
“Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” Season 2: Episodes 1 & 2!!
If you didn’t sing that to the catchy af theme song of “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”, that likely means that you don’t watch it, which definitely means that you are missing out ON LIFE. This show, from Tina Fey and a guy my brother knows, had one of the funniest first seasons for a sitcom, full stop (look I’m British now). Sure, Season 1 had its low points (the whole trial b.s. and the Native American stuff), but its high points were so high it all averaged out to be above average. So good at math. This goofy show makes viewers so happy. Lucky for the world, so in need of more happiness, season 2 is out today!
So, quick recap: Kimmy Schmidt is the true adorkable television heroine of our time, played to silly and ridiculous perfection by Ellie Kemper, the redhead from “The Office” and “Bridesmaids” whose last name for some reason I really really want to keep saying/actually do keep saying as “Kempner” for no apparent reason. Did I go to camp with a Kempner? Do you know? Can you see me? Kimmy is this totally naïve, sheltered gal from the Midwest whooooo was kept as an unwitting hostage by a crazy doomsday cult leader (Jon Hamm) in an underground bunker for the last 15 years. Finally freed, she has a lot to comprehend (for starters, that the world didn’t end) with the knowledge, awareness, and social skills of a tween. But it’s a comedy. She moves to NYC, the perfect place for her blind trust and total innocence, and finds an apartment owned by Carol Kane’s landlord Lilian, with the most incredible roommate maybe in television history, Tituss Burgess’s Titus Andromedon. (Real name 2 s’s (esses?), fake name 1. Actually, real name 4 s’s/esses.) And, she gets a job as a nanny for a rich beeyotchamaphone named Jacqueline Voorhees, a role I assume was written specifically for Jane Krakowski because she is red underlined 100 emoji. Titus, on the other hand, is the red 100 emoji surrounded by 10 flame balls on each side. His role was indeed written for him. I love how much he saaaaaaaaaaaaang in season 1! Let’s see what happens next!
Should we start with the best or the worst? I like to do crap first and then think happy thoughts, but I’m still laughing at the good parts of this premiere, so let’s start there.
THE GREAT
Lilian is on board as Kimmy’s wingman after the sadness of Dong, so that means we got a lot more Lilian onscreen than usual. Although Carol Kane still hasn’t had the opportunity to scream that anyone is a “LIARRRRRRRRRRR!”, this change is very welcome. My favorite parts were a) when she and Kimmy stopped into the Grim Dollar Store (actual name, nice) and she said to Kimmy “I’ll be in intimates”; b) her outfit for their date night – Frankie Says Relax tee and insane tutu; and c) talking about her golden spaghetti hair and how it will attract men. She is so damn winning. She was actually funnier than Titus this episode, at least in terms of speaking parts. Titus still made the best faces, but this episode made him unlikable for most of it. Yeah, that was so his apology/redemption at the end was more satisfying, but still: non-singing, mean Titus? Hard pass.
In the Dollar Store, Kimmy runs into Dong and tries to act super uninterested and confident, but of course it’s fake and funny. So fast and easy to miss this great line:
Dong: Kimmy?
Kimmy: Dong.
Dong: So nice to see you!
Kimmy: I’d like that.
But then Dong WINS the episode when he shares that his English has improved because he’s been watching “Keeping up with the Kardashians”, which he proves when Kimmy says “It’s working,” and he responds, “Awww, you’re sweeeet” exactly like a Kardashian, complete with the trailing off vocal fry at the end. DIED. It was only topped when Kimmy invited him roller skating and he responded, also in the Kardashian voice, “So yeah, that sounds amaaaazing.” It was!!
Proving that she deserves an Emmy nomination too, Ellie Kemper is so flinging flanging great as Kimmy that I can’t really tell if she’s acting or if she is playing herself. She makes every face and delivers every line exactly right. Only she could make Kimmy’s angry “Well fudge that sugar! Fudge it to heck!” as hilarious as it was.
Wait, I take it back about Dong winning. He came close. The real winners were the tiny tiny role of Amtrak train conductor and whoever wrote this incredible exchange about Amtrak’s true purpose. I can’t rob you of the joy that comes from watching it by showing the text here, so here’s the video, omg.
MEH
Titus, though not at his character-best this episode, had a freaking dance number at the end, on a train platform, with his ex-wife. How this was not a showstopper moment is beyond me! What a wasted opportunity! My dancing is funnier than theirs was! And he could have sung something, anything.
TERRIBLE
So much time was dedicated to Jacqueline’s time with her Native American family and how she is messing everything up because she doesn’t fit in, and honestly this stuff is not any better than it was last season. It seems offensive and really it’s not funny at all. I just don’t get it. Honestly, you could fast forward through those parts and not lose anything. Get Jane back in NYC being a terrible person and a terrible step-mother to Some Hippie pronto!
REAL TERRIBLE
Why, oh god why, does every single sitcom in the history of the world (2010s) hire Fred Armisen as a guest star? Mallory Ortberg, maybe (probably) (definitely) the smart-funniest person in the world, has a famous (at least on twitter/to her disciples) TV Rule:
“every great comedy will have one nearly-unbearable episode where Fred Armisen guest-stars as an unfunny man with a godawful accent.” – M. Ortberg
GREAT
Both the main storylines – Titus’s and Jacqueline’s – are whatever, not exactly inspired new ground for sitcoms, but they result in some hysterical dialogue. Even better – Jacqueline having to clear out the townhouse so it can be sold means Xanthippe is back!! Her very first moments were my favorite:
Xan, seeing Kimmy in her house: What are YOU doing here?
Kimmy, trying to act cool: Being in a stupid-face contest and coming in SECOND!
Kimmy and Xan’s interactions are my favorite because Xan tries SO hard to hate Kimmy, and Kimmy does everything she can to make a girl like Xan hate her, but you can tell they like each other. And Kimmy unfailingly says the dumbest, most amazing stuff to her, like the above, to which Xan can only shake her head in disbelief.
The sale of the townhouse and Jacqueline’s new apartment search leads to another fantastic scene, this time between Kimmy and Jacqueline. During their first encounter in the apartment, Kimmy pulls this amazingness:
Kimmy: “Mrs. Voorhees…wait, you’re divorced….What do I call you now, Mrs. Voorhers??”
Only Ellie Kemper can say crap like this and make it so freaking funny. But even better is when Jacqueline is looking at apartment listings, complaining about how all the plus-million-dollar apartments are either too expensive or are utter crap, leading to my favorite line of this episode, which I’m going to share in video form because it’s too good:
The other Kimmy line that made me laugh hysterically happened after getting the job at the Christmas store, when she was dressed as an elf walking down the street. She says to herself,“Oh no, those Santas must be coming from a funeral” – and the camera cuts to two Orthodox Jews as she says “I’m sorry for your loss.” I cackled.
I didn’t love the whole plot of Jacqueline trying to impress Anna Camp by putting on billionaire airs, but that’s just because Jacqueline is the best when she’s the worst person on that screen. Putting her in a vulnerable position hurts the character, I think, because she’s supposed to be a caricature, not someone you feel bad for. But I can’t really fault a storyline that led to Jacqueline, her son, and Kimmy getting into a random man’s Bentley in front of Anna Camp, and then CRAWLING over the stunned man in the backseat in order to escape through the other side, out of Anna’s view. That was some absolute GOLD physical comedy. More please!
As for Titus, he is thank goodness back to his good old self, shrieking after his closet bar collapses and explaining “Much like Icarus, a friend of mine who put too much stuff in his closet, I put too much stuff in my closet!” His plotline of taking some of his lesser worn clothes (his culottes that also double as teddy bear clothes, his outfit from when Mickey Mouse-ing was a thing in the gay community) to a thrift store was kind of forced, but like Jacqueline’s above, it allowed for hilarity. My favorite Titus line was when he looked around the cluttered, dirty thrift store and said:
Titus: “My clothes will be plucked from this hell-hole like so many Orphans Annie.”
Titus also had a little surprise treat at the end, when it turned out that the person who took his clothes from the garbage was a hot construction worker who came out to him years ago! They bond over how hard it is to put yourself out there, and how hard it is for the construction worker to hide his true self at work. The best best best part of this segment was when the man said he had to fake being one of the guys by putting a picture of a hot girl on the back of his truck. Cut to his slamming the door so we see the decal of freaking TILDA SWINTON in a glamour shot. So funny!
Lilian’s best line? Her same best line from Episode 1!!! When she and Titus go back to the thrift store, she says, “I’ll be in intimates.” Ridiculous thing to repeat but I love it!
DUMB
The very first line of the episode was a bummer, as it was Kimmy assuming that a man was a woman, and she’s corrected, and that’s the joke. So lame and such outdated humor, like an unoriginal vegan joke. It would have been excused as a one off but then they repeated it! Argh why! Thankfully, this terrible interaction led to Kimmy’s telling the ‘inspiring’ story of a reindeer named Rudolph, with the kind of optimism and genuine belief that only she could muster.
What did you think about the first two back? I hope the rest of the season keeps up the standard set by #2!!
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Oscar Weekend 2017: All (or some of) the Movie Reviews You Need Before Sunday
this best doggie in the whole world is named Oscar do you get it
I feel like it should go without saying but HELLA SPOILERS BELOW.
ARRIVAL
BRIDGET JONES’S BABY
CAFE SOCIETY
COLLATERAL BEAUTY
FENCES
HACKSAW RIDGE
HIDDEN FIGURES
JACKIE
KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS
LA LA LAND
LION
MANCHESTER BY THE SEA
MOONLIGHT
NOCTURNAL ANIMALS
SECRET LIFE OF PETS
SULLY
To ensure that Jamie (Lucas Jade Zumann) grows into a decent man, Dorothea enlists the help of her tenant Abbie (Greta Gerwig) and Jamie’s close friend Julie (Elle Fanning) to help steer him. They ask, well don’t you need a man to raise a man? Dorothea thinks on it and responds, “Well no…I don’t think so” in a line that I think makes the women in every audience applaud. So Abbie teaches Jamie about feminism and the punk scene, taking him out partying at night with people like at least 10 years older than him. He also learns to provide moral support at her doctor’s appointments; she is in remission from cervical cancer. To me, that was the most effective aspect of ensuring he wouldn’t be a total dick, in hand with the way-beyond-his-years treatises on the feminist movement that Abbie had him read. And they dissect The Raincoats, which is cool because members of The Raincoats were sitting near me when I saw it. Abbie also is responsible for probably the most notorious scene in the movie – when Dorothea has a big dinner party and Abbie talks about how ridiculous it is for men, and women, to be scared of discussion about menstruation. So she makes everyone shout ‘menstruation’ a few times so they stop being uncomfortable with it. After my screening of the movie, there was a Q&A with Annette Bening and she made the audience do this. She is a queen.
