Amazon Prime/Netflix Binge: Pt. 2

Movies: Goodnight Mommy, The Overnight, Locke

After a weekend trapped indoors, I have some interesting movies to review.

Goodnight Mommy

Woof. This was a freaky movie. Directed by Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz, Goodnight Mommy is an Austrian horror film that layers the dread on thickly. Susanne Wuest plays a woman recovering from a car accident. She is released from the hospital and returns home, where her twin boys, Lukas and Elias (played by real life twins Lukas and Elias Schwarz) await. They are understandably freaked out by the bandages obscuring her entire face, and become more suspicious of her when she ignores Lukas completely, only setting out one dinner for Elias.

The twins begin to seriously suspect that this woman is an imposter and is not their mother at all.

*Spoilers*

Goading each other on, the twins eventually tie their mother to her bed, and using torture methods that seem quite appropriate for 9 year old boys (a magnifying glass, floss, super glue...) try to get the woman to either prove to them that she's their mother, or confess that she isn't.

*/spoilers*

The last third of the film is incredibly intense and horrifying, but it's also a bit of a relief after the slow build up of tension in the first two-thirds. Some reviews have argued that Goodnight Mommy is one of the scariest movies ever made, but I found it more unnerving than anything else. The scariest thing about this movie is that the "monster" in Goodnight Mommy isn't a serial killer or a boogey man hiding under the bed, but the disintegrating relationship between a mother and her children.

Grade: B

***

The Overnight

It's hard to fit Patrick Brice's indie movie The Overnight into one category or genre. It's both a sex comedy and a relationship drama. It's both intriguingly kinky and cringe-worthy. But it's definitely memorable.

Adam Scott and Taylor Schilling play Alex and Emily, a married couple in their early 30's with a young son. They have just moved from Seattle to Los Angeles and are trying to make new friends. While taking their son to the playground, they're approached by Kurt (Jason Schwartzman, who's pretty much perfect in this role), a hipster-dad type who also has a young son. Kurt chats them up and invites them over for pizza night with him and his wife Charlotte (Judith Godreche). Alex and Emily are impressed by Kurt and Charlotte's artsy-bohemian lifestyle, and when Kurt and Charlotte suggest putting the boys to bed so that the adults can continue to have fun, they readily agree.

What's so great about The Overnight is that you can see what's coming a mile away (especially when Kurt brings out a giant bong, and then suggests the foursome skinny dip in their pool), but it still manages to surprise you by making sharp turns in directions you can't see coming at all. Yes, it's clear that Kurt and Charlotte were hoping for some sexy action when they invited the much more uptight Emily and Alex over, but exactly *what* they want is not what you might think.

I have to hand it to the actors: they are all in for this crazy ride, especially Scott, who typically plays nice, vanilla dudes. Halfway through the film, his character Alex reveals a deep shame he's been carrying around his whole life, and it's both eye-rollingly silly and deeply moving.

The Overnight can be uneven at times, swerving from silly to sexy and back again, but it's a LOT of fun and, hey, it's streaming on Netflix. Why don't you check it out? You know you're curious.

Grade: B+

***

Locke

Locke has a compelling premise, but is ultimately not as substantial or satisfying as I thought it'd be. It's like the movie equivalent of a bacon and peanut butter sandwich: you think, "now there's an intriguing idea!" but after you eat it, you're just like, "well, that was different, but a regular peanut butter and jelly sandwich would have been better."

Locke is a movie where a guy, Ivan Locke (Tom Hardy), drives around for an hour and a half making phone calls and trying to put to rights a few things he has majorly fucked up. Literally, that is the movie. A guy in a car making phone calls.

I'm going to put a Spoiler warning here in case you don't want to know any of the details of these phone calls before you see it.

We come to learn that Ivan Locke is a construction manager and it's the night before a *huge* job--a concrete pour that Locke is supposed to supervise. Only thing is, he can't be there because a woman he had a one night stand with is giving birth to his (two month premature) baby in London. Locke has decided that since no one else is there to be with her, he will. So he calls one of his underlings to supervise the pour for him. Said underling understandably freaks the fuck out.

Meanwhile, Locke is planning to tell his wife about this blessed turn of events over the fucking phone as he is driving to see the birth of his, well, not love child...wine and loneliness child, I suppose. Locke seems to have convinced himself that he's doing the right thing by dropping this fucking nuclear bomb on his wife over the phone. So there's that.

So, basically, this dude is juggling calls from wife, mistress, guy he's the boss of, and his own boss for the entire film, trying to stay in calm control while his life falls apart around him. He also occasionally talks to his "dad"--the empty backseat---berating the presumably dead old coot and telling him exactly how different a man he, Locke, will be. Unlike dear old dad, Locke will take responsibility for his actions!

It sounds pretty hackneyed, but it's actually not a bad movie. Locke really does make you pay attention, especially since it's an entirely dialogue based film. But the more I thought about it, the more I was like, really? The film seems to want to be a redemption movie: Locke is doing the right thing by telling his wife of his indiscretion, skipping the most important job of his career, and being there for the woman who is giving birth to his kid. But it also seems to suggest that he made the decision to do these things at the last possible minute/on a whim, suggesting that he hasn't actually learned anything or redeemed himself so much as just made a spontaneous, potentially career-and-marriage destroying move. Are we supposed to see Locke as a hero, or a guy trying to do his best? Because he's seems more like a fuckwit to me.

Tom Hardy is great in it though.

Grade: C

2015: The Best and the Rest

Movies: Best of

Hello, dear readers! 2015 was a superb year for film, and my top 11 list (10 plus one to grow on) include a wide range of genres. From subversive action films to tender love stories, from extreme violence to gentle lovemaking, it's all here!

With one exception: I have yet to see The Revenant. I wanted to wait to make this list until I saw Leo get mauled by a bear, but now that I'm buried under a ton of snow along with everyone else east of the Mississippi River, who the fuck knows when I'll be able to see it. Plus, it's practically tradition for me to miss one big Oscar bait movie before making my Best Of list--last year it was Birdman and the year before it was Zero Dark Thirty. I promise I will watch and review The Revenant, but sadly it will not be on this list.

Two of the films on this list are a bit sneaky, since they were *initially* released in 2014, but did not receive a release in the United States until 2015. But both of them are so good they clawed their way onto this list...and into my heart.

So please enjoy, The Best (and the Rest) of 2015!

