Good – Page 16 – Out & About

3SMReviews: Gossip Girl Season 1

Gossip Girl Season 1 provides many things: a quality overwrought drama full of (mostly) bad people making bad decisions; an insight into cutting-edge technology of 2006; performances that range from very good,* to adequate,** to subpar.*** This is not a good show, and it can’t be mistaken for quality television, but it is very, very good bad television. I’m not confident that it will be able to sustain it’s very good badness through another season, much less five more seasons, but this season was a great gift.

Verdict: Good

Cost: Monthly Netflix subscription
Where watched: at home

*Alas, only Kristen Bell as the unseen Gossip Girl, but maybe possibly Kelly Rutherford as Lily van der Woodsen. I can’t tell if she’s great at playing an ice queen, or is actually an ice queen.
**Blake Lively as Serena van der Woodsen, Taylor Momsen as Jenny Humpry
***To varying degrees, everyone else.

3SMReviews: The Gleaners and I

The Gleaners and I was my first Agnes Varda film and I suspect it won’t be my last, even though I don’t watch documentaries all that often. Varda examines gleaners–from those groups of women depicted in paintings, to the individuals who glean today in the fields, or on the city streets.* Varda sometimes wanders a little far afield from her topic, but her delight at all things made for a good movie and the information about produce wasted provides much to think about.**

Verdict: Good

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

*Given what they glean we might call them by more judgmental names.
**Yes I did just stop myself from typing “food for thought.”

Poster clipped from: https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/films/les-glaneurs-et-la-glaneuse#pid=7038

3SMReviews: Minority Report

In Minority Report, Steven Spielberg spins a tale of a future world where three “pre-cogs” (special humans) can predict crimes before they happen. This is a visually stimulating movie, and while it is too long, it did go in some directions I did not expect, which is a nice gift when one is watching a movie out of obligation. Tom Cruise does his Tom Cruise thing,* Tim Blake Nelson completely overplays his scenes, but there is a really great scene with Lois Smith that may have made the whole movie worth watching.

Verdict: Good

Cost: free from Multnomah County Library
Where watched: at home, in preparation for Filmspotting Madness Best of the 2000s.

*I think this movie marks the point where I started activly avoiding movies with Mr.Cruise in them.

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: Best Man Down

Ted Koland’s Best Man Down is not a very good movie.* However, my enjoyment of this film overcame its detraction. Part of the credit goes to the plot (I’m always interested in films that examine nuances of friendship) and part of the credit goes to Addison Timlin who has full command of the screen as Ramsey, and Tyler Labine as the good-times (yet furtive) Lumpy.

Verdict: Skip, unless the things listed above sound good to you.

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

*The pacing is totally off and Jess Weixler’s character is fairly cardboard. At times I wasn’t really sure what was going on, and not in an intriguing way.

3SMReviews: Bohemian Rhapsody

Like all biopics, Bryan Singer’s Bohemian Rhapsody is a little draggy and lingers too long on the bacchanalian debauchery period of Mr. Mercury’s life. Despite that, it was a delightful feast for they eye (clothing! interiors! concert scenes!) and ear (Queen’s music!*). Rami Malek’s performance was so very good and I liked the performances of the rest of the actors playing Queen band members.

Verdict: Good

Cost: $6.00
Where watched: Laurelhurst Theater with a ton of people with white hair (who were probably Queen fans in real time).

*I am a casual follower of Queen’s music, only owning Queen’s Greatest Hits volume I and II and only really listening to volume I.

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

3SMReviews: Beau Travail

3SMR: Beau Travail — http://internationalfilmstudies.blogspot.com/2018/09/beau-travail-france-claire-denis-1999.html

Never has the Male Gaze been so thoroughly applied to men (by a woman director*) as in Beau Travail. “This movie has not plot,” I whispered to my cat halfway through and while it does have a loose plot, most of the movie consists of languid observations of a small band of French Foreign Legion solders in Djibouti. To reach full mesmer, it’s probably best watched in a dark theater on a day with not much else to do.

Verdict: Good

Cost: free from library
Where watched: at home, in preparation for Filmspotting Best of the 2000s March Madness

*Young, fit military men are rather mesmerizing.

3SMReviews: Outlaw King

Chris Pine and his blue, blue eyes star in Outlaw King, a movie about Robert the Bruce which includes a lot of bloody treachery, especially concerning horses.* This is a solid story with attempts made to include women in the narrative.** The costumes are great in their raggedness and there are a ton of gorgeous landscape shots.

Verdict: Good

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

*I mean, I got what was going to happen to the horses when they outlined the technique in the training scene, so I didn’t need to watch it repeatedly during the battle scene. (The battle tactics were, admittedly, a genius move on Robert the Bruce’s part.)
**This is always appreciated, though I suspect if more women wrote and directed movies, we would see war movies where women are something besides helpers.

3SMR: Adam Sandler 100% Fresh

In 100% Fresh, Adam Sandler skips from topic to topic, for an internet version of what some people say about the weather: if you don’t like it, just wait 30 seconds. This was a successful strategy. I watched this for the last two songs (one dedicated to his wife, and a beautiful tribute to Chris Farley) but I didn’t know there would be a song about his bat mitzvah, which was also delightful.

Cost: Netflix Monthly Subscription ($7.99)
Where watched: at home, with Matt

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