Julie, on the other hand, has a more complicated relationship with Jamie. Jamie’s in love with her, as 15-year-old boys usually are with their 17-year-old female friends. Julie’s love for him is solely in friendship. She has already had so many (too many) awful sexual relationships with other boys, and so she treasures having a decent male in her life that actually cares about her and she doesn’t want to ruin it. It’s hard for both of them to understand, especially as Julie pushes the boundaries of what would be considered friendship, but Elle does a great job conveying how damaged and complex Julie is.
All of the characters in the movie are interesting, even Billy Crudup’s laid back tenant William. The film’s main focus seems to be making them layered, intractable at times and admirable at others. It’s really surprising that a man is responsible for it. Nothing is straightforward about the women, but it’s all real. Dorothea seems super liberal and presents herself as a free spirit, maybe a hippie, but then she is opposed to feminism as a movement, which is very hard to understand, since she is clearly living as a feminist. But she also seems to be holding onto a fading way of life, and maybe it’s a way for her to avoid change. Her big sprawling old house, home to her, Jamie, Abbie, and William, is forever unfinished and under construction, and maybe with the world changing so drastically politically too, there was just so much she could admit she didn’t have a handle on. Julie, the daughter of a psychologist, tries to analyze everyone in her life and tends to use that knowledge to obviously make herself seem wise beyond her years, but it really shows how little she is in tune with herself. And Abbie seems incredibly tough, considering what she has been through, and strong in her feminist ideals, but struggles in trying to reconcile that with her fear that having children, something she can’t do, is the best or most important part of being female. And Jamie maybe is the most complicated of all, or at least in the most notoriously hard part of growing up. At times he is a poster child for not having children, and at other times he seems like he may indeed be one of the good ones. He makes a lot of bad decisions but nothing that out of the ordinary for teenagers. And Lucas brings a warmth to his immaturity that it makes you want him to turn out okay and have faith that he does.
Although there is no big dramatic plot, the film never loses your attention or interest in what the characters are going through. It successfully makes this group of people feel genuine and reflective of society. And the cinematography is precise and perfect for the time period. Everything looks like it’s covered with a thin layer of dust from driving around in nonstop sunshine and dry weather and cigarettes. It all has that feel of slightly burnt edges. And the script is as engaging as it gets, with witty dialogue that’s honest and smart without calling attention to it. Annette’s portrayal of Dorothea really is fantastic. She is so subtle and controlled, making the smallest of lines incredible with her reading. It’s a shame she wasn’t nominated and that this movie didn’t get more attention.
Amy Adams plays a leading linguist who is hired by the government to communicate with aliens that have landed in 12 different regions of the globe. The aliens haven’t done anything yet, besides park their (super undetectable long thin floaty) arcs/arks (it works both ways! curves and ships! and so the balance shifts) in locations that don’t seem to follow any pattern or reasoning. Amy’s job is to figure out how to communicate with our visitors and find out if they’re here for violence or for friendship – mostly, find out if they are a good squid or a bad squid. Unfortunately, despite her physicist mission partner Jeremy Renner being a pretty good squid, the government officials and military men in charge are (as usual) bad squids, who keep pestering Amy about how she isn’t moving fast enough in TRYING TO LEARN AN ALIEN LANGUAGE. It’s not like it’s the sixth romance language or something you morons. It’s literally ink spills and wailing. The government/military being stupid is typical of these movies, when intelligence and patience struggle to triumph over their hurried might-is-right tendencies, but it quickly gets annoying, and then exasperating. The intensity of ignorance of those in charge may be indeed grounded in reality, but since this movie isn’t (yet) maybe we could have gone a little lighter with that touch. The Serious Man man didn’t need to be such a d-bag. Even d-bags would realize it takes time to learn to talk to GIANT SQUIDS THAT COMMUNICATE BY WAILING AND THROWING INK, and, more importantly, might sometimes defer to the expert who is actually working with said giant squids.
Aside from those annoying men, though, this movie was very well done. Amy Adams, all serene and composed, might not be the first person you think of when you think squid aliens (not to be confused with Hep aliens) and science fiction films, but her quiet and kind of timid disposition really worked for me here. Her character never seemed weak, especially given the tragedy we see her suffer in the prologue, just kind of like she tries to take up less space among the bombastic and ultimately less intelligent men. So they underestimate her, and they don’t suspect that she could not only discover the incredible but also have the gumption to handle things in her own way, without stupid military interference. Mostly, she doesn’t seem like she could be powerful and then she is stronger than all of them, but with her mind, which is way cooler.
The film was a lot more engaging and moving than I expected, mostly because it focused on communication instead of the usual explosions and gunfire you get with typical alien movies. In that regard, it felt a lot more sophisticated than I would have predicted. I also really enjoyed the surprise time bend-y premise that was completely unexpected (and should remain unspoiled) but yet seems perfectly obvious because all good sci-fi movies mess with time. On that note, the first time I saw this movie, I thought it was fine but a little drab. Somehow, the second time I saw it, I was seriously impressed by its sophistication and its subtle illumination of the time matters. So, the moral is see it twice, and be nice to aliens.
We return to Bridge’s cheeky London life (I do not find life here so cheeky but I am not as fun or as dumb as she is) more than a decade since we last saw her et al. in the horrible aforementioned sequel to the fantastic original movie. And we find her – alone. No longer with Mark Darcy! In fact, Mark Darcy is MARRIED to someone else. I literally gasped. On an airplane! Through some well-placed flashbacks, we see how life with Mark was during the intervening years, and how things came to an end. To sum up, he was a dick. A real grade A, uptight, unreasonable, insensitive, cold, unsupportive jock strap in a bag o’ dicks. Whereas, when they first began their romance, he would make his adorable amused smile at Bridge’s antics, one that seemed to say ‘Oh Bridge! You are quite silly now aren’t you”, in the important core years of their relationship he seemed always exasperated. Like, dude, just breathe and unclench! It’s good to have someone in your life who isn’t serious 100% of the time. Will help with your frown lines! Anyway so Darcy was always frowning and setting up camp in his mahogany and tweed bag o’ dicks and Bridget was trying to make him smile and of course her joie de vivre made him furious and he expressed his clear and understandable self-loathing as annoyance with the nice lady in his life that he should have been thanking every day for putting up with his impotent bullshit and that kind of relationship cannot be sustained so they fell apart. He married a nondescript “lady” while Bridget soared through the ranks to become a successful television producer. I adore that Bridget is kind of responsible for the new trend of women in pop culture who have shittastic love lives but who kick serious ass in their professional lives – like Mindy Kaling in “The Mindy Project” (great gyno), and Lorelai Gilmore from “Gilmore Girls” (great innkeeper and business lady), and Rebecca Bunch on “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” (legit nuts in all areas but a fantastic Ivied attorney).
Bridget goes to a kind of Coachella event which is literally my nightmare so to be forced to look upon it while on one of my flying nightmares was a lot for me to handle without screaming but I took some deep breaths and got through it. She meets a super hot and super nice and just perfect seeming man played by Patrick Dempsey, who I do not believe for one second would be at such an event for smelly people. They have a one-night stand in a tent, or at least Bridget assumes that’s what it is because a) hot man & b) that’s what they do that’s what they do, but Patrick (I don’t remember his name he’s prob just playing himself it’s all good) isn’t like that and really likes her! You expect that at some point in the movie a bad quality about him would come to light and show her how amazing Darcy was, but he just keeps getting cooler and more awesome seeming. Unforch, Bridget and a newly divorced Darcy reconnect soon after (or before it’s hard to keep a timeline when you’re getting interrupted for captain announcements) at an English countryside wedding which, having myself been to such a wedding, did not feature nearly enough fascinators. Bridget soon realizes that she is le preggers and doesn’t know if it is Darcy’s or Dempsey’s and, more importantly, doesn’t know who she’d rather have a child with. IT’S DEMPSEY, BRIDGE, IT’S DEMPSEY, not the dick that took 15 years of your life and treated you like gum stuck to his shoe. But of course it was always going to be Darcy because I guess most of the fans would have revolted? But I am pretty representative of the fan base and I would have chosen Dempsey. He was so nice. Mr Darcy is kind of a real dick. Dempsey, on the other hand, had zero negative character traits. Seriously the worst thing about him was that he turned out to be a famous billionaire. And not the dickish kind, but the kind that does a lot to help the world and give to charity and stuff. But the fandom would have erupted if Bridge didn’t end up with Darcy. Oh well, as long as Bridget’s three best friends are still around, we good.
Will Smith played an advertising executive who is obsessed with dominoes, which people try to argue is a game but as far as I have ever seen is just a way to make short-lived motion art with smooth legos. I would have enjoyed a movie that had people debating how on earth knocking over blocks in patterns can be a game played with more than one person. Will (let’s call him Will) constructs impressive domino setups instead of literally doing anything else, be it working or sleeping or eating or speaking to people who are standing right next to him and talking to him, because his 5- or 6-year-old daughter has died tragically. It’s really sad, obviously. But when a year or two passes and he continues to exist in this barely functioning catatonic state, still without speaking, his three business partners decide to force him into therapy and medical care in order for their long-time friend to get a new lease on a life that accounts for his broken heart. Oh wait! That is what non-psychotic caring people would do! Oopsy! Instead of doing literally anything else, the three business partners/supposed friends/former infatuation junkies – Kate Winslet, Ed Norton, and Michael Pena (my computer won’t make the squiggly ‘n’ I AM SORRY I DO NOT MEAN ANY DISRESPECT MICHAEL) – decide to hire a private investigator to catch Will being all cuckoo banana puffs pants so they can use that evidence to force him out of the company, leaving them to sell it and make some needed moolah or at least stop him from using his kookoopantsness to drive big clients to competitors, as was happening. Seems like you should have incorporated your business in a sensible way in the first place that might have allowed for doing things that are in the best interest of the company/shareholders without resorting to such ridiculous efforts but hey that’s your business!
