Manhattan (1979)

Manhattan (1979)

Directed & Written by: Woody Allen

Starring: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Michael Murphy

Running Time: 1 hour, 36 minutes

Rating: R

Pre-Conceived Notions: I have three strange connections to this movie:

1. Woody Allen and I share the same middle name. He was born David Stewart Konigsberg. I feel a sort of kinship to him, because it’s not often that I meet anyone named St(u)(ew)art, let alone someone who spells it the “other,” E-W kind of way. 
2. Diane Keaton and I share the same birthday of January 5, so I feel another kinship to her, and
3. This movie was released the year I was born. 

Now that I’ve basically made it exponentially easier for my readers to steal my identity, let’s continue on to the next question, shall we? (You really don’t want my identity. I mean, you really don’t want my identity. Really.)

Why I Haven't Seen This Film: I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Woody Allen film, actually. I’ve seen clips; I’ve seen snippets, but I have yet to see an entire film. And it’s about time I honored Woody Allen, the guy I quoted in a job interview once: “Procrastination is like masturbation. It feels good while you’re doing it, but in the end you’re just screwing yourself.” And I got the job. (Note: Results not typical.)

1 hour, 36 minutes later…: Gershwin. Such an inspired choice for the soundtrack. I think he’s gotta be one of my favorite composers of all time. Such classically elegant tunes that just make you want to sing along. Bees in the Trap this ain’t. 

Throughout most of the movie it was hard for me not to look at Muriel Hemingway and not think about Soon-Yi. I get wanting to write biographical stuff, in fact I think it’s impossible not to put yourself into anything you write, but I think this was going a bit far. What a weird thing to have a 43-year-old dating a 17-year-old in a movie. Although it did make for some interesting drama. Hemingway’s character gets the opportunity to study acting in London, and Isaac, Allen’s character, encourages her to go, even though she wants to stay behind to be with him. Then, at the end, when he realizes he made a mistake dumping her, he goes to her place to find that she is on her way to London. So he pleads and begs with her not to go, and I’m sitting here, and my inner monologue is going nuts: “HE'S 43! YOU’RE 18! Go to London. GO TO LONDON!!” In my mind, she meets someone over in London and never returns to New York. That’s what I hope happens. Oh, I forgot: *Spoiler Alert!* I should do that sooner next time. Sorry about that.

Final Thoughts: 3.5 out of 6 slices of pizza. The acting was very natural, and the dialogue was laced with the occasional zinger only Woody Allen could come up with. I just found it hard to care about any of the characters. Except Muriel Hemingway.

Pretty in Pink (1986)

Hungarian title:
“Pink Dream”

Directed by: Howard Deutch

Written by: John Hughes

Starring: Molly Ringwald, Harry Dean Stanton, John Cryer

Running Time: 1 hour, 36 minutes

Rating: PG-13

Pre-Conceived Notions: My first thought watching the trailer is that it’s going to be hard to separate John Cryer from his 2 1/2 Men character. I’m going to be expecting Charlie Sheen or Holland Taylor to pop out of the woodwork all throughout the movie. And then it just boils down to a typical ’80s John Hughes movie dealing with the same themes: teenage angst, status, sex, Molly Ringwald, etc. Two things I’m looking forward to seeing: a freaky-looking Annie Potts in a weird wig, and John Cryer having too much of a good time lip synching in a video store.

Why I Haven't Seen This Film: I’m not a John Hughes freak. Don’t his fans have names? If they do I can’t think of what they’re called. Hit me up in the comments if you know.

1 hour, 36 minutes later…: Aah, prom. So many memories. Especially my senior one. For me, it was basically a normal high school dance, except instead of getting funky and doing the worm and the Bartman in jeans and a t-shirt, people were doing all that stuff in formalwear. Maybe I was above it all in high school, or maybe I didn’t give a monkey’s about it, but I didn’t feel like it was a huge deal to go to prom alone. It could be because I actually brought three dates to prom because, y’know, I’m me, but seeing those people who went stag, it didn’t seem to faze them. In this movie? They act like prom could make or break somebody’s life! Maybe it could back then. Or, maybe I forget what it’s like being in high school, where everything is such a compressed, simplified microcosm of society, where people have to worry about popularity and wanting to fit in, and hormones and mystery meat and stuff like that, so everything is magnified one thousand percent.

Let’s get down to brass tacks. This movie was pretty good. It wasn’t really over the top like Sixteen Candles got in certain places, and there was a whole lot more action than in The Breakfast Club. It was sort of a mixture of the two. You have your themes of status and angst like in the Breakfast Club, and you’ve got the romantic end of things like in Sixteen Candles. Which reminds me: Is it just me, or did you get confused between James Spader and Andrew McCarthy? They look so much alike, it took me a while to notice that they were two different people. Maybe it’s the jet lag. Or the four doughnuts I had today. I’m going to blame it on the jet lag. Okay? Okay.

