Heathers

This black comedy (much more black than comedy) early in Winona Ryder's career is a little dated as to the characters' 80s hair and fashions, but has become quite a cult favorite.

Veronica (Ryder) is the fourth wheel of a popular clique of highschool girls known as the Heathers, three girls all named Heather. Heather 1 (Kim Walker) is the leader and most ruthless. Heather 2 (Lisanne Falk) is pretty much a following sheep. Heather 3 (Shannen Doherty) is even more so, she's the meekest of the three.

Veronica is increasingly unenamored of how the leader Heather 1 plays mean jokes on undesirables like nerds and fat girls, and realizes she's become anti-Heather and must stop the Heathers' domination. Veronica confides in her diary that she wants to bump off H1, but really doesn't have the guts. Meanwhile, she is attracted to the new student, Jason aka J.D. (juvenile delinquent?  played by Christian Slater), who seems to share her sensibilities.

Accidentally they kill H1, and her death is masked as a suicide by Veronica and Jason, and thus everyone thinks it is a "cry for help" and H1 is looked on sympathetically instead of the witch she was. This happens again with two male students, jocks, one whom Veronica actually kills.

Veronica begins to feel remorse but she realizes Jason is a psychopath who wants more and more. She has to now stop HIM before he puts his big plan into action.

Past seven days

I need to fit in more movies!  Only six this week.

The Bling Ring
Byzantium
Don Jon
Il Divo
My Australia
World War Z

The Way, Way Back

This movie was written/directed by the creative team who won an Oscar for The Descendents, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, a summer film about a teen boy who is having trouble coping with his fractured family. It takes place at a small beach town where everyone comes to vacation in the summertime and although the time is not stated and the production values don’t specifically point to a decade, it is around late 1970s or early '80s  since I think as it is based on autobiographical elements from the writers.

The teen Duncan is played by Liam James. He is disgruntled (or worse) because he can’t stand his mother’s jerk of a boyfriend (Toni Colette, Steve Carell). The boyfriend, Trent, is the sort to try to get Duncan to “man up” although Trent’s efforts are more to assert his authority rather than caring about connecting with Duncan, and perhaps Trent is even a little jealous of Duncan taking away time from his mom, pat. Most of this negative behavior is done when they are out of earshot of Pat. As a result Duncan is closemouthed with Trent and almost surly, only he knows there is little he can do about this situation. This summer, they all drive to Trent’s summer cabin in a Massachusetts town, which includes Trent, Duncan, Pat, and Trent’s vain daughter from a previous marriage. Their cabin neighbor is the happy drunk Betty (Allison Janney), herself a divorcee with a mopey teen daughter Susanna (AnnaSophia Robb) and younger son Peter (River Alexander), both whom Duncan eventually befriends (although he is a loner at first). Betty and Trent are neighbors from past years, so you can see that this summer community have known each other a long time.

Duncan tries to avoid the expected socializing with Betty and another couple (Rob Corddry, Amanda Peet) so he escapes to Water Wizz, a local water park where there is a pool with a big slide, and where all the kids hang out at. There he is embraced by the employees, which include the laid back and sometimes irresponsible manager Owen (Sam Rockwell), his quasi girlfriend (Maya Rudolph) and other employees. At Water Wizz, Owen is all about the fun and kind of takes Duncan under his wing.

Past seven days

No movies in the park this week, but a mixed bunch nonetheless!

Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog
Forbidden Lie$
Harana
The Heat
Iron Man 3
Much Ado About Nothing (2013)
The Pool
Scheherazade, Tell Me a Story

Past seven days

The summer brings even more movies--in the park!  My first "park movie" was The Triplets of Belleville, a French-language (though with minimal dialogue) animated feature about an old Frenchwoman who indulges in her grandson's love of cycling by parlyaing this into his participation in the Tour de France in the 1930s.  But alas, this is not to be, because he is kidnapped along with other cyclists by some dastardly New Yorkers who use him in an illicit gambling scheme.  Grandma comes to the rescue, with the now-old aged performance artistes the Triplets of Belleville!  The choice of Triplets was to coincide with Bike Chicago Week.

