Bob Trevino Likes It (2024)

Fortunately for Lily there are not one but two Bob Trevinos. Unfortunately for her, the one that is her father is a narcissistic man who holds love at a conditional arm’s length and provides his daughter with an itemized list of every expense it took to raise her. Lily, depsite all that, is a bubbly, wandering soul. Her high-spirited personality masks a muddied, traumatic childhood that she proudly and a little obliviously but sweetly owns. Her mother, a drug addict, left at an early age, and her father, a neglectful manipulator, raised her solo. Working as a live-in caretaker for the charmingly caustic Daphne (Lauren Spencer), Lily faces the world with light despite lacking a community of wires to help ignite her. Desperate for an unlikely, inopportune change of heart for her father during his latest silent treatment, she searches his name in Facebook and stumbles across a blank profile for a Bob Trevino. The man that she finds, no relation, is a timid construction manager, spending his days wishing for a raise and supporting the scrapbooking habit of his melancholy wife. He’s gentle. When he accepts Lily’s friend request, what begins as a simple inquiry into whether they’re related evolves into a n overly convenient but nonethe less tale of chosen family. It is hard to feel good about things sometimes, and if you are looking for a melancholy feel good movie, this fits the bill.

A Real Pain (2024)

It seems like there are a small handful of movies that feel quite independent, meaning that they feel special and well done with a message. They are also likely to be commercial duds, able to make back what they cost to produce, but not blockbuster material, but that are both enjoyable and a bit painful to watch. This is one such movie this year--it is nominated for best Supporting Actor and Best Original Screenplay. The story follows two cousins — David, played by Jesse Eisenberg (who wrote and directed the film), and Benji, played by Kieran Culkin — their grandmother has died and left them a little bit of money. They embark on the concentration camp tour of Poland to find out a bit more about her--she was a Polish Holocaust survivor. I have done this trip myself with a Polish Jew who survived the war by hiding in the woods. It is a harrowing experience, mostly because of the magnitude of what the Germans did on such a massive scale. The two men were once as close as brothers, the two have since drifted apart. David has a wife, a kid and a successful career. Benji, on the other hand, is an impassioned man with nothing really going on in his life. As the two explore Poland with a Holocaust tour group, Benji’s social abrasiveness and strong opinions both unsettle and endear him to David and the group. Having just read The Anxious Generation and the struggle of boys moving from childhood to adulthood, there is a real embodyment of that struggle here.

Sitting In Bars With Cake (2024)

Let me start of by saying that while this movie had some promise, to my ear it didn't quite deliver. The other thing you hsould know is that this is not the romantic drama or comedy that you might think it is from reading the blurp on the plane. This gets sad fast, and it never much recovers from that. So the punch line is delivered first, but here is the structure that it was built on. So, it is not really about the cake part of the equation, even though it starts off there. Jane and Corinne have been friends since elementary school. They live in Los Angeles, are roommates, and also work in the same PR agency, based in the Capitol Records building. Corinne is an assistant to a swashbuckling powerhouse and she is the bubbly effervessant half of the friendship. Jane works in the mail room. She spends her free time baking, afraid to tell her high-powered parents she doesn't want to be a lawyer. The extroverted Corinne thinks quiet Jane needs to have more fun. The idea is born: Jane should bake cakes and bring them to bars--this dies not come out of nowhere--Jane is an amazing baker, who dreams up unusual cake ideas and then executes them to perfection. Corrine thinks that cake could be the icebreaker that Jane needs to meet guys. You gotta have a gimmick? Probably not, Jane could meet guys who Corrine's light brings in, but there's not much of a plot in that. The nightlife of Los Angeles holds no appeal for Jane, but she goes along with the plan. Then comes the serious part, which will go without saying beyond what was revealed above.

