Profe Loves Movies

I haven't seen this since college and I remember laughing my ass off, but I wondered how it would hold up. Well, it definitely holds up! It's honestly impressive how funny it is. And incredible cast that give 110% at every turn. My biggest surprise from this rewatch was Jack Black's utterly bananas performance. Yes, there are quite a few not so PC jokes, especially around the R-word and a white actor playing a non-white character - but the point of those jokes surprisingly work, satirizing the hubris of Hollywood and method actors. Perfect movie for the neighborhood dads to watch in the backyard.

Had an absolute blast watching this! Rachel McAdams is killin' in as a woman who's been pushed aside one too many times at work and is now in a unique position to turn the tables on her asshole boss, played perfectly but Dyan O'Brien. Sam Raimi gives them her lots of juicy scenarios to not only survive while being marooned on an island but also fight toxic masculinity and mysogyny - and I mean juicy! Seriously, there are some really gnarly, gory effects! Wouldn't be Raimi if blood and other bodily fluids weren't being spewed in people's faces. My only problem with this movie? How dare you try to make Rachel McAdams look ugly.

This terribly titled HBO film attempts to cram every subplot of the AIDS epidemic from the onset of the virus to the present moment to middling success. There's some decent acting and found it very educational, but certain discoveries around the virus are laughably simplified to get a dramatic "Aha!" moment. And the constant flashbacks to Dr. Don Francis' (played by Matthew Modin) time in Africa dealing with the Ebola virus were too forced. This may have been better as a mini-series instead of an overly-long and overstuffed movie. Ultimately, I thought this was fine. Also - Who's NOT in this movie?! It's a veritable who's-who of 90's actors.

This was harrowing. As a parent of a daughter pretty close in age to Linda's child (whose name is never mentioned in the movie I don't think!), this movie hit close way too close to home. Thankfully we've never had to deal with any major illnesses but Rose Byrne's portrayal of a mother barely holding on to her sanity as life starts to collapse around her, starting with her ceiling, I could relate to my wife's challenges balancing her musical career, speech & language caseload, childcare, dinners, etc. while I work full-time and have a less flexible schedule - but I'm not even gone for weeks on end like her sea captain husband! It doesn't help that she's turns to alcohol and drugs to cope in the few hours after bedtime she has to herself, going deeper and deeper into these demons and eating away at any chance for her mind and body to recuperate. The camera is almost always in closeup on her face, not allowing us to escape her declining mental state as the hole in her ceiling begins to feel like a manifestation of her lack of control in helping her daughter, who struggles with some sort of eating disorder, to eat more and gain weight in the hopes having her feeding tube removed. Her therapist, and coworker, (whose played by Conan O'Brien in a dramatic turn) is useless and even outright antagonistic and combative at times, is wholly unable to help. To make matters worse, one of her patients recently had a baby and can't get a grip on her increasing anxieties about her child's safety - mirroring and amplifying her own worries of being a bad mom. At one point she even says, "This isn't suppose to be what it's like. This isn't it. This can't be it." So many people have kids but no one and nothing truly prepares you for what it could mean, even more true when something goes wrong with your kid. You're just supposed to figure it out. She even complains to her unnamed therapist, " I just want someone to tell me what to do. No one will tell me." Yet knowing all of this could theoretically happen to me, I don't think I would go back and decide NOT to have kids. Not sure how I feel about that but it's a little fucked up Now I'm thinking Rose Byrne deserved that Oscar over Jessie Buckley