Forgetting Sarah Marshall Review

        2000s comedy is to me probably one of the best as far as movies are concerned. You have the heavy hitters like Adam McKay and Judd Apatow that were releasing a new kind of comedy that aimed to show the mundane in the normal world and in anything Will Ferrell happened to be in. Little did I know that Apatow was in the credits for this film but didn’t entirely directed it. I happened to catch this film when I was in South Padre Island and I think it’s a perfect relaxing film that doesn’t get too depressing or heartbreaking when dealing with a breakup. 

1. Peter’s Hawaiian Getaway

        Little did I know when I was exposed to different stuff that I’ve seen Jason Segal in many things. My first exposure of him was when he played the villain Vector in the first Despicable Me. When I saw him on a consistent basis was when I was binge watching the entirety of How I Met Your Mother. At the time he was mostly associated with comedy films as only a secondary character. I feel that with this one he finally got the top billing. Well deservedly too since he also wrote the film based on his own personal experience. 

        So, the film is about Segal’s character Peter, who is a music composer for his girlfriend’s television show. They break up, which has Peter in a funk where his friend recommends having him go to Hawaii as a vacation. Little does he know that his ex is also on the island, along with her new boyfriend. It sucks when he can’t catch a break since Sarah is the last person Peter wants to meet and to immediately find out that she’s dating a vocalist in a band. 

        While the film is not too gloomy with the idea of Peter trying to get over a break up, I love that the film basically feels like an island adventure. More so that, the colors are lively to represent the Oahu Island and that for a beach is where Peter meets a variety of people that work or are staying at the resort. I’ll say that the supporting cast is one of the best aspects of the film since they help Peter get over his past relationship. I think out of all of them that are hilarious is Paul Rudd’s Chuck. Just an airhead guy that happens to live without being aware of what’s going on. 

        With a story like this, Peter happens to find someone that’s even better than Sarah. Mila Kunis as Rachel is just stunning. I think what makes her great was that she sees the awkward conversation between Peter and Sarah that she must help him out. Right down to even being comfortable around him to get an idea of who he is. The moments between Kunis and Segal is great since she’s not technically the rebound girl but she helps Peter be comfortable for who he is. The tender moments compliment the overall movie when it’s basically him that’s attempting to get over his ex. 

2. Breaking Up and Moving On

        It only makes sense that in this section I talk about Sarah Marshall. She is in the title of the movie and well the whole point of the movie is to have our guy forgetting her. It becomes impossible for him since she happens to stay at the same resort as him. Now, I will say that the movie isn’t entirely biased in a way where the movie paints her as the antagonist. Of course, finding out that she’s been cheating on Peter for a year isn’t right either. The moments between them is awkward in the hilarious way since Peter wants to patch up any sense of a relationship but she won’t budge. 

        The scene that is probably the best when you really get down to it is when they finally talk about why they broke up. All of it comes down to Sarah trying everything to fix it and accusing Peter of being a slob. One may think that she’s to blame but in reality is that they’re equally to blame. And the key fact that gets overlooked is that while she did everything, they didn’t sit down and talk. That whole tiny action is what maybe could’ve fixed things, but it wasn’t even explored. 

        If there’s one detail that I like is that we have flashbacks of when Peter and Sarah were together. It’s hilarious and sad on both sides since we can get a visual idea of how the breakup was all but inevitable. We get glimpses of Peter showing her his Dracula opera and Sarah telling him not to play it anymore is just infuriating. Right down to Sarah picking out clothes for Peter and for her new boyfriend Aldous lists out that she has flaws as much as Peter. As I mentioned, it isn’t entirely biased to paint her as bad, but to show that they weren’t compatible at all. 

        Apart from that, the whole movie is about having that baggage of the past. Like Peter’s toxic relationship and when Rachel tells him why she moved to Oahu. It’s not just Peter having a quest to figure himself out and to try to help out Rachel. I like that he’s proactive enough to be himself when Rachel does him a favor to play out his Dracula opera. It makes her redeeming and so representative of the feel good movie that this film is going for. 

