We're the Millers

Directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber.

Jason Sudeikis

Jennifer Aniston

Emma Roberts

Will Poulter

Ed Helms

Nick Offerman

Kathryn Hahn

Molly C. Quinn

Tomer Sisley

Luis Guzman

Thomas Lennon

David (Sudeikis) is the local weed man in the Denver community where he lives. Yeah, I know. Circumstances dictate that he desperately needs to repay a debt to his supplier Brad (Helms). Brad tells him all will be forgiven if he goes down to Mexico and brings back "a smidge, smidge and a half" of weed. David hatches a plan to pose as a family hoping that he won't get harassed by Border Patrol that way. Since he doesn't have a family of his own, he has to recruit one. He gets troubled, but very different teens Kenny (Poulter) and Casey (Roberts) to play his kids. To complete the picture he gets Rose (Aniston), the stripper who lives across the hall and is facing eviction, to play his wife. And away we go.

Early on, We're the Millers does what it sets out to do. It makes us laugh. While Sudeikis is getting in lots of great lines, much of the humor comes from Kenny's naivete. Jennifer Aniston continues to poke fun at herself for, of all things, being her age and still looking great (see most of her movies in the last decade). The situations are appropriately zany, giving us the giggles on that front. Finally, Ed Helms is a riot. It all adds up to the first two thirds being fast and fun.

As it must in all movies, the third act eventually comes. When it does, things take a turn for the mundane. It's not really all that bad, just generic. In place of all the sizzle of the earlier parts, we get a steady descent into sentimentality. The filmmakers seem hell bent on making the ending as cute as possible. It comes off as them taking the easy way out. To do this, all of the loose ends are tied too neatly. This leads to predictability. In fact, nothing unexpected happens as the movie rushes toward its climax. Action picks up and the laughs mostly subside. Action and happy endings aren't inherently good or bad, but in the context of We're the Millers they're the expected and, therefore, less satisfying outcome.

Being pretty good for two thirds of the run time, however is a fate that befalls many a comedy. In trying to solve their conflicts, the last third is often filled with shootouts, explosions, and getting everyone happy. This is no different. In fact, it follows that pattern to a tee. Thankfully, WtM successfully humors us early, making it easy to forgive its flaws. It's still not enough to make us completely overlook them. If you don't laugh early, then forget it because it's not getting any better. For those of us that do, even if we have a number of deep belly laughs, we can't help but think it could've been much better.

MY SCORE: 6.5/10

Versatile Blogger Award

John at Hitchcock's World saw fit to nominate for the Versatile Blogger. Rather than questioning his judgement like I should, I'll humbly accept. After all, it's my first one of these blogger awards that go around every year. I'm getting a bit misty thinking about it...

I just feel so appreciated right now...

Oh...ahem...um...okay...I'm good.

The first thing I'm supposed to do in order to officially accept this award is thank the person that nominated me and link back to their blog. John, thank you very very much.

Next, I'm supposed to nominate 15 other bloggers and tell them about it. I read a number of blogs, so coming up with 15 shouldn't be a problem...except I want to nominate blogs I haven't seen already receive this particular honor. If I nominate you and you have already gotten this, take it in stride like the pro you are. My nominees (alphabetical, so don't get pissed about not being at the top):

The Cinematic Spectacle
Dan the Man's Movie Reviews
Flick Chicks
Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights
Jeffrey K. Lyles' Movie Files
Karamel Kinema
Keith & the Movies
Life vs. Film
Mettel Ray
My FilmViews
A Space Blogyssey
Surrender to the Void
Two Dollar Cinema
Vic's Movie Den
Wandering Through the Shelves

Finally, I'm supposed to spout off seven interesting facts about me. Hmmm...not sure there are seven things, but I'll give it a shot.


1. Legend has it that I learned to walk by following around the little girl in my neighborhood whom I had a crush on. I can neither confirm nor deny this tidbit of info, but I can openly admit I was in love with the same girl for the first 15 years of my life. We were friends, but she never loved me back. Sad, but true.

2. The only movie I ever cried over was the 1979 version of The Champ. I was eight years old and damn if didn't rip me apart. I've not shed a single tear over a movie since...but I've never watched The Champ again, either.

3. I might actually break down and cry if my beloved New York Knicks actually win an NBA title.

4. I went to high school with Fredro Starr. If you don't know who that is, he started as a member of the rap group Onyx and later became an actor with a rather lengthy career (nearly 50 credits according to imdb.com). His biggest movie was probably Save the Last Dance. We knew each other, but weren't friends. We hardly ever spoke, actually. So no, I've not seen nor spoken to him since those days. Just something I think is interesting.

