#2,201: The Martian

The Queen of Versailles - ★★★★☆
Wow. That's what I said aloud over and over while watching this.

Race to Nowhere - ★★½☆☆ 
I thought this was going to be about tigers and helicopters, but I was wrong. It's about how homework is too hard. I was very suspicious of this movie, doubly so now that I see how old it is. I'll believe that No Child Left Behind has caused some drastic and unfortunate changes in schools, but I'm not sure I buy these kids as the average sample.

An Honest Liar - ★★★½☆
Good on this doc for (1) being about something that interests me, (2) telling the stories I (and presumably plenty of others casually aware of Randi) already know efficiently, and then (3) hitting me with a couple of increasingly surprising stories I didn't already know. ✓

The Martian - ★★★★★
Nothing says autumn in Hollywood like a big space movie. I think it's great that this is a movie full of hope. The hope almost squelches the horror.

Really solid for also being such a faithful adaptation. Confusing though, that Sean Bean plays a character that survives. Looking forward to this being corrected in the director's cut.

#2,197: Philomena

She's the One - ★☆☆☆☆
he first few minutes tease you with hints of things that look like they might happen at the beginning of an interesting movie, but this is the setup to a practical joke that She's the One is playing on you. The payoff, revealed sooner than you might expect, is that this movie is terrible.

The poor cast struggles through a pile of awful lines while the movie rebuffs any attempts the audience might make to find the story interesting through sheer force of will. If only this had the charm and polish of a student film.

The Brothers McMullen - ½☆☆☆☆
Follows that old screenwriting adage that a script should have an Amy Fisher joke every 15 pages.

Highlight: there was a really interesting few minutes in the middle where I watched a video on my phone of Johnny Carson pulling two audience members out of the crowd and ask them to play piano on the Tonight Show because his scheduled musical guest cancelled.

The Intern - ★★★★☆
Alright, listen up Ed Burns, now THIS is how you make a movie where nothing happens. I mean, sure, every now and then, something happens in the movie, but when it does, it's only to negate an earlier scene. This is a positive review.

The easiest way to take this movie is as a spiritual sequel to The Devil Wears Prada. and in that case, I hope there'll be a third in the non-series one day, where Anne Hathaway plays an old person.

Really though, I don't know what the last movie was that left me pondering over the world it contains for such a long time. I've spent days talking over hypothetical situations, wondering about how dropped plot threads must have resolved themselves, whether the obviously missing scenes were cut from the script or in the edit, and how unsuccessful Ben would have been as a young person. 

Philomena - ★★★½☆
I kind of like when a director has ideas that haunt them, and I certainly liked this more than recent watch (and Frears' first) The Snapper. This movie is good at evoking that 'punching something' feeling that you get whenever you examine anything in the world.

#2,193: The Wrecking Crew

Trainwreck - ★★½☆☆
his movie is long, but even more than that, it's confident. It assumes it's completely killing, all the time. As far as this movie knows, audiences are rolling in the aisles while it shouts twenty alternate punchlines.

Hector and the Search for Happiness - ★★☆☆☆

House - ★½☆☆☆
What a chore.

The Wrecking Crew - ★★★☆☆
An interesting story less expertly told than 20 Feet from Stardom. There's something so appealing to me about the idea that there's really only like half a dozen bands out there, and record companies are just selling consumers on a carefully constructed ruse.

The closeness the director has to the material both gives him the obsession a documentarian needs to see a film through to completion and the lack of perspective that makes the movie feel like half a story.

Busy busy

It's the busiest week of the year, I think, so instead of movie reviews, please enjoy this animated gif. I made it with my own two hands, and I like looking at it. 

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Bat Night!

Never a dull moment at the Gangbusters! Comedy Enjoyment Program.  This week: comedy in the dark!