I would have seen it years ago if I had been made aware of how great Edward Zwick’s movie was. I had always known About Last Night was an 80’s classic, but I associated it with cheesy teenage comedies like The Breakfast Club, St. Elmo’s Fire, and Pretty in Pink. And while those movies have a certain charm, I put them all into the same category. By association, I also classified About Last Night with those movies because of the stars Rob Lowe and Demi Moore. Over time, I, for whatever reason, associated the plot with two people who met, had a wild night of sex, and then spent the rest of the movie regretting that decision. This story didn’t interest me either. I’ve seen that movie play out hundreds of times on the screen. Had I not stumbled upon About Last Night on cable one night, I might never have seen it. Had I not, I may have forever missed out on a good movie.
Category Archives: Comedy
Wedding Crashers (2005)
While I admit that I am probably one of the last people on earth to watch Wedding Crashers, I will say that I had it in my possession for over three years. I bought it previously viewed for $5 at Blockbuster a long while ago. It was never a question of if I would watch Wedding Crashers, but just a question of when. When discussing the best comedies of all time, many people (especially people my age and younger) will list Wedding Crashers in the first two or three movies they mention. When I tell them I haven’t seen it yet, I get the response, “Of all the movies you’ve seen, you’ve never seen Wedding Crashers?” So, much like the movie I most recently reviewed (The Green Mile), my expectations for Wedding Crashers were almost unrealistic. However, much like The Green Mile, the movie lived up to the hype. I’m not ready to put it into a top-five comedy of all time, but I will safely put it in the top ten.
Date Night (2010)
I’m not the biggest fan of romantic comedies despite what my VHS movie collection of the 1990s might suggest. I’ll be the first to admit that despite all of the crappy romantic comedies (i.e., just about every Ashton Kutcher movie), there are some good ones. I’m a big fan of movies like (500) Days of Summer, Notting Hill, and The Money Pit. Date Night falls right in line with those movies. The most significant difference between Date Night and the other three is that it’s not quite as heavy. Not that the three movies that I just mentioned are by any means downers, but they do have slightly more sentimental moments than Date Night.
The Darjeeling Limited (2007)
In The Darjeeling Limited (2007), Francis Whitman (Owen Wilson – Marley & Me, Midnight in Paris) reunites with his brothers Peter (Adrien Brody – The Pianist, The Jacket) and Jack (Jason Schwartzman – I Heart Huckabees, Fantastic Mr. Fox) for the first time since their father’s funeral one year ago. The hope is that he can lead them on a quest for spiritual enlightenment as they embark on a train trip through India in hopes of finding their long-lost mother. If this plot + Owen Wilson as the lead actor already have you imagining how dumb this movie might be, keep the imagination rolling because you aren’t even close.
Ghost World (2001)
Despite its title, 2001’s Ghost World is not a horror movie but rather is a movie about finding one’s place in the world or moving through the world as a ghost, unable to impact others despite one’s most honest intentions. Thora Birch (American Beauty, The Hole) plays the lead of Enid, an 18-year-old recent high school graduate trying to figure out what to do next in the months following her graduation. She has no plans for college or work. She barely knows what she will do for the day when she wakes up. A key member of her life is her best friend Becky (Scarlett Johansson – Match Point, Lost in Translation), who, at the beginning of the film, seems to share the same brain. Another is Seymour (Steve Buscemi – Reservoir Dogs, Armageddon), a self-proclaimed loser Enid befriends following a mean prank she pulled on him.