Tag: three sentence movies

Ann Hornaday from the Washington Post has proposed a list of the best 23 films of the 2000s. Let’s see which ones I’ve seen.

Movies I’ve seen:

• 25th Hour
• The Hurt Locker
• Michael Clayton
• Boyhood
• 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days
• Old Joy
• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
• You Can Count on Me
• No Country for Old Men
• I’m Not There
• Dunkirk
• Mudbound
• Spotlight
• Stories We Tell
• The Royal Tenenbaums

Movies I’ve not yet seen, but plan to:

• Children of Men
• There Will Be Blood
• Hunger
• Spirited Away

Movies I most likely won’t watch:

• Pan’s Labyrinth–this movie has weirded me out for years.
• Minority Report–Tom Cruise is a no-go for me
• Son of Saul–I have trouble prioritizing movies depicting the holocaust
• The Fog of War–I’m sure this is a great documentary, but there just aren’t very many documentaries in my life.

Let’s look at what I’ve seen. Of the fifteen on the list…

I heartily recommend: 

Movies that are good movies to watch in general:

• Boyhood
• Old Joy
• You Can Count on Me
• Dunkirk
• Spotlight
• Stories we Tell
  
• The Royal Tenenbaums

Movies that are good, but tough to watch (tense, difficult subject matter, etc.)*

• The Hurt Locker
• 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days
• No Country for Old Men
• Mudbound

*People would probably put Spotlight on this list, but it’s such a quality film, I think that overcomes the difficult subject matter.

Movies that I remember liking, but would have to watch again before recommending them:

• 25th Hour
• Michael Clayton
• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
• I’m Not There (I recall being overly tired while watching, which got in the way of my enjoyment) (Yep. Tired.)

Three things I loved about this movie: the way young women’s sexuality was treated with respect; the casting of actors who looked like normal teenagers; and how hilarious it was.  While much of the humor was based on exaggerated situations that would not happen in real life and some of it wasn’t my cup of tea, I laughed a lot while watching this movie. All six actors on that poster were great.*

Cost: $1.50, from Redbox
Where watched: at home

*The recent comic turns by John Cena, (Blockers, Trainwreck) Dwane Johnson, (Central Intelligence)  and Chris Hemsworth, (Ghostbusters, Thor: Ragnarok) have me thinking we could populate a hilarious comedy using only guys who can’t buy their shirts off the rack.

When I discovered Anna Faris a few years back, more than one person mentioned they liked her in this film, which was a film that was not in the holdings of the Multnomah County Library. Now that I have access to movies via my TV, I could see Ms. Faris’s performance. She, as usual, had great comic timing, although the Happy Madison production company tends to produce films that are not to my tastes; this was no exception to that rule.

Cost: $2.99 via Google Play (though free due to credit)
Where watched: at home, movie four of four while recovering from a migraine.

Of note: the four movies I watched were all via different movie delivery methods: streaming via Hoopla, DVD from library, Netflix, rented via Google Play.

My second viewing, I still love how director Taika Waititi takes everything really good about the Thor movies and adds a layer of comedy that completely works. Cate Blanchett makes for a worthy villain and even though the humor is turned up to 11, the stakes are still high. This is the best Marvel movie to watch when you want to laugh.

Cost: Netflix monthly charge ($7.99)
Where watched: at home, movie three of four recovering from a migraine

Another Lynn Shelton film to delight in, this is a story of steadily rising stakes, both between the two friends, Mark Duplass and Joshua Leonard, and also Duplass and his wife. One-on-one conversations are the main reason to watch this, with layers upon layers of nuance. It’s a story that is mostly uncomfortable, but in a pleasurable way.

Cost: free from library, streamed via Hoopla
Where watched: at home, movie two of four while recovering from a migraine.

I consider it a mark of success when a movie can have a character I would be judgmental of in real life, yet I enjoy her company in the movie. While Carrie Pilby does have her problems (being a Harvard graduate by the age of 18) her father is also paying for a one-bedroom New York City apartment, her living expenses, and her therapy sessions. Still Carrie manages to delight–probably due to Bel Powely’s talents–and that made this film worth watching.

Cost: free from library
Where watched: at home, movie 1 of 4 while recovering from a migraine.

Director Lynn Shelton excels at telling normal-life-type stories and making them compelling.  In this movie, Rosemary DeWitt develops an aversion to bodily contact at the same time her brother–played by Josh Pais (so great!)–develops an ability to cure his dental patients TMJ pain. There are some hilarious moments–such as Pais and Allison Janney in a Reiki healing session–and some sad moments and I could have hung out with these people for a good long time.

Cost: free from library
Where watched: at home

And the exciting trilogy concludes with a movie that lets us be more knowledgeable in some places than Jason Bourne–we know, for instance about the Asset, when Bourne has no idea. This film seems very much a product of its time with Joan Allen and David Strathairn facing off about how we will be as a country.* Unlike the first two films, the action sequences were mostly hard to follow, sinking into a blurry mishmash of stuff happening

Cost: free from library
Where watched: at home, in anticipation of Filmspotting Madness 2019

*Around this time, the US was grappling with the issue of how much we would use torture to get information we needed.  This comes right through in the plot of this film.

While I fell asleep several times during this film, I always enjoy looking at the practical effects of the pre-CGI world. The acting was mostly terrible (exception: Timothy Dalton), but it’s an iconic film that I’m happy to have seen. Or seen most of, I guess.

Cost: $2.00 (I have found the cheapest theater in town!)
Where watched: McMenamins Mission Theater