Sam Levinson is very good about reframing narratives we’ve seen a thousand times to feel new and unique (I love “Euphoria”). While “Malcolm & Marie” doesn’t re-invent the wheel, it’s a stellar two person drama that pits two painfully self absorbed people against each other one night. While Malcolm and Marie may not make it as a couple, they make great adversaries, which might just tie them together for the rest of their lives. And that’s the primary draw of the film.
Tag Archives: Romance
The Right One (2021)
A young writer seems unable to write her second novel after having a decent success with her first published work. One day, she meets an oddball who’s trying to survive something from his past by creating new personas for himself at all times. As she starts to really like him, he discovers that she has used him for writing inspiration and disappears.
Savage State (L’Etat Sauvage) (2021)
A French family settled in the United States decides to leave home during the Civil War with the help of a man of unclear past. Soon, someone is seemingly after them as they make their trek across the land as best they can.
Haymaker (2021)
After saving her, a former Muay Thai fighter becomes a singer’s bodyguard. Through the process, he gets to see a new way of life and goes back to his roots to truly find himself.
25 Years Ago, “Romeo + Juliet” Gave Me My First Brush with Shakespeare
1996 was a big year for me. I was thirteen in middle school and my English teacher introduced me and my classmates to the work of William Shakespeare. Although we spent the year working on a project that explored the various works from the playwright, we were primarily focused on “Romeo & Juliet.” We spent most of the year reading the play in class and before the school year let up, my teacher staged her contemporary version of “Romeo & Juliet” for the school that everyone took part in. It was called “Ronnie & Julie.” I loved art but was way too shy to act, so naturally I was in the poster department.
My Summer as a Goth (2020)
Tara Johnson-Medinger’s “My Summer as a Goth” is a lot like “Edge of Seventeen” but with so much less insight and charm than its predecessor. That’s not to say that “My Summer as a Goth” is terrible, but it’s a mostly unpleasant and surface level teen coming of age film that doesn’t re-invent the wheel. It definitely doesn’t seem to want to re-invent the wheel, spending a lot of its time trying to work in the inexplicable, often clumsy plot elements in to the narrative.
Giant From The Unknown (1958): 4K Deluxe Edition [Blu-Ray]
If you want to know how much of a tedious experience “Giant from the Unknown” is, it clocks in at barely an hour and twenty minutes, and the monster doesn’t show up until forty minutes in (!). Before that it’s an absolute slog to sit through. When the monster is not on screen there’s the vapid romance between characters Janet (Sally Fraser is absolutely wooden) and Wayne, one of whom is always a damsel in distress. For a movie that advertises a giant, it’s disappointing when it does rear its head, as it tends to look a lot more like a muscle bound Bela Lugosi from “Son of Frankenstein.”