BOOKSMART : BIGGEST LITTLE FARM

Went to two movies yesterday, one was disappointing, the other, okay:

                                        Rotten Tomatoes      Box Office   My Rating
                                  Reviewers   Audiences        Mojo

Booksmart                     98                 76                #6               C

Biggest Little Farm       91                 96               #15              B+

#1 for the week was Aladdin, #2 John Wick 3 and #3 Avengers Endgame.  I don't go to children's flicks.  While there have only been three Disney-made Aladdin productions (1992 and 1996), do you wonder how many have been made in total?  I count up to 23.

I noticed that Rotten Tomatoes reviewers also have ranked 150 erotic films:

• #1       100  La Belle Noiseuse (1991)
• #2       100  The Draughtsman's Contract (1982)
• #3      97  Body Heat (1981), with William Hurt/Kathleen Turner/Richard Crenna/Ted Danson
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• #145      9  The Blue Lagoon (1980), with Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkins
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• #148      7  Wild Orchid (1990), with Mickey Rourke and Jacqueline Bisset
• #149      0  Return to the Blue Lagoon (1991), with Milla Jovovich and Brian Krause
• #150      0  Killing Me Softly (2003), with Heather Graham and Joseph Fiennes

Rotten Tomatoes reviewers only very rarely bestow a score of 98% to any film.  What they saw in  R-rated Booksmart eludes me.  The audience gave it a 76%, which was closer to the reality, while mine is south of 70%.

The two superstar students who decided on the last day of school that they should have had more fun in high school and attempt to make that all up before graduation the next day, did not articulate well, and were nowhere near the raves laid upon them.  Worse was the script, for there were transitions and juxtapositions that were ill-conceived and sensibly unlikely.   The soundtrack included 39 songs/pieces, and, well, there was no nostalgia for me, as would be expected.   The male version, Superbad in 2007, was so much funnier.  Rotten Tomatoes:  87%/87%.  Did you know Seth Rogen, Bill Hader and Emma Stone had secondary roles?  For a budget of $20 million, it made $170 million.

Biggest Little Farm is a PG-documentary that tried to be a movie...and succeeded.  John Chester wrote, produced, directed and starred, with his wife and thousands of farm and rogue animals.   Everything occurs in Ventura County, where I lived for three summers.

How they got the funds to convert a wasted apple orchard into a utopian farm could have been fleshed out a bit, but the story is about a couple and their dog bringing harmony to the environment.  Farming is not easy, and they had their share of disasters, but the lesson is to let nature help provide solutions.  There really is an Apricot Lane Farms, established in 2011, Moorpark, California, and you can visit:

This coming Friday brings Rocketman, the life of Elton John, rated 88% by Rotten Tomatoes, and Too Late to Die Young, a Chilean film earning a 100% Rotten Tomatoes rating.

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