Tag: Drama

Honey Boy: Sometimes Recovery Means a Fine Movie

Honey Boy

The review:

Alma Har’el’s Honey Boy stuck with me after the credits had rolled, and it excelled at balancing the story of young Otis and his father with older Otis and his PTSD.* The scenes of LaBeouf’s questionable parenting choices were a great counterpoint to the scenes with rehab counselors.** While this movie lacked an ending*** it’s worth seeing for the performances and the nuance around what love looks like when you have a stunted alcoholic dad cheering for you.

The verdict: Good

Consider also watching:

Further sentences:

*LaBeouf’s portrayal of James Lort had his signature mesmer (I found it hard to look away from him) both Otises (Noah Jupe and Lucas Hedges) were great. Noah Jupe was both world-weary, exceedingly cautious, and at times a normal 12-year-old. Lucas Hedges captured the stony resistance of older PTSD Otis.
**Martin Starr! Laura San Giacomo! (Also fun: Byron Bowers as the rehab roommate.)
***Much like the enjoyable directing debut of Jonah Hill: Mid90s

Questions:

  • I had trouble cobbling together a list of complex/abusive father-son movies. Can you think of any?
  • What was the most disturbing aspect of young Otis’s life?

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

Shia LaBeouf was arrested for public intoxication in July, 2017 in Savannah, Georgia. He was ordered to attend a 10-week rehab program, where he discovered that he had PTSD and began writing the screenplay for Honey Boy. Filming for the movie started two weeks after Shia got out of rehab.

Other reviews:

Honey Boy

Margot at the Wedding: Disaffected Adults, Bad Choices

Margot at the Wedding

The review:

Noah Baumbach’s Margot at the Wedding has the usual pre-Gerwig vibe* of disaffected adults who speak with a bored affect** and are their own worst enemies. And while that first sentence sounds like I didn’t like the film, this second sentence is here to say that I greatly enjoyed this movie from the performances to the ridiculous actions taken by the characters.*** Chalk this up as yet another Baumbach film with people I couldn’t be in the room with in real life, but greatly enjoy on screen.

The verdict: Good

Cost: free via Kanopy
Where watched: at home

Consider also watching:

Further sentences:

*Greta Gerwig has injected so much more FUN into his movies.
**Even Jack Black—usually the reliably manic character—is running at about 40% power.
***Granted, this is enjoyment like chewing aluminum foil with braces on, or putting a 9-volt battery on your tongue. It’s exhilarating and uncomfortable.

Questions:

  • Which character in this film is the most competent parent?
  • Who did you identify with the most?

Favorite IMDB Trivia item:

Cinematographer Harris Savides used old lenses and shot mostly in natural light to get the dim, ominous look of the film.

Other reviews:

Margot at the Wedding

Where’d You Go, Bernadette is Entertaining

Where'd You Go, Bernadette

The review:

Richard Linklater does a great job transforming Where’d You Go, Bernadette from an epistolary novel into a coherent film—though the film stumbles at the end. I enjoyed this much more than I thought I would, mostly because Cate Blanchett having a mental crisis is so much fun to watch.* There’s a big, old, moldering house,** some really great mean girl mom stuff,*** good performances by Billy Crudup and Emma Nelson (in her debut: she plays Bernadette’s daughter) plus a bunch of bit parts with actors I love.****

The verdict: Good

(I greatly enjoyed this book and can recommend it.)

Cost: $1.25 at Redbox
Where watched: at home

Consider also watching

Further sentences:

*The Academy also agrees: she won an Oscar for Blue Jasmine, which is another story of a woman in mental crisis. And parts of her performance brought to mind Katherine Hepburn, whom she portrayed in the Aviator and for which the Academy also bestowed her with an Oscar.
**Something about moldering houses inspires glee in me. My favorite YA novel of 2019, Ordinary Girls by Blair Thornburgh, also featured a moldering house.
***Kristen Wiig is so very good!
****Judy Greer, Steven Zahn, Megan Mullally, Laurence Fishburne

Questions:

  • If you have taken in both book and movie, which worked better for you?
  • What’s your favorite movie set in a moldering old house?

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

Bernadette refers to Dr. Kurtz, the Judy Greer character, as “Colonel Kurtz” at one point. Colonel Kurtz was the enigmatic figure in the film Apocalyse Now in which Laurence Fishburne, who plays Bernadette’s former colleague Paul Jellinek, had a part as Tyrone ‘Clean’ Miller, the youngest member on the boat.

