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The Open House (2018)

21/01/2018 · by Joy

First and foremost, I feel like I should apologize for the hiatus. I know I have literally zero regular readers, and I’ve never had a very consistent posting schedule, but I still feel guilty since my last post was in October!

A new year means a new, fresh spreadsheet of movies. I failed at keeping track of the films I watched last year in about April, so I’m hoping to keep a full list this year. But anyway, enough rambling and on with the show… the show that ultimately leads… nowhere?

I wasn’t necessarily excited nor did I have high hopes for The Open House. It’s a Netflix original that just aired and it stars Dylan Minnette of 13 Reasons Why fame. To be honest, I wasn’t overly impressed with his performance in 13 Reasons Why either. I found him to be a pretty flat stage presence and I think that carried over to The Open House as well, which isn’t really boding well for his career (although, I will say he was okay in Don’t Breathe).

The film started out okay, if not a little cliche – with a jolting death and a quick change of scenery. Our two main characters, a teenager and his mother, relocate to their relative’s mountain home which is a gorgeous, if not creepy, abode. Pretty basic plot, creepy things happen until suddenly *spoiler* things aren’t happening anymore. That pretty much sums up the entire film, actually. It was a whole lot of slow, ambling, “ooh, spooky” moments that feel like they’re leading up to something big, something earth-shattering, and then… nothing. I was let down! I was ready, I was prepared for some kind of justice, and justice I did not get.

It was just uninspired and unoriginal. It was nothing that we haven’t seen before, that’s for sure. There was no character development and there was no basis upon which to build a connection with any of the characters either. It was confusing, it was stale, it was unimaginative. I definitely would not watch this again or recommend it to anyone. I didn’t hate it, I just… was so disappointed.

Gerald’s Game (2017)

03/10/2017 · by Joy

2017 is the year of the King – Stephen King, that is. This is great news for me because as far back as I can remember, he’s been my absolute #1 favourite author. I won’t claim to be his biggest fan but I do own many of his books and movies and he’s one of the very few celebrities I follow on Twitter, so there’s that. He probably gave me the first nudge into the world of horror when I was, like, 10 years old.

Some of the critics are hailing Gerald’s Game as the best King adaptation of the year. I’m not sure I would go that far, especially in the last few minutes. For a vast majority of the movie, I was pretty well captivated. It’s a slow burn, that’s for sure, it doesn’t have a lot of “action” to it, but if you’ve read the book, you’d see that’s pretty much how it goes. Some people have called the premise absurd, but I don’t think it’s all that absurd. I think the scariest thing about it is how it could happen… I mean, if you’re into kinky handcuff games and your husband (or wife, I ain’t judgin’!) is pretty old, anyway. I was really really REALLY hoping they’d go a different route altogether with the ending. Cut out Joubert and just call it a day. The Moonlight Man/Space Cowboy was just… a figment of Jessie’s imagination. Or was he? Maybe he was a supernatural entity! I don’t care, but at least don’t go the Joubert route. Gerald’s Game is one of my favourite King novels… sans the last 70-ish pages. But I’m just not so sure it would have worked better that way anyway. I don’t know. I just don’t know. I get what Mr. King was trying to do… show how truly un-scary Joubert is in the light of day as opposed to when you’re sequestered in the nighttime fighting off hungry dogs and moonlight… I just don’t know if I love it.

Beyond that, though, disregarding those last few minutes, I thought it was done really well. It’s a difficult thing to film, since, of course, the vast majority of the film is just the character of Jessie alone… in solitude… no one but the “angels on her shoulders” to converse with. That’s a tough scene to film. But Carla Gugino plays her role extraordinarily well. Both Bruce Greenwood (Gerald) and Henry Thomas (Jessie’s father) make you pretty uncomfortable – granted, more Henry than Bruce; he was chilling.

I really liked it a lot, but I don’t know if I can say I loved it. It definitely had flaws, but not in casting, acting, or writing, that’s for sure. It was disturbing and parts were gruesome, but I also thought it was well done. I’d recommend it… to certain people.

mother!

