Ingrid Goes West

First Hit:  A wonderful reflection of the impact of social media on people.

This is an interesting story about how getting caught up in social media, like Instagram, can alter one’s perception of what relationships consist of.

The film begins with Ingrid Thorburn (Aubrey Plaza) getting herself in a tizzy over not being invited to a wedding. She perceives that she is a best friend of the bride. Breaking into the wedding, she squirts pepper spray into the eyes of the bride and escapes. We learn that the bride never met Ingrid before – just through Instagram.

Ingrid’s mom has just died and because Ingrid was her caretaker, this probably contributed to her isolation and use of social media to reach out to the world. After the wedding fiasco, she isolates herself and searching social media, discovers Taylor Sloane (Elizabeth Olsen) on social media.

Taylor makes her living by being an “influencer” on Instagram. She photographs herself in locations and with products and because of the size of her audience, companies pay her. Taylor lives in Southern California with her artist husband Ezra (Wyatt Russell). Ingrid, armed with money her mother left her, heads to CA to find Taylor and to find a new life.

She rents a studio from Dan Pinto (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) who ends up becoming her friend. Her first step after “following” Taylor on Instagram, is to track her down by going to the places she posts on Instagram. One day she runs into Taylor and stealthily follows her to her home. Noting that Taylor and Ezra have a dog, named Rothko, she creates a plan to steal the dog and return the dog to get in good, close graces with Taylor.

This plan works and they end up becoming pals hanging out together. What Ingrid doesn’t know is that Taylor has no teal intention of making Ingrid a real friend. As long as Taylor gets something from the relationship, she lets Ingrid hang out with her and Ezra.

The film evolves to where it gets pretty twisted because Ingrid will do anything to be close to and hang out with Taylor. As Taylor’s brother Nicky (Billy Magnussen) comes into the picture, he brings new audiences for Taylor and so Ingrid slips out of favor and importance to Taylor.

As we see how far Ingrid goes to stay in good graces with Taylor, I started to cringe. Nicky adds additional leverage against Ingrid by stealing her phone and threatening Ingrid with exposing her phone’s negative and intimate posts of Taylor to Taylor.

Spiraling into oblivion, Ingrid finds out that there are people who care, even if they were only known to her through social media. She also learns that she has the possibility of creating a real human relationship.

What I liked was how well Ingrid showed what it is like to be obsessive about pings on her phone. She made the feeling that her life depended on the pings, perfectly real.

Plaza is wonderful in this role. Her eyes and behavior really reflected the desperateness of her trying to connect the only way she knew how. This was a strong performance. Olsen was very good as the influencer who really didn’t care about the people who followed her. Russell was OK as Taylor’s husband. His abdicating to his wife’s preferences was well done. Jackson Jr. was strong as the landlord, friend, and lover with a Batman obsession. The story how he came to this obsession was wonderful. David Branson Smith and Matt Spicer wrote a fun script that came alive with the actors and direction by Spicer.

Overall: I liked how the social media obsession was portrayed as I am aware of people who’ve been hooked.

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates

First Hit:  This film was continually filled with very funny scenes that made sense – Enjoyable.

This is one of those films I anticipated not liking very much.

Physical comedy at this level can be pressed to the point that it becomes not funny. However, this film was different. Dave (Zac Efron) and Mike (Adam Devine) play brothers who do everything together. They are party boys and the scenes of their past antics as shown in the screen, have fun intentions but ended up being disastrous and funny.

What makes this film work is the boys' relationship to each other and that each bizarre sequence is well thought out and leads to another elevated scene.

The premise of the film is that their sister Jeanie (Sugar Lyn Beard) is getting married and their parents don’t want Mike and Dave to wreck their sister’s wedding with their antics. To make them change their ways, the parents tell them they are not allowed at the wedding unless they have respectable wedding dates. They get dates however they are not just happenstance like Dave and Mike believe.

Alice (Anna Kendrick) and Tatiana (Aubrey Plaza) are out of work because they show up to work drunk, are loud and obnoxious and only want to drink and have fun. Each has a different reason for their behavior and together they are almost as bad as Dave and Mike.

The girls see the guys on a TV program promoting a Craigslist ad to take dates, all expenses paid, to Hawaii for their sister’s wedding. Tatiana comes up with a plan to meet the guys and lie their way into this free trip. For them it was a vacation. The film then takes us to Hawaii and the fireworks of these four people’s antics begin. However, in the end they might make steps forward in their lives.

Efron was perfect for this role. He’s found a niche of being handsome, smart and dumb enough to be both funny and serious in this role. Devine presses his comedy a bit more than I like; however, it works well in this film. Kendrick continues to surprise me at her ability to stretch her persona. Here she compulsively lies and it really works. Plaza is very strong in this role. She’s all out and does a great job of being all out. Beard is wonderful as the sister. Andrew Jay Cohen and Brendan O’Brian wrote a script full of great and funny scenes. Jake Szymanski did a wonderful job of getting laughs out of this funny script. He kept the flow going and there isn’t a dull moment or a time where I found myself saying, this is too much; it was just funny.

Overall:  This film surprised me at how it kept moving and kept itself on track in a fun way.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

First Hit: Inventive filmmaking and acting made this a thoroughly enjoyable experience.

I like when people take some risks. Edgar Wright took the story written by Michael Bacall, Bryan Lee O’Malley and Wright, himself, and turned it into a visual reality based on the combination of comic book graphics and real life.

Like in the very old days of TV Batman, Wright’s team used graphics in expressing actions and words while adding interesting patterns of staging and lighting to this story. Telephone rings and you see “rrrriiiiinnnngggg” super imposed on a wall or table. People fly through the air like they do in amazing Asian martial arts fighting scenes. Edgy music adds a powerful punch to the background visuals and adds to the fun and enjoyment of this film.

And I just loved the names of the characters including: Pilgrim (played by Michael Cera) who is in a band named Sex Bob Ombs, had an old girlfriend name Kim Pine (played by Alison Pill) that broke his heart (he was pining for her), finds Knives Chau (played by Ellen Wong) who is a high school girl who likes Pilgrim and cuts to the chase, runs into Ramona Flowers (played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead) whom he falls in love with immediately and she changes hair color weekly, and discovers that to hang with Ramona he must defeat her seven evil ex’s.

The band members’ names are Stephen Stills (played by Mark Webber), Young Neil (played by Johnny Simmons) and Julie Powers on drums (played by Aubrey Plaza). When the band gets invited to play a "battle of the bands", Pilgrim also has to defeat the seven ex’s if he wants to keep his new girlfriend. In these scenes he is a martial arts master and as soon as he conquers an evil ex, a pinball score rises over the ex’s head and the person turns to coins (a payoff).

All through this, there are other amusing and funny moments as the story unfolds. There are lessons to learn for all the characters and the film is fun to watch. It has a level of freshness to it that felt like I was seeing something interesting on the screen that didn't measure its worth by how big the explosion had to be.

Cera is still playing the nerdy boy with some smarts which he occasionally uses. He plays this role often and someday he might want to try something totally different. Wong was fabulous as Knives. She captured the character extremely well. Winstead was also very strong as Ramona. Pill was good as the previous girlfriend who broke Pilgrim’s heart. Webber, Simmons and Plaza were great as band members who put up with and supported Pilgrim through the adventure. Kieran Culkin was fabulous as Pilgrim’s gay roommate. Wright directed with film with fun and an eye for color and scenes which spoke clearly.

Overall: Not sure I’d like to see a lot of films shot this way, but when one comes along that is this well crafted, it is definitely worth it.