movie review
Relationships-focused film reviews of tearjerkers, rom-coms, love lost and love found.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens Review
This review comes from my Letterboxd profile, where I review whatever movies I see. I have seen this film once before. I watched it before going to see The Last Jedi at my local theater. It took me a long time to get sucked in, but at a crucial character moment involving Han Solo and Kylo Ren (if you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about), I realized why these characters were so special and absolutely adored the intense lightsaber climax. However, rewatching it after seeing the original trilogy, I am inclined to believe that as a film on its own merit, Star Wars: The Force Awakens has pretty good acting and characters overall, fantastic production design and top-notch special effects, making it a very entertaining and enjoyable movie. As a Star Wars film, however, its story really doesn't match up to anything supplied in the previous trilogy.
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
Anne of Green Gables Review
This review comes from my Letterboxd profile, where I review whatever movies I end up watching. My mom grew up with the source material of this film and absolutely adored all of the characters, and since I'm curious about the adaptation Anne with an E that's been getting incredible praise for the past couple of years, I figured I should check out what has widely been called the definitive version of the book. Long story short, this movie surprised the heck out of me. I had a feeling I was going to at least enjoy it and I pretty much got the exact movie I wanted to see. This is the exact kind of film to set as an example as a movie that is meant for pure sentimentality and likability. All of the characters are incredibly fun to watch, and the majority of them are likable despite most of them flip-flopping back and forth with their moods when these young children start acting rambunctious. After a while, I realized why these women would so quickly change their attitudes toward the young Anne, however -- this is the late 1800s, a time where women were supposed to be seen as prim and proper and held back and obedient, and meanwhile, Anne is energetic and excited and full of imagination and quick to outburst. She's a girl full of determination, and while this movie doesn't explicitly state that this is what she's doing, she is absolutely fighting against the standard idea of that "prim and proper" woman and sets a role model for girls, and actually anyone, to look up to. Anyone, but especially young girls, can look up to Anne as a figure of passion, as a motivation to keep pursuing what you enjoy, and as a reminder to not let anyone stand in your way with what you think is possible.
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
The Aviator Review
This review comes from my Letterboxd profile, where I review every movie and limited series I watch. Admittedly, even for me subjectively, this is probably a 4.5-star movie. The pacing is definitely not perfect, but part of that might be because I get so excited when the first half-hour or forty-five minutes of a movie just flies by, and then the rest of the movie just doesn't move quite as fast as that. However, despite that, I genuinely can't think of a single moment in this film that I feel deserved to be cut out, anything in this film that felt like it lingered for too long or wasn't quite covered enough. There's really no part of this film where I felt, "Eh, I don't really NEED this." Simply put, this is the fastest-paced three-hour movie I've ever seen. That's an absolutely incredible feat in my opinion.
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
Lake Mungo Review
This review comes from my Letterboxd profile, where I review whatever movies I end up seeing. I've been curious about this film ever since I saw Chris Stuckmann's review for his Halloween special a couple of years ago. (Wow, the second review in a row where I've talked about him... can you tell I maybe like Chris Stuckmann and that he maybe inspired my interest in films? Just a little bit?) For whatever reason, I never sat down and actually watched it despite the fact that it's available on Amazon Prime. Recently, however, Chris tweeted that almost a year and a half after making his video, where he stated how terrible the home release of Lake Mungo actually was, an official version of the film was finally released on Blu-ray by Second Scene Films. I pre-ordered the Blu-ray as soon as I saw it, eager to support a distribution company that could bring more attention to lesser-known films like this, along with the idea of owning another collector's Blu-ray case. Funnily enough, despite the fact that I didn't think she would, my mom showed interest in watching this movie tonight, so I watched it with my parents. I genuinely didn't expect that to happen because I thought the premise would turn them away and I probably wouldn't watch it for another week or so, but nope, they wanted to see it, so we watched it together. My goodness, I'm so glad I did.
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
Rolling Thunder Revue Review
This review comes from my Letterboxd profile, where I review all of the movies I see. In a lot of ways, this is a conservative rating for me because, for a while, I couldn't quite jump on board with whatever this movie was going for, but after finishing it, I'm pretty sure I love it. I think I may need a bit more time with this movie before I decide whether or not I fully loved it or not, so I should explain my experience with this film.
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
The Graduate Review
This review comes from my Letterboxd profile, where I review every movie I see. The only thing I knew about this movie was the incredibly famous line, "Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me." That was it. I thought that the line and the seduction was only a short scene in the film. I didn't know the entire film was going to revolve around that. As such, I had no idea what to expect with this movie. I didn't know whether I would think it was overrated or whether I would like it. I didn't know that this film would hook me as much as it did, I didn't know it would resonate with me as much as it did, and I didn't know that this film would be so amazing to me that it might actually make my top 10 personal favorite films of all time. This movie is beyond fantastic. Again, I really want to give this film five stars. However, there are some aspects of the plot that are incredibly dated, there are some cuts between shots that are really obvious (cuts in time are really obvious because the center of the shot moves a bit during the cut, so you can tell there was a cut), some of the music editing is repetitive, and there are continuity errors in some of the lighting in this film (admittedly, my parents noticed those, not me). There are so many minor glaring flaws like that that don't affect the story that I can't give this film five stars. However, that doesn't mean I didn't adore this film.