23/09/2017 · by Joy

If you have seen the trailer for mother! and you’re not entirely sure what it’s about, you’re not alone. I saw the same trailer for it probably 5 or 6 times and left feeling intrigued and also extremely confused. Now that I’ve seen the movie, I’m still intrigued… and still somewhat confused. If you’re going to see mother! and you’re expecting a horror… you won’t exactly get that. If you’re going to see a thriller, I mean you won’t entirely get that either. It doesn’t really fit in any one genre. Even if you asked Aronofsky himself, I doubt he’d have an answer to which genre it should be assigned to, honestly.

Having said all that, I really enjoyed it. Some critics are hailing it as a masterpiece, some are calling it a mess. I wouldn’t call it either. The first thing you have to be willing to understand and accept if you’re going to see it… is that it’s a Darren Aronofsky film. Some of the most bizarre and most “pretentious” films came out of this man’s vision – Black Swan, The Fountain, Requiem for a Dream. While all are good films, Aronofsky seems to enjoy creating a film that is so atmospheric that you’re unsettled and disturbed by what you’ve just watched. And he accomplishes his task very well.

It’s clear that a ton of thought and effort went into crafting this allegorical story. I’m not going to pussyfoot around this one, there are going to be straight up spoilers, because it’s impossible to review this movie without spoiling it. It took me almost the entirety of the film to figure out what it was going for – for about 75% of the movie, I was sure it was just a woman going crazy with paranoia in her home – but the last 25% of the film solidified for me that Jennifer Lawrence playing “mother” was of course, Mother Earth, and the film was the literal expanse of human history. It starts out slow and solitary, mother and Him being the only two beings in existence. Slowly, but surely, people start to show up… first a man, then a woman, then their children… then the general human populace, until the last 30 minutes of the film is filled with chaos and destruction. Sound familiar? It should. It’s kind of genius in that sense. They took a 2 hour film and crammed the entirety of human existence into it, proportionally. The more I think about it, the more impressed I am by the metaphors and the fact that I didn’t grasp most of what I watched until after I left the theatre. I couldn’t stop thinking about it and I immediately went home to google it and to confirm if what I was thinking was actually what they were intending (it was, and then some!) I can’t help it – I’m impressed.

I loved most of the casting – I mean, Javier Bardem as “Him,” Ed Harris as “the man,” Michelle Pfeiffer as “the woman” and Kristen Wiig randomly appearing towards the end of the film… if that didn’t throw me off my game, I don’t know what did. Jen… oh, Jen. I love Jennifer Lawrence and I think she’s an extremely talented actress, but I can’t help but think she was horribly miscast. Whereas Jen is typically a bold actress who isn’t afraid to play controversial or difficult roles, she was cast as a meek and selfless mother. It just didn’t fit. She acted so well and she was still really good, it just wasn’t the best casting choice, I suppose!

All in all, if you’re looking for an uncomfortable 2 hours with gore, some disturbing imagery, and a look into what our future could hold as the human race… this is where you need to come. Tense and claustrophobic, it’s an Aronofksy film through and through, that’s for sure.

It (2017)

10/09/2017 · by Joy

It is easily my most anticipated movie of the year. Easily. I don’t do opening weekends (especially not opening NIGHTS), but I went on Saturday evening. I booked the tickets and reserved our seats on Wednesday night. That’s how excited I was for this particular film.

Since I was a kid, my favourite author has always been Stephen King. I don’t have all of his books, but I have a pretty significant collection including the Bachman Books (printed with the short story Rage that has been pulled out of print due to school shootings, but is nonetheless one of my favourite works of King’s). I read It when I was probably 11 or 12 for the first time. That’s the only time I got all the way through the book because, let’s be real, it’s 1,100 pages long. It is easily one of the most hard-hitting and well-written horror novels of all time. There’s so much involved and you get so invested in all of the characters, it’s hard not to get attached to the story, once you get into the thick of things. So naturally, my hopes were high… but not too high, because it is still a film adaptation of a King novel. The track record there has never been fantastic. Sure, you have some that hit it out of the park – The Shining, The Shawshank Redemption, and Carrie (the 1976 De Palma version, of course) – but you also have the stinkers… like Maximum Overdrive, Children of the Corn, Dreamcatcher, and, more recently, The Dark Tower. I would say there are 3 bad Stephen King movies/shows/mini-series’ for every 1 good one, and that’s with a pretty lenient definition of “good.”

