Mark Wahlberg

Look Away, The Host, Instant Family, Game Night

Hi All!  First post on the blog (sans welcome post)!  I managed to get a few days off work, so with that time I watched a decent handful of movies.  To start off, I rented Look Away.  This movie co-stars one of my newer favorite actors, Harrison Gilbertson.  Those of you that haven’t seen Upgrade yet this year, please do so at your earliest convenience.  Anyways, Look Away was eerie, and a little slow, but ultimately was dark and twisted.  A socially awkward girl who gets mercifully picked on at school and at home finds a creepy sonogram of twins tucked in a mirror.  Soon after a doppleganger in this mirror offers to take her pain away by switching places.  Eventually, Maria, the lead character, concedes and is now trapped in the mirror while her (obviously malicious) doppleganger, Airam, takes her place in the real world.  A few deaths later and I’m not totally sure where we ended up, but mom is reunited with her twins…like I said, eerie.

The next movie I watched was The Host.  I know, a few years too late on this one, but there are too many movies to watch in a year!  This film that came out in 2013 is based off the novel of the same name by Stephanie Meyers (Twilight fans will recognize).  In some sort of “peaceful” alien takeover, the movie opens with a surviving human, Melanie, trying to face off against these aliens who inhabit human bodies and minds (for the most part).  She ultimately loses the battle and gets the alien, Wanderer, placed in her.  Soon after we learn that Melanie is sharing her mind with Wanderer.  And we learn that Wanderer has a conscience, so she helps Melanie find other surviving humans, including her little brother, uncle, and boyfriend.  They make it across the desert to a large, cavernous structure that houses other humans.  Some trust and others try to kill her, but eventually gains some ground in her little brother, a new love interest for Wanderer (threesome, anyone?), and her uncle.  Obviously, not all of those aliens are peaceful, so it’s a matter of fighting that host off before we see any semblance of a happy ending.  Overall, I thought it was a little corny, but having not read the book I can’t really judge it 100%.  Loved the cast, but Rotten Tomatoes swayed my opinion a little bit with that 8% score.

Next over this extended weekend I took both my grandmas to go see Instant Family starring Mark Wahlberg and Rose Byrne.  It was hella cute!  And Mark Wahlberg in anything helps it in my opinion.  Lots of laughs and the appropriate amount of swearing – my personal favorite was Rose Byrne yelling “Out the way you came Pussy Riot!”  I know overall this was a heart-warming movie and it’s supposed to motivate people to foster and adopt, but honestly, this just reinforced why I don’t want kids.  I know, heart of ice.  I can’t really give too much away considering most should be able to guess the plot, but it had comedy gold with Margo Martindale as grandma Sandy.  Definitely worth the watch.

Finally (for my review anyways), I watched Game Night for the second time this year with my sister.  Why not when you have free HBO for the weekend?!  After this second watch, I stand by my review earlier in the year when I said “best comedy of 2018.”  Which is sort of sad for the comedy genre considering it was a black comedy.  It follows a highly competitive couple who get together with some of their friends for the ultimate game night hosted by lead Jason Bateman’s brother, Ron Livingston.  What was supposed to be a planned kidnapping and brother reconciliation turns into a real kidnapping, mobsters, and one of my favorite scenes!  If you don’t laugh at people gagging over blood, are you even human?  Stellar cast, and an even more stellar plot!  Billy Magnussen plays a hilarious dip-shit, and I don’t think my sister will ever get over the wonderfully creepy performance from Jesse Plemons.  Bravo, Game Night, bravo.