Pig (2021)

This multi-layered story of a reclusive former chef and his truffle-hunting pig is a tour de force for Nicolas Cage in the lead role of Rob, and Jack and I loved it. Cage is backed by Alex Wolff as Amir, who sells Rob's truffles to restaurants. Adam Arkin has a pivotal role in the third act.

Michael Sarnoski makes a solid feature directorial and screenwriting debut, co-writing the story with Vanessa Block, also her debut.

It's been six weeks since we saw it, but I remember loving the music as well. The soundtrack by Alexis Grapsas & Philip Klein is available to stream on Apple Music and elsewhere and imdb has printed the list of songs.

The dark, foggy, rainy cinematography is the work of Patrick Scola, shot in the forests of Oregon as well as iconic locations in Portland.

The one trivia point that stands out for me is that their budget was so small they couldn't afford a fully trained pig and the one they used bit Cage more than once. She is adorable.

Some interesting scenes of food being prepared earns this a spot on my running list of food movies.

Since the beginning of lockdown, we've been almost exclusively streaming movies, so I haven't been afflicted with Motion Picture Motion Sickness in our house. But this one does jump around with handheld photography and very sensitive folks might need to sit back behind their couches if possible. I'll add it to my MPMS list as well.

Cage was last blogged for Snowden. After I wrote about Arkin in A Serious Man, he's been in episodes of Masters of Sex, Fargo, and Modern Family, just to name a few. Wolff (the younger son of Thirtysomething actress Polly Draper and musician Michael Wolff), Grapsas, Klein, and Scola have many projects under their belts but they're all new to me.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics are high on this hog, averaging 97%, and its audiences aren't far behind at 84.

We rented the on iTunes/Apple TV on July 20. AFTER you see this fine film, you may want to read a spoiler-filled "biblical reading". It gives away everything. Seriously.

We the Animals (2018)

Jack and I really liked this story of a boy and his family, struggling with racism, poverty, the parents' volatile relationship, and growing up (the three tight-knit bi-racial boys are pre-teens, all played by acting newcomers). The leader in Spirit Awards nominations with five, the movie is based on the 2011 debut novel by Justin Torres. The screenplay is co-written by Daniel Kitrosser and director Jeremiah Zagar, the latter who also won the NEXT Innovator Award at Sundance for this movie, which has creative drawings and animation mixed in with the live action.

The narrator, Jonah, is nine, and is played to perfection by Evan Rosado. His older brothers are Josiah Gabriel and Isaiah Kristian. Sheila Vand (she's been in a few things I've seen, including Argo and Whiskey Tango Foxtrot) is their loving but undependable mother and Raúl Castillo (I know him best as Nick the bartender in ten episodes of Atypical) is Spirit-nominated as their mercurial father.

We streamed the movie on Prime Video, but, even at home, the wildly swinging camera moves (running after the boys, for example) caused me to move back farther from the screen to avoid Motion-Picture-Motion-Sickness or MPMS. Here's my running list.

This is composer Nick Zammuto's second movie (the first was a documentary) and you can stream the exciting soundtrack on his own website, Apple Music, and Spotify.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics love this as much as the festivals, with an average of 91%. Audiences are a bit less enthusiastic at 78.

At Eternity's Gate (2018)

Visually magnificent, this depiction of Vincent van Gogh's artistry and descent into madness also features a Golden-Globe nominated performance by Willem Dafoe (last blogged for Murder on the Orient Express after his Oscar nomination for The Florida Project) as the troubled painter.

The synopsis on the movie's official website is so good I'll quote it: it's "a journey inside the world and mind of a person who, despite skepticism, ridicule and illness, created some of the world’s most beloved and stunning works of art. This is not a forensic biography, but rather scenes based on Vincent van Gogh’s letters, common agreement about events in his life that present as facts, hearsay, and moments that are just plain invented."

Director/co-writer Julian Schnabel is also a multi-media artist, which explains the marvelous depictions of the van Gogh painting. Schnabel has directed four features before this, and I've seen and loved three--Basquiat (1996), Before Night Falls (2000), and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007), all of which he co-wrote. The screenplay was co-written by Jean-Claude Carrière (co-wrote and was Oscar-nominated for The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1973), That Obscure Object of Desire (1978), and The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1989); in his 87 years and 146 credits some noteworthy credits are Taking Off (1971), The Tin Drum (1979), The Return of Martin Guerre (1982), Valmont (1989), and Birth (2004)) and Louise Kugelberg (her debut).

The supporting cast includes Rupert Friend as loving brother Theo van Gogh and Oscar Isaac as fellow painter Paul Gaugin (most recently in these pages for The Death of Stalin and Annihilation, respectively). Stella Schnabel (worked with her father on Basquiat and Before Night Falls) as Gaby and Emmanuelle Seigner (the love interest in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) as Madame Ginoux are the women in van Gogh's life, among the several people telling him what he should do.

Shot on location in Arles, Buches-du-Rhône, and Auvers-sur-Oise, France, the stunning photography by Benoît Delhomme (last blogged for The Theory of Everything) will cause Motion Picture Motion Sickness or MPMS for us sensitive individuals (here's the list so far). Jack doesn't get ill from the jumpy camera moves but he thought it was excessive in this case. I did have to look away from time to time.

