I have been avidly avoiding Christmas movies this season, not because I am a Grinch, but because I couldn’t muster the strength to sit through them. Let’s face it, this genre is the recycling of the same movie every year, and it is getting harder to sit through them. I decided that today I would start getting into the Christmas spirit, but unfortunately, the movie is Something From Tiffany’s.
Something From Tiffany’s is the story of two lost souls who are stuck in their respective relationships. Fate brings these two unknowing souls together by way of New York City taxi. Ethan is at Tiffany’s buying his engagement ring when Rachel’s boyfriend comes in that same night to buy his girlfriend a cheap gift. In a brief moment, the boyfriend gets hit by the taxi, causing the events that will bring Ethan and Rachel together for Christmas. Ethen, being the generic and caring man that he is, rushes to check up on the generic boyfriend, but he ends up switching the ring with the cheap gift. Ethen and Rachel will meet in the hospital, and it is love at first sight. Fate keeps bringing them together, and in a matter of days, they fall madly in love with each other. You can guess what happens from here.
This movie is bad even by the genre’s standards. The acting was surprisingly good, but its narrative is terrible. I always feel bad for the significant others in these movies who have the cruel fate of being love’s cruelest obstacle. Ethan’s girlfriend seemed like a nice girl whose only fault seemed to be that she wasn’t quirky enough. Ethan was ready to propose, but one brief encounter at the hospital was enough to change his mind. Rachel’s boyfriend was a loser, but at least he wasn’t evil which is refreshing.
The idea was to show how the leads were stagnating, stuck in their routines. It was only through finding true love that they can move forward and live their best lives. But is it love that they share? Is it fate bringing these two together? Is it Christmas magic? They are only together for a day before they decide that they are meant to be together. I see this as a relationship fueled more by desire than love. Rachel and Ethan lust for something different and fresh, and this accident gives them that. It is less romantic to think about how this race to fall in love for Christmas is less about fate and more about a change in scenery. Even if they were meant to be together and were previously in bad relationships, they were ready to be engaged, and that is where I have my problem.
I am overthinking a movie that had no effort put into it, but I was bored. Let me have this. There are better movies in this genre. Go watch something like The Princess Switch or Falling for Christmas instead. They are bad too, but somehow they are a little better.
You can stream this on Amazon, but I wouldn’t.
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Movie Review: Nanny (2022)
Nanny is a new movie on Amazon that is a slow burn, but one worth seeing. It won’t be for everyone because of its pacing, but the story it tells is an important one. By mixing west African folklore with the mundane ritual of every day, this film challenges the fantasized American dream and replaces it with a more bleak reality.
Aisha moves to New York to work as a nanny for a rich family. She hopes to use the money from this job to bring her son to America so that he can have a chance at a better life. But life in America isn’t as easy as it seems. Aisha finds herself working long hours and constantly having to fight her employer for payment. The only relationship that she has with her family back home is through voicemails, videos, and photographs. The isolation she feels as she misses her family and home begin to take their toll on her psyche. It is a well-done narrative about an experience that is often overlooked.
The movie is great, but it is slow and quiet. The pacing and the silence help create a truly isolating experience, one that grows in intensity the deeper you get into the movie. Its clever use of folklore and fantastical imagery illustrates Aisha’s non-verbal struggle masterfully. Her emotions and longings come, breaking the barrier between reality and emotion.
But this movie doesn’t just explore the world through the experience of a Nanny, it challenges the American fairy tale. The film takes the isolating existence of immigrant life and contrasts it against a struggling working-class family. Her employer struggles in a male-dominated world while tolerating her husband’s insecurities. The movie’s focus is on Aisha, but the movie masterfully sprinkles enough bites of dysfunction to completely shatter American idealism.
This isn’t a story that is new to the American landscape, but it is an important one to tell. Nanny is well-acted, beautifully directed, and well-told. It might be a bit slow and a little too artsy for its own good, but it is one I need to recommend. You can stream it on Amazon, and I recommend that you at least give it a try.
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The Legend of Vox Machina Season 2
It’s finally happening! The second season of The Legend of Vox Machina is set to premiere on January 20, 2023, on Amazon. If you haven’t seen the series, now is a great time to start. Check out my full review of the first season for more information. Trust me it was a fantastic season. Even if you aren’t a fan of fantasy, this series will blow you away and leave you wanting more. It has everything you want in a show. It has fantastic characters voiced by amazing actors, a great story, mayhem, and lots and lots of blood. If you aren’t a fan of fantasy, prepare to be one. It has beautiful art, epic action, and lots of humor. It is a bit on the adult side so viewers beware.