Past Lives (2023)

This is writer Celine Song’s feature debut, and she took a page out of the Greta Gerwig playbook and did a semi-autobiographical story. This is a story of lost love and the lasting endurance of a childhood crush, the access to the past that is possible with digital and social media; the roads not taken, the lives not led, the unrelenting power of regret. It is also a movie that speaks to the migrant experience and the way this creates lifelong alternative realities in the mind: the self that could have stayed behind in the old country, versus the one that went abroad for a new future. The movie covers three different time periods that start when a 12-year-old Na-young is walking home after school with Hae-sung. She and her parents are leaving South Korea for North America. The next section happens 12 years later. Na-young has anglicized her name to Nora and is now a budding writer in New York. Hae-sung is trudging through his military service back in Seoul and studying engineering. The two connect via Facebook, and the beaming excitement of their conversations will have you thinking they might have a future. The movie screen is flooded with their happiness and a single unasked question: should they be together? Our hopes are then dashed, and their meeting when they are yet again 12 years older, and is a wrap up of where their relationship is and has been-- Na-young/Nora talks about the Korean concept of “in-yun”, the karmic bringing together of people who were lovers in past lives. This wonderful film suggests a secular, 21st-century version: the past lives of Na-young and Hae-sung are their childhoods, preserved and exalted in their memory and by modern communications. Past Lives is a great date movie, and a movie for every occasion, too.

Asteroid City (2023)

As is so often the case with Wes Anderson movies, I am not always sure that I totally get it, and Asteroid City is no exception to that rule. Anderson's scrupulous and stunning production design transports us to a time of novelty sunglasses, letter writing, talent shows, and counselors who play the ukulele. The adapted screenplay, written with Roman Coppola, is witty and infused with heart. The soundtrack of classic rock tunes from the era complements the visuals and story perfectly. It is a quirky and heartwarming coming-of-age story set in the nostalgic backdrop of a 1950s summer camp. With his signature aesthetic and odd characters, this emerges as a tapestry of childhood adventures, touching relationships, and laugh-out-loud humor. The cast of lovable misfit kids are largely adventure-seeking yet sardonic. Their interactions are humorous and touching, showcasing the fleeting friendships and learning experiences kids have at summer camp. This is primo Anderson in peak form. He has crafted a film full of imagination, adventure, and humanity. It's a rewarding watch for both adults and kids, with universal themes about childhood and self-discovery.

My Sailor, My Love (2023)

I watched this on a flight from Sydney to Queenstown, which directly followed a transpacific flight that was brutal, so consider the source. I thought this was a very nuanced film, quiet and yet beautiful in tone, that depicts how trauma ripples across generations and messes everything up if it isn't dealt with. The movie is filmed on Achill island off Ireland’s west coast, and has at its core grappling with the rough currents of late-in-life regrets and resentment. Cranky retired sea captain Howard –who was once content with shutting himself off from the outside world – is forced to open his disorderly home, and subsequently his heart, to Annie, a housekeeper hired by his overworked daughter Grace. What begins as a lighthearted autumnal romance gradually evolves into a thorny study of familial grievances. Grace is unable to stop herself from ruining anything good in her life, and it turns out, in the lives of others as well. She is troubled by her own unhappy marriage, and grows increasingly bitter about her father’s new relationship. The reasons for her disturbing, self-destructive behaviours spring from a traumatic childhood, the details of which are revealed too late to fully flesh out, but she cannot stop herself. It leaves you with something to think about, and is beautifully done.

Spoiler Alert (2023)

This is the real life story about Michael Ausiello's love affair that ended badly. The book upon which this is based has the spoiler alert in the title: The Hero Dies At The End. Michael is a shy pop-culture junkie who doesn't drink or do drugs and is emotionally guarded because of his traumatic childhood, in which he grows up fat and mocked, then loses both of his parents--we do not get much of a glimpse at what happens after his mother dies, but probably nothing great. Michael is grossed out by Grindr and timid about sex, which means he's a poor fit for the musky dance floors of the Manhattan gay-bar circuit. But it's on one of those dance floors, on a rare night out with a colleague from TV Guide, that Michael meets Kit Cowan, the man who ends up being the love of his life. Kit has everything that Michael wishes he had: Confidence, cool friends, and a muscular physique. And yet, Kit is willing to wait for Michael to let down his emotional walls. Besides, Michael's not the only one with neuroses—Kit has baggage he has to work through if he and Michael are going to live the monogamously partnered life that Michael, in particular, seems to want. The story of their struggles and progress in their long term relationship takes an emotional turn when Kit is diagnosed with a rare and terminal illness, and so is a relationship story from beginning to the sad and inevitable end.

