MEDIOCREMOVIE.CLUB
  • Reviews
  • Side Pieces
  • Shane of Thrones
  • Podcast
  • About
  • Archives
  • Game of Thrones Fantasy

Enough Said

1/28/2020

0 Comments

 

A

Directed by Nicole Holofcener

Starring Julia Louis-Dreyfuss and James Gandolfini
​
Review by Jon Kissel
Picture

​James Gandolfini, harbinger of the Golden Age of Television and one of the best actors of his generation, died in June 2013, three months before the release of one of his greatest performances in Nicole Holofcener’s Enough Said.  I remember sitting down in theaters to watch this film, fresh with more grief than one would expect after the death of someone I’d never been within a hundred miles of, and loving Enough Said, not only for Gandolfini but for Holofcener’s script and the other performances in a hugely-talented cast.  However, how could I not be suspicious of that appraisal, especially when Tony Soprano played such a huge part in my cultural life?  On a years-later revisit, unclouded by grief blinders, my initial reaction was correct.  Enough Said is one of the great underrated films of the last decade, a high-concept farce with vast wells of empathy for its middle-aged characters.

Read More
0 Comments

Best Films of 2019

1/27/2020

1 Comment

 
Picture
By Jon Kissel

If I had been asked in October of 2019 how the cinematic year was going, I wouldn't have had great things to say.  Spring's Atlanta Film Festival, where I saw a half dozen of 2018's favorite films, only yielded one standout, and a lackluster summer schedule didn't much help matters.  However, some years are more back-loaded than others, and 2019 crammed in great film after great film as it came to a close, turning a subpar year into a strong one.  Returning favorites like Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino scored with some of their most personal and singular work, indie mainstays like Alex Ross Perry and Celine Sciamma turned in their best films, and up-and-comers like Greta Gerwig and Marielle Heller cemented their positions as some of cinema's most vital voices.  Female directors and stories particularly shone bright in 2019, despite the Oscar's shunning of most of them, and Netflix had its strongest year thus far as a forum for both original and established voices to do whatever it is they want to do.  Though Disney continues to dominate the heights of the box office and it might single-handedly destroy independent theaters, the critical state of the industry feels stronger than it did in the past few years, or at least it does until the streaming splurge is revealed to be a temporary bubble.


Read More
1 Comment

Rocketman

1/26/2020

0 Comments

 

C+

Directed by Dexter Fletcher

Starring Taron Egerton
​
Review by Jon Kissel
Picture

​Dexter Fletcher’s previous work as a director, subbing in at the last-minute for unreliable alleged rapist Bryan Singer on Bohemian Rhapsody, was insufficient to save that Queen biopic from arriving into theaters as a hacky mess and potentially the worst Best Picture nominee in decades, but Fletcher’s navigation of a story heavily influenced by its musician subjects was satisfactory enough to get him a job in the exact same subgenre.  Like the surviving members of Queen, Elton John has long shopped a film about his early life and career, and the filmgoing market is clearly primed for songbook musicals, regardless of quality.  With the parody Walk Hard far in the background as a guidebook of what not do to and Bohemian Rhapsody as a recent example of how terrible a film can be if every canard and trope is indulged, Fletcher’s Rocketman doesn’t reinvent a well-work wheel but it finds considerable stylistic flourishes to at least make the ride smoother.  

Read More
0 Comments

Late Night

1/21/2020

0 Comments

 

C

Directed by Nisha Ganatra

Starring Emma Thompson and Mindy Kaling
​
Review by Jon Kissel
Picture

​A famously instructive cultural scenario occurred on NBC in the mid-2000’s, wherein two new shows about sketch comedy debuted at the same time.  One, Aaron Sorkin’s Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, made its writers into heroes battling the forces of ignorance, one comedy bit at a time.  The other, Tina Fey’s 30 Rock, deliberately made its show-within-a-show a badly-rated-and-received series of fart jokes and desperate attempts to create merchandising.  Despite having less of a pedigree, 30 Rock ran for seven seasons while Studio 60 was quickly canceled.  There were surely dozens of reasons for this divergence, but one was that Studio 60 never had a believable sketch show in its center, especially if it was going to be posited as some central part of American cultural life.  A show can’t convince me that their writers or performers are some kinds of treasured icons and then include scenes from the show-within-a-show that make that treasuring implausible.  Director Nisha Ganatra and writer/star Mindy Kaling haven’t taken this to heart in Late Night, a film about an inexperienced writer starting her first gig on a revered-but-fading host’s show.  All involved need to convince the viewer that they’re good at their jobs, but Kaling may have been too consumed with her excellent work on The Office to pay attention to what was happening in NBC’s other time slots and file that information away for later use. 

