A couple things recently, but here are two wildly different ones.
Vanya On 42nd StreetI added this flick to my queue ages ago, so while I kind of knew what it was about, it was quite different than what I expected but also very enjoyable. I feel like, had I known it was also a "My Dinner With Andre" reunion, I would have remembered that. And I suppose it's technically a sequel as well, since they're playing themselves again.
The film... I don't even know how narrative it is, is the actors coming together to rehearse Uncle Vanya and hoping to gain some insight from it and from themselves. I can't really say too much about it, but it's one of those movies I can see playing in the background over and over...
Two little bullet points about the film:
One, Wally Shawn gets angry in a scene, meaning he's more like the Wally we know in Princess Bride and Clueless and all that, but he screams "you ruined my life!" and since then, in my mind I've been hearing him do lines from "What About Bob?" But I haven't recorded my impression of that yet.
Two, way back when I got this, I was ordering a block of movies and I think I mish-mashed a couple premises together, and after this movie I started writing down what I thought it was going to be, and it ballooned from there.
Game Over, Man!When I write a movie, I'm obsessed with the idea of "get to," every scene should have a get to, "this is the scene where we get to do this," etc. Game Over Man, while not a fantastic movie, is a great example of this. I think just about every scene had something fun for the actors to do or for the audience to see, all the characters... even the minor ones... had some business that they could brag about, "I'm the guy in the movie who does X.," I'm big on that.
And while the premise is clearly Die Hard, they also are very aware of it so there are a ton of twists and turns... possibly too many? You're never left waiting for a scene to finish, which is something that drives me crazy in movies.
The movie is also full of character actors I like, which is always a bonus, and oh man, the hotel manager... he caught my eye and I couldn't stop watching him, he seemed really familiar and I couldn't place my finger on it until halfway through: it's Daniel Stern. Epic.