Together Together (2021)

I unexpectedly loved this movie. As a review I read said, is not just smart, it's sneaky-smart. You go into it thinking you know what you're getting into, and the movie conspicuously makes choices that seem intended to announce which boxes it's about to check off. Then it keeps confounding you—in a way that's understated rather than flashy—until you come to accept it on its own terms. It's the perfect storytelling tactic for a movie about a surrogate mother and her patron, a divorced man 20 years her senior. The main characters don't fully appreciate each other until they quit trying to categorize their relationship and let it be whatever it's going to be, while trying not obsess over what'll happen once the baby is born. The script is pitch perfect, and the two main actors make it happen. There was one moment of insight for me, a mistake I haven't made yet but still could. The woman who is the surrogate got pregnant and had a baby in high school that she put up for adoption, that is how she knows that she can carry a vhild and give it away. The pearl of wisdom is that she lost her family, because they saw her differently after she got pregnant, and when she was with them, she couldn't stop seeing herself that way and so she had to leave them. A terrible awful no good mistake, that is so bittersweet and so believable. There is a lot to be learned here.

The Starling (2021)

So many reviews that I read about this movie just hated it, said it was flat and two dimensional and some even said they were embarrassed for Melissa McCarthy for spear heading this effort. I have to disagreee, but then I have two things in my past that may be a bit different from the rest. The first is that my younger brother died when I was ten so I was raised by grieving parents. Then my youngest child had a brain tumor when he was five and spent the year he had surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy in exactly the kind of fog that Lily was in throughout the movie. Lily and Jack (Chris O'Dowd) lose their infant girl to SIDS, and Jack goes in to long term psychiatric care in what appears to be a private hospital. The only unrealistic thing for me is that that is truly unaffordable and he would have probably ended up taking his own life or feeling like he should rather than doing ceramics and therapy for months on end. Lily is left at home, emotionally and physically alone to grapple with her own grief and how to move forward. The story has some twists and turns, but the leadenness of their grief is very relatable for me. Straming on Netflix.

Borat the Subsequent Movie (2020)

Every year there are some films that I watch that are nominated for an Academy Award that I just find to be clunkers. Usually they are in one of the special effects category, although I have to admit, while there are many movies that I would have skipped over but since they are nominated, I watch them, and more often than not I am pleasantly surprised. That is not, however, what happened here. This is the new installment in the misadventures of Sasha Baron Cohen's ignorant yet fearless Kazakhstani journalist Borat Sagdiyev and it is filled with risqué jokes, jokes that don't land, and, as is clearly the point, a terrible reflection on the American people. Tolerance for and occasional outright support for racism, xenophobia, misogyny, law breaking, sex trafficking, and openly talking about killing people who do not agree with you is all alive and well, and people are willing to be filmed doing so. The thing that makes it far less appealing now that it was in the first film is that Trump was elected president and we saw it every single day at the highest levels of government and it just is not at all funny.

Set it Up (2018)

This is pretty good as a romantic comedy goes.  It is part The Devil Wears Prada meets Cyrano de Bergerac (so drawing from a wide range). Harper and Charlie work for two driven and successful workaholics, one of who is now divorced and the other of whom hasn't dated in the foreseeable past.  They require their assistants to be at their beck and call all the time, it is like the bad old days of medicine, where the only friends you could realistically have you saw at the hospital, everyone else was just not an option.

So Harper convinces Charlie they should set up their bosses and they will have more free time as a result because they will spend time with each other and not need them as much.  This goes hilariously well, with a script that keeps the movie from being straight ahead formulaic, or at least entertainingly so, and what happens is pretty much what you would suspect. A tale of unsustainable relationships.
 

Land Ho! (2014)

There are a lot of cringe worthy moments in this movie, but in the end I was glad that I had watched it, and I also loved that I got to see some of the incredible beauty of Iceland once again.
The story itself is about two characters, one that you could bear to be with and one that you most decidedly could not.  Mitch is an aging surgeon who turns up at his newly-ex-brother-in-law Colin’s house one fine afternoon, ostensibly to cheer Colin up.  Mitch is a good old boy--affable, unapologetically sexist, and a controller. He’s the kind of good time that can drive a less exuberant person a little nuts.  Colin is yin to his yang, and while the two do not change one iota as the movie progresses, you can see that this is a way for people who are very different to co-exist.  Mitch needs to talk less and Colin needs to say no more often, but while very different, they can manage to get along.  Mitch is struggling with a life event, and Colin is who he turned to.  It is a strange mix of quiet and loud that ends up working pretty well.

