My Review: Going the Distance and Easy A

Okay, so today I had a seven hour window between classes, and instead of waiting around in Coffman Memorial Union forever and ever, I decided to go downtown and see a little double feature (I still have two hours till class, btw). Originally I was going to see Easy A then Devil, but my Ojibwe oral quiz went a little longer than planned, so I missed the beginning of Easy A. At first I was going to wait till 12:45 and see Salt, but I really didn't want to wait an hour so I had to choose between Resident Evil: Extinction and Going the Distance. Since the only R.E. movie I've seen is the first one, I decided to see Going the Distance at 11:50, then see Easy A at 2:00.
Even though I thought the trailer was funny and I really like Drew Barrymore, I didn't really have any desire to see Going the Distance in theaters because I'm not really that big of a fan of romantic comedies. I ended up really liking it, though. It has a fantastic cast of actors that I really like such as Ms Barrymore, Justin Long, Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis, Jim Gaffigan, and Christina Applegate. It also has a cameo by Kristen Schaal who is in it for like two seconds, but manages to be absolutely hilarious.
Going the Distance is about two people, Erin and Garrett, (Barrymore and Long) who meet at a bar in New York and hit it off right away. They have a really great night together, but unfortunately, Erin is only in NY for another 6 weeks, then she flies back to San Francisco. So, the whole movie is about trying to make their long distance relationship work. This seems like a normal cheesy romcom, but this movie is actually really funny. Most romcoms feature some uptight girl and some carefree guy, who start out hating eachother but end up falling in love, and usually aren't that funny. Their source of comedy is like, "oh haha the uptight girl got drunk" or "haha the uptight girl is having a mental breakdown." These kinds of romantic comedies (usually starring Katherine Heigl), are the majority of the time not that funny, and if they are its usually the guy who gets to be funny. Going the Distance, however, kept me laughing throughout the whole movie. I was sitting in the theater all by myself laughing hysterically. Drew Barrymore is great in the scene where she gets really drunk with her hot guy friend and starts fighting with this muscular guy after she ends up almost hitting him with a dart, and continues to yell at him when her friend is literally carrying her out of the bar. Only she can make the work fuck adorable. Justin Long is also funny, but I love Charlie Day and Jason Sudeikis as his two best friends. I was really excited when I saw that they were in this movie because Charlie is my favorite character from Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and I used to watch SNL all the time.
One thing that bothered me about this movie was when I thought Erin was going to turn down the job in San Francisco. She mentions a million times about how the newspaper business is doing shitty, so it pissed me off when she was going to turn down an actual newspaper job so she could move to New York and wait tables. Fortunately, though, the movie has a nice happy ending with everbody getting what they want.
My rating: 9/10

This movie, however, I was not too fond of. I liked the trailer, and I thought that it was going to be a cute, funny teen movie, that also has a good cast. While I do like most of the actors in this movie, it really wasn't all that funny. Or funny at all to be exact. This movie was more rediculous than anything.
Easy A is a movie about a girl named Olive played by Emma Stone, who lies to her friend about losing her virginity to some college guy. Someone overhears, and then everyone in the school knows. Then a gay guy asks her to pretend to sleep with him so people will think hes straight, so they go in a room at a party and grunt and moan and everyone thinks they had sex. So, a bunch of other guys pay her to do the same. Anyways, rumors go around the school that Olive is a big whore, and she has no problem with it! She says something like "being known as a whore is better than not being known at all" or something stupid like that. First of all, I don't know how they expect me to believe that someone as cute as Emma Stone could be "invisible." They don't even do the cliched thing of putting glasses on her or anything like that. Second of all, I don't know why any girl would want to be known first as a whore, then as a prostitite, then as an STD infested prostitute whore. She's doing all of these favors for people because she feels bad for them, because they're fat or getting beat up, but they're treating her like a prostitute because they're paying her to ruin her reputation.
What really pisses me off about this movie is her god damn parents! I like Patricia Clarkson and Stanley Tucci, but their characters are so stupid! They seem to have no problem with their teenage daughter wearing skin tight corsets to school or that there are all these rumors about her going around. Theres even a part where Olive's like "if you hear anything about me having chlamydia, don't belive it," and they're just like "okay..." I'm like "WHAT!?!?!?!" If my mom had ever heard anything about me having an STD she would be PISSED! She probably would have grounded me for the rest of my high school career and then murdered me. I understand that they are supposed to be the "cool and understanding" parents, but they are just rediculous! There's even a part where her mom tells her that she was a whore in high school and that she could lift her legs over her head, and Olive just laughs it off like she told her a little joke or something. I mean, what kind of mother tells her daughter something like that???
I guess this movie's trying to be "edgy" or something, but it just comes across as dumb. I mean theres a teacher who gives chlamydia to a 22 year old high schooler (really!?!), and a group of super religious students who sing bible songs on the front lawn of the school, and picket against Olive (REALLY!?!) The ending is just as stupid. Throughout the whole movie Olive is doing a webcast explaining that all of the rumors are just lies, and at then end of the movie she convinces everyone to watch the webcast by doing a musical number (really!?!) during a pep rally dressed like a burlesque dancer and then telling people that they would be watching her have sex during the webcast. I mean, jesus christ, THATS how you're going to start fixing your reputation?
So I don't seem like a complete hater, I'll think of some things that I like about this movie. Lets see... It has a really good cast. Emma Stone is really cute and likable, and while I don't think that she should have turned down a role in Sucker Punch to be in this movie, it was probably a better move for her career because this is a starring role and I believe that the role she was going to have in Sucker Punch was more of a supporting one. I also really like Patricia Clarkson, Stanley Tucci, Thomas Haden Church, and Lisa Kudrow, even though I don't like their characters in this movie. Also, I can't believe Malcolm McDowell was in this. Why would Alex DeLarge agree to play the principal in this shitty teen movie? Ok...good things.... Penn Badgley is hot, so thats a plus. Also I though this part of the movie was kind of cute, and it was funny that this was her ringtone for the rest of the movie.
My rating: 3/10