How do you feel about Kristen Wiig

a shitty '80s tune

I think you mean one of the greatest songs ever tbh.

lol

I do like that one part where she first reluctantly starts lip-syncing, very cuet

feel like that 'heart-to-heart' dance move has been done by Wiig in a movie before...

It totally has. That said, it is a pretty good move.

also i find the boucing around from suicidal depression to lipsyncing to playing fartgames on nitrous oxide just a little too 'resilient' even for characters in an indie dramedy.

that blond actor who played her Aussie scuba teacher was well worth a fuck tho (apparently he's Elisabeth Olsen's bf).

yeah there is a certain bathos to the way amerindie films deal with these subjects, always putting this slightly unbelievable *positive outlook* spin on things, same with Silver Linings Playbook and mental illness.

Oh shit, forgot about him. Eggers sort of is the embodiment of a whimsical indie movie cliche.

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, January 7, 2015 8:38 PM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark

lest we forget

http://www.seat42f.com/images/stories/Movies/Posters/Away-We-Go-Movie-Poster.jpg

oh lord, did anyone here actually see that turd?

lol, the character names

John Krasinski as Burt Farlander
Maya Rudolph as Verona De Tessant
Carmen Ejogo as Grace De Tessant
Jeff Daniels as Jerry Farlander
Catherine O'Hara as Gloria Farlander
Allison Janney as Lily
Jim Gaffigan as Lowell
Maggie Gyllenhaal as LN
Josh Hamilton as Roderick
Melanie Lynskey as Munch Garnett
Chris Messina as Tom Garnett
Paul Schneider as Courtney Farlander

That reminds me, a film version of You Too Shall Know Our Velocity (or whatever it's called) starring Harry Potter is due for Festival Season '15-'16.

Munch Garnett

poor Paul Schneider, he really deserves another good movie, someday

Office dude has some big feet

points to anyone who can find me a modern american person named "de tessant" -- every link I can find gives me the movie or a french person from another century

Munch Garnett

― $80 is absurd and very ridiculous! (Sufjan Grafton), Wednesday, January 7, 2015 4:40 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

She and Hader are good, considering, but that Skeleton Twins script is a desiccated collection of Sundance cliches. Oh no, Joanna Gleason as an Evil New Age Mother! Suicide attempts all around! Lipsyncing a shitty '80s tune cuz gay!

― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, January 6, 2015 11:31 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark

I basically agree with Morbs' assessment except I would flip the things on either side of the "but," i.e. the performances outweighed the cliches for me. Also thought Ty Burrell was very good as the teacher.

― man alive, Wednesday, January 7, 2015 12:21 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I also didn't know sundance movies were full of suicide attempts, guess I just don't see enough of them.

― man alive, Wednesday, January 7, 2015 12:22 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

also i find the boucing around from suicidal depression to lipsyncing to playing fartgames on nitrous oxide just a little too 'resilient' even for characters in an indie dramedy.

that blond actor who played her Aussie scuba teacher was well worth a fuck tho (apparently he's Elisabeth Olsen's bf).

― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, January 7, 2015 4:12 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah there is a certain bathos to the way amerindie films deal with these subjects, always putting this slightly unbelievable *positive outlook* spin on things, same with Silver Linings Playbook and mental illness.

― man alive, Wednesday, January 7, 2015 4:19 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

Silver Linings Playbook drove me insane with its marrow deep phoniness and manic pandering insistence that u love it and message that we're all part of the same crazy human tapestry so don't sweat it if you're a psycho who puts dudes in the hospital. Awful film

The Skeleton Twins was a lot better. It has contrivances, it has melodrama, and it certainly has an element of Wiig & Hader being so great (Wiig gives a top 3 performance in 2014, as she did in 2011) that they bring uninspired-on-paper scenes up to their level. But the miserablist throughline being so genuine and right really took it a long way, and I give the director/writers credit for having just the right sensibility a lot of the time, underplaying the right things, the disinterest in schtick, the comedy is naturally extracted so when it comes it's a dizzying relief instead of trying to oppress u with its antic irreverence. There's nothing revelatory but it mostly feels 'right'... especially compared to fellow 'Sundance Style Comedies' like The Kings of Summer or w/e, boy does it really excel in that company

Hader could've been a too easy desexed tragic homo but his passive resilience is apt... the film isn't putting a fake 'positive outlook spin' on suicide, it's just being real... sometimes u try to kill yourself and sometimes u get up and dust yourself off but you're still a miserable piece of shit. The movie gets why depression is funny, how it's almost like a great feeling to know you're about to kill yourself out of loneliness and dissatisfaction, so it doesn't have to overcorrect at the end and ladle on "they're gonna be ok"-isms. They're still lonely pieces of SHIT at the end. For some reason I'm now thinking about how Ida was a more 'unflinching' film that studiously avoided melodrama, and it ended up saying something a lot more phony about its characters...

Also its a miraculous Luke Wilson comeback vehicle! Has he been this good in anything since Bottle Rocket? That Laura Dern tv show maybe, but that's it

good post, and thx for backing up my memory that Skeleton Twins was at least significantly better than Silver Linings Playbook.

And I enjoyed Luke Wilson a lot in it too.

I groaned when I heard the distant off-screen right-channel *splash* during the climax. I was expecting it, but still.

Office dude has some big feet

Office dude had big shoes to fill. First guy was a Hobbit apparently.

xxpost H4A otm. I really loved this and reading all the hate here made me feel like I'd watched a totally different movie. I was going to say something but I get really intimidated talking about movies once the doc shows up on a thread. Yes, I realize that's more my thing than anything having to do with him but it's true. FTR SLP was one of the most disappointingly awful movies I've seen in years. O'Russel is one of my favorite directors and that was just awful in pretty much every way.

Fuck, I just now remembered crits etc. trying to make Kings of Summer a thing.

O'Russel - i can't stop laughing at my typo. oops.

haha. I'm not sure I knew that it wasn't O'Russel until now.

Post-Huckabees it's been ohhhhhhhhh Russell

Yeah, he's unfortunately traveling down the same road as Alexander Pain.

oh just shut up

sorry - that was mean

I thought SLP had a lot more going on than ST. Hokey 3rd act aside.

good post H4A. not that i've seen the wiig movie in question but man did SLP rub me the wrong way. just awful.

i think Luke Wilson hasn't been in anything good because he's not that good an actor

I will always love him if only for Rushmore and the "O, R they?" line. It kills me. Still. I feel like he's the better looking but generally less charismatic Wilson bro. I did like him in this though.

but he does not deliver said line

lol you're right
i mean the scene

Jesus christ I'm tired.

my favorite luke wilson line

I've never seen BR. I am guessing I should watch it?

I think it's worth watching, yeah

it is on amazon prime, i think

I have that! Ty. :)

Yeah, Skeleton Twins was all right. It is a heaping mound of indie cliches (feel-good! dark and edgy suicide themes! people in their 30s coming home! blunt symbolism! etc. etc.) but ultimately likeable. Wiig and particularly Hader did great jobs. I forgot that Luke Wilson was in this and loved this throwback/likeable doofus role.

everybody otm about skeleton twins. had a lot of flaws but wiig and especially hader were great. hungry4ass right on about the fact that they are still miserable pieces of shit despite some happy moments and a generally happy ending

"Josh Hamilton as Roderick"

Albert Pujols as Fred