This was wonderful but quietly broke my heart and I'm not sure I could go through the experience of watching it again. It's gorgeously shot and the performances are beautiful, particularly the three leads. The ending is sob-inducing and gave me chills. A-

This was fine I guess. I liked how authentic it felt, especially the scenes with the kids and there is some good, raw emotion towards the end, but I just didn't care for the majority of the characters in this. William Dafoe is easily the most likeable character by a mile and I thought based on the trailer he would have been the one taking care of the kids after a certain point. That doesn't happen and while the actress who played the mom isn't bad I honestly really didn't like her much either. She is basically a ratchet, selfish, self centered bitch and while I understand its a pretty realistic portrayal of a certain segment of the population that doesn't mean I will automatically care for this character. Her homegirl was HOT though.

B

The Florida Project

This was alright. It is basically a film about nothing, though. Much like Tangerine, Baker goes cinéma vérité again as we basically just drop in to the life of a few trashy characters as they go about their business. In The Florida Project, we follow a mother and her daughter while they do nothing for a few weeks over summer break. The mother (in the thinnest sense of the word) is a complete leech, a thief, and a prostitute, trying to accumulate money to pay each week's rent. This isn't an empowering single mum story. Basically a girl herself, she has no morals or good judgement, and any money she does get she wastes on fast food. Bobby (Willem Dafoe), the motel manager, is a great character -- the only one in the film! The rest are the lowest of the low. The kids aren't much better either, but I gave them a pass because they're just kids. But still, Moonee is a little bitch. But I can't say I was bored watching these people for a 110 minutes.

This is a far superior film to Tangerine, the only other Baker film I've seen. The editing might be a bit off, there is largely no score, and the film misses out on glorious opportunities to evoke real emotion (editing works against this film), but much like reality TV, you just cannot take your eyes off the screen. You don't know what will happen next. It has such a compulsive nature to it, which helps even more that the film has an anchor in Willem Dafoe. I hoped there would be a tangent for Bobby, but sadly it never comes. Actually, a film about his character running the place (which this halfheartedly was anyway) would have been far more interesting.

B