I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020)

Started off really strong: a woman is traveling with her boyfriend of less than two months to meet his parents. She has a running stream of thoughts that are audible to us... and possibly to her boyfriend. Once they arrive at the family's remote farm, every bit of sanity just goes out the window.

The parents are typically weird: dad says odd things and Mom giggles at all the wrong times. But they also can't stick with an age, sometimes appearing much older and sickly and sometimes quite young and spry. Is this all in the boyfriend's head? He does appear to be able to make his constantly "shaking himself dry" dog to appear out of nowhere.

In short: although I feel like I kind of got what was going on (my guess is that the boyfriend and the school janitor are the same character), but this was never in any way confirmed or disproved, which left me frustrated and annoyed. I hated almost everything after their initial car ride with the exception of the hallway dance.

D+

This Changes Everything (2019)

Clear and eye-opening expose on gender discrimination in Hollywood -- especially in the Directors Guild. I can't help but marvel at the fact that a man directed it. What the hell was the thinking there? 

B

Nightmare Alley (2021)

A man falls in with a carnival and soon makes a place for himself, first by doing whatever is needed and then with his quick-thinking and vision. It doesn't take him long to leave the traveling show -- taking the prettiest girl with him -- to craft a successful mentalist act in legitimate venues. When he's noticed by a well-to-do man eager to speak to his dead son, he seizes the opportunity to follow the money.

This is del Toro's second-best movie (after Pan's Labyrinth), but it's still only this side of "OK." The performances are brilliant and the atmosphere is perfect, but the story itself simply goes where it must. I wasn't surprised and I wasn't truly satisfied. This big, sweeping movie ended predictably and quietly -- I felt almost cheated.

B

Free Guy (2021)

Guy, an NPC in a huge online multi-player video game, starts to veer from his set routine when he sees a player who feels like his destiny. There's an underlying "real world" plot about source code and legal stuff and blahblahblah. But who cares -- this is all about the simple lives of NPCs and it's an absolute blast.

B+

Licorice Pizza (2021)

Gary's a 15-year-old with nothing but hustle. Alana's a 25-year-old without much going on, so why not ride along with this kid and help with his schemes? And that's pretty much it. For more than 2 hours.

The cast is likable and there are some fun scenes, but it feels disjointed and overlong. Like watching one too many reels of a random family's home movies.

C+

The Lost Daughter (2021)

A middle-aged professor is on a solo vacation in Greece. While there, her comfortable beach solitude is invaded by the type of large family that has utter disregard for everyone else. Though she handles herself fairly well, she's soon tempting fate in odd ways.

My sister and I were just talking about "unsettling" movies and this one definitely qualifies. I didn't much care for the professor, but I was also extremely worried for her. It's a wondrous balancing act by Colman.

B+

Banana Split (2020)

April and Nick are a long-time couple who break up at the end of senior year in anticipation of being separated when college starts. When Nick starts dating Clara -- a new girl in town -- April is naturally jealous and angry. But when the two girls realize that they genuinely like each other, things get really complicated.

Boy, I liked this one a lot. Not only was it well-written, beautifully acted and completely believable, but it made me think deeply about the underlying truth of what I was seeing. I mean, how many people have I dismissed simply because it would be weird to hang out with them? And how many of those people could have been kindred spirits? Why on earth has romance so often gotten in the way of potential friendships?

A-

Hell House LLC (2016)

A "found footage" movie covering a tragedy on opening night of a Haunted House event. The videos show the team readying an abandoned-inn venue for their tour. It's a creepy place and they're freaking themselves out... but there are also too many caught-on-video weirdnesses to be ignored. And yet, somehow the show-runner does ignore them.

Low-budget, inexplicable nonsense.

D-

Parallel Mothers (2021)

Maternity ward roommates form a bond as they labor and deliver on the same day. In a B-plot, one of the women is working toward having a mass grave in her hometown exhumed so that family can give the dead proper burials. 

Almodovar puts his stamp on things: the main apartment is a decorating dream and the score deepens every conversation. But I found the main mystery predictable and character behavior in the wake of revelation to be mystifying. Worth a watch for sure, but it's unlikely to top any "best of Almodovar" lists.

B

The Wrong Man (1956)

Hitchcock says at the top that "every word" of the story is true... which, no. But it is based on the an actual family-man who gets picked up by the cops on suspicion of being guilty of several hold-ups in the area. It was difficult to see this through the eyes of the time: I was frustrated at Manny (the accused) for being so passive and not demanding a lawyer. He was so eager to help that he didn't see the danger in doing so. 

That aside, the story is an interesting one, though it does go on too long.

B-

Where the Lilies Bloom (1974)

After their father dies, four kids try to fulfill his dying wish of keeping the family together. To do this, they have to keep his death a secret -- which gets more difficult with each passing day. 

Though not particularly well-made, this is a good family film. It covers the importance of hard work and family while also tackling the hard truth that even loving parents are not infallible.

C+

Belfast (2021)

Lovely slice of life set in late-'60s Belfast, when the Troubles were beginning. It's a small film confined to a small neighborhood, but it's set in such a huge point in history that it feels somehow teensy. Maybe that's proper. After all, big events are experienced on a small scale and this one is being seen from the point-of-view of a child.