***

11) The Diary of a Teenage Girl

Based on the graphic novel/memoir by Phoebe Gloeckner, The Diary of a Teenage Girl is an uncomfortable, very brave film that showcases the sexual awakening of 15 year old Minnie Goetze (played with wide-eyed beauty and a fuck you attitude by Bel Powley). Minnie is a creative, extremely smart young lady who begins to sleep with her mom's boyfriend, the 30 year old Monroe (Alexander Skarsgaard, perfectly cast as a handsome man with VERY flexible morals).

The film walks a razor thin line between honoring Minnie's self-determination while never celebrating what is obviously an unequal relationship between her and Monroe. So, Minnie is not raped or forced by Monroe--but it is never suggested that their relationship is OK.

What I liked most about The Diary of a Teenage Girl is that it focuses on Minnie's point of view. She is the main character and her choices, wise and unwise, are what this movie is about. I guess what I'm trying to say is that Minnie is not a victim, but the fact that she's sleeping with an older man is not eroticized either. The experience is not about HIM or any male viewers, it's about HER and the collective experiences of young women who struggle and gasp their way into womanhood on their own terms.


10) Star Wars: The Force Awakens

I had zero intention of seeing this movie when it first came out. I'm just not a Star Wars person. Never have been. But I ended up going and having a fucking great time. The Force Awakens may not be as emotionally complicated as the films I usually enjoy, but it's very fun and entertaining.

And I'm not going to lie: a mega blockbuster in a very old skool genre featuring a woman and a black man as the leads just makes me want to lick up some tasty tasty misogynist and racist tears. I'm sitting here like Mr. Burns going excellent, excellent at the dismay of racist and sexist dick weasels everywhere. And yes, people were actually mad about the diverse casting choices, although they are small minority of fools.

But I also really dug Han Solo's trademark snark, Adam Driver as emo Kylo Ren, and cute lil BB8. The Force Awakens is just a fun, pleasurable time at the movies.

9) Spotlight 

This intellectual drama has an ensemble cast where no one actor tries to upstage any of the others. Like the actual journalists on the Spotlight team at the Boston Globe who investigated and broke the story of rampant sexual abuse among Boston priests, the actors work together for the greater good.

Spotlight has emotional depth without being cloying. It also doesn't play into easy stereotypes about heroes and villains, pointing out that otherwise good people can and do ignore evil that is right under their nose. Think of Joe Paterno of Penn State. *He* didn't rape kids, but he knew it was going on and didn't do enough to stop it. Likewise, Cardinal Bernard Law, the Archbishop of Boston, knew of allegations of child abuse within the Catholic priesthood in his town. But instead of addressing the issue head-on, he simply shuffled the abusive priests around, thus affirming their criminal behavior.

It's ironic that in a country that is sometimes exceedingly protective of children (arresting parents for letting their kids play in the park alone, for example), so many people for the sake of maintaining a snow white faith in their church allowed the most devastating thing that could happen to a child occur again and again. My (perhaps biased?) beliefs--that people will allow unimaginable depravity in the name of religion/conformity/maintaining of a hierarchy--certainly were confirmed by the story behind this film. But my faith that human compassion and goodness ultimately wins out was also confirmed. Spotlight is an excellent film that shows how average people just doing their job can make all the difference in the world.

8) Room

I'm seeing a pattern among the films I enjoyed in 2015: sad and/or devastating, yet hopeful. Even some of the most depressing or violent movies I saw this year had flickers of hope and redemption. And this is especially true for Room. Based on the heartbreaking novel by Emma Donoghue (who also wrote the screenplay), Room is about a woman, Joy, who was kidnapped when she was about 17 and kept in a locked shed for 7 years. She has a 5 year old son, Jack, the product of near nightly rapes by her captor, "Old Nick". Joy has allowed Jack to believe that the entire universe is their little room, but he's getting to an age where cracks begin to form in this innocence-preserving fantasy. And that's when Joy decides to figure out a way to escape.

Room rests heavily on the shoulders of Brie Larson, who allows the character of Joy to be depressed and angry--not a "perfect victim"--and Jacob Tremblay, an amazing child actor. Room is as far away as one can get from the stereotypical "Lifetime movies" which cram complex and difficult subject matter into a clean narrative. Since half of Room takes place outside the titular room, once Joy and Jack make it out alive, the part where there should be a "happy ending" is actually the beginning of another struggle for Joy and Jack (Joy especially) as they reintegrate back into society.

Room is a tough movie, and I can only imagine it's tougher for people with children. But it also celebrates to bonds between mother and child and the life-affirming love one can bring the other.

7) What We Do in the Shadows

This is one of the "sneaky" movies I mentioned above that was released in 2014, but not in the US until 2015. But goddamn, this movie is so hilarious it had to make it onto my list. It was hands down the funniest movie I saw this year.

What We Do in the Shadows is a mockumentary that follows the day to day life of four vampires who are roommates in modern day New Zealand. They have to deal with issues such as divvying up household chores, picking up dinner (i.e. people they meet at clubs), and avoiding vampire hunters.

Directed by Jermaine Clement (from Flight of the Conchords) and Taika Waititi, the film is very quick-witted and sharp. It pokes generous fun at the tropes of vampire movies and books, such as when Viago (played by Waititi) says "I think we like to drink virgin's blood because it sounds cool", or the flamboyant Deacon (Jonny Brugh) explains, "When you becomes a vampire, you become very sexy."

What We Do in the Shadows is the perfect film for those who absolutely hated Twilight and its ilk, as well as for those who miss Flight of the Conchords.

6) The Hateful Eight 

As a Quentin Tarantino fan, I knew exactly what I was getting into when I saw The Hateful Eight. Another one of Tarantino's homages to western films, The Hateful Eight is nearly three hours long and takes place primarily in one room. It features a cast of characters so...well...hateful, I'm pretty sure the devil wouldn't allow them into hell. It features grandiose speeches and turns of phrase, as well as violence and cruelty out the wazoo. And damn if it wasn't a whole lot of fun!

Lead by Kurt Russell in an over the top performance as John "The Hangman" Ruth, on his way to Red Rock, Wyoming, to bring a lady criminal (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to justice, The Hateful Eight is very character and dialogue driven. The plot is pretty simple: eight strangers are forced by a blizzard to hunker down in Minnie's Haberdashery. Mistrust and tension run rampant, and it's not long before the violence begins.

