Scott Pilgrim vs the World (2010)

We all have baggage.

— Ramona Flowers

Film nerds everywhere were almost salivating over the release of three-time Omie Award winning, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. I was one of those people, but I didn’t have the dollars to watch the film at the time. No, wait, that was when I saw The Town instead of this, right. Big mistake that was. I was bummed that I didn’t get the chance to see it until now.

The movie starts with the classic Atari 8-bit making over the opening credits. You know that it’s going to off-kilter from there. The titular Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) is a 22-year-old nerd from Toronto that between jobs and is dating a high schooler named Knives Chau (Ellen Wong). Scott is the bassist in a band named Sex Bob-omb with lead guitarist, Stephen (Mark Webber), his morose ex-gf drummer, Kim (Alison Pill) with Young Neil (Johnny Simmons) hanging around them.

Hearing the band play obviously bad music, Knives is convinced that they are awesome and should go into Battle of the Bands to get a record contract from G-Man aka Gideon (Jason Schwartzman).

One day, Scott meets the girl of his dreams, Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) at a library. He falls hard for her and wants to know everything about her when they meet again at a party. He convinces her to go out on a date with her. What Scott doesn’t realize is that in order to date her, he has to get past her seven evil exes.

The movie is a Nintendo style video game come to life with the pop up points, life points, the way the exes explode when they are defeated. There is one thing that I didn’t enjoy was Michael Cera’s obvious stunt double that had a Raggedy Andy mop top on his head. That threw me for a loop.

It was nice to see something different in a quirky romantic comedy. I think that this movie is too cutting edge for me. Everybody seems to love the film. I like it. It’s probably going to be one of those that I have to watch again to fully appreciate it. It might happen with The Big Lebowski. Who knows?

Judgment: If you like to see a guy with the built of a Holocaust victim beating the crap out some people, this is your flick.

Rating: 7.5/10

Good Dick (2008)

If I wanted to have sex I’d go out and find someone who was actually sexy.

–Woman

Catchy title, huh? I first saw the title for Good Dick and I was intrigued about the movie. Looking at the comments on IMDB, people were saying that the movie was “surprisingly moving”. I decided to take a chance and I rolled snake eyes. This movie was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at last year’s Sundance. Why?

The movie is an unconventional love story with an unnamed video store clerk (Jason Ritter) at a place called Cinefile, who becomes obsessed with a damaged woman, played by writer/director Marianna Palke, that comes by the store to rent erotica every night.

The Man lives in his car outside of the Woman’s apartment building. He offers her some better movies for her to pleasure herself with.

He is like a cold sore. He comes in and out of her life. She wants him to go away. He is insistent in his pursuit of a “relationship” with her.

I was not moved by this film. The only part that I thought was compelling was an exchange between the Man and his co-worker. That’s it.

My judgment: It was a nice movie. Don’t there was nothing of substance here.

My rating: **