Playing For Keeps: 7 Word Weekend Review

New Movie Releases Reviewed in 7 Words Each

Playing for Keeps - Might as well just say "Next weekend"...

I'm sure it'll be a good watch on TBS one drizzly day a couple years from now. But that's for future TS to consider. Currently he's also debating whether or not to get a sandwich or a peanut butter apple. Heart smart future TS, go with the apple, oh, and watch the action movie on channel 5 instead. Great, he's decided to ignore me completely, has turned off the TV and is going out for a shake. Idiot didn't even take the rain into account. Don't blame me if you get a cold, future me, blame yourself.

So I missed the last couple of weeks, but in my defense, there was turkey one week, and flu the next. This week I considered skipping because, well, the movie speaks for itself. Next weeks starts three weeks of big end of the year releases, so that should be fun. Unless of course you hate movies. But if that's the case, what are you doing here? Oh, you came for my dry wit? Okay sure, sit down. Tell me again how you always mix up Ingrid and Ingmar Bergman films?

I finally got around to seeing Safety Not Guaranteed, the indie film that's based on the time traveling meme, an ad looking for someone to travel through time with. It's produced the Duplass brothers, and their influence is pretty evidently marked. Mark Duplass even appears as the oddball time traveler who placed the ad. The two other leads are Jake Johnson who carries a semi interesting subplot in the film, and Aubrey Plaza who is fairly solid throughout. The writing, and indeed the whole film, is very unbalanced. Parts of it are excellent while much of it seems to be loosely sewn together. It's almost like two different movies were being written and then the writer decided to go all Human Centipede on it. The result is that both stories in the film suffer for it, by not properly building either. Somewhat disappointing to say the least.

Derek Connolly and Colin Trevorrow, writer and director for Safety Not Guaranteed, will have be taking another shot at time travel though as they've been given the helm for the Flight of the Navigator remake. It's an interesting choice and despite my short review for SNG, one I'll watch with interest. Flight of the Navigator was one of my favorites as a kid, but was far from perfect and has a lot of potential to be reworked. It will require a little lunacy, and big characters, both of which SNG has ample amounts of. 

What? No. Ingrid Bergman was in Gaslight. Ingmar Bergman was famous for tax fraud. Good? Good.

So what are your plans this weekend? Going to see Playing for Keeps? Up for an Ingmar or Ingrid film fest? If you plan it right it culminates in Höstsonaten... Yes?