Reaction Shots

Aubrey Plaza sure is swell. She does make just about everything she’s in better. For example,   Megalapolis . Then there are times when she finds herself among a cast with equally skillful actors and she can take it easy. Such is the case with My Old Ass which I rewatched recently. Really glad I did. It’s the very definition of a charming YA movie with a nice bit of magical realism, as well. That’s where Aubrey Plaza comes in. And the title. It’s Maisy Stella’s Elliott who is the movie’s focus and Stella delivers a layered performance that fills Elliott out with all the complexity that comes with that moment of transition into adulthood. Aubrey plays Elliott, too, by the way. From the future. She plays 18 year old Elliott’s 39 year old self and even though neither actress resembles each other (young Elliott tells older Elliott that she looks more like their mother; “oh no! We do become our mothers!”) This all happened on Elliott’s birthday when she and her pals Ro and Ruthie motorb...

I’ve been busy. The past couple of weeks, I’ve been working on an article/essay about Anna May Wong in light of the issuing of a U.S. quarter in her honor. If the piece doesn’t run, I’ll publish it here most likely. However, that isn’t to say that I haven’t been to the movies. There have been some very good to remarkable/stunning films out in the past couple of weeks and I want to do some kind of justice to them. Where to begin? Oh, let’s start with a film that isn’t so thematically distinct from “Armageddon Time” in terms of being a reflection on coming of age from the kid’s point of view. The difference here is that where “ Armageddon Time ” - like “The Fabelmans” - revolves around a young dreamer who would become a filmmaker, the filmmaker at the center of “The Fabelmans” is Steven Spielberg. (No slight to James Gray, by the way, but Big Steve is, after all, Big Steve.) The first element that hit me about Spielberg’s latest is what was wasn’t there. This has to be on of hi...