The Semester Collection

Here is the Semester Collection of a stressed out college student with not enough time to actually review these films individually. Most of these films were watched weeks ago, meaning my thoughts will be very brief but will show how well the films stuck with me long after viewing.

The Devil All the Time—this film started my review drought. It was not awful, but the amount of hype made from Robert Pattinson and Tom Holland sharing the screen as the center characters was exhausting on how wrong it was. Robert Pattinson is in it for maybe 20 minutes, and Tom Holland does a good job with his performance after a 43 minute ‘prologue,’ but nothing remarkable comes from the story. The writing leans on the shock and awe of a pastor abusing his power, or a father corrupting his own version of faith, instead of actually offering a theme with the setting. The overbearing voice over from an unknown narrator drags any pacing and kills the tension of most scenes. I like the acting, and some scenes were interesting, but in truth it was too long, too boring, and a massive waste of time.

Enola Holmes—this film is a cute rebranding of the Sherlock Holmes adaptations in recent media. The energy is bubbly, the emotions are genuine, and the humor shines in its own spin of what feels like a Disney Channel TV Movie. Millie Bobby Brown is adorable as Enola, providing most of the energy to the story, and even though Henry Cavill completely phones it in with his Geralt voice from The Witcher, he is laugh-out-loud hilarious within the few minutes he has. The main problem is the misogynistic antagonists are a little too cartoonish to feel like a real threat, lessening the weight of Enola’s purpose. Definitely worth watching as a lighthearted adventure with quirky characters.

The Trial of the Chicago 7—written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, this might be his most forgettable court-room drama yet. The conflict is laughably weak. Unlike in A Few Good Men, where the antagonist is a central, individual character that stands for a corrupted system, this film resorts to accusing “The Man” as the corrupt system. Cops bad, Hippies good. No nuance, no subtlety, and no sign of passion in the dialogue or camerawork. As the most overbearingly obvious bad guy, the judge is successful in infuriating the audience, but his participation in the story is thrown away in the sudden resolution of the film. The last scene feels like it arrives 20 minutes too early, and makes everything established fizzle out into a whimper. Besides the structure of the story, I really enjoyed seeing Sacha Baron Cohen acting outside of Borat, as well as the rest of the ensemble cast. They really work together with the Sorkin dialogue. Some of their characters are supposed to have subplots, but Aaron Sorkin really swings and misses by trying to develop them in so little time. I think there were just too many characters present for him to really have a chance to create a rounded end product.

Friday Night Lights—if you never played high school football, skip the nostalgia and the useless melodrama.

Poltergeist—One of the strangest horror films I have ever seen in terms of structure and development. The little hints found in the silence stop your heart more than the intense visual effects, and the terror of the characters suffering in their fight to be free starts immediately. There is no wasted time, no quirky intro to show how lovely the family is and how normal everything should be. It jumps right into the facade of the growing American suburb and unleashes the skeletons in the closet without hesitation. With fantastic directing from Tobe Hooper, this Steven Spielberg film rises to the top on the long list of his career.

Her—the film that revealed the masterwork of Joaquin Phoenix to the world as he falls in love with his phone’s OS system voiced by Scarlett Johanson. For a lack of a better word, this film simply radiates. Everything about the look and sound sways back and forth between love and melancholy. The Nihilistic expression of mankind short circuiting in the hunt for love while their created machines are connecting at an entirely unimaginable level is made to be breathtakingly sweet. A film that pulls you in and makes you question social norms like marriage and love is one that should be a must watch during college, when everything is in question. I highly recommend watching this on Netflix with your friends for conversations you will have together about the beauty of its design and what any of it even stands for.

Casino Royale—Daniel Craig is the best James Bond. Watching this film feels like exploring 30 years of action cinema and American culture unfold in only 2.5 hours. It is gritty, fast-paced, intense, sweat-dripping, jaw-dropping, heart-racing storytelling conducted by Daniel Craig’s electric introduction as the modern era of James Bond—inspired by the Jason Bourne franchise and countless others that exploded onto the scene because of the 007 films growing stale for decades. It is a wake up call responding to the redundancy of having 20 films with the same character doing the same thing with the same music and the same gadgets, because for this one time… he does it completely different.

Drive—an overrated action flick with beautiful mood, scenery, and a fantastic performance from Ryan Gosling. Everything that excels in the beginning is stomped into the dirt as soon as it becomes a mob-crime story. The violence is overused too early, and the conflict should have never gone beyond the introduction to Irene’s husband coming back from prison.

ParaNorman—the second stop-motion-animated film by Laika studios after their success with Coraline. A teen zombie-flick/ salem witch-trial inspired horror film with great animation, creepy lighting, a beautifully disgusting color scheme, and fantastic humor. This exceeded my expectations as a halloween story for kids, and definitely deserves to be remembered for its wit as much as Coraline was for its terror.

Frost/Nixon—a secret masterpiece from Ron Howard, who gives a hands-on texture to the craft of this historical film. The authenticity builds on how it earns the period-piece-documentary style with suddenly brilliant camera movement and excellent character beats. The dialogue is snappy, the camera is independent in its search for the truth, and the slow crawl results with a breathtaking symbol crash.

Uncut Gems—The most talked about film that I missed last year gives Adam Sandler the center stage to prove all of his haters wrong, including me. I hate Adam Sandler films, but this one is the exception. The energy grabs you by the arm and throws you into the next scene at break-neck pace. Every character is pushed to their breaking point, only for their failures to shove them over the edge for the most exciting twists and turns in entertainment. Personally, I thoroughly enjoyed myself, but I still do not understand the buzz of him deserving an Oscar.

Yes, God, Yes—this film is jaw-droppingly relatable in how it portrays going to a small-town-catholic school. It flourishes in its authenticity with small cutaways and realistic side characters. Natalia Dyer shines as the quirky, innocent protagonist, and commands the camera for every minute this film can give her. It acts like a Richard-Linklater film in that the story is just a glimpse into Alice’s life, and that her growth as a person does not end when the credits roll. It feels like the pilot to a TV show, but it does not leave any loose ends to worry about when it is over. It does not end with her completely changed and confident in who she is, because no one ever is in high school, yet it still finds a way to leave you satisfied as you witness her discover herself. The characters feel human, the struggles of teenage angst under the eyes of God are shown through horrifying stress and heartfelt humor, and the brief runtime somehow continues in your head long after you close out of Netflix. It is a hard watch if you enjoyed catholic schools, but if it ever wore you down through the years, this will be a fun trip down memory lane.