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Movie Review – An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn

An Evening With Beverly Luff Linn (2018)
Written by Jim Hosking and David Wike
Directed by Jim Hosking

Lulu Danger is stuck in an unsatisfying marriage to Shane, the manager at Bob’s Coffee. One day, while she lounges around watching television, a commercial comes across the screen for a magical evening with an enigmatic figure named Beverly Luff Linn. Lulu paws through a dresser drawer to uncover photographs of her and this Mr. Beverly from some time in her past. Meanwhile, Shane steals money from Lulu’s vegan cousin who in turn hires a drifter named Colin to retrieve the cash. Lulu uses this as an opportunity to run off with the money and Colin to the hotel where Beverly will be performing. She hopes to rekindle whatever old flames existed between the two of them. What she didn’t count on is Rodney von Donkensteiger, Beverly’s handler or the fact that Colin is falling in love with her.

TV Review – Arrested Development Season 5 Part 2

Arrested Development Season 5 Part 2 (Netflix)
Written by Mitchell Hurwitz, Hallie Cantor, Richard Day, Evan Mann, Gareth Reynolds, Chris Marrs, and Jim Vallely
Directed by Troy Miller

In 2003 Arrested Development debuted on Fox and was a breath of fresh air in the television landscape. It combined elements of classic television like Soap and the banter of The Golden Girls (where Mitch Hurwitz cut his writing teeth). There was a labyrinthine plot that rivaled Lost and inspired just as many rewatches. Arrested was the first show where I saw callbacks to jokes that hadn’t happened yet. The primary example being all the foreshadowing about hands in season 2 that led up to Buster’s hand being eaten by a loose seal. The show was referencing an event that hadn’t happened yet, but these visual gags and pieces of dialogue would be heightened when fans went back to the episodes for a second time. It was some truly brilliant and inspiring television. Then we reach today.

Movie Review – American Hustle

American Hustle (2013)
Written by Eric Warner Singer and David O. Russell
Directed by David O. Russell

Inspired by the FBI’s Abscam operation to take down organized crime and later public corruption, American Hustle shakes off the procedural to tell a more stylistic and fictionalized version of the events. Irving Rosenfeld is a con artist in New Jersey who has found a soulmate and partner in Sydney Prosser. The two are running an art scam, and some loan sharking but get caught by FBI agent Richie DiMaso who coerces them into using their skills and connections to start taking down bigger fish. Irving’s life is complicated by his irresponsible wife Rosalyn whose son he has adopted which causes him to refuse to leave her. DiMaso gets the pair embroiled with the mayor of Camden, New Jersey and on the ground floor of the mob-led rebuilding of Atlantic City. As expected the stakes crank up to a frenetic level and Irving finds himself deeper and more threatened than he ever wanted to be.

Movie Review – Frances Ha

Frances Ha (2012)
Written by Greta Gerwig & Noah Baumbach
Directed by Noah Baumbach

Frances is an apprentice in a New York dance company waiting for the day she’s given a place on the touring company. She spends her days cavorting through the city with her best friend Sophie, enjoying their youth and lack of serious adult responsibilities. Frances’ life is thrown into disarray when Sophie announces she’ll be moving to Tribeca for her dream apartment with someone else. What follows are a series of vignettes with Frances bouncing from place to place, finding herself losing the progress she’d felt that she had made. Never giving up her awkward and eclectic sensibilities, Frances keeps going, despite finding herself taking so many steps back, she ends up living in the dorms of her former college, pouring drinks for visiting donors.

Movie Review – Lost in America

Lost in America (1985)
Written by Albert Brooks and Monica Johnson
Directed by Albert Brooks

David and Linda are comfortably ensconced in their Southern California yuppie lifestyle with plans to buy a new home and a Mercedes-Benz. Everything changes when David fails to get an anticipated promotion at work. In a moment of passion, he quits and convinces Linda to join him in “finding themselves.” The plan is to purchase a Winnebago and travel across the United States to the East Coast where they will buy a quaint little house. Maybe it’ll be a farmhouse in Connecticut or lighthouse in Maine. David calculates they have a safety net in the form a nest egg of savings. So the couple sets off, and it doesn’t take long before they encounter their first major obstacle in making their dreams a reality.

