Thoughts on 5 Films

1. First Reformed - I'm not sure I get it? I have no interest in watching it again, but I think there is supposed to be some sort of "message" that I just didn't get. And I mean something bigger than just a priest questioning his faith, which is the core of the film. Critics have hailed the film as "an epiphany", "spectacular", and "mesmerizing", so there has to be more to it. Aside from my high expectations, I enjoyed Hawke's performance, and the dialogue was really fantastic (my favorite line: "Wisdom is holding two contradictory truths in our mind simultaneously".), I even liked the weird and unexpected ending. Overall though, it's not a movie that I expect will stick with me and I am left disappointed in what could have been.

2. Rough Night - Ugh. I expected to hate this, and I did. For many, many, many reasons. I'm not sure where to begin - the paper-thin personalities each woman has, the fact that they laugh and have a grand old time after they accidentally kill someone, Scarlett Johansson's predictably terrible performance, the constant cliches- like how her best friend is jealous of her having another female friend, the idea the women in their 30s are still susceptible to peer pressure, or just the sheer stupidity of every single plot point. It's all terrible and pointless. It's clearly trying to be the next Bridesmaids (which had similar cliches, but it was done 100 times better), by trying to do the whole "women can do raunchy" thing, but it fails miserably. I didn't laugh once. NOT ONCE. Jillian Bell was great in 21 Jump Street, but she's not ready for such a big role. Actually, I think the cast was a big problem, they did not have the camaraderie that this group should have - and again, none of them were funny. But I bet if you replaced all of them with the cast of Bridesmaids, I would have laughed hysterically.

3. Battle of the Sexes - I admit, I don't really know much about Billie Jean King. I just know the name as a feminist icon, but I'm not really one to follow sports icons so I never really paid attention to how influential she was in the feminist movement of the 1970s. After watching this, I became incredibly intrigued by Bobby Riggs' story - I'm glad they showed how his "personality" influenced people. It's clear that he doesn't really believe the things he says, and that he is just trying to exploit the feminist movement for his own gain - and even crazier, him and King were actually friends! I always try to point this out when some popular person says something ridiculous (AHEM Kanye *cough*) because they clearly just want attention and if you get all "offended" and "outraged" you are just feeding right into what they want. There's an interesting theory that Riggs actually threw the match so that King would win because he placed a large bet on her - and honestly, I believe it. It's kind of hilarious that women felt like this would "prove" something - a women in her 20s beating a man in his 50s at Tennis? How is that proving we are equal? I think King's real progress, and work towards equality was all the behind the scenes stuff - the part where she boycotts, and argues her worth. This is a fairly straight-forward biopic that could have focused more on her battle with her sexuality and her public persona. Or how she influenced people in other fields to join the feminist movement. But instead we get to watch a re-enactment of the tennis match that lasted for what felt like FOREVER. Tennis is extremely boring, so I'm not sure how anyone thought it was a good idea to drag that out (it's not for dramatic effect, because we already know the freakin' ending!). The cast is impeccable though.

4. Mission: Impossible - Fallout - Not as good as I was expecting based on all of the reviews, but a satisfying movie nonetheless. I think Ghost Protocol was a lot better. At least there was an extremely memorable scene (the Burj Khalifa scene will live in my brain forever). This one reminds me of the previous one (Rogue Nation), in that I enjoyed it while watching it, but I will hardly remember anything about it. I think it's supposed to be surprising with all the "twists", but nothing happened that I didn't expect. I'm not a fan of Henry Cavill - he is such a snoozefest, especially when he shares the screen with Tom Cruise. The bathroom fight was pretty great, though. The choreography that goes into those scenes are just amazing. I do like that they left in the scene where Tom hurts himself. I can't believe that he still does all of his own stunts - even the crazy ones. The last scene with the helicopters was really fun to watch, but I totally expected him to jump from the one helicopter into the other one, and then I fully expected to read that he actually did it in real life. What a crazy man.

5. Suburbicon - Wow, this is a bad movie. It's saved by the caliber of its cast, and the talent behind the screen, but it's just not good. First, I like that Clooney is inspired by the Coen brothers, but he really needs to step away and find his own groove, because now it feels like a parody. Second, the story is actually really great and the ending is wonderful, so why did this feel so painful and boring to watch? Third, maybe have the really interesting racial tension that is exploding in the background be the main story? There's just so many ways this story could have been told, but it fails in every aspect. Fourth, again, I LOVED the ending and that little boy is a great actor.