Love it or hate it. There isn’t much middle ground or neutrality regarding Damien Chazelle’s (La La Land, First Man) divisive Babylon, a fantastical look at the debaucherous look at the rise and fall of the Hollywood movie industry during the 1920s. While some might believe its 56% /52 % scores on Rotten Tomatoes suggest it’s an ordinary movie, those average scores may result from people either loving or hating it. I enjoyed the movie. It is far from being in my top ten of the year. With only a couple of 2022 films left to watch, Babylon sits at #16 (out of the 74 2022-released films I’ve seen). It’s a fine film and one that is worth viewing.
Category Archives: Olivia Wilde
Don’t Worry Darling (2022)
Don’t Worry Darling, Olivia Wilde’s (Booksmart) may have been the most talked about movie of the year. While the film garnered much buzz, it was the much-publicized dysfunction between some cast members (most notably Wilde and Florence Pugh) and different versions of why Shia Labeouf exited from his role (he said/she said story from he and Wilde) and how it played out in the reputable news outlets, as well as the tabloids and social media. There was much worry that Wilde’s second directorial effort would be known for the hoopla around the film rather than the film itself. With a production budget of $35 million (compared to just $6 million for Booksmart), I’m sure Wilde felt considerable pressure for her film to succeed. Despite its lukewarm ratings among critics, 39% on Rotten Tomatoes, it has resonated with audiences (82%). While not a perfect movie, I was thoroughly engrossed in the setting, the characters, and where the story would lead.
Life Itself (2018)
Perhaps the most pleasant surprise of all 2018 movies was Dan Fogelman’s (Danny Collins) little-seen gutwrenching Life Itself. Not to be confused with the Roger Ebert documentary of the same name, this chapter-style movie is best viewed if you know as little about it as possible going in. I read this in the first paragraph of a review site I respect, and it was enough to get me to stop reading the review. I didn’t research anything more about it until I had finished watching the movie and was completely shocked to see that it had just a 13% fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes (78% fresh with audiences based on 981 ratings at the time of this review). While the drama was thick and all of the tie-ins between the stories a little too coincidental and convenient to believe that all of the connections truly happened by chance, I was able to suspend that portion of the movie because A) I didn’t see everything coming ahead of time (naively perhaps) and B) because the raw emotions of this film felt so thick and real to me that I couldn’t help but be wrapped in the folds of each character. Continue reading Life Itself (2018)
Rush (2013)
Rush is a movie that I thought would be dumb based on the trailer. If produced n the early 80s, I would have been all about it. But with so many sports movies created since then, I honestly feel like there isn’t much that is able to make it feel original. So many sports movies have the “been there/done that” approach. They retell Rocky over and over and over again. On top of that, it’s a car racing movie, which is generally something that doesn’t interest me. Also, it is Formula 1 racing, which I find far less exciting than NASCAR. I’ve never seen a Formula 1 race live, and the experience certainly doesn’t translate on the screen for me…especially the road races. Finally, the name of the movie bothered me. There is already a fantastic movie called Rush that came out in 1991 and starred Jason Patric (he was born to play the roles of troubled police detectives) and Jennifer Jason Leigh. It’s a small thing, but something that I thought Ron Howard would respect. Despite these factors going against it before the opening titles even rolled, I found the movie to be a great story, quite enjoyable, and well directed.
Continue reading Rush (2013)
Her (2013)
I imagine some parts during the filming of Spike Jonze’s (Adaptation, Being John Malkovich) Her, where everybody on the set wondered What the heck are we doing with this movie? or something similar to this using much more profane words. The premise for this movie is weird. The trailer was strange. The film was odd. I remember seeing the trailer for the first time and thinking there was no way this movie could succeed. No conceivable way was that any right man would fall in love with his operating system. That is one of the most unbelievable things I have ever heard. But as I watched the trailer a few more times and started hearing some of the praise associated with the movie, I began to wonder if this could be one of those rare treasures you find at the end of the calendar year. The first reason was that it reminded me of the Ryan Gosling movie Lars And The Real Girl, a film that I had convinced myself beforehand that there was no way I would enjoy but ended up loving. The second reason was because of how Joaquin Phoenix (Walk The Line, Reservation Road) was portrayed in just the trailer alone. He has played so many serious/dark characters recently that seeing him flash that smile with that goofy mustache over and over in a two-minute trailer made me curious to see a side of him that we haven’t seen in a very long time. Phoenix was PERFECT for this character, as I will mention later in this review.
Continue reading Her (2013)