So old lady private investigator – who I enjoyed; they are usually leathery wizened men – like on her first day on the job breaks into a U.S. postal service mailbox, and doesn’t get caught or go to prison because America is totes into breaking all kinds of law now and disrespecting government agencies is a sign of patriotism. OLPI (old lady private investigator) retrieves three letters that Will put in the mailbox moments ago – letters to Love, Death, and Time, in which he yells at each of them for failing him and his family and causing such unwarranted pain. (LIFE IS PAIN HIGHNESS.) Well for Love he just said like ‘goodbye, we’re done’ which is le sad! So the Three Morons (Kate, Ed, and Michael) decide to hire actors to portray the Three, um, Entities? of Love, Death, and Time and having them interact with Will in broad daylight so they can film him talking to the actors but then edit out the actors so it looks like Will is just talking to himself and being completely off his rocker. GREAT PLAN, corporate executives! Great plan.
Ed Norton tells Keira Knightley to play Love cuz she pretty, Jacob Lattimore plays Time because he’s young and tough, and Helen Mirren plays Death because she old like for the earth. They have hesitations about using their craft to destroy a man’s life when it has already been destroyed by such tragedy but then Ed says he will finance their off-off-off-Br’dway play so they are down. They each approach Will like twice in public and tell him oh I am Love/Time/Death and you wrote that awfully mean letter to me and I have something to say about it! Will is not as crazy as they think he is because he’s sane enough to initially be like, trick please, who put you up to this? But they have the letters he wrote, and he didn’t get the memo about how it’s cool now to bust open mailboxes and commit postal felonies. Even more convincingly, OLPI sets it up so that no one nearby acknowledges the actors, forcing Will to question whether maybe they are really the entities. Like, Time visits Will in his office, and then Kate Winslet walks in to ask him a question and pretends not to see the Time actor, which I mean I would be sold too because I wouldn’t suspect Kate Winslet of messing with me so hard. My favorite instance is when Helen Mirren is talking to Will on the sidewalk and OLPI walks by with a little child who she instructed to say, “Grandma why is that man talking to himself??” in Will’s earshot. So yeah I’d prob buy it too. He doesn’t necessarily believe them, but he is super freaked out, shook as the kids say nowadays, to such an extent that he tries going to a meetup group for bereaved parents run by Naomie Harris, who is really nice and lovely here and not like her character in “Moonlight”.
Each of the Three Morons works with one of the Three Actors/Entities on reviewing their interactions with Will and discussing what would work best next. Norton takes charge with Keira’s Love because he is a dawg. Keira’s first interaction with Will is her being all upset because he just wrote ‘goodbye’ and she is like ‘you can’t just say peace I’m done with you to meeee’ and he’s like ‘um I thought you were love, not stage 5 clinginess beeyotch’ well I am paraphrasing this part but that’s how I remember it so that’s how it’ll be. Keira starts therapizing Ed along the way, as he is having serious difficulties being an absent father to a spoilt little New York girl who doesn’t care that he got her Hamilton tickets instead of ever actually being a father to her because she already saw it. (You know how I feel about pop culture using Hamilton references as a way to try to get cheap laughs and/or make connections to the world. Lazy, cheap, amateur attempts at piggybacking off genius and it needs to stop.) Jacob’s Time realizes that Kate wants a baby but her eggs are drying up because she is past 40, or maybe he just guesses that that’s true because sexism, but anyway it is true and he tries to help her realize that she isn’t out of time yet on that front. Michael Pesquigglyna unfortunately has had his cancer come back, and Helen Mirren tries to get him to tell his family and get his affairs in order since it looks like he won’t be beating it this time. Around this time is when I was like OH SHIT. OHH SHIT. THEY ARE REALLY DOING THEIR ENTITY JOBS BUT FOR THE MORONS MAYBE THEY ARE NOT JOBS BUT REAL! Keira was actually helping Ed realize what love is and what it entails, and Helen was helping Michael cope with death, and Jacob was helping Kate deal with timeeee and it was so subtle and I was like HELL YEAH THIS IS AMAAAAZING. I like realizing things before you’re supposed to! Ivy league educaysh! I loved the twist with Naomie Harris; I really did not see that coming until Will went in her house and I was like, hey how did you know where she lived stalker! I cried a good deal when I realized he wasn’t a stalker.
There are two aspects I’m still meh about. One is the fact that the actors were paid even though they weren’t actors. Like, Kate Winslet gave Time/Jacob what, $20,000 in CASH in an envelope? Where did that money go, Time?! Does it go to the angel fund for new fluffier clouds? Are they even ghosts or just spirits and what is the difference? How is it okay to take so much money from the people you’re supposed to be helping! Ahhhh so much cashhh does he even need food? So that is bothering me. Next, the big scene where they explain what on earth the title means. Helen in the flashback is comforting Naomie Harris in the hospital, and she says that it’s comforting to focus not on death but on the beauty that comes with death – the collateral beauty. Like when tragedy happens and people act selflessly or lovingly and bestow kindness in the emptiness that the tragedy caused. Ummm hard pass. I guess it’s kind of like today when we say all this truly awful stuff is happening to our country and people’s lives are being destroyed but it helps to ‘look for the helpers’, all the decent people who come out to try to help? I guess it’s kind of like that? But like I rather we just had a different president. And I don’t think that people who are grieving the loss of a child are going to feel better if you’re like ‘but the nurses brought you balloonsss so nice!’
Despite all its flaws – and there were many; I am not excusing that Daniel-Palladino-level-no-nobody-is-allowed-to-edit-my-script-it-is-fine-how-it-is type of dialogue (which, by the way, was just as bad in the acclaimed “Hidden Figures”) – it really affected me with how raw its emotional development was. We are not used to seeing such unfiltered emotions presented as is, in any form, and that really was lovely. And it was an interesting premise. Sure it wasn’t executed that well, and it should have and easily could have been better, but it was not nearly as bad as all the reviewers wanted it to be.
Fences tells the story of Troy and Rose, a poor hardworking couple in 1950s Pittsburgh, trying to get through life’s bullshit with smiling faces and love, at least at the beginning. Troy collects garbage with his best friend Bono, and not the Bono saying stupid shit about Mike Pence right now but that super lovable actor Stephen Henderson, and even though I cannot ever remember all the things I know him from, I’m always happy to see him. He is wonderful in his super talky scenes with Denzel as they literally talk and talk and talk about their entire lives and everything they’ve already talked about for years with each other but they like to talk and talk about it all the time and share a bottle of gin while they stand in Troy’s little backyard. Denzel’s interaction with Viola feels so lived in and natural, and yes it’s because they already played these roles on Br’dway but also because they are phenomenal actors. Despite the first act being talkier than an episode of Gilmore Girls, it was like being in the middle of a masterclass of acting and character building. I sat there in awe.
We learn a lot about the characters from their interactions with their kids. Troy has an older son named Lyons from a previous relationship, and he comes by mostly to borrow money but he seems decent enough. He’s a musician and Troy never goes to hear him play because he thinks he should get a real job. We realize little by little that Troy is kind of a terrible and mean man. Lyons is only it in a bit but you can easily see how hurt he is when his father refuses to ever go to his jazz club. Maybe if Emma Stone went. Troy and Rose have a teenage son, Cory, with whom Troy is equally cold. Cory is a promising high school football player who has caught the eye of college recruiters, but Troy refuses to let him play. Troy was a professional baseball player, which he reminds you of frequently because he has a baseball hanging on a rope from a tree and he picks up his bat every now and then to hit it. But Troy’s dreams of translating his success as the best in the Negro Leagues to success in the Major Leagues were dashed because he aged out, although he believes it was because of his race, which is probably part of it. Because his bright future was ruined by the racism in sports, according to him at least, he forbids his son from entering that world as well and meeting similar guaranteed failure. No matter that his son is being recruited by colleges and could get a scholarship for FREE EDUCATION, no, Troy is too bitter and obstinate to see how amazing that would be for Cory. This makes me really mad. And Rose is a 1950s housewife, and though she doesn’t seem to bite her tongue, she won’t fight her husband’s word.
Troy’s relationship with his brother Gabriel helps flesh out his character more. Gabriel suffered a head injury in World War II and now is mentally impaired, with a general joviality that gets interrupted by frustrated bursts of anger. He is harassed by local kids because local kids in any locale are pieces of garbage, but he sells his fruit and plays his horn all around town every day. Gabriel’s injury netted him a paltry sum of money from the army, which Troy used to buy the house where 99% of the action occurs. We’re told Troy feels guilty about that but I don’t really think he does. He is a bastard of a person. Gabriel, btw, is played by Mykelti Williamson, who played Bubba in “Forrest Gump”, so he is the go-to actor for characters who are kind of slow and simple but also really warm and easy to root for? I’m going to stop before I get too offensive.
So the more people we see Troy interact with, the more he is revealed, at least to me, to be yet another entry into the big ol’ bag o’ dicks. He doesn’t show any warmth to his sons, and when Cory calls him out on this, asking why he never liked him, Denzel hopefully wins an Oscar with his devastating response about how it’s not his job to like his son, it’s his job to provide for him and get up and go to work every day so his son has a roof over his head and food on the table. It’s a really powerful exchange and even though Troy’s not necessarily wrong he is still being a total dick. At least he’s loving to Rose, right? He and Viola are adorable together! Well but then he gets caught having an affair with a local woman, and he has to confess to Rose not because he knows that’s the right thing to do, but because this other woman, Alberta, is pregnant with his baby. Ohhhh lordy lord, Troy. Thankfully, Viola finally lets loose with all that strength we knew she had deep down and admonishes Troy for taking her for granted and treating her so terribly when she has given him so many good years. Troy, being the bastard that he is, doesn’t apologize or ask for forgiveness – no, instead he tries to explain himself by saying how it made him happy to have sex with another woman who laughed at his really bad jokes. Duuude. Rose is standing there like what in the world are you seriously not apologizing and Troy just keeps digging and digging the hole he’s standing in, saying stupid stuff like how it’s his life and he wanted to have some good old-fashioned cheatin’ fun. Rose erupts and yells that it’s her life too, that she gave up so much to make their life together and he doesn’t appreciate that, obviously. So this is the part in the movie where Viola really cries and gets all snotty and drippy, as she does in all her projects because Viola’s snot is one of the top five actors working today, along with Meryl Streep and Viola Davis the human. She and it are amazing. I think my favorite vegan cheese in the UK, Violife, is named after her because Viola gives me liiiiife. I was so loving Rose in this scene, saying what needed to be said to Troy. It was so satisfying. They really are incredible actors.
