Mini Movie Reviews Archives
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Philadelphia Film Critics Circle 2019 Winners
Most major cities have a Film Association which lends weight to the movies out during Awards Season. Philly didn't have one up until 3 years ago when Critics Rich Heimlich and Stephen Silver decided it was time for Philadelphia (a movie town) to weigh in, establishing the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle (PFCC).
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Little Women
I’ve enjoyed the Susan Sarandon/Winona Ryder version a number of times in the last 25 years, so I wasn’t too keen on a remake. But I have to admit, I enjoyed the fact that Greta Gerwig‘s version is not linear, we start with the girls in the second half of the novel, married and/or making their way in the world. The first half of the book is told in flashbacks. I think the framing works. Gerwig also finds subtle and not so subtle ways to insert a bit of a #Meetoo era feminism into the telling of this beloved classic. The casting is good. I’m not as in love with Florence…
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HONEY BOY
by Le Anne Lindsay, Editor “It is strange to fetishize your pain and make a product out of it… you feel guilty about that. It felt very selfish. This whole thing felt very selfish. I never went into this thinking, ‘Oh, I am going to fucking help people.’ That wasn’t my goal. I was falling apart.” – Shia LaBeouf Q&A after the Honey Boy Sundance premiere 2019. I’ve seen a number of self-indulgent, self-serving films from “auteurs” but “Honey Boy” is NOT that at all, instead, it’s entertaining, moving, mesmerizing, heartbreaking and funny. LaBeouf may have needed to write this story, his story as a therapeutic exercise for PTSD, but…
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Queen & Slim
by Le Anne Lindsay, Editor Lena Waithe (Boomerang (TV Series) wrote this movie from a suggestion by “A Million Little Pieces” author James Frey. She explains as black people we have to make a decision on who we show up as in life – Martin Luther King or Malcolm X. I think that’s a bit overstated as it doesn’t leave any gray area, or should I say, medium brown 😉 but in terms of character creation I see her point. Queen (Jodie Turner-Smith) is a hard driving, cynical defense attorney. Slim (Daniel Kaluuya) is an easygoing, religious Costco employee. They meet on Tinder. She’d swiped left on him before, but…
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Brittany Runs a Marathon
Hilarious, outgoing and always up for a good time, New Yorker Brittany Forgler (Jillian Bell) is everybody’s best friend ― except maybe her own. At 27, her hard-partying ways, chronic underemployment and toxic relationships are catching up with her, but when she stops by a new doctor’s office to try to score some Adderall, she gets slapped with a prescription she never wanted: Get healthy. Too broke for a gym and too proud to ask for help, Brit is at a loss, until her seemingly together neighbor Catherine pushes her to lace up her Converse sneakers and run one sweaty block. The next day, she runs two. And soon, after…
