When Veronica Mars first came out on the CW in 2004, its premise felt radical and very fun. The show took the character of a hardboiled private detective and packaged it in a petite blond high school student. It was Nancy Drew meets The Maltese Falcon. . . .
Would you rather watch a really stupid movie that made you laugh or a well-made movie that moves slowly? This week, I had both experiences, and I think I personally would choose the stupid movie.
Stuber, the action comedy starring Kumail Nanjiani and . . .
“The world is full of miracles,” Ellie Appleton says in the new movie, Yesterday.
“Like what?” her best friend, Jack, demands.
“Benedict Cumberbatch becoming a sex symbol.” Little jokes like that one—and the moment when Jack, having lost . . .
The other day, my husband, Julio, came home from work and wanted to watch reruns of Scandal, like we have been doing. I was about ten minutes into Always Be My Maybe, Netflix’s new romantic comedy, and in the time it took him to check his email he . . .
After the success of last year’s Bohemian Rhapsody, it will be hard not to compare subsequent rock-and-roll biopics with that film. Rocketman, the new film about Elton John, has many striking similarities to the movie about Freddie Mercury, both . . .
I was going to go see Pokémon Detective Pikachu this week because it looked absurdly adorable. Then, I saw that the first film adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle was being released in theaters and on demand via iTunes. . . .
As the weather gets warmer and the days get longer, I like to enjoy more time outside. Even still, when I come back home, it is nice to have something really good to watch. This week, I recommend a movie and two series: a fun romantic comedy, a docuseries, . . .
Now in theaters, Little centers on successful CEO and entrepreneur Jordan Sanders (Regina Hall) and her assistant, April (Issa Rae). After she was bullied as a child, Jordan grows up to be a pretty big bully herself, berating and belittling her employees . . .
Recently, I subscribed to HBO Now for a month in order to watch the new documentary that I wrote about last time, The Case Against Adnan Syed. Having now seen all four episodes of that documentary, I still think that it is a high-quality, interesting . . .
In Us, Adelaide Wilson (Lupita Nyong’o, Madison Curry, Ashley Mckoy) gets lost in a carnival funhouse when she is little and encounters a girl in one of the mirrors who looks just like her, but evil. For years afterward, she struggles with PTSD and . . .
In Greta, Frances McCullen (Chloë Grace Moretz) is grieving her mother’s death and trying to get on her feet in New York City when she finds a lost handbag on the subway. Despite her best friend and roommate, Erica’s (Maika Monroe), protests (“This . . .
In V, Ali Davis (Taraji P. Henson) is a sports agent who gets passed up for partnership in the agency and is told that she does not connect well with men. The next day, at her friend’s bachelorette party, she talks to a “psychic,” Sister (Erykah . . .
This Valentine’s Day, instead of going to the theater to see a standard romantic comedy, you might choose instead to see Isn’t It Romantic? the sendup of romcoms starring Rebel Wilson, Priyanka Chopra, and Liam Hemsworth.
In the movie, Natalie . . .
I used to love M. Night Shyamalan’s movies. The Sixth Sense is a classic. Signs was solid. I even liked the polarizing The Lady in the Water. Somewhere along the way, however, all the joy went out of his films. Was it with The Happening? His writing . . .
Bandersnatch, streaming on Netflix and produced by the team behind the series Black Mirror, offers viewers a first-of-its-kind experience, bringing the Choose Your Own Adventure format popular in the ‘80s and ‘90s to the usually passive activity . . .
In my last column of the 2018, I am reviewing two movies that each focus on difficult relationships between women that come to disastrous (in the case of The Favorite) or heartwarming ends (in Dumplin’).
The Favorite reminded me of a cross . . .
The newest installment in the Wizarding World franchise, Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindewald follows magical creatures expert Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) as he tries to get around a ban on international travel, win the heart of Tina Goldstein . . .
As I embarked on my quest to round up of the best/worst cheesy Christmas movies on Netflix, my husband, Julio, (who had never seen one of these movies) joined me. After listening to him complain about the poor acting (“It’s like they learned how to act from Joey! I think I saw one of them do ‘‘smell the fart’ acting’!”), I had to explain to him that there is a formula that these movies generally follow:
Two leads who will presumably fall in love + a tragic ending to a prior romance and/or a failed business/creative dream + magic and/or meddling relatives = everyone is happy by Christmas. End under the mistletoe.
