Tag Archives: Aubrey Plaza

Movie Review: Honey Don’t

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It is not often that a bad movie is released that is directed or written by either Joel or Ethan Coen. Unfortunately, this is the case with the new and very strange film “Honey Don’t”. This movie has three major stars, Margaret Qualley, Aubrey Plaza, and Chris Evans, who probably all took their roles only for the opportunity to work with the Coen brothers, regardless of the quality of the story or screenplay.

The erratic, haphazard story of the strangely titled Honey Don’t is about a private investigator Honey O’Donahue, played by Qualley, who investigates a series of murders in the depressing town of Bakersfield, California ( this movie was shot in Albuquerque, New Mexico). As she investigates the different murders, while visiting a series of broken-down locations and homes, even more killings occur, some of them extremely violent, where most of the killings seem to be excuses to keep the audience from dozing off, as most of this movie is very boring.

I was surprised someone as talented and funny as Aubrey Plaza took this role as a police officer, as there are several shockingly raunchy scenes with Margaret Qualley and an extremely violent scene with Qualley later in the movie. What were these two up-and-coming actors thinking, taking bad roles in a bad movie with horrific scenes like these?

Chris Evans plays a local, perverted evangelist, Reverend Drew Devlin, in a role he will likely regret later in his career. The problem with clout in Hollywood is that a famous and respected director or writer can create a bad project and still attract named actors. The worst example of this is last year’s disaster, “Megalopolis”, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, who spent 124 million dollars of his own money to make one of the worst movies ever produced.

This movie is categorized as a dark comedy, which is used as an excuse for some of the insane and disturbing scenes. There is nothing funny here, within a film that really has no plot and no reason for existing. I agree with the very low ratings of 47% on Rotten Tomatoes and do not recommend this movie.

Movie Review: My Old Ass

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As a screenwriter, coming up with a new idea can sometimes seem impossible. This is why off-the-wall ideas can be the only way to break new ground with a premise that has never been done before.

In the new movie “My Old Ass”, a group of teenagers get high on mushrooms at night while camping, and Elliot, a teenage girl played by Maisy Stella, suddenly finds herself sitting next to her older self, “older Elliot”, played by Aubrey Plaza. What is even more crazy is that this older version of Elliot does not leave once the effect of the mushrooms wears off. Older Elliot visits Elliot several times, and even calls her on her cell phone. The entire reason for this idea is to create an environment that answers the question, “what would you do, if you could talk to your future self when you are young”? What would happen if you could ask questions of your older self? Would these questions alter the direction you take in life? This highly unusual premise creates a profound message, that is only possible because of the risk taken with this screenplay.

This film is the second writing and directing credit for Megan Park, her first being the movie “The Fallout” about the aftermath of a shooting at a high school, released in 2021. The acting throughout this movie is good, with Aubrey Plaza in a rare mostly serious role.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings are a very high 92% with my rating a solid 85% and a recommendation, mainly for the acting and the profound message at the end.


Movie Review: Operation Fortune: Ruse De Guerre

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The new film “Operation Fortune” is another one of those, “time and money have been spent developing a new script and story idea”. This time the script was written by director Guy Ritchie and two other screenwriters”. After over a year of trying to fix a bad screenplay and money lost developing a bad idea, we have to find a way to recoup our losses. The only way once again is to get named actors to take lead roles in a bad movie, to try and save the box office. This time around, the actors are, Jason Statham, Hugh Grant, Aubrey Plaza, Cary Elwes, and even Josh Hartnett, who has had almost no movie career for many years. There is some very good logic to this strategy because there are definitely fans of Statham and Plaza (including me) who are curious and just might drop about 10 or 11 dollars on something that we know in advance is going to be pretty bad. This movie is in fact, pretty bad.

Starting with the story, which is all over the place, plays like a Bond knockoff, and worse, makes no sense. This film is just one scene, to another location, to another action scene, to another venue in a new country with no explanation or logic anywhere. What the hell is going on now, is the thinking any viewer would have while sitting through these depressing two hours.

Aubrey Plaza is funny in a few scenes, there are some typical Statham karate scenes, but not nearly enough.

This time around, the Rotten Tomatoes’ low ratings of about 54% are accurate and this one should be missed by everybody. The good news is that this movie will be out of most theaters in about a week.