Quarantine movie reviews (Part 1 of a sadly recurring series)

All The Bright Places (2020)

Netflix movie with Elle Fanning and Justice Smith as a couple high school kids with respective traumas who fall in love. I liked it. It reminded me a lot of The Spectacular Now. Fanning is always good, but Smith is a total revelation here. 

Eight Men Out (1988)

I don't know how I had never seen this movie about the 1919 Black Sox scandal. I knew a fair amount of the story already (Ken Burns' Baseball has a big segment on the scandal) but this fleshed it out a bit more. Loved all the old time baseball detail. Good performances all around. 

Hunter Killer (2018)

A submarine thriller with Gerard Butler and Gary Oldman. This thing is very dull and very cheap looking.

The Professor (2018)

Johnny Depp is a college professor who learns he is going to die, and so he just doesn't give a fuck anymore. The movie starts out pretty funny, and it's amusing to see Depp in a comedic part as a real person. But the movie becomes very maudlin and loses all its comic snap by the end. 

Serpico (1973)

Absolute top notch Al Pacino here, as a do gooders cop trying to clean up NYPD corruption. Not sure I ever saw a character type like this played so vividly. And you got all that great 70s grit and milieu.

Rain Man (1988)

Tom Cruise, in his slick talking 80s prime, discovers he has an autistic brother (Dustin Hoffman) and they end up driving cross country together. Hoffman, who won an Oscar for this, is just superb. The part always manages to toe the line without being offensive or exploitive. The film also won best picture and it deserved it. They don't make them like this anymore. 

Life Happens (2011)

Krysten Ritter. That's all. Seriously, she is overwhelmingly cute and charming in this. She even upstages Rachel Bilson in various cute outfits. The movie has just enough substance to overcome some of the romcom tropes. 

My Days Of Mercy (2017)

Ellen Page and Kate Mara are 2 women on opposite sides of the death penalty debate who fall in love. Yeah it gets pretty preachy with stuff, but the leads have some legitimately sparky chemistry. 

Sixteen Candles (1983)

I'd seen most of the John Hughes 80s oeuvre, but not this one. It's not up at the top, but I liked it. I totally get the Molly Ringwald thing. If I was in high school back then I'd have probably worshipped her. I got some laughs out of just how problematic some of the stuff in the movie is, from the racist stereotype of Long Duk Dong to the seeming endorsement of date rape to Anthony Michael Hall's perversions.

Animal House (1978)

At the time this thing was as edgy as it gets, apparently. Tbh I found this rather tame and dull. But John Belushi saves the movie everytime he shows up and delivers some of his inimitable crazy energy. And boy, young Karen Allen. 😍

The Assignment (2016)

This movie is basically Face Off with a sex change instead of a face transplant. It's bonkers. Michelle Rodriguez is a hitman who is turned into a woman and seeks revenge on whoever is responsible (including a doctor played by Sigourney Weaver in a career worst performance tbh). The movie is ridiculous, but I kind of enjoyed it when it wasn't cutting back for more Weaver monologuing.

Chinatown (1974)

From a director named Roman Polanski who I'm sure is just a swell guy, with Jack Nicholson as an LA private eye in the 30s, who gets involved in a bunch of shady dealings surrounding the town water supply. I honestly wasn't the least bit interested in the whos and whys of the plot. But Nicholson is in peak form, and all the period atmosphere is terrific. I don't see this as any kind of all time great film though.

Hollywood Shuffle (1987)

Another film I'm not sure how I missed it. Robert Townsend's satire of life as a black actor in Hollywood. The movie is largely a bunch of loosely connected sketches, but god damn are some of them hilarious.

The Little Stranger (2018)

The follow up to Room for director Lenny Abrahamson came and went with barely a peep a couple years ago. I see why. This movie is unspeakably dull. Only a fairly interesting Domhnall Gleeson performance saves it from being completely useless. 

Stripes (1981)

Again, how had I not seen this? The actual military mission that consumes the 3rd act is a bit take it or leave it. But that first hour is very funny, with Bill Murray in peak form.