Julio noted that if Netflix has started making movies based on this Hallmark model, then we can perhaps assume that the poor production value is intentional. “That’s the point,” I said. So, as we turn the corner from Thanksgiving towards the Holiday Season, I would like to offer a brief guide to the best and worst cheesy Christmas movies on Netflix this year. Just please keep in mind that the line between best and worst is really very thin in this genre.
The Holiday Calendar stars Kat Graham, Quincy Brown, Ethan Peck and focuses on a young photographer languishing in a holiday portrait studio when she wants to be doing her own art. Her grandfather (who you might recognize from This is Us) gives her an antique advent calendar that might have magical powers. As the calendar gives daily gifts, they have striking connections to the events of her day and her budding romance with a handsome doctor. Meanwhile, she reconnects with her best friend and starts to get on her feet in her photography career. Until she almost messes it all up. This movie was very charming and features a wonderfully diverse cast, built around funny family dynamics that give it a lot of hominess as a backdrop for the romance. Of all the movies I watched so far this year, it was by far my favorite. It had a nice dose of magic without getting out of the control with sweetness or romance.
Christmas with a View was the worst movie I watched this year. It stars Scott Cavahiero, Kaitlyn Leeb, Vivica A. Fox, and the dad from Step by Step. The film is the story of a pretty restaurateur and a handsome celebrity chef who fall in love in a resort town. There is some family drama added for good measure, and an incredibly bland villain. In general, the plot did not hang together very well and the acting was terribly wooden. With all the options out there, I would skip this movie.
Holiday Breakup was far quirkier than I expected, and in a fun way. It stars Manon Mathews (doing her best impression of Debra Messing), Shawn Roe, and Katie Leclerc. The movie has a different perspective and an offbeat sense of humor that sets it apart from the norm, as it follows the rise and fall of the romance between Chloe and Jeff. The pair breaks up on Halloween, then, instead of dealing with everyone pitying them over the holidays, they pretend to still be together. The parents are awful. The drama is high. The humor is pretty silly, but it would be a good palate cleanser after all the standard Christmas romances.
A Christmas Prince made a bit of a splash last year, as it became incredibly popular despite having the kind of low production value that suggests they didn’t even have a script supervisor. The movie stars Rose McIver and Nate Atkins and tells the story of a mediocre journalist who goes undercover to find out the truth about a rambunctious prince. The story that unfolds is silly, romantic, and requires a lot of suspension of disbelief. This year there’s the sequel, A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding. I’m saving it for when I’m wrapping presents.
Finally, there’s Christmas Inheritance which stars Eliza Taylor, Jake Lacy, and Andre MacDowell and tells the story of a socialite who wants to take over her father’s company, but is pretty irresponsible, so she first has to jump through a lot of hoops and do plenty of good deeds to prove her worth. It has faint undertones of Scrooge and is very corny, but delivers some pretty good laughs.
If you want to up the ante on our own movie marathon, there is a Hallmark movie drinking game readily available on the internet. You could always adapt it with hot cocoa if you like to watch with kids. Enjoy!
Although thoroughly researched and made with a keen attention to detail, often the pace of Crime + Punishment is so slow and the scope so large that the story became hard to follow. I have a lot of interest in the subject matter and I even found myself drifting. I do recommend the documentary for those interested in the subject, but a more easily digested approach to the topic can be found in the recent episodes of the podcast Reply All, “The Crime Machine Part I” and “Part II”. The podcast covers the story in a simpler and more engaging manner that makes the complicated turns of the story easier to follow.
A documentary that I recommend more enthusiastically is Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story, directed by Alexandra Dean and streaming on Netflix. Hedy Lamarr was a gorgeous Hollywood actress who worked for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer starting in the late 1930s. She was also a bit of a genius and, with no formal training, she invented a frequency-hopping system that was used in Naval ships and later helped in the development of Bluetooth and WiFi. The documentary covers Lamarr’s career, inventions, and her lifelong struggle with mental illness. Her story is a fascinating look at a woman who defied expectations and is both timely and compelling. The documentary navigates the complicated story with sufficient detail and sympathy and produces a portrait that resonates with some of the issues around gender and creativity of our time, too.
