thoughts on Dallas Buyers Club

Matthew McConaughey stars as Ron Woodruff, an electrician and bull rider living in Dallas in the mid-1980s. He learns, following an electrical accident that puts him in the emergency room, that he is HIV positive.  Early scenes of the film have established that he was at a higher-than-average risk for this, and that there were signs of this long before he was diagnosed; he has sex with multiple partners (often, multiple partners at one time), and we see him coughing frequently and getting dizzy and collapsing at one point, though you can imagine he chalks this up to the fact that he drinks, snorts coke, and gets into a lot of fights.  The doctors (played by Denis O'Hare and Jennifer Garner) give him thirty days to live.  Ron spends the first few of these days in denial; he thinks that only gay men get HIV.  However, after he does some research and learns that the virus is spread through unprotected sex, he realizes that this is actually happening. 

He goes back to Dr. Saks (Garner) and asks her about a then-new drug called AZT, which is currently being tested on human subjects (Saks thinks the testing process has been rushed).  Since the drug is still being tested, Saks can't prescribe it to him, but he manages to work out a deal with a janitor, who sneaks him some.  Eventually, someone at the hospital figures out that some is going missing and begins locking it up, at which point the janitor tells Ron about a doctor in Mexico.  Ron is initially skeptical, but driven to desperation-- both by his sudden lack of AZT and by the fact that virtually everyone in his life has turned their back on him; he even returns to his trailer to find an eviction notice on the door-- he checks it out. 

The doctor there prescribes drugs that work better (AZT is apparently very hard on the body, especially when one has a weakened immune system), and Ron arranges to take a large amount of them back to the United States.  With the help of a transgendered man named Rayon (Jared Leto) that Ron met in the hospital, he sets up a "buyers' club" in which people can get whatever drugs they want for a monthly membership fee.  He is able to do this for a time because the drugs are not technically illegal, just unapproved, and because he's not actually selling the drugs, but rather membership in the club.  However, he faces opposition from the medical/pharmaceutical community (Dr. Saks is sympathetic, but there's only so much she can do), and is also continually hindered by the fact that his health is continually declining, as is Rayon's.

The movie is about several things.  It's about how completely awful it must have been to have AIDS in the eighties, when they hadn't figured out how to treat it effectively and when the public had some pretty major misconceptions about how you contracted it. It's about the fact that sometimes the medical community is hindered in their efforts to provide the best care and treatment possible for their patients by regulations, restrictions, and the influence of the pharmaceutical industry.  And, it's about Ron, who starts out just trying just to survive and winds up helping a lot of people, and who grows less homophobic through his unlikely friendship with Rayon.

The story itself is very interesting.  It felt a bit longer than its slightly less than two-hour running time, perhaps because it's hard to tell where the story is going; after he establishes the buyers' club, you're not really sure what will happen next or what you should want to happen next, and the main characters' deaths are a forgone conclusion.  However, it informed me about things/events I didn't know a lot about and made me want to learn more, which I appreciated.  The performances are solid across the board.  Jared Leto's character is the most likeable, and I think his performance was probably the strongest, though I have no complaints about McConaughey's, either.  Garner has the least to work with of the three, but her role is important in that 1) you need someone from the medical community that isn't villainous, as some of the other medical professionals come across and 2) Ron needs someone neutral, sympathetic, and informed to talk things through with.  There's sort of a romantic vibe between the two of them that not much comes of, but that's really not what the movie was about.

Anyway, I thought it was a solid movie.  Worth seeing.

"This is the revolution. And you are the Mockingjay." (thoughts on Catching Fire)

The second movie in a trilogy can sometimes be a hot mess.  Sometimes, it turns out to merely be inconsequential; for example I enjoyed Scream 2 (and yes, I know that they eventually made a fourth Scream movie, but I think the first three were originally envisioned as a trilogy), but after all was said and done, I recall commenting to someone, "The second movie basically could have not even happened." Not much of real consequence happened in that movie, and there was some stuff that I wished hadn't happened at all. 

More often, the second movie in a trilogy is a hot mess in that it's not a self-contained movie at all; you can't understand it without having seen the first one, and it doesn't really end, it just stops.  This is not always necessarily a bad thing.  Back to the Future Part 2, for example, is my favorite of that trilogy, but I love it because it's insane: now they're in the future!  Now they're in an alternate 1985!  Now Doc Brown is literally drawing a diagram on a chalkboard to explain what's going on!  Now Marty's back in the 1955 of the first movie, and he has to make sure not to run into his other self!  It ended with the words "To Be Continued," and very little was resolved; I recall, as a child, being all, "Wait! He didn't even go back for Jennifer!," because the movie ended with Marty's girlfriend still left passed out on a porch in (I think) alterna-1985.  I was very concerned about Jennifer.

