My Scrappy Little Post

Tribute to a Scrappy Little Nobody

I don’t write frequently enough to call myself an expert but I watch an inhuman amount of movies. It is probably why I am still single. If you ask me what I want to do it will probably be watch a movie. I’m not an expert but I have actors that I will see any movie with them in it. We all do. How many crappy Al Pacino movies have we all watched because that one time he was Michael Coreleone or Scarface or the fucking Devil… we do it because we don’t want to miss another good one. I have an embarrassing one but as usual dear reader I am not afraid to admit it to you. You don’t judge me…do you? I often think a lot of people are judging me. Maybe I won’t tell you…because damnit I don’t understand why you would judge me for this when I have so many other things to be judged about. You don’t understand me! I don’t owe you anything. Wait… what was that? You don’t care? Oh then it’s totally Anna Kendrick. 

I love that Scappy Little Nobody (the title of her book…available on Amazon as are two to three “books” by yours truly) star of Pitch Perfect and that one awkward dream where I made sweet love to her in the middle of a French pastry shoppe (and it had that extra “e” because it was classy as shit). Yet all that is beyond the point I am trying to make.  What I want to say is there is no movie I could watch her in without falling for her character and loving every moment of it. She could play a serial killer who only killed people named Peter who writes movie blogs and I’m sure she’d be delightful and I’d want to meet her because maybe I could change her and make her kill douchebags named Brent or Lucas or Brandon. She just has that quality. You’d risk your own murder just because she crinkled her nose at you. So for this post I’m going to go through some movies looking at them through my Anna colored glasses.

Twilight

It’s hard to read a review of Twilight which is positive these days. The story is severely lacking especially this opening gambit. I mean literally nothing happens. Bella moves to Forks, meets a boy, boy is a vampire, boy wants to eat her (typical), they play weird baseball and some other vampires come. It’s just not an action-packed adventure. Yet there is a moment when a talkative little lady steals the show and brightens the grey skies. Anna plays Jessica, the sort of best friend to the main character Bella and is arguably the better choice. She’s as attractive and had, you know, a personality. I have a feeling she might of objected to Edward’s stalky behavior and Jacob’s possessiveness. Honestly she probably got off lucky. I remember watching Twilight and while I had enjoyed the novels (I am a teenage girl at heart) I did, in the movies, find myself drawn to Jessica. She seemed so sweet and well real.  Anna Kendrick brought that. Sadly the movies decided that the Bella/Edward/Jacob storyline was the more “profitable” and “romantic” storyline. I just wondered why there was not a Team Jessica…

50/50

50/50 is the story of Joseph Gordon Leavitt and his struggle through cancer…well his character Adam’s struggle. Anna comes in as Katherine, his therapist helping him to deal with his cancer and the depression that follows. The movie is just fantastic. Again, Anna is real and creates a subtle damaged character who is stuck between her feelings for Adam and her role as his therapist. It’s a role that could easily have gone kind of creepy or over the top and yet Katherine comes across as a good person and not a therapist trying to use her power over Adam to seduce him. The genuine Anna came through and made her a sympathetic character put in an untenable situation. She elevates the movie and creates a true romance between Katherine and Adam. It’s hard to do this and yet it is a common occurance with Anna’s characters. She is strong, independent woman who can be innocent and romantic. She is at her best here and if you’ve never seen 50/50, I’d recommend you run out to the video store…wait… run to Amazon and buy it. You won’t be upset you did… no matter the cost.

Pitch Perfect

A musical? Wait she’s a brilliant actor, funny, smart and can sing. Yup. Talking true 5 tool actress here. I walked into this movie to attempt to prove my theory that even a talented actress will make a stinker and then that graceful angel did something amazing. She made me cry. I know, a man of my manliness and never the heart of an 13 year old girl, cried. I’ll admit it I was entertained by that damn movie even if ever fiber of my being wanted to hate it. It was Aca-awesome… and when Becca raises her fist…into the air as the Bellas sing “Don’t You Forget About Me”… I mean come on. You probably teared up just by that awesome synopsis… or you are too busy laughing at me that you have tears in your eyes. Either way you’re crying. So point proven. Seriously though Pitch Perfect is one of those movies that entertains just by being a fun and happy movie. Anna (because we are buds by this point in the blog post and I am on a first name basis) is the star and yet yields so much to her co-stars. It’s just the type of Aca-tress she is… I’m sorry.

