Away We Go (2009)
Away We Go (2009) — SECOND REVIEW [ON BLU RAY, 26 DEC 2009]: Hey, my first double review since I started writing these things. Groovy. I woke up in the middle of the night last week and couldn’t get back to sleep so I put this on and I remembered just how much I loved it. It’s still probably my favorite movie of 2009. It reminds me that maybe life works better sometimes without a clear-cut plan. It also reminds me of the way people offer you advice constantly regardless of whether you asked and especially regardless of whether or not they’re qualified to give it. Maggie Gylenhaal and Josh Hamilton play two of the biggest condescending pricks that have been recently captured on celluloid and when John Krasinski finally tells them off it kind of gives me this cathartic release for all the times I’ve wanted to tell of jackasses like that. I also love a scene where Allison Janney is offering Krasinski and Maya Rudolph her thoughts on parenting, all the while completely oblivious that her 12-year-old daughter is being chatted up by two dudes in a pickup in the background. Maya Rudolph is fucking great in this movie in a way I never would have guessed from Saturday Night Live. Between this movie, Vicky Christina Barcelona, Six Feet Under, and even Julie & Julia, Chris Messina is becoming one of my favorite supporting actors. He doesn’t have much screen time in this (with the exception of Krasinski and Rudolph, no one really does) but he does a lot with it. Of course the whole cast is pretty much like that. After American Beauty and Revolutionary Road, it’s cool that Sam Mendes made a movie about a married couple that actually likes each other. ORIGINAL REVIEW [IN THEATERS]: God I fucking loved this movie. It suffers from a bit of indie film cliché but I don’t fucking care. I loved it. I loved that the main couple didn’t suffer from any of the normally over-contrived disputes that happen in ever single movie about a couple. I loved Allison Janney, Maggie Gylenhaal, Jim Gaffigan, and Josh Hamilton as some serious annoying people (but annoying in that way that you can immediately relate to jackasses you’ve met before). I loved Paul Schneider, Chris Messina and Melanie Lynsky as more normal characters dealing with their own kinds of pain. I loved Catherine O’Hara and Jeff Daniels. And I fucking loved John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph. At no moment did I have the least bit of trouble accepting them as a couple who actually love each other (a first for a couple in a Sam Mendes film). I loved Sam Mendes for going low-key on this one and not trying to match the epic visuals of his previous films. And more than anything I fucking love the fucking script by Dave Eggers (one of my favorite authors) and Vendela Vida (an author I will start reading soon). To sum up: God I loved this fucking movie.
Persistence of Vision 