January 2019 – Page 2

3SMReviews: You should totally watch this. Volume II

Movies I watched in 2018 that were just so good I think you should watch them too. Today’s theme: funny, romantic, and romantically funny

Romantic Comedy Renaissance

Oh my goodness, it’s like the Hollywood execs looked at their spreadsheet of excess and said, “Whoa, Nelly! We’ve been pumping out superhero films like there’s a big comet headed toward the earth and only a superhero movie can save us! But where is the love?”

They seem to have said that a year ago because this summer was the summer of romantic comedies for me. And they were so good! Here are the standouts.

3SMReviews: You should totally watch this. Volume II — To All the Boy’s I’ve Loved Before

Just getting started. To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. Lana Condor’s unsent love letters are mailed, and she gets a fake boyfriend out of the deal.

Young career women. Zoe Deutch is an assistant who cooks up a matchmaking scheme with Glen Powell in Set it Up. Gillian Jacobs is on a business trip to Spain in Ibiza and Jessica Williams is a marvel in The Incredible Jessica James.

What else do these three movies have in common? Two of them follow the new romantic comedy formula that provides romance, but is just as focused on the woman staying true to herself.

A more mature romance. Rose Byrne confronts her relationship at midlife in Juliet, Naked. Maybe her boyfriend’s (Chris O’Dowd) obsession with recluse musician Tucker Crowe is going to be the thing that breaks them up. Or maybe Tucker Crowe (Ethan Hawke) is.

Sanaa Lathan is a successful career woman who’s got everything under control in Nappily Ever After. Until Everything falls apart.

Couples Walking and Talking

The Before Sunrise trilogy set the bar high, and these two films are worthy entries into the genre.

In Blue Jay, Sarah Paulson and Mark Duplass’ chance meeting in their hometown leads to a night of remembering their high school relationship.

Alice Eve and Chris Evans meet by chance and spend an evening walking around New York City, trying figure a way to get out of a conundrum in Before We Go.

I could not stop laughing, it was so funny

Really great comedies are cathartic and I recommend them for Friday nights. All that laughter wipes away the work week and makes you lighter for the weekend. Here were three that were great.

In Blockers, three friends decide to lose their virginity on Prom night. Their parents (Leslie Mann, John Cena, and Ike Barinholz) get wind of the pact and spend the evening trying to thwart their daughters’ efforts.

In Game Night, Rachel McAdams and Jason Bateman have friends over for an evening of entertainment via board games. From that point, nothing goes according to plan, resulting in much hilarity and many homages to games.

Fiona Gordon and Dominique Abel create a different kind of humor in Lost in Paris, the story of a Canadian woman who heads to Paris to find out what’s become of her aunt. Very odd hilarity ensues.

Looking for You Should Totally Watch this Volume I? It’s here. And here is Volume III.

images that are not from moviestillsdb are from: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0365545/mediaviewer/rm3957096192; https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5990342/mediaviewer/rm3070769664;
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2936884/mediaviewer/rm2524981504

3SMReviews: On the Basis of Sex

We welcome Mimi Leder back to the directing fold with On the Basis of Sex, a movie that attempts to illuminate another step on the path to seeing women as people, in this case, via a tax law case adjudicated by the Tenth Circuit Court. Felicity Jones does a great job masking her anger and dismay at the many slights Ruth Bader Ginsberg endures as a “lady lawyer” ahead of her time. I particularly appreciated Cailee Spaney as Jane Ginsberg, who spends a lot of the film not being impressed at all by her mother’s achievements instead issuing multiple cutting remarks.* The movie is a little draggy during the court scene, with much too many reaction shots of the judges, but other than that was a good use of movie-watching time.**

Verdict: good

Consider also watching: Hidden Figures, Bend it Like Beckham, The Runaways

Cost: $5.55 (though free due to gift card)
Where watched: Regal City Center Stadium 12

*According to an article in Vanity Fair, she was exiled to TV directing because of Pay it Forward. This is her first movie since 2000. I liked Pay it Forward.
*Something masochistic in me really enjoys that hyper critical stage of adolescence depicted on screen. Also, Armie Hammer also was quite good at Marty Ginsburg’s supportive husband role.
**Also, that last suit Felicity Jones wears as she walks up the steps of the Supreme Court? Amazing! The very last shot of the movie? Perhaps a bit pandering. Discuss.

3SMReviews: The Squid and the Whale

Noah Baumbach’s The Squid and the Whale is very successful at creating trapped, uncomfortable, angry feelings which made this movie not fun to watch. Which it is not to say it wasn’t a very good movie because it’s packed with spot-on performances* and succeeded at creating the above range of feelings. While Noah Baumbach films of late tend to be populated with people I don’t want to spend time with in real life, but enjoy tremendously seeing on screen, the Berkman family were a bunch of people I didn’t enjoy all around.

