Podcast: Booksmart, Ma, Diamantino, and Rocketman

by Murtada Elfadl and Nathaniel R

 

Index (53 minutes)
00:01 Drama Desk Awards (plus Tony buzz)
10:00 Rocketman w/ Taron Egerton, Jamie Bell, Bryce Dallas Howard
25:40 Olivia Wilde's Booksmart w/ Kaitlyn Dever & Beanie Feldstein
34:00 The thoroughly bizarre Diamantino
39:10 Octavia Spencer in the horror flick Ma (plus Missi Pyle!)
48:00 Randomness: summer movies, Nathaniel's bday, upcoming Smackdowns

Mentioned (Extra Credit Reading!)
• Rocketman vs Bohemian Rhapsody Vulture Quiz
• New Yorker Ma Essay by Doreen St. Félix
• TFE Nathaniel's Review of Rocketman
• TFE Murtada's interview with the Diamantino directors 

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

Rocketman, Ma, Booksmart

What did you see over Memorial Day?

What did you see over the long weekend? Yours truly had a visitor in town so we were doing the touristy things and Aladdin was the movie of choice (not ours!)

Four Day Holiday Weekend Box Office May 24th-27th 🔺 = new or expanded theater counts / ★ = highly recommended
W I D E	PLATFORM / LIMITED
1 🔺 Aladdin $116.8 on 4476 screens *new* 1992 RETRO	1 🔺 Biggest Little Farm $679k on 181 screens (cum. $1.2)

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Review: Booksmart

by Chris Feil

Booksmart feels like a gift from the comedy gods - it’s firmly built in the teen buddy comedy traditions yet with its own unique diversions, representationally rewarding without the condescension of pandering, and a gaspingly funny look at female friendship that is also authentically moving. An impressive first feature from actress Olivia Wilde, Booksmart is joyous and it is here to fucking own the summer movie season.

Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein star as Amy and Molly, two best friends who prioritized their studies all throughout high school in the hopes of landing in the elite colleges of their dreams. On the eve of graduation, they shockingly discover that all the hard-partying kids also managed to nail their SATs and get accepted into top schools despite appearances. In a comically foiled and app-assisted evening, the two young women try to make up for lost time by finding a way into the most epic pre-graduation party.

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Abe's SXSW Wrap: Top Ten + Best Performances

by Abe Fried-Tanzer

Jay Duplass and Tatiana Maslany star in the romantic drama "Pink Wall"

The SXSW Film Festival is officially over, and the official winners have all been announced. I managed to catch 34 titles this year, but just three of them won prizes: Alice, the story of a mother who becomes an escort after learning her husband spent all their money on them (which just barely missed my top 10 best of the fest), the comedy Yes, God, Yes and the doc Running with Beto, which was cool to see with an audience of Texas liberals.

Nathaniel likes us to do "jury of one" wrap-ups if we see a lot of festival films so here are my picks for the best in multiple categories, including acting honors... 

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SXSW: Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever in "Booksmart"

Abe Fried-Tanzer reporting from the SXSW Festival

Everyone loves a buddy comedy – usually. It’s rare that such films are both crowd-pleasing and critically well-received, since entertainment value doesn’t always go hand-in-hand with quality. Though its detractors would surely disagree, Superbad is a great example of a film that, while inherently stupid, manages to be intelligent and funny in its portrayal of two teenagers trying desperately to have sex before the end of high school. It’s fitting that Jonah Hill’s younger sister Beanie Feldstein, who is close to the age he was when he made that film in 2007, is one of the two stars of a new buddy comedy that feels particularly forward-focused.

In Booksmart, Feldstein plays Molly, the class president and valedictorian whose need to point out other people’s mistakes and shortcomings earns her few friends. She has the only friend she needs in Amy, played by Kaitlyn Dever, who shares her passion for homework and whose social skills are only moderately more palpable...

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