The Films of 2024: Average Joe (dir by Harold Cronk)

Posted on December 25, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I should admit that I have a bias when it comes to Average Joe.

Two weeks ago, when I watched this movie, I mentioned that I was viewing it on twitter. I included a picture of the film’s poster with my tweet. A few days later, I was briefly locked out of my account because someone reported the tweet for a copyright violation. Apparently, they were offended that I had shared the film’s poster. The image was removed from twitter and my account was subsequently unlocked.

I mean …. seriously, what the Hell? Not to brag on myself but I’m probably one of the few secular film bloggers out there who is willing to give a serious, non-snarky review to a faith-based film like Average Joe. Beyond that, me tweeting that I’m watching the film and sharing the film’s poster is basically free advertising for a film that really hasn’t really gotten a whole helluva lot of attention. I really have to wonder who thought it would be a good idea to alienate a viewer by complaining about someone sharing the film’s poster on social media.

As for the film itself, it’s based on a true story. Joe (Eric Close) is a former rebel and delinquent who is straightened out by both serving in the military and marrying Denise (Amy Acker). After Joe joins a church and shares his testimony, he is asked to take over as coach of a struggling high school football team. Joe leads them to victory but he also causes controversy by publicly praying before and after the games. The school board orders Joe to pray in the locker room where no one can see him but Joe refuses. Joe’s case makes its way to the Supreme Court. Along the way, Denise goes from being annoyed with her husband’s stubbornness to supporting his right to pray.

Del Close and Amy Acker make for a believable and cute couple. They definitely have enough chemistry that you buy them as a married couple. Both Close and Acker are also talented enough actors that they can make the movie watchable, even when it gets more than a bit heavy-handed. That said, the film also features Joe and Denise looking straight at the camera and narrating their story, which leads to several moments of either Close or Acker saying, “Actually, that’s the not the way it happened. What really happened was….” It’s a technique that become popular after Adam McKay used it in The Big Short (though I think it’s entirely probable that McKay himself stole it from Michael Winterbottom’s 24-Hour Party People). The first time it happens, it works because Joe interrupts some over-the-top footage of him trying to lasso a camel in a desert. It’s exactly the type of scene that is worthy of a “Wait, this didn’t happen!” But each subsequent time that Joe and Denise break the fourth wall, it feels less like a clever narrative device and more like a gimmick. There comes a point where you just want both Joe and Denise to get on with it.

Average Joe is …. it’s okay. I liked some of the acting. I liked the score by Andrew Morgan Smith. Narratively, it was never quite as memorable as it probably should have been. It’s a film that tries hard but doesn’t really stick with you.

Hallmark Review: A Novel Romance (2015, dir. Mark Griffiths)

Posted on October 10, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

I wonder how many of these Hallmark movies revolve around books either by having a writer in it, a bookstore owner, or an editor? Luckily, this one is kind of enjoyable. However, it is very simple so I am going to keep this short. The setup, some highlights, and humorous goofs to look for.

The movie opens with an author named Liam (Dylan Bruce) who writes romance novels under the pseudonym Gabriel August. There is going to be a big reveal that he is Gabriel August soon. Then Sophie (Amy Acker) comes into his life when they end up sitting side by side on a plane. This is one of those movies where somebody meets someone else, they know they like them, and they make sure not to let that opportunity pass them up. In this case, Liam knows he wants to have Sophie in his life.

Sophie is a writer for a newspaper. She writes different things, but mainly focuses on book reviews which are her bread and butter. Unfortunately, when she gets back to her job it turns out the paper is in such trouble that the boss comes right out and tells everyone to essentially act like radio shock jocks. As a result, Sophie writes a lackluster review for Liam’s new book.

Liam just sees this as the girl he met on the plane and a way to find her again.

The only other piece of the setup that is important is that Sophie once dated someone famous and it all blew up in her face. Liam hasn’t told her that he is Gabriel August. And it goes from there.

The leads are good in this. So are the supporting actors. Charles S. Dutton is nice to see as the bartender. My only real problem is how much she blows up when she finds out he is Gabriel August. We really don’t have enough details about the previous relationship and we don’t see him give her any reason to have a problem with him turning out to be Gabriel August. A little more information there would have helped to make the final speed bump in their relationship more believable.

There are a few things with the computer screens, but they aren’t really goofs so much as little oddities. If you do watch this then keep an eye out for when they show her cellphone screen. I swear the interface completely changed three times during the movie. However, the most interesting thing is this.

It’s like they de-Peopled a People magazine.

This one is fine. Forgettable, but fine. However, both leads are on major TV shows so that might make it more interesting for some people. Dylan Bruce is on Orphan Black and Amy Acker is on Person Of Interest. I don’t watch either show though.