This post isn’t sponsored, I am just very excited about a series I absolutely love. The trailer has just dropped, leaving me incredibly impatient for what is to come. This second season promises an even more epic adventure as Vox Machina must band together and save the world from dragons! Why have the dragons banded together to attack humanity? Why dragons? It is probably Tiamat, but we will have to wait and see. Check out the trailer, mark your calendars, and go watch the first season!
Series Review: The Rings of Power (2022)
I was initially keeping up with Rings of Power when it was first released but fell off after a couple of episodes because of its pacing. I was initially excited about this series, but that excitement has since dulled. The Rings of Power isn’t a bad series, but it isn’t the epic prequel I was promised either.
The Rings of Power is fine, but it is not without its faults. The acting is fantastic, but the writing holds them back. I love the diverse casting and it makes me happy to see people of color in prominent roles in fantasy. The fantasy genre has always felt exclusive to white people. Growing up, I enjoyed fantasy but had to hide this fact to avoid getting picked on. It is amazing to see characters of color who make an impact on the narrative instead of just being villains and henchmen. I hope this is a growing trend in the genre, even if this series isn’t the best.
The biggest issue I have with this series is its pacing. It was too slow to be released weekly. I wouldn’t mind if this series was slow because it was carefully developing its lore. Instead, this series is bogged down by its excessive use of metaphor. The Rings of Power is desperate to sound poetic and it is off-putting. It is safe to say that the writing for this series isn’t great, and at times it sounds like a cheap attempt at emulating Tolkien. It wasn’t bad enough to make me stop watching, but it made it difficult to finish it.
The rest of the series was fine, but I wouldn’t have finished it if it wasn’t for this review. It looks pretty. The CGI cities look cool, the action is decent, and the costumes are great. They even have a fantastic villain, but at its core, this series is just average at best.
I don’t think this series is for everyone. If you aren’t a fan of fantasy, watch the movies instead. This series is a slow burn that barely pays off. The Rings of Power only works as a supplement for those casual Lord of the Rings fans who want more stories in the universe but don’t want to read the books. This isn’t a series I’d rush through, and I definitely recommend you skip around. You can stream it all on Amazon if you have a Prime membership.
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Series Review: The Peripheral (2022)
The entire season of The Peripheral is finally available for streaming, and it wasn’t worth the wait. I started watching this series as it came out but quickly gave up when I lost interest. Having this series be a weekly release was a mistake because there isn’t enough happening to get you excited for the next episode. If you are looking for a good sci-fi series to binge, look elsewhere.
Flynn Fisher is the best VR gamer in the world, but she is also poor. She and her family live paycheck to paycheck and use Flynn’s gaming skills to make extra money. One day, a mysterious benefactor offers to pay her to test a new VR headset. Flynn finds herself in a hyper-realistic simulation where she must complete dangerous tasks to earn her paycheck. But there is an evil cabal working against her benefactor. Flynn finds herself in the middle of a deadly conflict where she and her family must fight to survive. Can Flynn get to the bottom of this mystery before anyone she loves dies?
I am happy this series has a recap before every episode because I struggled to remember the plot. The plot isn’t confusing, but it is boring. There clearly wasn’t enough plot for a whole series because they drag out what little plot they have over the eight episodes. This series is terribly paced. This series needed to be thrilling, fast-paced, and suspenseful, but it isn’t.
The cast is decent but they are wasted on flat characters and dull narrative. Flynn is a Betty Sue who seems to care the least about being in this series. She is much too perfect and will easily beat every encounter she faces. Any suspense and action that could have saved this series from being an abysmal flop are poorly executed. The action scenes are lethargic, the build-up is slow, and the big reveal comes out of nowhere. This is a series that suffers from a severe identity crisis as it struggles to try to define itself. There are too many plotlines fighting for your attention, and none of them will earn it.
I haven’t read the book this series is based on, but I can assure you it is a very loose adaptation. If you are here because you are a fan of the book or the Westworld series, prepare to be disappointed. This series was a waste of time. You can stream it on Amazon, but I wouldn’t bother.
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Movie Review: The People We Hate At The Wedding (2022)
The People We Hate At The Wedding is another case of a fantastic cast wasted on a lazy movie. If you are interested in this movie, I suggest watching Brides Maids or Bride Wars instead. This movie feels like a cheap improved version of these movies, and it isn’t worth your time.
The movie focuses on a group of step-siblings who have grown estranged over the years. To reunite the family and mend the bond between them, the eldest invites her family to her wedding. But things are tense between the step-siblings, and things don’t go as planned. Instead of a happy reunion, there is sloppy chaos spilling onto the streets of London. It seems as if all the tension straining their relationship has reached its boiling point. Can they work through their issues and come together as a family before the wedding? Yes, they do. This movie sucks.
