My Own Little World

Blade Runner 2049 is a really, really, really beautiful film. I don’t think I have been more visually or sonically treated in the past few years of watching movies. Between Roger Deakins’s Oscar-winning cinematography that is transportive and elegant, Hans Zimmer’s electronically graceful score, the sound direction, production design, and perfect (and I do mean perfect) visual effects, there is so much to take in from each shot that I almost could not comprehend everything that was happening. And that is Blade Runner 2049 ’s undoing. As perfect as Denis Villeneuve’s technical direction of the film is, its structure and narrative are kind of a mess. I loved Ridley Scott’s original film that discussed big-picture questions of humanity and reality while also forcing me to use my brain to connect the pieces of his visual storytelling amid the lack of plain and simple exposition – something that I was annoyed with at first but came to enjoy the more I reflected upon it. Wha...

I loved literally everything about Get Out . There hasn’t been a horror film that reminds me of the more classic form of the genre in the past few years that has been as inventive and impactful as this one. I love being scared in the way this film scared me with its brilliant pacing and tension. Nearly all of this is due to Jordan Peele’s writing and direction. This guy amazed me in how he was able to move into a completely opposite genre from his prior comedy work and make his first movie and not miss a single beat. There is so much tension and eeriness surrounding the first and second acts that play beautifully into the third act that I swear Hitchcock or Kubrick must have been responsible. Peele has a way of using somewhat unconventional shots in cool ways – in particular when Chris (the film’s protagonist) arrives at his girlfriend Rose’s house, using a wide shot the whole time instead of cutting close to see Chris meet her parents for the very first time. Because it doesn’...

I have a love-hate relationship with mother! On some level, I do love this film. It has some of the most evocative and unforgettable images I have seen in the past several years of film. It also has the guts to do things I would never have imagined with its story and in particular its perspective. Director and writer Darren Aronofsky has created one of the most intriguing yet still puzzling films ever made, and almost all of this comes from its use of allegory. Actually, let’s talk about that. Aronofsky’s use of metaphorical and allegorical imagery and narrative is bold, to be sure (and not something that I will be discussing in detail so I can avoid spoilers); however, there are times where it almost lost me – in fact there’s a lot of those times – because of this film’s slow pace. In retrospect after having talked with other people about this film, the sequences of monotony that slow the film down do have a lot of meaning, but that doesn’t mean I appreciate them any more...

Biopics typically err in one big way: they don’t feel true to the characters they portray and have that typical “Oscar-bait” tone. Films like The Imitation Game , The Theory of Everything , and even Hacksaw Ridge have all fallen into this mold; it’s not that they’re bad films, but they just don’t try to do anything but tell a positive story about their main character’s life. They are bland, plain and simple. Thankfully, I, Tonya doesn’t fit this mold at all. It follows more in the vein of The Wolf of Wall Street and The Big Short in how it treats its subjects: there’s a lot of witty dark humor, and the tone is very much snarky sometimes but then gets a lot more serious as the story does. My problems with those two films I mention is that they can’t find the balance between the comedy and the drama, Wolf of Wall Street erring towards comedy and Big Short towards drama. I, Tonya has a smoother transition between those two tones, but it still does feel a bit abrupt, and ...

Weird, quirky movies are my jam sometimes. There’s something about them that just get to me. Maybe it’s because I find them to have a little extra creativity required, or maybe it’s because I identify with their outlying nature compared to the mainstream – whatever it is, I like them. Guillermo del Toro’s latest, The Shape of Water , definitely falls into that category. It’s got a fish man, a mute woman, and a romance between the two. As if that weren’t enough, the film also takes place during the Cold War, a setting that amplifies its themes quite a bit. Basically, it is the definition of strange, and it’s also an incredibly rich theatrical experience. I’m not terribly familiar with del Toro’s previous work (I’ve watched maybe a third of Crimson Peak ), but I feel like that doesn’t disqualify me for being absolutely enthralled with his direction of this film. Every visual aspect of this fits together marvelously, especially the set and creature design and the color palette....