        I might as well be upfront that both this one and Eternal Sunshine do have some things similar that I was entirely unaware. While one does have a breakup that inevitably tries to be salvageable and this one where there’s a breakup but the victim tries to move on despite everything. I think it’s unique to have a romance and love film focus on how to deal with a breakup. Being sci-fi or the traditional route of being self-reflective and accepting who one is. I feel like not enough films tackle that but prefer to go on the romantic route or do an action that is in the name of love

3. Overall

        Forgetting Sarah Marshall is one of the underrated romantic comedies of the 2000s. I had a good time with it and it’s certainly a palate cleanser after watching last week’s film. 

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Review

        It’s the season of love once again. Usually around this time I select specific films to talk about a grand idea. Ranging from a breakup, a nobody finally experiencing romance and two different historical events in the face of love. This time around, I’ve decided where I’m going to pick two films at random. For one, it’s got to be a film where I haven’t seen but has been talked about heavily in some film circles. Another one is a comedy since I have some things to say about it. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is probably one of the best films of the 2000s that I’ve watched. 

1. Joel and Clementine

        For awhile in the 2000s, you have some comedic actors that tried to steer away from the type casted roles and try something different. One example is Adam Sandler appearing in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love among others where he has stepped into the dramatic role. With Jim Carrey, he was everywhere in the 90s. He made a name for himself in his comedic roles like Dumb and Dumber and The Mask. While one can say that he has done something serious like The Truman Show but it’s ostensibly a comedic movie. 

        To say Eternal Sunshine is different from his prior films is really stating it. This movie is frontloaded with the concept of love where it does it in a unique way. So with that, we follow Joel, who’s a bit of an introvert where he randomly meets a quirky girl named Clementine. They manage to hit it off but time has passed where both can’t stand each other. Joel sees that Clementine has gone through a procedure to have her memories wiped. He follows suit as he wants to wipe out any memory he has of her. 

        As far as a love story is concerned, this one is very different. For one thing, the film has a very nonlinear approach with how we see the couple. Not to say that it’s confusing to follow since it’s not a traditional story told from one point to another, but one where we see how they meet and where the ensuing action takes place that kicks off the film. What I like is that it’s very grounded even though it has touches of sci-fi that’s imbued in the film. Like the fact that the whole world is normal but just the idea of having a company that specializes in erasing memory is nuts. 

        The chemistry that Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet have is very believable. For one thing, Joel is very neurotic that keeps to himself while Clementine is very outgoing is one of those people who wants to do things out of spontaneity. And it gets to a point where we see in one of the memories that Joel gets upset with her being reckless. It’s essential for a story like this to feature the turbulent moments because even though they’re going through a huge deleting process we want them to still try to be together. 

        Aside from seeing Joel try to stop his procedure from continuing, we also follow the workers of the company that has created this new idea. Both Mark Ruffalo and Elijah Wood do a good job portraying the workers Stan and Patrick respectively. It even gets messed up where it’s revealed that as Stan is working on Joel’s mind, Patrick has been seeing Clementine. To the point where Patrick has been using the items that Joel had gifted as his own “gifts”. I’m going to elaborate more on that specific world building and overall the difference between the idea of love and romance. 

2. Erasing Memories

        When I first saw the trailer, it was a clear red herring that advertised it as a comedic one where Jim Carrey unintentionally decided to wipe away his memory of his girlfriend. Now, there’s probably a comedic way of doing it. With how the film is presented it is practically terrifying when you really get down to it. Why would anyone want to have their one bad moment in life to be gone? It’s a human idea where we want to forget a bad relationship or a moment to be wiped clean, but it’s an unorthodox way to frame a love story. 

        For one thing, for as much that we follow both Joel and Clementine, we never get the actual reason why everything went south. We see the emotional core of it and it inevitably kicked off the event in the film to happen. Only Joel to realize that he has feelings for Clementine in spite of everything that he went through, even though we only saw a tiny glimpse of their relationship. This is where love and romance is the dividing line when it comes to framing a story about a couple breaking up and attempting to patch it up.

        And I should probably explain the difference between a love and romance story. For anyone, the terms seem interchangeable since they somewhat mean the same thing. We fall in love with anyone that we like, and we show romance when anyone is out with their significant other. In movie terms and it’s really from theater when you get down to it but it’s neither here or there. The difference between the two is that with romance it involves two people who fall in love and inevitably get together after going through some external rifts. 