Salvation Boulevard (2011)

There are an awful ot of good actors in this movie, and yet it does not add up to a good movie.  I will say this, as pandemic watching goes, it does not pull any brain muscles to watch, but I would not recommend it.  Greg Kinnear stars as a newly born-again Christian and former Deadhead whose faith is tested when he witnesses his pastor, Pierce Brosnan, “accidentally” shooting famous atheist professor Ed Harris. Brosnan wants Kinnear to take the fall. But Kinnear has no interest in that plan and has some unlikely allies: a pot-smoking campus security guard played by Marisa Tomei, and his gruff ex-Navy father-in-law Ciarán Hinds, who suspects that there’s more to the crime than the smug Brosnan is letting on. It’s hard to say what’s worst: the narrow conception of what a Christian is (or a Deadhead, or a college professor, for that matter), or the flat and largely predictable dialog and plot trajectory.  Only the step daughter comes up with surprises.  The result is like a Coen brothers movie without any wit, style, or clever twists.  However, for lazy Sunday afternoon watching it fit the bill.
 

Wine Country (2020)

Yes, I am still watching a lot of fluff in the aftermath of my eye surgery.  Not being able to see is far worse than anything that I have had to do or not do personally in the pandemic and has kind of put that into a sort of perspective. 
 This is a movie based on a real event with the cast who actually did the trip.  That in and of itself is noteworthy.  The “Saturday Night Live” women who populate this movie are all longtime friends, connected by comedy, who’ve shared trips like the one depicted here. Rachel Dratch’s actual 50^th birthday prompted a group jaunt to Napa, just as her on film character’s 50^th birthday inspires the on-screen antics. But they’re all playing versions of themselves: Poehler, directing her first feature film and co-starring as the trip’s bossy organizer, has acknowledged that she’s the one who always keeps the others on schedule. Tina Fey plays the Airbnb manager and is wise and droll.  Maya Rudolph, who has four kids in real life plays a character who’s happy to have a break from her four kids. Emily Spivey and Liz Cackowski, (who has a brief, amusing role as an uptight sommelier), both former “SNL” writers and members of this crew, wrote the script. So I am glad this examination of women on the cusp of the second half of their lives exist, but somehow I wish they had "Big Chill"'ed it up a bit.  Well worth watching, and streaming on Netflix.

Always Be My Maybe (2019)

Happy birthday to my first middle child!

I am still on my post eye surgery pandemic movie fare of incredibly light romantic comedies, and this fits the bill.  This is a tale of childhood crushes becoming a life partnership.  The young Sasha Tran and Marcus Kim (with their adult selves played by Wong and Park respectively) are next-door neighbors in San Francisco. Often neglected by her parents who work long hours, Sasha seems accustomed to preparing her own dinners—she can make even a can of spam look fancy—and learning the intricate details of Korean cuisine from Marcus’ sweet, sacrificing mom. This portrayal of Asian families opening their home to waifs of all sorts was definitely part of my growing up experience.  My friend whose parents emigrated from China took me in and fed me, teaching me both how to cook and how to eat.  Their Indonesian friends, equally welcoming with feasts, did even more to help my palate expand. With Sasha spending most of her time with Marcus’ family, the two kids grow up as friends, and then by happenstance lose their virginity to each other as teens but then when Marcus’ mother dies , have an awkward falling out in their formative years. 

Cut to 15 years later, and Sasha is now among America’s hottest celebrity chefs in Los Angeles.  The two get back together in awkward and hesitant ways, he calling her inauthentic and she calling him a coward.  The whole thing is less cringeworthy than it sounds and I very much enjoyed this.
 

Ernesto's Manifesto (2019)

This movie came recommended to us as a light movie fare to watch in the time of COVID and climate change making it hands down the worst year of the 21st century to date.  May it not be exceeded, but 2021 may be more of the same.