Although Troy proved more and more to be possibly off his rocker, his final scene when he screams to the Reaper again to just try taking him was frightening and strong. I really thought he died right there, swinging his bat at his hanging ball and screaming at death (not Helen Mirren). So I am conflicted about this actual ending, because I think it would have been a much more powerful ending if it had indeed ending there, with lightning flashing and Troy screaming at death. Instead, we flash forward six years to Troy’s funeral and get to see how the family is getting on without him physically but with the marks he made on them still apparent. I wouldn’t think this coda was necessary except for the final shot, where Gabriel is pathetically playing his horn to St. Peter to open the gates for his brother and the sun breaks through. I mean, yes, that is pretty cheesy if you wanna be a jerk about it but oh my goodness how I cried. I think even though it’s less powerful to have such codas in general (it’s better to veer away from the ‘where are they now!’ b.s. with fictional characters), I approve of it here because of how moving that end was. “Fences” was pretty much what I expected, a really solid play-like production of an acting vehicle for two of the best working actors. One question – August Wilson is nominated for adapting the screenplay. He died 11 years ago. Not so much a question I guess as just I want to recognize this hard-working ghost.
However.
It’s not a good enough movie to be nominated for Best Picture.
“Hidden Figures” is a really enjoyable movie, with great acting and actors, and overall I’d say it is solid and good. Great? No. Oscar-worthy, no. I liked it, but it was a made-for-TV movie, with its amateur direction and overall feel. I could easily have seen it on ABC Family back when ABC Family existed. The TV movie dialogue and script and direction were a disservice to the women who deserved to have their story told in a more adept and professional way. I honestly think that the studio and/or production team did not think it would do as well as it did, and so they treated it like a throwaway project that wouldn’t make any money or stick around more than a few weeks. If they had any faith in this story, I think we would have gotten a much more skilled and clever film.
Still, it was very enjoyable, with these fantastic actors and this incredible story of black women fighting every manner of adversity to help bring the first American astronauts to the moon. So few people actually know this story so it’s wonderful that these women and their contribution to NASA are finally getting their due. Taraji P. Henson and Octavia Spencer are amazing as always, badass and strong and willful. It is a shame that Octavia is the one nominated and not Taraji in the more crowded lead actress category. Taraji is flames. Surprisingly, but not surprisingly because apparently there is nothing she can’t do including being the most beautiful person ever, singer Janelle Monae really acquitted herself well here. She was also great in “Moonlight”. She is an unfair human. Kevin Costner also does a great job of being a decent white man who doesn’t really get how privileged he is until someone lays it out for him very clearly. The scene between him and Taraji, when she has her breakdown about her bathroom being so far away, was the most powerful part of the movie and led to the second best part of the movie, when Costner destroys the segregating signs. But like you could kind of tell a white guy directed it, because Costner’s awesome efforts are really framed as heroic instead of just the decent and moral thing to do. You don’t get a hero’s greeting for evincing the bare minimum of human decency.
The amazing cast also included Mahershala Ali, whom I absolutely adore, but he should have been cut. The whole romance storyline felt unnecessary, almost like an apology to any conservatives in the audience for daring to have a movie about women being scientists, like a ‘don’t worry they still really only want a good man! here’s the romance storyline that all stories about women need even when said stories are about scientists working at NASA and you’d rather have more science stuff happening instead!’ It was a slap in the face almost. Movies about men can have it just be their professional lives but professional women still need a romance subplot. Grahhh. The movie should have been 100% Taraji doing math. Well the one part of the romance storyline I enjoyed was when Mahershala proposed at the dinner table and Taraji cried and her youngest daughter says, “Mama, are you sad?” it was adorable.
But still, this movie should have been entirely the three women doing sick math. I could have watched two whole hours of Taraji standing on that ladder at the blackboard while all the pale white men looked on in disbelief and deference. Suck it, Jim Parsons! Give one of your Emmys to Steve Carell!
This movie sucks.
I couldn’t even finish watching it, but I highly doubt the end could change my mind unless there was like a Bollywood musical number or if they worked in the Lee Harvey Oswald character from Sondheim’s “Assassins” to form a trippy diatribe about how it’s all connected and stuff I don’t know, we know how this story ends. Natalie did a really good job doing Jackie Kennedy’s voice and mannerisms? I guess? But this movie was torture. I can’t even say anything more. It was SO BORING OH MY GOD. I can’t even talk about what happened because nothing happened. He got shot, she tried to deal with it, she gives an interview later in life and talks about it but like nothing is said and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz I ‘m out.
The only flaw in this is that, for a movie about Japanese folklore and culture, I think every voice actor and member of the production team was white, except for George Takei who REALLY should have been used more because he is the best. I guess that’s how racist Hollywood studio heads get to make ‘exotic’ movies about other cultures while still employing almost all white actors – to make it animated so they get away with it. Oh wait, they do that for live-action movies too! Nevermind!
I had high hopes for “La La Land”. Like really really high. I didn’t see it until February, once I’d already been exposed to months and months of HYPEEE so much hype, once it had already started sweeping pre-Oscars awards. And I added all my own hype to it, all my excitement about how it was a musical, starring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling again, by Damien Chazelle whose “Whiplash” is still the best edited movie I’ve ever seen, &c. I was too pumped but also aware that it probably wouldn’t live up to the sky-high bar that was set. Also it copied its promotional art/poster from “An American in Paris”, the musical that opened on Broadway a few years ago, letting me eagerly give it an early knock in the con column. I was so conflicted. I wanted to love it because hey musical, but I kind of wanted it to not live up to the hype so I could righteously bemoan the lack of love for “Moonlight” and “Lion” this season.
But then it started, and as you know it starts with that musical number. That enormous, heart-pumping, soul-buoying opener that takes over a huge section of the Los Angeles freeway during a traffic jam that sees all the drivers get out of their cars and start dancing and jumping and singing. And I smiled so hard the entire six minutes and was like oh okay I get it this is amazing. I felt like I do in the theatre when a musical I’m doubtful of opens with a perfectly executed opening number and I am so relieved and impressed and elated all at once that it makes me cry tears of joy. This came pretty close to that feeling. I adored that it was all non-famous people in this scene, no stars, just talented fresh faces flipping over cars and dancing on the freeway and singing this adorable song about how it’s always sunny in Los Angeles. Or, at least, that is what the song seemed to be about. I learned later that, despite my bellyaching above about how the sobfest of an ending came without any semblance of a warning, it turns out that this joyful opening song told us straight out what was going to happen: “Cause maybe in that sleepy town, he’ll sit one day, the lights are down, he’ll see my face and think of how he used to know me.” They told us right at the start that we were going to see a more dramatic and sadder version of Hugh Grant watching Anna Scott on the big screen thinking hey she’s somebody that I used to knowww somebodayyyy.
But until we get to that point, it’s a jolly good time. Emma Stone is in prime Emma Stone form – I mean she does always seem to play the same version of herself but when we get opportunities for her to show off her trademark goofy adorableness, like the part at the pool party where she requests the song “I Ran” and acts like Ryan Gosling is singing it to her, it’s worth it. She was hilarious in that scene, even if it felt almost out of place like it had been lifted straight from the cutting room floor of “Easy A”. Ryan Gosling was surprisingly great and funny and charming despite 99% of the time wearing his trademark I’m-slightly-amused-and-also-kind-of-surprised face. He’s not a singer like you’d expect in a musical, but his voice felt honest and full of emotion and it was really moving. I like that he didn’t have a booming musical theatre voice. I think he should be getting all the acclaim this season over Emma, or at least more than he is getting. Well he did win a Golden Globe but I mean those are nonsense. The chemistry between these two actors could be the strongest in popular duos today. They are our modern day fill in the blanks of a chemistrous acting couple. They’re like our Kathy Selden and Don Lockwood. (I almost said Draper.) I love them together. And that’s a big part of why the “500 Days of Summer”-style Expectations-vs-Reality ending (although this usage was 500 times more emotional and poignant than in “Summer”, which is saying a lot because that scene was devastating) was such a gut punch. I was hiccuppy crying and I really didn’t expect that! But Ryan’s (I honestly don’t remember their character names because it seems like they play themselves and I’m okay with it) fantasy of what their version of life together should have looked like was so, so well done that I can’t fault it for happening. I’m still upset about it but it made the story real. And maybe I would have enjoyed it more if the movie stuck to being as fantastical as its opening number was, but grounding the ending in reality and having the characters reflect the kinds of sorrows that normal people experience is what really made it shine as a film and not a cone of cotton candy or such. So I will one day get over the fact that I didn’t get to smile the entire time.
The real stunning part of this film is indeed the music. There aren’t as many actual musical numbers in it as I would have wanted or as you’d guess for something billed as a musical, maybe 4-5? But the score underpinning every scene is meticulous, and it illustrates well what’s happening emotionally and mentally for our characters. Chazelle really is a master at using music to tell his story, and Justin Horwitz’s score as manipulated by Chazelle is probably the best part of this movie. It’s a perfect match of music directed impeccably to tell the story. And the songs apart from the instrumental score are wonderful, too. City of Stars, the one that will win the Oscar, is probably my least favorite actually, but that’s just default because they are all so good. And of course they are, because they were written by one of my favorite composer teams, Pasek and Paul, who wrote two of my favorite musical theatre scores (Dogfight and Dear Evan Hansen) PLUS one of my favorite songs from Smash. I miss Smash. When Ryan plays the Emma melody again at the end, I about lost it. Of course that is what he would play at that moment, but it was just so well done and I really appreciated how well the music was used throughout the film. I would be listening to the score all day long if Lionsgate hadn’t sent a record. (No it’s really cool that they sent a record – and a record player (baller) – but I couldn’t pack that to my luggage.)
Overall, I think it was a great movie. Despite how sick it made my tumnus to have both high hopes and low expectations simultaneously, I really enjoyed it and get why people, especially people in the business (see e.g. their fawning over “The Artist” and “Argo”), are fawning over it. I also understand how people, especially in this political climate, are furious that this lilywhite movie could be crowned Best Picture. I agree that this movie should have been more diverse and shouldn’t have pinned all its excuses on the casting of our boyfriend John Legend. That’s definitely a problem. But it’s still a great movie and I’m super eager to rewatch “La La Land” when it’s on TV in the future, although I don’t know if I would, or could, watch the ending. Although the ending might be the best part. Maybe I’ll watch it in reverse?
