You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah: You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah was done a real disservice by releasing almost exactly four months after Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. It tackles many of the same themes including the difficulties of navigating the social minefield that is middle school and how someone can lose sight of who they are and the people that matter to them while trying to elevate themselves up the social hierarchy, the intense, often deeply embarrassing emotional and physical changes that puberty brings on and shifting parent/child relationship dynamics, just with considerably less warmth, wit and effective humor than Kelly Fremon Craig's film did. The film does routinely threaten to ride the magnetism of lead Sunny Sandler (daughter of Adam) and a scene-stealing supporting performance from Sarah Sherman as eccentric Hebrew School teacher Rabbi Rebecca to success, but their efforts are always stifled by just how stale the delivery of this age-old coming-of-age story is. With that being said, the current generation of teen girls will likely love it and that's really all that matters at the end of the day.
Grade: C
Bottoms: In a summer that was refreshingly heavy on theatrically-released, R-rated comedies, the best was saved for last. Bottoms finally answers the question of what would a 2000's high school comedy look like if it was weirder and gayer. Real life friends Ayo Edebiri and Rachel Sennott-who also co-wrote the script with another real life friend in director Emma Seligman (Shiva Baby)-fuel another sizable jump in their rapidly ascending career stock with exceptional comedic performances as dorky lesbian loser BFF's who capitalize on a serious of misunderstandings and a recent uptick in violence against women at their high school at the hands of the rival football team to start a "self-defense" club with the hopes of getting the attention of (and eventually sleeping with) their cheerleader crushes (Havana Rose Liu, Kaia Gerber). Sound absurd? Well, it very much is and that spirit is what makes Bottoms so refreshing.
Without having to adhere to the restrictive conventions of our current reality, Bottoms turns into a liberating, anarchic celebration of silliness that only gets funnier as its plot developments get progressively nuttier. Seligman and her cast-which also includes Nicholas Galitzine, Miles Fowler, Zamani Wilder, Summer Joy Campbell, Virginia Tucker, Marshawn Lynch, Dagmara Dominczyk and Punkie Johnson-approach this material with the type of fearless dialed-in attitude that indicates they knew they'd only one chance to do something like this so they might well as go all in. There's so many jokes populating every frame of this movie that it will take at least a few viewings to catch them all, the fight sequences feature cleaner editing and more fluid camerawork than at least 75% of the traditionally action movies that are being made right now and its willingness to go to some really dark, strange and goofy places with the humor gives the film a very unique DNA that helps keep it fun, hilarious and surprising throughout. Bottoms is a cult classic comedy in-the-making just like the ones Seligman, Sennott and Edebiri grew up renting from Blockbuster, watching on HBO and sneaking into theaters to see before they turned 17 and in this day and age where the entire genre is fighting for survival, the existence of something so warped is a beautiful sight to behold. When people look like back on this era, Bottoms will be right up there with I Think You Should Leave and The Eric Andre Show when it comes to delighting people with a specific type of absurdist humor and influencing the next generation of weirdos to make their own work of depraved, deeply silly art.
Grade: A-
The Equalizer 3: It's hard to envision a scenario where The Equalizer trilogy ended on a stronger note than this. There's still plenty of bumps along the way courtesy of Antoine Fuqua still not quite being able to figure out how to pace these movies and Richard Wenk's script delivering another stock set of villains-this time in the form of a ruthless Camorra (Andrea Scarduzio) boss who is hellbent on taking over a small village on the Amalfi Coast, but the stunning Italian scenery, kinetic bursts of brutal action and another show-stopping display of Denzel Washington's unicorn movie star power as he movingly portrays Robert McCall's unexpected journey of beginning to find true peace after decades of only finding it through inflicting pain on those who harmed the weak and defenseless. McCall deserves to sail off in the sunset with a smile on his face and his guns tucked away in a drawer somewhere and kudos to Fuqua, Washington and Wenk for finding a way to do that within the framework of the universe they've built up over the past 9 years.
Grade: B-
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