Category: Uncategorized

Somehow I’m trying to express my views on the Noah Baumbach film, Greenberg. I doubt I’ll get this right.

Greenberg stars Ben Stiller as the eponymous main male character trying to re-establish himself after being released from rehab. He house sits at his successful brother’s house in LA for the weeks his brother is away on vacation in Vietnam. He establishes a a rapport with his brother’s personal assistant, and they begin a slow-step, tango of a relationship that’s dysfunctional and redeeming. It’s just another indie film plot.

Now I state that Stiller is the main male character, but the personal assistant played by Great Gerwig is every bit the main character, too. She’s the second lead and it is through her that we learn of him. I would almost say she’s the lead. The film opens up following her story and it takes 20 minutes before we get to Stiller. All the while you wonder what is up with this girl. She’s a personal assistant, a glorified gopher, but it pays the bills and allows for the partying till dawn lifestyle she finds herself with.

These two find each other. Real quick and real sudden. And real. It had the audience gasping. “No way!” Very interesting if you think about it. I kept wondering how they each felt about the other. She would’ve just expected? He would’ve wanted it? Where did that come from?

The movie goes by just as every indie movie goes. Not much action, but plenty of character development. Stiller’s character gains something from her, but I don’t she gains anything from him except for companionship. She may understand him, but that understanding wasn’t built on seeing who he is, but who she is. She accepts him because he finally accepts himself.

I thought the early part of the movie was slow and uninteresting. The later part got to be better. Perhaps it was because the amusing scene when Greenberg confronts the youth. It really is scary on how he nails the fear and the awe inherent at looking at the next generation.

Decent movie for the time I was in the theatre.

3 of 5 stars.

Hot Tub Time Machine, a title of a movie in search of a story. The movie just wasn’t that good for film looking to break through the fourth wall with it’s nudge-nudge wink-wink. It wasn’t enough that John Cusak besmirched his 80s cool character status or even Craig Robinson not being funny, but Rob Cordry eating up entire scenes that was an effrontery.

Of course, I went to see this after hearing CapSwell’s short terse acknowledgement of it. I never know with that dude. It sounds good, but it may be bad.

This. This was bad.

2 of 5 stars.

About a week ago, I had caught Tim Burton’s rendition of Alice In Wonderland in Disney 3D. I don’t know what the difference but 3D doesn’t seem so cool if you don’t shoot it in stereo like Kirk Cameron did Avatar.

Did you know that it was rated PG? I didn’t. There’s some hacking and slashing at the end plus that hooka smoking caterpillar that make it seem less children-y and more teenage-ish. Except that the Alice story has been in the public domain for a long time now that there are plenty of dark interpretations of it. Let’s just say bringing really young kids to it can set a parent up for some seat squirming.

Or it could set them up for boring. Alice in Wonderland relies on Tim Burton’s hoary tricks at ghoulishness and on Johnny Depp’s weirdness. I couldn’t get past either and wish that the film ended sooner than it did.

But it didn’t end soon enough for me. And I blame Disney. They’ve churned out nothing but rehashes of their intellectual properties. I wish someone would make a better Alice tale rather than the sad suits of Disney.

2 of 5 stars.