Ed's Review Dot Com

Tiny Ponies,

Lena Dunham, Laurie Simmons, Grace Dunham, Jemima Kirke, Alex Karpovsky, David Call, Merritt Wever, Amy Seimetz, Garland Hunter, Isen Ritchie

Aura (Lena Dunham) is a hoity-toity rich girl who has just completed college and returns home to live with her rarely home artist Mother in TriBeCa. Aura is having a self described early mid life crisis as she tries to figure out what a failure she’s been and what she’s going to do with the rest of her life.

A lot of people hated this film. You can add me to the list. Lena Dunham wrote this junk, starred in it, and directed herself. So what we have is a self indulgent bit of film. Now anyway has the right to film whatever they want. If you want to make a film about a refrigerator, setting up a camera to document the food that comes in and goes out, and how lunch meat molds, you have the right to make it. But certainly we have the right not to watch it as well. And we certainly have the right not to like it. The cover of one version of this DVD has the bold letters that says “Aura would like you to know that she’s having a very hard time”. This seems to be the point of the movie. Aura whines and complains, fights with her mother, feels ignored and left out of life, and thinks she’s really abused. You would like to smack her and say, would you like to see some people who really have problems. It seems that the “artistic” community feel that it’s fine to graduate film school, then make a film about yourself, and think it’s art.

Aura has a friend Charlotte (Jemima Kirke), who is just as self centered as Aura, and certainly is part of her problem. Then she has this live in boyfriend who lives in the house for free, sleeps all day, and doesn’t do much of anything. He’s a lump on the couch.

At one point mom is complaining about them laying around the house, eating all the food. This is my house, and it’s not a boarding house, not a bed and breakfast. She turns to Aura’s friend Charlotte and asks her. “Do you have the same sense of entitlement that my daughter has?” To which Nadine responds, “Believe me, Mine is much worse.” That, at least, is true. She is a real pain in the ass as well. Basically this is a few weeks of Lena’s life, made into a movie, for no real good purpose. I have heard people claim this is a satire on people who are like this. I can’t give them credit for that bit of brilliance, as it doesn’t come over to me in the least that it was meant as satire. If it was, then I’d give it a bit more credence, but I’m afraid it’s just a narcissistic view of her own life, and for me it doesn’t really have much meaning. I don’t feel sorry for her. I don’t get her, and she’s just annoying. She really needs to grow up, but it seems the college just doesn’t do that for kids these days. Maybe this is why we have 40 year old who still live home with their Mom.

I just think this is one of those awful self indulgent films that doesn’t go anywhere. It certainly doesn’t resonate with someone like me. 🙂

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Movie Rentals Releasing Tuesday March 20, 2012

• Hop [Click Here for Ed’s Review]
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
• The Muppets
• The Sitter
• Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

• Carnage
• Creature

Independent Edge FIlms, Téléfilm Canada, Three-Seven Entertainment,

Adrien Brody, Caroline Dhavernas, Ryan Robbins, Adrian Holmes, Adrian Hughes, Lloyd Adams, Mark McConchie, Jacob Blair

Known just as “Man”, Adrien Brody awakes in his car, crashed deep in a ravine, trapped and badly injured, hungry and thirsty, and with no recollection of how he got there. As he faces horrible odds to survive, gradually he starts to remember who he is, and what happened before this horrible accident occurred.

This is an interesting film. It’s one of those where we, like the character in the story, are faced with no knowledge of what’s going on or how he got there. We have no information either, and we feel like we’re with him, pinned in the car, with no idea what’s going on. We learn each piece of information with him, which is very suspenseful. It’s well acted. Adrien Brody is a master of his craft, certainly, and can really make the pain and confusion realistic. We live the confusion that he feel, and it’s hard to tell if what he’s seeing is real, or just his imagination from the dreadful situation, but the more we feel the terrible dread that he’s feeling, the more we identify with him. It’s very tense and discomforting to watch, and he does a terrific job. Gradually as we learn more about him, we feel even more discomfort as his horrible situation. Part mystery and part survival adventure, Wrecked is a really good suspense film, and one of those hidden gems that come along once in a while.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Once Bitten Films, Red Duck Films,

