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Us (2019)
Great Movie For Rewatching
Wow this one sure is a thinker and to be truthful I'm not fully sure I understand it though I enjoyed watching. The way the story was laid out in the end didn't fully click with me, I was left wondering how that certain character knew all they did when they were a child when a certain event happened. I also feel like there's something I'm not understanding about the movie on a symbolic level. So many things are seemingly loaded with symbolism(rabbits, scissors, the color red, water to name a few) and I feel like these are all pieces to a puzzle but I just don't have them together right to make the big picture. Maybe I'm just stupid? Peele did give his cast a list of movies to watch so they could all be on the same page(Dead Again, The Shining, The Babadook, It Follows, A Tale of Two Sisters, The Birds, Funny Games, Martyrs, Let the Right One In, and The Sixth Sense) and of the list I've only seen 5 so maybe it will help to see the others.
One thing that's really fun is this is a movie absolutely chock full of easter eggs and references to other films and entertainment. Besides nods at the prior mentioned movies Peele showed his cast, which of the ones I've seen were all nodded to, I caught references to Alice in Wonderland, The Lost Boys, The Goonies, C.H.U.D., the Twilight Zone tv series, a possibly one to Invasion of the Body Snatchers remake of '78, possibly The Strangers and Jaws. I bet I'll find more on the next watch.
Besides all the thinky stuff and hidden nods I really appreciated the tense atmosphere at the beginning of the movie. I was wound so tight before anything actually happened. I wish that tension had gone on for the whole movie Peele really knows how to bring you to the edge of your seat. The second half felt more like a zombie apocalypse film though and I think the disconnect between that and the prior tone threw me. All the cast delivered excellent performances but Lupita Nyong'o absolutely killed it. There's lots of little subtle movements and expressions she uses to back up what the dialogue is saying and I just felt her performance had depth to it that improved on the already fantastic script. I loved watching her, she's incredible!
This movie hit more than it missed and I think most of the problems I have with it are my own fault. I definitely recommend this movie and think it's one that's worth multiple viewings.
Bandolero! (1968)
Vulgar Display of the Erotification of Rape
I don't know what I expected from this movie but it certainly wasn't to see a sexual assault scene where the camera lovingly zooms in on the woman's stocking-clad leg while she tries to get her assailant up off her.
Part of this is my fault for sticking with the movie for so long. The scene I refer to occurs towards the end and looking back there were many warning signs to bail. It was a pattern of writing choices and directorial choices that made it clear the audience was meant to be tittilated by the sexual abuse the film heaps on Raquel Welch's character and it was disgusting.
Our first impression of Maria played by Welch is a widow fighting to keep her departed husband's farm. She comes off as strong and proud but bizarrely tells the banker that she was a prostitute at 13 and her family "never went hungry" like its a point of pride instead of a sad state of affairs that a child had to endure sexual abuse in order for her kin not to starve. Whatever right? Sometimes bad things happen to a character. Later we find out Maria was sold into prostitution by her father, it was not even a choice she got to make for hers compounding the horror. She was also sold to her husband. Yuck!
Maria is also taken hostage by Dee played by Dean Martin(who might be the hero of the story or might be the brother of Mace played by Jimmy the real hero of the story depending on where your moral compass sits and/or which actor you like best) and Dee's band of criminals. Naturally since the film is One Of Those Movies this means several of the men propose or attempt raping her. This is treated as understandable because despite being dragged over rough terrain to Mexico, Maria's hair and makeup still look perfect and being played by Raquel Welch of course means she's very attractive. To his credit(maybe? I don't know his reasons might not be entirely selfless as I will explain) Dee stops them at least twice, though one guy who climbed on top of her in the middle of the night argues he wasn't going to hurt her, only kiss her, and "a kiss never hurt nothing." Ah yes because as we know kissing a captive woman who screams when she find you grabbing her in the night is totally harmless, SIKE!
There's a romantic subplot that develops between Maria and Dee with Dee telling his brother Mace how he could never be with a woman he couldn't respect in conversations I just couldn't care about because any capable and smart woman wouldn't want a bandit who takes women hostage and subjects them to his creepy gang anyway but whatever. This reveal also makes Dee saving Maria from being mistreated seem less the act of a good guy and more like he only did it because he wanted her for himself which is not particularly good. The worse thing is Maria develops Stockholm Syndrome faster than Belle in Beauty and the Beast and begins lusting for him back. He kidnapped her and I'll stop mentioning that when it stops being a trope in Hollywood.
