Tully. Wow. Way to toy with me, Jason Reitman (Up In the Air, Juno). I will definitely have a spoilers section for this movie, but I will let you know when it happens. I can start by saying that this definitely hit me with an emotional punch. And I say that sort of tongue and cheek because I did not find this movie all that emotional. Reitman has a way of writing and directing his stories in a way where you are completely invested, but also in a way where you don’t need to keep your tissues nearby. Instead, he tells his stories in a way that gets you interested from the get-go creating characters who you wrote for and then hitting you with a gut punch when you least expect it. Ultimately, this results in his movies staying with you long after most movies you’ve seen have been forgotten. In Tully, he reunites with Charlize Theron (Mad Max: Fury Road, A Little Trip to Heaven) when the two teamed up for the fantastic Young Adult. I wouldn’t say that the Academy has shut out Theron (certainly not in the way that Jake Gyllenhaal has), but to have just two Academy Award nominations (Monster, North Country) is, if nothing else, a little surprising. I don’t know if her performance in this film will be enough to land the coveted acting prize, especially with an April release. But I will say that she carried this movie, and it goes in a couple of different directions along the way that is held together by her evenness and Reitman’s adherence to the story when it sort of felt like things were untangling a bit.
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Category Archives: Ron Livingston
Vacation (2015)
Forget what the critics say (27% on Rotten Tomatoes, IMDB Metascore 34/100). If you like the National Lampoon’s Vacation movies, I think you’ll enjoy the Ed Helms (The Hangover, television’s The Office) led Vacation. It follows the same formula as the other movies in the series, and it has Ed Helms! Ed Helms is one of the funniest men in Hollywood! He took his bit part in the middle half of The Office and made it impossible for the writers not to keep him. With respect to Rainn Wilson, John Krasinski, and Jenna Fischer, The Office became Ed Helms’ show once Steve Carell exited. Even when his movies miss (The Hangover Part III, The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard), it’s not because of him. He keeps these terrible movies from becoming complete zeroes. So how good he misses here as a grownup Rusty Griswold with all nuances of his father Clark (Chevy Chase – Spies Like Us, Three Amigos) and his mother Ellen (Beverly D’Angelo – Coal Miner’s Daughter, American History X)? He doesn’t miss at all. Instead, he crushes it in 2015’s comedy of the year.
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