7 Days in May | Nocturnal Animals and Rules Don't Apply

Nocturnal Animals (2016)



I was on a Movie Year in Review panel at CONvergence last weekend and a couple of movies came up that I had similar reactions to. One was Nocturnal Animals and the other was Hail, Caesar. I didn't like Hail, Caesar as much as I expected to and that's because the trailers for it led me to believe that it was going to be a crazy kidnapping movie instead of just a quirky series of vignettes loosely tied together by some common characters. I suspect that when I get around to watching it again, I'll like it better the second time.

The marketing for Nocturnal Animals was similarly misleading. The trailer makes it look like a thriller in which Amy Adams receives a draft of her ex-husband's (Jake Gyllenhaal) novel and suspects from reading it that he's out to kill her. She does receive the draft and it does effect her deeply, but I kept waiting for the part where her ex turns murderous and it never happens. That's not even a spoiler, because that's not what this movie is. What it is is cool and beautiful and personal and haunting. Get past the weird-for-its-own-sake opening credits and the rest of the film is pretty great with some really effective performances by Adams, Gyllenhaal, Michael Shannon, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson.

Rules Don't Apply (2016)



Rules Don't Apply is another one that defied expectations, but not as successfully for me. IMDb describes it as an "unconventional love story" and that's sort of accurate, but whatever image that put in my head, it was more fun than what the movie actually is. The romance between Lily Collins and Alden Ehrenreich simmers a super long time before anyone does anything about it. I found that very realistic, as I also did the problems that popped up to keep them apart after they admitted that they liked each other. That makes their relationship a compelling drama, but it's also rather somber.

Alongside of that is the film's examination of Howard Hughes. Warren Beatty is great in the role and I can see why he picked this as a subject to write about and direct. He boils everything down to Daddy Issues, which feels overly simplistic, but then uses that - and Hughes' relationship with the other two leads - to make a beautiful comment on aging and parenthood. He's not at all subtle about it though, so while I like a lot of what the movie's doing, I don't love the way it does it.

The Sure Thing (1985)



Marketing seems to be a theme this week. The people in charge of getting you to go see The Sure Thing sure wanted you to think that it was a sex comedy like Porky's or Hardbodies. Not remembering details about it, I was a little nervous showing it to David, but my memory was that it wasn't that raunchy. And since we recently watched Better Off Dead, I wanted to revisit some other, early John Cusack.

Sure enough, it's a sweet (and really good) romantic comedy like you might expect from the guy who went on to direct When Harry Met Sally. It's not as zany as some of Cusack's other movies from the same era like Better Off Dead, One Crazy Summer, or Hot Pursuit, but it fits well somewhere between those and Say Anything. Cusack is hilarious in it and Daphne Zuniga is fantastic. I don't know why she didn't become a bigger star than she did, but I'm going to blame Mel Brooks.

Beverly Hills Cop (1984)



There are some jokes in Beverly Hills Cop that wouldn't get told today, but I'm shocked by how well it holds up otherwise. Eddie Murphy is at his funniest, the relationships are sweet, and I like the questions it raises about Right vs. Proper. Also: Bronson Pinchot being way funnier than he ever was in Perfect Strangers.

Aliens (1986)



Hey, between this and Beverly Hills Cop we had ourselves a little unintentional Paul Reiser film festival. I love this movie so much. It's perfect. Even better than the first one.

And I know there's growing appreciation for the third one among fans, but I'll never forgive it for the way it unceremoniously dumps the characters I love so much from this one. I'm going to wait a while before seeing if David wants to watch it. I'm in no hurry. (Though I would like to get through it and move on to Resurrection, because I love most of that movie up to the last ten minutes or so.)

Jam of the Week: "My First Rodeo" by Whitney Rose

Some rockin' country.

7 Days in May | Jurassic Big Eyes of SHIELD

Jurassic World (2015)



I loved it. When I came out of the theater, I thought that I may have even liked it better than the first one. I eventually backed away from that, because I was forgetting how effective some of the scenes are in Jurassic Park, like the initial T-Rex attack and the raptors in the kitchen. But the first one didn't have Chris Pratt commanding a troop of velociraptors. Or Bryce Dallas Howard saving everyone's lives. Or Jake Johnson at all. Or a fully functioning, open-to-the-public theme park. And I like the kids in Jurassic World better than the kids in Jurassic Park (although the first ones were just fine). There are many ways that World is more of what I want out of this concept than Park is.

It's not a perfect movie. There are plenty of loose threads to pull at if you're inclined to do that. And I often am in a lot of films. Just not in ones as thoroughly entertaining as this. I don't think the problems are major ones anyway, but these actors fighting and partnering with dinosaurs in a working theme park is a thing that's so totally in my wheelhouse that I will gladly ignore anything that might prevent my enjoying it.

Big Eyes (2014)



Tim Burton's latest film does have a major problem though. It's based on the true story of Margaret Keane (Amy Adams), the wildly popular artist in the '50s and '60s who let her husband (Christoph Waltz) claim credit for her work. Sadly, Big Eyes isn't interested in the burning question I had, which is why Margaret not only let this happen, but was so invested in the lie that she tried to fool her own daughter into thinking that Margaret had given up painting and that Walter Keane was the only artist in the family.

Late, late in the movie, Margaret offers the explanation that she felt dominated and bullied into it, but that's not really how it plays out. Walter turns scary dominating towards the end, but that's when he feels that everything's falling apart for him. Earlier in the movie, when he develops the scheme and convinces Margaret to participate, he's all charm and smiles. But his charisma doesn't explain her total buy-in and none of the movie works for me without understanding that motivation.

Agents of SHIELD



As part of my Marvel re-watch, I'm giving Agents of SHIELD another go. I watched the first few episodes as they aired, but even though I didn't think it was a horrible show, it was tough to get excited about coming back for every week. It seems to reward binge-watching though. I still don't finish an episode all excited for the next one, but it's easier to get in the habit of watching it when I can see a new episode every night or two instead of having to remember every week.

None of that is great praise, but I'm only six episodes in and haven't hit the post-Winter Soldier episodes yet where it reportedly gets better. So far, I like the characters well enough, but none of them are super intriguing. I want to like Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen), but she's being kept mysterious for now, so it's hard to connect to her. The only character with any development so far is Skye (Chloe Bennet). I'm learning to like her, but she's not enough to carry the show. I'm ready for the rest of the team to become as interesting, if not more so.

Her (2013)

I've heard from several people that they have a hard time getting past the premise of Her. That's fair enough; it's about a dude who develops romantic feelings for his phone. If that's all you have to go on, it's a tough concept to buy into. Even if you accept the main character's feelings, how are you supposed to relate to them? Fortunately for me, I had several other ways into the film.

First is the cast. I love every one of the people mentioned on that poster. Joaquin Phoenix is one of the finest actors working today, as is Amy Adams. Rooney Mara and Olivia Wilde are also very talented and I have good feelings about them from Side Effects and House respectively. And even though Scarlett Johansson's face never appears in the movie, she's also a great actor and I love her voice. Then there's Spike Jonze, an ambitious filmmaker with interesting things to say and powerful ways to say them. And finally, there was hardly a Top 10 list for 2013 that didn't include Her on it. I knew it would be about much more than a creepy relationship and I was right.

Her does have some things to say about the relationship between people and our technology. That's actually the least insightful commentary it offers though. It's not profound to suggest that we love our phones and computers, but Her goes much deeper than that. It's about relationships in general. What do we want from them? How much work are we willing to put in?