November Netflix Movie Reviews

Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid - Steve Martin has the potential to be hilarious. And this movie had that potential too. And there were times where genius laid it's beautiful hand down in the making of this movie (like Steve Martin's entire character, and the fact that old school classics were interspersed as part of the plot line), but there were times it felt a bit too Mel Brooksy (and that is a bad thing much of the time....oh, and it WAS made by Carl Reiner). A very clever idea, a very worthwhile movie to see, and a good sign of just why I will never be able to not love Steve Martin.

Big Fan - If you are looking for a movie that will make you uncomfortable with the patheticness of the main character, then by all means rent this movie. Patton Oswalt isn't funny, and if it weren't for Kevin Corrigan's delightful inept character, this movie wouldn't even be worth watching. The nods for awards must have been from old time Onion fans because the only reason this would get recognized is because people are still feeling indebted to them. Not a social commentary, a commentary on social idiocy.

Artie Lange: Jack and Coke - When you don't expect much you can only usually be pleasantly surprised. I expected little and got just that. I guess I should be happy that I wasn't misled into thinking this would be genius, then I would have been disappointed. I expected to be disappointed, and was. Lange isn't really that funny, and neither are his jokes about being Italian from New Jersey and his attempt at garnering laughs from the dumbest 90% of the audience with gay jokes. I'd say he should join Howard Stern again, but I don't even know if he still has a show because I'm no longer 20 years old and not smart enough to discern what is and isn't a waste of my time....wait, I did watch this, so maybe I haven't learned that much after all.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - Harrison Ford should be slapped for making this movie. That and aliens? Seriously, aliens? Unacceptable.

Black Dynamite - Blaxploitation at it's finest. Intentional gaffs with seeing movie recording equipment, absurdly wonderful cameos from hugely famous people, fight scenes to end all fight scenes. Oh, and the man's diabolical plan to take away the real power of the civil rights movement. Sure, it's ridiculous, but it's intended to be, and it's done with great acting, quality 70's style filming, and every low budget cliche you could imagine. Blaxploitation doesn't get much better than this.

The Holiday - I'm officially not young anymore when I find a romantic comedy starring Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet charming...ugh. I'm sickened with myself for the fact that I found this (primarily) delightful. Yup, I just used the word delightful for this movie. I smiled more than frowned, you can't fully hate something when that's the case. Maybe it's time to evolve a little bit...if this can be called evolving.

This Film Is Not Yet Rated - The only downsides to this otherwise wonderful look into the film industries absurd ratings procedure is the fact that director Kirby Dick is too into NC-17 movies, the annoying private eye that he hired, and the fact that he was too much of a coward to release the movie without bothering to get their approval. Clever idea, follow the anonymous board around, tell you everything they learned about them, then produce a movie that you send to them about this topic, asking what they would rate it. Overall, worth watching just because you probably have no idea how absurd the process is; just keep in mind, Kirby likes the NC-17 movies, so this is a cornucopia of scenes the middle America is terrified of.

Inglourious Basterds - I may not be into the ultraviolence, but this is a clever movie. Sure, I could have done without the scalping scene, or the baseball bat to the head scene (where were you on this one MPAA?!?), but the movie was really quite entertaining. Too bad is isn't what happened to some of these folks in real life though. Quentin Tarantino avoided long thoughtful conversations about Madonna in this one so he's back on my good side.

Going Overboard - Adam Sandler, if I'd seen this when you weren't famous yet, I would have made it my life's goal to make sure you never got famous. Worst. Movie. Ever. I can't believe it exists. I can't believe I watched the whole thing. I can't believe Adam Sandler got funnier. Wow, this is god-awful. If you want to be self-loathing for an evening, watch this, otherwise, do anything else and you'll be happier.

Date Night - Eh, sorta funny, sorry trying too hard to go overboard to be funny. Still, some good laughs. And I don't think Mark Wahlberg could have written a role that he wanted to play more (except maybe Boogie Nights).

Calvin Marshall - Steve Zahn is a charmingly pathetic ex-minor league baseball star here and won the contest of more likable only because the hero of the story (Alex Frost as Calvin Marshall) was so much more pathetic in his blind submission. Both might not be called winners though. Decent movie, nothing groundbreaking here by any stretch.

The Host - Years after I was recommended this I finally watched it and it was quite good for a horror movie. Sure, it's proof that South Korea has no idea what makes for a good actor (I can't believe the guy with bleached blonde hair in it is a major movie star there), but they do know how to make an entertaining, and more exciting than gross horror film.

Get Him to the Greek - After watching Forgetting Sarah Marshall my hopes were held so high for Russell Brand. I watched his stand up (eh), I watched interviews with him (eh), I watched him in cameo roles (eh), and then I heard he was making a movie where he'd play the same character from Sarah Marshall. Needless to say, excitement abound. And what did I think after seeing it? Well, I thought he wasn't as funny. I was reminded why I don't at all like Jonah Hill and know he's no good at acting, and I was reminded that Puff Daddy still exists. Barely. More awkwardness than hilariousness, which makes it the poor man's Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

Scattered Trees Interview

The kind members of Scattered Trees were kind enough to indulge AlrightImWrong.com with some (wonderful) answers to prompts given to them. Each band member answered one prompt, enjoy!

Nate Eiesland (Vocals, Guitars)

Music is…

Music is a complicated thing. On one hand, you have a lot of technicalities. These amount to a system that is comprised of science, math, language, history, and physical disciplines. On the other hand, you have an impetus that almost every human on earth can say they have felt—the emotional payoff from interacting with a piece of music. I’m interested in that interaction.

