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[popculturecraziness]

Just like every other writer you know, I started a Substack. It will always be free and mainly exists so that I can write about the pop cultural ephemera that I can’t write about anywhere else. I included a link above but my username is kaceybange.substack.com if you want to go the old fashioned way about it.

[popculturecraziness]

Top 10 of 2021

Hello there. It feels like it’s been a while. Not that I have stopped watching movies or even creating Top 10 lists. It’s just that the end of the years have been a little dramatic these past few years. 2019 ended with me too physically ill to commit to writing up my top ten films of the year (I had a kidney infection); 2020 ended with me too mentally ill to commit to writing up my top ten films of the year (I had a man forcibly enter my apartment while I was inside it).

2021, thankfully, has had no such twist ending and so I am finally back to tell you why my favorite films of the year were my favorites. It feels healing to be back. 

in fact, while 2021 is still filled with sadness and misery and despair and all those other heavy words, I do like to think of it mostly as a year of healing. A year where I slowly began to put together a new life in the wake of the one that 2020 seemed to smash and grab from me. I think the move industry is doing the same kind of healing. After a year where the pandemic shut down movie theaters and seemed to take the majority of movies with them, 2021 began to bring them back. It certainly was nice to go back to the theater again, even if the Nicole Kidman ad began to drive me bonkers after the umpteenth time of seeing it (I miss it now that it’s gone though, funny, how it works, huh?).

While it will be a slow process full of starts and stops, I have hope that 2021 portends for better days ahead. For movies. For myself. For now though, here are the ten films (out of the 180 new releases I saw) that connected with me the most.

10. Belfast

Belfast is poised to become that film everyone on Film Twitter hates during awards season. I’m aware of it. It’s already somehow happening even though it hasn’t even really won anything. A part of me hesitated slotting it here because of it. 

But here’s the thing: I know it is not perfect, but it panders to me so well. I am an Irish citizen (dual citizenship) who loves movies, adores Dick Van Dyke and had a massive crush on Jamie Dornan back in 2011. The Chitty Chitty Bang Bang scene? That made me smile. The “Everlasting Love”? number That made me swoon. In many ways it felt like Kenneth Branagh was bribing me, personally, to like his film and you know what? It worked. Laughable Easter eggs and all. I’m a sucker!

9. CODA

It was a year where one of the most important film arguments of the year seemed to be: should theatrical exclusivity even be a thing anymore? And for the most part, I think it should. I love the theater experience! I saw a majority of the films on this list in a theater. But horror of horrors — I watched CODA on my phone. And even though the movie was not presented in its prime format, it overcame those limitations and charmed me anyway. Putting this movie on this list is bittersweet to me, because CODA one of those films I would usually recommend to my family members over the holidays. Since I can’t recommend it to them (we are not speaking for various dramatic, traumatic reasons), I will recommend it to whoever reads this post instead. No matter how you watch it, I am sure you will get some enjoyment out of it.

8. Passing

I was skeptical on Passing going into it. Rebecca Hall is one of those actors I just cannot connect with, and I was expecting the same inability to extend to her direct, especially since her debut feature seemed to be too ambitious an adaptation for a first film. Well, turns out I was wrong. I was able to find much to connect with here. Passing is a fascinating story of what racial identity means and whether you really can go “home” again. Ruth Negga, especially, is worth pointing out. Her performance is one that could easily go off the rails but she manages to strike the balance the role requires from beginning to end.

7. Flee

There were many films this year that brought out a sense of admiration from me, rather than a sense of adoration. Films where I was not fully enraptured by the product, but I was happy it was out there anyway and I had the ability to experience it. No film captured this phenomenon for me as keenly as Flee-- a film that protects its documentary subject by animating him (as opposed to using unnerving deepfakes) and gets around non-existing film by animating its subjects recollections as well. If not a wholly original idea, it is clever and impactful and allow for the subject’s story as a gay Afghan refugee retain all of its power. A film world where more films were like Flee, would be a film world I would be happy to exist in.

6. Pig

People would tell me that Nicolas Cage was a great actor and yet, I never really believed them. I had seen Leaving Las Vegas and Moonstruck and a fair amount of his earlier stuff, the stuff before he went full whatever it is he does most of the time these days, and none of those performances really clicked with me. I always seemed like he was acting to the rafters and that somehow he was trying to kill me with his performance. He made me uncomfortable, and many times I was not supposed to feel that way.

So I went into the theater to watch Pig and spent the majority of the runtime holding my breath waiting for the moment to come. The moment when he would fully go off the handle and make me cringe. And that moment does comes but it’s only two minutes at maximum. And the whole film works because of that. The rest of Pig is a somber tale of grief, of success, of family and what any of it means in today’s world. Cage is one of the key ingredients of what makes it work. And I never expected I would be typing that ever in my life.

5. C’mon C’mon

Mike Mills has a lot of themes he likes to repeat over and over again in his works—parents and children will never fully know each other and nobody can account for what the future holds. Even so, the empathy with which he approaches these themes and his characters still strikes a chord in me. Joaquin Phoenix is in a lower key here than he is in his more celebrated turns, but it is the type of performance I find most engaging from him. Even better is the sibling rapport he is able to build with Gaby Hoffman (also terrific). No sibling relationship felt as real as theirs in film this year. 

4. The Power of the Dog

Some films you love with your heart, other films you love with your mind. It is not about the emotional experience of the moment, of watching the movie. Instead it is about the intellectual experience of what happens after the movie. Thinking it over in your head, or seeking out what others took from it and seeing where you line up and where you differ — I think those moments are just as important as the ones that happen in the room when you are watching. There was no film that I was more excited to read about this year than The Power of the Dog and I love it because of that. The best art makes you want to explore it more and revisit it, and I am excited to return to the movie with more perspective in 2022. 

3. Nine Days

I left Nine Days not entirely convinced by the film. It was stagy. It was overreaching. It was too long. However, in the months since I first saw it, Nine Days has burrowed itself a permanent place in my brain. Its musings on what it means to live, on what makes a life worth living and on whether the small pleasures are worth the plentiful pains are things I continue to come back to as go about my own day to day existence. Not many movies have that kind of lasting power. There’s something special here.

Also: Winston Duke gives the most underrated performance of 2021, and by his ending scene (my favorite of the year), I was ready to cast in him any role he ever wants to try. He proves here that he is more than capable of just about anything.

2. The Lost Daughter

The Lost Daughter is a film filled with women who are complicated. Horrifyingly, wonderfully complicated. It paints a portrait of how motherhood is hard and burdensome without drilling it down to a bunch of platitudes and lessons I Don’t Know How She Does It style and I adored it for not going for the easy answers at any point. The characters of The Lost Daughter are not likable or charming and still the film implores you to want to invest the time with them anyway.

Beyond that though, Ed Harris dances to Bon Jovi in a jaunty little cap. As Fred Astaire once sang, that’s entertainment.