Anyway.  The point is, Catching Fire (the movie, and, really, the book, too) is kind of a hot mess in that there's a ton going on and that it's not really a self-contained story, but like Back to the Future Part 2, it is awesome.  Though I liked the first Hunger Games well enough (I really liked it when I saw it in the theater, then found myself with more issues with it upon repeated viewings), in retrospect, it spent a lot of time setting things up; I liked that with Catching Fire, they could just jump right into things.

For those unfamiliar with the story, Catching Fire begins with Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) back home after the Hunger Games.  She and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) must go on a "victory tour" of the districts.  Before she leaves, though, President Snow (Donald Sutherland) visits Katniss to tell her, basically, that he's not buying her act: he doesn't think she's really in love with Peeta, which means that she didn't threaten to eat the poisonous berries at the end of the Games because she couldn't live without him; it was an act of rebellion against the Capitol.  At any rate, that's how some of the people watching saw it, and if a girl from District Twelve can defy the Capitol and get away with it, why can't everyone?  President Snow threatens that she'd better convince the people (and him) that she and Peeta really are in love and, basically, get this whole thing under control.

The problem is, it's already out of her hands, and they'd better get this whole thing under control...or what?  Or maybe the people won't get to go back to their regular lives of, as Gale (Liam Hemsworth) puts it, working like slaves, nearly starving to death, and risking their children in the Hunger Games every year?  At one point Katniss suggests to Gale that they run away, but he tells her no: she is in this thing now.  There's no going back.  Thus, the following conflicts are in play:

1) The Capitol wants to keep control of Panem.  Katniss is a threat to that.  However, the people see her as a beacon of hope, so simply killing her would only fan the flames of unrest.  Thus, they must either control her or change public opinion about her.  They try to do both, unsuccessfully, over the course of the film.

2) Katniss wants to  go back to life basically as it was before the Hunger Games.  It's nice to no longer be starving to death, but she doesn't like the Capitol dictating every detail of her life, as they do now and will continue to do.  The problem is, she's trapped; as Haymitch (Woody Harrelson) tells her, there are really no winners of the Hunger Games-- only survivors.  She has to play by the Capitol's rules or risk harm to herself, Peeta, Gale, her mom, and her sister.  As various characters point out to her over the course of the film, however, what's happening is bigger than all of them, and some things are more important than basic day-to-day safety and survival.

This all comes to a head in the 75th Annual Hunger Games, in which the Capitol announces the tributes will be chosen from the pool of existing victors, which means that Katniss and Peeta are going back in, along with a rather motley crew of fellow contestants.  They become allies with Finnick (Sam Claflin), a ridiculously good-looking charmer who Katniss isn't completely sure she can trust; Mags (Lynn Cohen), the other tribute from Finnick's district, who looks to be in her seventies or eighties; Johanna (Jena Malone), who strips naked in front of Peeta, Haymitch, and Katniss in an elevator (the look on Jennifer Lawrence's face throughout this scene is pretty much the greatest thing of all time) on their first meeting and is generally a badass; Wiress (Amanda Plummer), who Johanna nicknames "Nuts"; and Beetee (Jeffrey Wright), an electronics expert.  It's different from Katniss and Peeta's first Games: they've all been here before; they're willing to form alliances; and they all know who the real enemy is.

There's a LOT going on here, but the movie handles it all fairly well: basically, we follow Katniss as she goes from thinking that if she just plays by the Capitol's rules, it'll be fine, to realizing that it was never fine and is never going to be fine unless something changes.  She basically has to adjust her whole way of thinking.  The first movie was all about survival.  This movie is about deciding what you want for yourself when survival is no longer your only concern.

So, very good as the second movie in a trilogy.  It raises the stakes and leaves a lot let to explore in the last part.  I liked it.

Nashville/Scandal

Is it just me, or has Nashville gone off the rails into total over-the-top soap opera territory? Don't get me wrong; I love stuff like that.  But that moment last week when Charles Wentworth's wife knocked on Juliette's door and just started making out with her? And then last night when Peggy decided to fake her miscarriage, and she just pulls out this plastic tub that has, like, a professionally printed label on it that says "Pork Blood"? Me to my mom on the phone today: "I don't even know where you'd GET pork blood, but I'm pretty sure that it wouldn't come in a TUB LIKE THAT." My mom: "I don't-- I don't know." And Teddy finds her curled up on the floor all, "I think I lost the baby," but he personally doesn't even accompany her to the doctor? I don't know, man.  I buy that Peggy wouldn't tell Teddy right away that she lost the baby, and obviously at some point she was going to have to tell him the truth, but that was just some ridiculousness, right there.  I'm not complaining, because like I said, I love stuff like that, but that was some nonsense. 