I enjoyed the music by Tatiana Lisovkaia (spelled this way on imdb, where she has one other credit, and Lisovskaya on the album) more than Jack did. You can stream it on YouTube or Apple Music and decide for yourself.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics, averaging 82%, are much more enthusiastic than its audiences at 53. Not for everyone, the movie has a few long, dreamy sequences that may make some impatient. I loved it.

The Florida Project (2017)

This enjoyable slice of low-life about the denizens of a shabby motel in Orlando, especially a six year old girl, her friends, her remarkably clueless mom, and the kind hotel manager, is languidly paced and getting Oscar buzz for Willem Dafoe as Bobby, the manager.

Dafoe (last blogged for A Most Wanted Man, he was born William but his high school friends in Wisconsin called him Willem), who usually plays scary roles, fully inhabits the guy who watches out for the unsupervised urchins on their summer break, as well as many living hand-to-mouth at his workplace. This LA Times article has all six critics predicting his Oscar nomination. The only other recognizable face is Caleb Landry Jones (he's been in X-Men: First Class, Get Out, and American Made, to name a few) in one scene as Bobby's son. Newcomers Brooklynn Prince as little Moonee, and Christopher Rivera and Valeria Cotto as her friends Scooty and Jancey keep it going with childlike ebullience that owes a lot, says director/co-writer Sean Baker, to the Little Rascals of 1930s America. Here are some videos if you have no idea who they were. Bria Vinaite, who plays the tattooed mom Halley, also has no acting experience. Baker literally picked her from her instagram page which has 52.8k followers. Yes, those are her own tattoos and piercings. Sandy Kane, AKA the Naked Cowgirl of Times Square, has a cameo as a sunbather in a funny scene.

Baker co-wrote the script with Chris Bergoch (they performed the same duties on Tangerine), drawing inspiration from people Bergoch saw en route to his mother's Orlando home. The Florida Project was an early name for Disney World.

The cinematography by Alexis Zabe (new to me) is a strong inducer of MPMS (motion-picture-motion-sickness). I pre-medicated and sat in the back row, but still had to look away from time to time. It's not as bad as Tangerine, which was shot entirely on iPhones, but in that ballpark. Here's the complete MPMS list. The last scene is shot on an iPhone, for reasons which will be obvious when you see it.

The movie opens with the song Celebration by Kool & the Gang and closes with an orchestral version of it by Lorne Balfe (most recently in these pages for scoring Dough). In between, there are dozens of songs, listed here.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics are rhapsodic, averaging 95% and its audiences are a bit cooler at 77. You should probably see it.

Wonderstruck (2017)

This visual masterpiece gracefully weaves together stories of a grieving 1977 boy and a willful deaf 1927 girl, both 12 years old, both eventually enchanted with New York's Museum of Natural History. We loved it. Not having read the book, we didn't know that Ben's story was written in words, while Rose's was all in pictures, so that explains why the 1927 scenes are wordless (and black and white). Jack pointed out that the movie is not sensitive to visual impairments, with lots of dark photography, tight moving close-ups, and blurred shots that focus just before cutting away, if at all. I have very good vision and had to concentrate to catch it all.

The kids are wonderful actors. Oakes Fegley (he turned 13 on Saturday and has a handful of credits over the past six years, including This Is Where I Leave You and three episodes of Boardwalk Empire) gives us Ben's anxiety to a T and Millicent Simmonds (now 14, in her acting debut) is actually deaf and shows Rose's impatience and disregard for authority. Some of the adults are played by Julianne Moore (last blogged for Maggie's Plan), Michelle Williams (earned her fourth Oscar nomination for Manchester by the Sea), and James Urbaniak (he has over 100 credits but seldom stars--in American Splendor (2003) he played R. Crumb; I saw him in four episodes of The Starter Wife, one of Weeds, one of The Good Wife, two of Homeland, four of The Office, one of You're the Worst, and he's done much more. He did play two characters named Venture in 69 episodes of The Venture Bros. but we didn't see any).

Director Todd Haynes (most recently in these pages for helming Carol) works from a script by Brian Selznick (wrote the book which was adapted for Hugo), who adapted his own 2011 book (wrote and illustrated) in this case. Here's the book's official website. The aforementioned dark photography is from Edward Lachman (also shot Carol) and the detail in the shots as well as in the drawings seen onscreen is remarkable. The depictions of 1977 Times Square (when it was still filthy and dangerous) and other New York locations are just great.

Carter Burwell's (last blogged for scoring Goodbye Christopher Robin) lovely score is mostly played over Rose's scenes and can be streamed from this youtube link. Fifty years later we get pop tunes, especially David Bowie's Space Oddity and more, available to stream from here, with misspellings of Austin and Deodato. As a musician, I have a good ear, and the Langley Schools Music Project recording of Space Oddity, played over the closing credits, which you can stream from the pop tunes link, is jarring for its discordance, especially towards the end. This wiki page about the Project gives me an idea why.

