I haven't seen Superbad, but sure.

Tom and Lorenzo hail it as an Instant Classic: [link]

I can't wait to see it. I have a huge amount of good will toward both Beanie Felstein and Kaitlyn Dever (Loretta from Justified!!) and the trailer sold me HARD. Really nice to see Olivia Wilde make such a confident debut behind the camera as well.

Trailer for Terminator: Dark Fate: [link]

I didn't bother with Genisys but with that cast, count me on board.

Kaitlyn Dever (Loretta from Justified!!)

OH SHIT. I didn't even realize!

Honestly, the whole cast is great -- Beanie Feldstein is a star, Billie Lourd is hilarious, there are a ton of grown-up cameos, all the people I don't know their names are also great.

Oh, Loretta! That's a selling point.

I'm not gonna watch the Terminator trailer right now, but I looked it up on IMDb and this may be the first Terminator movie I see since...2? Huh. The Sarah Connor Chronicles were so good I kinda forgot I had passed on so many movies

The trailer looks a lot like a girl led version of Superbad.

That was my critic friend's reaction as well. (I've only seen the first few minutes of Superbad.)

OH SHIT. I didn't even realize!

The first five minutes of our post-movie conversation was mostly me saying "That person looked familiar, where do I know them from?"

One thing I really liked about Booksmart was the interactions between the different students, which felt a bit more true to my experience than other films in the genre.

I didn't know Beanie was Jonah Hill's sister. Everybody else knew that right?

Fun teen movie quiz with cast and Olivia Wild: [link]

I knew it from interviews she did while promoting Ladybird.

I just watched The Endless over the weekend-was really an enjoyable film. Thanks for the recommendations, gang!

In looking up info for it after I found a reddit thread from last year where I recommended watching the B&W The Call of Cthulhu from the H.P. Lovecraft Society to the film's directors. I had absolutely no memory of having interacted with them, or of knowing anything about their film besides the name. Thanks forgetful ageing brain, you saved me from spoiling myself!

Handful of movies seen at theater in the last couple of weeks:

Booksmart: As discussed above, a very enjoyable, smart coming-of-age comedy with some interesting directorial flourishes. Fave bits: Billie Lourdes stealing ALL her scenes as some kind of manic pixie fairy rich girl; a gorgeous underwater sequence that straddles a perfect line between hope and heartbreak; the two leads and their tremendous chemistry. Unfortunately, they opened this movie wide in Memorial Day Weekend against Aladdin, and reportedly it got clobbered in the box office. It will do well in home video, I think.

Rocketman: an overall delight! I dug this much more than I did Bohemian Rhapsody -- it helps that Taron Egerton does his own singing. I also have much deeper childhood association with the music of Elton John than I do with Queen. There are a lot of musical numbers, some snazzy, some forgettable, and a few that are genuinely brilliant (personal fave being a low-key but a lovely rendition of "Your Song" earlier in the movie). The actors are very fine, and Egerton gives his all. The heart of the movie is the life-long songwriting partnership Elton John has with lyricist Bernie Taupin, played by Jamie Bell, which is INCREDIBLY SLASHY despite (or possibly because of) their friendship being very deep yet platonic. The actual sexual relationship John has his manager played by Richard Madden kinda pales in comparison, I gotta say. Anyway, thoroughly enjoyable, A++ would watch again!

The Souvenir: directed by Joanna Hogg, a British director whose work I wasn't familiar with before. The toast of Sundance earlier this year, this film has only opened in limited release in large cities, I believe. I watched it in Boston while I was there this past weekend on a conference (do I have my priorities straight or what). Largely autobiographical, this is a memory piece, of an ill-conceived love affair that was short-lived but clearly had a major formative influence on Hogg as both a person and an artist. Tilda Swinton is in it as the mother of the protagonist, who is played by her own daughter (Honor Swinton-Byrne). Tom Burke, whom I adore (last seen in the BBC Strike Mysteries), plays The Terrible Boyfriend, the type of boyfriend anguished young women would write to advice columnists about and everyone would be like "DUMP HIS ASS RIGHT NOW." But the whole thing is played out clear-eyed and remarkably free of judgment, with insights born of time and experience since. I loved it a lot but not sure if I'd recommend it indiscriminately. It's got this mix of delicacy and emotional violence one would have to be in a receptive frame of mind for. Of the Buffistas, I think JZ would love this? Apparently there is a sequel already in works, which is... interesting for the type of the movie this is.