I had Christmas cards to address and needed something Christmas-y while I was doing it,* and so I turned on Alex Zamm’s A Christmas Prince. It wasn’t terrible. I found that Theo Devaney (Simon) was more interesting than the Christmas Prince himself, so I wasn’t really rooting for the right person, but overall, I didn’t hate it.**
The verdict: Skip
Cost: Netflix monthly fee ($8.99) Where watched: at home (also, I had to pay more attention to this than It’s a Wonderful Life and thus kept making errors in addressing the Christmas cards.)
*I don’t own a copy of It’s a Wonderful Life, which is my go-to for this sort of thing **I’ve really enjoyed Rose McIver in iZombie, and was surprised to see her coming off as so vapid in this film.
Questions:
Did you like this film? If yes, what worked for you?
Do you think this movie deserves to have two sequels?
Favorite IMDB trivia items:
The movie was filmed on the Peles Castle, a Neo-Renaissance castle in the Carpathian Mountains, situated in Sinaia, in Romania.
(I question your syntax there, IMDB trivia contributor, but I was wondering where that castle was.)
Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman is worth watching for its excellent performances—Joe Pesci was my favorite—but ultimately is a bloated, overly long story that isn’t very interesting.* This is a less-bloody Scorsese film,** and uses de-aging technology so that the main actors, all over 70, can play themselves at much younger ages.*** It may be that I’ve grown impatient with stories of manly men doing manly things,**** but this movie didn’t resonate with me at all.*****
The verdict: Skip
Cost: Netflix monthly fee ($8.99) Where watched: at home
Consider watching these other Scorsese films instead:
*It might have worked better as a four-episode limited series, but I would guess Mr. Scorsese thinks he’s too good for TV. **but its lack of drama and tension had me wishing I was re-watching The Departed ***While everyone seems to be very impressed by this technology, I didn’t find it to be successful. Robert De Niro never looked actually young and thus it wasn’t always clear which of the many time periods we were in. ****For example, I just can’t get excited about Ford vs. Ferrari, even though it’s populated with actors I love. *****And oh my god, if I had to see one more shot of Peggy (Anna Paquin) quietly observing her father I was going to figure out how to make a compilation video and then morph that into one of those big-eyed animals crying video. We get it already! She’s the moral center of the film! She has nothing else to do than to sadly judge! Where are the female characters in this film?!?
Questions:
What did you think of this film that 96% of Rotten Tomato Critics found Fresh?
What are the pluses and minuses of de-aging actors?
Favorite IMDB trivia item:
Robert De Niro wanted the film to retain the same title as the book I Heard You Paint Houses. Me too, Mr. De Niro.
Despite excellent performances, Sam Mendes’ American Beauty has not aged well, thanks to a social movement that calls out how women have to live in the world* and its lead actor’s real life.** On the one hand, we’ve got someone who has a goal, knows why the goal exists, and is working toward a life that is good; on the other hand we have someone who is floating along unhappy and only inappropriate desire can rouse him from the slumber.*** The film was also quite slow; the line readings had me wanting to snap my fingers telling them to speed it up!
The verdict: Skip
Cost: free via Multnomah County Library Where watched: at home
*#MeToo **There’s a scene where Kevin Spacey threatens a sexual harassment suit against his male boss. Lo, nearly 20 years later Kevin Spacey would be the person being accused. ***Dude, you don’t like your life? Fine, change it. You think your wife is a phony? Examine why you are still with her and perhaps talk to her about it. You hate your marriage? Get a divorce or fix it. You feel sad that your daughter is so distant? Maybe ask her some questions. You want to sleep with your underage daughter’s best friend? You can’t. It’s illegal.**** ****For the love of god, don’t blame everything on your wife. Have some agency. This movie was very much a last gasp (I hope) of the baby boomer mid-life crisis movie—right down to the cliched music.
Favorite IMDB trivia item:
According to his Oscar speech, screenwriter Alan Ball was sitting at the World Trade Center Plaza when he saw a paper bag floating in the wind and was inspired by it to write the film, which was originally conceived as a stage play.
Questions:
Do you have a movie that you once loved, but hasn’t aged well?
Scott Cooper’s Hostiles is full of good acting and is so very long it seemed as if a presidential administration had passed by the time I got to the last frame of the movie.* This was an interesting study of a quasi-kumbaya journey wherein an Army Captain comes to a deeper understanding of the treatment of American Indians and his part in it. I’m all for re-examining the many effects Westward Expansion/genocide had on the people who were already here, but I found this story to be mostly unbelievable.**
The verdict: Skip
Cost: Netflix subscription ($8.99/month) Where watched: at home
Wind River (another white people movie, but calls out the many unsolved murders of Indian women on reservations.)
Further sentences:
*Good acting is good and all, but when the story is dragging its feet, good acting isn’t enough.
