The Five-Year Engagement ☆☆☆☆

I really want to discuss all the things I loved about this movie but can't without spoiling it, so as I have done previously I will give a synopsis and a brief review, then give major warnings before launching into a spoiler filled analysis.

The story then follows Tom (Jason Segel) and Violet (Emily Blunt) who have been together for a year before Tom pops the question on New Years Eve. Tom works as a sous-chef in a successful Clam restaurant in the San Francisco bay area where Violet is a British psychology graduate who, for an undisclosed reason lives in San Francisco along with her sister and I'm assuming her Father and his wife (her Mum I assumed lived in the UK as she was on Skype with her parents chatting to Violet about wedding plans).

After an enthusiastic beginning to their engagement the brakes are soon put on as Violet is offered a post-doctorate position at a University in Michigan - for those who have no idea about US geography it is the North of the country, nestled close to Canada. Tom gives up his job (which would have been running his own kitchen) to go with Violet who flourishes at the University, while Tom gains weird friends and is reduced to working in a sandwich shop. Hilarity ensues and also some sadness, but I won't spoil anything - yet.

The ups and downs of the relationship are explored really well. There are many laugh out loud moments, particularly in the banter between Tom and his strange Michigan friends (there are some fetching jumpers on display and interesting facial hair). The relationship between Tom and Violet too is believable, it really comes across the friendship that they have in real life. It is also not weird that Violet is British as Segel actually wrote the part for Blunt, but I think I would have liked some explanation of why her sister is in the USA - Violet being a post-doctoral psychology person in the USA is believable as many people go to the States to study.

Even without hearing a podcast from Emily Blunt about the improv its quite obvious there was a lot of that going on, which created some really funny moments. Alison Brie as Suzie, the sister who gets knocked up (its in the trailer so I'm not spoiling anything), has actually got a fairly decent British accent going on, sometimes it even sounds less put upon than Blunts - where that is her actual voice. I love Brie (the cheese too) and love that she can do serious acting in such shows as Mad Men but also be a complete goon in things like Community. One of my favourite lines in the movie came from her as she describes herself as 'a little bit pregnant', fabulous line and said as though she were a Roehampton native.

Chris Pratt as Tom's fellow Chef and best friend Alex is also really very funny, there is a singing moment and I swear to the gods I almost peed myself with both laughter and embarrassment. Pratt is no stranger to the oddball comedy either as he currently stars in Parks and Recreation (which isn't big over in the UK) and he has some priceless moments in this film befitting his TV background.

The rest of the supporting cast were all excellent, the parents of the would-be bride and groom really quite funny and also massively cringe-worthy, and the head chef at Tom's first workplace was just plain old weird. In fact the chef character is a stock one for these kinds of movies, someone tough and aggressive but has a heart of gold and never actually seems to smile.
Rhys Ifans as Violets boss is very good, also gets to be Welsh which is nice to hear, and plays the role with enough 'cool academic' and bit of a sleazebag mix to be totally believable. I swear I have met academics like him.

I very much enjoyed the film, as the star rating shows, and it continues to prove what an absolute asset Jason Segel is to comedy and romance - come on guys, he's the man who brought back The Muppets and the one who continues to make How I Met Your Mother worth watching.
At 124 minutes this is a fairly long movie, however if you love a decent rom-com with some weird moments you'll really enjoy this film. I laughed a lot and pretty much just wanted to hug Jason Segel the whole way through.



Right - SPOILER TIME!!!

Don't read this unless you have seen the film as its going to be quite haphazard and assume you've already seen it.



One of my favourite parts of this film is where Tom just gives up on his life and dreams while in Michigan, grows the weirdest looking beard, wears the oddest jumpers that his 'friend' Bill knits while he stays at home with the kids, and turns his and Violet's house into a shrine for deer parts and becomes a bee keeper...totally and utterly crazy but hilarious.

The violence that is inflicted upon Emily Blunt is so shocking but so very funny - when her niece shoots her in the leg with a hunting cross-bow I burst out laughing. It was then really good to see that the skit carried on when Alex was yelling at Tom for his irresponsibility Violets eyes were never quite in focus. Just great acting by the group.