The Last Five Years

Another musical. Anna is Cathy… one half of a relationship that is doomed to fail even as they seem so perfect for each other. The movie is a grand experiment and for the most part it succeeds. It isn’t an easy watch. I initially started this entry while watching it and soon I realized I wasn’t watching the movie but trying to be pithy and cute with you guys like a jackass. How dare I not watch? Cathy demanded my attention and Jeremy Jordan’s Jamie (you may know him as Winn from Supergirl) is just as powerful. It’s a great movie and emotionally really puts you through the ringer. You experience joy and romance and utter crushing heartbreak all in one fell swoop. The two leads earn their roles and at the end of the day I am left feeling sympathy for both. Actors draw you into their characters and the knowledge of their impending doom does not make you hope for a rewrite. It’s just too real and raw but Anna is amazing. Her voice is on point, her emotions are real and at the end of the day the performance and movie are perfectly done. It’s a film that becomes life and life that becomes a film. 

I could go on and on listing movies and writing why Anna Kendrick is amazing and elevating in all of them. She’s the type of actress I look for and just by the very fact that she is in it I would see it because I know she’ll have me captivated. And while I wait for the eventual restraining order and an order to never attempt to contact Ms. Kendrick I will admit it isn't just my school boy crush but a recognition of her talent. I’d love to say that I didn’t buy her book and laugh where she wanted me to, feel for her when she wanted me to, and enjoy reading it because she wanted me to. That’s the one thing that no amount of praise can tell you about Anna Kendrick. She genuinely wants her audience to enjoy themselves. Not that other actors don’t but she strives for it. She works to make movies better and I can think of no other reason to follow her. If you don’t wanna take my word for it… well then... 

Mr. Unhappy sez:  Just watch her.

Never kill Korea while on a drunken binge

Colossal

I was a fan of this years new addition to the giant monster movie when Kong: Skull Island came out. In fact, it was one of the first movies I reviewed in my return to blogging on a regular basis. I would have written last week but I was in preparations for moving my apartment and well, I just didn’t wanna. I saw the trailer for this movie when I went to see Your Name and it intrigued me enough to pull the trigger this week. Colossal isn’t really what you’d expect though.  In the world of Godzilla movies, you come to accept certain tropes of the genre. The Monster is always gonna attack some Asian country, it doesn’t care about the human population and occasionally it will have to fight another monster of varying degrees of evilness. The human population is seemingly unable to control or destroy the monsters and watch helplessly as the creature destroys the city.  In the case of Colossal, starring Anne Hathaway and Jason Sudeikis, it takes those conventions and turns them on their ear for what turns out to be a very dark comedy. 

Gloria (Anne Hathaway) is an out-of-work party girl who lives in New York with her oft angered boyfriend. She stays out all night and sleeps all day. She’s not looking for a job and finally her boyfriend, ignored and under appreciated (while still being a complete too), kicks her out of their shared apartment and forces Gloria to leave life in New York and move back to her hometown to squat in her parent’s old house. She vows to stop drinking and turn her life around. The she runs into Oscar, a childhood friend, who happens to own the local bar. After a night of binge drinking she wakes up in a park and returns home to see news reports surfacing that a giant creature is destroying Seoul, South Korea. The world will never be the same. Oscar’s bar, once failing, becomes a local gathering place to watch news of the monster and Oscar hires Gloria to tend bar while she gets things together. As time goes on, Gloria gradually starts to come to the realization that she is somehow connected to the monster destroying poor South Korea.

As you start this movie you expect that Jason Sudeikis and Anne Hathaway are meant to fall in love and somehow that will save the world from the monster of Gloria’s creation. That’s where this movie won me over. They didn’t go obvious and lazy. Gloria and Oscar do have chemistry and indeed for much of the movie you believe this is the connection they’ll make. I’ve always been a fan of movies that take expectation and then give you an alternative you didn’t expect. This movie takes a dark turn that I didn’t see coming and then rewards the viewer by not pulling its punches. For Hathaway it is a good role that allows her to play a darker and yet heart filled character that you both feel sorry for and repulsed by. She is not an innocent girl who stumbles into an extraordinary life. She is a world weary woman who finds the extraordinary thrust upon her. She doesn’t want to hurt anyone and with Oscar’s help, she does begin to turn her life around. Oscar, on the other hand, is a world weary man in a small town who feels the world has forgotten about. He’s dark but affable. You like him for much of the movie and indeed root for him and Gloria to find something in each other that they don’t see separately. 

