movie review
Relationships-focused film reviews of tearjerkers, rom-coms, love lost and love found.
Phineas and Ferb: Candace Across the Universe Review
This review comes from my Letterboxd profile, where I review all of the films I watch. Baby, they're back!! It feels so good to say that and to finally see it for myself!! For those of you who don't know, I absolutely ADORE Phineas and Ferb. It was my absolute favorite TV show growing up, and it has a very special place in my heart. Rewatching some of the episodes recently, it's stuck with me just how charming, well-written, and likable the show still is with great characters, fun contraptions, and a self-aware formula that somehow always manages to keep itself interesting. The show is still genuinely good, but it's still always bothered me how it ended. It started off with "Last Day of Summer," which was the absolute perfect finale to cap off a show that was admittedly starting to lose a bit of its steam. Then, it briefly came back with "The OWCA Files," a standalone special that disappointed and at times even angered me with its lackluster plot points, writing, and character moments compared to the original show. That additional special has always left a kind of bitter taste in my mouth since it aired, despite how perfect the ACTUAL finale of this show was. Then the characters were brought back in the new Dan Povenmire and Jeff Swampy Marsh show Milo Murphy's Law, some even staying on as secondary characters, which I honestly didn't even love that much and didn't really get through the first season. So, yeah, there's always been a part of me that always wanted just a little bit more. Then this movie was announced, and I got a little frightened because I anticipated a Phineas and Ferb movie back in 2013 and it was canned, so I didn't want this to be the same scenario. Then sneak previews released, then trailers, then songs, and I realized this was actually finally happening. Now, after finally getting a Disney+ subscription and finding the time to watch this movie, I can say it is absolutely the second finale I so desperately needed.
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
Enola Holmes Review
This review comes from my Letterboxd profile, where I review whatever movies I watch. You know what? This movie managed to surprise me. I thought Enola Holmes was going to be another stereotypical Netflix movie that was good, but nothing particularly memorable. However, I gotta say, I debated giving this 4.5 stars not necessarily because I think it deserves that score on its merit, but because it rises above and beyond what I think most people associate with a Netflix film nowadays. This movie feels like it has its own particular style and energy, and it felt really fresh because of that. If it were released in theaters, I'd probably be harsher on it, but for a movie released on Netflix, this is actually a very pleasant surprise.
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
Two Distant Strangers Review
This review comes from my Letterboxd profile, where I write movie reviews consistently. I would love to have respectful discussions about people's potentially polarizing opinions on this short because let me get this out of the way now, I am a white, cisgender, straight male. I'm not going to lie about how I felt about a film on the first watch, but I also want to be open to discussing why it may be a problematic watch in general. If I get off balance in any way with my cluelessness here, I would love to have a respectful discussion about it because I think discussions like that are important. However, I can't lie about what I thought about this short film on the first watch. So, what did I think?
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
Star Wars: The Force Awakens Review
This review comes from my Letterboxd profile, where I review whatever movies I see. I have seen this film once before. I watched it before going to see The Last Jedi at my local theater. It took me a long time to get sucked in, but at a crucial character moment involving Han Solo and Kylo Ren (if you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about), I realized why these characters were so special and absolutely adored the intense lightsaber climax. However, rewatching it after seeing the original trilogy, I am inclined to believe that as a film on its own merit, Star Wars: The Force Awakens has pretty good acting and characters overall, fantastic production design and top-notch special effects, making it a very entertaining and enjoyable movie. As a Star Wars film, however, its story really doesn't match up to anything supplied in the previous trilogy.
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
Anne of Green Gables Review
This review comes from my Letterboxd profile, where I review whatever movies I end up watching. My mom grew up with the source material of this film and absolutely adored all of the characters, and since I'm curious about the adaptation Anne with an E that's been getting incredible praise for the past couple of years, I figured I should check out what has widely been called the definitive version of the book. Long story short, this movie surprised the heck out of me. I had a feeling I was going to at least enjoy it and I pretty much got the exact movie I wanted to see. This is the exact kind of film to set as an example as a movie that is meant for pure sentimentality and likability. All of the characters are incredibly fun to watch, and the majority of them are likable despite most of them flip-flopping back and forth with their moods when these young children start acting rambunctious. After a while, I realized why these women would so quickly change their attitudes toward the young Anne, however -- this is the late 1800s, a time where women were supposed to be seen as prim and proper and held back and obedient, and meanwhile, Anne is energetic and excited and full of imagination and quick to outburst. She's a girl full of determination, and while this movie doesn't explicitly state that this is what she's doing, she is absolutely fighting against the standard idea of that "prim and proper" woman and sets a role model for girls, and actually anyone, to look up to. Anyone, but especially young girls, can look up to Anne as a figure of passion, as a motivation to keep pursuing what you enjoy, and as a reminder to not let anyone stand in your way with what you think is possible.
