Movies of the Month

Kelli and I love going to the theater to see movies. We always have. However, since Charly has entered our life, our movie watching has resorted to Bluray discs from Netflix. And usually, it takes us multiple nights of starts and stops to complete one viewing.

Since Christmas break we've devoured some 20+ Blurays though. We've rented some great flicks (Easy A, Inception, The Town, and Life as We Know It), and some not-so-great flicks (MacGruber, The Other Guys, and The Switch). Over Christmas break we also decided that we really missed going out to movies and wanted to make it a part of our nonexistent social life once again. So we hatched a plan we like to call Movie of the Month. Each month, we will pick one movie to see in the theater while someone (probably a family member or two) takes Charly off our hands.

In January we saw Unstoppable starring Denzel Washington. It's about these two morons who accidentally send a huge freight train carrying dangerous chemicals, hurling down the tracks unmanned. Denzel Washington and some newbie (Chris Pine from Star Trek) are riding on another train and think they can save the day and be heroes by meeting the runaway train and bringing it to a stop.

I swear, the movie Speed in 1994, set the bar for action movies of this nature. Since then, it feels like a ton of movies have been made trying to cash in on the same formula. High octane, edge-of-your-seat, race to the end, type of action. Like Speed, the plot behind Unstoppable is rather simple (even loosely based on a true story). Maybe it's simplicity is what makes it work. It's only an hour and a half long and it doesn't try and be something it's not. With Tony Scott at the helm (Top Gun, Days of Thunder, Enemy of the State, Man on Fire) there's going to be an at-times unnecessary focus on the flair but he's a consistent director who approaches his films with the intent to entertain and sell popcorn. He sold us. We liked it!

In February we went to see Just Go With It, staring Adam Sandler, Jennifer Aniston, and Brooklyn Decker. One movie that Kelli could watch over and over is 50 First Dates and one actress she loves is Jennifer Aniston (although I'm not so much of a fan). Adam Sandler, dumb as he may be, is someone I always seem to be entertained by and with the beautiful Brooklyn Decker alongside, this was an easy choice for us!

In the movie, Sandler plays a plastic surgeon who loves his life as a bachelor. His receptionist, played by Jennifer Aniston, is the only person who truly knows him and the chemistry between them is great. When Sandler meets school teacher Brooklyn Decker, he falls head over heels in love and gets wrapped up in a lie as a divorced man with two children. He gets Jennifer Aniston and her children to play along and the result is pretty funny.

The thing with Adam Sandler's Happy Madison produced movies is that you always feel like you're eavesdropping in on one big inside joke. It feels like only half of the lines could actually be scripted and his buddies always seem to find cameos somewhere, whether they're the best men for the job or not (Dave Matthews is my favorite in this one). Some may find it annoying. Some may call it lazy filmmaking. Kelli and I love it. We loved Big Daddy. We loved The Wedding Singer. We loved Anger Management (despite not loving Marisa Tomei). We loved 50 First Dates. We loved Click. We loved Grown Ups. Why would we not love this?

Which brings us to March. At first glance there appeared to be no movies we were really dying to see. No matter how hard I tried to get Kelli to wait until this coming weekend to see Sucker Punch with me, she refused. Once we scanned the showtimes a little closer, a decision between Hall Pass, The Lincoln Lawyer, The Adjustment Bureau, Paul, and Limitless seemed more difficult than we first thought.

We settled on The Adjustment Bureau. Kelli and I both like Matt Damon and the reviews were solid. Matt Damon plays a politician with a shaky past vying for a New York senate seat. Upon meeting Emily Blunt's character, his world is turned upside down. He loses the election. And soon, he accidentally stumbles upon a strange group of men, calling themselves The Adjustment Bureau, who can change and alter the universe as they see fit. The Adjustment Bureau will stop at nothing to keep Matt Damon and Emily Blunt apart and the duo set out to solve the mystery of why they supposedly cannot be together.

This movie was not at all what Kelli or I were expecting. It's a movie about free will and fate. We were both expecting a suspenseful mystery but instead, I would almost classify this as romance and drama. That doesn't mean it was a bad movie though. There are suspenseful, mysterious elements to the plot but the reveal of why these two characters can't be together was rather obvious and not at all surprising. The love they felt for each other was definitely the focus of this film and in the end, we both felt it was a good movie, but not great.

Looking forward to whatever we choose in April. Maybe we'll even spring for dinner!