Jack and I liked a lot this surprisingly funny story of an American reporter who goes to work in Afghanistan war zones. Based on a memoir by Kim Barker, it stars the inimitable Tina Fey as Kim Baker, and she knocks it out of the park, as usual. Fey (last blogged in Sisters) is joined by, among others, Margot Robbie (most recently in Focus), Billy Bob Thornton (last in Our Brand Is Crisis), Martin Freeman (most recently in The Voorman Problem, which was one of the 2013 Oscar nominated shorts, and The World's End, and co-starred with Thornton in the mini-series Fargo), and Alfred Molina (last blogged in Love Is Strange).
Co-directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa (whose most recent project was Focus) work from Robert Carlock's first screenplay (after writing for, among others, The Dana Carvey Show, Friends, 99 episodes of Saturday Night Live, 26 of 30 Rock, and creating and writing Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, whose second season drops April 15). Apparently Barker decided that her memoir The Taliban Shuffle might work as a movie when a reviewer said she "depicts herself as a sort of Tine Fey character."
My only quibble is that Fey's Kim thinks she's not pretty. She's lovely. And author Barker is far from unattractive. See for yourself in the review quoted above.
Composer Nick Urata rejoins his Focus director and co-star. When I started writing this afternoon I couldn't find any of his tracks. But now there is one with a middle Eastern theme posted on his management website. And here's a list of the many songs, some with clips, used to good effect.
The young teen son of my friend was tickled that he knew what the title of this movie means. WTF. Get it? I thought you did. I told her to tell him about SNAFU and FUBAR.
The Rotten Tomatoes critics and audiences are way too cool, averaging 62 and 65%. But it was fifth at the box office last weekend and opened the week before at fourth. We thought it was great. And it's an unusual movie that has two women stars, with lines, and lines that have to do with more than sex.
Josh has a t-shirt with the movie title. It's playing in LQ, so maybe we will manage to see it.
ReplyDelete