Many people will find The Hateful Eight a little too hateful, and I don't blame them. But to me, Tarantino, for all his personal foibles, has always been a master storyteller who has a way of making you laugh in the face of humanity's darkest impulses.

5) It Follows

Perhaps the most original horror film I've seen in years, It Follows is infused with a sense of dread. The film takes place in the suburbs of Detroit in a decade that doesn't exist. What I mean by this is that there are CRT televisions and polaroid cameras that suggest the mid-1980's, as well as strange mobile devices that suggest post-2015. But the time period is irrelevant.

Jay, a young woman in her late teens, has sex with Hugh, a slightly older guy from out of town. After they fuck in his car, Hugh reveals a terrible secret to her: he has passed along a curse. A supernatural being, which can take the form of anybody, from a close friend to an old lady, will follow Jay at a walking pace until it catches and kills her. In a literal sense, she can run but can't hide. And the only way to get rid of the curse is to sleep with someone else. BUT if that someone else is caught and killed by the thing, the curse reverts back to Jay, and then to Hugh, all the way back to the very beginning.

This is all the information we get in It Follows, but it's plenty. Because this thing walks at a steady pace, the film plays with our sense of what and who is safe. We constantly scan the screen for the thing (and, trust me, the first time someone in real life walks steadily in your direction after you see this movie, you will be unnerved). Just like Paranormal Activity used camera work to create a tense and paranoid atmosphere, so does It Follows, using tricks, such as rotating the camera 365 degrees multiple times to allow us a glimpse of what might or might not be this thing, slowly getting closer and closer.

By taking some cliched horror tropes (people who have sex in horror movies die) and turning them on their head, director David Robert Mitchell's crafts a fresh and distinctly unique tale of teens in peril.

4) Brooklyn

Unlike many of the films on this list, Brooklyn is nearly 100% sweetness and light, but in a genuine and comforting way. Based on the novel by Colm Toibin, Brooklyn is about a young, Irish girl, Eilis (played by the luminous Saoirse Ronan) who travels to America to get a job and an education in the early 1950's. She falls in love with a young, Italian man, Tony (Emory Cohen) who woos her with a gentle, blue-collar, masculine sweetness. But when Eilis receives bad news from home, she has to travel back to Ireland, and the pressure to stay there is overwhelming.

While Brooklyn features a love triangle (Eilis is wooed by a wealthy, handsome Irish man when she returns home), it's less about which boy she will choose and more about which version of "home" she will choose: the comfort and familiarity of the Emerald Isle, or the excitement and freedom of the Big Apple. Eilis finds herself at a fork in the road of her life: which future will she choose?

There are a lot of great movies on this list, and obviously I didn't rank Brooklyn as my pick for "the best"; but it really stuck with me in a way that many of the other films didn't. It's so rare to find a gentle film that's not also saccharin. As much as I love violent, depraved films (see The Hateful Eight), I also love movies that tap into the kind, calm, loving side of humanity. Brooklyn is old-fashioned, but not in a prudish way. It's a period piece that taps into the timeless struggles about love, growing up, and finding independence that people faced both back then and today.

3) Carol

Directed by Todd Haynes, Carol is nothing less than a masterpiece. Haynes has built his career on making films that are queer-friendly and also gorgeous. Check out Velvet Goldmine or Far From Heaven for proof.

But Carol might be his most deliberate, controlled, and emotionally intricate film yet. Gone is the flashiness of Velvet Goldmine and the melodrama of Far From Heaven, and what is left is a cinematically beautiful love story of two women in the early 1950's.

Based on the novel The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith, Carol is about an older, wealthy woman (Cate Blanchett, never more classically beautiful with depths of sadness under her perfect lipstick) who falls for a younger shopgirl, Therese (Rooney Mara, channeling Audrey Hepburn). But Carol is in the middle of a divorce and custody battle with her husband, Harge (Kyle Chandler), who is using access to their daughter to try and control Carol. Carol is forced not just to choose between a relationship with Therese and seeing her daughter, but between living a life that is untrue and being herself, yet suffering for it.

I care a lot about gay rights, although I'm not gay myself. Carol is a film that speaks to me because it makes every effort to humanize gay women during a time when being gay was seen as a mental illness and a crime. I wrote in my review of the movie of the tendency for anti-gay rights people to find ways, large and small, to ignore the humanity of gay people and to see love between gay people as somehow fundamentally different than love between straight people. It simply is not different, and Carol reveals this through the many small gestures and intimate moments shared by the two leads.

2) Mad Max: Fury Road

More than any movie this year, Mad Max upended my expectations. In fact, it sent my expectations tits over ass if you will. At this point, fucking everyone from your grandma to your 10 year old nephew knows about Mad Max: Fury Road and how its mix of kinetic energy, apocalyptic-steampunk costuming, and feminist subtext (or maybe just text, period) exploded our ideas of what an "action movie" could be. Mad Max is proof that action movies don't have to be tedious macho dick-swinging contests! Praise the risen Lord!

Although the title is "Mad Max", the film should really be titled "Furious Furiosa and Mad Max" since the two share main character status (with Furiosa probably edging out Max by a smidgen). Max, played with a low growl by Tom Hardy, spends the first third of the film tied to the front of a car as a "blood bag" for Nux (Nicolas Holt), a war boy of the Citadel. The war boys are chasing Furiosa (Charlize Theron) though the desert, as she has gone rogue and smuggled five of Immortan Joe's (the despot of the Citadel) prized wives out of the Citadel.

The entire movie is one long car chase. But it is the most amazing car chase you will ever see in your life. Like A Clockwork Orange, Mad Max: Fury Road is filmed in English, but has a unique dialect and turns of phrase. Things aren't "good", they're "shiny". There's a Shakespearean element to this film and its unique world-building.

And, also, just like Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Mad Max: Fury Road made misogynists cry because there was a strong female lead character in a film within a very masculine genre. And y'all know how I love my films served with a side of schadenfreude from my enemies. The tears of the "Men's Rights Activists" are shiny! And Chrome!

1) The Duke of Burgundy

And here's the other sneaky film, that was released in January 2015 and thus made it onto this list by a hair. But The Duke of Burgundy is...how do I put it? Transcendent. Beautiful. Different. It is everything I've wanted in a movie: beauty, sex, visuals, music. It's a work of fucking art. And for all the films I saw this year and loved (and there were many of them), The Duke of Burgundy is a film I will not forget.

