Happy Birthday, Jennifer Aniston!

Around 12 years ago, when I really started getting into movies, I was hooked on Jennifer Aniston. Well, her and Jake Gyllenhaal. But as a 14 year old girl trying to work out where on earth to start in the movie world, I honed in on my favourite actress from my favourite TV Show, Friends. We’d just got a family eBay and Amazon account, and the knowledge that I could spend my pocket money on anything I wanted online was amazing to me at the time.

I could even use the internet to look up all of Jennifer Aniston’s movies, and read what they were about to see if they sounded like something I would enjoy. It’s bizarre to even type this right now!

My point being, that even now I love Jennifer Aniston as much as I did back then. So, in honour of her birthday today, I wanted to share my three favourite Jennifer Aniston performances.

I had to start where it all began, didn’t I? Friends seems to be a hit and miss show for people but it was my entire childhood! My friends and I would rush to school on a Thursday morning to talk about the episode from the night before, and I haven’t been to a house that hasn’t had a copy of the boxset. Fashion has never been my forte, so I idolised Rachel Green. 

All I wanted was for all of my friends to move into the same apartment building and spend every living moment with each other. Rachel would be my best friend and take me shopping. And then I grew up, and realised that some days living with my fiance was difficult enough, and I’ve just spent an hour tidying this living room so no, I don’t want any guests!

The Good Girl was the movie of my adolescent years. This was the goldmine for me, my favourite actor and my favourite actress together in a movie. I was an angsty 15 year old, just learning what depression was, but not really knowing how to deal with it, and so I can’t remember the amount of times I re-watched this. That was a terrible coping mechanism, looking back on it, ha!

Anyway, Jennifer Aniston’s character Justine was completely different to Rachel in Friends, and I do still admire her performance in this. Whenever anyone tells me she’s only good in comedies I always bring up The Good Girl.

How is Horrible Bosses 5 years old already?! This has to be my favourite comedy of all time! It’s nothing groundbreaking I know, but I think the cast as a whole just work so well together. Despite my thoughts on Jennifer Aniston’s more serious side, it’s movies like this where she really shines. I mean come on, you don’t have to be a heterosexual male to find Dr Julia Harris smokin’ hot!

I’d love to see some of the outtakes of her lines, I don’t know how anyone kept a straight face. I’m actually laughing to myself just thinking about it! I very nearly included We’re The Millers, which is another great comedy that I highly recommend. She plays a similar character in that.

Mini Reviews: Saving Mr Banks (2013), Cake (2014) & Ex Machina (2015)

I can’t quite believe Saving Mr Banks is 2 years old now, it feels like I’ve been putting off watching it for a couple of months, not years! I remember little of the Mary Poppins story, in fact I can only recall a couple of the songs, and maybe that’s why I put this film off for so long. I’m glad I gave it a shot though, as this was a beautiful story.

Emma Thompson does a fantastic job at portraying this frustrating character who you struggle to warm to at first, but by the credits roll I had tears in my eyes. The whole cast made this a wonderful film to watch, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

I’m a huge fan of Jennifer Aniston and films that tackle depression have always interested me, which I realise sounds quite morbid! Therefore, I thought Cake would be a film I would really enjoy. Cake is a dark story of a woman who becomes obsessed with the suicide of a friend in her support group for chronic pain, who also tries to deals with her own severe issues.

Maybe watching this in chunks throughout my lunch breaks didn’t help, but I found the story so hard to understand, I had to read half on an IMDB synopsis to work out what was going on. Once I worked it out it was more enjoyable, but still fell flat for me.

When the posters and trailers came out for Ex Machina came out, I wasn’t bothered in the slightest. I didn’t even notice it come and go from my local cinema. However, anyone I knew who went to see it or watched the DVD said how brilliant it was, and the got my curiosity. It’s hard to even explain the plot of Ex Machina without ruining the experience, but I would recommend it to anyone.

