Review: 'The Half of It' on Netflix goes deep on love - Los Angeles Times
Review: 'The Half of It' on Netflix goes deep on love - Los Angeles Times |
- Review: 'The Half of It' on Netflix goes deep on love - Los Angeles Times
- 30 Overlooked Netflix Original Movies to Stream - IndieWire
- Portal Movie: Dan Trachtenberg Updates Valve's Plans for the Half-Life Universe on the Big Screen - ComicBook.com
| Review: 'The Half of It' on Netflix goes deep on love - Los Angeles Times Posted: 30 Apr 2020 06:02 AM PDT  For filmmaker Alice Wu, romance is a gantlet to be run, a portal through which we experience the pain and embarrassment necessary to teach us what love is. Wu's second feature "The Half of It," a smart, sassy philosophical treatise dressed up like a Hughesian high school riff on "Cyrano de Bergerac," tells us exactly what it is in an opening animated bit and then proceeds to charm as it upends our expectations. Though shot along the Hudson River in New York state, the film is set in the Pacific Northwest-flavored town of Squahamish, one of those fictional idyllic movie burghs where everyone wants to escape but rarely does. It is here where Wu begins her movie magic, juxtaposing our cinematic assumptions of such places with the deeper emotions with which she invests her characters. There is also the real sense that this world extends far beyond the camera's frame. The heroine is Ellie Chu, a high school senior, played with controlled ferocity by Leah Lewis. An introvert's introvert, Ellie is both a dutiful daughter and the town's silent iconoclast. The Chus immigrated to the U.S. from China when Ellie was very young. Now, she cares for her grieving father after the death of her mother four or five years earlier, and continues his work as the town's station master when the train passes through twice daily. To make ends meet, Ellie writes term papers for her presumably better-off classmates with the full knowledge of their English teacher, Mrs. Geselschap (Becky Ann Baker), a plucky burnout who would prefer not to read the drivel her students would otherwise submit. It is Mrs. Geselschap — there must be a real-life counterpart because she is thanked in the credits — who nudges Ellie to look into the future and imagine something brighter. Advertisement Ellie's entrepreneurial actions attract the attention of Paul Munsky (Daniel Diemer), a prototypical dim-bulb jock gifted by Wu with the distinctive traits of being the second-string tight end on a football team that hasn't scored in 15 years, an artisanal sausage-maker and the film's emotional savant (more than embodied by Diemer). Paul has a major crush on Aster Flores (Alexxis Lemire), the pious and artistic daughter of a deacon, and asks Ellie to pen a love letter, which she initially declines to do, in part because Aster is also the object of her own unexpressed longing. Money troubles, however, force Ellie into the Cyrano role and soon she is performing a beguiling multiplatform duet of words with Aster on Paul's behalf. Lewis and Lemire are delightful in creating the requisite sparks. And as with Rostand, things get complicated. Throughout those complications, Wu deftly juggles a lot of varied elements. The deeply authentic character scenes that resonate beyond the movie's running time share space with broad set pieces drawn from a myriad of teen movies that Wu both leans into and affectionately satirizes. Advertisement The specter of those films is balanced by the classic movies (including "Casablanca," "The Philadelphia Story" and "Wings of Desire") Ellie watches with her father that cast a thematic glow over the proceedings. Underlying it all are the issues of identity — ethnic, sexual, gender, socioeconomic and religious — that inhabit the film's DNA without overwhelming the storytelling. Wu also deploys music creatively, including an original song written by Joe Pernice of the Scud Mountain Boys memorably performed by Ellie at a talent show; as well as weaving in tracks by contemporary artists such as Sharon van Etten and the Ruen Brothers alongside easy listening classics from John Denver, Gordon Lightfoot and Chicago that feel too on-point until the moment they improbably sweep you away into adolescent bliss. Ultimately, "The Half of It" and its multilayered title are about the expansiveness of love, with the romantic kind being just one among equals. It's about friendship and family, the acceptance of self and others, and the freedom to be who you are and screw up royally along the way. Advertisement Wu is confident enough to make the bold strokes her characters speak of and craft a movie that's comfortably different. Almost 16 years after "Saving Face" made her a voice to reckon with, Wu is back and we're happy to have her. 'The Half of It' Rated: PG-13, for brief language and teen drinking. Running time: 1 hour, 44 minutes Playing: Available May 1 on Netflix  |