Skip a few action scenes and we reach Mexico. Where Maria informs us all, criminals and audience, there's gangs of bandoleros prowling who will kill any gringos. Maria herself is safe because, she's not a gringo(Normally this is where I would award the movie points for actually casting an actress who is close to the ethnicity of the character but for this film I don't feel charitable) and also the sheriff pursuing the outlaws has the hots for her so he'll do anything to get her back. At this point Maria is the only female character of significance in the story so I guess that makes sense.
The sheriff catches miscreants but is forced to release them when the bandoleros attack. During the attack El Jefe finds Maria and one of the most disgusting voyeuristic rape scenes takes place before Dee busts in and starts clobbering the guy. He kills the boss but not before he's stabbed. Dee repeats the "a kiss never hurt nothing" line that one of Maria's would be assailants said to her and dies. In fact everyone dies but Maria and the sheriff, with Maria tearfully confessing to Mace she really did love his brother despite being kidnapped by him and exposed to several different flavors of rapey outlaws because of him. Go figure.
What really kills me is that without the gross fetishization of sexual assault it might have been a good movie! The character dynamic between Mace and his brother Dee is complex and interesting, Dee could have been explored as a realistically morally grey outlaw but somebody somewhere decided the movie needed a romance subplot of all things and then it was decided that all the romance would be buried under layers of creepy behaviour and absolutely unacceptably eroticized rape.
This movie left me feeling disappointed and angry and further cemented the idea I gleamed from John Wayne that Westerns are power fantasies for men with violent tendencies, sexual frustration and dim views on equality. Hated it so much I felt compelled to tell IMDB why.
Insecure (2016)
Author Avatars are Bad, When Will We Learn?
So I really wanted to like Insecure, it was recommended to me as this ultra-progressive look at the modern experience of black women who honestly do not get to tell their own stories enough in media and I was told it was funny. It's not really funny and not especially progressive but it could have still been likable but for one thing. Issa. Do I mean the character Issa Dee or the actress/writer Issa Rae you ask? Yes.
Issa Dee is super trashy and immature. She cheats on her man because she's having relationship problems, instead of doing something useful like going to couples counseling or just breaking up and she has very little regard for how her actions affect Molly, seriously who raps about their friend's intimate life to strangers and pretends that's okay? All Issa Dee cares about is sex. All Issa Rae cares about is propping up Issa Dee's continually bad decisions. Flawed characters are great but when you're blatantly author avataring like Issa is it just seems like you're out to justify your own misdeeds. There is very little more obnoxious than someone behaving like garbage then still expecting sympathy.
Molly is such a much more sympathetic character and way more interesting but Issa hogs a bunch of screentime because she's basically the creator's avatar and cannot be ignored. You can't watch the show if Issa annoys you because she is the show. Instead of Insecure someone should change the title to Issacure. I couldn't stand her by episode 4 of season 1 and tapped out a little before midway through the second season because she just never improved. Maybe it gets better but I doubt it as long as Issa prioritizes herself and her issues over everything. Do I mean the character or the actress/writer there? Again, yes.
And apparently Issa(actress/writer) is also abrasive to her fans as well from what I've heard. If her fictional avatar is anything to go by that wouldn't surprise me.
A Quiet Place (2018)
Darkly Atmospheric (Big Props for the Subtitles As Well!)
Picture this, a theater that is just about packed. Most of the rows are full, but it is nearly completely silent. That was my experience when I went to see this movie and it was unearthly! The movie draws you right into the mood where sound is not desired, I didn't even want to eat my popcorn in case the bag rustled as I moved. There were only a few moments where the audience I was with made noise and all of those were gasps or tiny shrieks at the appropriately scary moments.
I was amazed the movie could do that. They did so much with such little sound it was beautiful and it certainly forced you to pay close attention to the film itself. You don't want to miss something important the characters have done without noise. Monsters that hunt by sound are not a new idea but this film ramps it up to eleven so that the littlest noise in the movie leaves you perched on the edge of your seat sweating, waiting to see if the monsters are coming.
