The Goods: Film Reviews
I feel like I have an infinite appetite for ’80s romantic comedies starring John Cusack. I want to travel the multiverse collecting all of the John Cusack 80s romcoms I can.
This one is pretty solid, with good control of its tone and characters, occasionally funny, and appealing chemistry between Cusack and Daphne Zuniga. And it’s also a road trip movie, because why the hell not. Good fun.
I want to be in every scene in this movie. A rare movie I’ve seen 4+ times… and liked more every time. I’m increasingly convinced it’s the hangout masterpiece of the 21st century.
Yikes. For starters, you have a really rough, entirely predictable teen romantic comedy that wants to be fun like Animal House, but is just a chaotic mess. The romance portions are maybe passable, but if so, only barely. (I do like Lori Laughlin here.)
Where it nosedives into catastrophe is the other half of the film, where an entirely misguided romantic farce involving the teens’ parents is thrown into the mix. It’s baffling, but not in a fun way. Just a total misfire.
For whatever reason I am a total sucker for teen dramedies where supposedly platonic best friends have romantic sparks. I’m determined to watch every one of them.
This John Hughes-penned (but not -directed) example of the form is a pretty solid one, but one that stumbles over itself in the ending with some plot points and bits of dialogue that don’t make sense. Also Eric Stoltz is a total piece of plain white toast this entire movie. Flat and bland.
Nov 2020 update:
Rewatched to record for a podcast. There is exactly one great character/performance (Watts), then a bunch of clunkers. Enjoyable and very much up my alley, but still marred by some weird, head-scratching plot and character points in the third act.
The McDonald’s founding story segment generates almost all of the goodwill this movie earns. Keaton is also kind of fun if not very nuanced. The script is a catastrophe, though.
Major segments of this are racist and/or problematic.
BUT! I found this really funny and charming (albeit horny) teen comedy. Will Friedle has awesome comic chops. I love him as a lead. Jennifer Love-Hewitt is a smokeshow and has awesome chemistry with Friedle. I love “one epic night” type stories — it heightens and literalizes the teenage experience of everything seeming to happen at once.
(Plus romances where best friends end up falling in love is one of my favorite tropes, so I’m probably overrating this a little.)
The ultimate “blockbuster” movie for my money. Great cast, great premise, ultra-tight script where even the smallest details get a payoff down the line, a soaring score… There’s something exquisite watching all components of the movie-making process come together into a satisfying whole.
The cherry on top is that the precision and color of its contemporary details makes it feel like an inadvertent “period piece” — the movie just feels 1980s in its slang, fashion, and aesthetic.
One of my favorites.
One of Brad Bird’s and Pixar’s best films — and that’s saying something in both cases. The story of an unlikely chef with a great gift being the literal symbol of filth is mined for all its potent power, and the payoff of Anton Ego embracing the titular dish is one of my favorite moments in any movie. It has all the sense of danger and visual power to not let you forget that you’re in the perspective of a street-roaming pest. Masterpiece.
Note: This capsule has been superseded by a full-length review.
Visually, Suspiria is a stunner. One of the most striking uses of color I’ve ever seen, with lighting that illuminates every tinted surface of every space we see. The soundtrack is disorienting weirdness too: a ringing, whispering drone.
The script and pacing, on the other hand, have some hiccups that really pulled me out: The weird U-turn of exposition when Suzy meets the psychologist and professor is jarring, and the apocalyptic ending lasts all of 30 seconds, with the credits rolling just when I was getting into it.
Reviewed on The Goods in our first episode here
Edit: This is my first movie since I started logging and reviewing again during the pandemic. It’s also the first movie I discussed on my podcast with Brian. In other words, this is the moment I officially launched my return to film criticism, so this specific film will forever hold a special place in my heart.