“Lion” tells the story of the cutest little Indian boy you have ever seen in your entire life like really you cannot believe how cute he is and that he’s a real person on the same planet as you because how can that be if you are just a normal person and you’re on the same planet as the cutest little boy that has ever existed but then you remember that dogs exist and dogs are amazing and usually the cutest ever wittles you’ve ever seen so because there are dogs on this planet too you can kind of accept that this world could also have Sunny Pawar in it. Sunny plays Saroo, the cutest wittle who lives in a tiny village in India with his mother, his older brother Guddu, and his sister. They are really poor and I am guessing would be considered untouchables. Guddu and Saroo steal coal from passing trains to sell for food for their family, and when Guddu tells Saroo he plans to go away for a few days to work on a bigger job, Saroo begs to come with him. He tells him he’s strong enough and flexes for his brother but he’s like a baby and it’s so cute so Guddu, against better judgment, agrees to take him along. You know this is not going to go well, although you probably already knew that because this is based on a true story. So as expected, they get separated, and Saroo somehow ends up stuck on a train for days and days that crosses all of India and ends up thousands of miles away in Calcutta. He has no idea how to get back home, and he doesn’t even know the real name of his town or his mother’s name. And his mother doesn’t read the newspapers that eventually place ads about his predicament. And, they speak a different language in this part of the country. He is screwed. Although he does have the cutest voice you could ever imagine, like the cutest since Boo in “Monsters Inc.”, previously my favorite movie child of all time even though she is animated, his speaking is pointless since no one understands him. Poor wittle. Saroo tries to find his way alone in this scary place, fleeing from police and running away from sickos who pretend to be nice to him but have ulterior motives, on and on until finally he is placed in an orphanage. He continues to plea for people to help him find his family, but they convince him that it’s impossible, that they’ve tried everything. And so he gets adopted by Nicole Kidman and a cross between Jamie Lannister and Steve Irwin, and goes to live a completely different life in Tasmania, even though he knows his mother and brother are worried sick about him.
Sunny Pawar grows up to be Dev Patel, a decently adjusted man who is studying in Melbourne. In school, he meets the most useless part of the movie, Rooney Mara, and they date and have relaysh drama and it’s so unnecessary, but they needed a white woman in the film who wasn’t already past the age of Hollywood acceptability to help sell it. The most infuriating part of this whole shebang is not that a young kid would make a bad decision and bring his even littler brother on an ill-fated journey but that the studio thought it was okay to put Rooney Mara on the movie’s posters. She is in it a small amount, and she could have been completely cut out. But because she is white and young and attractive, she is given equal billing in the public eye as Dev Patel is. And Sunny is not on the promotional materials. I am very angry about this. Whose idea was it, huh? WAS IT HARVEY’S? In my mind I am the one who defaced these posters in the tube stations.
But anyway, man-sized Saroo decides he needs to find his family, and he turns to Google Earth at his friends’ suggestion. This movie then becomes a commercial for Google Earth but it’s okay. Saroo becomes completely consumed with his online searches, which take him literally throughout all of India so it takes months and months and months of obsessive research. Luckily Nikki K approves of his search for his family and he gets a new surge of energy from her support. When things start to click into place for Saroo and his journey back (his journey to the past? shh) happens, it’s all too much to handle and you turn into a pile of Viola-style snot. And then your situation gets worse and worse as the story unfolds and you just fall apart and stop breathing while hiccupily shouting “GUDDU!!! NOOOOOO!” and trying to tell yourself ‘it’s just a movie it’s just a movie’ for a split second before remembering oh shit no it’s not, this is a truth. And then they start showing you flashbacks to Sunny-as-Saroo’s childhood with Guddu and you are just like ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME? And it’s all so sad and so good and then just when you think you have regained your ability to see and breathe and maybe you think you will make it through this film after all without vomiting, they show footage of the REAL Saroo and both his families and then they tell you what his name meant because you have forgotten to wonder about why the movie was called Lion while you were hyperventilating for the past hour and then you just turn into an Alex Mack-style puddle of silver liquid that used to be human form because now you are just tears the end best movie of the year possibly ever.
Casey Affleck plays a man who sighs a lot and is just a full-on grumperpuss and you’re like, hey, am I supposed to like you, or hate you, or be totally ambivalent about you, and if it’s the latter which I suspect it is, why am I watching a movie about you, am I supposed to care or am I supposed to look at my phone the whole time for more interesting material? Casey then sighs and you’re like, oh it’s the latter. Casey plays a man who has suffered a great deal of tragedy in his life, like too much for any non-awful person to ever be dealt. And it’s horrifyingly awful and sad and unfair that life can give anyone this much tragedy. You’d think they could spin a better story out of that kind of material. Instead, you understand why he is such a grumper and why he can’t abide by social mores or at least act like a decent person to his nephew, but you don’t really care? It’s hard to make this character, who has suffered so much, seem like such a dick, but they succeed at it. Casey’s performance is being lauded as the best of the year, but to me it seemed like he is getting a lot of acclaim for sighing audibly like he is practicing Ujjayi breath in his Brooklyn Heights yoga class before he was able to grab his morning coffee at the shop where Ichabod the barista handpicks each bean before brewing.
Lucas Hedges, as his nephew dealing with stuff no teenager should have to deal with, does a great job nailing that teenage angst while seeming vulnerable despite his hard edges. I am glad he recovered from being shanked with lefty scissors. Despite his being a typical unlikable teenager, you really feel for his predicament, that he has no one now except this uncle who can’t move on with his life even when his nephew needs him. And you can’t really fault Casey’s character for not being able to take care of him, once you know his backstory. And that backstory is a doozy. But even so, the overall impression of this story is not like, ‘wow this really gets the human condition’ but more ‘oh, that really sucks for them. for all of them. everyone. it really sucks.” Who wants that to be the takeaway of a movie?!
Although it seems like there is a lot here that I am finding fault with, it felt like the faintest whisper of a movie. All of the dialogue, I think, is captured in the 2 minute trailers, so if you want to ‘see’ the movie without having to actually see it, watch the trailer at 20x slower speed and you will get the gist. It’s like, a sentence, then silence and visuals, then another sentence. So, the movie wasn’t actively bad because there was no real action happening. It was passive, and boring in that way. What really struck me and stuck out as the most actively bad part of the movie is the music. I have never really noticed a movie’s score except when it’s used well to augment the emotions of the scenes, but in those times it is supposed to enhance and not overpower. The music here was so bad that it took me out of the movie. The songs used had lyrics and melodies that did not fit at all and it was jarring, so much so that I was focusing on the terrible music and not the lackluster movie. Were you trying to distract me from noticing how boringly nothing the movie was?
It’s too bad that the movie was 90% Casey because the supporting cast was excellent. Kyle Chandler as his brother was wonderful and warm and even in his tiny scenes seemed like he would have been a great person. Their friend George is played by a really solid C. J Wilson, who doesn’t have any reason to be as good to them as he is. I always enjoy seeing Christina from “You’ve Got Mail” and wondering if she really did have to move to Brooklyn after the bookstore closed or if she was already priced out of it. And Michelle Williams as his ex-wife had a few scenes but she’s always good. Literally the only thing I liked about this movie was that Michelle Williams’s character was named Randi. There has never ever ever in all the pop culture I have seen been a character named Randi or Randy that wasn’t ugly, dirty, a cowboy, a dirty fat cowboy, old, gross, a bitch, a bastard, a butcher a baker a candlestick maker &c. What I’m saying is it was nice to see someone pretty with my name.
“Moonlight” tells a story in three acts about a boy named Chiron. In mythology, Chiron was a centaur who looked different from the others and who had a sort of foster father in Apollo. This isn’t very important but it shows how much subtle detail was in the film. This Chiron, a young black boy in a bad neighborhood in Miami, is meek and tiny, so they call him Little, which is the name of the first act, about his childhood. He spends his afternoons running from school to avoid the bullies who chase him on his way home. That home is a hell of a place, with his abusive crack-addicted mother played by Naomie Harris who is just on crack all the time and yells at him like it’s his fault that her shit is a mess. This poor tiny kid. He finds comfort with an adult named Juan, played by our fave Mahershala Ali, who seems to have his shit together and care about Chiron, but he’s a big-time drug dealer so like it’s not perfect. He and his girlfriend, Janelle Monae being all talented and unfair yet again, feed Chiron often and let him sleep in their nice house whenever he needs to get away from his broken and overwhelming home. So it seems really nice that he has these seemingly sane adults making sure he’s okay and teaching him to be more comfortable in his skin – but then you remember that Juan is the one selling the drugs to Chiron’s mother. So, not the best example or father figure. A fantastically distressing scene between the two adults heightens this tension. But like everything in this movie, it’s still composed and restrained. It says so much about how limited this kid’s choices are through no fault of his own, and how low his chance of making it out of this claustrophobically circular world is.
In the second act, called Chiron, we see Chiron as a teenager, still struggling with bullies in school because teenage boys in high school my god they are mean, apparently. The bullies who torment Chiron really should be in jail. And he’s still pretty scrawny. His mother is worse, not only addicted severely but also prostituting herself and stealing the money that Janelle gives to Chiron once she gets her weekly royalty checks for Tightrope best song ever. (So both Janelle and Mahershala were in both “Moonlight” and “Hidden Figures”, and both were nominated for Best Picture. That is cool.) Juan has died, probably because he was a big-time drug dealer who always had a gun on him for fighting other drug dealers and that kind of situation doesn’t exactly scream longevity. Janelle still takes care of Chiron though, which is nice, and gives him the comforting advice that he needs from a mother. Chiron also has his friend Kevin from childhood, although his feelings for him now veer towards amorous. One night, they do some dirty bidness on a beach, which is directed really well, considering how awkward it is for everyone. But the very next morning at school, the worst bully forces Kevin to beat the shit out of Chiron, who refuses to stay down, making Kevin understand the full weight of what he’s doing. The most satisfying thing probably of any movie ever is when Chiron comes into school the following day and breaks a chair over the bully’s head. Oh my god it was so good. I hope that kid was wrecked.