The sex scenes were fairly weird, and more frequent than I imagined they would be. Though I'm pretty sure Blunt was pleased she only had to do one, the rest was just lots of snogging. When Tom fakes his orgasm it was the most hilarious thing I've seen about orgasms in a while, I think the last time I saw a man fake an orgasm on screen was in 40 Days and 40 Nights which was back when Josh Hartnett was the hottest young actor in Hollywood.

There was a small theme of cutting off digits, when the chef cuts her finger off and the blood spatters everywhere it was so gross but very funny (and a genuine risk!) and then Tom loses his big toe to frostbite! Utterly bizarre and never mentioned again, I imagine it would hinder a person when running or walking to lose your toe yet when running through the park to finally get married he has no trouble.

The ending was really lovely and not at all sugary, ok yes it was sweet but it wasn't syrupy. The speed wedding was funny and such an easy and ideal way to get married. It was also brilliant that it was the girl who organised the whole thing and proposed to her man - making him the happiest girl in the world.
*sigh*

I loved that the pressure to get married as soon as possible in the beginning came from Violets Mother talking about how the grandparents did not have long to live, but it was the death of the last one about six years later that actually got Tom and Violet back together. But in actual fact getting married after only a year just wasn't right for Tom and Violet, okay so had she got the dream job in Berkley it would have worked out fine but life just isn't simple like that.

This is what I appreciate most from Segel's writing, apart from bringing back the Muppets, and that is the realism he injects into the bizarre humour. It can be totally off the wall but you recognise that Tom and Violet were totally unhappy and needed to split up, that life isn't perfect and if you are willing to work at it a couple will find their way back to each other.

The Chris Pratt and Alison Brie partnership was brilliant, from knocking her up at her sisters engagement party to the weird duet at Tom and Violets wedding the couple managed to steal every scene they were in. I think that was their point, they were not supposed to be the wallflower type supporting cast, they were designed to be obnoxious. And it really worked.

Finally I'd like to just mention Ming, who was so so funny. I realise he was a comedic tool, the Far East Asian man who is obsessed with a psychological experiment to cover a sleeping man in fake blood, chicken feathers, put a gun in his hand, and scream in his ear. Just to see what happens. He was the best of all Violets co-workers at the University, and I was so pleased he got to complete his experiment, even if he did choose the most emotionally unstable man in the world to test it on (who also happened to be one of Toms strange Michigan friends).

I really genuinely loved this movie. Long may Jason Segel continue to write about both Muppets and romantic relationships going wrong.

Date Night ☆☆☆

This was such a surprise to me last night. I decided to give it a go even though reviews on its release two years ago were pretty scathing, I was incredibly tired so that might have affected my judgement, but I really enjoyed this film.

It follows married couple Tina Fey and Steve Carell, masters of this comedy genre, who, after finding out their close friends are splitting up decide to give their date night some pizazz. Tina gets dressed up and Steve decides to take her into Manhattan for dinner (they live in New Jersey).

After reaching their desired restaurant later than planned Steve decides to take a table that has been reserved by a couple who have clearly not turned up. This is where their night goes horribly wrong. Cut to car chases, half naked Mark Wahlberg, completely toasted James Franco and Mila Kunis, and a hunt for an incriminating memory stick (or flash drive as our US counterparts call it).

I found it all really quite funny.

The performances are not hammy as the majority of the acting talent come from Saturday Night Live or Judd Apatow backgrounds. Steve and Tina are really well matched too as neither are the kinds of actor who seek to out-do their co-stars. I found their styles blended really well together and I was giggling a lot at their banter as they went from one insane situation to the next.

The story is, of course, completely hyperbolic and unlikely to ever happen in anyones lifetime. I don't think the film was trying to say it would. Shawn Levy who directed this is also responsible for Night at the Museum movies and Just Married, neither of which are at all likely or believable. Yet also quite enjoyable.

The movie blends slapstick with romance and fear, playing on the fears of married people whose friends are drifting apart that they are too doomed for failure.
I really enjoyed it, and i think if you are in the mood for something totally silly with some pretty great comedic talent you guys will enjoy it too.

