January’s Movie Review Roundup
Movies have always been a source of happiness for me. When I was in college and still using Facebook, I jokingly changed my religion to “cinema”. This was partly because I was a pretentious film student but behind that was a girl who felt safe, loved and seen in a movie theater. My feelings about sitting in a movie theater are very similar to those who attend weekly mass, it’s a special place for me. With the pandemic shutting down movie theaters it’s been a rough time for my love of movies. At first, I watched a lot of movies that I had been meaning to get to and patiently waited to see what would happen with new releases. As the pandemic has raged on, I’ve struggled more and more to connect to movies, new and old.
In an attempt to re-engage with movies, I challenged myself to focus on 2020 releases that I missed for the month of January. The prompt proved to be harder than I was expecting.
Onward (2020) Dir: Dan Scanlon. 4 Stars. I closed out 2020 watching Pixar’s Soul, a movie I thoroughly enjoyed but didn’t love in the way I’ve loved other Pixar features. After discussing the movie with a friend, she told me out of the two 2020 Pixar releases she actually enjoyed Onward more. Onward wasn’t a movie I was particular interested in when it debuted in theaters just a week before the world shutdown. I got off the Chris Pratt train a while ago and I never got on the Tom Holland train to begin with, so I didn’t think this was really a movie for me. I was pleasantly surprised. I ended up crying more than I did while watching Soul, although it wasn’t quite an Inside Out/Toy Story 3 cry I would say it was closer to a Coco cry. The movie possesses so much heart and warmth, which is what we’ve come to expect from Pixar but along with all those Pixar traits is an incredibly rich world full of fun characters. Onward is the type of Pixar movie that will be a joy to watch over and over again.
Sound Of Metal (2020) Dir: Darius Marder. 5 Stars. I have not stopped thinking about how this movie since the moment the credits rolled. I remember watching the trailer as soon as it was released and being immediately crushed that it would be unlikely that I would see it in a theater. There are some movies that are meant for theaters, to me Sound Of Metal is one of those movies. The sound design deserved to be experienced in that setting with surround sound, not on the tiny screen in my room with mediocre sound quality. While watching Sound Of Metal I was enthralled by the sound design but what stayed with me about this movie was Riz Ahmed’s performance. Ahmed poured so much raw emotion into his performance as the suddenly deaf musician. It’s going to be hard to watch him lose the Oscar for such a genius performance.
Woman Wonder 1984 (2020) Dir: Petty Jenkins. 2 Stars. Let me start by saying that I really enjoyed the first movie and seeing it in theaters was an experience I will never forget. However, I’ve found that for me the first one doesn’t have much replay value for me. Now the sequel, oof. This movie was not it for me. I would like to say I would have enjoyed it more had I seen it in a theater but that would be a lie. I might have enjoyed some of the action set pieces more than I did but I feel confident in saying that the best part of the movie for me was when she got her invisible jet. It made zero sense, but it made me smile and earned one star from me. The other star goes to Pedro Pascal who was having the time of his life and doing an excellent job carrying the entire movie.
She Dies Tomorrow (2020) Dir: Amy Seimetz. 3 and a half Stars. Another movie that would have benefited from getting the full theater experience. I’ll admit I had a hard time connecting with this one, especially given these unprecedented times lol. Watching the slow spread of the paranoid in the movie was truly unsettling, and I was definitely sitting there asking myself why weren’t these people quarantining to control the hysteria. That was likely part of the point though. The overwhelming sense of dread, hysteria and paranoid that thread through the movie are the same that thread through our pandemic life. This makes the ending all the more unsettling, this is definitely a movie I would love to revisit at some point in hopes of connecting better.
Promising Young Woman (2020) Dir: Emerald Fennell. 5 Stars. I expected to love this movie immediately and in a way I did, but the ending left me feeling conflicted towards the movie. I walked away from it in love with the performances, the production design, the costuming, and the casting but something felt off for me. I couldn’t bring myself to say that I enjoyed the movie for days later. It took multiple discussions with friends and articles read until I finally felt like I got the movie. My rating of the movie grew steadily over the course of a week from 3 and half stars all the way to 5 stars as I pealed back the layers of this movie. Carey Mulligan’s performance is raw and vulnerable but also steely and cold. Bo Burnham charmed the pants of me to the point that I was angry that a tall awkward white comedian could have done that to me. The casting of Adam Brody, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Chris Lowell and Max Greenfield was inspired considering how many of us grew up madly in love with Brody’s Seth Cohen and the “nice guy”. The ending is shocking and unsettling but after sitting with it for a few days it couldn’t have ended in any other way.
One Night In Miami… (2020) Dir: Regina King. 5 Stars. I love a stage to screen adaptation, there is always something so lovely about them. They are easy to spot once you realize that the characters have hardly left the one set they’re on and everyone is just talking a lot without a whole lot of action separating it. Some people will find these types of movies slow and boring; I affectionately refer to them as “talkies”. When the focus of the movie becomes characters having conversations then good performances can make or break the film, One Night In Miami is made of these great performances. All four of the leading men manage to hold their own but for me Kingsley Ben-Adir’s portrayal of Malcolm X is the standout. The vulnerable human nature he brought to the almost larger-than-life figure blew me away, I could watch this version of Malcolm for hours. While most play to screen adaptations strengths live solely with their performances, the flair that Regina King brought to her directorial debut is remarkable. I lost track of the number of times a shot made my jaw drop and scream, “REGINA!” I legitimately clapped when I finished the movie, just completely and utterly impressed with the direction as well as the performances.
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020) Dir: George C. Wolfe. 3 and a half Stars. Another stage to screen adaptation but this time with slightly less successful results as the last one. The performances were just as strong, if not stronger looking at you Chadwick, but unfortunately this one didn’t hit quite as hard for me. I’m not sure i really liked much of the movie. I like Viola Davis a lot, but I found her character to be insufferable and I wanted there to be more to her character. Maybe there was but I just wasn’t seeing it. Chadwick Boseman on the other hand, that was a performance sadly deepened by his tragic passing. My main takeway form the movie was it was Boseman’s to run with and boy did he run. He is what I will remember about the movie and I’m glad we have it.
The Photograph (2020) Dir: Stella Meghie. 3 Stars. I had meant to get to this movie when it was in theaters, pre-pademic but I was busy, and it got pushed to the backburner. Knowing what I know now, I don’t regret that decision. It was a fine movie but not great. This feels weird to even say given the attractiveness of the two leads, (Issa Rae and LaKeith Stanfield) but I didn’t feel the level of chemistry between the characters that I wanted to. Sadly, I found Stanfield’s whole character to be a bit flat and kinda a fuckboy. It made it hard to root for him. As for Issa Rae’s character, I wanted more on the relationship between her and her mother. I needed something to bridge their relationship together, considering most of the time is spent on it from the mother when her daughter is young. I wanted to like this movie but sadly it just wasn’t there yet for me.
