THE OPTIMIST - MOVIE REVIEWS

As we continue to battle the craziness of 2020, there's still cinematic hope! New movies are still coming out and a lot of them are really great! If you haven't had a chance to see my first batch of quarantine flicks, you can check out my review of those here . In the meantime, here are a few more worthy candidates to consider! An American Pickle - HBO Max An American Pickle is probably one of my top favorite new films of 2020 so far. It’s got an absurd premise that purposefully plays into that absurdity, and manages to infuse heart, humor, and a wonderful escape from the drudgery of quarantine-living. The story is about a man named Herschel Greenbaum (played by Seth Rogen), an immigrant worker at a pickle factory who is accidentally brined and preserved in a vat of pickles for 100 years and wakes up in modern-day Brooklyn. Herschel manages to find his only living relative, a great-grandson named Ben Greenbaum (also played by Seth Rogen), and tries to find his place in this n...

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything remotely close to a movie review in the last five months or so. The state of the world is a crazy one, so I hope you all are staying safe and healthy. As a cinema-lover, not being able to go to the movies has been tough, and hearing about movies being pushed back is even tougher. Obviously, there are more important things going on in the world than movies, but movies and television have been a saving grace against cabin fever for many people during these quarantined times. Despite theaters being closed, a lot of new movies have still managed to come out thanks to the various streaming services that are available. I’ve done my best to keep up with these new nuggets of visual awesomeness and I just wanted to share some brief thoughts on some of them. I’m going to try and do my best to keep up with all the new stuff coming out. I will say, even though I didn’t watch these in a theater, it still felt really good to watch something new! Vivarium ...