Drama – Page 20 – Out & About

Unicorn Store: Brie Larson is a steely candy confection

The review:

Unicorn Store is Brie Larson’s directorial debut, and much like Chris Evans’ directorial debut, it’s fine way to pass the time. Larson walks the line between steely and fantastical and Samuel L. Jackson looks like he is having a lot of fun. It’s also required viewing for people who are fans of whimsical costuming as it is packed full of candy-colored couture.

The verdict: Good

Cost: Netflix monthly rental fee ($8.99)
Where watched: at home

Consider also watching*:

Other Avengers with directorial debuts**:
- Before We Go (Metascore 31, Chris Evans)
- Sympathy for Deliciousness (Metascore 44, Mark Ruffalo)
- Miles Ahead (Metascore 64, Don Cheadle)
- Shelter (Metascore 43, Paul Bettany)
- Of note: the Metascore for The Unicorn store is 45.

The caveats:

*Note that I can only vouch for the film I’ve watched. Report back to me if you have something to stay about the others.
**That would make a fun bar trivia question. Which of the Avengers have directed movies? Of course, you would have to define who the Avengers are.

3SMReviews: Fighting with My Family

I’m the first to admit that in Fighting with My Family, director Stephen Merchant has created an incredibly predictable film with one too many of many things (training montages, dog reaction shots, pep talks, brother looking sad). However, I’m a fan of sports movies, and especially ones with women doing the sports.* So I found this to be a fine film, wrestling its way (perhaps undeservedly) into the Good category.

Verdict: Good

Cost: $7.00
Where watched: McMenamins St. Johns with S.North

Consider also watching:

Whip It
Bend it Like Beckham
The Heart of the Game
The Cutting Edge
Love and Basketball
The Company

*Training montages are the best! When it’s women doing the training, so much the better. Plus, as much as I am of a fan of movies where not much happens and/or there’s a lot of talking, I also adore films where bodies move through space. The movement through space in this film is amazing to watch. Plus: Florence Pugh!

3SMReviews: All About Nina

Eva Vives takes a chance in All About Nina, giving us a character who, being female, is easily slotted into that female-dominated category of “unlikable.” Mary Elizabeth Winstead gives it her all as Nina, a stand-up comedian ready to take a chance to leap to success, while also trying not to let her demons get the worst of her. While the movie eventually illuminates the source of Nina’s demons, there wasn’t enough along the way to have me rooting for her,* plus Common (playing love interest Rafe) drove me batty with his line delivery.**

Verdict: Skip, unless you want to do a compare/contrast

Cost: Netflix monthly fee ($8.99)
Where watched: at home

Consider watching instead:

*This is actually a great movie to watch as a contrast to Can You Ever Forgive Me?, who also has an unlikable protagonist, but one I was rooting for from the beginning despite not knowing, or ever knowing what shaped her into that very prickly person.
**Abusive, stalker ex-guy she slept with, Joe is played by Chace Crawford, who I spent time with while watching Gossip Girl. This movie also has a treasure trove of recognizable actors I don’t see much of: Camryn Manheim, Jay Mohr, Mindy Sterling, Beau Bridges.

3SMReviews: Five Feet Apart

I’ve had a good run of Haley Lu Richardson and director Justin Baldoni’s Five Feet Apart continued that trend. While on one hand, it’s your standard teen love drama (of the illness subset), on the other hand it’s got Haley Lu Richardson who is really good at making standard things much better.* Aside from good acting, I really liked how, as the story progressed, the hospital transformed from a dreary place of healing to something a bit magical.

Verdict: Good

Cost: $8.05 (the bargain Sunday price has officially tripped back into too expensive and I’m crossing Sunday movies at this theater off my list.)
Where watched: Regal City Center Stadium 12

Consider also watching: Miss You Already, Everything, Everything, the book version of The Fault in our Stars (I do not recommend the movie)

*Plus, she had the help of Kimberly Hebert Gregory as Nurse Barb who should probably be getting more roles because she was also quite good. Oh! And Moises Arias, so good in the Kings of Summer, was in this.

3SMReviews: The Kindergarten Teacher

Settle in for some pleasantly uncomfortable observations of a woman going off the rails. Director Sara Colangelo slowly turns up the heat in the Kindergarten Teacher and things grow increasingly uncomfortable as the excellent Maggie Gyllenhaal’s interest in her talented five-year-old student grows. There’s no explosion of violence, or anger, or much of anything; what makes this uncomfortable is how things that are only a little off kilter build to become something that is verboten.*

Verdict: Good

Cost: Netflix monthly fee ($7.99)
Where watched: at home

*I feel like I need to add a disclaimer. At no time is the child abused, or in danger. He’s a victim of liking too much, which gets out of control.

3SMReviews: Hello I Must Be Going

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.”

Consider also watching: Home Again, City Island, Y Tu Mama Tambien, Don Jon

3SMReviews: American Honey

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.

3SMReviews: On Chesil Beach

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

Consider watching instead: Atonement, Revolutionary Road

*Who was also delightfully pouty in Outlaw King as Edward, Prince of Wales.

3SMReviews: Columbus

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.

Consider also watching: Before We Go, The Station Agent

*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.

3SMReviews: Paddleton

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

Consider also watching: I Love You, Man, Good Will Hunting, 50/50

*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

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