Though it was a busy weekend, I still managed to make time for some new movies in a variety of formats.
Ezra – I had wanted to see thing film during CIFF, but decided to hold out since I knew it was coming to theaters so soon after. For me, this is on the level of Thelma. It made me feel good even though it was actually about some serious subject matter. Ezra is a young boy with autism. His divorced, but civil parents try their best to give Ezra a normal life, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that he needs more specialized help. Yes, everyone wants their kids to be treated the same as everyone else in the real world and experience the same things, but if there are facilities and programs and medications available out there to help them succeed more, you should maybe take it. That’s the point that Jena is at, but Max does not want this for Ezra, so he takes it upon himself to sneak him out in the middle of the night and drive across the US to get to a stand-up gig he’s scored with Jimmy Kimmel. There’s plenty of other drama, comedic and tender moments throughout the film that just made this a real treat to watch. I hope everyone checks it out someday soon!
La Chimera – I really wanted to like this highly praised Italian drama film, but I just couldn’t get there. The fact that I’ve been doing Duolingo long enough to make out most of the conversations in the film was pretty cool, and Josh O’Conner is always a treat, but this film lost it’s shine for me pretty quick. O’Conner plays Arthur, a noted outsider in a small Italian town, but he has many friends and they spend their time robbing graves. In fact, when we meet Arthur, he’d just got done serving some time for the crimes, but that doesn’t stop him for long from starting right back up with everyone. In the midst of all of this, he begins a romance with an odd singing student and young mother. What seems to be a pretty straight forward film takes a hard left turn at the end towards the supernatural. Again, it lost me. Maybe sometime in the future I can revisit this and appreciate it more, but for now, it’s a pass.
How to Date Billy Walsh – Admittedly, I don’t know what at all I was in the mood to watch this weekend, so I thought I couldn’t go wrong with a teen rom-com. I was kind of wrong. Don’t misunderstand, there were plenty of bits in this film that I enjoyed but it was kind of all over the place. Archie and Amelia have been best friends forever, though Archie has claimed to have been in love with her for just as long. Instead of growing a pair and admitting how he feels, he’s now in the awkward position of his senior year trying to be the wingman for Amelia as she tries to win over the new, American student, Billy Walsh. He’s everything that Archie is not: stylish, athletic, hip, and to top it all off he’s also super smart and very kind. Of course, in Archie’s despair, he devises a plan that he thought would surely thwart Amelia’s plans to date Billy, but it ends up having the opposite effect. By the time the truth comes out, the consequences are brief and almost practically glossed over, but I can’t fault a movie for a happy ending. Most of me wishes that I would have just re-watched one of my old favorites instead.