"Get Out"

Jordan Peele’s feature directorial debut brings a fresh take on the horror genre that doesn’t depict any kind of monster. Instead, we get the most uncomfortable form of racial equality where everybody acts like they’re not racist by saying they like black people, black is hip, etc. This is textbook racism.

Chris, a black photographer, and his white girlfriend travel to visit her family for the weekend where everybody is super nice to him. So nice it’s a little unnerving. Then Catherine Keener plays psychologist and paralyzes Chris with a memory of when his mother didn’t come home. I guess the real monster is our own inner selves, plaguing us with our worse memories. And that’s what they seem to use to try to motivate Chris when it’s convenient with them. But unfortunately for them, Chris doesn’t buy into it and suspects something is up.

Meanwhile, his friend, Rod, who works TSA at a nearby airport, found interesting information on other black people who have gone missing. Chris then discovers a series of photos of his girlfriend with other black boyfriends. He tries to escape but he soon learns that she is in on it too. Her family kidnaps black people and they do a brain transplant with a member of their family, who wins the body in a creepy auction. Though the guy who won Chris says it didn’t matter what the color of your skin is, it’s kind of obvious. There are no Asian people in the family, no Indian people, no Eskimos, you get it. The point is that they live in a younger, stronger body. Then, like in a copy and paste horror film, Chris busts out, kills everyone, and escape when Rod, the T. S.-motherf*cking-A., shows up to the rescue.

I don’t think these white people thought this through. What were the Stepford Whites intending to do? Didn’t they think in the long term that other white people would think that’s weird that a massive black family is living within a massive beautiful mansion in the country? Why I ask that? It’s because we’re racist. Many of us try not to, but there is no avoiding it. There’s no knowing what can set someone off. Will they be able to withstand racial profiling from, again, us white people? If a white cop stops them, are they going to stand up against the cop because of they’re white brain privilege? Do they think they’re indestructible?

And about the brain transplant. Is it possible to successfully transplant a brain? And if so, is what’s left of the original brain, because there is no way to completely remove it, in charge or is the new brain in charge? Can the body reject it like a kidney? If so, they’re screwed. Why is a camera flash the Coagula’s weakness? Did they know this? If they did, why isn’t there a sign that says “No Flash Photography?” When the camera flashes, the original person snaps out of it, so I guess part of the brain I mentioned is still there.

This surprise horror hit raises a number of questions that I wonder if Jordan knows the answer to. There’s got to be people who thought these same questions, and perhaps some more that I can’t think of.

I hope you liked this. Be sure to subscribe and leave a comment about what you thought or if you want to recommend a movie for me to review. Thank you for reading. I'll return next week with another movie. See you then.

Released On: February 24, 2017
Rating: R
Stars: Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Bradley Whitford
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 99% Certified Fresh
IMDb Score: 7.7/10

Awards
Academy Awards

• Best Picture - Nominated
• Best Director Jordan Peele - Nominated
• Best Actor Daniel Kaluuya - Nominated
• Best Original Screenplay Jordan Peele - Winner

Golden Globes

• Best Motion Picture Musical or Comedy - Nominated
• Best Actor Motion Picture Musical or Comedy Daniel Kaluuya - Nominated

(Click here to view more awards for "Get Out")

Videos
CinemaSins - Everything Wrong With Get Out In 15 Minutes Or Less
Screen Junkies - Honest Trailers - Get Out

"The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society"