Directed by Peter Strickland, The Duke of Burgundy takes place somewhere at sometime in a world that doesn't really exist. It looks vaguely European and vaguely 1960's-ish, but it's world that doesn't have men or children in it, only women mid 20's and older. I think Stickland's goal in setting this film in such a world was to purposefully strip away the idea of gender so that the audience could focus on the relationship between two women, Evelyn and Cynthia, with no stereotypes or frames of reference to get in the way.

Evelyn and Cynthia have a BDSM relationship, in which Evelyn is the submissive and Cynthia the dominant. Cynthia wears an expression of harsh dismissiveness as she coldly commands Evelyn to scrub her floors and wash her underwear, only to inevitably find a small error and punish Evelyn in humiliating ways. But, as we get deeper into the plot, we realize that Evelyn is designing the scripts for Cynthia to follow and it is Cynthia who feels out of place in her role as tough mistress.

Not unlike Carol, or, for that matter, Room, The Duke of Burgundy is a film about a relationship between two people, and the sacrifices one makes for love. Interestingly, The Duke of Burgundy is not salacious at all, despite being about a sadomasochistic relationship. There's no nudity and very little sex. It's not all that different from Secretary, another BDSM love story, in that rituals play a huge role in the characters' lives. But it delves more deeply and, in my opinion, realistically into what it could mean to meet your partner in the middle.

Not to mention to mind-explodingly beautiful soundtrack, visuals, and costumes.

The Duke of Burgundy feels so personal to me. Like falling in love, it's not about finding hundreds of lovers, it's about finding one that fits. In this way, I'm glad that not many people will seek out and watch this movie, because on some level I feel like it belongs to me.

***

Worst movie I saw this year:

It's a tie! Fifty Shades of Grey and Trumbo were both tedious and boring. Fifty Shades had the added bonus of being offensive and rape-y, but it was also sexier than Trumbo. Both films also win an award for shittiest performance: Jamie Dornan in a dead-eyed, wooden performance as Christian Grey in Fifty Shades and Louis C.K. in a "what the fuck is Louis C.K. doing in this movie" performance as Arlen Hird in Trumbo.

I think I gave Fifty Shades an even "C" and Trumbo a "C+" in my original reviews, though I'd probably downgrade Trumbo to a "C". My grading scale is a bit skewed in that anything under a "B" essentially means I didn't care for it, since my reviews skew positive. I did see some "D" movies this year on Netflix, but I'll stick with the stuff I actually paid to see in the theater as the worst.

Other notable films and my brief opinions on them:

Magic Mike XXL: Not as good as the first one, but still weirdly feminist; Joe Manganiello's dance number involving a bondage swing = best scene of the year.

The Martian: Not as good as everyone thought it was; great soundtrack tho.

Trainwreck: Movie I watched most often while drunk this year.

The Danish Girl: So-so movie; Eddie Redmayne is fucking hot even though he looks, as a friend pointed out, like Kermit the Frog.

Love and Mercy: John Cusack was weird in this movie; great soundtrack; Beach Boys forever!


That's all, folks! Join me in 2016 for more movies!

A Lonely Life

Movies: Anomalisa

My enjoyment of this strange film, directed by Duke Johnson and Charlie Kaufman, was heightened by a review I read of it ahead of time that explained more deeply what the film was all about. I'll discuss that below, but first I'll give a basic overview of the plot for those who want to see it with a relatively blank slate.

Anomalisa is about a man, Michael Stone (David Thewlis), who travels to a hotel in Cinncinati, Ohio to give a presentation on good customer service. He appears to depressed and simply going through the motions. He has a vague plan to meet up with an ex-girlfriend (although he's married). The audience catches on sooner or later that something is off about all the people Michael interacts with. In fact, they all have the same voice (Tom Noonan)--both men and women, including Michael's son and wife.

Did I forget to mention that the characters are stop-motion puppets? This is an important fact.

So Michael is slogging through his weekend, when he hears a voice in the hallway outside his hotel room. It's a woman's voice, and an unremarkable one, but it's different. Michael near about has a heart attack as he races down the hall to find out who this voice belongs to. Turns out, it belongs to Lisa (Jennifer Jason Leigh), who is at the hotel with her friend to see Michael speak about customer service.

Wife and son be damned, Michael falls as far deep in love as someone can within two minutes of meeting someone else. He is convinced that something is *different* about Lisa, and she pulls him right out of his funk. The world is a beautiful place again.

Ok, I'm going to talk about some potential spoilers below, so if you want to see this movie as blankly as possible, stop reading and rest assured that Anomalisa is a beautiful, though melancholy film. If you're a fan of Charlie Kaufman's work you probably know what you're in for: Anomalisa shares the soul of his other films (as writer), such as Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

***

But, as I said, my appreciation was heightened by knowing a little more about what this film might mean, simply beyond its exploration of the human desire to seek novelty.

Michael stays in a hotel called the Fregoli. There is a medical disorder called "Fregoli's delusion" in which the sufferer believes that different people around him/her are in fact the same person, but disguised. As I mentioned above, all the puppets in this film are voiced by the same actor, Tom Noonan, except for Michael and Lisa. All the other puppets also have the same flat eyes. Whether Michael is supposed to actually be suffering from this disorder, or if the film is simply a metaphor, is never explained...but I felt more compassion for Michael knowing about Fregoli's delusion and empathizing with how terrifying and/or isolating it must be to think that everyone around you is exactly the same. It made me sympathize with him when he plans, within hours of knowing Lisa, to leave his wife and child for her.

But the film does not have a happy ending, at least not for Michael. After a heartfelt night spent with Lisa (yes, there is puppet sex), Michael realizes that her voice is starting to change...she's becoming like the rest of them. He returns home, depressed once again. But Lisa has changed. Thinking of herself as unremarkable--even ugly--the time she spent with Michael, who practically worshipped her, has changed her outlook on life and herself. This distinct mixture of happiness and sadness is practically a trademark of Kaufman--think about the ending of Being John Malkovich, which finds deep sadness for the main protagonist, but happiness for some of the other characters. Or think of Eternal Sunshine, which has, for my money, one of the greatest and truest endings of a love story: when Clementine and Joel *know* they will grow to resent each other and, literally, say "Ok".