If the fall weather and longer nights still have you in the mood for something supernatural, both Hulu and Netflix have a series for you to stream.
On Hulu, Light as a Feather is a good option for fans of shows such as Pretty Little Liars. Light as a Feather centers on a group of high school girls (Liana Liberato, Brianne Tju, Ajiona Alexus, Peyton List) who play a game of Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board on Halloween night and, one by one, begin dying in ways described by new student Violet Simmons (Haley Ramm) during the game. As the girls cope with their grief, they also get caught up in a web while investigating Violet’s secrets and lies. The show starts out strong as the creepy elements and the central mystery get the audience hooked. As the episodes progress, however, the story gets more juvenile. The acting is on par with other TV teen dramas, as is the production quality, which is to say that the show is entertaining, but not especially high-quality.
Netflix’s The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is a bit more sophisticated of an option. The show stars Kiernan Shipka (who you probably remember as Sally from Mad Men) and is a new incarnation of Sabrina the Teenage Witch and features a darker tone and a mid-century vibe. The acting on Sabrina is often oscillates between wooden and cheesy, but the story is intriguing and the style of the show is both eye-catching and fun. I was hooked by the moment in the pilot when Sabrina and her friends dissect the political undertones of the zombie movie they’ve just watched. The show has many winks like that for the audience, making it a clever, if sometimes also silly take on the teenaged witch. The show also has some eerie or scary moments that contribute to its darker, more mysterious tone. This is not the Sabrina we enjoyed on TGIF, but it is definitely worth trying out.
The series takes place during two time periods: two months in the early 90s when the Crain family lived in Hill House while they worked on remodeling it for resale, and the present, which explores the emotional repercussions of Hill House for the family. The Crain family–Olivia (Carla Gugino), Hugh (Timothy Hutton/Henry Thomas), Steven (Michiel Huisman/Paxton Singleton), Shirley (Elizabeth Reaser/Lulu Wilson), Theo (Katie Siegel/Mckenna Grace), Nell (Victoria Pedretti/VIolet McGraw), and Luke (Oliver Jackson-Cohen/Julian Hilliard), as well as the house’s caretakers Mr. (Robert Longstreet) and Mrs. Dudley (Annabeth Gish), are haunted by the house, even after they leave the premises. Setting limits with the house seems to be the only way to get through unscathed, but not everyone can do that, and when the story picks up years after the family’s traumatizing final days in the home, Nell has started seeing the Bent Neck Lady, the ghost who terrorized her as a child, again. The return of the ghosts reignites suppressed fears and family fights about whether mental illness or paranormal activity leads to the destructive streak in the Crain family. What unfolds is a family drama with plenty of scares, but also reflective, emotional elements that raise questions about the connections between members of a family as well as between people and the places they call home.
Shirley Jackson is one of my favorite authors and I thoroughly recommend reading her novel, The Haunting of Hill House. The series pays homage to the novel by naming its main characters after main characters in her book and Shirley herself. It also borrows some exact language from the novel, such as the scene featuring Nell’s cup of stars, the scene in which a ghost squeezes Theo’s hand while she tries to sleep, and the monologue about a rainstorm of tiny stones. Hill House itself is very similar between both the series and the novel. While the plots are completely different, the focus in the series on family, grief, anxiety, and trauma resonates with Jackson’s body of work. This drama elevates the scary parts and makes the plot compelling.
The scary parts really are scary, though. The Haunting of Hill House is atmospheric and filled with a pervasive sense of dread. There are some jump scares, but in other moments a ghost might just lurk in the background without the characters realising it. The combination of an unsettling style and classic haunted house gags makes the show fun to watch but also artfully made. As scary as I found the series in the moment, it did not keep me up at night.
I binge watched The Haunting of Hill House, hooked by the ghost stories and the outstanding acting of the cast, as well as the moving character development. Once I was done with the finale, the only episode that seemed so-so to me, I wanted to go back and rewatch the series. As I started to watch the episodes again, at a more measured pace, I was struck by how meticulously the two timelines of the story are woven together. There are callbacks and foreshadowing throughout that are sometimes subtle enough that they reflect on the intricacies of memory. Other times, the nonlinear plot allows for clever winks at the audience. The overall effect is to keep the audience in the dark about what really happened on those last days in Hill House, just as the Craine children are.