From the biggest streaming service in the world, comes a movie based on a book that was on my mother’s shelf. Lily James returns behind the typewriter, this time as accomplished author, Juliet Ashton. Following the release of her latest book, a letter showed up requesting Charles Lamb’s Shakespeare for Children. The sender was a member of a small book club, the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. He found a book, also written by Lamb, with her name and address scribbled inside. Intrigued, she responds and makes a trip to Guernsey. She is greeted by Dawsey, the man who contacted her. Their group was formed during the German occupation of their island following a forbidden party. After the ban of raising farm animals, by the Nazis, Amelia, a Cousin Isabelle-like old lady, hid a pig in her barn and invited a few of her closest friends, Elizabeth, whom she considers her daughter, Isola, a medicine woman, and Eben, the local postmaster, to feast on the forbidden creature. On the way home, they are caught breaking curfew. To avoid arrest, they found the book club where they also serve a pie consisting of mashed potatoes and strips of potato peels.
Five years later, they are still going strong, except Elizabeth has been off the island for years, leaving her four-year-old daughter, Kit, behind. Juliet turns into Jessica Fletcher and becomes dedicated, against the Society’s wishes, to search for Elizabeth and bring her home. With the help of her American fiancée, Mark, she searches through records, newspapers, and letters to discover that the Society is not as graceful as they seemed. Dawsey had become friends with a Nazi soldier who falls for Elizabeth. Amelia didn’t approve and ordered her to break up with him, especially after she found out Elizabeth was pregnant. To her luck, the Nazi soldier was discovered and was sent to the continent, but the ship got torpedoed. Elizabeth was later arrested for assisting a boy and was taken to a concentration camp, where she was shot for protecting a fellow prisoner.

Juliet returns to London but is unable to return to her old life. She breaks off her engagement with her overbearing and selfish boyfriend, begins writing the script, which Netflix now owns, and sends it to the Society. Dawsey bolts for the docks just as Juliet was departing to get back together with her and take in Kit as their own.

The film felt more like a PBS special than a Netflix movie, especially since half the cast of Downton Abbey stars in this movie. The plot kind of felt overused where a newcomer finds some dirt on the townspeople to use in a story but decides not to publish it, and the plot of finding your roots in the said little town. There is also the "character writes the book they are currently in" cliché, seen in The Great Gatsby (2013), Ring of Bright Water, James and the Giant Peach, and a bunch of other movies and books I can't think of right now.

The movie had some potential. A major setback is how unevenly paced it was with flashbacks, and how littered it was with the flashbacks. I understand that sometimes was necessary to show you what happened rather than tell you, but there is a time and a place for that. There were several times that didn’t fall under this category.

And why do all war movies now have the bleak “There’s got to be a better way” filter on them? It was a dark time, I know. That doesn’t mean you have to make me depressed about it.

Jessica Findlay Brown had only maybe five minutes of total screen time in this movie as the defiant Elizabeth. I guess that is because she is laying low in American films and television because many Downton Abbey fans still haven’t forgiven her for leaving Tom Branson and little Sybbie alone.

Netflix isn’t alone in this, but I’m starting to sense a trend in adapting material many of us only heard in passing, and this isn’t the first time Netflix has done this. The now popular series, 13 Reasons Why, came out of a book series that I only saw in the book orders when I was in school.

I will say that it was a decent movie that I’d be willing to watch again.

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Released On: August 10, 2018
Rating: TV-14
Stars: Lily Collins, Jessica Findlay Brown, Tom Courtenay
Director: Mike Newell
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 81% Certified Fresh
IMDb Score: 7.4/10

"Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again"

The movie’s subtitle read my mind when I first heard the announcement that a sequel was coming a year ago. I loved the first movie. I don’t care what you say about Pierce Brosnan’s singing abilities. He was still charming. I think a sequel is just unnecessary.

This movie follows a carbon copy plot similar to the first film. A big celebration set at the crumbling hotel featuring three dads scattered across the globe and someone from Donna’s past. That’s it. That’s all you need to know about the plot. But I want to get to the juicy parts. I am a stickler for continuity, and this movie is my newest victim.

Donna is dead. We don’t how or why. She just died. Until an article surfaced two days ago with details on Donna's death, which can be viewed here.

The movie is set five years later even though it was released ten years later.

Donna and the Dynamos were apparently a high school band, and they didn’t tour the world. So, what happened that night in Glasgow?

I was led to believe, based on the context of the first movie, that Tanya and Rosie never really met the dads until the events of the first movie; they only knew what Donna told them. In this one, they seemed to know Sam, Harry, and Bill for at least five minutes, long enough for Rosie to have a twenty-year-old crush on Bill.