1. Procession

In the last few months of 2020, a lot of traumas came home to roost. Some that haunted me from the past, some that literally burst into my living room at that exact moment. It was, frankly, overwhelming. 2021, in turn, then became about trying to process all of that trauma and find some way to live with all of the messy parts of it — anger, pain, heartbreak, grief. So, it really shouldn’t be surprising that the film that moved me the most this year was Procession, which is about six survivors of Catholic sexual abuse making movies as a form of therapy. Our traumas differed. Our healing  differed. But to see people come together and try and work all that suffering and pain made me feel a whole slew of emotions. The most important being a sense of hope. It’s not easy, it never leaves you. But you can find a way to carry the pain and take it with you. 

If you like this blog, please consider donating to my Kofi page or my Paypal! You can also donate money to kbange@gmail.com through either Venmo or CashApp. Thank you!

Also many thanks to Kerri, who made the graphic for me, since I no longer have Photoshop.

[popculturecraziness]

This Week in Hallmark: A Little Daytime Drama

A little known fact about me is that a long time ago, back in 2015, I went through a soap phase. This mainly involved watching playlists on YouTube of past soap plotlines that were recommended by people (Josh Duhamel, am I right?) and trying to keep up with the Young and the Restless because I was fascinated by the fact that Justin Hartley was on it when he had seemingly graduated to primetime television gigs ( a place where he eventually returned). I even dipped my toe into British soaps, and discovered they were way more bonkers fun than American ones. I was especially intrigued by the Emmerdale plotline where someone tries to kill someone else by drowning them in grain. Even though it’s been years since I have followed anything that has happened on a soap opera, I know the base appeal. When done right they are melodramatic, compulsive fun.

As a result, when I heard that Hallmark was doing a soap opera movie and not only that but one that starred soap stars (I had learned of Ryan “He’s Hot!” Paevey’s existence through a General Hospital playlist once upon a time), I was a little hyped. There was so much potential for a fun, twisty movie that both appreciates soaps and winks at them a little. But as all things with potential, Hallmark tends to fail live up to its promises.

A Little Daytime Drama decides to eschew the drama altogether. Not only in its romance plotline which basically contains of one long stupid miscommunication instead of anything resembling pining, banter or other classic romantic comedy tropes, but even in its show within a show. The female lead is desperate to make Forever, the fake soap they all work on, younger and hipper to gain a new audience base. Her very exciting plans? Having everyone travel abroad to be medical doctors. That’s it. I don’t know who this is supposed to excite but as someone still in my 20s, I can tell you that it would not gain my interest in the slightest. (Most likely, the way to gain a younger social media based fanbase would be to go the Hollyoaks way of having like gay love triangles and people careening off cliffs in cars and murder and the like -- but you can’t show that on Hallmark Channel.)

I’m usually forgiving of Hallmark’s tendency to avoid conflict at all points possible, but you’re making a movie about soaps. If there was any time to have a little fun and go a little overboard -- this was it. 

If you like this blog, please consider donating to my Kofi page or my Paypal! You can also donate money to kbange@gmail.com through either Venmo or CashApp. Thank you!

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This Week in Hallmark: Sand Dollar Cove

It’s been a while since I have last sat down and watched a Hallmark movie. I had my reasons. I started working at a new job (hooray!) and had to deal with some more stressful personal life stuff (boo!), and as a result there just was not enough energy in my brain to truly contemplate what was up with the Hallmark Channel.

However, a friend of mine texted me about Sand Dollar Cove and when a friend texts me about a Hallmark Channel movie, I feel like it’s my solemn duty to look into it. Plus, Sand Dollar Cove featured newbie Aly Michalka teamed up with Chad Michael Murray and supported by Scarlett from Nashville (Clare Bowen). So, I was a little curious to see how it all come together.

Well, it came together like every typical Hallmark Channel seems to do. It starts out with high potential for fun. Chad Michael Murray’s character is named Brody Bradshaw and he is very, very defensive of a pier. A pier that Aly Michalka’s Elli is trying to buy for her real estate development company. The potential for overwrought drama and ridiculousness seemed to be right there! For twenty minutes, I was having fun.

Then, as it always seems to happen-- the movie hit a lull. The plot rushes to get the characters over their hard feelings for one another and all the tension in the romance is snapped. It’s no longer a question of why. Instead of basking in tropes, the movie instead decides to bask in very long lectures about the benefits of small town life. There’s an endless scene where Elli talks to Scarlett from Nashville about why Scarlett from Nashville decided not to backpack in Europe and stay in Sand Dollar Cove and get married instead. It’s a scene that doesn’t really add anything to the story except to let you know that small towns are awesome! And as someone who has watched a Hallmark movie before, I am aware of that. I have learned many, many times that small towns are the best places in the universe and we should protect them. I get it.

Lately, it feels like I keep coming back to these movies hoping for tropes and fun and just getting a travelogue for my troubles instead. I don’t know why that is. I have theories. Hallmark produces too many movies and are no longer focused on quality. It’s cheaper to shoot a scene where someone waxes on about a small town versus a dynamic scene with action. Tourism boards paying them to waste a certain amount of time as advertising. But it doesn’t really matter why. What matters is that it keeps happening, and it’s taking all the fun out of the experience for me.

I want more movies that deliver on the absurdity of their premises, and less that waste time as PSAs. Hope springs eternal that my wish will one day become true. 

If you like this blog, please consider donating to my Kofi page! You can also donate money to kbange@gmail.com through either Venmo or CashApp. Thank you!

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This Week in Hallmark: Right in Front of Me

As I am typing this review out, I have QVC playing in the background (I am a huge fan of leaving QVC on in the background when I am stressed out, the monotonous, inexplicable capitalism has calmed for decades). Apparently, today they are launching Candace Cameron Bure’s new exclusive fashion line on the channel and it is fascinating. They are selling average t-shirts and being like, “Candace, you look like you are ready to just jump right into a Hallmark movie and get a coffee. Look at that style!” Meanwhile, I’m just mockingly nodding along like, “Yes, when I look at a basic linen tee, I’m just like absolutely that is Hallmark and not just an average staple. It’s so much more.”

But maybe that is what Hallmark is supposed to be, actually. Just an average basic movie that is so much more on basic of how average it is. I remember learning at Christmas Con that part of the appeal of Hallmark movies to people is how they are all for the most part, the same. I’m sure some people use the channel to get to sleep in the same way I use QVC. The monotonous romances with a chaste, conservative edge are calming.

To those people, I am happy to announce that Right in Front of Me will help you fall right asleep. If you watched He’s Just Not That Into You and wanted a really sexless version of the Justin Long and Ginnifer Goodwin romance, than you are in luck here. She needs help landing her crush. He gives her advice from behind a bar. Eventually, they realize they are in love after a few G-rated “adventures”. It is exactly as memorable as you think it would be.

Right in Front of Me is so insanely bland that there were scenes that would normally confound me that I just let slide. The “meet-cute” between the central couple revolves around him harassing her for not loving his fusion food before realizing that she was right. This scene last minutes, it’s supposed to be charming. It is not. 

Less frustrating, but more bizarre is the set-up for the advice giving gambit, which revolves around the female lead just like happening upon some random floormate from college’s wedding and everyone just being like “absolutely, please crash this event, woman I have not seen in years”.  There’s some justification in the fact that the female lead does help with some last-minute wedding planning but these characters go from “Who are you?” to “advice-giving best friends” in a way that would be mindboggling.