I don’t usually care for throwaway entertainment, especially in film. I see movies as a way to tell a story or make a point and not just a medium of entertainment. That’s why I was not very excited to see Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle . I didn’t really have much nostalgia for the original, and the trailers for this film depicted it as a big, bombastic action movie with lots of quippy dialogue. And…that’s exactly what I got. Jumanji is exactly what you’d think it is, except that it is one of the best examples of popcorn entertainment I’ve seen in the past few years. It’s not particularly inventive with the way it tells its story, but it does a good job of being disposable while leaving a very pleasant aftertaste. The best part of the film is, quite surprisingly, the performances. Dwayne Johnson, Karen Gillan, and Jack Black all play against type, and they do such a good job. If you’ve ever wondered what those three would act like if they were nerdy, mildly unattractive teenag...

One of the more puzzling movies for me to look at is the 1991 Disney adaptation of Beauty and the Beast . Being so beloved by so many, I feel like I have almost a responsibility to like it, which I do. The music is catchy and some of Disney's best, while the animation is top-notch and holds its own against the spectacular hand-drawn animation of The Lion King  and The Prince of Egypt . That being said, I've always felt that the story was a little lacking in character development. Enter Disney's "live action renaissance," the period of the past few years in which Disney has gone all in with remaking some of their animated classics in live-action form. So far, they've had middling to positive success in doing so with Alice in Wonderland , Maleficent , Cinderella , The Jungle Book , and Pete's Dragon ; and if you look at Disney's calendar of upcoming events, you can pretty much guarantee that your Disney classic of choice will be getting the same trea...

As soon as I saw who was involved in The Post , I was hooked – you give me Steven Spielberg directing people like Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep, and it’s kind of like the most surefire Oscar contender you can get. And I got exactly the film I expected with The Post : a high-quality, entertaining, and even slightly informative movie with some great performances and few if any flaws behind the camera. It’s probably irrational for me to assume that The Post could be any greater than the sum of its parts, but that sum – as good as it was – is something I have seen before. Spielberg has gotten into a groove of these kinds of movies, these politically-charged dramas that tend to show a correlation between the world of the past and the world of today. The Post does everything that films like Lincoln and Munich have already done and done well; as lazy as that may sound for someone with Spielberg’s profile, this film does make some very pointed connections between the Nixon and Trump ad...

Many films have great concepts. In fact, most films thrive on them, especially in their marketing, and especially if they’re not already part of a franchise. A good concept is the first step to making a good film. A good concept on its own, however, does not a good movie make. There has not been a film recently that shows this more than Bright , Netflix’s latest big film project. Directed by David Ayer ( Suicide Squad , Fury , and End of Watch ) and starring Will Smith and Joel Edgerton, it has a great concept – a cop action thriller in a world of both human and mythical creatures – but unfortunately can’t seem to make the pieces work. A huge part of this is the script. Max Landis wrote the original script that underwent a rewrite by Ayer, and it just doesn’t work. It’s extremely vulgar, which is not a critique on its own, except that it seems like the profanity is only there to remind you of the film’s rating. I’ve seen plenty of films that use very poor language but do so ...

I have loved Aaron Sorkin for a long time. I first encountered his writing with The Social Network and fell in love with it watching The West Wing , The Newsroom , and Moneyball . He has a very unique style with fast, witty dialogue that says a lot in very little time; when combined with the walk-and-talk technique of The West Wing , it becomes an incredibly effective tool. I have never disliked his writing, even though it does get a little soapboxy from time to time. When I heard Sorkin was going to sit in the director’s chair for the first time, I got incredibly excited. I didn’t know what kind of visual style to expect from him, but I did know that the same writing that I fell in love with would be back in full effect. With Molly’s Game , Sorkin proves himself to be a competent but not (yet) adventurous director. There are parts of this film that definitely prove there is a lot of potential, but it’s not fulfilled here. Most of this I see through the film’s length: at two ...