Verdict: Recommended

Consider also watching: The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected), The Royal Tenenbaums

Cost: free from the Multnomah County Library
Where watched: at home

*Including a 22-year-old Jesse Eisenberg playing a high school student. My goodness, what must he have looked like when he was an actual high school student?

Over 10 years of living with my stove and I finally discover…

…holy crap, the top lifts up for easy cleaning!

I’ve been trying to clean that drip pan area from the top through the burner holes the entire time. This is much better!

This all came about because both large elements gave up the ghost and I bought four new ones, plus new drip pans. In doing a thorough scrub, I happened to lift the stovetop up and to my surprise, it moved!

Here’s to new features on old appliances.

3SMReviews: The Old Man and the Gun

David Lowery gives us an early-80s period piece with the Old Man and the Gun and Robert Redford is not shuffling off into the sunset with this, his supposed last film. Which is not to say this a lively film, as the old man style of robbing banks involves steady, calm walking (and not theatrics and shootouts,) plus some quiet romancing of a woman (Sissy Spaseck, who is good at playing the standard female romantic interest.) Casey Affleck does his usual Casey Affleck stuff as the detective on the case, and overall this makes for a fine Sunday Afternoon Movie*

Verdict: good

Consider also watching: if you want more Casey Affleck, but with him playing the outlaw, you can go for an earlier David Lowery film: Ain’t Them Bodies Saints. For a more lively Robert-Redford-as-outlaw movie consider Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Or The Sting, which is con man, not outlaw, and more fun.

Cost: $1.50 (the new Redbox price is $1.75, but I got a discount for renting two movies.)
Where watched: at home

*Movies that are entertaining, but not challenging and serve as one final breath of fresh air before you plunge into the last hours of your weekend.

3SMReviews: Mid90s

Mid90s, Jonah Hill’s directorial debut, is not a great movie, but it’s got so many good scenes strung together that it transforms into a good movie, despite not really having an ending. How much you like this movie will depend on your tolerance for 90s male skater culture—one of the character’s nicknames is FuckShit—and all the baggage that comes with that.* I’m always interested in depictions of how boys are socialized by their friends into being whatever their version of a man is; this movie provides plenty of examples of this, both good and bad.**

Verdict: good

Consider also watching: Boyhood, Stand by Me

Cost: $1.50 (the new Redbox price is $1.75, but I got a discount for renting two movies.)
Where watched: at home

*I have a soft spot for skater culture, which makes it easier for me to overlook a lot of the questionable things that happen in this movie. Further thoughts: Jonah Hill’s liberal use of the N-word in his script. Okay because correct for the characters? Or not okay due to Hill being white? There was a lot of “faggot” too, but having been a teenager/young adult in the 90s I can report that the liberal use of that word was historically accurate. Unfortunately.
**Na-kel Smith’s Ray is headed in the right direction, Gio Galicia’s Ruben, not so much.

Picture via IMDB found on this page.

The evening in which we throw axes

Matt visited his brother in Indianapolis earlier this month. He sent me pictures of him standing in front of a bullseye painted on wood next to a hatchet wedged deep into the wood.

“What is this?” I asked him
“Ax throwing,” he replied. “It’s a thing here.”
“I’m surprised we don’t have that thing here,” I typed

Turned out, we did.

We threw axes at Jack Axe, which is located in the Tiki Family Fun Center in Gresham. We arrived 20 minutes early as requested, heard the safety information and the lesson and then were set loose on the range with four other people.

Our four other people turned out to be great fun, inventing different ways to throw an ax (on one foot; with your eyes closed!) and providing challenges such as affixing a $5 bill to the target. It made our 60 minutes go by quickly.

I was able to hit the target several times. It’s a very satisfying sensation when the ax sticks. Jack Axe wets down the wood, though, so I’m not sure I would have such good results out in the wild.

At $20 per person for 60 minutes, this wasn’t fun enough to meet that high money threshold, but I enjoyed myself and am glad to have done it.

3SMReviews: You should totally watch this. Volume I

Movies I watched in 2018 that were so good I think you should watch them too. Today’s theme: people

The women (and girls)

Longtime readers know I love to see stories grounded in the female experience, and I watched a lot of them in 2018.

3SMReviews: You should totally watch this. Volume I — Viola Davis stars in Twentieth Century Fox’s WIDOWS. Photo Credit: Courtesy Twentieth Century Fox.

Are you looking for a steely drama with women (Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki) attempting to pull off a heist after their husbands die? Look for: Widows. Maybe you want the comedy/suspense story of a simple mommy blogger (Anna Kendrick) whose life turns upside down when her friend disappears? You’re looking for A Simple Favor.

Hannah Gadsby: Nanette. If you watch one comedy special this year, this should be the one. Hannah Gadsby dismantles the comedy process and makes us laugh, though not in that order.