I say “would be” because at the end of the day, it was all presented so blandly that I couldn’t feel myself getting outraged about it. I was bored into complacency. Maybe that is worrisome. More likely, that is the Hallmark way. You come, you watch, you don’t internalize anything you just saw. Perfectly, wonderfully average.

f you like this blog, please consider donating to my Kofi page! You can also donate money to kbange@gmail.com through either Venmo or CashApp. Thank you!

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This Week in Hallmark: As Luck Would Have It

Back in December, I read a rumor that alleged that Hallmark was working down to the wire with it’s late of Christmas movies. That movies wouldn’t be finished until mere days before they were supposed to premiere (if not an closer timeframe than that). Obviously, I do not live in the Hallmark scheduling offices and have no inside sources, so I can’t say for sure that it’s true. But it certainly feels true. COVID made it even harder for a channel known for a quick turnaround on its movies, and the need to create vast amount of product in a short amount of time probably led to some very, very rushed movies.

As Spring Fling continues on though, I can’t help but think that the trend continued. It’s no longer Christmas so Hallmark has the ability to free up its calendar a little more and make adjustments when need be. So when One Winter Wedding can’t be finished in time for the winter months, it becomes One Perfect Wedding and is weirdly slotted into their Spring Fling event. As Luck Would Have It was clearly designed to be a St. Patrick’s Day movie, but it wasn’t going to make that premiere date. So now it is premiering randomly in April. Less egregious than the One Perfect Wedding situation, but still noticeable.

As Luck Would Have It is a Hallmark movie I feel that I have seen before, a long, long time ago before anyone cared what I thought about these movies. Emma Thompson’s husband did one once upon a time! There was another one called Chasing Leprechauns? In the days when Hallmark Channel was more holiday focused beyond Christmas, St. Patrick’s day existed to create a weird one-off movie set in Ireland. As Luck Would Have It follows in that tradition. It just premiered in April.

Beyond the scheduling, As Luck Would Have It was fine. It hits every single trope you expect from a Hallmark movie just with more exposition about Irish culture in between. Even though it’s the best Spring Fling movie so far this year, I still found it to be a little disappointing because I have liked the leads in other projects before (and both are Hallmark newbies, apparently) and perhaps hoped they could further spark the material. Still, you can’t expect miracles all the time. As is, As Luck Would Have It is forgettable fluff and as that is what Hallmark makes it’s money on, so it will have to do.

Spring Fling has been a weird event for Hallmark, one that is more interesting for the scheduling antics behind the scenes than anything that has been put forth on the screens. They still have one more movie to premiere next week before the event is through, but I am not banking on it singlehandedly making it an above-average slate of movies. That’s a lot of pressure. For now, I will keep my eye towards May when the movies don’t have to fit a theme and maybe will give me less headaches as a result.

If you like this blog, please consider donating to my Kofi page! You can also donate money to kbange@gmail.com through either Venmo or CashApp. Thank you!

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This Week in Hallmark: One Perfect Wedding

For the most part, I am relatively oblivious when it comes to how COVID-19 has caused problems for Hallmark productions. I am not one to nitpick about how many background characters are in a shot, and if the characters don’t kiss that makes sense. This is Hallmark. The movies are made on the cheap and as chaste as possible. 

However, when the franchise movies come around suddenly it’s very hard not to notice how COVID-19 has changed things. Christmas in Evergreen: Bells are Ringing was notably hampered by the pandemic with a lot of plotlines being awkwardly sidelined to Zoom calls and returning characters kept to one-off mentions. It made for the weakest entry in the series so far, which was a disappointment.

One Perfect Wedding also seems to suffer from the same problems. As someone who had never watched any of the previous entries in the series, I was surprised at how noticeable it was to me. Still, there were awkward conversations where they tried to write off family characters in a way that seemed to Streisand Effect the problem to me. Would I have noticed the mother was missing from the wedding? No. But Hallmark had to let you know why she wasn’t there so the non-engaged viewer suddenly knew there was an absence.

Even worse was the plotline saved for the bride’s best friend who is deaiing with wanting a proposal from her long distance boyfriend. In non-pandemic times, I am sure this would be a plotline that would involve them both helping to plan a wedding while he tries to hide his proposal. In pandemic times, we get him amazingly getting Zoom to work on a mountain so he can propose via Facetime in the strangest moment of the movie. It was laughably absurd and I am not sure that is how Hallmark intended it.

The pandemic’s footprints can’t only be seen in the movie though, the scheduling also definitely had to be affected by it. The previous two entries in the series were called One Winter Weekend and One Winter Proposal. Using common sense, this movie was probably supposed to be called One Winter Wedding with a premiere in either January or February. Fate interverned to make that impossible and thus the title was changed to One Perfect Wedding so that it would not seem too weird it was premiering in the middle of Hallmark’s Spring Fling event instead of its winter ones. It still was kind of weird.

In an ideal world, Hallmark would stay away from sequels until vaccine rollout is strong enough to make traveling to film things less hampering. I doubt that will happen, but it would probably be better for the films themselves if that was in the realm of possibility.

If you like this blog, please consider donating to my Kofi page! You can also donate money to kbange@gmail.com through either Venmo or CashApp. Thank you!

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This Week in Hallmark: Don’t Go Breaking My Heart

As someone who attended Christmas Con in 2019, I am aware that Ryan Paevy is hot. The people love him and his face! Good for him. 

However, as hot as he is, I always thought he was a bit stiff as a performer. He does not banter well. He is not naturally charming. He always comes across as guarded as a way that feels like a hindrance in a lightweight romantic comedy. Sometimes it feels like Hallmark is aware of this, and casts him as characters who are intentionally supposed to feel out of place and awkward. He did a series of films where he played the dog show version of Mr. Darcy. His last Christmas film had him playing a man from the 1800s who time traveled to this century. These roles work with his limitations and make them feel like a part of the character. It feels like Don’t Go Breaking My Heart is trying to go down that route somewhat by saying that his character ( a journalist writing an article about a break up seminar) is guarded because of a past broken heart that he does not want to acknowledge, but this time around it doesn’t really work. 

My guess is that it doesn’t work this time around because we are supposed to find him charming when he’s avoiding being emotionally vulnerable. Look at him failing at rock climbing! Look at him knocking people over at kickboxing! Look at him offering to photoshop George Clooney into his sister’s old photos with his ex! We are supposed to find him naturally likable right away, just a little wounded. Paevy can’t pull this off. It’s even worse when the movie requires him to be emotionally vulnerable and charming at the same time. There are emotional lynchpin scenes where we are supposed to believe that him and the break-up seminar counselor lady (played by Italia Ricci) are falling in love by bantering over their past wounds and it doesn’t work. The chemistry isn’t there. The personalities aren’t there to make you want to pretend the chemistry exists. It just is.

While I was watching this movie, I could not help but think about Italia Ricci’s old Freeform series Chasing Life, a show I was briefly obsessed with back when I was 22. One of her love interests on the show was played by Scott Michael Foster. That character is supposed to be guarded and wounded but Foster was also so charming in that role that the romance basically pushed itself to the forefront of the narrative when it was not intended to work out that way (he could only recur due to a series commitment to Blood & Oil, of all things). Yes, Foster was good looking but the romance  between the characters worked for reasons beyond attractiveness levels, as any good romance should.