Jack and I liked this better than Rotten Tomatoes' critics at 72% and its audiences at 68 and think it should be seen on a big screen. It will be difficult to watch on video at home unless you can get your living room very dark and can sit back from the TV if you are afflicted with MPMS or Motion-picture-motion-sickness. It's going on the list. We recommend it highly for middle schoolers and up.

American Made (2017)

Jack and I really liked this story of Barry Seal, a real pilot who worked for the CIA, the Contras, and others in the late 70s and early 80s. Tom Cruise is perfectly cast as the impulsive, audacious Seal, in an entertaining performance.

Cruise (last blogged for Edge of Tomorrow) makes us think of Top Gun and even Risky Business as his Seal has talent, charisma, and guts to get ahead. Domhnall Gleeson (rhymes with PHONE-ull, most recently in Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens) has bravado of his own as "Schafer," Seal's CIA recruiter, and Sarah Wright (I can't be sure why she looks familiar, maybe her series arc on Parks & Recreation?) is great as Barry's devoted wife Lucy.

There are occasional historical film and still clips from the real events, including the disclosure that director Doug Liman's (helmed Edge of Tomorrow) father Arthur L. Liman was Chief Counsel to the Senate committee investigating the Reagan Administration's arms-for-hostages scheme known as the Iran-contra affair, which definitely involved our pilot, Barry Seal. The script by Gary Spinelli (his second) was on the 2014 Black List of most liked unproduced screenplays. We also appreciated the technical explanations of some of the aeronautics feats.

The cinematography by César Charlone (last blogged for Blindness) is terrific, and I must mention the magnificent aerial photography by Dylan Goss (here are the movies in this blog for which he's done that job: Up in the Air, Valentine's Day, Samsara, Rock of Ages, Now You See Me, Elysium, Million Dollar Arm, Annie, Sicario, Straight Outta Compton, Concussion, The Boss, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, and Blade Runner 2049. And that's not close to all of his aerial photography credits).

A warning to my fellow sufferers of MPMS, also known as Motion-Picture-Motion-Sickness: you will not do well watching this on the big screen without medication, so be prepared or wait for video. Here's my full list.

We boomers loved the period music from one of the periods we lived. Here's a playlist that includes pop tunes as well as some original music by Christophe Beck (last scored Sisters, another one full of recent period music). Imdb has a pretty complete list of the songs.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics at 87 and its audiences at 80 are flying high with this one and we agree.

There's a little bonus written at the end of the credits--geography buffs will enjoy it. And with 32 producers, this movie goes on my list for the producers plethora prize, though it's going to be hard to beat the current leader with 41. Here's my list of those.

This movie is a big milestone for babetteflix. It is number 1000--I have now written about one thousand movies on this blog since September 3, 2008 (a few weeks after my only child left for college). Inspired by Julie & Julia, wherein Julie Powell kept count in her blog of how many recipes she cooked, I began counting movies on my blog. Sometimes I forget to write about one and add a short summary later in honor of my obsessive-compulsive personality (not a disorder in my case, I guess). Another milestone will be coming up because the blog contains summaries of nineteen movies that I saw before the start date and OCP makes me want to know exactly how many distinct movies I have seen in that time period. Three drafts to write (as of today) and still counting! I have an alphabetical list where I update the numbers each time.

La La Land (2016)

I loved every minute of this romantic original musical about two kids struggling to make it (their careers as an actress and a jazz pianist and their love for each other) in LA. Jack and Amy liked it, too. The opening production number, taking place during a freeway traffic jam with hundreds of singers and dancers, or so it seems, is alone worth the price of admission. The title is clever--La La Land is a derisive nickname for Los Angeles that many who inhabit that city have come to embrace.

Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling (last blogged for Irrational Man and The Nice Guys, respectively) are terrific as Mia and Sebastian. Their singing is literally pitch perfect and I'm a harsh critic. I found videos of each singing as kids (Emma singing the Meredith Brooks song Bitch and Ryan in a Disney Channel boy band--he has a solo at about 1:30) just to prove this is no fluke. And they dance--oh, do they dance. Yeah, it's a little corny. If you don't like musicals, stay home.

Apparently the Oscar for Best Picture almost always goes to movies whose cast is nominated for the Screen Actors Guild Best Ensemble Award. This was not nominated (Oscar nominations will be announced on the 24th) because, despite the 200 or so players, the movie is all about Stone and Gosling, with small support from Rosemarie DeWitt (most recently in these pages for Men, Women & Children) as Sebastian's sister, J.K. Simmons (last blogged for The Accountant) as his boss, and John Legend as a jazz-rock fusion musician friend--Legend wrote and performs the song Start a Fire (he won an Oscar for his song in Selma, produced Southside with You and this one).

However, this movie has won eight Critics Choice Awards, including Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay (tied with Manchester by the Sea), and Score. See my list of awards and nominations sorted by title here.

Director/writer Damien Chazelle (co-wrote 10 Cloverfield Lane, directed and wrote the much acclaimed Whiplash) had been working with his Harvard classmate, composer Justin Hurwitz, on this project for many years. They couldn't get it off the ground so took time off to make Whiplash together. Good move. Here's a playlist of many of the songs from La La Land. While writing this, however, I'm listening to an instrumental playlist of Hurwitz's compositions and piano solos from the movie.

