Shutter Island, Death at a Funeral, Youth in Revolt, Year One

This is incredibly late coming from me, but this last Friday (after seeing Inception), I watched all the movies stated in the title of this post.

Shutter Island concerns the story of a "feder-uhl mah-shal" and his partner who investigate the disappearance of a lady at a top-security insane asylum. Leonardo DiCaprio plays the federal marshal Teddy, Mark Ruffalo plays the partner, Ben Kingsley plays the head psychologist, and Michelle Williams plays Teddy's tormented wife. Unfortunately, when I watched this, I had already predicted the end. My mother and I were picking out movies one time in the store, and I called it: "He's totally insane, and this is all some hallucination in his mind." My mom thought she had to dupe me, like when I discovered she was Santa Clause, so she told me that it had a surprise twist at the end (which I proceeded to argue was his insanity). So, when I watched this, I found that I had the basic idea right. A few things were more complicated than I expected, such as the anagrams of Teddy's and Dolores' names, how crazy his wife actually was, and the scheduled lobotomy at the end (which, thanks to Laura's and my viewing of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest with Jack Nicholson, I now know what that is :P). But other than that, this movie was awfully predictable.

Death at a Funeral (the English version) was alright. It wasn't as comedic as I had hoped (I expected the British to have better senses of humor), but some comedy elements were excellent. The plotline consists of a man holding his father's funeral (the timespan lasts a day) and how he deals with his eccentric relatives. The man Daniel (played by Matthew McFadyen, a.k.a. Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice with Keira Knightley, a.k.a. Mr. Dreamy as I like to call him) has arranged his whole father's funeral and is trying to get ahold of a flat with his pregnant wife. His famous novelist brother Robert returns (whom he resents for becoming more famous than he) and hits on the younger cousins present. He also has two cousins who arrive: one is a drug addict in college (Troy) trying to keep it on the DL, and the other is a businesswoman (Martha) who is about to get married to a prudish, but lovable guy (Simon) who accidentally takes some hallucinogen supplied by Troy. Finally, there is another cousin (Howard) who arrives with a friend who once dated Martha and with Uncle Alfred, the most crotchety old man in a wheelchair anyone could imagine. The day starts out like normal until everyone arrives, and chaos ensues when the fiancée (played by Alan Tudyk of Firefly fame) begins to hallucinate. He thinks he sees the deceased patriarch trying to escape from his coffin and has to be removed from the room. Daniel takes the opportunity to work on his eulogy but continues to be interrupted by random relatives. A short man comes up to him and expresses an urgent need to speak with Daniel. Daniel finally agrees, and the man explains that he was his father's lover and proceeds to blackmail Daniel for money to not release the information about the affair. To his misfortune, Daniel and others in the family try to conceal the man from everyone and incidentally drug him with Troy's hallucinogenic pills. After Simon goes nude and noisily ponders on the rooftop (drawing everyone's attention to him), Daniel, Robert, Howard, and Troy manage to get the doped up midget into his father's coffin, thinking he's dead. After everyone returns inside, and the funeral begins again, the midget tries to escape and succeeds in notifying everyone of his relationship with Daniel's father. The mother goes crazy and attacks him, but after all of the madness and dysfunction of the family gathering, Daniel delivers a beautiful eulogy and manages to end on a good note. Death at a Funeral reminded me of Eulogy quite a bit, but I feel like it's more within the realms of reality than Eulogy (everyone seems slightly more real; a porn star, a closet lesbian, and a man with perverted twin sons doesn't seem like a likely family). I am excited for the American version of Death at a Funeral; I feel like it's going to slightly funnier with some African-American culture involved. :D

Youth in Revolt was different. I thought it was interesting to see Michael Cera in a badass role, but it wasn't as funny as I'd hoped it would be. It wasn't bad, though. It was fun to watch his sudden transformation into a complete opposite of himself in order to impress a girl (and yes, I'm aware it's for all the wrong reasons). I really disliked the girl, though. She played him throughout the whole movie and wasn't into him until he was classified as juvenile detention center jailbait. I did find it hilarious to see him as François, a suave man with a pencil mustache, tight pants, and a white button-up shirt. Overall, it was okay, but not one of my favorites.

Year One wasn't very good, either. It's the story about how two nomads leave their tribe to travel the world. It contains several Biblical references (the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden, Cain and Abel, Isaac's almost-sacrifice, and the town of Sodom). I liked watching the blooper reel at the end (I have a fetish with watching blooper reels; I really enjoy seeing how actors are when they are offscreen), but it wasn't a very good comedy. Jack Black and Michael Cera made an interesting team, but I felt they could have complemented each other better.

That's all I have for now. I've been meaning to put this up for awhile, but I hadn't had a lapse from my ADHD long enough to sit down and type this up. The next two movies I'm going to write about are Korean, so it will be entertaining. :P