Lars And The Real Girl Finds So Much Power In Kindness And A Terrific Ryan Gosling Performance

There is, to quote Avenue Q, "a fine fine line" between kindness and schmaltz. The latter element is widely detested and, not unfairly, looked at a manipulative way to generate pathos without actually generating substantive characters or plot details for the audience to get invested in. There are times where I've seen movies that get too schmaltzy for their own good (remember that ending of The LEGO Ninjago Movie that smothered the audience in too many hollow dramatic monologues?), but I'm always gonna root for a movie to charge towards kindness, even if it stumbles along the way. Kindness is such a vital thing in our lives and it's always good to see art championing it. Well-done kindness is one of my favorite things in all of cinema and you can see it in all kinds of movies like The Muppets, Blockers, City Lights or even the 2007 dramedy Lars And The Real Girl.

Just Because I, Tonya Is Heavily Stylized Doesn't Mean It Can't Also Be Thoughtful

Craig Ferguson is one of my all-time favorite late night TV shows hosts, this guy bent the rules of the American late-night TV show format with such glee and wit, it was absolutely wonderful. Interestingly though, one of my absolute favorite moments of his show comes not in the form of a punchline but in a thoughtful monologue he gave in 2007, which I've embedded below this paragraph for you to watch. Here, he talks about how his jokes lampooning certain people (like Kevin Costner) in situations where they're obviously having actual problems related to health or mental issues were bothering him on a personal level. He goes on to talk about the then-recent actions of Britney Spears and how they'd been the focus of widespread media attention and were the butt of countless jokes from the late night TV show hosts, including himself. He notes his discomfort with mocking her unorthodox behavior and notes how he recognizes that behavior from his own actions from he when he was an addict fifteen years prior.