Double Feature: The Women (2008) & Storks (2016)

And we’re back with another Double Feature!

These two have been sitting in backlog forever. Maybe Storks is a newer watch since that was the last rental I had a few weeks ago. I saw The Women over a month ago so if details seem hazy on my end, it isn’t intentional. However, I do want to still write about it. Animated movies and Meg Ryan sounds like a great double feature to me since they are two of my favorite things ever.

The Women (2008)

Director: Diane English

Cast: Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Eva Mendes, Debra Messing, Jada Pinkett Smith, Bette Midler, Candice Bergen, Carrie Fisher

A wealthy New Yorker wrestles with the decision to leave her cheating husband, as she and her friends discover that women really can have it all. – IMDB

The Women is the centre of what female empowerment strives to be. It has pretty much a complete women cast. In fact, I really can’t remember any men except for perhaps passerbys in the scenes whether they were someone the characters were talking to just a husband or partner mentioned. It is pretty amazing to watch a movie that is done in this particular way since it highlights different types of ladies and their different values and aspirations coming into their own and learning how to be themselves. While I do acknowledge that this movie has many flaws and I actually found it a little tiresome to watch, the cast here does great with the material. It helps that I’m a huge fan of Meg Ryan. I remember really loving Debra Messing before although I’m not sure what she’s doing now and of course Jada Pinkett Smith. There are some smaller supporting roles like Candice Bergen who shows another generation of women as well as Bette Middler who really can do no wrong in my books.

The Women has its moments mostly from these charming women however, it never seems to get above from being average. I think I loved watching the actress more than actually grasping a lot about the story. After a few weeks, the details are a little blurry right now and as I watched it again to refresh my memory, things started coming back to me. It seems that The Women does try to get a lot in there about relationships and friendships of all sorts while also talking about all these women who are trying to embrace who they want to be, whether it is setting a positive image for other women via media (like Annette Bening’s character, Sylvie) or setting a good example about strong women role models for the younger generation (like Meg Ryan’s Mary).

Storks (2016)

Director: Nicholas Stoller (writer) & Doug Sweetland

Voice cast: Andy Samberg, Katie Crown, Kelsey Grammer, Jennifer Aniston, Ty Burrell, Anton Starkman, Danny Trejo, Stephen Kramer Glickman

Storks have moved on from delivering babies to packages. But when an order for a baby appears, the best delivery stork must scramble to fix the error by delivering the baby. – IMDB

Storks came out in a year with a plot that seemed a little odd and far-fetched and it didn’t appeal at all to myself when it was released in theatres. Sure, it looked cute and the idea of storks delivering babies came from the Dumbo days. Plus, I never caught on to Brooklyn Ninety-Nine because I’m not exactly sure I grasp Andy Samberg’s sort of humor. It feels a tad stupid but then I don’t know, maybe I’ve changed as well since I didn’t really like Big Bang Theory before and I do now. However, back to Storks, the moment I turned on Storks, it set the stage that this was a charming and funny little animated film. The voice cast and the characters and the dialogue was amazingly fun. I’m sure if I wanted to, there are holes in the whole story but it highlights so many fun things plus it is geared towards children by the way the talk or address issues. The voice cast is also quite impressive. While Junior (voiced by Adam Samberg) is the  main character and its really his character development that highlights this movie a lot, my favorite moments come with Tulip and moments with both Tulip and Junior. Plus, since my friend, Phoebe (aka Starry Traveler’s Road) hangs out quite a bit and she has her little bunbun, the baby in this one reminded me so much of bunbun and I actually texted her to see this movie ASAP.

Storks was a pleasant surprise for me and I think that makes it stand out even more. We had a good many laughs. Its colorful and entertaining. There are some solid jokes and even the more silly ones will spark at least a giggle or chuckle depending on what you like to do. Its never too violent or vulgar or sexual. In fact, its really about the storks and what it means to be a family and to have a family and to not be alone. The courage to do what is right and not let manipulation and sometimes to just follow your nature and instincts. Storks is a ton of fun and definitely worth a viewing.

That’s it for the double feature!
Have you seen these movies?

