Trainwreck: Amy Schumer bravely plays a character named...Amy, who has no last name, maybe it's Schumer, who knows. I am only slightly aware of Schumer as a comedian, so I have no idea how closely this character is modeled after her or her persona, but THIS Amy writes for a fashion magazine, and she is the titular trainwreck. She drinks, she gets high, she sleeps around—a habit she learned from her father, who inculcated her with the idea that monogamy is not cool, although her sister managed to make it work. But now she meets Bill Hader, and he's the sweetest guy, and can they make this monogamy thing work, who knows, who cares. I just could not get into this movie, like for two hours I could see the movie trying to be funny and compelling and everything bounced off of me except for John Cena as a musclebound lug who has trouble with dirty talk and insult talk and LeBron James as a concerned friend. Also there's an intervention scene later that's pretty great. But I never laughed out loud, only gave the occasional chuckle, and I guess I'm not Schumer's target audience; I've enjoyed Judd Apatow's work in the past. There's a lot of "awkward relationship humor" that some people maybe relate to a lot but did nothing for me. Amy tries to work through her relationship issues and her life issues and it's okay I guess. The movie eschews the usual rom-com tropes for the most part until the end. B-/B
Kaylee ,'Jaynestown'
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Everytime I watch something Amy Schumer related I think that I will like her more than I do, since I do appreciate the bawdy, but mostly I just find her at least borderline racist and just not very funny.
Some of her stuff is really funny, like Last Fuckable Day and the whole standoff of self-deprecation. But it's funny for the exact reasons that Trainwreck is not: it's poking at and mocking these ideas.
The whole movie was sold as the inversion of romantic comedy expectations, yet, as Jesse just said on Facebook, was at least 90% straight up standard romcom values.
It's a slut-shaming movie about the value of monogamy and traditional relationships. I found the Cena stuff twitchy because of the homophobia going on there: stick with the protein shake jokes, avoid the "it's funny because his insults are super homoerotic! haha! muscle-bound overcompensation!", people!
But now she meets Bill Hader, and he's the sweetest guy
Nah. He's totally not, though! Like, the "we like each other and should date" thing? SO GROSS. Nope. Nope. So much nope. Plus, they had no chemistry and they didn't show them having anything in common or anything that they liked about each other other than, apparently, the sex? They just told us how great they were together. Forced instead of organic. You didn't see them grow into a relationship. Plus, It's not like he had the come to Jesus moment where he realized his being twitchy about her basic personality was a bad thing, and, in fact, the movie ended up MAKING it a bad thing. Like somehow sexuality is pathology. They really didn't separate that from her other poor life choices. At all. It was front and center with them, in fact.
Again, repeating myself from FB, it's like the anti What's Your Number?, which remains the only romcom I am willing to watch repeatedly unless you count the subgenre of underdog sports romcoms, which I don't. Because they're about underdog sports and have their own standards, damn it.
Basically, gross like Grease is my three word summary of Trainwreck.
the subgenre of underdog sports romcoms
Would Bull Durham fall in that category?
Would Bull Durham fall in that category?
Neither Bull Durham nor Tin Cup fall into it for me. They're different and less rag-tag misfits.
The Cutting Edge is maybe borderline, sort of the transitional point between the Bull Durhams and the Dodgeballs of this world.
They're different and less rag-tag misfits.
Different as in good or as in bad?
Also, totally agree with PC about Spy. I had so much fun watching that.
I have a mental movie classification system that's almost as complicated as my mental Journey songs classification system. Maybe more so.
BUT! I will strongly encourage What's Your Number? as a way to wash the bad taste of Trainwreck out of anyone's mouth. Still not without its problematic aspects (there's one joke in particular that stands out as a cheap one that 3/4s bugs me--the 1/4 redemption is that it's surprisingly non-judgemental for a joke of that nature), but the core message is so much healthier! And Ally's Poor Sexual Life Choices we're shown are presented not as unhealthy in and of themselves! It's not some sort of childhood trauma thing!
It doesn't slut-shame! People who judge you for an adventurous sexual past are shown as being not the best choice for happiness! You're actually shown the endgame couple interacting in a non-romantic way! It shows instead of telling!
Spy is SO FUCKING AWESOME. And there was great Yuletide enemy femslash. So.
Different as in good or as in bad?
They're not my preferred way of doing romance and sports. Too romance-heavy. I liked Tin Cup, wasn't too fond of Bull Durham. Because I'm a heretic or something. I dunno.
They're not my preferred way of doing romance and sports. Too romance-heavy. I liked Tin Cup, wasn't too fond of Bull Durham. Because I'm a heretic or something. I dunno.Heh, I love them both, but I preferred Bull Durham because I like baseball ever so slightly more than golf (though I pretty much hate both). ETA plus I've been to the bar in Durham where they had that first meet between Kevin Costner and Tim Robbins.
Of course, I also consider All of Me and The Man With Two Brains to be romcoms (that I like, along with Roxanne and LA Story - Steve Martin seems to be a thing with me), so I'm probably not a good judge of what's what. I do love When Harry Met Sally, but more for the Carrie Fischer/Bruno Kirby (sniff! miss you man!) bits.