Anomalisa is like these other films--truly different without coming off as gimmicky. And truly poignant--i.e. too sad to be happy, but too hopeful to be devastating. It's a complicated film, and though it doesn't have the rewatchability factor that other Kaufman films have, it was well worth the ride.

Grade: A-

Dirty Deeds

Movies: The Hateful Eight

Well, I don't even know where to begin with The Hateful Eight, the eighth film by Quentin Tarantino (as a title card reminds us at the beginning of the film). The Hateful Eight might well be *THE* Quentin Tarantino film, as chock full as it is with extreme violence, ugliness, profanity that would make your grandmother faint, racially-charged dialogue (Tarantino LOVES the n-word; more on that later) and characters with zero redeeming qualities (with the exception of their clever ways with words). And, despite the gore and depravity, when the lights came up at the end of the film, everyone in the theatre was laughing. That's the ol' Tarantino fairy dust--he takes the sickest stuff imaginable and gets you to laugh at it.

If you're not a Tarantino fan, you're certainly not going to like The Hateful Eight, which is a locked-room mystery in which a group of (you guessed it) eight people end up snowed in at "Minnie's Haberdashery" (a general store type place) during a blizzard in post-Civil War Wyoming. The characters include John "The Hangman" Ruth (Kurt Russell), a bounty hunter known for always bringing his bounty in alive in order to watch them hang. His bounty this time is one Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a murderess who spits and swears and looks about as clean as a gutter rat. Along with these two is Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson), a black Major who fought for the North and is now also a bounty hunter, bringing dead bodies to Red Rock (John and Daisy's destination as well). When they get waylaid by the storm, they hole up in Minnie's Haberdashery along with 5 other men (Bruce Dern, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Walton Goggins, and Demian Bichir).

This cast of characters are all highly distrustful of one another. John Ruth is paranoid about someone trying to make off with his bounty--and the $10,000 award on her head--while Major Warren realizes that some of the men in the room fought on the Confederate side during the war. In fact, the Civil War could be considered the ninth character in the room. I mentioned that Tarantino has a fixation on the n-word. I suppose he has a certain amount of plausible deniability with this film, given that it (as well as Django Unchained) is a "period picture", but trust me, 12 Years a Slave this is not, and the word is used excessively and with great glee. My morals are pretty flexible when it comes to enjoying good art created by bad people, and Tarantino's entitled, boneheaded comments about race seem downright angelic compared to the slew of filmmakers and celebrities who have, y'know, raped kids and what not, but the racial themes in The Hateful Eight are very ugly. However, the entire film is very ugly and also...goddamnit..really, really good. So, anyone with a heart who also likes Tarantino's style will undoubtedly feel conflicted.

The first half of the 167 minute film sets up the premise and the second half devolves into a typical Tarantino-style bloodbath. By "Tarantino-style", I meant that the violence is 1) cartoonish (pretty sure heads don't literally explode when you shoot them) and 2) peppered with long bouts of humorous and clever dialogue. You might be wondering at this point why I liked this movie, but it's exactly what I signed up for. Tarantino is, in my opinion, a fantastically gifted storyteller. The Hateful Eight is nearly 3 hours long, and takes its good old time getting started, but it never felt boring or slow. At least not for me. Once the characters are trapped in the haberdashery, the tension is ratcheted up slowly, inch by inch, with moments that feel almost peaceful, before all hell breaks loose. Certain characters are not who they seem. Characters who you once rooted for or thought might be "the good guy" turn out to be pretty fucking horrible. Characters with no power suddenly have it and characters with an abundance of power suddenly lose it.

The Hateful Eight pushes your psychological buttons, as well as your emotional and visceral ones. If there is one feeling you will feel during the movie, it is a sense of disgust. And, weirdly, it's a pleasurable sense of disgust--you can't look away. Maybe I'm just a horrible person (if so, a bunch of my Tarantino-loving friends are as well, I guess), but I really enjoyed this movie while also feeling like it sucker punched me.

I also want to make sure I mention the AMAZING score by Ennio Morricone which adds so, so much to the atmosphere of the movie. Just like the gory, bloody scenes, the music worms its way into a dark part of your brain and unnerves you as much as it fascinates you.

I highly recommend The Hateful Eight to Tarantino fans. It's not my personal favorite of his films (Inglourious Basterds is probably my favorite by a hair), but it's good. Just be prepared that when I say this is possibly QT's most violent film, I don't think I'm stretching the truth.

But for those out there reading this who are squeamish with violence, sensitive to profanity, and just like movies to be fun and relaxing (no judgement here! I like fun, relaxing movies too!), I recommend you stay far away from this bleak, blood-soaked tale.

Grade: A

Between Women

Movies: Carol

In the grand scheme of things, times change so quickly. In June of this year, the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage is now legal in all 50 states. Queer people still face battles large and small, but this particular victory in gay rights is a sword through the heart of hate. Love actually did win.

Todd Haynes' film Carol takes place in 1951-1952. That's 63 years ago. Not really all that long. Yet for gay men and women who lived during this time, it may as well have been centuries in the past. People who expressed same sex desire during this time could be sent to prison, locked away in mental institutions, lose their families and children, and worse. But gay people then, as now, were not monsters or criminals. They were just people. People lucky enough to be able to fall in love.

I remember reading letters to the editor in the newspaper about 10 years ago, when wars were being waged all over the country against gay marriage. It occurred to me that opponents of gay marriage have a way of referring to gay people--"gays", "those people", etc. And I had a youthful "aha" moment when I realized that the problem was that they didn't see gay people as people. This revelation is not exactly a shock when you consider the history of hate and violence--slaves were not seen as people, Jews were not seen as people, women were not considered people. And this ability for us to dehumanize one another is what leads to all the things in the world which we find so appalling. We all struggle with prejudice, but dehumanization takes fear and hate to the next level.

What Carol accomplishes so beautifully is portraying its lead characters as people first. Two women, one older, very wealthy, and self-knowing, the other younger, not as wealthy, and not as sure of herself, fall in love. And that love is portrayed so realistically: not as intense, fiery passion from word go, but almost calmly. As if it's just meant to be. As if it's the most natural thing in the world. When Carol (Cate Blanchett) asks Therese (Rooney Mara), a woman she only just met a few days ago, to visit her at her home and spend the day with her, Therese doesn't hesitate to say yes. When Carol later asks Therese to drive across the country with her during Christmastime, simply to get away from it all, Therese says yes again. I've only experienced love a few times in my life, but when I did, the saying yes was always easy. Why wouldn't I spend time with this person?

