Dark Skies (2013)

Sooner or Later, When They’re Ready, They Will Take Your Family.

At the behest of my friend Tiffany, I decided to watch a movie I believed I had never heard of. When I started looking into it a little more, it turned out I actually did know what it was from the trailers, but decided I had zero interest in seeing it. I had an idea of what they were going for from what I had seen, and most of it seemed like what it was trying to call scary looked more goofy than anything else. But this was a legitimate request, and that requires a legitimate review. Plus, it seemed to be fate, since this movie started with the same Arthur C. Clarke quote about not being alone in the universe as X-Com, the game I started playing at exactly the same time. The quotes even popped up on screen about the same time! So I rented it and I present you with my review of Dark Skies, written and directed by Scott Stewart, and starring Keri Russell, Josh Hamilton, Dakota Goyo, Kadan Rockett, and J.K. Simmons.

The Barrett family – father Daniel (Josh Hamilton), mother Lacy (Keri Russell), eldest son Jesse (Dakota Goyo) and youngest son Sammy (Kadan Rockett) – are troubled. Daniel is unemployed and can’t get a job, Lacy is too honest to sell a house, Jesse is hanging out with an older kid who gets him to smoke weed and touch a girl’s titties, and Sammy pees himself and screams in public. The very last thing they’d need is a bunch of strange occurrences and alien invaders. But we do have a movie to make here, so let’s get some birds crashing into the house, let’s get Lacy to smack her face repeatedly against a window, let’s get Daniel bleeding from the nose and making strange faces, and the kids can have a few spazzy moments and bruises on their bodies. Sound good? Alright, break!

I was not a fan of this movie. Nor was I a fan of anything this director has brought to the world. He made Legion and Priest, two exceptionally mediocre action movies. This time he brought us an exceptionally mediocre thriller movie. I have been criticized before for reviewing something that I wasn’t contributing very much attention to, but I found that I couldn’t help it here. This movie just really wasn’t interesting. They spend an awful lot of time dealing with family issues, and that was just boring. And mostly didn’t even bother making sense. They’re having financial problems but they still invest in a brand new security camera system for the entire house? I understand wanting to know what is causing the troubles in your house, but you’ve spent the entire movie talking about how broke you are. You talk about getting rid of cable! I guess you have something to watch either way, so if you’re making the choice, go with the CCTV. None of the alien stuff made much sense either. At first, the aliens are just dicks. They come in and build towers out of food stuffs and pull all of the pictures out of the frames? The just want to pester humans? I agree with J. K. Simmons’ logic when he says that the aliens travelled hundreds of light years to get to Earth, so moving a couple of miles down the street or staying in a hotel room wouldn’t keep you safe from them. What I don’t agree with is saying that they have the ability to fight back. Especially when their version of fighting back is the Signs principle of fighting back. Hundreds of light years travelled, but boarded up windows, a dog, and a shotgun will fix them up real good. If only they had some random cups of water lying all over the place because of some other annoying brat, this movie would’ve had a different ending. I also didn’t appreciate how they handled the ending. The actual ending notwithstanding, what happened afterwards was irritating. They had Lacy looking through pictures and remembering thing the family had said and things Simmons had said that would indicate that Jesse was going to be taken instead of Sammy, as they previously thought. But why bother acting like this is significant information? He’s already been taken. If the whole family had made it through and THEN you started looking through the stuff, only to find out he just got abducted, then I would accept your tactics.

The performances never really made any positive impact on me. Josh Hamilton came off as mostly douche, as most husbands do in these kinds of movies. The woman usually figures out what’s going on long before the man does, and he remains incredulous despite her pleas. He acts like she was insane after he was just standing outside with a stupid look on his face and blood pouring from his nose. The blood was still crusting on his face as he told her how ludicrous she was. He even used the line, “Who are you and where is my wife?” Come on! The 80’s called, and they want their joke back. And the one I just used to mock the original joke. Keri Russell did well enough through the movie, but the part where she banged her head against the window was more goofy than anything else. I get the feeling that this was not their intention. Neither of the kids made any impact on me whatsoever.

