Megan Watches Movies

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Bottoms

 

I am going to do a trio of comedies that I LOVED this summer, which school hasn't started in California so it's still summer for me. The first off is the one I saw most recently and the one that I think is being talked about the most: Bottoms.

 

When I saw the trailer for Bottoms my entire brain exploded because I knew that I was going to get the high school comedy I've been waiting for like my entire life. And this movie still managed to surprise me in so many unexpected ways. I mean this in the best way, it's unhinged. The thing that works about Bottoms is that it feels like every person involved in this movie is committed to it from top to bottom. From Rachel Sennott and Emma Seligman's script to Seligman's direction to every actor and to even the fact that Elizabeth Banks produces this movie. This movie works because everybody is committed 110% to every bit. But even through how unhinged it is, Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri manage to create such a genuine emotional core of two best friends facing a genuine conflict in their friendship. Also, it's just really really funny. Not just the performances from the leads but even the set and prop design. I mean you can even see in this gif you have the obvious joke of the principal calling the "ugly, untalented gays" to the office but in the back you have Marshawn Lynch interacting with a student in a CAGE. There's an attention to detail to making it seem wholly realistic that in this universe, a high school lesbian fight club is possible.

 

I don't think that Bottoms is for everybody. But you'll definitely get the sense of whether or not it's for you from the trailer. If you were MEH on the trailer or didn't think it was a movie for you, it's probably not. But I had a great time. And it's definitely going to be one of my top movies of the year.

[totes4totes]

 

Joy Ride (2023)

 

For whatever reason, I feel like this movie really flew under the radar! But this was actually one of the movies I was MOST excited for this summer. I just love a raunchy comedy and this delivered on all fronts.

 

It says a lot about the world that in 2023 that I am impressed by the fact that basically from the top down every important role in this movie is filled by an Asian person. Three of the co-producers are the director Adele Lim and the screenwriters Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao. The four leads are obviously Asian. The composer, editor, and cinematographer are all Asian as well. It's not something that you really see and IDK maybe more movies need to follow this route! (Kind of like how everybody involved in Bottoms is queer! We get more interesting stories when that happens!). Because with Hollywood the way it is, movies that are diverse stories tend to succeed critically (maybe and unfortunately not commercially at times) because they have to be better and funnier just to get made.

 

And this movie is FUNNY. I was worried when I first saw the trailer that the joke gif'd above would be like the funniest moment and they just blew it in the trailer. Because that joke is SO funny. I was pleasantly surprised that wasn't the case. Because this movie is so absurd that masturbating to Splinter just fits in. But I like that gifset for another reason, it displays the like tension that runs through the movie with Ashley Park's Audrey who is a interracial adoptee into a white family. And how that shapes her Asian identity compared to her best friend Lolo (Sherry Cola) whose parents immigrated from China.

 

I didn't think going in to this movie that I would end up crying and yet I did! I famously cry at A LOT of movies, but typically in a comedy like this I can hold myself together and cry because I'm laughing. But there's a solid emotional core in this. With Ashley trying to figure out her identity as an Asian woman. With the friendship portrayed between the four leads. With how casually the queerness of the characters is just a part of them (between the beginning of the movie and the epilogue we don't see it but Sabrina Wu's character has come out as non-binary and the way the movie just shifts from using she/her to they/them pronouns is just something that was nice to see because we don't get a lot of movies with queer characters where the coming out isn't the entirety of the story line. Deadeye being non-binary is just another part of their character and the most important part is their friendship with the other three).

 

Anyway, this movie is so good. And again it's probably not for everybody but it's a really excellent and very much R-Rated comedy. I'd urge you to see it because I feel it was really slept on this summer when it was very much in my Top 3 movies I've seen this year.

[Alex95]

Scrolling past Joy Ride which I've been meaning to watch but haven't gotten around to yet. Agree this has been such a good summer of comedies (hoping Theater Camp is the one that completes your trio though I also loved No Hard Feelings if it's that). Bottoms was genius though and specifically made for me. I was actually kinda worried going into it because I didn't love Shiva Baby. But all the chaotic direction of Shiva Baby that was transferred over to Bottoms worked. I loved that they went absurdist and they walked the line of that tone perfectly. The entire ensemble was strong, but Edibiri completely steals the show for me. Her monologue about her gay pastor husband is already an all-timer monologue for me. Galitzine was pretty brilliant as well and eats up the screen with every bit of screentime he got. I was thoroughly entertained the entire time, but the ending football scene and just how far they went with it solidified it as one of the movies of the year.