Other reviews:

Where'd You Go, Bernadette

Rocketman is Mostly a Disappointment

Rocketman

The review:

I had high hopes that Rocketman, Dexter Fletcher’s biopic of Elton John was going to bypass a lot of the biopic dreck and do something unusual* and these hopes were smashed on the shores of the very crowded Biopic Beach. So it is that we get much too many scenes of rock star excess** plus the movie’s jukebox musical format made everything confusing.*** I did enjoy the costumes (which are the usual perk of the biopic) and Taron Egerton’s performance, including watching his hair thin and recede.

The verdict: skip

(or watch it for the clothing)

Cost: $1.25 via Redbox
Where watched: at home (first movie of 2020!)

Consider watching instead:

Further sentences:

*This was primarily because of the interesting levitation shown during the preview. I thought there would be more magical realism in the movie. While I think the levitation did nicely get across the feeling of “that was the night that everything started and everyone there knew it” there wasn’t much magical realism in this movie.
**Props for showing some bulimia to augment the standard drug/alcohol tropes. Eating disorders often go along with addiction and it is very rare to see a portrayal of a man with an eating disorder.
***The jukebox musical format worked better in Blinded by the Light where the songs of a singer were sung and danced to by people who are not the artist who produced the music. When Taron Egerton breaks into Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting” while playing at the bar as a teenager and all the patrons start dancing I am perplexed. Is the movie saying that song was written then? Before he met Bernie Taupin? Also, the framing device of Elton John’s story being told while in rehab is not used constantly enough. It was distracting.

Questions:

  • What’s your favorite biopic and why?
  • What films best use the jukebox musical format?

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

Bryce Dallas Howard is eight years older than Taron Egerton, who plays the adult version of her son. The age difference is of course explicable because the movie starts by depicting Elton John as a much younger child; the age difference between Howard and the children who play John at younger ages is a much more normal one for a mother and son.
(One again, I did not recognize Bryce Dallas Howard. She is so good at disappearing into her characters)

Other reviews:

Rocketman

Uncut Gems Never Stops

Uncut Gems

The review:

Benny and Josh Safdie’s Uncut Gems had me so amped up that by the end, I don’t think a restorative yoga class combined with a massage could have calmed me down.* While not a movie to unwind with, this is a crazy good movie you should watch for the acting,** and the overly oppressive environment depicted. Prepare yourself for uncertainty; there were several times that I asked myself, “How in the world is this film ever going to end?”

The verdict: Recommended

Cost: $9.75
Where watched: Living Room Theater (Part II of New Year’s Eve Double Feature!)

Consider also watching:

Further sentences:

*This movie never stops. Adam Sandler never stops talking. He never stops scheming. He doesn’t stop working every angle he can. And the people coming after him are similarly persistent.
**Will Adam Sandler win an Oscar for this? I could see it. Julia Fox as Sandler’s girlfriend also hits all the notes of the twinkie in the city. LaKeith Stanfield is always reliable, in this case as a guy who brings the rich black guys to Sandler’s store. Idina Menzel was super interesting as Sandler’s wife. She savvy, which feels like a departure from what the wife character tends to default to. Oh! And Judd Hirsch has a small role too.

Questions:

  • If you had to spend time with one of the characters in this movie, who would you choose?
  • What other comedians do you like in dramatic roles?

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

The first draft of the script was written in 2009. In 2012, the Safdie Brothers gave Adam Sandler the screenplay, which he declined. After that, they considered Harvey Keitel and Sacha Baron Cohen for the role of Howard before the Safdie Brothers decided the part needed a younger actor like first intended. When the movie got financed after the success of Good Time in 2017, the role went to Jonah Hill, then back to Sandler in 2018.

(I often marvel that any movie ever gets made)

Other reviews:

Uncut Gems

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood has the Right Focus

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

The review:

As I discovered last year with the documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor, Mr. Rogers has a calming and cathartic effect on me; in Marielle Heller’s* A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, it seems that Tom Hanks playing Mr. Rogers has the same effect. I think this movie was wise to avoid the biopic treatment and instead frame the story around a journalist who has a lot of problems which lets us substitute our own selves in for him as Fred Rogers takes an interest. It’s also full of actors I love to watch** and includes many memorable scenes.***

The verdict: Good

Cost: $9.75 (I didn’t plan well. I could have seen this at the Jubitz theater for $6)
Where watched: Living Room Theater (Part I of New Year’s Eve Double Feature!)

