Excitement and comedy, Almodovar-style
Oh, Almodovar: It’s hard not to like you no matter what you do. While definitely not one of his best, I’m So Excited is as deliciously kitschy as bubble gum ice cream.
A child’s dangerous fiction
It has been a long time since I’ve seen a movie that squeezed my heart and had me gripping my armrest, suffocating in the knowledge that my voice can never reach the actor on the screen. And all through the brilliant acting of a psychologically infused small-town drama.
The secret is in the sauce
Boston is famous for its fantastic fish, clam chowder, lobster, crab rolls, and oysters, but I was raised on different sort of food. My home state, Texas, is famous for its Tex-Mex and BBQ. When I get homesick for Mexican food, there are plenty of restaurants that will sort of fill the void until I can go home. But when I’m craving real BBQ, when all I want is a brisket sandwich on jalapeño toast and drenched in sauce, I can only sigh, think of home, and move on. The other day, though, I happened to walk by Sweet Cheeks Q, a restaurant near Fenway proclaiming Texas-style BBQ. I had to stop in right away. What I found both delighted and disappointed me.
I don’t really care who you are
I love Jason Sudeikis. He’s one of my favorites in the SNL cast: I think he does a great Romney impression, and his Joe Biden is hilarious. I like Jennifer Aniston, too (I really do). And I like comedy movies (Meet the Parents killed me) and movies about drug trafficking (Traffic is among my favorite movies ever). So I was expecting to like We’re the Millers. You could even say I wanted to like it. But I didn’t. I am sorry to say, but I did not like it. Yes, I laughed a few times, but as a whole, as a package, the movie just didn’t fly for me.
See Denzel and Mark have fun with guns
Even though its A-list cast of Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg made me anticipate something along the lines of Man on Fire or Three Kings, it was clear five minutes into 2 Guns that, even though it would have lots of action and a maybe a pinch of drama, this movie was — plain and simple — a laugh-out loud comedy. So I quickly adapted my expectations accordingly, and I am happy to report that I had more fun watching it than any other movie I’ve seen in a long time. 2 Guns is a blast! It’s so honestly funny and packed with good, old action that I’d pay to see it again.
Just what it says on the tin
I convinced myself to go see Pacific Rim with the excuse that I’m a fan of its director, Guillermo del Toro. Both The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth blew me out of the water, so I said to myself, “I have to go see this.” But I think somewhere inside me I already knew that this movie would turn out to be what the banners and trailers advertised: a WWZ-like fighting fest of giant robots vs. giant monsters. Alas, my gut feeling was right.
Of orcas and corporations
Blackfish is, by far, the best documentary I have seen this year, and — I would say — it is in the top 10 best documentaries I’ve ever seen in my life. If you think I saying this because I am some sort of activist, think again. The reason I would recommend that you watch Blackfish has nothing to do with the any activism like saving the whales: it has to do with the truth, with the need that we as a society have for the truth, and with how interests converge to keep you away from this truth, in darkness.
“Radioactive” rockstars return to Boston
To my left, the stormy horizon was just visible from underneath the sweeping white canopy of the Bank of America Pavilion. The sun had just sunk out of sight, its last glow illuminating the clouds with dark red and orange colors. Before me, the stage lights followed suit, letting the stage sink into darkness. A cool breeze drifted in. Behind me, the voices of five thousand people faded to an expectant murmur…
A mournful and nostalgic musical experience
Making sentient albums and coloring them with distinct personalities that incite a vast range of emotions upon every listen is, if done successfully, a tricky, but rewarding artistic attempt. Some of these albums, like Planningtorock’s overlooked debut album Have It All, are extroverts — they reach out to you with their lovable eccentricities embodied in their lyrics and music, while giving their essence to you. Other ones, like Björk’s album Vespertine, are introverts — these absorb and isolate you with their slowly-unraveling and unreachable sounds, while luring your essence and then trapping it within their realm. And then there are those free-roaming spirits, like Anna Von Hausswolff’s newest album Ceremony, that simply take you on an unpredictable journey, enriched with both mysterious and tangible emotions, while offering you a taste of vicarious memories.
Mending Boston at MIT Museum
At the beginning of July, the MIT Museum hosted an afternoon of sewing-with-fabric artist Clara Wainwright. The project, Mending Boston, aims to bring community members together and “mend” their souls while collaborating on a fabric collage. Wainwright began Mending Boston after the Boston Marathon tragedy, spending many hours working on the piece with visitors to community centers and museums throughout Greater Boston, who wished to honor victims of the bombing.
