Hi friends! I’ve been super busy this week starting a new part-time job at a local school but still managed to get lots of movies and live theatre in. You can read my theatre reviews and logs here. Today I have 5 movie reviews to catch you up on. What have you been watching? I hope you have been catching some of the big and small releases that are worth seeing. Here we go:

SATURDAY NIGHT-

I’ve long been a big fan of director Jason Reitman with his film Juno being an all time favorite. Naturally I was pretty excited for his new film Saturday Night about the first broadcast of Saturday Night Live and for the most part he delivers a pretty fun movie.

While it is directed well by Reitman the true star of the film is the terrific cast including Kim Matula playing Jane Curtain. It was fun for me to see her because I interviewed her a couple of years ago for Hallmarkies Podcast. The various impressions of the original cast are spot on with Ella Hunt playing Gilda Radner, Dyla O’Brien as Dan Aykroyd and JK Simmons in a memorable turn as comedian Milton Berle.

The main aspect holding Saturday Night back is the decision to present the film in real time as the 90 minutes before the first episode airing. This requires us to believe an outlandish number events all happened within this 90 minute time period. Because there is so much it makes things happening feel a little phony and fake but it was all done with such energy and personality that it didn’t bother me too much.

Smile Worthy

PIECE BY PIECE-

Next up we have the new animated documentary, Piece by Piece, about the career of Pharrell Williams. Director Morgan Neville has taken the creative approach to interview Pharrell and then present the footage in a Lego animated style. This is fresh and fun and gives energy to interviews that frankly would be pretty dry on their own. I was surprised how nuts and bolts the interview is sticking mostly to the business-side of recording tracks and releasing albums. Kids might find it boring after a while.

Still, it’s fresh and unique enough that I’d recommend watching it. There are also other good animated documentaries you should check out like The Tower, Waltz with Bashir, and Flee.

Smile Worthy

WE LIVE IN TIME-

I always try and judge a movie within the genre that it is trying to be in. For example, is a horror movie good at scaring, is a comedy funny? In the case of We Live in Time I ask myself is it good at being a romantic weepie in the spirit of Nicholas Sparks adaptations or even something like Love Story or Penny Serenade?

I would say it does a good job of telling a story within that genre. It’s very predictable but the key elements are all there for this kind of story. Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh have terrific chemistry and there are amusing scenes with a meet-cute car accident and some steamy scenes as they fall in love. There is also one of the most memorable birthing scenes of recent memory.

It all leads to Pugh’s character getting cancer which is par for the course for this genre. They give it some A24 touches with a non-linear storytelling structure and some more nudity than you typically see in these movies, so there’s that.  We Live in Time is a movie that is exactly what is advertised. If you like this kind of film you’ll like it. It’s as simple as that.

Smile Worthy

MEGALOPOLIS-

I’ve long made the argument that cinema is more a branch of literature than it is a branch of art. At least successful cinema. It is much more story dependent than it is visual dependent. I know many disagree with me but then we get projects like Megalopolis from director Francis Ford Coppola and he proves my point. I’m not sure what Coppola was trying to say with this bizarre self-funded mess but a coherent story was clearly not a priority.

I guess it has something to do with America being like the Roman Empire full of avarice and greed. But this isn’t Rome or America it’s New Rome and there’s a special new metal called Megalon that can stop time. Adam Driver plays a man named Cesar and he has various relationships throughout and is also an architect (I guess.)

Anyway, I have no idea what Coppola is trying to say with Megalopolis and it was so incoherent I was mostly bored and disengaged. The other couple in the theater with me got up and left after about 45 minutes and I don’t blame them one bit. Let’s just say some art projects should just stay within a family.

Frown Worthy

SIX DAYS IN AUGUST-

Finally I have a new film for Latter-day Saint members called Six Days in August. While it is not officially made by the church it has history and doctrinal content that will be confusing for non-members. For example, a whole section at the end is about members waiting at the temple to get their endowments before they leave Nauvoo. Non-members will have no idea what this means or why it is so important to the characters they are seeing.

I don’t have a problem with a film being made for a target demographic as long as it is made well and I’d say this one is. The filmmakers do not shy away from darker elements of this part of church history and this keeps it from feeling like a propaganda piece. For example, Joseph Smith (Paul Wutrich) and his followers are shown destroying the press which was printing unfavorable things of them. We also see early polygamy in a pretty honest uncomfortable light (even if I’m sure some against the church would go even further.)

I wish screenwriter Mark Goodman got to the 6 days of the title sooner and built up Brigham Young (John Donovan Wilson) more as opposed to spending so much time with Smith. Why was he more worthy by God than Sidney Rigdon (Joseph Carlson)? Nevertheless, I think for the target demographic Six Days in August is well made and tells an interesting period of LDS church history.

Smile Worthy

So there you have it! If you’ve seen any of these films let me know what you think.