This review was written for ScreenAge Wasteland. Check it out here!
This ‘Men’ review for was written for Screenage Wasteland. You can read it here!
I have always loved watching Sleepy Hollow in October. It’s perfectly atmospheric and spooky, and I absolutely adore the setting. The cast is spectacular. Johnny Depp (back before he completely overdid everything) gives a fantastic, humorous performance as Ichabod Crane. The intelligence, balanced with the cowardice and nervous energy, brought so much life to the character.
Watching him go from skeptic to quivering believer is one of my favorite parts of the film, most notably when he’s trying to explain to Baltus Van Tassel (Michael Gambon) that the Headless Horseman is real and Van Tassel is well aware of the horseman’s existence, considering that’s what they’ve all been telling Crane since his arrival.
I’m not one for excessive gore in my horror films, but given this is a Tim Burton movie, the bloodshed and decapitations were more campy than they were grotesque. I lived for the Headless Horseman sequences, and Christopher Walken was perfect casting, even if we don’t get to see him all that long.
I would say the weak link of this movie is Christina Ricci. She felt incredibly miscast as Katrina. The character was quite bland, and Ricci’s performance felt stilted and yawn-inducing. The romantic angle might have enhanced the movie, but I didn’t feel as though Depp and Ricci had any chemistry, which is unfortunate. As it is, the only time my attention waned while watching Sleepy Hollow was when Katrina and Ichabod were making eyes at each other.
This is such a fun movie and perfect for this time of year. In my opinion, this remains one of Tim Burton’s best films.
Starring: Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci, Miranda Richardson, Michael Gambon, Richard Griffiths, Casper Van Dien, Jeffrey Jones
SPOILERS AHEAD.
When a trusted informant tells private military adviser, Santiago “Pope” Garcia (Oscar Isaac), the whereabouts of Lorea, a drug lord hoarding millions of dollars in his home in Colombia, he recruits four former special ops to join him on a dangerous heist to kill Lorea and take the money for themselves.
His friends consist of Tom “Redfly” Davis (Ben Affleck), Francisco “Catfish” Morales (Pedro Pascal), Ben Miller (Garrett Hedlund), and his brother, William “Ironhead” Miller (Charlie Hunnam). All five men seem to feel a bit unsatisfied with life and are all struggling financially. Clearly, the US needs to do better in caring for its veterans, but Triple Frontier doesn’t delve too deeply into that message. It’s used as justification for what Pope and the others are about to do.
“You’ve been shot 5 times for your country and you can’t even afford to send your kids to college.” – Pope
Being an action film about a money heist, the premise isn’t terribly complicated. Dozens of similar movies do it better than Triple Frontier. But it’s the cast that makes the otherwise throwaway movie entertaining. Yes, I will reveal my shallowness here and say I watched this movie mainly because the cast is attractive as hell. Even an extremely tired, worn-down-looking Ben Affleck had his moments.
They also had plenty of chemistry as a group as well, which helped make their history with each other more believable, given that the movie doesn’t really spend much time on an actual backstory for any of them. Hedlund had some amusing moments, and I’ve always enjoyed Charlie Hunnam, though it’s still clear to me that he has trouble disguising his accent. That’s okay. I still like the sound of his voice. I truly felt like the strongest performance came from Oscar Isaac, which isn’t surprising, but I also thought Pedro Pascal did well with what he was given, which, sadly, was not enough for me.
“I was the best of the best, able to shut down, control, manipulate; all basic human instincts towards one goal: The completion of my mission. But the effects of committing extreme violence on other human beings are biological and physiological. That’s the price of being a warrior.” – Ironhead
Triple Frontier certainly had its tense moments, and my anxiety spiked quite a bit, mostly because I had a feeling one of them would end up dying, and I didn’t want it to be Oscar or Pedro. See? Super shallow. 😀 But yes, it was still depressing when Redfly got a bullet to the head because I felt for his family, even though they didn’t really give us much there to care about in the first place other than his teenage daughter being sullen and Redfly had a ton of bills to pay for his ex-wife.
What really got me was that they stole $250 million and walked away with nothing. Yes, it was noble to leave it all to Redfly’s family, but still. All of that for nothing. The ending certainly left it open for a sequel, and if they make one, I’ll watch it as long as they keep the cast intact (more Pedro next time, please).
