MOVIE REVIEW | Room (2015)

“When I was small, I only knew small things. But now I’m five, I know everything!”

For the last five or six years, I’ve made a point of watching all of the Academy Awards Best Picture nominees before the Oscar ceremony.  This year I was way ahead of schedule.  By the time they were announced, there was only one of the nominated eight that I hadn’t seen yet.  And, to be honest, it was one I had kind of avoided.  Because I could have seen this movie before now, I’d just consciously decided not to.  But now, according to my own rules, I have to.  So, is the Academy right and I’m wrong, is it a good thing that they nominated, and I just watched Room?

Seven years ago, 17 year old Joy (Brie Larson) was snatched off the street by a man she comes to call Old Nick (Sean Bridgers).  Kept prisoner in his fortified garden shed in the middle of suburbia, Joy gave birth to a son two years in.  With Jack (Jacob Tremblay) turning five, Joy decides it’s time to start telling him about what life and the real world are actually like outside of the one, small room that has been his entire world his entire life.

***2015 RECAP*** MOVIE REVIEW | Trainwreck (2015)

“I like you, Amy. You’re clever but you’re not too brainy. You’re prettyish but you’re not too gorgeous. You’re approachable.”

I like Judd Apatow and Judd Apatow movies.  Even when everyone turned on him after Funny People and especially This is 40, I stuck with him.  Sure, the privileged problems of the rich, white people of This is 40 were a little hard to sympathise with, but Apatow is funny enough that I could look past that stuff and just enjoy the ride.  With Trainwreck, it seemed to be the least Judd Apatow movie ever made by Judd Apatow.  He didn’t write it, and it’s not filled with his regular stable of actors.  Written by its star, Amy Schumer, who I have little to no interest in, I couldn’t get excited about Trainwreck.  But the reviews were just too good, so I caved in.   

Raised by a father (Colin Quinn) who vocally apposed to the concept of monogamy, Amy (Schumer) has grown up taking his words to heart.  While her sister (Brie Larson as Kim) lives the quiet, picket fence life with her husband (Mike Birbiglia) and step son (Evan Brinkman), Amy bounces from one casual encounter to the next, kicking men out of her bed and house the second the deed is done.

MOVIE REVIEW | Trainwreck (2015)

“I like you, Amy. You’re clever but you’re not too brainy. You’re prettyish but you’re not too gorgeous. You’re approachable.”

I like Judd Apatow and Judd Apatow movies.  Even when everyone turned on him after Funny People and especially This is 40, I stuck with him.  Sure, the privileged problems of the rich, white people of This is 40 were a little hard to sympathise with, but Apatow is funny enough that I could look past that stuff and just enjoy the ride.  With Trainwreck, it seemed to be the least Judd Apatow movie ever made by Judd Apatow.  He didn’t write it, and it’s not filled with his regular stable of actors.  Written by its star, Amy Schumer, who I have little to no interest in, I couldn’t get excited about Trainwreck.  But the reviews were just too good, so I caved in.   

Raised by a father (Colin Quinn) who vocally apposed to the concept of monogamy, Amy (Schumer) has grown up taking his words to heart.  While her sister (Brie Larson as Kim) lives the quiet, picket fence life with her husband (Mike Birbiglia) and step son (Evan Brinkman), Amy bounces from one casual encounter to the next, kicking men out of her bed and house the second the deed is done.

MOVIE REVIEW | The Gambler (2014)

“You’re born as a man with the nerves of a soldier, the apprehension of an angel.”

When I watched the original version of The Gambler, I went in knowing that movie gamblers rarely win, which is kind of the thrill.  “Because like gambling itself, even though you know winning is a long shot, it’s still exciting to think that there’s a still a slim chance of making that big score”.  Unfortunately, the risk of seeing a totally unnecessary and redundant remake didn’t add any level of thrill to watching an updated, Mark Wahlbergian take on, The Gambler.

Tens of thousands of dollars in the hole already, Jim Bennet (Wahlberg) makes the mistake of trying to gamble is way out.  Soon he’s hundreds of thousands of dollars in the red and in massive debt to two dangerous loan sharks, Neville (Michal Kenneth Williams) and Frank (John Goodman).  His rich mother (Jessica Lang) comes to the rescue, but why pay off his debt straight away when he can use her cash to gamble and lose even more?

MOVIE REVIEW | Short Term 12 (2013)

“Please don’t be offended if I’m not very friendly, but I’m going to be living with my dad soon, and I don’t really like wasting time on short-term relationships. So, you know, it’s nothing personal.”

Every year, there are one or two indie joints that gain enough traction and festival hype that they can’t be ignored. Everything about them makes me think I won’t like them, but too many people I trust talk them up. So I eventually cave in, and I’d say the results are pretty 50/50 in what I’ve liked and what has bored me to tears. And 50/50 is a pretty good encapsulation of my feelings after watching Short Term 12.

Grace (Brie Larson) works at the titular Short Term 12, a home for kids who are, for whatever reason, no longer under the care of their parents, but the state is yet to figure out what their long term housing situation should be. Grace’s boyfriend Mason (John Gallagher Jr) also works there. It’s revealed they they are both from their own varieties of abuse and broken homes. Which I guess is what makes them able to stand the pressures of their obviously difficult job.