Trainwreck

[Fantod]

Posted: 7/18/15 at 7:32pm

Pretty formulaic with some excellent humor throughout. As always, not a fan of Apatow's unnecessary sadness in the movie. Thought the whole cast was great, especially Schumer, Hader, and Tilda Swinton. Anybody else see it?

[ArtMan]

Posted: 7/18/15 at 7:40pm

Fantod, I was just about to start a thread on this.  I saw this today.  I knew nothing really of Amy Schumer.  I thought she did a great job, especially with the emotional scenes.  I thought her acting was actually better with those scenes, instead of the comic scenes, when she was playing drunk or stoned.  Bill Hader was terrific as well as most of the cast.  I thought there were quite a few funny lines, but the story, for me, dragged.  At times I felt like some of the scenes were improvised. But in the end, it all came together, for me, and I was glad I saw it.  It is something I would sit through for a second viewing?  No.

[dented146]

Posted: 7/18/15 at 7:44pm

I thought it was terrific. Very impressed with the writing.

[AwesomeDanny]

Posted: 7/18/15 at 8:46pm

I saw a screening last week and loved it. I have been a fan of Schumer for a while now, and I am incredibly heartened to see her first film turn out so wonderfully. I'll be seeing it again soon so that I can hear all of the lines I missed when the packed house was laughing too loudly.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 7/18/15 at 9:14pm

That's so funny.  I saw it today and could not stop checking the time.  I thought it had serious pacing problems and that Schumer was not up to the requirements of  the dramatic scenes, which were unearned and the most egregious of which was a devastating plot line that was completely glossed over and dispensed with. Really, this production asked way too much of her, not the least of which was to compromise her freewheeling unapologetic persona and stick her into the patented Apatow man-boy role who needs to settle down.  Get married.  Have kids.

Also, the whole thing seemed to be referential of so many other things we're already familiar with, (similar to the way one review eviscerated Ted 2 by saying Seth McFarlane's humor consists of pointing at things we already know are funny and saying "Haha!").  I believe Swinton did as much as she could with a magazine editor character we've already seen a few too many times.  I was really sorry I wasted part of my day on this.

PS  This movie has a protagonist who HATES sports and the people who love sports (with a father who loves sports -- an unexamined issue in the move) and the cast is populated by pro athlete after pro athlete after sports announcer after cheerleaders after pro teams.  THIS is the best example of how a Judd Apatow ruins what could have been a Bridesmaids-level great Amy Schumer headlining movie.

Updated On: 7/18/15 at 09:14 PM

[Fantod]

Posted: 7/18/15 at 10:22pm

That seems a little aggressive, Namo. Why didn't you just leave the movie? Or do you just like to complain?

[ArtMan]

Posted: 7/18/15 at 10:35pm

Namo's right.  It did have pacing problems.  That is why I stated ,to me, it dragged.  The only point I disagree, is I thought Shumer did well in the dramatic scenes.  I have never seen her show/act prior.  I thought in some of the "comedy" bits she wasn't very convincing.  But different strokes for different folks.  The lady to the left of me was constantly laughing.  The lady to the right...I never heard a sound.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 7/18/15 at 11:08pm

Yes Fantod those must be the only two options, right?

I might have left if I hadn't been there with my boyfriend who had driven us there. Is that sound enough reason for you?

Aggressive? Have you ever read the opinions you posted back when you were trying to impress AfterEight? They had a certain extreme undertone. You know what. I was holding back. The more I think about it, the more pissed off I get when I think of wasting my valuable time off and the various service fees that are attached to buying tickets online, which is the only way to get a seat on opening weekends in 55 seat barcoloubger stadium hell holes.

Trainwreck is TERRRRRRRIBLE. An awful movie I which the lead comes off like a shining high school student in her senior play, and other professional actors can't even hold up their characterizations for the length of the movie. Decent directors have managed to cobble together semi-sustained performances from Bill Hader but even he collapses under the burden of overlong scenes that seem to have been improvised so nobody knows exactly what they're doing.

In fact, many of the scenes actually seem as IDLF somebody has just yelled action so the actors suddenly walk into center frame. The movie is too damn long and nobody was well-served by Apatow's shoddy direction. Amy needed a cool woman mid-wife to ring her tithe screen, not the King of man-child movies acting as her pimp.

Updated On: 7/18/15 at 11:08 PM

[Fantod]

Posted: 7/18/15 at 11:19pm

Jeez. Calm down

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 7/18/15 at 11:37pm

I am reminded of Margaret Cho telling the story of shooting the first episode of her sitcom All Anerican Girl and running up to her pal Quentin Tarrantino, who was her invited guest in the studio audience. She gleefully asked what he thought and he told her the show was terrible.

In the first episode Margaret is show doing stand up about her family, which ticks them off. They make hers wear she will no longer talk about them and she agrees. Tarrantino pointed out that the producers made her sacrifice the very thing that made her funny.

