David Lowery gives us an early-80s period piece with the Old Man and the Gun and Robert Redford is not shuffling off into the sunset with this, his supposed last film. Which is not to say this a lively film, as the old man style of robbing banks involves steady, calm walking (and not theatrics and shootouts,) plus some quiet romancing of a woman (Sissy Spaseck, who is good at playing the standard female romantic interest.) Casey Affleck does his usual Casey Affleck stuff as the detective on the case, and overall this makes for a fine Sunday Afternoon Movie*
Verdict: good
Consider also watching: if you want more Casey Affleck, but with him playing the outlaw, you can go for an earlier David Lowery film: Ain’t Them Bodies Saints. For a more lively Robert-Redford-as-outlaw movie consider Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Or The Sting, which is con man, not outlaw, and more fun.
Cost: $1.50 (the new Redbox price is $1.75, but I got a discount for renting two movies.) Where watched: at home
*Movies that are entertaining, but not challenging and serve as one final breath of fresh air before you plunge into the last hours of your weekend.
Mid90s, Jonah Hill’s directorial debut, is not a great movie, but it’s got so many good scenes strung together that it transforms into a good movie, despite not really having an ending. How much you like this movie will depend on your tolerance for 90s male skater culture—one of the character’s nicknames is FuckShit—and all the baggage that comes with that.* I’m always interested in depictions of how boys are socialized by their friends into being whatever their version of a man is; this movie provides plenty of examples of this, both good and bad.**
Cost: $1.50 (the new Redbox price is $1.75, but I got a discount for renting two movies.) Where watched: at home
*I have a soft spot for skater culture, which makes it easier for me to overlook a lot of the questionable things that happen in this movie. Further thoughts: Jonah Hill’s liberal use of the N-word in his script. Okay because correct for the characters? Or not okay due to Hill being white? There was a lot of “faggot” too, but having been a teenager/young adult in the 90s I can report that the liberal use of that word was historically accurate. Unfortunately. **Na-kel Smith’s Ray is headed in the right direction, Gio Galicia’s Ruben, not so much.
Matt visited his brother in Indianapolis earlier this month. He sent me pictures of him standing in front of a bullseye painted on wood next to a hatchet wedged deep into the wood.
“What is this?” I asked him
“Ax throwing,” he replied. “It’s a thing here.”
“I’m surprised we don’t have that thing here,” I typed
Turned out, we did.
We threw axes at Jack Axe, which is located in the Tiki Family Fun Center in Gresham. We arrived 20 minutes early as requested, heard the safety information and the lesson and then were set loose on the range with four other people.
Our four other people turned out to be great fun, inventing different ways to throw an ax (on one foot; with your eyes closed!) and providing challenges such as affixing a $5 bill to the target. It made our 60 minutes go by quickly.
I was able to hit the target several times. It’s a very satisfying sensation when the ax sticks. Jack Axe wets down the wood, though, so I’m not sure I would have such good results out in the wild.
At $20 per person for 60 minutes, this wasn’t fun enough to meet that high money threshold, but I enjoyed myself and am glad to have done it.
Movies I watched in 2018 that were so good I think you should watch them too. Today’s theme: people
The women (and girls)
Longtime readers know I love to see stories grounded in the female experience, and I watched a lot of them in 2018.
Viola Davis stars in Twentieth Century Fox’s WIDOWS. Photo Credit: Courtesy Twentieth Century Fox.
Are you looking for a steely drama with women (Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki) attempting to pull off a heist after their husbands die? Look for: Widows. Maybe you want the comedy/suspense story of a simple mommy blogger (Anna Kendrick) whose life turns upside down when her friend disappears? You’re looking for A Simple Favor.
Hannah Gadsby: Nanette. If you watch one comedy special this year, this should be the one. Hannah Gadsby dismantles the comedy process and makes us laugh, though not in that order.
Women’s work. Whether it’s running a high-stakes poker ring (Molly’s Game) or trying to qualify for the Winter Olympics (I, Tonya) it’s fun to watch these women do their jobs.
Further connections: both movies deal with Winter Olympic trials. Molly’s Game opens with a skiing trial.
Women in new life stages, or attempting them. Toni Collette is excellent in Lucky Them, about a music writer on a quest to find her long-gone (but possibly not dead after all?) boyfriend. In a much higher income bracket, Reese Witherspoon is trying to build a post-divorce life in Home Again. Kathryn Hahn is trying to become a mother in Private Life. Whereas Charlize Theron is transitioning from having two children to having three with the help of a night nurse in Tully. (This was my #2 film of the year and no one I know has seen it.)
Charlize Theron stars as Marlo in Jason Reitman’s TULLY, a Focus Features release.
Mid-career. Juliette Binoche spends time talking about art and work in the Clouds of Sils Maria while Melissa McCarthy needs to find a new way to make a living because no one is interested in her Fanny Brice biography in Can You Ever Forgive Me?
2018 was the year I also saw Belle (finally) and I think you should not miss Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s performance as Dido Elizabeth Belle in 18th Century England.
And a list about of women (and girls) cannot end without a mention of Eighth Grade, my top movie of 2018 and a brilliant portrayal of the last week of middle school for one Kayla Day.
The men (and boys)
While I don’t seek out movies about males as much as I do about females, they come to me regardless, mostly due to the fact that men tend to think their stories are universal. Here are three films about men that I deeply loved.
Let’s start with the youngest of our charges. In Taika Waititi’s funny, sweet and tragic Boy we see James Rolleston (Boy) deal with his father being away. He then gets to deal even more when his father comes home.
