Before watching the movie:
Before watching the movie:
I’m not sure what to expect, but this sounds like a scheming revenge story, which is interesting to see Goldie Hawn in. Midler and Keaton, I can easily picture them scheming, but Goldie Hawn seems to be known for more innocent roles.
This seems to have been popular enough to get a TV remake, but nobody really talks about it past a basic log line, so it’s hard to have preconceptions.
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Before watching the movie:
I barely remember this title floating around back in 2008, and I’m not sure if I remember it as a movie or just as the quirky stock trading show. I think I’ve also conflated it a little bit with Moneyball, which it has no connection with aside from the word “money”.
This looks like a movie that’s a little ahead of its time. Regrettably, the industry didn’t seem to have a foothold for women-led comedies until Bridesmaids. This all-women heist comedy didn’t make much of a splash, but ten years later Ocean’s Eight did very well doing basically the same thing.
I try not to read critical responses before watching the movie, but I skimmed a little to try to see if I just missed it somehow and along with a lot of general negativity, I saw a very charming comment from Roger Ebert about how “some girls will like it, the men not so much”. Which sounds like internet comment sections about every women-led movie even today. If the execution was bad, the execution was bad, but I wonder how much was just moviegoers in 2008 not getting it.
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Before watching the movie:
The more I learned about this movie, the less I expected to like it. Since it’s got work of art status and it’s about a romance, it sounds dull to me.
Then I learned that Woody Allen basically wrote the part for Diane Keaton and they had been a couple, which was a red flag since nepotism tends to make films worse (I read a book about awful films with potential, and one of the most recurring themes is that someone was dating someone else).
Finally, this movie is the B-plot salvaged from an awful mystery in the edit. How often does “fixing it in post” work out? Well, four Academy Awards say I’m wrong.
Before watching the movie:
Here’s another for the “never wanted it enough to go get it” list. I’ve been somewhat interested in this film on the grounds that it’s a Steve Martin movie and it was fairly popular for a long time.
It looks enjoyable enough, just not necessarily a big enough movie to care as much as I seem to recall people did. Maybe I’ll get another L.A. Story experience out of it.
Also, I’m surprised to learn that Martin Short is in it. From what I know of his role, he’s probably only headlining because of his big name, but he’ll be fun to watch.
Before watching the movie:
It occurs to me that I may not have actually seen any Woody Allen film before. I’ve seen him perform before, though possibly the only thing I’ve seen longer than a clip of is Antz.
That aside, once again I only realize at the moment I have to sum up my preconceptions that I don’t know what I’m getting into again. It sounds somewhat raunchy, but every adult comedy at the time was at least a little raunchy. For what it’s worth, it got a PG.
Ultimately, what I can say is that Woody Allen”s character finds himself in a future which no doubt is designed to be a satire on the world of its time.
