96 - What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

Connection To STEP BROTHERS - John C. Reilly and Mary Steenburgen.

So what is eating Gilbert Grape? A lot really... a dangerously obese mother who hasn't left the house in years, a brother with severe learning difficulties (who is about to turn 18 and wasn't expected to live past 10) and stuck as the "responsible" one in his family in a dead end town.

I should flashback a bit to when I first saw this, in my teen years while I was still at school, before seeing this I used to make jokes about a friends overweight mother - while his mother wasn't as heavy was the mother here - I guess the film told me not just people on their size, so there you go ladies and gentlemen films can make a difference.

How would I rate Gilbert Grape though? Well to me it's a well made films with some great characters but perhaps tries a little bit hard at times to pour it on and can be a bit obvious when trying to get you to feel the emotion it wants.

I'll talk about the two performances first that most people will take from this movie, firstly Leonardo DiCaprio as Gilbert's young brother Arnie - the aforementioned brother steals focus anytime he is on screen and proving you can go full retard (Tropic Thunder reference if you didn't know) if the performance is this good, he captures what Gilbert does say early in the film in his narration in "that some days you want to kill him" - giving you a really good overall feeling about what it would be like if you was caring for Arnie.

The other performance is Darlene Cates as the mother, who really was housebound for years and I think it was a talk show appearence that caught the eye of director Lasse Hallstrom in casting her, as a non-actor she does really well, to be a couple of her lines reading her awkward - but Hallstrom, whoever should have been the ones ironing them out - the films best emotional moment for me was when Arnie gets arrested for climbing the water tower one to many times and she lives the house for the first time.

The rest of the cast are pretty cool, Juliette Lewis perhaps gets the most underwritten character but works great with what she's got, John C. Reilly whose obsessed with a burger franchise coming to town and Crispin Glover as a mortuary assistant (perfect casting) are good as Gilbert's friends. Johnny Depp does carry the movie though, he is our avatar and don't think the movie would work quite as well.

Overall a very good film, that's it's main weaknesses might only bother me but this is little with a great cast who are all endlessly watchable.

90 - Hot Tub Time Machine

Connection To ZACK AND MIRI MAKE A PORNO - Craig Robinson

I'm a sucker for time travels movies - whether there going backwards or forwards - I like The Butterfly Effect, despite some wonky acting from Ashton Kutcher - but for some reason the first time I watched Hot Tub Time Machine it did nothing for me.

Which is weird because another thing I'm a sucker for his the 80's - which is the exact time period they go back to. So I ended up watching this again, just out of everything's packed away and there is nothing else on the television, and I wouldn't go as far to say my opinion changed to love, but I ended up liking it.

The film literally sees our main characters go through time via a hot tub to the 80's which is when the ski-resort there are at now was booming - John Cusack, Craig Robinson and Rob Corddry even look like there 80's self to other people, the fourth member of the group played by Clark Duke who's Cusack's nephew in this gets to look like himself having not been born then.

To be honest it does shock me even after upgrading to like that this film is getting a sequel, it feels like the films story was told and there is no need for a further adventure in my opinion.

The main 4 do make a good team and there's some faces familiar to 80's movies fans (William Zabka, Crispin Glover, Chevy Chase - yeah I'm aware these had careers before and after that decade). Lizzy Caplan as the love interest for Cusack doesn't particularly have that much to do.

Overall, not my favourite time travel movie at all, there's bits that are at least funny and more stuff clicked for me the second time I saw. Watch like I did if there is nothing else on.