Update:
Someone pointed out that a movie called “Bitter Harvest” was actually made a few years ago. If you want your poster of imaginary movies to avoid having real counterparts, steal this version instead:
Tag: movies
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Movie Pass Adventures: Monkey Man
Dev Patel plays kid, a homeless underground fighter with perfect teeth and a thirst for revenge. Watch and see how many different action movie references you can find! See if you can collect all the parts of The Hero’s Journey! And if you only take one lesson from this film, let it be this: Don’t mess with the Trans community.
Lots of fun, but how can you make a movie called “Monkey Man” and not include the Rolling Stones song? Maybe it was in the end credits and I missed it.
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Movie Pass Adventures: La Chimera
Advice: If you’re going to see three movies in three days, don’t watch the quiet subtitled foreign language film on day three after a no dialogue movie on day one and a frenetic tons of layered jokes film on day two.
Also: if you are going to ignore this advice, make sure the day three movie is worth watching. La Chimera was worth the sudden lane change and gear shifting.
What? That doesn’t seem like a review? Well, who told you this was a review blog?
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Movie Pass Adventures: Wicked Little Letters, Used Cars
Wicked Little Letters
This is not a movie to watch for the intricate plot or complex mystery. This is a movie to watch Jessie Buckley, Olivia Coleman, and the rest of the cast show off their character part chops. Some lovely swearing as well. Not at all “important,” but fun to watch.
Used Cars
I bet I would have LOVED this movie forty years ago, but now I cringe at a ton of the jokes. Too much non-consensual nudity and casual racism for me.
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Movie Pass Adventures: Love Lies Bleeding
Look, I’m not totally delusional – I know that the only consistent reader of my posts is me. But I liked this movie a lot, and I really don’t want to spoil it by saying why I liked it, so I’m going to say pretty much nothing here except that this movie is exactly what you think it is, except sometimes it isn’t. It’s sort of like if Drive Away Dolls was more cohesive and darker, except it’s not really that either. Whatever it is, it’s full of style that doesn’t bury the substance.
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Movie Pass Adventures: Cabrini, The Barber of Little Rock
So far, not thrilled with this weekend’s movies.
Cabrini
Wow- what a ham-fisted hagiography of a film. Everything is so broadly telegraphed that you could guess the end from the opening scenes. One of those movies where the costumes look like they came from a Broadway production: you can tell what the represent, but even the people living in poverty and filth look like they dry-clean their clothes, then reapply clean dirt in the morning.
The Barber of Little Rock
A by the numbers documentary that manages to suck most of the life out of what should be a compelling and inspiring story.
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Movie Adventures: Accidental Colman Domingo Double Feature!
I knew about the first one (since I watched the movie specifically because he’s nominated for best actor), but didn’t realize the second until he showed up onscreen.
Rustin
He’s great, and the movie has some outstanding performances, but it’s so generic that it draws away from the power of the events shown. Still good, but I wish it was a little more adventurous.
Drive-Away Dolls
Exactly what the trailer promised. Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan in a raunchy lesbian-centric pulp mystery road trip comedy. It doesn’t make sense, and lots of sections don’t work, but the leads are great. I laughed a bunch. Colman Domingo is really only in this for a few scenes, but I’m still counting it as a CDDF.
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Retro Movie Adventures: Earth vs. the Flying Saucers
Ah, the Fifties: when aliens so advanced that they can travel thousands of miles between seconds can be defeated by guys driving trucks with weapons they built in two months. When people could be followed by a flying saucer on Monday, and not mention it to their army general father until the next day over dinner. When spacesuits that scientists claim they are unable to to damage can be pierced with bullets. When a vital part of communicating with aliens was have dead batteries in your tape recorder so the alien voices would slow down. When most of the world moved at 24 frames per second, but spacecraft moved at 12. When a woman would expect credit for her work, but proudly demand to be called “Mrs. Doctor Russel A. Marvin.”
I’m so glad we’ve left all this behind and moved into the unassailable logic of movies like Argylle and The Beekeeper.
Also: The lead scientist is named Dr. Marvin, and I kept waiting for Dr. Marvin Monroe to show up.
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Movie Pass Adventures: Madame Web
A misfire, but much less of one than I expected it to be.
It’s set before Peter Parker’s birth, so it’s full of “let’s talk about Spider-Man without talking about Spider-Man” moments. My favorite was when a character said “when you accept responsibility, you will gain great power.” I also enjoyed when someone said the bad guy was “like some kind of spider… person.”
Some really rough dialogue, slippery motivation, disappearing characters, dropped plots, and misguided fan service.
Still, I officially declare this movie Better Than Morbius. maybe let it play in the background while you’re doing housework.
Also: The IMAX poster is way cooler than the standard ads. Look at this thing:
Bonus Movie: The Last Repair Shop
Are short documentaries about people who fix musical instruments for LAUSD students supposed to make me cry? And then cry again while talking about it? Because this one did. A pretty straightforward talking heads (and playing heads, I guess) short film. The score was surprisingly distracting for a movie about giving kids the chance to expand their lives with music- until the end, when it suddenly clicked for me and I retroactively appreciated all of it.
It’s on YouTube. Watch it!
If you count short films, I am now up to 20 movies this year. That’s a movie every 2.35 days, or just under 3 movies a week.