Most of the acting in the movie is pretty solid as well, a real credit to the talent because they have to communicate all their character's feelings (almost)solely through expressions, gestures and body language. I was particularly impressed with Emily Blunt as the mother. Her pained struggle during the beginning of her labor was primal and palpable. John Krasinski also did a great job, though he mostly spoke with his eyes. And the kids were good, they're kids so they can only improve no matter what.
Compliments on the performances and atmosphere aside I did notice some problems with the film. It strikes me as a plot hole that nobody figured out high-pitched noise harms the creatures and can drive them away until day well after a year that they showed up. And I felt the father's death, as touching as his last "words" to his daughter are, to be unnecessary. It sort of felt like they killed him just to make the audience sad rather than it being a vital part of the story which bums me out because he was a great character. I also felt the flooded basement scene, though very scary to watch and well shot, probably could have been cut as it really didn't do anything in terms of moving the story forward or advancing characterization.
All in all I think this is certainly one of the top horror movies of the 2010s and definitely worth seeing. I also really appreciate that Krasinski sought out a Deaf actress for the daughter in the movie and had an ASL mentor to help teach the cast on set. It certainly helped that they were using real Sign. I took my hard of hearing mother with me when I went and she was very enthusiastic to see that they were both signing and had subtitles as she struggles to understand movies without captions. It made her theater experience more enjoyable to have this film accessible to her. Thank you to John and the producers for making the decision to subtitle all of the lines, mom gives you two thumbs up!
First They Killed My Father (2017)
A Breathtakingly Beautiful Film that is Incredibly Hard to Watch
The Cambodian genocide as told through the eyes and ears of a child, the subject matter of this film is heartbreaking. As chilling and horrifying as any horror the Holocaust contained, the Khmer Rouge regime in during the 70s in Cambodia was one of the worst crimes against humanity history has ever witness and this film pulls no punches to soften the weight of the horror. First we are treated to the panicky motions of evacuation as Loung Ung's family is forced to relocate to the countryside from their comfortable city home. Loung does not know at this point what awaits her or her family but the audience does and it create a tense atmosphere of fear. You know the killing must begin soon, you are dreading it and the film uses that tension to keep you engaged with the slow march to the work camps that will begin the long nightmare. And yet even as we walk inevitably towards the tragedy, Jolie shows us beauty to. Here a shot of a flower wonderfully alive and fresh, here is a shot of Pa Ung's face as he comforts his tired daughter lit lovingly by sunlight, children play with beetles and laugh. We are reminded that this land is a beautiful land, and it makes it all the more painful to know all this will be taken from Loung and from us soon.
Then we reach the work camp. Here is only despair. The Ung family and those forced to work here are made to dye their clothes in order to reduce everyone to a state of sameness that does nothing to improve anyone's circumstances in contrary to what the Khmer Rouge promises. Here we are shown how a man might be punished for giving life saving medicine to his dying child and Loung's sister is beaten for eating a single bean. In a heartrending scene, the family is forced to make a meal out of two locust and Loung having been given a whole bug, breaks off a leg for her starving sister. Later we are shown Loung stealing food after dreaming she is at a almost magical banquet(reminiscence to my eyes as the tempting but ultimately dangerous feast laid out for Ofelia in Pan's Labyrinth during the Pale Man's test which Ofelia like Loung fails to resist). Here death comes for the Ung family, with starvation and sickness to blame as Loung's siblings are reassigned to other camps. Later it is revealed Loung's sister is dying. We travel with Loung into the hut where the dead are laid and the dying are shuttled aside because the labor camp does not distinguish between the two. Jolie and Loung still manage to make these scenes visually amazing and the story about what happens when a person dies is a dark and tragic kind of lovely.
In this place of sorrow, the title finally makes sense. Pa Ung is ordered to repair a bridge. There is no bridge, these men have come to kill him. Knowing he will never see his family again there is a painful goodbye. Does watching him walk away break your heart? It should. He does not even risk a look back. It should break your heart to pieces. Loung dreams of his death and his burial in a mass grave. Not even the wonderful camera work and lightning and editing can make this palatable and it does not try. It speaks of being haunted with the blue mist and shadows playing. With her father gone, Loung's journey and the film's tone just becomes more dark and more brutal. Ma Ung desperately sends her remaining eldest children away with family pictures and messages of love in the hopes they can use false names and be protected. They are instead recruited as child soldiers and forced to participate in military training. They get fed better than those in the labor camp but most of what they are made to swallow is propaganda. The first time Loung fires a gun she flashes back to hearing a gunshot while on the road with her family close to the beginning of the movie and the realization for those who did not understand what happened is pretty horrifying. She later tries to find her mother and younger sister who were left behind but they are dead. It just gets worse from there. I don't think I have to touch how horrible the battle scenes are. And the minefield scene is the stuff of nightmares, made all the worse by remembering this was real.
