#yearoftucci

Swing Vote is based on the premise of 1 vote literally deciding the presidential election, and Kevin Costner as Bud is responsible for casting it. Bud is an alcoholic who relies on his 8 year old daughter, Molly, to take care of him and feels entitled to a job he constantly misses due to his drinking. Stanley Tucci plays the campaign manager for the incumbent Republican president played by Kelsey Grammer. The other candidate is Bernie Sanders as played by Dennis Hopper. The character’s name wasn’t actually Bernie Sanders, but it may as well have been.

I have two main issues with the movie

In a year when a black man not only ran for president but won, the two candidates in Swing Vote are both white men.

It’s trying to pass off the relationship between Bud and Molly as cute, when it’s actually child abuse. As Nathan Rabin writes of the movie:

“But if Bud’s drunkenness never feels convincing or real, the harm he’s causing his daughter registers far too strongly for Bud to be as likable as he’s meant to be.”

Nathan Rabin’s piece for My World of Flops on the AV Club in general sums up how I feel about the movie and is much better written than I can hope to do, so please check it out.

Grade: C-

Also, in case someone besides JB is reading this, go out and VOTE!

I went to read the Wikipedia page for this film and it had basically written my review for me:

 I have only a couple other comments

I have no sense of humor when it comes to suicide so when the movie depicted two throwaway attempts, it pretty much lost me. 

There’s also a scene where it looks like one of the characters is being raped in the background? And it’s not even a plot device, just background? My copy was fuzzy so I hope I’m wrong about this.

Stanley Tucci is easily the best part of this movie.

Grade: F

Robots is a movie about a young inventor, Rodney Copperbottom, who goes to the big city to try and make a difference and ends up fighting the new new profit-focused management. Stanley Tucci voices Rodney’s dad Herb Copperbottom, who works as a dishwasher and encourages his son to pursue his dreams.

Robots is adorable and a fun movie, just don’t ask too many questions. What do robots eat? Why do robots go through childhood and adolescence? Why do robots have gender and also appear to have a patriarchy?

If you can get past those questions (and I can) it’s an enjoyable movie about a kid chasing their dreams that also makes some critiques of capitalism. Stanley Tucci once again demonstrates #lifegoals by playing a wonderful father, just as he portrayed a wonderful husband in Julie and Julia.

Grade: A-

This movie is about a woman who cooked all of the recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year and wrote a blog about it. Who would do a silly thing like that? It also includes the story of how Mastering the Art of French Cooking was written featuring Meryl Streep as Julia Child and Stanley Tucci as Paul Child (Julia’s husband).

I would prefer this movie it was just the Julia sections. Can someone please make a Julia Child Biopic with Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci reprising their roles? They were both so wonderful and portrayed a relationship I strive to have. The Julie portions were just pretty blah. No shade to Amy Adams.

Grade: A-