Safety Not Guaranteed (2012) ‘Review’

So, once again, it’s been awhile, but I’m alright with it. The weather is getting nicer (somewhat), but there will always be time for movies and blogging! Today’s movie was recommended to me (as well as many other movies) by my friend and director, Kelsey. She is also a big movie fan, so I have someone at work to talk to in depth about movies. The first one I wanted to watch from the list was Safety Not Guaranteed, and the only thing I had known about it was that Aubrey Plaza was in it, who I know from Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and Mystery Team, although most people probably know her from Parks and Recreation. I had to watch it before going to work, and at 85 minutes, I knew I could get through it quickly. And thank goodness I watched it, because it was a lot of fun with a very nice script and funny acting all around.

The movie’s plot revolves around the classified ad that you can see in the poster above. Darius (Plaza) is an intern at a magazine, so along with her co-workers Jeff (Jake Johnson, from New Girl), and Arnau (Karan Soni), they go to investigate the writer of the ad to see if he can really travel back in time. At the outset, Darius is the only one that has a mind open enough to believe Kenneth (Mark Duplass, from The League and The Mindy Project). The rest of the movie is discovering who these two really are, their missions in life and time, and it involves some great dialogue, funny scenes, and some touching moments as well. Since this is spoiler-free, I don’t want to say too much, but I will say that the performances by the main actors in this movie are great. Aubrey Plaza has several layers to her performance, and Duplass looks like he is having genuine fun performing his role of the “not-always-there” Kenneth.  I also want to say that I was wondering, just like the reporters, whether time travel was really possible, or is this guy just a nut? You’ll have to watch to find out!

At only 85 minutes like I said before, you should check it out. It won some independent film awards, including for the aforementioned screenplay, so you should have a lot of fun listening to their conversations. The performances, again, vary and always make me laugh. I have enjoyed Plaza in films before, and I always liked her snarkiness. Jake Johnson, apart from Zooey Deschanel, is giving me another reason to watch New Girl, and like I said, Duplass just looks like he is having a lot of fun on set, which makes sense because he and his brother Jay are executive producers for the film. I try to avoid these kinds of things, but the title leads itself to having one of those cheesy closing lines: While you’re watching Safety Not Guaranteed, you’ll at least be guaranteed a good time… Yeah, see, it’s weird… Sorry about that.

[In other news, David Night’s section has been removed from my blog after reaching an amicable decision to move forward with mine. But for friends of him, you can find him on WordPress as soon as he gets his blog established.]

Zero Dark Thirty (2012) ‘Review’

I remember where I was when I heard that the USA got Osama Bin Laden. I was at home watching TV when my brother Matt came into the room and said “We got him. We got Osama.” And I remember I was very happy– what a great American moment. And I wondered how they did it. If it was anything like the tactical raid presented in Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty, it was very exciting and suspenseful to watch. I knew that the Americans were going to win but seeing it carried out was very cool to see. At the beginning of the movie, the director says via text “The events in this movie are based on first-hand accounts”, so I suppose I will have to take their word for it. The presentation in this movie was very interesting, suspenseful (again), and it takes a good look at everything that went into the ten-year search for him, at least that is the time spanned during the movie. Seeing the people involved and what they were going through (again, based on ‘first-hand’ accounts’) really added another dimension and made this movie one of the more enjoyable of the films that were nominated.

The big story in ZDT is the performance of Lead Actress Jessica Chastain (The Tree of Life, The Help). She plays Maya, a CIA operative that takes one of the leads in order to find “UBL”, as he is referred to in the movie (“U” being Usama, as it is sometimes spelled). During the movie I couldn’t help but notice the unwavering determination and confidence that Chastain shows during pretty much every scene. At first she looks very nervous because her character is so young, but it quickly changes once she gets in deep into her mission. As she declares at one point in the film when someone asks what else has she done with her life: “I haven’t done anything else.” This is her sole mission, her one purpose, and anytime that a failure is present she will not let it happen. It gets to the point where she is yelling at her boss to get things done, and she will not take “no” for an answer. Her performance must have taken a lot of energy, because if I know anything from acting in plays or taking classes, holding a motivation and mood that long gets exhausting. But she does it flawlessly, and is a front-runner for the Best Actress award.

The rest of the movie is like a detective story; a friend of mine likened it to The Zodiac (the good one with Jake Gyllenhaal). To me, the movie worked well when it showed the people involved, and it made me think of how Bigelow was good at doing that with Jeremy Renner in The Hurt Locker. In that sense, these two movies are similar, although in ZDT, there is more time spent away from Chastain, especially during the climax when she the raid is happening. 

I believe ZDT has a good chance to win Best Picture, but I think the race is going to be close. In any case, this movie had quite a bit of “AMURICA” going on, and was definitely less depressing than The Hurt Locker, which I think makes it more accessible. Chastain is very good, and co-star Jason Clarke (as Dan) was very enjoyable as well.

There is some torture going on in this movie during the first act so that might not be for everyone. After that it becomes a suspenseful ride to see what will happen next. At least I could take solace in the fact that I knew that, just like at Zero Dark Thirty on May 2, 2011, we got him.