Apparently I am going to go out with a bang for March! I squeezed in a considerable amount of films this weekend despite being pretty well booked up. See what made the cut.
The Childe – Technically I watched this film twice over the weekend. After renting it and watching it a couple of weeks ago, I ordered it so I can own it physically forever. And before I made my dad sit down and watch it with me, I wanted to make sure it was a legit copy…you never know with Amazon purchases sometimes. So instead of just watching a few minutes of it, I finished the whole thing and then watched it again the next day with both of my parents. I think the mystery of what exactly was going to be revealed in this movie appealed to my mom, despite the violence and action sequences. Because we also finished this well past her bedtime. Both of them made some pretty good guesses and I was thrilled that they both really ended up liking it. I’m sure I’ll be watching this again, maybe many times, this year.
Beverly Hills Ninja – This was an unplanned watch, but when my friends offer up a silly movie, I’m always down. This 1997 film was one of Chris Farley’s last projects, and I will say it was a pretty solid one. His character was found as a child by a ninja community and was prophesized to be “the great white ninja,” though it is clear he’s not cut out for the ninja life as he grows up. One day he gets convinced to help a beautiful woman find out what’s going on with her boyfriend, so he makes his way to Beverly Hills. Everything in this movie is ridiculous, but perhaps my favorite part is Haru’s older “brother” Gobei tagging along and saving him from all sorts of disasters. I have to give it to the hair and makeup team – I didn’t recognize him in many scenes until he deliberately revealed himself!
The American Society of Magical Negros – The concept of this movie was really interesting, but the execution was rather boring. I mean, boring enough that I fell asleep a little bit in the middle of it. That almost never happens when I’m in the theater. Anyway, apparently the term “magical negro” is a real one in the film industry, where a black character is almost always a stock supporter of a white lead. In this film, Aren gets recruited into a secret society that helps white people feel comfortable around black people so they can continue to feel safe. I wish they would have just went hard into this premise because it is so relevant, but they watered it down quite a bit with a rom-com storyline that was just okay. They definitely set themselves up for an unrelated sequel, but I doubt that it will come to fruition.
The Promised Land – Ah, as much as I love Mads Mikkelsen, that couldn’t save me from how boring this historical film was. I should have done even just a little bit more digging into this film, but I saw Mads, I saw Oscar hopeful, and I was all in. Mads plays retired Danish Captain Ludvig Kahlen who just wants to be recognized as a nobleman. In order to do this, he convinces the government to let him try and cultivate the heath land with his own funds, but then runs into roadblocks with a ruthless local magistrate. Within all of these hardships, he reluctantly builds his own kind of family and eventually finds hard earned success. Just not for me.
Memory – This drama had some heat around it during its release late last year, but I only saw it quietly drop on VOD just a few weeks ago. My initial excitement in renting it faded a little bit as I thought about its lackluster release, but boy did this hit the mark for me! Sylvia is a woman thirteen years sober after years of constant abuse who finds herself in a bit of a tailspin after a man follows her home from a high school reunion. She soon discovers that Saul had nothing to do with her past abuse and starts to spend time with him to help with his dementia. The two eventually develop real feelings for each other, but family gets in the way. It was really moving to see these two find each other after all they’ve had to endure. I shouldn’t have been that surprised that Jessica Chastain and Peter Sarsgaard were going to give me A+ performances.