Sadly, Don’t Go Breaking My Heart only has hotness going for it. And if Paevy isn’t your cup of tea, well then, I don’t think you’re going to find much here.

If you like this blog, please consider donating to my Kofi page! You can also donate money to kbange@gmail.com through either Venmo or CashApp. Thank you!

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This Week in Hallmark: Chasing Waterfalls

After a week off, Hallmark is back for springtime! That s right -- it is time for Spring Fling! Hooray? Not really. Since it’s not Christmas or June wedding season, the theme doesn’t really matter. In fact, one of the “spring” movies this year seems to take place at a winter sports resort. Thematic unity is not the name of the game this time of the year. Instead, it’s all about content, content, content. Any content will do as long as it has bland romances and vaguely conservative ideology. 

The first of the 2021 Spring Fling movies is called Chasing Waterfalls, a name that is begging everyone to make a joke about it. But I won’t. Not because I am a strong person, but because I have other things that are bothering me more. People, we need to talk about hiking.

Now, I am not a hiking aficionado. In fact, I would say I am the exact opposite of that person. I was the child who would get monstrously bored on hiking trips as a Girl Scout and that was when I was young and filled with energy. Now, I am old and filled with laziness. Hiking is not my area of expertise.

Still, I am not stupid and I resent that Chasing Waterfalls thinks that I am. This is a movie about a photographer who lands a big photography gig that revolves around finding a secret waterfall. Hijinks abound because she knows nothing about how to go about this project. She first goes hiking with non-athletic sneakers. Later on, she struggles with picking out hiking boots at a resort store. She does not know about warding off mosquitoes. She is highly out of her depth when it comes to hiking. That is what her whole arc seems to be about!

Chasing Waterfalls never once seems to address the fact that the photographer might not have the hiking fitness to find this super secret waterfall that only one person has allegedly seen before. It’s so out of the way that most of the townsfolk can’t confirm that it exists and yet not once is that seen as a reasonable obstacle in her path. Instead, it’s just about charming the local sad single father/tour guide into showing her where this waterfall is located. And that is something my brain refuses to process.

Could this movie not make the photographer a seasoned hiker who knew what boots were? Could this movie not make this waterfall so secret that by having some newbie hiker reach it feels like a cheat to the story? I feel like there were simple ways around this conundrum. And if they took this route, maybe I could have focused on other stupid things about this movie like its title or the eleven-year olds falling in love or the dumb karaoke sequence that only seems to be there to waste time.

Sadly, they did not do that. So instead, we will all suffer through my pedantry. About hiking! I never knew I could be this person! About hiking! Ugh.

If you like this blog, please consider donating to my Kofi page! You can also donate money to kbange@gmail.com through either Venmo or CashApp. Thank you!

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This Week in Hallmark: Fit for a Prince

The most interesting thing about Fit for a Prince is it’s sense of timing. For one thing, it’s a movie without a seasonal home. Hallmark Channel decided to dump it in between their Love Ever After and Spring Fling events so it feels like an after thought. I thought it was just there to have something new to premiere on Saturdays (their new calling card) but next week is not a new movie premiere, so it really is just getting dumped to be dumped so to speak. 

The more eerie sense of timing is that Fit for a Prince premiered the day before the big Harry and Meghan on Oprah interview where they were going to be discussing all the reasons why they felt it was necessary to leave the British Royal Family.  Personally, I watched this movie after the interview aired and it was an incredibly weird experience to go from reading a Twitter feed full of tweets about the terrors of being a royal to a movie that makes being a commoner falling in love with a prince seem like a dream. As this is Hallmark, of course this experience is presented with a nearly all-white cast. So I suppose the whiplash could have been weirder, but it still existed. This movie was not given a timeslot that was super beneficial to it in any way.

Outside of when it premiered though, Fit for a Prince is just like your average, low tier and low budget Hallmark movie. Not that many Hallmark movies are high budget spectacles, but you could really tell from the production values that this was not a high priority movie. For instance, the lead works at a major fashion company which apparently consists of four employees who work in a one room store who work overtime a lot. The big events all take place in the same two rooms. There is barely any jewelry. The afterthought nature of this movie is apparent in every aspect.

All that has happened in this movie has happened before and all of it will happen again. It’s Hallmark Channel. I expect average American girls will be falling in love with unhappy royal men from fake European countries  on the network for as long as their audience buys into this fantasy. And knowing what I know about Hallmark’s audience, I’m pretty comfortable that they will keep buying into this fantasy for some time. 

Hopefully next time, it will be better timed and better budgeted though.

If you like this blog, please consider donating to my Kofi page! You can also donate money to kbange@gmail.com through either Venmo or CashApp. Thank you!

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This Week in Hallmark: It Was Always You

Everything about It Was Always You was such a cliche, that it went from being boring to delightfully hilarious at a certain point. Every character would be introduced and you would know exactly why. Every scene would start and you would know exactly what purpose it would serve. To say the movie was full of Chekhov’s guns would be an insult to the nature of suspense. You see the guns. You know exactly how they are going off. You are positive they are full of love and good vibes and cishet white people having the quaint little times of their lives.

It Was Always You is about a woman (Erin Krakow) who is getting married to her childhood friend. They are both dentists. They are both boring. They fill their day with dentistry and lists. They are boring. Sometimes Erin Krakow thinks about not being boring and going to Europe (where not boring people go!), but she is getting married and being boring is fun. Or is it?

Boring Dentist Guy has a brother, (Tyler Hynes), you see. He is a free spirit who likes to travel the world and help people in a vague sense. He doesn’t eat vanilla, he eats peanut butter ice cream. He keeps yen in his pockets. He grates on Boring Woman’s nerves. But? Obviously, he doesn’t grate on her nerves for True Love Reasons. Of course not. (Of course, it is.)

Through made-up natural disaster Boring Dentist Guy can’t make it to the wedding planning for days. For days! Therefore, Freespirited Guy must help Boring Woman plan her wedding. They go to cake tastings and hate on vanilla. They go to a gift registry and hate on white plates. They go talk to a Grandmother Who Knows Better who tells us about marrying your opposite and the concept of “zing”, which is the closest Hallmark will get to acknowledging sexual compatibility in their movies every time soon. 

This movie is like a well-scheduled train. It is reaching every station in a timely fashion to get you to a planned destination and it’s making sure there’s limited pain for its characters along the way. In some ways, its admirable. In some ways, it feels like too much.

The movie culminates in a scene where one character (guess who!) tells another (guess who!) that he’s only been in love once and it never has stopped. “It’s always been you,” they say as they dance under the moonlight. There is not a speck of parody to be found in the scene. Just a very sincere title drop for a very sincere movie that plays through every one of Hallmark’s favorite tropes with absolutely sincerity.

I could not stop laughing.

If you like this blog, please consider donating to my Kofi page! You can also donate money to kbange@gmail.com through either Venmo or CashApp. Thank you!

