Tag: Beanie Feldstein

What’s not to love about the hype around Booksmart? Well, the lateness of this review is one.

This movie I think had three screenings available for me to go to to see it early, and I just could not make any of them. One of them was a night I planned on going, but got bombarded with work and had to stay home. It sucked.

I wanted to see the first film directed by Olivia Wilde, who has had some great comedy moments in her career. I wanted the film that was described as the female equivalent of Superbad, but better and more PC.

More PC but just as raunchy.

Amy (Kaitlyn Dever) and Molly (Beanie Feldstein) are top of the line students at their high school. High grades, internships, activities, they want to go to a great college, get great careers, and have great lives.

They didn’t have time for getting high, or drinking, or partying. Very little socializing besides each other. They had crushes and never went after them. They are friends with their teachers, and Miss Fine (Jessica Williams) is their hero.

But it turns out that most of their school associates also have gotten into great schools. The ones who slacked, who partied who had fun. These two sacrificed for years for…nothing. Now it is time to change it. The night before graduation, they are going to experience parties and go for their crushes and lay it all out there, before Amy has to go to Africa for the summer. They need to go through the whole high school experience in just one night. Easy.

Also starring Skyler Gisondo, Victoria Ruesga, Billie Lourd, Molly Gorgon, Mason Gooding, Will Forte and Lisa Kudrow as parents, and Jason Sudeikis as a vice principal.

Okay, how can straddling a giant phallic object be more PC?

Booksmart was a breath of fresh air. Just like Long Shot felt like a breath of fresh air earlier in the year. Except Booksmart I have strong feelings will stay at my top of the year list the whole year. I can’t imagine seeing a funnier film this year, and that means a lot with so many months to go.

It is just hard to find good comedy films in general that can change the game and offer something new. That give believable reasons for vulgarity and strangeness. That have a plot and growth in the characters. That aren’t just goddamn slapstick.

Out leads have flaws, have arguments, and are people worth cheering for. They are very different and relatable, but more importantly, so are the other “bad” students in their eyes. It isn’t just two heroes here, there are a lot of characters that matter and have their moments of triumph for us to shout for. Not everyone is the bad guy.

I am talking a lot of hype about a movie that technically is a high school party movie, of which the genre is packed. But damn, does this not feel like it fits the current generation so well, without dumbing itself down to whatever-ist level jokes.

Clearly, women are just funnier than men.

Greta Gerwig is one of the modern queens of the independent film. I don’t know if she has even starred in anything main stream yet. She is like Lena Dunham, if Lena Dunham didn’t have Girls as a breakaway success.

I knew it wouldn’t be long before she broke out of just starring and writing into the directing game, but little did I know that she actually directed a movie in 2008, before I knew who she was. That is how indie Greta Gerwig is, people. Something called Nights and Weekends, that she starred in, wrote, and directed. It didn’t really get noticed, and so it took almost a decade later before she tried again.

This brings us to Lady Bird, a probably pseudo autobiographical story about her growing up, but this time she isn’t starring in it at all! Just focusing on the directing and the writing. Looks like Gerwig has grown up after all, allowing someone else to get some of that indie spotlight love.

Although from the looks of it, Gerwig could have played both of these roles.

Christine ‘Lady Bird’ McPherson (Saoirse Ronan) is a young girl, just 17, a newly senior in high school, and she needs to make her mark. She lives in a poor family, with an overburdened mom (Laurie Metcalf) and a chill and happy father (Tracy Letts). Also in their small home is her older and more pierced brother (Jordan Rodrigues) and his girlfriend.

Lady Bird, who decided that is her new name several years prior, goes to a private Catholic school thanks to a scholarship. Most of the kids there are rich, except her best friend Julie (Beanie Feldstein). Lady Bird wants to get out of Sacramento, a hell on Earth to her. She wants to go to the East Coast, where there is some culture. A nice liberal arts place. Except she is poor, she doesn’t make good grades, and doesn’t have discernible talents really.

Guess she will just have to experience life on her own before then. Finally dating, maybe having some of that sex, maybe living out her other wild fantasies while she has the chance. Screw everyone else, Lady Bird is in it for herself for once!

Also starring Stephen Henderson, Bob Stephenson, Odeya Rush, Lucas Hedges, Timothée Chalamet, Lois Smith, and Jake McDorman.

Apparently these dreams involve a house with shutters and freedom.

