Movie

The Big Sick (2017)

The Big Sick (2017)

Director:

Michael Showalter

Starring:

Kumail Nanjiani

Zoe Kazan

Holly Hunter

Ray Romano

Plot:

Pakistan-born comedian Kumail Nanjiani and grad student Emily Gardner fall in love but struggle as their cultures clash. When Emily contracts a mysterious illness, Kumail finds himself forced to face her feisty parents, his family’s expectations, and his true feelings.

Review:

He handled the call to the parents pretty well.

All of the funny bits from the trailer were shown pretty early.

Holy cow this movie is two hours long?

Alright, so I could tell that they had connected before her coma, but I didn’t get that they had fallen in love. I could even understand him spending all that time at the hospital even though they weren’t in love, but I don’t know it just seemed kind of weird that he realized that he had such strong feelings for her while she was out.

I liked her reaction to him changing things on her. I also liked that he didn’t try and force the issue. Basically, he did what you should do when you’re rejected.

The movie was cute, but it didn’t live up to my expectations. It dragged a bit in the middle, but I liked the beginning and the end.

3/5

What Happened to Monday (2017)

What Happened to Monday (2017)

Director:

Tommy Wirkola

Starring:

Noomi Rapace

Glenn Close

Willem Dafoe

Plot:

In a world where families are limited to one child due to overpopulation, a set of identical septuplets must avoid being put to a long sleep by the government and dangerous infighting while investigating the disappearance of one of their own.

Review:

After watching the trailer I was hoping for more of an action based movie about sisters that work seamlessly together to thwart their government. That’s close to the exact opposite of what I got.

About a third of the way through I realized I would not be getting a super happy ending and then just over halfway through I figured out what was going on but continued watching in the hopes I was wrong. I was not and it was a bit depressing.

The movie did end on a slightly positive note for the sisters, but for the world as a whole it was pretty negative.

The acting was good, so at least it had that going for it.

2.5/5

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