Celeste and Jesse Forever (2012)

Jack and I loved this grown-up romantic comedy co-written by and starring Rashida Jones as a career woman pulling away from her Peter Pan husband played by Andy Samberg. I wrote a little about Jones way back in I Love You, Man, then skipped right over her in The Social Network, The Big Year, and The Muppets. Had I gone that way I would have mentioned her funny stuff in Parks & Recreation. She  wrote the screenplay with her writing partner Will McCormack (he played Courtney Cox's brother on the series Dirt and one of the tech guys on Brothers & Sisters; this is the first produced script for both of them) based on their relationship: better as friends than lovers. He has a cameo as a sleazeball friend of Jesse named Skillz. They also have in common that they come from show business families. His sister is actress Mary McCormack (whose husband produced Brothers & Sisters) and her father is Quincy Jones and mother is Peggy Lipton from The Mod Squad. Samberg (best known for 138 episodes so far of Saturday Night Live 2005-2012, he was in I Love You, Man and a few other things) and Jones definitely have chemistry as the about-to-be-divorced couple who want to remain close.

We saw this seven weeks ago as I was about to go out of town, planning to see another movie written by a woman that day, but at the last minute I chose this instead. I can't remember what the other one was, though. This one was directed by a man, Lee Toland Krieger (The Vicious Kind).

There are a lot of hip songs, listed here, on the soundtrack. Additional music is provided by Rashida's nephew (and Quincy's grandson) Sunny Levine with Zach Cowie.

Shot mostly with a handheld camera, this induces motion picture motion sickness (MPMS) on the big screen. Lucky for you, it isn't playing on any now and you'll be fine watching it at home.

Placeholder for 6 movies

Yeah, I was behind in blogging when I left town on September 22, and since then I've been home for about 10 non-consecutive days, so here are brief summaries in the order in which we saw them, which I hope to flesh out soon, randomly. Please don't judge me for quoting myself later--a gal gets only so much inspiration. As of tonight three* are still playing on first-run screens in this area and one** in a second-run movie house.

Farewell My Queen, seen on 9/5. Beautiful costume drama about the spoiled Marie Antoinette (Diane Kruger), her devoted servant (Léa Seydoux), and her best friend (Virginie Ledoyen) with both of whom she cuddles every chance she gets. Noémie Lvovsky has a wonderful turn as the head ladies' maid who speaks volumes wordlessly. We liked it a lot.

**Premium Rush, seen 9/14. Awesome special effects of Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a bicycle messenger appearing to weave madly in and out of Manhattan traffic. An inventive action movie with Michael Shannon playing yet another crazy guy, this one evil.

Celeste and Jesse Forever, seen 9/19. A grown-up romantic comedy co-written by and starring Rashida Jones as a career woman pulling away from her Peter Pan husband played by Andy Samberg. We loved it. Shot mostly with a handheld camera, this induces motion picture motion sickness (MPMS) on the big screen. Lucky for you, it isn't playing on any now and you'll be fine watching it at home.

*The Master, seen 10/3. Oscar-worthy performances from Philip Seymour Hoffman as a cult leader and Joaquin Phoenix as his angry protégé. Amy Adams supports as the cult leader's wife. Beautiful photography, wonderful period (1940-50s) set dressing and costumes.

*Looper, seen 10/5. Joseph Gordon-Levitt again, this time playing a young Bruce Willis, much the same way Josh Brolin played a young Tommy Lee Jones in Men in Black III. Only here, in addition to imitating the voice, Gordon-Levitt's eyebrows and certain facial characteristics have been altered digitally so that he resembles Willis. Good acting and well-crafted story about time travel in the near future--the third feature from director/writer Rian Johnson.

*End of Watch, seen 10/18. Pretty darn good, this veers wildly yet successfully between being a goofy buddy picture and a violent cop drama starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña. There are some bloody images that will stay with you. It's also a serious MPMS inducer since a subplot is that Gyllenhaal's character is documenting his life with a hand-held camera. Apparently I was warned but didn't look at my notes before we picked something to see while we were out of town last week.

Completed full posts will be linked to the titles as I complete them.