Dark Skies is an entirely skippable movie. It’s not at all interesting, and most of what they attempt by way of scares turns out goofy. Most of the movie makes little to no sense and it ends with a whimper, though the greater majority of the movie was one long whimper. The performances only managed to fit into the stereotypes of this kind of movie. Basically what I’m saying is there is no reason I can think of to watch this movie. It’s not the worst thing ever, and wouldn’t be painful for you to watch. It just has nothing of value. Dark Skies gets “Either we are alone in the universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying” out of “I don’t know whether to be pissed or impressed.”

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Young Adult (2011)

Guys Like Me Are Born Loving Women Like You

Today’s movie is another film I wanted to see, but mainly because of one of the people in it.  And it wasn’t even the star.  I wanted to see this movie because Patton Oswalt was in it, and I love him.  But one thing that kind of held me back was that it didn’t seem like a comedy, like I would normally like to see Patton doing.  He’s a hilarious guy, after all.  It seemed more like a drama, so I wasn’t really down for that.  But I saw it a couple of times in a RedBox, so I finally decided that I should just go ahead and watch the movie and find out.  And then, during the opening credits, I found out it was written by Diablo Cody, so I got a little more bummed out for what I was in for.  I watched it anyway, so here’s my review of Young Adult, written by Diablo Cody, directed by Jason Reitman, and starring Charlize Theron, Patton Oswalt, Patrick Wilson, Elizabeth Reaser, Collette Wolfe, Jill Eikenberry, Mary Beth Hurt, and J.K. Simmons.

Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron) is a ghost writer on the once-popular Waverly Prep series of young adult novels.  That’s where the title of the movie comes from!  She is in the process of writing the final book in the series when she receives an email inviting her to come and see the newborn daughter of her high school boyfriend, Buddy Slade (Patrick Wilson), and his wife, Beth (Elizabeth Reaser).  Eventually, Mavis’ psychosis leads her to believe this is a sign that she needs to return to her home town of Mercury, Minnesota to save Buddy from the situation he’s trapped in.  She reconnects with a guy she went to high school with named Matt Freehauf (Patton Oswalt).  Matt was disabled in high school after being brutally beaten because some jocks believed he was gay.  He wasn’t, but he was crippled in the process nonetheless.  He currently lives with his sister, Sandra (Collette Wolfe), and does a pretty convincing impression of Patton Oswalt by being fairly nerdy and painting action figures.  Though Matt tries to talk Mavis out of it, she starts to make her moves to convince Buddy to leave his wife for her.

I feel somewhat close to saying that this movie was good in spite of Diablo Cody’s writing.  The movie left me pretty confused, but not for the same reason’s as yesterday’s movie.  This movie just didn’t seem to have a point.  At the end of the movie everyone is pretty much exactly the same as when the movie began, so it seems like it probably shouldn’t have taken an hour and a half to get back to where we started.  I’m sure El Diablo wants to break from the overused traditions of “character arc”, but it just makes the movie pointless.  There’s not really a message to the movie, there’s no resolution to the movie, so why did I watch it?  I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy it; I did.  But I don’t think what I liked has much to do with The Devil Cody.  It’s not very funny and the main character is not likeable, so I only like spending time with her because she’s so attractive.  I can only relate to her in one way, so I’m not that committed.  And the way I can relate to her is that we have the same writing style.  And by that I mean we write a sentence and then get distracted by something on the internet for an hour.  But I’m not an alcoholic, I’m not a FAMOUS writer, I’m not a super attractive lady, I don’t go around trying to mess up people’s relationships, so I don’t really care what happens to her because she’s not a very good human being and I can’t put myself in her shoes.  There’s only one thing that surprised me in the movie and it happened at the very end so ::SPOILER ALERT::  Charlize has sex with Patton Oswalt.  Good show, old boy!  When I started watching the movie, I actually wrote in my notes that there was a slim chance that Patton would end up with Charlize, so I was really surprised when it happened.  It would be an inspiration to nerdy, unappealing guys like myself that someone as gorgeous as Charlize Theron would actually have sex with us … after she had just humiliated herself in front of the friends and family of her ex-boyfriend and she needed a rebound.  But hey, I’d take it.  But Dildablo Cody doesn’t want to have character arcs and story in her movies, so she gets up and leaves Patton in bed the next morning, going back home to wait for someone else she blew in high school to casually mention they had a baby.  ::END SPOILERS::