All in all, I found Triple Frontier to be a decent time-waster. The narrative felt a bit uneven, but it was entertaining enough with a pretty cast, and that’s why I enjoyed it.
Starring: Oscar Isaac, Ben Affleck, Garrett Hedlund, Charlie Hunnam, Pedro Pascal
Class President Molly (Beanie Feldstein) and her best friend Amy (Kaitlyn Dever) are both overachievers who have put every minute and ounce of effort into their academics in order to get into Ivy League colleges. So they’ve neglected the social aspect of being in high school, like parties, sex and drugs, in the process. This doesn’t bother either one of them, and why should it? While they’re on the path to ambitious and respected careers, the slackers and promiscuous partiers will be… doing what, exactly?
Certainly nothing impressive enough to brag about at their ten-year high school reunion. That’s what they believe, anyway. At least until Molly discovers that even the most seemingly dim-witted classmates are on the same prestigious course as she is. She realizes that she and Amy have wasted their formative teen years in the library while everyone else got to have fun while still succeeding academically.
And so, Molly convinces Amy to attend the party of Nick (Mason Gooding), the popular vice president of their graduating class. Amy is reluctant, but Molly bribes her best friend with the possibility of finally hooking up with Ryan (Victoria Ruesga), a girl Amy has been crushing on for the better part of the year. And thus begins a night of awkward, hilarious shenanigans as Amy and Molly struggle to get to Nick’s party and fulfill their last chance of teenage debauchery before Amy gets on a plane to spend the summer in Africa.
Over the course of the evening, Molly and Amy find themselves at every party but Nick’s party. They have to contend with wild child Gigi (Billie Lourde), the awkwardness of discovering their Lyft driver is their principal, and an unexpected LSD trip. But they’re both determined to push on until they finally reach Nick’s party.
This isn’t just about cramming a year’s worth of partying into one night. Amy and Molly are about to leave the familiar confines of high school and step out into the real world. If that’s not scary enough, they’ll be doing it without each other. At Nick’s party, certain events transpire, leading to hurt feelings and heartbreak, and the fractures in Molly and Amy’s friendship become evident in a really devastating scene.
For it being her directorial debut, Olivia Wilde does a fantastic job. It’s so easy to compare Booksmart to all of the other coming of age teen comedies, and yes, it bears a lot of similarities to Superbad. But that’s not a bad thing. These types of movies can be so much fun to watch if they’re done well, and Booksmart is done well.
It’s been quite some time since I’ve been in high school, but the moments found here felt genuine and nostalgic. Yes, some stereotypical characters exist, but Booksmart handles most of them with care, giving them personality and depth that can be hard to find in other movies like it. For instance, Amy’s sexuality is not played up for laughs, nor is it exploited. And the school “slut” actually has a brain and guess what? She likes giving boys blow jobs. So suck on that. I can recall quite a few of my own classmates who could have fit the roles of nearly everyone in this movie.
So often, teenagers in these movies talk with the wisdom of 40-year-olds, so I appreciated that the dialogue in Booksmart felt authentic to the age group it was representing. Feldstein and Devers also do an incredible job at making Molly and Amy’s bond feel genuine, like they’ve truly been best friends for years. So when they’re shouting some pretty painful truths at one another, it’s a really difficult thing to watch. If anyone out there is supposed to have your back, it’s your best friend. So what happens when they let you down as well?
The rest of the cast was pretty great, too. I loved Jason Sudeikis as the principal and even Michael Patrick O’Brien as the high-strung pizza driver trying to explain to Amy and Molly why they should never get into a stranger’s car. I kept hearing rave reviews for Billie Lourde as Gigi, and yes, she had some hilarious moments in the film, given she was clearly the obvious comedic relief, though I didn’t really see her performance as some sort of revelation.
One thing about Booksmart that I wasn’t terribly thrilled with is the minor subplot of one of the “cool” teachers supposedly hooking up with a graduating student because, ick, but that’s a pretty small flaw in an otherwise pretty great movie. So many movies about friendship feel one-dimensional, leaning more towards laughs than giving us any real emotion, but Booksmart balances its raunchy humor with compassion and warmth. I’m excited to see what else Olivia Wilde does in the future.
