Review: St Vincent (2014)

This was my 'Looking Forward...' movie back in December but obviously I never got around to seeing it at the cinema.  Then I completely forgot about it, until a few weeks ago...

I was hunting for something to watch the other day when I stumbled across this. I had no idea what it was about, but I remembered it from Jenna's Looking Forward post!

Vincent is a miserable, alcoholic War veteran who only ventures out of him house to gamble or meet his regular (pregnant) prostitute.  Due to unforeseen circumstances he ends up looking after 12 year old Oliver from next door, after his parents divorce and his mom works all hours to support them.

Bill Murray is back at his best, a grouch!  He delivers his dark, dry humour effortlessly and without question is the highlight of this movie.  Melissa McCarthy tones down her usual style to play Oliver's downtrodden Mother, Maggie and thank god she did, she takes a big step back to let Murray own the show.  Had she had played her usual characters (The Heat, Tammy etc etc) she would completely ruined this dark comedy with nothing more than toilet humour!  The most surprising transformation though was Naomi Watts as prostitute/stripper Daka, I didn't recognise her at all for the first 20 minutes.

Honestly, I couldn't stand this film. It's rare for me to hate something but the whole film irritated me. Who in their right mind would let their child find their own way home from school in a brand new town, and then not bad an eyelid about leaving them with their alcoholic next door neighbour?! Melissa McCarthy did nothing for me at all, I much prefer her comedy roles...

Its great to see Murray back on top form and in a lead role, his and Oliver's budding friendships is easy and comical to watch, especially when he puts him to work mowing his dirt!  Chris O'Dowd's role as Oliver's teacher seemed a bit random to me, why was he actually in the movie, did it add any benefit.  It feels like he was just included as a way to set up the ending (and the title) with Oliver's school project. 

Him and Oliver were the only characters I really liked! His first scene where he's explaining the different religions in the class just cracked me up. It's exactly how it was in my Primary School, a class full of kids all with their own religions, but let's sing hymns about God!

I spent the whole film expecting it to go all gooey and sentimental, but instead they just threw Murray in there instead to mix it all up.  Which is why the ending disappointed me, they kept is dry, dark and hilarious all the way through, swerved sentimentality at every corner only to end on a soppy moment.  It didn't ruin it for me (i'm a sucker for a weepie) but it changed the tone of the whole film.  They should have brought it back with an inappropriate comment from Vincent, but no!

Brilliantly entertaining, great cast and hilarious.

Honestly, for me, this was an un-funny Bad Santa. At least with Christmas films I can accept the things that make little sense!

Currently Watching: The IT Crowd

In my mind, when we first started these ‘Currently Watching...’ posts, the idea was to put a post together about our first impressions and what we were thinking about the TV Show at the time. Sounds sensible, right? So when I started watching The IT Crowd, I was starting to think about the post I would put together. But then I kind of binge watched every episode in less than 2 weeks. Oops. Let’s just pretend that I’m mid-series, humour me, if you will.

Back in 2006 when the series was first advertised, I knew this would be the comedy for me. I’m a bit of a geek and family, friends and colleagues turn to me for all sorts of IT advice, and I get irrationally irritated when the IT team at work would tell me ‘have you tried turning it off and on again?’. No, I haven’t, because the printer needs a new toner!

I don’t remember what episode I watched, but I didn’t take to it at all and never bothered with it, until last year when the final episode aired when I just so happened to have my friends over. They loved the show and demanded that we watch it, and I found the episode hilarious. It was my mission since then to actually get round to giving it a second chance.

If you've never heard of it before, The IT Crowd is a typical British comedy, full of moments that make you cringe. Roy (Chris O'Dowd) provides the worst IT support you've ever seen, and answers the phone with the greeting 'Have you tried turning it off and on again?' every time. Moss (Richard Ayoade) is a highly intelligent geek who doesn't quite understand how humans actually process. Jen (Katherine Parkinson) is their manager who knows nothing about IT, not even what it stands for! All in all, a great trio for a comedy set in an IT Department.

