Category: Three Sentence Movie Reviews

Free Movie at Cinema 21: Didi

Letterboxd hooked me up with a free ticket to see Didi, a film I was planning on prioritizing. I got to the theater early as directed in the email. It was a little chaotic because the people with the list were nowhere to be found. It turns out they were at the Lloyd Center theater and had to make their way from Northeast Portland to Northwest Portland and then find parking in Northwest Portland.*

*There is off-street parking for Cinema 21 after hours, but people have to know to look it up on the website. Most don’t, and they circle endlessly looking for a spot.

But they got to the right place and we got to see a fine film about the summer before high school. The woman playing the grandmother looked familiar to me, and it turns out the director of Didi, Sean Wang, was also the director of the short film Nai Nai & Wài Pó, which was nominated for an Academy Award for best documentary short for the 2024 awards. The grandmother was Wang’s own grandmother (Nai Nai, in the short film).

Thanks, Letterboxd and Cinema 21 for this good movie outing.

Hollywood Babylon at the Hollywood Theatre

Sara and I took in the pre-Code film Jewel Robbery, which was part of the Hollywood Babylon series. Before the film, this helpful graphic was displayed.

You can see the picture includes all of the “shalt nots.”

We counted quite a few shalt-nots in our movie. Jewel Robbery was fun, though a very brief 68 minutes that has me wishing the tickets were slightly discounted.

Somewhere in our travels, I came across this much appreciated sign in a gender neutral bathroom.

I’m completely for gender neutral bathrooms, especially when the bathroom has just one toilet and one sink. However, my experience has been that it’s quite common to walk in and have to kick the seat down. Drives me crazy.

How to View and Appreciate Great Movies—Completed

Kanopy, the library’s free streaming service, gives me access to the Great Courses. I’m planning a Hollywood Movie Musicals project, so I thought I would start with a film appreciation course. Today, I completed it.

Eric R. Williams was my teacher, and he taught the 24 lectures with the glee of a learned film fan and the enthusiasm of an overexcited dad. There were times that his antics were cringeworthy, but his full-hearted love of film overcome those moments.

Not overcomable was the use of really bad computer generated versions of movie scenes. I’m sure they had to use them for copyright reasons, but I had to look away while they were playing, rendering their use moot.

Another fun thing was that his set was full of fun Easter eggs, like the license plates above the window. I got THX 138 first (George Lucas’s first movie), and eventually the 007 clued me into James Bond’s license plate.

I had to look up the other two. CNH 320 is the Dukes of Hazzard license plate. I can’t find the specific meaning of the 125 PCE plate, but I have learned that 0-499 PCE is reserved for California license plates that are used in film and movies.

This course gave me a solid start to my movie project, and I’m hoping to refer to my notes often. Thanks to Mr. Williams, the Multnomah County Library, and Kanopy for this free resource.

Oscar Viewing Party at McMenamins

Though I have no photo proof, Friend Jessica and I attended McMenamin’s Oscar Viewing Party. It was good fun. As usual, I brought along my Happiest Oscar Viewer game, so we could pick who we wanted to win.

While I wasn’t happy for every category category I picked, I was thrilled that the Zone of Interest won best sound design (truly amazing) and that the Last Repair Shop won for Best Documentary Short.

70 Millimeter Film at the Hollywood

Not on my list of movies to see in this post, but one I fit in anyway, was a 70mm showing of Napoleon at the Hollywood Theatre. It’s fun to see the super big format, though I overall don’t love war movies. I was hedging my bets that this movie will be nominated for several Academy Awards, thus it was good to cross it off the to-watch list now.

Christmas Eve Movie Selection

As is my annual tradition, I pick a movie to attend on Christmas Eve as it provides a stopping point for preparation. There was essentially no preparation this year, so it was fine to see a movie at 9:45 a.m.

It was just me in the Istanbul room today at Studio One. I sat in all the seats and took notes as to which might be the best to reserve next time. I also had Studio One popcorn for the first time. It was delicious. Even at 9:45 in the morning.

December Movies to See

Thanks to the holiday schedule and a contest at work, we got Monday through Thursday of the Christmas week off, plus I took off Friday. What does that mean? Much time to watch movies in theaters. And this is great timing as there are many movies to see. Here was my planning sheet. As you can see, I had moviegoing companions for many of these.

Of this list I didn’t make it to Fallen Leaves (which is supposed to be great) and Boys in the Boat (which I’m somewhat ambivalent about given how much I liked the book.)

Kelly asked if I wanted to see The Color Purple, so I ended up seeing four of five movies with people. That’s pretty rare.

My ranking: Iron Claw (recommended), the Color Purple (recommended), Anyone But You (good), Poor Things (I liked things about it, but kind of really hated it, Skip), Wonka (the fat jokes entirely ruined this somewhat okay film, Skip).

Middle Age: Barb and Star vs. Red Rocket

Lean who talks about Trish for an extended period, who the main character of Red Rocket reminded me of, and in which movie showing I saw four people leave halfway through.

Note: Josh Greenbaum directed, didn’t write. Mikey isn’t probably really middle aged, but he is old for his industry.

Barb and Star go to Vista Del Mar

  • Directed by Josh Greenbaum
  • Written by Annie Mumolo & Kristen Wiig

Red Rocket

  • Directed by Sean Baker
  • Written by Sean Baker, Chris Bergoch

Summarizing June 2021

Listen to hear me refer to the June summary as the May summary two-thirds of the time, find out why I think In the Heights was such a success, and learn why I have the same movie in both the Skip and the Good category.

Things mentioned in this post:

Created by women: In the Heights was written by Quiara Alegría Hudes, Life Partners was directed by Susanna Fogel and written by Susanna Fogel and Joni Lefkowitz, and Away We Go was written by Vendela Vida and Dave Eggers.

Summarizing May 2021

In this bit of audio, I run through the movies I watched in May 2021. Listen to find out what I think of ditzy women leads, how I knew that a movie wouldn’t have a bummer of an ending, and to get recommendations for several (!!!!) grownup comedies.

Things mentioned in this post:

The bummer of recording audio is that when I discover I’ve missed an entire move after I’m done recording and editing, I don’t go back and fix that.

In that vein, know that I also watched Mystery Date in May. It would have landed in the Skip category.

Created by women: Together Together (written and directed); Monster (2018) (co-written); The Forty-Year-Old Version (written & directed); Once Upon a Mattress (directed).