[totes4totes]

On 10/1/2023 at 9:16 AM, Alex95 said:

Scrolling past Joy Ride which I've been meaning to watch but haven't gotten around to yet. Agree this has been such a good summer of comedies (hoping Theater Camp is the one that completes your trio though I also loved No Hard Feelings if it's that). Bottoms was genius though and specifically made for me. I was actually kinda worried going into it because I didn't love Shiva Baby. But all the chaotic direction of Shiva Baby that was transferred over to Bottoms worked. I loved that they went absurdist and they walked the line of that tone perfectly. The entire ensemble was strong, but Edibiri completely steals the show for me. Her monologue about her gay pastor husband is already an all-timer monologue for me. Galitzine was pretty brilliant as well and eats up the screen with every bit of screentime he got. I was thoroughly entertained the entire time, but the ending football scene and just how far they went with it solidified it as one of the movies of the year.

I actually haven't seen Theater Camp yet (spoiler it's No Hard Feelings and I was coming here to post my write-up on that). It's on my list to watch but I'm afraid that it's going to remind me so much of high school that I've been putting it off. I know Joy Ride must be widely available soon because it's currently on AAinflight WiFi LOLOL so I rewatched it on my recent Chicago trip. I know Bottoms is already available for VOD via Amazon Prime.

 

I agree though I liked Shiva Baby a lot that the chaos of it all works much better for Bottoms. I agree about Edebiri because I think about that monologue like DAILY now. Apparently it was all improv which makes it maybe better. She's so talented and I think while that sort of gets overlooked in her work on The Bear, she's really allowed to just shine here (in a production where she was heavily involved in the making of with her friends). There wasn't a point where they didn't take the joke further. The football scene set up from the initial PA announcement being like "the guys from the other school are just senselessly violently beating up our students on the street" to the meeting with the lesbian babysitter that's like "no they are going to kill somebody" to the actual football game where yah they were going to kill somebody! It's all very good.

[totes4totes]

No Hard Feelings

 

I sometimes think that we forget how talented and charismatic Jennifer Lawrence actually is. I think it's because she skyrocketed immediately going from one indie darling film (the absolutely INCREDIBLE Winter's Bone) straight to being a headliner of TWO huge franchises (X-Men and The Hunger Games) with like her like critically acclaimed work as being cast as women well above her age in the two David O'Russell movies. And when that happens with a younger talented actress they tend to get the overrated label placed on them which wasn't helped by starring in Serena and then facing in the same year the very controversial Mother! (which I liked, maybe I should write that up here) and the very bad Passengers. And it feels strange to say that an actress as young as Lawrence is having a career revival, but with her turns in Don't Look Up and Causeway, I think she is. And to cap it all off we have her insanely good performance in No Hard Feelings.

 

I think of the trio of movies I watched No Hard Feelings is certainly both the weakest and most stereotypical. By that I mostly just mean there isn't really anything about the story beats that will surprise you. But what really makes it is the work that Jennifer Lawrence does in committing to the bit. She's extremely funny in this and I think the box office kind of proves that she's one of the few celebrities that is still a draw for the mid-budget comedy. I mean this movie made nearly $85 million WW and certainly is going to make much more on streaming. We live in a time where it seems that the movies that thrive at the theaters are either the low/mid-budget horror or the big budget action movies (which causes the incel nerds at r/boxoffice to lose their minds when a movie like Barbie and Super Mario Bros ends up making bank). Looking at the grosses of the R-rated comedy, the only ones to make the Top 50 list from the last 10 years are the Deadpool movies, 22 Jump Street, and Bad Boys for Life. And only 22 Jump Street would qualify as a mid-budget movie. With the advent of streaming, these types of movies getting in to theaters (along with the RomCom) is rarer and that's kind of a shame I think.

