Movie: New Years Eve (2011)

As this will be my last post on this blog for 2011 I thought I'd write something about the appropriately titled movie New Years Eve which I saw at the cinema yesterday.

As always this won't be a review but more a commentary of my thoughts. If you haven't seen this film and don't like potentially having the film spoiled then stop reading now - come back when you've seen it. Though having said that, there are no major spoilers below.

The movie is pretty much a formula ensemble piece of intertwined 'relationship' stories. For me the best of this kind of film is Love Actually (mostly for Bill Nighy's performance).

In the case of New Year's Eve the entire story happens over the course of the day leading up to the New Year and is focused around events linked to the New York City, Time Square, Ball Drop (a world famous New Years event but somewhat over rated unless you're actually at Time Square I suspect).

Ensemble films with plenty of big stars (and this one is filled with them - even in cameo roles) is always hit and miss as to whether it's going to work. At best, usually one or two of the sub stories will pan out and be really interesting whilst the rest will be mostly 'meh'.

New Year's Eve is kind of like that. You may connect with some of the stories but others probably not so much. Though, to the film's credit, it did keep me guessing as to who the mystery girl meeting up with Sam (Josh Duhamel) would be out of the women from several of the other stories.

Generally why I like this kind of film is not for the deep and meaningful stories - which usually aren't that deep - but for the light humor sprinkled throughout all (or at least most of) the stories. There are some really funny moments between Katherine Heigl and Sofía Vergara whose characters are catering the Time Square event. The two couples competing to have the first New Years baby makes for some good humor too. There's also a great scene between John Lithgow (surprisingly uncredited) and Michelle Pfeiffer, where John plays her self centered boss.

One other reason to like this kind of film is seeing how all the stories are linked. It's not obvious straight away but, over the course of the film, each story does become a little more linked to one or more of the others going on. The only problem I had with this in New Year's Eve was that it felt like the people in the stories that had a link didn't really know anything about the other characters in those stories.

For example, though we find out Sarah Jessica Parker's character is Zac Efron's character's older sister, you get no sense that she knows anything about Zac's best friend, played by Ashton Kutcher who's in another story of his own.

I did appreciate the bloopers played through the end credits, though this film does suffer from having some of the best moments in the bloopers - which is always a risk when showing bloopers.

I'm glad I saw this movie on 'budget Tuesday'. It's not a bad film - certainly not as bad as many reviewers have said - just don't go in expecting it to be anything more than very light entertainment.

Comments

Movie Review: Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024) No Spoilers

T his is another film that I would have liked to have seen in a theatre but, for whatever reason, didn't get to. Having now seen Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024) almost a year later I'm glad I didn't. Which is not to say it's bad. Like its predecessor Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), which I enjoyed in a cinema immensely, this film would definitely benefit from being on a big screen for the spectacle and epic visuals of it all. However unlike its predecessor there is so much going on, with back and forth between the waring parties, and Furiosa's story as well, you can't just sit back and kind of enjoy the ride. It's like writer/director, George Miller, wanted to cram in as many of his ideas as possible for the post apocalyptic world of Mad Max, because it's not likely he'll make another one, but whoever does, has a rich, detailed world of on screen source material to draw upon. The story begins with young Furiosa (Alyla Browne) and her journey from the ...

I'm Confused About Why People Prefer to Say Discombobulated?

D iscombobulated. Is a word that I think someone rediscovered about three or four years ago (maybe more because the pandemic years have thrown out my sense of time) and now I hear it a lot. It's not a new word by any means, but when I started hearing multiple celebrities using it in everyday sentences, I actively had to look up what it meant. Define it with as many synonyms as you like but essentially it's just another word meaning 'confused'. Seinfeld Quotes: Quotes.net The words are pretty much interchangeable. He was discombobulated by too many choices. He was confused by too many choices. My confusion is the length of the word. It's unnecessarily long with too many syllables. There are many other words that mean confused, and therefore also mean discombobulated. Most of them are shorter and easier to say. So why not just say 'confused'? Perhaps discombobulated sounds more intelligent, maybe? Hawaii Five-0 Quotes: Quotes.net I've noticed it gets us...