Unfortunately, Chiron got arrested even though he should be considered a hero, and next we see him, in act three, he has followed in Juan’s footsteps and become a hard drug dealer who goes by the name Black, as does the act. It’s so interesting to see how the tiniest of decisions and life occurrences forged this path to something unexpected for us but maybe inevitable for him. Luckily, his mother is doing better and in a rehab home, sorry for how she ruined his life but like you can stuff those sorries in a sack. But good job on no more crack, crack is whack. There’s no hope with dope. Chiron, or Black, gets an unexpected call from Kevin who says he should visit him sometime if he’s ever in town. Cue Chiron driving across state lines immediately, because this was one of like two people who meant a great deal to him. Their reunion is nuanced and subtle and self-conscious and beautiful, and the whole last 30 minutes or so is captivating yet simple, like the whole movie. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie that felt so serene and still, even when the characters were screaming or fighting. It all still felt smooth and at a constant, stable level of unruffled tranquility. It’s a beautiful film that says so much while saying so little. I don’t really know what it’s saying but I know I liked it.
This movie was the equivalent of Russia getting Trump elected. It was that time when internet trolls who played video games decided that women had more rights than they did. It was when Richard III had his nephew arrested and executed. It was the earthquake in Italy. The one last year or the one in 1626, take your pick. It was Chernobyl. It was what the energy drink Chernobly does to your body. It was bad. It was so bad that it was offensive, and it was so offensive that it was bad.
This piece of utter awful shit, which should not be allowed to exist because it gives people who hate women and probably all humans and animals too an apparent license to be pieces of shit to women and humans and animals because such evil viewed through a lens of ‘eh it happens’, comes to us courtesy of Tom Ford, who I thought was a misogynist like 90% of men are but I didn’t realize before this movie just how much he really, really, really, really, really must despise women. If he didn’t have success as a designer I bet he would have been the head boy of Gamer Gate. This movie is the movie version of Gamer Gate but without the necessary opposition from feminist thinkers and people who aren’t idiots. The fact that it was considered for awards this season makes me literally nauseous.
This shitstorm tells the story of Amy Adams who is an art dealer or curator or maybe an artist herself and she works with weirdos as you do in the art world. She’s loaded and has a husband. None of this matters to her character; all that matters is that she has an ex-boyfriend who I THINK we are supposed to feel bad for, but who is actually the most frightening character of all last year because he represents thousands if not millions of similar men who think they are entitled to have a woman who lives her life in a way that pleases him. The most horrible part of this movie is that this kind of entitlement isn’t supposed to be a thing, I think he’s supposed to just be the nice guy who got hurt and you understand his pain. And that is what is horrifying. This ex-boyfriend is played by Jake Gyllenhaal, a writer who knew Amy Adams from childhood (I can’t be bothered with character names they need to own that they were a part of this disgusting and insulting garbage movie) but they got together after college. They did not communicate well, with Amy telling him he needed to get a job and write something that gets published, but in a way that says oh we do have to eat you know and not in a shrewish way. But ain’t no woman gonna tell a white man how to live! They drift and Amy has an abortion without informing him beforehand, because it’s her body and her decision and she also didn’t ask his permission if it was okay to cut her toenails and I bet he was really upset about that too, so he flips out on her because that’s the surefire way to convince someone that you’d be a good father and they break up. Years later, at present day with Amy and her money and her husband and her house slaves who tiptoe around her, Amy gets a manuscript in the mail from Jake. She starts reading this book, and then the story in the book is like 99% of the movie. The book story stars Jake Gyllenhaal as a husband and father, because it’s about him, with Isla Fisher as his wife because she looks exactly like Amy Adams and this casting is the only good part about this film because finally people realized that they should play twins or something, or here that they should play the book version of a person and the real version. A girl also with long red hair plays the teenage daughter. So, Jake wrote a book that is inspired by his relationship with Amy. That’s nice, right?
WRONG. The book has the family driving along a road in Texas or Texas-adjacent when they get harassed by a car of thug cowboys who are drunk and pure evil and think it’s fun to drive other cars off the road. Things get worse as Jake cannot drive fast enough to get away from them because it’s a family car. The other car full of horrible white Trump-voting men forces Jake’s car to the side of the ride and plays sick twisted unbelievably horrible psychological games with the three and I think they had a gun because of course they had a gun. I don’t really want to think about how awful this was and how terrifying but eventually they convince Isla and the daughter to drive away with half the thugs as collateral while the others take Jake away in another car because his was destroyed BY THEM and they’re like oh we will get help. Obviously they will not get help, and they drop Jake in the desert like miles and miles away and leave him to die. He doesn’t die, and he finds his way to a police station where he meets Michael Shannon who is decent enough as a cop who is trying to help this guy find his family but OF COURSE THEY ARE NOT GOING TO BE OKAY. Of course the women have been raped and murdered and Jake and Michael find their bodies in a ditch naked and entwined with red hair swirling all around them because it’s supposed to be beautiful??? Because Tom Ford and everyone involved in making this movie are fucking sick in the fucking head and all decent people realize HOW UNNECESSARY ALL OF THIS IS TO PUT IN SO-CALLED ART WHEN IT HAPPENS ENOUGH IN REAL LIFE SO IF YOU AREN’T GOING TO SAY SOMETHING USEFUL ABOUT IT OR HELP STOP IT THEN WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR LIFE? It’s like the problems I have with Law & Order SVU, about how it normalizes sexual violence and violence against women without really saying anything useful about it because the sheer volume and magnitude of the crimes they use for entertainment will always outweigh whatever thing they might say to try to end how common it is and so it just reinforces that it is common and contributes to the normalization of it as part of our society that we will never be able to end, it’s like that but 1000x worse because it doesn’t know it’s doing this and that is sad and pathetic and I feel bad for everyone involved in making this.
Jake and Michael the cop try to find the guys who did this, and they do, they find the one ringleader on a toilet he built on his front porch and then he gets angry that the two men came upon him while he’s doing his business in the great wide open like if you actually cared about privacy why did you put your toilet on your front porch my brain cannot take how stupid and awful every single part of this movie is even this tiny insignificant detail I JUST CAN’T. Michael is eventually like, screw the laws that will let this guy go because our justice system is fucked but at least we had a justice system last year, so they decide just to deal with him vigilante-style. Fine, okay, do it! But no, even in his imagination Jake is a coward, and he feels bad for the guy? That killed his family? Because this white man deserves to have a second chance even though he destroyed lives for kicks? I really lost it even more when Jake fails to kill the man that killed his family WHEN HE HAD THE SHERIFF’S PERMISSION TO DO IT, because he had an attack of the white-male conscience that says no don’t hurt other white men, we deserve to live our best lives Oprah-style even if we destroy women it’s okay. So the villain – the villain who won a Golden Globe for this bullshit – gets away and then other stuff happens but I was seeing through a fog of rage and don’t remember much until Jake happens upon him again and he shoots him but not fast enough because he is an idiot and the villain guy hits him with a shovel or something and blinds him and even though villain dies, Jake wanders blind outside and then dies too, but at least he gets to die in the sunshine?! And you think, my god this was utter garbage that has hurt the world just with its existence but at least it’s over.
BUT THEN YOU CUT BACK TO AMY READING THIS PILE OF GARBAGE and you realize with her that OH YEAH, she was supposed to be the woman and the girl was the daughter that what, she aborted? And he hates her so much that even in his fantasy world of how a life might be with a wife and daughter he HAS THEM RAPED AND MURDERED??!! BECAUSE SHE HAD AN ABORTION? WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK WHY ISN’T THERE ANOTHER LEVEL TO CAPS LOCK I NEED ANOTHER LEVEL TO CAPS LOCK. So this is why this is the most misogynistic trash I have ever seen, because a man decided that if a woman had an abortion without the consent of the man who impregnated her, then she deserves to be sexually assaulted and murdered and so does the fetus that could have been, or something like that. OH my goodness, I forgot to talk about the opening. The movie cold opens with one of Amy’s gallery showings, which has naked obese women dancing while dressed in circus makeup. The art installation, I will repeat, features obese women dancing on stools around a gallery while naked and made up like ghoulish clowns. So he did tell you right off the bat that women in this movie were going to be treated as objects worthy of scorn, but I don’t think it was meant to be like oh isn’t that terrible of us? I think he and everyone who greenlit this movie really do only see women as objects worthy of scorn if they do not obey men and comply with the standards of beauty, body size, action, and all other kinds of behavior in ways that men have established for them in order to be condoned in society. All of us who saw this waste of time and money and thought are worse and dumber for having seen it. I award you no points, Tom Ford, and may god have mercy on your soul.
And why are other people being mean to poor Sully! He is a g-d hero! All these stupid white corporate men are trying to blame him for SAVING PEOPLE’S LIVES instead of letting them die which would have happened if he listened to anyone but himself, but they are like well we don’t want our insurance premiums to go up blarhghhhhh. Big fat sacks of meat, all of them. Sully and Aaron Eckhart should get parades every year that are better than the Thanksgiving ones because let’s face it, those are boring and awful especially when they keep using dreadful NBC talent who aren’t even good enough for the shittastic Today Show oh my god what a mess that is. HOW DID THESE PEOPLE GET JOBS? Did you see Natalie Morales’ interview with that other woman who has a job at NBC, of Sunny Pawar, the best interview subject on the planet to land? They asked him what kind of stuff he bought for himself with his big Hollywood money and whether he liked burgers or hot dogs more and how it felt to be in a Hollywood movie when he grew up watching big Hollywood movies. UM HE NEVER SAW ONE BEFORE YOU AMBASSADORS OF IGNORANT WHITE PRIVILEGE. But I digress.
“Sully” tells the story you already know of how Captain Sulvang Solventdetergent landed a plane on the Hudson river and saved the life of everyone onboard and is a true smart hero man who deserves parades like I said. So, going into this, I was thinking that it would be boring to see a story that I already knew and torturous to see a freaking plane crash which I don’t have to tell you is my nightmare because it is everyone’s nightmare. I had no idea how they would make this a movie. But I was pleasantly surprised to see how nicely it was done. I mean I still did not need to see it, but it wasn’t bad. They begin after the fact, which I loved because I thought oh my goodness hooray we don’t have to see a plane crash! But then of course we do see every second of the actual event, just in flashbacks that are haunting the cap’n. The poor dear also is haunted by daymares of the plane actually crashing, tormenting him with endless variations of what could have gone wrong or what tiny thing he could have done differently that would have ended in disaster. So, not only do we see the actual crash, but we see lots of much worse and scarier potential crashes into NYC skyscrapers and stuff! So terrifying! Thanks Obama!
