nutsberryfarm Reviews

Larry Crowne (2011)

a community college concerto in c+ minor

[13 October 2013]

on the surface this is a simple story we've heard before: man thinks he's going to win employee of the month award & gets the olé break room shakedown pulled on him and he finds himself without a job. sad? sure. tragic? maybe. too salty? of course. but i need more! and i got it. yes, it requires the viewer to put on their cinematic scuba gear & jump right into the world of community colleges, men wanting to be men, a diner run by a taskmaster with a dubious' tough but fair' philosophy. dangerous? sometimes. reminiscent of henrik ibsen's 'lady inger of ostrat'? no way, jose. at this point something starts to happen. you begin to hear: who is larry crowne? what is larry crowne? where is larry crowne? are scooter gangs really more scourge than scandal? what am i going to have for lunch today? those are called questions. and they float on the surface of time when you consider this movie which in scope & size & feel remind one of a fresh box of krispy kreme doughnuts on a slightly damp fall morning when the sun is playing a game of hide & seek with the clouds...and that's, well, crownetastic.

Argo (2012)

argo kidding me?

[12 September 2013]

the dialogue reminded me of watching bob hope specials with my grandpa in the mid 90's when i was really, really young & bob hope was really, really senile. so cheesy, so banal, with such an archaic & limited worldview you laugh at how bad the lines are; then ben affleck's acting: my finnish spitz displays more 'inner life' when issuing one bark at a random airplane overhead than the emotional totality of his performance​. at some points when aflleck tries to get real mad, real quick, it's akin to witnessing a geo metro​ try to accelerate ​real quick to say...80 mph!!!!

it's just never going to happen.

nothing...is...there.

would give it 1 star but alan arkin is in it & he saves it from such a fate & it looks like he picked up some cool shades from doing the movie. well played, arkin.