5. I won my school spelling bee in sicsth grade. See what I did there?

6. I am a published poet.

7. During one particular summer in the 80s, my brother and I watched Rocky III at least a dozen times. Each time we acted out the training montage scene between Rocky and Apollo.

So there's seven things. Before exiting stage left, I'll thank John one last time for nominating me. In my head, I'll pretend that he speaks for the entire movie blogosphere and take this award as proof that...

Six Degrees of Separation Blogathon

A few months back, Nostra at My Filmviews started up a blogging relay based on iconic movie characters. It wasn't his first, but it caught on like wildfire. Soon, there were several other copycat relays, including one I started myself. Nostra is back with another relay that he's presenting in association with the Dutch movie blog De Protagonisten, but like the great ones always do, he's managed to kick things up a notch. How so? This relay is actually six different relays all going at once. Yup. Top that, punks.

The concept is based on the age-old six degrees of separation game. Basically, each blogger lucky enough to get passed a baton will have to make the connection between two personalities or entities that have something to do with the movies in six steps or less. For instance, to use the example Nostra used in his original post, let's connect Matt Damon to Arnold Schwarzenegger:

 ...

Step #1: Damon grew up with Ben Affleck.

Step #2: Affleck starred in Changing Lanes with Samuel L. Jackson.

Step #3: Jackson has appeared in a number of movies directed by Quentin Tarantino.

Step #4: Tarantino directed Micheal Keaton in Jackie Brown.

Step #5: Keaton starred in Batman.

Step #6: In Batman and Robin, Arnold Schwarzenegger plays Mr. Freeze.

With me, so far? Cool.

The last part of this is the passing of the baton. I'll let Nostra explain this in his own words:

At the end of their post these bloggers will assign it to another blogger and set the endgoal for that blogger. The next blogger will start with the movie/actor/director the previous blogger ended with and make the connection to in six or less steps to the assigned endgoal. Example: Ruth ends with Transformers and set the endgoal to Cary Grant then the next blogger will have to make the connection between the two. Please make sure that you link back to the previous post(s) as this will help your readers follow the blogathon and it will also help your fellow bloggers to some extra readers, which I’m sure you’d agree will help everyone.

Make a connection, use who or whatever you connected as the starting point for the next blogger and randomly pick an end point for that person. Got it.

So, where did I get the baton from? Due to my constant begging, on bended knee no less, Shah at Blank Page Beatdown took pity on me and forked it over. In his post, he was successfully able to link Robert Downey Jr. to The Godfather. His task for me? Connecting The Godfather to Lindsay Lohan.

Boys and girls of all ages, I'm not just going to make the connection. I'm going to do so in record setting fashion.

Step 1:

The first Godfather in the franchise, the one and only Don Vito Corleone was portrayed in Oscar winning fashion by Marlon Brando, however...

Step 2:

...the role was also played a young Robert De Niro in the The Godfather Part II.

Step 3:

Robert De Niro appeared in Machete with Lindsay Lohan.

Looks like my work here is done.

Yyyyyeeeaaahhhh, that's it. Get some.

Oh, almost forgot to pass the baton. I'm going to hand it to John at Hitchcock's World. His task? Connect Lindsay Lohan to Sidney Poitier.

Vampire Academy

Directed by Mark Waters.

2014. Rated PG-13, 104 minutes.

Cast:

Zoey Deutch

Lucy Fry

Danila Kozlovsky

Gabriel Byrne

Sarah Hyland

Olga Kurylenko

Dominic Sherwood

Cameron Monaghan

Sami Gayle

Ashley Charles

Claire Foy

Vampires were once cool. They were bloodthirsty, yet refined and highly seductive creatures barely able to hide their deadly intentions beneath the mischievous twinkle in their eye. Ones that couldn't hold it together were downright savages, literally going for the jugular of whomever was in their path, finishing meals with fresh blood staining their faces. Whatever the case, vampires were not to be trifled with. Then, they were suddenly named Sullen Cullen, moped around looking constipated, sparkled in daylight, had emo girlfriends, and got jealous of her platonic werewolf friend like a little beyotch. Now, there's a whole high school full of emotionally fragile blood suckers. Sigh.

