#michael esper

[ruta-did-a-thing]

Shades of Blue 1.03 - False Face, False Heart

↳ Lt. Matt Wozniak x Donnie Pomp

[rickchung]

Pavements (dir. Alex Ross Perry) x VIFF 2024.

It's a complex but hilariously multifaceted riff on the typical kinds of music vanity projects we usually get, including artist-sanctioned documentaries, jukebox stage musicals, or self-important biographical dramas like Bohemian Rhapsody.

[alice-ness]

city of the damned!

[haveyouseenthisseries-poll]

[greendayauthority]

[nigesakis]

Trust (2018) | 7. Kodachrome

[moritzakgae]

bass player jgj for the jgjheads of this world

[securityholograms]

green day’s american idiot

[thishadoscarbuzz]

321 - Ben is Back

Guess who's back in the house?! We finally close the loop on the 2018 troubled son trifecta of films with Ben is Back, a grim Christmas tale of a family in the throws of addiction recovery. Lucas Hedges stars as the titular Ben, who returns home from a recovery center for the holiday, and against the advice of his sponsor. Ben's presence is somewhat unwelcome, even with the complicated feelings of his doting mother (played by Julia Roberts), and it's not long before the demons of his addiction come to haunt. The film lingered just outside of predictions in a competitive year before an unceremonious and short-lived December release.

This episode, we talk about the film's portrait of the opioid crisis and the career of writer/director Peter Hedges. We also talk about the 2018 Best Actress race, the film's very quiet TIFF premiere, and the unfulfilled potential of the August: Osage County adaptation.

Topics also include "that's Ben," being an uncle, and the AARP's Best Intergenerational Film.

The 2018 Academy Awards

Vulture's Movies Fantasy League

Subscribe:

Patreon

Spotify

Apple Podcasts

[homecoming]

let’s start a war, shall we?

[expensivemistake]

amy lennox & michael esper as elly & valentine in 'lazarus'

[gameofthunder66]

The Outsider (2020) tv series

-(finished) watchin' Season 1- 3/19/2024- 2 [3/4] stars- on Max

The book was much better in my opinion.

[alice-ness]

who was gonna tell me about the scott pilgrim shirt.

[ruleof3bobby]

THE CREATOR (2023) Grade: B-

The visuals were great & some cool looking shots. The script wasn't like a Nolan film for sure. Little on the nose and long. Still like John David Washington, he turned a good performance.

[twittercomfrnklin2001-blog]

Appropriate

APPROPRIATE by Branden Jacobs-Jennings directed by Lila Neugebauer: I fidget a lot at the theatre because of my knee and, this trip, a sore shoulder from taking the wrong computer bag. During the first act of Branden Jacobs-Jennings searing, often blisteringly funny portrait of American life at its worst, I barely moved. And when Sarah Paulson dove into one of her many beautifully played tirades, I had to remind myself to breathe. I wish I could say the same for the second act, but I think the first scene could use some judicious pruning. It just feels more like making points and marking time until the big eruptions in the next scene. Paulson is Toni, a bitter divorcee who’s spent most of her life caring for a family that’s drifted away. One brother (Corey Stoll) is a businessman consumed by his life in New York. Another (Michael Esper) has a history of drug addiction and various crimes, great and small. With her father’s death, she’s trying to settle the estate, a dilapidated, overstuffed former plantation in Arkansas. Complicating matters are the presence of Esper’s spiritual girlfriend (Ella Beatty), charges of anti-Semitism from Stoll’s wife (Natalie Gold) and the discovery of racist memorabilia among daddy’s belongings. Did he collect them or were they just left behind by the previous owners? Most of the cast does solid work, with particularly strong support from Stoll, though Esper had projection problems. Nor does it help that he’s settled with a lengthy monolog at the wrong point in the play. It’s not just that you keep losing lines; you may wonder why nobody tells him to get to the point. The insertion of the racism question adds another level to the play. As the family try to justify daddy’s behavior, the play creates a great dialog with AMERICAN ROT, my Friday night piece. Is saying “those were different times” enough to let someone off the hook? And were they really that different?