J: I paid the nice lady some extra money to give me ALL the wine. So I only sort of remember this movie.
M: She was a nice lady. And I just want to say... shout out to the Free State Festival. That was my first time attending any events this year. I attended three. They were all excellent.
J: I think that was the only one I made it to, and it was too cool. Can't wait for next year. So what'd you think of the movie?
M: Um. If I'm being honest, it was not my favorite. I had high hopes and it was... it was substantially compelling. It seemed, and I always hate this compliment, somebody gave me the compliment once of being "well-rendered".
J: That seems accurate. Personally, I liked the storyline. That being said, I think I would have appreciated more action. It was definitely moving in a good direction, and then it just seemed like it was over before anything happened.
M: Yes. I feel like I've seen that movie before, just with a different premise.
The other main character. Le stranger.
J: It certainly wasn't original. Your basic human survivalist scenario. Wasn't it really similar in...
J: That's exactly what I was going to say! The plot... well, the basics... were definitely similar. How does a person react in worst case scenario with one ally.
M: But no Cillian Murphy in this one, which is an automatic [gestures incoherently] you know [gestures again] ding, for me.
J: In any case, I would recommend this, though I think Mere would not, but either way, lovely brogue, interesting ideas, and a tidy plot.
M: And it's really not the worst. I mean, I watched the whole thing.
J: We were at the theater.
M: And it has some local ties! It won something at the Kansas City Film Festival. And that's when I learned, Kansas City has a film festival.
J: Go Kansas City!
M: Can we brogue the next movie?
These people. They're gross.
J: There's another movie?
M: Well, the one we're gonna go see.
J: We're about to go see Trainwreck, folks... pretty sure that's a no... [checks IMDB]... the dogwalker... DANIEL RADCLIFFE! We can blog it! I'm so excited.
M: Let's do it! [raises glass] With faux enthusiasm.
M: Oh. My God. That is not a bat! Ugh! Or is it... rawr!
M2: Dogget's done gonna drown. Just pull Dogget on out of the river.
J: Soooo we're blogging now...
M: Hang on, I have to burp. [burps loudly] 'Scuse me!
J: What movie should we talk about first?
M: [dies laughing at X-Files]
J: We'll talk about Ex Machina.
M: Okay I'm ready now.
J: We were VERY excited to see this movie.
M: We were!
Surprisingly, NOT the guy from 10 Things I Hate About You.
J: Mere mostly wanted to see it because of... oh...
M: You only get to write it if you can remember his name.
J: Ah... [pauses] I can do this...
M: We can come back to it. It'll come to you.
J: Dammit. Oscar Isaac!!
M: There it is! So the movie...
J: Was dark. And gritty. And intense. Well, not so much gritty as intense. It was really quite beautiful.
I think you might be the droid I'm looking for.
M: [nods] [munches carrot] I concur. Very beautiful.
J: He was really the only brogue-able one, right?
M: Oscar Isaac? No. Domhnall Gleeson was. Oscar Isaac's Guatemalan.
J: Riiiiight, right right. No one technically had an accent, though.
M: Yeah. Right. Ahh, he played an American and very well, I thought. I only noticed the one slip-up, where he said he was "in hospital."
J: And I missed that totally, because I apparently was so engrossed by the movie. Or gullible. One of the two.
Norway. Not Argentina. Norway.
M: In your defense, the movie was quite captivating. And disturbing.
J: Mostly disturbing. The entire movie was one crazy mind game. And featured pretty much only three characters in one setting. Unbelievable.
M: It gave it that good theatrical quality.
J: It really did. I could imagine it on a stage for sure, but the place they chose was perfect.
M: Was it South America? I think it was Argentina or something.
J: Would you recommend this movie?
"Tell me more about how you were in hospital."
M: I would. I would recommend it to anyone who's a fan of sci-fi. It's maybe something that's sort of been done before, but it was an interesting take on it.
J: And much more open-ended in its implications. This really was a pretty fantastically pure artificial intelligence storyline.
M: It didn't feel that heavy-handed, either. Like you said, open-ended.
J: There was a lot to think about, and the AI wasn't even the most disturbing part.
M: [laughs] I did do that.
J: Truly, though, a really thought-provoking film.
"Smell it!"
M: Speaking of thought-provoking! Our blogs are so much more coherent when we've not been drinking for several... ah... minutes... ah... beforehand.
J: I'd like to point out that we tried to blog two weeks ago, but some UVBLU got in the way. Hard.
M: I'm confused. Oh! Okay. I see what you're doing. But see then people are gonna listen and try to read at the same time, and maybe you miss a word or you misquote me, worst of all, and I just, our fans might get really upset! Is that not a concern?
J: First of all, I rarely miss a word. I'm pretty good.
M: I was just going to compliment you on that. I'm amazed that you're keeping up. There is a little bit of a lag. I just had to say it. I'm not judging, obviously.
J: Okay, so the typos are, uh really going for it tonight.
M: I think you should just leave them in, so people should see visually, as well as hear what you were up against. With all my stuttering and stopping.
J: Also, I have bandaids on two fingers. This is kind of hard.
M: So we watched a movie. It was an old movie. It was a movie I'd never heard of. And it had an alien Jeff Goldblum from an era... didn't even look like Jeff Goldblum. It was like, ah, see now I'm distracted by you correcting typos, this is terrible.
