Movies I Watched In...June 2021

Welcome to the successor of "The COVID Diaries" series, titled "Movies I Watched In..." Why yes, the title of this series *is* very creative! Thank you for noticing.

Here's the deal: some movies I watch will warrant their own individual blog post, such as Bo Burnham's Inside. But I watch enough movies that occasionally I'm going to bundle them into one post. I might occasionally even bundle entire months together (i.e. "Movies I watched in...April and May [Year]") depending on the number of films and how long it takes me to get around to reviewing them.

Enjoy!

***

The Wolf of Snow Hollow

Jim Cummings' The Wolf of Snow Hollow was a wonderful surprise! I was drawn to the beautiful film poster and also the fact that the this was Robert Forster's (best known for his role as Max Cherry in Jackie Brown) final film before he passed.

I was not disappointed. The Wolf of Snow Hollow walks a difficult line between horror and comedy. Cummings directs and stars as Officer John Marshall, a divorced cop in recovery from alcoholism who is trying to maintain a good relationship with his ex for the sake of their daughter. When news of the brutal murder of a tourist reaches John, he is sure the murderer is human...despite some very unusual aspects of the crime, including the fact that the victim's vagina is missing and she was torn to pieces.

When more equally brutal murders begin to occur...always during a full moon...both the citizens of Snow Hollow, Utah, and the other cops are convinced that there is a werewolf loose in their otherwise pleasant, peaceful town. John, who has fallen back into drinking after the death of his father, is getting angrier and angrier that the very men and women working under him are undermining him. He knows the murders are the work of a psychotic madman...not a fictional creature.

For a horror movie about a werewolf (maybe!), The Wolf of Snow Hollow tackles some pretty heavy topics: divorce, death, alcoholism, and parenthood among them. This, as well as the quirky sense of humor infused throughout the film, elevates it above your typical gory creature feature. It is truly a unique and special film, and I can't recommend it enough. I'm excited to see what Jim Cummings will do next. 

Grade: A-

***

False Positive

This Hulu film, starring a very toned-down Ilana Glazer, Justin Theroux, and debonair Pierce Brosnan, is a modern take on Rosemary's Baby. Lucy (Glazer) is a successful woman in her 30s trying to have a baby with her slightly older husband, Adrian (Theroux). After two years of no luck, Adrian, a surgeon, suggests that he and Lucy use the services of the most sought-after fertility specialist in New York, Dr. John Hindle (Brosnan). Though Hindle has a waiting list a mile long, Lucy and Adrian get right in to see him because Hindle was Adrian's teacher in medical school and the two are very close.

After Hindle successfully helps Lucy get pregnant, things start to get complicated. For one, because Lucy was pumped full of fertility hormones, she ends up pregnant with a set of male twins, plus a "female singlet". Hindle highly recommend selective reduction to increase her chances of a healthy, problem-free pregnancy and birth. Lucy and Adrian argue over what to do: he wants to keep the twins, since they've always dreamed of having multiple kids, but Lucy has her heart set on a little girl. She has already picked out a name: Wendy. 

Although Lucy and Adrian are able to come to an agreement, Lucy still struggles with the pregnancy, feeling increasingly isolated from everyone around her and more and more suspicious of Adrian and his strange relationship with Dr. Hindle. Is she, as everyone around her insists, just experiencing "Mommy Brain"? Or is she right to be paranoid?

False Positive is a solid suspense/horror film, and its final act is delightfully bonkers. Although it is not the masterpiece Rosemay's Baby is, it's an effective modern twist of the same fears surrounding pregnancy, birth, and motherhood that people, women in particular, have faced for millennia. I would not recommend it for expecting parents or people who can't take even the idea of babies in peril. I don't want to give anything away, but let's just say that there are images of babies and fetuses that many people would find disturbing. 

Grade: B

***

Censor

This 2021 horror/thriller has a distinctly retro feel. For one thing, it takes place in England in the early-to-mid 80s and focuses on a very specific cultural phenomenon of years gone by: video nasties. But it also is filmed and just feels like a video nasty itself, especially at the climax, making us viewers feel like we've slipped into another genre entirely.

Niamh Algar (whom I developed an immediate crush on, with her porcelain skin and grandma-inspired outfits) plays Enid Baines, an uptight woman in her mid-30s who has a job as a video censor. She and her fellow censors watch films such as Driller Killer and decide whether to "pass" the film or demand cuts. Enid takes her job very seriously, focusing on such minute details as whether or not a scene of eye-gouging is fake enough to pass. 