Finally the physical ordeal is over. The Red Cross comes in to collect the remaining survivors and we leave Loung and her remaining family in prayer. It's not a happy ending, it just is.
Throughout the movie Loung is shown fantasizing or dreaming but the dreams are not always nice. This speaks to the emotional distance victims of terrors like the Cambodian genocide must put between themselves and their trauma to just survive. It's also a way to allow the audience into the mindset of a child in the midst of a warzone. I really appreciated how this film could tell a story with very little dialogue in some of its scenes and Jolie really knew how to make the most of her shots, they really are breathtaking at times. The writing was almost as if it was telling the grimmest and darkest fairytale of all, so if you are looking for a film that contains lots of quippy facts or a historical viewing of the Khmer Rouge it cannot really help you. It is a deeply personal story, Loung Ung may be sharing it with us but this is her pain and devastation we are seeing. I think a lot of her for sharing it, even knowing so much of the audience would never be able to understand. The film also points its finger at the American military for some of the responsibility and I cannot say that they are wholly wrong to do so. I am also positive there are Buddhist symbolisms and references to Cambodia's cultural heritage I am missing, for that I am saddened because I should like to understand this film more entirely.
The bottom line of this review is that this film surprised me in the way the story was told. It is horrible but it is told in a way that you must see the beauty the horror is trying to erase. In some ways, it is a victory in the face of genocide. A tale of survival in the face of genocide, a tearful goodbye to family that has been forever lose, and the tentative hope that this does not have to be the future. I should hope this moves people to resolve that no child will have to go through what Loung went through ever again.
Black Panther (2018)
This Movie Was Perfect, Wakanda Forever
First of all, the colors in this movie were gorgeous. The various sunset scenes or the scenes on the ancestral plane just felt so alive and so beautiful. I guess I'm too used to the old washed out "realistic" palette most films favor now where real is shades of brown and grey but Black Panther was just a feast for my eyes with the brilliant colors blasted across the screen. This ties into the fact the outfits were lovely and pretty much like nothing that's seen on the silver screen too much. The whole Pan African inspiration slash futuristic technopunk vibe, I really enjoyed it. I only thought one piece looked back and that was Okoye's (Danai Gurira) wig in the casino scene but given she throws it at an attacking goon I'm sure the bad wig was intentionally. And of course the Panther suit looked really good especially with the lights they gave it to signal how charged it was with kinetic energy, I'm glad they chose purple for T'Challa and gold for Killmonger's suit as those are both royal colors which makes sense for the characters but also breaks they old cliche of Good Guy in Blue and Bad Guy in Red.
The set pieces and scenery(both real and computer generated) were very gorgeous. I liked the big rocks that looked like panthers and gorillas, it brought an epic feeling to the movie something like the Pillars of Kings did for the LOTR movies. Shuri's lab looked very clean, bright, and sparkly which I thought fit the character's personality very well so I'm sure that was an intentional choice and a good one.
I loved almost every single character in the movie and became quite invested in their storylines. I thought certain characters fell a little flat(Everett Ross doesn't really have much going for him other than he's a US government agent and W'Kabi wasn't very interesting) but I think that might have been a time issue where their roles were cut down to keep the movie from running overly long and the characters still worked well in the story so I can't complain.
I did not expect to laugh as much as I did in the theater, there were some parts where the whole audience cracked up and we were all roaring together. That was great, Marvel's been real good at snappy one-liners and quick jokes and this movie definitely keeps that alive. Klaue and Shuri were the ones with most of the laughs but both had a lot more going on than just being comic relief so it never became grating.
