TRAVIS BYRAM'S MOVIE REVIEWS

Between my English major and my Film Studies minor, there is a lot to be said about formula, specifically film formula. The formula of the romantic comedy is what is used as an example of something simplistic, a boy meets girl, meet-cute, conflict, big conflict, resolution, happy ending. Also in college, I've found that this genre has the most return value for people my age. There's something safe in a romantic comedy, like a chocolate bar, without nutrition, but you eat it and you feel good. I'm not a fan of this type of movie, which is not to say I dislike the rom-com, but I dislike what a lot of rom-coms represent, and if you scroll through the rest of this blog you might not find one reviewed for a while. Michael Showalter's The Big Sick is technically a romantic comedy, but it dives well out of its generic boundaries to deliver one of the year's most timely stories. On the poster alone, with star Kumail Nanjiani posing with co-star (but she's not really ...

"I'm wild again, beguiled again, a simpering, whimpering child again..." goes the 1940 show tune from the musical "Pal Joey. Going into this movie, to be shamefully honest, I was more familiar with the director's body of work than the actual title. Sofia Coppola was one of the filmmakers I studied this past year in college for my Film Studies minor. Distinctive in her slow burning, female-centric film style, Coppola's been called an auteur director, and if she keeps making movies like these, I'll be on my path to forgiving her for Godfather III and that unfunny Bill Murray Christmas special from a couple years ago. "Beguiled" basically means smitten, but said in the 1864 Virginian (represent!!!) accent, it's a much more fun synonym to say. Of course, no one actually says the word on film, it's not Coppola's style to be that on the nose. But the term is certainly written on the faces of the women in Miss Farnsworth's girls s...

It seems to me Edgar Wright is incapable of making uninteresting films, and the film he tried to make interesting, 2015's Ant-Man , well, he got let go of. Peyton Reed did a serviceable, if anonymous job on the project, a true Marvel crowd-pleaser, but one can't wonder what hyper-fast superhero treat Wright could have served to the masses. But if it means he keeps making films like Baby Driver , let us all hope Mr. Wright never makes another big studio movie. First off, kudos to was involved in the casting of this film, because budding talent Ansel Elgort alongside villainous turns by Kevin Spacey, Jamie Foxx and Jon Hamm was a stroke of genius. Perhaps it was just the inner cinephile in me yelping for joy, but this is one of the best ensembles all year. In a nutshell, Baby (Elgort) is a getaway driver for Doc (Spacey), who masterminds heists in sometimes very dangerous plans. Baby has tinnitus, resulting from an injury when he was a child, and listens to an audiofile's d...