Skip – Page 5 – Out & About

Vox Lux: Very Displeasing

The review:

I’d seen a preview for Brady Corbet’s Vox Lux and I thought I knew what it was about, so I was utterly confused when the movie opened with a brutal school shooting* and the main character was not Natalie Portman, but Raffey Cassidy. It’s a story told in two parts, the first as 13-year-old Celeste is on the precipice of fame, the second as 31-year-old Celeste is preparing for an important hometown concert. I can see Natalie Portman giving it her all,** but it comes off as scenery-chewing, plus the pacing is off and the movie ends with an endless concert performance that adds nothing.***

The verdict:

Skip unless you are super into Natalie Portman, or are looking for reasons you don’t want to be famous.

Cost: $5.99 (a lot for a not-good movie) via Google Play
Where watched: at home

Consider watching instead:

Further sentences:

*And also, some end credits that ran backwards. They were very confusingly art-y and subtracted more than they added to the film.
**Raffy Cassidy is also quite good. Plus Willem Dafoe was the narrator and that worked.
***It’s great those backup dancers got some work, I guess, but after about five minutes, it’s like “I get it, I get it, move on.” Unfortunately, there is no resolution. Those end credits return. But rolling in the normal direction.

The Perfect Date: Grating, Not Great

The review:

A few years ago, I re-watched She’s All That and found that a movie that I had enjoyed on first viewing was not very good.* The Perfect Date is about at the level of She’s All That, but minus an awesome mid-movie dance scene and an enjoyable first time viewing experience. Noah Centineo isn’t very good at his craft right now,** and there wasn’t much else to recommend.

The verdict:

Skip, unless you have a thing for this guy. In which case you should also watch To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and Sierra Burgess is a Big Fat Loser.

Cost: Netflix Monthly Fee ($8.99)
Where watched: at home

Consider watching instead:

Further sentences:

*Acting: not very good. Funny parts: not as many as I remembered. Character development: uneven
**For some reason he was fine in To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, and bugged the crap out of me in this movie.

3SMReviews: All About Nina

Eva Vives takes a chance in All About Nina, giving us a character who, being female, is easily slotted into that female-dominated category of “unlikable.” Mary Elizabeth Winstead gives it her all as Nina, a stand-up comedian ready to take a chance to leap to success, while also trying not to let her demons get the worst of her. While the movie eventually illuminates the source of Nina’s demons, there wasn’t enough along the way to have me rooting for her,* plus Common (playing love interest Rafe) drove me batty with his line delivery.**

Verdict: Skip, unless you want to do a compare/contrast

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

Consider watching instead:

*This is actually a great movie to watch as a contrast to Can You Ever Forgive Me?, who also has an unlikable protagonist, but one I was rooting for from the beginning despite not knowing, or ever knowing what shaped her into that very prickly person.
**Abusive, stalker ex-guy she slept with, Joe is played by Chace Crawford, who I spent time with while watching Gossip Girl. This movie also has a treasure trove of recognizable actors I don’t see much of: Camryn Manheim, Jay Mohr, Mindy Sterling, Beau Bridges.

3SMReviews: On Chesil Beach

Dominic Cooke’s On Chesil Beach is two-thirds of a great movie. The scenes with Saoirse Ronan and Billy Howle* are taut, troubling, and also have enough heart that you want the couple to make it through their wedding night. After we leave Chesil Beach, it’s a bunch of awkward aging makeup and the movie heads in an obvious direction.

Verdict: Skip unless you are a Saoirse Ronan completist or enjoy two-thirds of a good movie.

Cost: free via Multnomah County Library DVD
Where watched: at home

Consider watching instead: Atonement, Revolutionary Road

*Who was also delightfully pouty in Outlaw King as Edward, Prince of Wales.

3SMReviews: At Eternity’s Gate

Julian Schnabel takes some chances in At Eternity’s Gate and those chances paid off for Willem Dafoe, who was nominated in the Best Actor category for an Academy Award. It didn’t fully pay off for me as this movie was slow, and I had a hard time keeping my eyes open.* I liked how they dealt with the dreaded accent thing,** and the visual things were interesting, almost enough to get me to stop thinking about the fact that a 63-year-old man was portraying a painter who died at 37.