We learn that when Enid was a little girl her sister went missing. Enid clearly blames herself and becomes angry when her parents present her with an official death certificate even though her sister's body was never recovered, thus she could still *technically* be alive. They want to move on with their lives, and Enid cannot. After Enid sees an actress in a video nasty that looks like an adult version of the sister she lost, her grip on reality becomes loose and she is determined to find this woman and rescue her from what Enid believes are her captors.

Censor is reminiscent of Dario Argento films in both tone and cinematography. The tone is dark, mysterious, and slightly sinister. The cinematography is muted with occasional punctuations of vibrant color. Enid is a fascinating character: so uptight and judgmental, but only because she can't forgive herself for something she was never responsible for in the first place. Censor isn't quite an "A" movie, but it's well worth a watch. I'd say it's a good "milder" horror film for folks interested in a dark film but without a lot of jump scares and violence. This movie doesn't need buckets of blood to get under your skin.

Grade: B

***

The Wrestler

I saw Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler way back in 2008 when it first came out, so this was a much overdue rewatch. I'm happy to say that this excellent film holds up. Starring a beaten up looking Mickey Rourke as beaten up wrestler Randy "The Ram" Robinson, The Wrestler is about nostalgia and what happens to people who use their bodies to make money. Randy was once a beloved wrestler and is now reduced to wrestling on the weekends for a couple bucks while working part time at a grocery store. He lives in a trailer and is often in physical pain. He regularly visits a strip club where he befriends a stripper named Cassidy (the wonderful Marisa Tomei) who is not unlike Randy: she makes her money with her body and is quickly approaching the end of her career. 

Randy is also trying to get back in touch with his estranged daughter, Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood), which is tough-going since Randy was basically a deadbeat when Stephanie was growing up. To top it all off, Randy suffers a heart attack after a match and is told by a doctor that he will basically kill himself if he keeps wrestling.

My friend who is a wrestling fan told me "that movie is beat for beat what that life is like" and sure enough if you do the tiniest bit of research into professional wrestling you'll find that wrestlers are exploited out the wazoo. They are usually hired as contractors, which means they can't get benefits...and what's the one thing a person who aggressively uses their body to entertain others needs? Health insurance. Wrestlers are also often encouraged to get back in the ring too soon after injuries. Basically, you don't wrestle, you don't get paid. There was a great episode of Last Week Tonight about this fascinating subculture if you are interested. 

The Wrestler is a tragedy. It's a film that shows how our country treats the very people who entertain us like dirt. Although some folks in the entertainment industry (think elite pro-athletes and A-list Hollywood stars) are multimillionaires and have very little cause for complaint, there are so many other people who are reduced to their bodies, consumed, and spat out. Think about porn stars. It's almost considered a good thing to mock and disrespect adult actors, but with porn being one of the biggest industries out there, I don't see anyone limiting their masturbation because they hate porn stars so much (well, I do see people limiting their masturbation, but those people are fucking weirdos). If you're going to jack off to someone, have a little goddamned respect. That's all I'm saying.

Anywhoo, where was I? Watch The Wrestler if you haven't already. It's a modern classic that holds up and even though it will likely make you cry (if you have a heart), it's truly an excellent movie to help exercise that empathy muscle. 

Grade: A

***

Fight Club

Poor Chuck Palahniuk...just think about if you wrote a novel which criticizes and satirizes toxic masculinity and capitalism, only to have it--and more so, the film adaptation--embraced by the very lowlife goons you mock in the novel. Hopefully the incels and MRAs of the world have wised up (doubtful) and realized that Fight Club isn't celebrating their bullshit and if they actually ran into Tyler Durden, he's probably give them a wedgie. 

The film version of Palahniuk's cult novel is directed by one of my favorite directors, David Fincher, and stars Brad Pitt as the aforementioned macho-to-the-point-of-psychopathy Tyler Durden and Edward Norton as the timid, burned out, no-name narrator. The narrator is a victim of capitalism. Unfulfilled by his job and life, he begins attending support groups to feel something, anything. Along the way he meets Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter), who is equally fucked up. He also meets a man named Tyler Durden on an airplane. Durden is...A Lot. He's the kind of guy who splices single frames of porn into children's movies because....he thinks it's...cool? He's basically an edgelord, but given that he looks like Brad Pitt and lives his life in a radically free way, he is absolutely magnetic to the narrator, who moves in with Tyler after his apartment blows up due to a gas leak. 

