Tag Archives: #theskeletontwins

Four Years of DSB

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. . .being a Brit.

Roughly four years ago today I gave birth to DSB. In case you were wondering, yes, it was an immaculate conception. There was no one else who helped make it happen.

I don’t mean to toot my own horn here, but I’m proud of what this has become. I think I might have said this before, but I was surprised I ever returned to this page after I took a year-long hiatus from mid-2011 until March of 2012. I remember having just . . . such an embarrassingly emotional reaction to Todd Phillips’ bacchanalia Project X that I felt the need to go and write my thoughts down. That was a review that makes my recent Jurassic World rant tame by comparison. I’m going to try in the future to not let those emotions get the better of me. I’m sure I have annoyed a few readers in the process of doing that, and I kind of regret it. Sometimes I have this feeling that I do more harm than good by coming on so strongly. That’s why the blog has lost its original slogan: ‘Rants and Raves.’ I want to take the focus off of the negatives and focus more on the positives!

Regardless, I’ve appreciated having this space to vent. I thank WordPress for being such a tool . . . a good one, that is. 😉 You can bet I’ll be signing up for another year with you. Since consistently posting from around early 2013 and onwards, this has become quite the addiction. I love the feeling of getting to write something and then have like-minded people ‘Like’ and leave feedback on my stuff. It’s truly great and that energy is what is helping propel me into the future.

Speaking of which, my next moves are going to be a tad scarier and undoubtedly more expensive. The goal is to relocate to Salt Lake City. Not only is that town a killer place to be for those attracted to the outdoors (as I am) — as well as Mormon fundamentalism (as I am not) — but every January there’s a little film festival that takes place known to some as Sundance. I have loved covering mainstream releases — and there are a lot to be found here — but I would really like to start digging into the world of independent cinema more often. I’d love to have exposure to things that could prove to be harder to access outside of the film festival circuit. So, I’m setting that as a goal for me to achieve within the next two years. I think that’s reasonable. Right . . . ?

Alright I was promising myself I wouldn’t ramble on with this post and here I am doing just that. I shall use the rest of this space to list a few little tidbits and factoids in celebration of the blog’s fourth birthday/anniversary. And is it just me, or does time really fly when you’re having fun blogging. . . ?

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DSB’s original banner image

Four of my Favorite Films I Saw in 2011

  1. Drive – Ryan Gosling, meet Nicolas Winding Refn
  2. Win-Win – first of all, how many people saw this? And second, Paul Giamatti – awesome.
  3. Cedar Rapids – another under-seen and under-appreciated film, this time starring Ed Helms.
  4. Crazy, Stupid, Love – a crazy, not stupid and lovely date film

Four of my Favorite Films I Saw in 2012

  1. The Dark Knight Rises – a near-perfect end to a near-perfect trilogy. Tom Hardy gave me chills
  2. Marvel’s The Avengers – . . .do I really need to qualify this?
  3. Moonrise Kingdom – Wes Anderson’s made a lot of good ones, but this one’s hard to beat
  4. Skyfall – Sam Mendes’ apology for Marc Forster’s indiscretion with the convoluted Quantum of Solace

Four of my Favorite Films I Saw in 2013

  1. The Way, Way Back – so awkward it becomes adorable. I. Love. This. Movie.
  2. Rush – Ron Howard concocts a classic racing film, least in my eyes. And that casting — wow!
  3. Safety Not Guaranteed – an excellent and beyond-quirky little gem starring one of my biggest celebrity crushes, Aubrey Plaza
  4. The Place Beyond the Pines – too quickly forgotten, this sprawling epic proved an acting showcase

Four of my Favorite Films I Saw in 2014

  1. Her – Spike Jonze’ deeply personal and witty commentary on our relationship with technology is one of the most impressive films I’ve ever seen
  2. The Skeleton Twins – pairing Bill Hader with Kristen Wiig in this deeply touching and moving dramedy worked like a charm on me
  3. Godzilla – a refreshingly restrained monster movie in an age where we seem to demand we get all the good stuff up-front without question
  4. Winnebago Man – this docu is amazingly insightful and hilarious. Underrated is how I’d describe it.

Four of my Favorite Films I’ve Seen so far in 2015 

  1. Love & Mercy – achingly nostalgic and filled with spectacular performances, the biopic of Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys is a definite winner
  2. What We Do in the Shadows – painfully funny stuff brought to you by one-half of the musicomedy duo Flight of the Conchords
  3. Almost Famous – a classic from the turn of the millennium which I have no excuse for putting off for so long. This is a fantastic film from Cameron Crowe
  4. The Guest – suspenseful, artistic and bloody in equal measure, this is a crazy awesome film that snuck under a lot of people’s radars

Four Films I’m Most Anticipating in 2015

  1. Spectre – I’m excited to see where Sam Mendes can take the gritty James Bond next. Trailers so far hint at the darkest chapter yet.
  2. In the Heart of the Sea – set to the tune of the epic tale of Moby Dick, this film will reunite director Ron Howard with star Chris Hemsworth
  3. The Revenant – with a mind-glowingly awesome cast under the direction of last year’s Oscar Best Picture, I’m really curious to see what this will be like
  4. The Green Inferno – I wouldn’t call myself the biggest Eli Roth fan, but no joke . . . his latest film looks bloody and bloody brilliant. Sign me up.

What are four of your most anticipated this year? What are four of your favorites so far? 

