Favorite Movie of the Week

Paper Moon (1973)

I’d been wanting to watch this movie ever since I read about Tatum O’Neal winning the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for it when she was 10 years old. My husband and I are both fans of the precocious-young-girl-meets-cantankerous-father-figure trope so I knew we’d like it before we watched it.

9-year-old Addie Loggins’ mother has just died has no local relatives. Conman Moses “Moze” Pray (who was involved with Addie’s mother and may be her father) is convinced by her neighbors to drive her to her aunt in St. Joseph, Missouri. Along the way, Moze discovers that Addie is a natural at conning people and soon they become a successful con-artist team. Paper Moon is not about the cons, though; it’s about seeing the relationship between Moze and Addie evolve.

The two main characters are played by Ryan O’Neal and his real-life daughter Tatum and they have fantastic chemistry. I’m not at all surprised that Tatum O’Neal won an Oscar because her performance is sensational. A lot of young actresses can play precocious and sassy, and she does those things well but she displays so much more range than that – she can be melancholy, determined, devious, frustrated, thoughtful… and all without losing any of her vulnerability. The Depression-era South setting is almost a character in itself, it adds a distinct atmosphere to the film. I can’t think of any criticism; pretty much everything seems like it was done well.

Watch it! And be prepared for your heartstrings to be tugged at by the end.

Other Movies Watched

Boogie Nights (1997)

I had been avoiding Boogie Nights for a while because director/writer Paul Thomas Anderson makes pretty intense movies and I’m not always in the mood for them, even though they are usually excellent. I thought Boogie Nights was pretty well-balanced though. It has intense moments, but it’s not agonizing to watch most of the time like There Will Be Blood or Magnolia.

Well-endowed Eddie Adams, a dishwasher at an L.A. nightclub, is discovered by porn filmmaker Jack Horner and soon finds his place in the porn world as star “Dirk Diggler”. In the first few years he makes friends, pitches successful movie ideas, and generally lives it up. His happy-go-lucky life can’t last forever, though, and as he gets into drugs and the porn industry changes, things start to fall apart.

Boogie Nights seemed like a cross between a traditional biopic of someone with a sketchy occupation (like American Made) and The Basketball Diaries (which is about the journey of a teenager addicted to drugs and also stars Mark Wahlberg). It immerses you right into the world of porn production in the 1970s (the “Golden Age of Porn“) and all its highs and lows. Despite its premise, it does not aim to titillate. In fact, it’s quite the opposite and focuses on all the mundane work that goes into making porn and any sex involved is just work and has nothing to do with pleasure. The characters are just normal people with the same ambitions and desires as us (even if they do work in an industry that seems somewhat alien) and so they’re very relatable. And there are some great actors in the cast bringing the characters to life – Mark Wahlberg, Julianne Moore, Don Cheadle, William H. Macy, Philip Seymour Hoffman, John C. Reilly, Alfred Molina, and more.

Oldboy (2003)

I really didn’t know much about this movie going into it except that it was really famous, South Korean, and possibly involved thriller elements. The premise is that businessman Oh Dae-su is imprisoned for fifteen years without knowing where, why, or who is holding him captive. He trains hard during his captivity and when he is finally released, he embarks on a quest to find his daughter and the identity of his captor.

I thought this was going to be a standard action/revenge movie (like John Wick) but it was mostly a twisty psychological thriller. There was certainly action and it was beautifully choreographed – I’ve never seen anything like this single-take side-scroller-esque fight scene, and I’m sure it has been and will continue to be hugely influential to filmmakers. The oppressive ambience of the movie should be just as iconic, though. Dae-su never really leaves the clutches of his captor, and his confusion and anxiety color the movie significantly (sometimes literally, the production design is often eerie). As with most psychological thrillers, if you really break it down, the plot is melodramatic and flawed, but focusing on that would do the movie a disservice because it has its own style and tells a tight story within it. It’s going to leave you disturbed though, so don’t watch it on a day where you’re looking for a purely entertaining movie.

In Bruges (2008)

In Bruges is the debut film of director/writer Martin McDonagh (more recently known for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri). It’s a black comedy about two Irish hitmen hiding out in Bruges, Belgium after a botched job as they wait for word from their boss about what to do next.

I’ve never seen Colin Farrell in a role like this before and was impressed by his range. He plays Ray, the younger hitman, who is a bizarre mix of naive and vulgar and lovable and dumb and brash. He’s got great comic timing. Brendan Gleeson is excellent as his partner Ken, who’s surprisingly sensitive given his job. And Ralph Fiennes is terrific as always as the boss, the ruthless but principled Harry. It’s not all fun and games, though; the story is driven by the morality of its characters and we take that seriously even as we are amused by what’s happening on screen. No one does black comedy like the British and this movie ranks with one of the best.

Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)

Peggy Sue Bodell is about to divorce her high school sweetheart, Charlie, who has been unfaithful to her. At her 25-year high school reunion, she faints and is somehow transported back in time to her last year of high school but without losing any of her adult memories. She now has the chance to change her life by breaking up with Charlie before they get married.

Kathleen Turner (who I was introduced to fairly recently in Romancing the Stone) does a great job playing Peggy Sue, both in the past and present. I especially enjoyed her reaction to traveling to the past because it felt so realistic – she’s usually amused or exasperated and has been an adult too long to have any patience for her parents’ rules. Nicolas Cage as Charlie was pretty good too. He managed to be irrepressibly earnest and lovable but still very frustrating. This isn’t a clear-cut “if you got what you wanted, your alternate life would be terrible” story like It’s a Wonderful Life; Peggy Sue’s choices are all pretty attractive and she has fun with them, which made for a more nuanced narrative and an ending which earned its poignancy.