The look of the picture is lush with cinematography by Linus Sandgren (last shot The Hundred-Foot Journey) and swinging retro dancing dresses credited to costume designer Mary Zophres (Hail, Caesar!).

As a former Angeleno, I appreciated the fabulous locations, including Griffith Park observatory. Here's an article about the locations. And as a lover of jazz, I enjoyed Sebastian's preaching about improvisation early on.

More love from Rotten Tomatoes' critics, averaging 93%, and audiences, weighing in at 89. As I said,  if you don't like musicals, skip it. Everyone else, just show up, as we did on Christmas day, the eleventh year the three of us have gone to a movie before celebrating with family. Sufferers of MPMS-Motion Picture Motion Sickness, sit in the last row for occasional swinging camera moves.

Lion (2016)

Get out your hankies. We loved this story of a five-year-old Indian boy who gets lost very far from home, is adopted by a Tasmanian couple, and, as an adult, searches for his birth family. It really happened and, wow, it's good.

Newcomer Sunny Pawar spoke no English before he was brought on set (4000 boys auditioned) and learned a few words shooting his later scenes as the young Saroo. Dev Patel (last blogged for the comedy The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) is terrific as the intense grown-up adoptee. He worked out and bulked up, perhaps to look a bit more like writer Saroo Brierley (here's a photo), on whose memoir A Long Way Home the movie is based, and learned an Australian accent with Tasmanian dialect. The actual adoptive mother Sue Brierley was granted her request for Nicole Kidman (most recently in The Family Fang) to play her, and both Kidman and Patel are racking up nominations, as is the movie as a whole (here's my running list). Apparently Rooney Mara (last blogged and acclaimed for Carol) was planning to take a break but decided she wanted to take the part of the girlfriend when she read the script. Many other supporting actors from both hemispheres are wonderful as well.

This is the feature film directing debut of artist and commercials director Garth Davis, who did helm four episodes of the excellent mini-series Top of the Lake (2013), which took place in New Zealand and has a second season coming next year. Luke Davies adapted Saroo Brierley's 2014 book. The title of the movie is explained at the end. The various locations--rural and urban India; suburban Hobart, Tasmania; Melbourne; and more--make beautiful pictures shot by Greig Fraser (most recently photographed Foxcatcher).

Serious product placement for Google Earth pushes along the plot and evidently saved the filmmakers serious money because the corporation provided actual imagery from the time of the search, avoiding the need to create such images in visual effects.

Dustin O'Halloran (profiled in Like Crazy, also scored 19 episodes of Transparent) gives us lovely music that can be streamed from this link.

Only 85% from critics on Rotten Tomatoes? Not enough. Their audiences average 91. Do see this. I suggest it for children, too, if they're able to read subtitles and won't get nightmares about getting lost themselves. And, if you stay in your seat, you'll be treated to a song by Sia (the first song on the youtube link above) and a tiny bonus at the end of the credits.

Warning: the movie may bring on mild MPMS or Motion Picture Motion Sickness (here's the list). Take your seat as far back as you can.

Moonlight (2016)

Jack and I loved this story of an African-American boy struggling with bullies, loneliness, and worse. It starts slow and dreamy, then picks up speed, and slows down again. Jack said we always feel like something bad is about to happen.

Three actors portray our hero Chiron (pronounced Shy-rone, not like the mythical Greek centaur Kye-ron) (for a spoiler-filled analysis of the relationship between the Greek myth and this movie, read this article after seeing the movie): Alex Hibbert as the nine year old in a powerful acting debut, Ashton Sanders (his third feature, including a small part in Straight Outta Compton) is terrific as the 16 year old, and Trevante Rhodes (two other features, some TV, and six upcoming projects) is good as well as the grown up. Chiron's best friend Kevin is well done by Jaden Piner, Jharrel Jerome, and most especially André Holland (acting debut for Piner, feature debut for Jerome, and Holland was last blogged for Black or White). The adults in Chiron's life are Mahershala Ali (he has lots of credits besides 33 episodes of House of Cards as Remy Danton, including The Place Beyond the Pines, though I failed to mention him), singer Janelle Monáe (did voices for one animated TV episode and a small part in an animated feature before this, though she'll be one of the stars of the upcoming Christmas movie Hidden Figures), and Naomie Harris (since I profiled her in The First Grader she was in, among others, two James Bond movies--Skyfall and Spectre) as his mother.

When director/writer Barry Jenkins' first feature Medicine for Melancholy (2008) was released to much acclaim I meant to see it. This has earned even more acclaim, with 9 wins, 14 nominations, and counting. I'm keeping a running total of some of my favorite awards on this page. Jenkins' sophomore effort, this is adapted from a play by Tarell Alvin McCraney, himself an award winner, though many scenes have very little dialogue. Speaking of which, when there is dialogue it can be hard to understand and the format on which it was shot does not allow for closed captions, either now on the big screen or later on small, so you'll have to pay close attention.

Lots of songs will entertain you, along with original music by Nicholas Britell, streaming on a spotify playlist at the bottom of this link.

