Movie Review A Real Pain

Real Pain 

Directed by Jesse Eisenberg

Written by Jesse Eisenberg

Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Kieran Culkin, Jennifer Grey 

Release Date November 15th, 2024

Published November 14th, 2024 

A Real Pain stars Jesse Eisenberg as Dave and Kieran Culkin as Dave’s troubled cousin, Benji. The duo are taking a trip to Poland to visit the childhood home of their late, beloved grandmother who recently passed away. Both have taken the loss hard but Benji in particular has been reeling from the loss as he and grandma were exceptionally close. According to Benji, granny was the only one who could withstand his relentless onslaught of telling it like it is. The rest of the family kept Benji at arms length. 

In recent years, that also included Dave who has started a successful career in online sales and has a wife and a child. He and Benji used to be as close as brothers but as Benji became more and more outspoken about family issues, even Dave was forced to pull away. There was also the typical life stuff of just being busy. Now, the two are going to be alone together for a week in a foreign country and it will be a test of their relationship unlike any other. Naturally, Benji kicks off the trip by telling Dave he’s sneaking weed into Poland, stoking Dave’s already inflamed anxiety over the trip.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media, linked here. 

Classic Movie Review Dirty Dancing

Dirty Dancing (1987)

Directed by Emile Ardolino 

Written by Eleanor Bergstein

Starring Patrick Swayze, Jennifer Grey, Jerry Orbach, Kelly Bishop 

Release Date August 25th, 1987 

“It’s nothing, Marjorie, go back to sleep.”

As I watched Dirty Dancing for the first time in several years, this seemingly throwaway line from Jerry Orbach to Kelly Bishop, as the parents of Jennifer Grey’s Frances “Baby” Houseman, struck me. Orbach's Jake, a wealthy doctor, has just returned to his bungalow at this Catskills Hotel after having given treatment to Cynthia Rhodes’ Penny who has just undergone what at the time was referred to as a back-alley abortion. This was after she’d been knocked up by Robbie, a selfish snob doing time to raise money he doesn’t need for his Ivy League education.

The line struck me because of the way in which it spoke volumes in just six words. Here was past and future colliding; generational values only beginning to be challenged and two symbols of the supposed Greatest Generation, one in denial urging the other two go back to sleep and pretend time isn’t passing them and their values by. Seven years after when Dirty Dancing is set, Roe v. Wade would give women their first victory in reclaiming their bodies and their decisions from the white male patriarchy.

I realize that a review of Dirty Dancing is not the most likely place for a discussion of issues like abortion but that’s what makes this seeming trifle of 80s nostalgia so powerful, in of all places, the Reagan Era, when it seemed as if the Eisenhower, 50s family values crowd was making comeback after having defeated the hippies while getting millions of people killed to reclaim their supposed family values, here is Dirty Dancing, a musical with this innocent, almost Disney-esque sheen to it, to remind us what so many people had fought and died for. Change.

This theme of how the times they are a changing plays as the Greek Chorus of Dirty Dancing, always popping up in the background, playing peek-a-boo behind the graceful coming of age love story between Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze’s electrifying Johnny Castle, a man who looks like he just walked off the poster of some bad seed, Hayes Code era, motorcycle picture. Keeping with the theme, Baby is the idealistic innocent swept up in the change that people like Johnny are busy bringing about.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media