Neerja (2016)

I’ve been aware of Neerja Bhanot’s story for a long time and was pretty excited when I heard about this movie (she was a flight attendant on a hijacked plane and saved many passengers’ lives during the hijacking, but was killed before she could get to safety). I wish there were more Indian biopics or dramas based on real events; it’s one of my favorite movie genres.

The movie follows the standard biopic movie playbook, but it’s well-executed and compelling. It mainly focuses on the last day or so of Neerja’s life, establishing her home life and romantic prospects and also showing the terrorists getting ready to perform the hijacking. The pacing is tight and keeps the tension up all the way through – knowing what happened in real life didn’t make me any less anxious during the movie. The characters are fleshed out, even the terrorists who could have easily been one-dimensional baddies. Flashbacks to Neerja’s first marriage throughout the film remind us of her strength. And despite the subject, the movie does not resort to melodrama at any point, trusting the audience to react appropriately to the terrible events of the movie without having to hammer the point home.

Freaky Friday (1976)

Body swap movies are an old movie trope these days, but it all began with Freaky Friday (according to this list on Wikipedia, anyway). Ellen Andrews (Barbara Harris) and her teenage daughter Annabel (a young Jodie Foster) are constantly at odds. One day, they each wish that they were in the other person’s shoes and to their horror, their wish comes true. To make things worse, Annabel (as Ellen) is roped into cooking a meal for twenty five people even though she can’t cook and Ellen (as Annabel) must play in an important hockey game for her school team even though she has never played hockey.

I really liked this movie. It seemed more earnest than similar family movies that were made later. Annabel and Ellen were fully fleshed out characters rather than stereotypes; Annabel in particular is not a cookie-cutter teenager like we’re seeing in so many modern movies. Both Jodie Foster and Barbara Harris did a great job of not acting their age. There’s a lot of humor (and it’s actually funny), but there are also some touching moments like Annabel seeing her younger brother from a different perspective.

Favorite Movie of the Week

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967)

I’ve been wanting to watch this movie for a long time, especially because I got married unexpectedly young to someone who grew up on the opposite side of the planet and it seemed like it would be somewhat relatable.

Joey Drayton, the daughter of liberal upper-class couple Matt and Christina Drayton, returns unexpectedly early from a vacation with her new fiancé, John Prentice, who is widowed, significantly older, and black. The Draytons have raised Joey to believe in racial equality, but can’t quite wrap their heads around her decision. And just as they are getting used to the idea, John’s parents arrive for dinner with their own set of expectations.

This movie is entirely dialogue driven and it could easily be a play without having to make too many changes. But the dialogue is fantastic – it’s subtle, earnest, funny, insightful, and cuts right to the bone. Katharine Hepburn (who plays Joey’s mom) delivers one of the best monologues in cinematic history. Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier, and Katharine Houghton give marvelous perfomances as well, and they elevate the writing even more. The plot’s urgency is a little contrived and seems too quickly resolved, but those are minor nitpicks. Watch it!

Other Movies Watched

Insomnia (2002)

I’m a huge Christopher Nolan fan and this is the last of his movies that I hadn’t seen (I’ve even seen his $6,000 budget black-and-white debut film, Following). I’m not sure what took me so long. I expected it to be excellent, and that’s exactly what it was.

The movie is a remake of the 1993 Norwegian film of the same name (which I have not seen). LAPD detectives Dormer (Al Pacino) and Eckhart (Martin Donovan) are sent to Alaska to assist in a murder investigation in a small town. Their first encounter with the murderer ends in tragedy when Eckhart is shot. Dormer must now solve the murder while dealing with the insomnia caused by the perpetual daylight in the town and his guilt over Eckhart’s death.

Insomnia is a tense and tight psychological thriller with some terrific performances from Al Pacino, Robin Williams (who is terrifying as the killer), and everyone else. Every little detail in the movie – the framing, the pacing, the cinematography – is designed to convey Dormer’s scattered state of mind as his physical condition deteriorates, while preserving the sharp focus and skills that have made him a legendary investigator. And the characters are all realistically nuanced – there is no black and white morality here.

Sucker Punch (2011)

Zack Snyder’s (Watchmen, Man of Steel, Batman v Superman) movies have a unique style to them and it’s been growing on me. I was particularly excited about Sucker Punch since it had a mostly female cast.

Usually my husband and I have pretty similar opinions of movies we watch, but I liked this movie a lot more than he did. I’ve read reviews complaining about the incoherence of the movie and the sexualization of the characters and I’m not going to dispute either of those points (nor my husband’s observation that the fantasy worlds depicted don’t rise above generic CGI). But the movie is incredibly atmospheric – it has a trippy and gothic comic book feel helped by great music. I also found the premise of a young woman being lobotomized against her will reimagining her surroundings and plotting escape compelling.

Sucker Punch is far from a perfect movie, but I can see and appreciate what it was trying to do even if it didn’t fully succeed. And I’d like to watch more original movies, even if they fall a little flat.

The Time Traveler’s Wife (2009)

I read The Time Traveler’s Wife about eight or nine years ago and I liked the writing but was a little creeped out by the premise and some of the scenes. My taste has evolved though, and I’ve been wanting to read the book again and see what I’d make of it now. I may still get around to that, but as a first step, I sought out the movie version.

Eric Bana plays Henry, a man with a genetic condition that causes him to randomly teleport to the past or future. His romance with his wife Claire (played by Rachel McAdams) is rather unusual as most of their meetings take place out of sequence. Even though he meets her when he’s 20, Claire has known him ever since she was a child. This makes for a relationship with unique difficulties, made worse by the fact that Claire cannot rely on his presence since he may disappear at any moment.