        With love, they usually don’t involve a happy ending since a breakup is something that has to be done. Usually in the name of love since after all else fails to fix a relationship, one party tries to make it right. There are some films that deal with this idea such as Marriage Story and Blue Valentine to name a few, but the gist is that their presentation is sort of a downer since there’s no happy ending and the couple is left in a worse shape than when we saw them. So how does this relate to Eternal Sunshine?

        Since with this film, even though Joel follows suit to have his memory erased like Clementine, he still has feelings for her and tries to subvert the process by still retaining any last remnants he has of her. I really like how the clean slate is shown as we see Joel’s mind be erased like everything disappears or a face is wiped away. We even see memories of Joel’s past that he tries to have Clementine implanted so that he doesn’t lose her. There’s a moment of regret since he tries to tell her how he really feels about her but the process inevitably goes through. To say that the film is a downer is not really the best way to describe it. With what the film is going for and is very nonlinear where I can imagine Christopher Nolan doing a romantic/love story if he really wanted to, has it where there’s at least a good ending after everything that is shown. 

3. Overall 

        Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is one of the best films of the 2000s and one of the best love stories that should be seen.  

North Dallas Forty Review

        It’s time again for the final game of the football season. As always, I’ve reviewed football films of the past in anticipation of the Super Bowl. For a while, I wanted to tackle this movie, but I could never find the right moment. Having finally watched the film and digested it, I can honestly say that this is probably the best representation of the sport itself. Granted, it’s approximately 50 years old. As well as not seeing a lot of talk about this one, I at least want to get the ball rolling on that. 

1. Life of a Player

        This isn’t the first Nick Nolte film that I’ve seen. When everybody thinks about him, they can only picture a very haggard look that is like something from a police mugshot. Of course, my first exposure to him was in Ang Lee’s Hulk. Although I haven’t seen any of his other films to get a better idea of him as an actor. With that, I have to say that he plays this jaded player so well. In the film, we follow football player Phil as he navigates between his playing career and the bureaucracy he’s experiencing. 

        I was surprised that the whole film is based on the book by the same name. Additionally, the author was a football player named Peter Gent. Gent detailed the book by reminiscing on what he experienced when he was playing for the Dallas Cowboys. It was one of the first instances of allowing the reader or any casual fan of the sport to have a look into a player’s life. Revolutionary at the time, when you take into consideration that the NFL likes to have a clean image in a rough sport. 

        I’m getting ahead of myself with that statement. I just love how raw and gritty the whole film is. Watching the trailer it’s almost like a deceiving one since it gives you an impression that the whole film is like a comedy. When you really get down to it, it’s about a player who doesn’t know it’s his last hurrah still under the belief that he’s a great player. To me, it’s more interesting when the movie doesn’t show a season but is more of an intimate profile of one player within a season. 

        The characterization of Phil Elliot makes him intriguing character-wise. For one thing, he’s not a bombastic guy by any means. When he’s outside the football field, he’s a lonely guy that keeps to himself. The scene when the whole team is partying illustrates that further. We see the team party hard and Phil just roams around as he’s weighing his options on who to talk to. It makes him a sort of sad character in a sense that this isn’t a movie where he’s making a comeback or given a shot. The movie has him wrestling with the idea of how long can he play. And it’s apparent that he's a rebel of the team and is the jaded one. 

        It would’ve been a by-the-number sports film to show the player from the start of the season to the end. And have the final moments center on the championship or a superior team facing off against an underdog. This film is none of that, I love the realism that is in display of the film. The way it opens just shows us an aftermath of the sport, seeing Phil in bed uncomfortable from the game. Topping it off is the beer and assortment of pills on the nightstand. Showing us that even though they’re athletes to the highest degree, it takes a lot to overcome an injury. 

2. What the NFL Doesn’t Want To Show You

        I think what separates this film from most of its contemporaries, even including the other sports is that it’s brutal. The amount of abuse and wear that the player goes through, especially in that time granted is just unfathomable. I know I’m typing about something that I haven’t experienced, but I will say that I’m surprised that this film so to speak has been swept under the rug when it comes to talking about football films. 

