Category: Three Sentence Movie Reviews

Pain & Glory Captures Old Age

Pain & Glory

The review:

Pedro Almodóvar’s Pain and Glory reminded me how few movies there are about the realities of aging. Antonio Banderas captures a director hamstrung by pain* and flashbacks give insight into different areas of his life. It’s a wish fulfillment movie,** and when carried out with Almodóvar’s excellent use of color and interesting settings past and present*** made for an excellent film.

The verdict: Recommended

Cost: $5.99 via Google Play
Where watched: at home

Consider also watching

Further sentences:

*Both physical and mental. Banderas’s stiff movements—watch how he carefully eases himself into a cab—hint at how difficult basic functions are; his eyes capture the loss that comes with a long life.
**There were a few too many conincidences to be believable.
***I loved the cave, the director’s apartment, and even Alberto Crespo’s backyard was beautiful to look at.

Questions:

  • Do you think Salvador Mallo’s (Antonio Banderas) response to pain was reasonable
  • Would you ever live in a cave?

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

As usual, Agustín Almodóvar, Pedro’s brother and producer of the movie, makes a cameo. In this case, as a teacher and priest in a flashback, when Antonio Banderas’ character is a small boy.

Other reviews:

Pain & Glory

All movies watched on Netflix July 2019–Present

Recommended

Good

  • The Two Popes

Skip

  • A Christmas Prince

Richard Jewell Includes Good Acting, Director Opinions

Richard Jewell

The review:

Clint Eastwood’s Richard Jewell is a little too clear about the director’s feelings about the media and the F.B.I.,* but what this film does well is ably recreate the somewhat claustrophobic circumstances Richard Jewell is reduced to when the tables are turned on him.** I was excited to see Paul Walter Hauser as the titular character and I thought it was unfortunate he didn’t make the cut for Best Actor.*** The rest of the cast was also good and I like that Jewell’s sad-but-true story got movie status.

The verdict: Good

Cost: $6.00
Where watched: Jubitz Theater (The audience included five other women and one man, which I thought was an interesting distribution. Also, the man would not stop talking to his movie-going companion. This is the second Jubitz feature in a row where the audience gets a D for etiquette)

Consider also watching these other Clint Eastwood films:

Further sentences:

*Both are bad. Very bad. Very, very bad. You can’t believe how bad they are. Although you can when you watch this movie because both institutions might as well have had a neon arrow saying BAD pointing at them through the duration of the film.
**I’ve lived in apartment complexes like the one depicted in the film and while they are fine places to live, they can seem dark and claustrophobic, especially when you spend most of your day in them.
***He was great at still being sympathetic and likable even while being off-putting and making not good choices. That’s a high tightrope to walk. Nomination-wise, I would have subbed him in for Johnathan Pryce’s Pope Francis.

Questions:

  • What do you remember about the 1996 Summer Olympics?
  • Kathy Bates’s Best Supporting Actress nomination. Deserved? Yea or nay?

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

All of the Atlanta Olympic Games logos in the film are missing the 5 rings. The International Olympic Committee denied the use of the rings for copyright protection and to “protect the use of the iconic emblem”.

Other reviews:

Richard Jewell

Ford v Ferrari Zooms and Drags

(The cars make that zooming sound repeatedly. The plot drags.)

Ford v Ferrari

The review:

James Mangold gives us a male gaze turned inward* with Ford v Ferrari and also spends a lot time filmsplaining.** If you can get past the very long plot*** it might be worth watching for Matt Damon’s controlled Carroll Shelby and Christian Bale’s puckish Ken Miles, plus Noah Jupe’s second very good performance in 2019.**** I found this to be overly tedious and exactly the film I was not at all interested in, but because it got a best picture nomination, I did my due diligence.

The Verdict: Skip

(Unless racing floats your boat in which case you’ve probably already seen this.)

Cost: $9.25 (but free due to gift card)
Where watched: Regal Cascade (a new theater for me!)

Consider watching instead:

Further sentences:

*While the male gaze tends to objectify women, the male gaze turned inward seems to think that everything men does is incredibly fascinating. Which is not the case.
**Flimsplaining. When a movie does this:
—-Character 1: I’m going to run the Quarter 30 in August
—-Character 2: But 500 men tried to run the Quarter 30 in August last year and all of them have failed! For you to do so would set a world record, bring you fame and fortune, and it would mean you can finally marry Lucille! You’re amazing, man, but I don’t know if it can be done.
—-Next scene: Character 1 runs the Quarter 30 in August.
***The cast of characters has to be assembled, the car has to be built, men in suits must be argued with, the qualifying race has to be won, the actual race has to be raced, and then instead of being over, the film keeps going.
****The first was in Honey Boy. This movie required him to pretend to watch a lot of things and he wasn’t the greatest at that acting task. But when interacting with people, he was great.

Questions:

  • Would you ever take a ride in a race car, as Henry Ford II did?
  • Can you think of a female-focused car racing movie?
  • What worked well for you in this film?

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

Matt Damon and Christian Bale agreed that the brawl between their respective characters was the most fun scene to film. Both have experience with extensively choreographed fight scenes that take weeks to learn so it was a positive change that they only had to rehearse the brawl for twenty minutes and weren’t required to look lethal while doing it.

Other reviews:

Ford v Ferrari

Red Rock West is the Best Noir Western

The review:

John Dahl’s Red Rock West was a film I watched in the mid-90s* and remember enjoying, but wasn’t sure how it had aged. I’m here to tell you that this film still retains all that was good in the 90s, is the best Noir/Western you will ever watch and has a Cage performance that is the perfect amount of Cage, plus Dennis Hopper being creepy in a fun way, not in a Blue Velvet way.** If you can find your way to this little gem, do partake.

The verdict: Recommended

Cost: $15.00
Where watched: Hollywood Theatre, with a Q&A by director John Dahl as part of the Hollywood’s “Cage Uncaged” series.

Consider also watching other peak Cage:

  • Face/Off
  • The Rock
  • Leaving Las Vegas
  • Gone in 60 Seconds
  • Matchstick Men
  • Wild at Heart
  • Adaptation

The lack of links is an indication that this movie blog and Peak Cage have not overlapped. I’ve seen all of those films, but prior to 2008. Here’s Roger Ebert’s review of Matchstick Men

Further sentences:

*It was recommended by my then-roommate, with whom I had almost nothing in common. Her father, however, watched a lot of good movies which meant some of those good movie trickled down to her.
**Props also to J.T. Walsh who is excellent as bar owner Wayne. Or “Wayner” as Hopper calls him.

Questions:

  • Have you seen Red Rock West?
  • What is your favorite Nicolas Cage role?

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

Dwight Yoakam brought his own pistol for his role as the truck driver. His hit single, “A Thousand Miles From Nowhere,” is used during the film’s closing credits. The version used is a studio demo recording, not the one from the album This Time.

(According to the Q&A I attended, Yoakam asked if Dahl needed an end-credits song, Dahl said yes, and 15 minutes later Yoakam called and played the song.)

Red Rock West

Joker Left Me Shrugging

Joker

The review:

Todd Phillips attempts to bring gravitas to the comic book movie genre with Joker. While the brouhaha was strong for this movie* the film exists so that Joaquin Phoenix can remind us that he is the best actor of his generation. The movie is not nearly as bloody as I had assumed from the chatter, but the story didn’t hold** and ultimately I was left shrugging.

The verdict: Skip

Cost: $1.80 via Redbox
Where watched: at home

Consider watching instead:

Further sentences:

*Joker is horrible, the worst of modern movies, Todd Phillips is a hack/Joker is a masterpiece, the pinnacle of achievement, Todd Phillips is a genius.
**I’m on bored with Arthur Fleck’s descent into madness, it’s just he’s so incredibly fragile it seems there is no way he can recover enough to actually plot crimes to try and defeat Batman. I see there is a Joker 2 in the works, so presumably we will get a follow up.

