The Dirt (2019)
After watching the first two minutes, I seriously didn’t think I was going to make it through the entire movie.
- I don’t think I’ve ever listened to an entire song of Mötley Crüe
- The opening scene was Tommy Lee making a girl squirt (ugh… I hate even typing that word. It’s my “moist”.)
- The subject matter didn’t interest me
So why did I watch it? It was recommended to me. Curiosity got the best of me.
Dude… It’s a wild ride. I can’t believe these guys are still alive. There’s one scene where Tommy Lee describes a typical day at the height of the fame:
“You wanna know what life on the road’s really like? For me, every day went something like this: 5 p.m. Phone Rings. Wake up. Remember nothing.”
It was my favourite scene by far.
The movie is based on the book The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band, written by the four band members (Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Nikki Sixx, and Mick Mars) and Neil Strauss, therefore, you know that the movie is biased, but I didn’t really care. It was entertaining AF and I loved every minute of it (except the scene with Ozzy Osbourne. Whew. That was a rough scene. I won’t begrudge you it your skipped that scene. I wish I could unsee it.)
Here’s the trailer:
That Awkward Moment (2014)
The premise of this movie is simple: three friends pledge to stay single while navigating casual relationships that turn into something more. Hilarity ensues.
There is something so charming about this movie and it’s humour doesn’t instantly go to the easy, low-hanging jokes. It has a New Girl feel to it – idiotic but redeemable. The characters spend the movie trying to answer (or deny) the perplexing question: how do you decide when you’re in a relationship? Do you actually have to talk about it, or can you rely on certain cues to infer a relationship exists?
High Strung: Free Dance (2019)
I’m SUCH a sucker for a dance movie (send me any recommendations!) so of course this movie caught my eye. The story is pretty forgettable. I’m having trouble remembering it, actually. Young woman wants to be a dancer. Young man wants to be a pianist. There’s an elderly lady in it for some reason…? Center Stage has a much better and memorable story, but the dancing in High Strung is much better. The rest…? Eh. There’s a lot of scenes that really go nowhere:
- an opera singer who sings obnoxiously and then vanishes from the story line
- a stereotypical mean director who is a love interest and then seemingly forgotten about until later
- other dancers who do a dance in their apartment and then we never see them or the apartment again
It’s all really nonsensical. But the dancing is good and that’s all you really need to watch.
Replicas (2018)
Keanu Reeves plays a scientist who is running human tests on transferring human consciousness from a dead body to an artificial host. When tragedy strikes, he uses the experimental science to save his family without fully considering the consequences.
“What if something horrible goes wrong?”
“Something already has.”
I really liked this movie! I have a tendency to skip over Keanu Reeves movies as I find him to be pretty bland, but his blandness somehow plays to his favour in Replicas. You believe him as a scientist who plays with the laws of nature: so caught up in the science that he doesn’t question if he should do it. It’s as if a Mary Higgins Clark novel and the movie The Island had a slow burn, sci fi baby.
I was going to share the trailer, but every trailer I watched framed it like it was an action movie with fast cuts and loud, intense music, which is not representative of the movie at all. I think this is why people don’t like this movie. They went in thinking it was going to be an action film and they got a movie about a man in mourning. But still good!
Movies to skip
I also want to include the movies I watched that I didn’t like, so you don’t have to waste your time.
The Night Clerk (2020)
This movie was interesting, but it didn’t go anywhere. It was meant to be a mystery/thriller, but it really felt like an episode of Murder She Wrote.
Observe and Report (2009)
I like Seth Rogen. I like Anna Faris. I like Ray Liotta. But… this movie real bad. The characters are unlikable and you’re not rooting for anyone and it just made me feel icky. Hard pass.
Natasha Julian 