Luckily, I was blown away by this adaptation of It. Taking place in the late 80s rather than the late 50s, I think, was a welcome revision. And as for the monster himself, whereas Tim Curry played a very creepy Pennywise the Dancing Clown, Bill Skarsgard was much more menacing. Two Pennywises (what is the plural of Pennywise anyway?) that were both very good, but both vastly different. Skarsgard embodied the fear I felt as a child reading about “it” perfectly. I have a really hard time being physically scared by movies, so judging scares is a difficult thing for me to do, but there were a few that genuinely made me jump. One of those didn’t even involve Pennywise but a room full of clown dolls. I admit it, I’m afraid of clowns – they’re creepy and I don’t care what our local “Clown Club” says.

Since this movie, part 1 in a 2(?)-parter, focuses entirely on the characters as children, it was almost entirely children cast. This made me nervous because I don’t have good experience with child actors. Somehow they managed to find a great number of good child actors: Jaeden Lieberher as Bill Denbrough, Sophia Lillis as Beverly Marsh, Finn Wolfhard as Richie Tozier, and Jack Dylan Grazer as Eddie Kaspbrak, and even Nicholas Hamilton as Henry Bowers. I had a harder time with Chosen Jacobs who played Mike Hanlon… but then again, they basically cut his character down to nothing, which really kind of sticks out as a major failure of the movie. Mike is a big player in the story and I’m really hoping they bring him back to the limelight in part 2. Wyatt Oleff as Stanley didn’t really do much for me either. He kind of seemed unaware of what he was doing. There were multiple scenes where the other characters would be talking or hugging or something and he would just be standing awkwardly behind them, hovering, almost creepily.

One of my favourite aspects was the dichotomy between the adults and the children. The adults are the real monsters. Every adult shown – Eddie’s mom, Beverly’s dad, the pharmacist, Henry’s dad – they’re all foul human beings. It really emphasizes the children’s innocence and what a downright shit town Derry, Maine is (and Stephen King would be proud because he so obviously hates Derry).

There were tons of jump scares, and by the end of the film, you’re almost numb to them, but that’s okay I think. I mean, I hope it was intentional, because by the end of the film, the Losers aren’t afraid of Pennywise anymore, so why should we be? I just thought the entire atmosphere of the film was fantastic. The CGI was a bit much, and there were some unnecessary and downright bizarre story changes, but at the same time, there were some positive story changes (like no sex in the sewers, thank god).

All in all, I was impressed. My boyfriend, less so, but he’s never read the book and has never been a huge fan of Stephen King’s works in the first place (although is currently reading 11/22/63). It was a wonderful adaptation of a book that is pretty dear to me and it was relatively faithful to the story. I can’t wait to see what part 2 holds!

The Big Sick (2017)

23/07/2017 · by Joy

Critics are hailing The Big Sick as “one of the best movies of the year” and “a traditional rom-com that’s so original,” but I have to be honest with you… it was pretty cut and dry for me. It works, it’s good, but it’s nothing that’s breaking the mold for me. It was just… a good movie. I didn’t leave upset that I had spent money to see it in theatres, but I didn’t leave overwhelmed with passion for how great the movie was (ahem, Baby Driver)… I left saying, “It was… good!”

It was funny and I did, I laughed a lot. I thought both leads (Kumail Nanjiani and Zoe Kazan) were really great – their acting was enjoyable and their chemistry was really robust – but the plot was formulaic, even with the cross-cultural dilemma thrown in there. I will give it that – I learned some things about Pakistan that I, admittedly, didn’t know. Before now, I had no idea that Pakistan had the largest irrigation system in the world… but aside from being educational, I wasn’t… moved. I get what it was trying to do and I get that it’s his and his wife’s real life story, but it just wasn’t really all that touching to me.