**Plus, it’s another Native American story told via the white people’s experience. Plus the body count was very high, and guess who made it to the final frame and guess who ended up dead? Plus, I didn’t believe the final arrangement of people. Not gonna work. Pretending so overlooks a lot of history.
Favorite IMDB trivia item:
The book Captain Blocker (Christian Bale) is reading at the beginning of the movie is Julius Caesar’s Commentarii De Bello Gallico (The Gallic War) in the original Latin. The page shown is from Book V, describing the social and economic structure of first century B.C. ancient Kent. In 55 B.C., Caesar invaded briefly the south of the England. (Thanks, IMDB commenter who can read Latin)
Ry Russo-Young’s The Sun is Also a Star is not going to get a fair review from me because I’m too close to the book.* I initially rejected the movie because the actors both look like they are well into their 20s;** when I did watch the movie the changes that were made from the book stripped a lot of what I loved from the story.*** I didn’t necessarily expect this to be amazing, but I did want it to be better than it was.****
*Which is excellent, and I recommend you read it immediately. It’s short. It won’t take you long. Nicola Yoon is the author. **I’ve since found out that Yara Shahidi is actually still a teenager ***I’m usually pretty good at separating the book from the movie—they are different mediums and need different things. But this movie was left with not much after so many things changed. ****Especially because Russo-Young directed Before I Fall, which I really enjoyed.
Favorite IMDB trivia item:
The lead characters Natasha and Daniel are loosely based on Nicola Yoon (the author of the book the movie is based on) and her husband who are Jamaican and Korean American respectively. Neither faced the immigration issues shown in the film.
Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood is the story of a friendship* between two men that had me shifting in my seat at the 90 minute mark and wondering for the next 71 minutes what all the other people in the theater were interested in. I’m on record of not being a fan of Mr. Tarantino** but man, this movie had too much movie for what it was saying.**** Both Pitt and DiCaprio bring great performances, the period detail was great, and still: No.
The verdict: Skip
Cost: $8.00 (Hollywood Theater Member pricing!) Where watched: Hollywood Theater with friend Kelly
Consider watching these other movies set in the 60s:
*I don’t think it can really be called a friendship when one person is paying the other, but we have no word for that. Frempolyment? Employship? **Good things he does: dialog (though not so much in this movie); music; period detail. Problems I have with him: his movies are too damn slow; the films I’ve seen have the same structure that ends in too much violence; the violence is somewhat cartoonish, which leaves me ill physically and spiritually.*** ***In my screening, the violence actions directed at women in the big scene at the end had several audience members expressing bro-like appreciation in a way that would not have been out of place at a gang rape. That made sitting through that gory scene that much worse. ****All of the Sharon Tate scenes could have been cut, and just about every tense scene went on long enough to have the tension transition to irritation.
Favorite IMDB trivia item:
As the Tate party enters the El Coyote restaurant for dinner, Sharon Tate and Jay Sebring discuss a movie premiere they can see taking place further down Beverly Blvd. at an erotic movie theater. “They have premieres for dirty movies?” asks Sharon. The theater in question is the Eros, a real adult theater of the time. The building still exists, though it is now a repertory cinema called the New Beverly Cinema, and it is owned by Quentin Tarantino.
Marc Lawrence’s The Rewrite is a movie that seems to have time traveled from the 90s, landing squarely in 2014 and carrying on as if nothing has changed. Hugh Grant is a screenwriter who has slid so far in Hollywood he takes a job teaching screenwriting at a college in upstate New York* where he chooses his students by checking online to see what they look like** and then tries his best to avoid teaching them anything.*** Allison Janney is a frigid Jane Austin scholar who thwarts him at every turn**** until he has a realization and everything comes up roses for him.*****
The verdict: Skip
Cost: free from the Multnomah County Library Where watched: at home, (and I now pledge to look up some reviews before putting a five-year-old movie I’ve never heard of into my DVD player)
*It happens to be the same college one of my former roommates attended. **He ends up with eight very attractive young women and two very nerdy guys. Marisa Tomei argues her way into class, and I found myself wishing we could shuffle Hugh Grant off camera and just have a movie about her character. ***Except for one person. And, to no one’s surprise, that person is not one of the nine attractive women. Grant decides that one of the nerdy guys has a brilliant script and mentors him into a movie deal. Those ladies, though, they are still window dressing. No reason to see if they can write. No reason to mentor them. ****Strangely, we are supposed to see her as the villain here, rather than as a person making some good points. *****At that point I was hoping for more of a Leaving Las Vegas-style ending.
Favorite IMDB trivia item:
Portions of the film were shot in and around Binghamton, NY and the nearby Binghamton University. This is because director Marc Lawrence is a graduate of the university, and has expressed a great love for the school and his experience there.
