Zola
Zola is the first movie I saw in a movie theatre since 2020's Emma! And while it's not a film that *needs* to be seen on a big screen, it was a good movie to welcome me back to theatres (for now).
Based on a epic Twitter thread that became a Rolling Stone investigative journalism piece, Zola is "mostly" based on a true story. Please note that I have not read the Twitter thread nor the Rolling Stone piece, but my friend told me that all but one scene in the movie are, for all intents and purposes, accurate to how it went down IRL.
Aziah "Zola" King (played by Taylour Paige, master of the stink eye) is a Detroit waitress who occasionally strips for some extra dough. She meets Stefani (Riley Keogh, always a delight) while serving her one day and the two fall into deep girl-love. Stefani is...not a person I would want to be acquainted with. She's a white girl who basically appropriates Black culture in so many ways, from having her hair in dreads to her use of AAVE. But Zola develops a girl crush on her, and when Stefani invites Zola on a road trip (or "hoe trip") to Florida to go to a strip club where they can earn thousands in one night, Zola agrees immediately, even though she barely knows the woman.
Along for the ride is Stefani's pathetic and very stupid boyfriend, Derrick (Nicolaus Braun, in what we would call a "vanity-free role") and Stef's supposed roommate, whom we don't learn the name of until halfway through the movie (Colman Domingo, just absolutely terrifying and fantastic). Turns out, the "roommate" is actually a pimp and after the two ladies spend the evening stripping, he puts their picture on Backpage.com and books a hotel room for them to provide their, ahem, "services" to any man who shows up.
This was when I realized, shit, Zola might be a horror movie! Any woman watching this film will probably experience that queasy feeling of thinking it's not a matter of if, but when someone will experience assault. However, Zola holds her own in this situation and serves as Stef's handler--she refuses to fuck the men who show up, but she helps Stef increase her asking price and also does things like help remake the bed after each man.
There's much more to the story, which is an absolute roller coaster ride, but that's basically the gist: road trip goes horribly awry and Zola realizes that Stefani sold her out. But don't worry...this is a dark comedy, and Zola, despite being put in multiple terrifying situations, manages to hold her own and, obviously, survives to tell the tale.
Grade: B+
***
Old
This was the second movie I saw in theatres since 2020! Look, it's an M. Night Shyamalan movie so you know what you're going to get: a fascinating concept, terrible dialogue, surprisingly talented actors slumming it, and ableism! Old has all the M. Night tropes: precocious children who talk like adults, a mentally ill man who turns out to be violent, and a pretty high-concept twist (that you can guess at, given some clues at the beginning of the film). Is it a "good" movie? Not really. Is it entertaining? Yes!
A family of four arrive at a tropical resort. Mom Prisca (Vicky Krieps) and Dad Guy (Gael Garcia Bernal) are planning to divorce and are treating this family vacation as one last hurrah for their kids, 11 year old Maddox and 6 year old Trent.
The director of the resort tells their family about a secret, secluded beach and they agree that it would be fun to spend the day there. So they head out with another family, younger trophy wife and mom Chrystal (Abbey Lee), older, asshole surgeon dad Charles (Rufus Sewell), their 6 year old daughter Kara, Charles' mother, and their dog. Additionally, another couple, Patricia and Jarin (Nikki Amuka-Bird and Ken Leung) and famous rapper who goes by the name "Mid-Sized Sedan"* (Aaron Pierre) are also on the beach.
If you saw the preview, you know the main "twist", which is that this beach causes people to age rapidly. At one point, they calculate the aging process to be two years per hour. They sort of figure this out in bits and spurts, such as when Charles' mother, as well as Charles and Chrystal's dog, die within a couple hours. And then Prisca finds that her children look like teenagers all of a sudden.
Clearly, the resort is "in on it", because they provided each family with HUGE picnic baskets filled with tons of food, knowing that the three children will need to eat constantly while they grow since they are increasing in mass very rapidly. But why? Why would the resort drop them in a place that will kill them in one day's time? And they can't leave because any attempts to walk back the way they came makes them get dizzy and pass out.
Old is wild and entertaining. We get to see the consequences of rapid aging in some pretty nutty scenes including an attempt at surgery where the wound keeps closing up every time the surgeon makes a cut, as well as two "children" developing into teens who play doctor a little too intensely and end up, you guessed it, making a baby.
This movie isn't going to win any awards, but it was a fun popcorn movie. Although, seriously, Shyamalan needs to get his shit together and stop being ableist. This is like the fourth movie of his where mental illness is treated as something scary and people with it as violent. I wouldn't blame anyone who wanted to skip it because of those reasons, or just simply don't want to pay premium theatre prices to watch it. But I had a good time, though I doubt I will be revisiting this movie.
*Fuck you, M. Night, you fucking dork.
Grade: B
***
The Sound of Metal
Damn. Every once in a while you see a movie that just blows your socks off. The Sound of Metal is such a film. Starring the wildly talented Riz Ahmed as a drummer in a two-person metal band who begins to lose his hearing, The Sound of Metal tackles some heavy, philosophical topics.
Ahmed plays Reuben. Reuben and his girlfriend, Lou (Olivia Cooke) are in a metal band and they drive around the USA in their RV performing gigs. Over the course of just a couple days, Reuben realizes he can't really hear anymore: it sounds like he's underwater. A visit to the doctor reveals that he only has something like 28% of his original hearing capacity left. The doctor advises him to stop playing music to preserve what little hearing he has left. But Reuben is in complete denial.
