Posts Tagged ‘Aubrey Plaza’
Tuesday, November 5th, 2024
I’m no scholar of the works of Francis Ford Coppola. I agree THE GODFATHER I and II and APOCALYPSE NOW are amazing, and I’ve recently grown into a BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA zealot. I enjoyed THE CONVERSATION and THE OUTSIDERS and RUMBLEFISH and THE COTTON CLUB and DEMENTIA 13 and obviously CAPTAIN EO. I’ve had some of his wine, too – we get those little cans of Sofia for Oscar parties. But like most people I’m not really up on the experimental shit he’s been up to b’twixt the 21st century. In fact the last time I saw a new FCC joint was JACK in 1996.
But hell, I wasn’t gonna miss MEGALOPOLIS! You know the legend. He conceived it in the ‘70s, he’s tried to get it off the ground many times across the decades, now he finally did it with his own $120 million. Amazing. Whatever it is, you gotta respect what he did. Become a rich guy just to make a true indie on the largest possible scale. Pretty much all rich guys waste their money in far stupider ways.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Adam Driver, Aubrey Plaza, Francis Ford Coppola, Giancarlo Esposito, Grace VanderWaal, James Remar, John Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Nathalie Emmanuel, passion project, Shia LaBeouf
Posted in Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 19 Comments »
Monday, September 18th, 2023
OPERATION FORTUNE: RUSE DE GUERRE is the first of two Guy Ritchie films released in 2023. They came out so close together because this one was delayed more than a year for reasons reportedly including the pandemic, the bad luck of featuring Ukrainian gangsters right when Ukraine was invaded, and restructuring of distributor STX. I swear I heard it was going straight to video at one point, but then it suddenly hit theaters pretty much out of the blue, with predictably poor response.
It’s another Ritchie-Statham collab (their fifth), but not a gangster movie. Instead it’s a light-hearted spy caper, not an all-out comedy, but very jokey. It’s got the usual spy stuff: planting trackers, facial recognition software, meeting with buyers, pulling people into vans. And their mission takes them into the world of the super-duper rich, on yachts, in mansions, private jets, charity parties, bodyguards, art collections, jewelry auctions. A team of crafty good guys have to earn the trust of billionaire arms dealer Greg Simmonds (Hugh Grant, CLOUD ATLAS) before he sells a dangerous device called The Handle. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Aubrey Plaza, Bugzy Malone, Carey Elwes, Eddie Marsan, Guy Ritchie, Hugh Grant, Jason Statham, Josh Hartnett, Lourdes Faberes, Max Beesley, Peter Ferdinando, spy
Posted in Reviews, Action, Comedy/Laffs | 26 Comments »
Thursday, January 26th, 2023
Aubrey Plaza is funny. I first saw her in FUNNY PEOPLE, and then I knew her for years as April on Parks & Recreation. She seems hip for a sitcom star, and for a decade and a half has been able to oscillate between mainstream comedies and indie movies. The one that gave me a new level of respect for her was INGRID GOES WEST (2017), a dark squirm-inducer where her titular character moves to L.A. to try to become friends with her favorite Instagram influencer. It’s a very layered character and performance, but it’s a funny one. She’s funny.
What’s surprising about Plaza in EMILY THE CRIMINAL is that she’s completely engrossing without being funny at all. She makes one or two bitter jokes, but this is a gritty, very grounded crime drama. Those withering looks of disgust she gave as sullen teen April Ludgate have evolved into more mature and considered looks of contempt for the system, and humanity, and all this bullshit. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Aubrey Plaza, Jeff Bierman, John Patton Ford, Jonathan Avigdori, Megalyn Echikunwoke, Noah Halpern, Sheila Korsi, Theo Rossi
Posted in Reviews, Crime | 11 Comments »
Wednesday, December 2nd, 2020
I don’t usually review comedies, especially straight forward romance/family ones like HAPPIEST SEASON, nor do I plan to do it often. But I thought this was a pretty good one and I decided to give it a shot. Sharpen my skills.