Writing aside, the real thing to enjoy about this movie is the performances.  It’s no surprise that Charlize Theron’s a great actress.  Most of us have seen her do it before.  She really does inhabit this character and makes it real, and kind of makes you feel sorry for her even though she’s not a very likeable character.  I think it’s always a fascination when people that are super gorgeous let themselves be filmed in less than flattering ways for movies.  She got a lot of attention for that in Monster, where she let herself get fat and icky and practically unrecognizable.  In this one, she still had a slammin’ body and was gorgeous, but had a lot of scenes where she woke up with her makeup all fucked up.  But it’s not all physical with her; she’s also very good.  She doesn’t get naked though, so that’s a bummer.  You see her in her underwear, with some weird kind of strapless bra that seemed to be stuck to her boobs.  Is that a real thing?  ‘Cause it’s icky.  Patton Oswalt is also worth mentioning, because he was very real in his role.  There are similarities to the real Patton (as far as I know him), but he also does a much better job than I would’ve expected from someone who’s primary profession was not acting.  Patrick Wilson was pretty good, but not really the focus of the movie even though he was the driving part of the story.  Elizabeth Reaser and Collette Wolfe only really made an impact because I was trying to figure out where I knew them from, and when I figured out that it was Twilight and Hot Tub Time Machine I stopped paying attention.

This is a movie that I liked in spite of itself, but I can’t imagine that I’ll ever want to watch it again.  The story makes the movie feel pointless, and the main character is mostly unlikeable, but it’s held together by the quality of it’s cast.  I got the movie for a dollar from RedBox, and I don’t regret it, but I also didn’t like the movie nearly enough to purchase it.  My recommendation would be for you to pick it up from the RedBox and find out for yourself.  I don’t imagine anyone would hate the movie, but I could see some people loving it.  Young Adult gets “Sometimes, in order to heal, a few people have to get hurt” out of “We can beat this thing together.”

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Juno (2007)

Pregnancy Can Often Lead to an Infant

I did my best to keep at arm’s length from this movie for no reason other than it seemed artsy and pretentious.  As we know from my review of Rushmore, I don’t like those movies.  The movie getting talked about so much did nothing to make me want to see it before I was reviewing movies, but now that I am it seems like it’s not the wisest stance to not want to see movies because they’re popular.  That being the case, I finally allowed today’s movie to reach the top of my Netflix queue.  This movie stars a lot of people that I’m fond of, but was written by someone I’ve no interest in, so let’s see how it worked out.  Juno was written by – and it pains me to type this – Diablo Cody, directed by Jason Reitman, and starring Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, J.K. Simmons, Allison Janney, Olivia Thirlby, Rainn Wilson, Valerie Tian, Kaaren de Zilva, and Sierra Pitkin.

Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page) is a 16-year-old high school student in Minnesota with a bit of a problem on her hands … or, more accurately, in her womb: she’s preggers.  Having decided on a whim to have sex with her friend Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera) has left her eating for one more person than she’s used to.  Her original idea is to get an abortion, but she changes her mind once she finds out that her baby has fingernails and the receptionist’s boyfriend’s dick smells like pie.  She joins her friend Leah (Olivia Thirlby) in searching through the Pennysaver to find someone to give the baby to.  She finds Mark and Vanessa Loring (Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner), and decides they are the perfect couple to give her baby to.  We’ll see how well that works out.  As far as I’ve heard, underage teenage pregnancies tend to work out pretty well.

