Tinseltown Reviews

Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi is a 2017 space epic film written and directed by Rian Johnson and starring Daisy Ridley, Mark Hamill, Adam Driver, Carrie Fisher, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Kelly Marie Tran, and a whole lot of Porgs. The movie takes place where 2015's The Force Awakens left off, with Rey seeking training from the legendary Luke Skywalker while General Leia Organa and her Resistance fighters try to escape the clutches of the First Order. Throughout the film, we see both Rey and Kylo Ren struggle with the light and dark sides as they deal with their pasts and relationships with their masters. This film is an interesting one--come out as the most divisive Star Wars movie yet (yes, even more so than the prequels)--with at the time of this review a 93% critic score and 55% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes . You either think it's the best since Empire Strikes Back or you think Rian Johnson murdered your childhood and is an even worse abomination tha...

Lady Bird is a 2017 comedy-drama film directed by Greta Gerwig and starring Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Tracy Letts, Beanie Feldstein, Lucas Hedges, and  Timothée Chalamet, following the life of a girl named Christine who prefers to be called "Lady Bird" in her last year of high school. There are loads of YA coming-of-age movies nowadays where the main character is a teenager who is inherently different in some way and learns important life lessons after falling in love with someone who is their equal or opposite. In essence, cheesy love story between two teens that helps them grow and of which four out of every five leads to at least one of them dying (think The Fault in Our Stars , If I Stay , The Space Between Us , pretty much every John Green book). Lady Bird is a refreshing new take on the genre in which the love story that the main character grows from isn't a romantic one (in fact, she's tried and failed at doing just that), but rather a materna...