Before we even get to the school we find out there are three types of vampires. The Moroi make up the ruling class. They're described as peaceful, and mortal. Mortal. Yeah. How mortal, like what's their life expectancy? Never comes up, but I will say they seem like a bunch of wusses. It doesn't help that instead of declaring a major, all these Harry Potter wannabes have to declare which magic they'll practice. You know the magics - fire, water, etc. - like this was The Last F'in Airbender. We're told sunlight bothers them, but other than characters randomly saying it hurts a little there's no real evidence of this. The one true vampire thing about them is that they can only digest human blood. However, they get that from Twilight fans who volunteer it willingly so even that part sucks. Okay, bad pun. And the volunteers aren't Twilight groupies. Explicitly.

Let's move on.

The Dhampir are half-human/half-vampire. They exist solely to protect the Morons Moroi. To be honest, I've no clue what makes them even remotely vampiric since the sun has no effect on them, they can eat toaster strudels, and I'm fairly certain they've never heard of Bram Stoker, nor are they aware of the fact that they're pissing on his grave. Hell, I think some of it is trickling over into Bela Lugosi's casket and staining his red satin lined cape.

Phew. Deep cleansing breaths. Sorry. Tangent.

Finally, we have the Strigoi. They are the downright savages I mentioned earlier. Strangely, they're never referred to as immortal even though it's stressed that the Morons Moroi are not. By the way, a Moron Moroi can turn into a Strigoi. I guess it works like your favorite good guy wrestler turning heel. Whatever. At least they can't come out during the day. Better yet, they can be killed by silver. Oh wait. That's supposed to be for...you know what? Screw it. I'll give them credit for being badasses. Unfortunately, they disappear for large chunks of the.movie. Boo.

Alright, I've been at this review way too long and haven't gotten anywhere. The point of this whole movie is that Dhampir Rose (Deutch) is assigned to protect Moroi Lissa (Fry), heiress to the throne, from the Strigoi. Well, that's what it's supposed to be about. What we really get is Lissa maneuvering her way around the school's cliques and rumor mill while Rose crushes on her dark haired Fabio of a combat instructor. I swear Rose is written and performed like a rip off of Ellen Page from Juno. We meet a made up to be really old and decrepit Gabriel Byrne try to pass time until he could cash his check his one big scene, and watch Olga Kurylenko impersonate Elizabeth Banks from The Hunger Games. Later, we say "Look, there's that girl from Modern Family who looks like she could be Mila Kunis' little sister." Well, she looks like that to me. Anyhoo, none of this is very interesting. Exception made for the thinly veiled anti-lesbian sentiment. Well, I read it that way. Toward the end, we get a couple of unsurprising twists to cap off this particular teen soap. The credits roll and we realize yet another novel for young adults (that I'll never read) has been made into a crappy movie.

Thursday Movie Picks: Favorite Stephen King Adaptations

Wanderer at Wandering Through the Shelves is hosting the Thursday Movie Picks. It's a cool, blogathon-esque activity which calls for bloggers to submit three picks each Thursday based on the theme she has chosen. She's got some great ones lined up. You can read all about it, here.

This week's theme is "Movies based on a Stephen King book/short story." There are lots to choose from, and a few different ways I could approach this, but I settled on going with my three favorite such movies. Without further adieu, here they are...

Misery

Misery is the first King novel that I read before seeing the movie. Needless to say, I was apprehensive about watching it. I figured they would butcher it. Well, other than a few small changes (to make it less gory, believe it or not), it survived intact. Kathy Bates gives a jaw-dropping performance and provides us with one of the best movie villains of all time. What makes this my favorite of all the horror movies adapted from King's work is that you can feel the writer's own paranoia bleeding through. Where most of his horror stuff seems to come from a twisted imagination, Misery seems to be the manifestation of his own worst fears. Why wouldn't he be afraid of a crazed fan holding him hostage, he's only the most recognizable American fiction writer of all-time.

The Shawshank Redemption

This is just an amazing piece of story-telling. There is never an unsure step taken and each one draws you a little deeper into the lives of the men on the screen. Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman deliver masterful performances and help create the greatest bromance of all time. Now, it's not the best movie ever made like the users at imdb.com would have you believe. Still, it's a truly outstanding picture. (Click here for my full review)

Stand by Me

Every time I watch Stand by Me, I'm instantly a twelve year old boy again scared out of my mind, but compelled by the prospect of seeing a dead body. Everything about this movie works for me. It's dripping with tension, it's got lots of humor, and the camaraderie on display is amazing. As the boys make their journey across occasionally treacherous terrain, I'm right with them. Whenever there are run-ins with the older boys, I'm quaking in my boots. And please don't mention the train. I could go on, but suffice it to say this movie is magical to me.


