Tag: Recommended

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.)

Spider-Man: Far From Home is a Properly Adolescent Superhero Movie

The review:

John Watt’s Spider-Man: Far From Home brims with hard choices for one very reluctant superhero.* Tom Holland continues to prove he’s the best Spider-Man ever as he makes plans to spend a summer getting away from his neighborhood and the big superhero shoes he’s stepped into since the events of Avengers: Endgame.** But that wouldn’t make for a very entertaining movie for us, now would it?***

The Verdict: Recommended

Cost: $10.00
Where watched: Baghdad Theater

Consider also watching:

Further sentences:

*He is, after all, sixteen.
**He just wants to see Europe with his friends and maybe tell MJ (a delightfully frowny Zendaya) how he feels. The teen romance was totally on point in this film.
***Not to fear. Things go wrong. Spider-Man has to save the day. There are funny and clever parts.

Faviorte IMDB trivia item:

In the film, Spider-Man mentions Captain Marvel, which marks the first time a MCU character referred to Carol Danvers by that name.

Late Night: A Grown-up Comedy I Heartily Recommend

The review:

Nisha Ganatra gives us a rare object in Late Night: the grown up comedy. Aside from a great cast* it’s also an interesting look at how those past-your-bedtime** comedy shows get created. It’s got some laugh-out-loud moments, and many chuckles and I found myself thoroughly charmed.

The verdict: Recommended

Cost: $6.00
Where watched: the Laurelhurst Theater

Consider also watching:

Further sentences:

*Emma Thompson of course, and Mindy Kaling. And all those writers in the writers room were fun to watch and I enjoyed seeing Paul Walter Hauser, who was so good as the not-so-smart buddy Shawn in I, Tonya
**It occurs to me that probably no one thinks of these shows this way any longer. I’m asleep by 10, but still see bits from late-night comedy shows because they are available on YouTube

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

A poster for director Nisha Ganatra’s first feature, Chutney Popcorn, can be seen on the wall of Molly’s room.

Kim’s Convenience provides a variety of comedy

The review:

If you are looking for a gentle ensemble comedy with a lot of laughs, look no further than Kim’s Convenience.* The convenience store owned by the Kim Family (parents Appa & Umma,** with their grown children Jung and Janet***) provides a steady series of memorable situations and characters. The Kim family is partially estranged—father and son haven’t talked in years due to Jung’s delinquent adolescent choices—but there are still a lot of laughs to be had as the Kim family goes through life’s ordinary trials.****

The verdict: Recommended

Cost: Netflix monthly charge ($8.99)
Where watched: at home with Matt, who heard about it on Feminist Frequency

Consider also watching:

Further sentences:

*It also has the charm of being set in Toronto, which means when characters are issuing apoligies, you get to hear that charming Canadian closed-mouth prounciation: “soory”.
**I know this is Korean for father and mother, but IMDB doesn’t list the parents’ names.
***There’s a great supporting cast too: Jung’s friend Kimchee; Jung’s boss Shannon, who is delightfully awkward in her trying to project that she’s hard-working, while barely hiding her crush on Jung; Janet’s friend Gerald, who is a pushover; the too-familar Mr. Mehta; and the ever suffering Pastor Nina.
****Most of the humor comes from normal situations such as trying to prove who is the better photographer, and a goodly number of complexities arising from situations at church.

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

The interior set of the titular location is an exact replica of a real downtown Toronto corner store, Mimi Variety.

Fight Club: Still Relevant 20 Years Later

The review:

I hadn’t seen David Fincher’s Fight Club since 1999*, and wasn’t at all certain it would hold up, so I pressed play with some amount of trepidation. My trepidation vanished in the first few minutes and I found myself settling back into the feeling I remember the movie giving me the first time I watched it.** It’s violent, a bit terrifying, hilarious, runs at a breakneck pace, and might be both Edward Norton and Brad Pitt’s best performances*** and if you haven’t seen this film, get thee to a viewing.****

The verdict: Recommended

Cost: free from the Multnomah County Library
Where watched: at home, as part of Filmspotting’s 9 from ’99*****

Consider also watching these other fine Fincher films:

Further sentences:

*Or rather, since the year 2000, as the journal excerpt below proves.
**The feeling in question: This movie is awesome! I also want to be in a Fight Club! And also, no, I can see that it isn’t actually a good thing! But I still am enjoying myself tremendously watching this film.
***This movie also manages the impossible: it’s a movie about men doing men things that exclude women, its plot contains only one woman and she’s more of a plot point than a character, and yet still I find myself charmed. How does this film do that?
****It’s been 20 years since its release, so you probably know the twist. It’s still worth watching if you do.
*****And between this film, the Sixth Sense, and the Matrix the year 1999 was sending a very strong message that all was not as it seemed.

