Safety Not Guaranteed

— Having seen Mark Duplass in “Safety Not Guaranteed” only a couple of weeks after seeing him in a much more minor role in “People Like Us”, maybe I suffered overload. Most people seemed to have loved “Safety Not Guaranteed” and I liked the somewhat low key feeling of the film and the offbeat characters spending more time than they should regretting their past but, in the end, I was only warm to Duplass’ character, thinking he was outshined by Aubrey Plaza’s character. SNG doesn’t stand a chance of getting in my top 500 movie list, but it was still a pleasant enough hour and a half.

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[2012. 86 min. Directed by Colin Trevorrow. Starring Aubrey Plaza, Mark Duplass, and Jake Johnson.]
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/safety-not-guaranteed-2012

The Dark Knight Rises

— Went to “The Dark Knight Rises” for my summer blockbuster fare. Wow. I really enjoyed all 2 hours and 45 minutes. Thank you Christopher Nolan, Christian Bale, and Anne Hathaway! A perfect film for when it’s 105 outside.

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[2012. 165 min. Directed by Christopher Nolan. Starring Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, and Matthew Modine.]
http://www.thedarkknightrises.com/

Jeff, Who Lives At Home

— I have to admit I like the cleverness of the Duplass brothers quite a bit and “Jeff, Who Lives At Home” gives me the eccentric and intriguing characters I want, making me wonder exactly what defines a “grown-up”. The people in this film all have middle-class lives that might make you a little desperate and questing what we can do to find happiness. I’m not one to make every common occurrence seem special, but I do think everything may be interconnected. How the day’s events in this film relate and come together is fairly clever and ultimately pretty satisfying.

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[2011. 83 min. Directed by Jay Duplass and Mark Duplass. Starring Jason Segel, Ed Helms, Susan Sarandon, and Judy Greer.]
http://www.jeffwholivesathome.com/

People Like Us

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[2012. 114 min. Directed by Alex Kurtzman. Starring Chris Pine, Elizabeth Banks, Olivia Wilde, Jon Favreau, and Michelle Pfeiffer.]
— Yesterday I finally saw “People Like Us” and liked it more than I expected. I was a little slow getting into it, but it ended up being a nice, heartfelt story of family and truth. I went hoping to shake the flashbacks my mind was having from “They Came Back” (“Les Revenants”), a DVD I watched over the weekend—definitely the most cerebral zombie movie ever made and worth your time to get a glimpse of undead who are nearly indistinguishable from the living, and the living’s reaction to having them back.

http://afflictor.com/2011/07/11/strange-small-forgotten-film-they-came-back-2004/

Martha Marcy May Marlene

— Watched “Martha Marcy May Marlene” today. Talk about a train wreck waiting to happen or, as Ann Hornaday said, “a textbook study in the inconclusive conclusion”. Well, as I think about it, maybe this ambiguity was acceptable in a filmic context, but I still groaned when the credits rolled and I was left there in limbo.

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[2011. 102 min. Directed by Sean Durkin. Starring Elizabeth Olsen, Sarah Paulson, and John Hawkes.]
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/movies/elizabeth-olsen-in-martha-marcy-may-marlene.html?pagewanted=all