The post-heroic-action drama comes from like I said above all the idiot men who are trying to blame Sully for the damage to the plane or to the water in the river which I bet was so dirty to begin with because they are asswipes who can’t deal with the fact that they have wasted their lives doing really dumb shit and not having fun and have never been to Thailand which everyone should go to so warm. Of course, they eventually grudgingly accept that it’s okay that he decided to save hundreds of lives in the least damagey way possible instead of destroying sections of freaking New York City and killing everyone onboard plus everyone below?? These people are dumber than the Serious Man in “Arrival”. Can people in charge of stuff stop being so incompetent and stupid like ever? In any situation.
Anyway, Tom Hanks is amazing and should have been nominated. We really take him for granted and we can’t. I am betting that he is the one to save our country, I really am. He can do anything as long as he finds a suitable Godfather quote.
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I guess that’s it for this year! I regret that I didn’t get to every movie but if you are bothered by that, why not figure out a way to send me screeners? I mean the freaking hosts of the “Gilmore Guys” podcast got screeners but noooo not me. Cool. That’s cool. Or send me money to see more movies in London they cost like 20 pounds which in human money is like what 1000 dollars?
Anyway tell me your thoughts and whether you agree or disagree, especially about how terrible NBC is. I’d especially like to know your thoughts on the movies I didn’t get to, especially before I get to my predictions so I can sound like I know what I’m talking about.
Tomorrow I will post my Oscars-focused thoughts and predictions so stay tuned!

Your Annual Oscars Movie Roundup: 2021 Lockdown Edition
It’s THE BEST TIME OF THE YEAR! Well, in normal years. This weekend is the 2021 Academy Awards, which means it’s time for your annual rundown of all the important movies you should know before watching on Sunday. But, fun fact, because we’ve been in lockdown, I didn’t get to see all the movies this year. Like, not even close. It’s very sad. So, to fill in the blanks, I asked some Renowned Movie Experts to weigh in with some of their thoughts. We almost got everything covered! Because no one is as verbose as I am, this means this year’s roundup is a lot shorter than usual! (It’s still hella long, but like normal person long, not carve-out-the-next-three-days-of-your-life-for-reading-through-it-long like previous years.) So without further adieu, here are the notable movies of the past year. Comment with your thoughts/faves/hopes/fears.
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm
Chinqui! I love ah-Borat! Listen, as someone who went to Kazakhstan not not because of Borat, I obviously loved this second moviefilm that exposes the most horrifying aspects of American culture. The Q Anon people were really terrifying; it was too much to handle knowing that they represented so, so many misguided Americans. But everything from Maria Bakalova was brilliant and actually enjoyable; what a find she is. The abortion clinic stuff with the baby Jesus from the cake?! the period dance?! absolute LEDGE.
Crip Camp
“Those hippies were nuts! That wins the Best Overall Message Award, which is: disabled people need to get high too.” – my friend
Da 5 Bloods
Oh rightttt I remember watching this movie like a year ago. IT WAS VERY GORY AND VIOLENT. The only thing worse than being in the Vietnam War is thinking you made it out and then having a personal War Part Deux directed right at your ass. I did NOT enjoy seeing my beloved Norm Lewis chopped up like that! Oh boy. Delroy Lindo wasn’t nominated?? He should have been!
Eurovision Song Contest
Okay this movie was incredible. I can’t wait to watch it again I can’t believe I haven’t rewatched 100x times. Such a me movie. Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams were such a surprise dream comedy team. I can’t believe Rachel is old enough to be Will’s love interest? Wait let me google it to make sure I shouldn’t be railing against how gross it is….Okay he’s 53 and she’s 42 so it passes the test. Anyway it’s nominated for the Husavik song I guess? Should win, hundo p. They built up the idea of the mythical Speorg note throughout the movie and this finale song was a great showcase for it, really paid off. Although – they could have explained the Speorg note by saying ‘you know, it’s the WAHHHH part of WHEN JESUS WAHHHHH in Sister Act 2, when Whoopi turns around shocked?’ and we all would have been like ‘yep of course I know what you are talking about now, who doesn’t.’ Loved the little elves. The elves went too far!!!
The Father
The Father is based on one of Florian Zeller’s plays. He wrote The Father, The Mother, and The Son for the stage, among other The __ shows. I saw The Son in the West End two years ago and I am still shook from it. It was one of the most devastating theatrical experiences. If The Father is even half as devastating – and since it appears it’s about Alzheimers, I’m gonna guess that it is – then boy oh boy that’s some DEH VAH stating shit.
“The father great movie but I can’t remember what it’s about. JK not funny. The Father is about the refusal and denial of people suffering from dementia or in this case Alzheimer’s. But what’s great about this movie is we are put in the mind of the father. The constant changes in family pictures, family members’ furniture, dinners in his house, are all what Anthony is experiencing. It’s what is going on in his mind. Very well done.” – my aunt
Hillbilly Elegy
Lol yeah right I’m not giving that little shitprick JD Vance any more money or time or mental capacity, I don’t care that this movie’s being on Netflix makes it so convenient to watch. PASS. As soon as I move on from this section I’m done giving any thought to that forking Tucker-Carlson-ass-kissing misunderstander of democracy hawhite devil in a short-sleeved collared shirt and khakis, uh GUH BYE. asshole.
Jingle Jangle
The first 20 minutes of this movie are SO PROMISING. The middle hour is SO BORING. When Anika Noni Rose finally FINALLY gets to sing, it is SO FIRE AND AMAZING. And then it’s boring again. Could’ve been so amazing.
Judas and the Black Messiah
Could not find anyone who saw this, unforch.
Mank
I might decide to watch this one day, but that day has not yet come because I still have ethical standards. This is a story about a Jewish man, and they get a famous antisemite to play him? I mean, what the ACTUAL. David Fincher, Laray Mayfield, you’re on my list. Cannot believe Gary is nominated for Best Actor for this absolute nonsense. NONSENSE. [The image description of me right now would be Gritty saying ‘fuck around and find out.’]
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
A few years ago, I reviewed the Sharon D. Clarke-starring stage version of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom in the West End and admitted that the play did not and does not work for me. I never found it as compelling as it should be. It felt like a series of often engrossing monologues but with no plot, no force driving it forward. In repeated productions, it was absolutely the case that the parts were greater than the whole, and the whole never lived up to what its parts promised.
I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but the film version completely unlocked this work for me in a way stage productions could not. With the magic of George C. Wolfe’s direction (who doesn’t love this man?), the story revealed that it did indeed have forward momentum, so much so that it became a locomotive that kept driving forward with all the force in the world. Unlike the play productions I’ve seen, the work moved undeniably towards a climax even though it was all talk, and even though the build-up is subtle, simmering under the surface. The monologues worked now as plot, as forward-looking action, rather than the stagnant feel of the play. Most of this successful difference is due to the direction, yes, but also to the shockingly complex and superb performance of Chadwick Boseman. He took his character and made it so deep, so deeply felt, and so complicated and I can’t believe anything but that this was the seminal performance of this role. And that’s why this film worked better than stage productions. Because of Chadwick, and because the camera could focus on how he was making this show from the inside out.
Wolfe clearly wanted the audience to surrender to Levee’s story, and that surrender is what the show depends on to work. I realize that now, and that’s why this movie version was the first time Ma Rainey succeeded for me, because Chadwick Boseman might be the first person in fully and completely take this role and do it so fully and so well that he made the whole thing work. Viola Davis was as great as always, and made the role of Ma Rainey actually feel like a lead role, whereas onstage you are always surprised to realize that she seems like a minor supporting role.
The Midnight Sky
In my mind, this is the George-Clooney-trying-to-look-unattractive-for-the-Academy-and-telling-a-NASA-story-but-without-sufficient-backstory-so-you’re-like-hey-why-is-the-world-ending-oh-you-don’t-think-it’s-important-or-necessary-for-us-to-know-because-it’s-a-Netflix-movie-cool-got-it-sad movie. I saw it a while ago but from what I remember, George is dying and so is Earth, but Netflix was like ‘let’s save some money by cancelling Glow and by not explaining why the Earth is bum, no one will care about either’ and they are SO WRONG ABOUT BOTH. They did explain why George is dying though – because he’s sick. I feeeel like it’s more important for this story to know why the Earth is now unlivable though and why it’s bad that anyone is left on it, but that’s just me that’s just me I’m weird.
Like News of the World, infra, this movie was continuous anxiety as you feared everything would go wrong, and then everything did go wrong. The little girl actress (Caoilinn Springall) was phenomenal. So cute and sad. I just looked on imdb to find her name and my goodness – I forgot that this movie had Felicity Jones, Demian Bichir, Kyle Chandler, David Oyelowo??? Like completely forgot that whole aspect of the film. Getting it confused with the space crew captained by Kate Mara in another movie (The Martian??). I did NOT forget that Tim Russ was in it, because he’s in it for literally 5 seconds and I screamed OH MY GOD IS THAT TUVOK, and it was, and then he wasn’t in it anymore, which is bullshit; I hope he had a bigger role and it just got cut in editing but he still got that coin.
Minari
Okay this movie was superb and not just because of the cute little boy and I know we have a lot to cover but MY GOODNESS THE LITTLE BOY WAS SO GD CUTE I JUST LOVE HIM SO MUCH I WANT TO GIVE HIM A HUG AND I KNOW THAT’S WEIRD BECAUSE I’M AN ADULT AND I’M NOT A PEDO BUT OMG I LOVE HIM.
Minari was such a beeyootiful, moving, sad, lovely film about a Korean immigrant family just trying to grow some good veggies so they can stop chicken sexing is that so much to ask for, universe?? The family has so many hardships and they are TRYING and this poor little boy is so cute and so sick, and, as Matilda would say, that’s not RIGHT. The grandma is the best character in a movie maybe all year, just the funniest baddest-ass lady ever, and the only funnier badder-assed lady is the actual actress who played her, Youn Yuh-jung, who had the greatest BAFTA acceptance speech where she said she was happy to get recognition from the Brits because they are usually so snobby about everything, my goodness she’s the best. I hope she wins the Oscar (either her or Maria Bakalova). She made her scenes so hilarious and then so heart-breaking. This is such a wonderful movie about trying to make a life in America. It’s the most heartfelt American movie all year, so eff the Golden Globes, as usual/always.
Vegan warning: lots and lots of ‘chicken sexing’.