Trailer: Much Ado About Nothing

Posted on March 9, 2013 by Arleigh

There’s finally a trailer out about the little film that Joss Whedon made while doing post on his previous little film called The Avengers.

Much Ado About Nothing is a modern and Whedon’s own interpretation of the classic William Shakespeare comedic play. Filmed over the span of 12 days in Whedon’s own Santa Monica home, the film has a cast of Whedom alumni who either has worked with the writer-director on one of his tv series or in his films. The trailer itself has a coolness factor that has to be part jazz used in the trailer and half seeing all the familiar faces Whedon fans have come to know and love through the years like Amy Acker, Alex Denisof, Nathan Fillion and, more recently, Clark Gregg.

Much Ado About Nothing premiered at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival and will make it’s North American wide release on the date of June 7, 2013.

Quickie Review: The Cabin in The Woods (dir. by Drew Goddard)

Posted on April 14, 2012 by Arleigh

“If you hear a strange sound outside… have sex.”

If there was one thing the meltdown and subsequent bankruptcy of MGM ended doing it was shelving the Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon horror film The Cabin in The Woods for almost three years. The film was directed by Goddard who also helped co-write the screenplay with Joss Whedon and what we get is one of the smartest and most innovative horror films to come in over a decade. For fans of the tv shows Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and Angel (not to mention Dollhouse) this horror film just reinforces the notion that Joss Whedon knows how to write smart dialogue and premises without ever getting too self-referential and deconstructionist (I’m looking at you Kevin Williamson) or too smart-talky (a stank-eye at you Aaron Sorkin).

There’s really no way to properly review The Cabin in The Woods without spoiling the films many different surprises and twists and turns. I will say that the film does a peculiar opening that focuses not on the five college students headed to the cabin in the woods of the film’s title, but on two men (Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford) in your typical office attire doing the walk and talk about family home life and the like. We see that they’re technicians in an unnamed industrial facility that wouldn’t look out of place in one of the many governmental facilities we often see in film. The film will return to these two men and their facilities and other people working within often in addition to telling the story of the five college students and the growing danger they find themselves in as night falls in the woods.

To say anymore would definitely be a spoiler.

I will continue on and say that for a horror film written to self-reference other horror film conventions and tropes what Goddard and Whedon have ultimately done was celebrate the genre itself and how much of an impact it has had in society. Unlike films like the Scream franchise, The Cabin in the Woods doesn’t knowingly wink at the audience about how cool it is for pointing out all the horror cliches and stereotypes we’ve come to expect in the horror genre. Instead the film actually treats its audience to be smart enough to see the homage to past horror films both good and bad without ever drawing attention to the fact that they’re pointed out.

Another thing which makes this film so fun to watch is how much every character in the film comes across as fully realized individuals. Even the college students who we first think of as your typical horror film stereotypes (the jock, the slut, the virgin, the brain and the stoner) end up being more than we’re led to believe. All of this actually occurs right in the beginning and this helps the audience join in on the fun that both Goddard and Whedon are having in turning the horror genre on its head right up to it’s surprising conclusion. It helps that the cast did quite a great job realizing their characters. As the film progresses we even begin to get a sense that who the villains in the film may or may not be who we think.

There’s a sense of fun and the darkly comic to the film as well. Every one-liner and comedic beats we get throughout the film doesn’t have a sense of the cynical to them. It comes across through dialogue and actions by both groups in the film in such a natural way that they never make those saying the lines break the fourth wall. Most films that try to deconstruct genre films tend to get too cutesy with the breaking the fourth wall gimmick that the audience can’t help but be pulled out of the suspension of disbelief they’ve put themselves in. This has a way of making such genre films less fun and celebratory and more of making fun of the people who enjoy such things.

The Cabin in The Woods manages that rare accomplishment of being a horror film that retains not just the horrific aspect of the genre but also add such a darkly comic sense to the whole proceeding with such a deft touch from Goddard and Whedon that we don’t know whether to call it straight horror or a horror-comedy. Some might even see the film as an entertaining treatise on the nature of the horror film genre of the last quarter-century. Both Goddard and Whedon have already called this film as their answer to the current trend of the “torture porn” that was popularized with the help of such recent horror franchises like Hostel, Saw and those made by Rob Zombie. Where those films celebrated the concept of inflicting pain not just on the characters on the screen but those who watch them with The Cabin in The Woods we finally get a reminder why we love the horror films of the past. It’s through the sense of that adrenaline rush that a tension build-up leading to a horror money shot but without becoming overly gratuitious and reveling in the pain of the horror.

Some have said that The Cabin in The Woods is the best horror film of 2012. I won’t even argue with that statement since it is true. I will put it out there that Cabin in The Woods might just be one of the best films of 2012. The film is just that fun, smart and, overall, just plain awesome.

[I usually attach a trailer to reviews but this time doing it could spoil some of the surprises in the film]