        Not to say that there’s a conspiracy involving the league to push the film into obscurity, but I will say that the film has that punk edge to it. In my opinion, it takes a very liberal approach in the way of showing what a player went through at that time. It’s not glamorized in the least bit, but shows the nature of the sport when you really think about it. For one thing, it’s a business. The one moment where it’s apparent is when Phil is in the building to meet with the coach, he sees a diagram of the company that owns the team. 

        One can think that the film is pretty dated with it’s portrayal of the football players and their life outside of the field. I think that the film offers a tiny glimpse through the veil sort of say as to show that there’s just athletes getting put through the ringer. To me, it’s about as blue collar as you can get with the camaraderie that it’s in display and the overall casualness when they’re going over the opposing team. To me, it’s necessary to show something since we can’t assume that the NFL is everything that any potential player can dream of. 

        Lastly, I wouldn’t say that the film has a anti-football lean to it. Not even in the moments when we see Phil encounter the bureaucracy of the team. It’s an intriguing character study of a player who is conflicted with what he wants to do. As I mentioned earlier, it’s not an underdog movie. More so that it’s a film that showcases when a player is jaded enough where he has to decide whether he is really good as he thinks he is. Introspective in a sense where we see the grit to it in the film’s favor. 

3. Overall

        North Dallas Forty is one of the most underrated football films and a hidden gem in 70s cinema. 

Alien: Romulus Review

        This is the first time that I’ve reviewed a horror centric series. To say that it was easy, well, I spaced the first two out that it made sense to talk about the rest of them. When marathoning the sequels, it’s so clear to see what went wrong. It’s practically indicative of what Hollywood is, from studio interference to questionable director choices, the whole series went through the ringer of somewhat being alive when it was seemingly dead. And it all leads to a sequel, one could say that nobody was asking for it. Even I was hesitant, despite having a good director helming the sequel. After watching the film a second time, this is what I think. 

1. Friends in Search of a Better Home

        2024 I think is one of the best years in horror. If you’ve read my review of The Substance, I made note that a prequel and a sequel were on the list of the best horror films. Obviously, this is one of the best sequels and probably 3rd best. Considering what came before, the bar was literally on the ground and it managed to do something different by walking over it. On another note, I feel that last year was also a tribute to 20th Century Fox. Most of their beloved franchises were granted a new boost in relevancy through the power of Disney. While some consider it to be an easy cash grab, they at least delivered on what was expected. 

        This time around, the film takes place between the first two Alien films. We follow some colonists named Rain and Andy. The latter being an android, Rain is attempting to leave her colony to have a better life. And I just love how the first instant we see her, she’s totally calm in her dream and then hard cut to where she really is. If there’s one thing that was missing from the prior entries, was just the brutal aura and corporate monsters known as Weyland-Yutani. They have a much bigger presence here than just have the usual suits running around. 

        While we’ll talk about them more, Rain is joined by her friends to escape their colony after being told that their work quotas have since doubled. Now the whole premise is relatable when you think about it. All of them want to have a better life, and by doing that they manage to find an abandoned space station. If you haven’t read the prior reviews this month, well, it all goes completely wrong. 

        So, there’s a lot to digest and talk about in this movie. For one thing, it’s all straightforward as you can get. They all raid the station to get to where they’re going. Unintentionally, they walk into a lab where the company have been experimenting on the Xenomorph and that’s when the proverbial acid lands on the floor and starts to descend further. I love how horror slowly works it way where it’s a survival film. So much so that it’s not just the aliens that the main characters have to worry about. This is probably the only time where we see the company be almost cruel with how it treats the characters. 

        Or in this case, the on-site android that talks to the characters. Obviously modeled after Sir Ian Holmes’ Ash from the first film, Rook is sinisterly duplicitous like the android that we see. I think what makes him dang nasty bad is that he’s the face of the company. What he wants is the survival of one experiment that the company has created, while everybody else is expendable through the eyes of the corporate monster. It’s one of those things where I must commend the director with really leaning into that side where we get tiny glimpses of the company. In an age that is maybe leaning that way, we truly see just how prideful the company is represented. 

2. Fede Alvarez

        So this is the first film that I’ve seen of Fede Alvarez. He made his name by making a remake of Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead film back in 2013. From there, he made an original film with Don’t Breathe. With his work on the remake, it made sense to give him a decent budget with this film. To me, it paid off so well since he really honors the original and the series as a whole. While some have complaints that the film references too much of the past films, to the point that some shots and phrases were used. I think it works in a good way since it’s basically a love letter to the franchise. 