Consider also watching:

Further sentences:

*This film follows Heller’s excellent Can You Ever Forgive Me? which was her second feature after her incredibly enjoyable debut The Diary of a Teenage Girl. All of these films are worth your time. And hopefully Heller will continue directing films every other year or so.
**I’m always up for Chris Cooper and Enrico Colantoni (Keith Mars!) and though I wasn’t familiar with them I thought Matthew Rhys, Susan Kelechi Watson and Maryann Plunkett were excellent.
***Some of which show up in the article that is featured in the film and which you can read. My favorite scene though, was Fred and Joanne Rogers playing a duet on the twin grand pianos in their home.

Questions:

  • What is it about Mr. Rogers that elicits such feelings?
  • What’s your favorite Mr. Rogers moment?

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

This movie is based on the article “Can You Say…’Hero’?” by Tom Junod, which was published in the November 1, 1998, issue of Esquire Magazine. In 2019, before the release of this film, Junod wrote an article in The Atlantic that was partly about this process. It started, “A long time ago, a man of resourceful and relentless kindness saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself. He trusted me when I thought I was untrustworthy, and took an interest in me that went beyond my initial interest in him. He was the first person I ever wrote about who became my friend, and our friendship endured until he died. Now a movie has been made from the story I wrote about him, which is to say ‘inspired by’ the story I wrote about him, which is to say that in the movie my name is Lloyd Vogel and I get into a fistfight with my father at my sister’s wedding. I did not get into a fistfight with my father at my sister’s wedding. My sister didn’t have a wedding.”

Other reviews:

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Little Women: The Millennial Version

Little Women

The review:

By eschewing a linear narrative, Greta Gerwig manages to make the twists and turns of Little Women* into something I want to watch more than once.** As I watched the 1994 version in August, I’m heavy on the comparisons/contrasts,*** but I think this movie did what was needed to be done to the story to make this one of the best movies I’ve seen in 2019. It’s a film full of life and laughter and tears, not to mention several versions of cross-in-front sweater wraps (not quite these, but close****) that I need the pattern for.

The verdict: Recommended

Cost: $9.00 (and I had to go to the theater two days in a row because the first day was sold out)
Where watched: Hollywood Theater with an audience who gasped aloud in places, proving they hadn’t recently watched the 1994 version.

Consider also watching:

  • Little Women 1994
  • Frozen
  • Your Sisters Sister
  • Sense and Sensibility
  • The Virgin Suicides

Further sentences:

*A story I’ve never liked.
**True story: after the movie ended, I checked my bus arrival time, found it wasn’t coming for another 17 minutes, and snuck into the later showing so I could experience whatever scene I encountered once again.
***See below for my drilldown
****For those of you who are interested, here’s a handy article about how to steal the movie’s style without looking like an extra in a period piece.

Questions:

  • Which version do you think comes out on top? Aside from 2019 and 1994, there’s also the 2018 present-day one, the 2017 PBS one, the 1949 June Alyson one, and the 1933 Katherine Hepburn one (which I mostly remember because the sleeves were out of control!)
  • Which of the sisters are you?

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

Although they portray heroines of American literature, none of the four actors are American. Emma Watson and Florence Pugh are English, Saoirse Ronan is Irish, and Eliza Scanlen is Australian.

Other reviews:

1994 vs. 2019:

  • Meg: Trini Alvarado beats Emma Watson
  • Jo: Tie. I like both Winona Ryder and Saoirse Ronan for different reasons
  • Beth: Claire Danes knocks Eliza Scanlen out of the park. (I think Claire Danes is the best part of the 90s version.)
  • Amy: Kristen Dunst as young Amy beats Florence Pugh. Pugh did a good job acting younger, but she didn’t look younger. Dunst takes the win there. Florence Pugh beats out Samantha Mathis as older Amy. Best Florence Pugh scene: telling Laurie no.
  • Laurie: Christian Bale beats out Timothée Chalamet simply because Timothée Chalamet looks incredibly youthful and thus I didn’t fully believe he was grownup Laurie. Who did I enjoy watching more? Chalamet.
  • Marmee: Tie. Susan Sarandon brings more gravitas than Laura Dern, though Dern is not saddled with all that moralizing. She’s a hippie-style Marmee.
  • Aunt March: Meryl Streep beats out Mary Wickes (you know, because she’s Meryl Streep)
  • Professor Bhaer: Gabriel Byrne (IMDB has him ranked second in the casting lineup!) beats out Louis Garrel. Though I think the much older Byrne was closer in age (44 at time film) to the Professor Behr in the book (The internet is telling me 40) Louis Garrel is 36, but he doesn’t look it.
  • Mr. Lawrence: Tie. Both John Neville and Chris Cooper are good
  • Hannah: Florence Paterson beats out Jayne Houdyshell