Today watching Trainwreck I realized Judd Apatow did the same thing to the free-wheeling, hard partying, unapologetic Amy Schumer. He subverted the very thing that made her great In the first place.

On well. Luckily there are still plenty of funny women around tho I have some concerns about Teens and Ames after that "Sisters" preview shown before Trainwreck.

And I'm calm. Aren't you the one who always got all anal hurt whenever anybody questioned your lenghthy explications? Yes. Yes, you are.

[Fantod]

Posted: 7/19/15 at 12:28am

Yup, I got overworked in the past. You're overworked right now.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 7/19/15 at 12:32am

Why am I overworked? Because I am willing to fully commit to the namby pamby criticism you were scared to completely endorse in your original slightly critical post? Please. Trainwreck is a failure. At least Leslie Jones's subway cameo bodes well for Lady Ghostbusters, directed by a guy who knows better than to get in the way of naturally funny women.

[Fantod]

Posted: 7/19/15 at 12:45am

This movie is not a failure just because you didn't like it. The majority of people seem to enjoy it. Are they wrong because you disagree with them? And I didn't write a freakin' essay on the movie because there wasn't much to say about it. And everyone was so nicely discussing to movie until you came around. I don't mind formulaic, and thought that as long as the movie had me laughing rather consistently it worked. Was I let down because it wasn't as funny as her standup? Sure. But I don't feel the need to claim that this movie was objectively bad. I'd say it's a solid 7 out of 10. I do think you raise an extremely interesting point on how much better this movie would be if it wasn't a Judd Apatow movie. I actually think Jonathan Levine could have directed this movie pretty well and maybe could have allowed Amy to shine more

Updated On: 7/19/15 at 12:45 AM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 7/19/15 at 1:03am

Paul Feig. Maybe. But let's find women to direct movies by the liked of Amy Schumer and then pay them all Adam Sandller and Kevin James money for making movies that are actually funny. Unlike Trainwreck.

[Corine2]

Posted: 7/19/15 at 10:33am

I thought Amy was amusing, and I loved the film. Sorry, you didn't like it Namo.

Updated On: 7/19/15 at 10:33 AM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 7/19/15 at 1:45pm

Thank you Corine, I am glad you enjoyed it.

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 7/19/15 at 3:10pm

This is a conventional movie dressed as a progressive one

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 7/19/15 at 3:14pm

It's a fundamentally reactionary conservative movie!  They should have called it "The Taming of The Schu"!

[Corine2]

Posted: 7/20/15 at 7:08am

At AMC,  if you don't like the movie before 20 minutes, you can talk to customer service and see another film. I wish I had left Magic Mike XXL. I waited 1 hour and walked out. I have never been more bored. I sadly paid for that one!

[SonofMammaMiaSam]

Posted: 7/20/15 at 8:03am

Horny?

[Auggie27]

Posted: 7/20/15 at 1:12pm

Tonally, it's all over the map.  It starts out oddly dated in its 90s humor, very "Something About Mary," with wildly off-center black humor, bizarre riffs (the Cena in bed sequence is very "Mary," and absolutely nothing like anything that follows it); and then becomes James L. Brooks (somewhere between "Terms" and "As Good as It Gets") before settling into solid Apatow-ville.  Along the way, there are wonderful things, for me, the office sequences, which Swinton and company make something genuinely satiric (and those scenes have some of the better lines. "If this is a one-woman show, I didn't get a ticket.")

Unlike everyone else here, I actually had rather low expectations, the trailer and print ads didn't much excite me.  It looked like the old Blake Edwards Bruce Willis Kim Bassinger "Blind Date" movie.  And is about as evolved. A drunk woman wasn't cool then, now she's cool til she isn't, then she's cooler still when she knows she's no longer as cool as she was when she was doing cool things, like, you know, too much.   Like most Brooks films (I know, it's not Brooks, but that middle is so Brooks it lingers, like a day old potsticker) it feels longest when it should be tightening.  Still, Tilda is awfully watchable.   

Updated On: 7/20/15 at 01:12 PM

[SonofRobbieJ]

Posted: 7/20/15 at 2:04pm

I was doing unmentionable things on the beach this weekend, so I've yet to see it.  But this?:

'it lingers, like a day old potsticker'

I'm having that put on a sampler.  Brava!

[Corine2]

Posted: 7/20/15 at 5:33pm

The film made over 30 million this weekend so I don't think it is a failure. I loved the film and hope it makes Schumer the star she deserves to be. She's talented.

[Corine2]

Posted: 7/20/15 at 5:33pm

My cell phone has a glitch and I get double posts. Delete me.

Updated On: 7/22/15 at 05:33 PM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 7/20/15 at 5:44pm

Schumer is already a star, which is why the movie opened well. She is talented, the movie does not serve her well, it is not well done, it has some funny moments but is utterly conventional in its conservative rom com conclusions. It has several funny moments but far more lugubrious sequences.

Updated On: 7/20/15 at 05:44 PM