The constant time jumps make this hard story to tell in a linear manner but I found the movie very easy to follow. It reminded me a little bit of About Time (another movie where Rachel McAdams plays a character married to a time traveler) but it explores pretty different themes. I can’t think of anything else all that notable (bad or good) about this movie.

Hocus Pocus (1993)

Hocus Pocus is one of the classic kids movies that my husband grew up with and he’s been wanting me to see it for a long time. We started watching it once a long time ago but I wasn’t in the mood for campy fun for some reason (I’m glad I don’t take myself so seriously anymore).

On Halloween, three kids inadvertently resurrect a family of three witches burned in the Salem witch trials and must stop them from stealing the youth of the town’s children by sunrise. The kids are helped by Thackery, a 1600s boy turned into an immortal black cat. All sorts of hijinks ensue (it helps that it’s Halloween and everyone in town is in costumes).

As I mentioned, this movie is ridiculously campy. All three witches chew scenery with aplomb, particularly Bette Midler who plays the oldest sister and leader. There’s a lot of comedy from the sisters’ reaction to how things have changed since their death. Doug Jones (of The Shape of Water, Pan’s Labyrinth, and Star Trek: Discovery fame) is terrific at playing non-human characters, and he gives zombie Billy Butcherson a lot of character for what he had to work with. The actors playing the kids are fine and the special effects are kind of terrible but in a good way. The script for this movie was meant to originally be a Disney Channel original movie and it shows.

Pitch Perfect (2012)

I knew going into this movie that it would be somewhat dumb but I was interested in the music. It turned out to be a little dumber and crasser than even I thought it would be (such as people puking being used as humor) but it did have fun music so I was satisfied.

Anna Kendrick plays Beca, a freshman at (the fictional) Barden University who reluctantly joins a campus a capella group, the Barden Bellas. Aubrey, the leader of the Bellas, wants to stick to their tried-and-true set list, but Beca (who has a talent for mash-up mixes) pushes them in a more innovative direction. It’s got the usual tropes – a love interest that the protagonist needs to win back, the protagonist finding their place and building self-confidence, etc. It’s a lot like Bring It On, but not as good. Without the music, this would be a terrible movie.

The music is a lot of fun, though. It always amazes me how good a capella music can be, and all the songs featured are fairly well-known. I particularly enjoyed the “riff off” scene where all the a capella groups on campus improvise off of each other’s performances.

Can’t Buy Me Love (1987)

I saw Can’t Buy Me Love on a few “classic 80s teen movie” lists and it’s referenced at the end of one of my favorite teen movies, Easy A. I was disappointed by how terrible it was, though. I don’t think it deserves classic status at all (and Roger Ebert agrees with me, so I’m in good company).

The plot involves geeky outcast Ronald paying Cindy, one of the most popular girls in his school, $1,000 to pretend to be his girlfriend for a month. This instantly makes him one of the cool kids and he soon stops hanging out with his old (nerdy) friends and embraces the shallow and superficial lifestyle of the popular crowd and drives Cindy (who has fallen in love with who he was when he was genuine) away. Eventually (of course) he realizes that people’s attention is fickle and goes back to being himself.

This isn’t the most original story but teen movies don’t have to be original – part of their charm is their cheesy predictability. But the cheesiness is earned by idealistic characters who are just discovering certain emotions and testing their boundaries. That requires heart and this movie doesn’t have any. Instead, most characters are callous and materialistic, starting with the protagonist. The happy ending felt unearned and I was actually hoping Ronald would end up alone (and not because of his social status!) since that would have the potential for realistic character growth. But I found the movie to be utterly tone-deaf.

Favorite Movie of the Week

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)

My husband and I both love The Fifth Element and we were really excited about Luc Besson making another space opera. We were so excited that we pre-ordered the 4K Blu-ray of the movie sight unseen and watched it the day it arrived. I’ve consistently enjoyed the movies that Luc Besson was involved in writing or directing so I was sure this one would be great and my faith was indeed validated.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is based on a French comic book and it revels in its pulpy science fiction roots. The acting is stylized for sure, but that is a deliberate choice to be campy and it still has an earnest heart. I’d only seen Cara Delevingne in Suicide Squad so I wasn’t expecting much but she was fantastic and her Laureline was my favorite character from the movie. Dane DeHaan was an unusual choice to play Valerian, who is supposed to be a suave and confident agent but I actually really liked that he was chosen instead of some traditionally masculine-looking beefcake.

The real star of the movie is the worldbuilding and production design, though. I read that Luc Besson wrote a 600-page story bible describing the world of the movie and the histories and home worlds of a hundred alien species. That level of care clearly shows in how immersive the movie is. Valerian‘s environments are fantastic, filled with color and detail and wonder, and there are so many of them. Usually movies that involve this level of CGI look fairly generic but Valerian never has that problem. The effects are so good that you almost believe that the places depicted actually exist and the movie was filmed on location. The inhabitants of the world are also designed with the same meticulousness; Rihanna’s shapeshifting character is especially amazing.

One of the major draws of science fiction is the chance to look at a world that’s different from the one we live in, but most sci-fi movies waste that opportunity. Valerian is one of the few that are really original and I wish there were more movies like it. I hope there is a sequel.

Other Movies Watched

Ghost World (2001)

Teenagers Enid and Becky (played by Thora Birch and Scarlett Johansson) are about to graduate from high school and experience the real world for the first time (having decided not to go to college). Both Becky and Enid are caught up in the agonizing self-absorption of being a teenager (especially a smart teenager); they are perceptive enough to see the significant flaws in the world around them but they can’t figure out how to engage with that world without taking on the same flaws themselves. They drift apart slowly as Becky is eager to move forward with their plan of moving in together and getting jobs, but Enid is too consumed by her ennui to want to do anything at all.