But because the time is 1952 and Carol is married (to a guy named "Harge", which is a real name apparently) and has a daughter, things can't be easy. Harge and Carol are divorcing. Harge knows that Carol likes women because she had an affair with a close friend of hers a few years before. When he sees her with Therese, he realizes that this his wife's interests are not a one-off. And so, he forces her hand by threatening to take full custody of their daughter Rindy (another actual name, apparently!).

But Carol is a film that uses hope, not tragedy, as its guiding light. Carol and Therese are threatened by societal forces they can't control, yet they are drawn to each other with an inevitable magnetism. I think of all the people throughout history who fell in love with people they weren't supposed to be with...and...were with them anyway, despite heavy consequences. And I am awed by that. The bravery it takes to be yourself. To be with people, whether friends or lovers, who you actually want to be with and share yourself with.

Carol is a delicate, finely crafted film that is...perhaps you could call it "feminine",in its attention to detail and intricacies. The costumes are sublime. The acting is subtle, yet on point. The soundtrack non-intrusive, yet present at the right moments. Carol is, undeniably, a work of art. But more than a work of art, it is a homage--not just to love between women, but to the love and honor and dignity of being yourself.

Grade: A+

Amazon Prime/Netflix Binge, pt. 1

Movies, TV: Ex Machina, While We're Young, Phoenix, Black Mirror

Tis' the season to stay inside every night, Netflixin' and chillin'. Here are some movies and TV I've watched on Netflix and Amazon Prime recently.

***

Ex Machina

Ex Machina is perhaps most notable for its threesome of on-the-verge stars: Oscar Isaac, Domhnall Gleeson, and Alicia Vikander, who are now well on their way to being in every fucking movie ever (especially Gleeson, who's had four big roles in 2015 alone).

Isaac plays Nathan, the founder of a Google-esque company. He recruits Caleb (Gleeson), a rather naive, if extremely smart in that annoying white guy way, employee of his to perform the Turing test on Nathan's top secret creation: a robot named Ava (Vikander). The test is particularly interesting because Ava *looks* like a robot, with a midsection filled with wires and a beautiful female face. Nathan wants to see if Caleb can overlook the obvious to determine whether or not Ava has a will of her own.

SPOILERS

Yo dawg, Ava manipulates both of them, killing Nathan and using Caleb to escape Nathan's luxury compound (trapping Caleb inside). Frankly, both of those dum-dums deserved it, so I'm calling this one a happy ending.

/SPOILERS

There's a lot of potential here. For example, why did Nathan create not just a female-appearing robot, but a beautiful one? Do you think he sees women as things?? (probably). And Caleb probably sees women as things too, since clearly he can see that Ava is 100% 'bot, yet still crushes on her anyway.

The film is not terrible, but it could have gone much deeper, both intellectually and emotionally. Instead, it moves away from the realm of ideas--materialism, gender, the singularity, etc--and into the easy route of scary/sexy robot movie.

Grade: C+

***

While We're Young

Noah Bambauch is a very talented filmmaker. So talented, in fact, that his film, While We're Young, which is a 1.5 hour long straw man argument against Millennials, manages to be entertaining and sweet even though it paints both young and "old" people with a broad brush.

Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts play Josh and Cornelia, a married couple in their early-mid 40's. They are upper middle-class, white, well-educated, and live in New York City. Their friend, also in their early 40's just had their first baby, which is a very middle-class, urban thing to do.

Josh and Cornelia feel a bit stuck--they are growing older, yet they don't connect 100% with their peers. Enter Jamie and Darby (Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried), a married couple in their mid-20's who are auditing a film class taught by Josh at a local university. Josh is drawn to the young, painfully stereotypically Millennial couple (Darby's career is making her own ice cream, not for the money, but because she "loves it"). Cornelia is a little more reserved.

Jamie and Josh become friends very quickly and Josh offers to help Jamie direct a documentary film.  But Josh becomes suspicious of Jamie, who reveals his conniving and ambitious nature and his willingness to stretch the truth for a good storyline in the doc.

My main beef with the movie is how stereotypically hipster Darby and Jamie are (they watch VHS tapes, for crying out loud!). It's like Bambauch didn't even try to be subtle about it. I do love how, in Bambauch's vision of the world, Jamie's ambition via being a liar and a cheat is a failure of character unique to young people. Fucking LOL. Old people are just as likely (if not MORE likely) to be dirty little fucking liars as young people!  Bambauch, you big ol' crank, your age lines are showing.

However, Josh's distress at realizing he was used and manipulated by Jamie gives the film a much-needed dose of real, human emotion. In a scene near the end of the film where he confronts Jamie he even says "I loved you". Which is a pretty baller statement for a man to say to another man with zero intent of romantic attraction. What Josh really means is that he loved what Jamie represented: sincerity, creativity, and the freedom of having most of your life ahead of you instead of behind you. To have that revealed as phony would be genuinely devastating.

Overall, I think While We're Young is actually one of Bambauch's more positive and accessible films, compared to some of his earlier stuff like Margot at the Wedding and The Squid and the Whale. I thought it was a funny, enjoyable film...but it would have been better if he had written Jamie and Darby to be slightly less cartoonish in their youthful, hip ways. But then again, I don't live in New York. Maybe that's how twenty-somethings actually are there.

Grade: B

***

Phoenix

Phoenix, a modest, quiet film by Christian Petzold, received rave reviews this year, with a 98% on Rotten Tomatoes. It's the story of Nelly Lenz, a concentration camp survivor disfigured by a bullet to the face, who returns to Germany after the war to receive facial reconstruction surgery and to seek out her husband, Johnny. Her friend, Lene, who nurses Nelly back to health, is convinced that Johnny betrayed Nelly to the Nazis. But Nelly still carries a torch for him.

When she does find Johnny, he doesn't recognize her...although he tells her she looks "similar" to his wife, whom he believes died in the camps. Not knowing that Nelly really is his wife, he encourages her to dress and act like Nelly so that they can pretend she survived the camps, receive her inheritance from her dead relatives, and split the money. Nelly agrees to this scheme, while refusing to believe that Johnny betrayed her.

