4-Way Feature: Blood Simple, Bridesmaids, Cedar Rapids, and RED

Apologies for cramming four movies that have nothing to do with each other into one post, but I currently have a lot to watch and only a little to say about each of these four, so this saves me a lot of time.

Blood Simple
This is the Coen Brothers' first movie and is sometimes seen as a modern film noir. Appropriate, because it's probably about as dark as No Country For Old Men in terms of its lack of humour, which is otherwise present in most Coen movies. I think it started off a little slowly, but got really cool toward the end. Oddly enough, it also reminded me of Alien in the way that Frances McDormand began the movie as an average supporting female and then ended up being the heroine of the story.

Bridesmaids
I really like the idea of an all-female ensemble comedy, but I don't think this one is necessarily a step forward for feminism, if only because it still contains all of the standard "chick flick" elements (and the movie is a little longer for it). However, you could consider it a transitional film, as it is a "chick flick" that men can still enjoy for the humour. Now we just need a female ensemble comedy that falls somewhere in the middle, as in not a sappy romance and not an objectifying "hot women for male audiences" movie. Overall, I think the humour in Bridesmaids is probably more for women, and a lot of the drama and romance held it back, but I had a few laughs and it was generally fun.

Cedar Rapids
Ed Helms plays a highly innocent man-child stepping out of his comfort zone on a business trip. I wondered how corrupted he would be by the big city, and he was, but this movie is not as mean as it looked like it was going to be, and I liked that. It seems to set John C. Reilly up as a potential villain in the first half, because his character is so sleazy, but then he just suddenly becomes a trustworthy friend (I would have liked him either way, because he's played by John C. Reilly). Most importantly, a lot of this movie is just Tim (Helms) becoming friends with the other insurance salesmen he meets, and having a good time with them. I don't have to tell you by now that I'm always cool with that. Bonus points for having an actor who was on The Wire make references to The Wire.

RED
It's somewhat unusual seeing so many award-caliber actors in a comic book action blockbuster, but then the premise is that it's an unusual group because they're all old and retired. This movie looked like it might be fun, but I found it only marginally so. The story didn't much interest me, and I didn't even find the action sequences very exciting or intense until close to the end. This is the reason I don't really watch a high number of action blockbusters; once in a while there's a good one, but you can only see so many explosions and gunfights before they become bland. I like that there's an action movie starring more than five people over 50, and I don't mind that this movie has enough humour to not take itself too seriously, but the story and action (and the movie overall) could have been better. However, I imagine that fault probably lies more with the source material. The fault in this being nominated for a Golden Globe lies with the academy of voters wanting the awesome cast to show up to the event.