He and Tyler have a weird thing where they like to beat each other up, just to feel something, and they think other men will like doing the same thing. So they start "Fight Club". Soon, every night the basement of the restaurant where they host Fight Club is filled with men of all shapes, sizes, and colors (but mostly ripped white men) who beat the ever-loving shit out of each other. It's all fun and uppercuts until the narrator realizes that Tyler is going a step beyond: he's building an army of men to carry out something called "Project Mayhem", which involves bombing a bunch of banks to erase everyone's debt. (Side note...um, given that we didn't elect Bernie...is something like this an option?? I know plenty of millennials and zoomers who would be very interested in erasing debt through mass bombings).

I won't say more, although the statue of limitations of spoilers has long expired for Fight Club. But most likely, you've already seen it. And if you haven't, um, what the fuck? Why haven't you seen Fight Club? It's not the best movie ever (or even the best of Fincher's), but it's a cult classic and everyone should see it. 

Grade: B+

***

Slumber Party Massacre

Slumber Party Massacre is a satire of slasher films masquerading as a straightforward slasher film. Directed by Amy Holden Jones and written by none other than feminist/lesbian fave Rita Mae Brown, Slumber Party Massacre is a subtly feminist movie in which the killer uses a 12 inch drill to murder his victims (get the symbolism...get it!??).

There's a great article about this movie in Bitch magazine, which will give the viewer a deeper appreciation of the film, but the film truly stands on its own as a wildly entertaining and funny horror movie. 

Trish is an 18 year old high school senior who invites a group of friends over for a sleepover when her parents are away on a trip. She wants to invite a new girl, Valerie, who lives across the street from her, but her bitchy queen bee friend, Diane, talks her out of it. Meanwhile, a psycho killer has escaped from a mental institution and is back on his bullshit (his bullshit being that he likes to kill people with a drill). 

Throughout the evening, typical slumber party antics occur: two boys from school watch the girls through a window as they get undressed for the evening; the girls experiment with pot and alcohol; one girl sneaks out to engage in nookie with her boyfriend; etc. But the killer is constantly lurking on the periphery and killing basically everyone he comes in contact with. 

Slumber Party Massacre is a fucking delight of a film. It's short (77 minutes), retro, fun, and goofy as fuck. I would recommend it to everyone, even people who don't like horror movies (I almost convinced my squeamish friend to watch it with me, tempting her with the fact that it was written by the same woman who wrote Rubyfruit Jungle...but she declined. Next time, Alex. Next time!)

Grade: A-

The COVID Diaries--Part 20 (The Final Chapter!)

 Here is what I am watching (so far) during the quarantine for COVID-19 

This will be my last "COVID Diaries" entry, as I am now vaccinated and look forward to getting to see movies in the theatres again! However, the multiple-reviews-in-one-post format is incredibly useful, especially given how many movies I tend to watch. I might keep doing it, but change the title to "Movies I've seen lately" or "Movies I watched in [month]". We shall see. Until then, enjoy the final chapter of The COVID Diaries.

***

The House on Haunted Hill (1999)

I saw part of this late-90s horror schlockfest when I was in my mid-teens and it scared the absolute bejesus out of me. I remember a scene where a ghoul walks in a funny manner, and creepy things/people walking funny one of the scariest things you can show on screen (see: basically all Japanese horror movies).

So when the film, starring Geoffrey Rush, Famke Janssen, Taye Diggs, Chris Kattan, Ali Larter, and many other 90s-era celebrities (Lisa Loeb has a cameo!), made its way to Shudder, I figured it was time to face my fears and give it another go. And I'm so glad I did because The House on Haunted Hill is not scary at all and is, in fact, a shit movie. 

The only good aspect of this film, which is a loose remake of the 1959 William Castle movie starring Vincent Price, is Geoffrey Rush's over-the-top performance as Steven Price, an amusement park mogul who loves two things: scaring people and fighting with his wife, Evelyn (Famke Janssen).  For Evelyn's birthday, Steven invites a bunch of randos to a supposedly haunted insane asylum and tells them that anyone who makes it through the night...alive...will win $1 million dollars.

But, wait...Steven didn't even *these* specific people (he had a different guest list), and neither did Evelyn (ditto). So who...or what...brought this gang together? SpOOoooPy!

In classic horror movie fashion, these geniuses all end up deciding to go into the basement where all the old medical devices are and they see a bunch of ghosts! Whatever is haunting the place starts picking them off, one by one, and tensions are ratcheted up higher and higher. If my description makes you think "wow, sounds like a solid haunted house movie", well...your mileage may vary. I found The House on Haunted Hill to be ridiculous, boring, and eye-roll inducing. But it could serve as a decent "bad movie night" film. Or it might scare the hell out of you. I guess you'll have to watch it to find out...

