Everybody's got a movie they think is overrated. Some are contrarians--check out the 1 star reviews of any of the more famously well received films for examples--while others just don't get the hype. I find myself in that second camp with the original Dawn of the Dead, a film that just went on longer than it needed to while not really doing much. Oh man, am I already hitting the inevitable decline in quality this early in October of the Living Dead? This could be a problem...
slice of life
Remember Me (2010)
Sometimes one particular moment stands out in a movie and that's all you remember. When I think the movie Plankton, it takes me a moment to remember the "plot" as I'm immediately focusing on the scene where one girl has caviar oozing out of her vagina as she shouts to the eggs that Mommy loves them. This is also the case with Remember Me, a movie starring Mr. Robert Pattinson that came out in the middle of the Twilight franchise. Before I watched this movie for the third time for this post, I couldn't remember any plot details other than the twist ending where Pattinson dies in the Twin Towers on 9/11.
Lost Lake (2003)
I will admit that I have trouble deciding what to review here. I want to find the right balance between the extremes of "no one has ever seen this movie" and "everyone has seen this movie." I don't always do that well, as is the case with today's film, Lost Lake, which has only one watch on Letterboxed: my own (this is also the case for A Windigo Tale, a story of the trauma residential schools do, which is... sadly always relevant). No one has heard of this movie! Why should I take the time to talk about it? Well, how else are people going to learn about the sheer madness that is the alternate--and true--ending of this film?
Strapped (2010)
When I decided to review a bunch of queer movies in honor of Pride Month, I had two goals: to review The Matrix trilogy--the directors are trans sisters, so that's why I opened with the "or were made by queer creators" caveat--and to review Strapped, which is probably my favorite gay movie. It's a bit of an odd one, but did you really expect anything less from me by this point?
My Life Me
Today's post was supposed to be about literally any other show. Now that I've finished the first season of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, AKA When They Cry, the sky was the limit! Do I jump back into superhero shows with the first season of Arrow? Start on something I love like Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated? Or pull out something weird from my DVD collection like Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century? But no, while looking up... I honestly don't remember what, I discovered the existence of the Canadian cartoon My Life Me, and I haven't been able to get it out of my head ever since. Is it good? Not really, but it has a siren's song on my soul. So here we are, talking about a show I bet literally none of you have ever heard of. On brand for me, but still.
The Half of It (2020)
Last time I talked about Cyrano de Bergerac, and as promised, today’s film is heavily inspired by it, albeit with a more modern skin. In The Half of It our Cyrano is an Asian, lesbian high school student named Ellie, our Roxanne is Aster, and our Christian is Paul. But in addition to the queer theme, I say this movie is better because the characters are more fleshed out and real, but also because Ellie doesn’t die in the throes of delirium.
Chwineka Watches 