Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Come on and join in by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them!
Well, here we are again, one last edition of Thursday Movie Picks before the end of the year!
And what a year it's been, huh?
My biggest thanks to Wanderer for hosting this, and for continuing to do so in 2017! This has been a great way for me to get in the habit of writing weekly, and I'm FINALLY starting to write for real here (Jesus that took forever lol)! And it really is all due to this little project right here. So thank you.
ANYWAY, on to the matter at hand. The theme this week is coming home, which can be a very emotional thing for people, especially after a long time away.
Manchester By The Sea (Kenneth Lonergan, 2016) I'm pretty open about how I do NOT understand the INSANE critical praise for this, but it's still very, VERY good. Casey Affleck is Lee Chandler, a sullen janitor in Quincy, MA, who has had A Traumatic Event (TM) in his past that pushed him away from his home town (the title, duh). Now, his brother has died, and he has to go home to make arrangements, including serving as guardian for his young nephew (the fantastic newcomer Lucas Hedges). As a film about grief, how if we leave it unchecked it can eat away at us slowly until it leaves us completely hollow, this may be unparalleled, and it's pretty funny to boot. Add in Michelle Williams's brief, devastating turn as Lee's ex-wife (their scene together at the end is one of the best scenes of this year, or indeed the past few years), and it should be a recipe for great success. But instead, for me, this one unfortunately ended up being less than the sum of its parts.
Garden State (Zach Braff, 2004) I don't care what anybody says, I love this movie. So much about it is unique, and it's very moving. It also contains one of Natalie Portman's greatest performances, as the free-spirited weirdo who gets Braff's too-heavily-medicated Andrew (back home for his mother's funeral) to finally feel something. And that soundtrack, even when calling attention to how great it is, is pretty damn great. I defy you to not get at least a LITTLE emotional when Frou Frou's "Let Go" comes up in that perfect last scene.
You Can Count On Me (Kenneth Lonergan, 2000) Sammy and Terry Prescott lost their parents in a horrific car accident years ago. Now, Sammy (Laura Linney) is still living in their hometown in upstate New York, and Terry (Mark Ruffalo) is a drifter, coming home because he needs money. These two people could not be more different, but familial bonds are strong, and they would do just about anything for each other. Linney and Ruffalo are beyond fantastic here, and Lonergan gifted them with one of the greatest scripts of the '00s, one that is beautifully attuned to sibling relationships in a way that few films are. I love this beautiful movie so much.
Written as part of the blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. To participate, just pick three movies related to the week's theme. It's easy and fun!
This week's Thursday Movie Picks theme is Teen Comedies. So many and yet so few to choose from!
Mean Girls (Mark Waters, 2004) This Tina Fey-scripted, Lindsay Lohan-starring film is now a bona fide classic, and thank God for that. It's one of the funniest, smartest, most rewatchable films of the '00s. The quotable lines are endless, the comic performances are iconic (Amy Poehler and Rachel McAdams - funniest mother-daughter pair ever?), and the visual gags are untoppable (THE BUS)! And it's also surprisingly resonant - check out what I wrote about it for The Film Experience's Hit Me With Your Best Shot series a while back. In a perfect world, this would have gotten Oscar noms for Fey's script as well as the performances of Rachel McAdams and/or Amanda Seyfried.
Dick (Andrew Fleming, 1999) If you haven't seen this, man are you in for a treat. The title refers, of course, to Richard "Tricky Dick" Nixon, 37th President of the United States. Betsy and Arlene (Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams, at their teenage best) are just two regular teenage girls in the 1970s, trying to win a date with Tad Hamilton heartthrob singer Bobby Sherman. But instead, they witness part of the Watergate scandal. In order to buy their silence, Nixon makes them the Official Presidential Dog Walkers. But then they discover the President's not-so-nice side, and decide to get revenge as only teenage girls can. Dick is hilarious and surprisingly sweet, with killer performances from Williams and Dunst, a very funny cameo from Will Ferrell, and a great, atypical Nixon in Dan Hedaya. And also: AMAZING costumes.
Whip It (Drew Barrymore, 2009) Okay this MIGHT be stretching it a bit, but Whip It is so good that I don't really care. Ellen Page is typically wonderful as the directionless teen Bliss, whose mother (Marcia Gay Harden) makes her compete in beauty pageants... because that's what you do in Texas when your mother is a former beauty queen. But one day, she and her best friend Pash go to check out this thing called Roller Derby, and Bliss is so excited by it that she tries out for a team - and makes it. And, as is typical in both teen flicks and sports flicks, she learns more about Who She Is and Becomes A Better Person in the process. Drew Barrymore directed this, and also features as Smashley Simpson, a member of Bliss's roller derby team, the Hurl Scouts - along with Kristen Wiig (Maggie Mayhem), Zoe Bell (Bloody Holly), Juliette Lewis (Iron Maven), and Ari Graynor (Eva Destruction). The film is alternately tough and sweet, just like its heroine, and it's good enough that it makes you wish Barrymore would hop back into the director's chair sometime soon.