Moving into early adulthood, director Chloe Zhao directs Brady Jandreau in The Rider, a story about finding what one can do with their life when they are supposed to stay away from the one thing that makes them happy, in this case, riding horses. In a look at settled adulthood, Paterson is Jim Jarmusch’s tale of a bus driver who is also a poet and stars a very good Adam Driver and a very wacky (and also good) Golshifteh Farahani as his creative wife.
One woman who excels at putting both the women and the men together to make very interesting movies is director Lynn Shelton. In 2018, I had the joy of watching three of her films.
How far will two competitive friends go? Perhaps all the way? In Humpday, Mark Duplass and Joshua Leonard push the boundaries of their friendship.
Thank goodness Edie Falco is still getting roles. In Outside In she plays a teacher who has worked to reduce the sentence one of her former students, (Jay Duplass) and their post-prison relationship is a complex one.
Finally, Touchy Feely ostensibly concerns itself with a massage therapist (Rosemary DeWitt) who doesn’t want to touch skin anymore, but it’s really the story of a variety of people in her orbit, including her brother, niece and boyfriend. Josh Pais and Allison Janney’s reiki scene was perhaps one of my favorites in 2018.
In The Disaster Artist, James Franco is creepily, hilariously effective as Tommy Wiseau, the passionate director of a terrible movie; Dave Franco carries the role of Greg, Wiseau’s friend. I was looking to laugh, and there are some very funny parts to this film, but it also delves into the difficult situation of supporting a friend who is doing a very bad job at something. What could have been an exercise in James Franco getting to go deep on a weird character* is instead elevated to an interesting examination of art, incompetence, and friendship.**
Cost: free via Kanopy Where watched: at home with Matt
*I’m not sure why I am still continually surprised at Franco’s success at things. He is uncannily talented in a variety of ways. **And you need not actually watch Tommy Wiseau’s movie The Room to enjoy this film. (Win!)
Stephan James as Fonny and KiKi Layne as Tish star in Barry Jenkins’ IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK, an Annapurna Pictures release.
Barry Jenkins’ If Beale Street Could Talk is gorgeous to look at, expertly acted and also just a tad slow. Tish and Fonny’s story is a weighty one, and I especially enjoyed Regina King’s performance as Tish’s mother Sharon. The pure love story dominates through the complications and injustices.
Verdict: Good
Consider also watching: Jenkins’ Medicine for Melancholy, which was his first movie. And he also did a little film called Moonlight.
Cost: $6.00 Where watched: at the Laurelhurst Theater with S. North.
Brad Bird’s Ratatouille is a fine example of Pixar’s prowess with plot and animation, plus no hankies are needed. It’s pretty much a sausage fest, with Janeane Garofalo the only female present, but it’s a fun Patton Oswalt performance and has a good message. My favorite part was watching the rats run in a swarm,* which was realistic enough looking that I felt a bit panicked.
But this year, I came back strong and watched 55, an all-time high. Also, it was much easier, possibly because more women are getting to make more movies. Also possibly because I have Netflix now, and a goodly number of movies I watch on Netflix are written or directed by women.
Here are images from my Letterboxd list. Letterboxd makes things so pretty. And you can sort, as I’ve done here, sorting by rating.
My five star ratings are: Lady Bird–written and directed by Greta Gerwig–through The Favourite–written by Deborah Davis.
Four star reviews start with A Star is Born (’37)–written by Dorothy Parker (!!)–and go through Leave No Trace–written and directed by Debra Granik.
Dick–written by Sheryl Longin–is my first three-star review and they go through Ginger & Rosa–written and directed by Sally Potter.
My two-star reviews are A Wrinkle in Time–written by Jennifer Lee and directed by Ava DuVernay–through The Miseducation of Cameron Post–written by Cecilia Frugiuele and Desiree Akhaven, directed by Desiree Akhaven.
And my one-star reviews are King Kong–written by Ruth Rose–and A Star is Born (’76)–written by (of all people!) Joan Didion.
I recommend #52moviesbywomen as a worthy project for you this year. My first year was very fun because I got to watch entire filmographies of women directors. (Sadly, many women director’s filmographies are not lengthy and this can mostly be done by watching a mere 3-5 movies.)
But even if you participate by keeping track of movies you’ve happened across that fit the criteria, it’s bound to raise your awareness.
Gossip Girl Season 1 provides many things: a quality overwrought drama full of (mostly) bad people making bad decisions; an insight into cutting-edge technology of 2006; performances that range from very good,* to adequate,** to subpar.*** This is not a good show, and it can’t be mistaken for quality television, but it is very, very good bad television. I’m not confident that it will be able to sustain it’s very good badness through another season, much less five more seasons, but this season was a great gift.
Verdict: Good
Cost: Monthly Netflix subscription Where watched: at home
*Alas, only Kristen Bell as the unseen Gossip Girl, but maybe possibly Kelly Rutherford as Lily van der Woodsen. I can’t tell if she’s great at playing an ice queen, or is actually an ice queen. **Blake Lively as Serena van der Woodsen, Taylor Momsen as Jenny Humpry ***To varying degrees, everyone else.
Postcard 1 of 3 arrived today (two days after postcards 2&3/3, if you are keeping count.)
It’s an ad for a fun-sounding film series taking place at the Heights Theater. All the films focus on the “fille fatale.” The card defines this as “a cunning girl bent on destroying her parents, or a loving daughter whose keen eye exposes dark family secrets.”
Movies listed in the series: The Bad Seed, The Big Sleep, The Curse of the Cat People, Mildred Pierce, Shadow of a Doubt.
It looks like a good film series. Someday, when my life arranges itself in a different order, I hope to be able to attend film series such as these.