I couldn’t help but feel that it was just another romantic comedy. A critic (the name is escaping me now) compared it to Annie Hall… I believe he said “for the ISIS age,” and that’s just insane… I don’t think it should be compared to Annie Hall. Annie Hall was and is iconic. That’s a rom-com that breaks the mold. A rom-com full of neuroses. They tried to do the neurotic thing with Emily, but it just didn’t really work.

I appreciate that Kumail did this, he made a film that normalizes and includes Muslim and Pakistani culture. That’s great, and that’s a wonderful thing, but if you take that out of the equation, it’s just another rom-com that I could take or leave. It was just… okay. It was nothing super special and if I could do it again, I’d probably wait to see it on Netflix.

Baby Driver (2017)

10/07/2017 · by Joy

After seeing the trailers for and the glowing reviews of Baby Driver, I had no choice. I had to venture OUTSIDE to the THEATER to see it. And see it, I did. Action has never been my genre of choice. I may be a film buff, but I just fail to see the fascination with action. I have no doubt there are good action movies, they’re just not my cuppa tea. But Baby Driver… was something different altogether. Despite being action-packed, it was written well and it was smart. I really really enjoyed it.

I have a thing for musicals and I’m not ashamed of that. It’s not a secret, I admit it. Baby Driver is not a musical, but it sure is melodic.

The film opens with Ansel Elgort (Baby) bopping and grooving to the song “Bellbottoms,” which before now, I was not familiar with but it has become my most-played song… like, for real. It starts out strong and it doesn’t lose that strength.

Wright has done a marvellous thing with this movie. He has really revitalized the action genre… melding two genres that don’t usually belong together – action and musical. It was almost reminiscent of La La Land in the way that it seamlessly transitions from musical to conversation.

It stars some of the best – Ansel Elgort (The Fault in our Stars), Kevin Spacey (American Beauty, Se7en), Jamie Foxx (Django Unchained, Ray) and Jon Hamm (Mad Men)… and none of them let us down. They’re all great (especially Spacey… I love my Spacey).

If I had to put together the films that make up this film, Baby Driver is like a mish-mash of La La Land, Pulp Fiction and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (which, un-coincidentally, is also directed by Edgar Wright).

This is a film I can’t wait to add to my collection and watch again and again. It was probably the most fun film I’ve seen in a really long time and is definitely in the running for my favourites of 2017.

Beauty and the Beast (2017)

25/06/2017 · by Joy

If you’ve been reading my reviews for pretty much any amount of time, you’ll know that I am a Disney fan. Beauty and the Beast has never been one of my favourites, but that isn’t to say I don’t like it. When the first teaser trailer came out for this film, you know, with Lumiere and Cogsworth saying “it’s a girl…” and the rose and the music and… well, I was excited. For some reason I thought, how could this possibly go wrong?

I’m currently halfway through and I am, how do I say this? Bored. It doesn’t have nearly the same magic as the animated version. It doesn’t pack the same emotional punch. I do not care that Belle and the Beast are falling in love. I don’t care. I want to see more of Gaston and Le Fou to be honest. Where are they? I miss them. And that Wardrobe? She’s fricken terrifying. The music is lackluster at best. Emma Watson is even falling flat for me and I typically really enjoy her acting.

I see what Disney has tried to do – they’ve tried to take a classic and modernize it, make it a more detailed “masterpiece,” but it’s fallen oh-so-flat. The added effects and added details look like just that – add-ons tacked on to make the movie something “original.” It feels so… cheap and tacky. Why do we need to keep taking classic, wonderful animated films and making garish, distasteful karaoke versions of them? If you’re going to remake a film like Beauty and the Beast, you have to at least breathe some fresh air into it. Keep that aroma of familiarity, but make it something better, not something… like this.

Not to mention, they took this opportunity to create a very openly homosexual character… and that character was who?? Le Fou – a bumbling fool, an idiot, the villainous sidekick of Gaston. That’s just depressing. You could choose any character in any reimagining and make them gay, and you chose Le Fou. We have better LGBT representation in Paranorman (“You’re gonna love my boyfriend!”) Just… wow.

