Consumables #36

Seen lately:

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
Definitely shows how hard this lady works, how driven she is, and the impact she had opening doors for female stand up comedians. All of that is totally impressive. The downside is that I don't find her funny. There are just comedians like that sometimes. I get the reason that they are important, and what they do for the art as a whole, but to me, they just don't give me the giggles. There was one joke she told in the whole movie that made me laugh a little. It went like this: "Why should I learn to cook? Just so my husband can go brag to some hooker that his wife bakes a great cake?" That one got me a little. But just a little. And then that was it. Sorry Joan.

The Calling
Documentary following different people as they pursue becoming members of the clergy. Muslim, Christian, and Jewish students were profiled. I wish it would have gone deeper than it did.

No Impact Man
Documentary about a New York City writer and his family who embark on a one-year experiment in trying to have as little impact on the environment as possible. I loved his wife in this movie. It seemed that for him, it was fun and exciting to try this whole thing, and for her, she was game and a great sport, but also expressed things like "dude, that worm bin in the apartment skeeves my shit out." I think she was the one that made the whole thing relatable.

The Town
A bit predictable (I knew who was going to die the first 10 minutes in, and what was going to happen to Ben Affleck's character by the end), but it was enjoyable. I agree with the critiques that the women characters in the movie are totally Madonna/Whore (perfect middle class bank manager lady versus fucked up working class slutty lady), which was a little annoying.

The King's Speech
Loved it. And on a design note, the 1930s English wallpaper that was in every scene was rocking my socks. And Geoffrey Rush's office, with the big wall that had peeled off wallpaper that ended up looking like some impressionist thing? Gorg-wah.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
I don't think Michael Cera was at all who I pictured playing Scott when I first read the comics. That's the problem with making movies out of books. I imagined Scott Pilgrim totally differently than that.

I am Love
Pretty, pretty movie. And look at Tilda Swinton, acting it up in Italian, and then busting out with Russian right in the middle of everything. What a show off.

I'm Still Here
So everyone thought this was real, and then we found out it was a hoax and that Joaquin Pheonix faked the whole thing. But you know what? I don't really believe that he faked the whole thing. I think there were parts of that that were really him being him. So what I am saying is that it's a movie where it's him being real, but faking being fake, all to make us think that it was real at the time, but then later really fooling us into thinking it was fake, when really some of it was real.

I know I'm talented. It's like I could have written Inception.

In Spite of Myself, by Christopher Plummer
The dad from The Sound of Music was a total partier, you guys. This is a 700 page autobiography, and all this person ever did, EVER, was act on the stage, act in movies, go to parties, booze it up, and get laid. Nothing else! Really, nothing else. My favorite parts were when he would name drop people in totally unexpected places. Like when he did Shakespeare on Broadway in the fifties and Jerry Stiller was in it with him. Or the other highbrow Broadway show that he did where his understudy was William Shatner. I love stuff like that.