Cinematographer James Laxton (pictured here with his steadicam) clearly had fun with this picture, shooting in Miami. There's an opening dolly shot that circles and circles the characters and moves around after that. I wish I had timed it--it lasts a long time! Unfortunately, this movie could make some people a bit nauseated. I keep a list of movies that cause MPMS-Motion Picture Motion Sickness on this page and Moonlight is on it.

Acclaimed is right, Rotten Tomatoes' critics are averaging 98% and its audiences 91 in its sixth week of release (only two weeks in the "lesser" cities). Highly recommended and aptly rated R.

American Honey (2016)

I really liked this dreamy telling of a gritty story about a teenager who joins a band of other homeless kids traveling the country selling magazine subscriptions and partying. Jack didn't, primarily because of its excessive length (without which it would have been much less dreamy) of 2:43.

In her acting debut, Sasha Lane, who turned 21 in September, is remarkable as the lead, a fearless girl named Star. Some have called this a career-making role for Shia LaBeouf (when I last wrote about him in The Company You Keep, I said he was "less annoying" than in his previous movie) and he is compelling as the mercurial Jake. And you won't forget Riley Keogh, who is Elvis Presley's eldest grandchild and Lisa Marie's daughter. Keough was in but not blogged for The Runaways, Magic Mike, and Mad Max: Fury Road. And here her ice queen Krystal is formidable. Except for a cameo by Will Patton (last blogged for Meek's Cutoff), most of the others in the large cast are inexperienced actors who nonetheless contribute much to the picture.

Director/writer Andrea Arnold (most recently in these pages for Fish Tank) has crafted quite the story of Star and her new "family," and, though I don't disagree the movie is way too long, I didn't hate the cutaway shots of bug and birds on wires. Most of it was shot with natural or available light. It's also a major trigger of motion picture motion sickness (see my running list of MPMS movies here) due to lots of hand held camera work, including while running.

No composer is credited, and none needed, because of many kick ass songs, to which the kids sing along and/or dance jubilantly. Imdb lists 27 songs, and the album's 19 songs, available for sale at the usual sites, can be streamed on spotify for your listening pleasure.

Rated 81% by critics and 77 by audiences on Rotten Tomatoes, the movie won the Jury Prize and Special Mention of the Ecumenical Jury at Cannes last winter, and, just this morning, Lane was nominated for the Breakthrough Award at the Gotham Independent Awards. You may not want your teenagers to see this as it contains graphic sex, nudity, really bad behavior, and foul language. But many patient adults will enjoy it.

Queen of Katwe (2016)

Jack and I really liked this inspiring and touching story of a girl from Ugandan slums who becomes a chess master. Based on a true story, it stars Lupita N'yongo (last blogged for The Jungle Book) and David Oyelowo (recently in A Most Violent Year) as the mother and coach, respectively, and newcomer Madina Nalwanga in the title role AKA Phiona Mutesi of Katwe, Uganda, with a host of other newbies. The acting is remarkable, including the gaggle of kids in the chess group.

Indian-born director Mira Nair (last in these pages for New York, I Love You and Amelia) is very good at colorful pictures featuring strong, often brown-skinned characters. In fact, she made a docu-drama about the real coach Robert Katende. You can watch it (13 minutes long) and a six minute doc about Phiona on this page. Screenwriter William Wheeler (adapted Clifford Irving's biography into the movie The Hoax (2007)) adapted this screenplay from Tim Crothers' book about Phiona, which Crothers fleshed out from his own article in ESPN Magazine.

Nair's love of color is aided by cinematographer Sean Bobbitt, who shot Hysteria. Composer Alex Heffes (The First Grader) comes through again with sprightly African tunes, some of which can be streamed from this link and others on the right side of the youtube page.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics are swooning with an average of 91%, with its audiences not far behind at 86. And be sure to stay seated for the credits, even if you don't want to read them. You will see the actors with the real people they have portrayed, as well as a fun music video of a pop song that the children sing during the movie.

I suspect that this movie could possibly cause motion-picture-motion-sickness (MPMS) in afflicted individuals. I was okay because we sat in the last row and I watched the closed caption device which kept me grounded, but I'll put it on the list.

Snowden (2016)

Quite the thriller, this biopic of the whistleblower who exposed the NSA's wiretaps of random US citizens has high production values, a lot of information, and portrays Snowden as a patriot and a hero. But what would you expect from director/co-writer Oliver Stone (last blogged for Savages), a Vietnam vet turned anti-war activist?

Joseph Gordon-Levitt (most recently in The Walk) is masterful as the title character and Shailene Woodley (last in The Spectacular Now) is sweet as his love interest Lindsay. As usual with Stone's work, there are dozens of quality actors, including Rhys Ifans (The Amazing Spider-Man), Nicolas Cage (Kick-Ass), Melissa Leo (Prisoners), Zachary Quinto (Star Trek Into Darkness), Ben Schnetzer (Pride) as the guy who calls Snowden "Snow White," and Keith Stanfield AKA Lakeith Lee Stanfield (small parts in Selma, Dope, Straight Outta Compton, and Miles Ahead, and co-stars as comic relief Darius in the current FX series Atlanta).

