Trainwreck

There are a couple of big laughs here, but I didn’t find this to be the mind-blowing, trail-blazing feminist masterpiece that the world thinks it is. There are bits in the movie that have nothing to do with the “story” and were clearly inserted just to be funny, which is fine. But when this supposedly raunchy comedy starts to get all serious and there’s group hugging, I start to tune out. No raunchy comedy should have crying and/or group hugging. Also, the cynic in me realizes that adding male sports stars brings in more of a male audience, which evens out the demographics in what would otherwise be a very female-skewing movie about sisters and dying parents and stuff. So I don’t feel like the comedy is coming from a place of real honesty. Anyway, I liked Spy better.

Ant-Man

The super-hero stakes here are small, no pun intended. The world is not about to end, and the super-villian isn’t a God trying to rule multiple dimensions. What this means is, thankfully, this is a comedy. Meaning it’s paced like a comedy. The action is light and quick, and the word play is snappy. It wouldn’t have worked without Paul Rudd, the least-likely super hero, who glides through the story like drinking a smooth, cold beer on a summer day. A likable movie that won’t really resonate in the Marvel lexicon, but there’s worse ways to spend an evening.

Amy

Unbelievably sad doc about Amy Winehouse, the singer whose only crime was that she was born too talented. Relentlessly hounded by the British paparazzi, her life lives-out like a cliché of a rockumentary: fame-hungry parents, drugs, abusive boyfriends, comebacks, and finally, the body bag wheeling away from the home. Great doc with great music and poignant insight. But sad. The wrong movie was called Train Wreck. When are we going to stop letting the tabloid press torment people to death?

Spy

We laughed. Melissa McCarthy’s spy character must suffer numerous indignities as she makes her first foray as a field agent. The script does everything it can to embarrass her, and in the wrong hands this could have been miserable. But like any good comedy, it’s a high wire act. The embarrassing things only work because of McCarthy’s funny and impatient reactions to them. And she never gives up, which makes her a hero. Also, thankfully, she’s a competent spy. She doesn’t accidentally stumble on solutions, the way they might in Get Smart or Spies Like Us. We went to see Train Wreck, which was sold out, so we saw this instead. It was a fine alternative.

Session Man

A screening at the memorial service of my screenwriting guru Seth Winston. It’s the look of glory in James Remar’s eyes when he realizes he might go on tour with his rock and roll heroes. And it’s the look of resigned disappointment in his eyes when he accepts that he may never be more than a session musician. A poignant, Oscar-winning short made by a funny, cantankerous, and deeply respected AFI prof.

Terminator Genisys

** So, So, So many SPOILERS!**

Time-travel machines are versatile. Not only can you travel through time to change the past, but they also allow you to change old movie plots. So somebody thought that the plot of the Terminator wasn’t good enough so they needed to change it. But this nullifies all of the other Terminators after the original Terminator. Meaning: T2, T2-3D (the ride), T3, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and Terminator: Salvation are all nullified. Meaning that ANY time anybody wants to change anything, they can just hop in the ol’ time machine, go back, and change it. Meaning that these movies are devoid of suspense and are becoming more and more like Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. I was always willing to accept these paradoxes as dramatic license as long as the fights and effects were cool. Cameron’s movies were mind-blowingly innovative and beautifully cut, which raises expectations. But this. This is more like a b-movie with money. I kept waiting for the Carolco logo to roll up. There’s no risk, no innovation. It’s not a disaster, but… It’s so bereft of fun or drama, it’s like it was made with an action movie algorithm programmed by Skynet.

Inside Out

** SPOILERS **

For anyone who has seen this, it should come as no surprise that I wept like an Italian widow during the third act. It’s a profound metaphor interpreted beautifully by the Pixar studios. It’s not so much that we’re seeing anthropomorphized emotions. That’s been done before. It’s the realization that all of the human emotions deserve equal play. Riley is an eleven-year-old forced to move cities. Not really an Earth-shattering tragedy, but it is to her. Watching the emotional hierarchy in her mind is fascinating. At times there’s some chasing and hijinks in the middle that seems unnecessary. But by the final third, when the leader of the emotional core, Joy, excellently voiced by Amy Poehler, realizes that she can’t always be in charge, it’s an epiphany; a life lesson. Because she’s only eleven, Riley hasn’t yet learned that the instant she voices her sadness, she’ll feel better. To make a movie for general audiences (this is PG, which is weird) that aspires to have this much emotional resonance, Pixar not only deserves a best picture nomination, but they also probably deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.