Tag: Brittany Snow

Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: HOOKING UP

HOOKING UP is another straight to video movie that came out earlier this year, and like my last movie review Buffaloed, I just bid my time yet again to when it came on a streaming service that I already partake in. Hence, it just came on Hulu, hence I’m reviewing it for you since 2020 sucks. But this movie does not, it’s actually a decent and cute one time watch with good performances from both Brittany Snow and Sam Richardson, especially the former. The only thing hindering it from becoming a multiple time viewed comedy hit is that it gets bogged down in a couple of cliches near the climax of the film, which makes it drag, until it saves itself with a little less predictable ending than you would think a raunchy sex comedy like this would get. It starts out as just another crude to be crude type movie you’ve seen before but quickly veers into more sweet and emotional territory, which is why this ultimately gets a slight recommendation from me. But only if you have time to spare one afternoon or evening and you are not trying to hook up with someone and trying to have lots and lots of sex during these COVID quarantine times. The jokes land about 60-40, which isn’t bad for something straight to video, and thankfully the sweet stuff lands about 80-20 to make up for the things that don’t work in its favor.

IMDB describes Hooking up as such: “After he receives a new cancer diagnosis and she is fired from her job as a sex columnist, Bailey and Darla take a road trip that forces them to get intimate with their issues, as well as each other.” Simple enough. That description tells you its a sex comedy road trip movie with feelings. That’s what it is. Bailey is also dealing with a recent break up from a high school sweetheart and Darla is trying to get her job back by writing a last chance column for her boss, played feisty by the always welcome Jordana Brewster (I’d have her yell at me any day of the week she’s so hot in this), while trying to come to terms about how her sexual promiscuity has hurt people in the past. Darla last chance column is on Bailey’s cancer journey and she’s writing it behind his back…you see where this is going don’t you? Once that very predictable confrontation scene happens, the movie drags a bit, but like I said earlier, the ending saves it. It really does, as you think it will go all the way in one direction, but it ends up in an “acute” yet more reasonable path. Rather than going for a straight out ending of declarations of forgiveness and I love you’s that are beginning to get annoying in other films at this point, it tries to be realistic enough. To give you a different perspective, my wife watched it with me and liked it much more than I did…so there you go. For me, Hooking Up is like a decent one-night stand, you are ultimately glad it happened, it felt good and you don’t feel dirty afterwards, even though it will probably never happen again.

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Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: SOMEONE GREAT (Netflix)

I’ll start this off by saying that I am really not this films target audience. At all. So if you are interested in watching SOMEONE GREAT, maybe with someone great (especially if you are both women and are both women besties and have ever been through a tough break up), I encourage you to still watch it. If you still read this review before or even after watching it, and if you liked it after watching it, take my opinion with a grain of salt. I did not like this movie all that much. It’s only an hour and 30 minutes, and doesn’t really know what it wants to be narratively until the final 15 to 20 minutes where it gets itself together in the climax. The rest of the movie just feels like incoherent dribble, a bunch of “pish-posh” road trip movie scenes to try and get to a good central idea and a wonderful speech by Gina Rodriguez. In these “pish-posh” scenes are three women that try too hard to curse as much as possible and be very, very crude as much as possible. It is fine if it feels natural, but all of the jokes and outlandish things these girls were saying felt forced. Sorry.

And it is a shame because other than the last strong 15-20 minutes, the three leads, played by Gina Rodriguez (Jane The Virgin), Brittany Snow (Pitch Perfect), and DeWanda Wise all feel like they have great chemistry. And the one real supporting actor, Lakeith Stanfield (Atlanta) is good in his scenes too. The whole thing is just out of focus. The movie centers on Gina Rodriguez’s character, having just woken up after her boyfriend of 9 years broke up with her. She needs a day to get herself together, so her and her two besties take off work and try and get tickets and go to a very exclusive concert while she analyses the shit out of her past relationship. She also mainly wants to see her friends again because she is about to move for away to a job she got with Rolling Stone. The movie dips into cliched road trip movie shenanigans trying to find tickets to this musical event, followed by one crude joke after another that keeps missing its target (I don’t think I laughed once during this movie, and I love crude humor).

Other than the great message about relationships, love, etc. etc. in a wonderfully worded dialogue speech at the end that I mentioned earlier. I didn’t really feel like I got to know how exactly Gina and Lakeith’s characters break up happened other than the fact that she was moving away and after 9 fucking years he doesn’t think he could make it work or would move with her (not like his job was that important). Like they show a couple of flash fight scenes between them, but sappy music plays over them and I can’t really hear what they are fighting about. I just don’t understand why they broke up. Seemed like they broke up for plot convenience. Now on the other hand Brittany Snow’s character, who gets a small tiny arc, wants to break up with her long time boyfriend, and after just two scenes, I got EXACTLY why. When you have the focus of the film being about whey the two main leads broke up, might want to make your message a little more crystal clear to EARN their reason for doing so.

All I am saying is that this movie should’ve added some scenes, and maybe gone through a couple of more rewrites. Definitely take the jokes out that felt forced and were not funny. But comedy is subjective, and maybe just this time it didn’t work for me. It’s not a terrible movie by any means, but it is pretty dull, bland, and forgettable until the weird strong climax, which 100% worked. That detail, style, and effort I wish was in 80-90% in the rest of the movie. Not to say that writer/director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson didn’t try. She clearly has potential as a writer and director with the climax and the chemistry between the leads, this just feels like a blueprint for later, much more superior work. I looked her up on IMDB and all she’s written really is episodes of MTV’s Sweet/Vicious…and I don’t watch MTV anymore for pretty good reasons. I’ve never seen that show, but maybe if you watch it and love it, you’ll love this? Someone Great should’ve been something great, but is only something eh.