Lady Bird was a perfect way for Greta Gerwig to start her directing career. She got to make a movie based on her own life, set in her home city of Sacramento, with a young woman in the lead role, which succeeded at the box office and was beloved by critics. Mic drop. A huge plus is that Gerwig's caustically funny flick has an atypical ending to a coming-of-age story, contrast to the easy answers these kinds of movies tend to serve up. Saoirse Ronan is tremendous (this is nothing new) as the prickly, Sacramento-hating high-schooler who renamed herself to the dismay of her ultra-passive-aggressive mother. Laurie Metcalf is great as that mother, as is Tracy Letts as Ronan's father. Really, the whole cast in Lady Bird is something else. So don't dive out of a moving vehicle to win a car-gument, but come to understand that sometimes love hurts as we bring you the 460th Ellises' Analysis. By the way, leaving home to go to college is not an easy transition, but it IS easy to buy Sparkplug Coffee wherever that Canadian or American college might be. You'll get a 20% discount if you use our promo code ("top100project"). Also, we'd love to hear from you via email ([email protected]) or via tweets (@moviefiend51 and @bevellisellis). Oh, and since you like podcasts about movies, you should know that Ryan talks about sports films on "Scoring At The Movies".