Celeste and Jesse Forever is a fantastic little movie paused on a completely implausible concept: that you can remain best friends with the love of your life after a failed relationship. The movie was a difficult sell. While it hit with the critics (70% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes), it missed with audiences (just $3 million at the box office). The movie stars two of Hollywood’s funniest young actors (Andy Samberg – Saturday Night Live and Rashida Jones – NBC’s Parks and Recreation) who have worked so hard on the small screen that now they are household names. This both helped and hurt the movie. When we see each name, we think comedy, comedy, comedy. So when we see them in a movie like Celeste and Jesse Forever that has as much drama as it does comedy, we aren’t sure what to think.
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Category Archives: Comedy
The Campaign (2012)
Add The Campaign to the list of laugh-out-loud Will Ferrell (Old School, The Other Guys) movies. For as many misses as Will Ferrell has (like Case de mi padre, Land of the Lost, and Semi-Pro), he strikes gold just as often. He’s not the draw that he was at the height of his career (between 2003-2005), but he still can make me laugh as well as any other actor out there. At the same time, he plays roughly the same type of character in most of his movies. It doesn’t make him any less funny. He has gone overboard in some of his films (Blades of Glory, Anchorman), but when he lets the script come to him, he’s a lot of fun to watch on the screen.
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The Sessions (2012)
When we come across some of the most extraordinary people or find ourselves in the most fortunate situations, we are least looking for those. At times we are presented with the greatest of gifts that, at one point, we could never have imagined and, the next, you can’t imagine how you ever functioned prior. I imagine this is how you might feel when you know you have found your lifelong partner or when you have a child. I’ve had three of these moments in my life. While I have discussed these other two moments very, very infrequently with anyone, there is one that I will share often. It involves my wonderful niece Jessica. Today (February 17, 2013) is her birthday. She just turned 25. She recently married her high school boyfriend. She’s a teacher. Besides me, Jessica is the only teacher in either of our extended families. She is as wonderful of a human being as you will ever meet. She is and has always been so sweet, kind, and intelligent. She’s wise beyond her years but still has this youthful appreciation for life’s little gems. I love her so much and am so proud to be her uncle. I was asked to be an usher at her wedding this past fall, which was one of my life’s great honors. With only a 12-year age gap between us, I do think of her as a little sister as much as I do a niece. I’ll touch on more of this later in this review.
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Silver Linings Playbook (2012)
Silver Linings Playbook was a great movie I would have seen if I had done more research ahead of time. I have known for months now that Jennifer Lawrence is a candidate, if not the favorite, for this year’s Best Actress Academy Award and that Bradley Cooper could snag one of the five nominations in the Best Actor category. The movie might land a spot in the Best Picture category, though it would have little chance of winning. So the Oscar buzz was one reason that got me to the theater. The other was that the movie centered on mental illnesses and broken relationships. Those movies often, but not always, engross me. I saw drama and comedy as words associated with this movie. Perhaps naively, I did not see a romantic comedy. While there was a bit of drama and some attempts at comedy (which I found to be weak), this slowly but surely turned into a romance. By the movie’s conclusion, I was very, very okay with that. Though flawed at times, it came together nicely and felt reasonably original to me. If ten movies are nominated for Best Picture this year, Silver Linings Playbook will and should be one of them.
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Life As We Know It (2010)
Life As We Know It is one of those movies that didn’t interest me when I saw the previews for the first time or encouraged me to overcome those reservations with a 28% positive rating on www.rottentomatoes.com. I would never have seen it had it not been on HBO one day. So I recorded it and gave it 15 minutes to interest me. I was so glad I did it. Not only did it grab my attention with a hilarious first scene between the two lead stars, but it also won me over with its tender story, direction, and actors who were determined to get it right. And, low and behold, the movie came out in 2010. Even though this movie doesn’t come close to cracking the top ten for that year, it further supports my argument that 2010 is the best year for movie releases in my lifetime.
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