Crime – Page 5 – Out & About

Veronica Mars: The Best Movie for Marshmallows

The review:

The inception of Rob Thomas’ Veronica Mars* ranks as one of the few great movie-related surprises of my adult life.** It’s a movie with a lot of fan service, but it also has a credible plot and we get to check in on our favorite characters from the TV show, now firmly in their adult lives. A 100-minute movie can’t be as satisfying as the 64 episodes that came before it, but when you think something’s over and it comes back to life, that’s some kind of magic.

The verdict: Recommended

Cost: We have a DVD that may have come from the Kickstarter campaign?
Where watched: at home, with Matt***

Consider also watching:

Further sentences:

*The movie, not to be confused with the series of the same name.
**The other two: Before Sunset, Before Midnight
***Matt was around as I watched the three seasons this month. He remembered a lot more about each episode than I did. This was the only thing he sat through with me this time around.

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

Funded in large part by a campaign on Kickstarter.com, breaking all of the site’s records up to April, 2013. Some of the accomplishments were: Fastest project to reach one million dollars. Fastest project to reach two million dollars. All-time highest-funded project in the film category. Third highest-funded project in Kickstarter history. Most project backers of any project in Kickstarter history.

Veronica Mars Season 3: The Best Character Development

The review:

Veronica Mars Season 3 is hampered by the fact that only 12 episodes were ordered and then 8 more were added, so there is no through-line mystery. But no matter, this season is the best season to see how the characters’ best and worst qualities are working for them as they head toward being functioning adults.* There are mysteries, more new characters and a gasp-inducing fight scene that always has me questioning the bad-boy aesthetic.

The verdict: Recommended.

Cost: Currently streaming on Hulu, also available at your library and in DVD box sets
Where watched: at home

Consider also watching:

Further sentences:

*In this round of viewing it’s also the season where I realized that while I would want to be on Veronica Mars’ good side, she would be a hard person to be friends with. And a terrible person to be in a relationship with.

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

Creator Rob Thomas said that Ryan Hansen’s character Dick Casablancas was not originally meant to be a series regular. He was first cast for the second episode, as a nameless, rich Neptune resident with one line (“Logan!”). Thomas said that they read many young actors for the line, and when it came down to a choice between Hansen or another actor, they cast Hansen purely because he had “good hair”.

Veronica Mars Season 2: The Best Witty Banter

The review:

Veronica Mars Season 2 doesn’t have the excellent season-long mystery that Season 1 does*; what it excels in is Logan/Veronica banter. It’s also the season where we see the extent of the corruption in her town of Neptune, California. At this point the cast has really gelled and easily absorbs a few new characters.

The verdict: Recommended

Cost: Currently streaming on Hulu, also available at your library and in DVD box sets
Where watched: at home

Consider also watching:

Further sentences:

*Though Season 2’s main plot arc is worthy; it’s just not as nuanced as Season 1

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

The sticker of the black circle with the bananas in the middle on Veronica’s locker is the album cover of The Dandy Warhols. The album features the theme song “We Used to Be Friends”.
(Fun fact: Matt his his own version of this song he sings as the opening credits roll.)

Veronica Mars Season 1: the Best Mystery

The review:

Rob Thomas created Veronica Mars, and I will be forever thankful. This show has always been hard to sum up in a way that makes people want to watch it* and it’s also a show worthy of watching, especially if you care about young women coming of age.** The first season has the best season-long mystery, and it also quickly sets the foundation what’s to come including tense drama, funny quips, the best dad-daughter relationship on TV, excellent (and trying) friendships, the best bunch of side characters, and a first-name portmanteau that fans (aka Marshmallows***) are still invoking all these years later.

