RogerEbert.com — The Edge of Seventeen
“The Edge of Seventeen” is a strong successor to John Hughes’ legacy with its mix of biting humor and bittersweet heart. But writer-director Kelly Fremon Craig also dares to go to places that are darker and truer in her feature filmmaking debut. Hailee Steinfeld is just radiant as a high school junior whose hormones and immaturity won’t allow her to enjoy being the smartest person in the room. If you were a teenager in the ’80s — or the parent of a teenager now – you’ll love this. My rave, at RogerEbert.com.
Woody has had a wonderful run in his acting career. Thanks for this latest recommendation. Recently, I’d availed of the wonders of the modern means to summon movies from the past, from such actors as these whom I enjoy watching portray characters, and help to convey stories that deserve to be told. I thought that his representation of a character from the late 1940’s period, in the Hi-Lo country movie of that name, about rural New Mexico, looks as good now viewing it, as when I had seen in many years ago, in the time of its release. Also, it makes me wonder a bit, about movies and the way that things have gone. I wondered if these are the great stories, that one can tell through the medium of film, that we’ve somewhat turned our back on. Or at least, our culture or industry has changed direction somehow.
When I was growing up, people used an expression that I don’t hear much any longer. A story, that would leave a lump in one’s throat. We’ve become less innocent nowadays, we’re far too tough and grown up, for these mild sentiments. As I said, I had to look back now, on that old western movie, to prove to myself that it had been as good as I had remembered it. It did not disappoint. On this same vein, another movie that interested me lately, and I’d waited a while to look at it, was one featuring Demi Moore, and the Sutherland father and son. It too, was a noble effort, and a movie that used the genre of the western, in a way that wasn’t cynical or trying to ridicule it, in any way. A lot of these stories, to seem convincing, need a spine of some sort that is based on hard-worked research, and determination of get to the bottom of a real story.
I must check out what some of the reviews had said about the Sutherland’s latest work. I can’t recall if WTF gave it their analysis or not. It was a small movie, but it was a real western. A real story.
What do all of those stories have in common? Many in some way, the grand father of them all, was the movie Shane, from the fifties. And maybe, many of them are re-interpretations of this successful formula. The lonely figure, who leaves and takes his horse ride off into the vastness of the prairie beyond. It’s remarkable though, how few and far between are those successful movies that can re-produce the formula convincingly, and well. The two movies I mentioned are two, which stand out to me in that way. I’ll look forward seeing Harrelson play a teacher in this movie though, and sharing some of his skills with the younger acting generations. I have to say however, that there’s still some of that badness in this character from the 1980’s, as was present in his rendition of the other character, located in New Mexico in the late 1940’s. All the best. B.
‘Tonally’ is not a real word Christy. Go with ‘aplomb’. It’s French, but it’s a real word.
Someone should compile a collection, of all of the non-words, that film critics have weaved into their vocabulary down through the years.
Having said that, Americans are doing things with the language in general, that don’t make sense to a lot of others.
This English journalist who was loved by many in my part of the world, it would appear, had died at young age very recently. Trust him to come up with a hum-dinger on this.
“a particularly American ability to come up with consistently dreadful names for new things. Just as there is an inspiring national talent to invent stuff and to think forward, so there is an equal and opposite imaginative black hole when it comes to naming the stuff: the conflation and truncation of words, adding extraneous vowels and hyphens to the portmanteau.”
― A.A. Gill, To America with Love