Killmonger is, hands down, the best Marvel villain so far. He's got a complex mix of personal motivation and ideological motivation which makes him a heck of a lot more interesting than the old and tired "money, dear boy" or "i just want to rule the world because reasons" motivations you typically find for superhero movie villains. Michael B Jordan I thought played him fantastically, his performance was extremely charismatic, I'm just sorry to see the character leave so soon. To me it didn't make sense to have T'Challa repeat the same mistakes as T'Chaka did by killing his blood but this is somewhat mitigated by the fact T'Challa is shown to actually be making changes to solve the problems that allowed the villain to become who he was in the first place. I still wish they had kept Killmonger on though instead of killing him, that's the most fun I've had watching a Marvel villain since Loki.
The romance of the fill was very smooth, it did not disrupt the plot or hog screen time. Such a breath of fresh air! Though hopefully it will be explored more in Black Panther sequels. You can tell there's much more to it than what was shown and I'd like to see T'Challa and Nakia together as opposed to the separate exes-in-love-still thing they had going in this movie.
This movie also proposes some heavy questions. Is it right for an advanced nation to be isolationist while disadvantaged people suffer around the world? Is violence the only means free a class from oppression or can it be done peacefully? What is the cost of the lost identity many black Americans have with their ancestral homeland of Africa and how heavy do the chains of slavery still weigh on the black men of the US? The movie also speaks strongly in condemnation of colonization and the looting of the natural resources of Africa by foreign powers. It's a thinker as well as your good old smash-bang-flip superhero movie. It ends hopefully, it doesn't leave you feeling down despite the heaviness of the questions it raises and that makes it worth so much more to me. We all need hope. We all need to believe the future will be a brighter place than the present. We all want to believe in heroes.
I think it's crazy this movie is only resting at a 7.9 at the time of this review. I think a lot of the negativity is probably bitterness that this movie continues to outperform standard fare at the box office and people are hating it because it's been so popular to praise. And there's definitely some spoil sports trying to sink a black-directed and majority black cast movie, unfortunately that's the world we live in. Insert the Kanye shrug here, some people are just determined not to have a great time.
I can't find a single solid thing to complain about here in this movie hence my 10. I eagerly await the sequels to this.
Deidra & Laney Rob a Train (2017)
A Gem of a Movie
I'm so glad I stumbled across this on Netflix. It was so good. At its heart this is a story about family and what you will do to preserve it. This movie has a lot of soul to it; it's funny and it's moving. It's dramatic and it's somewhat bittersweet.
When mom goes to jail, what are two school age sisters with a younger brother to do? The bills pile up and CPS comes call. Dad's kind of a goofy wreck who claims he's the best dad in the world... when he's not there. The older sister is trying to get her plans together so she can go to college and get out of the little town that's keeping them down. It seems like everything is conspiring to keep these girls as nothings but that all turns around when they start robbing trains.
I appreciated how all the characters were written, they felt really real to me. And as I said before this is a very funny movie. I laughed out loud quite a bit. But it was also touching, if you have siblings you will feel those moments where the sisters conflict or work together. Give it a shot, you won't regret watching it.
Black Lightning (2018)
Said This Is For the Street BLACK LIGHTNING'S BACK
This show is a total and complete divergent from the "normal" superhero shows AND THAT'S A GOOD THING.
Black Lightning is almost a completely black show. The hero is black, his family is black, his villains are black, a bunch of the side characters are black. There's only a couple significant characters who aren't black and one of those is an Asian woman. THIS IS GOOD. This is representation. Black Lightning being UNAPOLOGETICALLY BLACK is a stunning break from how things are normally done, especially in the superhero genre. Black men and women, boys and girls, will be able to see themselves on this show, they will be able to know they are not regulated to side characters and B plots. This is so amazing, this is so needed, this has been a long time coming.
Then not only is there representation of black people in all shapes and forms, one of the shows main characters(Anissa Pierce soon to become the superhero Thunder) is a lesbian and her (soon to be)girlfriend Grace Cho is bisexual. This is not communicated in subtle winks and nods to the audience, this is not hidden behind the curtain of we-never-show-it-but-trust-us-it's-there, this is out in the open. That kind of representation of queer women is wonderful. It's so refreshing and Anissa and Grace are so cute together.
Beyond the representation the music of the show is great. I love the characters of Jefferson Pierce/Black Lightning and his daughter Anissa. Jennifer Pierce and her boyfriend are adorable together, the show makes the bold choice of having them both be virgins but does not condemn Khalil for his virginity OR Jennifer for her desire to have sex. I like the villain Lady Eve and want to see more of her. I'm excited to see Black Lightning take on the 100. This show also doesn't shy away from presenting real world issues like racial bias in policing, drug addiction in young people, gang violence. I think some of these issues could be handled better, it's true, but the show is doing just fine right now. It's campy at times, it's funny, it's exciting.
