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The Sitter is a movie directed by Jonah Hill and starring Jonah Hill as Noah Griffith, a slacker who agrees to babysit his mom's best friend's kids. The kids are Slater, a teenager with anxiety issues, Blithe, a 9-year-old who wants to become a celebutante, and Rodrigo, a destructive force. Noah makes a bad decision when he agrees to score drugs for his selfish girlfriend Marisa, hoping she will finally have sex with him. He takes the kids with him to buy drugs from nutty dealer Karl and his sidekick Julio, leading to a series of misadventures as they try to get home alive. The Sitter is a "one crazy night" comedy in the vein of a 1980s flick, with similarities to Chris Columbus' Adventures in Babysitting and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Risky Business, and Weird Science. Director David Gordon Green and his writers aim to channel John Hughes, but the film ends up being somewhat of a mixed bag. The script is not the cast's fault, but rather the script's. Hill plays Noah as a man-child who doesn't care about anything or anyone other than himself. He has enough emotional maturity to understand why the kids are troubled and can't get out of his own way long enough to take responsibility for his life. The kids are motley and disorderly, with Slater being the most normal, sensitive, and accessible of the three. Bender and Hernandez get the biggest laughs, with the former having a disturbing yet funny department store scene with Hill and the latter's mayhem being the source of most of the trouble that befalls the group. Rockwell gives the drug dealer some personality, while Smoove plays another variation of his high-strung, profane sidekick schtick.
While The Sitter may not live up to its hilarious red band trailers, it's still worth a look for those seeking some vulgar laughs or an '80s throwback.
While The Sitter may not live up to its hilarious red band trailers, it's still worth a look for those seeking some vulgar laughs or an '80s throwback.
Summer Camp is a movie that aims to bring older audiences back to theaters by making movies about them. The film follows three lifelong friends, played by Diane Keaton, Kathy Bates, and Alfre Woodard, who first met at Camp Pinnacle in Hendersonville, North Carolina. The story revolves around the three friends' personalities and their core thesis: they are still their tween selves 50 years later. The movie's setup establishes the central threesome's personalities and lays down the movie's core thesis: they are still their tween selves. However, the movie's dithery routine feels calcified into distracting shtick. Ginny, a best-selling author with a shoutily branded tour bus, surprises Mary and Nora at Camp Pinnacle's weeklong reunion, its very first, and surprises them with a glamping-caliber bunkhouse. The screenplay weaves in a few well-played jabs at self-help in general, targeting familiar territory in ways that skirt cliché. Both Nora's tween crush, the "whip-smart" Stevie D (Levy), and Mary's, the "handsome as hell" Tommy (Dennis Haysbert), show up at the gathering, conveniently single and gently rekindling those long-ago flames. Haysbert delivers mellifluous depths of his voice and exudes good-guy vibes, which he does exceedingly well. A nearly wordless sequence at a pottery wheel, the intimacy and giddiness - not to mention the phallic symbolism - is well captured by cinematographer Karsten Gopinath. Levy's retired exec counters Nora's compulsive devotion to her job with his relatively newfound commitment to work-life balance. The movie's sputtering, choppy energy brings the movie's sputtering, choppy energy to a compelling place of quiet. Landon's overreliance on back-and-forth reaction shots gives many exchanges a fidgety unease rather than letting the actors find the center of the action. When things calm down, Summer Camp finds its heart and its nerve - notably in a late-night conversation among the three friends about loneliness, romance, and independence, and in the two potential couples' tentative heart-to-hearts. The humor also clicks better in these instances. As for the camp staff, Josh Peck brings sweet sincerity to the role of Jimmy, a counselor in search of a calling. The reunion activities are overseen by a barely there figure of New Age equanimity who's aptly named Sage (Nicole Richie). Mainly she provides serene and nonjudgmental ballast to the exhausting weirdness of her gung-ho assistant, Vick, with Betsy Sodaro channeling something between Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids and Sam Kinison.
The Conjuring: Last Rites is a film that follows the real-life adventures of Ed and Lorraine Warren, who are haunted by the Smurl family in their Pennsylvania home. The film begins with Heather (Kíla Lord Cassidy) being gifted an old mirror by her grandparents, leading to collapsed ceilings, disturbing visions, and blood coughing up. Director Michael Chaves has been guiding the Conjuring Universe franchise for the last few years, helming The Curse of La Llorona, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, and The Nun II in quick succession. The Warrens, who have stepped back from taking cases due to Ed's continuing heart problems, are left unaware of the Smurls and their plight. The film begins with the Warrens having stepped back from taking cases due to Ed's continuing heart problems, but there is no time spent with them hearing about the Smurls from afar and debating getting involved. The Warrens do have a storyline of their own, mainly focused on daughter Judy (played by Mia Tomlinson this time), who has inherited her mother's ability to commune with the supernatural and is now finding that ability increasingly overwhelming. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga continue to be charming and effortlessly engaging as Ed and Lorraine, and both Tomlinson and Ben Hardy (as Judy's sweet boyfriend, Tony) are very good. However, the film feels like it takes too long to bring the Smurls and the Warrens together, as it takes so long to bring them together. By the time Chaves does unite them, the initial energy has dissipated, and the movie begins to drag. There are still some well-done flourishes, but not enough to be truly satisfying overall. The way the film is structured leaves it feeling like its focus is all over the place, as when the characters do come together, the Warrens fully take center stage in a way that makes many of the scenes of the Smurls on their own seem like wasted set-up. Heather in particular goes from feeling like one of the film's leads in the early scenes to basically an insignificant peripheral player in the third act. The Conjuring is both a huge Hollywood success story and a very weird situation, if you take a step back and look at how it came to be. It's based on true events, and people really did claim these things happened and the Warrens then backed and amplified those claims. However, it's up to you to decide if you believe the Warrens actually encountered countless genuine supernatural threats and then, as depicted in the films, saw these things impact the physical world. Regardless of the truth or opinion of the real Warrens, the cinematic versions of Ed and Lorraine depicted in these films have remained compelling, even though it's probably best to treat them just as movie characters that exist quite separately from whatever actually occurred. There's something about Wilson and Farmiga together and how they portray not only Ed and Lorraine's conviction to their cause but also their ongoing, megawatt adoration for each other that makes for a great movie duo. Last Rites doesn't give them a better send-off, as the movie's opening onscreen text pushes us towards the Warrens' final case and that something monumental occurred. However, what happens doesn't live up to that hype, particularly since it brings Ed and Lorraine into the actual case so late in the game. There's also some foreboding dialogue about what might truly be going on and what's behind it that is intriguing and feels like it's going to be hugely important, only to get no genuine payoff. The Conjuring movies may be over, but it's doubtful that The Conjuring Universe is over. Last Rites is the fourth Ed & Lorraine movie adventure, but it's the ninth or tenth film in the larger franchise, depending on whether you count The Curse of La Llorna as being a true part of the series.
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