Tag: Nico Tortorella

This film was watched as a part of the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF). The Mattachine Family has its world premier on Friday, May 12, 2023. You can see my interview with the director here!

Without a doubt, I think if I just saw the name of this film, I wouldn’t have given it a second thought. The Mattachine Family? That is a real fancy sounding word that I don’t understand, being the illiterate adult that I am. Turns out, Mattachine isn’t really an adjective to describe the type of family, but it can be a reference to many things.

Personally, I think that it mostly would refer to The Mattachine Society, which ended up being an early organization that came about for gay rights. Huh, look at that, I am learning already.

And before I get further, it is most important to point out that this film with many producers, also has Zach Braff attached as the executive producer. Which means he is putting that Scrubs money to good use. Diverse films!

If you look closely, those steps are The Mattachine Steps. Damn, I was wrong!

This is a story about family, which you probably got from the title.

Specifically, it is about Thomas (Nico Tortorella) and Oscar (Juan Pablo Di Pace). Thomas and Oscar are not only in a relationship, they were foster parents for a little kid! Wait, let’s back up a little bit.

Oscar used to be an actor! He was a child star, on sitcoms, got really famous and was himself a foster kid. So it makes sense for him to want to do the same. Things came crashing down when it came out that he was out.

Thomas and Oscar met at one point, and the rest is history! Just kidding, it has its ups and downs as well. In fact, Thomas is a photographer and is struggling to figure out what it means to have a family as an adult gay man. But fostering a kid is certainly one way.

But then, well, his mother is better, and takes him back, after a year in their life. And it turns out, Oscars career is finally starting to pick back up. So he is going to be away filming. And their kid is gone. So what is Thomas to do? He is alone, not sure where to go on in life. Should he try for adoption? Should he ignore kids completely and just focus on living his life with his friends? Being an adult is hard, and it turns out, so is making a family.

Also starring Garret Clayton, Khalilah Joi, Jake Choi, Heather Matarazzo, Emily Hampshire, Colleen Foy, and Annie Funke.

What is love if it is not holding someone from behind in your arms?Let’s go back to that “What is Mattachine” introduction I gave. Well, from the screenshot, you can see that there are Mattachine steps. These steps are known as outdoor workout stairs. Oh, so like, designed actually to be used for exercise? Maybe the real Mattachine family is the one that you need to put work into, and hopefully in the end, it will work out.

But if you dig deeper…you find out that they were outside of the home of Harry Hay…the founder of the Mattachine Society. Oh good, we are back to that, and it looks like I was right! But hey, the metaphor works nicely as well.

Anyways, this is a very unique film I would say. It isn’t really a standard family film, it isn’t a romcom for the leads. It is almost like dealing with a middle age crisis on what to do for the rest of your life, if you want a family but can’t seem to have one. Obviously the goal here is to define families in a more broad sense, for the friends and people you have in your life and choose to spend your time with. But it is certainly in the drama film, if not loosely, barely, in the romance genre side of things.

I think all of the leads did a fantastic job. They felt believable and were fully fleshed out characters. At the same time, this film had so many ideas floating in it, with the side characters and subplots. I wasn’t sure what the film was meant to be about, until we really got to the final scenes and conclusions began. In my mind, it felt like that this film was maybe first envisioned as a pilot for a television show, that can continue to tell the story of these friends and characters as they continue on for life, but somewhere it pivoted into what we have. I know it isn’t true, but it is the feeling I get from the film, with how disjointed some moments are from scene to scene.

Again, well acted, and honestly, a beautifully shot film. And if the “driveway fall” doesn’t suck you in early on, I am not sure if movies are meant for you.

2 out of 4.

Odd Thomas was definitely not on my original watch list. Not until I saw that it recently came out and had an young actor on the front who I tended to enjoy. Yep, then I dropped my plans, and decided I needed to see this movie instead.

Apparently it is based on a book series, but also it went under some legal trouble recently. According to the internet, it was delayed indefinitely for release due to funds not being spent as promised for ads or whatever. So they delayed it for over a year! I think other countries ended up getting it before us, because of that. I guess sucks most for the author, who was probably stoked his book was getting made into a movie, but then getting swept under the rug for legal reasons.

Oh well, I am still watching it author dude, don’t worry!

Well, that’s the most fucked up silver surfer I have seen.

Odd Thomas is not about a strange boy named Thomas. Nope. That is his first and last name, Odd Thomas (Anton Yelchin). There is a story behind that, but I won’t get into it.

Let’s just say that Odd’s upbringing has made things a bit weird for the boy. He can see dead people, and they tend to point out who killed them so he can avenge them. He also has other minor supernatural/spiritual abilities when it comes to seeing dead entities. Like the Bodachs above, which only appear when a great death will occur.

Unfortunately, in his small town Pico Mundo, California, he has started to see not just one Bodach, but a LOT of them. They are following around this Fungus Bob Robertson (Shuler Hensley), a nickname, don’t worry, who now Odd has a feeling is going to commit some very heinous crime on his small town. His girlfriend, Stormy (Addison Timlin), who he is destined to be with forever knows about his powers and is willing to help despite having none of her own. He also wants to win the support of her father, Wyatt Porter (Willem Dafoe), the local police chief.

As Odd begins to follow Fungus Bob around, he finds himself somewhere darker and more sinister than he has ever experienced before.

Also featuring Arnold Vosloo, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Kyle McKeever, and Nico Tortorella.

Man, this guy is just a cook. I want my spiritual advisers to at least be Maître D’.

Oh man, a lot of stuff happened in this movie. In particular, I really enjoyed the ending over all. There were twists and turns, everything falling into place, action, death, demons, you name it. But at the same time, the film had a lot of slower parts that I didn’t enjoy as well.

Here is what I can say. I thought Yelchin did a good job. He felt very believable as his character. Despite the mediocre feeling towards parts of the film in the middle, I am giving it a passing grade overall because of how much I liked the ending.

In fact, this would be the third ever movie I review on my website based on a book, that really makes me want to read the book after the fact. The other two were Warm Bodies and The Perks of Being A Wallflower. The main difference of those two and this one is that they got a 4 out of 4, but this one definitely wasn’t a good enough movie to earn that. However, it is certainly interesting. The fact that there are multiple books and most likely no more movies to be made from that increases my chances of reading them.

If you want a weird and unique movie, you might give this a shot, just don’t expect high quality art as you do.

3 out of 4.