My Old Ass

2024 Amazon MGM Studios

Rated: R

Length: 1 hr 29min

Comedy ~ Drama

Starring: Maisy Stella, Percy Hynes White, Maddie Ziegler, Kerrice Brooks, and Aubrey Plaza.

“If you weren’t young and dumb you wouldn’t be brave enough to do anything.”

Maisy Stella stars as Elliot who is about to turn eighteen. She has decided to go camping with her two best girlfriends Ruthie (Maddie Ziegler) and Ro (Kerrice Brooks) on an island in the lake near where they live. Ro has acquired some mushrooms for the celebration and they head out on Elliot’s small boat to the island. They set up their tents and build a fire, and when the sun sets they brew tea with the mushrooms. They ingest the brew and Ro and Ruthie start to hallucinate from the mushroom tea. Ruthie passes out and Ro starts dancing into the forest completely in her own world. Elliot starts getting upset that the tea isn’t working for her and she is not getting high when all of a sudden………

An older woman (Aubrey Plaza) is sitting next to her on the log, toasting a marshmallow on a stick over the campfire. Completely surprised Elliot screams out, “Who the f*ck are you?”. The older woman explains to Elliot that she is indeed high, that the mushrooms have worked and she is hallucinating. ‘Dude….I’m you….the 39 year old version of you.” After telling Elliot some personal things about herself that nobody else could possibly know, Elliot realizes that she is indeed high and talking to her older self from the future. Elliot at first is terrified but then gets excited at the opportunity to talk to her older self and asks lots of questions. Her older self gives her some advice on living in the moment and enjoying these last three weeks with her family before she heads off to college. And warns her to beware of “Chad”.

The next morning Elliot thinks it was just a hallucination from the mushroom tea, and they all head back home in Elliot’s boat. A couple of days later Elliot takes a break from working in her family’s Cranberry bog and goes down to the pond to take a quick skinny dip. As she is enjoying the water “Chad” (Percy Hynes White) pops out of the water and surprises her. Chad explains that he has been hired by his parents for the summer to help with the Cranberry farm. Freaking out at meeting the “Chad” that her older self in her hallucination told her to avoid, she immediately leaves and wonders how she could possibly talk to her older self again.

Later in the day as she is on the boat in the middle of the lake chilling, she starts looking through her contact list on her phone and sees a new contact…..”MY OLD ASS”. Freaking out she texts the number and is shocked when her older self texts back. She again warns Elliot to stay away from Chad and Elliot does her best to avoid him. Over the next couple of weeks she takes older Elliot’s advice and spends more time with her family. Enjoying every moment as if it were her last before she leaves for school. She takes her advice on working on herself to become a better Elliot, but falls short on the advice to avoid Chad at all costs. She keeps running into him everywhere and finds herself, in spite of the warning, developing strong feelings for Chad.

It is a hilarious heart warming coming of age drama centered on the eighteen year old Elliot and her older self. In spite of all the wisdom her older self gives her, in the end it is Elliot who has advice for her older self. “If you weren’t young and dumb you wouldn’t be brave enough to do anything.” I liked it, thought it was good. It kept me involved. I really liked Maisy Stella and Aubrey Plaza as Elliot, and Percy Hynes White was very likable as Chad(as Elliot can attest).

I don’t think I would watch it again but it was definitely worth watching.

So maybe we’ll refer to that as a “One-off”.

Two thumbs up with a one-off rating.

Emily The Criminal

2022 Roadside Attractions

Rated: R

Length: 1hr 37 min

Crime ~ Drama ~ Mystery ~ Thriller

Directed by: John Patton Ford

Starring: Aubrey Plaza, Theo Rossi, Megalyn Echikunwoke, and Gina Gershon.

“Motherf**kers will just keep taking from you and taking from you until you make the God damn rules yourself. That’s what this is about.”

Aubrey Plaza stars as Emily Benetto, an independent contractor living in Los Angeles delivering for a catering company. She is renting a room in a couple’s house and struggling financially with tens of thousands in student debt. She is trying to lift herself up and find a better job, but is encumbered with an assault conviction and a criminal record thanks to an abusive ex-boyfriend, and is having no luck. Her co-worker Javier turns her on to a side gig where she can make $200 an hour.

