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SeemsSensible
Reviews
Booksmart (2019)
I don't get it either
I just saw this. The first review I saw here (also titled "I don't get it" and also 5 stars, summed up my feelings, so I won't repeat all that it said. (Except, and I suppose a minor point, but as that other review mentioned, some of the actors are way too old for the roles, e.g., Billie Lourd is 27 and looks 27.) And it strains plausibility at times. (Miss Fine just happened to have a sequined dress in Beanie Feldstein's size in her car?)
I read two glowing reviews, on AVClub and Vulture, and it has a 97% critical consensus on RottenTomatoes, so clearly critics are liking it. I just don't understand why.
I don't have know how many times I've seen Lady Bird, a far superior high school movie (in which Beanie F. costarred). This isn't a bad movie; it's a bit scattered tonally, and I kept reading that the characters weren't the usual high school stereotypes and were fleshed out, when actually that's not true.
It is...mildly witty. I guess see it and see what you think if you're curious. Word of mouth will be the ultimate determination of its success. For me, it's vastly overhyped.
Blockers (2018)
Relatively strong start...
The movie has a promising start and is decent for the first hour; there are no belly laughs but some mildly amusing moments (a couple). Ike Barinholtz is good, though he's basically Morgan from The Mindy Project. John Cena shows the same earnest charm that he did in Trainwreck, and is exceedingly game here. Leslie Mann is Leslie Mann.
But after an hour, around the time the parents' car flips and is stuck vertically on its end, the movie descends into, first, mindless silliness and implausibility, and second, aching predictability. (Also, Gary Cole: WTF are you doing in this?)
It's a slog getting to the end, which begins to seem will never come. Judd Apatow is not a producer, but it felt like one of his movies, which are always easily 20 minutes too long. Although in this case about an hour too long.
I don't know who the audience is for this movie. Right-wingers are decrying it as some sort of anti-Trump political correctness (it's not; Cena's wife is Indian, so their daughter is biracial; one of the other three girls is a lesbian. So basically it's what the real world looks like in 2018. Sorry, straight white Christians, the '50s are long gone and not coming back). The movie's greater sin is that it's just not funny.
Pride and Prejudice (1995)
A Beautiful Miniseries
I'm sure I can add nothing to the 401 reviews, the majority of them 10 stars (and a 9.0 rating overall; I have never seen anything like it on IMDB). But I just finished the final episode and wanted to chime in with my approbation (um, I think I've adapted that early-19th-century way of speaking).
It's been such a pleasure to watch this over the past week, and such a wonderful diversion. I've never read Jane Austen (though now I want to) and have never seen any adaptations of Pride and Prejudice, though I knew some very basics of the plot and main characters.
But how expertly cast this was. Other than Colin Firth, I believe Lucy Davis (as Maria Lucas) was the only other actor I knew going into it. And it was shot so beautifully: There were scenes at Pemberley that looked like paintings.
Wonderful story, wonderful cast, a miniseries that richly deserves all these glowing reviews.
Disobedience (2017)
Dull as Dishwater
There's a good original story here, but the characters aren't developed enough to warrant caring about. Perhaps if the history between Ronit and Esti had been conveyed more completely, rather than just a couple of sentences referencing what went on between them in the past, there would have been something to hang one's hat on.
It's a pretty plodding process getting to the end, which is disappointing, or at least it would have been if I were invested in these characters or believed that there was some great years-long passion between them. I didn't.
The Intervention (2016)
A Big Chill Redux
This movie is so similar to 1983's The Big Chill—eight longtime friends gather for a weekend at a big, rich-person's Southern mansion (except whereas in The Big Chill, the eight were friends from college, here we mostly don't know how they're connected)—that I feel like it must be an homage by Clea Duvall. I like her as an actress, so I'd hate to believe that it's just a blatant ripoff. The eight cast members are even structured the same way: The Big Chill had seven friends in their early 30s convening, with the eighth being someone a decade younger; same here.
Duvall has assembled a winning cast, although Melanie Lynskey's character is super annoying. The plot is pretty thin and far-fetched: You have to wonder why Jessie (Duvall's character) wouldn't have had this "you need to get out of your bad marriage" conversation directly and privately with her sister (the Cobie Smulders character). Lynskey's character is the driving force behind this intervention, and except for one small moment, you'd never even know Jessie and Ruby were sisters.
It's wrapped up a little too tidily, too, with the imperiled married couple, who seem to actually despise each other, suddenly deciding to give it a go.
Not a bad movie, not really a very good movie, either...I suppose faint praise, but...you could do worse?
Mo'Nique's Fat Chance (2005)
A shameful, repellent mess
"When you're out at a restaurant with a man, don't order a salad without dressing. You know you want egg, bacon and dressing in it. Order it! And take home a doggie bag. So the next day you can have something to eat when you're watching Oxygen, and when your man calls and asks what you're doing, you can say, 'I'm having some of that dinner you bought me last night." This is one of Monique's dating tips interspersed in this train wreck of a show.
According to official estimates, about two-thirds of adult Americans are overweight or obese, and the effect on individual health and the health-care system is considerable. Obese people are more likely to develop cancer, diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure, which can lead to stroke. Hospitals have had to "super-size" their wheelchairs and beds to accommodate the new generation of sick and overweight Americans. And overweight African-American and Hispanic women, who make up some of the contestants, are at even higher risk of heart disease and diabetes.
And besides the health risks, there are the substantial lifestyle factors that being overweight affects: Climbing a flight of stairs is a strain, walk a block and you're out of breath, you can't sit comfortably in a movie theater or plane seat (Mo'Nique advocates airlines making their seats wider. Yeah, that's going to happen).
There are certainly unhealthy body images perpetuated in pop culture, and everyone deserves to feel good in her skin. But that Mo'Nique is celebrating and rewarding an unhealthy, dangerous conditionand calling it a "movement"is appalling and shameful. What's next, the Miss D.R.U.N.K. or Miss M.E.T.H. pageant? I mean, you want that drink, you want those drugs, you want that fat and cholesterol? Don't deny yourself or worry about your health. Have it! Hell, we'll even call it a movement.