Movies -- A Recap -- Part VIII

Straight Up is a sweet, funny film about a young man trying to understand his own sexuality.  It sounds heavy, and there certainly are some big and current themes, but it really doesn't feel that way when you watch it.  It's impressive as a debut work, and if you want to spend some time hoping for the best for a lead character -- which is so often hard to do in this era of crime dramas (which I admittedly am digging) -- this is a great and quirky guy to cheer for.

Sea Change was maddening to watch.  We picked it out when we were on a kick of watching adventure documentaries.  Sea Change follows a boyfriend and girlfriend as they navigate their watercraft across the Atlantic from Morocco to Manhattan.  They filmed it themselves.  And it's an amazing journey, but holy cow, it was difficult to watch.  For starters, their boatsmanship is terrible.  What makes you think it's a good idea to take a small rowboat across the ocean when you know basically nothing about boats?  Even beyond just the boat, they demonstrated an astounding lack of preparedness for such a trip.  Also, they kind of seem like horrible people.  I hated them both (but especially him) by about 1/3 of the way through.  Not a fan.

BookendS is another one I didn't like.  Two couples end up trapped in a small apartment during a hurricane.  When one couple reveals that they are swingers, the other woman decides she wants to join the party, so to speak, with her new husband.   Predictably, things don't go as planned.

 

 

 

 

I had seen The Help before, but S had not. I think it was promoted on our Netflix as part of their Black Lives Matter emphasis over the summer, but we found it to be a failure in that context.  The long and short of it is that it fits pretty squarely into the "white savior" narrative.  There is lots you can read about this online, so I'll spare you most of it, but just know that if you're looking for a racial reckoning, you won't find it despite the fact that the strongest (though not the most considered) characters in the movie are the black women.  Please note: none of this is meant to diminish my love of Emma Stone, whom I adore in basically everything I've seen her do and I want her to be my best friend.

Vivarium is weird.  And I didn't really like it.  But I didn't hate it either.  Mostly it creeped me out.  Here's what happens: a young couple goes house hunting.  They find themselves in a weird Stepford-like neighborhood where all the houses are identical (except that they have no neighbors, all the houses are vacant except theirs).  They can't escape, no matter what they try.  Before they know it, a child is delivered to their door in a box.  They struggle through their horrible life with a horrible kid trapped in a horrible purgatory.  Like I said: weird and creepy.

 

Another movie in the adventure documentary series we built for ourselves was Once is Enough. Jeff lost his mom due to complications from obesity, and decided to change his life by running an ultramarathon in Colorado.  It starts a little slow, but ends up being not-too-sickly-sweet, inspiring, and totally worth watching.

S and I are both growing out our hair right now, to varying degrees of success.  S went through a phase where, in my opinion, he looked very much like a mid-1980s Tom Selleck.  Of course the only appropriate thing to do was watch Three Men and a Baby, followed by Three Men and a Little Lady.  Both movies are very much of their time, but remain entertaining in the way that childhood favorites always are.