The timeline of how Donna met the three dads is f*cked out of proportion. Going back to the diary Sophie stole, the first entry was about Sam, then Bill, then Harry. When they told Sophie about their time with Donna, Harry met Donna in Paris and followed her to Greece. In this movie, Donna is in Paris when a strapping young man with jet-black hair, wearing black pants, and speaking in broken French appeared, I thought it was Sam. But, no, it’s Harry. So Harry meeting Donna in Paris checks out. Then they had their Dot-Dot-Dot moment, and Donna leaves for Kalahari. She misses the ferry but gets help from Bill and his boat. Then they had their Dot-Dot-Dot moment, and Donna leaves. She discovers an old farmhouse that poses a striking resemblance to the hotel that now stands in its place. Let’s pause right there for a second. In the first movie, Sam said he drew up the hotel on the back of a menu. When he left, I thought Donna took that design and built the hotel. But it turns out that it was a rundown farmhouse an old lady in the village let her stay in.

On the night she discovers the farmhouse, she finds a horse trapped the barn. She goes to find help and who happens to be zipping down the road but Sam Carmichael. They have their Dot-Dot-Dot moment, in which Donna starts to write her diary. Then Sam leaves to get married, and Bill turns up again. During that time, Sam tried to return but the old lady and Tanya and Rosie told him that Donna was with another man. Then we see Harry buying a ticket to the ferry, but he misses the ferry and decides not to pursue. So Harry’s entry in the diary should have never been written, especially when Bill leaves for some boating race, and Donna finds out she’s pregnant.

But it’s not just about getting their story straight, there’s tons of new movie to pick over.

You can also go ahead put this movie on the list of movies where the trailer lied to us. The trailers all showed Tanya and Rosie telling Sophie how Donna really met the three dads. Instead, we get a kind of unnecessary backstory sandwiched into this already two stars of a movie. In the final scene, Sophie is taking her own child to get christened and the montage of Donna giving a scary ass birth keeps butting in while a lighthearted song kept playing in the background. I was absolutely terrified. And they were going to be happy and sing about it? It turned out all right and Sophie was born, but DAMN!!!!!!

What happened to Sophie’s friends? And Sky’s? Neither Sophie nor Sky even received a text on their whereabouts.
Rosie and Bill are split because Bill couldn’t keep it in his pants, I guess, but they get back together because they both can’t get over Donna’s death.

Tanya’s hot Jamaican boyfriend is nowhere to be seen, but my mother mentioned that she’s a serial bride, so I guess that answers that question.

Sky is still a dick. I’m sorry, I hated this guy in the first movie. I super hate him in this one. He goes away to New York to learn how to properly run a hotel. Donna ran the hotel for 15 years, and this is five years later. Not once did it bother them before on how to run a hotel? We are still unsure if Sophie and Sky ever got married since they ran away from their wedding like they’re Elaine and Benjamin. I’d dump his ass if I were Sophie. Go full Donna and raise the child on your own.

Remember when I had a problem with Blade Runner 2049 billing Harrison Ford as a costar even though he showed up at the end of the movie? This movie did the same with both Cher and Meryl Streep. Cher shows up to the party to be a grandmother. Sophie isn’t pleased that Sky had called and invited her, but then all is forgiven when we find out Sophie’s new assistant, Terry Benedict, was an old lover of Cher’s. The movie missed an opportunity to make him Donna’s missing father, but then again, making Cher Meryl Streep’s mother barely made any sense.

Going back to the christening, I buy that Donna’s spirit would show up. I buy that she would sing. I also buy that Sophie could see her. But then you had to go and wreck the moment by having them sing together. No one else can see Donna. So now Sophie has gone insane and needs medical attention immediately.

The only redeeming aspect the movie has is that it was a fun movie, just not a good movie. It was nice to see the dads still being bros together, especially Bill and Harry doing the Jack and Rose pose on the ferry. Aside from Andy Garcia standing like a doofus, the “Fernando” number was the best of the whole movie.