Oh, I only guessed it was maybe autobiographical, but honestly a lot of elements in this just scream out Gerwig Gerwig Gerwig. Ronan isn’t playing Lady Bird, she is just playing Gerwig, a free spirited individual who is bigger than her body and station in life. Lady Bird eventually grows up into the character that Gerwig plays in Damsels in Distress, after she has moved on, gained that confidence, and is ready to inspire others.

So Ronan is acting as Gerwig in this movie. Now that it is obvious, we can all move on and just examine the rest of the film.

The movie itself is very funny, with more than one eccentric cast member. I don’t even know how I feel about Chalamet’s character, but I am very glad he is in there, while enraged at him almost every single time. This is only the second film I have seen Hedges in (After Manchester By The Sea), and thankfully his characters are very different so he can show some range. And Metcalf is downright stunning as the mom character. Sort of like a more intense Lois from Malcolm in the Middle, who also has less assholes to deal with.

The film lives and dies with Ronan, who of course delivers everything. It is great again to see her doing such different roles, from the recent Brooklyn and The Grand Budapest Hotel. If I had any issues, it did feel like it just went on a bit too long, starting to tell a story that didn’t feel as necessary.

Overall still a solid comedy, a good coming of age story, and a bunch of quirky weirdos from 2002 ready to entertain.

Comedy sequels have gotten a bad rep lately. Like Zoolander 2 and Dumb and Dumber To. Okay, those had many years between sequels, but like…The Hangover Part III and Horrible Bosses 2.

So I went into Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising with a skeptical face. I enjoyed Neighbors and rewatched it the morning of the screening, still holds up decently.

But the problem with comedy sequels is the direction you take it. Do you give them more of the same? If so, then it isn’t original any more. If you give them something completely unrelated, then why even make it a sequel and not an original movie?

Neighbors 2 might just be Neighbors with more women.

But you know, regular, chill, want to kill you women.

After Neighbors, Mac (Seth Rogen) and Kelly (Rose Byrne) returned quiet to their neighborhood. But now, Kelly is pregnant again, so they want to move to a new house with more rooms and with less neighbors. They put an offer on a house and they were accepted! However, their current home isn’t sold yet. It is on escrow. So the buying couple has 30 days to check it out and do tests and can back out at any time.

And at that moment is of course when some new people move in. Shelby (Chloë Grace Moretz), Beth (Kiersey Clemons), and Nora (Beanie Feldstein) want to start their own sorority, that can party and smoke weed and promote their own feminist values of sisterhood. They just have issues getting enough money to rent the place for their dreams to come true.

That is where Teddy (Zac Efron) comes in. He is feeling pretty pathetic, everyone in his life is becoming successful except for him. And Pete (Dave Franco) is now totally gay and about to get married to Darren (John Early), which means Teddy needs a place to stay. He decides to become a sort of sorority consultant to the girls in order to find value, and maybe screw over the people who gave him a criminal record and all.

Woo, prank wars!

Some smaller roles are played by Selena Gomez, Clara Mamet, and someone called Awkwafina. Also returning, albeit briefly include Hannibal Buress, Chistopher Mintz-Plasse, Jerrod Carmichael and the best friends Ike Barinholtz and Carla Gallo.

This is how I dress up when I want to look young.

Neighbors 2 actually does a good balance of keeping things original with appropriate call backs. The picture used right above ended up being one of the funniest scenes in the film and was entirely new and fresh material. My second and third favorite moments were both call backs to airbags. There are several great humorous scenes that really carry the film and overall make this film a good time while watching it.

But when comparing it to its predecessor, it doesn’t hold up as well. My main faults lie with the chemistry between Moretz, Clemons, and Feldstein, the leaders of the new sorority. It is practically non-existence. Yes, before the events of the film, they didn’t know each other, but most of their comedic scenes together never really feel too funny. Their logic and reasoning for wanting to create their own sorority is actually a good one. The film delivers a real message about sorority culture and the need for change. They just failed to make it funny.

Most of our humor is reserved for our old people roles and Efron, while the sorority side remains mostly serious in their own goals. It is a strange dichotomy in this movie.

And honestly, the ending tried to tie everything in a nice bow, but the solutions that were found don’t make a lot of sense when you examine it for just a few seconds.

Again, some great funny scenes in this movie, and strangely enough, some character growth, but they are unable to deliver their message while maintaining the funny throughout.