40 Guilt Trips on Jack Reacher's Unexpected Journey
Sunday, December 23, 2012 at 4:30PM 
(Why do I like stringing movie titles together in blog post titles? I know not!) The box office charts were exceptionally boring this weekend so I shan't regurgitate them. Let it suffice to say that moviegoers weren't enthused. The weekend was weak for all of the new releases from Tom Cruise's Jack Reacher, to Babs & Seth's The Guilt Trip and the one where Paul Rudd stands in for Judd Apatow in his plotless interminably long home movies. This is 40 is not without laughs but good lord it is indulgent... the 134 minute comedy has so many continuous subplots and so little in the way of a central plot that it plays exactly like a tv series marathon with the credits removed. TV is free to watch and Apatow was better at it (Freaks & Geeks > than all Apatow movies combined. Discuss) so one wishes he'd return.
The most exciting titles are waiting for Christmas Day openings (Django, Les Miz) or have opened in less than 20 theaters (Amour, The Impossible, Zero Dark Thirty, On the Road) to taunt you with their elusivity.
I'd ask you what you went to this weekend but you probably rented a movie, right?
But never mind all that.
Look at this cute teaser poster for Pedro Almodóvar's airplane-set comedy I'm So Excited! (thx to Txus for showing me). Makes me want to fly right to 2013 and skip all this Oscar crap.
Time for an impromptu pol!
Reader Comments (14)
I saw Rust and Bone this weekend yo
yeah me too. finally got here. i'm getting tired o the new releases to get to my city. i might wait for everything on netlfix and so be it.
"En salas lo antes posible" actually means "in theatres as soon as possible". Yes, please!
I saw The Sessions and End of Watch and liked them both. Love John Hakwes and Bill Macy in general and here they work so well together. I'm glad for all the kudos Helen is receiving. They're well-deserved.
End of Watch was so watchable and well-acted, but wouldn't you switch the characters fate at the end?
You can't write-up about Almodovar's previous films until I've seen them all.
Tie Me Up Tie Me Down
The Skin I Live In
Kika
Volver
All About My Mother
Talk to Her
Broken Embraces
I haven't seen the rest. Don't ruin them by talking about them too soon. Wait for me to give the signal!
Saw Anna Karenina last night and HOLY FUCK but that movie is gorgeous. I was not as in love with it as I wanted to be, but it was still pretty damn good. Alicia Vikander is the stand-out, but I have to say that Keira Knightley has never been better. Anna is a very difficult character to portray on film, especially towards the end, but I felt the difficulty of each and every decision she had to make, and understood her choices in a way that other onscreen Annas haven't been able to do. And seriously, the costumes and production design. WOW.
The plan is to see The Hobbit on Christmas Eve and (of course) Les Mis on Christmas Day.
In between all these I may or may not watch Magic Mike again. And again. And... well, you get the idea (I finally took the plunge into Blu-Ray and needless to say this was the first one I bought - for the extended dance sequences). Talk about a movie that only improves on multiple viewings.
Si. I find myself oddly resistant to Almodovar's charm (I say that understanding it could get me banished from this site forever), but I've always wanted to get to know him better despite this. If you did a retrospective, it would give me a great excuse to join in. So I guess I voted selfishly.
Hollywood just discovered how much the "gay man who has a crush on seth rogen" dollar is worth. Good, more for me then.
This is fun, I tried to write about every Almodóvar's film in September, for his birthday, and I saw all his movies again (Pepi, Luci, Bom... for the first time) but I didn't found Folle, Folle, Fólleme Tim, and I tried really hard to find it :( at the end, I gave up, and I postponed to the release of Los Amantes Pasajeros. I wrote all the articles, but I didn't post them, because is not a full retrospective without his first film.
So, do it! I would totally read it.
I just this second saw a commercial for This Is 40 that said it was a Golden Globe nominee for Best actress Leslie Mann. Weird, right? I just rewound the TiVo to be sure I saw it right.
In other news, I saw Lincoln today and, apart from Day-Lewis, don't see what all the fuss is about.
I saw "This Is 40" Friday night and thought it was great. Leslie Mann should be working more. It's too bad that this film has that "flop" stench attached to it, b/c she doesn't deserve that, and neither does Paul Rudd. Oh well.
I saw the same advert, Mike! I'm also from Canada, maybe she was nominated for a Canadian Golden Globe :S (I kid ...)
LOVE the almodovar idea, Nat!! Just watched "Women on the Verge..." the other day and fell in love with him all over again! Its always so impressive how consistent, yet refreshing, he has stayed over his 30-40 year career
I was on a private premiere, and didn't read the book. I liked the Usual Suspect and I kinda love the Tom, so I wasn't too skeptical but not too enthusiastic either... And what a surprise! I wanted to do this my first IMDb review because I genuinely enjoyed the movie a lot! It's a clever blend of thriller and an action movie. A bit cheesy sometimes but the plot is good, acting is just right and believable. And not unnecessary too long! Dialog are smooth, not too humorous or cliché, and some action scene are just so vivid! In a time where everything rely so much on CGI, I enjoy a realistic, "old school", approach of the kind! Well... Now I'm looking forward reading the books!
Glenn, them thar's fightin' words. Seth Rogen is mine. Totally my type!
I also did see "The Guilt Trip" for my Christmas Eve Birthday present. Love them both, but this was cute if unexceptional. Sitcom TV directing and a script that could have used some more punch. Check it out as a rainy day movie, but don't expect too much.
Would love to see what TFE would do with a countdown to Almodovar's filmography. If you need/want any contributions help, I gladly offer my services. He's crucial for my dissertation and thus I screened all of them last year (except for Dark Habits which I couldn't locate anywhere!)