Archive for category: Reviews

Who knew that Joan Jett was still rocking? Somehow, despite all the sturm und drang of a typical rock biography – rejection, no respect, getting ripped off, amazing highs of fleeting fame, falling-out with bandmates, etc., etc. – she resisted and survived, not only setting an example but mentoring other female rockers. After the sold-out preview at the Riviera, we were treated to a 2018 sound check with Joan and the Blackhearts pounding out Fresh Start, Cherry Bomb and Bad Reputation like it was 1980. Joan herself was an engaging interviewee, and the other talking heads were generally additive, not duplicative, including Michael J. Fox on Joan’s acting career and (gorgeous) Kristen Stewart on the movie Joan produced about the Runaways. And of course the music, while not quite the Ramones, was worth hearing again.

This was shaping up as an excellent study of a marriage, with Glenn Close accommodating herself to the shadow cast by her Nobel Prize-winning husband, but then it took a horribly wrong and totally unnecessary turn that was both totally unbelievable and made us rethink, and doubt, the wonderful characterization that Close had offered before. It didn’t help that the Jonathan Pryce character was presented without redeeming qualities and that the son was introduced mainly for Pryce to be mean to. I don’t see Close winning the rumored Oscar for this, but I will say the movie lends itself to discussion.

A charming rom-com in the Hugh Grant/Julia Roberts mold that might have scored even higher if I could have understood the English (Irish/Australian) accents. All four characters were delightful: the beauteous Rose Byrne, the humorously cloddish Chris O’Dowd, the talented slacker Ethan Hawke and the precocious Azhy Robertson, who at maybe 9 years old was clearly the sanest of the bunch. As befits a Nick Hornby story, the music was fabulous: “Different Drum,” “Mixed Up, Shook Up Girl,” “Waterloo Sunset” as well as the not-bad “Tucker Crowe” originals. What fun to watch an easy-to-follow movie with no bad guys, no nervous or cringing moments, just a path full of interesting details for the characters to figure out their way in life.

An early frontrunner for Worst Film of the Year: cliched acting, flat directing, a void of a plot (“Lisa’s Bad Day” was the sum and substance of the story), visually uninteresting setting, and generally unappealing characters. There was not a single one of the disjointed scenes that connected with me or didn’t make me wish I were watching TV instead. Some audience members laughed uproariously – at what? – and all three papers we read gave it a good review, so there is no accounting for taste. I kept waiting for something to connect; it never did.

Excruciating and exquisite at the same time, this movie walks a fine line beautifully: we see Kayla Day at her most unattractive, yet we like her all the same. She has enough acne to be real, but not so much that we look away. And if anybody doesn’t identify with at least one scene, if not many, they have surely forgotten what it was like to be 14. Josh Hamilton’s Dad is a bouncy counterpoint, keeping things light; and the movie’s use of social media is so today, just perfect. I don’t think I’m the target audience for this film, but I loved it.