The acting is easily the best part, but I wish the story was better. The actors do a great job with what they are given and even share some terrific chemistry, but they can only do so much. The characters are a collection of misfortune and bad decisions without much more depth to them outside of being assholes. The story is a collection of poorly improved skits that go too long and pandering emotional moments that don’t land as they should. Whatever cookie-cutter narrative this film tries to develop throughout its run times instantly becomes predictable. I don’t know which is worse: the boring predictable plot or the jokes that go on for too long.
I liked that the focus is on a family that isn’t perfect, but there isn’t a real story here. This movie has too many plots, none of them which are given the proper time to develop. As a result, this movie takes too long to set up various big moments but then rushes through them to get to the end credits. This makes for a very disappointing conclusion to a movie without much direction.
Don’t watch this movie. It isn’t funny, heartwarming, or entertaining. Other movies have done this story a lot better. Go watch those instead. But for those still interested, you can watch it on Amazon if you have a Prime Membership.
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Series Review: The Devil’s Hour
The Devil’s Hour is a trippy thriller full of suspense, drama, and mystery. While the series does have a confusing start, it will all make sense the deeper you get into it. If you are looking for a decent thriller to binge for the holidays, you can stream it on Amazon Video.
Lucy is a single mother trying to give her son, Isaac the best life she can. Isaac is a troubled kid who is incapable of feeling emotions. Isaac is a troubled kid who sometimes sees things that aren’t there. As heartbreaking as it is for Lucy to watch, she is determined to help Isaac lead a normal life. The trouble is, Lucy sees things too. Each day it seems that her visions are getting more vivid, and she struggles to keep a hold of reality. Will she ever make sense of what is going on, or is she slowly losing her mind?
I enjoyed The Devil’s Hour quite a bit. The acting is fantastic, the story is interesting, and the mystery is well done. The pacing can be an issue at parts, but it never got bad enough to make me quit. One thing to note before starting this series is that it constantly jumps between narratives. It can be a bit disorienting at first, but the show does a great job of giving enough clues to keep the viewers grounded. As jumbled as this series may seem, it is a pretty straightforward narrative. You won’t need to be taking notes.
My only complaint with the series is that the ending is a bit disappointing. The story does a great job at building to something big, but then it just ends on an unsatisfying cliffhanger. I hope they don’t cancel this series before I get my closure.
This is a difficult series to review because I don’t want to spoil anything. I think this series is fine and you won’t hate if if you watch it. The Devils Hour is an interesting and unique thriller that you can stream on Amazon if you have a membership.
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Image by S. Hermann / F. Richter from Pixabay
Series Review: The English (2022)
The English is an Amazon original that left me feeling disappointed and a little bit offended. At its core, this is a white savior narrative disguised as something empowering.
Cornelia Locke has made it to America in search of the man responsible for her son’s death. Now she, with the help of a Pawnee Indian she meets along the way, scours the western frontier seeking her revenge. Can she survive the unforgiving landscape of the new world and find the man she’s looking for, or will the unforgiving plains claim another victim?
The show is an average western at best and very preachy. The acting is great, but the story and its pacing aren’t. The series jumps between different stories ineffectively, making this a disorienting experience. While I appreciate the attempt at a more complicated narrative, there is a lot of filler. This is a series that takes too long to get to the point.
The biggest issue I have with this series is how it tries to whitewash history. I was a bit disgusted by the lengths to which this series goes to prove that not all white people during this period were terrible. I don’t believe all white people are bad, I just don’t like how hard they try to prove this.
There is clearly a white savior complex and some virtue signaling at play in this series. You can see this with Cornelia and how she carries herself. Every episode has a moment where she has to talk about how brown people aren’t bad and that we should respect them as people. She has a whole speech about how white people are stealing from the Native Americans. It gets a little much, and I had trouble caring.
I get that Cornelia has a reason to be so kind, but this series goes above and beyond to prove that she isn’t racist. Other white characters in this series suffer from this same complex. Lately, I have been noticing many examples of modern media capitalizing on white guilt and virtue signaling. We don’t need this kind of whitewashing and hand-holding, especially when we are dealing with the terrible aspects of our history. Tell the stories how they are. They are meant to make us uncomfortable because they were uncomfortable stories.
