Swiss Army Man

My roommate and I have been waiting for Swiss Army Man to come out since before 2016 even began. I was so excited to see this movie I checked my Fandango app almost every week starting in April even though I knew the release date. Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe together in the same movie? Just thinking about it was blowing my mind. As much as I was neutral about Ruby Sparks, I love Paul Dano. And I watched "Thorns" and realized Daniel Radcliffe is so much more than his Harry Potter persona. This kid is a weirdo and Paul Dano is a weirdo and I was dying to see them in a movie together. I showed the trailer to this movie to so many people I created a niche group of people who were obsessed with this movie at my college. Every weekend I was hoping there would be some cool, early release around me that I could go see. My friends and I were so hyped to see this movie and let me tell you, it did not disappoint.

The Big Short

The Big Short is a really inventive movie; it's like The Wolf of Wall Street mixed with Too Big To Fail. It was super funny and super dark-- often at the same time. The Big Short's most impressive accomplishment is making our mysterious stock market seem understandable to the normal movie goer. With all the talent that's packed into this movie there's no real place for weak performances, however, I was surprised how Christian Bale, Brad Pitt, Steve Carrell and Ryan Gosling were advertised as the main characters when really I thought Steve Carrell and Christian Bale were the actual main characters and Brad Pitt was just there to aid two characters played by virtually unknown actors. Ryan Gosling reminded me of a less egotistical version of Leonardo DeCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street. I wouldn't have been so confused in the beginning if the previews and trailers for the movie reflected the actual cast and their roles. In the trailer I saw it showed two of the main characters played by lesser known actors once together and one alone. In both shots they just look like bank executives and neither of them speak at all so I didn't appreciate it when these two guys were all in my movie when I really just wanted to see the four big wig names.

Krampus

The first thing I am noticing is that this movie poster radically understates the extent of just how Krampus-y Krampus' fingers and nails are. They are very Krampus-y; that hand looks like it could be remotely human aka nowhere near the reality of a Krampus hand. This movie isn't necessarily "scary" per-say but I found the monsters in it really cool and the sequence of events was more interesting and funny than it was scary to me.  I overall really enjoyed myself while watching this movie. It certainly isn't a classic holiday movie by any means but it was good enough to go to the movies to see it. And just a forewarning I started writing this the second I got back from the theater so a lot of this is first impression soup and little things that I noticed. Side-note: This director is set to direct X-Men Apocalypse which I don't know why, but I found that surprising.

Hot Fuzz

Out of all the three movies in the Cornetto trilogy, Hot Fuzz was probably my least favorite. There were a some good twists and it was pretty funny, but I just thought it was slow. I could pretty easily predict the ending, but there were too many delays to get there. Then once the ending twist was revealed, the movie took way to long to finish up. It could have ended a few times before it actually did. I remember getting to a part nowhere near the end and checking the time that was left and there was honestly, like, 40 minutes left and I couldn't imagine what could possibly happen between now and the next 40 minutes.

A Fantastic Fear of Everything

Easily the best, quirky, weird movie I've ever seen, A Fantastic Fear of Everything is so entertaining

and discombobulated you have to watch it twice just to get the whole picture and maybe a third time for giggles. I found a Fantastic Fear on Netflix so as of now, you can watch it as many times as you want. A neurotic writer, Simon Pegg, through writing his television script about serial killers, becomes paranoid that he is actually being stalked by a serial killer. With a mixture of mediums tied in through storytelling, A Fantastic Fear of Everything is the most unique movie I can think of; it reminds me of a Wes Anderson film but not not as coherent. It didn't get great reviews on any of the official review cites, but you have to have an open mind.

Instructions Not Included

For some reason this movie has a 56% on Rotten Tomatoes, which makes it "rotten". Instructions not Included is the cutest, funniest, most amusing father/daughter film I've seen. It certainly isn't a family film in cases where children would be watching it, but I watched this with my mom and we both really liked it. It certainly isn't award winning, but it provides for some decent plot twists and an unapologetic tearjerker ending, which some might call cheap, but I thought it was really smart. Yes, most of the movie is a goofy and cute documentation of how a father would do anything for his daughter, and the whole movie is sort of misleading about what the reveal will be at the end, but the last 30 minutes, I would say, has the most abrupt change in tone from the rest of the movie, and if you have any heart at all, you will cry.

Ruby Sparks

This is the most creative romance film you'll come by. I don't like romance films. The Notebook is predictable, and my favorite part of Titanic is when the boat snaps in half. This movie frustrated me the way most romance movies do. The male protagonist is problematic, the problems that arise in the plot are largely blamed on the female protagonist, and the arguments that happen seem petty and are annoying. This movie is quirky and cute in a lot of instances; the same directors that did Little Miss Sunshine did Ruby Sparks. What I do appreciate about this movie is the way the relationship comes about. Calvin, the main character, is a writer, and to combat writers block, he writes nonsensically about this perfect girl; this perfect girl (Ruby Sparks) appears in real life, in his apartment the next morning, believing she is his girlfriend and completely unaware that she is the reality of his writing. The part of this movie that is gripping for me, is the fact that this story quickly switches to a movie about morality: Calvin's morality.

American Ultra

Stoner Kristen Stewart and stoner/assassin Jesse Eisenberg? And they're a cute stoner couple? Yes please. So in. I was so in from the second I heard anything about this movie. Maybe it's because I've been dying to see Kristen Stewart finally be awesome in a movie because I think she's awesome in general. Maybe it's because I saw The End of the Tour the same week I saw this movie and, as I aforementioned in my review about The End of the Tour, I was not a fan of Jesse Eisenberg's character in it and I really wanted to see him in this innocently clueless role. Regardless of why this movie caught my attention so quickly, it did, and I was a thousand times satisfied with what I saw.