Man, I tried to go four for four at the theater this weekend, but came up just short. Guess I’ll have to catch A Good Person when it’s available to rent.
Champions – I had every intention of checking this out before I headed across the pond back in the middle of March, but with no luck. Somehow it managed to hang on long enough in theaters that I was still able to see it! Overall, this was a cute film. Also though, not much really happened. Woody Harrelson played a second string coach with a bad attitude and drinking problem, both of which put him in the position to coach a team of Special Olympic basketballers. They change his perspective and he finds love, too, but nothing was overtly funny or sincere enough to make this movie memorable.
Air – Spoiler. If you’re hoping to see a lot of a very young Michael Jordan: you’re not. This is a just starting out with a board of directors Nike story and how one guy figured out how to make them a butt ton of money. It’s hard to imagine a time when apparently Nike’s basketball shoe line was struggling, but everyone’s got to start somewhere. Nike’s talent scout Sonny Vaccaro finds the company’s saving grace in draft pick Michael Jordan, but it takes a world of convincing to even get in the same room as them. That’s when Adidas was king and Converse owned more than 50 percent of the market share. Sonny goes to some unconventional methods to get the team in a good spot, but what I liked best was this group of guys really supporting each other. Even if it was reluctantly at first. Going all in can get you results sometimes. Compelling drama about something I wouldn’t normally give a rat’s ass about.
Dungeons and Dragon: Honor Among Thieves – Speaking of something I wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about…Truly, this is a movie I would have told just a month ago that I would never ever see. I can prove myself wrong, I suppose. This is not a game I know anything about, so I can promise you that it can be entertaining anyways. Is it the best thing I’ve ever seen? Absolutely not. And I’m sure there were plenty of things lost on me, but the basics of the story is a group of varyingly gifted people (and not people?) try to get back something from a con man. That’s really dumbing it down, but again, the fun in the film comes from its relationships. Admittedly, I was expecting to be laughing a lot and that didn’t really happen, but it did hold my attention for the entire runtime. Not bad.
Wildflower – Evidently this film is based off a documentary, both efforts of which were directed by the main subject’s uncle. In this fictionalized version, we meet Bea in a coma. She’s narrating the story from that space trying to remember what landed her in this state. To do that, she takes us back to before she was born to introduce us to her intellectually disabled parents. She shows a fun and loving childhood, but one that also had a large degree of stress associated with it. Now in high school, Bea manages to succeed across the board but doesn’t plan on going to college. She faces some hard truths, which are the crux of what lands her in the coma. Some moments in this film were truly funny, and it was incredible to see how much love their is for Bea. It’s crazy to think a person actually had to handle all of this. Worth the watch with this incredible cast.