I was curious to see what Drew Barrymore’s directing debut, Whip It, would be like, and it wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be. But then again it wasn’t that interesting or original either. It is the story of a young girl trying to assert her self in a conservative Texas town through being a roller derby athlete. I found the roller derby scenes relied too much on the exposition by Jimmy Fallon and weren’t very funny. Ellen page is well cast, but Juliet Lewis is an over the top villain. I’ll be curious to see what Barrymore does as a filmmaker next though.
I have read Jon Ronson’s nonfiction book on American Pysch Ops, Men Who Stare At Goats and couldn’t imagine how it could be turned into a film. It turns out by incorporating stories from the book into a narrative with heavy weight actors like George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, and Jeff Bridges. I found the result to be charming and entertaining, if not farcical.
The Blind Side was another entertaining nonfiction book, which seems like an unlikely choice to be made into a film. The film got a lot of love from audiences and a Best Actress award for Sandra Bullock. However, I found the film to be somewhat less complex than the original and overtly simple in the presentation. Overall, I found it less successful than Men Who Stare At Goats.
I’m willing to give Ricky Gervais a chance on any film and
perhaps a lifetime pass for his excellent work on the original The Office. However, this romantic comedy The Invention Of
Lying like last year’s Ghost Town
isn’t very funny or entertaining. It seemed like a good concept and the
supporting cast has many of the best people in comedy in cameos (Tina Fey,
Jason Bateman, Jonah Hill, Louis CK, Jeffry Tambor, etc.), but the end result isn’t
that funny or entertaining.
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