March Movies

The Assistant ☆☆☆☆

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from this movie. It was a quiet exploration of one day in the life of a young woman who is one of the assistants of a movie industry executive. Julia Garner is quietly expressive as the assistant. She says hardly anything throughout the movie but she is riveting. Such a subtle, moving movie about the apparatus around men in power that allows them to continue to use their power to commit outrage after outrage without consequence.

At Red River with Pat and Al

Emma ☆☆☆☆

I am kind of done with remakes of remakes of remakes of very old novels. But the trailer for this movie was delightful and I was charmed despite how sick of remakes I am. Unfortunately, the movie didn’t live up to its trailer. I enjoyed it but nowhere near as much as I thought I would. It was kind of slow! That’s such a shame because there were some really excellent bits as well, many of which were part of the trailer.

At Red River with Ann

Parasite ☆☆☆

I wasn’t sure what to expect of this movie. I knew it was about class issues in South Korea and that it won the Academy Award this year for Best Picture in the United States. Those facts would make me think I might love it. But I didn’t love it. The story was inventive, one that I haven’t seen before. But…there was something missing in the telling, I think. It was a little cartoony and a bit slapsticky. Maybe that was the problem actually. Some of the major plot points depended on some unlikely slapsticky events happening. It’s a shame since the story is compelling and the major violent events as the story unfolds are quite shocking and unexpected.

At Red River

The Miseducation of Cameron Post ☆☆☆☆☆

I had wanted to see this movie when it came out in the theaters a year or so ago. But it came and went so quickly that I didn’t get a chance. It’s a shame that it didn’t get a wider viewing because it’s wonderful. Cameron Post is a high school girl from an evangelical family who gets caught having sex with her best friend. She is then sent to God’s Promise, a conversion therapy program for queer teens run by a sister-brother team who don’t know what they’re doing. The entire cast is wonderful. The script is funny, heart-breaking, and hopeful all at the same time. Loved it.

On kanopy.com with Cindy and Sally

God’s Own Country ☆☆☆

A gritty gay love story set on a farm in Yorkshire, England. It’s a brutal, dirty life that the main character, Johnny Saxby, is trapped in after his Dad can no longer take care of the farm. Johnny doesn’t want to be stuck on the farm and drowns his sorrows in alcohol every night. Along comes Georgie, a beautiful man from Romania. Johnny is so unlikable that it’s hard to see what Georgie sees in him. There are a lot of scenes of vomiting and pissing and even shitting. There are realistic portrayals of lamb births–both those that go well and those that go bad. The actors are very good in their roles and that is what makes the movie bearable, I think.

On Netflix Party with Ann, Pat, and Al