Girl Most Likely (2013)

I don’t really remember why I chose to watch Girl Most Likely.  I think it was one of those mid week times when I just felt the week was going SO slow and work was ridiculously stupid and I needed a break and a good laugh.  I don’t think I read a lot of reviews on this one and if I did, I probably wasn’t outstandingly good or bad.  So either way, maybe it was my faith in Kristen Wiig or my wanting to check out Darren Criss in a non-Glee scenario.  Whatever the reason, I watched this comedy. Let’s check it out!

Director: Shari Spring Berman, Robert Pulcini

Cast: Kristen Wiig, Annette Bening, Matt Dillon, Darren Criss

Imogene (Kristen Wiig) is a failed New York playwright who decides that when her boyfriend leaves her that she was going to stage a suicide, except her suicide note was so convincing that the hospital psychiatrist sends her to her only family left, her gambling mother (Annette Bening) living in New Jersey, to be supervised and to make room for more urgent patients.  She gets back “home” since a long time and reunites with her younger brother Ralph (Christopher Fitzgerald) and also realizes that her mom now has a strange boyfriend called George “The Bousche” (Matt Dillon) who makes some wild claims about who he is, while she also realizes that her mother also rented out her old bedroom to Lee (Darren Criss), a guy who studied in arts and music.  Despite having to embrace the humiliating move back home, she starts to learn a little more about herself, where she wants to go and accept her family for who they are as well as where she comes from.

I really don’t know what to say about Girl Most Likely. Girl Most Likely is not a very entertaining movie at least for the most part I didn’t actually laugh a lot for watching a comedy but it wasn’t so stupid that I turned it off also. Comedy is a hard genre to grasp because its so hard to determine what makes people laugh. The best way I can describe how I feel about this one was that I didn’t really care.  There were parts that I like and then some that I know probably was supposed to make me laugh but didn’t. Kristen Wiig plays a great awkward adult role.  She’s just simply great at it.  I mean, just look at Bridesmaids, right? She was pretty great in that.  I think for Girl Most Likely, it had to do with the layout of the story that didn’t work for me and maybe character design more than the actors.  It felt like something was missing to life it above what it turned out to be.

For one, lets start with Kristen Wiig.  I think she did a great job in acting out Imogene.  The only deal was Imogene was at times, pretty annoying.  She was like that girl who had something, failed and didn’t know how to pick herself up again and just lost it after that.  Its the women that embody all the needy and crazy and just can’t be alone but thinks she has everything in control when she doesn’t.  Wait, that sounds a bit like me.  Maybe a fraction, either way, the way they did it was a bit irritating.  Still, between wanting to just slap Imogene and wake her up (maybe that was the intention), there were moments that I started rooting for her but thats because her character grew (kind of).  Why kind of? Her character was somewhat sporadic in the weird not totally making sense way. I still hold that Kristen Wiig did the best she could to pull this together.

My second reason for seeing this was Darren Criss. I’m over Glee like I haven’t seen the last 2 seasons or something. I’ve always felt that Darren Criss would be the most likely to have some form of success in acting or whatnot.  I like him the most in the show and I was pretty happy to see that he got a role outside of it.  Although they still give him some parts of singing and musical talents, its a different vibe to see him in the whole make out scenes and kind of girl magnets.  To me, it added some life to this flick and I really liked his character.

Annette Bening played as Kristen Wiig’s mom and she was really not such a pleasant person but at the same time, among all her faults, at times, she did bring some funny-ish moments.  Same goes for Matt Dillon, who did one of the most awkward characters ever but somehow, I don’t really know if I was able to laugh at his humor.

On a side note, I think the most lovable character goes to Christopher Fitzgerald who plays Ralph. He was pretty bit socially awkward or deficient if anything but he was the enlightening person in a pretty funny and cute way.  It packed in a few surprises here and there.

OVERALL, everyone brings there game in this one but this comedy lacks humor that works for me (maybe it might work for you).  I may have gotten a few chuckles and giggles but nothing like laughing out loud or anything.  It also seems to rush to wrap up this story and give everyone a sudden jump to all have something different and tries to pop in some surprises. Although, I didn’t laugh a lot and it really lacked something to make it anything worthwhile to revisit, the reason I did finish was that Kristen Wiig does try to work with this pretty irritating and self-absorbed character who kind of stole my heart for a split second in hopes that this movie will turn around.  I guess my problem with it is that its a comedy that doesn’t really make me laugh so that makes this not so good anymore.

Have you seen Girl Most Likely? Did this movie work for you? What do you think about Kristen Wiig?