The reason to watch Stanley Donen’s Two for the Road is to see the interesting cuts between scenes that show us different periods of a couple’s ten-year marriage. However, there are many more reasons not to watch the film, namely, it’s hard to root for a couple who isn’t happy* and whose relationship was on shaky ground from the get-go.** On the other hand, there’s nice scenery, really amazing clothing*** and a series of scenes with Mr., Mrs., and Miss Manchester, the trio you don’t know how thankful you are that you’ve never vacationed with.
The verdict: skip
Cost: $3.99 via Google Play Where watched: at home as part of Filmspotting’s Stanley Donen Marathon.****
*I suspect we’ve got some generational differences here, but Albert Finny’s character is a big jerk who also is very loud. What in the world does Audrey Hepburn see in him? Why is she falling in love with him when he has done nothing to demonstrate he’s a good person? And also! If when you get married you agree not to have any children, then you have agreed not to have children. Don’t get all mad, Audrey Hepburn’s character, because now you want children and he’s pointing out the agreement you’ve already made. **Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy comes to mind (Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Before Midnight) but the difference is that both of those characters are charming, and the series unfolds so that you can do nothing but root for them. ***Including some very impractical things. I can’t imagine that vinyl pants/jacket combo was anything but a sweaty mess when worn while riding in a car, or on any sunny day. ****I’ve just looked over Stanley Donen’s list to see if there is anything of his I like and, while I still haven’t seen many of his films, he did direct Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, (so many not okay things about the story, and yet, so delightful) and he co-directed the movie that is tied for first as my favorite film of all time: Singing in the Rain. So he’s okay, I guess. Also, strangely, he directed Lionel Richie’s “Dancing on the Ceiling” video, a milestone video of my elementary school years.
Favorite IMDB trivia item:
The passport shown on screen lists Hepburn’s birthday as 11 July 1936 and Finney’s as 22 August 1933, making her appear 7 years younger, and him 3 years older than their actual ages.
Also, the couple shared a passport in this film! It had both their pictures in it. Good lord, was this a thing? Apparently it was.
Sometimes the experience of watching a movie is an exercise in picking apart why the film isn’t working and so it was for James Wan’s Aquaman. I came up with a host of reasons: big gaps in the origin story; villains who had already turned evil, leaving me without reasons to “feel” for them;* flimsy story with not-great writing** that leads to too many action scenes; a very fit guy is only part of the reason to watch a movie, the character he creates has to also be compelling; lack of day-to-day stuff about his life.*** Overall, this was a great example of all style, no substance and I just didn’t care.
*Green Goblin from Spider-Man and Doc Ock also from Spider-Man come to mind as good examples of villains I felt for, even while rooting for their defeat. Even Ultron managed to by sympathetic. **For most of the movie Aquaman is all, “I’m totally not going to be your king!” and then at the end it’s suddenly, “This is gonna be fun!” Why the change Aquaman? ***The movie has placed him firmly as a laid-back surfer, and Aquaman himself says he’s dumb at one point. But he speaks, Russian, Italian, Maori and English? When did he learn all of that? Also, how does he eat? Or drink at the bar? Is he paid for his work? Who pays him?
Favorite IMDB trivia item:
Arthur and Orm are elder and younger brothers, but Patrick Wilson is five years older than Jason Momoa, while Nicole Kidman, who plays their mother, is seven years older than Wilson.
If I had a dollar for every movie with a woman playing a “mom” with this age span, it would add up quickly.
Or: There’s a Difference Between a Romantic Comedy and a Comedy
(That difference, as you might guess, is the presence of romance.)
The review:
Jennifer Kaytin Robinson has crafted a nice duel portrait of (1)female friendship and (2)the end of a relationship, and there are things to like about Someone Great.* But it doesn’t really have a lot going for it, and it pretty easily slid into that category of movie I recommend for people to watch when they have the flu. There were way too many flashback—all more or less framed in the same way—and I think the forgettable title name** sets the stage for the forgettable nature of the movie.***
The verdict:
Skip. Unless perhaps you have the flu?
Cost: Netflix monthly charge ($8.99) Where watched: at home
*The easy friendship between Gina Rodriguez, DeWanda Wise, and Brittany Snow, the montage of getting ready to go out, the zany last day scenario. **True story: I made all the visuals for this post using the name Someone Like You, which is a 2001 Ashley Judd comedy that I found forgettable, but which is based on a book called Animal Husbandry which is a MUCH better title and which I quite liked. **It’s another one of those movies called “romantic comedies” but which is not actually a romantic comedy, but a comedic female friendship movie. Ibiza (also a Netflix film) was similar, except it did have some romance. This was all breakup, no romance. I’m all for comedic female friendship movies. But don’t call them romantic comedies.