The movie used a lot of match cuts. A match cut is the end of the first clip matches with the beginning of the next clip. For example, the “One of Us” sequence featured the camera tracking from Sky’s apartment to Sophie’s room. It was also used to show a parallel between Donna and Sophie examining the hotel, both rundown and restored.

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Released On: July 20, 2018
Rating: PG-13
Stars: Lily Collins, Amanda Seyfried, Pierce Brosnan, Meryl Streep
Director: Ol Parker
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 89% Certified Fresh
IMDb Score: 7.2/10

Videos
Everything Wrong With Mamma Mia in 15 Minutes or Less
CinemaSins - Everything Wrong With Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again

"Darkest Hour"

One of the best period dramas I’ve seen in years. If The Shape of Water wasn’t in the way, this would have been a sure-fire win.

Gary Oldman chronicles Sir Winston Churchill’s first month in office as England’s Prime Minister during World War II. This chain-smoking, brandy-drinking, feather-ruffling, old geezer didn’t change anything about his old habits with the transition, which made him more enemies along the way, including almost going toe to toe with King George VI. But when the British army is stranded on the beaches of Dunkirk, they turn to him and his stubborn ideas for answers. Part of the story is told through Lily James’ eyes as she stars as Churchill’s secretary. She helps pen two of Churchill’s most influential speeches, including the speech saying that England will battle to the end and they will never surrender.

The entire film is on point from stellar acting from Oldman, James, and Ben Mendelsohn as the King, to gorgeous cinematography to a moving score to intense storytelling of one of the greatest rescue missions ever seen at the time. It is a very simple story, but the 2½ hour movie is jammed packed with adventure and drama as well as plenty of laughs, like when Churchill flips off the paper thinking it’s the victory sign. There is also the game-changing event in which he slips out of his motorcade to take the Underground to Parliament. From there he has a conversation with the other passengers on Parliament’s decision to hold off from rescuing the army as well as refraining from moving forward in the war. The passengers, of course, say no, including a six-year-old girl who says she’ll never surrender. This whole sequence may be made up especially with many biopics and period films have come under fire for fudging history to make the story more exciting, but it worked. Churchill got the support he needed, and the rescue at Dunkirk was a success.

Another thing I was excited about: Churchill’s secret bunker. I saw it in a Secrets of London documentary on PBS. It is so secret that the filmmakers couldn’t film the location of the entrance. That being said, the studio surely would have had to recreate the bunker, and it was the very likeness of the bunker shown in the documentary, aside from having 75 years of mold and water damage.

The film is another example of England being a strong, stubborn country. They knew Hitler was going to stop at nothing from taking all of Europe. They knew the rescue at Dunkirk was suicide. When the United States refused to provide aid, on or off the table, they were on their own. It was one man’s dream to victory and a population loyal to that dream that made them persevere and overcome the Nazi regime and rule as a powerful nation. We Americans rarely give the British any credit on being able to hold their own. After our split from the American Revolution and the War of 1812, we just kind of ignored each other. When the Great War broke out, England fought hard alongside France and Belgium. We didn’t join until the last 18 months of it. During World War II, England was truly all alone for a while. But they proved that they are brave and they didn’t surrender. This is one of the few films that show that strength we only see in the pages of history books.

I hope you liked this. Be sure to subscribe and leave a comment about what you thought or if you want to recommend a movie for me to review. Thank you for reading. I'll return next week with another movie. See you then.

Released On: December 22, 2018

Rating: PG-13

Stars: Gary Oldman, Lily Collins, Ben Mendelsohn

Director: Joe Wright

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 84% Certified Fresh

IMDb Score: 7.4/10

Awards

Academy Awards

• Best Picture - Nominated
• Best Actor Gary Oldman - Winner
• Best Production Design - Sarah Greenwood & Katie Spencer - Nominated
• Best Cinematography Bruno Delbonnel - Nominated
• Best Makeup and Hairstyling Kazuhiro Tsuji, David Malinowski & Lucy Sibbick - Winner
• Best Costume Design Jacqueline Durran - Nominated

Golden Globe Awards

• Best Actor Motion Picture Drama Gary Oldman - Winner

(Click here to view more awards for "Darkest Hour")