Movie Trailer: Barbie

Movie Review: Little Women

Michael's Movie Grade: A+

With how incredible the 1933 movie adaption of Little Women is it would have been hard for me to believe that any film based on the book could come anywhere near it. Then this incredible movie came along and completely blew me away. This is not only perhaps the best movie of the year but it can easily hold its own with any other great movie from this decade.

Everything about this movie is extremely well done. The cast is absolutely perfect. These young actresses capture the March sisters as well as any actresses ever could. They capture not only the more overt parts of the characters' personalities, but also the more subtle parts. There are many layers to these performances making the characters have the same incredible impact they did in the classic novel. They are powerfully moving performances during the more dramatic scenes, while still capturing the sense of fun and playfulness in the lighter scenes. This is also an incredible looking film. While most movies today simply take color for granted the makers of Little Women show a perfect understanding of all that can be done with color. The color doesn't only look lovely, it also enhances the mood and emotion of each scene. This is often done very subtly and never calls attention to itself, letting the March Sisters and their story be the main attraction (the way it should be). This is extremely enhanced by the masterful cinematography by Yorick Le Saux (who has worked on such great movies as Personal Shopper (2016), Only Lovers Left Alive (2013) and Julia (2008)). Alexandre Desplat's musical score is near perfect and adds a lot to this movie. Great Gerwig's (who also directed the movie) script tells us a story all us movie lovers know by heart in a way that feels fresh and new while still retaining everything we loved about the previous adaptions. One way she does this is by not telling the story in chronological order the way the other adaptions have done. This film flashes back and forth between different time periods in the sisters' lives. This is done masterfully. Greta as both writer and director knows perfectly how to juxtapose these scenes with each other so they feel just as natural if not more so than they would in a more traditional manner. The result of all this put together is simply moviemaking at its best.

Even though this is only the second movie Greta Gerwig directed, I have no problem saying that she is now one of my favorite directors. If there is one must see movie this year (though there are in my mind more than one) it is definitely Little Women. Whatever you do don't miss this incredible film.

-Michael J. Ruhland  

Movie Review: Lady Bird

Review Written by Michael J. Ruhland












Michael's Movie Grade: A+

Review: Lady Bird is a profoundly moving and funny film, and one of the one of the finest American movies in recent years.

What really makes this film so incredible is its honesty and straightforwardness. Everything in this film feels so real in natural. This does not feel like you are watching a movie, but rather that you are seeing these characters' lives unfold on screen. These characters could have so easily become one dimensional stereotypes, but they are so much more. Like us they have fully rounded personalities that are sometimes admirable and sometimes much less than that. When we see a character make a bad choice, we don't just shake our head and think they are stupid as we do in so many other movies. We really feel sorry and even regret for them. This is because as we watch the movie they become almost like friends and family to us and we feel legitimate concern for them. The relationship between Lady Bird and her mother is extremely real and powerful. All this is so important because this is a film that is much more propelled by the characters than the story. The story itself is really simple, and resembles stories we have seen in other films. Still the characters make it feel so unique and new. Besides just being profound and moving, this movie is consistently quite funny. There were many times I and other audience members laughed out loud. The jokes were not only funny but very clever. Fitting into the spirit of the narrative, each joke perfectly comes out of the characters. This means the jokes are not only funny, but help us get more and more involved in the characters and story we see on screen. Though this movie does bring up politics and religion and uses them as the basis for jokes, there is nothing mean spirited here, and the movie never preaches to us on what we should think.

All in all this is just an incredible movie and a must see for all movie lovers.

-Michael J. Ruhland