Desperate she calls the number and the next day goes to the address they gave her. She meets Youcef (Theo Rossi), who explains that it’s a credit card fraud ring who uses people to perpetrate the fraud purchase in exchange for a hefty fee. Emily hesitates but then, being desperate for some hope of financially getting out of the hole she’s in, agrees and goes to a big box store where she purchases a $2,000 Big Screen Tv with the fake credit card. She then exchanges the tv with the fraud group and gets an envelope with $200 cash inside.

Seems easy enough and Emily digs in deeper for more. Going after bigger and more profitable fraud purchases. Eventually Youcef takes a liking to her, and her eagerness to learn, and sets her up so she can operate on her own. He makes her promise not to visit any one store more than once a week, and if she makes more than $5,000 he gets a cut. She starts having success on her own and gets braver as the money rolls in. But it also exposes her to the unsavory characters in the criminal world and her life gets more dangerous.

Emily’s downward spiral into the criminal world, or her success at achieving financial independence depending on how you look at it, happens at a rapid pace. Emily gets more brazen and ruthless the more dangerous the journey becomes until she is forced to be the victim or the aggressor. After liking Aubrey Plaza last night in Operation Fortune: Ruse De Guerre , I wanted to see more of her and saw she was in this. I am glad I watched it, thought she did an excellent job of portraying Emily and she is now one of my new favorites.

There is an Emily The Criminal TV series in the works being executive produced by Aubrey but she will not star in it.

I thought it was good and definitely recommend it.

Two Thumbs Up!

Operation Fortune: Ruse De Guerre

2023 Lionsgate

Rated: R

Length: 1hr 54 min

Action ~ Comedy ~ Thriller

Directed by: Guy Ritchie

Starring: Jason Statham, Aubrey Plaza, Josh Hartnett, Cary Elwes, Bugzy Malone and Hugh Grant.

“Our secure facility in Johannesburg was ambushed and some well guarded cargo is missing. I need you to retrieve it, find out who the seller is, who the buyer is and what it is. I need this to be an unorthodox mission, Ruse De Guerre, led by your main man Orson Fortune.”

Nathan Jasmine (Cary Elwes), a private spy contractor, is hired by the British Government to retrieve stolen merchandise known only as “The Handle”. He assembles a team led by his main spy Orson Fortune (Jason Statham), Sarah Fidel (Aubrey Plaza), newly acquired from Nathan’s competition and JJ Davies(Bugzy Malone). The team flies to Madrid to intercept the courier carrying a hard drive with the data from “The Handle”.

They quickly realize that there is another contractor’s team led by Mike, Nathan’s competition in the spy business, after the same courier. They manage to get the drive and copy the contents, before Mike gets the hard drive from them, and discovers that the arms dealer Greg Simmonds (Hugh Grant) has “The Handle” and plans to auction it off to the highest bidder.

Sarah is an expert hacker and digs up dirt on Greg Simmonds’ favorite actor, Danny Francesco (Josh Hartnett) and blackmails him into going to a fundraiser hosted by Greg aboard his yacht in Cannes France. Sarah poses as Danny’s girlfriend and Orson as his Manager in a ruse to get closer to Gregg to ascertain the whereabouts of “The Handle” and who the buyers are.

Which is where the action really starts. It is the same spy story plot of, bad guy stole the goods and unless we get it back the world is in peril, retrieve at whatever cost. There is lots of action, fighting, killing, guns, knives, missiles, car chases, helicopters and backstabbing amongst everyone trying to get their hands on “The Handle”. There is a lot of witty banter between Jason Statham and Aubrey Plaza, Jason and Bugsy Malone, Josh Hartnett and Hugh Grant.

I really like Hugh Grant in this role, similar to his role in The Gentlemen, another Guy Ritchie Movie. Bugzy Malone was in that as well, have to re-watch that. It also reminds me of another guy Ritchie movie, The Man From U.N.C.L.E, another good spy caper film I really like. I like Aubrey Plaza in this, thought she and Jason had good chemistry. I’m not familiar with her but see that she is in Emily The Criminal. Have to watch that one tonight! And I am a big Jason Statham fan, he can’t hardly do any wrong as far as I am concerned.

Clichéd story but with a twist. I liked it.

Good Clean Fun, this one.

Two Thumbs Up!