Movie Diary
a) Send Help
I wouldn't rate this quite as highly as Drag Me To Hell, but Sam Raimi's first non-franchise horror movie in 17 years was well worth the wait and I'm glad that another one is happening soon. One of the best Rachel McAdams performances in an already pretty rich career, I rolled my eyes at the early scenes when they made a perfunctory effort at her character being an awkward, unattractive office drone, but it just made the rest of the movie all the more entertaining. Some of the gore and some of the twists I didn't see coming at all, great stuff. My wife made the suggestion that when the title flashed onscreen before the credits, it should have said SEND HEPL.
Stunt casting has always been one of the Safdie brothers' many signature gimmicks, but it still kind of surprised me how much Josh Safdie surrounded Timothee Chalamet's justifiably Oscar-nominated performance with a random gallery of famous people who don't usually act -- Tyler The Creator, Luke Manley, Gwyneth Paltrow, and especially that "Shark Tank" shithead Kevin O'Leary, who had so much screentime that it actively detracted from my enjoyment of the movie. And I did enjoy it, despite my difficulty in separating Safdie's good ideas from his bad ideas. The Marie Antoinette-style use of '80s synth pop in a story that takes place decades earlier is really effective, and the camera work is kinetic and alive in a way that not a lot of directors do these days -- I mean how many people besides Spielberg even actively remind you that a camera can actually move through the scene as if it's a character now?
c) Honey Don't!
I feel like a lot of people gave Drive-Away Dolls a chance on the strength of goodwill for Ethan Coen's past work, and then had very little patience for Honey Don't! when it turned out to be in many respects more of the same and part of a 'lesbian B movie' trilogy. But I think Honey Don't! felt like a slightly more complete movie, or at least darker and a little more plot-heavy, which was a pleasant surprise. I've been kind of a Margaret Qualley skeptic but she carried the movie well, one of Aubrey Plaza's best performances too. Chris Evans was the weak link of the movie -- in an old Coen Brothers movie that could've been an incredible performance from a character actor instead of a smug supporting turn from a slumming leading man.
Remarkably Bright Creatures is based on a novel about the lives of people who work at an aquarium, told through the eyes of an octopus. In the very charming film adaptation, the octopus's narration is voiced by Alfred Molina -- Doctor Octopus from Spider-Man 2, which may constitute typecasting? Very charming movie, though. I kind of wish it was more of a story about simple human connection than people being tied together by fate, but still heartwarming and full of great performances.
e) Zootopia 2
Disney and Pixar have been on quite a run of massively profitable sequels that ultimately didn't feel half as memorable or beloved as the originals -- The Incredibles 2, Frozen II, Inside Out 2, Moana 2, none of which really rose to the bar set by the Toy Story sequels. Zootopia was a fun movie that didn't leave as much for a sequl to live up to as some of those movies, but I'll still take it as a win that Zootopia 2 was really enjoyable, probably just as many laughs as the original. When the new mayor was a horse voiced by Patrick Warburton, I was just like yeah, we're on the right track with this one.
f) Anemone
Even for an Oscar-winning actor, I find Daniel Day-Lewis's on-and-off "retirement" over the past 29 years to be a bit over-dramatic. When he has worked, it's often been for big name directors like Spielberg and Scorsese, but also for his wife Rebecca Miller, and now their son Ronan Day-Lewis's directorial debut. Anemone surprised me a little -- it's not a great movie, but pretty emotionally engaging and visually arresting, and Bobby Krlic's score is on the same level as his work on Ari Aster's movies.
g) Ella McCay
This kind of amiable James L. Brooks dramedy is so rare and out of fashion as a theatrical release that it felt like people didn't know what to make of Ella McCay and tried too hard to make it into a meme. It is annoying that they thought they could make a governor and lieutenant governor the main characters of a movie without specifying what state elected them, though, that's just stupid. This movie felt like a big test for Emma Mackey, a role that required a lot more of her as a lead than the Netflix series that made her famous, "Sex Education," and I don't think she was up to the challenge, her performance was a little flat. You put an Emma Stone or Anne Hathaway-level actress in this movie and it's instantly a lot better. The Julie Kavner narration felt very unnecessary too. But most of the cast was good, it was fun watching Jamie Lee Curtis and Kumail Nanjiani and Ayo Edebiri doe the snappy James L. Brooks dialogue.
h) A Sacrifice
As a thriller about a cult this felt a little mild, but a decent movie.
i) GOAT
Sony Pictures Animation has a pretty undistinguished sub-DreamWorks track record outside of the Spider-Verse movies, and famously fumbled releasing KPop Demon Hunters in theaters, but I enjoyed this talking animal basketball movie produced by Steph Curry, it was decent.
