The Goods: Film Reviews
Valerie Taylor is an Australian marine conservationist, and her story is a pretty compelling one. First a competitive spearfisher, then a Hollywood consultant (including on Jaws!), then a public advocate for shark protection, she is the subject of TONS of archival footage of swimming and interacting with sharks, and now’s our chance to enjoy it all.
Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s debut film is a peculiar hybrid of drama and documentary. Haroun, playing a semi-fictionalized version of himself, returns from France to his homeland Chad upon hearing of his mother’s passing. While there, he bemoans a crumbling local cinema and ponders creating a film to capture the spirit of his home nation.
Chalk at least some of my affection to low expectations and hater spite.
Scene 1: Three scoundrels wait at a train station at the end of the world.
Mercifully short and non-exploitative, Lucile Hadžihalilović‘s debut is claustrophobic and tense and well-crafted. The film’s sense of dread never boils over into outright terror, but it’s nonetheless a fairly haunting little piece.
Chris Columbus’s approach to adapting the generationally important book series is certainly a bit broken as a film qua film.
A slice of life drama about poverty in New Orleans, Below Dreams balances naturalist storytelling and audacious visuals to a nearly impressionistic effect.
Lemon starts as an investigation of how actors use performance to filter out their horrible lives before pivoting to a satire about how pitiful it is to live in LA, I guess?
I’m seriously bummed I didn’t see this one on the big screen.
Mostly harmless but bland to the point of brain rot.
A C-tier Lopez song, lots of rehashed/remixed gags and shots from the original Frozen, and a plot you’d expect to see in the third season of a sitcom. (Why does Elsa start acting drunk when she gets a cold?)
The booger snow monsters could have been fun-weird but are just boring-weird.
The only thing I unreservedly like is Elsa’s new green dress, which should probably show you the storytelling sophistication we’re dealing with here.
April 2022 update:
My four-year-old daughter specifically requested we watch this again. I try not to force my opinions on her, so I obliged without comment. But I asked her why.
“The snowgies are weird,” she said.
“And that’s good?” I asked.
“Yes. I like it when they’re weird. I wish I had Elsa’s powers so I could do weird things with it,” she said.
I was so proud. I’m gonna need to put together an age-organized curriculum of weird movies to keep her on this train.