« THE WINNING SEASON | Main | NOWHERE BOY »

September 13, 2010

THE FREEBIE

Welcome!

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.ColeSmithey.comThis ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

Get cool rewards when you click on the button to pledge your support through Patreon.

Thanks a lot acorns!

Your kind generosity keeps the reviews coming!

ColeSmithey.com

 

COLESMITHEY.COMGlorified student films don't come much more self-indulgent than writer/director/actor Katie Aselton's mumblecore experiment in wrongheaded marital choices.

Darren (Dax Shepard) and Annie (Katie Aselton) are a Los Angeles married couple of seven-years whose sex life is non-existent.

Darren proffers the brilliant idea that they each sleep with someone else on the same night so they can return to one another with a renewed sense of value for their comfy relationship. Already, there's not much audience empathy available for such dimwitted characters.

ColeSmithey.com

There's plenty of dramatic suffering to be had during the talky scenes that come before, during, and after the simultaneous adulterous event.

ColeSmithey.com

Elvis Costello's line from "Five Gears In Reverse," "If you don't know by now, nobody's going to tell you. If you don't know by now, the shock will probably kill you" could be the warning motto for the whole movement of mumblecore cinema because it so precisely targets the limited common sense that defines the genre.

To the filmmaker's credit, Aselton does come up with the right unspoken granule of thematic truth that gives the film its big message. But here again, it's nothing you didn't know already. And if you don't already know, then you probably won't figure it out from watching the movie anyway.

Rated R. 80 mins.

2 Stars

Cozy Cole

Cole Smithey on Patreon

Comments

Feed You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

Verify your Comment

Previewing your Comment

This is only a preview. Your comment has not yet been posted.

Working...
Your comment could not be posted. Error type:
Your comment has been saved. Comments are moderated and will not appear until approved by the author. Post another comment

The letters and numbers you entered did not match the image. Please try again.

As a final step before posting your comment, enter the letters and numbers you see in the image below. This prevents automated programs from posting comments.

Having trouble reading this image? View an alternate.

Working...

Post a comment

Comments are moderated, and will not appear until the author has approved them.

Featured Video

SMART NEW MEDIA® Custom Videos

COLE SMITHEY’S MOVIE WEEK

COLE SMITHEY’S CLASSIC CINEMA

Throwback Thursday


Podcast Series