So, Scandal. I could get behind this show a lot more if there were no Quinn and no Huck.  Their storylines never do anything but creep me out and/or make me sad.  I don't particularly like Abby, either, but her romance with David Rosen is kind of sweet.  Also, I NEVER feel like I pay enough attention.  I need to just get a hot beverage and settle in and watch it without distractions.  So...Fitz tells Olivia he had a dream that that house was where the two of them would raise their kids someday, and I'm all, "What?! You have like three kids already with Mellie! What are you even--oh. Okay, that worked for Olivia, apparently."  Like, obviously I can see that Fitz and Olivia are hot for each other and in love and all that, but I wish she could just love Jake.  I know that she does, too, but-- damn.  Also-- did Cyrus ACTUALLY pimp out James, or did James just think that he did and go for it anyway?

Yeah.  So this is the type of stuff I'm watching these days.

thoughts on About Time (spoilers)

Domhall Gleeson plays Tim, who learns on his twenty-first birthday that he, like all of the men in his family, can time travel-- all he has to do is go into a closet, close his eyes, and clench his fists, and he'll be back in any moment from within his own life that he chooses.  What's fairly humorous-- and fairly realistic, I think-- is that he rarely goes back to do anything too major; usually, he just goes back a few minutes to save himself from an awkward or moderately regrettable moment.  He goes back to kiss the girl on New Year's Eve instead of shaking her hand and embarrassing both of them.  He stops himself from blurting out something stupid the first time he meets his future in-laws.  Occasionally, he tries to go back and help a friend or family member, but this usually results in messing things up horribly for himself.  He helps an actor in a friend's play remember his lines and misses his first meeting with his future wife (Rachel McAdams).  He tries to help his sister (Lydia Wilson) avoid spending years with a no-good boyfriend and accidentally prevents the birth of his first child.

The lessons he eventually learns-- that every little detail doesn't need to be perfect when you're surrounded by people you love; that sometimes you need to let people live with and learn from their mistakes instead of trying to keep them from making them at all; and that you should live each day like you're not going to get a "do over," because most people don't-- aren't super profound.  However, the characters are all very sweet and lovable, and I was moved to tears on more than one occasion.  My single favorite sequence happens after his father (Bill Nighy), who shares the gift of travel, tells him that he should live each day twice: the first, with all of the regular anxieties and irritations of daily life, and the second, almost the same, but stopping to notice all of the things he missed the day before.  He does this, and stops to catch the smile of the cashier who sold him a cup of coffee and a sandwich, and the beauty of the courthouse that he rushed through on his way to court.  He eventually realizes that he should just notice these things the first time around.  Again, not necessarily an *original* observation, but an important one.

It's...just a really lovely little movie.  Tim's a nice guy.  Mary's a nice girl.  He has a good relationship with his quirky family, especially his father.  His and Mary's problems are so normal-- occasionally saying the wrong thing and facing family issues like the illness and death of a parent and having a sister who worries you.  The lesson he learns is about learning to appreciate all the good you already have instead of trying so hard to make it perfect.  It's all very sweet.  I enjoyed it very much.

thoughts on Enough Said (spoilers)

Julia Louis-Dreyfus plays Eva, masseuse and divorced mom of Ellen (Tracey Fairaway), who will be going away to college soon.  At a party she attends with friends Sarah (Toni Collette) and Will (Ben Falcone), she meets two new people: Marianne (Catherine Keener), a poet who becomes her massage client, and Albert (James Gandolfini), who she begins dating.  She grows to like both a lot, though she admits she wasn't initially attracted to Albert, and though Marianne is constantly complaining about her ex-husband, who she describes as a fat slob.  She is beginning to get serious with Albert-- they're sleeping together; he's introduced her to his daughter, Tess (Eve Hewson)-- when she realizes that he is the ex-husband that Marianne can't stand.

