Gena Rowlands uses her cumulative seven minutes of screentime to act her face off as if she’s in a prestige drama. John Cassavetes leads a SWAT team and recites his lines with minimal conviction. sometimes you and your wife take ing roles in a football terrorism paycheck project where you don’t share any scenes so you can fund your theatre terrorism ion project where you share many scenes (Opening Night [1977]). so what!
watched Juror #2 and am now addicted to silly legal thrillers where everyone is doing accents to varying levels of success, the writer has no idea what to do with the character of the protagonist’s wife, and there’s a charismatic Sicilian defense attorney. this specific yen has led me to The Devil’s Advocate.
i loooove the implication that if you move to the Big Apple, the devil will influence your gorgeous blonde wife to cut her hair short and dye…
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
had to rewatch because i somehow didn’t recognize the Topher Grace cameo on first viewing, despite being obsessed with Eric Forman in high school. glad i did because Christopher Nolan and Jack Black were randomly at my screening (35mm at the Vista). Nolan was up front near me + my squad and Jack was in the back—call him Jack Back ! ha ha … that’s a joke Hugh Grant’s Heretic character would make and the girls would sit silently like 🙂 and he’d go “sorry” and they’d go “that’s okay … can you unlock the door please”
i want Daniel Cleaver flat on his back. helpless. tender. open. with no one but me to help. and then i want him strong again. he’s not going to die. he might wish he were going to die, but he’s not going to. he needs to settle down a little.
got to introduce this one onstage (alongside my LB colleague Flynn Slicker) for American Cinematheque’s Friend of the Fest! and publicly threatened to Phantom Thread Daniel Cleaver!
shout out to…
we watched Gattaca in 7th grade science class and i have a vivid memory of silently weeping at my desk because i had never seen a man as beautiful as Jude Law in my entire 13-year-old life. i was so horned up for him in a way that i did not yet understand, but would come to once we rewatched it in 10th grade Biology and then again in 12th grade Human Anatomy and Physiology. always during the genetics unit,…
Lucy Liu vampire reporter!! movie begins with her seducing a woman and goes sharply downhill from there. speaking of women, it could’ve been cool if they hired maybe 2-3 more of them to be involved with the production. as it is, everything they make Lucy Liu do comes off as fetishized in a way i found degrading and displeasing, especially as a vampire reporter myself. our stories matter and deserve respect!
that said, she has this line i keep doing…
Cillian Murphy x Lucy Liu rom-com set in a video store. it starts with Cillian’s cinephile character getting dumped by his gf because he makes her watch The Seventh Seal and fawns over Bergman too much. ok me vibes …
against my better judgment i have been reluctantly charmed and am awarding this nerd male fantasy movie a generous three stars and a heart. i think if they had not cast two of the most telegenic people on the planet this would be borderline unwatchable. but as it is, Cillian Murphy and Lucy Liu kiss through a hole in the fence, and that is certifiably cute :)
to me, you (Love Actually) are (so egregiously flawed that you swing back around to) perfect. on one hand, it is a horribly written trainwreck that finessed its way into the holiday canon through sheer star power and a grand total of 3-5 charming moments in a 135-minute movie. on the other, i need to rewatch it every December or risk septic shock. more urgently, i need to smoke three fat blunts with Hugh Grant (sativa), Colin Firth (indica), and Emma Thompson (hybrid)
we have exactly ONE non X-Files feature film with Gillian Anderson in the leading role she deserves and they don’t even let you stream it. i mean yeah it’s on Showtime, but nobody has Showtime. i know this because i’ve been trying so hard to watch The Curse :(
also, Gillian stars as Lily Bart, a beautiful woman in gambling debt, much like Marge Simpson. Lily Bart Marge Simpson. Lisa Bart Marge Simpson. makes you think for sure
in 2007 i saw this movie twice in theaters because
1. it looks like Spy Kids 3D and i was 11 years old
2. emo Peter Parker’s dance sequences (plural) evoked intrigue, titillation
3. was investing in my Topher Grace stocks early
i would like to give this a “heart” for the reasons listed above, but i would not like for it to show up in my “liked” section, as it doesn’t necessarily represent me nor my values. pretend i am giving this “half a heart”, which signifies heyyy babe i’m just having fun; let’s not get serious