Look, ignore the negative reviews. Most of them are people who hang out on Stormfront and comment about how much they hate black people on Fox News articles anyway. Go into the show with an open mind and open heart and more than likely you're going to enjoy it.
Busanhaeng (2016)
A Powerful Story About Humanity with All Its Good and Bad
Wow. I'm still crying. This movie was beautiful. I don't mean that aesthetically because as a zombie movie, with all the gore that comes with the genre, it's not pretty to look at. The zombies are all very gross, satisfyingly so to a zombie aficionado but undoubtedly a bit much for the average person. The zombie deer in particular is NASTY the way it twists itself back onto its feet after being hit by the car. But the zombies aren't the point of the movie and aren't why the film is beautiful so I'll move on.
This film explores both innate human selfishness and innate human selflessness in both aspects. Our main character is a father who spends too much time working and not enough time with his (ADORABLE!!!) daughter. He's made himself such a stranger to his child that he buys her a Wii which she already has, and from what I was given to understand he purchased for her a previous holiday(though that may be wrong as I don't speak Korean and the subtitles went by fast). At one point Dear Old Dad flat out tells his kid to only look out for herself, not to do anything as simply kind as to give her seat up to an elderly woman. So Dad starts off in a very selfish place and then there's the other guy, whose name I didn't care to catch, some suited jerk that LEAVES PEOPLE TO THE ZOMBIES REPEATEDLY. Wow, why is it always like that in zombie movies? If the zombie apocalypse does happen, I'm going to be sorely tempted to kick any dude in a suit out of my space before he screws me over. Anyway the selfishness of humanity is on full display when Suit Jerk convinces a car full of people not to help the elderly woman, a pregnant woman and her husband, Dad and his daughter, and some poor kid. He actually gets them kicked out of the car for no reason than his own selfishness and fear. Suit Jerk also sacrifices two train employees to make his escape and throws a teenage girl to the zombies. What a sorry excuse for a human being! But that's selfishness for you and that's not what makes the movie beautiful so I must move on.
It's the kindness and selflessness of multiple characters that won my heart, made this movie a beautiful story and caused me to give it 5 stars. It starts small, the little girl giving up her seat to the old woman but it grows. Dad shakes off his bad attitude after being called out by the Father to Be of the Pregnant Lady's baby and he starts actively helping to save people. Father to Be later pulls a heroic sacrifice to hold a door so the group can get into a train car that doesn't contain zombies, but before he does he shouts to his wife what their child's name will be. I cried. I still am sniffling. And the sports kid, he goes on a mission to free Dad's daughter, the Pregnant Lady and the old woman from a train bathroom with no benefit to himself. He does it because it's The Right Thing To Do. And I can't forget the disheveled guy, this poor man spends half his time tripping or alerting the zombies by making unintentional noise and he pulls another heroic sacrifice to save the girl and Pregnant Lady. IF YOU AREN'T CRYING THEN I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO TELL YOU.
In fact, helping others is the only way anybody stays alive. Everyone who makes selfish choices not only dies, but causes the deaths of those around them(Suit Jerk gets the whole train car full of people eaten). Yes the selfless choice of sacrifice also gets some people killed but they knowingly give their lives so others can go on. The reward is that others live. That's what makes this movie beautiful, it looks at the lesson Dad attempted to teach his daughter at the beginning and it goes "No. Humanity does not survive by looking out for only yourself. Humanity survives by virtue of the courage to help others, to give, to GO BACK FOR PEOPLE, to be a HERO." In a time where it is fashionable to put forth stories where #1 looks out for only #1, where you are told that some people are too slow, useless and not worth the effort, this movie makes the case that salvation is not earned by abandoning your fellow man but earned through being willing to look past yourself and Do What Is Right.
And I'm sure there's symbolism to be found in the child and woman passing through the dark tunnel and being saved by the child singing but I'm too sad(in a good way) by the movie's end to figure it out.