When People actively listen to music they connect themselves to it somehow. They join it. They dance with it. They cry with it. To paraphrase Brian Eno, people know that music isn’t going to hurt them so they surrender to it. I don’t know how it works, but it does, and it’s really beautiful. I used to think that music could make people feel certain things, like I could somehow really abuse the post of the songwriter. Because of this philosophy I wrote music with a subconscious wet blanket of false responsibility to ensure I didn’t become some modern Pied Piper. It scared the s@#% out of me. Being more concerned with honesty and the interaction between people and music has freed me from a lot of aesthetic problems. I think that music illuminates emotions that people are already feeling and that we listen to records to not feel alone. Music recognizes things in people. I think that as long as music is sincere people will connect to it. Most listeners are sincere.

The listener is essential to music. For the most part listeners connect to music through recordings or live performances. Recording is important because it transforms something that existed in time and couldn’t last beyond itself into something that exists in space, something durable. Recording transforms performances into pieces of ferrous-oxide on plastic or ones and zeros on a hard drive. Most importantly for the listener, it gives them the power to hear what they want, when they want. This is where listening to not feel alone comes in. In a way, we’ve personified music. If we feel like partying, we put on a party record. If we feel like relaxing, we put on a relaxing record. Even when we want to embrace our loneliness, ironically we put on a record of someone singing about their loneliness. Our records are actually empathizing with us, letting us know that we’re not alone. That’s why we love them so much. We trust them. If we were having the best day of our lives we probably wouldn’t put on a record with the lyrics, “F@#% you for having a good day. Go burn in hell.” It doesn’t work like that.

Live performance is important because it’s where the creator and listener can connect in one room to have that interaction with the music together. It’s a very intimate thing. The crowd is experiencing a moment that will never happen again. The performer is operating in an impermanent state. Together the audience and artist define a moment in time, despite the fact that the perception of that moment is entirely unique to each individual. That’s the beauty of it. Music interacts with the individual and the collective at the same time. It’s a riddle without an answer, or with millions of answers—I don’t know.

Baron Harper (drums)

In the future…

I'll still be trying to figure out how to do this, and continue reading these instructions it as if it were my first time:

"...have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer. " - Rainer Maria Rilke

Justin Eisenbraun (guitars)

If I could do anything…

We cannot do "anything". There are limitations to reality and it is limitation that forces human beings to be creative. In other words, to make the most out of what we have. We are often mislead in our culture to believe that things would be better if only I could or I would not have reacted that way if it were not for, etc. But "anything" is not possible. There are things that we can do and things we cannot. There are words we wish we would have said and words that we wish we could take back. It is the limitations of reality that makes us human. We cannot be "anything" other than who we are and we are beautiful.

Ryne Estwing (bass, vocals)

Three things I love are...

Dining out. From the menu all the way down to the tile of the bathroom floor, I love the entire experience of going out to a restaurant with a group of people. Granted, as long as that restaurant is fairly decent. If the food is terrible, bathroom sink hasn’t been cleaned in days, or someone in your party is a bad tipper forget about it. A bad tipper can spoil the whole night. But if most of the elements are above average then I just had a good night. Yes, I have considered becoming a chef or a restaurant owner several times in my life.

Driving. Yeah, I hate traffic too but just hear me out. I get some of my best ideas musically and visually while I drive in the city. When I was little my mom would drive me around the block in order to sleep. Highway driving clears my head. Yeah, I enjoy experiencing new and old places but the drive in between each destination is the part that I love the most. I also have to be in control of the music.

Film. If I can walk away from a movie and want to learn, think, read, write or design better, the ticket was worth more than the money. (This feeling is similar to walking away from a good show but talking about music seemed a little too cliché). Good Actors, intelligent story line, accurate historic references, etc. then I’m all in. If Nicolas Cage is cast in a WWII movie with an Italian accent then no thanks. Well designed opening credit sequences are a plus too.

Now of course, I love my family and friends but I figured that was a given.

Alissa Eiesland (keys, vocals)

Three things I wish our world didn't have are...

It would perhaps be easier to answer "what I wish our world had more of": education, acceptance and altruism. Nonetheless my prompt is ”three things I wish our world didn't have.” Upon quick thought my answer is fear, stress and winter.

When I think about it for a bit longer I realize how difficult it is (for me) to imagine a world other than the one we've created. This is why I frequently yearn "imagination, please come back to me." I am completely interested in optimism and hope. However, the realist in me makes it pretty tough to answer the prompt conclusively. I'm also hesitant to answer on such a global scale because I only know my world—my perception of the world. Therefore, in my limited experience and knowledge of the world, my final answer is;

1) Excessive violence
2) Excessive waste
3) Cancer.

Jason Harper (guitars, keys, vocals)

Scattered Trees is...

Scattered Trees is a knot of people who've grown up together. It's an umbrella pseudonym that unites all six of us. We all love each other, but not in the same ways, and not for the same reasons. In that sense, Scattered Trees is a family. It's not blood, but dedication to a singular artistic vision that makes us relatives. That vision also divides us from time to time...when you have six minds trying to interpret the same piece of music, finding harmony can be difficult. But Scattered Trees is polyphonic by nature. Our voices tune up until they harmonize. Our visions blur together until they acknowledge each other and focus into one. It's a bit like that small moment -- right after waking -- when you realize exactly where and who you are. That's when six the knot of six people becomes Scattered Trees.