Women’s work. Whether it’s running a high-stakes poker ring (Molly’s Game) or trying to qualify for the Winter Olympics (I, Tonya) it’s fun to watch these women do their jobs.

Further connections: both movies deal with Winter Olympic trials. Molly’s Game opens with a skiing trial.

Women in new life stages, or attempting them. Toni Collette is excellent in Lucky Them, about a music writer on a quest to find her long-gone (but possibly not dead after all?) boyfriend. In a much higher income bracket, Reese Witherspoon is trying to build a post-divorce life in Home Again. Kathryn Hahn is trying to become a mother in Private Life. Whereas Charlize Theron is transitioning from having two children to having three with the help of a night nurse in Tully. (This was my #2 film of the year and no one I know has seen it.)

Charlize Theron stars as Marlo in Jason Reitman’s TULLY, a Focus Features release.

Mid-career. Juliette Binoche spends time talking about art and work in the Clouds of Sils Maria while Melissa McCarthy needs to find a new way to make a living because no one is interested in her Fanny Brice biography in Can You Ever Forgive Me?

2018 was the year I also saw Belle (finally) and I think you should not miss Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s performance as Dido Elizabeth Belle in 18th Century England.

And a list about of women (and girls) cannot end without a mention of Eighth Grade, my top movie of 2018 and a brilliant portrayal of the last week of middle school for one Kayla Day.

The men (and boys)

While I don’t seek out movies about males as much as I do about females, they come to me regardless, mostly due to the fact that men tend to think their stories are universal. Here are three films about men that I deeply loved.

Let’s start with the youngest of our charges. In Taika Waititi’s funny, sweet and tragic Boy we see James Rolleston (Boy) deal with his father being away. He then gets to deal even more when his father comes home.

Moving into early adulthood, director Chloe Zhao directs Brady Jandreau in The Rider, a story about finding what one can do with their life when they are supposed to stay away from the one thing that makes them happy, in this case, riding horses. In a look at settled adulthood, Paterson is Jim Jarmusch’s tale of a bus driver who is also a poet and stars a very good Adam Driver and a very wacky (and also good) Golshifteh Farahani as his creative wife.

Lynn Shelton is the best!

One woman who excels at putting both the women and the men together to make very interesting movies is director Lynn Shelton. In 2018, I had the joy of watching three of her films.

How far will two competitive friends go? Perhaps all the way? In Humpday, Mark Duplass and Joshua Leonard push the boundaries of their friendship.

Thank goodness Edie Falco is still getting roles. In Outside In she plays a teacher who has worked to reduce the sentence one of her former students, (Jay Duplass) and their post-prison relationship is a complex one.

Finally, Touchy Feely ostensibly concerns itself with a massage therapist (Rosemary DeWitt) who doesn’t want to touch skin anymore, but it’s really the story of a variety of people in her orbit, including her brother, niece and boyfriend. Josh Pais and Allison Janney’s reiki scene was perhaps one of my favorites in 2018.

What did you see in 2018 that you loved?

Are you looking for Volume II and Volume III? Click those links.

3SMReviews: The Disaster Artist

In The Disaster Artist, James Franco is creepily, hilariously effective as Tommy Wiseau, the passionate director of a terrible movie; Dave Franco carries the role of Greg, Wiseau’s friend. I was looking to laugh, and there are some very funny parts to this film, but it also delves into the difficult situation of supporting a friend who is doing a very bad job at something. What could have been an exercise in James Franco getting to go deep on a weird character* is instead elevated to an interesting examination of art, incompetence, and friendship.**

Verdict: Recommended

Consider also watching: Ed Wood, Bullets Over Broadway, and Honest Trailers—The Room

Cost: free via Kanopy
Where watched: at home with Matt

*I’m not sure why I am still continually surprised at Franco’s success at things. He is uncannily talented in a variety of ways.
**And you need not actually watch Tommy Wiseau’s movie The Room to enjoy this film. (Win!)

3SMReviews: If Beale Street Could Talk

Barry Jenkins’ If Beale Street Could Talk is gorgeous to look at, expertly acted and also just a tad slow. Tish and Fonny’s story is a weighty one, and I especially enjoyed Regina King’s performance as Tish’s mother Sharon. The pure love story dominates through the complications and injustices.

Verdict: Good

Consider also watching: Jenkins’ Medicine for Melancholy, which was his first movie. And he also did a little film called Moonlight.

Cost: $6.00
Where watched: at the Laurelhurst Theater with S. North.

Romantic Comedy Renaissance

Couples Walking and Talking

I could not stop laughing, it was so funny

Movies I watched in 2018 that were so good I think you should watch them too. Today’s theme: people

The women (and girls)﻿

The men (and boys)﻿

Lynn Shelton is the best!﻿

The women (and girls)

The men (and boys)

Lynn Shelton is the best!