Jamie Lammers
Stories (150/0)
Dark Waters Review
This review comes from my Letterboxd profile, where I write reviews like this for every movie I see. I will admit, the pacing of the first half of this film was really strange for me. Even though I was intrigued by Dark Waters as it began, I found myself slowly wondering more and more where it was going as the film progressed. It felt very similar to other films like this I had seen before despite how enjoyable the film was, and even though I love Anne Hathaway as an actress, I had a hard time finding her character likable. However, the second half of this film, the half of the film that transforms Dark Waters from a simple Rob Bilott biopic to a relevant and thrilling courtroom drama, elevates the material so much more and makes the film ten times more investing than it already was. Once the courtroom investigations actually start, my attention was glued to this film and I found so much more to appreciate in it than just a story about a lawyer that discovered the shady actions of a large American corporation.
By Jamie Lammers3 years ago in Humans
Book Review: Secrets for the Mad by Dodie Clark
Dodie Clark is one of, if not my favorite musician and songwriter of all time. Her lyrics are always brilliant, putting words to feelings and experiences that are difficult to communicate but relatable to pretty much everyone. With her debut book Secrets for the Mad: Obsessions, Confessions, and Life Lessons, Dodie continues to demonstrate that her insightful style is not exclusive to her music. Her narrative writing is just as powerful and universally relatable as her music, and it feels just as inviting and cathartic. However, it's not just a book meant for her fans -- it's a book that is accessible to anyone and one that I personally feel is the most important exploration of mental health issues available right now.
By Jamie Lammers3 years ago in Beat
How Moonshine is Made
Moonshine is a type of homemade alcohol that is made and sold in secrecy, often through illegal distribution. The term ¨moonshine” comes from the British verb moonshining, which refers to any job done in the late-night hours. Of course, this term applies perfectly to those responsible for making this highly concentrated alcohol, as they had to still illegal whisky out of sight from authorities. During the Colonial era of America, people would discreetly deliver illegal alcohol by concealing it in their tall riding boots, an action which earned the distributors the nickname bootleggers. People who operated illegal alcohol businesses and stills used the name moonshiners in order to conceal their shady deeds from the authorities. In the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, moonshiners figured out a way to conceal alcohol in racing cars in order to deliver them through the night. They would manually increase the horsepower of their vehicles in order to drive faster through the night and keep ahead of the police. This created a culture of car lovers in the United States, which ultimately manifested in the popular NASCAR races -- in fact, one of the racers in the first NASCAR race also used his car to deliver bootlegged alcohol.
By Jamie Lammers3 years ago in Proof
The Lobster Review
This review comes straight from my Letterboxd profile, where you can read hundreds of reviews like this if you want to. The Lobster is most certainly an off-kilter movie with an unconventional narrative. I've been wanting to watch this movie for years ever since I saw The Favourite, also directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, and somehow this movie is even stranger than The Favourite. Well, I guess with a premise as niche as this, I should have seen that coming, but there was some almost out-of-touch charm to this movie that still managed to take me off guard as I continued watching it. It's bleak, its tone is incredibly depressing, but somehow, there's something about this film that latches onto your subconscious and encourages you to think about it. I'm blown away that a film like this was actually nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the Oscars. Don't get me wrong, I think it deserves it, but this is the type of film that is usually ignored by the Academy, the kind that is so inaccessible to most people that nobody acknowledges it come awards season. However, I think this concept is so unique and the style of this film so original that even though I still haven't been able to completely wrap my mind around this film's message, it feels like it deserves the nomination.
By Jamie Lammers3 years ago in Humans
Starting Anew
Ed stumbles into his house, tipsy. He throws his keys onto a nearby table and drops his coat onto the floor. He walks toward the couch, falling face-first as soon as he gets there. He doesn't know how to cope with this. How can you just date someone for over a year and feel comfortable inviting them to a restaurant to break up with them? It makes no sense to him, especially with alcohol in his system.