Favorite IMDB Trivia:

Author Chuck Palahniuk first came up with the idea for the novel after being beaten up on a camping trip when he complained to some nearby campers about the noise of their radio. When he returned to work, he was fascinated to find that nobody would mention or acknowledge his injuries, instead saying such commonplace things as “How was your weekend?” Palahniuk concluded that the reason people reacted this way was because if they asked him what had happened, a degree of personal interaction would be necessary, and his workmates simply didn’t care enough to connect with him on a personal level. It was his fascination with this societal ‘blocking’ which became the foundation for the novel.

Special bonus:

Excerpt from my journal the day I watched Fight Club:

Always be my Maybe: A Sneaky Charmer

The review:

Nahnatchka Kahn’s Always Be My Maybe did not charm me from the beginning, but it slowly ramped up, and by the end I found myself satisfied with a very funny, and surprisingly moving, film. While neither Ali Wong nor Randall Park were familiar to me, their awkward chemistry and their characters’ long history provided a couple I could root for.* Add in a series of scenes featuring a major star who chews scenery while playing himself, plus some crackling dialog and a bevy of one-liners and you’ve got a solid rom-com.

The verdict: Recommended

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

Consider also watching a bevy of Netflix Rom-Coms:

Further sentences:

*Though I’m not at all convinced of their long-term prospects.

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

Ali Wong began performing while at UCLA as a member of the university’s LCC Theatre Company, the largest and longest-running University Asian American theater company, of which Randall Park was a co-founding member during his time at UCLA.

Booksmart: A High School Film, but Different

3SMReviews: Booksmart

The review:

Olivia Wilde’s movie Booksmart isn’t just about two studious high school students who go to a party; the reason they attend the party is the crux of the film. There are hijinks along the way, and standard movie stuff happens* but the realization that drives the need to attend a party is what sold this movie for me. There were a couple of scenes I adored and the movie is also populated with a variety of interesting types** and some excellent markers of how high school looks different from my own experience.

The verdict: Recommended

Cost: $9.00
Where watched: Laurelhurst Theater with Matt, who also liked it.

Consider also watching:

*It’s the same list I had for Wine Country (hijinks, things not going according to plan, fights, personal realizations, a happy ending) and because it’s a raunchy comedy you can add vomiting.
**Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever are great as I knew they would be, but I also loved Skyler Gisondo as the kid trying to buy his way into everyone’s heart, Molly Gordon as the girl known by an unfortunate nickname, Bille Lourd as the weird girl who is everywhere, and Michael Patrick O’Brien’s short turn as Pat the Pizza Guy.

3SMReviews: Booksmart

Favorite IMDB triva item:

In a May 24, 2019, interview on National Public Radio’s program “All Things Considered,” director Olivia Wilde explained the word “Malala” as it is used by the two best friends Amy and Molly as an inside reference between them: “‘Malala’ is their code word for unconditional support. So what ‘malala’ means is that what I’m asking you to do now with me you must do….Malala [Yousafzai, the Pakistani advocate for girls’ education and the youngest-ever Nobel laureate] is one of their great role models. And I think that’s why she holds the most significant place in their friendship, the idea that if you call ‘Malala,’ you must really mean it.”

Juliet, Naked: Still a Delight on Second Viewing

3SMReviews: Juliet, Naked

The review:

This was a re-watch to catch the boyfriend up. He liked it. Original review here.

Verdict: Recommended

Cost: free from the Multnomah County Library
Where watched: at home with the aforementioned boyfriend.

3SMReviews: Juliet, Naked

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

To create the “classic” album that the character Tucker is best known for, director Jesse Peretz turned to previous collaborator Nathan Larson who worked with him on Our Idiot Brother (2011). Over the course of three years, they wrote songs and requested demos from about 35 artists such as Conor Oberst, Robyn Hitchcock and Ryan Adams. Nathan Larson’s inspiration for the music was Big Star’s “Third/Sister Lovers” album as well as friend Jeff Buckley.