Skip to main content

Yesterday

What I liked: I few years ago I had the great adventure of a cruise. The cruise line was targeted to people my grandmother's age, so every night somewhere on the ship was a Beatles tribute concert. I listened to a lot of Beatles music. Yesterday is not like being on a ship full of grandparents trying to remember the lyrics to the third verse of "In My Life." Instead we get some long shots of English cities as people hear Beatles' songs for the first time. It's charming. It's creative. And despite being the length of a Beatles tribute concert it is more engaging and more fun. I mostly liked how very normal all of the people were. The struggling musician living with his parents who wish he'd get a real job. Trying to put on a tiny concert for the neighbor but being constantly interrupted. Their moron friend and the weedy recording artist. It all felt just right. I must say never before in my life has a plastic submarine bath toy inspired more dread. Admittedly, it was very little dread, but still more than one usually expects from a bath toy. I liked all of the other things that were also missing from the alternative reality and I really liked the google searches.

What I didn't: I don't know if I liked the love story. Clearly the writers like the love story. Either way one must admit that Gavin is a superbly decent guy. I did not love how many scenes there were with missing teeth. I mean they were convincing and all, but that made them hard to look at. I was slightly confused by the choice of who got cameos. I do feel like after everything resolves there would be at least 4 very very very confused people in the world.

Who should watch this? People who like Beatles music but not so much that they want to sit through 12 hours of Beatles music on a cruise ship. People looking for inspiration to stick with their faltering music career. People who want a fun creative little movie. Not for people who really care about the lyrics to Eleanor Rigby. 

Would I watch it again? With someone who hadn't seen it.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ready Player One Review

What I liked: I bet all of the developers loved making this film, I saw so many video game and movie references in the background of scenes. I bet all the developers just inserted their favorites like the ninja turtles, a whole platoon of halo soldiers, and orcs. That it was a video game made it possible and exciting to have all kinds of absolutely random physics and logic defying things happen. Obviously, I loved the T. Rex and who would not enjoy seeing Mechagodzilla or a cyborg orc driving a monster truck? Early in the movie they made good use of the video game architecture in a way that reminded me a bit of secret rooms in super mario. The characters visit the world of the Shining, which was amazing and hilarious. I loved the variety of characters, vehicles and weapons that we get to see and it is more fun (at least for me) that they draw from more than strictly the 1980's. I also really liked the music, for the most part the selections were great for the scenes. The book was
3 comments
Read more

Solo Reveiw

What I liked: The architecture of a heist movie has 4 stages: stage 1 explain how hard the job is, stage 2 come up with a ridiculously elaborate plan to accomplish the job and acquire hard to find equipment, stage 3 execute the plan but something goes terribly wrong, stage 4 sneaky twist and huge pay off. The Solo movie takes the bold move of streamlining the first two and a half steps, picking up with stage 3.5 "Something goes terribly wrong". This saves everyone the slow wind up to the actual action. This saved time translates into a movie with not one but all the heists. We have grand theft, customs evasion, train robbery, vault robbery, the classic hustle, and of course smuggling. I guess they may have tried to crowd too a little much in because they also almost always skip stage 4. This stage skipping also means that we don't know if the things they are doing are actually hard or they are just incompetent. I'm surprised more heist movies don't explore this
2 comments
Read more

Wrinkle in Time Review

What I liked: I liked Charles Wallace, that kid was funny. I liked that the ladies in crazy dresses were warriors and that the kids were warriors too. You know me I'm all about a good action movie with awesome fighting, but I liked that at least in this universe the defining characteristics of warriors were compassion, kindness, and love. Similarly, I liked that the bad guys weren't launching a massive military conquest of the universe, I mean everyone is doing that these days. Surprisingly, I liked the Mrs's dresses. They were crazy and over the top but it was fun that they changed with every teleportation and that they were completely absurd. The outfits were rather like the Mrs's wearing them, over the top and fantastical. Knowing all of them from other shows I may have had some unfulfilled expectations. At no point did anyone say "You get a wrinkle, and you get a wrinkle, Everyone gets a wrinkle!" which I must admit was a little disappointing. I also think
2 comments
Read more