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
Casanova Review
This review comes straight from my Letterboxd profile, a place where I review every film and limited series that I happen to watch. This was one of the first reviews that I wrote for the website, and it was one of the first times that I remember feeling confident in my ability to actually review movies. Check out my profile if you're interested in more reviews like this and to see the actual order in which I write them, since I'm posting them to my Vocal page completely out of order.
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
Stargirl Movie Review
This comes from my Letterboxd profile, where I write reviews of every movie I watch. There's a particular reason why I wanted to see this film when I got Disney+. Stargirl, as a book, means a lot to me. I don't remember many specific elements from the book, but I remember the plot generally enough. It's the experience I had with it that really made it memorable for me. It was my sixth-grade year, and our LA teacher read this book to us for class. I was so invested in the relationship between Leo and Stargirl that I remember being annoyed when I found out I had taken a sick day when my teacher read the chapter where their relationship actually initiated. There was something about this fictional relationship (and fictional relationships in general) that stuck with me, probably because I was so focused on wanting my own relationship and dreamt that I would immediately find someone like that and have an incredible relationship with them and all that nonsense. Of course, that's not how middle school or even high school relationships go, but that's how my brain saw it. In fact, in a lot of ways, I think I'm still struggling with the fanciful ideas of being in a relationship vs. the actual reality of how one begins. I could go on for hours about all of this stuff, but that's not what you came here for. Even though they're related to my thoughts on both the book and the movie, they're not the point of this review. You want to hear my thoughts on the movie, so let's talk about the movie.
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile Review
This review talks about things that happen throughout the film (including the ending) but does not go into incredible detail about what exactly happens in these events. Because of that, I am going to give a warning for minor/somewhat major spoilers for this review.
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
Close-Up Review
This review comes from my Letterboxd profile, where I review every film I see. How in the world do you describe something like this? It's pretty difficult, to be honest, but Close-Up is unlike any film I've ever seen. I suppose the idea of a film that combines real footage with reenactments isn't something that's not all that new in concept, but when even the reenactments are portrayed by the real people who experienced these events, the film takes on a whole new meaning that other documentaries like this wouldn't be able to nail. It blends together these reenactments and the real footage so seamlessly that I genuinely couldn't tell which scenes were re-shot or not until after the end of the film when I looked it up. Sure, I could have made a good guess at which ones were real and gotten it right, but even the scenes that in retrospect I can tell are reenactments still feel so authentic that it never feels like they are. This film captures this event in such a raw, palpable way. It covers everything from inherent attachment to art to self-identity to the ways we express ourselves to the grey area between legal and moral and even human nature as a whole. It does that by constantly allowing each principle player to explain their side of the story, even when it's flawed, even when it doesn't always add up. There are exchanges of dialogue in this movie involving the making of movies and acting and bringing a film to life that I think in literally any other context might come across as some of the most pretentious dialogue ever put to film. In fact, there are so many ways in which the ideas in this movie are assembled could have come across as pretentious, narcissistic, and completely hollow -- if the entirety of the movie was reenactments and only SOME of the real people played themselves, if certain scenes that were written as reenactments were slightly altered in dialogue to get a point across, etc. However, not only are the majority of the scenes that involve some of this dialogue COMPLETELY UNSCRIPTED and therefore completely genuine, the scenes that are reenactments never feel like they condescend to the audience's intelligence. This is a movie where you can get away with exposition by just having the characters say it, because not only is it a real trial with real people talking about their real motives, but even in the reenacted interviews, the aspects of the individual that every person talks about in this movie is something that no one would want to get across by making it complicated or filling every one of their words with symbolism. They would want to explain their thoughts to the point, no dodging around it, this is how they feel and this is what they know and it never comes across as anything but authentic. Not once.
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
Star Wars: A New Hope Review
This review is for the theatrical cut of the movie released on the 2003 limited edition DVD set of the trilogy, which I happen to own. I may review the special edition contained on that DVD at a later date, but for now, here's my review of the original theatrical cut, which comes from my Letterboxd profile.
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
Hereditary Review
This review comes from my Letterboxd profile, where I write movie reviews like this for every film I see. With the reputation this film has received over the years, I assumed that Hereditary was going to be a film that purposefully confused you from the first scene, never concretely explaining its twists and turns to you and forcing you to figure it out yourself. It might require some individual thinking time after seeing the film or it might require a second watch, or even a third or a fourth. I've found those kinds of movies more and more fascinating over the years, and since I've been hearing great things about this one for three years, I wanted to finally check it out. In my opinion, this film is not a purposefully confusing film. For the majority of the runtime, the sequential events that occur in this film felt natural to me, even though they were consistently unsettling. It wasn't until the last 40 minutes or so of this movie where the meaning of the entire story starts to take shape that I realized that this was yet another unconventional horror film brought to you by the independent geniuses at A24 that continue to greenlight and distribute original and unique films like this.
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
