Sarah's Friends

Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy (MacFarlane, 2008)
IMDB Link

I don’t know how to review this. Have you seen “Family Guy”? Remember those small scenes which occur after a character says something like, “This reminds me of…”? Those scenes are usually unrelated to the main plot and are small, random jokes sprinkled throughout each episode.

Created by Seth MacFarlane, “Cavalcade of Cartoon” is basically an hour of similar style jokes. Each skit is around a minute or so and is prefaced by the title of the scene, such as “Name That Animal Penis!”

It is very clear the kind of audience that this will appeal to. Like “Family Guy”? Then this is recommended. Don’t? Then fuck off. Simple as that.

4/5

Mystic River (Eastwood, 2003)
IMDB Link

"I'm tired of wishing things made sense. I'm tired of caring about some dead girl, and there's just gonna be another one after her. Sending killers to jail is just sending them where they've been heading all their dumb, pathetic lives. The dead are still dead. "

I think it was with “Mystic River” that Clint Eastwood found his calling. Delivering feature films that are over two hours, makes the Oscar people cream their pants, have lots of emotional scenes, and attract the mainstream audience.

And I don’t mean those in a negative way. Eastwood makes crowd-pleasing, mainstream films, but he makes them well. Any particular entry in a genre that is done well deserves respect, and Eastwood is very good at what he does.

But to me, it is not as interesting, because it is the same film wearing different clothes. It always has characters going through emotional pain, helped by overacting, overdramatic script, and loud sentimental music. And big name actors and actresses struggling to have their name be mentioned positively by the critics and maybe have a few awards rolled their way.

Wait, I’m doing it again, I’m sounding very negative towards the film, even though I enjoyed it. “Mystic River” starts off with three childhood friends, and one of them getting kidnapped by two pedophiles and being used for Happy Kiddie Ass Fun Time for four days, and now its decades later, the four friends have grown apart, and there is a murder. One’s a cop, one’s the father of the victim, and one is a red herring.

3/5

Flirt (Hartley, 1995)
IMDB Link

Haley’s “Flirt” is a failed experiment. His film is about three stories, each one using almost the exact same script, with dialogue being almost verbatim, which slightly differences in wording, tone, and so forth. All three are about love, with each of them having its own set of characters, in a different country, and different genders.

The first one is the best. Pure Hartley. A young man is talking to his girlfriend, who is moving away to Paris for six months, and wants to know if she has a future with him.

“How can I answer that”, he says.

“Yes or no”, she replies.

Trying not to answer it, the young man says, “I can’t see the future.”

The woman, irritated, answers back, “You don’t need to see the future if you know it’s there.”

The man says that he will get a car and pick her up to drop her to the airport, and when he comes back, he will give her his answer. She agrees. He goes out and calls a woman he feels like he is in love with, but who is in a relationship. He has the exact same conversation about the future with her, but this time, he is the one who wants to know.

All this is excellent. And he goes to the bar to meet her, and meets the woman’s husband, played by Martin Donovan, THE actor when it comes to Hartley’s films. If you watch a few of Hartley’s films, you will start appreciating Donovan. There is no one else in Haley’s films who is able to perfectly capture the essence of Haley’s writing style. Donovan doesn’t really act, he seems to PRETEND to act, but somehow it works perfectly.

Soon, the story wraps up, and we get the second story. This time it is in Germany, and it starts with two gay men. Then the third story, with the main gender being a woman this time, and set in Japan. The second story was repetitive but tolerable for the sake of the experiment. But third time was not a charm. Not only was the repetition by now tiring, but there was none of Harley’s charm in the Japan story. By then, he had completely lost me, and I just wanted the film to finish.

If it was just the first story, I would have loved it. But as three similar takes on the same idea, nope, didn’t work.

“Relinquishing a hold on someone is an act of love. Giving up affection and determination to provide comfort are two practicable elements of love. Love requires no proof. Seen in this life, love is a sort of faith. Since a faith that requires proof wouldn’t be a faith at all. But I will make this distinction. Love is an act. Faith is an ability.”

2/5

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