Ghost World does a great job of portraying the way of thinking of a precocious teenager (mostly Enid) but be warned that is fairly uncomfortable to watch. It’s like American Beauty or The Weather Man or The Edge of Seventeen but not as satisfying. The movie does tell a coming-of-age story, but it is not one of those feel-good ones where unlikely friends push each other to grow into better people and solve their mental issues along the way. It’s depressingly realistic and the character growth mostly involves accepting how pointless and boring life can be, not finding some deeper meaning.

This review does a much better job of articulating what I thought of this movie and why it was so good.

American Made (2017)

Edge of Tomorrow was one of my favorite recent sci-fi films and when I heard that director Doug Liman and star Tom Cruise were going to be reuniting to do a movie based on historical events (another favorite genre of mine), I was thrilled.

American Made is as stylish and well-paced as I hoped it would be. Tom Cruise clearly has fun with his role as real-life CIA informant/drug smuggler Barry Seal, who can’t quite believe (but will take full advantage of) how he’s basically minting money by criminal means with full government approval. The movie’s style reminded me a little bit of The Wolf of Wall Street or Gold, where you’re fascinated by the success of the protagonist even though you find that the societal niche that they fill disgraceful. Domnhnall Gleeson is becoming one of my favorite actors; he has terrific range (see: About Time, Ex Machina, the new Star Wars episodes VIII and IX, Brooklyn) and he plays Seal’s oily CIA handler Monty to perfection. He’s sort of the living embodiment of everything that’s wrong with the world and Barry seems more like his victim than an agent he’s handling. It only helps us root for Barry when we have Monty around to blame.

This movie has a mostly comedic tone, but it never lets us forget that this is based on a real story and that people’s actions have consequences. It’s a tough balancing act given the events that it covers, but it pulls it off perfectly.

In This Corner of the World (2016)

I’m always excited about Japanese animated movies because they ones I’ve watched have been so consistently great. I think a lot of people still associate animation with stories for children but that does animation a huge disservice. In This Corner of the World follows Suzu, a resident of Hiroshima Prefecture during World War II, and her life before, during, and after the atomic bomb was dropped. Most of the movie takes place before the bomb.

The stories that animated films usually tell are not character dramas, but this movie is entirely focused on its characters. It did a fantastic job of showing Suzu’s complex inner life. It employs techniques that live-action movies can’t pull of as easily; Suzu is a daydreamer and an artist, and she slips in and out of her imagination almost as naturally as breathing. This works well to lighten the movie’s tone without diluting any of the drama and to make Suzu more relatable.

I’m sure this movie will be compared to Grave of the Fireflies often, but I don’t think they’re very much alike other than sharing the common theme of the impact on World War II on Japanese civilians. Grave of the Fireflies is about the extremes that people get pushed to during war, but this movie is about the quiet dignity of people that try to live normal lives despite everything happening around them. Suzu’s life is not particularly exceptional, even with the impact of the bomb. There is laughter and joy and sorrow and tragedy and everything else that is part of life. We’re used to looking at the dropping of the bomb as a huge event but seen from the perspective of a single woman’s story, it is both just another milestone in her life, like getting married (albeit with more lasting consequences). It makes you even more scared of nuclear warfare because realizing how it impacts a single person’s life (that we have come to like and empathize with over the course of the movie) and multiplying that by thousands or millions of real people is terrifying.

Sister Act (1992)

Whoopi Goldberg plays Deloris, a singer who accidentally walks in on her boyfriend (a mobster) executing one of his men. He orders her killed as well but she is able to get away and contact the police. In order to protect her until she can testify, the police place her in a convent where she immediately disrupts the quiet and restrained atmosphere and clashes wills with the Mother Superior.

I was expecting this movie to be a dumb comedy and it was, but a better one than I thought it would be. Yes, the story is predictable and some of the situations are pretty ridiculous, but it’s fun and the humor is actually funny (and not mean-spirited like so many bad comedies end up being). The things that the nuns and Deloris learn from each other make sense and the music that comes out of it is pretty great; I’m not sure the movie would been successful without the music. The characters are all mostly one-dimensional archetypes but they are played well and have heart. Maggie Smith in particular did a fantastic job being lovable underneath her “strict abbess” exterior, she’s not really a villain at all, despite first appearances. As befits a nun, she’s kind to Deloris despite her doubts, and she is easily persuaded by success because she genuinely wants to be the best leader she can be.

The plot that involves the murder and the mobster goons looking for Deloris is a little contrived and boring. Harvey Keitel is absolutely wasted in his role as the mobster/Deloris’s ex-boyfriend and I wish that part of the movie had been a little more engaging.

Becoming Jane (2007)

Becoming Jane is based on the true story of Jane Austen’s own romance and how it (supposedly) influenced her own work. I’m an Austen fan (who isn’t?) and I was aware that she had never married, so I knew going into this movie that (unlike her books) this wouldn’t be a happy story.

I feel like there are so many film/television adaptations of Austen’s work that they are their own genre, and this movie definitely is trying to fit into that genre. It treats Austen just like one of her own heroines, there are misunderstandings and a ball and walks in the country and so on. It’s a decent Austen-esque movie, although it lacks the wit and social commentary/satire of a true Austen story (but then, that’s usually missing from film/television adaptations as well). It echoes Pride and Prejudice most of all, Jane is feisty and her suitor Tom Lefroy is a little too sure of himself but learns better. Anne Hathaway and James McAvoy do a great job with the material they are given.

