movie review
Relationships-focused film reviews of tearjerkers, rom-coms, love lost and love found.
Slumdog Millionaire Review
This review comes from my Letterboxd profile, where I write reviews about every movie I see. This is the kind of movie I can see a lot of people reflecting on today and thinking it's overrated. It won a ton of Oscars back in the day, including the coveted Best Picture award, and this is one of those films I can see being more scrutinized today than it was back then. However, to me, Slumdog Millionaire is still a total blast of a film with legitimately visceral direction from Danny Boyle. His style is very particular, and when it works in the stories he's trying to tell, it works. Usually, I hate that kind of choppy slow motion that is manually created by the editors instead of filmed using slow-motion cameras. It's been done in films like Lord of the Rings, and it always puts me off every single time... except in the case of 127 Hours and now this movie. For whatever reason, whenever Boyle utilizes the technique in his films, it feels natural for his particular vision and actually fits in the film's structure. I don't know how he does it, but honestly, I'm not complaining about it.
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
Wolfwalkers Review
This review comes from my Letterboxd profile, where I review all of the movies I see. This. This, this, this, this, this. This is the film that I'm going to be using for years, if not decades, as an example of masterful and unique storytelling. This is a film that embraces its culture, appeals to everyone, establishes stakes early, uses every second of its runtime to its advantage, and uses familiar and cliche elements in a unique and stylized way to create their own voice, their own character, and their own unique experience. I genuinely believe that Wolfwalkers is a modern animated masterpiece, and I don't usually use that kind of hyperbole right off the bat. Yes, I'm good at hyperbole, but not to THAT extreme.
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
Four Weddings and a Funeral Review
This review comes from my Letterboxd profile, where I review the movies I watch. Happy New Year, everyone!! For my first movie review and new movie of 2020, it's time to take a look at one of Hugh Grant's most famous movies that I didn't even realize he was in until tonight. Yeah, I didn't know anything about this movie before tonight. In all honesty, I thought it was a comedy released in the 60's in the light of Breakfast at Tiffany's or something like that. Clearly, that's not the case, but I am completely okay with it.
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
Arachnophobia Review
This review comes from my Letterboxd page, where I review all of the movies that I see. Barely anybody ever talks about this movie anymore. Heck, the only mention I've ever heard of it was Chris Stuckmann briefly talking about it in his Rupture review, and the only reason I decided to watch it was because a discussion of the condition of arachnophobia on a Matthias Dope or Nope video churned my memory and inspired me to check it out. I watched it, not knowing what I was getting myself into. I finished watching it and I came here to Letterboxd, shocked by the number of three star reviews this movie has. Seriously?! Three stars?! Because of all of these factors, I think I am willing to say that in my personal opinion, Arachnophobia is one of the most underrated movies of all time.
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
Zootopia Review
This review comes from my Letterboxd profile, where I review all of the movies I see. I think this movie has kind of gotten a reputation over the years. I saw a YouTube comment about La La Land that said that movie was basically so overrated that it became underrated, and I think that same terminology applies to this movie. This is a movie that people praised and praised and praised, and then after a while, people starting collectively agreeing that this movie wasn't as great as critics hailed it. Well, I personally still believe it is worth that praise. Zootopia is an excellently animated, incredibly fun adventure that takes a surprisingly in-depth look at so many topical and political issues today. I don't know how many times I saw this thing when it initially came out on Blu-ray. I just loved it.
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
In The Tall Grass Review
This review comes from my Letterboxd profile, where I review all the movies I watch. Before we get started, I wanted to mention that I apparently saw an extended version of the movie. Apparently, there's a 90 minute cut somewhere in existence, but the one on Netflix is 101 minutes, so... I don't really know what that says. I also wanted to mention that this is my 200th movie review on Letterboxd. My, how far we've come.
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
Barry Lyndon Review
This review comes from my Letterboxd profile, where I review all of the movies I see. Look, I'm sorry, I went into this movie hoping to love it, I went into it excited to see a film that I never would have checked out had I not asked for people to suggest movies for me to see. Unfortunately, this movie bored the ever living daylights out of me in every single way. Now, this film isn't completely terrible. The cinematography is absolutely gorgeous, the lighting is great, the film is crafted really well in general, it catches its time period well, and the performances are overall really good. Everything else about this movie felt tedious beyond belief. There's a difference between slow-paced and straight-up slow. For me, this falls under the latter category.