Jason Mewes, Erica Cox, Richard Fitzpatrick, Jordan Madley, Nic Nac, Stuart Stone, Grace Armas, Amy Lynn Grover, Jeff Pangman, Shawn Goldberg

Jack (Jason Mewes) and Roger (Richard Fitzpatrick) are paramedics. Their “beat” is the mean streets where they job mostly involves picking up the same drug addicts time after time, week after week. They get to know these clowns on a first name basis. One night while coming home, Jack finds a young lady who has been badly injured and left for dead. The girl is Danika (Erica Cox) and Jack decides to take her home (He lives upstairs from where he found her) and help put her back in shape. When he decides to take her to the hospital, she refuses to go. Jack is a loser in love, and recently separated from his ex-girlfriend who recently dumped him, so he’s ready for a new relationship with Danika, but he assumes she must be a drug addict. But as the dead bodies start piling up in the freezer, he determines she’s definitely an addicts, but it’s not drugs that are the problem.

This is a “Watch Instantly” film on NetFlix, and often caught on late night cable channels. The language is a bit rough, since Mewes and Fitzpatrick drop the “F-Bomb” in every sentence, sometimes 4 or 5 times in one sentence. But here’s a warning. This is the Jason Mewes show, and if you don’t know the name Jason Mewes, then you might recognize him as Jay form all the classy Jay and Silent Bob movies. If you don’t know who Jay is, then I suggest you beware this film, as he plays the classic lame-brained Jay character all the way through. But if you know Jay and Silent Bob, then Jason plays this guy to the T. It’s hysterically funny and in a Jason Mewes kind of way, and the funniest bits in the film are between these two buddy paramedics. But Erica Cox is very pretty, and naked through most of the movie, or if covered, in the skimpiest of outfits! She’s obvious in a rough place, and needs Jack to get her through it.

One of the greatest Jason Mewes lines comes when he comes home and find his Ex-Girlfriend has been slaughtered by Danika and there is a bloody mess all over the apartment, when he looks at her perfectly straight faced and says, “You killed my f-ing ex-girlfriend. I don’t know whether to call the cops or buy you flowers!” These kinds of zingers are uttered at random moments throughout the entire film.

Again, it takes a love of the crude humor of Jason Mewes, but if you can take that and are not easily offended by the language, it’s hysterical. This was a really funny sci-fi horror flick that is more humor than horror by a mile. I completely enjoyed seeing Jason Mewes doing what he does the best, in his own film without Silent Bob for backup;. A very good time in a short, 88 minute film. It’s long enough though, and any more might get on your nerves.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Columbia Pictures, Relativity Media, Centropolis Entertainment,

Rhys Ifans, Vanessa Redgrave, Joely Richardson, David Thewlis, Xavier Samuel, Sebastian Armesto, Rafe Spall, Edward Hogg, Jamie Campbell Bower, Sam Reid

This historical drama explores the theory that William Shakespeare was an uneducated man who did not write any of his works which were actually ghost written by one, Edward De Vere, Earl of Oxford. Queen Elizabeth I has just ascended to the throne, and the Essex rebellion against her was in force. The plays carried a message, and they needed a lackey to put his name on the plays to avert the attention to the throne. Shakespeare was an actor, not a writer.

This theory has been around for a long time. When the previews for this film came out, it looked like an interesting concept, and one I was anxious to investigate. Then the film came out, and disappeared in no time taking in a single million on opening weekend. Costing 30 million, it took in a total of about 4 1/2. Not too good. When I finally got the chance to see this on DVD, I can see why. It was simply not interesting. I have to say I could not get into this film at all. I really tried, but it was BORING.

Granted I have never been a big fan of these period piece costume dramas. But this one just never got going for me. Now, the costumes are good. The scenery is good. I guess the problem is with the story. The film jumps back and forth, and is very difficult to follow. I understand a lot of other people found the same problem with it. It was very easy to get lost in what was going on. Constant time shifts without warning keeps you constantly in confusion.

All in all, this movie was a disappointment. Perhaps I expected more, but it didn’t deliver.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog