I’ve long been of the opinion that Melanie Lynskey is tragically wasted* and in Todd Louiso’s Hello I Must Be Going, she gets a chance to shine. Lynskey plays Amy, who can’t quite get it together after her divorce—until she meets the 19-year-old son of her father’s work colleague.** A May December romance follows, and while I would be annoyed if the genders were reversed, I loved how the two found their way to new lives.
Verdict: Good
Cost: Free via the Multnomah County Library’s streaming service Kanopy Where watched: at home
*”Who?” I hear you asking. She’s kind of the New Zealand version of Judy Greer, but with more gravitas. She was the co-lead with Kate Winslet in Heavenly Creatures, but she mostly shows up in bit parts here and there (Away We Go, Sweet Home Alabama, Ever After) and IMDB tells me she does a lot of TV. **Christopher Abbot, who played Marnie’s boyfriend Charlie in Girls. I really like him, though he has a flat acting style that some people might characterize as “not good.”
Goddamn, do I love Leslye Headland’s Sleeping with Other People, which is kind of When Harry Met Sally in present day with much more discussion of sex. Alison Brie elevates everything she is in and Jason Sudeikis succeeds with his “Hey, I can really do this acting thing, not just comedy!” It’s a witty and sex-positive and blatant film about coupling and love.*
Verdict: Recommended
Cost: Netflix monthly fee ($7.99)
Where watched: at home
In Andrea Arnold’s American Honey we get a meander across America via a white van full of underprivileged, tattooed youth selling magazine subscriptions.* Star’s (Sasha Lane**) good heart shines through, cutting through the layers of poverty, scraping, and fighting to get a handhold up to the place where you can start pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. This long, uncomfortable*** film is worth watching and will stick with me for a very long time.
Verdict: Recommended
Cost: free via Multnomah County Library’s streaming service Kanopy Where watched: at home
*All of these kids need a lot of interventions, probably starting with access to any amount of unconditional love. **Who recently caught my eye in the Miseducation of Cameron Post and was also the love interest in Hearts Beat Loud ***Two hours and forty minutes of me feeling every ounce of my middle-class privilege. Plus the conflicting feelings of Shia LaBeouf’s skeevieness vs. me kind of rooting for him.
A thing my middle-class self and this lot have in common: love of music. This was my favorite scene of the movie. Stuff that advances the plot is happening while the song is playing, and the van sing-along that develops parallels many of my adolescent times with friends in a car.
Dominic Cooke’s On Chesil Beach is two-thirds of a great movie. The scenes with Saoirse Ronan and Billy Howle* are taut, troubling, and also have enough heart that you want the couple to make it through their wedding night. After we leave Chesil Beach, it’s a bunch of awkward aging makeup and the movie heads in an obvious direction.
Verdict: Skip unless you are a Saoirse Ronan completist or enjoy two-thirds of a good movie.
Cost: free via Multnomah County Library DVD Where watched: at home
As someone whose personal blog has been gradually taken over by photos of buildings, I am the prime audience for Director Kogonada’s Columbus.* While Haley Lu Richardson** and John Cho grapple with lives in flux, the modernist buildings of Columbus, Indiana provide a framework for the film’s narrative. It’s a movie full of small moments and stunning architecture, and both the moments and the buildings are beautiful.
Verdict: Recommended
Cost: free via Kanopy, the Multnomah County Library’s streaming service Where watched: at home.
*I’m also a fan of slice-of-life stories with characters at turning points. **This is three films in two weeks with Ms. Richardson. She played the friend in Edge of Seventeen, and an enthusiastic waitress in Support the Girls. I will also most likely see her soon in Five Feet Apart, because movies based on YA novels area always a priority.
Director Alex Lehmann’s Paddleton is chock full of things I like.* Ray Romano** captures many unsaid things as Andy, the friend who not only will be left behind, but also is helping his best Michael friend to exercise his right to die before cancer kills him. I was looking for sorrow to turn me inside out and that did not occur, but I still found a lot to love in this story.
Verdict: Good
Cost: Netflix monthly subscription fee $7.99 Where watched: at home
*Changing friendships, male friendships, the lives of middle-aged unmarried men, movies made by the Duplass brothers, sad things, quirky details like a made up game. **Who I know about, but whose body of work I am not familiar with because I never watched Everybody Loves Raymond
Sometimes, I think it’s harder to get nominated in this category than it is for best actress. After all, most movie roles for women aren’t for the lead. They are for the wife, or the mother, or the girlfriend. You know, the women who are ready and waiting to boost that man who is the real story. (In fact, our first contender fits neatly into that slot.)