Note: it was a magical decision to have the "real" events be in black & white while the "in-color" movies and shows they watched were allowed to retain their color. Brilliant.

B

Clair Obscur (2016)

A young wife is basically a servant in her own home. She sneaks cigarettes and watches the antics of girls her age across street with obvious wistfulness. She dreads the obviously painful sex with her much-older husband and resents the bossiness of her mother-in-law, who also lives with them. When she is found hypothermic on the balcony and the other two inside dead of possibly accidental causes, a young female psychiatrist is called in. Though the doctor is in what appears to be a modern marriage, e.g. her husband openly watches porn with regularity and she doesn't seem to mind, the new patient causes her to reassess her own life. 

I honestly had a hard time with this movie. My issues were mostly with the doctor's life. 1) I absolutely hated the sex scenes: they were too intimate -- too full of sounds I shouldn't hear. I don't really have anything against legal porn, but I hadn't planned on watching any when I started up this film. Also, 2) her methods seemed fairly questionable to me.

All of that said, I appreciated the fact that, though their lives appeared to be completely different, correlations could be drawn and acted on. I think that we often accept shitty -- but changeable -- circumstances due to "so many people have it worse" reasoning. We are each living our own lives and are allowed to work toward happiness.

C+

tick, tick...BOOM! (2021)

This is the story of a struggling musical-theater writer trying to finish up his 8-years-in-the-making musical for a showcase performance. That this struggling writer is Jonathan Larson, whom we know goes on to write RENT, adds to the interest.

Without Andrew Garfield in the lead, I'm not sure how into this film I'd have been. Though I have a default fascination with musical artistry, it can be a little too self-important in the wrong hands. But, since Garfield plays Larson as a self-deprecating & true-to-himself delight, we're on board. He believes in his art and, despite almost no encouragement, is driven to keep working at it. I really loved the way that his autobiographical show helped to frame the narrative: I wanted to be there seeing him perform it.

But, still, the end result is good, not great. Somehow felt just a bit smaller than it should've.

B

The Power of the Dog (2021)

Two brothers own a ranch together. One's a rough asshole who holds sway over the ranch hands and one's softer and works the business side of things. When the business brother marries and brings his wife and her teenage son to the ranch, rough bro does what he can to assert his dominance.

Gary and I originally bailed on this movie about an hour in. Cumberbatch, as the ass, seemed completely miscast. Somehow his portrayal lacked the necessary humor and charisma to make his dominance believable; he came off as a petty jerk rather than a source of terror. The whole vibe -- and I know it was deliberate -- was oppressive. But that was due more to the soundtrack and the refusal to bring any light to the proceedings than it was to Cumberbatch's character. 

Once the Oscar noms were announced, I picked it back up (though Gary declined to). I have to say, the ending does help. It's an effective twist -- but it also left me a little annoyed that the last 10 minutes of a 2-hour story should have to do such heavy lifting. I understand that the suffocation I felt is testament to the ability of the director, but that doesn't mitigate my irritation at being forced to feel it.

C+

West Side Story (2021)

I didn't want to see this. I held out until the Oscar nominations were announced before caving. And, I admit, that when the lights dimmed and the first whistles of the theme started, I got chills. Maybe I was just being silly and precious about the original? 

Alas, I was right to avoid it in the first place.

Why on earth does this movie exist? And, if it must exist, why would someone with -- I'm guessing -- thousands of screenplays just begging for his attention be the one to do it? This is like Han's quickdraw being erased... but, also, Han is now played by Ashton Kutcher. Seriously -- why were two such voids of personality chosen as the leads? And why in the name of all that's holy does Anita (now playing Doc's PR wife, who runs the drugstore) now get to sing "A Place for Us"???? It's downright baffling. The budget is an estimated $100,000,000. A HUNDRED MILLION -- and that's before marketing costs. The original exists. The original is amazing. This? THIS?? It's an embarrassment. 

It's only not an "F" because I saw it with my son who has never seen the original and he pronounced it "fine." So, alright -- fine. It's apparently not an abomination to those who don't know any better. Kind of like cool whip tastes alright to people who've never had actual whipped cream, I guess.

D

Crooked House (2017)

A private investigator is asked by a former lover to investigate her grandfather's murder.  The family is rich beyond belief and all reside in the (admittedly very large) family home. Almost everyone has a motive since the old guy was a sadistic control-freak.

No one in the family is particularly sympathetic, which made the twists and turns enjoyable -- rather like in "Ten Little Indians." I'm not a huge Agatha Christie fan, but I was satisfied.

B

2 Days in the Valley (1996)

The lives of vice cops, hitmen, an art dealer, an assistant, a washed-up screenwriter, a nurse, and an Olympic skier converge over the course of a couple of very hot days in LA. It's got a scruffy charm, but takes a bit too long to start pulling the threads together.

B-

The Great Escape (1963)

During WWII, the Germans decide to build an escape-proof camp and move all of the frequent-escapers to it. Since the Allied forces are duty-bound to do their best to escape if captured, the prisoners work together to execute the most elaborate and, hopefully, resource-diverting breakout possible.

This is a fascinating film made all the more incredible by the fact that it's a true story. Though long, we were never bored. 

B+