Read More
0 Comments

John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum

1/14/2020

0 Comments

 

C-

Directed by Chad Stahelski

Starring Keanu Reeves

Review by Jon Kissel

Picture

The subtitle of the third John Wick installment, Parabellum, is Latin for ‘prepare for war’ and is majestically intoned by Ian McShane’s Winston at a pivotal moment.  A viewer might assume that the war takes place in the film itself, but it’s instead mere skirmishes and more preparation in a franchise that started strong and has since become plotless and clogged with borrowed mythology.  Maybe the war will come in John Wick 4 upon its release in 2021, or maybe in subsequent sequels after that one.  I’ll never know because after the drudgery and repetition of a franchise that has wholly turned itself over to video-game action and episodic filmmaking, I say goodbye to Mr. Wick.

Read More
0 Comments

Best of the 2010's, Part V

1/13/2020

0 Comments

 
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV

20

Picture
Rabbit Hole

​What is it:  Months after the accidental death of their son, a couple sorts through the wreckage.
MVP: 
Writer David Lindsay-Abaire, composing monologues about grief that I honestly think about all the time.
Why it's here:  Sensitively acted by its cast including Nicole Kidman, Aaron Echkart, and Dianne Wiest, Rabbit Hole is deep with truth about the hardest parts of life.


Read More
0 Comments

Best of the 2010's, Part IV

1/12/2020

0 Comments

 
Part I
Part II
​Part III

40

Picture
The Irishman

​What is it:  A lunkheaded hitman considers his work alongside the Philly mob and labor leader Jimmy Hoffa.
MVP:  Martin Scorsese, putting a reflective period on his long career depicting organized crime.
Why it's here:  The titular Irishman is no schemer dreaming up new revenue sources for his underworld masters.  He's an order-follower of the kind that made much of the 20th century such a disaster, and Scorsese's clear-eyed depiction of him as such means we might not need another gangster film again.


Read More
0 Comments

Best of the 2010's, Part III

1/11/2020

0 Comments

 
Part I
​Part II

60

Picture
1917

​​What is it:  Two British soldiers in WWI are assigned a mission to get to the front and call off a doomed charge before it begins.
MVP:  George MacKay, grounding a technical achievement in real emotion.
Why it's here:  It gets how useless WWI was, and refuses to give the viewer any cheap catharsis.  Some people died in vain, some people's lives weren't tossed into the meat grinder, and tomorrow's another day.


Read More
0 Comments

Best of the 2010's, Part II

1/10/2020

0 Comments

 
Part I

80

Picture
Moneyball

​​What is it:  An adaptation of Michael Lewis' groundbreaking book on the Oakland A's reevaluation of what makes a good baseball player.
MVP: 
Brad Pitt, quietly revolutionizing a pillar of American society.
Why it's here:  Because even for someone who's bored to tears by the sport itself, it's easy to be romantic about baseball.


Read More
0 Comments

Best of the 2010's, Part I

1/8/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
The 2010's as a decade personally represent the crystallization of a hobby that's grown to take up more and more of my life.  That hobby is capital-A amateur film criticism, as manifested by a well-maintained Letterboxd page and the thousands of words and dozens of hours of podcasts on this website.  So why did I write almost 1200 reviews over that period of time?  More importantly, why didn't I take seriously that guy that Bryan and I met at Ebertfest who wanted to promote our website?  Where would we be now if that guy turned us towards writing with an environmentally-conscious message?  Would climate change be solved by now?  We'll never know.


Read More
0 Comments

    Side Pieces

    Random projects from the MMC Universe. 

    Categories

    All
    Action
    Adventure
    Author - Bryan
    Author - Drew
    Author - Jon
    Author - Phil
    Author - Sean
    Best Of 2016
    Best Of 2017
    Best Of 2018
    Best Of 2019
    Best Of 2020
    Best Of 2021
    Best Of 2022
    Best Of The Decade
    Classics
    Comedy
    Crime
    Documentary
    Drama
    Ebertfest
    Game Of Thrones
    Historical
    Horror
    Musical
    Romance
    Sci Fi
    Thriller
    TV
    Western

    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    June 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015

    RSS Feed