Because I like Shirley Jackson’s writing so much, I was very skeptical when I first saw the promotions for the Netflix series. I ended up getting totally swept away by this scary, moving portrait of grief, family dysfunction, and the power of place on the psyche.
The Haunting of Hill House was created by Mike Flanagan, inspired by the novel by Shirley Jackson. Its ten episodes stream on Netflix and are rated TV-MA.
Delirium features Topher Grace as Tom, a man released from a mental institution to spend the last 30 days of his sentence under house arrest in his late father’s mansion. Quickly, Tom starts to suspect that the house is haunted, but when the officer assigned to his case (Patricia Clarkson) takes off with his meds, he cannot trust himself to differentiate between what is real and what is hallucination as he tries to get to the bottom of his family’s suspicious past. Delirium meanders through its plot and has some pretty corny moments, but the mystery at its center is intriguing and confusing enough to keep the audience hooked.
For more traditional haunted house stories, you might try I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, also on Netflix, or The Others on Hulu. Told from the perspective of a ghost, I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House is the story of Lily (Ruth Wilson), a hospice nurse sent to take care of author Iris Blum (Paula Prentiss) in a haunted house. The film is quiet and reflective, but also very tense and frightening. It is a scary story that manages to also be beautiful, and creates a lot of dread without much violence. Ruth Wilson is fantastic and much of the narrative relies on her skills, since her character spends the majority of the film alone. The Others is reminiscent of the Henry James classic The Turn of the Screw and stars Nicole Kidman as a mother in an isolated mansion, trying to protect her sickly children from her increasing suspicion that either the caretakers of the home are driving her insane or something from the other side is creating trouble. The film has some great twists and plenty of jump scares to keep things fun.
If you’re in the mood for horror-comedy, Netflix has Little Evil and Life After Beth to offer. Little Evil stars Adam Scott as Gary, a real estate agent and newlywed trying to bond with his wife, Samantha’s (Evangeline Lilly), young son, Lucas (Owen Atlas), who he suspects might be the antichrist. Little Evil is not an especially good movie, but it has some decent laughs thanks to Gary’s friends and step-dad support group. The fun of the movie really comes from the little ways it pays homage to horror classics such as The Omen, Poltergeist, and The Shining.
In Life After Beth, Zach (Dane DeHaan) barely has time to grieve his girlfriend, Beth’s (Aubrey Plaza), death before she comes back to life. Beth’s return raises conflict between Zach and her parents, Maury (John C. Reilly) and Geenie (Molly Shannon), then a near-zombie apocalypse. If Little Evil is a family comedy crossed with a horror movie, then Life After Beth is a romantic comedy crossed with a zombie movie. The film is a showcase for the weirdly hilarious talents of Aubrey Plaza, but also stars a very funny ensemble as the central couple’s parents. Watching Plaza gradually transform into a zombie demonstrates her acting chops and provides some offbeat and humorous moments.
If you would rather binge watch a series, Hulu has one of my favorites: Dead Like Me. This short-lived series is the story of an 18 year-old girl, George (Ellen Muth), who is killed suddenly by a toilet seat falling from space. Before she can move on, however, she has to serve her term as a grim reaper, under the supervision of Rube (Mandy Patinkin) and his team of reapers (Callum Blue, Jasmine Guy, Laura Harris, and Rebecca Gayheart). Dead Like Me is at once morbid, quirky, hilarious, and thoughtful as George tries to grow up and grieve her own death while also dealing with the indignities of temp work.
In A Simple Favor, glamourous working mom Emily Nelson (Blake Livey) strikes up an unlikely friendship with widowed mom Stephanie Smothers (Anna Kendrick).The friendship means a lot to Stephanie, so when Emily disappears after asking Stephanie to pick up her son, Nicky (Ian Ho), from school, Stephanie does everything she can to discover what happened to her, even after she starts up an affair with Emily’s husband, Sean (Henry Golding). What follows is a twisted tale of betrayal, family, and maybe a murder or two.