Okja (2017)
Disappointing
I started watching this movie with such high hopes, after all I really liked Snowpiercer and there were a lot of familiar faces in the cast that I trusted(Gyllenhaal, Swinton, Esposito, Yeun really this was a cast of shining stars) so I expected a good movie.
And as far as acting went, it was good. The special effects were also very nice, even if the super pigs look frightening to me. So why have I rated it a 1? Well because the anti-science message present with the implication GMO foods are bad is an incredibly harmful message and the presentation that we should distrust scientific breakthroughs in GMOs based on nothing but fear of the unknown is toxic.
I started it out at a 7 and every time it started scaremongering about GMOs I took a point away. I stopped when it reached one because I was unable to give it a lower score.
The movie makes good points about capitalism, and I suppose it makes good points about the ethical treatment of animals(though the day I go vegan there will be ice skating in Satan's backyard) but it really hurts everything by being anti-science. I don't mind preachiness in movies typically, I do mind it when they are preachy and wrong.
Doomsday (2008)
Incoherent Mess of Ideas That Was Done Better In the Movies It Stole Them From
I don't typically like to leave wholly negative reviews but what the crap this movie was all kinds of terrible. The writing was seriously sub-par which dragged the already meh story down a few hundred notches, the acting varied from just okay to awful, and the idea itself was bad.
First it seems like it's going to be an epidemic movie to the tune of 28 Days Later, or maybe the Resident Evil franchise. Whatever the plague is, it's fast and ugly. We fast forward in time somewhat while listening to an overly dramatic and irritating voice-over into a futuristic dystopia. So that's our movie right?
WRONG! Suddenly we dive into a coke-induced Mad Max apocalypse, where people have been cut off for 30 years from all contact with the outside world yet still manage to gather hairstyling supplies so they can gel and dye their enormous mohawks. Did I mention they eat people? Because they mention they eat people, about half a hundred times. We get it, these Road Warrior rejects are cannibals. We didn't need the several minutes of them cooking and eating one of the soldiers to know that.
So these are our antagonists. But wait no! Our headstrong heroine escapes the band of multicolored man-eaters only to find a renaissance fair has established itself in a nearby castle, run by one of the most obviously evil doctors I've ever seen and his scowling henchman. They host a Gladiator style fight with the protagonist and a really bulky armored dude, which of course she wins because she's the protagonist and in the process of escaping one of her fellow soldiers(whom the directing seems to think is her love interest by the way they shoot the scenes) gets pumped full of arrows thanks to this universe's version of the Sheriff of Nottingham or whatever he's supposed to be. So our knock-off Alice avenges him and-oh wait no she doesn't. They just leave. They don't bother to take out the King Arthur wannabe or anything.
Now it's the return of the punk rock people-eaters, as they somehow manage to gather together the prop cars that were abandoned Beyond Thunderdome and there's a car chase with far too many explosions and not enough reason why or how they're here.
Finally the REAL VILLAIN is revealed! Oh no the obviously evil guy with the dark sunglasses and government connections who has been dropping hints the whole movie about how he orchestrated the quarantine breech was behind it all? You don't say. But our girl records him with her prosthetic eye-cam(which was the only part of the movie I liked) and thus the day is saved! Our hero can find her mom! Or not, maybe she'll find a decapitated head and get herself elected queen of the cannibals. THE END.
Everything that is good about this movie is cribbed from better movies. There's a fine line between paying homage and ripping things off and Doomsday staggers drunkenly all over the line before sliding over it like it's home plate. Neil Marshall what happened man? I liked Dog Soldiers. The Descent was fine for the first half of the movie. Why is spew out this garbage? Bob Hoskins is wasted in his small role as Eden's mentor and Alexander Siddig is even more wasted as a character whose sole purpose seems to be to kill himself so a suicide can be carefully shot. Why?
Don't watch this movie. Watch Road Warrior instead. Watch Gladiator instead. Watch anything else but this movie.
47 Meters Down (2017)
Saw this over the 4th
First I want to talk about the good things in this movie, but unfortunately it doesn't give me much to talk about. The jump scares do exactly what they are intended to do and as I have an enormous fear of sharks, I was curled into my seat dreading putting my feet on the floor. The sharks themselves look good for the most part, though they could look better. And if you're there for babes in bikinis, Claire Holt is your girl.
