Bobby is turning four years old. It’s his birthday, and he’s having a party. A clown is coming. It’s 1992.
Category: Legacy
Thank You For Smoking is a clever movie, which is not automatically the same as a good movie.
It finally occurred to me why The Sandlot’s wobbly story structure — a bunch of 5-ish minute episodes in its first half; an extended, notably goofier, episode for the entirety of its second half — has never really bothered me. It’s because every dramatic point of the film’s second half is built up by those early vignettes so we are fully invested.
The reverence of Babe Ruth; the innate talent and kindness of Benny; the glory of hitting a home run; the devastation of losing a ball and a day of baseball; the mythological terror of The Beast; Scotty’s tenuous relationship with his stepdad; his deftness with Erector Sets: These breadcrumbs are carefully planted so every beat of the ending feels earned and packs a proper storytelling punch.
Despite all that, the film’s first half is still its most charming. It delivers a satisfying arc for Scotty coming out of his shell — because goddamn does the movie make him pathetic at the start. The various episodes are of mixed quality but add up to a broader picture of the kind of magical carefree summer that adults remember in snippets and emotional texture more than chronological narrative. The set piece-heavy second half shifts us more squarely back into kids movie adventure territory, which is fine, but loses track of the movie’s initial aim.
There’s something slightly haphazard to the craft of it all, too. The boys’ acting consists mostly of shouting when something outrageous happens, which is amusing enough. The actors for Scotty and Benny bring a little more to the table, and Patrick Renna as Ham has some obvious comic chops. (In an alternate universe, perhaps Renna has Jonah Hill’s career arc.)
Scotty’s narration is used just infrequently enough that it’s extremely jarring whenever it comes in, usually for simplifying scene transition. (Also, it compares poorly to Daniel Stern’s brilliant work on The Wonder Years that is its obvious inspiration.)
Overall, The Sandlot is fun and fleetingly stirring, but doesn’t cut quite deep enough to be a true nostalgia classic.
Shankar’s Robot provided a sprawling, goofy sci-fi epic without much of a coherent theme
The Upside-Down Magic book is about a group of kids whose magic doesn’t work quite the same way as the kids around them, but whose institutions recognize their worth.
Categories
Hotel Chevalier (2007)
Hotel Chevalier is best known for 1) being better than The Darjeeling Limited, the feature film it ties with, and 2) the one time Natalie Portman got naked in front of the camera.
Ever visited a city and felt so entranced by it that you start imagining yourself living there? Wandering the streets and living out some long-lost glory years?
A largely-forgotten adaptation of a largely-forgotten YA tetralogy, City of Ember has nearly enough breathtaking production values to make up for its avalanche of cliches and crummy pacing.
Up is among the most uneven films from Pixar’s imperial phase, but still pretty close to a masterpiece.
The Rescuers is, visually, the moodiest piece ever released by Walt Disney Animation Studios. Almost the entire film takes place at night in dingy buildings and murky swamps. The flashes of color all feel like subdued flickers, with no individual moment capable of escaping the thick, gloomy mood. Even the character designs feel a bit faded and smudgy. It’s simply not very fun. This aesthetic the reason I hated this movie as a kid, though it’s grown on me as an adult as I have more of an appetite for less expressive, feel-good moods.