Second Sunday Skateboard Session Episode 3, 4, and 5 - Definitely Seeing Progress

TET, Episode 5 Heelflip attempt. C ontinuing my ten part series of Second Sunday Skateboard sessions , the series where I'm attempting to master all seven basic skateboarding tricks in Braille Skateboarding's Skateboarding Made Simple Volume One , over twenty weeks (or ten fortnights). Each episode is a short Sunday check in to show where I'm at after each two week period of practicing. Generally I aim for at least an hour practice session every second day if weather or my work schedule permits. These are the links to Episode One and Episode Two should you feel the need to see where I started. I'm not a complete newbie, having been a relatively hardcore skater through the late eighties and early nineties, however I was mostly a mini ramp and curb skater, and never really maintained my skills beyond riding and ollies. The explosion of council built concrete parks came a decade too late for me to maintain my mini ramp skills. Once we closed our own skate park in ...

Boom Crash Opera Born Classic But Not Again

Boom Crash Opera are an Australian Band that reached the peak of their popularity in the mid to late nineteen eighties. They are a band that I knew about at that time but was never really excited by until they released their ill fated double album Born and Born Again in 1995 (Album cover pictured). At the time of its release I was very much into emerging Australian musical acts and was also looking out for new sounds that were different and had kind of a futuristic/electronic sound. Artists that I was buying at the time included; Swoop , Nine Inch Nails and Pop Will Eat Its Self . As well as a really interesting release by David Bowie, the concept album, Outside . Born was a fairly radical departure for Boom Crash Opera (BCO). The first single, Gimme , was often compared to the sounds of Gary Glitter, particularly his single, Rock n Roll part 2 , because of the pounding drum loops. Watch the video below. My favorite single from the album is dissemble which probably went now...

Australian Federal Election 2025 - World's Most Boring Government Re-elected by Landside - We're Even More Fine!

Anthony Albanese Victory by ChatGPT and TET. W hen I started writing about the 2025 Federal election the polls were suggesting the world's most boring government was crusing to a defeat . As it turns out, boring is good, and Australia wants more of it, handing the current government a landslide win with a majority vote. Anthony Albanese became the first PM since John Howard to win a consecutive term, and the first Labor PM since Bob Hawke to do so. Some of that comes down to the leadership revolving door both major parties had through the mid 2000s. Although Anthony is my preferred PM over Dutton the irony is Dutton sounds more like a leader with a fairly commanding voice and an ability to speak well, without sounding like he's waffling and dodging questions, even if he is. Anthony, on the other hand, does have the ability (and speech writer) to say a lot of inspiring things but it gets lost in the delivery. He doesn't seem to know when to emphasise a point for effect. In h...

Australian Federal Election 2025 - The Australian Democrats (Please Like Us Again) and The Greens

Image: Reve AI T here's not much to be said about the current Australian Democrats other than in 2025 Australian election, in May, they'll be out there hoping they win a seat... any seat... 'please like us again!' The Australian Democrats For just over two decades, from the late seventies onward, the Australian Democrats were the third most important party in the Federal government (if you don't count the National party since they've been on that coalition ticket with the Liberals for as long as I can remember). In fact, once I moved away from the Labor party, they were my top pick until the party slowly imploded in the early 2000's from a series of unfortunate events like leaders defecting to other parties, and a highly publicised incident of drunkenness, bullying, and abuse from a male party leader to a female colleague. It's been two decades since then (and that guy's with the Greens now)... please like us again! That aside, the party is still t...

Australian Federal Election 2025 - Highlighting Some Minor Parties and Independents

W hile I am all for voting for minor parties and independent candidates, it can be concerning if too many of them win their seats. When independents hold the balance of power it gives them a lot of leverage to get their own policy ideas inserted into the mix. This is not necessarily a good or bad thing but it can slow everything down, and even sabotage policies and promises, that the government won the election with. It requires the government to work harder, and possibly make compromises, to get their policies implemented. Essentially they do what Australian pollical legend, and founder of The Australian Democrats, Senator Don Chipp, expounded in such simple terms, "keep the bastards honest." While I can't list and write about every independent and minor party candidate I can highlight a few, who already hold seats in parliament, and will no doubt be looking to hold onto them in 2025. The Conservatives Bob Katter - Katter's Australian Party There's a joke in the ...

TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

Search This Blog