Everybody's Fine

Recently released to DVD and sent to me by Netflix, Everybody's Fine is Robert De Niro's latest movie.

De Niro plays Frank, a recent widower, who plans a big family weekend at his house. Unfortunately, his four kids are spread out all over the country and he hasn't seen them since his wife died 8 months ago. After all of them cancel their visit, he decides to visit them individually. After dropping in unexpectedly at his first son David's he finds that he is not there, so he head's off to his daughter Amy's house, then the other kids. But each child has an excuse as to why they can't spend time with him.

At each house he finds that things aren't quite what he expected. He is slowly learning things about his children that he didn't know. His high expectations of them were shielded by his wife, but without her the truth starts to be revealed, and all is not rosy. Many scenes are accompanied with flashbacks to his children as he remembers them when they were younger. Pay attention to the details of this movie because many of them come back to you at the end.

Robert De Niro is great in this movie. If you are in your late 20's, 30's, or even early 40's - this is your dad. His little idiosyncrasies and total lack of acceptance of today will totally remind you of your father. I think this is one of his finest performances in a while.

Judging the movie by the cover you would think it was a comedy. After all they are all smiling, right? While there are funny parts to the movie, this is no comedy. This is a gut-wrenching tear-jerker. At the end of the movie my wife said it sucked. Then this morning she commented that she can't stop thinking about it. This made me think that it wasn't the movie that sucked, it was the sad situations that she didn't like. The movie definitely has a lasting impression.

In addition to De Niro, Drew Barrymore, Sam Rockwell, and Kate Beckinsale star as his children. Directed by Kirk Jones (who also did Nanny McPhee and Waking Ned Devine), Everybody's Fine is 99 minutes long and Rated PG-13 for "thematic elements" and some brief language, but also many scenes that will bring you to tears unless you absolutely have no heart.

Though not what I expected, the movie definitely had a solid impact and was sad and depressing. For bringing out these emotions, I think this movie deserves 4 stars.

Whip It!

When I saw that a movie titled Whip It! was coming out I figured it was a movie about the 1980's band Devo who was known as one of the one-hit wonders known for their song Whip It!. However, this movie had nothing to do with Devo. Nor did anyone in the movie have a red plastic flower pot on their head.

Whip It! stars Ellen Page, the young girl who seems to be type-cast as the disenfranchised teenager of her generation, though she's actually 23 years old. You'll remember her as the pregnant girl from Juno, the one that you wondered why in the hell she had sex with Michael Cera. But I digress.

In Whip It! (let me add that typing the name of this movie is driving me crazy because it ends in a punctuation mark and the auto correct wants to capitalize the next letter), Bliss is a young high schooler whose mother (Marcia Gay Harden) is living vicariously through her and pushing her to be in beauty contests, which Bliss could not care less about. Bliss finds a flyer about joining a roller derby in nearby Austin, Texas. She sneaks out of town and joins the roller derby despite being too young. And to her surprise, she's really good. What happens when her disingenuous commitment to beauty pageantry and her secret life as a roller derby collide?

Whip It! Is directed by Drew Barrymore, who also stars in the movie, along with Kristen Wiig, Juliette Lewis (sorry, that woman is getting nasty looking!), and Jimmy Fallon. Lower on the billing is Daniel Stern who plays Bliss' father. You'll remember him as the narrator of The Wonder Years.

Whip It! is 2 hours long and is rated PG-13 for some mild sexual content, crude dialog, language, drug use, and some violence (it is a roller-derby!).

I really enjoyed the movie, though I thought the middle was a bit long. It could have been a better movie if it was about 20 minutes shorter. However, the movie made me laugh and that's important. I liked it enough to give it 4 stars.