| 30 Overlooked Netflix Original Movies to Stream - IndieWire Posted: 03 Apr 2020 10:25 AM PDT Netflix broke into the original film business in fall 2015 with the release of Cary Fukunaga's "Beasts of No Nation," which opened in select movie theaters and hit the streaming platform on October 16. That proved to be a game changer for Netflix, which has gone on to release hundreds of original movies in the years since. The streaming giant offers so many original titles (be it productions that were produced in-house or titles picked up at film festivals) that it has become an impossible task keeping up with every single one. The lucky Netflix movies become hits. Some seemingly come out of nowhere to become word-of-mouth streaming blockbusters ("To All the Boys I've Loved Before," "Bird Box"). Other titles Netflix prioritizes for Oscar season and supports with massive marketing campaigns ("Roma," "The Irishman," "Marriage Story"). Some Netflix movies just have the star-power to attract attention ("6 Underground," "Triple Frontier"). But the majority of Netflix movies that get released are simply put on the streaming platform and it's up to subscribers to discover them. IndieWire hopes to make the search for a hidden gem a bit easier with the below list of overlooked Netflix original films worth streaming. The list is presented in alphabetical order. Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.  |
| Posted: 22 Apr 2020 08:56 PM PDT  Portal movie just materialized out of nowhere as Dan Trachtenberg gave an update on Valve's plans for the Half-Life universe on the big screen. Terri Schwartz of IGN recorded his answers during a watch-along of 10 Cloverfield Lane. A critically beloved entry in the filmmaker's works. The director made waves back in the early part of the last decade with his work on Portal: No Escape. In those wildly different days of YouTube, million hit videos were still a milestone very few obtained. For a fan film using actors at hand and a modest budget to bring in that kind of lofty viewcount, it took a special kind of project. After No Escape and Trachtenberg's Half-Life fan film, people clamored for him to get the reins for a big-screen treatment set in Valve's playground. "'I casually talked about it with them at one point - they have Portal and Half-Life. ... My answer is I have no idea. I'd probably have to say that anyway' #10CloverfieldLane #WFHTheater," she wrote on Twitter. Now, there is a little bit of information there, Valve has expressed the desire to flesh out that story after all these years with Half-Life: Alyx. Who's to say that things couldn't be made interesting again with Portal down the road. The problem, as it always has been, comes down to timing. Making a Portal movie fresh off The Orange Box probably makes a bit more sense than right now, but stranger things have happened. The latest entry's writers talked about expanding the narrative with Polygon.
"There's certainly no bible that lays everything out for the next three games, I would love that, if Marc [Laidlaw, Half-Life's original writer] had some secret book," Valve writer Erik Wolpaw laughed with the publication. "That would have been tremendous." "The ending certainly suggests certain directions that we're all really excited about, so it's not like there's no idea, but no, there's not a concrete, 300-page manual of where the game goes after this," Valve writer Jay Pinkerton agreed. "The problem was how do you make any ending feel like this game mattered?" Valve writer Sean Vanaman added. "How do we solve the prequel problem to not feel like this game is just like a hermetically sealed short-story in the world of Half-Life?" 0comments"We had the prequel problem, we had the 'god in a box' problem. Those are the two big ones," Pinkerton expounded. "The idea that once you free god, god owes you a favor. And that favor has to be pretty consequential. What does Alyx want?" Would you still want to see a Portal movie? Let us know in the comment! Disclosure: ComicBook is owned by CBS Interactive, a division of ViacomCBS.  |
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