Booksmart is so far my favorite and most enjoyable movie of 2019:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1489887/
The writing is very strong. The acting is superb. The directing is excellent. Use of music is very good. The editing was brilliantly done. And it excels at the core function of a comedy: it's freakin' funny. It is also very with it hitting on a lot of modern zeitgeist of young people, high schoold graduates who are getting ready for college. One important characteristic, is that it had a measure of originality - and that's not easy to do. After all, kids at that age all have similar concerns - popularity, deciding on their future, friendships and crushes and trying to fit in, parents and so forth. We've all seen a million comedies playing on those themes - as a result, there are tons of cliches, as people go over the same ground using the same tropes - and here by contrast I'll mention a film that did that using only cliches, to the point where I couldn't even finish it: the wretched cliche-filled unfunny "Oh Ramona".
The pacing is excellent - there is never a moment where the filmmakers are "milking" a joke (which is a fault in almost all comedies recently, where they milk the joke way past any funny left in it). The editing is insanely tight. Not a flat moment. Just a brilliant fusion of writing, acting, editing, music where every beat lands, and never lets up, never slackens. I love that this comedy doesn't try to lower itself to some common denominator of intelligibility, but unapologetically riffs on cutting edge lingo and concerns.
An additional point of interest here is that it was a film made pretty much by women. The director is a woman - Olivia Wilde - and may I say she did a really good job. The four writers are all women. The two - brilliant - leads are both women. Casting, production design, art direction, set decoration, costumes - ALL women, even most of the producers are women. If this is not proof that we need more women in filmmaking, I don't know what is.
The other thing that I found interesting is how apparently polarizing this movie is. The critics on RT have it at 97% while audiences at only 75% and if you look at the user comments on IMDb, there are tons of people giving it super low ranking. I think the pace and uncompromising approach just leave a whole lot of dinosaurs behind
... it's definitely helpful if you are somewhat on the ball when it comes to youth culture.
I recommend it highly: 5 stars out of 5.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1489887/
The writing is very strong. The acting is superb. The directing is excellent. Use of music is very good. The editing was brilliantly done. And it excels at the core function of a comedy: it's freakin' funny. It is also very with it hitting on a lot of modern zeitgeist of young people, high schoold graduates who are getting ready for college. One important characteristic, is that it had a measure of originality - and that's not easy to do. After all, kids at that age all have similar concerns - popularity, deciding on their future, friendships and crushes and trying to fit in, parents and so forth. We've all seen a million comedies playing on those themes - as a result, there are tons of cliches, as people go over the same ground using the same tropes - and here by contrast I'll mention a film that did that using only cliches, to the point where I couldn't even finish it: the wretched cliche-filled unfunny "Oh Ramona".
The pacing is excellent - there is never a moment where the filmmakers are "milking" a joke (which is a fault in almost all comedies recently, where they milk the joke way past any funny left in it). The editing is insanely tight. Not a flat moment. Just a brilliant fusion of writing, acting, editing, music where every beat lands, and never lets up, never slackens. I love that this comedy doesn't try to lower itself to some common denominator of intelligibility, but unapologetically riffs on cutting edge lingo and concerns.
An additional point of interest here is that it was a film made pretty much by women. The director is a woman - Olivia Wilde - and may I say she did a really good job. The four writers are all women. The two - brilliant - leads are both women. Casting, production design, art direction, set decoration, costumes - ALL women, even most of the producers are women. If this is not proof that we need more women in filmmaking, I don't know what is.
The other thing that I found interesting is how apparently polarizing this movie is. The critics on RT have it at 97% while audiences at only 75% and if you look at the user comments on IMDb, there are tons of people giving it super low ranking. I think the pace and uncompromising approach just leave a whole lot of dinosaurs behind
... it's definitely helpful if you are somewhat on the ball when it comes to youth culture.I recommend it highly: 5 stars out of 5.