Mulan
“I saw Mulan in February 2020 why is this on your list?” – my dad
My Octopus Teacher
“I saw octopus teacher. Can’t eat octopus anymore. They are smarter than me.” – my aunt [Ed. note: octopi are smarter than ALL OF US please leave them alone] [Ed. note #2 – she lasted a week before eating it again.]
“The ultimate tragedy of the Oscars this year is that the octopus in My Octopus Teacher, humbly and simply named “Her”, was snubbed for best actress.” – my friend
News of the World
I have trouble watching content that is stressful because I get anxietyyyyyyyy and this movie was like two hours of pressure-cooking simmering tension. I was so scared the entire time that everything was going to go wrong and boy howdy everything would go wrong for them. THanx plus little German girl (Helena Zengel) were a power duo and I adored them and I wanted things to STOP GOING WRONG FOR THEM. I loved how subtly and well the film built their bond. I loved the ending. I did not love the anxiety but that’s show biz, kid.
Just as with Minari and Midnight Clooney Movie, the child actor here was amazing. Did Sydney Lucas put something in the water?? Jacob Tremblay giving Zoom lessons? The kids this year are UNREAL.
Nomadland
“I procrastinated in watching Nomadland for a long time. When I finally watched, I was immediately sucked in to the unique story. What makes this movie stand out is the semi-documentary feel of it, due to everyone onscreen being non-actors, aside from Frances McDormand and David Strathairn. This adds an amazing depth of realism to a sad story. Friends and relatives offer Frances a home with them following her personal loss, but her fierce independent spirit and desire for freedom prevent any acceptance of these gestures. We see Nomads working odd jobs when they want to, or when they need gas money. They are a floating community, generous of spirit and human kindness, living in vans or trailers. Director Chloe Zhao blends all of these realistic emotions into a framework that lets the viewer really “get it”, and by the end of the movie you fully understand what drives this character to keep driving her “home” down the road. This is the kind of movie that sticks with you for a while, as you ponder the lifestyle and marvel at how well the true-life participants help tell the story. I liked this movie Norm. I laughed, I cried, I stuffed my face.” – my dad
“I appreciate you for letting me look at raw Frances McDormand footage for an hour and 50 minutes, even while she pooped.” – my friend
“Nomadland that could be the new America soon.” – my aunt
“I really liked No Man’s Land.” – my mom
One Night in Miami
“It was one of the more ambitious motel movies in film history. Will Smith was a better Ali. It would’ve been better as a Sam Cooke biopic – Aaron Burr was the best part, worthy of that supporting actor nom.” – my brother
Palm Springs
Ugh I loved this movie. Andy Samberg AND Cristin Milioti?? Girl (from Once), did you write it for me? This movie was like Michael Schur TV show writing plus Groundhog Day plus Andy Samberg humor. As a guy stuck in a time loop, Andy plays a darker, rougher Jake Peralta, since Groundhog Day shenanigans will really fork you up. Cristin is the Girl who accidentally gets sucked into the loop as well. JK Simmons is also stuck! What fun! He’s terrifying! It’s so good. They have a lot of fun once they accept that there’s no getting out of it, and I loved that they went through the spectrum of acceptance and decided to indeed get out of it, by any means necessary. I wonder how many years I’d have to spend living the same day over and over before I’d learn quantum physics.
Pieces of a Woman
“Wish there was a category for Best Opening Scene Before Showing Movie Title. The opening was powerful, dark, gripping, and you didn’t even tell us what we were watching for a solid 30 minutes. Really brought on the intrigue.” – my friend
“Pieces of a Woman – very sad but didn’t see why they needed to tie in the Holocaust and her mom into this.” – my aunt
Promising Young Woman
“My favorite was Promising Young Woman – revenge is great but not in her case. I want Emerald Fennell to win because I not only loved her film, I loved her as my Prince Charles’s lover Camilla in the crown. Brilliant. ” -my aunt
“I hated Promising Young Woman more than Gigli but I’m alone on that.” – my cousin
Soul
Tina Fey, man. I know this movie has so much greatness to offer that I should be concentrating on first but man, she really proved herself as an animated character voice actor in a time when actual voice actors lose out on animated roles to big name celebrities like Tina Fey.
Soul was a big surprise. I did zero reading about it before it was released and I watched it as soon as it dropped on Disney+. I did not know the main character was going to die? like immediately?? and it wasn’t my favorite tv show (The Good Place but you know that)??? and that he’d strive somehow to get back to our realm and return to his life and live his dreams?! and the little munchkin fetus he befriends (Tina!) was going to have some RELEVATIONS that both helped and threatened them both?! THAT’S SOME REAL SHIT RIGHT THERE.
Soul cut me REAL deep, Shrek. I love loved that it was about so much beauty: living your life to the fullest, loving your family, and most importantly living your dreams – your actual dreams, and not dreams that you’ve been telling yourself are your dreams your whole life long. Sometimes dreams aren’t what you tell yourself! Yay now I have The Cranberries in my head! OHHH MYYY LIIIIIFE IS CHANGING EVERY DAYYYYY IN EVERY POSSIBLE WAYYYY (lol it’s REALLY not, 14 months of same same).
Sound of Metal
Oh I need to begin by telling you that when we put this movie on, husbo said “We’re off to see the Rizard!” Nice.
This movie begins with literally the worst song I have ever heard in my entire life, and then soon you get so upset at the idea that the main character might not be able to hear that song. Now that’s a good movie.
Riz Ahmed, without doing much showy acting despite being given a role that could have easily been Overacted, is so natural and convincing as the drummer going through this traumatic, life-changing event. As his character Ruben loses the ability to continue his normal way of life, he tries at first to push everyone away to maintain some semblance of independence. He’s not overly sympathetic but that makes him all the more relatable. As he becomes more comfortable with his new community, and more accepting of his needs, his shell softens and makes him more vulnerable and likeable and so sympathetic that it’s like a gd puppy that you just want to protect because what else would you do with a deaf puppy except protect at all costs? Probably not what they were going for here, but man, I just wanted him to be okay.
I loved the second act with his new community, with the wonderful Paul Raci leading. The scene when Paul has to enforce the rules of the homestead, my goodness. Such a difficult but understandable situation from both of their perspectives which is GREAT FILMAKING BABY. When you set out to watch a movie about a musician going deaf, you know you’re gonna feel some shit, but I did not expect the hurt to hit deepest when said musician is drumming on a slide so a deaf child can feel his drumming. That moment is when I realized the greatness of this film. And when I cried. A lot. I thought the end section in France kind of petered a tad in its direction but the end made it all good, all good, so good.
Tenet
“I wish I had the CliffsNotes so I could understand what was going on.” – a person my dad works with
The Trial of the Chicago 7
Man ALIVE the justice system has been UTTERLY FORKED for so, so long. Like since it was created. It was built on racism and injustice and even though we are celebrating one positive result from it this week, that doesn’t mean the system as a whole is not broken and skewed towards injustice. Look at the harm this one muhfuhking judge could do! Man Frank Langella really never cares that he makes you despise him so successfully!
This ensemble was so impressive even though it was all men. I really love how cool Jews in the ’60s were. They were like…the coolest muhfuhs around. Sacha Baron Cohen and Jeremy Strong (I initially wrote Jason Schwartzman as I honestly remembered him clearly being in this movie and I am shook that I am misremembering) as Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin were just so cool. Big Jewish stoner but cool af energy. SBC truly is incredible in anything he gets his hands on, including but not limited to publicly eviscerating Mark Zuckerberg. Also, give me a movie that provides not one but both of my skinny pale faves – Joey Gordon-Levitt and Noah Robbins (different brands of faves, obviously) – and we’re already set. But when it’s a great, poignant movie about social justice and the broken racist justice system and it’s incredibly well done even though it’s more than 2 hours and this past year destroyed my attention span but I still was riveted the entire time? forgettaboutittttt.
The White Tiger
DON’T DRINK AND DRIVE.
That’s the main thing.
A central theme of this film, a film that leaves you sitting slack-jawed buggy-eyed not sure what to do except stare forward in dismay and disarray, is that Indians of lower classes are kept in a constant state of servitude that they can’t get out of, like chickens in a coop who know they will be slaughtered but don’t move. Our protagonist, the riveting discovery of an actor Adarsh Gourav, acknowledges this way of being, but is determined to break out of his fate.
The main guy, Balram, isn’t a great guy even before he REALLY isn’t a great guy, which I guess is important so that you feel for his situation and have empathy without it being obvious, which is more realistic and shows you should have empathy for everyone even if they aren’t great people. But like, he really pissed me off, and not just because of the vitiligo jokes (I guess my beef is with the writer for that one, ARAVIND). I mean pobody’s nerfect and all that but they did give enough subtle support throughout the film to bolster his big climactic moment, which I watched through my fingers.
The most interesting aspects of this really well done film came from the exploration of class and culture in provocative ways. Any film about Indian servitude can address the same problem of castes and control and never being able to really change your situation. But I thought the most interesting part here was when our American feminist character, played by Priyanka Nick Chopra Jonas, thought she was being very good and very helpful by telling her servant so forcefully that he should live his own life, to the point that she gets angry when he can’t just flip a switch and understand and accept her advice. She’s trying to help but it ends up being very rude and inconsiderate since he can’t adjust easily to her way of thinking, or change everything he knows to be true that’s ingrained in him, even though he wants to please her and even though she, well, means well. It’s COMPLICATED. Like the Da Vinci Code. These scenes really nail the complex tone of the film along with scenes like when she yells at him for speaking rudely to a beggar child – right before she hits a beggar child with the car. It did NOT make me want to go to India. Or a Jonas Bros. concert.
Gourav was so exceptional in this. When he signs the confession to please his masters and he’s smiling at them while his eyes tear? MY GOODNESS. I’m glad he was nominated for the BAFTA (Brits getting something right for once) but I dare someone to explain to me how he wasn’t Academied, as that scene alone put him at least on equal footing to the others in that category, but really above Gary Old Racist Man.
My favorite part was how often they called the female politician simply The Great Socialist. A title Bernie could only dream of. Of course she ended up being corrupt though (I don’t like how they continue to besmirch socialism). Apparently in the book she was a man so ugh it’s good to increase female representation I guess but it’s kind of magoo that the female characters were the corrupt politician, the annoying ancient grandmother, and Priyanka Chopra (who was very good).
Vegan warning: cruelty of roosters in coops shown for representation of the (at least important) central metaphor. Also human warning: death of a child, lots of sad children.
“So, award season – not so good.” – my aunt