This is the second feature for Stone's co-writer Kieran Fitzgerald after The Homesman. The script chugs along but we laypeople could have done with slightly less data and some minutes cut from the 2:14 running time. The aforementioned production values are due at least in part to the cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle (last in these pages for Trance).

I'm listening to tracks from the movie by Craig Armstrong and Adam Peters--I started on this link with autoplay on.

Stay in your seat during the credits for some news footage of the actual Ed Snowden. Critics do not love this two days after its wide release, averaging 58% on Rotten Tomatoes, but audiences are fonder at 72. We thought it pretty good.

Note: This is going on my list of movies that can trigger motion picture motion sickness or MPMS. See the complete list here. It's not constant, but there are places, so sit in the last row.

Don't Think Twice (2016)

We loved this hilarious yet touching story of a New York improvisational troupe dealing with personal loyalty, professional competition, and the craft of improv, directed and written by Mike Birbiglia (last blogged for Trainwreck), and starring him as Miles. The rest of the ensemble are Gillian Jacobs (after I wrote about her in Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, she was great as the damaged co-star of the Netflix series Love) as Sam, Keegan-Michael Key (most recently in Keanu) as her boyfriend Jack, Kate Micucci (I don't remember her in Scrubs and didn't see her seven episodes of The Big Bang Theory, but loved her loony banjo-playing childcare provider in 26 episodes of Raising Hope, plus she has dozens more credits) as Allison AKA Data, Chris Gethard (his real name, he was a regular on Broad City and did three Inside Amy Schumer episodes and a bunch of other things) as Bill, and Tami Sagher (not her feature acting debut, but she was executive story editor on 30 Rock, co-executive producer on Girls, staff writer on Psych, writer on Inside Amy Schumer, and more) as Lindsay, all hoping to get their big break in a show called Weekend Live, a thinly disguised version of SNL. Some of the above were skilled at improv, others had to study, and a few of their live workshops are included in the movie.

Ira Glass, co-producer of Birbiglia's Sleepwalk with Me, does the same honors here, but with no cameo, though you won't miss short appearances by Lena Dunham and Ben Stiller.

The title is an unspoken motto of the troupe, and one spoken motto is "yes, and..." in which each member must accept where another's imagination has taken the sketch.

Composer Roger Neill (after Beginners, he scored 20 episodes of Mozart in the Jungle) provides original music which he uploaded to his soundcloud page, including a wonderful rip-off of SNL's theme (track 3) and a cover of Bob Dylan's Don't Think Twice, It's All Right (track 18). The latter plays over the credits which include a nice selection of production still photos.

This is very much a show biz picture and I'm glad the critics get it, because they are averaging 99% on Rotten Tomatoes, even though the less enthusiastic audiences, at 78%, may be less interested in the biz.

Sensitive viewers may get a touch of Motion Picture Motion Sickness from the not-so-steadicam work, so this is going on my running list of MPMS movies.

It looks like it will be held over another week in these parts and check this list if you want to see it on a big screen, though a small screen will get the point across just fine. Please do pay for it to support this fine work. You can even pre-order the DVD on amazon. Estimated release date is mid-October.

10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)

Jack loved this sci-fi thriller about a woman held captive by a survivalist who claims there has been a chemical attack. I can't deny that it's good, but I had to make myself stay in my seat for the first act. Due to first rate acting, tight editing, and exciting music, though, I wanted to stay after about a half hour.

The Thrill List calls this a horror movie but a ticket taker at the multiplex said it isn't, so I agreed to go. It kind of is (and pushes some buttons for me, hence my discomfort). Mary Elizabeth Winstead (last blogged for The Spectacular Now and just wrapping up Mercy Street on PBS) gives a great deal of depth to the heroine Michelle, not to mention being beautiful with expressive eyes. We expect John Goodman (most recently in The Monuments Men) to be fabulous as the crazy captor Howard, and he is. John Gallagher Jr. (the younger brother in Pieces of April (2003), Jim Harper on The Newsroom, and Christopher Kittredge in Olive Kittredge) is very good as another cast member, Emmet, also as expected from his resumé. The recognizable voice on Michelle's phone is Bradley Cooper.

Dan Trachtenberg makes his feature debut as director and so does one of the co-writers, Matthew Stuecken. For former assistant editor Josh Campbell this is his second script (also co-) and then there's co-writer Damien Chazelle, who was Oscar-nominated for writing Whiplash (which he directed).

You can stream the aforementioned soundtrack from this link. It's by Bear McCreary, who has scored a ton of TV shows, more than a few other features, and worked with alumni of the band Oingo Boingo in LA in the 1990s when he wasn't yet 20. The movie also has a few fun hits of the 1960s, including I Think We're Alone Now, Tell Him, and Venus.

Definitely watch out for occasional MPMS (motion picture motion sickness) and sit in the back.

Highly rated on Rotten Tomatoes, this has critics at 90% and audiences at 83 (the trailer can be found on that link) and the estimated DVD release is June. It's a good movie but may be hard for some to watch.