 

Anyway, box office aside, Jennifer Lawrence is great. She's very funny and extremely charismatic. And that's so key because you get somebody who is less committed, less talented, and less willing to go along and the entire movie is a dud just because the premise then gets creepy. I also think that Andrew Barth Feldman who plays Percy is very good as well. He manages to play his character with like a genuine earnestness that also sells the movie. Together the two of them manage to develop a relationship while unrealistic seems real. And I think throughout the movie there is enough condemnation mixed with absurdity at Jennifer Lawrence's Maddie that you aren't leaving it going "yah, it's good that she's going to sleep with a 19-year-old for a car." I will say the movie grossly underutilized Natalie Morales (who is very good and very funny). But overall, this was just a good funny comedy which is carried by the chemistry and charisma of its two leads.

 

Give Jennifer Lawrence more work! And keep giving her good stuff! I like watching her act!

[Erestor]

I reallly enjoyed No Hard Feelings!

 

It was funny and I was in the mood for something light hearted, so that was a perfect choice

 

but obviously Jennifer Lawrence was the true star of the movie, love her

Edited October 9, 2023 by Erestor

[totes4totes]

3 hours ago, Erestor said:

but obviously Jennifer Lawrence was the true star of the movie, love her

She's so good!!!!

[totes4totes]

The Royal Hotel (2023)

 

I saw this movie Saturday and felt compelled to write about it for no reason in particular. I use AMC A-List so I try to see at least 2-3 movies a month in theaters and I slacked off in September so I was trying to make up for it in October and saw that this movie was showing. And it seemed like a more productive use of my time than seeing the new Exorcist movie. And seeing this was certainly the right choice.

 

Let me start by saying that this is a good movie! It does a lot of things really well. Both Julia Garner and Jessica Henwick are great actresses and really anchor the script. The way Kitty Green writes and directs these movies that are essentially just about the terror of existing as a woman in a world dominated by men is mostly very good. The terror is never overt but it always exists. And in terms of this movie compared to The Assistant, I think it's a definite step up. For me personally, it was more engaging. Because there are several men that you feel not necessarily that you can trust but that aren't like overtly evil dicks, it makes the "oh yah, all men kind of suck" point dig in better I think than the overtly awful men in The Assistant.

 

What I think needed to land harder and have more time spent on is the relationship between Jessica Henwick's Liv and Julia Garner's Hanna. We know they are backpacking through Australia, it's alluded that they are trying to escape something (or someone), but we never really find out what connects them as friends. That in itself wouldn't be a bad thing but when the situation they find themselves in gets so bad and you only see Hanna essentially having to be the "responsible" friend for Liv over and over (they only become the bartenders in the remote mining town in the first place because Liv ran out of cash) and you constantly see Liv making these objectively bad choices (thank goodness for Kitty Green that Jessica Henwick is naturally charismatic and hot and brings a lot to Liv) it's hard to understand why Hanna wants to stay friends with her, especially when you get to around 75% of the movie and Liv is just an objectively bad friend. The entire movie she dismisses Hanna's (rightful) fears and concerns. If not for the last sequence where basically every man in the movie becomes objectively like evil, it wouldn't be hard to see the entire movie missing the point and making Liv the villain.

 

I'm sure we've all had that friend that can get too messy when they drink and go too hard and party too much. And sometimes we get to our limits with them but you know why you are friends with them. But this movie needed to show us more of Liv being a friend to Hanna rather than Hanna just making sure Liv doesn't die while constantly being dismissed. The movie was only ~90 minutes and I think just like 15 minutes more of just Liv and Hanna could have smoothed over all of this.

 

So yah, like Kitty Green's other feature with Julia Garner, this movie is about 85% there but the other 15% could have made this an exceptional movie. As it is, it's good. I'd recommend it. But it just doesn't quite get there for me.

[totes4totes]

Madame Web

 

Hello, this is it, we've reached it. The peak of CINEMA.

 

I can't think of the last time I went to the theater and was just like "WHAT IS GOING ON." If I was the only person in the theater that would have been the best way to experience this because there were only like 5 people in my screening and I still had to hold myself back from going "IN 1973!?!??!?! ARE YOU SERIOUS?????" This movie takes place in 2003! Why! I will sincerely say it does not matter at all. Plot points make no sense. I need to know what happened in the writer's room. Dakota Johnson the entire movie seems confused as to why she is there. She is thinking the entire time "I need a new agent, why does mine keep doing this to me. What life choices lead me to this moment." I've seen some of these actors act before and I know they can. In this movie it's like every single one of them was told to start filming after 1 pass through the script. It's like slightly above a first table read. I think I could see this movie 10 times and come out each time having a brand new experience because it will never make sense. It's perfect. I need 10 more Madame Web movies.