It starts of as a family friendly, futuristic film and out of nowhere, takes a very dark turn, and rapidly turns into adult-only territory. I haven’t seen anything like it, and although I don’t think a re-watch will give the same impact, it was a brilliant experience first-time.

Review: We're the Millers (2013)

WHY have I not reviewed this film before? I have watched it numerous times and it never gets old so I can't believe I haven't written this up before!! Confession time, when you text me with a message similar to that, I thought you having a 'Fault in Our Stars' moment and I hopped on the blog to double check. But you were right! Oops.  Nice to see you have faith - I already checked before I text you so I didn't do another 'Fault in Our Stars' haha!

David (Jason Sudekis) is a small time drug dealer who ends up owing a fair amount of money to his own dealer, Brad Gurdlinger (Ed Helms). In order to pay him back, Gurdlinger demands that he pick up a 'smidge' of weed from Mexico and bring it across the border for him.  In order to avoid looking suspicious he enlists his stripper neighbour, Sarah (Jennifer Aniston), homeless girl, Casey (Emma Roberts) and the strange kid from next door Kenny (Will Poulter) to play his family, the Millers. Smidge is now my favourite term for a large quantity of anything. Smidge of ice-cream, anyone?

There is rarely a film that I will watch over and over again no questions, I usually find that if I know what is going to happen I get bored easily and give up.  This film however, never seems to get old, its hilarious each and every time I watch it.  Is it just me who is desperate for a sequel to this?  I know it won't be as good but I want more!!

I can't count the number of times that I have watched this and I still find new jokes to laugh about.  One of my favourites being Kenny's rendition of TLC's Waterfalls!!  Ed Helms is brilliant as narcissistic big boss Gurdlinger, I was really surprised at how well he played that role, I thought after the Hangover he would forever be typecast by his role in that. If you've ever seen him in The Office US, he's a sort of familiar character! Nick Offerman and Kathryn Hahn are awesome as the Fitzgerald's, the exact type of family the Millers have based themselves on (with a few surprises!) - the 'swinging' tent scene made me laugh out loud.

I've watched this a few times since we finally got it on DVD. Me and my fiance were so convinced that we would each buy it for each other over Christmas, that neither of us bought it, and we both kept thinking we already had it. Oops! It's the kind of comedy you can watch over and over again, although the last time we saw it, I did lose interest with the second half.

I have read a few reviews on this film and they all say the same, why did they pick A-lister clean cut people to play these potentially dark and edgy roles.  I think had they have gone with less 'clean-cut' actors, this would have come out as a much darker movie with significantly less laughs.  Yes, we know its unrealistic, yes we know strippers willing to become drug smugglers don't look like Jennifer Aniston and yes, we know that kids abandoned by their parents usually have bigger issues than not being able to kiss but do we care? No. It is what it is and it's funny because of it.  It won't be up for any Oscars but it will make you laugh over and over again and that is all I expected and wanted.

Definitely a repeat watcher for (already is!) A laugh a minute and doesn't seem to get old.

This will always be one of my comedies to reach out for on a rainy weekend.

 

Review: Horrible Bosses 2 (2014)

As much as I enjoy a good mind-bending thriller or a jaw-dropping action film, there are times when I just need to watch a comedy. I don’t like having just 1 favourite film of any type, but if I had to pick my favourite comedy, it would be Horrible Bosses. Nick, Kurt and Dale have cheered me up after many a bad day at work, and I was both excited and nervous about seeing Horrible Bosses 2. The sequel is never as good as the original, right?

If you saw the original Horrible Bosses, you’ll know that the trio (Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis and Charlie Day) finally rid themselves of their awful superiors. Well now, they’ve decided to become their own bosses and create their own company, selling a product they invented, the Shower Buddy. They find an investor (Christoph Waltz) who puts in an initial order of 100,000 units, but then he rips off their product and cancels, putting the guys’ company in jeopardy. To save their business, they decide to kidnap the investors son (Chris Pine) and hold him to ransom.

