Slow Learners (2015)

If there’s a more annoying actor than Adam Pally, I don’t know him. And, yes, I have seen Adam Sandler’s work.

Buddies Jeff and Anne aren’t great at the dating game. They’re bland and boring and just don’t really know how to fit in. So, they decide to spend their summer vacation (they work at a high school) changing things up. They basically turn into raging, slutty assholes before swinging back to normalcy and falling in love.

It is such a lazy movie with seriously unlikable lead characters. Also, the whole premise is ridiculous. If it were so easy to shed one personality for another, there wouldn’t be any losers/wallflowers left in the world.

D

Felony (2014)

A well-respected detective sideswipes a kid on a bike in the early morning and, when calling in the accident, instinctively pretends that he simply found the kid rather than was responsible for the accident. A newer detective on the force has his doubts about the story, though.

Such deep subject matter. I completely understood the “why” of other detectives playing along with the coverup (the compromising of other cases the at-fault detective worked on, the “one of us” argument, etc) as I simultaneously have the belief that there should be no special treatment. The movie was doing a good job of sympathizing with both sides of the issue. But then they muddied things by making the rookie 1) kinda skeevy and 2) in need of his own coverup. They shoulda stayed strong.

C

Obvious Child (2014)

A small-time New York comic going through a rough patch meets a nice guy and winds up pregnant. This could have gone in a lot of different directions, but it chose “sweet and believable” and I rather liked it for that.

B+

In the House (2013)

A long-time literature teacher sees promise in a young student’s writing and does everything he can to keep the student going.

There was a delicious sense of foreboding in trying to figure out how much of the story being woven is factual and how much (if any) is fantasy. The fact that the “characters” are actually another student and his family takes the writing excercises into a grey area. Here’s how my “customer satisfaction dial” data would’ve looked throughout this movie (scale of A-F): AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABAAAAAAAAAACAAAAAAAADAAA. Interpretation: within the first few minutes I literally thought to myself “Oh, excellent, I’m in the hands of a master. Yes.” That opinion dipped a couple of times and, near the end, I got pretty upset that it looked like they weren’t going to stick the landing... but the denouement won me right back.

Fantastic.

A

The Fundamentals of Caring (2016)

Ben is a writer living in a fog after the accidental death of his son. He’s lost both his wife and his will to write, so decides to train to be a caregiver. His first post is caring for Trevor, a young man with Muscular Dystrophy. Though in possession of a wicked sense of humor, Trevor lives his life by pattern. So, Ben decides to break the pattern and, possibly, out of the rut they're both in.

It’s one of those “redemption by roadtrip” movies that works sheerly on the strength of the two stars. Nothing groundbreaking, but it’s enjoyable nonetheless.

B-

What Happened, Miss Simone? (2015)

Covers the entirety of Simone’s career, her troubled marriage, political activism, and the years she spent detached from celebrity. I kind of wish I hadn’t seen it... I wouldn’t say my opinion of her was damaged by this film exactly, but I’m hoping that I will still be able to hear her music without allowing her personal misery to color it.

C

A Wolf at the Door (2014)

A young girl is abducted from her school and, during police questioning, we see the events leading up to it unfold in flashback. The father sleeps with young woman and, when she finds out he’s married, she seems desirous to continue the affair -- but wants more than he’s willing to give.

It was hard to know if there was a “right” side. He’s a cheater and uses his strength to intimidate. She’s bringing others into the situation without their knowledge. Though it was a very uncomfortable movie, it was also pretty effective.

B

Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016)

A “bad egg” in the New Zealand foster system gets sent to a middle-of-nowhere farm and finds the love and acceptance he’d always needed. Bella is crazy about him from the beginning and Hec, well he's crazy about Bella so he'll put up with the kid. The clip below is just a tiny bit of what makes this film so perfect:



..up until almost the very end, where things go off the rails a bit. But I can forgive that since 90% of it was so lovely.

B+

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014)

Gorgeous black & white film set in a noirish Iranian city seemingly entirely populated by idle rich, drug dealers, drug addicts, prostitutes, one child, one James Dean-y dude, and one vampire.

