It’s the good, the bad and the ugly this week. Enough Said is a cute one, Fifth Estate the badly done Assange story, and ugly, well that would be Jackass presents Bad Grandpa. Who knew I would be laughing at fart jokes this week, but hey it surprised me.
(My movie Pick of the week)
Enough Said ★★★ ½
Opens in Australia: 14th November, 2013
Other Countries: Release Information
Perth, Australia: See at Luna Cinemas
OUR THOUGHTS
This is a pretty cute film. I like the setup and it’s rather prophetic in that the character, Eva, played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, keeps hassling the love interest Albert (James Gandolfini) about his weight. As we know, sadly, Gandolfini died this year from a heart attack. I am struggling to say a lot about Enough Said, though, because it’s a film like most of these indie romantic comedies… the acting is wonderful, its good, not great, you won’t hate it, you won’t love it. You probably won’t even remember it in a year.After I saw it, it created the question for me: Should film going patrons pay the same price for this film, that clearly didn’t cost much to make, as Thor The Dark World costing hundreds of millions? I don’t think so. And that’s why indie films like Enough Said will come and go with few people seeing them, which is a shame because they deserve their audience but that audience should be charged accordingly.
STUDIO BLURB
Directed by Nicole Holofcener, starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, James Gandolfini (in one of his final film roles), Catherine Keener & Toni Collette.
A divorced and single parent, Eva (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) spends her days enjoying work as a masseuse but dreading her daughter's impending departure for college. While at a party she meets Albert (James Gandolfini) - a sweet, funny and like-minded man also facing an empty nest. As their romance blossoms, Eva befriends Marianne (Catherine Keener), her new massage client. Marianne is a beautiful poet who seems "almost perfect" except for one prominent quality: she spends much of her time complaining about her ex-husband’s annoying habits. Suddenly it all comes together as Eva realizes that Albert is Marianne’s ex and finds herself doubting her own relationship with Albert as she learns the “truth” about him from Marianne!
Jackass presents Bad Grandpa ★★★ ½ stars
Opens in Australia: 14th November, 2013
Other Countries: Release Information
OUR THOUGHTS
How can “so wrong” be so right. My first thought when I received the invite to Bad Grandpa was, Nope, not my cup of tea, but I’ve a teenage boy and I thought, maybe he would like it. So, I relented and toodled off to the preview expecting to bemoan a waste of time while I sat through stupid antics by idiotic people. Well, wasn’t I surprised? It is very funny, although some of the gags didn’t hit home as much as the filmmakers thought they might. Included are a couple of scenes so funny your stomach will hurt. The audience with us laughed uproariously throughout. If you are Jackass fan add an extra star to my review. Overall, not bad Mr Knoxville. I am still not a Jackass fan but Grandpa isn’t so bad.STUDIO BLURB
86 year-old Irving Zisman is on a journey across America with the most unlikely companion, his 8 year-old Grandson Billy in "Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa." This October, the signature Jackass character Irving Zisman (Johnny Knoxville) and Billy (Jackson Nicoll) will take movie audiences along for the most insane hidden camera road trip ever captured on camera. Along the way Irving will introduce the young and impressionable Billy to people, places and situations that give new meaning to the term childrearing. The duo will encounter male strippers, disgruntled child beauty pageant contestants (and their equally disgruntled mothers), funeral home mourners, biker bar patrons and a whole lot of unsuspecting citizens. (c) Paramount
The Fifth Estate ★★ ½
Opens in Australia: 14th November, 2013
Other Countries: Release Information
OUR THOUGHTS
I found this a very dull version of the Julian Assange story. In fact, I am uncertain whether I want to know more about this man. I’ve seen several films this year about him, and nobody seems to have pinned down what he is really about. “Damages” scriptwriters quite blatantly used Assange as a basis for their main antagonist in their last season. He comes across as a creep who cares about nobody. In this one, the writers offer a line suggesting he has Asperger’s. Yes Benedict Cumberbatch is good as Assange in a creepy sort of way, but by the end of the film I felt like I’d seen a very shallow take on a man who must be, in reality, a complicated, layered human being. This is a very unsatisfying and one dimensional film that has a couple of exciting bits and that’s it. STUDIO BLURB
Triggering our age of high-stakes secrecy, explosive news leaks and the trafficking of classified information, WikiLeaks forever changed the game. Now, in a dramatic thriller based on real events, "The Fifth Estate" reveals the quest to expose the deceptions and corruptions of power that turned an Internet upstart into the 21st century's most fiercely debated organization. The story begins as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and his colleague Daniel Domscheit-Berg (Daniel Brühl) team up to become underground watchdogs of the privileged and powerful. On a shoestring, they create a platform that allows whistleblowers to anonymously leak covert data, shining a light on the dark recesses of government secrets and corporate crimes. Soon, they are breaking more hard news than the world's most legendary media organizations combined. But when Assange and Berg gain access to the biggest trove of confidential intelligence documents in U.S. history, they battle each other and a defining question of our time: what are the costs of keeping secrets in a free society-and what are the costs of exposing them?"(c) Disney
What have you seen this week? Did you find our comments helpful or do you disagree? Share your thoughts with us.
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