By the end of the movie, the world is changed. Not just Korea and our world as we know it, but Gloria and Oscar’s world as well. Should Gloria go back to New York with her sometimes borderline abusive boyfriend or stay in the small town where she’s built a life for herself. There is no really good option for Gloria and that’s the way life is. I’d personally love nothing more than to have the girl of my dreams say she loves me and that we deserve to be together. She, on the other hand, would rather I move on. I think a message, maybe one I was looking for, that this movie tells people is that we all have our demons. You have to decide whether or not you can accept someone else’s. You can’t half ass this movie and pay it off with any satisfaction. What I appreciate is that they didn’t shy away from the story they wanted to tell to give us a happy ending. Gloria and Oscar are two characters who both deserve each other and deserve better. Much like real life.

Mr. Unhappy sez: Colossal destroys Seoul while still having one.

Instant Watch of the Week 

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

  

Rogue One is a movie that most of us have probably already seen. Let's face it if it has the words Star Wars in it, we're all probably gonna check it out. Still Rogue One is a tale of absolute sacrifice and a hell of a movie. It also may have the most bad ass Darth Vader since he was cracking necks in A New Hope. I was not sure what I was going to think about it but it was easily the best prequel of all the prequels. What I really love is that if you watched Rogue One and then put on A New Hope, you could continue it as though a movie hadn't ended. It fits with the story we all grew up with (me at least once a week from 4-12) and continues that story. It fills in the blanks where the prequel films never did. Sure you can blame Hayden and his wooden performance but George never found his way back to the galaxy far far away. He'd grown up and lost his way. Thankfully he handed the story over to Disney and they've elevated and grown the story. I now look forward to each new installment.

Mr. Unhappy sez: You can go back to your childhood... 

Available on Amazon Streaming

What if I woke up and had boobs....

Your Name

Every once and a while I go see a movie that while I didn’t want to see it, I felt a ping of recognition and a pull towards the movie. Maybe as though called out to by fate or whatever runs the universe (who I’d like to talk to about a certain red haired girl) that makes a movie stick in my noggin until I break down and see it. Honestly I planned on writing a long review of Fate of The Furious which I saw last night but Your Name is one of those rare movies that can move me emotionally and interest me with it’s content. From director Makoto Shinkai, comes a beautiful animated film about time, fate, and true love. I’ve never been a huge Anime fan so just drawing me in became more challenging. I have nothing against them. I can’t say I’ve ever really given them a chance. Perhaps I will have to but I would say to those of you who don’t like Anime, give this movie a shot. It’s beautifully created and the story is as complex as any great love story of our time. 

Your Name begins with the story of the day the stars fell (a meteor shower created from the broken fragments of a comet), when the lives of two teenagers were forever altered.  Mitsuha and Taki are complete strangers living separate lives; Taki in Tokyo and Mitsuha in a small mountain town. Then one night as they sleep, they switch places. Mitsuha in Taki's body (something is in there), and he in hers (boobs and all). At first neither realizes this is actually happening. They pass it off as a bizarre dream but soon their personalities in each other’s lives begins to disrupt their set ways of life.  These bizarre occurrences happen randomly, and the two begin to adjust their lives around each other (leaving notes and journal entries to warn/tell the other person the goings on in their respective days). As annoying as it may seem, somehow, it works for them.  They build a connection and more importantly, an imprint on each other that reaches throughout the whole of the universe to bring them together. Then one day it is gone and Taki becomes haunted by what could have happened to cause their connection to vanish. Soon he begins to search for Mitsuha but his memories of her are fading (as all dreams seem to) and he has to wonder if it all was a dream.

You begin this review with a simple question. If you (as a guy or girl) woke up with the opposite parts in another room, how would you take it? I’d probably spend my day staring at myself in the mirror. I mean how often do you have a situation like this? Yet it says something to Taki’s ability to respect his counterparts body beyond an obligatory boob grab which is probably very confusing. That’s what makes this movie a serious love story and not a animeporn version of Freaky Friday. Taki and Mitsuha respect each other and want the very best for each other. It’s what love is all about. I’d be remiss if I didn’t speak on love. The idea of a soulmate is often a laughable idea. That one person is meant to be with you is looked at with derision. Mostly because no one wants to limit themselves to one person but for those of us (and I do consider myself one of them) who has been with their soulmate, it is anything but limiting. A soulmate is just that one person that makes you feel that no matter what, they get you. It’s not about limiting but about being the most complete you. A good romantic movie makes you feel that they are not the only one for you but the most complete version of someone for you. That’s where Your Name succeeds. You root for these two and they don’t cheap out on you. They earn their love story and through a complex set of circumstances proves the power true love has. As one of my favorite movies of all time, Sing Street says “from the day I started crawling, I was on my way to you.” When you love absolutely, that’s how it feels.

Mr. Unhappy sez: I’ve lived a life where my belief on love is challenged to say the least. Movies like this make me feel hopeful… and that’s something.