And now onto the bad. Oh boy did I not like the motivation the movie provides for our protagonists to take the fatal trip. She wants to prove to her ex that she's not boring? What kind of crap reason is that. Why does her life have to revolve around what some guy who dumped her thinks of her? The motivation could just has easily been something less puke inspiring like checking things off her bucket list or getting experience for a novel she's writing or even just having an interest in sharks. It put me off so much to have the entire plot kick off because some off-screen jerk felt some kind of way. But moving on.
The movie very clearly conspires to keep these girls on the ocean floor in a way that seems almost Final-Destination-Death-Hunting- the- Victims in a way. Okay so the first rusty winch on the boat breaks, this makes sense. But then the backup cable snaps, the rescue party gets eaten, the cage pins Lisa's leg. At some point its just too many bad coincidences and it really drains the tension about whether they will make it because the movie is determined that they cannot. Dear writers, please never let on that your protagonists are doomed to fail even if you know they are.
And for the last complaint, this is a minor quibble really, BUT YOU CAN'T SWIM STRAIGHT UP AND DOWN SEVERAL METERS IN THE OCEAN AND END UP IN THE SAME SPOT! Currents pull you, your own motion will mean you drift. But both girls go up and down several times and never have trouble finding the cage. It's a small thing but as the movie was pretending to have knowledgeable scuba divers for characters it really irritated me.
All in all, it's a killer shark movie. If that's what you go in for then it delivers that. Is it as good as Jaws? No, the king of movie sharks retains his throne. Is it better than a lot of the killer shark movies out there? Yeah sure, why not.
Claws (2017)
A Fun Mix of Breaking Bad and Beauty Shop
So everyone is going on about the sex and yes maybe it is a little graphic, but it was originally intended for HBO so that's to be expected. It's nothing worse than the sex scenes in Game of Thrones, maybe even a little better because the actual genitals are not flopped in your face, and that's an Emmy winning show with lots of critical acclaim so I fail to see why one show deserves a low rating while the other continues to be praised. Now onto the things I think are good.
The diverse casting is a pleasant surprise and the inclusion of LGBT characters is great! But what I really appreciate is the character of Dean Simms, played by Harold Perrineau. Dean is an autistic man and so far the characterization of him has been pretty accurate. His mannerisms and behaviours are well portrayed and the character certainly isn't a joke character. It's nice to see adults with aneurotypical brains being treated seriously on TV.
The wardrobe is out of this world almost. I can't decide whether or not everything is artfully tacky or if it looks good. Most of Niecy Nash's outfits hit and Judy Reyes looks hella sharp in her suits! AND THE NAILS! You know a show about a nail salon has to have awesome nails and they do. Overall I dig it.
The humor is dark, but that's not a bad thing. In the second episode Nash and Karrueche Tran are loading a body into a boat to dispose of it and they discover another body! "Who is that?!" screams Tran only for Nash to go "I don't know!" I laughed out loud. And the funeral strippers had me in tears.
On the not so well done side of things, the repeated racial attacks on Tran's character by some of the other characters is getting questionable and Dean Norris' accent is BAD. Like BAD BAD. Plus some of the writing isn't as polished as it could be and they seem to be having a hard time finding things for some of the characters to do that are related to the plot so there is some time spent there that could be better directed elsewhere. Still it's early in the show and everyone is finding their feet right now. I find more I like than more I don't.
Overall this is a fun criminal romp in the playground of a Florida nail salon. I expect good things from it. As long as you don't take the show too seriously, I think you'll have fun watching it.
Zootopia (2016)
One of the Best Movies of the 2010s
Zootopia tackles a tough topic in a nuanced fashion and is just as entertaining for adults as for children. Judy and Nick are two of the best characters Disney has produced, who would have thought a fox and bunny make such a good team? The animation is very adorable, you can tell the artists worked very hard to maintain the individual species of animals' characteristics while anthropomorphizing them. Zootopia has plenty of laughs but also some very tearjerking or heartwarming moments. I enjoyed the character of Nick Wilde in particular, he takes Disney's "Charming Fox" mantle and wears it as well as Disney's Robin Hood. The voice acting is very good, I completely forgot Idris Elba was in the movie until the end, he IS Chief Bogo in the film. Zootopia is a wonderful entry into the Disney Animated Canon and definitely an instant classic. I think it may have been the best movie I saw all year and I'm looking forward to seeing it again. And again!