A Simple Favor is based on the novel by Darcey Bell, but the film takes a lot of creative license, changing the ending and therefore some of the plot points along the way. It also changes the overall tone of the story, so that many parts play for laughs where the book kept a relatively serious and thrilling approach. I did not particularly enjoy the narrative voice of the novel, so these changes may have contributed to me liking the movie better than the book. Then there’s the chemistry between Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick. Kendrick is naturally very funny and for once I felt like Lively was delivering a performance that did not rest solely on her charm and beauty. As a pair, they exaggerate the differences between the two women and give the story more punch and humor than it might otherwise have.
A Simple Favor is still kind of a mess. It is fun in the way that trashy thrillers are, but a lot of my favorite parts were technical, like set and costume design, rather than the plot or the characters. It is a fairly convoluted and cliched story told with good acting and technique. 3/5 stars.
A Simple Favor was directed by Paul Feig and written by Jessica Sharzer. It is rated R for sexual content and language throughout, some graphic nude images, drug use and violence
Also in theaters is Searching, in which David Kim (John Cho) is desperately trying to find his daughter, Margot (Michelle La). With the help of Detective Vick (Debra Messing), he sorts through her digital life, retracing her steps, and questioning how well he really knows his daughter. The film takes place entirely on a computer screen, cleverly using video streaming and chatting apps to show the action while additional clues unfold through text and audio. The acting in the film is pretty wooden, but the mystery is riveting and the use of the digital framework is cleverly done and interesting in its own right. I’m not sure the multiple viewings the more recent ads suggest are necessary, but this film would be a great choice for people who like technology or true crime. 3.5/5 stars.
Searching was written and directed by Aneesh Chaganty with Sev Ohanian. It is rated PG-13 for thematic content, some drug and sexual references, and for language
Streaming on Netflix, Sierra Burgess Is a Loser riffs on the classic Cyrano de Bergerac as mean girl Veronica (Kristine Froseth) gives band nerd Sierra Burgess’s (Shannon Purser) phone number to Jamey (Noah Cinteneo) when he asks her for hers. When Jamey starts texting Sierra, thinking she is Veronica, the two start up a budding romance. When Sierra discovers that he thinks he is texting someone else, she is too afraid to reveal her real identity, so she trades Veronica free tutoring in return for her help keeping Jamey in the dark. As the plot unfolds, the two girls develop a friendship as Sierra and Jamey fall more in love. But can the relationships survive the truth coming out?
Sierra Burgess Is a Loser is a sweet, funny teen comedy in the tradition of films like Can’t Buy Me Love and Some Kind of Wonderful. You might even recognize Sierra’s parents as actors who starred in some very famous teen movies. It balances the romance with a thoughtful plot about a young woman trying to discover some confidence. As my wise little sister pointed out, the story is really about the friendship between Sierra and Veronica, and the film could have been better about not shifting the focus too hard in the end toward Jamey. The blossoming bond between the girls is both more interesting and satisfying than the romance plot and it does a decent job with picking apart the categories that teen movies like to lean on. There is also the funny presence of Sierra’s best friend, Dan (RJ Cyler) that brings a sharper wit to the mix, balancing out all the sweetness. Overall it is a great film to watch during a weekend afternoon on the couch.
Sierra Burgess Is a Loser was directed by Ian Samuels and written by Lindsey Beer. It is rated PG-13 for sexual references, language, teen partying and thematic material.
To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before stars Lana Condor as Lara Jean Covey, a high school junior who loves romance novels and secretly pines for her older sister Margot’s (Janel Parrish) boyfriend, Josh (Israel Broussard), who used to be her best friend. If that weren’t complicated enough, someone finds and mails a set of letters Lara Jean wrote to the boys she has “loved” but never meant to send. After Lara Jean narrowly avoids dying of embarrassment, one of the boys, Peter (Noah Centineo) agrees to pretend to date her. The arrangement will make his ex-girlfriend jealous and both saves Lara Jean from further mortification and gets her little sister Kitty (Anna Carthcat) off her case.
To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before pays homage to John Hughes, but it more closely resembles another 80’s teen comedy (and one of my favorites): Can’t Buy Me Love. The film does a good job of riffing on genre tropes (the precocious younger sibling, a class trip, etc.) while being its own movie as well. As Lara Jean, Lana Condor provides a lot of charm and warmth that grounds the story in a character we can actually care about. Her chemistry with little sis Anna Carthcat and love interest Noah Centineo adds plenty of comedy and romance.
