Wednesday, August 26, 2009

What Just Happened and Sunshine Cleaning.

What Just Happened is an indie movie from October 2008 about a Hollywood producer (Robert De Niro) who has to deal with a lot of bullshit at his job, and also he's obsessed with his ex-wife. Sunshine Cleaning is an indie movie from March 2009 about two sisters (Amy Adams and Emily Blunt) who are struggling in life until they start up a crime scene cleanup business. What Just Happened is awful and Sunshine Cleaning is pretty good.

What Just Happened is based on a book by producer Art Linson about real life experiences he had producing movies like The Edge, Great Expectations, and others. I read a part of that book and it was REALLY entertaining. Especially because I remembered the movies these behind-the-scenes stories were about, so my interest was pre-established. But this movie (also written by Linson) is complete fiction (about fake movies) loosely BASED on these real stories, and ends up being way uninteresting and boring. I feel like I've seen all this "everyone is dumb except me" shit before, in far better films (I recommend The Pentagon Wars, as well as The TV Set). If this movie had stuck to some of the real events covered in the book, it might've held my interest a lot more.

Sunshine Cleaning comes dangerously close to also just showing me a bunch of shit I've seen before, but it ends up justifying its existence with its rather fresh backdrop of crime scene cleanup and a brilliant cast. The only problem with this movie is that the end comes very abruptly, without wrapping up a lot of what's been set up, mostly involving the Emily Blunt character. This doesn't necessarily ruin the movie. I just thought it was an odd choice.

Both these movies might one day be found at Blockbuster under the "Indie movie where a bunch of shit happens and then it just ends" section. But if you ever find yourself in that section, only rent Sunshine Cleaning.