My main complaint is that I think the movie was trying to force Jane and Tom’s story into the mold of an Austen book too much. They are immediately and irrevocably in love, but it feels fake because they give it up at the first sign of trouble (I realize the movie is constrained by historical record here, but it could have done a better job of explaining the stakes). It’s too melodramatic. And the Austen depicted in this movie doesn’t seem like a writer; she’s depicted like one of her own heroines but her temperament was fundamentally different from theirs. Unlike her heroines, Austen was an artist, she chose to tread the uncommon path (especially for a woman) of writing for a living, and she was perceptive enough to write books about a variety of characters that seemed believable while also subtly satirizing the society around them. I couldn’t see any of that in the Austen depicted in this movie.

My Beautiful Laundrette (1985)

Apparently this is a classic British movie; I had never heard of it until I was looking up Daniel Day-Lewis and read that his role is this movie first got him noticed. It follows Omar, a young Pakistani-Britsh man trying to figure out what to do with his life. He starts working for his uncle who owns a chain of businesses including a struggling laundromat. Omar volunteers to take on the laundromat and hires his old friend Johnny to help.

My Beautiful Laundrette had a lot going for it and I really wanted to like it. The characters are interesting and have complex relationships with each other; Omar and most of his family are struggling with their identities and torn between competing ideas such as idealism and pragmatism, intellectualism and unabashed capitalism, fitting into British society and keeping in touch with Pakistani traditions. Johnny wants to leave his old life of violence behind as he warms to his role at the laundromat but his actions in the past have hurt Omar and his father and they need to be resolved.

Such promising ingredients should have made an interesting movie but it doesn’t tell a tight story and it meanders all over the place. I felt like I was watching a collection of someone’s home movies without knowing anything about them. The actors act so much like real people that it was hard to tell what they were thinking or feeling because there wasn’t much exposition or expression. The dialogue is very natural but it made me feel like I do when my husband’s friends from high school come over and they talk about people I’ve never met for hours. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to make of it all and I didn’t find it compelling. Also there’s this one piece of “music” that sounded just like sloshing and bubbling water (probably the laundry theme) and played at the oddest times. I found it hard to stay engaged whenever that happened.

Favorite Movie of the Week

The Beguiled (2017)

During the American Civil War, a young student at Miss Martha Farnsworth’s Seminary for Young Ladies in Virginia finds wounded Union soldier John McBurney and brings him back to the school. Miss Farnsworth’s first thought is to turn him over to Confederate troops but she is persuaded by her students to nurse him back to health first. As he recovers, tension in the school reaches its boiling point as various women start to compete for his attention.

I am an unabashed fan of Sofia Coppola’s work though and I was not disappointed. I read a a few reviews that claimed that it was boring and I can see why people would think that. There is not much overt drama, the movie relies on the subtle interactions between characters and how they shift and change as McBurney’s presence affects the women. It is not Sofia Coppola’s slowest work though (that would be Somewhere) and it is positively action-packed at the end. I haven’t read the book or seen the previous movie adaptation so I don’t know how this film compares to those.

The cast is brilliant – the women at the house include Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, and Elle Fanning, and Colin Farrell plays McBurney. The setting is haunting and its isolation and atmosphere seems to drive the plot as much as any of the characters. The pacing seems slow at first glance but every scene has its purpose and I thought the movie had a tight focus all the way through.

Other Movies Watched

Mrs. Doubtfire (1993)

Daniel Hillard (Robin Williams) is a recently divorced and out-of-work actor who is heartbroken that he doesn’t get to see his kids every day anymore. When his ex-wife mentions that she’s looking for a housekeeper, he disguises himself as a prim old lady and gets the job. He can’t keep it up forever though, and his double life eventually catches up to him.

Mrs. Doubtfire is a classic for a reason, it is a fantastic comedy backed by tons of heart. I don’t think anybody but Robin Williams could have pulled off these role, he switches effortlessly between his two personas and stays extremely sympathetic throughout it all. The other characters have integrity as well and aren’t just played for laughs even when it is easy to do so (such as Pierce Brosnan’s character who plays the ex-wife’s new beau). Despite the ridiculous hijinks, this movie has enough realism to make it seem grounded overall.

Everybody Wants Some!! (2016)

Everybody Wants Some!! follows a group of college baseball players over the course of the two days before the semester officially begins. It’s a Richard Linklater (Before Sunrise, Boyhood) movie and as is often the case, it’s primarily slice of life and doesn’t really have an elaborate narrative. The only thing resembling a plot is that the protagonist, freshman pitcher Jake, settles in at college.

I read that this movie was intended as a spiritual sequel to Dazed and Confused (which takes place on the last day of high school) and that made complete sense to me; it has a very similar feel. As with Linklater’s other movies, it doesn’t feel like you’re watching people act, it feels like documentary footage of real people (albeit ones that are slightly more interesting than average). It is set in 1980 and the characters and the locations actually seem like they’re from a different era unlike most other movies set in the past. I’m not sure what else to say about this movie except that if you like other Linklater movies, it’s everything you hoped it would be. I love this genre and I wish more directors made slice-of-life movies like this.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)

Will Rodman (James Franco) is a scientist working on a cure for Alzheimer’s disease, which he tests on chimpanzees. One of the drugs has the inadvertent effect of greatly increasing the chimpanzee’s intelligence, but before this can be fully explored, Will’s project is shut down and he ends up rescuing a baby chimp who he names Caesar. Caesar is incredibly intelligent but he is still an animal and treated as such by most people. Eventually he gets taken away from his family and placed in an ape sanctuary, where he figures out how to empower himself.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes is an origin story for how Earth came to become the Planet of the Apes, so I had a rough idea of where the movie was going. I didn’t expect it to have great characters that I was emotionally invested in, though. This isn’t just a good science-fiction movie, it is a good movie. Caesar does not feel like a CGI character; he shows as much depth of feeling as any of the humans (Andy Serkis’s performance is a large part of this, of course) and makes for a compelling protagonist.

