Movie Diary
a) The Invite
I must admit I was a teensy bit skeptical about all the praise for this, simply because I've so many Seth Rogen relationship movies that eventually devolve into unpleasant yelling as a hollow emotional climax. But wow, this was great, a rare example of a director/actor stealing every scene in their own movie, but it feels like it was just organic that Olivia Wilde got a lot of the biggest laughs.
b) Animals
I think Ben Affleck is one of the smarter, more insightful movie stars we have, but I think anyone, including him, would admit that he's pretty hit-and-miss, both as an actor and as a director. This got panned bad, I think partly from the bad timing of them clearly being inspired by the same Kurosawa movie that Spike Lee just did a remake of, but honestly I thought it was decent, there were enough twists and suspense to keep me engaged until the end.
c) Hokum
When I suggested a while back that Adam Scott has been too good in comedies too long for me to be able to fully buy him in dramas, a lot of people recommended this recent movie to me that I hadn't heard of. A pretty good inventive horror movie, although I don't feel like I'd pin it as a great Adam Scott performance, the role just didn't require much of him.
d) Blackberry
I was kind of a Matt Johnson agnostic after watching "Nirvanna The Band The Show," but this is a pretty good movie, definitely of a higher quality than most of the recent dramas depicting the origins of corporate brands. John has a good eye as a director, although I think the indie rock score was stupid, filling your movie with Slint and Strokes songs like you're making a mixtape just feels kind of childish, and Jay Baruchel's stupid fake gray hair and Glenn Howerton's stupid fake male pattern baldness really take me out of the story.
This low budget comedy on Amazon was a good time, I would like to see the creative team from this movie get a cable series or something, Morgan Jay is hilarious in it.
f) Babes
I think it's kind of funny that Ilana Glazer has written two films, a psychological horror movie about motherhood, False Positive, and a goofy comedy about motherhood, Babes. The latter is definitely more in her comfort zone but I kind of like that motherhood seemingly inspired her to sort of a yin/yang pair of very different films about the experience. This was Pamela Adlon's first feature after directing many episodes of "Better Things" and she was a really good match for this script and cast, a very funny and likeable movie.
When I'm writing about an artist sometimes I'll go look on the streaming services if there's a documentary about them that I can put on and get some ideas or context from. I didn't really feel like I had to do that for my recent Little Feat piece because I've already read (and written) so much about this band, but it was a good excuse to watch this. Little Feat have a new documentary coming out soon with Jeff Bridges narrating that I'm looking forward to. But this lower budget one from 2015 was more interesting than I expected, the surviving members of the band didn't participate but they got great interviews with people that knew Lowell George well, including Van Dyke Parks, Martin Kibbee, George Massenberg, Russ Titleman, Pamela Des Barres, and Ira Ingber.
Another doc I watched while writing about its subject. George Harrison seems like such a sweet and funny guy, I really felt like Scorsese captured his story well, especially from the perspective of some of his friends who loved him most.
Yet another doc I watched while writing about its subject, kind of on the low budget side but it had some good interviews with band members and gave me a deeper appreciation for how Ronnie Van Zant put that band together and refined its sound.
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on Wednesday, November 04, 2026 at 3:41 PM.
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