What I'm Watching

So, I've mentioned my obsession with The Mindy Project, and my subsequent obsession with Chris Messina, but here you can see it in all it's glory. After finishing season two (i.e. catching up) I downloaded three of his films (yes, three), and I'm going to review them here. 

28 Hotel Rooms

Damn this film was so good. Just watching the trailer again made me tear up (I know, what's new? I'm an emotional wreck). This is the kind of film I want to make. Like, wow. The films follows two characters through their nights (and occasional days) spent in, you guessed it, 28 Hotel Rooms. I love that the premise is so simple, there's loads of room to develop characters and story. Coming out of this film you feel like you've spent 10 years with these characters, watching them, and their relationship, grow. You feel like the third person in the relationship (are we the hotel room?). Both the actors are incredible, which I guess they have to be in a film with just two people in, but they really stand out, and make the whole thing believable and heart-wrenching. 
 
The film starts with a one night stand, but over the course of what I assume must be about ten years, their relationship develops into something more. Where it's great to watch these two characters get closer and fall in love, it's really sad to know that outside the hotel rooms their paths are continuing to diverge, making it harder and harder for them to ever be together. I hope nothing like this ever happens to me, I don't think I could stand it. Overall I thought this film was really great, and would recommend it to everybody. I thought I'd be able to write more, but I think you just need to see it.

The Giant Mechanical Man

I didn't even watch the trailer for this one, but I'm glad I didn't. I like going into films not knowing what's going to happen, especially nowadays where I feel that studios tend to give everything away in the trailer. This film is so sweet, it follows a man and a woman, both lost souls, searching for purpose and meaning in life (I think we can all relate). I watched this straight after 28 Hotel Rooms, and definitely noticed the difference in budget. Hello HD! Hello outside world!

Anyway, so the main story arc is the blossoming relationship between Janice and Tim, a silver, stilt-wearing, street performer known as The Giant Mechanical Man. It's nice to see these two drifters find stability in each other, especially after watching the not-so-simple love story in 28 Hotel Rooms. This film gives you hope, one of the characters even says something along the lines of 'it just takes one person to make you feel like you belong', I hope they're right. 

The secondary characters are also pretty great, from Janice's sister who, just wanting the best for her, sets her up with Topher Grace's over-confident motivational speaker, to the various bosses Janice has throughout. This is a great film with a pretty uplifting message, it definitely did improve my outlook on life, if only for a little while.  

Fairhaven

So, in this 90 minute film, a grand total of zero things happened. This doesn't mean I didn't like the film, I just feel like nothing happened, and I'm not used to that in a film (is anybody?). A typical film tends to introduce all the characters and background in the first thirty minutes, then something happens, and the rest of the film is spent dealing with it. This whole film was like that first 30 minutes, slow. We spend all our time with these three guys who grew up in the same town. One of them moved away, but is back for his fathers' funeral. I think this is meant to be 'the thing' that happens, the wild friend returns from his nomadic life, but, nothing changed. After he came back, everything was still the same! They just hung out at bars and strip clubs (:/). 

I actually quite liked this film. Hold the phone! Even after saying all that stuff before? Yep, what can I say, I like getting a glimpse into other people's lives. My friends tease me for loving One Tree Hill, because 'nothing' happens in that (not true, but that's a whole other post), but it's easy to watch, and I love the characters. I liked the characters in this film, they all grew up the same way in the same town, but are all completely different. It shows how people can be thrown onto such different paths, and how growing up is hard to do (something I'm all too familiar with). In their mid-thirties, one of the guys is living a pretty steady life as a single dad, one of them is still living recklessly, spending his time and money on drugs, alcohol and strippers, and one is a lost soul, he doesn't know where he is in his life, or where he wants it to go. I could relate to all of these characters in one way or another, and I liked that.

Although this film most definitely did NOT pass the Bechdel Test (why was Sarah Paulson even there?), I still enjoyed it, and would watch it again, if only for how good Chris Messina looks with a beard in a suit jacket. 

(I'm starting to feel like all my reviews are a bit too nice, I need to start watching and reading things I don't like to even up the stakes a bit).