“Don’t Think Twice” may be a little too real. It’s a movie about 30-somethings coming to grips with failing to meet their dreams and ambitions, which, for a 20-something still harboring those dreams, doesn’t exactly sit well. Comedian Mike Birbiglia’s sophomore film will ring true for any artist/creative type who has tried to cut it in New York or LA, even though the improv comedy troupe it depicts is a very specific personality.
Miles (Birbiglia) leads an improv comedy troupe known lovingly as The Commune, and their pre-show rituals, whether embracing a bear statue, chanting vocal warm-ups or impersonating the mousy stage manager, all echo the sensation of a caring support group. Comedy for these ambitious weirdoes needs to come from a place of bonding. In an opening narration, we hear the rules of improv: Always Say Yes, Don’t Think, and It’s All About the Group. They share a hive mind and get through each performance by supporting the other.
Of course this personality type, always being on, never saying no and being unable to turn off the improvisational urge, can quickly get insufferable. Birbiglia’s screenplay highlights the Commune’s narcissism, in which they’re always talking about their own projects and reflecting on missed opportunities. And yet he still allows their chatterbox mouths to run wild. “Don’t Think Twice” is about comedy and has funny moments, but it’s a far more subdued character drama that shows the mind of the improv comic instead of laugh out loud humor. As a result, sitting with them at bars or in their dorm-sized apartment can be like trying to get in on an inside joke. Continue reading “Don’t Think Twice”
If “Suicide Squad” is supposed to be fun, kill me now. It’s as much of a mess as “
The first Jason Bourne movie came out in 2002, with star Matt Damon still a fairly young man of his early ‘30s. 14 years and a James Bond revival later, it’d be easy to forget how strong that original franchise was. And if you figure that about just as much time has passed in the movie’s timeline since the end of “The Bourne Ultimatum,” you’d think the CIA might’ve all but forgotten about Bourne as well.
Thank God for Louis C.K. When he directed the 2001 film “Pootie Tang,” he was still an aspiring comedian, writer and director, not yet a household name, and certainly not the innovator on stage or behind the camera that we’re accustomed to today. Let’s just say no one was calling him a genius yet.
In the third episode of Louis C.K.’s “Horace and Pete,” Horace’s ex-wife Sara (Laurie Metcalf) delivers a gut-wrenching, vivid monologue in which she slowly reveals her infidelity to her new husband. The camera remains firm on her fragile face, and it takes a solid ten minutes before the camera even cuts away to reveal Horace (C.K.) is sitting across from her as she speaks. The more we learn about her backstory, the more she digs a hole for herself. But it’s so descriptive and well acted we empathize with her immediately. We understand why she’s behaved so horribly and why she can’t bring herself to stop. Worst of all, she now has the audacity to look to Horace to help her find a way out, but we too understand why he’s the only one who could.
Kristen Stewart is only 26, but she feels as though she could’ve been in Woody Allen’s movies since the ‘70s. The camera loves her face, her hair, and the way she dresses. Stewart was one of the biggest movie stars on the planet following “Twilight,” and in “Café Society,” a movie that’s all about how culture and class changes and effects people, Allen sees her as authentic.
I raised an eyebrow when critics were declaring that with “Zootopia,” Disney had made a triumph of a film tackling racial biases. This is a movie about talking animals after all. But whereas “racial” may not be the right word, it addresses very clearly what it is to be prejudiced, to assume the worst about a person based on their upbringing, their skin or their biology.
Making friends and keeping them can be hard enough as it is. For Jake and Tony, two 13-year-olds living in Brooklyn, they have to contend with issues of class, of family feuds and of distance, all in one of their most volatile periods of growing up. Through understated performances by both of these boys, Ira Sachs’s “Little Men,” touchingly shows how with some love and maturity even the most strained of bonds can endure.
At the beginning of “Abigail’s Party,” Beverly enters the living room of her home, opens a cabinet full of liquor, and pours herself a drink, her first of what will be many this evening. She’s wearing a low cut, salmon colored dress and a large, garish gold necklace beneath a frumpy Pageboy haircut that’s rounded perfectly above her eyes. In the course of this evening, she will turn out to be a real monster. And that’s saying nothing of her friends.
Turns out all those misogynistic Internet trolls were really worrying for nothing. Paul Feig’s “Ghostbusters” hardly remakes