By That You Mean

As the 84th Academy Awards approaches, my friends and I needed to cram in as many nominated films as possible. One rainy night we were torn between The Iron Lady and The Artist. Sadly, the timing was not right and we went with our third choice…Albert Nobbs.

If I had to describe Albert Nobbs with just one word, it would be frustrating. Not that finding the word would be hard, but that the word would be “frustrating.”

And now I explain.

Albert Nobbs is the story of a man who is actually a woman dressed as man in order to make money in turn of the century Ireland. Nobbs, played by Glenn Close (earning her an Oscar nod), is an odd, seemingly emotionless man whose sole purpose seems to be to own a shop with his wife. Yup, just earn money, own a shop and get himself a wife. Nobbs shows no other emotions until he meets another man/woman and his world gets all shaken up. Stupid fleas.

Trust me, that last statement will make more sense after seeing the movie. Continue reading →

Crazy Stupid Love is all the reasons I do not go home with dudes from a bar.

• Reason #1: A weird, awkward divorcee who is out to get balls deep in a new vagina.
• Reason #2: A sketchy gigolo who drops one liners.
• Reason #3: I am so desperate I would probably go home with those other reasons.

But enough about me, let’s talk about the movie.

Crazy Stupid Love starts at the end. Of a marriage. After 20-odd years together, Cal (Steve Carell) and Emily (Julianne Moore) are calling it quits. But how does Cal, who has devoted to one woman for so long, re-enter the dating scene? Enter Jacob (Ryan Gosling) a smooth-talking, lady-loving, man-whore who want to leave his womanizing ways and find his soulmate (Hannah — played by Emma Stone). Will they help each other out? Will they become mortal enemies? How will their paths cross? Let the farce begin!!

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Ugh. Political Movies.

Not since A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum have I enjoyed a movie that was based on the farce of politics. As with the previous movie, The Ides of March focuses on backstabbing in politics…well, figurative backstabbing.

The basic plot of the movie reads like this: A young, faithful campaign manager (Ryan Gosling) gets a crash-course in ethics, dirty-politics and what it takes to succeed in politics after he learns the truth about his idol (George Clooney). That is all I want to tell you because the plot unfolding with the help of an amazing support cast is part of what makes this movie excellent. Continue reading →

Time for the Oscars means it is time for this Drunken Movie Critic to go see some movies!! Some are good (artsy, well-written, soul-crushing), and others are awful beyond all reason (the make-up artists and tech-geeks need a category, too).

All this searching through Academy Award Nominations brought me to a name I had not heard in a few years. Woody Allen. Now, it is not that Mr. Allen has been slacking, quite the contrary, it seems that every year he writes a new movie. I guess this is the first Woody Allen movie since 2008 that anyone has told me to care about. So long, Vicky Christina Barcelona.

Midnight in Paris takes us away from the streets of Allen’s typical NYC backdrop and follows screenwriter Gil (Owen Wilson), who is on sabbatical with his girlfriend Inez (Rachel McAdams) and her family. Frustrated with his girlfriend and her uppity, pretentious friends, he longs for the Paris of the 1920′s, when the Moulin Rouge was thumping, when artists like Picasso mingled with Hemmingway and T.S. Eliot; they gathered together to share ideas and foster creativity. Gil wanders the gorgeous Parisian streets, searching for inspiration when then clock strikes midnight and, next thing you know, he gets into a car and is transported to the 1920s. Continue reading →

I have to say, even though I love the entire cast, I have avoided watching 50/50 for the sole reason that for most of my nursing career, I have performed spinal surgery.

In 50/50 Adam (Joeseph Gordon Levitt) goes in to have his back pain checked out and is surprised to learn he has a malignant nerve sheath tumor. This story loosely follows the real experiences of the film’s writer Will Reiser, a 27-year-old whose life changes drastically with this grim prognosis. How do you move forward when the future is unclear? How can you be strong when everyone assumes you are weak…especially when you are riddled with cancer and poisonous chemotherapy? How can you take this story and make it a comedy?

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Is it possible to write a love note to 9-11?  To love that this American tragedy can paint the perfect back-drop for a movie seemed to be the over-arching theme to the film Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, an adaptation of the book written by Jonathan Safran Foer.

The story follows Oskar Schell, a young boy whose father died in Tower One on Sept 11th 2001. Oskar finds a key, accepts that it was left as a clue by his father, and starts a journey across the five boroughs to search for the lock it opens.

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I was tricked into seeing this movie. It was a dark and stormy night and my friend suggested the cinema. While my heart was set on The Muppet Movie, after watching the trailer for The Descendants, I could not say no to some late night George Clooney.

The Descendants is a movie about loss, love and grief. After a tragic accident, Matt King (George Clooney) tries to bring his family together. He has to rally his distant relations to agree on a land development deal, and he has to help his daughters face the loss of their mother.

Along the backdrop of beautiful Hawai’i, this funny, painful, gut-wrenching movie explores the dynamics of family, fidelity and how to finally tell someone how you feel. Ugh. I don’t think I am quite doing it justice, but that is because I do not want to give everything away. Secrets, lies, deception, crying, love, family, death, land barons. Intrigued, yet?

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This movie is totally unexpected in all the right ways.

Netflix recommended Trolljegeren to me, and for a long time I ignored it. This was the same system that told me to watch Patrice O’Neal based on my review of Boys Don’t Cry, so I have never given it much credit. Well, 6 beers later and nothing striking my fancy, The Troll Hunter became an option.

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Oh, summer movies…you are often exactly what I expect.

At the bequest of a friend, I manned-up and soberly went to an afternoon viewing of what I thought would be a horribly inaccurate account of the creation of the first team of X-Men or the Brotherhood of Mutants, you know, something that would send my nerd gene into overload. I was not disappointed.

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