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Four new things about the blog

  1. Expanded menus – I finally figured out how to customize menus in the editing page and now you can access all that DSB has to offer through a variety of drop down menus located above the banner. That only took me four years to figure out lol
  2. The introduction of character studies in the form of 2014’s The Franco Files and 2015’s John C. Reilly Factor. If you’re a fan of these folks, check these pages out!
  3. The DSB Spotlight – this new ‘feature’ represents the first paid contribution to this site and it makes me very proud to be able to feature a fellow movie fan’s writing on here. This is validation that others beyond the blogging community have been reading and accessing what I have to say about movies and it is humbling to say the least. You can check out this article here.
  4. With the help of esteemed blogger and friend Mark Fletcher of the fantastic Three Rows Back, I co-hosted my very first blogathon — The Decades Blogathon — which turned out to be a great experience and led to even more exposure to both film titles and film fans/bloggers alike. This was a great experience, and hopefully not the last for me.

Thank you as always for reading my stuff. It’s an honor and a privilege to still be doing this. Onwards!

The Skeleton Twins

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Release: Friday, September 12, 2014 (limited)

[Theater]

Written by: Craig Johnson; Mark Heyman

Directed by: Craig Johnson

Sniffle. It’s just so sad, you guys — these SNL kids are all growing up. . . !

Back in February I would not have looked at Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig — deserving as they are of their own vehicle — as contenders for Best Actor/Actress for next year, and I certainly would not have predicted this honor being bestowed upon them for their contributions to drama. In Craig Johnson’s sophomore effort The Skeleton Twins, the duo leaves an indelible mark upon 2014’s collage of strong performances, ranking as some of the most colorful as well as honest contributions all year.

In this unabashedly emotional drama about estranged — yes, twins, you got it — Hader and Wiig are physically full-grown versions of Eddie Schweighardt and Sydney Lucas’ little Milo and Maggie, respectively, who are limited to flashback sequences.

We aren’t shown their complete history, just enough to appreciate that their respective lives have slowly come unraveled, emotional and psychological pain taking unique tolls on the individuals while the pain of living in a very broken family haunts them both in perpetuity. As a measure of just how far we’ve come since the days of their six-minute skits, I need only refer to the opening scene, one in which we’re presented with Wiig’s Maggie, on the edge (of a toilet seat) and on the verge of making a rash decision. A handful of pills are about to be forced to her lips by her own hand, but she’s unable to follow through as a phone call intrudes upon her introspective hour. It’s about her brother; he’s in the hospital following his own suicide attempt.

Maggie decides it’d be best for both of them if Milo comes to stay with her and her husband Lance (Luke Wilson) for awhile. It’s been a decade since either of them spoke to one another so this is really quite the grand gesture. Particularly when its evident Maggie’s hubby isn’t exactly down with the lifestyle Milo leads as a gay actor from L.A. In turn, Milo’s not really impressed with his sister’s taste in men. Safe to say there are a few other things the two jab each other about over the coming days and weeks.

And herein lies the beauty of this movie. Despite opening on a rather confronting note using attempted suicide to introduce us to the characters, there’s still an ocean of things we can identify with as this dysfunctional brother-sister duo gradually open themselves back up to one another. They may be taking extreme measures, yet it’s their vulnerability that draws us towards them, makes us come to love them. Not pity them. A lot of that should be credited to the tag-team of Hader and Wiig, a typical comedic dream-team totally transformed into a sorrowful bunch still worth rooting for.

Good as the actors are, there is a perfect marriage between this script and these particular SNL alums. Words are lifted from the pages of Mark Heyman and Craig Johnson’s collaboration and in the mouths of the right people they’re transformed into weapons, some striking with almost deadly force as Milo and Maggie try their best to not create more problems for one another, as small cracks in their initial standoffish-ness eventually yield great, gaping chasms. Secrets are revealed: marital issues between Maggie and Lance; Milo’s dark past with a former teacher of his (Ty Burrell, who’s also excellent).

Not only are they mindful of how their script reflects the lives of the broken-spirited, Heyman and Johnson are careful to not sugarcoat proceedings nor dwell too long on the melancholic blue. The celluloid is tinted rather than soaked heavily in its own prejudices towards its characters, which is partly why the opening scenes work so effectively. There are a number of mesmerizing sequences throughout, most of them revolving around one of the most fully-realized characters Bill Hader has ever undertaken. A few include their bonding over laughing gas at Maggie’s dental office; a Halloween party in which Hader dresses in appropriately hilarious/horrifying drag; the duo’s lip-synched rendition of ‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now,’ by Starship.

Heartfelt, incredibly well-performed, highly entertaining and just quirky enough to escape a great many comparisons to other similar stories featuring an estranged pair making amends after lost time, The Skeleton Twins is not only one of the greatest dramedies this reviewer has seen, but one of the more tonally balanced and emotionally resonant efforts made all year.

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4-5Recommendation: If you call yourself a fan of either Hader or Wiig, what are you waiting for? Purr chase your ticket — pronto! Arguably their best work thus far, their latest outing sees them operating at an entirely different level. It’s not particularly a story you haven’t seen done before but none of that matters when the characters and dialogue is this convincing. I highly, highly recommend.

Rated: R

Running Time: 93 mins.

Quoted: “I can’t wait to be the creepy, gay uncle . . .”

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Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; http://www.imdb.com