Beth is feeling a bit like a neglected wife; her husband Joseph is a workaholic surgeon and her kids are grown. So it’s kind of perfect timing when she finds an injured dog by the side of the road. Nursed back to health, the aptly named ‘Freeway’ becomes her loyal and constant companion. When Freeway’s vet marries Beth’s daughter, the whole family comes together for the happy occasion – until Joseph manages to lose the dog and suddenly the family is down one very important member.
Beth (Diane Keaton) refuses to leave until she’s searched every corner of the back woods where Freeway was last seen. Her sister-in-law (Dianne Wiest) chooses to stay by her side, as does her new beau (Richard Jenkins), and her son (Mark Duplass). Finally feeling the guilt of his inadequacy, Joseph (Kevin Kline) stays back too, and the search party is more like search couples therapy.
It’s co-written and directed by the fabulous Lawrence Kasdan so I wonder how on earth that name paired with this cast could have sailed past me. What was I doing in 2012 that I couldn’t make room for a little Diane Keaton in my life? And the thing is, who better to relate to her character than myself, a woman who would most assuredly go full Billy Madison should any of my dogs ever go missing.
Alas, this is the least successful of Kasdan’s films and it’s not just for the lack of light sabers. I get what he’s trying to do: there’s a fraying marriage, a freshly minted marriage, and new romances for both the young and not so young. It all revolves around this missing dog, but it’s a lot to handle for a film with such a sweet and simple premise and the tone is sometimes a little too “family movie” for my taste or perhaps anyone’s. But dogs have such an uncomplicated relationship with us, in comparison. They like to cuddle and to be fed. They are never not 110% bowled over to see you come, whether you’ve been away 5 minutes or 5 days. Kasdan was inspired to write the script after he adopted a dog himself, and promptly lost him.
This is Kasdan’s first indie film and the cast, featuring three Oscar winners and two more nominees, were so moved by the story they agreed to work for scale. Even if it wasn’t his most successful, Kasdan lists it as his most gratifying, and I suppose in a long and lustrous career, that’s worth something too.
In the wake of a bad breakup, Ben decides he just won’t leave his apartment anymore. His friends think he’s a dick but aren’t as concerned for his mental health as they perhaps should be. His world condenses down to shouting at 11 year olds over video game platforms, gaming internet dates with the same Richard Attenborough material, and chatting up whatever cute delivery persons cross his threshold.
herself. But the truth is, her mother has recently died and she really doesn’t have anyone else in her life. So there’s maybe a little sympathy there, or there should be. But it also means that her $60K inheritance will fund a trip to L.A. where her latest obsession lives. Taylor (Elizabeth Olsen) is an “Instagram star.” She lives and makes her living online, creating picture-perfect moments for her followers to drool over while being sponsored by trendy businesses to do so. So she’s kind of the perfect match for Ingrid. They both eat this shit up. It’s just that a) Taylor doesn’t know they didn’t simply “bump into each other” and b) Ingrid’s a little unhinged and every damn thing is about to unravel.
every book attributed to her name, I wasn’t sure that there would be much left for me to discover. But when Dunne asks her what it was like, in the 1960s, to have seen that 5 year old girl she once wrote about, the one tripping on the LSD her mother had given her. There’s a pause, and we mentally fill in the appropriately horrified responses, but instead she quietly says “Let me tell you, it was gold.” And that’s what made her work so riveting, her voice to incisive. She was a serious, ballsy reporter, and in a time when female reporters were rare and journalists of her ilk were unheard of.
Beyonce fills out a bodysuit. She’s just spectacular in this: spectacular, spectacular. You can’t make a movie like this without the perfect lead, and Danielle Macdonald is this movie’s soul mate, its one and only. But the rest of the cast falls into place perfectly too. Siddharth Dhananjay as Jheri is Patti’s perfect partner; perhaps an unlikely duo, but if the rap game is going to turn a cold shoulder on a white girl from Jersey, so too will it be tough for a brown boy pharmacist. But disenfranchised is disenfranchised and director Geremy Jasper paints an unflinching portrait. Meanwhile, Mamoudou Athie had already won my heart in 
Also uncomfortable: a singing telegram lady in a bonnet shows up daily to her door, singing the appropriate verse of The 12 Days of Christmas, and leaving behind the corresponding gift: two turtle doves, a partridge, a pear tree, etc etc. The problem is, the gifts are anonymous. It’s a mystery. A Christery, if you will. A Christmas mystery. And some pretty lame gifts that come with unwanted responsibilities. But Cynthia thinks it’s romantic, because she’s an idiot in a holiday movie and I guess she has to go along with it. I mean, do you realize how bird-heavy that song is? I did the math: it’s 22 birds by the end of the 12 days. That’s a lot of bird poop, and up to a 20 year commitment! Hope she likes omelettes, because birds are truly a gift that keeps on giving.
plays the principal and he’s pretty darn at that too. But Matt Letscher plays the titular “Teacher of the Year” and though his character has the bonafide ribbon, you kind of have to take their word for it that he’s good at his job. Although we see quite a lot of him in the classroom, he rarely seems to be more than competent, and sometimes quite a bit less. Even so, this Teacher of the Year is being lured out of teacher. And if this is the best they have, they cannot afford to lose him. The rest of the school seems to be populated by teachers who are either oblivious or crazy with jealousy. It’s a sad state of affairs.
about how good it is to be unemployed underwater? He literally calls the land lubbers slaves. But excuse me, there is one other black character, a “black fish” who sings. She is literally panned to for less than a second – blink and you’ll miss her.
either but I find this way more misleading in a children’s movie [possibly my name is also confusing to children: my adorable and super-smart niece Ella, a year and a half old, is
still refusing to say my one-syllable name and says instead “I no can do that” just to prove that she’s perfectly capable of complex sentences and is just happiest when she’s spiting me].
She technically only has 6 tentacles (it was cheaper than animating 8) but since she has 2 arms, I guess we’ll call it a draw. Octopus tentacles are distributed as 6 arms and 2 legs, but whatever. The team at Disney created Ursula with a drag queen named Divine in mind; unfortunately, 
Divine died before voice recording. I kind of love Ursula though. I love that she flaunts her curves and is always wearing a perfectly made up face. She’s got a soft spot for her pets (or sidekicks? henchmen?) Flotsam and Jetsam and a penchant for musical numbers and dramatics. My god, is Ursula ME? I do look hot in purple.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is so bloated by this point that it’s a full-time job to keep up with what’s going on. Thankfully, Thor: Ragnarok doesn’t get bogged down in what’s come before. Instead, the third installment in the Thor franchise tells a self-contained story and shifts Thor’s segment of the universe from dreary fantasy mode to action-comedy mode. From a cameo by Matt Damon that I totally missed, to a Taika-Waititi-voiced blue rock monster, to Hulk and Thor arguing over everything and anything, Ragnarok is the funniest apocalypse movie you will likely ever see (sorry, Zombieland!).
ASSHOLES WATCHING MOVIES 