This is a rare occasion for me. I don’t think The Greatest Showman is a good movie, but I did enjoy watching it most of the time. It’s not a guilty pleasure; it’s more like a sugary, rich dessert that doesn’t strike me as inventive or unique but also doesn’t make me sick of its richness. What does this, no doubt, are the musical numbers. They took me out of The Greatest Showman in the best way possible. Let’s be real: this movie doesn’t know what character development is. It doesn’t know how to craft a compelling story. What it does know how to do is tell a story through music, and for that reason it’s actually quite tolerable to a fan of musicals like myself. It’s not just that the music itself is good; the numbers are filmed well in their own right. They are choreographed and shot quite competently, and the vocal performances are excellent as well. My personal favorites were “Rewrite the Stars,” “The Other Side,” and the likely Oscar contender “This Is Me.” There’s o...

I have to admit that I am not as familiar with Ridley Scott’s filmography as much as I should. I have seen only a handful of his movies, but there has always been an element of risk involved with them. Blade Runner and Alien changed science fiction films forever, while some of his more recent works have seen the revitalization of dead genres like what Gladiator did for Rome-era epics. In his most recent film, the now 80-year-old Scott took a risk of a different kind. All the Money in the World originally starred Kevin Spacey as J. Paul Getty, but after his sexual assault allegations Scott opted to reshoot all of Spacey’s scenes with only a month left until release with his supposed original first choice for the role, Christopher Plummer. They re-edited as they reshot, getting all of Plummer’s scenes filmed in a little over a week. Why am I telling you all of this? It’s for one reason, and only one: there’s little to no evidence of the film’s hectic reshoots in the final ...

Movies about the making of other movies are often really tricky to get right. The most notable examples of this struggle in my mind are Hitchcock , about the making of Psycho , and Saving Mr. Banks , about the making of Mary Poppins . Both are perfectly enjoyable films, but they struggle with a balance between summarizing the film’s existing Wikipedia article and giving us a new take on an already somewhat known story. Neither of these films succeeds at walking that line. In comes The Disaster Artist , James Franco’s look into the production of one of the best worst movies of all time. It does what no film about a film has done for me before: it separates itself from the film it is about enough to stand on its own as a great film. That being said, I do not think that it would be a smart move to watch The Disaster Artist without seeing The Room . There’s so many things in this film that are made that much funnier if you’ve already seen The Room – especially James Franco’s a...

After having seen The Last Jedi three times, I finally have some concrete thoughts about the film. My overall positive impression of the film has not changed, but there are some things I have begun to notice that I’d like to share with you. Two of the three things I'm sharing here are going to seem harshly negative, and while they are more or less blemishes and might detract from the film, they don't  WARNING: spoilers for The Last Jedi follow. Please do yourself a favor and don’t spoil this movie for yourself. It is far better if you know nothing going into it for the first time. But really though: don’t spoil this movie for yourself. I knew nothing going in, and that made a lot of what happens in the film impact me that much more; if you want my spoiler-free thoughts on the film, you can find them here . Anyway, here’s my observations. Anytime after the first viewing, this film drags. I didn’t notice The Last Jedi ’s length the first time I watched it that mu...

Film has the potential to be one of the most impactful forms of media because it excites the most senses: we can see, hear, and emotionally feel for everything that is happening on screen. We don’t always need big spectacles to do this for us either; sometimes, the smaller and more intimate a film is, the more impact it can have on the viewer. I recently saw Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri , a well-written character-driven mystery that has at its core a really unique portrayal of forgiveness and reconciliation. I think for a time like we are in now, this is a film that everybody must see. It doesn’t become overly political, and it doesn’t try to force these hefty themes: it simply tells a human story. The most central element to Three Billboards is the writing, both of the story and the screenplay. Martin McDonagh, the film’s director and writer, is actually best known for his plays, and that style of writing shows up constantly in this film. The dialogue is meaty...

