The Trey Irby Review Archive

I thought the beginning part with Meat Loaf was fantastic and that this would be a great parody of rock operas like Tommy. Towards the end, though, it felt very slipshod. Most of the jokes fall flat, though, a few work. But worst of all, there seems to be a lot of filler scenes. The segments feel like they would’ve been in better place on the old HBO show as opposed to a film. Just a bit too disappointing.

I’m not even gonna lie, I can’t tell you what I got out of this bar a story about a guy who manages to find some form of release and happiness, but I liked it, even if the film has a horrid reputation for being overhyped. Admittedly, a lot of the points come off as sort of silly (the “man suit” scene, for anyone who has seen it), but it’s good food for thought and I thought the acting was top-notch.

It was a bit too overbearing in the first frames, but the movie becomes more and more touching and despite its quirks, it definitely feels real. Ellen Page is great at being both sarcastic and closed off and at the same time just as vulnerable and it’s an amazing performance. And everyone else fit fantastically with the movie including Jennifer Garner, who really surprised me the most. I expected greatness out of everyone except her. Admittedly, the dialogue did get a bit too one-linery at times. Still, I even bought that as the nature of Juno’s character to be smarmy. Just a solid movie all around.

In Hollywood, there is something commonly referred to as the “suspension of disbelief”. Mainly because every movie, regardless of how hard the script supervisor department works, will have errors. The best films have the errors you never notice. However, in a film as cliche and formulaic as Michael Mayer’s Flicka, it’s hard to keep your attention to the simple girl loves horse plot.

For one, what in the world is Alison Lohman doing here? After amazing work in Big Fish and Matchstick Men and even making weak efforts like Where The Truth Lies bearable (admittedly for more than her acting), she goes for a script with nothing for her to do but pout and cry. More importantly, she doesn’t get a chance to really grow up here. And for an actress that this year turned 28 years old, and mostly has played teens for her acting career, I wanna see that grown-up role.

I could argue the same thing for Maria Bello and Tim McGraw. Bello is a downright amazing actress with the right script, and one certainly without inhibitions. But I guess those indie movies where she bears her soul and her body don’t pay much, so good that she got a check. Meanwhile, McGraw I think has so much more potential. I actually thought he did great in Friday Night Lights and it’d be nice to see him dip for an indie flick maybe as he slows down his career. But here, it’s more or less him playing the cliche overbearing father.

Most importantly, it’s hard to see what anyone would see from a bad script by (among other projects) Superman IV writers Mark Rosenthal and Lawrence Konner. And to answer the suspension of disbelief point, it’s kind of hard to concentrate on the script when the story’s just not engrossing. Instread I noticed Lohman is so obviously not 18 nor her brother of college age. Both look about 30 and judging from McGraw and Bello’s looks, their parents are playing the hottest 40 year-olds ever to grace a ranch in Wyoming. That just distracted me way too much.

But eh, if you like staring at horses for an hour and a half and don’t care that you’re seeing the same thing again, then watch it.

Consider me stunned…Roger Kumble made an amazing film with Ryan Phillippe and Sarah Michelle Gellar being the leads. And somehow his writing and outright stylishness with the story managed to make the fact that Phillippe is not buyable as the sexual god he is seen as in the movie or SMG isn’t great at showing acting ability completely obsolete. Of course, he pried from the right source material, the novel used as the basis for Valmont and Dangerous Liaisons, and managed to make the twists work well. By the final fifteen minutes, you see the brilliance of the film’s payoff. Hell, soundtracking it to “Bittersweet Symphony” alone should get somebody a studio exec’s job and it does a brilliant job of saying all that’s truly left to be said. And amazingly, by the end, they actually got me to cheer for Reese Witherspoon. Bravo.

Ick. You can’t make a tender rom-com and an icky gross out comedy at once (okay, there was Superbad, but it was the exception that proved the rule) nor can you justify lots of sex as a “noble deed” when clearly it’s just a lot of sex. That and it’s just not funny. The gross out gags fall towards the lowest common denominator and the romance feels faked and towards the end, very creepy. I didn’t mind Dane and Alba’s acting but if Dane really wants to be the poor man’s Ryan Reynolds so much, maybe he should play up the asshole variant a lot more next time.

Wait wait wait, which one is supposed to be the likable one? The only character that seems to be the slightest bit emphatic towards is Linda Cardellini’s character, and honestly that’s just pity for where her career seems to be going. I get that the plot is about a bunch of losers who are supposed to be mockable, but really, what’s the point? The movie’s unfunny, so it takes away that. Allen Covert is a lying asshole in the movie, so it takes away the empathy of the main character. And yet, we’re supposed to cheer him on against the robot voice guy and take that seriously. Hell, even Jonah Hill sucking on a chick’s tit can’t save it. Kind of like Vulgar without the rape. (No wait, that’s just replaced with the main character jizzing on a chick.)

Great movie. A couple of moments where I nearly pissed myself laughing and yet I like the story’s core. Regardless of the American Pie-style “we must have sex” plot, it’s really just about two friends dealing with their own nervousness about separation. And I liked that I saw elements of both Evan and Seth that were very relatable. (Even how Seth described his sex life… *shudder*) Just a great little movie, and despite the cops stuff (which still was awesome) and the plot, a very real movie.

So yes, my past near-obsession (okay, full-on obsession) with Monica Bellucci finally led me to watching Malena. And it’s a damn good movie. Oddly enough, it holds that theme of boyhood obsession quite high, although that got to being too much at points. Ultimately, it’s a sadly telling tale of small towns. Regardless of what the setting is (1940s Italy or 2000s America), gossip is a deadly thing around small town communities and the film perfectly portrays what goes wrong when people think something and it turns out to be something else entirely. Bellucci’s performance was also extremely well done, as she played the beauty part to a tee and yet held that sympathetic nature about her. Beautiful film all around.

Charlotte Rampling gives one of the finest performances of her career by being a cold novelist in Swimming Pool, a movie where there seems to be no clear answer to much of anything, but not in a bad way. The film is engrossing throughout, whether it’s by Rampling’s titular nature or lead actress Ludavine Sagnier’s sexy performance. A solid watch, and one that really gets you into the story, even if the premise seems like a bore.