Grade: D

***

Stoker

Park Chan-wook's English language debut realllllllly wants to be a good and interesting movie, but it's an overheated, perverted (but not in a fun way) mess. It's basically "what if Tennessee Williams, but too much?" 

Starring Mia Wasikowska, Nicole Kidman, and Matthew Goode, Stoker follows 18 year old India Stoker, whose beloved father has just passed away. At the funeral her estranged uncle, Charlie (Goode), shows up and offers to live with India and her mother, Evelyn (Kidman), to help out while the two adjust. Evelyn takes an immediate liking to Charlie (maybe...too much of a liking?), but India is skeptical of her smirking uncle.

Things get weird...and then they get REAL weird. I can't say much without giving it away but if you're thinking "Ok, does the movie go there?", then I can tell you that yes it does. Sort of. This movie was directed by the same guy who directed Oldboy, so....

While the imagery is very beautiful and gives Stoker a poetic, artistic feel, the plot (and acting) doesn't live up to the cinematography. This movie truly does feel ridiculous, like we're watching a pulp novel come to life. That might sound intriguing to you, and to be fair the film is divisive in that many people really enjoyed it--and you might be one of them! But I found Stoker to be surprisingly boring for a film where a predatory uncle puts the moves on his niece. 

Grade: B-

***

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It

Stop it, Counjuring Universe. Just stop it. We've had enough! The first Conjuring was excellent, and is one of the films I credit for kicking off my horror habit. The second one was just ok. Then we got all the Annabelle business and Nun business. And now we have a movie called "The Devil Made Me Do It", which could be the excuse the producers give for making this movie...only we all know it's money, not the devil, making them "do it". And by "do it", I mean keep churning out shit like this.

Once again, we drop in on the adventures of Ed and Lorraine Warren, the married scam artists demon hunters who have helped many a family possessed by demons or haunted by ghosts. We open in the middle of an exorcism in which young David Glatzel is possessed by a demon making him contort like a Cirque du Soleil performer. David's sister's boyfriend, Arne (Ruairi O'Connor), grabs David at one point and tells the demon basically to pick on someone its own size, and the demon takes Arne up on his offer, leaving David's body to possess Arne. 

A few weeks later, Arne kills his landlord. And he says the demon made him do it. This is a true story, by the way! The rest of the movie follows the Warrens (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, with their game faces on as always) as they try to figure out the nature of this demon and what it wants in order to get the demon to leave Arne, but also to build his defense case. The actual case is more interesting than the film, and I encourage you to look it up. 

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It is yet another ridiculous film, and it's not even that scary. Ed and Lorraine Warren were interesting people, and far be it from me to sit here and tell you that demons and ghosts don't exist because hell if I know! There's a lot of crazy shit that exists, and while I think the vast majority of hauntings and possessions have rational explanations, there are just some things that happen that we simply don't have the scientific knowledge to understand quite yet. If people who worked with the Warrens genuinely feel that they were helped, then good on the Warrens. But also maybe they don't need their own film franchise? Also, the Conjuring movies are not-so-secret Christian propaganda. Which is fine I guess? But American Christians really need to shut the fuck up for a while and ponder their sin of voting en masse for a goddamned rapist, racist narcissist and stop trying to convert good, decent people into their death cult. (btw if you're a good Christian and you're reading this, I see you. Jesus is just alright by me). 

Grade: C-

***

Irréversible (trigger warning for THIS REVIEW--rape, violence, homophobia, general fuckedness)

Y'all are going to think I'm nuts for considering a movie that features a 9 minute rape scene, a scene of a guy's head getting bashed in, and endless homophobic slurs better than The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It. But what can I say? It's just better. Not that it's a contest--all movies should be judged on their own merits. 

Irréversible is infamous. Directed by provocateur Gaspar Noé, the film is controversial/notable for a number of reasons:

1) It is shown in reverse chronological order. Meaning that in the world of the film, the last thing that happens is shown first. This is incredibly disorienting since we see the aftermath of a beating, then the beating itself, then men trying to find the guy they want to beat up, etc.

2) When the movie was shown in theatres, Noé used a very low frequency sound in the first hour of the movie, which induced nausea and made people barf and faint during screenings. You kind of still get that feeling while watching it at home, but not to the same extent as you would in a theatre, since those frequencies literally cause your body to vibrate in a theatre setting. 