Creative Control (2015)

I feel so hip now after we saw (and liked) this sci-fi satire about a young adman testing virtual reality glasses in a near future Brooklyn. Benjamin Dickenson stars, wrote, and directs (he says he wouldn't do it all at once again) his second feature. Also starring are Nora Zehetner (she was in Brick (2005), The Brothers Bloom, the series Maron, and more) as Dickenson's girlfriend, Dan Gill (new to me, he has worked some before) as his promiscuous best friend, and Alexia Rasmussen (ditto) as Gill's girlfriend. Then there are cameos by Reggie Watts (musician on The Late Late Show with James Corden as well as many other gigs) as himself and Jake Lodwick (in real life he invented vimeo) as the guy who invents Augmenta (the VR glasses).

Its script chugs along and the sets are cool with floor to ceiling windows in the apartment, office, and hotel. Inspired by Michelangelo Antonioni and Woody Allen, it's shot in black and white (with one exception) using anamorphic lenses.

This movie won a Special Jury Award at South by Southwest for visual excellence and was nominated for the Grand Jury Award there.

The music is also cool, by Dražen Bošnjak AKA Drazen Bosnjak, but isn't available for streaming on any site that I can find. If you google his name you'll find a few other tracks. Here's the one I liked best.

I subscribe to a number of email newsletters that I occasionally read before throwing away. Thrill list recommended this movie as among the best of the year so we went last week during its one week in town. It may cause mild MPMS (motion picture motion sickness) so is going on that list, but I was okay in the back row.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics are cool in its other definition, averaging only 64% to audiences' 71. Kellie, you can watch the trailer from the Rotten Tomatoes link, but I consider it to contain major spoilers. The DVD is coming out May 10 and I expect it to be streaming at that time as well. We thought it fascinating.

Milestone alert: this is movie #850 summarized in the blog! See the alphabetical list here.

The Brothers Grimsby (2016)

Jack loves cringe movies but even he was taken aback at some of the raunchy gags in this action farce about two reunited brothers, one a spy/assassin and the other a soccer hooligan buffoon. That said, we laughed and groaned at co-writer/star Sacha Baron Cohen's (the buffoon) nasty antics.

Remember last week when I said Tangerine was filthy? This makes Tangerine look like Ozzie and Harriet. When I covered Cohen's Brüno, I wrote, "The envelope is torn now," but this surpasses any filth that I've ever seen, with the camera lingering on the worst of them. As the brother, Mark Strong (most recently in Kingsmen: The Secret Service) is a good sport. And Cohen (last blogged for his comic relief in Les Miserables) does not save the most humiliating parts for himself.

Rebel Wilson (last in these pages for Pitch Perfect) puts her comedy chops to good use as Cohen's wife, and Cohen's wife in real life, Isla Fisher (most recently in Now You See Me) plays it entirely straight as Strong's love interest, as do Penelope Cruz (last in I'm So Excited) and Gabourey Sidibe (last in Seven Psychopaths) in a cameo. Daniel Radcliffe (Kill Your Darlings) has a funny bit as well.

Director Louis Leterrier (most recently helmed Now You See Me) uses the action skills he demonstrated in The Incredible Hulk (2008) and others to keep this going, except when he doesn't. The writing is credited to Cohen with Phil Johnston (he wrote two huge animated hits that we didn't see, Wreck-It Ralph and Zootopia, after his feature debut, a very funny Cedar Rapids) and Peter Baynham, who, along with Cohen and others, was nominated for an Oscar and a Writers Guild award for writing Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006), among his other work.

The editing, particularly on the opening sequence, is remarkable, like a video game or virtual reality, and it, like most of the movie, will induce MPMS (motion picture motion sickness--see the running list here), so my fellow sufferers should sit in the back row.

Cohen's brother Erran Baron Cohen (covered in some detail in The Dictator) and David Buckley (collaborated on the soundtrack to The Town) are credited with the score. I don't really remember it from nine days ago but here's one track and a list of songs.

We ended up seeing this after I listened to Marc Maron's podcast with Sacha (the podcast is quite long and took me several sessions to finish it--I like the Podcast app on the iPhone).

Grimsby is a real town, voted the worst place to live in England in 2016, on the east coast, and this movie does much to sustain that image.

If puerile, explicit sex jokes sicken you, stay far away. It's surprising that this is rated only R. It may be best for certain boys 18-25, Sacha Baron Cohen fans, and the most open minded of the rest of us. Critics on Rotten Tomatoes average 38% and audiences (self selected, no doubt) a resounding 54. Nonetheless, it was ninth at the box office last week and is returning tomorrow for another week in these parts.

Tangerine (2015)

Ann and I liked this crazy story of two transgender women hookers looking for one of their pimps on Christmas eve in LA. It's kind of a comedy: filthy, over-the-top, and funny. Kitana Kiki Rodriguez and Mya Taylor, real life trans women of color and close friends, were rewarded for their screen debuts  (playing Sin-Dee Rella and Alexandra, respectively) by sharing the Breakthrough Actor Award at the Gotham Awards and Taylor winning the first Best Supporting Female Independent Spirit Award given to a trans woman.

Before we streamed this movie on Netflix ten days ago I knew that it was shot entirely on iPhone 5Ses with anamorphic lenses (well, I learned about the special lenses tonight) and thought that watching it at home would save me from MPMS (Motion Picture Motion Sickness--see my up-to-date list here). It's a good testament to our new home theatre that I had to move away from the screen because the jumpy camera nauseated me.

