I’ve definitely been inconsistent with my movie viewings recently, so here is a catch-up from the past two weeks.
Self Reliance – What a weird little movie this was. Written and directed by Jake Johnson, who also stars in this debut, presents the world with a strange reality show pitch (that in all likelihood has been made before). He’s almost crippilingly alone when he gets recruited to be on a reality show where he is being hunted to be killed. If he makes it a month, he wins a million dollars. Seems like it’d be kind of hard to shake a bunch of potential murderers, but he’s told that he can’t be killed as long as he’s with someone. I think most people who think they’ve got this in the bag, but his family really lets him down here. I have to say that I did not care for this film. It just put out a weird vibe. It did an interesting job of mixing comedic and thriller elements, but the whole thing just felt kind of empty. Fun cast, though!
The Beekeeper – Look, with an action movie staring Jason Statham, I’m not usually expecting much. And maybe that worked in this film’s favor because I actually really enjoyed this! Statham plays Adam Clay, a man who’s helping out an older woman in exchange for some barn space and a place to bee keep. Something pretty damn despicable happens to her, so Clay is hellbent on “protecting his hive.” Turns out, Clay was part of a super secret operative who called themselves Beekeepers, and they will stop at nothing to “protect the hive.” That means we see Clay blast through not just the deserving bad guys, but also a fair number of good guys. The plot does make you wonder just how good those guys are, so it might not all be for nothing. This was a really fun watch!
All of Us Strangers – I thought I knew what this adapted film was going to be, and for the most part I did, but I will not ruin a late in the game reveal for you. Adam is a lonely man trying to work on a new screenplay inspired by his life growing up. In order to recapture some of those feelings and possibly missed moments (his parents died in a car crash when he was twelve), he goes back to his family home and encounters his parents as they were when he was twelve, though he is now in his 40s. These encounters (hallucinations) surely give him the chance to talk about things he never got the chance to. Namely, that he is gay. It’s clear though that his inability to be himself around his parents before their deaths has weighed heavy on Adam and probably prevented him from finding love until now. Enter young and cute Harry, a resident in his apartment building. Their relationship is promising and all the things you want it to be. I definitely felt haunted by this film, but in a good way.
Sound of Metal – Re-watch for movie club! I have to say I’m thrilled that this was the vote for January’s meeting, as I haven’t watched it since it came out in 2019. Ruben is a man in a metal band who wakes up one day with almost no hearing. After going to see a doctor, he learns that what he’s already lost is permanent and he will likely lose the rest very quickly. Since he is a recovering drug addict, he is placed in a shelter that serves recovering deaf addicts. He slowly adapts to this new way of life, seeming to find joy in certain activities, but his love for Lou prompts him to sell all of his band equipment and RV to get cochlear implants. He’s disappointed with their sound quality and is also kicked out of the shelter for not respecting the deaf community there. In the end, he does seem to get closure, though it was a rough road to get there. Riz Ahmed was my pick for the Oscar this year, but Anthony Hopkins isn’t a bad person to lose to.
American Fiction – The trailer for this film really made me laugh and the Oscar buzz for this film is high, so I jumped at the chance to see it in my local theater. There were so many different elements here that just blended perfectly together. Monk is an academic writer who has hit a slump with publishers. He’s ordered to go on sabbatical and head back home for a book fair. From there, he hears of a book that seems to be pandering to what white audiences want to hear about the “black experience.” He thinks it’s foul, but when things in his personal life start deteriorating, he writes his own pandering book out of frustration. To his surprise, everyone loves it and it leads to a lot of financial and crowd success. Monk struggles to reconcile all of this with how he is, but it’s the people in his life that slowly help put things into perspective. There’s a great twist at the end that almost had me thinking this entire story was a movie pitch, but as I said, this film just ultimately made me feel nice.
Good Grief – I hesitated to watch this movie when it first dropped on Netflix because I thought it was going to be sad as hell. Turns out, I was just overall a little bit annoyed by it. Not to discredit the drama here. Marc, a year after his husband Oliver dies, learns that he had a serious lover in Paris. Now, they had an open marriage, so I don’t know that Marc should have been quite as angry as he was, but he also wasn’t totally onboard with the open marriage thing, so I get it. I think the ultimate point of this movie was to note that everyone experiences and moves through grief quite differently. That was a great message to portray. The annoying bit of this film for me was the relationship between the three best friends here. They were toxic on another level, and that’s kind of sad when they’re all in their late 30s. I don’t know. I’m not mad I watched it, but I’m not really happy that I did either.