The thing I liked the most about this film is that it wasn’t entirely angsty. The film really addressed the whole topic of parents and how one goes about getting the support they need. She had the best father in the world, and her boss was as good as any mother figure she could have had. And Duckie was like a brother in a twisted sort of way. Y’know, I like Annie Potts in insane, out-there roles. It’s kind of a shame that she steered away from that when she got on Designing Women. ADHD anyone?

Final Thoughts: 5 slices of pizza out of 6. John Cryer stole the movie with a character you could root for, but always knew things weren’t going to work out for him; there was excellent chemistry between McCarthy and Ringwald, and a nice balance with the parental characters. And Molly Ringwald has above average clavicles. There. I said it.

The Englishman Who Went up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain (1995)

All-encompassing international
title: “The Englishman Who
Went up a Hill But Came Down
a Mountain”

Directed by: Christopher Monger

Written by: Ivor David Monger, Christopher Monger

Starring: Hugh Grant, Tara Fitzgerald, Colm Meaney

Running Time: 1 hour, 39 minutes

Rating: PG

Pre-Conceived Notions: Call me crazy, but I believe I am about to see the only movie in the history of moving pictures where a geographical feature gets its own story arc, so that’s exciting. Also, I hope the movie is more involved than the title suggests, and it’s not just Hugh Grant going up and down a pile of rocks jutting out of the earth, quipping charmingly and Britishly as he goes. I’m hoping I’m right about this one.

Why I Haven't Seen This Film: I was experiencing Hugh Grant burnout, as was everyone around me. And the title oversold it, I think.

1 hour, 39 minutes later…: This film should be renamed. The new title will be longer, but much more accurate. How about: The Englishman Who Went up a Hill, Came back Down, Pissed off an Entire Village, Played Checkers with a Lady in a Rainstorm, Went back up Said Hill with Said Lady and in Order to Get Her into Bed, Said “Close Enough, This is a Mountain,” and then Came Back Down Again. It’s very wordy, but I think it’ll catch on. 

All and all, this is a very quaint Welsh movie, full of the breathtaking views of the Welsh countryside, and a very interesting look at WWI-era Wales, back when PTSD was better known as, “Johnny doesn’t talk too much after he came back from France.” And apparently, all you have to do is either become a surveyor or put dirt on a mountain to rid yourself of it. If only it were that simple.

Enough of the snark. Let’s talk about Hugh Grant, who seems to be a one-trick pony. Is there any character he has played that isn’t an awkwardly charming posh English guy who stumbles into awkward relationships and then gets awkwardly married? I guess that’s why we haven’t seen a lot of him lately; there are only so many roles that fit his type to go around. 

Final Thoughts: 4.5 slices of pizza out of 6. This was a quaint little Welsh film that didn’t take itself too seriously, and for me it had a Babe-meets-The-Shire sort of feel to it, so I can’t be too hard on it.

Identity Thief (2013)

Italian title:
“I am You”

Directed by: Seth Gordon

Written by: Craig Mazin

Starring: Jason Bateman, Melissa McCarthy, Jon Favreau

Running Time: 1 hour, 52 minutes

Rating: R

Pre-Conceived Notions: I’ve got to admit something. All last year, I didn’t own a television, and for the most part, the only entertainment I had was podcasts. Yeah. I’m kind of a podcast junkie now. So I managed to pretty much avoid seeing a movie trailer for an entire year. I should deserve an award for something like that. So, I’m visiting my family, and the idea of watching a movie comes up. I say sure. They put this flick on that I had never heard of before. So, before I know it, I’m watching this movie without any pre-conceived notions whatsoever. True story. Hey. If I’m lyin’, I’m dyin’. 

Why I Haven't Seen This Film: Not ever hearing of its existence is a pretty good reason not to have seen a film. 

1 hour, 52 minutes later…: I’m going to state this for the record right now: Melissa McCarthy can do no wrong. She’s got comedy oozing out every pore of her body. She’s also a phenomenal actress, a trait which perfectly balances out the outrageous slapstick of her character. I took a peek at what the critics had to say over on Rotten Tomatoes, and saw that it had a 20% rating. 20%? Are you kidding me? Melissa McCarthy unfunny? That goes against the laws of physics, my friend. I’d love to know what movie they were watching, because it wasn’t this one. And Jason Bateman’s bread and butter is pretty much being a straight man. In the comedy sense of the word. Although, he married Paul Anka’s daughter, so he might have his bread buttered under both ‘straight man’ meanings. 

Final Thoughts: 6 out of 6 slices of pizza! I think it is deserved. Yeah, it was a formulaic road trip movie, but the quality of the writing and the acting combined cancelled all of that out. 

