This film has been super high on my most anticipated list since I learnt about it.

Ned (Paul Rudd) lives a happy life growing organic vegetables on a farm with his hippie girlfriend (Kathryn Hahn) and his dog named Willie Nelson, until an unadvised incident with marijuana at a farmer’s market lands him in jail.  When he gets out of jail, he is forced to live with his sisters Liz (Emily Mortimer), Natalie (Zooey Deschanel) and Miranda (Elizabeth Banks).

Look at that cast.  You add in Rashida Jones, Adam Scott, Steve Coogan, and T.J. Miller and this film basically becomes one of my wet dreams.

So again, it’s an indie comedy, something that’s right up my alley, and it features a group containing some of my favourite actors and actresses.

Beyond that it’s simply a funny and somewhat touching story about a likeable good-natured guy with three messed up, self-absorbed sisters, who he’s able to positively affect when he stays with them against their wishes.  Not much more to it than that.

It’s hard to put into words why I like Cedar Rapids so much.  It’s a pretty quiet, understated, indie comedy featuring comedic juggernauts Ed Helms and John C. Reilly.

The film tells the story of Tim Lippe (Ed Helms), an insurance salesman who goes to a convention in Cedar Rapids in place of the office star (Thomas Lennon) after he dies.  There he meets fellow salesmen/women Dean Ziegler (John C. Reilly), Ronald Wilkes (Isiah Whitlock Jr) and Joan Ostrowski-Fox (Anne Heche).

In essence I guess the film is a fish out of water story, but a description of that nature doesn’t really seem to do the film justice.

Cedar Rapids is interspersed with these quiet romantic moments between Tim and Joan, and for me they are the highlight of the film.  That’s not to say the rest of it isn’t wonderful, I just found these scenes to be a distinct change of pace for a comedy.  The highlight is the pool scene with Tim, Dean and Joan.  There’s a moment in there which is shot in such a beautiful way I find myself waiting for it every time I watch the film.

Not much more to say other than watch this film.  It’s all kinds of awesome.

I remember being excited about Everything Must Go before I left for NYC in June this year because I liked the idea of Will Ferrell once again playing a more understated character.  I thought he was really good in Stranger Than Fiction, and was looking forward to him once again delivering a more low key comedic performance.

You can probably imagine by delight when I stumbled upon the Brooklyn Heights Cinema on Henry Street and discovered they were playing Everything Must Go.  I came back later that afternoon and headed into their small, but air conditioned, theater to watch the film.

The film tells the story of Nick Halsey (Will Ferrell), a guy who loses his job due to a drinking problem and subsequently has his wife leave him.  Nick decides to hold a yard sale to sell all his belongings in an attempt to start over and have some sort of catharsis.

It’s kind of hard to put into words why I like Everything Must Go so much.  There aren’t any real laugh out loud moments, Nick doesn’t reconcile with his wife, and he doesn’t find a new love interest.  The film is pretty simple actually, but it has a feel to it that all good films do.  Something you can’t really quantify or explain, but something that leaves you feeling uplifted and comforted.

I recognise that some of my fondness for Everything Must Go is almost certainly because I saw it whilst on vacation in NYC, arguably my favourite place in the entire world, but the film is well made and actually quite impressive to look at.  My memory of the film is that a good deal of it is shot in the magic hour, so it’s no wonder there are a bunch of beautiful shots.

On the actor/actress side of things, the film also stars Rebecca Hall and Michael Peña, and they both do as good a job as you would expect.  Christopher Jordan Wallace plays the kid who helps out Ferrell’s character and he also gives a good performance.

I will say that the trailer makes the film look a lot lighter than it actually is.  That’s not to say it’s especially dark or brooding, but it’s not as light and fluffy as you might be led to believe.

I’m so damn excited to see this film I can’t even put it into words.

I’ve always disliked Woody Allen films.  Well, the ones that I’ve attempted to watch.  It turns out I just dislike Woody Allen as an actor and actually seem to like his films if he’s not in them.

I’m not sure what made me sit down and watch Midnight in Paris but I’m extremely glad that I did.

Owen Wilson plays Gil, a Hollywood writer who freeloads a trip to Paris with his potential in-laws in the hope that the romance and magic of the city will spark something creative in him and he can be done with writing generic films.  After trying to avoid a night with Paul, a pretentious douchebag played wonderfully by Martin Sheen, Gil is miraculously transported to 1920s Paris and encounters such historical figures as F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda, Ernest Hemingway, Cole Porter, Picasso, Salvador Dali, T.S. Eliot and more.

The film is very romantic and atmospheric, and does a great job tapping into the feeling that I think everyone has, that the past was somehow better than the now.  I don’t think I was born in the wrong time, but I often think I’d of preferred to be my age now in the 70s or 80s.  I think there’s a tendency to look at the world around you and see it as mundane, but to view the past through rose tinted glasses.  And that’s what Gil does, as well as Adriana (played by Marion Cotillard), when in actuality there isn’t anything that wrong with the present.

The other thing which struck me about Midnight in Paris is that it’s Owen Wilson’s first good film and performance since The Darjeeling Limited came out in 2007.  Before that, Wilson’s best effort was The Life Aquatic in 2004.  It seems he’s only in a good film every 3-4 years, or when he teams up with a decent director.

After watching Midnight in Paris I would ordinarily be excited for Allen’s next film, Nero Fiddled, which is due in 2012, but it unfortunately features Allen himself.