Other movies in the park I am looking forward to are some replays from the recent Latino Film Festival and favorites like Moonrise Kingdom, Back to the Future, and The Princess Bride.

The Loving Story
Penumbra
Tragedy of Man
The Triplets of Belleville
Wrinkles

This is the End

I really knew nothing about the new film This is the End other than the slimmest of plot. It stars Seth Rogen and James Franco and other actors in their circle. What I knew was that it was a comedy where the actors essentially play themselves, or more correctly caricatures/send-ups of themselves. What I didn't know that it was an "apocalyptic comedy"--Rogen, Franco and their friends hole up in Franco's home when the apocalypse happens.

The bones of the plot is that Jay Baruchel, a friend of Rogen's, comes to L.A. to hang out with him. Not being among the circle of Rogen's newer Hollywood friends like Franco and Jonah Hill, Jay doesn't like the partying culture and really just wants him and Seth to spend time alone, even if it is is mindless pursuits like smoking pot and playing video games. Seth instead convinces the reluctant Jay to go to a housewarming party at James Franco's new place, where we see James has a weird love obsession with Seth, and guest Jonah Hill is too nice to Jay, leading Jay to suspect he is two-faced in some way. During the party, the rapture happens, taking all the devout and pious, and as expected almost all of Hollywood is left behind on Earth to be swallowed into hell or worse. The party guests of course are oblivious as being all immoral people none of them are raptured and they don't know what's been going on outside the doors.

Jay, being more sensible than the rest, tells them that there is a slim chance they can survive and be good enough in their last hours to get raptured too. But they have to beat back demons and deal with the new Hollywood which is afire and crumbling into hell.

Past seven days

Four films, four theatres, that's what I was up to on Saturday. How about you?

American Mary
The Dark Night Rises
The Escape (short film)
The Iceman
Kryptonite!
Mud
The Night Listener
Seeking a Friend for the End of the World
The To-do List
Womb

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

Although the trailers probably framed this as an outright comedy, it is mostly a romantic drama with most of the ha ha comedic elements at the beginning of the movie, and the comedy throughout is a little more in the black comedy vein. I think the story is helped by being written and directed by a woman.

The film is almost exactly as the title indicates. Steve Carell plays Dodge, an insurance salesman who still goes to work although an Earth-ending meteor is set to hit in three weeks time. As the days tick by the movie shows us how different people react, some keep to their routine, such as the tv anchorman continuing to professionally report on the state of the world (Mark Moses), or Dodge's cleaning lady continuing to come every week. Others, like Dodge's friends (Rob Corddry, Connie Britton, Patton Oswalt, Melanie Lynskey), live it up like there is no tomorrow.  And as we know the tomorrows are ending soon.

Dodge sees his downstairs neighbor Penny (Keira Knightley) crying when she breaks up with her boyfriend (Adam Brody). He lets her stay the night and later helps her escape during a riot. Fleeing in her car with an abandoned dog, each have a last desire--she's missed all the commercial planes flying out of the country so Dodge offers her to take her to a man he knows who has a plane, so that she can see her family one last time; he wants to track down a high school sweetheart after finding a mislaid letter where she says he was the love of her life.  We can see that for him a lot of his desire is of the "what if" he had done this or that throughout his life, and yet he is still unmotivated to act until this last moment.

It becomes a roadtrip as they meet friends and strangers and we see how they too have reacted to this end. Penny has a military friend (Derek Luke) who is hunkered down in a bomb shelter. A man who gives them a ride has a death wish (William Petersen). They stop at a family restaurant chain where all the employees have taken matters in their own hands. They also hook up with Dodge's estranged father (Martin Sheen).