I’ve had another few days off, and the weather hasn’t been all that great, so what better way to spend my than watching a butt load of movies?! There’s not, I promise. This time I chose to enjoy both new and old films, some of which I’ve already seen and some that are old, but new to me. Catch a quick summary below!
Read moreHorror
A Thrilling Movie Weekend
All the thrillers this weekend! Mainly psychological, and those are my favorite kinds. Both are worthy of your viewing, so buckle up. I’m about to give hopefully a spoil-free review of The Invisible Man and The Lodge.
Read moreTV Recap: Prodigal Son
This week’s episode of Prodigal Son reverted back to the weekly procedural format, but they definitely made it interesting!
Read moreNew Movie Review: Joker and In The Tall Grass
Hoo boy! Starting off the month with an excellent movie, Joker! As advertised and how one could assume, this was a very dark take on how Arthur Fleck became the Joker. We open on Arthur laughing for an almost painfully long time before we see that he’s talking to a social worker. Having previously been in an institute, Arthur now works as a clown for hire, and seemingly enjoys it. That is until he gets the crap beat out of him by some mean teens. Life just continues to pummel him throughout the rest of the movie.
Read moreNew Movie Weekend: Rocketman & Ma
Two very different films made up my weekend in movies; one was fantastical, while the other was profoundly confusing. I’ll let you guess which was which.
Read moreMemorial Day Weekend Movie MishMash
Alliterations aside, it’s true. I think I watched the most random array of movies this weekend, and in my book, they were all winners. For wildly different reasons, of course.
Read moreMovie of the Month: Us
As opposed to my other reviews, I promise there will be no spoilers here, so it may be a tad short. I recall back in December when I went to go see Mary, Queen of Scots, that a very creepy trailer that was made creepier by the previously not creepy song “I Got 5 on It” by Luinz was playing. That trailer was for Jordan Peele’s follow up to 2017’s Get Out, called Us. I texted my sister immediately and we’ve been patiently waiting for its release ever since. It was 100% worth the wait!
Read moreWeekend Movie Review
Trying really hard to get all of the Oscar nominees and movies that I genuinely want to see in before this coming Sunday, so here is what the weekend in movies looked like for me.
Happy Death Day 2U – I wasn’t quite sure how a sequel was going to be made of the original, but it was done and I’d say they nailed it. Success came in the form of a parallel universe and more use of two of the original film’s supporting characters. And her roommate wasn’t a psycho killer this time! Ultimately Tree is left with the tough decision of choosing her still alive mom in this alternate universe, or love with Carter in her current universe. No spoilers here, but I did recently learn that the plan for this film is a trilogy and I want to see that happen, so flock to the theaters for this one please!
Isn’t It Romantic – The “anti-romantic comedy, romantic comedy” is a mostly accurate description for this fun film starring Rebel Wilson as the lead Grinch of love/rom-coms. Living an okay life, Natalie is convinced by her co-worker to open herself up to love, a move which results in Natalie getting mugged and knocking herself unconscious. When she wakes, she finds herself in a PG-13 romantic comedy with all the fluff of a perfect apartment, being the star employee and her own gay best friend (played wonderfully by Brandon Scott Jones). She comes to the conclusion that in order to escape someone must fall in love with her, but in the process of getting wooed by Blake (Liam Hemsworth), Natalie realizes she loves her best friend Josh (Adam Devine, the Pitch Perfect reunion none of us realized we wanted) who is about to get married to someone he just met (Priyanka Chopa, unironically?)! It all works out in the end and we get two quality musical numbers in between.
Roma – Holy shit was this movie boring. I went in trying really hard to like it, but in black and white, subtitled, and clocking in at over two hours about the life of a house maid means I definitely fell asleep in the middle of this. Don’t get me wrong, the parts I did see validated my opinions that it will win Best Picture this Sunday at the Oscars. It’s someone’s cup of tea out there…just not mine.
The Favourite – The last of the Oscar nominees I needed to watch and it was definitely worth the wait! Coming off the heels of The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer, The Favourite was perhaps the least strange film to come from Yorgos Lanthimos. It was still strange, though and that’s why it was fantastic! The cast was stellar with its trio of leading ladies, led by the magnificent Olivia Coleman, but I was most fond of the comical supporting performances of Nicholas Hoult and Joe Alwyn. I would say my “favourite” part of watching this film was the audience reaction. Clearly no one had educated themselves on Yorgos’ previous films or the meat of what this one would be about. More fun for me that way!
Hello Again – What a terrible musical film! But seeing as I’m newly obsessed with Roswell, New Mexico I had to watch it for Tyler Blackburn! I will say the rest of the cast was pretty intriguing, and I know most of them can sing, but not in this film apparently. It was even a good concept, but good grief! Don’t waste your time.
Weekend Movie Review: Creepy Sh** (and some funny sh**)
This past Friday my sister and I decided we needed some laughs in our lives, so we went to go see What Men Want starring Taraji P Henson. This movie definitely had laughs, albeit cheesy ones, but they were laughs nonetheless. Henson plays successful sports agent Ali, but can’t break through the boys club to become partner. She then encounters a strange taro card reader at a bachelorette party and is suddenly able to hear men’s thoughts. All men’s thoughts. Which I imagine were pretty accurate. And honestly, some were hilarious! Especially those between her assistant, Brandon (Josh Brener of Silicon Valley) and co-worker Danny (SNL’s Pete Davidson). That was comedy gold! Ultimately, there were too many players in this film and not enough focus on a core group of characters. They tried to squeeze in girlfriends, a romance, a relationship with her father, and workplace drama all in two hours. Just pick a lane and stick with it. That’s where it could have benefited, but all in all I enjoyed it.
On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, some friends and I went to see horror-thriller, The Prodigy, starring Orange is the New Black’s Taylor Schilling, mom to an exceptionally creepy kid! The beginning of this film had me a little confused. A girl running through the woods finally flags down a car and screams “he took my hand!” Then we switch to the guy who took her hand about to be raided by the FBI. He then comes out of his house butt-ass naked (why???) and is shot down holding that girls hand in his hand! Those scenes are inter-spliced with Sarah (Taylor Schilling) giving birth to a son, Miles. Again, at the time this made literally no sense to me. Flash forward eight years, with only some creepy Russian-sounding whispering coming from Miles in between, then he starts to turn sinister. Sarah takes his mumblings to a therapist, and the stuff this kid was saying in Hungarian was vulgar! Ultimately, the therapist says that murderer from the beginning was reincarnated into her son’s body! And if he doesn’t settle his unfinished business (murdering the runaway from the first scene), that he could push her real son out forever. And no kidding – that’s what happens! If you watch this movie and still want kids afterwards, good luck to you. This is just further reinforcement for me.
Lastly, I rented the remake of Suspiria. It was much too long and mildly confusing. But in a nutshell, it’s about a girl from Ohio getting accepted into a dance academy in Berlin. That is inter-spliced with scenes of a cult of witches referring to some as “mother.” Then some freaky stuff starts going down! The most disturbing scene hands down is when lead, Susie (Dakota Johnson), is dancing and in another room a different girl’s body is being ripped apart. Then those witches carry her out with a bunch of hooks! It was nasty!!! Ultimately, it turns out that Dakota Johnson fooled all of those witches because she’s the head honcho and annihilates all of the other witches. That was also an extremely weird scene to watch. Major ups to Tilda Swinton playing three different characters, one being completely unrecognizable as an old man!