Lady Bird

Snarcasm: Lady Bird Is Far From Perfect, So It’s Bad

Lady Bird

Warning: the post you are unfortunately about to read is filled with snark and sarcasm, known to many of you as Snarcasm. Please refrain from taking anything said here seriously, because as usual, none of it actually matters at all.

Those of us who put an extraordinary amount of hopes and dreams into Rotten Tomatoes had our hearts crushed recently. You see, a movie can only be good if an arbitrary percentage of arbitrarily chosen tastemakers arbitrarily place said movie on an arbitrarily designed spectrum. And so it is for Lady Bird, one of the most successful indie films of all time and until the release of Paddington 2, the best reviewed of all time according to a website that brings vegetables into a literal equation.

What soiled the 100% rating for Lady Bird on said vegetable counter platform? Well, none other than someone you’ve never heard of. Cole Smithey rated the film a gentleman’s C+, just barely putting the film under a “fresh” rating for Rotten Tomatoes.

What does this mean? Not much, except that we now have a chance to roll our eyes at someone’s alleged opinion. Surely, this is an honest review and not one designed to draw attention to an unrecognizable website few would bother to read a review from unless it was the sole contrarian in a sea of praise and released weeks and weeks after every other critic published their review. Surely.

Go on…Snarcasm: Lady Bird Is Far From Perfect, So It’s Bad

Cinemaholics Podcast: Our Top 10 Movies of 2017

2017

2017 is over, but we’re just getting started. I’m not usually the biggest fan of conversations over general rankings (my yearly power rankings aside), but I do find them most useful years later, when I’m trying to remember what I thought of the filmgoing landscape with some perspective. That’s why I do rankings, period, and it’s triple effective when I get to hear Top 10s from my Cinemaholics cohosts.

Our lists do feature some expected overlap, including a clear Cinemaholics “winner,” if you want to call it that. Turns out Brigsby Bear had the most collective impact on me, Will Ashton, and Maveryke Hines, and hopefully some of you awesome listeners.

Enjoy the episode, and if you just can’t wait, here are our Top 10 lists written out below.

Go on…Cinemaholics Podcast: Our Top 10 Movies of 2017

Lady Bird: Understanding What Makes A Film Good

Lady Bird

Our lives are a string of incidental situations, or events. Some of these events are caused by other events. Many events are indistinguishable from coincidence. They appear chaotic and might as well be.

I found myself thinking a lot about structured chaos while watching Lady Bird. It was only after the credits rolled that I clicked with director/writer Greta Gerwig’s “point,” so to speak. That she desired to bring about meaningful change in Lady Bird’s life through both choice and conflict. Not much else.

There’s a reason why critics adore this movie. And I also suspect there will be some general audiences who disagree with the praise. This is because there are some among even the most fervent filmgoers who measure the quality of a film by its trappings. The dialogue. The cinematography. The performances. These are all important, of course, but they don’t amount to much removed from what the events onscreen  mean. Understanding this is the first step to “getting” objective film criticism as a whole. Even if you don’t necessarily agree with it.

Go on…Lady Bird: Understanding What Makes A Film Good

Cinemaholics Review: Lady Bird and Murder on the Orient Express

Murder

For the show this week, I’m joined by my regular co-host Will Ashton and special guest Kristen Lopez from Paste Magazine, Film School Rejects, and The Young Folks to review Murder on the Orient Express and Lady Bird, two films that honestly couldn’t be anymore different, but we’ll get to that in the podcast.

We originally recorded the show with Mini Reviews as usual, but sound issues forced us to cut the episode in half (which worked out because the episode had gone on far longer than planned). We’ll do those reviews for Coco, Last Flag Flying, and Walking Dead Season 8 next week.

That said, the main show covers two featured reviews at length, no spoilers for either. The first movie is Lady Bird, a wonderful A24 film directed and written by Greta Gerwig that has been topping many “best of 2017” lists already on the minds of critics. It’s yet another Oscar-worthy performance from Saoirse Ronan (Brooklyn) complemented by a fantastic cast. Murder on the Orient Express is the second review of the show, directed by and starring Kenneth Branagh as Hercule Poirot in the adaptation of Agatha Christie’s landmark novel. It’s the classic “whodunnit” modernized for 2017, so be sure to manage your expectations if you’re planning on giving this one a shot.

Go on…Cinemaholics Review: Lady Bird and Murder on the Orient Express