By Jamie Lammers3 years ago in Humans
Nomadland Review
This review is one of many movie reviews that I have written over the last two years that are available to read on my Letterboxd profile. I've been reviewing every miniseries and movie I watch since I created the profile, creating a giant catalog of reviews to share my opinion of some of my favorite (or possibly least favorite) movies, along with learning to improve the way I communicate my thoughts on movies. If you like my style of movie reviews and are curious to see what else I've watched over the last two years, check out my profile if you want to read more and see what movies and shows I would recommend.
By Jamie Lammers3 years ago in Humans
What Respect Means to Me
This is an essay I wrote for an assignment for a high school health class a couple of years ago. Respect is an incredibly important thing for coworkers, classmates, family members and friends to incorporate into their daily lives. It allows people to understand each other’s feelings and personal ideas, and it allows them to be understanding of themselves. However, respect means something different to everyone, and everyone has different ideas of what they want other people to do to show respect. My ideas of respect and the actions I take to show it are very important to me, and I constantly attempt to show the same respectful actions I expect to be shown back from my classmates, peers, and family.
By Jamie Lammers3 years ago in Humans
Book Review: Taken Hostage by David Farber
Taken Hostage: The Iran Hostage Crisis and America's First Encounter with Radical Islam is written by American historian David Farber, who has written various books on modern American history from the 1950s onward. As the book’s title suggests, the work centers around the Iran Hostage Crisis that took place between 1979 and 1981. In particular, it focuses on the discourse in American society that resulted from building tensions with Iran and negative feelings about the presidential policies of Jimmy Carter. The book doesn’t necessarily focus on the events that occurred during the actual crisis, instead using it as the culmination of political turmoil that occurred throughout the 1970s and explaining all of the reasons why it took place.
By Jamie Lammers3 years ago in Humans
The Pounce
As the sun shone on the grasslands and warmed the treeless ground, an ocelot crouched in the tall grass. He moved his paws through the closely clumped-together blades, trying to touch the ground as quietly as possible. He couldn't afford to make even the quietest of sounds. He had a target to pin to the ground and there was no chance he was going to let it get away under his watch. He had promised himself he was going to practice stalking and get better at hunting on his own to prove to himself that he could do it, and he would be as quiet as it took to make that happen. To minimize the rustling of the grass, he used the pads of his paws, moving forward as slowly as he possibly could. He kept his gaze straight ahead of him, his eyes focused on his primary objective and his head completely stationary. He wasn't going to break his concentration under any circumstances. He was going to get this right.
By Jamie Lammers3 years ago in Earth
The Annoyance of Earworms
Don’t you just hate it when a song gets stuck inside your head and you can’t control it no matter what you do? Admittedly, sometimes, you get that rare song that you like being stuck in your head, the kind that you constantly sing the chorus to out loud and annoy everyone within earshot after about an hour. For me, that’s songs like “Smells like Teen Spirit” or “Another Brick in the Wall Pt. 2,” heck, I don’t even mind “Yellow Submarine” looping in my head whenever I so much as hear its title. However, most of the time, earworms aren’t forgiving like that. Most of the time, they come into your head with absolutely no warning, digging into your brain and slowly becoming louder than thunder in your own thoughts. From there, the only way that you can bring balance between your brain, which is insistent on keeping the song in your head, and yourself, who never wanted the song to be stuck there in the first place, is to listen to it or sing through the whole thing. I’ve had plenty of moments where I’ve sung the melody of a song to myself because I can barely remember the words to it and I’m doing something that prevents me from listening to music. This is particularly aggravating during chemistry labs or hour-long exam periods, as not only are you doing something that actively prevents you from pulling out your phone and putting on Turnover’s “Super Natural” in the background, you are actively doing something where you would rather be doing anything else.
By Jamie Lammers3 years ago in Confessions
Top 5 Movies and TV Shows to Watch Over The 4th of July
This article was originally published to the movie reviewing app Stardust in summer 2019. Now that the app is officially shutting down, I figured it was time to move the articles I wrote for them onto this page. Here is the second of four of my articles for Stardust.
By Jamie Lammers3 years ago in Humans