Patricia Collins – Out & About

3SMReviews: Ginger & Rosa

Ginger and Rosa is a movie directed by Sally Potter and set in 1962 London. It’s full of 1962 stuff and run-of-the-mill adolescent stuff including questioning authority, ill-advised experimentation with alcohol, and sleeping with the wrong guy. It all unfolded in a predictable way, but I’m a fan of Elle Fanning and Christina Hendricks, and I’m always up for an Oliver Platt sighting.

Cost: free via Kanopy
Where watched: at home, because a New Year’s Eve double feature is the best way to end the year.

3SMReviews: Hearts Beat Loud

In director Brett Haley’s Hearts Beat Loud we get the story of a daughter and father in transition.* They write a song during a family jam session, and it gets some play on Spotify, which catapults one-half of the duo into fantasies of this band being the one makes it. This is one of those making music movies and it’s also a family transition movie and I’m a sucker for both of kinds of films.**

Verdict: Recommended

Cost: free via Kanopy Streaming Service (Multnomah County Library for the win!)
Where watched: at home

*The father, played by Nick Offerman, is closing his Brooklyn record store after 17 years, the daughter, Kiersey Clemons (so good in Dope and Neighbors 2,) is headed off to UCLA to start her pre-med journey to become a doctor.
**Plus, there’s a very sweet beginning of a romance with Sasha Lane (who I just really liked in The Miseducation of Cameron Post). Plus, Toni Collette is in it, and all movies are made better by Ms. Collette’s presence.

3SMReviews: Mulholland Drive

Never do I ever feel more like I’m living in an Emperor has No Clothes world than when I watch David Lynch movies including this one, Mulholland Drive. Everyone speaks very slowly, there are stylized sets, everything is so very mysterious–or is it just a really crappy film?* Actual quote by me when the two actresses started the scene that I knew was going to happen from the first frame of this film: And in hour six, we get some girl-on-girl action.

Verdict: Skip, unless you are into pretentious, nonsensical misogyny

Cost: free from library
Where watched: at home with Matt, as part of preparation for Filmspotting Madness

*When a movie needs a director’s cut, or a website, or published articles or a book to explain what the hell happened, that movie has failed. This is a boring, pretentious movie that can’t be bothered to have a coherent plot, plus it’s creepy to watch, and David Lynch hates women.

3SMReviews: Top Movies: December 2018

(16 total movies watched) (Vacation!)

Oddball cancer movie.
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl.

The underdog sparkles.
Dumplin’

Quiet and beautiful.
Roma

Feelings under control.
First Man

Some very bad behavior.
The Favourite

A worthy successor.
Mary Poppins Returns

So awkwardly good.
Juliet, Naked

Just when you think you are burned out on superhero films.
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Quiet and powerful.
Leave No Trace

Many delightful moments.
Anne with an “E”

When you’re looking for something that isn’t so heavy.
Hearts Beat Loud

What a great month!

3SMReviews: Boy Erased

Unlike Joel Edgerton’s The Gift, a taut thriller that just keeps ratcheting up the stakes, the energy and momentum in Boy Erased is constantly being depleted by the movie’s flashbacks. There are a lot of heartfelt performances in this movie, but they cannot overcome the movie’s structure. Which is too bad, because there’s good stuff in examining what it’s like to want to be something you aren’t because you can’t be something you are.

Verdict: Skip

Cost: $4.00
Where watched: Academy Theater with S. North
Based on the book Boy Erased by Garrad Conley

3SMReviews: Anne with an “E” seasons 1 and 2

Anne with an “E” takes the Anne of Green Gables story and characters, grounds it in a trauma-informed viewpoint and steers the series in a different direction than the books.* Amybeth McNulty as Anne carefully balances the tightrope that is Anne’s enthusiasm and (potentially annoying) unbridled joy. The rest of the supporting players are very good, especially Geraldine James and R.H. Thomson as Marilla and Matthew;** plus they have cast the excellent Lucas Jade Zumann*** as Gilbert Blythe.

Cost: Netflix monthly subscription fee ($7.99)
Where watched: at home
Adapted from the book: Anne of Green Gables

*I’ve talked to two people who say that the 1985 Megan Follows Anne of Green Gables was THE Anne of Green Gables and there is no reason to ever make another version. One was rather vehement in her statement. I disagree with this view. After all, I watched four versions of the same movie this year. All were made in different decades and brought different things to their recycled plot. Just like this version’s focus on how Anne’s time as an orphan would reverberate even after she was adopted.
**Also quite good: the belt Geraldine James wears throughout the series.
***Who was so amazing in 20th Century Women

3SMReviews: The Miseducation of Cameron Post

The Miseducation of Cameron Post is a nice entry into the LGBTQ canon and that’s about it. Cameron’s story of being sent to a gay conversion camp in the mid-90s is important, but this movie’s execution falls flat. Sasha Lane gives a great performance as Jane Fonda, a fellow camper, and Chloe Grace Moretz is her usual solid self, but this movie is not a stunner.

Verdict: Skip, unless you are hungry for mid-90s LGBTQ narratives

Cost: free via Kanopy
Where watched: at home
Based on the book: The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth

3SMReviews: Leave No Trace

In Debra Granik’s Leave No Trace, Ben Foster and Thomasin McKenzie do more with less acting as a father/daughter pair living in a city park* This movie is Tom’s coming of age story as the discovery of their home-in-the-park sets her and her father into “real life” and wakes Tom’s typical adolescent yearning for something different.** Chock full of good, quiet acting by both leads and by a handful of smaller performances (Dale Dickey was particularly good as was Isaiah Stone**), this is a quiet movie of growing up.

Cost: $3.99 via Google Play because I didn’t get around to watching it when it was on Netflix.
Where watched: at home.

*Forest Park, in my own Portland, Oregon. It’s a huge park with trails for miles. This movie is based on a book that was inspired by the mid-2000s discovery of a father/daughter pair living in Forest Park. The story was well-covered by the local media and has stuck with me.
**Not that this leads to acting out like most teenagers would. This entire movie is full of small moments and subtle performances.
***Both actors were also in Granick’s very excellent Winter’s Bone

3SMReviews: Mean Girls

In 2004, Mark Waters gave millennials their seminal teen film with Mean Girls; I was interested in how it holds up 14 years later. When I watched this in 2004, I remember feeling like the movie’s resolution was a little too tidy, and I found the ending to be the same today. However, this movie gives us a lot of good stuff including its overall message and a ton of really great performances by women.*

Verdict: Good

Cost: $2.99 via Google Play
Where watched: at home as homework so I could listen to the Next Picture Show’s Girl World pairing of this movie and the Favourite.

*It was really fun to see women who are on my radar right now, but weren’t in 2004: Rachel McAdams, Amanda Seyfried, Amy Poehler. Plus I hadn’t put together that Lizzy Caplan–the go-to “weird girl” character of that time period–was also in Now You See Me 2. And I love Tim Meadows reactions.

3SMReviews: Juliet, Naked

In Juliet, Naked, Jesse Peretz crafts an extremely awkward romantic comedy and takes advantage of the facility of uncomfortable comic timing of Rose Byrne, Chris O’Dowd and even Ethan Hawke. It’s a great catalog of people in a middle-age place of stagnation and transition with one especially spectacular scene that takes place in a hospital room. I think this movie didn’t quite know what to do with the ending, and that felt a little bumbled, but other than those last five minutes, this was a very fun film.

Verdict: Recommended

Cost: $1.50 from Redbox*
Where watched: at home

*I have been stalking this movie at Redbox since Thanksgiving weekend when I checked five different machines. It was always checked out.

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