I saw and liked director/co-writer Sean Baker's last feature Starlet (now available for Netflix streaming) three years ago. Please read what I wrote on the previous link. It's six sentences in the second half of the post, and I'm kind of proud of them. Co-writer Chris Bergoch worked on both movies.

No composer is credited but here's a list of the 30+ songs played in the movie and here's another list with clips of some of them. Here are a couple of articles I found interesting, one and two, and a link to the movie's Facebook page which includes video of Taylor's Spirit Awards acceptance speech.

Rotten Tomatoes critics' average has sunk from 99 all the way to 96% since the movie's release but its audiences come in at only 77. Obviously this is intended for open minds. When Ann and I made our movie date shortly after the Oscars, she said she wanted to see something that wasn't all about white men. I had already picked it!

Look At Us Now, Mother! (2015)

Ann and I, along with a packed house, thoroughly enjoyed this documentary of a grown woman making peace with her vain mom through humor and honesty. One of the features of the local Jewish Film Festival, it was followed by a Q&A with the filmmaker Gayle Kirschenbaum, 61, whose mother is still alive and living in Boca (Raton, Florida).

Kirschenbaum's first doc was A Dog's Life: A Dogumentary (2004) and then she made a documentary short called My Nose (2007), which she fleshed out (ha!) into this feature length doc. She made My Nose because her mother had been hounding her for decades to get a nose job, and Gayle finally agreed to seek medical advice only if her mother would permit her to film it. She's an attractive woman and still has her original schnozz. We also learned at the Q&A that she had to edit the film herself to lessen the abuse and keep it light.

According to the filmmaker's website, you can now pre-order the DVD. I highly recommend it. And on DVD you won't suffer from motion-picture-motion-sickness (MPMS--see my running list here) as I did in the theatre.

Suffragette (2015)

It's hard to say we "enjoyed" this wrenching story of 1912 English women fighting for the right to vote, but it's powerful, beautifully shot, and we highly recommend it. Carey Mulligan (last blogged in Far from the Madding Crowd) continues to impress us with her talent as our main heroine Maud Watts, accidentally politicized. Her main adversary is Brendan Gleeson (most recently in Calvary) as the scary Inspector condoning beating and jailing of the protestors (yes, there is violence). Supporting the cause are, among others, Anne-Marie Duff (last in Before I Go to Sleep), Helena Bonham Carter (fairy godmother in Cinderella), the lovely Romola Garai (I watched her in the mini-series The Hour), and, for five minutes, Meryl Streep (most recently in Ricki and the Flash). Streep's character, Emmeline Pankhurst, however, was a real feminist icon who was the leader of British women's suffrage.

This is director Sarah Gavron's second feature, but screenwriter Abi Morgan (last in these pages for The Invisible Woman) is making quite a name for herself. The lovely photography (some bleak, and, oh, that magnificent park!) is courtesy of Eduard Grau, who shot A Single Man, though I didn't say so (I should have, as I went into some detail about the exquisite look of that picture).

Warning for those who are prone to Motion Picture Motion Sickness (MPMS), as I am: there are some sequences that will make us queasy, especially toward the end. Jack and I happened to choose to sit in the last row, but I still had to look away from time to time. This is going on the alphabetical list.  We sufferers need to know what to expect.

The prolific Alexandre Desplat (Oscar-nominated for The Imitation Game and The Grand Budapest Hotel last year and won for the latter) brings another great soundtrack to the screen. It can be streamed from this link (with a few fits and starts tonight at least).

Rotten Tomatoes' critics at 72 and audiences at 76  are wrong. See this. And stay until the end for a short history lesson.

'71 (2014)

After watching this violent story of a British soldier during "The Troubles" in Belfast between the IRA and the Brits, several in my group commented we were glad not to have seen it alone nor at night (we went on Sunday morning). It's hard to watch. I had to put my hand up to block the screen several times to avoid the most disturbing shots. Jack O'Connell (I didn't see Unbroken--he starred in it, among others) is the hero, Gary Hook (fictitious), leading a cast of dozens, all unfamiliar to me. Speaking of which I wasn't the only one of the group who wished we had familiarized ourselves in advance with the history of the 1971 conflict. That said, we did get sorted out as the movie unfolded.

Director Yann Demange (a British TV director) and screenwriter Gregory Burke (an acclaimed Scottish playwright) make their feature debuts, winning for this picture several awards and nominated for more in the United Kingdom and Europe.

The music by Belfast native David Holmes (Ocean's Eleven (2001), Analyze That (2002), Ocean's Twelve (2004), Ocean's Thirteen (2007), Haywire, more) is good and can be sampled from this link, with a couple of lines from the movie introducing it. Also, here's an article about the composer for those who are interested.

With the intermittent use of handheld camera operators running after people, the movie is likely to induce motion picture motion sickness in those susceptible. Here's my ongoing list of MPMS movies.

I don't take issue with the critics at Rotten Tomatoes whose review average 97% to its audiences' 84. But it's not for the faint of heart.