[popculturecraziness]

This Week in Hallmark: Mix Up in the Mediterranean 

For the past month or so I have been flirting with the idea of bringing back this column in some capacity. It seemed like the perfect low stakes way to start kick myself out of a PTSD fog that has settled in over the past couple of months that has not been helped by my lack of employment and complete self-isolation. Still, a variety of factors were holding me back from fully committing to jumping into writing again -- there are so many podcasts that cover these movies now that to add to it would just be white, it can be hard to write anything when you are struggling mentally, I would have to watch the new movies as airing a majority of the time since I don’t have Hallmark on Sling anymore, etc. etc. etc.

But then I read that once again Hallmark was going to have its first gay lead (I guess more people called them out on how there was no way The Christmas House counted) and that this time it was going to happen because Jeremy Jordan (an actor who is at best not openly in the LGBT community, but is married to a woman) was going to play twins -- one of them is gay and one of them is straight and they have to switch places for plot contrivance reasons so shenanigans can ensue! For the first time in a long time I was like, I have to see how this plays out. There is so much potential for messiness here and I want to form an opinion on it all. So here I am dusting off this column to do just that.

In the end, most of the most bewildering choices in Mix Up in the Mediterranean take place in the first twenty minutes. For instance, the event that kicks off the twins switching places plot is the Gay Twin Brother touching a medium-sized suitcase and throwing his back out. You learn that the initial character descriptions given to these twins is that the Straight Twin Brother works in a diner in Alaska and wears flannel while the Gay Twin Brother pretends that he’s French sometimes in New York City (also he has a weird French rival??).  There is the horrifying moment when you figure out that the movie takes place at an international cooking competition and yet every character with more than five lines is going to be white. On a personal level, there was the slow dawning realization that the Gay Twin Brother’s husband was played by Callum Blue aka The Guy Who Was Not Chris Pine in The Princess Diaries 2. These first twenty minutes also feature the most acting choices on Jordan’s part that remind you of James Corden’s acting in The Prom, a position that no actor should strive to be in. I felt like I was getting whiplash from all the choices this movie seemed to be making as it was starting out, and I thought that there was no way I was going to get through the whole movie with my eyeballs still in place in my head.

Thankfully, the movie mellowed out as it went along. It was still more bizarre than your average Hallmark joint -- there is a subplot about obtaining illegal truffles -- but as Jessica Lowndes’s character and her wane subplot with the Straight Twin Brother gains more prominence, the movie becomes happier to just ride the bland romantic comedy energy the channel is known for. 

In fact as I was watching it, I became less interested in the story and more interested in recognizing how Mix Up in the Mediterranean compares to other Hallmark films as an illustration of its diversity initiatives. In particular, I think there is a fascinating compare and contrast to be had with this movie and The Christmas House when it comes to representation-- both movies revolve have stories that revolve around brothers of differing sexualities after all.  While Mix Up in the Mediterranean has a more prominent role for its gay brother and gives him more of an arc, all of it is centered around his relationship with his straight brother. At times the movie gives off a vibe that the only reason why one of the brothers is gay is to make it easier for the actor playing the twins to differentiate the performances which is ... yikes. On the other hand, The Christmas House lets their gay characters actually have a plot that centers their romance. Their development is about them as a couple. The gay brother in the movie is also played by an out gay actor which leads to less cringeworthy moments. Still, they are a relatively minor plot of the story as a whole. These movies have strengths and weaknesses that compliment one another to a point where its frustrating. So many steps forward, so many steps back!

The other movie I thought of while watching, was Switched for Christmas, a 2017 Candace Cameron Bure vehicle that also involved twins switching places and shenanigans ensuing. Switched for Christmas was the movie I thought about while trying to determine if I should give Mix Up in the Mediterranean credit for having the first gay lead on Hallmark and its ultimately what made me decide it should not count. You see, in Switched for Christmas both of the twins have romantic arcs and career arcs and their shared family arc. Both twins get equal screentime and narrative footing and chances to grow. Mix Up in the Mediterranean does not let its twins have the same equality-- everything the Gay Twin Brother does is directly in relation to his Straight Twin Brother. The Straight Twin Brother learns about having confidence and falling in love and repairing his relationship with his twin. The Gay Twin Brother just learns about repairing his relationship with his twin. It’s certainly more narrative weight than any gay character has been given on the channel before, but at best, the Gay Twin Brother is a deuteragonist and not a True Lead, especially when compared to the twins in Switched at Christmas.

Mix Up in the Meditterranean is by no means good, but it provides a lot to think about for a person who cares about Hallmark growing to be better. It was certainly worth dusting off the old blog. And who knows, maybe next week I will be back to talk about Erin Krakow’s bangs in It Was Always You. If Hallmark can continue to work on itself, I can continue to work on myself too and why not do that through talking about Hallmark films?

If you like this blog, please consider donating to my Kofi page! You can also donate money to kbange@gmail.com through either Venmo or CashApp. Thank you!

[popculturecraziness]

This Week in Hallmark: Wedding Every Weekend

Back in the day, before Facebook became known for election hacking and your aunt’s bad political opinions, Facebook had “groups”. They were little clubs you would display on your page that would show off your value system. Some of them were straightforward “High Schoolers for Barack Obama”, some of them were problematic in retrospect, “Finish Your Drink There Are Sober Kids in Africa”. The one I think about most often these days though is “My Friends are Getting Married, I’m Just Getting Drunk”.

“My Friends are Getting Married, I’m Just Getting Drunk” was a place where the perpetually single people of the world could allegedly come together and bemoan how the only thing about weddings they have to look forward to where the constant open bars. They did this mainly via Wedding Crashers quotes, because it was 2006 and society still thought Wedding Crashers had a lot to add to the cultural consciousness. I was fourteen at the time I joined and had no business really relating, but I thought it was funny and I knew I would get to that vibe someday. My friends would be getting married, and I would be getting drunk.

Wedding Every Weekend feels like what would happen if someone decided to adapt “My Friends are Getting Married, I’m Just Getting Drunk” for Hallmark. Since this movie is for Hallmark though, the friends would be getting married but the perpetual singletons would not be getting drunk. No, open bars as a concept don’t even merit a mention in Wedding Every Weekend. Instead the vibe of Wedding Every Weekend was, “My Friends Are Getting Married, I’m Just Thinking About My Small Business”.

Wedding Every Weekend is fine. For a movie that is only 83 minutes long, it feels incredibly padded. For instance the male lead, played by Paul Campbell, has an incredibly boring subplot where he thinks about what cars he is going to remodel to keep his business afloat. It’s entirely there just to make him a more rounded character, and normally I am all for more-rounded  characters but not when the plot devices are so boring. It’s especially insane because Paul Campbell’s character, Edgar Nate (he has two names because he hates his first name!) has a tragic romantic backstory that is supposed to explain why he is so cynical. This backstory is dealt with in about 30 seconds even though you would think it was a more natural romantic roadblock than the car thing, but Wedding Every Weekend really, really cares about small businesses. Edgar Nate’s car remodeling business, the female lead (played by Kimberly Sustad)’s plot line about opening up her own physical therapy clinic ... they take up a lot of screen time. If you would ask me these small business are as important to the narrative as the weekend weddings that are in the title of the movie.

