1) HOLY FUCKING SHIT I WAS SCARED
2) Danny Vermette needs to win the Oscar, or at the least be in serious contention.
3) I wrote in my SENTIMENTAL VALUE review how Renate Reinsve has this thing where when she’s not smiling, it looks like she’s going to smile, and this can be for a multitude of reasons, and in this movie she’s not doing that because she’s being a certain kind of knowing and terrified…so when she does get to that point it’s like a superpower in an already cracking sequence.
Hadn’t seen this in sixteen years and looking back, well, one, this is a phenomenal production from John Ford, with the highly underrated Winton Hoch giving some colors and pictorials to beat anybody, aided by the incomparable John Wayne…this isn’t Wayne’s best performance in my book but he manages to, even with a subpar hair and makeup job, convey being a retiree with movement and manners of speaking. (The moments at his wife’s grave are incredible.) And two, some of…
“The corn is as high as an elephant’s eye? One of the worst lyrics ever! Yes, it’s accurate. Yes, it scans perfectly. But the image of the corn growing in Oklahoma with a fucking elephant there? No!”
“I like elephants.”
“Everybody does!”
This is not Richard Linklater’s best movie because among other things BEFORE SUNSET exists. But this is - and keep my previous sentence in mind - for my money Ethan Hawke’s greatest performance. As Lorenz Hart, Hawke is…
Celine Song hit another home run. This time to the opposite field. At this rate her next one’s going to be an inside-the-park or a Mickey Mantle tape-measure. Like Gerwig, I suspect she can do anything.
My friend Haley and I messaged each other after I saw it and she said, I think very presciently, this will not be for everyone. And I’m worried the five stars may be too generous. But it WORKED for me. For many reasons. Here’s…
