Movie Reviews

The Incredible Jessica James (2017)

The Incredible Jessica James (2017)

Director:

Jim Strouse

Starring:

Jessica Williams

Chris O’Dowd

Lakeith Stanfield

Plot:

An aspiring playwright in New York strikes up a friendship with a guy while on the rebound from a break-up.

Review:

I like Jessica Williams from The Daily Show and I thought the trailer for this looked funny. There were definitely funny moments but it was really about a young woman trying to figure her life out. Which is fun, but I’m past that point in my life, until I have a midlife crisis, so it’s not as entertaining for me as it used to be.

Jessica is ridiculously confident, except when she isn’t, which I can relate to. I did find it difficult to watch when she took out her frustrations on the kid, but they made up and she apologized. She does sincere very well, sincere and passionate.

Is it weird that I find it sad when people who have good families, families that love them and just want what’s best for them, but they can’t handle being around them? Jessica’s family loves her, but she doesn’t “fit it” with them so she’s got her own family in NY basically. I’m glad she has her own family, I just wish she didn’t seem so sad around her biological family. I think I feel that way because it reminds me of a specific family member that I love, but that acts like being with family is the worst.

Anyway, the movie was fine, I liked the ending a lot, loved the character of Jessica James, really just need to stop watching indie movies cause I’m not a fan of the genre.

3/5

Naked (2017)

I do not suggest googling Naked Netflix Movie for an image search

Naked (2017)

Director:

Michael Tiddes

Starring:

Marlon Wayans

Regina Hall

Dennis Haysbert

Plot:

Nervous about finally getting married, a guy is forced to relive the same nerve-wracking hours over and over again until he gets things right on his wedding day.

Review:

I love repeat day story lines and I really liked the idea of this one, but I felt like the writing and execution was lacking. I still have no idea if Wayans was living just one hour over and over or if it was more. In the movie he says one hour, but there is no way he could have done everything he was supposed to in one hour. The church bells also had something to do with it, maybe he was the only one that heard them? But that isn’t right either because he asked the minister about stopping them. It would have taken nothing to properly explain but it wasn’t.

The movie was supposed to be a romantic comedy, at least I think it was, but there wasn’t enough of either. I was supposed to think that Wayans grew up and became worthy of his girl, but the thing is he was already clearly in love with her and she already loved him so why did he have to “grow up” for their friends and family?

This was a romantic comedy for men and lacked many of the things I expect in that genre. The romance was glossed over and I honestly didn’t laugh once. It was overall a disappointment.

2/5

Burnt (2015)

Burnt (2015)

Director:

John Wells

Starring:

Bradley Cooper

Sienna Miller

Daniel Brühl

Plot:

Adam Jones (Bradley Cooper) is a chef who destroyed his career with drugs and diva behavior. He cleans up and returns to London, determined to redeem himself by spearheading a top restaurant that can gain three Michelin stars.

Review:

I love watching movies with food porn. They’re fun, though, they do have the negative side effect of making me hungry, but who cares!

Bradley Cooper played a brilliant chef that fucked up his life and is trying to get it back on track. By the end of the movie he was still brilliant, still hot tempered, still not the best decision maker, but he’d made progress.

The only negative I’ve got is I wish there hadn’t been a love interest, I didn’t see why the movie needed it and it would have worked better, I think, as just tension not him actually acting on it.

Oh well, liked the movie, probably won’t watch it again, but it was fun.

3/5

Ghost in the Shell (2017)

Ghost in the Shell (2017)

Director:

Rupert Sanders

Starring:

Scarlett Johansson

Pilou Asbaek

Takeshi Kitano

Plot:

In the near future, Major is the first of her kind: A human saved from a terrible crash, who is cyber-enhanced to be a perfect soldier devoted to stopping the world’s most dangerous criminals.

Review:

I’m unfamiliar with the source material for this movie, but just watching the trailers made it seem interesting. It’s Sci-fi starring a female lead, so definitely something I’m interested in. Sadly, I was really disappointed.

I had no emotional attachment to the characters so when anything happened to them I didn’t care, I could barely focus through the movie and I had nothing distracting me so I have nothing but the movie to blame it on.

I’ve never been a huge Scarlett Johansson fan, I think the gross obsession some people have with her on the internet has affected my view of her, and I thought that she came off as incredibly detached and even more robotic than she should have been. I get it, she’s got the body of a machine and the brain of a human, but she seemed more machine than human and I didn’t really see any kind of journey toward her humanity. I also couldn’t understand why her team loved her so much, I saw no reason for the emotional attachment considering how aloof she was toward everyone.

Enough of the source material shown through that I would be interested in picking it up, but I was not a fan of this movie.

2/5

Bend It Like Beckham (2002)

Bend It Like Beckham (2002)

Director:

Gurinder Chadha

Starring:

Parminder Nagra

Keira Knightly

Jonathan Rhys Meyers

Plot:

The daughter of orthodox Sikh rebels against her parents’ traditionalism and joins a football team.

Review:

I loved this movie growing up and I had no interest at all in soccer/football. It was all about Jonathan Rhys Meyers and his accent. Seriously, he’s the only reason I watched the movie as a teenager. Now a days I’m not so into lanky men, but the accent is still pretty awesome.

As an adult I found the cultural side of things much more interesting. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t still enjoy listening to him talk though.

3/5