Magic Mike ☆☆☆☆

So, yeah. I went to see a film about male strippers, can you honestly blame me?

Here is a brief outline of the plot for those under the impression it is just a film about men stripping.

Mike is a thirty year old stripper/entrepreneur. He has businesses in detailing cars (adding snazzy extras), roofing, and making custom furniture. He is also one of the biggest attractions at a strip club in Tampa, Florida. Known for his amazing dance skills and Fine assets (it needed the capital F, believe me) he earns decent money, sleeps with a plethora of beautiful women, and generally looks to be living the high life.

But Mike isn’t really happy. Enter Adam and Brooke.

Adam is 19, living on his sister’s couch, and finding work using Craigs List (for UK readers it’s like the Gumtree website) by lying about his skill set. He meets Mike at a construction site where he has said he can roof buildings, which of course is a lie. With one thing and another (I’m not going to spoil the details) Adam ends up seeing Mike again outside a nightclub where Mike decides to help the kid out, throwing him in to the world of stripping when ‘Tarzan’ is too incapacitated to perform, whereupon The Kid makes his debut to Madonna’s Like a Virgin. Both cringe-y and hilarious.

The story continues with Adam becoming intoxicated by his new life as a stripper, while Mike becomes less contented with his lifestyle and more interested in Adam’s sister Brooke. I won’t ruin the plot here, but at the end of the review I’ll add a spoiler warning and a brief look on the major plot points and ending.

The film was nothing like I would have expected. In fact, I’m not really sure what I expected apart from a lot of half naked men and the odd bum cheek. I had assumed there would be more laughs, moving more toward the comedy route than drama, but I was totally wrong. It made a perfect drama, even bordering on the tragic.

Of course there is comedy. From the performances by the strippers to the dialogue between characters there are some very funny moments. Like I said though, it did well to err on the side of the tragic. This perspective was reminiscent of Showgirls which looked at dancing girls in Las Vegas, although Magic Mike did not delve quite so deeply into the seedy underbelly of the business of sex.

The casting was superb. Of course Channing Tatum as Mike was perfect as Mr Tatum used to be a stripper, previously showing off his dance skills in earlier films such as Step Up (where he met his wife, a lucky lucky lucky woman). However it was not just his biceps or his quick feet that were of interest about his performance in this film, Channing seemed to dig deep to really bring out a wonderful, charming, level headed guy and twist him with raw emotions about his situation and his life. Such emotions which are brought out by Brooke, played by Cody Horn, a relatively new actress with a few episodes of Rescue Me and the US Office that people from the UK might recognise her from.

At first I thought they had made a huge mistake in casting when Brooke first comes on screen, then you realise it is actually genius. Horn at first seems to hold no acting talent, being slightly wooden in her responses to Tatum, but as the film progresses and the style becomes more solid, she holds her own against the bank of talent. The acting and dialogue in this film felt like it was improvised, hardly any script involved, because the conversations were slightly stilted sometimes or the flirting was just a bit clumsy. It was very real to watch, and incredibly refreshing.

Adam, aka The Kid, is played by the gorgeous Alex Pettyfer, a Brit who played mini-spy Alex Rider in Stormbreaker and more recently an alien in I am Number Four, both movies which should have spawned sequels but lacked the box office pull. Pettyfer is very good in this film, totally buff and, dare I say, sexy as The Kid, but also a total fuck-up (excuse my language) as Adam. He allows himself to be sucked into the glory of being a star stripper, taking risks and destroying hopes and dreams of others along the way. Pettyfer is truly growing up now and I hope this performance will make the Studio bosses at Lionsgate think “I know who should play Finnick in the next Hunger Games movie”. Apologies to those who have no idea what I’m talking about, just to be clear, Pettyfer would be PERFECT as Finnick Odair and I’ll happily have an argument with anyone who disagrees.

The rest of the cast are mainly made up of the strippers where Magic Mike and The Kid work. For those who watch a lot of US television they will recognise at least three of the supporting strippers: Joe Manganiello who plays Alcide the werewolf in True Blood, Adam Rodriguez who played Eric Delko in recently cancelled CSI: Miami, and Matt Bomer who stars in White Collar. There is also a WWE wrestler called Kevin Nash who plays 'Tarzan' - wrestling fans would know him as Diesel. 

