El día de la novia

The script, the actors, the production values here are excellent.

There's just one thing that ruins it.

The director. Michael Paul Stephenson decided "I want this to be a slice of life movie", instead of a film noir movie. He could have made this artistic and hilarious, bu the decided instead to screw the entire production over. The guy just totally ruined what could have been a fantastic film.

He's a dickhead. Watch this film and try to imagine it much darker, much more stylized, and like an homage to the 1940s/1950s films of Fred McMurray, Humphrey Bogart. Laurent Bacall and Ingrid Bergman. This could have been so much better. SO much better.

I had no expectations and didn't look into the movie before I watched it. I just put this on, knowing Bob Odenkirk was in it.

I don't really understand why, but it seemed like the plot was intentionally nonsensical and simple. It was a weird mix of very predictable and very confusing. Like a greeting card, perhaps?

I enjoy experimental movies just as well as popular ones, but after watching it, I can't help but feel like it should either have been shorter, or had more content.

What I'm really trying to wrap more nicely than it feels, is that I think the writing felt unfinished. Or perhaps the first sketch after a writer's block. Yeah, that bad. I think the only moral or interesting point brought up in the movie was the quote in the opening scene.

Yet, I still enjoyed Bob's acting, but none of the characters really stood out to me in this one. I guess most notable to me was Natasha Lyonne, playing her usual playful character and Steven Michael Quezada playing his usual dutiful and determined working-class character. Amber Tamblyn had a few interesting moments as well - but it all felt very rushed and underdeveloped.

I'll be very surprised if this will end up rated highly. I think I might even have overrated it.

So, you're still in bed at 1 p.m. composing comments on friends' FaceBook shares, eating the other half of a stevia-sweetened chocolate bar from the night before, and then you move on to Netflix to get further from reality--where you see the face of beloved Bob Odenkirk in a harmless sounding title: "Girlfriends Day". You give it a look-see. You don't turn from it in irritation or boredom--it's holding you with the inscrutable power of untapped human potential. Every character looking at Odenkirk seems to be waiting for "something" to happen. Then his landlord takes action. And then I'm clapping for a brilliant moment, and barking out loud with laughter from my unused vocal chords at another moment. I get comfortable. I know that I, too, like Odenkirk's character, will write again. This film is exquisite.

The pace is very slow. The plot is very thin, and lacks intensity or thrill. It just could have easily been shortened to half the time. The plot is a bit unlikely and contrived.

This was a short fairly low budget picture that got made due to Bob Odenkirk and his name after Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. If we had to see the Los Angeles river flood channel (or whatever they call it) one more time I was going to scream. The city must charge very little to shoot there at it was almost a character. I found a few places to laugh but not enough to recommend this as a comedy. It is an offbeat quirky picture with some nice scenes but nothing more. The one standout performance was Amber Tamblyn as Jill.