Putting aside the silly plot and the brilliant one-liners, what I love the most about Horrible Bosses is the chemistry between the 3 main guys. It’s all so real and they bounce off each other so well, I can’t help but smile no matter what they’re saying. None of them is the main star here, they all have equal parts to play and they shine together. As much as I love Chris Pine, I wondered how he would fit into the cast but he played a fantastic ‘bad guy’. Think of Kirk from Star Trek in the bar, but a little more over the top, and that’s how he is in this.

You can expect the crude humour that Bateman, Sudeikis and Day spout throughout the film, but some of Kevin Spacey and Jennifer Aniston’s lines made me cry with laughter. They’re just not the kinds of things you can imagine them saying, and the gag reel in the credits proved how difficult it was for them to keep straight faces at time. Really, the cast as a whole were equally brilliant.

Some of my favourite moments were the Sharpie marker incidents, the foolproof ‘plan’ the trio put together, and the support group scene, but honestly, I loved it all. If I were to give any criticism, it would be that the plot was just too predictable, although that didn’t really take anything away from it for me because although I worked out what would happen, there were still little details I wasn’t expecting, and plenty of laughs to distract me.

Honestly, I don’t think I could rate the two Horrible Bosses films now. I’d have to go back and watch the first again, but right now I rank them together, and highly! I know this film isn’t for anybody, but it’s just my cup of tea.

Review: Office Space (1999)

For whatever reason, IMDB has been telling me for months that I need to watch Office Space. It's been one of those films that I really wanted to watch and kept on putting off for no real reason. I work in an office myself so really appreciate office comedy, and it's got Jennifer Aniston in, one of my favourite actresses! As you've probably gathered, I got round to watching it in the end...

 

 

Office Space tells the story of Peter Gibbons and his colleagues, who don't enjoy their jobs at all. Management have hired some consultants to downsize the company. Peter is also having problems at home; his girlfriend is cheating on him but convinces him to go to therapy to talk through his issues. In a strange turn of events, Peter actually gets a promotion, and learns that his two closest friends are going to be fired. Together, they hatch a scheme to infect the company's computers with a virus that will pilfer funds from the business to their own bank account.

 



To be honest, straight after watching this, I wasn't that impressed. It was funny, sure, but it didn't make me laugh out loud, and as Jenna will tell you, I'm easily amused. There was one particular scene that just tickled me and I couldn't stop laughing, this one:

 

That's just a short clip unfortunately, but it's enough to give you the gist of what's going on. As someone who works in a city but lives on the outskirts, I really connected with that scene!

 

The more I think about Office Space, the more I actually like it. There's a lot of office comedy out right now, and with TV Shows like The Office and films like Horrible Bosses, Office Space is sort of sadly forgotten. I can understand why it had such amazing reviews when it came out though, I won't argue with those.  I actually don't think this has been forgotten, in fact after watching it I found I finally understood a shed load of memes that I didn't understand before, here are a few of my favourites:

I really enjoyed this film, it was well written and funny and still rings true to offices today.  I think compared to some 90's comedy films, it has aged well.  The smashing of the printer scene had me in stitches, I have spent so many hours daydreaming about destroying the printer (particularly the one in my current office that sounds like it is trying to make contact with an alien species every time you print something!).  One liners keep the pace up and Milton's (Stephen Root) sillier character keep it from being too serious. 

 

I wouldn't say that this film is timeless, but there are certain jokes and themes that still ring true to this day. The rage you feel about the printer absolutely, and how protective you get over stationary for sure! Thankfully my boss isn't quite as bad as Lumbergh. I fully agree, my stationery is my life, I have lost 6 staplers since travelling abroad for work and it's starting to make me very twitchy, if people ask to borrow it now I follow them around until I get it back :-) I come across like Milton 'I believe you have my stapler' haha!

 

 

This is only a must watch for office workers I would say, anyone else just wouldn't connect with it enough to find it funny.

I would happily watch this again, if only for Stephen Root, who is by far the highlight of this film.  Would have been a 7 if not for him.