Joey’s Home Movies For the Week of March 15th – ‘Promising Young Woman’ Comes Home

Welcome back to my Home Movies! Today, the best film of 2020 and one of the better performing titles during yesterday’s Oscar nominations is our top pick. Yes, it’s Promising Young Woman. Any other movies hitting shelves this week? Well, read on to find out…

Joey’s Top Pick

Promising Young Woman

At this point, I’ve really banged the drum thoroughly for Promising Young Woman. It’s an absolute masterpiece, through and through. We’ve had plenty of coverage of the flick (here), but a few prime ones deserve your attention, like interviews with Emerald Fennell (here) and Carey Mulligan (here). Plus, there’s my rave review, which you can find here. After it got Fennell, Mulligan, and the film itself nominated by the Academy yesterday, it’s a must-own. This opening from my review should help:

Wow. There’s literally no other way to express how one feels watching Promising Young Woman. Films like this don’t come around very often. Intentionally provocative, boldly funny, utterly thrilling, and literally able to keep you on the edge of your seat, this is truly something special. The audiences who saw this one at the Sundance Film Festival were incredibly lucky, but with the flick finally hitting theaters this week, a wider viewing group will be able to see what all the fuss is about. What they’ll see is nothing short of a staggering proclamation. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a masterpiece and the best movie of the year.

Without question, Promising Young Woman is the pinnacle of cinematic achievement for 2020. The way it leads you down a certain path, hinting at one thing while delivering another, is sheer brilliance. it’s best to go in a bit vague, something the marketing has done a good job of, but just know that it walks between many genres. It takes a certain touch to make the angriest possible movie about rape culture also a ridiculously fun character study, with a hell of a soundtrack, to boot. Plus, it has, in my humble opinion, one of the greatest endings I’ve ever seen. It may seem like high praise, but it’s all more than well earned.

Recommended Viewing

PG: Psycho Goreman

In the mood for something both high concept and low-fi? Throw in a murderous creature from another world, perhaps? Well, PG: Psycho Goreman is here to help. The less you know going in, the better, but just know that it’s pretty fun stuff. Our review here on the site includes this bit:

PG: Psycho Goreman is a film that’s doing exactly what it sets out to do. A dedicated homage to ‘80s schlock that remains fully invested in the absurd relationship between its fearsome title character and his adorably vindictive young master. 

Also Available This Week

Brothers by Blood

Don’t Tell a Soul

Pinocchio

Songbird

Wonder Showzen: The Complete Series (TV)

Criterion Corner

Céline and Julie Go Boating

From The Criterion Collection: “Whiling away a summer in Paris, director Jacques Rivette, working in close collaboration with his stars and coconspirators Juliet Berto and Dominique Labourier, set out to rewrite the rules of cinema in the spirit of pure play—moviemaking as an anything-goes romp through the labyrinths of imagination. The result is one of the most exuberantly inventive and utterly enchanting films of the French New Wave, in which Julie (Labourier), a daydreaming librarian, meets Céline (Berto), an enigmatic magician, and together they become the heroines of a time-warping adventure involving a haunted house, psychotropic candy, and a murder-mystery melodrama. Incorporating allusions to everything from Lewis Carroll to Louis Feuillade, Céline and Julie Go Boating is both one of the all-time-great hangout comedies and a totally unique, enveloping cinematic dream space that delights in the endless pleasures and possibilities of stories.”