Because of the complexity of The Last Jedi and how interwoven the film’s quality is with its major plot points, I am going to treat this a bit differently and more shortly than my normal reviews. After I watch this film a second or third time, I will publish a much longer spoiler-filled review; this is more of a first impressions post than anything, and I promise there will be ABSOLUTELY NO SPOILERS in the words that follow. I have never reacted to a film like I have The Last Jedi . I have never been so shocked by the way a film’s plot has progressed or by how one single movie can take the lore of an entire franchise as deep and rich as Star Wars and make you ask questions about its central core. I want to make one thing very clear, though: I still don’t know how I feel about this film. There’s too much for me to process after just one viewing for me to give it a specific score, and if you see it I bet you will feel the same way. So much happens in this film, and while that...

One of my friends called Reputation “fun trash,” and I’m beginning to agree with him. Taylor Swift’s sequel to her 80s-laden synthpop tribute 1989 – an album I thought was incredibly solid and more substantial than her previous work – has all the components of today’s latest trashy pop music. It has celebrity feuds, horrible break-ups, dubstep hooks fused with R&B rhythms – it’s all here. And I’m feeling somewhat…disappointed. Granted, being someone who loved the music of 1989 and its trendy nature makes it pretty plain that I don’t care for just any pop music. My favorite pop album of the year was Lorde’s Melodrama , a beautiful synthpop record with some indie flair that subverted the lyrical trends of most pop music by showing what happens after the party ends. Besides the musical quality of the record, what I loved most was that Lorde retained who she was – an outsider wanting to offer a slight critique of what the industry pushes as its product. Taylor Swift, ...

It takes a lot to make me cry. It’s not that I don’t have emotions; I just don’t show them through crying. I’ve seriously cried in public only a handful of times in my memory, and I have never cried while watching a movie. Well. Frick you Pixar. You finally did it. You made me cry while I was watching Coco . In all seriousness, Pixar has done a very good job with making me feel emotion at the movies, but  Coco went to a whole other level. It does have some of the best computer animation I have ever seen (more on that later), but it’s the emotional component that makes Coco the great film it is.  A big part of this is due to the story’s depiction of Mexican culture. Coco gives the celebration of the Day of the Dead and the culture’s value of family so much justice that it made me think often about what my own family, both living and deceased, would think of the decisions I have made in my life. By the movie’s climax – one of the many examples of the power of...

There are some films that just look like they won’t be artistic. One of the usual culprits for this is the inspirational family drama: movies like The Blind Side , as good as they are in their acting and ability to wave their emotional wands to cast a spell over their audience, they lack any unique flair when it comes to their direction and perspective. I was expecting the same out of Wonder , which follows a child with Treacher Collins syndrome struggling to fit into a normal school environment. Treacher Collins involves a lot of physical disabilities and hardships, including significantly altered facial features, that would undoubtedly make entrance into middle school (the period addressed by Wonder ) so much harder than it would be otherwise…and it’s not like it was easy to begin with. Basically, I thought this movie would bank on sympathy for Augie, the central character. Instead, Wonder tells Augie’s story from countless perspectives, and it really works in its favor. ...

One of the hardest things for any film to do is to be human. True humanity is extremely hard to capture in the pre-planned conversations of a script or in the often-visionary lens of a director’s camera. Even going to such lengths as filming the same cast over twelve years (looking at you, Boyhood ) does not guarantee that a movie can be a true slice of life. Somehow, some way, Greta Gerwig, in her first film in the director’s chair no less, has made one of the most genuinely human films I have ever seen. Lady Bird is an organic piece of cinematic art that doesn’t try to be terribly artistically original or innovative; it simply tells a human coming-of-age story, and it does it better than nearly any other film I have seen. As much as I’d love to claim that there is no one aspect of the film that helps this, ultimately the film rests on the shoulders of its cast. Without the amazing performances from Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Lucas Hedges, and everyone else involved, t...