If you want to watch a sweet drama that commits you to think outside the box, then Craig Gillespie’s (I, Tonya, The Finest Hours) might be that secret little hidden movie that might be for you. Starring Ryan Gosling (Blue Valentine, The Nice Guys), this tender, sweet film is like nothing you’ve ever seen. And if the premise scares you away because it looks stupid, watch the trailer. If the trailer still doesn’t do it for you, read what some top reviewers said. If that doesn’t work, then trust me a little. “The Ryan Gosling Dates a Sex Toy” movie is not what Lars and the Real Girl is about. At all.
Category Archives: Genre
Them That Follow (2019)
Such a simple premise and simple story is co-directors Britt Poulton and Dan Madison Savage’s creepy faith-based community movie Them That Follow. You can almost exactly predict the story and the steps it takes along the way and still be surprised when they happen. That is the sign of a quality film with quality people working behind and in front of the camera. And that’s what we have here, with this simplistic, beautifully artistic film, far from perfect but captivating.
After the Wedding (2019)
A sub-par movie with excellent performance best describes Bart Freundlich (Wolves) as slightly disappointing After the Wedding. It’s not that this movie was bad. It was just so far-fetched, yet it tried to take itself oh so seriously. When everything added together, it was hard to take this movie seriously, even when each of our leads did so without batting an eye. It should have been a movie I disliked because of its many flaws. Yet, as flawed as this movie was and how easy it is not to recommend, I still found myself thoroughly entertained and enjoying it.
The Peanut Butter Falcon (2019)
Sometimes, movies have dumb names or names that are so obscure that you can’t even remember the title. This is the case with first-time directors Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz in the sentimental surprise summer hit The Peanut Butter Falcon. Starring protagonist Zak (newcomer Zack Gottsagen), whose screen chemistry with Shia LaBeouf (Man Down, Borg Vs. McEnroe) is instantaneous, the result is a sort of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn between two pals trekking and floating down the fictional marshland in North Carolina.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is arguably my favorite Quentin Tarantino’s (Inglorious Bastards, Django Unchained) movie. However, that isn’t saying a lot since he is not one of my favorite directors out there. I admit that there is an audience for his movies. I’m just not a part of that audience. For me, his films are too often over the top, are loaded with extreme and unneeded violence, and contain the foulest language you’ll hear from a big-budget movie any year that one of his movies was released. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was FAR different than his previous eight films. The story was not over the top. The cursing, while present, was used to accent a verbal exchange rather than serve as the root of it. And outside of a 10-15 minute sequence, there wasn’t any over-the-top violence. This movie was long and a bit boring, but it wasn’t bad. It also had excellent acting performances.