Hey, “Edge of Seventeen” (2016). I saw what you did there. And you did it well. So I’m not going to spend the next 84 words belaboring comparisons to teen films from the 1980s. Suffice to say kids are different these days (and so are parents), but they still deserve good movies about themselves. And this is one. And a wink and a nod at the genre’s forebears signifies respect, not derivativeity. I’m also not going to continue discussing my non-sexual but age-inappropriate crush on Hailee Steinfeld, which began with “True Grit.” Suffice to say I’m glad she’s 20 now.
Archives for category: movie reviews
I was watching the idiotic “Bio-Dome” (1996), and I was worried. Idiot Pauly Shore’s idiot girlfriend was being played by an idiot Renee Zellweger. Or so it appeared. I tried to do the math. “Jerry Maguire” came out around the same time. Could she have filmed “Bio-Dome” when she was a nobody, and it was just released later? Soon, the credits rolled. It turns out idiot girlfriend was played by Joey Lauren Adams, who is merely Renee Zellweger’s idiot twin. Meanwhile, the movie, which involves science-related hijinks and idiot Stephen Baldwin, also stars the famed “dickless” from “Ghostbusters.” So there’s that.
Based on his performance in “Sully” (2016), I nominate Aaron Eckhart for Best Supporting Mustache. In today’s age of media oversaturation, this is another one of those based-on-a-true-story films in which everyone is already super familiar with the “true story.” So how do you create drama? Play up Capt. Sullenberger’s wife, make the National Transportation Safety Board dude extra dicky (the birds weren’t enough of an antagonist), and plow a buncha money into special effects. Also, hope the audience can calibrate its expectations and lose itself in the re-creation of one of the all-time greatest airplane landings. Worked for me.
It’s the matryoshka doll of B movies. “Mute Witness” is a 1995 slasher movie filmed on location in Russia about a slasher movie filmed on location in Russia that stumbles upon a snuff movie filmed on location in Russia. A hint of noir is supplied by the fact that our perky American protagonist is mute (thus the title). Longtime Russian actress Marina Zudina plays the perky American, while longtime British actress Fay Ripley plays her not as perky sister. Alec Guinness briefly appears in an uncredited role. It was his last film. He didn’t exactly leave on a high note.
Matthew McConaughey’s character isn’t particularly attractive – visually or otherwise – in “Gold” (2016). Given the fact that much of McConaughey’s popularity rests in aesthetics, it’s not surprising this movie was quickly shuffled into the discount bin at Blockbuster (theoretically, I mean, after all, the movie is set in the 1980s). That’s too bad, because if you can see through the haze of Seagram’s and Marlboro, there’s a complex and interesting story (and Bryce Dallas Howard) there. Maybe too complex (the story, not Bryce). But it’s not like you’re tired of 1980s-based films about commodities dealing (“Trading Places” was a long time ago).
Garry Marshall died a few months after the release of “Mother’s Day” (2016) and I can assure you, he took no sitcom-style plot conventions with him to the grave. They’re all here: the younger and sexier second wife, the wacky parents, the sassy black friend, the wedding scene, the hospital scene, the graveyard scene. He did everything but have Fonzie jump a shark again. But that was Marshall’s gift. He could take boilerplate romantic comedy material and pan fry it in enough schmaltz to clog an artery, yet it would always come out satisfying (not great, satisfying). It’s cinematic comfort food.