While Phoenix was a really good film, I didn't connect with it all that much. Actress Nina Hoss does an excellent job of playing Nelly as a shell-shocked victim in recovery. She is stiff, quiet, and emotionally walled off. Her physical appearance changes from bandaged to bruised to disheveled to beautiful, and she's certainly not afraid to look "ugly". Actor Ronald Zehrfeld as Johnny is not quite as good. It's hard to get a handle on what this guy's motivation is--is he a coward? Is he greedy? Does he still love his wife? Did he never care for her at all?

Phoenix, though good, is ultimately as impenetrable and distant as Nelly herself.

Grade B

***

Black Mirror: White Christmas

I binged my way through Black Mirror, the cultish "British Twilight Zone" TV series, during December 2014 like many other pop culture fanatics, and was very excited to watch Black Mirror's sick version of a "Christmas special" when it popped up on Netflix a couple weeks ago. I was not disappointed.

Starring Jon Hamm, a Good and Hot Actor, the 73 minute episode plays out in an isolated cabin in the dead of winter. Hamm plays Matt, who draws out Potter (Rafe Spall), the introverted, sulky coworker he shares the cabin with (what their job entails is never explained), by telling him stories about his life before the cabin. He then asks Potter to share what brought him to the cabin as well.

Most Black Mirror episodes take place in a not too distant future where technology has given humans the opportunity to do great things...and also fuck ourselves horrible...and this ep is no different. I won't go into any details, but White Christmas feel akin to the episodes "The Entire History of You", in which people use otherwise cool technology to do stupid shit and torture themselves, and "White Bear", in which technology is used to punish wrongdoers (and usually the punishment is WAY harsher than the crime). White Christmas includes both tech that is cool but that we would ultimately regret using and tech-as-punishment as well.

Black Mirror is pretty tech phobic, although it's always the people who use the tech who are the authors of their own and others' suffering. It's like the saying "Guns don't kill people, people kill people." In the case of Black Mirror, technology evolves more quickly than humanity does, thus we, a selfish, hypocritical, sadistic people use technology to make ourselves and others miserable. White Christmas, like the other episodes of the series, hits all those uncomfortable, tragic spots. It's classy, intellectual pessimism.

Grade: A-

Other Stuff I Need to Review

Movies and TV: Sisters, Hunger Games, Master of None, The Fall

Here are a few short reviews of some movies and TV shows I've watched recently.


Sisters

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are like chocolate and peanut butter: two great tastes that taste great together. On their own, they've done amazing things. They've each written excellent memoirs and starred in critically acclaimed TV shows. They've also made an effort to mentor young women in comedy and make sure that "feminist" is not a dirty word. Also, Amy Poehler once basically told Jimmy Fallon to fuck off, which makes her a goddess in my book. Jimmy Fallon. Ugh.

So, I was mildly disappointed that Sisters wasn't quite as good as I feel it could have been. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't bad. But with the bar set so extremely high for both comedians it was almost destined to not live up to the hype.

Fey and Poehler play--you guessed it--sisters. Fey is Kate, the older, wilder, and less responsible sister and Poehler is Maura, the younger, dorkier, more conscientious sister. When Kate and Maura find out that their elderly parents (played gamely by James Brolin and Dianne Wiest) are selling the family home and moving into a retirement community, the sisters freak out...and then decide to throw one last rager at the house and invite all their friends from high school.

Things get predictably wild. Maura begs Kate to be the "party mom" and stay sober so that she, Maura, can get crunk for once. Maura also has a crush on a neighbor (Ike Barinholtz) and she invites him to the party in the hopes of getting laid in her childhood bedroom (nothing screams "orgasm" like fucking on a twin bed surrounded by your childhood toys).

John Cena makes an appearance as a drug dealer who is, because he is John Cena, the size of a red oak. He definitely brought the funny in the few scenes he was in.

People get insanely drunk. Drugs are taken. Friendships mended. Lessons learned. The house destroyed. A ballerina figurine ends up in someone's butthole, which would warrant a trip to the emergency room in real life, but in the film only brings two lovers closer together in the intimacy of the moment.

Sisters is entertaining and mildly funny, but for Fey and Poehler, it's solidly in the 50-60th percentile of their accomplishments.

Grade:C+

***

Hunger Games: Mockingjay--pt. 2

I hate reviewing these Hunger Games movies because there's so much damn plot to cover. Look, if you've seen the fourth and final installment in the Hunger Games series, I'm gonna assume you're a big fan and don't need any plot description.

The 4th movie I'd say is my 2nd favorite of the film series (I only read the first book, which I know sounds insane to y'all Hunger Games fans. I only read the first Harry Potter book too! Bwahahahah!). My fave was the second movie--Catching Fire. My least fave was the third movie--Mockingjay pt. 1--because it was so damn pointless. They easily could have made Mockingjay into one, perhaps slightly long, film. The second half is where all the action happens, when Katniss and co. infiltrate the Capitol and have to dodge all these crazy booby traps. There are some pretty violent deaths here and some dark and morally ambiguous shit. If you read my blog regularly, you know that I love me some movie violence and ambiguous morals, so I was on board!

Also, as much as I hate to admit it, I begrudgingly see why Peeta is a better match in the long run for Katniss. I loved Gale because 1) he's hot and 2) he struck me as more of an equal to Katniss. But we all know that Gale is party to some pretty awful shit in this movie, so Katniss ultimately falls in love with Peeta. Also, I'm not going to lie--I like when "beta males" get paired with alpha ladies, and Peeta is pretty much the poster boy for betas.

I only wish there had been significantly more Haymitch in this movie. Haymitch is the best.

Grade: B

***

Master of None

There are plenty of comedians who speak for older Millennials (folks in their late 20's and early 30's), but none with quite the flavor of Aziz Ansari. Ansari has a very distinct voice and viewpoint--he is relentlessly optimistic, but not naive. He's insightful without being pedantic. He's equally likely to exclaim "dang it!" as he is "fuck!" (I am a huge fan of what I call "realistic swearing" in film and TV. One of my greatest pet peeves is when people swear "unrealistically" in movies and TV. It has nothing to do with the *amount* of swears, but rather *how* people use the swears). He just has something that other comedians don't, and his Netflix series Master of None proves it.

Master of None is as close to a perfect show--well, a perfect comedy--as I can think of. Every episode is laugh out loud funny, but also sweet (but not in that saccharine Modern Family way). It's a very rewatchable show. It has weird little quirks (Paro! Turtle climbing out of briefcase!  Lil Funyuns!) that you can say to your friends and they instantly know what you mean.

