That's My Dad.

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen - 

A dreadfully written, stiffly directed and poorly acted romantic comedy with a political subject manner as detailed as a pop-up children book, written for ages 3 and up. Serves as nothing more but Ewan McGregor porn (charm, not balls) for the respective fan-base. (4/10)

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Childish Gambino - Royalty

Congratulations! Finally a Childish Gambino release without any dick jokes!

If this statement remotely appeals to your criticisms, Donald Glover has listened to your complaining. “Royalty” quite literally plays as a large response to nay-sayers of his nerd-core, punch-line laden and occasionally aggressive rap personality. By turning up the “swag” factor and doing without nearly every speck of originality Gambino held to his name, Glover has inadvertently landed his seat in some indie-rap/Young Money hybrid convention. Gone is the DIY mix-tape production style and pop. culture references; a shame considering that’s exactly what people flocked to his shows for. Instead, “Royalty” is a continuation of his past LP “Camp” where his technical ability as a rapper is on constant center-stage; a highly unnecessary focus point considering Gambino’s early mix-tapes (“I Am Just a Rapper”, “Culdesac”) enforced that while being some of his most exciting work. Even with this album’s wide-ranged feature list, Gambino ends up looking like a fool with either superior guest spots like Bun B, Beck and Danny Brown or hand-picking awkward company like Chance the Rapper, Danielle Haim and a cringe-worthy Tina Fey. It goes to show when a nerd rapper excessively worries about what everyone thinks of him over every career move; you stop being geek and become a product of mass appeal and consumption. (5/10)

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To Rome With Love - 

Woody Allen’s “To Rome With Love” fails to create the same nostalgic and charming atmosphere that won audiences and critics alike in Allen’s last movie, “Midnight in Paris.” Such an all-star cast can’t seem to save the movie from its poorly written and disconnected plot lines, all sprinkled in with the most basic and simplistic of humor. All in all, the movie feels like Allen attempted to weave a few ideas together as though to try and top “Paris,” and instead, haphazardly produced a film crowded with too many characters and not enough appeal. (5/10)

- Guest Writer: Catherine Saba (Follow her on Tumblr and Twitter) 

21 Jump Street - 

The mark of a perfect comic act is the ability to deliver fulfillment or comfort strictly through an idea, execution and confidence.

Regardless of the medium, when humor is brought with charm, ease and balanced precision, you have a winner. Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill have mastered this simple, overlooked method of comedy and offer us to join in on the time of their lives in “21 Jump Street”: one of the cleverest and sweetest films of 2012 here to serve a buffet of bottomless laughs. Tatum, without a doubt, gives a stupendous career game-changing comedic performance. And while Hill delivers his regular shtick, the unexpectedly talented Dave Franco (James’ younger brother) and Brie Larson make up for a notable supporting cast. 

From the post-modern “meta” jokes and the slick narcotic-induced slapstick to the absurdly hysterical satire on high school hipster culture and, not to mention, a fantastic Johnny Depp cameo, the number of comedy bases “21 Jump Street” covers lands it instant ‘contemporary hit’ status. The only notion against “21 Jump Street” comes from how ‘contemporary’ everything comes off as; after the year of 2012, “21 Jump Street” will indubitably dissolve in the mush of my brain. The film offers great amounts of simplicity, but no points for solidity. So before this fish swims away in the ever-flowing river of youthful comedies, catch this one.

This film was my dad. (9/10)

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Delhi Belly -

Aside from an unforgivable, dim-witted and lousy story structure blended with some spotty, tasteless humor, Delhi Belly is a devious dosage of realized post-modernism Bollywood watchers need; precisely the culture-busting type of movie Quentin Tarentino would make were he exiled to India. (6/10)

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Art-house Recommendation: A Serious Man (2009)

Undeniably the Coen Brothers most subtle, layered and mystifying film to date, A Serious Man is just as off-beat as is dark of a comedy. Complemented with pitch-perfect cinematography and a set of remarkable art-house styled performances, especially lead actor Michael Stuhlbarg, the film serves as an urgent inspection on the human condition in the oddest of places: modern jewish culture. With a stirring amount of thought offered, sincerely from the first frame to the very last, A Serious Man can be the most exciting watch in the most unorthodox of ways. (10/10)

