Cineast Movie Previews: 'Best Night Ever,' 'That Awkward Moment,' 'Tim's Vermeer'
In the mood for a movie? Consider this week’s Cineast Movie Previews.
Best Night Ever
The PR firm that’s responsible for making sure that Las Vegas retains its reputation as the raunchiest city in the U.S. continues to draw a paycheck. In what has to be one of the most blatant copycat screenplays to be produced, Best Night Ever recounts the adventures of four young women who go to Las Vegas for a bachelorette weekend. Even indifferent moviegoers will recall that this is basically the story of all of the Hangover films, only with the gender of the leads changed. This storyline got thin enough that, by the third Hangover film, Las Vegas itself became sort of a bit player—it was as if the filmmakers realized that sleazy scenery and rampant lewdness, courtesy of Sin City, had been done to death. The makers of Best Movie Ever must be hoping that changing it into a girl’s film will pump life back into a stale genre. Good luck!
That Awkward Moment
Time was, the number one thing many young guys wanted was to appear cool to the opposite sex. That a young man’s ideas of what would make him cool—reading Camus, listening to Miles Davis records, wearing a hat—were actually pathetic and awkward would have been unthinkable to him: awkward was the opposite of cool, and the last thing he would want would be to appear awkward. And the last thing he would envision for himself, once he attracted a female with his irresistible cool, would be to experience any awkward moments with said female. Properly exerted, his cool would smooth over any and all awkwardness. That’s how it was in the movies, after all. Well, all of that has changed, if the film That Awkward Moment is to be trusted. The new ideal is to revel in romantic clumsiness, to flaunt your inner geek, and to wear awkwardness like a badge of honor. Why young couples would invite the discomforts of awkwardness is hard for us veterans of the cool approach to fathom. And I’ve got to wonder who’s going to buy all of those Camus books and Miles Davis records.
Tim’s Vermeer
Tim’s Vermeer, which was screened during the 2013 Hamptons International Film Festival, follows Texas-based inventor Tim Jenison as he tries to explain how the great Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer was able to paint so realistically. The Dutch pioneered not only painting but also the production of lenses, and it’s known that many Dutch painters used a variety of means to project images onto canvases in order to make preliminary sketches—but that doesn’t explain how a painter like Vermeer could capture light and shadow with photographic precision. Perhaps Tim’s Vermeer has the answer.