Cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool.
This is the Tom Green Documentary
At the beginning of the film, Tom Green almost goes out of his way to point out how artificial documentary filmmaking is, how by documenting something, you’re changing it so you’re not getting the true, authentic thing. It feels like he’s preparing an excuse so he, the most ironically detached man on the planet, doesn’t have to actually be sincere here.
As a result, I’m not sure if the film teaches us anything real about Tom Green, or about what drives him. It’s bookmarked by his big move out from Los Angeles and out to some farmland in Canada and we aren’t actually told the reasons for the move (I guess we can infer something about mental health but this is mostly speculative?)
All the same though, Tom Green is an entertainer that doesn’t get enough credit and sometimes it’s enough to be given just a quick reminder of all the great things he’s done.
Unplatform | The definitive guide for escaping social media »
Unplatform is an interactive guidebook, online library, and recommendations database intended to help you escape social media and join the indie web.
A great set of resources to help people of all levels of technical expertise detach from the modern web. Or, as they put it “return to web 1.5”. I really like that as a phrase.
A Real Pain
I enjoyed my time with A Real Pain. It’s a Kieran Culkin type character (conveniently played by Kieran Culkin) bouncing around Poland with a Jesse Eisenberg type character (conveniently played by Jesse Eisenberg) and the whole film is brought to life by Kieran Culkin’s natural effervescence. Everything else ‐ literally everything else ‐ exists in service to his performance. Which is both good and bad. It’s fun to watch him cook but feels like the rest of the film suffers a little. Like, this is Jennifer Grey’s first major role in decades and she’s got nothing to do except be a foil for Culkin in like two scenes. Feels like a lot of missed opportunities got missed because they were just so focused on Culkin Culkin Culkin.
And that’s fine. Like I said, I enjoyed it. He’s got buckets of charm and, more importantly, he’s also got the chops to pull off the occasional emotional gasp when it’s needed.
But if you were to ask me what the film is about beyond this, I’d struggle. I guess it’s trying to say “people sure are complicated!”? There’s a few other things I can see it reaching for but not quite succeeding. Although I accept this might also be a cultural thing and if I was Jewish or American, I might see this film differently?
Regardless, this is still a solidly entertaining hangout film.
Times Square
Wonderful, vibrant performances completely let down by a lazy, lifeless screenplay. Robin Johnson and Trini Alvarado give some of the best on-screen depictions of proper angsty punk teenage rebellion almost in spite of a screenplay that doesn’t know what to do with the characters beyond some surface level bullshit.
Interesting how you can really see the bones of Empire Records here though!
Physicists figure out the perfect Cacio e Pepe recipe | Popular Science »
This isn’t wildly different from Kenji Lopez Alt’s advice, but I’ll use any excuse to add to my cacio e pepe tag.
Sing Sing
The screenplay suffers from being a little too contrived and Save The Cat-y. The injected emotional drama in the second half never felt believable and ironically achieved the opposite result by detaching me from the emotionality of the story. But my goodness, the performances are incredible. Colman Domingo holds everything together with some genuine movie star magic, but the semi-/non-professional performances are the real beating heart of the film.
Astonishing.
North by Northwest
Every film I watch only gets so much of my suspension of disbelief. A coincidence here or there? No problem. A convenient meeting of two characters at just the right time? Sure, I’ll go with it! Too much, though, and it feels like lazy writing. The happy chances stack up and cross a line and lose me.
North by Northwest blasts through its disbelief budget in the first 10 minutes. The plot hinges on so much flimsy serendipity that the film strains credulity. At no point in this film does James Mason even say “hey given this nationwide manhunt for Roger Kaplan, maybe my dopey henchman’s dopey plan didn’t identify the right guy”. And the film just keeps rolling with it. On to the next “and it JUST SO HAPPENS that…” until you find yourself in a house just two minutes down the road from the top of Mount Rushmore. Riiiiiight.
And yet! AND YET! Honestly, who needs credulity when you’ve got stars like this? North by Northwest perfectly demonstrates that, sometimes, megawatt charisma really can carry a movie.
The Kid Detective
A charming shaggy dog detective story that feels like the marriage of Encyclopedia Brown and The Long Goodbye. Adam Brody is terrific. Perfect hungover Sunday matinee viewing.