Ernesto gets what very few of us do--he gets what he deserves.  He starts the story with little if anything on his side, other than his good humor and a rosy outlook on the world.  He loses his job after being falsely accused by wrong doers and he loses his admittedly terrible girlfriend as a result.  From then on things go nowhere but up.  Ernesto is like a Latinx Chauncey Gardiner, going from being a simple waiter in a Tex-Mex restaurant in SoCal to becoming a trusted advisor and financial successful.  What the movie lacks in scintillating dialogue it makes up for with a good person getting the break he deserves.
 

Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015)

As my youngest son said, there is so much wrong with everyone in this movie, and if you wanted to look at how family's affect themselves, this is a gritty look at that.
Minnie is fifteen, it is the mid-1970's in San Francisco and her mother is drugging and drinking and openly sexual with her boyfriend in front of her teenage daughter.
This has exactly the outcome you would expect.  The daughter has been raised by a mother who craves attention, but cannot shower it upon her own children.  They grow up thinking the way people show they love you is by having sex with you.  You get the picture.
There are many cringe-worthy scenes, a few that are terrifying, both as a former teenage  girl, a parent, and a grandparent.  There are so many elements of human behavior that are on display here, all of them ring true, and it is beautifully acted.

The Willoughby's (2020)

This is a movie about the family you choose.
The biological family at the center of the movie is not a happy one. Father and Mother  love each other very much, but that affection does not extend to their children, who they see as a burden and a nuisance.  Their kids, Tim, Jane, and twins both named Barnaby, the impication being that their parents didn’t care to think of a fourth name, tip toe around them, but to no avail because they are frequently punished and often unfed. A Cheshire-like blue cat fulfills the role of narrator and sometimes pet, talking only to the audience in his signature droll tone.
After much neglect, the Willoughby children decide to send their parents away on a dangerous trip that would hopefully leave them orphaned. Luckily for the young Willoughbys, their parents hired a sweet-natured nanny named Linda, who is what a parent should be.  She and a kindly but intimidating Willy Wonka-esque candymaker named Commander Melanoff work with them to form a new family.  This is good but not great, and thoroughly enjoyable pandemic viewing.

The Half of It (2020)

One of my favorite all time plays is Cyrano de Bergerac.  I saw the play in 1973 with Richard Chamberlain at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles and it was spectacular, and I loved it ever since.  I loved this version as well.  
Elie is a brainy high school student who has a side business of writing papers for her fellow students.  Paul comes to her to get her to write a love letter for him to Astrid.  She is the apple of both of their eyes, so the job is a natural for her, and she knows she has not hope herself.
Paul is someone who Elie has nothing in common with, but the process of wooing Astrid makes them close.  They bond over the strategizing, and they form a real friendship.  Paul gains in his confidence with women, and he saves Elie from serious bullying at school.
The movie ends with Astrid figuring it all out, and in the end it is all about opening your mind to possibilities.  This is sweet and lovely to watch.

The Rider (2017)

This movie is filmed on a South Dakota reservation and you cannot walk away from it not feeling the bleakness of opportunity.
The film begins and ends with brief dream sequences showing a man riding a horse. This evokes the idea that riding horses, for Brady and guys like him, is life’s big dream. But it’s a very precarious one. One bad break and it can be all over. The point is made devastatingly clear in several scenes where Brady, the main character, who has had a career ending fall, visits Lane, a bull rider who’s his best friend, mentor and personal hero. Lane has experienced a catastrophe that’s left him paralyzed and unable to speak.  Brady keeps returning to him, after attempts to do something other than ride a horse, but pulled back to that.
The most powerful scene in the movie has Brady is in a corral with a rancher and a wild horse that the man says has never been ridden. Brady offers to train him and proceeds to do just that—and watching him is breathtaking. Reportedly, this just happened during the filming: they were at a ranch where there was this wild horse and the actor offered to tame him. The director let the camera roll for two 40-minute takes. Cut together in 20 shots or so that run a couple of minutes, the sequence shows the whole process, from the horse kicking and bucking and rearing back, to the point where he lets Brady pat him, get on his back, ride him and then slide off again.  And that is the accomplishment that counts for Brady, and the one that may elude him going forward.