Barbarella (1968)

Finnish title:
“Barbarella: Mistress
of the Planets”

Directed by: Roger Vadim

Written by: Vittorio Bonicelli, Claude Brule, Tudor Gates, Terry Southern, Roger Vadim

Starring: Jane Fonda, John Phillip Law, Anita Pallenberg

Running Time: 1 hour, 38 minutes

Rating: PG

Pre-Conceived Notions: I just watched the trailer, and woah. This is supposed to take place in the 41st century? It looks like it takes place in a world where style repeats the same 20th-century decades over and over, and they’re on their 216th repetition of the 60s. Here’s the Netflix description of what I’m about to see:

“A shapely 41st-century space traveler must apprehend scientist Durand Durand, whose creation threatens to bring evil back to the galaxy. En route, Barbarella discovers the joys of celestial sex and has kinky misadventures with bizarre characters.” 

Alrighty then.

Why I Haven't Seen This Film: I’ve never been one for science fiction classics. But I’m always willing to try new things.

1 hour, 38 minutes later…: Watching movies like this is a very fascinating look at how other times view the future. First off, in the ‘60s, nobody thought shag would ever go out of style, apparently. Because it’s everywhere in the film. Barbarella’s ship was wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling shag. Brown shag, to boot. And apparently back then, ‘translucent plastic tubing’ equalled ‘futuristic.’ 

The plot was sort of all over the place. It limped along from set to set, alternating from an off-screen sex scene, to a bizarre attack scene featuring identical twins from hell, to hand sex, to stoners smoking the essence of man (which is kinda icky if you think about for too long), to the Lava Lamp Sexy Time Room of Death (a.k.a. the Dark Queen’s Chamber of Dreams or whatever it was). 

It was like the whole movie existed just to show off Jane Fonda’s assets, namely the speed in which she changed outfits. Outfits that featured translucent boob domes and spandex, because it’s the future, and nothing protects sexy space navigatrixes from creepy piranha-toothed wind-up doll and exotic parrot attacks like boob domes and spandex. Good choice, Barbarella! Oh, and let’s have a blind angel with the most annoying name ever so that Barbarella can say it over and over again like he doesn’t know his own freaking name. That’s a good idea. Also, an arch villain whose master plan is to pleasure someone to death? Not really an arch villain in my book. 

Final Thoughts: 2 out of 6 slices of pizza. Plastic tubing, a plague of parrots, and man essence is way too much for me to handle. But it was kinda of fun to chuckle along this train wreck of a movie.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013)

Japanese title:
“Life!”

Directed by: Ben Stiller 

Written by: Steve Conrad

Starring: Ben Stiller, Kristen Wiig, Patton Oswalt

Running Time: 2 hours, 5 minutes

Rating: PG

Pre-Conceived Notions: In the short while I’ve known of this movie’s existence, I’ve heard it compared to Forrest Gump numerous times. I can see from whence such a comparison comes. The whole, “this is a movie where fantastical things happen to an everyman.” Okay. I know Forrest Gump wasn’t exactly an everyman, but you see where I’m going with this. Right away, I see that Gump and Mitty are approaching the same idea from two different angles: In Forrest Gump, Forrest is retelling what he has already lived through (i.e. he’s looking back), whereas Walter Mitty fantasizes about being the heroic tough-as-nails daredevil, and ends up actually making that happen (i.e. moving forward). I’m hoping I’ll be so ensconced in the movie that the 125 minutes I’ll be spending in the theater will seem a lot less than that.

Why I Haven't Seen This Film: Because I have just learned of its existence a week ago.

2 hours, 5 minutes later…: For being the inaugural outing to the theater this year, I’m going to put it out there that all the other movies I see at the theater this year are going to have a pretty tough time competing with this one. From the first frame to the last, you’re drawn right in. I was right when I said it about Black Swan a couple years back, and I’m going to say it again for Walter Mitty: I smell an Oscar coming on! Superb acting by Ben, Kristen Wiig does nervous sexual tension way too well, and Adam Scott plays asshole executive very authentically. 

Ben Stiller and other directors have an interesting challenge these days in how they choose to portray the internet in movies. It’s undeniable that the internet is playing a huge part in modern society, so how do you translate that into film language? Ben Stiller does a brilliant job at this. It’s organic; it’s real; it doesn’t disrupt the narrative. And I really love when he’s in either Iceland or the Himalayas—I can’t remember which—when he gets a text from his worker buddy, and the rocks fall down the mountain and spell out the text he’s reading. Pure genius. And I’m not just saying that because I’m a typography nerd. Okay, maybe I am. Just a little bit.

Final Thoughts: 5.5 out of 6 slices of pizza. I’m going to have to take style points away because they spelled ‘Eyjafjallajökull’ wrong on the itinerary. I’m sorry. I know. It’s splitting hairs. But it’s a very simple Icelandic word! On second thought, they made up for it again at the end where they spelled it right, so I guess I can give that half-slice back to them. But, for the record, I’m doing it begrudgingly.