To be honest, unless you’re a mega fan of the original film, I’d skip this one. It left me feeling as though I need to watch the original as “eye bleach” and feeling resentful that I had wasted not only $4.99 on the Google Play store to rent it, but also two-and-a-half hours of my life that I could have spent watching something with actual substance and style. This is not a film I want in my collection. This is not a film I want to see again. I’ll stick to the tried and true, thank you very much.

Favourites

16/06/2017 · by Joy

Honourable mentions: I saw a thing on The Spiral Site where he listed his favourite films for every year since he was born and I thought, “Hey! I love making lists and I haven’t done a list post in a while…” so here I am, making a list post! There aren’t as many years as his, since I am so young and youthful (lol), but nonetheless, here goes:

1992: Army of Darkness!
Honourable mentions: Sister Act, Reservoir Dogs, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle

1993: What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?
Honourable mentions: Falling Down, Hocus Pocus, The Secret Garden, Benny & Joon

1994: Clerks
Honourable mentions: Pulp Fiction, The Shawshank Redemption

1995: Mallrats
Honourable mentions: Se7en, Clueless

1996: The Frighteners
Honourable mentions: Scream, Fly Away Home

1997: The Fifth Element
Honourable mentions: Good Will Hunting, The Game

1998: Mulan
Honourable mentions: The Truman Show, American History X, The Faculty

1999: Fight Club
Honourable mentions: American Beauty, The Green Mile, The Iron Giant, The Blair Witch Project

2000: American Psycho
Honourable mentions: Memento, Requiem for a Dream, Battle Royale

2001: Spirited Away
Honourable mentions: Lord of the Rings – The Fellowship of the Ring, Donnie Darko, A Beautiful Mind, The Others

2002: One Hour Photo
Honourable mentions: 28 Days Later…, Red Dragon, Sweet Home Alabama

2003: School of Rock
Honourable mentions: Finding Nemo, Oldboy, Bruce Almighty

2004: The Machinist
Honourable mentions: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Shaun of the Dead

2005: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Honourable mentions: Capote, The Corpse Bride, Four Brothers, The Exorcism of Emily Rose

2006: The Illusionist
Honourable mentions: Idiocracy

2007: [REC]
Honourable mentions: Juno, Knocked Up, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, El Orfanato/The Orphanage

2008: Burn After Reading
Honourable mentions: Gran Torino, Cloverfield

2009: Drag Me to Hell
Honourable mentions: (500) Days of Summer, District 9, Zombieland

2010: Blue Valentine
Honourable mentions: Black Swan, How to Train Your Dragon, Winter’s Bone, Easy A

2011: Bridesmaids
Honourable mentions: The Help, Paranormal Activity 3, Contagion, Sucker Punch, We Need to Talk About Kevin

2012: Pitch Perfect
Honourable mentions: Django Unchained, Silver Linings Playbook, Les Miserables

2013: The Conjuring
Honourable mentions: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Captain Phillips, Don Jon

2014: The Babadook
Honourable mentions: Gone Girl, Interstellar, The Imitation Game, As Above So Below

2015: Room
Honourable mentions: The Revenant, The Hateful Eight, Green Room

2016: Deadpool
Honourable mentions: Moonlight, La La Land, The Handmaiden, Don’t Breathe, Hush

Okay, that was WAY harder than I thought it was going to be. To be fair, I also used Google and looked at a quick overview of what notable movies came out that year, so I’m entirely certain that I missed a ton of really great films! I have such a decision-making problem and I just love films so much. There aren’t many that I watch and go “that’s a bad movie.” And since I was born in ’92, I miss out on listing some of the greatest films, some of my FAVOURITE films… I really wanted to list Carrie but it’s from 1976… darn. Anyway, it was a fun little exercise in rattling off movies that I love and it gives you a sense of what films I enjoy, too! (P.S. Good thing there’s no tag limit, apparently!)

A Cure for Wellness (2016)

11/06/2017 · by Joy

A Cure for Wellness had me intrigued right from the get-go. When I saw the ratings coming in as less than appealing, I was sort of let-down but not enough to deter me entirely. So what did I do? I bought it when I saw it at the local pawn shop without viewing it first. Makes sense to me.