We watched this film so you don’t have to
Dennis Dugan and Adam Sandler’s latest film opens with Lenny Feder (Sandler) telling a joke comparing his wife’s (Salma Hayek) Mexican mother to a moose that has wandered into their house. Then — and here’s the kicker — the moose urinates on him. If you are not falling out of your seat laughing by this point in the film, you’re in for a long 101 minutes.
New exhibitions of prints and drawings at the Museum of Fine Arts
Prints and drawings are two of my favorite art media. Something about them is deceptively simple — they comprise only a few dollars’ worth of graphite and paper, yet a priceless amount of artistic talent. For anyone who feels the same, or just wants to get out of the heat for an afternoon, three interesting new exhibits await you at the MFA.
On how Logan got his groove back
Within the X-Men universe Logan/Wolverine enjoys a privileged sort of position, comparable to that of Iron Man in The Avengers universe. After multiple X-Men movies with the whole cast, Hugh Jackman was itching to make a movie or two about Wolverine. On his own. And the promise, the potential, of grandeur was there. This potential has only been partly satisfied.
Turning up the heat
The premise of The Heat is a simple one — an unlikely pair of detectives is forced to team up in order to take down a ring of dangerous drug dealers. With Sandra Bullock playing an FBI agent angling for a promotion, and Melissa McCarthy as a Boston police officer with anger management problems, The Heat begins to sound a little too much like Miss Congeniality 2 meets 21 Jump Street. But while the movie is predictable, it is far from stale — director Paul Feig (Bridesmaids) steps back to let Bullock and McCarthy unroll their comedic chemistry.
Kanye West’s new album saturated with narcissism
I never understood the Kanye West mania — not because I’m some music snob who does not appreciate rap and hip hop, but because I have enough guts to follow my instincts and speak up when over-hyped contemporary music is worthless. I am not a connoisseur of rap music, and I may not be able to recognize all the nuances of hip hop, but when I do listen to these genres, I am certain that I listen to praiseworthy artists. For example, I love OutKast and I think that every bit of their acclaimed success was well deserved. During the summer before my senior year of high school, I spent most of my afternoons listening to The Roots’ How I Got Over on repeat. If you play Missy Elliott’s “Work It,” I will (mostly unsuccessfully) rap along. And, while I am not their greatest fan, I love listening to Q-Tip, Nas, Mos Def and Talib Kweli when I get a craving for some good beats.
CHVRCHES and Still Corners
The Scottish synth-pop band Chvrches (usually stylized as CHVRCHES) released their first EP Recover this March to very positive reviews, and just recently embarked on their first U.S. tour. Taking the London-based musical project Still Corners along with them, the band paid Boston a visit last month to play some of their acclaimed songs and present forthcoming album material.
Cult espionage
The East is a movie for our times. It grounds its narrative in the complexity of the two ubiquitous evils of our capitalist societies. The first is negative externalities — power companies make more money if they skimp on environmental measures, thus polluting the water you have to drink. The other is moral hazards — a pharmaceutical company downplays the side effects of a drug in order to boost its sales.
A recruitment ad for Google
Wedding crashers Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn team up again in Shawn Levy’s feel-good buddy flick about two underdogs with no technical skills who talk their way into a summer internship program at Google and show that spirit can overcome even the most difficult of projects. Nick (Wilson) and Billy (Vaughn) are watch salesmen who lose their jobs and face a bleak future in which their sales skills can’t translate into anything other than selling mattresses for a scumbag boss. Billy somehow lands them an interview for internships at Google, The committee decides that hiring two charismatic guys with “life experience” who humorously BS-ed their way out of actually answering the interview question represents a nod to diversity at a company where everyone else is too predictably educated.
Superman: the man, the hero — and the genre
Man of Steel is a Superman movie. I don’t mean just with regards to its subject, but as a definition of the genre. And, even though it is a good movie, the self-imposed constraints it followed to fall square within that genre make it a good-enough movie, when it could have been — or at least I was hoping it would be — a great movie. The plot of the movie suffices to keep it afloat, although I do think the city-wrecking fighting went on for too long. The special effects are well-executed, even if the shaky-camera trick may have been overused.
A poignant tale of unsettling compromises
One afternoon during last fall, I came back from class exhausted and frustrated by the never-ending amount of studying and homework waiting for me. I decided to relax and watch a movie that would require minimum mental attachment, which for some reason always helps to clear my mind. I remembered my friend telling me to watch some romantic movie from the 90s called Before Sunrise. I wasn’t very picky at that moment, so I found the movie, made some mood-elevating dinner and sat down for a session of good old leisure.