And well, that’s why we are here, aren’t we? I have buried the lede because the true story of Wedding Every Weekend isn’t the romantic comedy about two people who fall in love while going to weddings ... every ... weekend. No, it’s about Hallmark falling in love with diversity! For the first time, Hallmark has decided to acknowledge non-straight people exist. And they do so in a way that feels more than perfunctory, too! The two LGBT characters not only get married, but they kiss on screen. They not only kiss onscreen but they get to have multiple lines afterwards that allude to their domestic life. The couple mentions buying a home, and going on honeymoon and having people over to drink wine. They are decently rounded characters who are not just relegated as a blink and you miss it background wedding; they are one of the more important weddings in the plot of the movie. You have to give Hallmark like the world’s tiniest amount of props for not just hiding their first real case of representation in the background. 

But only like the super tiniest amount of props, because for all that this is a step forward for the channel, the representation is still very backgrounded and still came with a bevy of press that makes me feel cynical that this is more than making up for the Zales ad fiascos of 2019. Maybe Hallmark’s future line-up will prove me wrong on this front. Only time will tell. But I am a pessimist at heart, and that’s why I’m not getting married. I’m just getting drunk. Cheers!

[popculturecraziness]

You Can Not Be Putting Me in the Trunk!: Some Thoughts on The Bounty Hunter on Its Tenth Anniversary

People test their endurance in a variety of ways. Some people climb mountains. Others run marathons. Others still go into the wilderness for weeks on end without technology or means of communication and see if they can survive.

I watch bad movies.

If you know me and you love me, you will become privy to my habit of testing my fortitude against millions of poorly reviewed for fun. Frankly, you don’t even have to love me. If you are acquainted with me in the slightest, at a certain point you will become aware of the fact that a poor Rotten Tomatoes score is a fun and enticing challenge to me, the way qualifying for the Boston Marathon would be to a both mentally and physically healthier person. 

This weakness of mine began in earnest back in January of 2009, when my cousin and I paid to sit through the Anne Hathaway- Kate Hudson “friends ruining their lives because they want to get married at The Plaza Hotel” advertisement Bride Wars. I predicted all of its plot twists fifteen minutes in, wrote a pan of it for a journalism class assignment and realized that a movie didn’t have to be good in order to be a good time. 

(Honestly, it probably started way before that, but Bride Wars was when the lesson truly clicked for me.)

Therefore, the following year, when I read that The Bounty Hunter was in the single digits on Rotten Tomatoes, I called my cousin in excitement and told her that we had to go see it. It’s bad. It’s terrible. It must be fun! So on a weekend in March, ten years ago, my mother and I dropped us off to see a film that Roger Ebert wrote “had no reason to exist”. My mother could not understand the logic behind such a choice, but we were excited. We were gonna have some laughs! We were gonna see a terrible movie and we were gonna have a good time!

That did not happen. The Bounty Hunter was not full of laughs, or any good times. It was terrible though -- just endless agony as you waited for it to end. Over the years, I have discovered that some films do not stick with you because they provide you memorable moments or characters. Instead, the feeling they give you leaves a mark on your soul. If you asked me what exactly happened in The Bounty Hunter a week ago, I would not have been able to tell you much outside of the fact that Jason Sudekis was annoying. However, I can still feel what it was like to sit in that theater without a watch wondering just how long this film could possibly go on for. I can picture the ceiling of the theater clearly in my mind as I counted tiles wondering if I was soon going to be free. The pain of sitting through that movie stuck with me so intrinsically, that if you asked me to name my top five worst movie-going experiences I would know to include The Bounty Hunter in that list even if I could not list off all the reasons why exactly I hated it. 

Rewatching The Bounty Hunter ten years later was a ride. Mainly because I was rediscovering all the many ways it was bad. For instance, the entire film revolves around a potential murder case where the victim remains an offscreen plot device we never care about. The reasons why Jennifer Aniston has a bounty on her head in the first place is given similar thought and nuance. There is a dumb sideplot with Jason Sudekis having a creepy crush on Jennifer Aniston that leads him to follow her across the state. This plot goes nowhere, but does waste what feels like hours upon hours of screentime as we hilariously watch him get tortured at a certain point. Every needledrop, including two Kesha songs, is lazy and uninspired. Really, the whole movie is lazy and uninspired. At least with an Adam Sandler joint, you realize that they were conning a studio to pay for their vacation. The Bounty Hunter doesn’t even give you that satisfaction. They were all just not trying just to not try.

The sad thing is that I think I would have forgiven The  Bounty Hunter all of its many flaws if Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler had any chemistry. They do not. There is not a single moment in this film where I believed those characters even liked each other and yet the movie wanted me to believe they loved each other. They loved each other so much that other characters kept commenting on how it inspired them! You were supposed to want these two people to get remarried so badly, and yet all I could think of was that it was for the best that they were divorced. These two are a chemistry black hole in this movie, and my standards for chemistry are not all that high (I watch a ton of made-for-TV movies). Honestly, I do not think Aniston or Butler could make When Harry Met Sally work and that’s a great movie with a great script. They are just that bad.

Does that mean that Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal could have made The Bounty Hunter work? I kind of doubt it, but the idea of Billy Crystal taking on that role did make me laugh so hard I cried. On that note, I do not think that Meg Ryan or Tom Hanks could have necessarily pulled this script off either, though I would have loved to see them try. You know who this script would have been perfect for? Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson in like 2006. The movie still would have been bad, but it’s not like How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days was a cinematic masterpiece and still I have friends who swear by it mainly on the basis of their chemistry and few good set pieces. I think, if anyone could have made The Bounty Hunter not unbearably terrible, it could have been them. 

Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson were not the leads of The Bounty Hunter though. And while you can imagine them in your head if you want to, you will still have to settle for the boring, charisma-free leads you have when you are actually watching. Even ten years on, it’s still not very fun.

[popculturecraziness]

Top 10 of 2018

For the first time in a long time, I was able to have two feet on solid ground for an entire year. My personal life managed to avoid having grand tragedies for an entire year, and I finally found the sense of stability I was looking for.

As a result, it felt like I was finally able to enjoy watching movies in a way I couldn’t in previous years. It really made me aware of how half of the moviegoing experience is what you bring to it. Sometimes a movie reaches you, and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes you watch something at a time when you shouldn’t and as a result it lands with a thud. Sometimes you watch something at the exact right moment and it hits a homerun. It’s impossible to watch every movie in ideal circumstances. It’s impossible to pretend that we did.

So I’m not going to pretend my Top 10 is filled with the objectively best films of 2018. I don’t know what that list would look like, or what it should be.  I don’t think anyone does. Instead this list is one of the films that stuck with me the most throughout the year. The films that managed to make me think or smile or cry at a moment when I needed to think or smile or cry. They are the films that had the most value to me at the end of the year. I saw 190 new releases throughout 2018, and these are the ones that managed to connect with me the most. There’s something to that, I think. Or well, at least, I hope.

10. Game Night

I was having a tough time filling this spot on my list. In my head it became a slot for a movie I enjoyed but with some type of reservation. The one thing they all had in common was that they would make me feel smart for including it in my Top 10. Black Panther, Burning, If Beale Street Could Talk, Widows, The Favourite... all films that would certainly make me look like I understood the film year I was talking about. Look at me! I know what we are supposed to care about! I get it. And I probably could have written a good rundown of my enjoyment of each of those films if I wanted. “I liked it, with some reservations!” was certainly was the basis of my Top 10 of 2017 list.