Luckily, I don’t regret it. Sure, the film I found had flaws. It was about 45 minutes longer than it needed to be. The ending was less than satisfying. The ‘twist’ was relatively predictable. But those visuals. Ooh, those visuals. I was so incredibly blown away by the cinematography and the visual effects. I can’t even describe them. They used symmetry and wide shots of the Alps to the very best of anyone’s abilities. The consistent use of the colour blue induces a lulling sense of security amid the unease evoked by the bizarre actions of the vast majority of the characters.

I feel like A Cure for Wellness is one of those films that is just so masterful in some aspects that you can let the flawed story kind of… go, because watching for the dialogue, the acting, and the visuals is enough to carry it. It was definitely enough to keep me intrigued and to make sure that I didn’t feel like I’d wasted 2 1/2 hours of my life. There are so many horror cliches and period film cliches, it almost feels like Verbinski is trying to give a less than subtle nod to those effects we’ve seen a thousand times before.

In sum, I really enjoyed A Cure for Wellness and I’m happy I have it in my collection. It requires a bit of a time dedication and I know it’s not going to appeal to everyone, but I think for those who have a certain appreciation for the visual aspects of film, it will be a treat. Give it a shot!

Split (2016)

08/06/2017 · by Joy

I tried really hard to reserve judgment about Split until I had a chance to see it. On the one hand, it looked very intriguing based on the trailers. It obviously had to do with Dissociative Identity Disorder which, me being a psych major, was of great interest to me and is a vastly unexplored avenue when it comes to horror films (for reasons far beyond my comprehension, because what a fascinating ‘diagnosis.’) On the other hand, it was directed by Shyamalan, which isn’t always a bad thing. He’s made some great films, including The Sixth Sense and Signs and… well, that’s pretty much it. He’s also made some also films, such as The Village and The Happening. I can’t take full credit for this idea, because it was David (my boyfriend) who said it to begin with, but it really seems that if you put M. Night in a box with clearly defined borders, he can do some wonderful things in the film world. But… if you let him run free, you end up with the cacophony that is The Village.

The movie gods must have been watching over and mentoring Shyamalan during the production of Split because I really found it to be a solid film. It’s nowhere near perfection, but it is satisfying. James McAvoy is truly an acting force to be reckoned with, playing 23 personalities, however we only “meet” 7 of them. You have Kevin, who is the main personality, Barry, a flamboyant fashionista who was previously the dominant personality, Dennis, a man with both OCD and voyeuristic tendencies, Patricia, a sinister British lady, Hedwig, a child who just wants to belong, Orwell, a scholar we meet only briefly through video (within the film), and Jade, who is apparently a type 1 diabetic teenage girl. Let’s put aside the fact that the type 1 diabetes thing really rubs me the wrong way: if it’s possible to offset your non-functioning pancreas by partitioning your mind, why don’t we have a cure for diabetes? Oh yeah, because it’s just simply not possible. I really appreciate the way that James McAvoy distinguishes each personality. He portrays them perfectly and you can tell before he even speaks as each persona that he has changed just from his facial expressions and his mannerisms.

I felt that the rest of the acting was pretty lackluster, honestly. Betty Buckley as the psychiatrist, Dr. Fletcher, was extremely wooden and very to-the-script. It was almost amateur and managed to take me out of the film more than once. It makes me super sad because Betty Buckley actually played Miss Collins in one of my favourite horror films of all time: Carrie (1976). The kidnapped girls, played by Anya Taylor-Joy, Jessica Sula, and Haley Lu Richardson, were just… okay. Nothing to write home about.

Though there’s some controversy over stigmatizing DID with this film, I really enjoyed it. If mental illnesses are off-limits for making films about or portraying villains who have them is off the table, we lose a lot of really great films. I’m talking Fight Club (1999), A Beautiful Mind (2001), American Psycho (2000), The Machinist (2004) – all films powered by mental illness and all spectacular movies. I can understand, however, why DID patients are upset. There are no films (that I know of or can recall) which portray DID in a positive light. Maybe something for Shyamalan’s next project?

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