Avery's View on Movies

“We could tie ourselves to the couch and watch the food network for 48 hours straight .”

(2009)

Starring: Andy Garcia, Julianna Margulies, Ezra Miller, Steven Strait, Dominik Garcia-Lorido, Emily Mortimer

My Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Another one of my definite favorites. City Island is another one of those twisted-comedic-family films that I am a real fan of.

The Rizzo’s are a family that doesn’t share anything with each other. Vivian (Dominik Garcia-Lorido) was kicked out of school and strips to save money to go back, but doesn’t reveal this to her family. Vince Jr. /Vinny (Ezra Miller) is a typical teenage boy, but with an odd fetish for overweight women and food. Their mother, Joyce (Julianna Margulies), is a secret smoker and hides it from her husband, Vince (Andy Garcia), whom she suspects is cheating on her when he goes out many nights a week to play “poker”. Little does she know, ‘poker’ is actually an acting class, as Vince is an aspiring and hopeful actor. But above all of the secrets in the family, Vince holds a larger burden. As a prison guard at a local penitentiary, he discovers his long, lost son is being held there and can be released to any closest living family members. Vince takes his son, Tony (Steven Strait), back to his home to live with Vince and the family without revealing the secret to anyone, even Tony himself. And so the drama and comedy unfolds.

I loved, loved, loved this movie. It was so funny throughout the whole thing, and they managed to keep the comedy through the whole film even through some serious aspects. The family itself was one big comedy act. They all have strong New York accents except for their son Vinny, They scream at each other all the time about the stupidest (but funniest) things and the secrets they keep from each other are just plain funny as well.

It was a “feel-good” type of movie in the end, and I found it entertaining the whole way through. I didn’t find myself bored once because there was always something to keep you wondering what would happen next.

I would definitely recommend this film if you like comedies and family films with a little edge to it. You won’t regret it.

“Oh and just so your prepared, the last time you went to rehab I told them you were in Sweden.”

(2011)

Starring: Ellen Barkin, Kate Bosworth, Ezra Miller, Thomas Haden Church, Demi Moore

My Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

Another Happy Day is definitely another one of my favorites that I’ve seen recently.

Lynn (Ellen Barkin) is a sensitive and loving woman with an extremely troubled family. Herself, her drug addicted son Elliot (Ezra Miller) and her youngest son Ben (Daniel Yelsky) are traveling to her parents’ Annapolis estate for her oldest son, Dylan (Michael Nardelli) who is getting married. Lynn hopes for a joyful reunion with her family but the ordeal turns ugly with a disturbed Elliot throwing verbal grenades at his mother every which way and whenever possible, her daughter Alice (Kate Bosworth) trying to keep the demons of her past under control, her sociopathic mother and volatile sisters, and her ex-husband bringing along his hot-tempered wife Patty (Demi Moore), who believes she is Dylan’s mother because of Lynn’s absence in Dylan’s life.

The entire movie was incredibly interesting. It was one of those crazy family reunion movies that escalate with drama until the very end. The movie was serious yet funny, and I found myself feeling sympathy for some characters and hatred for others. And I especially felt sympathy for Lynn, who gets all of the crap thrown at her through the whole movie.

Lynn’s children may have been the most interesting characters, though, in my opinion. Elliot is addicted to any kind of drug he can get his hands on, Ben has autism, and Alice has had troubles with suicide and cutting herself. But oddly enough, Dylan seems to be completely normal having lived a different life than the rest of his siblings.

There isn’t anything that I didn’t like about the film, and I especially like it when you can find a character in a movie that you hate and love because you can identify with the character and put yourself in their shoes. I also liked that there were little bursts of comedy throughout the movie that took the weight off your shoulders from all of the drama.

I would highly recommend this movie if you love movies about families, and family feuds, and dramatic-comedies. And I also just recommend it because it was really, really good. Go watch it!

‘Afterschool’

(2008)

Starring: Ezra Miller, Jeremy Allen White, Addison Timlin

My rating: ★★★

This was one of the movies that I’ve watched recently that I can’t say I didn’t like, but can’t say that I loved. I have mixed feelings toward it.

Afterschool is about an internet addicted prep school student named Robert (Ezra Miller), who, while conducting a project for his video class, catches the death of two girls from a drug overdose in the schools hallway. The film dwells on how the school deals with the death of the girls and how Robert himself deals with the trauma for being the witness to it. Robert also struggles with his friendships with his roommate Dave (Jeremy Allen White) and his new love interest Amy (Addison Timlin).

The movie was interesting, but probably the most boring movie I’d ever seen at the same time. Interesting, because of the plot, the plot was actually really interesting and i think it was the story that kept me sitting in front of my laptop watching it. Boring, because everything in the movie seemed too quiet, and the whole thing was just very awkward. The camera seemed to stall on random things while someone talked or it would stall on something for no particular reason. It was weird, i don’t quite know how to explain it. The acting was perfectly fine; it actually resembled what school can be like sometimes.

I think I would only recommend this film if you like Indie films or films with less talking and more acting. Like i said, it was good, but it wasn’t… but it was.

“She’s different in every way.”

(2011)

Starring: Rooney Mara, Daniel Craig, Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsgaard

My Rating: ★★★★★

I can safely say that this was the best movie I had seen in 2011.

A Journalist, Mikael Blomkvist, (Played by Daniel Craig) is insisted by Henrik Vanger (Played by Christopher Plummer) to investigate the murder and disappearance of his niece, Harriet Vanger, who has been missing for forty years. Blomkvist is aided in his research by Lisbeth Salander (Played by Rooney Mara), a 25-year old computer hacker.

I saw the movie in the theatres. Funny thing was we weren’t ‘old enough’ to see it, so they didn’t allow us in… What do you do when something like that happens? You buy tickets to War Horse. But you don’t see War Horse. If you know what I mean.

Of course we went into the theatre anyway thinking to ourselves “It can’t be that bad, geez, they overreact with these movie rating things. What is the absolute worst that could happen in this movie that we haven’t already seen?”

About half way through, we understood why it was R-Rated. When they say intense sexual scenes and violence, they mean it.

But I digress, this movie was fantastic. The balance of mystery and action and suspense all together made the plotline fantastic. There wasn’t a single point in the film that I was bored. The plot was intriguing and the characters especially were intriguing.

Of course there were a lot of different scenes that made me squirm because of their intensity, but they weren’t so intense to the point where they became stupid. They started and ended at appropriate times, they only lasted long enough to leave an effect on you, not disturb you to the point where you want to leave the movie. Every scene was flawless with the mystery and the action and the suspense.

I’ve seen the original Swedish version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and don’t get me wrong; Noomi Rapace was a great Lisbeth Salander. But, Rooney Mara was about a million times better, in my opinion. She had the look, the voice, the attitude, the body, everything. She was my favorite characte and favorite part of the movie, not because of all that, but because she was pretty bad ass.

Rooney and Daniel Craig were a perfect pairing for Blomkvist and Salander. They had chemistry, and they were comical, which made the film.

I would see it again and again if I could. But there’s absolutely no doubt that I won’t be purchasing it when it comes out.