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
The Aviator Review
This review comes from my Letterboxd profile, where I review every movie and limited series I watch. Admittedly, even for me subjectively, this is probably a 4.5-star movie. The pacing is definitely not perfect, but part of that might be because I get so excited when the first half-hour or forty-five minutes of a movie just flies by, and then the rest of the movie just doesn't move quite as fast as that. However, despite that, I genuinely can't think of a single moment in this film that I feel deserved to be cut out, anything in this film that felt like it lingered for too long or wasn't quite covered enough. There's really no part of this film where I felt, "Eh, I don't really NEED this." Simply put, this is the fastest-paced three-hour movie I've ever seen. That's an absolutely incredible feat in my opinion.
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
Lake Mungo Review
This review comes from my Letterboxd profile, where I review whatever movies I end up seeing. I've been curious about this film ever since I saw Chris Stuckmann's review for his Halloween special a couple of years ago. (Wow, the second review in a row where I've talked about him... can you tell I maybe like Chris Stuckmann and that he maybe inspired my interest in films? Just a little bit?) For whatever reason, I never sat down and actually watched it despite the fact that it's available on Amazon Prime. Recently, however, Chris tweeted that almost a year and a half after making his video, where he stated how terrible the home release of Lake Mungo actually was, an official version of the film was finally released on Blu-ray by Second Scene Films. I pre-ordered the Blu-ray as soon as I saw it, eager to support a distribution company that could bring more attention to lesser-known films like this, along with the idea of owning another collector's Blu-ray case. Funnily enough, despite the fact that I didn't think she would, my mom showed interest in watching this movie tonight, so I watched it with my parents. I genuinely didn't expect that to happen because I thought the premise would turn them away and I probably wouldn't watch it for another week or so, but nope, they wanted to see it, so we watched it together. My goodness, I'm so glad I did.
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
Rolling Thunder Revue Review
This review comes from my Letterboxd profile, where I review all of the movies I see. In a lot of ways, this is a conservative rating for me because, for a while, I couldn't quite jump on board with whatever this movie was going for, but after finishing it, I'm pretty sure I love it. I think I may need a bit more time with this movie before I decide whether or not I fully loved it or not, so I should explain my experience with this film.
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
The Graduate Review
This review comes from my Letterboxd profile, where I review every movie I see. The only thing I knew about this movie was the incredibly famous line, "Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me." That was it. I thought that the line and the seduction was only a short scene in the film. I didn't know the entire film was going to revolve around that. As such, I had no idea what to expect with this movie. I didn't know whether I would think it was overrated or whether I would like it. I didn't know that this film would hook me as much as it did, I didn't know it would resonate with me as much as it did, and I didn't know that this film would be so amazing to me that it might actually make my top 10 personal favorite films of all time. This movie is beyond fantastic. Again, I really want to give this film five stars. However, there are some aspects of the plot that are incredibly dated, there are some cuts between shots that are really obvious (cuts in time are really obvious because the center of the shot moves a bit during the cut, so you can tell there was a cut), some of the music editing is repetitive, and there are continuity errors in some of the lighting in this film (admittedly, my parents noticed those, not me). There are so many minor glaring flaws like that that don't affect the story that I can't give this film five stars. However, that doesn't mean I didn't adore this film.
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
Casanova Review
This review comes straight from my Letterboxd profile, a place where I review every film and limited series that I happen to watch. This was one of the first reviews that I wrote for the website, and it was one of the first times that I remember feeling confident in my ability to actually review movies. Check out my profile if you're interested in more reviews like this and to see the actual order in which I write them, since I'm posting them to my Vocal page completely out of order.
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
Stargirl Movie Review
This comes from my Letterboxd profile, where I write reviews of every movie I watch. There's a particular reason why I wanted to see this film when I got Disney+. Stargirl, as a book, means a lot to me. I don't remember many specific elements from the book, but I remember the plot generally enough. It's the experience I had with it that really made it memorable for me. It was my sixth-grade year, and our LA teacher read this book to us for class. I was so invested in the relationship between Leo and Stargirl that I remember being annoyed when I found out I had taken a sick day when my teacher read the chapter where their relationship actually initiated. There was something about this fictional relationship (and fictional relationships in general) that stuck with me, probably because I was so focused on wanting my own relationship and dreamt that I would immediately find someone like that and have an incredible relationship with them and all that nonsense. Of course, that's not how middle school or even high school relationships go, but that's how my brain saw it. In fact, in a lot of ways, I think I'm still struggling with the fanciful ideas of being in a relationship vs. the actual reality of how one begins. I could go on for hours about all of this stuff, but that's not what you came here for. Even though they're related to my thoughts on both the book and the movie, they're not the point of this review. You want to hear my thoughts on the movie, so let's talk about the movie.
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