Whereas movies that are really ABOUT women are much fewer and far between. And then sometimes they can’t be too much about women (ahem Tully) or supposedly “people” won’t want to watch them. So there are a lot more supporting roles than there are lead ones.
Oh, Amy Adams, you’re just good in everything, including Vice. The academy likes you so much they have nominated you for six Oscars. Your performance as the steely Lynne Cheney was equal to your many other nominated performances. However, I think you are a long shot to win.
Fun fact: Amy Adams’ performance in Enchanted was so good I left the theater without my purse.
Oh Emma Stone, you are also delightful, especially in The Favourite. You’ve already won an academy award (for La La Land) and you brought steely conniving to your role as Abigail. Will this be your year? Again? My guess is no.
Fun fact: we only know her as Emma Stone because there was already an Emily Stone already registered with SAG
Marina de Tavira, nominated for Roma
Marina de Tavira as Señora Sofía in Roma, written and directed by Alfonso Cuarón.
Photo by Carlos Somonte.
Marina de Tavira, you keep your own secrets in Roma. As the mother of four and the head of household you keep going as your marriage falls apart. Like Yalitza Aparicio, your performance is subtle. If the 2019 Academy Awards is going to be a night all about Roma, you might just win.
Fun fact: Marina de Tavira is a well-known actress in Mexico. I have no real fun facts because I mostly only watch movies in English.
Rachel Weisz, nominated for The Favourite
Rachel Weisz stars in Fox Searchlight Pictures’ “THE FAVOURITE.”
Rachel Weisz, in The Favourite, you get what you deserve and also manage to make us feel sad that things have turned out this way for you. It’s a great performance of friendship, and scheming, and control. I think two nominated actresses from the same movie will split the vote, so it will be a surprise—but a welcome one—if you win.
Fun fact: the first names of her former partner and current husband both begin with the letter D. But who are her former partner and her current husband? I’ll leave you to Google.
Regina King, nominated for If Beale Street Could Talk
Well hello Regina King, the matriarch holding things together in If Beale Street Could Talk. This is your first nomination, though IMDB tells me you have 52 wins and 53 nominations in other awards categories. You’re the one I’m hoping will win.
Fun fact: both her and her sister Reina’s first names mean “queen”
Predictions
So who will win? If it’s Roma’s night, then Marina de Tavira. If it’s not, then Regina King. Rachel Weiss and Emma Stone, maybe. Amy Adams, long shot.
My preferred winners, in order: Regina King, Rachel Weiss, Emma Stone, Marina de Tavira and Amy Adams
Julian Schnabel takes some chances in At Eternity’s Gate and those chances paid off for Willem Dafoe, who was nominated in the Best Actor category for an Academy Award. It didn’t fully pay off for me as this movie was slow, and I had a hard time keeping my eyes open.* I liked how they dealt with the dreaded accent thing,** and the visual things were interesting, almost enough to get me to stop thinking about the fact that a 63-year-old man was portraying a painter who died at 37.
Verdict: skip, unless the visual things intrigue you
Cost: $1.75 via Redbox Where watched: at home
Consider watching instead some other movie with Willem Dafoe, like The Florida Project, or The Life Aquatic with Steven Zissou
*Indeed, I took a short break and napped for 30 minutes so I could more fully watch the film. **You know, when the actors all talk with some sort of quasi-English accent, except they are (mostly) Americans playing people who are say, French. This movie starts in French, which sets the tone, but then most of the film the actors talk in standard American English.
My 1999 self watched the Wachowski’s The Matrix in the theater and what my 2019 self recalls about that movie is the feeling of a massive shrug. Having just re-watched the film as my 2019 self, I can say I’m not quite sure what my 1999 self was thinking* because WOW there is a lot to like about this film. It is still setting the standard for Sci-Fi visuals, Keanu Reeves’ performance isn’t nearly as wooden as I was remembering, and it has a strong female character (Carrie-Anne Moss) who is a great fighter.**
Verdict: Recommended
Cost: free from the Multnomah County library Where watched: at home, in preparation for Filmspotting’s 9 from 99 discussion.
*And really, this goes for all aspects of my 1999 self, not just pertaining to this movie. I thought it was weird I remembered not one thing about the film, so much so that I wondered if maybe I hadn’t actually watched it. But no, there it was listed in the 1999 journal. I watched it on June 23. I wrote nothing about the movie in the entry from that day. **Though alas, she exists only for the male lead. That “I love you” scene was probably the weakest one of the movie. Also, props for a somewhat diverse cast to support that male lead.