3) The rape scene. Widely considered one of the most disturbing scenes of sexual violence in a mainstream film, this scene is usually said to be 9 or 10 minutes long, but that's the *entire* scene from start to finish. The actual rape is closed to 2 or 3 minutes. But, I mean, it's still fucking disturbing and very, very violent. If you are offended or upset by rape scenes, don't watch this movie because you will 100% regret it. 

4) The part where the guy's head gets bashed in with a fire extinguisher. I definitely was watching through my hands, but if you're a fan of gory horror, you've probably seen similar or worse.

5) The homophobic slurs, and general homophobia of the film. Well. The bad guys are gay or bi. The rapist is a man who fucks men, women, and trans people. So the boyfriend of the raped woman and his friend seek out the gay sex club the rapist is known to frequent to get revenge and of course, they use the British term for cigarettes a lot. There's also a really not cool scene with a trans prostitute where her genitals are shown in a very degrading way. I can't really defend the movie other than to say that this is the world in which the characters live. This is how the characters would indeed behave. I'm not saying it's ok, or it's excusable, and I have no idea if Noé is homophobic or transphobic, but this is an intense, hard-R film about a violent rape and the aftermath, and I was not surprised to see such language being used. 

Irréversible is undeniably one of the most intense movies I've ever seen, personally. It is violent, it is disorienting, it is ugly (until the last third, which is actually quite nice). And...in my personal opinion...it is art. There is a bigger question here about whether offensive or disturbing films have any "value" in society, and I don't know how to answer that other than to say that even if we censor movies like this...the shit we see in the movie will still happen in real life. So maybe it's better to be able to show disturbing stuff in order to be able to talk about it and face it head-on rather than looking away or avoiding thinking about it. I don't think this movie glorifies or glamorizes rape and violence. I think the point of a lengthy rape scene isn't to be edgy, but to say "hey, this is what rape really looks like" (sometimes...rape can look non-violent too), and I kind of appreciate the director's honesty in this regard, while also acknowledging that the vast majority of rapes don't occur like they do in this film (i.e. with a stranger attacking a person out of the blue). 

Do I recommend Irréversible? No. Not unless you're already the kind of person who knows what it's about and knows you can handle it. I personally avoided this film for years and when I finally saw it, I thought "wow, it's actually a good movie!" Art comes in many forms. Sometimes art is a Rococo painting of a beautiful woman lying in a meadow, and sometimes art is a crucifix dipped in urine. So while I don't *recommend* Irréversible, I do think it's a good movie. 

Grade: A very cautious B+

***

Wolf Creek

Wolf Creek is a very straightforward horror film based loosely on the true story of the "Backpacker murders" that took place in Australia in the late 80s and early 90s. 

English tourists Liz and Kristy join their Australian friend Ben on a road trip down the Great Northern Highway in Australia. They make a stop at Wolf Creek National Park and when they try to leave, realize their car won't start. They flag down a trucker named Mick Taylor (John Jarratt, who plays a very entertaining psychopath here), who offers to tow them to his camp and fix the car. Since it's already dark, the trio will have to spend the night in Mick's camp. 

The next morning, Liz wakes up bound and gagged. Though she is able to untie herself, she hears Kristy screaming before she can run away from the camp and decides to rescue her. Sure enough, Mick is a serial killer who especially delights in torturing young women--and even has the remains of the last unfortunate woman to run across Mick hanging in his shed!

The women manage to escape, but are pursued by Mick. Is there a happy ending? Hahaha, you'll just have to watch it to find out! 

Wolf Creek is good, but not great. It's pretty much a typical slasher and I didn't find it to be anything special, other than the fact that the killer sounded like Crocodile Dundee. It did contribute to my "reasons to never visit Australia" list though!

Grade: B

Saturday Night Cabin Fever

 Specials: Inside

20,000 years of this, 7 more to go.

***

Years from now, we're going to look back on 2020 and 2021 (and if that Delta variant has anything to say about it, maybe 2022, and 2023...) and point to certain pieces of culture as representative of the "pandemic years". I'm quite convinced that Bo Burnham's Inside will be among the most often pointed to. Watching it with my friend, I said "This really is the Michelangelo's David of the pandemic". 

I think that's because while Inside is very much *about* the pandemic specifically (it is titled "Inside", after all), it's also about "our time" in a bigger way. Infused with a humor so dark that it stops being humor and starts being tragedy, Burnham captures "That Funny Feeling" about living in what truly feels like the end times. 