The verdict: Recommended

Cost: Currently streaming on Hulu, also available at your library and in DVD box sets****
Where watched: at home

Consider also watching:

Further sentences:

*Unfortunately, Nancy Drew has cornered the market on the term “girl detective” which means when you mention Veronica is the daughter of a P.I. and is trying to figure out who killed her best friend, everyone immediately goes to a very 50s place. Whereas this is a darker, early-2000s place.
**Things we talk about now, that we didn’t when the show first aired in 2004: how the trauma Veronica experienced changed her, for good and bad.
***Fans are called Marshmallows because of a thing Veronica’s friend Wallace says in the first episode
****Because you get extras and also because it has the original opening to the pilot that was not aired, but is much better.

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

UPN, the network that aired this show, was concerned during early episodes that viewers would confuse Teddy Dunn and Jason Dohring, who play Duncan and Logan. A color code was created where Dunn wore blues, and Dohring wore earth tones. The color code was maintained for the duration of the series.
(Fun fact: my coworker said she still never could keep them straight.)

3SMReviews: The Kindergarten Teacher

Settle in for some pleasantly uncomfortable observations of a woman going off the rails. Director Sara Colangelo slowly turns up the heat in the Kindergarten Teacher and things grow increasingly uncomfortable as the excellent Maggie Gyllenhaal’s interest in her talented five-year-old student grows. There’s no explosion of violence, or anger, or much of anything; what makes this uncomfortable is how things that are only a little off kilter build to become something that is verboten.*

Verdict: Good

Cost: Netflix monthly fee ($7.99)
Where watched: at home

*I feel like I need to add a disclaimer. At no time is the child abused, or in danger. He’s a victim of liking too much, which gets out of control.

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: Dumplin’

Anne Fletcher’s does a great service in her movie Dumplin‘; she populates it with actors of all sizes.* But aside from that, she weaves a good story with enjoyable performances by Danielle MacDonald and the other friends of Willowdean.** While this movie is probably not one for the ages, it is the best at what it’s trying to do, which made for a delightful experience right now.

Verdict: Recommended

Cost: Netflix monthly subscription ($7.99)
Where watched: at home

*Have you been to the mall lately? Or any gathering of normal people? We don’t look like any gathering of people in movies. I’d love to see the movie world look more like the real world.
**I was happy to see Odeya Rush, so very good in Lady Bird as the mostly vapid pretty rich girl. Harold Perrineau was also very good as Willowdean’s friend Lee. (And IMDB reminds me that he was a very good Mercutio 22 years ago in Romeo + Juliet!)

3SMReviews: Can You Ever Forgive Me

Marielle Heller achieves the ultimate in Can You Ever Forgive Me. She gives us a movie about an unlikable character* and provides us with enough details so we can feel sympathy and like that character. Part of the credit goes to the marvelous Melissa McCarthy, who excels in a person who can’t let anyone in, and feels love only for her cat.**

Verdict: Recommended
Consider also watching: Heller’s excellent The Diary of a Teenage Girl

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

*A post-40, lesbian, fat woman to be precise.
**I also love that this movie was not about a total transformation of this very flawed character.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2018/can_you_ever_forgive_me.html

3SMReviews: Widows

In Steve McQueen’s Widows, I knew Viola Davis and Michelle Rodriguez were going to be good, and I was very happy to find out how good Elizabeth Debicki* and Cynthia Erivo were. I really liked how the movie was assembled, and how the jumps the narrative took kept me confused and trying to solve a puzzle.** The stakes felt very real and Daniel Kaluuya’s performance was also a treat.

Verdict: Recommended

Cost: $6.00
Where watched: Laurelhurst Theater with a ton of people over the age of 50.

*Debicki first caught my eye as Jordan Baker in the Great Gatsby, however, they did not play up her incredible height in that movie. I see she was also the very Golden Ayesha in Guardians II. Cynthia Erivo is new to me, and I hope to see more of her.
**This worked for me, though I can see how it might put some viewers off.

3SMR: A History of Violence

David Cronenberg lays it on thick in A History of Violence. For most of the movie every move that every character makes, everything that every character says, is dripping with “notice what I’m doing!” I found this distracting, (also distracting: the music over the end scene) but what made this good movie was one moment with Viggo Mortensen.

Verdict: Good

Cost: free from library
Where watched: at home in preparation for Filmspotting’s March Madness 2019

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