Verdict: skip, unless the visual things intrigue you

Cost: $1.75 via Redbox
Where watched: at home

Consider watching instead some other movie with Willem Dafoe, like The Florida Project, or The Life Aquatic with Steven Zissou

*Indeed, I took a short break and napped for 30 minutes so I could more fully watch the film.
**You know, when the actors all talk with some sort of quasi-English accent, except they are (mostly) Americans playing people who are say, French. This movie starts in French, which sets the tone, but then most of the film the actors talk in standard American English.

3SMReviews: The Wife

Bjorn Runge’s The Wife is a perfect vehicle for Glenn Close’s seventh Oscar nomination and, aside from her performance, a so-so movie. While Close’s performance is nuanced, Jonathan Pryce was all over the place and mostly a distracting presence.* This exists also as a movie where audiences can say after the credits roll, “Thank goodness it’s not like that today!” which is a statement I wish were true.

Verdict: skip, unless you are in it for the Glenn Close performance

Cost: Free from Multnomah County Library (my first Lucky Day Movie!**)
Where watched: at home

*His accent came and went which was perhaps an attempt to show his informal home-life self and his formal Nobel-winning writer self. This attempt was not successful. It also seemed like he couldn’t quite nail his character’s view of Glenn Close as the wife.
**New movies that don’t go into the hold system, but hang out at the branches waiting for you to snap them up! They’ve had this system for books for years now, I’m excited to see it for movies too.

3SMReviews: Vice

Adam McKay wants to include everything in Vice, and that is the number one thing that sinks the movie.* How much more successful would this film have been if it had just focused on one issue like the Big Short did, perhaps Cheney’s use of the unitary executive theory? Also, despite the makeup and extra weight, Christian Bale never completely disappeared into Dick Cheney, though Amy Adams was good.

Verdict: Skip

Consider watching instead: The Big Short, The War Room

Cost: $10.50
Where watched: Cinema 21

*Also sinking the movie: the conundrum of making a biopic about someone who is intently private. Sure, you’ve got that disclaimer with the f-word at the beginning, but when a lot of your movie moments focus on private conversations, we can guess that those conversations were made from thin air. And then what do we really know about this person?

3SMReviews: Green Book

I’m glad I watched Peter Farrelly’s Green Book in a theater, because it gave me further insight into who is really enjoying this movie.* Both Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen were impressive, fully embodying their characters and taking on a physical persona very different from previous roles. However, every single plot point in this film was incredibly predictable, something that ultimately sunk whatever slim hope there was of me liking this film.

Verdict: skip, unless you are a die-hard Mortensen or Ali fan.

Cost: $6.00
Where watched: Laurelhurst Theater with friend Kelly.

Consider watching instead: Dear White People, Selma

*My theater was filled with white people with white hair, most likely of the early-to-mid baby boomer age. They greatly enjoyed Mortensen’s character. I would love to see this with a younger, less-white audience. I’m guessing the reaction points and noises would be different.

3SMReviews: Mulholland Drive

Never do I ever feel more like I’m living in an Emperor has No Clothes world than when I watch David Lynch movies including this one, Mulholland Drive. Everyone speaks very slowly, there are stylized sets, everything is so very mysterious–or is it just a really crappy film?* Actual quote by me when the two actresses started the scene that I knew was going to happen from the first frame of this film: And in hour six, we get some girl-on-girl action.

Verdict: Skip, unless you are into pretentious, nonsensical misogyny

Cost: free from library
Where watched: at home with Matt, as part of preparation for Filmspotting Madness

*When a movie needs a director’s cut, or a website, or published articles or a book to explain what the hell happened, that movie has failed. This is a boring, pretentious movie that can’t be bothered to have a coherent plot, plus it’s creepy to watch, and David Lynch hates women.

3SMReviews: Boy Erased

Unlike Joel Edgerton’s The Gift, a taut thriller that just keeps ratcheting up the stakes, the energy and momentum in Boy Erased is constantly being depleted by the movie’s flashbacks. There are a lot of heartfelt performances in this movie, but they cannot overcome the movie’s structure. Which is too bad, because there’s good stuff in examining what it’s like to want to be something you aren’t because you can’t be something you are.

Verdict: Skip

Cost: $4.00
Where watched: Academy Theater with S. North
Based on the book Boy Erased by Garrad Conley

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
						1
2	3	4	5	6	7	8
9	10	11	12	13	14	15
16	17	18	19	20	21	22
23	24	25	26	27	28