I've never had so much fun watching a bit of TV early in the morning before work! I don't normally laugh out loud when watching comedies alone, but this had me howling in places. My absolute favourite episode is the one where the three end up watching Gay, a gay musical, and Roy has to pretend that he's disabled. This escalates throughout the whole episode to the point where he ends up in a wheelchair on a disabled bus on his way to Manchester!

As much as I love it, I don't think The IT Crowd is for everyone. There are moments in another favourite show of mine, The Office, that make me cringe just a little too much to find funny, and anyone who isn't a fan of that would struggle with some episodes I think. For me though, this is the perfect balance of cringe and comedy. It's now a TV show that I'll put on in the background whilst doing something else, and actually find myself stopping what I'm doing to watch it. It's just that good!

I have to agree with everything you've said, including the wheelchair episode, that is by far my favourite.  I have never seen the UK or the US office so I can't compare but I might give it a chance if it's similar to this!

I've got to post this little montage of Roy for you all, he is by far my favourite character and these moments are just great:

Review: Cuban Fury (2014)

You might have heard of my love for the Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are just amazing in my opinion, and I'm always excited to see something new that they star in. I remember seeing a trailer for Cuban Fury a while ago, and while it wasn't enough to make me dash to the cinema, I still wanted to see it, but at home instead.  I have to agree, I wasn't in a huge rush to see this but glad I did in the end.

Bruce (Nick Frost) and his sister Sam (Olivia Colman) were salsa dancing superstars when they were teenagers, but on the night of a competition, Bruce was beaten up by a gang and it put him off dancing for life. However, when he learns that his new boss Julia (Rashida Jones) is into salsa dancing, he decides it's time to face his fears and start dancing again, before his colleague Drew (Chris O'Dowd) steals her away.

Cuban Fury started off really strong. It told the backstory quickly and efficiently, and set the scene for the present tense with the comedy that I was expecting from Nick Frost. Chris O'Dowd's character was equally great as the annoying colleague.

After the intro, I just got a little bored to be honest. Bruce's friends were a little odd and seemingly pointless to the plot, Drew went from annoying colleague to completely unlikeable douchebag, and Julia annoyed me even more. What sort of boss leads on two of her male employees anyway? My only real source of interest and comedy came from Bejan (Kayvan Novak) who I thought was hilarious. 100% agree, he was by far the highlight of the movie!

I really enjoyed the whole film to be honest, I laughed regularly.  That is until the Dance off which very nearly made me turn the film off, it was too cheesy and false and horribly awkward, I just buried my head in a pillow and asked my cousin to tell me when it was over!  Luckily the scene was saved by an awesome cameo (which may have been the highlight of the whole film!).  The whole storyline was horrendously staged and tweaked to suit the jokes, it was almost like the jokes were written first and then they just came up with any old storyline to fit around them.

The actors were great through, Chris O'Dowd proved he can do rude and arrogant instead of his usual funny laid back guy and Kayvan Novak was amazing and stole every scene he was in.  Rashida Jones can be so much more than this character, who was ridiculous (why is the new boss out drinking, dancing and bowling with her new employees, way to show your authority!) I'm not certain why they made her the new boss in the storyline as opposed to a new colleague which would have made much more sense (maybe there was a boss lady joke they wanted to use!)

I was nearly nodding off, but then Bruce and Drew had a mixture of a fight and a dance off in the car park, nearly got ran over by Simon Pegg (best cameo ever!) and it all got much better from there. Drew got his comeuppance, Bruce completely owned the dance floor, and everyone was happy.

Apart from me. Okay, I was just a bit underwhelmed to be honest. The comedy was great but it just wasn't enough to make me forget the far-too-simple plot and other annoyances. Nick Frost was really good though, so I'm still I saw Cuban Fury. Give it a go if you like, but I'd rather stick Hot Fuzz on.

Considering the characters were pretty shocking (and some completely useless) and the storyline just a bit worse than that, I did still enjoy it.  I laughed a lot and cheered, booed and shouted at the TV numerous times.  Basically, if you watch it, don't think about it and you might be able to enjoy it.