoffmann (Crystal Fairy in Crystal Fairy, 200 Cigarettes, Sleepless In Seattle) as Maizy Russell.
Amy Madigan (Carnivale, 1 ep of Frasier) as Chanice Kobolowski.
Elaine Bromka (1 ep of Sopranos) as Cindy Russell.
Garrett M. Brown (Kick-Ass‘s dad in the Kick-Ass movies) as Bob Russell.
Laurie Metcalf (Jackie in Roseanne, God The Devil And Bob, Andy’s mom in the Toy Story movies, 3 eps of 3rd Rock From The Sun, 2 eps of Duckman, 1 ep of Malcolm In The Middle) as Marcie Dahlgren-Frost.
Jay Underwood (The Boy Who Could Fly, Not Quite Human movies) as Bug.
Suzanne Shepherd (Requiem For A Dream, The Sopranos, The Jerky Boys, Mystic Pizza) as Mrs. Hogarth. She’s not very memorable.

LINK URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098554/combined