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cactus1305
Reviews
Sisters (2015)
Why Haven't We Moved On From Bromedies Yet???
Although we're now in 2016, comedies about women still seem to be playing catch up to reach the level that bromedies did 15 years ago. At that time, objectifying men, not having your crap in order, drinking like fish and swearing were, for women's shows, a big thing (think the whole series of Sex in the City which premiered in 1998) but we're 18 years on from that and that's still what comedy revolves around?! That's not new and it's not controversial; it's just a given. Let's move on.
I know Sisters is supposed to be a feel good comedy and I shouldn't expect any statements to be made about women or sisterhood, but this movie fell even further below my expectations. I'm disappointed that Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, two sharp successful women, couldn't have been in a far more nuanced, far more insightful comedy.
Sisters had me cringing at a number of points.
Maura asks Vicky, a Korean pedicurist, what her "actual name" is. While the scene is supposed to show how global and understanding Maura is (i.e. she sympathises with Asians having to anglicise their names to fit in) it just comes across as racist. Why does she even assume the Asian person can't have an "English" name? Why does she then spend 5 minutes mispronouncing it?
Or the scene where Maura tells Kate they're going to borrow some chairs and it turns out they're not that fancy because their friends are lesbians (caribiners and all) and it's the gays with the good taste. I mean, really?! Stereotypes aren't funny any more. This isn't highlighting a stereotype for constructive discussion afterwards; this is just being offensive.
I'm not sure if people actually ever speak the way these people do, or behave that way (a 42 year old throwing a tantrum kicking and screaming on her front lawn?) but it was all unnecessarily over the top. Maya Rudolph's scenes all seemed to be horribly unrealistic. And for what!? How is a caricature more funny than a well written script?
At the end of the day, if you like clichéd jokes and movie tropes you will enjoy this a lot. The guys sitting next to me were guzzling beer and laughing so hard I was actually a little confused. And don't get me wrong. A couple of scenes made me laugh too. You can't really fault the acting; Tina Fey and Amy Poehler have great screen presence and everyone looked like they had a lot of fun filming the movie. It's just a disappointment to me that in this day and age we are still at this level of comedy instead of using it to raise real underlying issues.
Pitch Perfect 2 (2015)
Too Many Exaggerated Moments.
There are so many "Why Is This In This Movie!??" moments in Pitch Perfect 2 that made it much less than it could be for me. I thought that potentially they ran out of things to say/times they could sing, so added in scenes for filler material which kept me wondering throughout, why is this scene in here, how does it add to this movie in the slightest, and what is the point of it at all?
There are some nice themes running through this movie as expected; how scary it is to leave college, how growing up kind of sucks, friendship and bonding and all that jazz. Humour wise, I continued to enjoy Rebel Wilson's quips; I thought she really carried the humour for the most part, but to all the other supposedly humorous parts - well I don't think mocking of racism and sexism is the same as simply perpetuating it. The lines just don't come off in the movie like satire at all, especially the comments at the final showdown about the other teams.
As an offside comment also, if a bunch of girls go to a party and some really creepy guy in a bathrobe opens the door and there is no one else inside the house, that probably means danger and you should probably leave before it turns into a horror slasher movie.
And again perhaps off topic, but did they explain how everyone managed to afford to fly all the way to Copenhagen? Or were we supposed to suspend disbelief with regards to that?
Don't get me wrong, the singing in this movie is fantastic, and those are for the most part thoroughly enjoyable even when one is thinking err, why are they here, singing? And I'm not sure if I'm alone in this but if that German group decided to perform at a club here I would actually buy tickets to that show (which also made the ending kind of annoying for me because I didn't think that schmaltzy performance deserved to win, although OK, what did I expect, and OK, what do I know about judging acapella performances?!).
It was enjoyable, it was entertaining, it just didn't gel like I expected it to or quite live up to the first movie.
Love, Rosie (2014)
Lots of Suspension required.
This movie reminded me of the bad version of One Day (the movie version) which in turn was the very bad version of One Day (the book version).
I could suspend disbelief with regards to a lot of things that other viewers had a problem with:
1. Maybe property prices are cheaper in the UK so she would have been able to afford a walk up on a receptionist's salary.
2. Maybe having one boyfriend from the age of 5 is actually genetic so that's why her daughter did exactly the same things she did.
3. Maybe people do still write letters because hey, you know, it might be easier to find a post box at the airport than an email terminal.
4. Maybe they got fares to Boston on the cheap despite only having one week's notice and that's why they could fly all 4 of them to the US for the wedding.
5. She IS only 30. It isn't entirely impossible that she didn't really age between 18 and 30.
6. Potentially no one lives in the country, so realistically she could have bought it on the cheap and gotten a bank loan for a huge part of the purchase price of that mansion.
7. Her mother probably did want to downsize and that's why she received her father's share of the house even though her mother and two younger brothers are still alive and potentially now homeless.
I could keep going but you get the idea.
Maybe.
But despite that suspending, I still couldn't suspend my irritation with the way the story is constructed. Or the dialogue. Or the ending (OK! I know! It could only ever have ended that way).
Finnick from the Hunger Games continues to be sweetly good looking though.
The Wedding Ringer (2015)
Is It Bad to Laugh at Bad Jokes?
This movie is wrong on so many levels; I found it misogynistic, homophobic, racist, you name the prejudice and it's probably in there. There is absolutely nothing modern about it at all (it is the most stereotypical story in the book) and every character seems to completely lack depth of thought and feeling. There are 2 scenes in particular where I literally thought to myself "Have they just given up on this movie and are adding these scenes in because it looks like it would be an absolute blast to act?" Even the plot isn't new; it's a recycled theme and a movie with this plot comes out maybe once every couple of years.
AND YET with all the terrible caricatures of people (and women in particular) I actually found myself laughing out loud (literally) in the cinema on more than one occasion.
You can't take it too seriously, and if you're looking for anything remotely deep or even believable, or if you're likely to be offended right at the start (because the movie is offensive for all the reasons mentioned above) don't watch this movie. But if you just want an hour and a bit of mindless comedic entertainment, then give it a go.
Son of a Gun (2014)
Lots of Promise...
The movie was carried largely by Ewan McGregor's great on screen presence, with Brenton Thwaites a little dopey but still managing to be engaging.
I thought it tried to be too many things at the same time; one part action/violence, one part (what I thought was wholly unnecessary) teenage romance, and the music similarly varied from trance to strange melodic ballads, which was a little disjointed. The movie could have gone a lot darker; more focus on EM's increasing paranoia and distrust perhaps.
The ending was a bit too neat; after all the violence perpetuated during the movie, one would have thought that the character wouldn't be quite so willing to capitulate. Perhaps a little bit of torture from EM and he would have revealed the mystery quickly, especially since he was never set up to be the macho guy. After all, isn't the point in the movie "all or nothing"?
Still, it's fantastic to see upcoming Aussie actors in film, and even more fantastic to see Perth and Kalgoorlie used as the setting for a movie. It fell a little short of its potential but was entirely watchable and entertaining.