And as I watched the lonely man ride the farting corpse of Harry Potter like a jet ski through the ocean waves, I realized I may never again have occasion to write a finer sentence.

by Thom Yee

Swiss Army Man images courtesy of A24

Normally around this time of year we take a look at the smaller, less well-attended movies of the summer just passed, which is why you’ve been reading reviews of The Nice Guys and Green Room and like that, but FYI, we also had a skip week in September (as we are wont to do) because nobody here had enough to say about our third scheduled movie, Sing Street, to write a whole review about it. I point this out for two reasons. One, we hope it’s interesting to get a bit of a behind-the-scenes look at GOO Reviews (i.e., we do think ahead of time about what we’re doing), and two (and more importantly), you need to know that we watched Sing Street because the movies we ended up watching for this year’s “Summer Movies You Missed” review series wound up being weirdly distorted mirror versions of each other. In weeks two and three, we watched Green Room and then Sing Street, both movies about music’s role in growing up, but while the former was nihilistic and horrific, the latter was overtly, naively hopeful and upbeat. Now in weeks four and five, we watched Hunt for the Wilderpeople and Swiss Army Man, both movies about coming of age while trapped in the wilderness, but where the former was a lovely portrait about finding the best in each other, Swiss Army Man… well it’s about a lonely weirdo and the farting corpse he finds in the woods. Continue reading →