Speaking DreamWorks, I've never particularly liked the Madagascar movies, but my son watched this recently and it was worth it for me just to hear John Malkovich as a villainous octopus.
I recently watched a bunch of movies from about a decade ago for my 2016 and 2017 lists, and this was probably the best of them. Obviously Paul Schrader has written some classics, but I didn't think he had a movie this good in him as a director, it leaves American Gigolo in the dust. Great atmosphere, great performances from Ethan Hawke and Amanda Seyfried, a surprisingly solid turn from Cedrid the Entertainer, and the story didn't quite go where I expected it to go.
l) Princess Cyd
One of the best things I hadn't heard of that I found when I went looking for 2017 films, I actually liked it as much or more than the big coming-of-age movies of that year, Call Me By Your Name and Lady Bird. A very moving story, Jessie Pinnick really should've gotten more big roles from this. And it was premiered at the Maryland Film Festival!
I put this on just kind of expecting a straightforward historical drama, not realizing it was written and directed by "Veep" and "In the Loop" creator Armand Iannucci. Hell of an ensemble, Steve Buscemi and Paddy Considine and Michael Palin and everyone else are hilarious in it, I kind of want Iannucci to do more period pieces portraying idiocy and dysfunction at all levels of power throughout history.
n) Mary Shelley
I was kind of surprised I hadn't heard of a Mary Shelley biopic starring Elle Fanning, probably would have been a much bigger deal if it came out a few years later or today. Not a masterpiece but I thought it did a good job of explaining Shelley's life and the circumstances around her writing Frankenstein and it becoming a classic.
Australian actress Melissa George is so beautiful, I feel like she could have been a major star but never really got there outside of a few horror hits and TV roles. This low budget Aussie drama is pretty good, though, probably her best non-horror performance.
p) Song To Song
Terrence Malick filmed Song To Song over multiple years at SXSW and other music festivals, I remember lots of music media reports about Ryan Gosling and Michael Fassbender and Natalie Portman being spotted at those fests making an "indie rock movie." And it is a little surreal watching these movie stars cavort around with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Patti Smith, but for the most part it's a pretty straightforward, almost banal romantic drama that just happens to have a music industry backdrop and Malick's slow pacing and distinctive camera work. Maybe the hottest Portman has ever looked, though. And I'm looking at this movie a little differently after learning that Malick dated Carly Simon and appeared on the back cover of her album Another Passenger.
A movie about how hundreds of Polish jews were allowed to hide in the Warsaw Zoo during the Holocaust, sourced directly from the diaries of the woman Jessica Chastain portrays. Pretty good, but a better movie probably could have been made from this remarkable story.
r) Silence
Another one of the best movies I've seen in my recent '16/'17 dive, definitely one of the best late period Scorseses. I was a little disappointed that Adam Driver had way less screentime than Andrew Garfield, but Yosuke Kubozuka and Tadanobu Asano really had some of the most memorable performances of the movie.
s) Paterson
Now here's a good Adam Driver vehicle. In that typical Jim Jarmusch style, you can imagine how this movie would play in a more conventional filmmaker's hands with more plot and more drama, but I appreciate Jarmusch's dry, ambling way of introducing you to these characters and their setting in Paterson, New Jersey. It's also pretty funny that Adam Driver plays a poet who frequently says "another one" like DJ Khaled before reading a poem. Golshifteh Farahani, who plays Driver's wife, is absolutely gorgeous, and was recently in the news for her supposed platonic friendship with the president of France.
t) Wind River
Taylor Sheridan wrote and directed this a year before he really became a brand name with the premiere of "Yellowstone," and like "Yellowstone" it drew criticism for the problematic casting of Asian American actress Kelsey Asbille as an indigenous character. A decent movie with a really dark story and a memorable villain turn by frequent Sheridan collaborator James Hordan, but some of the action felt a little over-the-top and stupid, especially when Jeremy Renner just felt like he was in a different movie playing an invincible super cop.
u) Take Me
Pat Healy is one of those character actors who's been good in a lot of small roles, sometimes in big things, but it seems like he won't ever get a leading part unless he writes and directs one for himself. His Duplass-produced low budget debut feature is a clever little comedy about a woman being kidnapped, apparently he's got a couple other good screenplays that have appeared on the Black List.
I feel like Paul Rudd's one guy who genuinely doesn't care about winning awards or being considered a great actor and just knows what his strengths are as a performer and seeks out projects he'd be good in, and I say that with the utmost respect. So, for instance, this dramedy where his character cares for a disabled teenager is still really funny and lets the poignant heartwarming parts take a backseat to it just being an entertaining movie with good cast chemistry. Even Selena Gomez is good in this movie, I don't know why she can't act this well in "Only Murders in the Building."
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