Ep1076: There's No Stalgia Like Nostalgia: I Like Movies (2022)
Ian and Pat celebrate Valentine's Day with a candy-coated love-in for Chandler Levack's 2022 coming-of-age comedy, I Like Movies!
Set in 2003,* the film stars Isaiah Lehtinen as Lawrence, a celluloid-obsessed high school student living in Canada, who dreams of studying film at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. He and his only friend, Matt (Perry Hynes White), make low-budget movies and spend their Saturday Nights watching Saturday Night Live. When Lawrence gets a job at the local video store to save for college, he meets a group of misfit adults--including "cool boss" Alana (Romina D'Ugo), on whom he inevitably develops a crush. This coincides with a series of personal tragedies that force Lawrence into a world he can neither reckon with nor rewind.
In today's spoiler-lite review, the guys dig deep into Levack's phenomenally insightful and painstakingly authentic coming-of-age movie, which borrows from her own youth yet manages to capture the universal awkwardness, isolation, and small triumphs of teen-boydom.
They also veer into Levack's uncanny ability to draw strong female characters in ways that utterly shame the mainstream cliche; tout I Like Movies's similarity to Adam Rehmeier's Dinner in America; and pull each other back from the Inception-like spiral of some of the film's deceptively simple creative choices!
*Ian mistakenly said the movie took place in 2002, but according to the Internet, Punch-Drunk Love didn't hit home video until June of the following year (Paul Thomas Anderson's drama figures heavily in I Like Movies).
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Show Links
Watch the I Like Movies trailer.
Read Ian's written review of I Like Movies at Kicking the Seat!
Check out Ian's recent interview with the cast and filmmaker of Dinner in America (mentioned in the show)!
Keep up with Pat at HollywoodChicago.com.
Listen to Pat's movie reviews on the radio at STAR 96.7.
