Punch-Drunk Love

Posted on February 5, 2015 by jaycluitt

Barry Egan (Adam Sandler) is a little bit different. He runs a plastic plunger company with his business partner Lance (Luis Guzman), and is constantly being hassled by his seven sisters, who belittle him and essentially ruin his life at every turn, as they have his entire life. One day, a harmonium (kind of like a small piano, I’d never heard of them before) is dropped outside the industrial estate on which he works, and shortly afterwards a woman named Lena (Emily Watson) shows up too. Then some more stuff happens involving a phone sex line and an awful lot of pudding.
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Magnolia

Posted on February 4, 2015 by jaycluitt

In the San Fernando Valley, a selection seemingly disconnected group of people are going through some fairly heavy moments in their live. Earl Partridge (Jason Robards) is dying in bed, being cared for by his nurse Phil (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who is tasked with finding Earl’s estranged son. Earl’s much-younger trophy wife, Linda (Julianne Moore), is struggling to deal with the imminent death of her husband. Officer Jim (John C. Reilly) is called to investigate a disturbance, which leads to a potential murder case. Stanley Spector (Jeremy Blackman) is a genius child contestant on the TV Game Show What Do Kids Know?, and is just a few days away from breaking that show’s record of most consecutive wins. Jimmy Gator hosts the show, and has done for decades, but has just been diagnosed with cancer, with just months to live. Jimmy’s daughter, Claudia (Melora Walters), has a difficult relationship with her father, as well as a cocaine habit and various other issues in her life, whilst Donnie Smith (William H. Macy), a former child star contestant on the aforementioned TV show, has seen his fame squandered and life thrown in turmoil when he loses his job at an electronics store. Finally, Frank T.J. Mackey (Tom Cruise) runs a self-help seminar on men who wish to be more successful with ladies. Mid-show, he gives an interview to a reporter (April Grace) that doesn’t necessarily go as he plans. All these stories, and more besides, will become interwoven over the course of the film’s next 24 hours.
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Hard Eight

Posted on February 3, 2015 by jaycluitt

Sydney (Philip Baker Hall) is a seasoned, respected gambler and occasional con artist. He knows all the tricks, but is getting a little long in the tooth in an increasingly modern world. John (John C. Reilly) is a fool who lost all his money in Vegas trying to win enough to pay for his mother’s funeral. Sydney takes John under his wing to show him where he went wrong. Continue reading →

My Week in Movies, 2015 Week 5

Posted on February 3, 2015 by jaycluitt

Uh oh, I’m getting behind again. I’ve always been pretty terrible at, once I’ve watched a film from one of my various lists, actually getting around to reviewing the darn thing so I can officially cross it off, and that’s a habit I’m slipping back into. I’ve currently got 6 films, all from Paul Thomas Anderson (last weekend’s Lambcast was a PTA Director Retrospective, look out for it soon), awaiting a review, and there’s at least two that I don’t particularly want to watch again, so I need to get those thoughts written down, and soon. My aim is one-a-day for the next six days, but we’ll see. Check back tomorrow to see if I’ve reviewed Hard Eight, or if I’m still being rubbish.
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Terms of Endearment

Posted on February 2, 2015 by jaycluitt

This review was originally written as part of my USA Road Trip series at French Toast Sunday.

Terms of Endearment tells the story of a mother and daughter, Aurora and Emma, played by Shirley MacLaine and, from adulthood onwards, Debra Winger. As a young girl, Emma’s father and Aurora’s husband passes away, leaving the two of them alone with one another. Aurora was always an overprotective mother, who also doesn’t seem to leave the house in order to make money, so her daughter is essentially the main focus of her life. Thus when Emma grows up, marries a young Jeff Daniels and has to move away, both her’s and her mother’s lives are forever altered.