HAPPIEST SEASON is new on Hulu and takes place at Christmas time, but is not specifically about any holiday celebrations. It has received some attention as a high profile romantic comedy with a same sex couple, and of a much higher quality than the ones starting to pop up on Hallmark and Lifetime. Sony/TriStar had actually intended this for a major theatrical release before the pandemic and its supporters fucked up the country. It was directed and co-written by Clea DuVall, who we of course know as an actress from GHOSTS OF MARS, THE GRUDGE, ZODIAC, etc., so it’s a pretty good in-joke when a character’s teenage bedroom is still decorated with a sexy poster of Josh Hartnett (THE FACULTY). (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alison Brie, Aubrey Plaza, Christmas, Clea DuVall, coming out, Dan Levy, Jake McDorman, Kristen Stewart, Mackenzie Davis, Mary Steenburgen, Victor Garber
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Reviews | 16 Comments »
Monday, June 24th, 2019
You all know the story of the 1988 horror classic CHILD’S PLAY: a single mother buys her son the talking doll he wants for his sixth birthday, she brushes it off as imagination when he claims the doll is telling him weird things, a babysitter gets killed and because of the tiny footprints at the scene the police suspect the kid did it. We only see glimpses of what the doll is up to, but we know that a cornered serial killer named Charles Lee Ray performed a voodoo ritual and his spirit is hiding out in there. And the mom goes from worrying about what’s wrong with her son, to worrying she’s losing her mind for starting to wonder if he’s right, to the total shock of seeing the doll walk around and talk to her and stuff. And now she has to stop this supernatural threat that no one will believe her about before the killer transfers his soul into the body of her son.
This new movie called CHILD’S PLAY that is officially considered a remake is not that story. You still got a single mother (Aubrey Plaza, INGRID GOES WEST) trying to make ends meet working at a store, and she still has a son named Andy (Gabriel Bateman [ANNABELLE]), who she buys a doll named Chucky. But Andy is 13 years old (huge difference) and the doll is an A.I. infused walking and talking robot (also huge difference) and he is not possessed by Charles Lee Ray or anyone else (hugest difference). So there’s no secret, everybody knows it walks around and talks to you and stuff, and the kid is not young enough to be confused by it. Instead of dealing with the classic “no one believes me” theme (until it’s implausibly shoe-horned in near the end) the tension comes from the kids (he has friends in this) making the poor decision to try to hide things from the adults, even though Andy is friends with a nice cop who could help him (the great Brian Tyree Henry from Atlanta, WIDOWS, IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK and SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE). (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Aubrey Plaza, Brian Tyree Henry, David Lewis, Gabriel Bateman, killer dolls, Lars Klevberg, Mark Hamill, remakes, Tim Matheson, Tyler Burton Smith
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 62 Comments »
Monday, November 13th, 2017
INGRID GOES WEST is kind of like a KING OF COMEDY for the smart phone era. Instead of seeking fame by doing something on television our stalker wants to live a blandly glamorous life on Instagram. But this is not just an update of the ol’ “people will do anything for fame” trope we’ve seen in MAN BITES DOG, NATURAL BORN KILLERS, etc. Sure, Ingrid would love more likes and followers, but mostly she wants attention from one specific person who’s famous on Instagram. So, no big deal, she moves to L.A. to try to find her.
Aubrey Plaza (SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD) is outstanding as Ingrid, a multi-layered role that evokes uncomfortable laughs, creeped-out squirms and also some sympathy. She has comic timing, subtle expressions, pathos, and next-level physical comedy in the scene where she first encounters the famous Taylor Sloane (Elizabeth Olsen, OLD BOY) in a store and tries way too hard to browse casually. She’s not so much posing for social media as living life as if she’s inside social media. When she first gets to L.A. she rides around on a bike with a forced “say cheese” smile stuck on her face.
She’s a SINGLE WHITE FEMALE reading what Taylor likes so she can go to the places she goes, eat the things she eats, read (or at least hold) the books she recommends. We watch her struggle to construct the perfect inane one-sentence comment, an online activity soon to be repeated IRL when she finds Taylor and, you know, kidnaps her dog. Just as a way to meet her and start a friendship. It’s all cool, don’t worry about it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Aubrey Plaza, Billy Magnussen, Elizabeth Olsen, influencers, Matt Spicer, O'Shea Jackson Jr., stalkers, Wyatt Russell
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Reviews | 6 Comments »
