A Good Old Fashioned Orgy (2011)

Original Theatrical Release Date: September 2 , 2011
Director: Alex Gregory, Peter Huyck

Eric (Jason Sudeikis) and his group of thirty-year-old friends have parties all summer at his dad’s house in the Hamptons. However, when his dad decides to sell the place, Eric proposes the party to end all parties…an orgy. The longtime friends must then decide if they’re up for potentially ruining their existing friendships in the process.

There are a few funny folks in this flick, but the story seemed disjointed and I was never quite sure where it was headed. That could have been a good thing because they didn’t seem to follow some of the same conventions these type of films tend to hold, but there was just no focus.

Sudeikis has never been one of my favorites, and I think he could probably be good in the right role but he (and none of the actors, really) reached out and tried to grab the audience. On top of that, the chemistry between all these friends seemed sparse and mostly artificial. There were a couple of moments where I chuckled to myself but I found no real guffaws.

Worth a view the first time around? Sure. A second viewing? Nah, probably not. There’s not much to quote from this film.

JOE Rating: ★★★

Movie Trailer For A Good Old Fashioned Orgy

Scott Pilgrim VS. The World (2010)

Original Theatrical Release: August 13, 2010
Director: Edgar Wright

Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) lives in Toronto, Canada and hopes to be successful with his band, Sex Bob-omb. He is still having trouble getting over his ex-girlfriend and has taken to dating a high school girl, Knives Chau (Ellen Wong), who is five years younger than he is. When Scott meets the much more mature Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), however, he entagles himself in a love triangle. But, that’s not all…if he wants to be with Ramona he has to defeat Ramona’s Seven Evil Exes…all with different sets of fighting abilities.

This is, of course, based on the Oni Press comics by Bryan Lee O’Malley of the same name and does a pretty good job (better than I expected, actually) of capturing the feeling of the book and artwork. The special effects are all pretty nice, aside from a few times where it looked pretty unrealistic (even in the context of the film…I call it the Storm-Syndrome because of Storm/Halle Berry flying up the elevator shaft in the first X-Men film…looked completely false and unrealistic and unnatural)

I thought Michael Cera was a good choice for Scott Pilgrim and also all of the Seven Evil Exes seemed to be spot on, especially Lucas Lee (Chris Evans) and Gideon Graves (Jason Schwartzman).

The movie moved at a pretty decent pace, I thought, but maybe could have either been shortened or made into a couple of movies if more detail was put in. Some viewers might think the movie is all flash and not be able to appreciate the novelty of the story’s premise.

There are, of course, tons of throwbacks to classic video games and that gives it a fun sort of edge.

JOE Rating: ★★★★

Movie Trailer For Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil (1997)

Original Theatrical Release: November 21, 1997
Director: Clint Eastwood

This film was based on a novel by John Berendt , of the same name.

A New York journalist, John Kelso (John Cusack) travels to the slower-paced Savannah, Georgia to write a feature for Town And Country Magazine on the massive annual Christmas party that Jim Williams (Kevin Spacey) throws. After the party, Williams kills his violent and childish lover, Billy Hanson (Jude Law) and claims it was self defense. Sensing a hit-story and novel, Kelso stays in Savannah to cover the trial and ends up meeting all sorts of wacky characters including an African-American transvestite night club performer named Lady Chablis (Who plays herself) and a vocalist named Mandy Nichols (Alison Eastwood) whom John has a romantic interest in.

PHEW.

With a crazy cast of characters and a long-winded, potentially boring story…certain things have to come together for the film to be successful. Clint Eastwood’s direction seems to capture the essence of the slow, down-to-earth southern lifestyle of Savannah, Georgia. The movie sometimes follows too closely to that pacing and seems to lead down roads that go nowhere, blissfully taking its time in its own atmospheric qualities, which thankfully are good more often than not (the graveyard scene, anyone?).

I’m a huge fan of Spacey and Cusack, so I admittedly would watch almost anything either of them are in (probably even porn, if it existed…JUDGE ME NOT), but I think Spacey’s performance in this film almost borders on being a parody, which actually works. The man’s a genius, I’m telling you.

Cusack, while I love the guy, didn’t really turn in too much more than we usually get from him. The character in this movie is almost the same one from 1408 (which obviously came out later on), but you can’t help but watch the man work.

I think whether you like the book or not, the movie is a different animal. The atmosphere of the movie is the star and Eastwood did a good job with it.

JOE Rating: ★★★

Movie Trailer For Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil