Sleeper Hits: May 23rd-June 2nd, 2019
Welcome to my inaugural newsletter! I did not actually fall asleep during any of these screenings, so I am already a charlatan!
Oh boy. The first one. I’m writing this as I keep getting email notifications about new sign-ups and trying not to scream with glee but also fear as I resist the urge to tell everyone to temper all expectations. Faugh! Here we go.
(jk a quick note first: These reviews may contain spoilers. Obvious ones are marked with (SPOILER) (END SPOILER) before and after each one, which I hope is helpful unless/until I can figure out a better way. But just a heads-up because I love you.)
(okay now here we go for real!)
Summer isn’t for another couple of weeks, but tell that to the movie world. One Memorial Day weekend rolls around, it’s the end of the post-Oscar slump at the movies and the beginning of me getting heartily sick of the ridiculous Dolby Sound bumpers at the AMC in Columbia. “Yes, the projector is still on” haha get bent.
First up: BOOKSMART (dir. Olivia Wilde, written by Susanna Fogel, Emily Halpern, Sarah Haskins, Katie Silberman; starring Beanie Feldstein, Kaitlyn Dever, Jason Sudeikis)
Please, please, please, please, PLEASE go see this in theaters if you can. It’s so good. I will be very surprised if it doesn’t make my top 10 for this year. It’s smart, it’s wickedly funny, Beanie Feldstein is my new girlfriend, and I just really need it to pull weight at the box office. This belongs with THE EDGE OF SEVENTEEN and LADY BIRD as a trifecta of modern high school movies about misfit teen girls doing their best. I have no opinion on Olivia Wilde as an actress, but I am v, v excited to see what she will do next behind the camera. Billie Lourd should get an Oscar for her performance that I will tell you nothing about because you just have to see it in all its glory. Absolutely loved it. Jason, please get a haircut.
Numbah 2: ROCKETMAN (dir. Dexter Fletcher, screenplay by Lee Hall, starring Taron Egerton, Jamie Bell, Richard Madden)
If you follow me on Twitter at all, you’ll know that I am the thirstiest bitch alive for Richard Madden. It’s real bad, y’all. I would become fully Kinsey-0 straight for him if he asked. I saw his for-your-consideration Bond photo and had a stroke. His off-the-charts handsomeness, ramrod-straight hairline, singing ability and status as a possible bisexual king (still unconfirmed but looking hella promising) are in defiance of every major or minor deity that may exist.
However, this is not a Richard Madden Appreciation Newsletter (though I haven’t ruled it out entirely yet), so let’s move on.
Simply put, ROCKETMAN is everything BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY wanted to be. Both Queen (and specifically Freddie Mercury) and Elton John are larger-than-life performers with backstories and history to match anything we saw of them on stage during their heyday. When it comes to honoring the legacy of the performer(s) they’ve chosen to showcase, ROCKETMAN is infinitesimally more successful.
I only know Taron Egerton from his twice-turn as Eggsy Unwin in the KINGSMAN movies, but even just within that franchise he’s shown range: from the chavviest chav who ever chavved to a sleek and polished Bond boy though just a little less refined. Taking on Elton John though? I just didn’t know. But honestly, he nailed it. He really did.
What I love the most about this movie is that it does NOT shy away from Elton’s sexuality. I will not go into my exact feelings about (SPOILER) Taron and Richard’s initial sex scene (END SPOILER) on this good Christian Minecraft server, but it’s great. They’re both great. Richard Madden is extra great because I said so. Anyway.
All in all this movie is a delight and I have had all the Elton John songs stuck in my head ever since. Since his music is such an essential part of my childhood, I had mostly taken it for granted. But holy hell can he do things with those 88 keys. I am very grateful to ROCKETMAN for giving me a new appreciation for his talent and for letting me see Richard Madden nearly 100% nude. Chef’s kisses all around.
THREEEEEEE: GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS (dir. Michael Dougherty, screenplay by Michael Dougherty and Zach Shields; starring Kyle Chandler, Vera Farmiga, Millie Bobby Brown)
First of all lmao Tywin Lannister (Charles Dance if we insist on using Christian names) is in this. The only problem is that he’s playing a character that is 1000% less interesting than Tywin Lannister, which is actually the case for all the human characters in this movie! Fun!
I actually didn’t realize until afterward that it had been five (5) entire trips around the sun since the last Godzilla movie, which shouldn’t have really surprised me because I don’t really care that much about Godzilla? Also (SPOILER) Bryan Cranston died in the previous film (END SPOILER) so why even bother? But I’m always down to see monsters battle as one of many who grew up playing Pokemon Game Boy cartridges to death, so let’s go!
The monster battles are cool and fun, just as long as the shot is a wide-angle or just not a close-up. Shaky dark close-up bad, wide-angle less dark good. All of the monsters were well-designed, I thought, and Godzilla is…kind of…cute? In a weird way? I can’t really explain it; I know he’s the King Of The Monsters at all that, but I just saw this glowing chonky boi doing a heckin’ tussle. Ah, that’s how I can explain it: the Internet has ruined me.
Anyway, none of the humans really mattered and I would have gladly cut some of the people scenes for more of the monster scenes and also cut it by about 20 minutes because every movie over two hours is dumb and bad to my lizard brain. Unless it’s THE CONJURING.
FOOOOOOORE(th): MA (dir. Tate Taylor, written by Scotty Landes, starring Octavia Spencer, Juliette Lewis, Diana Silvers)
Some movies you just end up spending far longer than the actual run time wondering how the fuck it exists. MA is one of them. I mean, look at this screenshot. I crack up every time. It’s incredible. Plus the cast is insane: Octavia Spencer (!!!) Juliette Lewis (!!!!!!!!) and (I honestly want to SPOILER tag this person because it’s so ridiculous) ALLISON JANNEY (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) (and also ????????????????) like can you believe???? Dear reader, I could not had I not seen it with mine own eyes.
I love Octavia Spencer. She will do anything, including a $5 million dollar Blumhouse horror movie. We don’t deserve her. She managed to make me forgive her for producing GREEN BOOK and I truly didn’t think that was possible.
There’s really not much to be said for the plot except that it goes BUCK WILD in the last 30 minutes. All the teens are surprisingly not annoying shitheads, which is hard to do in horror movies, so kudos to them.
That’s about it, honestly. It’s a fun 90 minutes if you’re bored and have MoviePass or some equivalent. I am a complete horror apologist and probably would have paid actual Earth dollars to see it regardless. Seriously though, the third act is pretty bananas and actually entertaining. And if you’re not entertained, it’s still only 90 minutes, or approximately four and a half episodes of SpongeBob Squarepants (the only acceptable way to measure time tbh).
(P.S. Happy birthday, Tate Taylor!)
FIFTH AND FINAL: BRIGHTBURN (dir. David Yarovesky, written by David Gunn and Mark Gunn, starring Elizabeth Banks, David Denman, Jackson A. Dunn)
Okay, this isn’t an actual screenshot of the movie like all the other ones have been, but the actual scene they’re shooting is of Roy from The Office giving the anti-Superman kid The Talk and it’s actually kind of funny in the cringe-y way you’d expect but also look at the director’s rose gold Beats and his multiple eyebrow rings. Those are some choices. This is a look. You could tell me he’s the lead singer of any post-grunge band from the early to mid-2000s and I would absolutely believe you.
So, BRIGHTBURN! Hoo boy, this movie is something else. To start, it is much more gruesome than I thought it would be. I mean, they really went in. Multiple jaws get severely damaged. It’s not pretty.
I did enjoy watching this, to an extent, and I would be mildly interested in a sequel. I certainly appreciate its originality. I think my main issue is that the characters do dumb things, which is not a great complaint to have with a horror movie. Of course characters do dumb things. It’s what drives the story along! Plus, naturally you’re going to have a more measured, thought-out response to what’s happening when you’re safely in a movie theater seat observing the action, as opposed to trying to kill your evil child whose bones are made of titanium and can move faster than me to my DoorDash app when I get a notification that Chipotle is doing free delivery. But still. The climax of the film could have played out very differently with a few small changes that would lend themselves to assuming that Elizabeth Banks’s character isn’t a total dum-dum. Buuuut then how does sequel babby form? We just don’t know.
BRIGHTBURN falls into the same camp as MA where I think you’ll be entertained during the reasonable run time, but you’re not likely itching to revisit it again anytime soon.
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That’s it for this week! Thanks SO much to you lovelies who’ve already signed up! Please know that you’re all included in my will.
I don’t know that EVERY post will be this long — I imagine it’ll vary by 1. how often I update, which will determine 2. how many movies are included in each post and also 3. how I feel about them and 4. how many of them feature Richard Madden.
Speaking of which: here’s the aforementioned Richard Madden Is Totally James Bond shot I mentioned:
UGH. Just seeing it again makes me angry, knowing his IDIOT PERFECT SILVER HAIR STREAK, though not visible here, is there anyway on his DISGUSTING PERFECT HEAD. I hate him. I would die for him. All hail (but also RIP) the King in the North.
OKAY BYE FOR REAL
sleepily yours,
Amanda K. Storey