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
Split Review
This review comes from my Letterboxd profile, where I review every movie I see. I got three movies for Christmas 2019. The first was How To Train Your Dragon 3. The second was HTTYD: Homecoming. This was the third. After watching this movie, I am so glad I asked for it for Christmas. In all honesty, there's part of me that's wondering if I should give this four stars because the tension wasn't as palpable as I had hoped for and I was more immersed in every other Shyamalan film I've seen than I was here. However, not only did the tension really start to pick up by the halfway mark, but the character development is consistent and engaging, the performances are astounding, and I have a feeling this is one of those movies that I will probably like more the second time I see it. Because of that, I don't know if I can even allow myself to give it four stars. That's the weirdest excuse ever, but I'm sticking with it.
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
Her Spoiler Review
This review comes from my Letterboxd profile, where I write reviews about every movie I watch (whenever I watch them). If I had watched this last week again (in July 2020, in other words), I would have seen it exactly one year from when I watched it the first time. In that year, I think I've kept this movie in the back of my mind a lot. I've been curious to see it again, but I didn't know when the best time would be, so I watched it with my parents tonight. The first half hour or so, I was very afraid that both of them (particularly my mom) were gonna trash the film by the end, but when the film actually ended, we had intellectual discussions about things we thought were so beautifully thought out about the script and the characters and the relationships and aspects of them that one of us pinpointed and the other didn't, and it was truly awesome. After re-watching this film, I have absolutely no problems with it. If I were to pinpoint one, it would be that there are a couple of times in this movie where Samantha is able to talk to people when they don't have an earpiece in and the aspect of her being able to talk to some people without those earpieces was weirdly established to me. Other than that, though... this absolutely deserves a spot in my top 10 favorite films. In fact, it might be my second favorite film (I'm gonna have to re-watch Boyhood soon to see where those two films and The Social Network place on my personal list).
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
Her Review
This review comes from my Letterboxd profile, where I review all of the movies I see. Where in the world did this movie come from?! Where did a movie about a relationship between a human and his AI come from? And how in the world is it so freaking good?!?! Seriously, this feels like it should be some obscure indie film that people discover and celebrate its existence, but this is a mainstream film that people talked about and loved and that got a ton of award buzz. How did this movie get made? However it got made, I am so happy it did. Her is an intricate exploration of relationships, technology, and how they both come together in a way that feels, shockingly enough, human. This movie's portrayal of relationships is fascinating all the way until the end, and the pacing of this film just makes it breeze by so quickly you don't even realize two hours have gone by. You just become so captivated by the two main characters, who both feel blisteringly real and human despite that one of them is a computer.
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
Sybil Review
This review comes from my Letterboxd page, where I review every movie I see. Before we get started, I wanted to mention that I bought the 187-minute long DVD. For some reason, Wikipedia and Letterboxd state that the full, unedited cut is 198 minutes long, but a crucial scene that Wikipedia said was edited out of certain cuts is in the version I watched tonight. The only logical assumption I can make from this is that 198-minute length takes the commercials that are edited out of the DVD for obvious reasons into account, but I can't confirm that. I'm going to assume I have seen the full, unedited movie, but there may be some longer version that's completely lost to the sands of time out there, I have absolutely no idea. Regardless, enough dawdling, let's get into the review.
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
Little Women (2019) (Second) Review
This review comes from my Letterboxd page, where I review all of the movies I see. A little over a year ago, I saw this movie for the first time and thought it was fantastic. I thought that it took a little while for me to get sucked into the story, but once I did, I was completely hooked. Watching it a second time, understanding where all of the character arcs were going, getting a better sense of the time jumps throughout this film, I can honestly say I no longer think that this movie is phenomenal. No, I legitimately think this film is absolutely genius. Yep, that's right, this movie got so much better for me the second time that I genuinely think it's a work of genius. I wasn't expecting that to happen, but here we are. I remember when I used to think of the name Little Women and associated it simply with one of those classic literature books that would bore the living daylights out of you when you were inevitably forced to read it for a high school class (even though I've admittedly never read the original book). The fact that I absolutely adore a period piece like this to this extent means that this movie is something special.
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
