Everything Everywhere All At Once has slowly and quietly followed the established A24 template, a studio known for releasing groundbreaking, original, and independent movies. Through initial word of mouth, the co-directed film by Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (who also co-wrote), Everything Everywhere All At Once, has become a movie everyone has at least heard of, even if they have not seen it. Other nonconventional A24 films that generated a lot of buzz and earned Best Picture nominations in the last half dozen years include Minari (2020), Lady Bird (2017), and Moonlight (the Best Picture winner of 2016). While I appreciated all three movies, I only enjoyed Moonlight. I know that many will die on the sword for Lady Bird. I was not one of those people. A growing number seem willing to do the same for Everything Everywhere All At Once. Again, I am not one of them. I found the story incredibly uneven, the pace hurried, and the narration unreliable.
Category Archives: Comedy
Don’t Look Up (2021)
Best Picture nominee? Don’t Look Up? Really? This movie had a wide release in December. It earned less than $1 million at the box office and was out of theaters in under 2 weeks. Its 56% “fresh” score on Rotten Tomatoes further suggests that this is different from a film the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences would deem one of its ten best films of 2021. Yet (sigh), here we are. The biggest tragedy might be that this isn’t a bad film but is being unfairly bashed for its association with the other nine movies up for Best Picture, arguably the worst collection of films for any year.
The Worst Person in the World (2021)
First things first. The Worst Person in the World is a terrible name for a movie, especially a slightly heavy drama that centers around the indecisiveness of a 30-year-old woman named Julie (Renate Reinsve) and those affected by her actions. The title of this movie suggested it would be some stupid comedy. It took 30 seconds of the trailer to realize that my initial perceptions were entirely wrong and that I had to see this film as quickly as possible. I ended up watching it the next day. It was a terrific decision. Ignore the movie’s dumb movie title. You should see this movie too.
Bad Education (2019)
Bad Teacher. An Education. Bad Education. Bad Santa. As with a human being, one might say there is nothing more personal than a person’s name. However, it can get lost in the weeds when a movie doesn’t have a title that can be quickly associated with it. Furthermore, if the film isn’t memorable and has no recognizable title, it’s likely to get even further caught in the weeds. Such could have been, and likely was to many, Cory Finley’s (Thoroughbreds) Bad Education.
Licorice Pizza (2021)
Say what you will about Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood, Magnolia). Whether you are a fan of his directing or not, his movies feel like they are so much longer than they need to be. Painfully so, sometimes. He hooks you with his rich characters (often played by some of the finest actors in the industry) and what feels like a soft, gentle story. But then his movies tend to drift aimlessly, going down so many different wormholes before finally arriving at an unsatisfying conclusion. Such is the case with Licorice Pizza, a boy-meets-girl coming-of-age story that is likely to earn some Oscar nominations despite its waning story and crawl to the finish line.