It's no secret I get a lot of my movie knowledge from Rotten Tomatoes. With action and drama movies especially I rely on their experts to tell me what I'll enjoy watching. And almost all the time if they like it, I'll like it and vice versa. But today I want to briefly review two movies I saw a while back that got relatively poor reviews and just sort of slipped through the cracks either due to their release dates or number of theaters, but I think they're pretty good movies.
First up is This is Where I Leave You. TIWILY came out last September in that weird time between all the big summer movies (May-July) and all the big Oscar movies (Oct-Jan). In other words it came out at the same time as movies like The Maze Runner that made us all think "I might see that sometime" but most likely we never will. That sort of time and movie. Rotten Tomatoes experts gave it 41% fresh and audience scores were only slightly better at 60%.
But I think they got it wrong on this one because TIWILY is actually a really, really good dramedy. The story follows a jewish family of adult children who have to live under one roof again for a week after their father dies. The family is made up of Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Connor Stoll (the guy from Season 1 of House of Cards who always makes you think "That guy was on HoC!") and Adam Driver (the guy who generates the EXACT same reaction except with the show Girls). Their mom is played by Jane Fonda with supporting cast members including Rose Bryne and the under appreciated Kathryn Hahn (I can't think of anything specific for her but she's done bit parts in Step Brothers and a slew of other comedies).
Right from the cast I expect this to be a really good movie and it doesn't disappoint. The characters maintain their own identities will still meshing together like a real family. The chemistry between Bateman and Fey is marvelous and the whole movie effort just works. It's not the funniest movie in the world (which probably led to disappointed reviewers) but it's really sweet and really charming. It reminds you that family is a complicated thing, but one that you have to deal with in your life. I would liken it to August: Osage County as they have similar premisses, but also leave you with a similar sense of the importance of living life. In my book it's a solid B+/A- kind of movie that deserves a lot more love than it got (I mean, Bateman and Fey together?!?).
The second movie is The Last Five Years. This is an adaptation of the off-Broadway musical of the same name that originally starred Norbert Leo Butz (who is an amazing person, if you don't know). It got a slightly better, barely fresh 60 and 64% from critics and audiences respectively, but this movie completely missed everyone's radar. In the large city of Portland Oregon, not a single theater was showing it when it opened! The big mystery with this movie is why it didn't get a wider release. It came out last Valentines Day, so it'd have to compete with 50 Shades and Kingsman, but those were both rated R. I really believe there would have been a fine market for a PG-13 romance comedy musical on Valentines Day starting teen idol Anna Kendrick (fresh off Into the Woods), but I could be wrong.
The story tells a romantic relationship from start to finish, but it tells it from the guy's point of view and the girl's point of view while moving in opposite directions. So it jumps from a break up to the start of the relationship and back and forth. Kendrick is predictably amazing as Kathy (seriously, she's amazing in that role) and while her co star is no Norbert Leo Butz, he holds his own quite admirably. Like all good movie musicals (and I do mean ALL) the story is almost entirely musical numbers focusing almost exclusively on these two people. The movie does the play and the score justice without cutting a single song, and that's really really rare. My biggest and only complaint is a couple of modified lyrics to be without the F-word so they could keep the PG-13 rating, but that's just me being a purist. Anyway this movie should have been a big hit with great music and big star power behind it, but for some reason it slipped through the cracks.
So go watch those two movies. TIWILY can be found on HBOGO and I imagine L5Y can be found on DVD with relative ease. I don't know what I'll talk about next time, but I'm sure it will be something good. Expect Emmys chatter coming up soon because i get almost as excited about the Emmys as about the Oscars. (I watch way too much TV, but you knew this).
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