Tag: Recommended

3SMReviews: The Disaster Artist

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: Hearts Beat Loud

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: Leave No Trace

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: Juliet, Naked

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.

3SMReviews: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

3SMReviews: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse wasn’t at the top of my watch list, but it was at the top of the boyfriend’s and so we went. And I’m so glad because this movie has the most stunning, innovative animation I’ve seen in a very long time.* The introduction of other Spider-Men/Women/Animals added a layer of fun and the voice acting was superb.**

Cost: $9.40
Where watched: Regal City Center Stadium 12 Cinemas with Matt as part of our Christmas Eve movie viewing tradition.

*Now that animation is growing ever closer to looking like film and the Uncanny Valley issue grows ever smaller, it was great to see this film play with crisp, realistic images and then also use a bunch of other things (that probably have names that I don’t know) to ground us fully in an animated world.
**Shameik Moore (so good in 2015’s Dope) was great as Miles Morales and Jake Johnson (as Peter B. Parker) was perhaps my favorite Peter Parker ever. *** I’ll leave you to discover the other voices.
***Though I have a bit of a Jake Johnson thing. Win it All, Drinking Buddies, Safety Not Guaranteed

3SMReviews: Mary Poppins Returns

3SMReviews: Mary Poppins Returns

Director Rob Marshall provides a worthy sequel in Mary Poppins Returns, gathering both actors worthy of the weight that is continuing a beloved story and also by sprinkling in cameos that do not feel forced. The songs were good, if not spectacular, though the full-cast dance sequences were spectacular and carried the music.* Overall this was a good way to spend an afternoon.**

Verdict: Recommended

Cost: $9.00
Where watched: Living Room Theaters with my friend MM and an audience that included children (who got somewhat squirrely near the end.)

*I think Rob Marshall excels in capturing this aspect of the movie musical. With a stage production, the audience gets to choose where to set their eyes on the 20+ performers onstage. Marshall is very good at still letting us do this while not feeling like the camera is static. I still can visualize some of the ensemble scenes in Chicago. Contrast that with Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge! with so many quick cuts that it’s hard to focus on anything.
**I didn’t love it like I love the original, but the original is the original and from my childhood. Recreating that sense of wonder in my 40s is a pretty impossible task.

3SMReviews: The Favourite

3SMReviews: The Favourite

Yorgos Lanthimos gives us the Christmas gift of three amazing actors in The Favourite and I enjoyed every moment of the characters’ slow-motion train wrecks. Aside from great acting and an intense story, there are amazing costumes* and a scene so good that it caused people in my screening to break into applause. Despite its drawing room appearance, this movie changes things up (like a traditional formal dance at a ball that morphs into all sorts of current dance moves) and is contemporary in every way.

Verdict: Recommended

Cost: $9.00
Where watched: Hollywood Theatre with friend Kelly.

*The women look good in their gowns, but Nicholas Hoult really dazzles in his fancy dress and powdered face and wig.

3SMReviews: First Man

3SMReviews: First Man

Damien Chazelle teams up with Ryan Gosling in First Man, a very feelings-based telling of Neil Armstrong’s story. Both Gosling and Claire Foy (as Janet Armstrong) are very good as the stoic couple who never thought they would be public figures. This movie has the White Guys in Suits* problem, and I would have rather watched it with subtitles as the dialogue gets lost in places amid the very industrial sound design, but I loved this movie’s focus on a man with a lot of feelings who never lets any of them out.

Verdict: Recommended

Cost: $4.00
Where watched: at the Academy Theater with S. North and an audience that wandered in and out of the theater during the movie, plus a guy behind us who commented loudly and often.**

*It was very hard to get names of the supporting cast and match them with faces. Being the 60’s, there were a lot of similar looking men in shirtsleeves with ties. This movie also had the same problem as in Lincoln: there were so many “Who is that guy?” moments.  Patrick Fugit I recognized from the get-go, but there was also the guy from Girls, the guy from Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, the guy from Mudbound, the guy from Inception, the guy from the first Ant-Man movie, etc. etc. etc.
** “Space junk!” was perhaps my favorite of his eruptions.***
***He didn’t bug me tremendously, as it reminded me of when S. North and I saw the preview for this film and it so annoyed an audience member he loudly proclaimed, “WHY ARE THEY TRYING TO MAKE IT TENSE? We already KNOW what happens!” Both of us laughed.

3SMReviews: Roma

3SMReviews: Roma

Alfonso Cuarón lets his camera linger in Roma, which is nice because then we can draw our own conclusions. In this black and white film, we experience Cleo’s life as a servant in an upper-class house in Mexico City. Much like Y Tu Mamá También, I loved watching the relationships develop and change, plus there are some pretty intense scenes.*

*One extended male full frontal scene was intense and funny. Some other scenes were intense and heartbreaking.

Verdict: Recommended

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

3SMReviews: Dumplin’

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!)