Questions:

  • If you thought this film was a masterpiece, what qualities elevated it for you?
  • If you thought this film was horrible, what qualities left you with that impression?

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

Joaquin Phoenix said about the 52 lb weight loss: “Once you reach the target weight, everything changes. Like so much of what’s difficult is waking up every day and being obsessed over like 0.3 pounds. Right? And you really develop like a disorder. I mean, it’s wild. But I think the interesting thing for me is what I had expected and anticipated with the weight loss was these feelings of dissatisfaction, hunger, a certain kind of vulnerability and a weakness. But what I didn’t anticipate was this feeling of kind of fluidity that I felt physically. I felt like I could move my body in ways that I hadn’t been able to before. And I think that really lent itself to some of the physical movement that started to emerge as an important part of the character.”

Other reviews:

Joker

1917: Does the Movie Deserve Accolades?

1917

The review:

Sam Mendes’s 1917 is vacuuming up all the praise and it’s very good at being a tense war movie that is crafted as if it was filmed in one shot.* And yet, when we step a bit back from the cinematography shenanigans, is there enough story? I’m feeling torn, but I can tell you that I enjoyed both Dean-Charles Chapman** and George MacKay, *** I found one scene late at night in a town unbelievable, and I thought the depictions of rats was on point.****

The verdict: Good

(There will be much grumbling if this wins Best Picture. Not Green Book levels of grumbling—there will be no assigned reading—but grumbling nevertheless)

Cost: $9.50
Where watched: Cinema 21 with Matt, who enjoyed it.
(Also, I noticed for the first time a private screening area in the balcony.)

Consider also watching:

Further sentences:

*It was not.
**Although the preview clued me in about him
***He was the oldest son of Viggo Mortenson in Captain Fantastic
****Also, I’m quite happy to have avoided service during the Great War.

Questions:

  • What other movie razzle-dazzle (more easily created with CGI) do you want to see come back?
  • What would you lean on to get through fighting a terrible war?

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

Mendes says his grandfather Alfred, who entered WWI in 1916 as a 17-year-old, did indeed carry messages through no-man’s land, as per the mission in this film. His advantage was that he was only 5’4″ tall, and was often hidden by the battleground’s winter mist that usually hung as high as 6 feet. And after soldiering for two years in the muddy trenches, grandfather Alfred had a lifelong habit of constantly washing his hands. Yet, he never talked about his wartime experience until he was in his 70s.

(Short people for the win!)

Other reviews:

1917

Beautiful Boy: A Father/Son Tale of Addiction

Beautiful Boy

The review:

Felix van Groeningen’s Beautiful Boy follows the standard drug addict movie format;* the difference here is that the father-son relationship is the focus. I loved the performances of both Steve Carell and Timothée Chalamet** and that the movie doesn’t point to a cause of the addiction, just the things that happen because of it. While I don’t feel this broke any new ground on the drug addict movie front, there was a lot worth watching.

The verdict: Good

Cost: Free due to Amazon 30-day Prime trial
(I’ve been stalking this movie for months now and it’s been stuck behind the Amazon paywall and has too many holds at the library)
Where watched: at home.

Consider also watching:

Further sentences:

*Drugs are used/fun. Drugs are abused and bad things happen. The rituals of drug use are fetishized. Drug addict hits bottom. Rehab. Either the hopeful ending (rehab goes well) or the not hopeful ending (character dies or goes back to drugs.)
**I really love Steve Carell’s serious roles (and his comedy) and I was also happy to see Maura Tierney and Amy Ryan in this. Plus Kaitlyn Dever makes an appearance.

Questions:

Do you think the divorce of his parents contributed to Nic Sheff’s drug addition?
What was the hardest sequence in this film?

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

Cameron Crowe was once attached to direct with Mark Wahlberg in the lead role.
(So this movie has been kicking around for a bit, then.)

Other reviews:

Beautiful Boy