If it were a photograph, I’d give it a B+, but since it’s a movie in which almost nothing happens, I just can’t.

D

Ant-Man (2015)

Fun but light-weight to the point that it almost felt made-for-kids.

C+

Cruel & Unusual (2014)

Edgar finds himself in a kind of group therapy afterlife for people who killed either themselves or family members. The therapy consists of sharing the story AA style and reliving the act. The problem is, he’s pretty sure he shouldn’t be there.

There’s a lot to like about this movie -- it’s definitely original and when it gets to where it’s going, it’s quite clever. But the journey was problematic for a couple of reasons: the “what the hell is happening” vibe was more annoying than stimulating and the lead character wasn’t easy to like.

C+

The Suicide Theory (2015)

Hit-man takes a job to kill a guy who believes he won’t die unless the attempt happens at a moment when he truly wants to live. After a strong start the coincidences (or instances of “fate”) pile up and it gets to be just way too much. I guessed the big ending way too early.

C+

The Disappearance of Alice Creed (2010)

Two former cellmates execute a kidnapping for ransom, which doesn’t go according to either of their (differing) plans. A three-person cast filmed almost entirely on a single set; surprising and smart.

B+

Beyond the Lights (2014)

"Poor little rich girl" finds a regular-joe savior. It's pretty simple, but it works. Minnie Driver is great as a ruthless stage mother with more than one dimension.

B

The Dark Valley (2014)

An unwelcome stranger arrives in a tiny valley town but has enough cash to secure a place to stay. The town leader and his six sons rule with with fear and sadism, so it didn’t take long to figure out that the stranger was there for vengeance.

The mood was oppressive and there just wasn’t anything to this. Once you understood what was going on in the town and that new guy’s gonna put a stop to it, everything just occurred inevitably. This made for a very boring back half.

C+

Man From Reno (2015)

A sheriff accidentally runs down a man in heavy fog and takes him to the hospital from which the man soon flees. Meanwhile, a Japanese mystery-writer decides to take a break mid-book tour without letting anyone know where she is. These two threads merge quite satisfyingly.

The whole thing felt fresh: it didn’t go where I expected it to and I was interested throughout.

B+

What If (2014)

It’s not always easy to to know whether someone’s your soulmate, so it was a bit frustrating to see the obvious match of Chantry and Wallace settling for “just friends” for way too long. Still, I liked it. This is the kind of relationship that I understand -- lots of laughs and deep talks. Basically, it’s what I want (and, thankfully, have) so it hit all of the right beats for me.

Frankly, though, even if the movie sucked, it'd still have been worth the watch for the below clip alone.

B+

Woman in Gold (2015)

True story of a Jewish woman displaced to the states during World War II fighting for her family’s paintings, seized by the Nazis, to be returned to her. Nothing flashy here, but scenes of the past are nicely interwoven with the present and they tell the story well.

B

The Intern (2015)

A widower bored to distraction by his retirement replies to an advertisement for an internship at a web-based clothing retailer. He lands the gig and is assigned to the owner, even though she doesn’t want him.

This movie is far better than it needs to be. DeNiro is in “sincere” rather than mugging mode and gives his new boss the support -- both professional and emotional -- that she didn’t realize she was craving. It’s satisfying… as long as you weren’t all that hungry.

B-

Clouds of Sils Maria (2015)

Binoche is an actress who has agreed to return to the play that made her a star, but in the role of the “older woman” rather than as the young assistant she originated. She struggles with this, though it doesn’t seem to be so much out of a reluctance to admit her age, but as a reluctance to give up her perspective on the material. Her relationship with her own assistant, played brilliantly by Kristen Stewart, gets complicated as they run lines and discuss interpretations.

Everything I want to say about this film feels too small. It’s beautiful -- both the settings and the depth of acting -- and really sucked me in. Well worth watching.

A

Hot Rod (2007)

An amateur (and inept) stuntman decides to raise $50k to pay for his stepdad’s surgery so that he can prove he’s a man… by kicking his ass once he’s recovered. Completely stupid and also ridiculously funny. I laughed so hard at a couple of scenes that I was almost embarrassed.

B