The 1994/2019 verdict:

  • 1994: 6 wins, 3 ties
  • 2019: 2 wins, 3 ties
  • Yet somehow I enjoyed the 2019 version so much more! Directing matters!
Little Women

The Two Popes is a Good Conversation

The Two Popes

The review:

Considering that The Two Popes is a movie of basically two guys talking, Fernando Meirelles directs a very good film.* For those fans of walking and talking, wrestling with weighty issues, and sins of the past, this will be a treat.** For fans of good acting, you have both Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce bringing their A game.

The verdict: Good

Cost: Netflix monthly fee ($8.99)
Where watched: at home

Consider also watching:

Further sentences:

*I mean, granted, the two guys talking aren’t dudes on the #6 bus; they’re men who became popes. The title doesn’t lie.
**Plus, you get to see the process for choosing a new pope, which I found interesting.

Question:

Do you think that the head of the Catholic Church should follow the Pope Benedict model (traditional, pomp and circumstance) or the Pope Francis model (reform, the carnival is over)

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

Jonathan Pryce commented on his physical resemblance to Pope Francis at the Toronto International Film Festival: “The day Pope Francis was declared Pope, the Internet was full of images of me and him, and ‘Is Jonathan Pryce the Pope?’ Even my son texted me, ‘Dad are you the Pope?'”

Other reviews:

The Two Popes

Bombshell: A Movie For Actors to Disappear into their Characters

Bombshell

The review:

Jay Roach’s Bombshell is a movie about three women taking on Roger Ailes/Fox News that is written and directed by men.* It’s one of those movies that lets actors disappear into their characters and Charlize Theron is the best at this task.** This movie is worth watching just to see a current-day workplace where women cannot wear pants.***

The verdict: Recommended

Cost: $8.50
Where watched: Century Theaters Eastport with Matt
(Another cheery Christmas Eve movie selection!)

Consider also watching:

Further sentences:

*Count me as a fan of this film, but much like Bad Moms, maybe have some actual women involved in the creation process.
**It took me about 10 minutes before I was for-sure the Megyn Kelly person was actually her. Kidman and Robbie are also good (though Robbie’s character is a composite). John Lithgow also sank into the jowls of Roger Ailes.
***The sexual harassment was one thing—it was terrible to witness Margot Robbie decide to capitulate—but PANTS! They are a commonplace thing. Everyone should be allowed to wear pants to work. Everyone!

Questions:

  • What’s your go-to women-overcoming-in-the-workplace film? (I’m having trouble thinking of anything besides this and 9 to 5)
  • If someone has told you they have been sexually harassed, should your next question be, “Did you do it?”?

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

Charlize Theron and Mark Duplass co-star in Tully (2018).
(This is my favorite item because in post-movie discussion, I exclaimed to Matt, “Hey! Charlize Theron and Mark Duplass were a married couple in Tully too!)
(Also because I ADORED Tully and I feel like no one watched it. Go watch Tully!)

Other reviews:

Bombshell

Motherless Brooklyn is Nearly a Very, Very Good Film

Motherless Brooklyn

The review:

Edward Norton makes a worthy detective story set in the 1950s and Motherless Brooklyn was nearly a very, very, good film.* While the Tourette’s aspect feels very much like Mr. Norton is shooting for an Academy Award nomination and thus, from that angle, is distracting, it is interesting to watch his performance and how the syndrome affects his character.** The movie is also populated with excellent actors (hooray for another good role for Gugu Mbatha-Raw!) and the mystery was engrossing.***

The verdict: Good

Cost: $6.00
Where watched: Jubitz Cinema

Consider also watching:

Further sentences:

*It pains me to say that it’s the slightest bit too long, like maybe we didn’t need that much time watching jazz musicians at the club. As it is, it’s a very good film.
**I found it interesting that no one in the film made fun of him, or was repulsed by for his tics and twitches. I felt like that wasn’t quite up to snuff for film set in the 1950s.
***I figured out one thing before Lionel did, which made me feel very smart.

Questions:

  • Should Edward Norton direct more films?
  • How many favors do you think Mr. Norton called in to get all those really great actors? (Never mind. Answered in the IMDB triva item below.)

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

According to writer, director, and actor Edward Norton, the principal major stars all worked for free on this, his second directorial outing.

Other Reviews:

Motherless Brooklyn