Of course the main man in this strip club (apart from Mike) is played by the most famous abs in Hollywood…ahem I mean Matthew McConaughey. I know McConaughey takes a lot of heat for being a somewhat rubbish actor but he seemed to have been designed for this role. A cocky, gorgeous stripper who now owns and runs his own business, looking to expand to Miami and carry on his lifestyle with no real heed to the wants and wishes of his boys. There is a ruthless streak running through McConaughey's performance and this is why I don’t criticise his acting too much, because if he wants to he can do it. Ok so he can’t do any other accents but why should he? If Ray Winstone had abs like McConaughey's he wouldn’t be forced to become a cockney American/Russian/posh English gentleman all the time, he could just be Cockney.

There is quite a lot of stripping action, which was fine by me (and the rest of the audience, mostly female). It wasn’t gratuitous though like the filmmakers had thought “ummm bit stuck for plot, lets have another show!” The stripping scenes served a wider purpose to show the enjoyment that the guys got from performing, the skill level of Channing when it comes to dancing, and how the lure of all that cash must be so hard to pull yourself away from. I was glad to see the stripping wasn’t perfect either, yes Channing was awesome, but the other guys were not quite so nimble, though equally impressive in the muscle department. This made it more realistic once again, that you weren’t just watching some over-rehearsed backing dancers who took an acting gig.

I mentioned previously that the style was something that had to take shape for the audience to become more comfortable with the acting. The film uses a method adopted by Sam Mendes in Away We Go, Jason Reitman in Juno, and perhaps most famously by Tarantino, which is the usage of chapters. 

Away We Go is separated by destinations, Juno by seasons, Tarantino by whatever takes his fancy, and here Soderbergh adopts it using calendar months. The film goes from June to August and each month is announced quite abruptly by a black screen with white lettering announcing the month. This surprised quite a few people in the audience who you could hear saying “what was that?” I personally saw the first month announcement and felt almost a sense of relief, I knew which angle this film would take, it wouldn’t be some stupid comedy about strippers it was going to have real depth and feeling. I could have been totally wrong of course but luckily for my own ego I was right.

I really genuinely enjoyed this film. Yes there are a lot of half naked men and I am not sure how many of the straight male population (or gay female) would appreciate those moments, however the drama and the tragedy make this film so much more than a bunch of guys stripping. It is realistic in the sense you can imagine a conversation flowing the way it does on screen, the emotions are played out right with no clarity given as to how this all might end. It surprised me quite how serious the story became, then it delighted me with cheeky banter between the characters.

There were also, in case I forgot to mention, a lot of half naked guys…and a few bum-cheeks. Bliss.

*******************SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER ****************

So just a quick, spoiler filled, take on the film.

I loved Mike, he was so strong but obviously needed someone like Brooke to not be adoring his body only, wanting to talk to someone and be something other than ‘Magic Mike’, which really was all he was to Adam.

Adam was such a little shit I found myself adoring his physical presence but HATING him for ruining Mike. At the beginning when he refused drugs from the other strippers you thought ‘yay sensible kid’, then he gets wasted and moves on to the harder pills, then taking them to sell. Such an IDIOT. Costing Mike his life savings and then being so blaze about the enormity of paying him back made me utterly dislike him, because he never learnt his lesson.

I wish the relationship between the brother and sister had been explored a little more, as the beginning was such a nice touch with Brooke making Adam do impressions. However I realise it was a two hour film and really did not need to be any longer than that.

I very much enjoyed the end, with Mike leaving the strip club to do god knows what with his life, Adam stepping up to fill his shoes as he really does fit the role better, having no other wants or cares other than women, drugs, and stripping. What I especially liked though, was that Mike went to Brooke and finally got the girl he wanted and deserved. It was a really cheeky ending too, I had such fear as the film became more twisty and tragic that it would end in death or something equally horrific, but it didn’t. It ended with banter, discussion of breakfast, and a kiss. Perfect.