The Goods: Film Reviews
Beyond the “giving of thanks” and the historically dubious pilgrims-and-Indians origin story, the central American theme of Thanksgiving is breaking bread with family you might only see once a year in elaborately-prepared, tradition-fueled meals.
While trying to find Thanksgiving-themed movies to watch this week, I stumbled upon this little-seen indie dramedy from 2007 that seemed to hit a lot of specific traits that I tend to love in movies:
It’s Ray Harryhausen’s last hurrah, featuring one of the coolest looking monsters ever (Medusa) and about a dozen other nifty effects. Big production values, dramatic score, epic adventure. It’s a slam dunk, right?
We recently decided to try and start watching documentaries on Sunday mornings (mostly while Mommy and Daddy take turns catching up on sleep).
My opinion is that it’s difficult to make an unenjoyable film in the “end of high school one crazy night” subgenre, assuming a good faith effort.
(Note: This review was written before my Teen Beach Movie enlightenment… I plan to rewrite this review at some point.)
Teen Beach Movie was such a hit last weekend with my daughters that we turned on the sequel for this week’s movie night. The result is, perhaps unsurprisngly, a mixed bag.
Mighty Joe Young is Ray Harryhausen’s first proper movie, and goddamn does the stop motion animation look amazing. Big ol’ Joe the gorilla is expressive and nimble, interacting with props and sets and actors through lots of impressive camera trickery.
Today, I conclude my journey revisiting the “Andy trilogy.”
More than forty years later, Star Wars still puts most popcorn cinema since to shame.
I watched this early silent on my phone while waiting in the Sunoco lobby for my car inspection and service to finish.