January 22 – 28
Cinema movies: 2
Home movies: 5
TV shows: 2
[su_note note_color=”#ffff66″ radius=”8″]If you like this article, you’re gonna love these:
- What the ding dong heck is My MoviePass Year all about?
- Err, so how does MoviePass work?
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Ah, the return of Grace and Frankie. This is a series I did not expect to like and yet I am pleasantly surprised by how it continues to improve with each season. The story follows two women, played by Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, who learn their husbands are in fact, in love with each other. The show follows the pair as they move on through life after learning their spouses prefer same-sex companionship.
Season one saw Fonda and Tomlin bickering incessantly, without any hope of their sniping developing into something more… until, of course, it does and they become fast friends. They are a match made in sitcom heaven, figuring out what to do with life in their seventies now that they’re starting all over.
It’s funny, sharp, and warm without being sentimental. The two leads are excellent as are Sam Waterston and Martin Sheen as their former husbands, also navigating new waters. The quartet who play their children bring the biggest surprises however, with June Diane Raphael delivering some of the best line deliveries in the show alongside Tomlin.
I’d heard rumblings about Future Man and decided, what the hell, I’ll give it a go. Created by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, it’s a series that wears its influences on its sleeve. It’s a little like Ready Player One…. but with dick jokes.
Josh Hutcherson of The Hunger Games stars as a lowly janitor at a medical research facility who happens to be an avid gamer on the side. After clocking a particularly difficult level, he’s visited by two of the game’s characters who tell him he’s passed their recruitment training… yes, it does sound like The Last Starfighter and that’s exactly what Hutcherson’s character says.
I love self-referential cinema and TV. I understand why it’s deemed a cheap shot at connecting with an audience, but when it’s this brazen it’s hard not to get caught up in it.
We suffered through 21. I had seen it upon initial release ten years ago and remember thinking it was a decent watch.
Now? It’s creepy.
Kevin Spacey stars as a university professor who convinces his super-smart math students to join his little gang of card counters, who every weekend travel to Vegas and make a killing. A fun, spunky premise that’s squandered due to a cast that doesn’t quite cut it. Several scenes between Kate Bosworth and Jim Sturgess just lack the heft and, dare I say, gravitas that an actor like Spacey brings to the screen.
Due to his recent outing as a revolting sexual predator, watching him in anything is likely to induce what I call ‘the voms’ — a shudder twinned with a strong desire to vomit.
Kingsman: The Golden Circle is okay. Critics panned it for failing to push forward with what made the first outing successful. I found it a way to pass a couple of hours; nothing life-changing but not awful either.
From out of nowhere, Netflix drops a new Original movie, The Polka King starring Jack Black as a Polish polka musician who winds up robbing a whole community of their savings through a Ponzi scheme. Sounds bananas and it is.
As a kid I loved The Mask. I still have the ticket stubs from when I saw it at the cinema, under the spell of Jim Carrey’s rubbery-faced buffoon. I don’t recall when I first saw Ace Ventura: Pet Detective but I do know that this week, I laughed harder than I have in a long time. Seeing it now, twenty years after it was originally released, it dawned on me how phenomenal Carrey truly is.
The Shape of Water. Believe everything you’ve heard: this is a sumptuous visual feast from Pan’s Labyrinth director Guillermo Del Toro. A romance between two outcasts told through the early sixties lens of intolerance. In a sense, like most of Del Toro’s work, the plot is simple: Sally Hawkins’ mute custodian befriends a creature being held at the research facility at which she works. Authority interferes, she responds heroically, and, the big bad government man (played superbly by Michael Shannon) comes after them.
The joy in a movie such as this isn’t in complex plotting though; it’s the world-building, the beautifully-scripted characters, production design and story.
It’s a spell-binder: I was utterly captivated, enthralled, delighted to be in this universe where neighbours are friends and drop in on one another regularly, and where people stand up to do “what’s right” regardless of how it might affect them personally.
Plus, Richard Jenkins has now officially snagged a spot in my top 5 actors.
Say what you will about cookie-cutter comedies; Bad Moms was funny. An r-rated flick that didn’t exactly break the boundaries of the genre, it nevertheless served as an alternative to all the male-centric chucklefests. I laughed loads. A Bad Mom’s Christmas doesn’t quite capture what made the first one work, it rehashes the same beats without saying anything new.
I, Tonya delves into the story of Tonya Harding, the shamed figure skater who reportedly paid thugs to maim her rival. I knew nothing of Harding or her scandal before watching the film – besides a quick phone call my wife insisted we make to her mom, who it turns out, is quite knowledgable about the whole fiasco.
Margot Robbie plays Harding, and does a fine job of teetering between sympathetic and completely unsympathetic. Despite the fact the movie shows her in a favourable light, it’s a tricky performance to execute and she does it well. I came away not entirely sure of what I felt about Harding, or her behaviour, but certain that Robbie has a long career ahead of her. Likewise for Sebastian Stan. Who knew the Winter Soldier was so nuanced?