TV Review – Big Little Lies Season 1

Big Little Lies – Season 1 (HBO)
Written by David E. Kelly
Directed Jean-Marc Vallée

Madeline Mackenzie is a wealthy woman living in Monterrey, California where she spends her time shuttling her youngest daughter to school and playdates while helping produce a local production of Avenue Q. On the first day of school, Madeline meets Jane, a single mom who has just moved to town. During pick up, the daughter of Renata Klein, a fellow power mom, accuses Jane’s son of choking her during class. This moment sets off a series of conflicts between Renata and Madeline, who stands up for Jane. Meanwhile, Madeline’s friend Celeste is dealing with an increasingly abusive husband, trying to hide her bruises and wounds when going out for coffee with friends. Throughout the series, we’re given flash-forwards to the night of a murder that happens at a school fundraiser, slowly learning the details and which of our female leads was involved.

Movie Review – The ‘Burbs

The ‘Burbs (1989)
Written by Dana Olsen
Directed by Joe Dante

The quiet cul-de-sac of Mayfield Place has been shaken up by the arrival of the Klopeks, a reclusive family who has allowed their house and property to fall into decay. Their neighbor, Ray Peterson has the week off from work and has decided to peter around the house which allows him to fall under the influence of his friends Art and Rumsfield. They are convinced that the Klopeks are murderers, Satanists, mad scientists, or some combination of these things. Ray is continuously pulled back down to earth by his wife Carol who implies this isn’t the first time her husband has allowed himself to be carried away with wild fantasies like this. She is determined to convince him the Klopeks are perfectly reasonable people. However, then something strange happens: the homeowner at the end of the street, Walter vanishes without a trace, and all signs point to the Klopeks.

Movie Review – Alps

Alps (2011)
Written by Yorgos Lanthimos & Efthymis Filippou
Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos

The Alps are a secret society of four weirdos who provide a strange service for people. If someone has lost a loved one a member of the Alps will learn everything they can about the deceased and recreate them for a fee, acting out moments from their life. One member, The Nurse has been spending time playing the role of a lighting shop owner’s wife and has crossed a line of intimacy while still playing her part. At her day job, she meets a young girl who was injured in a car accident. Eventually, the young girl dies and The Nurse volunteers to play her for her parents, while not informing the rest of the Alps of what she is doing. The Nurse becomes absorbed in this life, experiencing a kind of family she did not have and even becoming intimate with the dead girl’s boyfriend.

Movie Review – Modern Romance

Modern Romance (1981)
Written by Albert Brooks & Monica Johnson
Directed by Albert Brooks

Robert has decided it’s time to break things off with Mary. They have just drifted apart so it would be in their best interests to move on. This isn’t the first break up they have experienced, and as the movie unfolds, the audience realizes there will be more break-ups in their future. Robert tries to start a new life, seesawing between unbridled enthusiasm and wallowing in self-pity. He tries to take vitamins and pick up jogging but ultimately goes back to obsessing over Mary. Mary isn’t above it all though and keeps falling back into the same patterns. These two are comfortable in their co-dependent misery.

Movie Review – Another Year

Another Year (2010)
Written & Directed by Mike Leigh

Tom and Gerrie (yes, that is their names) are a couple nearing retirement. He’s a geological engineer, and she’s a counselor, but both of them have a great passion for nature and working in their garden allotment. Over the course of a single year, we follow them as they spend time with friends and family. We’re introduced to Mary, a receptionist at the health center where Gerri works. Mary is divorced, and her last meaningful relationship turned out to be with a married man. Tom’s childhood friend Ken is overweight and eats & drinks non-stop. Ken complains about how he’s being aged out of his position at work and that he hadn’t stopped to realize he was old now. Tom and Gerrie’s son Joe is in his thirties and still single which becomes a point of conversation during many dinners. There’s no mystery or deep conflict here; this is just life played out over another year.