Those are just my faves. The great thing about Stephen King is that so much of his work has been adapted, there are lots more that I really like and just didn't include today. What are your favorites?

Blue Jasmine

Directed by Woody Allen.

2013. Rated PG-13, 98 minutes.

Cast:

Cate Blanchett

Alec Baldwin

Sally Hawkins

Bobby Cannavale

Andrew Dice Clay

Peter Sarsgaard

Louis C.K.

Michael Stuhlbarg

Max Casella

Alden Ehrenreich

Jasmine (Blanchett) is no longer with her husband Hal (Baldwin), but can't stop going on about all the wonderful things they used to do together to anyone within earshot. It turns out they were once fabulously wealthy. Her days were spent having expensive lunches with her friends and planning charity events. Circumstances I won't spoil forced them apart and put her in the poor house. With nowhere else to go, and having to start over, Jasmine takes what money she has and flies to San Francisco to stay with her sister Ginger (Hawkings) who has a couple of young sons and is on the verge of having her fiance Chili (Cannavale) move in with her. To say all of this is a shock to her system is putting it mildly. Jasmine trying to put the pieces of her life back together while flashing back to what once was ensues.

Two things jump out at you as outstanding aspects of this film. The first is Cate Blanchett's performance in the titular role. She dazzles with her portrayal of a woman frayed at the edges, and with full knowledge of that, resolutely clinging to her self-righteousness. She's in touch with the reality of her situation, but not entirely sure how reality works. It's a complicated act akin to juggling chainsaws. One false move would mean certain death for her believability. Fortunately, each time she tosses a saw in the air she manages to catch it safely by the handle.

The other great aspect of this movie shines through Blanchett's performance. She makes it easy to recognize how well written Blue Jasmine is. Even during her least stable moments, it doesn't seem showy. It feels like a person having a difficult time coping, not an actor trying to impress the academy. Of course, that's exactly what she did and took home Oscar gold. A large part of that was the dialogue she and everyone else was given. From her, when talking to others, it is a constant stream of needling insults. No one thing she says could incite a riot, but her ever growing verbal combinations drives others insane. This is why the people around her blow up in her face from time to time, and take great joy in doing so. Her holier than thou attitude and complete stand-offishness gives them gless during the various moments in which she receives her comeuppance. When speaking to herself, whether others are present or not, she goes on strangely coherent rambles. By that, I mean what she's saying makes complete sense it just just lacks context to whoever is in her midst. They can easily figure out what she's talking about. They just won't be able to understand why. Writer/director Woody Allen pulls this off brilliantly. He puts his protagonist in a world where she can have control of her surroundings even as she is losing control of her life. If something is not about her, she makes it that way. The question is whether or not she can fix any of it.

It would be tough to sell a movie with one great performance and not much else going for it as worth the bother. Fortunately, I've already mentioned Allen's writing. His directing deserves credit here, as well. He shoots scenes with the appropriate intimacy or distance depending on what's happening with Jasmine. Whenever she's trying to separate herself from a situation, she's off to one side, almost detached from whatever is happening. When others are probing her for answers to personal questions they get close-up, putting them in our face to suggest that they're also in hers. It's a bunch of subtle touches that come together to form our picture.

To help this picture take shape, others in the cast also perform very well. Alec Baldwin is perfectly slimy as Jasmine's beloved Hal. Bobby Cannavale sweats his way through an excellent portrayal of a guy who is happy with his station in life and whiny when things don't go his way. Sally Hawkins does well as the smarter-than-given-credit-for Ginger. However, I'd be lying if I didn't say I thought Sarah Silverman might have stolen the show with this role. For me, the one weak link is a guy who received tons of prais for his work, here. That's Andrew Dice Clay. It's not that he was necessarily bad, just terribly miscast. An integral part of his character, Ginger's ex-husband Augie, is being a San Francisco guy not used to swimming with the financial sharks of New York. In fact, he's never even been to the city. It comes off as the most artificial part of the movie because whenever he opens his mouth, that unmistakable Brooklyn accent comes flying out of it. It was utterly impossible for him to sound more like a native New Yorker.