However, while trolling through that tier of “I liked it, with some reservations!” films I saw my review of Game Night, and in what felt like a divine moment, I knew what was going to end up making the list. Game Night is an over the top comedy that was squarely aimed right at my heart from the moment the two leads met while playing bar trivia. Broad yet smart, willing to hide gags in its plot that I didn’t realize existed until months after and filled with top-notch comedic performances we should have talked about more (we failed you, Jesse Plemmons), Game Night is the type of film that lends itself to being rewatched time and time again when you’re having a bad day. It’s not fancy, but in it’s weird, “people getting sucked into planes” way it’s comforting. Movies like that matter just as much as the ones that make you feel like you are using your full IQ to understand. So thank you Game Night for the laughs.

9. Shoplifters

In what may be the biggest cinematic crime of 2018, my dad called me during the climatic scene of Shoplifters. He called me so much that he bypassed the Do Not Disturb function on my phone. Thinking it was an emergency, I stepped outside the theater to call my Dad and realize that he wanted help with his Roku (a machine I do not own) and that he needed help with picking a movie on Netflix (after six minutes, he finally went with the suggestion of Outlaw King). 

It’s not very often that I get jealous of the critics who get screeners and get invited to screenings, who are able to make careers out of seeing everything and anything and figuring out what is worth other people’s time. But in that moment, I did. I wish I had the time and resources to go back and see the six minutes of Shoplifters I missed. I feel like I would be able to rank it much higher on this top ten if I did. Shoplifters is a gorgeous movie about what it means to be a family, and what we are willing to do to keep together as one. It’s emotional, it’s heartwrenching, but it’s always filled with love. I wish I could have seen the moments where the story reached its peaks, instead of standing outside, looking at a photo of Nicole Kidman in Destroyer while going through my Dad’s Netflix queue with him.

On the bright side, my dad did enjoy Outlaw King. So, at least one of us got something out of that phone call.

8. Wildlife

Finding yourself is one of the hardest things to do. It’s true if you are a young teen trying to make sense of who you are going to be. It’s true if you are a man who is trying to find a new career after years of thinking yourself to be something else. It’s true if you are a woman who thought of herself as a wife and mother and suddenly realized that there were other aspects of herself that were waiting to be explored. Finding yourself is hard. And it is an endless process. 

Wildlife paints this truth in a lovely, understated way. Finding yourself isn’t as grand and lush as cinema usually presents it to be. Usually, it’s quiet and kind of messy. Usually, there are hurt people in your wake. Living your best life might lead to collateral damage to others. Wildlife manages to let this be a truth without letting it overwhelm you in sadness. It’s a minor miracle in that sense.

7. Cold War

My expectations were high for Cold War, and in some ways I left disappointed. It wasn’t the perfect, tragic love story I thought it was going to be. In particular, the beginning of the love story at its center was too opaque for my personal taste and the ending too on the nose.

However, I haven’t stopped thinking about Cold War since I left the theater. It’s the kind of film that stays in your mind, the kind that makes you want to read everything you can about what other people are saying about. Cold War is the film that revitalizes the inner film-lover in a person and that’s invaluable in a world filled with thousands of releases to sift through on a yearly basis.

And on a technical level? It’s perfect. It’s cinematography doesn’t waste a single shot. It’s soundtrack is perfectly compiled, with songs being rearranged and translated to let you know that the world is changing. It doesn’t dilly-dally between scenes and is willing to let less be more. Plus, it has the best coats you’ll see on screen all year! Maybe that doesn’t mean anything to you, but it means so much to me. A top ten worthy achievement, if you ask me. 

6. What They Had

What They Had was saddled with the weirdest release schedule of any film I wanted to see all year. It was in and out of New York theaters in a blink of an eye, and I was lucky to be able to catch it when it randomly emerged at one of the New Jersey arthouses I frequent. I saw it in a theater without heat, and the fact that I didn’t feel like complaining about how cold I was while seeing it probably nominates it for conclusion on this top ten list all on its own.

What They Had has turned out to be a hidden gem of the 2018. A moving portrait of a family in various stages of crisis, who are trying to figure out the central crisis of the moment: what to do about the mother who is suffering from Alzheimer’s and the father who is unwilling to let her go and recognize the end of their love story. From top to bottom, What They Had boasts one of the best ensembles of the year. Robert Forrester especially manages to hit the exact right notes of a gruff father who doesn’t know how to handle that his personal world is ending.

What They Had was forgotten in theaters, but hopefully it is able to find an audience when it reaches streaming. It deserves one.

5. The Old Man & The Gun

The Old Man & The Gun is many things, but most strikingly, it is a tribute to the age of the movie star. We don’t have many of them left now. Famous actors are either rending their garments in a bid to gain awards, or signing up for whatever superhero movie will have them in a bid to gain money. There’s no more room for performances that get by on a twinkle in the eye and a suave set of charisma. Cinema doesn’t have a place for them anymore, and The Old Man & the Gun seems to recognize it while giving Robert Redford a swan song for the ages.

It’s a performance that’s going to be forgotten by most awards giving bodies, but it’s my favorite performance of the year easy. Redford charms and charms and charms and you can easily tell why so many bank tellers are willing to just give away their money to this man. He cons the audience just as well as he cons his marks. It’s not all just easy smiles and winning politeness though, Redford lets you know the depth that lurks beneath the surface. The trouble his character has letting his old life go, the trouble his character has doing anything else. It’s moving in a way that a film about a bunch of old bank robbers shouldn’t be.

There’s no greater character study in cinema this year. And no film had a more perfect ending in my estimation. I’m sad to see Robert Redford retire, but more importantly I’m sad that movies like this are becoming such a rarity.

4. Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse

Back in October, I was lucky enough to be at the NYCC panel where they screened the first 35 minutes of the film. And even though the animation wasn’t complete and even though I hadn’t seen the full story, even then I knew, that there was’t going to be a better animated film in 2018. 

2018 in animation for the most part felt tiring. There were a lot of sequels that were generally good, but nothing awe-inspiring. There were a lot of dump-offs whose names I couldn’t remember if I tried. There was the problematic Isle of Dogs and the uninspired The Grinch. For the longest time I was worried that the genre was hitting a rough patch, happier to do what worked in the past than forge ahead and try new things.

Thankfully, Spider-man swooped in to save the day. The animation was inventive and bold and playful. The story was funny and heartfelt and fun. Everything about it felt fresh and exciting, and like a bold call to animation studios everywhere that more could be done with the medium. Spider-man: Into the Spiderverse was a reminder of why I love animation and why I love comics. It changed the game by going back to what was lovable about the mediums it was working from, and became the most fun film of the year in the process.

3. Can You Ever Forgive Me?

I hated all the parts of myself that I could see in Lee Israel. The loneliness. The sense that life owed you more than you were given. The belief that you deserved to be recognized more for how smart you are. It wasn’t close to being a mirror image, but it felt like a warning shot all the same: you could end up like this if you wanted to, you can see the ugliest parts of yourself become the most prominent.