 

SPOILERS FOR MADAME WEB.

 

Here's just a breakdown of what I think are some of the most absurd moments:

1. In 1973 in a pitch black doctor's office, Madame Web's heavily pregnant mom is being told by a gynecologist at her presumably midnight appointment which is a normal time to have a doctor's appointment that her baby has a rare neuromuscular disease. Madame Web's Mom is like "There are making advancements in single nucleotide target gene therapy. Especially with things found in the Amazon." And I practically screamed because IN 1973! LADY. MADAME WEB WRITERS. In 1973 you could get a PhD sequencing a single gene. They hadn't even invented PCR and a thermocycler.

2. The spiders are magic because of PEPTIDES in their saliva. I imagine they were like "okay the audience now knows what DNA and RNA is so we need a new science explanation."

3. Madame Web is just Dakota Johnson. She kind of dies and has a vision. Featured in this vision very heavily is like a neon sign letter S. Later in the movie we see that S is part of the PEPSI sign on the building filled with fireworks that is dangerous, explosive, and unstable. That letter is just dangling and we the audience are watching and we go "Yes, that's it, she just has to hold out long enough for the letter S to fall and kill the mean spider guy who is trying to kill her and the teenagers. Foreshadowing." The villain is killed when the letter P falls on him. Of course he is.

4. This is a movie about babysitting.

5. Madame Web's paramedic partner is Adam Scott playing himself as Uncle Ben Parker. AKA Spider-Man's uncle. In the movie his sister-in-law Mary is pregnant with unnamed baby (Spider-Man). They never say the words Peter Parker because of I'm pretty sure Sony and Disney contract agreements. For some reason Dakota Johnson is invited to the baby shower. She fails at a game because she has to be like "My mom is dead. She died in childbirth."

6. The dead mom dies in childbirth in PERU. Dakota Johnson Madame Web is delivered by Spider-People. Somehow she makes it back to the US and is put in the US foster care system but manages to keep a whole neatly organized suitcase of her mother's work.

7. The Year is 2003. Probably taking place in New York City not even 2 years after 9/11. Madame Web is wanted for child abduction, stealing a taxi cab, and ramming that taxi cab through a diner to hurt the bad guy to save the teenagers. She has a vision where the spider-guy who delivered her is like "you have to go to Peru." She wakes up and wakes the teens up and is like "I have to go to Peru." She then goes to Peru. Presumably on an airplane. She drops the kids off with Adam Scott Uncle Ben.

8. Madame Web is in Peru with one notebook from her mom and a map from her mom labeled MAP OF PERU. She is in the jungle which she reached by bus. It was the right jungle. We know this because she sees a creek. And the fallen branch by the creek matches the picture taken THIRTY YEARS AGO. That's right, nothing has moved in 30 years.

9. Time travel astral projection where she learns "my mom didn't hate me."

10. Uncle Ben is watching these three teens who are supposed to stay hidden for a week. They can't go outside because the bad guy has ZOSIA MAMET on payroll using NSA level technology to CSI find teenager faces that have been mocked up from the bad guy's dreams. The bad guy got the NSA technology by poisoning a woman and asking her for her NSA password and then I guess just walked right in and stole it all. We don't see that.

11. At the very end of the 1 week stay at Uncle Ben's sister-in-law Mary PARKER's house she goes in to labor. Despite having hid these three teens for a week he's like "well I guess I have to bring them with me to the hospital.

12. On the way to the hospital Madame Web returns from Peru, uses the same stolen taxi they are on the lookout for and sees that the kids are not there. She then steals an ambulance and uses it to once again hit the bad guy with a car.

13. In the hospital the nurse is like "only immediate family allowed" and Madame Web Dakota Johnson is like "They are all mine." This appeases the nurse despite Madame Web being 30 and these are three teenagers of three different ethnicities.

14. Her end scene outfit.

 

Score: 100000/10

Edited February 28 by totes4totes