Lady Bird - DVD

I am finally late in its viewing. I however have the musical CD in my car. Not sure my delay, but perhaps all the hype for many reasons. I like viewing with a critical lens while rooting for a hometown girl.This made me cry, laugh, and bring down memory lane. Some comments I would swear I wrote!!!I went to this school (name change), was in drama and plays, and a Sacramento girl who couldn’t wait to leave. 35 years later? I can’t wait to visit and perhaps move back. It’s a city with much history and yet it’s a city that many poke fun of. As an adult I’ve learned more about SacTown and all its glory. If you love tree varieties…google.I’m glad the catholic school experience was played the way it was for me. Yes there are hysterical nuns and priests. Mentors, Pretentious, Rebellious, Fabulous Friends, Critical Mothers, all in the name of a stellar education? This movie has it all.Thank you!! Well done. I called my Mom immediately after I watched. She too recently wrote me a letter. Wild! Watch this. You won’t be disappointed and you might learn a thing or two in the complexity of people.

The performances are rich and engaging. I can watch Ms. Ronan in anything. Her initial musical audition is classic. The cinematographer achieves an ambitious palette, the sort all too often ignored in indy work, which is unfairly considered light on a cinema-level, perhaps because there are few explosions to admire. The look according to helmer Greta Gerwig mimics the fabric of memory -- now that is ambition I admire -- with a washed-off, remote, nonetheless color-saturated texture influenced by period specific "fanzines" pressed-off at Kinko's in those sweet days. It was also nice to see Sacremento photographed with love for a change, in a way that suggests all life does not die outside of NYC and LA, the problem of entirely too many films. These extra touches make the piece shine. Still, in watching it, with the realization that "The Breakfast Club" has now been collected by the Criterion Collection, (good for them for understanding film; even Eric Rohmer's "Pauline at the Beach" is merely a beach tale. I could not help but consider how a work, such as "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" (consider the slowed-down art museum sequence) would have been a Best Picture / Director nominee today, now that American film is starting to better understand cinema. This, too, seems doubly the case when one considers Cameron's meltdown in the John Hughes work. Even "Some Kind of Wonderful" and "Lucas" wear well with age, especially now that multiplexes are dominated by the inane. This film is great. Do not get me wrong. And while standing beside those earlier giants alone bodes well. But I cannot give it a mere four stars for not living up to prior classics, or even the greater Gerwig-penned work, "Frances Ha," or "Miss America," both of which I adore - ADORE. I cannot take away a star, especially in today's film atmosphere, so saturated with spectacle over character. There is something intentionally minor about the work which could, at points, swing for the fences just a bit more, as in the sequence near the close of the film in which Lady Bird visits a church and re-adopts her name - on her terms. BRAVO.

The acting is top-notch, the direction and writing is brilliant, and it all comes together in a sometimes hilarious, sometimes sad, sometimes poignant teenage coming of age story led magnificently by Saoirse Ronan and Laurie Metcalf. This is Greta Gerwig at her best.

I thought this film was absolutely brilliant: funny, poignant, dramatic, and a little bit sexy to boot. The script was intelligent and extremely humorous, with some pathos thrown in too.As you probably already know it's a coming-of-age movie about a soon-to-be 18 year-old young woman and her relationships, primarily with her mother. There are a few scenes that are hands-down hilarious, and a few where we are brought back to earth with a bump of sincerity. It runs the gamut of teenage girl experiences and is wonderfully acted by Saoirse Ronan. Coincidentally, in one scene she has a nose-bleed while sharing an intimate moment with Timothée Chalomet's character; in Call Me By Your Name Chalomet's character also suffers nosebleeds. I thought that was interesting.The film was an ensemble tour de force of acting by virtually everyone who was on screen. Superb directing and script by Greta Gerwig too.The only ding I would give the movie is for several pretty obvious continuity errors.A heartily recommended movie, one of the most enjoyable I've seen in 2018.