Film School: The Interview, The Hobbit, Top Five

The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies
I really enjoyed Desolation of Smaug when I saw it in theaters. Then when I caught it randomly on cable earlier this year, it was hard for me to sit through. I wasn't exactly rushing to see this one. I get why they did three Hobbit movies, all at three hours long, to sort of parallel the LOTR trilogy, but this was just too much. It was clearly a stretch to make this movie as long as it was. The movie starts in the middle of the action, and the actual battle starts very quickly, but I just felt so detached from all the characters and I forgot who was who that it was hard to root for anyone. And considering it was a Hobbit movie, very little of it had to do with Bilbo. But you don't get a final Peter Jackson movie with an ending, another ending and then ten more minutes of nonsense.

The Interview
You know what? This wasn't that bad. I really didn't like Neighbors. I thought it was such a stupid movie and poorly directed and a waste of great talent. You'd think that would be the case for The Interview. The premise is something literally only Rogen and James Franco could get greenlit. But the first half of this movie is so great. The way Randall Park, who's awesome on Veep, portrays Kim Jong Un is kind of unbelievable. This is important for two reasons. One being Park is a tremendous actor, and I look forward to his new show Fresh Off The Boat. The other being that this is the highest profile casting of an Asian American actor in Hollywood this year, and there are people that probably assumed the part would be played as if it were a South Park character or Mickey Rooney in Breakfast At Tiffany's. There's something so human about the character, and I hope that doesn't go under appreciated. Of course, the second half of the movie rushes to finish, and even I can't believe I'm complaining about the logic of a James Franco movie, but there are some good laughs here.

Top Five
I wanted to really like this movie. If it wasn't for how the movie ended, I'm not sure I would admit to liking it at all. Chris Rock is a wonderful comic. He just isn't the greatest actor. While there are other things wrong with this movie, that stuck out the most to me. I like how the movie was directed. It was clearly influenced by Woody Allen with some Richard Linklater sprinkled in. The gag with Anders Holm was a little strange, and the middle third of the movie got a little too predictable. You've got to love all the cameos though. Seinfeld in the strip club was great.

Rounders
This has been sitting in my Netflix queue for some time now, solely for its cast. I had no idea what it was about, but when the idea of a sequel came up in some podcast I was listening to, I finally got around to watching it. I had some friends get really into poker my senior year of college. I thought they just liked the possibility of winning money, but they were scheduling weekly games, reading up on strategies, studying old world series of poker games — they were really into it. After watching this movie, I realize how stupid it was for me to ever play with people that take the game this seriously. This is a fantastic movie. I think being close to serious poker players (albeit total amateurs) made it that much more interesting. Great performances by not only Damon and Norton but John Malkovich and John Turturro. Not sure that Damon does a sequel at this point in his career, but I'm all for it.

Blue Ruin
Here's a movie I saw on a bunch of year end lists last year. It is a well done movie. I feel like I've seen different variations of the guy gets revenge story or at least the guy who shoots up a storm, but this had a pretty interesting take on the trope with a lead character that didn't know anything about guns or killing people. I'm honestly most proud of myself realizing that the old high school friend with the guns is played by the dude that played Buzz McCallister in the Home Alone movies.

A Trip To Italy
I watched The Trip completely on a whim. I had recently been put on to Steve Coogan's Alan Partridge projects and I didn't know anything about Rob Brydon. It was really great, like the Before Sunrise movies with two close friends that like to do Michael Caine impressions. A Trip To Italy is even better. They play fictional versions of themselves in a way that I wish could be done with American actors we love. More impressions, too.

In A World
I will always appreciate movies that depict odd little occupations and social scenes like this one did. There's a whole crowd of people that I'm sure totally relate to it, but for others it's fun just to discover what it's like. First time director Lake Bell does a fine job. I now officially don't connect her with that awful show How To Make It In America a.k.a Entourage for people that read rap blogs in 2009.