        The whole ambiance of the world and space station that Alvarez presents is really something to behold. None of it was green screened in the least bit. And there were moments where it just added to the layer of dread that we’re anticipating and just want to move along faster. One moment just sells what we’re in for. It’s in the beginning scene when we see the company find the alien that Ripley blasted in the first film. We see that scientists surround the hardened body like it’s a religious ceremony. I think it’s an homage to 2001, but more than anything it shows how the company unleashed a monster.

        As I mentioned earlier, I’m glad that Alvarez really emphasized more of the company by showing them just how cruel they are. Past films portrayed Weyland-Yutani as an unfeeling company, whose interests were their own and deeming any life as secondary to their main objective. It’s refreshing to see them finally get their prized alien, only for it to slaughter everyone. More so that we finally get some closure to one of the plot points from Ridley Scott’s prior two films. I was rolling my eyes when I saw that the black ooze from before finally appeared. The way they went about it impressed me and the final alien variant. Oh, man. 

        I don’t want to give too much away, since this is a great horror movie. The final moments is one of the unexpected surprises that legitimately scared me. And it’s really something where Alvarez defended his inclusion of this alien variant that the people over in Disney were not too kosher about it. I’m glad that he stuck to his guns and showed us this surprising thing. Just it’s whole evolution was grotesque and so off putting. I really wonder if Ridley Scott had a hand in it or Alvarez really saw the potential when having to include the black ooze in his story. 

        So that about covers the Alien franchise. It was a roller coaster with marathoning the sequels and watching it from their lowest point to their descent and relatively great entries. More than anything, it’s a franchise that keeps going and I feel that without the main star such as Ellen Ripley, the whole franchise can go in either direction. Specifically, it’s one of those rare franchises where it can capitalize on the singular horror element or be action-horror. Just the titles of Alien and Aliens give the franchise a lot of leeway with what it wants to do next. 

3. Overall

        Alien: Romulus gives the franchise a needed boost in life. It’s one of the best horror films of last year and a great entry to a beloved franchise. 

Alien: Covenant Review

        We’re almost done with looking at the Alien franchise. So far, it’s one thing to see it try to anchor the series on Ripley. The result is two disastrous entries to end her story and send the series into a temporary limbo. To prop up the series again, Ridley Scott tries to do an origin of the species itself. While I made my opinion on Prometheus, it made enough money in the box office to warrant a follow-up. With the new direction, it made sense to continue with the engineer storyline and why they would create and end humanity. All of that is thrown out with Alien: Covenant. 

1. Paradise Lost

        Before bearing the subtitle Covenant, the sequel was going to be called Paradise Lost. Continuing the plot thread of Elizabeth and David as they try to find the engineers. Of course, none of that is followed up. Well, it is but I’ll explain later. This is probably the one time where the filmmaker made a film in response to the last one. Since Prometheus lacked Xenomorphs, now we have one. And adding the detail that the engineers in this one are dead as well. I’m getting ahead of myself where it’s an even more conflicting film. One that is right in the middle between tolerable and bad. 

        We follow a new Weyland-Yutani colony ship as they cruise to their new planet. A random intergalactic event wreaks havoc as the ship is partially damaged. As the crew fixes the ship, they receive an old radio transmission and trace it back to a habitable world. I could give away the whole film right then and there but, those days are done. So, we have a new cast that we follow aboard the Covenant and keeping with Alien tradition we have a new lead. 

        If there’s one thing where I do like is that I like Daniels. I love her character and to me, she’s the only smart one out of everybody. I like how she’s levelheaded and clearly see just how questionable the new planet that they’re detouring to. I think she’s probably a close second to Ripley as far as having someone competent in a world where there’s a huge level conspiracy involving the company. Not to besmirch on the other cast since they did good with what they got, but I feel that as big as the crew is. None of them made me want to care since we can only assume that a majority of them will get axed. 

        If there’s one thing that I didn’t talk about is the seemingly stupidity of the cast. This is a recurring thing that I didn’t mention when talking about Prometheus is that everyone acts dumb for the sake of the story. What I mean by that is they do stuff that practically sets up their doom or advances the story where it must go. There are ways to go about it. The best route as seen in the first two films is that the company dictates where the crew is going. What makes it work is that Ripley is the smart one out of everyone, but they are merely going with what the company computer is telling them. 

