Brian Behrend’s microblog
Would’ve been 4 stars but could’ve done without that incredibly legitimately effing traumatic last plot twist near the end there. Had no idea this was a Richard Curtis screenplay until the credits and the pretty darn solid story and writing make a whole lot more sense now compared to when I thought it was just some random Netflix junk.
Looking forward to watching this again with the kiddos next year.
Rating: 4 stars
Crossposted on Letterboxd
Saw this with my daughters and nine other 12 year old girls. They loved it but personally was only about 4/5ths as good as the Broadway version. Erivo and Grande were fantastic. Defying Gravity was weakened a little by all the movie that was happening during that song. Still great!
Rating: 4 stars
Crossposted on Letterboxd
Interesting background on the history of Pixar, good thoughts on fostering a creative culture, and really liked the focus on giving and receiving difficult feedback, but disappointed in the fact that every anecdote seemed to end with “and then the team worked 100 hour weeks for months and never saw their family but we got it done.” Or “then they worked two straight weeks instead of taking their Christmas vacation.”
Rating: 4 stars
Crossposted on Goodreads
Finished reading Conclave by Robert Harris yesterday. Kept expecting it to turn into a conspiracy thriller but turned out just to be a well written procedural into process of electing a pope. With good characters and a few twists along the way.
Originally picked up Conclave because of the movie without being familiar with Harris, but after reading it now I’m interested in reading Fatherland and Pompeii that seem to maybe be even more up my alley.
Rating: 4 stars
Finished the last 10% of this on a plane and boy were there some dusty moments. Great story with some twists that I somehow completely missed were coming.
Left some larger world stuff unexplained at the end that I wanted to know more about. With the way this book’s focus was so completely different than the first not sure I’ll get those questions resolved. Still loved it though and definitely will be jumping to book 3 and continue to read anything else Chambers has written.
Rating: 5 stars
Crossposted on Goodreads
Fantastic. Loved it. Funny, thoughtful, sad, funny, and a bit depressing a few times including the very end. Uncharles was such a great character and loved the way he developed through the story, though I’m sure he wouldn’t admit it.
Rating: 5 stars
Crossposted on Goodreads
But what it if I don’t want my runt baby goose to grow up and fly away?
I for one am here for this trend of animated movies that just look flat out remarkable. Beautiful, painterly style that also included segments where they’re telling bedtime stories and it somehow LOOKS EVEN BETTER. Just lovely.
Rating: 4.5 stars
Crossposted on Letterboxd
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
2.5 stars for first half, 4 for the second half. One too many storylines but enjoyed it quite a bit once all the real/living world setup stuff fell into the background.
Rating: 3.5 stars
Definitely was rooting for Abigail throughout this. The ballet was a fun touch.
As someone who has was watched Matilda the Musical approximately 20 times I was really hoping Abigail/Alisha Weir would break into song at some point. Ha. What a fun pair of roles at the beginning of a career for a young actress.
Rating: 4 stars
Crossposted on Letterboxd
We’ve let the fact that young Brad Pitt is famously hot in this overshadow that literally everyone in this is incredibly hot including Christopher McDonald and Michael Madsen.
Rating: 4 stars
Crossposted on Letterboxd