Top 20 Films of 2011 (11-20)

11. Hugo

12. Contagion

13. Bridesmaids

14. The Help

15. Midnight in Paris

16. Submarine

17. The Adventures of Tintin

18. The Descendants

19. The Muppets

20. Crazy, Stupid Love

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol - 

What I don’t understand is that if the film’s called “Mission Impossible”, why do people constantly complain about the absurdity of it’s stunts? Ghost Protocol is the fourth installment of, what the past 15 years have shown, the most exhilarating and stylized action series of our generation. Even after the fact that every installment of the series has featured a director and a dynamic approach to the formula, Ghost Protocol (directed by Brad Bird [The Incredibles, Ratatouille]) is such a diligent and explosive work of entertainment that it challenges the basic boundaries of visual art. Featuring stunts that push the zenith of human capability, immaculate depiction of world locations and cultures and, not to mention, scenes with IMAX cameras that blows every IMAX film out of the water. The world standard of action films is back and there’s plenty of fuse left to burn. (10/10)

Young Adult - 

Here is a film humanly challenging for both audiences and its writer/director duo. Young Adult is an unusually dry and minimalist drama revolving around a young adult book series writer and a slice of her dreadful and deteriorating life. Director Jason Reitman, acclaimed director of heavily satirical, introspective contemporary classics like Thank You for Smoking, Juno and Up In the Air has tag-teamed with screenplay writer Diablo Cody (better known as the stripper who wrote Juno) once again on Young Adult. Lead actress Charlize Theron portrays a woman who resembles a character from an 80’s high school movie shown 25 years later in a world that’s moved on passed their adolescence, with the exception of her. It’s an emotionally distressing exercise to watch this character continually crack and fall apart. Young Adult is admirable in what it aims and succeeds to do: an examination on past generations losing control in trying to cope with today and trying to let go of a more pleasant yesteryear. What makes this film truly not worth recommending is its overly dry and terse pacing, direction and delivery. Despite feeling hollow after watching this depressing yet clever film, it leaves you contemplating whether if this is a story worth caring about at all. (6/10) 

Ten Films You Need to See This Year. 

Contagion

Drive

Moneyball

50/50

The Ides of March

The Rum Diary

Like Crazy

My Week With Marilyn

Take Shelter

Martha Marcy May Marlene

Kind-hearted people bring out the best in us. It’s a social tendency. 

Through a handful of romance-based scenarios, we are told a combination of stories that hold their weight in importance before us and tickle our hearts, just not as well as they should. Our primary focus on this film retains on Steve Carell’s character and the ripples of his divorce that effect the people both related and unrelated around him. It’s a domino effect through a continuous string of events, an angle taken on rom-coms many times, soon to be exhausted. This is where many of the film’s flaws seep in; plot structures feel all too mechanical and slightly rushed beyond its comfort zone. Few of the independent story-lines between duos in this film, of which they are many, are slightly spoiled and hopelessly attempt to win us over with its absolutely relentless passion over the traditional qualities on love. This is where the film begins to shine.

Crazy, Stupid, Love is a film with a heart of pure gold that truly wants you to appreciate and embrace the ultimately positive core of romance. It certainly explores its dark sides, tastefully and bluntly, then offers the light out of the tunnel; leaving a sweeter impact that provides humor on both ends of the stick. Not only internally, but much of the humor comes from the well written and delivered dialogue dished out from the best: Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, Marisa Tomei and the new Analeigh Tipton. Plenty of weak links are found in the cast as well: Julianne Moore and Kevin Bacon give another round of poorly executed performances as well as some rather irritating performances from the younger members of the cast; the weight of this film’s success was majorly on the cast and it was a shame to see it dip with Moore and Bacon. Plenty of moments also fell flat by some juvenile direction that neglected potential moments where its darker qualities should have been fleshed out further for a more authentic and realer feel.

By and by, its flaws are made up for by plenty of humanistic comedy through a handful of whole-hearted characters and a sincere approach towards all forms of affection lost in a post-modern society.

This film was my mom. 

The Office - Season 7 Review

Oh, how this show has done us proud. 

To pull out a brief timeline for the show, over the course of seven seasons. The first three seasons maintained the scathingly socially-awkward humor that the show really set its dignified trademark over; viewers progressively fell in love with the characters as their writing was on a pure hot streak. Season 3 was the pinnacle for many characters and their dynamics in terms of writing and the sheer quality of the performances. The fourth season is where much of the comedy experimented with what its idea of “funny” was and the story-lines started to indulge in drama. The following two seasons is where most of the show’s flaws started to shine as the comedy really fell off the trail and became messy and untidy, forcing anything potentially humorous to fly. The most recent season, the seventh, turned a few heads and gave its faithful viewers a lot to take in.

Certainly many elements have been picked up and polished throughout the show in these episodes. Season 7 maintains a kind balance between character-based story-lines from the last three seasons and takes the original satirizing of the subcultures within the workplace, keeping the ship afloat by taking the best of both worlds. It has our care for these people and uses it whilst still poking fun at the cheeky, idiosyncratic world of the middle class.

Many of the main duos and their characterizations have been refined, along with a natural and tasteful involvement of all the side characters, giving an even stronger presence of the cast as a whole. Jim and Pam’s characters have ultimately solidified themselves and don’t come in as overbearingly cute; their plain and impeccably sweet relationship is as present as it should be. Dwight and Jim certainly broke in the soles of their character’s shoes with the changes in comedic styles taken that digressed poorly in the last three seasons. This season felt like their dynamic was much more regulated and at least enjoyable to watch, previously “nice guy” Jim came off as a complete jerk and Dwight’s jokes devolved to painfully flat moments. Another faithful addition to the show was the subtle but very enjoyable involvement of all the supporting characters, giving a more natural style of comedy that the show constantly based itself on. 

The boss of it all should not be neglected whatsoever in this season. Michael Scott, played by the fantastic Steve Carell, truly did his character an ultimate justice this time around and made him feel like a bold figure and an actual boss. Michael Scott, to me, always felt like an amoeba of a person to have around. While he always got the ball rolling with all forms of conflict, he was too kind to challenge himself, his surroundings or his audience. This season certainly fills that hole in as Michael does just that, impressing everyone with these bold moments that bring him out as the lead actor of the show. 

Michael’s farewell was the best episode of this season and one of the best from the show. Watching him grow up throughout the years and then desiring to leave without telling people when, was the most heartbreaking concept ever done on the show. It was like watching your dad who has cancer give his last words filled with wisdom and humor to his family without telling them he’s about to die very soon.

With the departure of the golden thread of the show, the writers better kill it out there with the open canvas they have or they’ll be in a ship sinking by the minute.

This season was my dad. 

Obsessed with romance, modestly hilarious and slyly clever. This is Woody Allen. But not the one we thought we knew.

Midnight in Paris keeps its brilliantly punctual and straight forward with its motives. It’s a product of adoration. For Paris! For Love! For the Yesteryear!   

The wit comes primarily from the dialogue, but conceptually, more than anything; a trait Woody never gave heavy attention to. As a writer who secretly obsesses over the 1920’s in Paris with the ever-so existentially romantic rain finds himself in the past; hence, a hipster finally having his dreams come true. What’s funnier are the people he meets and the ones who desire past generations within the past generation just as much. This lends itself to us questioning the hipsters. Aren’t their personalities a standard package to society? Isn’t the human tendency to want what we can’t have and only have it linger in front of us the ultimate efficacy of picturesque love? Can’t our ideas of ideal romance ever be satisfied? Oh Woody, how you done us right. 

There is a painting of beauty. There is a shared love between the director and the viewer. He holds the camera, you hold the eyes. Both fall in love with the painting. The romance. The humor. La Ville-Lumière. 

This movie is my dad.