        The bad way is doing it since the story has to go where it must go. It’s what I call autopilot or the characters being passive where the story continues without anyone taking an active direction. Like, they go to the planet because it is habitable but of course, the fact that there’s no life and where there’s an unknown creepy vibe to it should have rung multiple alarms. I think everyone lost their mind when seeing two of the crew members get infected by a pathogen. The spore enters through an opening like an ear and mouth, but it carries over from the black goo from the prior film. 

        Thinking about the film and putting it into words is slowly making me upset. It’s like it has these executions that are compounding each other, but I must give credit to the level of violence that is on display. This is probably the most brutal an Alien film that I have seen. Watching it again, it’s just gruesome with how the deaths are presented. This is the only one where the body count is massive and many of them aren’t from the aliens in question. We get a brand-new variation called the Neomorphs. They’re albino looking and way more feral as they claw and eat their prey. 

        And that’s basically it since we see very little of them since we only see two of the Neomorphs. The next tab is where I highlight most of the problems in the film, but this is one of the reasons why the movie swung so hard. I would’ve liked to see the variants instead of going back to the Xenomorph. More so that with each succeeding films prior to this one, the main variant worked its way to near the end of the film. And seeing how it’s a ferocious creature would’ve made it more brutal than what we got. 

2. Creation: Missed Opportunities

        As I mentioned earlier, the film was supposed to be a continuation of Elizabeth’s and David’s story to find the Engineers. Until Ridley Scott decided to tell another story and then work around the Prometheus story line. To me, it feels so off seeing two storylines try to weave something that is coherent where any random person can follow what’s going on. The whole movie is just a wasted opportunity and a huge feedback film in the worst possible way. 

        I call it a feedback film because it drops the initial storyline in favor of something that is close to the root of the franchise. While the whole Engineer storyline drew a line in the sand, I’ll at least commend it that it tried to do something different instead of being a basic Alien film. Yes, it probably was going to work its way into how the Xenomorph came to be. How it’s presented in this film is just confounding to me. And it all starts as soon as the movie opens with both David and his creator Weyland. 

        We see Weyland test David, by asking various questions and deeming him as he were his son. We get looks that David is annoyed by Weyland who orders him after he questioned his method to his creators. And that’s what the whole film is about, creation. It’s a different angle than what Prometheus is going for, but the way they went about it to me is just questionable. I don’t understand why they would kill off Shaw off screen. Even showing her cadaver as one of David’s experiments. 

        Most surprising than most was that 20th Century Fox released promo vids that act as a prologue for the characters. Elizabeth’s especially since we hear David’s narration as he appreciates her as they voyage to an Engineer planet. It’s a recurring thing with Ridley Scott’s films where the theatrical cut is inferior while he releases his own cut on home video. This one didn’t get any treatment, but it would have fleshed out more of the details instead of going for a shock factor that feels like a betrayal of what came before. That goes double for the crew getting their own video. We see that James Franco dies in the film, but it’s more of a punch line more than anything else. 

        I feel that more than anything, Michael Fassbender’s performance of playing two androids save the film from being total garbage. He plays the new android named Walter. A deeper voice but is committed to the crew and I like that he forms a bond with Daniels. The conversation between David and Walter is great to see since he is apprehensive of the earlier model that he hesitantly trusts him. Until, it’s revealed that David has gone rampant with his programming that he sees himself as a God. Not to harp on the promo vids again, but it’s a real missed opportunity to not have that detail at work by having Elizabeth go on a tragic path to see it. 

        This would be Ridley Scott’s last active involvement with the Alien franchise. He inevitable would have a hand in the following sequel, but this would be the last one where he had total control of where the story was going. Due to how it turned out, it’s the lowest grossing entry in the franchise. And much like the first gap in the franchise, the series was dormant. The only thing that kept it going was the video games that came out. I haven’t tried them since I’m a scaredy cat when it comes to horror video games. One of them specifically would serve as an inspiration for the next entry. 

3. Overall

        Alien: Covenant is one of the most disappointing sequels in the franchise. There are bright spots, but the glaring issues blind the film from being competent.