Terms of Endearment has a reputation for being a thoroughly depressing story. I knew very little about it, other than it featuring a mother/daughter relationship, so I was expecting an almost constant barrage of one sad thing after another, culminating in literally everyone dying, horribly and slowly. Image It’s A Wonderful Life, but instead of the upbeat ending, James Stewart drowned in an ocean of orphan’s tears. That’s how I imagined Terms of Endearment, so I wasn’t exactly looking forward to this viewing. As it turns out, whilst there is a certain degree of sadness to the story, there’s also plenty of uplifting and even funny parts too. Continue reading →

My Week in Movies, 2015 Week 4

Posted on January 26, 2015 by jaycluitt

The start of the year is now a distant memory, as life continues to move forward and I continue to not watch as many films as I’d like to. Who does? I’m not the only person to write this sort of weekly update, and I really feel like my watch history pales in comparison to pretty much everyone else. I genuinely don’t know how others find the time to run a blog, manage a podcast, have adequate relationships with actual real life people, work a full time job and still find the time to watch a load of movies too. I suppose it doesn’t help that I seem to be in a constant state of “doing up the house” which eats away at the weekend like nothing else. Ah well, at least I watched some stuff.
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My Week in Movies, 2015 Week 3

Posted on January 20, 2015 by jaycluitt

This was what could be described as the year’s first “normal week,” in that it was a full week at work, with the occasional busy evening here and there. We’re in a perpetual state of doing up the house, which always eats away at time, but fortunately it means I can’t afford to go out anywhere, which leaves lots of time to stay in and watch movies. Continue reading →

MAS*H

Posted on January 18, 2015 by jaycluitt

In Korea, 1951, the Mobile Army Surgical Hospital receives two new surgeons in the forms of Captain Hawkeye Pierce (Donald Sutherland) and Capatin Duke Forrest (Tom Skerritt). They aren’t what you’d typically expect from army surgeons, preferring to put a large portion of their efforts into relaxing and goofing off instead of actually getting down to work, which doesn’t sit well with the current head surgeon, Major Frank Burns (Robert Duvall). Burns, who also shares a tent with the new recruits, is a religious man who abstains from alcohol, so is essentially the polar opposite of the newcomers, so they set about having him removed from the hospital, and he is replaced by the much more fun-loving Captain Trapper McIntyre (Elliott Gould), with whom the guys have many adventures.
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Meet the Parents

Posted on January 18, 2015 by jaycluitt

Greg (Ben Stiller) is literally on his bended knee mid-proposal to his girlfriend Pam (Teri Polo) when she gets a call from her sister, who has just got engaged and is due to get married in the immediate future, as in a couple of weeks away. Pam casually remarks that her father puts a lot of stead in the tradition of the potential bride’s father being asked prior to the question being popped, so Greg pockets the ring and plans to ask said father when they visit Pam’s family home for her sister’s wedding. However, the visit does not go necessarily according to Greg’s plans, and it’s all exacerbated by the fact that Pam’s father Jack (Robert DeNiro) is not a retired rare flower expert as she has told Greg, but is a former psychological profiler for the CIA, who is very protective of his first born child.
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Out of Africa

Posted on January 16, 2015 by jaycluitt

Karen Dinesen (Meryl Streep) is a wealthy, unmarried woman in Denmark in the 1910s. In her circle, an unmarried woman is deemed unseemly, so she marries her friend, Baron Blixen (Klaus Maria Brandauer), on the basis that she will become a baroness and he will share her wealth. The two move to Africa (I think it’s Kenya) with intentions of starting a dairy, but unbeknownst to Karen her new husband has changed all the plans to growing coffee instead. He proves to be an inadequate husband, always being away hunting whilst his wife is left home with nothing to do, as whenever she tries to help out with the work the local staff are confused at her presence. Enter Denys (Robert Redford), a big game hunter who at first becomes friends with Karen, along with another man, Michael Kitchen’s Berkeley, but soon, inevitably, starts a relationship with her too. 5704_4_1080p Continue reading →