Midnight Run (1988)

Robert De Niro plays Jack Walsh, a bounty hunter given an assignment to locate Mafia accountant Jonathan “The Duke” Mardukas (Charles Grodin) who has jumped bail. Finding him is easy, but getting him back to Los Angeles from New York is next to impossible with the Mafia, the FBI and a rival bounty hunter all wanting to get their hands on Mardukas.

I had never heard of this movie until recently and I’m not sure why it’s not very well-known, it’s surprisingly good! The plot is like Planes, Trains & Automobiles except with the addition of a bunch of baddies chasing the main characters (who don’t want to be traveling with each other anyway). It doesn’t take itself too seriously but by the end of the movie, you realize the characters are really memorable and you care about them. Robert De Niro is excellent as usual, and he has terrific chemistry with Charles Grodin. I’m already looking forward to seeing it again.

Bring It On (2000)

Torrance Shipman can’t wait to start the school year as the new captain of the Toros, her high school’s championship-winning cheerleading squad. Her plans fall apart when she realizes that the previous captain of the squad stole their routines from an inner-city school and they have to start from scratch in order to have any hope of making it to the nationals.

Bring It On sticks to all the usual teen movie stereotypes but I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. Despite the fluffy content, the characters seem like genuinely nice people and I thought the movie had heart. Kirsten Dunst is one of my favorite actresses and she is great as the protagonist Torrance. Her love interest, Cliff, is played by Jesse Bradford and unlike most love interests in this kind of movie, he actually had a personality. I did wish that the actual cheerleading was a bit more interesting, though; the process of the Toros coming up with their final championship routine is completely glossed over so it was hard to fathom why they couldn’t choreograph those as soon as they realized their current routine would not work.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)

dawn-of-the-planet-of-the-apes-poster

Ten years after the events of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Caesar has become the leader of an ape colony hidden in the Muir Woods and humanity has been nearly wiped out by the Simian Flu virus. When a group of human survivors from San Francisco start to encroach on ape territory, at first Caesar is able to establish peace with them. But, there are rogue elements on both sides that hope to provoke a war and destroy the other side for once and for all.

A lot more main characters are apes now and they are just as compelling as the human characters, which is pretty amazing given that they are all CGI and motion capture. Andy Serkis as Caesar steals the show as always. The human characters do a fine job with the material they have but they are clearly not the stars of the show. I was hoping to see Caesar’s human family again, but this franchise seems to be telling the larger story of the downfall of humanity and the rise of the apes.

My Own Private Idaho (1991)

Mike (River Phoenix) is a narcoleptic street hustler living in Portland. When his narcolepsy ruins his latest assignation with a client, his friend and fellow hustler Scott (Keanu Reeves) takes care of him as he often does. The two of them decide to go on a quest to find Mike’s biological mother, taking them across the country and all the way to Italy.

My Own Private Idaho is poignant and intense, it feels like a modern epic. Scott’s character and arc are based on Shakespeare’s Henry IV and V plays and the dialogue involving him is often Shakespearean. Mike is a wholly original character (and the main protagonist of the movie), and his story reminded me a lot of Jon Voight’s character in Midnight Cowboy; they’re both street hustlers with screwed up pasts that they haven’t reconciled themselves with. This weird juxtaposition of Mike and Scott’s stories somehow works very well; River Phoenix’s phenomenal performance is definitely a big part of it.

War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)

This is the third movie in the new Planet of the Apes series, set two years after Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Caesar’s apes are at war with the human military and are not doing very well. As the apes flee in an attempt to find sanctuary, Caesar finds that he can no longer push aside his anger and sets out on his own quest for vengeance.

I enjoyed this series far more than I anticipated, but War for the Planet of the Apes was my least favorite because, as the title suggests, it’s a war movie and there isn’t a lot of character-based drama or interesting worldbuilding compared to the earlier ones. It is still very good, though. Andy Serkis continues to do an excellent job playing Caesar and holds together the emotional center of the movie admirably. I knew what the ending had to be, but the movie made me feel genuine tension about what was going to happen and how the apes would survive.

Favorite Movie of the Week

Whale Rider (2002)

Twelve year old Māori girl Paikea comes from a long line of chiefs and has the ambition to become chief herself. Her traditional grandfather Koro refuses to entertain the idea, believing that the role is reserved for males only. When Paikea’s father makes it clear that he has no interest in fulfilling his duty to move back home and assume leadership, Koro decides to choose a new heir from one of the boys of his community. Paikea refuses to give up, though, no matter how much humiliation she has to go through.

Whale Rider is a fantastic movie. Keisha Castle-Hughes (until recently the youngest nominee for the Best Actress Oscar) does an incredible job as Paikea, conveying both the wisdom, ability, and confidence of a born leader and the vulnerability of a young girl. She steals every scene she is in. I don’t think I’ve seen such an amazing performance by a child actor since Christian Bale in Empire of the Sun.

I did not know anything about Māori life or culture and the movie drops you straight into Paikea’s life without much context but I never felt lost. The tone of the movie almost seemed like the telling of an ancient myth, even though it was firmly rooted in reality and most of it is just watching Paikea live her everyday life. It’s definitely a movie I’ll be re-watching multiple times.