Nothing in To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before feels really new or unique, but the family dynamic at the core of the film provides a healthy dose of reality to counter some of the silliness of the love triangles. The bond between the sisters gives a slightly different spin to how the plot plays out. Although the trope of the widowered father (Dr. Covey) has been done time and time again, John Corbett’s performance is typically endearing and his relationship with his daughters is progressive without being preachy. In the family dynamic you can also sense that a multicultural team of women wrote and directed the film. There’s some good stuff there.
Overall, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before is a sweet romantic comedy that is well worth a weekend screening on your couch. Pair it with Can’t Buy Me Love or Sixteen Candles for a double feature.
To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before runs 1 hour and 39 minutes and is rated TV-14. It was written by Sofia Alvarez based on the novel by Jenny Han and was directed by Susan Johnson.
For something completely different, I thoroughly recommend seeing Blindspotting, a dramedy that I think has a real shot at Oscar nominations for Best Original Screenplay and Best Actor and/or Supporting Actor. The film takes place over the last three days of Collin’s (Daveed Diggs) time on parole. He just has to stay out of trouble for 72 more hours and he will be a totally free man, able to move out of the halfway house and into his Mom’s. His best friend, Miles’s (Rafael Casal) hot head poses a real threat to Collin’s plans. On the first night of the film, Collin witnesses a police officer shooting a black man who was running away from him. The anxiety that the event causes for Collin adds additional pressure, as does the tense relationship between him and his coworker and ex-girlfriend, Val (Janina Gavankar). The film raises questions about what we see in the world and where our blindspots are.
Blindspotting does a beautiful job of engaging issues around race, police brutality, gentrification, and socioeconomic status without oversimplifying the ways in which these issues intersect. The film is set in writer and star Daveed Diggs’s hometown of Oakland, California, which is dealing with these issues, and his familiarity with the place comes through clearly in the script. That the film is so grounded in a specific place helps give the message nuance and clarity as well as a deep sense of connection between the characters and their environment. Blindspotting is one of the best movies I have seen in a long time. The performances are intense and the screenplay is both funny and anxiety producing.
Blindspotting was written by Rafael Casal and Daveed Diggs and directed by Carlos López Estrada. It runs 1 hour and 35 minutes and is rated R for language throughout, some brutal violence, sexual references and drug use.
Tremors (1990): Of all the B-movies that Dad and I watched together, this one sticks out in my memory the most. A couple of months ago, I was seeing a movie at an arty theater near my home and they played the original trailer. I almost texted Dad about it, but opted not to, because it was past his bedtime. I wish I had done so anyway. The basic premise of Tremors is that there are giant worms under the ground that periodically come up through the surface and eat people. It is kind of like Jaws, but in the desert. It has no production value, Kevin Bacon, and acting so bad that the whole movie looks like a spoof. This movie is Sharknado before Sharknado. We enjoyed it thoroughly.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002): This sleeper-hit was the first film I officially reviewed for The Waynedale News. (My audition piece was about Signs, which Dad also really liked.) I was 15 years old, so my parents had to drive me to the theater still. Dad joined me for this movie, and we both enjoyed the story, but what stands out to me is how much my father liked the patriarch of the big, Greek family. I heard for years (years!) about Gus Portokalos (Michael Constantine) and his devotion to Windex as a fix-all.
Dr. Dolittle (1998): I’m sure that Dad watched this movie with us just because we were kids and it starred Eddie Murphy. It’s not the kind of thing he usually picked, but the hardest I remember him ever laughing was while watching this movie with us.
The Twilight Zone (1959): There were several summers during which Dad and I would catch part of a Twilight Zone marathon on TV. It’s possible that I liked watching the thought-provoking classic with Dad more than he liked the show itself. As an avid reader, one of my favorite episodes is “Time Enough At Last” (1959), about a bank employee who is down in the vault when a nuclear bomb wipes everything out. He finally has enough time to read all the books his friends and family keep harassing him about wanting to read. Dad really enjoyed another iconic episode, “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” (1963), about a man who sees a monster on the wing of the plane during his flight. There are several seasons of The Twilight Zone available on Netflix and Hulu.