Can You Ever Forgive Me? isn’t a comfortable movie to watch. It’s not one that leaves room for fuzzy feelings. It’s a film that rolls around in some of the ugliest of human emotions, but it’s a film that lets you understand where those emotions are coming from. It paints a full portrait of the criminal and her life, and in doing so lets you become empathetic to a character who may seem like the most loathsome of people. The thing that the film doesn’t let you forget though is that we all have that type of loathsome person within us, that we all can end up becoming our worst selves if we’re just as lonely and desperate. It has a beating heart underneath all the ugliness that I found impossible to resist.

2. Eighth Grade

I grew up in the millennial era, but there is so much about Eighth Grade that I found intensely relatable. All the scenes where Kayla spends minutes trying to get the perfect angle for her snapchat feed? I saw my Saturdays wasting millions of hours posing in front of my digital camera in a sad attempt to get the perfect Myspace photo. The scenes where Kayla awkwardly tries to fit in with friend groups and ends up striking out? I saw my one time valiantly trying to find a friend group of my own. The scene at the end where she talks to her dad wondering if he’s disappointed in her? It’s the kind of talk I always wish I did have with my dad.

Eighth Grade is every painful moment you remember living through when you were a young teen, and its a miracle it didn’t end up being the most miserable film of the year. Instead it finds the humanity in the humiliations, and the hope that lives at the end of the day. Maybe, your past was awkward and lonely but it doesn’t mean the future can’t be and it doesn’t mean you can’t find pride in yourself at the end of the day. The fact that Kayla is able to do that ends up being one of the most moving things I have scene at the movies this year.

1. Minding the Gap

I wasn’t expecting much from a documentary about skateboarders who board to escape their troubled home lives, especially after seeing the dreadful mid90s the week before. What I got was the biggest emotional catharsis of 2018, one that was so strong that I had to pause the movie and watch it over two days because I had just become so emotional.

I don’t have a ton in common with the subjects of Minding the Gap. I am a white female who grew up in the New Jersey suburbs. They are for the most part minority men who grew up in the Rust Belt. I wasn’t expecting to find much of a common ground with the film, but it ended up hitting on some hard truths I don’t like thinking about in my daily life. The way your parents shape you. How your parents can hurt you deeply, but you still love them anyway (even if it’s not the wisest thing). The worries that all you took from your parents are their worst qualities and how you won’t be able to avoid passing down similar hurts to the ones you love. And most importantly, the things we use to escape those fears. The hobbies and friendships that help us get through the day to day. 

Watching Minding the Gap was like going to therapy in some ways, and it was proof that film has a way of unraveling in us the things we don’t want to face while letting us reach the emotional catharsises we need. It may seem like a throwaway documentary about skateboarding, but it’s the most essential film of the year to me. It still brings about a strong, pure emotional reaction when I think about it months later.

I didn’t know that was possible with film. But like with many things, I was proven wrong.

[popculturecraziness]

Top 10 of 2017

It feels like most everyone’s Top 10 lists for 2017 start with a discussion about how movies got them through an incredibly. That no matter how rough things had gotten, movies reminded them that there was still some good in the world, that not everything was suffocating and depressing.

I didn’t get that feeling.

It was hard to love movies this year. Was it because I went through a personal crisis of some magnitude over the summer? Was it because the world seemed to fall apart at its seems with a president who implicitly confirmed every fear I had about the country I lived in? Was it because the Weinstein Scandal, and all the scandals following made me feel guilty for even getting joy out of the film industry? Was it because movies this year were a little more mediocre than usual or that I didn’t have the time to deep dive into foreign releases like I usually do?

I don’t know. It’s probably a mixture of all these things anyway. 

But this year wasn’t a complete bust, and I refuse to let a bad year fully take me away from things I get enjoyment from. And I did get some enjoyment out of the 180 new releases I saw this year, and I love taking note of why I loved my Top 10 movies every year. So here it is, a little bit more lean than usual, but still a record of the best films I saw in 2017.

10. Molly’s Game

It probably says something about how little the film year charmed me when Aaron Sorkin cracks the top ten, but what can I say? It falls into all the regular Sorkin pitfalls but they’re so much more tolerable when it’s a woman at the certain of the action instead of a Great Man. Plus, the poker scenes are just so much fun.

9. Coco

In a year where the mainstream animation crop was a bit of a bust, Coco was a relief. A wonderful, colorful reminder of just how meaningful and beautiful animation is, and how perfectly it can be deployed to tell stories.

8. Get Out

At the time I saw Get Out, it was February. I liked it quite a bit, but I figured that 2017 was just getting started and that better films would be in the pipeline. How dumb was I though to think that films were going to be much smarter or funnier or incisive than Get Out though? So so dumb.

7. Lucky

This movie probably could have made my Top 10 list for the runner of scenes where David Lynch’s character loses and mourns and accepts the disappearance of his runaway pet turtle, but it’s so much more than that. It’s a look at aging and routine and mortality, that hits hard with its bittersweetness. Harry Dean Stanton accidentally picked the perfect final project.

6. John Wick: Chapter Two

Is John Wick: Chapter Two reinventing the wheel? Not really. But it sure is spinning that wheel to perfection. I’m not really an action movie person, but there is something soothing to watching Keanu Reeves fight his way through bad situations in formal wear. My heart goes pitter-patter at the excellently choreographed action sequences, and I’m anxiously awaiting Chapter 3.

5. The Post

The Post is Oscar-bait, but it’s Steven Spielberg Oscar-bait. Therefore it’s Oscar bait that knows exactly what it’s doing. From the top down, every element comes together to tell a story that feels perfectly timely given the current political era we find ourselves in. And Meryl Streep’s caftan! You can’t beat it!

4. Phantom Thread

It feels like there is no film this year that perfectly brings together all of its technical elements. Everything from Mark Bridges costuming to Johnny Greenwood’s score comes together in a way that perfectly adds to the atmosphere of the story its telling. And it is that story that puts Phantom Thread on my Top 10 list, because for better or for worse, I don’t think there’s going to be a last act in film I think about more this year than Phantom Thread’s. 

3. Columbus

A film where every frame has a purpose. A script where every conversation, even the off-kilter and random ones, seems to be leading to something, even if it’s not obvious. A reminder that we should be giving John Cho more opportunities. It’s a shame we didn’t talk more about Columbus.

2. The Florida Project

I’m happy Willem Dafoe is getting all the recognition he deserves for this movie, but I wish it was popping up in other places. An empathetic look at the areas of the United States of America we should be looking more at, and the film with possibly my favorite cinematography of the year.

1. Ladybird

As soon as I left the theater, I knew that no film was going to top Ladybird for me. A wise, warm, funny looking at growing up and moving on, and learning to love all the rough aspects in our relationships with our friends and our mothers and ourselves. In a year where it felt like I couldn’t connect with any movie, I connected with Ladybird deeply. And that means everything to me.

[popculturecraziness]

Keep those hallmark reviews coming, there's nobody else out there doing this!!

I just want everyone to know that I am planning on getting back to this, but well, my laptop was stolen a couple months back and I'm moving and I started a new job and blahblahblah. So I gotta get that all settled first. But hopefully, I'll be back in the Hallmark game soon. Definitely by Christmas. That's an obligation at this point.