Category: Three Sentence Movie Reviews

This is the page in my newest five-year diary where I’ve been tracking my movies/TVonDVD.  There are 16 pages like this available for me to write in, so it looks like I’m not going to have to find another way to track movies because I’ve run out of space.

Remember how I was crazy about the Gerwig/Baumbach venture Frances Ha and then, after watching more movies with Gerwig,  started to question if I really liked her after all?  It turns out that when Gerwig & Baumbach come together, they create movies I adore, including this one which is wacky and funny and really does evoke the best of zany comedies like Bringing up Baby.  Plus, both female leads are fabulous at what they are doing.

Cost: $8.00
Where watched: Living Room Theater as a reward for making it though the first week of school.  I also bought a sandwich and some wine, making this a rather expensive treat.

http://www.impawards.com/2015/mistress_america.html

This movie has what can only be described as a hella lot of whisper voiceover.  It also has very interesting early CGI effects, and all the things that would now be CGI effects, but back then needed to be actually made are quite interesting too.  I did not, however, find it to be an actually interesting movie.*

Cost: free from library
Where watched: at home with Matt, who was aghast I had never seen it.

*So much so, that I forgot to include it in my list.  I actually watched this in August and didn’t realize until after I’d closed the August movie books that it was missing.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/1984/dune_ver1.html

I went into the movie Valentine’s Day not knowing anything and was pleasantly surprised by the gravistas brought by the actors and the interesting weaving of stories.  This, my friend, is no Valentines Day, featuring a cast of B-list actors (or A-list actors giving B-list performances) and stories that I just didn’t care about.  This was a terrible movie that wasn’t bad enough that to be fun.

Cost: free from library
Where watched: at home

http://www.impawards.com/2011/new_years_eve.html

Some days I’m up to watching something of substance, or something inventive, or something with style. And some days I’m tired and need to paint my toenails and just put on a so-so romantic comedy with non-offensive actors.  Overall, it wasn’t terrible, it was a fine movie for meeting my exact needs at that moment.

Cost: free from library
Where watched: at home.  Toenails are green now.

http://www.impawards.com/2005/lot_like_love.html

One of the purposes of movies is to take the viewer to a world they don’t know and this movie did that for me, given that my life experience includes no contact with transgender prostitutes.  There were things that were hard to watch in this movie, but it’s brimming with so much force of life that it made the hard things easier.  Also, it makes Los Angeles look spectacular, colors popping and light flattering even in the rundown part of the city these characters inhabit.

Cost: $3.00
Where watched: Laurelhurst Theater with S. North.

http://www.impawards.com/2015/tangerine.html

This movie suffered (through no fault of its own) from overexposure because I saw the preview too many times.  But given it was Diablo Cody, I went anyway, because I’m always interested in her characters.  As usual, she wasn’t really into us liking Ricki, which I was okay with, and I also enjoyed how there wasn’t really a villain in the story, just people trying their best to navigate through things as best they could.

Cost: $4.70 due to Fandango gift card from Jan
Where watched: Regal Lloyd Center with Kelly (birthday present part I)

http://www.impawards.com/2015/ricki_and_the_flash.html

Looking up the big-eyed girl from Crazy, Stupid, Love, I noticed she’d done a movie with another guy I adore, Miles Teller and I HAD to watch it, with the force of someone who is on her third week of vacation and has pretty much let everything go.  So I did and I loved it, not just because of the two leads, but because I’ve never seen depicted in a movie two characters talk frankly about sex and what and doesn’t work for them.  As a romantic comedy it was inventive and overall sweet in that good way, so I heartily enjoyed this film.

Cost: $3.99 from Google Play.  (Yes, I was so desperate, I rented it through the internet! The library didn’t have it, it was too hot to walk to the video store, so I paid money to sit at my computer and watch this film.)
Where watched: at home.

poster from:  http://www.impawards.com/2014/two_night_stand.html
I’m not sure what they did to Miles Teller’s face in this poster but it is Not Good.

A movie about a person needing to figure out what to do with life that probably wasn’t well received because the person in question was female, not male.*  However, I quite like watching women flail about, so this was entertaining to me in that way and also because Sam Rockwell cracked me up as a world-weary single dad. Chloe Grace Moretz has so much poise, she doesn’t really strike me as a teenager, (despite actually being one) but I rolled with it, and I also enjoyed her friend Misty, played by Kaitlyn Dever, who managed to steal every one of her scenes.

Cost: free from library
Where watched: at home.

*We women are supposed to have it all together, you know, that whole house and home thing.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2014/laggies_ver2.html