movie review
Relationships-focused film reviews of tearjerkers, rom-coms, love lost and love found.
Klaus Review
This review comes from my Letterboxd profile, where I review all the movies I watch. Yeah, yeah, I know, it's not Christmas, but give me a break, I need to watch more Academy Award nominees and this is nominated for Animated Feature, so here we go. Besides, I'm the kind of guy that will listen to Christmas music or watch Christmas movies any time of year and not care because to me, the capturing of the Christmas spirit doesn't just have to be in December. This movie's capturing of the Christmas spirit is probably the most perfect I've ever seen in an animated movie. The best way to describe this film is charming. That's really the best word -- charming. It just puts a smile on your face the whole way through, and I would be lying if I said that I didn't choke up a couple of times during some of the more emotional sequences toward the end. In particular, the actual ending to this movie... god, what a powerful ending that perfectly ties the logic of this movie's Christmas into the Christmas we know and love today. Man, what a fantastic ending.
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
Fosse/Verdon Review
This review is from my Letterboxd profile, where I review all the movies and limited series I see. Wow, what a ride. This show has been recommended to me for a while now, and I should have watched it much sooner simply because of the slightly terrifyingly perfect timing. When this show started airing, our school's production of "Chicago" was about to open. I played an ensemble member, Chief Fogarty, and the judge during the courtroom scene. I participated in a lot of dance numbers and had the honor of announcing Velma and Roxie before they performed "Nowadays." I'm not a huge dancer, so being involved in such nuanced choreography was initially very annoying for me. By the end, however, I grew to really love the show and appreciated Fosse's choreography a lot more by the end of it. I'm probably never going to be involved in another Fosse production again, but I'm really glad I got the experience.
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
Punch Drunk Love Review
This review comes from my Letterboxd profile, where I review every movie I see. Well... that was... something. I'm not even sure if I fully comprehend what in the world even happened over the past hour and a half, but I know that there's something here that just completely sucked me in. To me, there's a definite difference between a movie that turns you away because of its weirdness and a movie that sucks you in because of its weirdness. The former makes its plot and characters so nonsensical and so unbelievable that you don't care about what's unfolding on the screen. The latter immediately hooks you in with some strange occurrence, character, or choice that you WANT to know more about and keeps you hooked even if you don't know what you're watching. Punch-Drunk Love is most certainly the latter category for me. I don't think I've pieced everything together by any means, but I WANT to. I guarantee you they're there, but I have no idea where to even start looking for them.
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
Swiss Army Man Review
This review comes from my Letterboxd profile, where I review every movie I see. It's been a couple of years since I saw this film for the first time and fell head over heels for it. Rewatching it after all this time affects me even more now. Swiss Army Man is most certainly not a movie for everybody. It's an almost alienatingly strange movie, but in my opinion, it's all the better for it. Its premise is one of the most unique I've seen in a long time, if not ever -- Paul Dano's Hank Thompson finds himself saved from being stranded on an island when a corpse played by Daniel Radcliffe washes up on the shore, and this corpse (who becomes affectionately known as Manny) serves as Hank's guide and multi-purpose tool as he makes his way back home. This is the example I'm going to use for years to come of a movie that shouldn't work at all, let alone as well as it does. However, somehow, in my opinion, Swiss Army Man absolutely nails its universal message with an off-kilter execution that is somehow heartwarming and bizarre at the same time.
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
Phineas and Ferb: Candace Across the Universe Review
This review comes from my Letterboxd profile, where I review all of the films I watch. Baby, they're back!! It feels so good to say that and to finally see it for myself!! For those of you who don't know, I absolutely ADORE Phineas and Ferb. It was my absolute favorite TV show growing up, and it has a very special place in my heart. Rewatching some of the episodes recently, it's stuck with me just how charming, well-written, and likable the show still is with great characters, fun contraptions, and a self-aware formula that somehow always manages to keep itself interesting. The show is still genuinely good, but it's still always bothered me how it ended. It started off with "Last Day of Summer," which was the absolute perfect finale to cap off a show that was admittedly starting to lose a bit of its steam. Then, it briefly came back with "The OWCA Files," a standalone special that disappointed and at times even angered me with its lackluster plot points, writing, and character moments compared to the original show. That additional special has always left a kind of bitter taste in my mouth since it aired, despite how perfect the ACTUAL finale of this show was. Then the characters were brought back in the new Dan Povenmire and Jeff Swampy Marsh show Milo Murphy's Law, some even staying on as secondary characters, which I honestly didn't even love that much and didn't really get through the first season. So, yeah, there's always been a part of me that always wanted just a little bit more. Then this movie was announced, and I got a little frightened because I anticipated a Phineas and Ferb movie back in 2013 and it was canned, so I didn't want this to be the same scenario. Then sneak previews released, then trailers, then songs, and I realized this was actually finally happening. Now, after finally getting a Disney+ subscription and finding the time to watch this movie, I can say it is absolutely the second finale I so desperately needed.
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
Enola Holmes Review
This review comes from my Letterboxd profile, where I review whatever movies I watch. You know what? This movie managed to surprise me. I thought Enola Holmes was going to be another stereotypical Netflix movie that was good, but nothing particularly memorable. However, I gotta say, I debated giving this 4.5 stars not necessarily because I think it deserves that score on its merit, but because it rises above and beyond what I think most people associate with a Netflix film nowadays. This movie feels like it has its own particular style and energy, and it felt really fresh because of that. If it were released in theaters, I'd probably be harsher on it, but for a movie released on Netflix, this is actually a very pleasant surprise.
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
Two Distant Strangers Review
This review comes from my Letterboxd profile, where I write movie reviews consistently. I would love to have respectful discussions about people's potentially polarizing opinions on this short because let me get this out of the way now, I am a white, cisgender, straight male. I'm not going to lie about how I felt about a film on the first watch, but I also want to be open to discussing why it may be a problematic watch in general. If I get off balance in any way with my cluelessness here, I would love to have a respectful discussion about it because I think discussions like that are important. However, I can't lie about what I thought about this short film on the first watch. So, what did I think?
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
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