Starring: Kaitlyn Dever, Beanie Feldstein, Billie Lourde, Jason Sudeikis, Skyler Gisondo, Jessica Williams
So, while this blog is primarily for my love of rom-coms, I’ve decided to branch out a bit and start posting some reviews for other genres on Fridays (assuming I’ve had the time that week to watch a movie and write!). I’m not getting fancy with it, but “Friday Films” will be for other movies, hopefully primarily films I’ve never seen before, but we’ll see. You can also check out my “general-movie” Letterboxd account. There’s not much there but a sentence or two, but I’ll try to get better at writing semi-decent reviews.
My first movie for “Friday Films” is Lady Bird, from 2017. I have been wanting to see this movie for a long time, but I just never found the time, or I ended up watching something else. After I went to see Little Women in December, I was so impressed with Greta Gerwig’s direction that I made a vow to grab Lady Bird from the library and sit my ass down to watch it (not realizing that it was available on Amazon Prime already but… what can you do).
Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson (Saoirse Ronan) is a senior in high school, desperate to get into a college on the East Coast so she can escape her hometown of Sacramento, California. Lady Bird is not the kind of student who has her pick of schools. She’s average at best, but with her decent SAT scores, she still has a shot.
The problem is her mother, Marion (Laurie Metcalf). Marion is quick to remind Lady Bird that they don’t have the finances to send her to a college on the East Coast. The family is already tight financially, and it’s made worse by the fact that Lady Bird’s father, Larry (Tracy Letts), has recently lost his job, prompting Marion to work double shifts as a nurse. Lady Bird is determined to find a way, but she knows doing so will only widen the divide between her and her mother.
The turbulent relationship between Lady Bird and Marion is at the film’s core. They’re constantly at odds with one another. Lady Bird can be stubborn and selfish, while Marion is unyielding and judgmental. The struggle they have to connect with each other is not due to some extreme difference in character. They’re actually more alike than either of them probably want to admit. But Marion wants to keep Lady Bird close to home, and she sees Lady Bird’s desire for distance and independence as a personal slight.
Laurie Metcalf is phenomenal in this role, and while I think Allison Janney deserved the Best Supporting Oscar, I found myself wishing Metcalf had won after I finished the movie. She gave such an emotionally nuanced performance as Marion. The exasperation she feels with her daughter, her middle-class lifestyle (she and Lady Bird enjoy spending their Sundays driving around to various open houses in neighborhoods they could never afford to live in), and the stress that comes with having to support a family is so evident in her eyes, and how she carries herself.
In one scene, she is dealing with the aftermath of her husband losing his job post-9/11, and she takes her frustrations out on Lady Bird for not tidying up her room before going out. As a mother, I’ve been there. When Marion’s stiff resolve began to break down, I crumpled a bit, too. I can’t tell you how many mother-daughter relationships like Lady Bird and Marion’s I’ve witnessed first-hand.
I could probably write a dozen more paragraphs about how much I loved this movie, so I’ll try to keep it short and to the point. Lady Bird has some of the most relatable, realistic portrayals of teenagers I’ve seen on screen. Instead of polished, fancy homes and expensive wardrobes, Gerwig gives us a real look into the lives of middle to low-income teens. And instead of abs, we get acne. Lady Bird isn’t caught up in grand romance designed to change her life. She crushes on two very different boys and experiences believable disappointment with both.
Her friendship with Julie (an enchanting Beanie Feldstein… that’s right, I said enchanting!) was just as emotional to me as her relationship with her mother. Feeling a best friend pull away is one of the most devastating things to experience when you’re a teenager. When Lady Bird finally realizes she misses Julie, Julie’s subtle, but the emotional response just broke my heart. Seriously.
While watching this movie, I never felt that “this would never happen.” Instead, I was able to watch and relate to it both as a mother and as someone who was once 16 years old, frequently desiring all the things I was never given.
Gerwig’s directorial debut is every bit as wonderful as her adaptation of Little Women. She has some amazing talent behind the camera. Both films are so appealing and confident in their presentation, and more importantly, Gerwig’s characters are fully realized, making it so easy to become attached to who they are and what will become of them. Not only has Greta Gerwig become one of my favorite directors, but I think Saoirse Ronan is climbing the ranks of actresses I could watch in just about anything.
Lady Bird is a hilarious and poignant coming-of-age story that really had me feeling so many emotions. I’m so glad I could finally watch this film, and also pretty angry that it took me this long.
Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Beanie Feldstein, Tracy Letts, Lucas Hedges, Timothée Chalamet, Odeya Rush