She realizes this by chance, when, over salsa, Marianne mentions how it drove her crazy that her ex-husband always avoided the onions in his guacamole, something Albert had also told Eva about.  Eva has the perfect opportunity to reveal that she is dating Marianne's ex almost immediately: Tess shows up, so all Eva would have to do is say hi, and the secret would be out.  It would be awkward, and Eva and Marianne would agree that perhaps Marianne should find a different masseuse.  Eva would then tell Albert, and they would talk about what a weird coincidence that was, and he would probably wonder, or perhaps directly ask, what Marianne said about him.  But it would probably be okay, because it wouldn't be anyone's fault-- just an unfortunate coincidence.  But instead, Eva literally hides to avoid having to talk to Tess, later pretending that she wandered off to check out Marianne's yard.  Let me repeat: SHE GOES OUT OF HER WAY TO KEEP IT A SECRET THAT SHE IS DATING MARIANNE'S EX-HUSBAND. 

It's not that I have to approve of everything a film character does, exactly.  But it's nice when their actions don't make me spend maybe a third of a movie cringing.  While she may initially keep the secret to put off an awkward encounter, after a point it seems like she continues to give Marianne massages just to hear bad things about Albert.  I've thought a lot about what exactly bothers me so much about this, and I think the things is is that while Eva likes Albert and enjoys his company, she basically thinks she's too good for him.  When Marianne says bad things about him, she realizes that other people will probably think so, too.  She takes him to dinner at Will and Sarah's basically so that they can check him out, then proceeds to spend the whole night either picking at him (making derisive comments about how much guacamole he eats and saying she's going to buy him a calorie book) or actually trying to get her friends to join her in making fun of him (because he can't whisper, of all things).  What's going on there is that she's afraid that Will and Sarah will be like, "What are you doing with this fat loser?" (they're not, by the way), so she's trying to act like she doesn't like him that much.  Have you ever had a friend who was nice to you when it was just the two of you but ignored you or made fun of you when his or her "cool" friends were around? It's like that, and it's obnoxious.

Eva also oversteps her boundaries with her daughter Ellen's friend, Chloe (Tavi Gevinson).  We see this in one of the first scenes we meet Chloe.  Eva walks in on a conversation where Ellen and Chloe are discussing whether Chloe should lose her virginity to her boyfriend.  Ellen, as a normal teen would, tries to stop the conversation when her mom enters the room.  But Eva weasels her way into the conversation, and Chloe lets her, and before you know it, Eva is telling Chloe that she should do it, if she wants to-- she can't live in fear.  The advice is too direct, as far as I'm concerned-- help her think it through, if you want, but let her come to a decision on her own, you know? The advice is also inappropriate, given that Chloe is neither Eva's friend (she's Ellen's) nor her daughter, making the whole thing ABSOLUTELY NONE OF EVA'S BUSINESS. Additionally, before long, Chloe (who maybe is having some sort of real problem with her own mother or maybe just is having trouble relating to her in the way that many teen girls do-- we don't know, because Eva never bothers to ask) is showing up at the house when Ellen isn't there, having breakfast with Eva and Albert, painting Eva's toenails, and snuggling with her on the couch.  Understandably, neither Ellen nor Chloe's mom like this one little bit.  Ellen is doing the normal teen thing of pulling away from her mom (Ellen actually knows she is doing this and articulates it, which I don't buy for one minute), and Eva is kind of letting Chloe take her place, which probably happens sometimes when a kid has a younger sister, or something.  But Chloe isn't Ellen's sister, and it's weird, and both Ellen and Chloe's mom call her on it.

There's also this whole thing with a couple of massage clients that Eva finds annoying.  One is an extremely chatty mom.  Another is a guy who lives up a very long, steep flight of stairs but never offers to help her carry her massage table.  When she complains to her friends, Will asks if she's ever asked him to help her carry the table.  Eva says she shouldn't have to.  Late in the movie, she finally does ask, and he's all, "Oh, of course! I'm so sorry!"  Like-- he's not a jerk.  He's just oblivious.  Eva also stops zoning out during the chatty client's massage long enough to hear her ask, "So what's new with you?" Eva is taken aback-- why, she's nice, too! I guess these encounters are supposed to show Eva that she tends to assume the worst of people.  I wasn't overly impressed.

Additionally, there's a subplot where Will and Sarah's maid is constantly just shoving stuff in drawers rather than actually putting it where it belongs.  Sarah wants to fire her but can't go through with it.  At one point, she does but feels bad.  At another, the maid quits and then comes back.  There's a whole thing where Sarah is frustrated because Will keeps insisting that she's the one to fire her.  I don't know.  I kind of rolled my eyes, because could they have picked more of a rich person problem for Will and Sarah to have? God.

The performances are all very good.  I will say that.  However, there are so few likable/relatable characters that it was pretty hard to care about this movie.