The plots of the episodes speak to the immediate zeitgeist (Texting is annoying! Uber! Finding the perfect taco!) but also to universal and timeless issues (We love our parents but they are also annoying! Racism is bad!).

Master of None has a few slight imperfections. Occasionally, the moral of the story is "told" rather than "shown", and I've discussed the show with people who think that this is realistic to the way Millennials talk and process events, and also with people who disagree and think it's not realistic. Also, I wasn't a huge fan of the Claire Danes episode.

But other than that, this show is fucking tight. A fuckin' plus.

Grade: A+

***

The Fall

And here's another awesome series I blasted through in about a week.

The Fall is a British TV series about a serial murderer, Paul Spector (Jamie Dornan, aka Mr. Grey, in his element as a twisted killer of women), and a Detective Superintendent, Stella Gibson (Gillian Anderson, who is the absolute tits) chasing him down. To say that Spector is a murderer is not a spoiler, as we see him kill a woman in either the first or second episode. The Fall is not a whodunnit, it's a cat-and-mouse game with the world's most lethal mouse.

The great thing about The Fall is how deeply it delves into the psychology of both Spector and Gibson. Spector is a husband and father, who appears capable of deep love for his children, even as he plans his intricate and sexually motivated murders of women. It's very uncomfortable to see killers as human and not monsters, but to dismiss all violent criminals as not-human is to refuse to confront the darkness that resides in literally everyone.

Stella Gibson is an equally interesting character. She's undoubtedly a strong, intelligent woman. She is cold, methodical, and ferociously competent about 85% of the time. But those few times that Spector or others get under her skin, she reveals vulnerability and warmth underneath.

The Fall calls out misogyny in a straightforward and unflinching manner. In a confrontation over the phone at the end of season 1, Gibson tells Spector that the reason he does what he does is not, as Spector argues, about the power. It's about hate. He hates women, plain and simple. Many criminal procedurals delve into the motivations behind murder (The Fall does this too, revealing that Spector had a less than ideal upbringing), but Gibson's no nonsense take on Spector's ultimate driving force--having zero empathy for the women he kills and a contempt for women in general--is a breath of fresh air.

There is some very intense (not necessarily gorey, but emotionally intense) violence in this show. If you are sensitive to that, stay away. But if you like intellectual crime shows with great acting, I highly recommend The Fall.

Grade: A

Star Struck

Movies: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens

This review requires some background information about my relationship with the Star Wars franchise: i.e. that no such relationship, other than a basic knowledge, exists.

I saw A New Hope in theaters when it was re-released in the 1990's and demanded my parents buy a box set of all three Star Wars films on VHS. I promptly didn't watch them. I didn't see The Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi until...I think it was 2011-ish. I watched them with a friend who was so into Star Wars that she dragged me to the 3D re-release of The Phantom Menace. Which I fell asleep during (although no one can blame me for that). I also watched the Star Wars Holiday Special around this time, which is one of the most hilarious things I've ever seen. Star Wars Holiday Special just might be my favorite of the Star Wars movies (it counts as canon!!).

So, as you can see, my interest in the Star Wars films is very slim. I had zero intention of seeing The Force Awakens because...why? People said it was an important cultural moment. But if you are thoroughly disinterested in baseball, would you watch the World Series just because it's "important"?

But yesterday I went and saw The Force Awakens with my parents and damn if I didn't thoroughly enjoy it.

A couple things I think helped my enjoyment of it:

1) It uses simple storytelling

My fear going in is that I would get totally lost trying to follow the plot. I'm really bad at following two genres of films: science-fiction and heist movies (fuck Ocean's Eleven, by the way). And with the added confusion of weird names, numerous planets, and crazy weapons, I thought I would be a goner.

But The Force Awakens is an incredibly simple film. First Order vs. The Resistance. A map to Luke Skywalker. Kylo Ren is Han and Leia's kid (spoiler? Y'all probably already saw the movie). These basic aspects of the plot are repeated throughout so that even a 7 year old can follow the film, which is exactly the point. The movie also focuses on action rather than complicated intergalactic politics. It was pure popcorn fun, but with...

2) A little bit of emotion

Just as I found myself genuinely touched by Harry Potter's realization in The Prisoner of Azkaban that the figure creating a Patronus spell he thought was his father was actually Harry himself, I have to say that the whole emo Kylo Ren plot in The Force Awakens got to me. Come on, when he (spoiler) kills Han!? That's some cold shit. Full disclosure: I fucking love Adam Driver. The dude is like the epitome of a guy who seems both dangerous and vulnerable. Like he might slip a roofie into your drink, but he's just as likely to curl up into your arms for a hug. Good choice on casting, there, JJ Abrams. Driver's Kylo Ren is pathetic and despicable, but also oddly sympathetic. Instead of a Byronic hero, he's a Byronic villain.

The Force Awakens isn't a drama, but it has enough emotion to make you invested in the characters and their fate.

3) A black dude and a woman are the main characters 

THANK YOU. According to a recent survey, the number of lead and secondary female roles has actually dropped in the past ten years. Things are even worse for black characters, many of whom are relegated to films aimed specifically at black audiences (which isn't a bad thing, but it'd be nice for more racial diversity in films that are meant to appeal to all demographics). But The Force Awakens took a bet on casting a white woman (Daisy Ridley as Rey) and a black man (John Boyega as Finn) as the main characters. And that bet paid off. Ridley and Boyega are fucking excellent and, frankly, the diversity just makes sense in the Star Wars universe, which is populated not just by a diversity of humans, but a diversity of species.

Some folks complained about the fact that Lupita Nyong'o, the talented Kenyan actress who starred as Patsey in 12 Years a Slave, was cast as an otherworldly creature (Maz) in The Force Awakens, and I totally get that beef since there is a long history in media of depicting black women as exotic creatures. However I think that the diverse casting in The Force Awakens (in addition to Charlize Theron's lead role in this summer's Mad Max) portends really good things for women and people of color in genres that normally exclude or pigeonhole them.

***

There are many other things I enjoyed about The Force Awakens (howsabout that music during the bar scene at Maz's...written by Lin-Manuel Miranda!), but I think you all get the picture. I may never be a full-blown Star Wars fangirl, but I can say that The Force Awakens brought me over to the light side...at least a little bit.

Grade: A

Emo Kylo Ren: "I don't really want to read Atlas Shrugged but Hux says it's a must."