That small misstep aside, Allen has crafted a wonderful film. The dialogue is sharp and the camera is very purposely placed throughout. Both of these things add the finishing touches on an already sizzling story. Being a Woody Allen script, there is humor, for sure. However, it's of a darker variety than his usual fare. Helping it get that way is Cate Blanchett, standing in for Woody himself. She takes his normally neurotic and longing for love protagonist and adds a layer of growing instability and denial. Idiosyncrasies are no longer the joke, but symptoms of more serious problems. That this is going on within a person who has a huge ego only complicates things. By the end, Allen impresses by offering no easy explanations. He presents us with a set of events and asks us to draw our own conclusions. Yup, I'm a sucker for well done ambiguous endings. For my money, this is the best Woody Allen movie at least since Vicky Cristina Barcelona and possibly as far back as Match Point.

Against the Crowd Blogathon: Links!

LINKS!!!

A couple of weeks ago, I started this blogathon and received a number of great entries. I'd have to say it's been a big success. Lots of the bloggers I already read on a regular basis participated, but so did some bloggers I hadn't heard of before. Needless to say, I'm glad to have met more of the wonderful people who share a passion with me. As a thank you to everyone who got involved, I'm centralizing all of the links to these entries here in this post. Hopefully, this will bring us all a few more readers. The bloggers that took part came up with some excellent choices so I highly encourage you to check them all out.

Sati @ Cinematic Corner takes Terrence Malick to task and blissfully reminisces on that one movie where Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman both played witches.

Over @ Movie Reviews from James, the titular writer did something so blasphemous as taking a Hitchcock film down a few notches and sang the praises of the sequel of a kiddie cartoon from the 70s turned live-action movie.

The Flick Chicks, Jenna and Allie, took a Christmas classic and a costumed hero to task while going to bat for a very morose Will Smith and driving needlessly fast.

Anna from Film Grimoire gets all up in David O. Russell's hind parts and breathes new life into a 90s pop sensation.

@ Hitchcock's World, John laid the smack down on John Carpenter's most iconic movie. After that, he made a case for Indy's worse.

Rhys @ Feeling Fuzzier wasn't feeling too fuzzy about one of James Cameron's epic adventures, but was about a video game movie.

Over @ Big Screen, Small Words, whirlwind.supernova has a serious problem with kiddie love, but not juvenile delinquents.

Around here, I've torn down many a dance movie. Angela @ Cinema 13 hits one I missed. On the flipside, she takes up for people we all hate - politicians.

In Coolsville, Ms. Coolsville herself may have slain the biggest giants of them all by bagging Humphrey Bogart AND Ingrid Bergman, but showed her gentler side when Anthony Hopkins climbed into the director's chair.

Karamel Kinema explains that one of my favorite horror spoofs of all time isn't so brilliant and actually laughed more at something starring Reese Witherspoon.

That Dandy Boy, Dan, is bored to tears by a highly regarded horror flick starring Donald Sutherland, then sucker punches all of us with his love for Zack Snyder's fetish flick.

The lovely lady @ Let's Go to the Movies was depressed by a Danny Boyle "feel good" picture and feels good about a Jennifer Aniston movie that depressed everyone else.

Brittani from Rambling Film gets in on the action by letting us all know that James Dean ain't really all that cool. Then, she does the unthinkable and goes to bat for a Halle Berry horror flick.

While Wandering Through the Shelves, Wanderer found herself on a distant planet created by James Cameron, and didn't like it. She much preferred the tender embraces of a hated rom-com.

m. brown of Two Dollar Cinema can't stand the way a certain Gothamite ended his career, but he laughed hysterically at a movie no one else did.

@ Poisonous Tongue (love that name), Modesto tells us that a coming of age flick starring Juno Temple is perfect, but the one where Emile Hirsch tries to do the same is horrible.

Mettel Ray nearly fell asleep on the worldwide manhunt conducted by Jessica Chastain. Thankfully, the sight of Jeffrey Dean Morgan's backside perked her right up.

Novroz from Polychrome Interest hates on Disney's latest princess. Therefore, it should be obvious that she's all in for a horror movie with a realistic ending.

Josh of The Cinematic Spectacle joined the party by not feeling the rhythm of a beloved 50s musical, but loving every beat of non-musical from M. Night Shyamalan.

Right here at Against the Crowd Headquarters, I pissed off the entire blogosphere by letting everyone know that I'd rather sit through a Michael Bay flick than one of Stanley Kubrick's most revered movies.


Technically, I set the deadline for yesterday, but I've been known to ignore one or two of those in my lifetime. Therefore, you can still get in on the fun. If you submit an entry sometime this week, I'll update this post to include a link to your work. Once again, thanks guys!

Click here for all of my Blogathon related posts!