The Room

Movie: The Room
When: 9 pm, Saturday, May 14th
Who With: JL
Movie Count: 30!
Snacks: Beers

Reaction: I first saw this movie when friends trucked it over from Seattle circa 2010. The four of us watched it in the privacy of our Equinox apartment and I was blown away by how bad this movie really was. Maybe you've heard that it doesn't have a plot or dialogue that makes any sense or that it reveals so much about film making by making the invisible things boldly visible. I was excited to go through the experience again with a theater full of people laughing and quoting along. But, in a twist that would have confounded Tommy Wiseau, graduation weekend took any potential viewers and it was just me and JL in the theater. We should have recruited people!

Somehow, with the benefit of time, this movie got hilariously worse. I can't have anything to say that hasn't already been said. And if you haven't seen it you just can't know. Although, visiting the movie's website may give you a hint at what's in store. I really wish the website address was "TheRoomTheMovie" but "TheRoomMovie" will have to do. If you have seen The Room, I would recommend listening to Julie Klausner's 2014 interview with Juliette Danielle ["You're tearing me apart, Lisa!"] or episode 23 of How Did This Get Made?.

There is something stupidly fitting that now you have to differentiate between when you're talking about "Room" or "The Room." Here's hoping the person you're talking to has seen both!

Recommendation: Let’s [ALL] Go! | Let it come to you  | Let it pass
Next Up: Blue Velvet

Everybody Wants Some!!

Movie: Everybody Wants Some!!
When: 7:45 pm, Friday, May 6, 2016
Who With: JL
Movie Count: 29
Snacks: Popcorn

Reaction: We're back! This was the first movie we'd seen in a while. Well, looking back, there were only 12 days in between hitting up the Roxy. Not too shabby any other year but worthy of a welfare check nowadays.

The tone of Everybody Wants Some!! was the perfect remedy for working hella hard cleaning and moving out of our condo and into the new house (!). This movie follows a 1980s college baseball team and the few days leading up to the first practice. Honestly, it's pretty dumb but fun and just what we needed. It takes you back to a day when dudes were bro-ier, ladies were barely human, and movies knew no other way of being movies. There is a thin layer of struggling with identity but mostly its beer, boobs, and baseball. Maybe surprisingly shallow from Linkletter but he seems to capture the era well and brings something that was probably true for him to it. If you're up for relaxing your standards, or you're mid-move, or you yourself are a white guy feeling slightly threatened in these times, it may be the perfect movie.

Recommendation: Let’s Go! | Let it come to you  | Let it pass
Next Up: The Room

April in Review

MOVIES
Favorite: Songs My Brother Taught Me
Least Favorite: Requiem for the American Dream
Funniest: Hello, My Name is Doris
Important Stuff: The Maltese Falcon
Missed Connections: Silence of the Lambs, Eraserhead, Racing Extinction, Kramer vs. Kramer, Footloose Sing-Along, He Named Me Malala, Galaxy Quest.

STATS
April Movies: Only 4 outside the IWFF
Would-a-Cost: $156 with the  IWFF All Screenings Pass
Total Movies YTD: 28 [not counting the million wildlife films]
Would-a-Cost YTD: $596
Cosmic Dual Membership: $450 - We did it ya'll! We broke even on the membership we didn't even pay for. It was hard work and I'm proud of our commitment. It's funny to get here in April which was not our best performing month due to the house selling/buying project. Now the pressure's off and with summer coming on strong and a house we love being at, we'll see how our movie pace holds up.

OUTSIDE THE ROXY
Trapped at the WIlma on April 25th - Want to get mad? See this documentary about access to reproductive care.
Animal Reunions, Nature PBS
Broad City, Comedy Central on Hulu Start here if you haven't been yet.
The Path, Hulu - If episodes weren't doled out once a week we would already be finished with this show.
The Turner House by Angela Flournoy - Got it from the library only to have a holder rip it out of my hands before I was done. Don't you know I need to read a novel set in an upcoming travel destination?
New York Mag - free with expiring United miles

2nd Half of April

Before we review April, let me flush out the end of the month when posts weren't happening.

I saw Requiem for the American Dream on my own on April 12. It had been on my list to go to a movie alone and this one made sense because Jordan wasn't interested in it. Too bad it was terrible. The beginning of the movie opens with text explaining these interviews with Noam Chomsky occurred over a few years and they were his FINAL interviews. Okay, weird. I guess we've closed the door to him doing any promotion for the film. Also, there's not much that you haven't heard before here. Sometimes that can be good, a refresher on what you know but got lazy about thinking on, like most food docs. But we live capitalism run amuck and concentrated wealth everyday and Noam wasn't bringing out anything beyond the blow your college mind conversation. There were three directors on this films. I'm not sure there's anything in this world that benefits from three directors.

Then we went to a bunch of International Wildlife Film Festival docs with the All Access Pass our Roxy membership awarded us. Fun to live it up with our lanyards and visit interesting environments full of creatures. Here's our list from the fest: Giraffe - Up high and personal [fine and very into puns but strange animation "humor"] | Life Force 2: The Arib Namib [a look into desert creatures] | The Great Auk [animated story for kids with terrible moments of sound, on purpose I think] | The Daughters of the Forest [environmental science based high school for girls in Paraguay - not perfect but maybe my favorite of the fest] | and a bunch of others but I'm boring myself. Here's the schedule if you want to guess at other ones we saw. The main thing we realized during the festival is that it's hard to beat a Nature episode on PBS. These all seemed to be lacking a certain something [information] or having too much something else [human ego].

On April 15, we saw Songs My Brother Taught Me. This movie, set on the Pine Ridge Reservation, is so good. You should see it if you can. Beautiful storytelling and real characters.

Then I missed my first feature playing at the Roxy. Racing Extinction was a holdover from the IWFF and I wasn't feeling it enough to squeeze it into the stressful days of moving. Then April came to a close.