No, no, no

Irresistible interchangeable-titles double feature

Amy

Crit

I think you know that I like a good vampire movie, but the bloodsucking in this one is so unrelenting and so brutal and comes from so many directions as to be nearly unwatchable.

Fact is, long before I knew Amy Winehouse as an astonishingly talented singer bringing a blues sensibility to 21st-century pop, I knew her as a world-class drugs-and-booze fuckup, and I felt perfectly justified in dismissing her as a joke. Thought experiment: had she been as untalented as I long assumed, would she have been a joke then? 

So among the many good films this is (e.g., a forceful demonstration that I am not and have never been the world's worst father; confirmation that unimagined and essentially unwanted fame is even more toxic than the kind actively sought), it is about stone casting, and not just about the enablers thereof. 

Thanks to Jon Kaufman, btw, for including "You Know I'm No Good" on his annual mix CD however many Decembers ago that was (2007!), thereby inspiring me while Winehouse was still alive to get Back to Black, which anyone who doesn't have should buy right now.

Trainwreck

Crit

Preliminary note: the young couple in front of me seems to have decided that coming to the film loaded (at 2 in the afternoon; I'm thinking herbal rather than distilled) would enhance their viewing experience. I wonder will it enhance mine? 

Anthony Lane was disappointed in this, essentially because it isn't Young Adult, but hey, what is? And frankly, would we be happier with the titular Amy (Amy Schumer, who wrote and is, as the previously untutored world and I are discovering, absolutely hilarious, and if you don't believe me, watch this and this) not ending up with the love she deserves only to the degree that we all do (another worthwhile text re this theme here). I'll buy that Amy doesn't exactly earn her happy ending to the extent that, say, a Scrooge or a Phil Connors does, but Schumer earns my tears via my laughter, and that's always a fair exchange for me. Oh, and hey, LeBron? Seriously? Best acting by a jock since . . . since . . . somebody help me out here. And don't give me Kareem in Airplane!: Kareem was funny as a jock pretending to be a navigator, but he never pretended to be an actor. LeBron is flat-out a brilliant comic actor.

Follow-up to preliminary note: pretty much a nonfactor, as the crowd was laughing loud enough to drown them out, except when the guy did what he thought was a comic faux-sob at a critical emotional juncture. Oh, and I'm glad he remembered to come back and get the bag he left behind.

Trailers

• Diary of a Teenage Girl--Looks provocative and quite possibly good.
• Sisters--Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, OK?
• Scouts [sic] Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse--Rotten Tomatoes is calling this Scouts vs. Zombies, making it  tricky to find. Looks unlikely.