Other Movies Watched

Song of the Sea (2014)

Saoirse, a young Irish girl, lives in a lighthouse with her father Conor and older brother Ben, both of whom have been heartbroken since her mother disappeared after giving birth to her. Saoirse is the last of the selkies (mythological women who can transform into seals) but as she comes into her powers, her family worries that she’s not in a safe environment. Eventually her grandmother ends up taking her and Ben to the city to live with her. But the faerie world around them is slowly being destroyed by the witch Macha, and only a selkie can reverse the damage. Ben must put aside his animosity towards Saoirse and help her escape and restore the faeries to their rightful place.

I’d heard great things about this movie (and The Secret of Kells, also by Tomm Moore, the same director, and his studio Cartoon Saloon) for a long time and it absolutely lived up to the hype. The animation is a little basic but has its own interesting style. The story has oodles of heart and emotion, and it avoids being too simplistic or black and white, despite being a children’s story. I will be closely following Cartoon Saloon’s releases and I can’t wait to watch The Secret of Kells.

Brooklyn (2015)

Brooklyn tells the story of Eilis (Saoirse Ronan), a young Irish woman who immigrates to the United States in the 1950s. She’s homesick and bewildered at first, but settles in eventually and even falls in love with a local young man. However,  her life gets complicated when she travels back to Ireland for a visit and she must make some hard choices.

As an immigrant who feels much more at home in the United States than my country of birth, I’m partial to stories about immigrants finding their place in American society. However, this would have been a wonderful movie even if I hadn’t been biased in its favor. I loved the characters, especially Eilis who is restrained and shy in a way we don’t often see in film. Saoirse Ronan conveys so much without saying a word, though (she got an Academy Award nomination for her role). Everything else about the movie is superlative as well; I can’t think of anything specific to highlight because it’s all so good: the acting, the writing, the storytelling, the pacing, the worldbuilding, and yeah, just everything.

About Time (2013)

On his 21st birthday, Tim discovers that he shares a secret family gift of being able to time travel spontaneously. He immediately realizes that he can use this ability to go back in time and fix mistakes that he made, erase embarrassing moments, and do better with women, all of which he proceeds to do copiously . Eventually he realizes that even with a reset button, there are still plenty of problems he cannot solve.

About Time is written and directed by Richard Curtis, whose bread and butter is romance (he wrote Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill and wrote/directed Love Actually) and this is no exception. It’s cute and heartwarming – Domhnall Gleeson and Rachel McAdams have excellent chemistry and are generally a pleasure to watch. Bill Nighy is also great as Tim’s easygoing but wise father.

Jane Eyre (2011)

An adaptation of Charlotte Bronté’s 1847 novel of the same name, Jane Eyre follows the eponymous heroine from her early life as a child living with abusive relatives until she finally finds her place in the world.

I haven’t read Jane Eyre or watched any previous adaptations of the book so I can’t comment on how faithfully it adapted the original material. I thought it was a very well-done movie, though. Director Cary Fukunaga (Sin Nombre, Beasts of No Nation) is skilled at completely pulling you into the world that the characters live in and in his capable hands, the gloomy Gothic atmosphere of the story is almost a character in itself. Mia Wasikowska brings both quietness and drama to her portayal of Jane Eyre, and Michael Fassbender revels in his brooding and intense role of Mr. Rochester. The only reason that I didn’t entirely love this movie is that I don’t find the source material very interesting; it’s a little bit too melodramatic for my taste.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988)

Suave and refined con man Lawrence Jamieson (Michael Caine) has had a comfortable life defrauding wealthy older women in the resort town of Beaumont-sur-Mer on the French Riviera. His luck runs out when Freddy Benson (Steve Martin), arrives in Beaumont-sur-Mer intending to pull the same sort of scams. Freddy is an uncouth and loud American (the polar opposite of Lawrence) and they are quickly at odds with each other. When heiress Janet Colgate (Glenne Headly) comes to town, they decide to settle their differences with a bet on who can scam her out of $50,000 first, and increasingly bizarre hijinks ensue.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is a decent comedy, even for people like me who aren’t the biggest fans of the genre. Steve Martin’s character is extremely obnoxious but he’s treated as such in the movie so that made it bearable. Michael Caine’s understated character is a terrific foil to Steve Martin’s antics; I don’t think I have seen him in a primarily comedic role before but he’s got good comic timing. I wasn’t sure where the movie would go at first but I thought that the ending was perfect.

Favorite Movie of the Week

Mud (2012)

Ellis and Neckbone are two friends growing up on the banks of the Mississppi in Arkansas. One day, they sneak off to visit an island on the river where Neckbone has seen a boat stuck in a tree (a remnant of a past flood). They soon discover that they are not the only ones to have made that discovery and meet fugitive Mud who is hiding out on the island. They befriend him and resolve to try to help him reunite with his girlfriend and start a new life.

I’ve loved every movie written/directed by Jeff Nichols (Take Shelter, Midnight Special, Loving), so the fact that I loved this movie should come as no surprise. Matthew McConaughey is an excellent choice for the title role; his character is gritty and stubbornly optimistic; he’s clearly a dangerous man but you also know he won’t hurt the protagonists. The two child actors (Tye Sheridan and Jacob Lofland) are very good as well, as is Reese Witherspoon as Mud’s girlfriend Juniper. The Mississppi is almost a character in itself; Ellis comes comes from a dying tradition of families living on the river and making their living through fishing, and Neckbone’s older brother (and guardian) Galen (Michael Shannon, who is in all of Nichols’ movies) makes his living from oyster-diving as well. The river is omnipresent, offering both adventure and sanctuary.