Additionally, Reuben is a recovering drug addict. Reuben's sponsor hooks him up with a community of deaf sober people, where they combine the principles of sober living with the principles of living in a deaf community. Basically: deafness is seen not as a disability, but as a culture, and even as a strength in many ways. Reuben reluctantly joins the community and begins to learn ASL and accept his new life. Lou travels back to her family in France.
The Sound of Metal is just so good on so many levels. The acting is excellent, but it's really the message that makes the film truly great. I am a recovering alcoholic myself and going into the movie I didn't realize recovery would be part of the plot. Reuben is an interesting character because even though he hasn't done drugs in 4 years, he's what some people call a "dry drunk"--i.e. he is abstinent from the drugs of his choice, but he is not embracing sobriety as a lifestyle. He still acts like an addict in many ways, namely not being able to accept his deafness and doing whatever it takes to get a cochlear implant, which he thinks will solve all his problems.
The Sound of Metal is about acceptance more than anything else. It's about mindfulness and being able to sit with oneself in a world of noise and chaos. Joe (Paul Raci), who runs the sober house, tells Reuben that if he practices mindfulness, he can return to a state of peace and quiet within himself whenever he wants. Joe refers to this state as "the Kingdom of God".
This is a truly profound film, and I highly, highly recommend it.
Grade: A+
***
Freaks
This wasn't my first time watching Tod Browning's classic and controversial film. I've seen Freaks at least three times at this point and I gotta say that it is a stone cold classic. There are people today who would be absolutely horrified at this film, and there were A LOT of people when the film came out in 1932 that were horrified--but for very different reasons.
I come down on the side that believes that this film humanizes those with deformities and disabilities. The film is a tight 60 minutes (a chunk of it was cut after protests back in the 30s) and 45 minutes just shows circus performers living their normal lives. We see all manner of so-called "freaks"--mostly little people, and people born without limbs, as well as some folks with mental disabilities--doing things like washing their clothes, enjoying meals together, and even having babies and living in harmony with people who love them.
The message, of course, is that so-called "normal" people, in this case a strong man named Hercules and a trapeze artist named Cleopatra, are the real monsters. Hercules and Cleopatra hatch a plan for Cleo to marry Hans, a little person who is clearly in love with her, and is filthy rich. They will be married, then Cleo will poison Hans and collect his inheritance and she and Herc will leave the circus together. But Hans and the other "freaks" discover Cleo and Herc's deception and take revenge on them.
The most iconic scenes from Freaks is the "one of us" scene which holds up even today. The "freaks" welcome Cleo into their family by chanting "one of us! one of us!" and Cleo is disgusted and outraged. Their show of acceptance disgusts her because she thinks she's better than them. The other iconic scene is the one of the "freaks" crawling through the mud to chase after Cleo in order to mutilate her. What is still a scary scene in 2021 would have been absolutely mind-boggling in 1932, and it's what led this movie to be so hated and basically tanked Tod Browning's career.
But I think that Freaks is very misunderstood. It was and is still seen to this day as an exploitation film. But I do want to point out that many of the so-called "freaks" were legit circus performers (one of the few professions available to disabled folks at that time). All Browning did was film them doing their thing...and really, just living life. While the final scenes of the "freaks" chasing after Cleopatra and Hercules and mutilating them can still be seen as controversial for suggesting that the "freaks" are murderous monsters...well, is it really any different than a movie where an able-bodied person takes revenge against a bad guy? I think people who find it *extra* horrifying because these are disabled people taking revenge are telling on themselves a bit. Maybe they still believe that disabled people don't have the same emotions and motives as able-bodied people.
Freaks is a classic and it's getting an A+ from me. Anyone who loves film, especially horror, should watch this movie and, if possible, go into it with no preconceived notions. It's a movie that shows that people with different bodies and abilities are no different from anyone else: they feel pain, betrayal, and anger just as anyone would in a similar situation. And maybe you shouldn't fuck with such a tight-knit group of people who will do anything to protect the ones the love.
Grade: A+
***
The American Astronaut
I had never heard of this film, but it happens to be one of my boyfriend's favorite movies. Filmed in a pitch-dark black and white palette reminiscent of Eraserhead, The American Astronaut is a science-fiction musical about an astronaut traveling to multiple planets to basically trade people for people. In this version of the universe, planets tend to be gender-segregated. So, Venus is filled with beautiful women and, traditionally, a single male who acts as a stud. The previous stud has died and his parents want to bury his body, but the women of Venus are not ready to let him go. So Samuel Curtis (Cory McAbee, also the director) takes a fetal girl to Jupiter (a planet of all men) in exchange for a young man, known as The Boy Who Actually Saw a Woman's Breast. Then, he will take that young man to Venus and exchange him to the women there for the dead body of Johnny R. (the stud), which he will take back to earth for a handsome fee.
Does the movie sound really weird? Well, keep in mind that it's also A MUTHAFUCKIN MUSICAL. I honestly don't think I've seen a movie as unique as The American Astronaut. It is a wholly unique vision and although you can find movies that it got inspiration from (such as rickety science-fiction movies from the 50s), it is unlike anything I have seen before.
I did have to laugh at the fact that the women of Venus were all dressed as antebellum ladies, in huge skirts and tight corsets. I told my BF that it was unrealistic because if a planet entirely inhabited with women existed, everyone would be wearing yoga pants. But I can let it slide because, well, this *isn't* a realistic movie...it's a dreamlike fantasy from the verdant mind of Cory McAbee. And for that creativity, I salute it.
Grade: B+
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