WHO: Bill Milner and Will Poulter.
WHAT: When this movie was recommended to hubby and I, we were skeptical. I'm not a fan of the Rambo movies and immediately thought it was just another installment. We were very wrong. This movie is about a young boy in England with an overactive imagination who sets out to make his own Rambo film with the class troublemaker and a crew of random kids. We visit each boy's family lives and find that they are both coping with the changes in their lives through their art. It is an incredibly sweet, funny, and unexpected movie.
NITTY GRITTY: very mild language, mild violence
WHO: Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. Directed by the wonderful Edgar Wright.
WHAT: If you like quirky well-timed British humor and don't mind a bit of unrealistic gore then you will maybe, possibly, quite likely love this movie. If you saw and loved Shaun of the Dead, then you are in for a treat. I am a huge fan of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. They are ridiculously hilarious without being over the top corny. Then you add in Edgar Wright as the director, and this movie ended up having amazing cinematography and perfect timing. The pace that Edgar Wright sets may seem unusual and abrupt if you haven't seen any of his films before, but you will soon submit to his brilliance and realize he makes the movie what it is. Then you will start googling him and immediately put all of his other films and show on your Netflix queue. I suppose I should tell you a bit about the movie instead of gushing about Edgar Wright though. I don't know if I want to. I went to see this movie with my husband and brothers-in-law and had no idea what it was about or who was in it. I just showed up and was shocked and my stomach hurt from laughing so much. I walked out of the theater processing and eventually decided it would land on my list of favorite movies. Here's all you need to know- Simon Pegg is a police officer who is relocated to a rural farm town that appears to have no crime. He and his partner, Nick Frost, find out that while the town has no crime, it does have an unusually high number of accidents. That's all I will give away.
NITTY GRITTY: violence, heavy on language, and some sexual content
WHO: Ryan Gosling (do I really need to mention anyone else?), Emily Mortimer, and Paul Schneider.
WHAT: This movie is a gem. I am pretty sure it is underrated. Ryan Gosling is an extreme introvert with some emotional issues that lead him to imagine that a life-sized doll he got off the internet (for.... you know) is a real woman. While the premise may seem like this movie is vulgar, the only sexual content is seeing the ads for the doll on the internet and knowing what its actual purposes are. Ryan Gosling's character is a gentleman and treats the doll as any Christian man would treat a woman. This movie has a slow, relaxed pace, and isn't chock-full of belly laughs, but there is some nicely timed humor to break it up and the end result is an uplifting, touching movie.
NITTY GRITTY: sexual content referring to the doll, mild language
WHO: Ricky Gervais, Greg Kinnear and Tea Leoni. Cameo by Kristen Wiig.
WHAT: Hubby and I went to see this in a super uncomfortable, cheap theater with a group of guffawing teens behind us... but we still enjoyed it. Here's the scoop- After a routine medical procedure Ricky Gervais's character, an anti-social, negative dentist, is able to see ghosts. One of these ghosts is Greg Kinnear who enlists his help to wrap things up with his widow Tea Leoni. You have to like Ricky Gervais' humor to like this movie. This movie is "don't take a sip at the wrong moment or you will spit it out laughing" funny while being sweet at the same time. I enjoyed the whole thing and loved the ending. And any movie where Kristen Wiig pops up gets major points from me. Unless they use her for a dramatic role rather than the humor and characters she excels at... then they get a big fat frown.
NITTY GRITTY: sexual humor and language
WHO: a young Robert Morse (Bertram Cooper in Mad Men)
WHAT: This movie was recommended to me by one of my college film teachers. I have a list of 100+ of his favorite rewatchable movies that he sent me a couple years ago and we have slowly been making our way through. We have found some of them to be barely watchable the first time and some of the others have been a treat. This movie was one of the treats. It's a musical about a young man who makes his way up the corporate ladder.... without really trying. The singing and dancing are hilarious and entertaining and the idea of this man making his way up the company just by reading a simple step-by-step guide book is ironic in and of itself. If you like 1960s musicals, this is definitely one to watch. And if you like The Jonas Brothers, you already missed Nick Jonas' stage performance in this musical this year. Sorry.
NITTY GRITTY: I don't remember anything questionable, but there may be some PG content I don't recall.