The movie is fundamentally a coming-of-age story for Ellis but it reminded me of two other stories –  the book Great Expectations, if the story had been more about Pip and Abel Magwitch, and the movie Cop Car, which starts off with two boys seeking adventure but goes in an entirely different direction after the first half an hour or so. It instantly became one of my favorite Nichols movies and I highly recommend it.

Other Movies Watched

Labyrinth (1986)

16-year-old Sarah is left to babysit her baby brother Toby when her father and stepmother go out. Frustrated with not being able to do what she wants, she wishes that the Goblin King (from the book she is reading) would come take him away. She doesn’t expect her wish to actually come true, though. Now she has 13 hours to find her way through a labyrinth and rescue her brother before he gets turned into a goblin forever.

I’m not sure what to say about Labyrinth because well, it’s Labyrinth and it’s such a classic. I’ve seen it before but we recently got the 4K UHD blu-ray so we had to re-watch it. It’s imaginative and original; it’s directed by Jim Henson and as such, features a lot of creative puppet characters. David Bowie’s portrayal of Jareth the Goblin King is probably one of the most unique and iconic movie roles ever. Jennifer Connelly is perfect as Sarah; young enough to be believably whimsical but old enough to be a sort-of-love-interest to Jareth. This movie is definitely quirky but it’s fantastic and I expect to re-watch it many times in the future.

Man of Steel (2013)

Man of Steel is Zach Snyder’s reboot of Superman and the film that launched the DC Extended Universe series of films (now including Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman, and Justice League). It is an origin story, showing us Superman’s emergence and battle against his first major foe, fellow Kryptonian General Zod.

I watched Man of Steel a couple of months after it came out and wasn’t that impressed. I’m not sure why; this time around I thought it was very good. Maybe I was still enamored with the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s comedic tone (which has now been feeling stale and boring for a while)? This movie does take itself much more seriously, but that’s a good thing; it respects its characters and doesn’t cheapen the dramatic moments by trying to insert comedy everywhere.

The cast is great as well – Russell Crowe and Kevin Costner play Superman’s two dads, and Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Diane Lane, and Laurence Fishburne are all in it as well. And of course Henry Cavill plays Superman and does a terrific job (although I recently found out that he’s a Wheel of Time and Brandon Sanderson fan so I may be biased). I think having recently seen the original 1978 Superman movie helped me understand the story better; some of the things I didn’t like from the last time I watched Man of Steel seem to be part of the original Superman mythos and therefore unavoidable.

Bridge to Terabithia (2007)

Jess Aarons (Josh Hutcherson) doesn’t fit in at school and is ignored at home. When he meets Leslie Burke (AnnaSophia Robb), the strange new girl at school, they quickly become best friends. Leslie and Jess turn the nearby woods into a whole new fantasy world named Terabithia, a place where they can both thrive as who they are.

I thought that this movie would be a straightforward fantasy adventure movie but it turned out to be more of a drama. Josh Hutcherson and AnnaSophia Robb are both excellent; a drama with children as protagonists is a risky proposition but these actors really make it work. The characters are nuanced and there is no good or evil. Even the school bullies have heart.

Cars 3 (2017)

Lightning McQueen has been one of the top racers in the world for years. His dominance is threatened when newer, fancier, and faster cars start joining the sport (just as he did in Cars). He’s determined to prove that he can be just as good no matter who the competition is. He starts to train at the new state-of-the-art Rust-eze racing center under personal trainer Cruz Ramirez but grows frustrated with the high-tech methods used there.

Thankfully this movie does not follow up at all on the events of Cars 2. There’s absolutely no espionage and very little Mater, and focus of the story shifts back to Lightning’s character growth. I found Lightning having to come to terms with his own limitations and realizing he can’t race forever to be a compelling story. Cruz brings freshness to the story without seeming like Lightning 2.0. And it was great to see Doc Hudson’s old stomping grounds play such a pivotal role in the story; he was one of my favorite parts of Cars.

(500) Days of Summer (2009)

Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a romantic and has been looking for true love all his life. When he meets Summer (Zooey Deschanel), the new administrative assistant at the greeting card company he works for, he quickly starts to believe that she’s the one. Summer doesn’t quite share his values and their relationship seems doomed from the start but it takes 500 days for Tom to accept that and that’s what this movie is about.

(500) Days of Summer is a painfully honest look at how two people in a relationship can have completely different perspectives on both how they think and feel and what they believe the other person is thinking and feeling. Tom is in love with the idea of love and chooses to interpret Summer’s behavior with that bias, which means he doesn’t really know Summer (and cannot love her for who she is). And worse, he doesn’t even know that that’s what he’s doing. The movie has an outstanding script and Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel do a fabulous job at being both frustratingly familiar and sympathetic. I also enjoyed Chloe Grace Moretz as Tom’s young sister who is much wiser than him.

Body of Lies (2008)

CIA operative Roger Ferris (Leonardo DiCaprio) is tasked with hunting down a notorious terrorist in Jordan. He’s instructed by his boss Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe) to work with the Jordanian Intelligence chief Hani Salaam (Mark Strong) as necessary. However, his efforts and working relationship with Hani are often hindered by Hoffman who interferes with local operations without any warning and often with disastrous outcomes.

This movie was a pretty good action-thriller with great performances by the three leads – Russell Crowe, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Mark Strong and tight and atmospheric direction by Ridley Scott. The contrast/chemistry between Crowe’s amoral and “results-oriented” character and DiCaprio’s old-fashioned spy character was especially well-done. I found the story a little generic, though, there are a lot of these Middle East action/espionage movies and I didn’t think Body of Lies really distinguished itself from the rest.