Michael Che Matters (2016)

If you like Michael Che, you'll like his comedy special. His delivery is pretty much exactly the same as on SNL Weekend Update. And even the jokes are kind of similar. He sort of laughs at his own jokes, which he does on SNL too--it's part of the whole breaking thing that SNL does not discourage. It works. That is to say, I thought he was funny. I enjoyed it. 

Grillo vs Grillo (2017)

I tried watching stand-up comedy in Italian. And surprisingly, I understood a large chunk of it. But maybe my sense of humor is just un-Italian, because I didn't think it was very funny. Sure, it has its moments, but the whole thing seemed a little too forced. It is very political. The whole thing is essentially made up of stories from Grillo's life, to explain how his Movimento Cinque Stelle became what it is today. And in terms of politics, I think that's brilliant. We learned about Grillo at school.  He has become a very important figure in Italian politics. You cannot discuss it without mentioning Grillo's populist movement and you can see why he's popular. He's a charismatic story teller and says what he's thinking. He points out the things that everybody knows but was too afraid to say, In a way, he's kind of like Bill Maher, who also got fired way back when for controversial comments made on air. But Grillo has actually created a movement. 

Beauty and the Beast (2017)

I think Disney actually did an enchanting job with this remake of the (Oscar Best Picture-nominated) original. The acting and casting is spot on. Specifically, Emma Watson is simply divine. She's beautiful and charming and who knew she could sing? Her voice actually sounds very pure. She is helped greatly by the new orchestrations, modernizing the familiar tunes. Emma Thompson is fine as Mrs. Potts but I don't think her rendition of the title song can match the iconic Angela Lansbury. There are some new songs in addition to the old classics. And they're all quite good. There is a noticeable amount of diversity among the villagers and even some interracial couples, though in provincial France they were surely all white. Disney of course had the controversy with Josh Gad's flamboyantly gay Le Fou, but it was actually surprisingly tame. They're making a big deal out of nothing. And Josh Gad is perfect for Le Fou. Besides, shouldn't Le Fou be gay? It's really just reading a little deeper into his character. The one casting I wasn't crazy about was Dan Stevens for beast. I have to admit, I did not recognize him or his name, but it's Matthew from Downton Abbey! His face is only in a small portion of the film, but the big reveal at the end was shocking. He looked to pretty with his golden locks to be taken seriously. It was like a joke ripped from the cover of a romance novel. If Disney was really trying to push boundaries, the prince would've been black.

Visually, the castle and costumes are quite stunning. The Be Our Guest sequence is just like the original. I, personally, had a problem seeing the detail though. I don't know if it was the movie or me, but every time the camera moved, everything looked blurry. I couldn't make out any of the lines. It felt like watching a 3D movie without the glasses on sometimes. Maybe it was filmed in 3D? There are definitely 3D versions being shown, but we had a 2D screening in a large cinema in Dublin.

Patton (1970)

The Strategic Studies Club screened Patton for the obvious reasons, but it is such a sprawling epic that there were only four of us left in the end. Patton is a film about a complicated man. I kind of drew some parallels with Lawrence of Arabia, another film about a crazy (I think Patton was further along the crazy scale--he thinks he was reborn as all the great generals) historical war figure who dies in an automobile accident. George C. Scott really embodies the character in all his eccentricities. We go inside him and try to understand how he craves war. And by the end, we kind of get it. That iconic opening monologue in front of the American flag is really telling. It is an introduction to the man and the myth that is fully developed over the next three hours with unflinching reality.

Your Name. (Kimi no Na wa) (2016)

Your Name is strangely brilliant. What makes it brilliant is the trippy plot. Everyone knows it's a body-swapping movie, but it surprisingly becomes much more than that. It throws in a welcome twist that I did not see coming. It becomes more than just Freaky Friday, but a time-travel disaster movie. It is also brilliant because of its beautiful animation. It is cinematic. I know it's all drawn, but the "camera" pans, it zooms, it moves. How incredible is that? The animators take painstaking care to create a real world. There are real locations that I recognized, like the pedestrian bridge outside the Toshin building in Shinjuku. Firstly, I was shocked that I recognized it. But secondly, I was shocked that it merited being in the movie.

It's kind of cheesy in the way that anime is (like the title?). I think Western audiences are just not very used to it but what is mainstream in anime comes off as cheesy--the shrieking voices, the dramatic poetic narration. But what stands out the most are the musical interludes. It's very strange, sort of recapping and interpreting the movie for us. We have become accustomed to Studio Ghibli's anime, but the animation style is actually totally different. But I think Your Name is a good introduction for Western audiences to a more traditional style of anime. Makoto Shinkai is supposedly the "new Hayao Miyazaki." What is yet to be seen is if he'll have the same crossover appeal.