I did not appreciate how this series presents the atrocities of this time as reactions from the good white characters. There is a problematic scene in this series where an entire Native village of Native Americans is slaughtered. You hear the slaughter in the distance, but the focus is on an English man and his overly dramatic anger. I am not saying they should have shown the slaughter, but this type of commentary is insulting. It was as if the series was saying, “we know this was bad, but there were good white people trying to stop this from happening too.” This shifts the focus from a terrible event and puts it on a white man.
I might be taking things a bit too personally, but this theme was too present to ignore. The English isn’t a good redemption story because it is sloppy and lazy. It isn’t a good romance because there isn’t any chemistry, and the romance wasn’t set up properly. It isn’t even a good western because of how cartoonish it becomes. They have great actors who are wasted on such a mediocre story. I am sure there is an audience for this, but it wasn’t for me. I would recommend you skip it, but you can stream it on Amazon Video if you have a Prime membership.
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Image by Philippe Verdier from Pixabay
Movie Review: The Policeman (2022)
The Policeman is a terrible movie. Do not watch it because it isn’t worth your time.
The Policeman is the story of a homosexual couple who must hide their love from the oppressive homophobic climate of Britain’s 1950s. At first, Tom and Patrick have a private affair, keeping their love a secret. Tom grows ambitious and realizes that the only way to get ahead in life is to have a wife. He marries Marion, but this façade quickly crumbles when Marion finds out the truth about Tom’s relationship with Patrick. Tom breaks up with Patrick and lives the rest of his life pretending to be heterosexual. The movie is about characters reflecting on their youth.
I had a lot of trouble writing up the synopsis for this movie because I lost interest several times. I had to rewind a lot because I kept getting lost, not because the plot was complicated, but because I was zoning out. This movie is boring, and nothing in this world can save it.
The acting in this movie is uninspired, and the characters lack the chemistry needed to make this love story work. They might be doing their best, but the script isn’t doing them any favors. It is no secret that Harry Styles isn’t an actor in any sense of the word, but he is not at fault for the quality of the narrative. None of the actors are. Harry Styles is merely the tool used to trick people into watching a movie they otherwise wouldn’t bother with.
The pacing is possibly the worst part of this movie. The plot moves slowly, and I suspect it is because there isn’t enough story for a full movie. As a result, we get a lot of filler in the form of slow takes, shameless fan service, and pointless shots of characters looking longingly out windows. If you cut out the sex scenes and condense the meaningful plot, this is maybe thirty minutes of content.
The Policeman is a poor representation of the struggles of the LGBTQ community. A lot of the hardships are glossed over quickly. The scenes of hardship and oppression seem to have been added almost as an afterthought. They don’t add anything of value to the plot except to briefly say how hard it was back then. It never feels like the characters are under any real pressure to keep their secret except for the fabricated kind designed to force the plot forward. And because the acting is so bad, none of the emotional moments hold the power needed to work.
You can stream this movie on Amazon Prime with your membership, but I wouldn’t bother. I am tempted to cancel my subscription because of this experience.
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Movie Review: My Best Friend’s Exorcism (2022)
My Best Friend’s Exorcism is a horror comedy that has enough problems with it to make it impossible to recommend. While I am sure a much younger audience will have a better time with this movie, I sure didn’t.
Abby and Gretchen are best friends in their last few months together. Gretchen moves in the summer, and they are willing to make the most of it. They and a group of friends spend a weekend at a cabin where an acid trip ends up being the nightmare that puts this friendship to the test. A demon possesses Gretchen and makes her plot against her friends, alienating her from anyone who can help her exorcise the demon. Will Abby be able to save her friend group from this evil in time, or will the demon claim his victim?
My problem with this movie is that it isn’t good at either of the genres it is trying to fit into. As a comedy, it isn’t funny enough to be worth your time. As a horror movie, it isn’t scary. It tries hard to work within the poorly written teen drama it ends up being, but it never does. The acting is fine but clearly held back by the writing. The plot is dumb, but it does have its moments. The best part of this movie is its soundtrack, but it’s defiantly trying to cash in on the ’80s nostalgia that Stranger Things brought back into pop culture.
What I did like about this movie is how it treats its demon possession. The demon preys on the friend group through sabotage and mind games instead of resorting to gore and gross-out scenes. For example, the demon tricks one of the girls into coming out as a lesbian, then uses her sorrow to almost killing her by nut allergy. It was pretty clever and uncomfortable, but this only makes up a small portion of the film. The rest of the movie lacks this creativity.
My Best Friend’s Exorcism isn’t the worst horror comedy I have seen. It definitely is too quirky for its own good, but it is watchable. I can’t recommend it, however, because it is boring. But to the curious and unbelievers, you can stream it on Amazon Video if you have a Prime Membership.
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