I don't have any smart pun for this one.

I did read a review before watching this movie, just to find out if it was worth watching or not. Also, I didn't really fully watch the movie, mainly listened and watched some while studying. I know there must be some kind of sin against that, but here's what I thought anyway of World's Greatest Dad.

It's been awhile since I've seen Robin Williams in any recent movie, but I did see him on Conan doing his usual crazy jokes and controlling the whole interview type thing. It's hard for me to remember that he is a good actor, and a varied one, because he is a comedian first. Right? Anyways, I read Brett Elrich's review of this movie and just remember him saying it is a really dark comedy. When I think of dark comedy, I think of In Bruges...which I really liked. I didn't have any expectations otherwise, because Brett's review was pretty simple: It was good because the indie director had his own flair in his indie movie, unlike most indies that try to be different but all seem the same.

He had a good point. I was actually going to watch Inglorious Bastards (online, so it was horrible quality and there weren't visible subtitles in the beginning), but it just wasn't worth it. So I guess Greatest Dad was easy to get into. It didn't take itself so seriously that it almost seemed like a joke. I could see the good and bad qualities of that. During this really emotional scene, the sound was muted with just a song. The director really focused on using songs for their lyrics and parallelism, but the song felt badly used. It was chipper. This could be part of his style, but it made me feel awkward. There are a few parts like that. I feel like they introduced some things that were abandoned by the end of the movie, and overall they were unnecessary plot points. I guess I'll rip off Brett and say that it was really interesting to watch because of this kind of fresh attempt of a style. There is this montage of a scene that was funny yet pretty dark. It worked in the scene, and in the end I was pretty shook up. The movie could have been shorter still, because much of the scenes (in screenwriting terms) after the second false epiphany I guess... were dragged on. I really liked the ending and thought it was worth watching.

3 out of 4.

District 9 is the new Area 51

What a lame title... oh how I carry the shame.

I came into this movie without reading any reviews and only seeing all those teaser trailers and viral marketing signs, or what have you. My roommate mentioned that it might be shaky like a fake documentary (Cloverfield???), but I wasn't worried about it being as bad (visually) as Cloverfield because of all the good reviews I saw based on the Rotten Tomatoes percentage. I should have known though, with the footage of that girl that always spoke in the beginning of the trailer... I always thought it was a real thing until it got to the aliens.

I tend to fear what the person I'm seeing it with thinks of the movie, especially when I dragged them to see it. So in the beginning, based on my roommate's vibes, I thought maybe it was too slow and felt like it was dragging on, but I still very much enjoyed the interviews and information the people were giving us, as compared to Paper Heart. It just sort of felt longer than a slightly less than 2 hour movie. At the point where they started to introduce the main character, Wikus, I got a little confused because I must have missed that they were talking about him in the past tense and the footage is in present tense for the narrative. The transition from documentary and narrative were pretty well executed. The shots didn't need to be so muddled at times, but I've noticed that it happens with all action scenes in movies.

Without really thinking about what the movie was going to explore, I was so amazed at how much social commentary they shoved into the movie. It made me so sad about mankind, and reminded me of my emotional feelings towards animals. The acting was really good and visual effects were amazing. Some of the plot points of course weren't explained or felt like plot holes. But I don't want to spoil anything. Towards the end, I just couldn't get enough and I would not mind if there will be a sequel, but it is still amazing on its own.

Three and a half out of Four.

Perhaps my heart too, is made out of paper.

I tried to refrain myself from reading too much about Paper Heart before seeing it. Initially, I gained interest in watching the film because the fan girl side of me wanted to see the parallel between the narrative and Charlyne Yi and Michael Cera's real relationship. Then I saw a review of it in Spin Magazine and couldn't help myself. One star?! How could this happen. I don't even remember what the review said, but I already had a distaste for the movie. I started to look up more about Charlyne Yi, and I thought her comedy was cute. She was on Conan, and made me laugh. I almost felt like the slate was cleared. While searching for things, I read that the Charlyne and Michael's relationship was a fabrication according to Charlyne in an interview. Wait what...? Why?

Then I went to see the movie and immediately I felt like something was forced. Oh right, it was the beginning where she walks around trying to interview people. I just saw this exact clip online of her just walking up to people and putting the microphone in front of people's faces without asking anything. She does it again, but this time asking about love to get the same punchline- her weird face and her open mouth and people walking away. As the movie progressed, her incessant laughter became a factor of fake-ness and annoyed me. I think the use of having real interviews as a way of her learning about love was a little awkward, once again, because she is in character and asks questions referring to her pretend boyfriend in the film. Of course, I kept in the back of my mind the whole idea that their relationship was fake. I enjoyed the whole paper reenactments of the stories the subjects gave, and thought they were the cutest, but maybe more suitable as a short film with just the interview parts. The relationship between Charlyne and Michael was supposed to be cute, but ultimately made me sick of how cute they tried to be. I actually didn't feel their chemistry, it was just awkward love I suppose... So forced and fake! In the end, I liked the twist because it was not the cliche approach everyone probably expected, but I didn't think it was that funny like it tried to be. Ultimately, it tried hard to seem like it was documenting a real relationship and what it is like, but the forced situations made it difficult to really care about the character's relationship and made it seemed unreal.

I might've read this and so it's fresh in my mind to say, but it was too cute for it's own good. From now on, I won't read or watch reviews before watching movies so I feel better about my reviews... but I am still very self-conscious about them. Thus, not many people will read this. :)

I would still give it 2 1/2 out of 4.