J: So this movie was one of Jeff's earliest films I swear. I think we looked it up and it was '89? Yeah, that sounds right. Super early. And not only was he just completely weird looking, he was also a terrible actor.
M: Are we going to talk about the sweaters? Because those were amazing.
J: HIs outfits just continued to get worse and worse.
M: Or more amazing, depending on your preference.
J: The worst part is that Emma Thompson was also in this. And I love her. And her character was great for like, 95% of this movie.
How, uh, did you leave the house like that?
M: So I had some really deep thoughts about this earlier today at work. I was thinking about her character and how bizarre she is, and it reminded me of the discussion in Gone Girl, about the cool girl. And part of me still gets really mad and defensive about the cool girl thing. Because it's like, as much as anything, it assumes that a girl is supposed to be some sort of way or some sort of thing and that she's weird or false or whatever if she actually claims to like something that the other concept of girl is not supposed to like. This sounded better before I started drinking. Back to this Emma Thompson character! I felt like she was kind of a cool girl just in the sense that she didn't make a lot sense to me as a character or as a human being, she was just a little erratic.
J: So I think we're getting to the end when Emma makes a decision that you or I would probably not have made. Jeff Goldblum cheats. Cheats on Emma Thompson. And it's terrible. He gives this impassioned speech in front of an entire ER full of people who should be working...
M: Saving lives...
J: And she forgives him.
M: Inexplicably. It wasn't even a good speech. It wasn't even a bad speech. It was awful. He didn't even like toss her a compliment. There's just nothing.
J: So we really hated this movie by then end.
M: By the end. The sweaters, though. Amazing. Like the first 10 minutes of the movie I think that was all we could talk about. His fabulous attire.
J: I will also say that the haircut he has on the cover... never happens. I was so sad.
I just had the most ridiculous sex of my life.
M: He looks like sportscaster Jeff Golblum on the cover with his giant tan suit. It's amazing.
J: What else... the sex scene?
M: Oh god...
J; No it was that bad. Just overdone and unrealistic.
M: You said something while we were watching it...
J: Wasn't this written by someone who's really famous in the rom-com world?
M: Maybe? Or directed? I can't remember.
J: Like Nora Efron? I could have sworn.
M: Surely not. Did we talk about the brogues? I guess we mentioned Emma Thompson, who's wonderful otherwise, just not so much in this movie. I mean, she plays the character well, it's just a stupid character, in my opinion.
J: I agree.
M: I mean maybe for the time, she would've been interesting and different and very opinionated.
J: She did put him off for awhile.
M: She did. It was all very "her terms or no terms" kinda thing, which was cool. Is that a thing?
I'm totally in this movie, you twats.
J: It's a thing now. And that's what made it all the more disappointing when she flaked at the end. I was sad.
M: Oh Mr. Bean's in this! I almost forgot that. He's, uh, not very lovable.
J: He's a snarky magician or something.
M: He's a performer of some sort.
J: He's snarky, whatever he is.
M: There were some fun shots of London though. Wasn't it in London?
J: There were a lot of bicycle scenes.
M: He rides his bike through town at night and looks kinda cool.
J: The acting was just bad though.
M: Yeah, I mean it was close.
J: NO it wasn't!
M: Yeah. I liked the title. I liked how that fit in with things.
J: It was all about him.
M: Tell me about it!
J: I loved the break-up scene.
M: That was awesome.
J: She just intuits that he's cheated and calmly packs up her stuff and leaves. And he's dumbfounded. Obviously.
And that's how we feel about this movie.
M: Yep.
J: And then to come back from that and get back together... blah. I mean, yay rom-com...
M: Boo....
J: So that's The Tall Guy. Next up...
M; See it, don't see it... Jeff Goldblum...
J: I say give this one a pass. But don't miss...
M: The sweaters!
J: No. Not the sweaters. They can watch the trailer.
M; Yeah, that would pretty much be all you need to see. [dances]
J: We'll link the trailer at the end.
M: Well! Next, we're going to the theater, in like 10 minutes, and we're gonna see Ex Machina.
J: What about Tinker Bell?
M: Oh my god, we did watch Tinker Bell. We had the pleasure of doing a little babysitting earlier tonight with my awesome niece and we watched a fabulous film called The Secret of the Wings starring none other than Tinker Bell. Shockingly, not only was none other than Angelica Houston one of the cast members, but James Bond, Mr. Timothy Dalton had quite a role in the film. We grew quite invested, honestly. I'd recommend it, actually.
J: It was... kinda good... I feel bad about saying that. Not the worst made-for-Netflix movie I've ever seen. And not the worst messages for kids, actually.
M: Working together, saving the forest, protecting your wings... sisters...
J: If you have one... which is apparently is really rare in fairy world...
M: Something about being born from the same laugh?! I missed that part.
J: It's a Peter Pan thing.
M: Well... [makes wrap it up sign]
BWAB... uh... finds a way...
J: Let us know what you think about this duel format.
M: I think there's gonna be a little bit of lag in the recording. Also let us know if you heard this at all. Or if you read this. Or accidentally ended up on this website, somehow.
M2: [plays Bob Seger on guitar] [sings] She's a little too tall!