Breaking Away (1979): My father loved riding and racing his bicycle, and he and my mother dated during the time that she attended Indiana University in Bloomington, so it is natural that he would enjoy Breaking Away, about a working-class kid and his friends riding the Little 500. It’s a sweet coming-of-age film with elements of comedy and family drama.
A Quiet Place (2018): If I saw a movie that I thought Dad would enjoy, I would text him so he could convince Mom or my sister to go to see it with him. The latest movie I think Dad would have loved is this year’s A Quiet Place. I wish I had gotten a chance to watch it with him. The film is about monsters and has a tight plot and great sci-fi elements I think that Dad would enjoy, but it is also about the deep bonds between members of a family. Those parts would have resonated, I am sure.
In Sorry to Bother You, Cassius “Cash” Green (Lakeith Stanfield) needs a job, any job, and lands at a telemarketing firm. He struggles to pay his bills until a coworker, Langston (Danny Glover), gives him the tip that he should use his white voice (David Cross). The white voice is not merely Cash’s “professional voice”, it is aspirational, an approximation of a Fortune 500 CEO. From there Cash, quickly rises to Power Caller status. Meanwhile his fiancee, Detroit (Tessa Thompson) is busy working on her gallery opening and protesting Worry Free, a company that promises a lifetime of food and shelter in exchange for what amounts to slave labor. Furthermore, professional protester Squeeze (Steven Yeun) and Cash’s friends are trying to start a union at the telemarketing company. When Worry Free’s CEO, Steve Lift (Armie Hammer), makes Cash an offer he can’t refuse, his whole life and value system are thrown into question.
Sorry to Bother You is both “woke” and outrageously funny. The social satire is strong, but also paired with a heavy dose of silliness. The central gag of the film–comedian David Cross providing a voiceover “white voice” for Cash is startling at first and then continues to be funny throughout. When other white voices pop up, it adds to the humor. In addition, the film features a healthy mix of visual humor, slapstick, and wordplay that, added to the satire, had me laughing out loud. The film also features a sci-fi twist, which came as a surprise to me. The dystopian vision that the story works with adds to the racial element to engage questions about labor, class, and human rights in a way that is more playful than pedantic. This film is destined to become a cult classic because of the wonderful interplay between the funny and the thought provoking elements.
The cinematography of the film is driven largely by the presence of Detroit, a visual and performance artist. Her statement earrings, wardrobe, and art anchor the film in an edgy, colorful aesthetic that also draws on 1970s fashion, club culture, and office satire. Through these elements, the film portrays the workplace as sterile and numbing, a less extreme version of Worry Free, and the world that Detroit and Cash live in as vibrant and textured.
The acting in the film is also outstanding. As Cash, Lakeith Stanfield is anxious and sympathetic, making him a character to root for, even when he makes questionable decisions. Detroit is the moral center of the film, but she is complicated and opinionated, a combination that Tessa Thompson makes endearing and gentle, rather than hardcore.
Overall, the film is masterfully made. Because it is satire, it is not going to be everyone’s new favorite movie, but the craftsmanship and the humor certainly make it worth a try. I rate it 4.5/5 stars.
Sorry to Bother You was written and directed by Boots Riley. It runs 1 hour and 45 minutes and is rated R for pervasive language, some strong sexual content, graphic nudity, and drug use.
Birthmarked follows scientists Catherine (Toni Collette) and Ben (Matthew Goode) as they conduct an extensive experiment, trying to get to the root of the nature vs nurture debate by raising their children, Maya (Megan O’Kelly), Luke (Jordan Poole), and Maurice (Anton Gillis-Adelman) contrary to their probable genetic gifts and flaws.
Birthmarked aims for the style and humor of a Wes Anderson movie. It’s a little bit Moonlight Kingdom a little bit Royal Tenenbaums. It is not, however, as beautiful or as funny or as weird as an actual Wes Anderson movie. Just watch one of his instead, if that is your sort of film. If not, do not bother with this one. The story here is bland, the characters are not quirky enough, and, as with Hereditary, Toni Collette can act her heart out in just about any movie, but her performance alone does not make a movie good.
Birthmarked was written by Marc Tulin and directed by Emanuel Hoss-Desmarais. It runs 1 hour and 30 minutes.