June 2019

Highlights of this month included a trip to Lake Elsinore, CA, to participate in my magazine’s annual bikini shoot, featuring nine boats we’d invited to take part in the event. I lasted about five hours before the crippling heat finally got to me. Still, we shot a large amount of materials for me to fill numerous pages of our July issue, plus lots of feature stories to mete out over the following 12 months or so. I also had a lovely breakfast with my friend Anna, who was in town just for a few hours during a layover at LAX. Joan and I saw Roy Zimmerman perform in a very warm room sitting on uncomfortable chairs, and there was no new material, and some of the audience members (the ones sitting right next to us, natch) were talking during the performance. TV: The new season of Black Mirror dropped, but only one episode was exceptional. I also watched the first episode of Dead to Me. BOOKS: I finished I Found You by Lisa Jewell (thanks to Connie Ogle for the recommendation) and started After Anna by Alex Lake.

Here are the movies I saw in June:

TANGENT ROOM (2017)—Director Björn Engström’s short (64 minutes) sci-fi movie locks five characters—all scientists—in a room. They’ve been given the task of solving an existential math problem or face almost certain death if they don’t crack the conundrum’s cryptic clues. From what I could gather from the scientific double-talk, it seems that the Earth is in imminent danger of collapsing on itself (or something), which leads to some very creepy special effects and a life-changing conclusion. This otherworldly thriller, sort of a modern-day Twilight Zone episode as conceived by Stephen Hawking, is helped by the always extraordinary acting chops of Britain’s Vee Vimolmal. (9)

BOOKSMART (2019)—Two graduating high school girls (Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever) set out to finally break the rules and party on their last day of classes. This coming-of-age comedy is meant to remind viewers of movies like Superbad and Adventureland, but it’s actually a bit more inventive and offbeat than those movies. It takes a bit of time for the picture truly take off, but once it does, it’s extremely enjoyable, and quite funny and clever. Dever is fondly remembered in the episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm about a Girl Scout who experiences getting her period for the first time. (9)

TOY STORY 4 (2019)—Here’s the year’s best-reviewed movie that is actually a colossal disappointment. Disney/Pixar brings back the familiar characters from the first three (excellent) Toy Story movies, then all but ignores most of them in favor of introducing a large amount of new—and much less interesting—toys. The story is an irritating retread of the “toys get separated from the others, and then they must find their way back home” trope that has been done to death in this franchise. The filmmakers load up the movie with frenetic scenes intended to fill the screen with a lot of action and chaos to keep small kids interested; as a result, there is a marked lack of humanity. This is the first Toy Story movie that left me feeling bored. I did like Forky, a new character, and the ending is touching, but many of the main characters are sorely missed. (5)

ROCKETMAN (2019)—To tell the Elton John story, Rocketman’s filmmakers decide to turn the story into a something like a traditional musical, using Elton’s songs to advance the storyline. For a while, it works just fine. Unfortunately, because this is the story of a pop singer, the movie ultimately starts shunting back and forth between diagetic musical number numbers (“I don’t ‘know’ I’m singing!”) and non-diagetic numbers (i.e., live concert performances or songwriting sessions), and never seems to decide for sure what kind of movie it wants to be. Much of it is entertaining, but it’s one of many films I’ve seen about a superstar who is universally worshipped but spends the movie wallowing in a sea of drug- and alcohol-fueled self-pity anyway. Thus, I felt like I’d seen this movie innumerable times already, instead of feeling like I was seeing something fresh and unique. Having said all that, Taron Egerton is utterly perfect as Elton John, and all of Elton’s wonderful hits are performed exquisitely. (8)

LATE NIGHT (2019)—Mindy Kaling’s first big-screen comedy is about an aging host of a late-night talk show (Emma Thompson) who hires a token minority female (Kaling) for her writing staff—strictly for appearances. Unfortunately, Thompson’s character is so inhumanly cruel and repugnant that it sends the movie into a tailspin before she is finally, finally (sort of) redeemed at the end. Kaling is very funny, as always (I saw every episode of her TV show), but this movie isn’t quite as hilarious as it needed to be. (8)

WILD ROSE (2019)—A young Irish mother of two, newly released from jail on some drug-related charge, dreams of being a country-music star. She struggles between choosing to follow her dream, or being a responsible mom. We’ve seen this kind of “making of a pop star” movie many times before (i.e., the recent Teen Spirit and A Star Is Born), but Jessie Buckley is breathlessly perfect in the title role, and the movie is genuinely appealing on virtually every level. Extremely well done. (9)