I’m beginning to wonder about my mood recently, because it seems like it’s been a while since I last watched a movie that I found funny.  The last one was probably Cliffhanger.  Either way, I can’t say that I found this movie that funny, but it did play quirky very well.  The story of the movie was pretty good, but did not have any surprises that I could see.  You know that Juno isn’t going to go for the abortion because that would mean the movie would be pretty well over in the first 15 minutes.  You can easily assume a happy ending to most of these kinds of movie, and you get it here.  It works out mostly like I thought it would.  They throw a couple of speed bumps down along the way for Juno, but nothing too serious until the very end, and even that doesn’t really change the course of the movie.  I did wonder how the adoption thing would turn out, though.  When we first met Mark and Vanessa, it made it a little harder to predict the ending of the movie.  The most obvious happy ending would be that Juno would decide to keep the baby, Bleek would marry her, and then happily ever after … but not for Mark and Vanessa.  That’s not the way they went, but they did tie it up to be a pretty happy ending for everyone.  I had problems with the dialogue, though.  It really got on my nerves in parts.  Maybe Diablo Cody and her friends would confront a 16 year old pregnant girl with a phrase like “That’s one doodle that can’t be undid, home skillet”, but most people would think it in poor taste and worse vernacular.  I certainly wouldn’t spend any time around someone that would say that.  I like Ned Flanders too, but I don’t talk like him.  They said more of these stupid little sayings in the beginning, but it was greatly toned down by the end, to the movie’s benefit.  The look of the movie was also interesting, usually being pretty colorful and with tons of little knick-knacks around the sets for the audience to look at.  I particularly liked the opening credit scene that seemed mostly hand drawn.  It was a nice look, but it made me think that whoever was responsible desperately wants to be Wes Anderson, and I don’t use that as a compliment.  I would generally think something along the lines of “take your shitty, pretentious bullshit elsewhere and make a movie”, but it was toned down to a level that wouldn’t annoy me for this movie, and I appreciated that.

The cast was all fantastic, but the characters were sometimes written in a way that made them tedious.  But you can’t really blame that on the actors.  I always like Ellen Page.  She usually gives very real performances, and this movie also shows that she can pull some funny along with the tears I’ve seen her pull before.  I did find Juno herself a little irritating at times.  I understand that she was playing a 16-year-old, but she seemed really stupid at times.  Her first conversation with Mark and Vanessa particularly, where she took “How far along” to mean “In school” and not in the pregnancy that was causing them all to meet, was cute.  I was also particularly annoyed with her misinterpretation of Greek and Roman mythology, but I blame this mainly on a certain stripper-turned-writer.  Juno claimed that her name was not from the city in Alaska, but from the Greek god that was married to Zeus.  WRONG!  Juno is the ROMAN name for the goddess Hera.  Hera was married to Zeus, but if you’re talking about the Roman versions of the gods, Juno was married to Jupiter.  I didn’t research that shit, so if you did to name your character, you should be embarrassed.  It also never made sense to me that Juno had such a hard time understanding what “sexually active” meant.  It means you are active sexually.  Not much more needed than that.  Michael Cera was a pretty small part of the movie, and he didn’t really do a lot of work in the parts he was in.  The character he plays (and seemingly the character that Michael Cera actually is) is not a very emotional person, so it’s understandable that he never had any really big freak out moments.  At the end, I did find out that Cera has a really bad singing voice.  Ellen’s was fine.  Jason Bateman was a good character in the movie, but I didn’t really appreciate the hints of his attraction to 16-year-old Juno.  If you’re going down that path, do it and get some story out of it.  But if you’re only going to hint at it and have them dance and get awkward, don’t even bother.  I’m not usually a Jennifer Garner fan (because I’ve seen Daredevil and Elektra) but I liked her in this movie.  She was mostly fairly cold and distant, but she has a couple of really good emotional scenes and seemed very real in them.  J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney were also very good as Juno’s parents, and I especially liked Allison Janney when she laid down a real classy verbal beatdown on the ultrasound technician.  I felt like they missed a good joke opportunity with Simmons, though.  Early on, he claims that he’ll punch Bleek in the dick if he sees him.  By the end, when he does see him again, he just walks on by.  That would have been a fantastic addition.

The charm of this movie elevates it higher than the somewhat predictable story and some of the poor dialogue would normally have made it.  Some of the charm comes from the writing, but I feel like the greater majority of it is from the fantastic cast.  In the end, I found myself to be much more fond of this movie than I had expected I would be going in (especially going in having already seen Jennifer’s Body), but I can’t say that I ever found it “funny”.  Then again, I may be comedically broken.  I haven’t a clue where I left my sense of humor, but I’ll get back to you.  Either way, Juno is at least worth a rental, if not a full purchase.  Juno gets “I’m already pregnant, so what other kind of shenanigans could I get into?” out of “Honest to blog?”

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