In fact, for all the accolades Burnham's songs "White Woman's Instagram" and "Problematic" have received in the glowing reviews for this special, I think "That Funny Feeling" is the song of Inside. It's the point at which Burnham's comedy transforms into something transcendent. It's a song about grief. It's a song about coming to terms not just with one's own eventual death, but the fact that no matter if one had children, wrote a book, started a company, spent their life giving to charity...in enough time, all of that will end and any trace of humanity's existence will be washed away on the shores of eternity. Heavy stuff for a comedy special.

But what is comedy if not acceptance of truth persisting, right? It is the role of the Fool, the Jester, to be the one person who is allowed to tell the truth. And the truth about this pandemic is not so much that it broke people, or that it cracked Capitalism open wide, but that it forced all of us to contemplate our own mortality. And I guess if you didn't spend at least some amount of time during the quarantine coming to terms with the fleeting nature of existence, enjoy that denial my friend. 

Burnham serves as Fool, as Philosopher, and as Therapist. He uses his self-aware white guy persona to lure us in, joking that maybe he--a white guy--should "shut the fuck up" before admitting "I'm bored", and pointing out that we can truly heal the world with comedy. He then sings about Facetiming with his mom (she will regale him with the plot of the season six finale of The Blacklist) and sexting (he tries to take a picture of his dick, but the flash makes his dick look frightened). Burnham begins his special with exactly what you think it will be--a humorous reflection about moving all of life indoors and onto the internet.

And then comes "White Woman's Instagram", which some people complained was sexist, but they're obviously wrong and annoying, because it's a great song that accurately captures the je nais se quois of a certain type of Insta account which features "a golden retriever in a flower crown" and "incredibly derivative political street art". But then, Burnham hits us with this:  

Her favorite photo of her mom

The caption says:

"I can't believe it

It's been a decade since you've been gone

Mama, I miss you

I miss sitting with you in the front yard

Still figuring out how to keep living without you

It's got a little better, but it's still hard

Mama, I got a job I love and my own apartment

Mama, I got a boyfriend, and I'm crazy about him

Your little girl didn't do too bad

Mama, I love you, give a hug and kiss to Dad"

It's at this point when the first clue that this special might be about something deeper than just goofing on Millennials and their quirks. In the middle of some soft jabs and ribbing is a moment of human empathy. A moment of connection. 

As the special continues, the tone shifts over and over from lighthearted to comedically dark (my favorite moment is Burnham's exchange with "Socko", the politically aware sock puppet) to "Is Bo Burnham ok? He's joking about suicide a lot and he looks like he hasn't showered in weeks." The line between entertainer and "one of us" gets frighteningly blurred. Inside often feels like both Burnham and the viewer are going through the stages of grief together, with "The Funny Feeling" being the stage of acceptance: 

Total disassociation, fully out your mind

Googling "derealization," hating what you find

That unapparent summer air in early fall

The quiet comprehending of the ending of it all

This is some real shit, and it's something most people never really look at too closely. If you think about it, most people avoid feeling their feelings--and not just the "bad" ones. Feelings, even good ones, are often quite uncomfortable and "luckily" we have all this shit: alcohol, pot, Ben & Jerry's, sex, online shopping, video games, etc that allow us quick and easy escapes from sitting quietly with our feelings and just accepting them for what they are. We do so much to avoid being human, and in fact we have built our modern society around ways to escape our own feelings, as well as our responsibility to our fellow humans. Is the world any more fucked up than it was 100 years ago? I don't believe so. I think with every gain we make, we give up something else or make some sort of trade off. The major difference is that with the internet, we simply know more about the fucked up stuff nowadays.

There is no sweet ending to Inside, but nor is there a hopeless ending. We watch Burnham leave "his" house (it's actually clearly a set) and then get locked outside. As he tries desperately to get back in, a laugh track plays over his fear and anxiety, and he crumples into a ball on the ground. Cut to Burnham watching this scene on his laptop. He smiles, and the special is over. The perfect ending to a perfect piece of art: the mixture of fear, sadness, humor, and self-awareness that encapsulates everything that came before it. 

Inside is a must watch for anyone with an iota of self-awareness. You're gonna laugh, and you'll probably cry too. Life is an absurd spectacle that ultimately ends in death, as well as the death of everyone and everything you love. It is up to us to give it meaning and purpose. Whether we like it or not, we're here. So, we may as well Facetime our moms and ask what they thought of the finale of The Blacklist.

Grade: A+

The COVID Diaries--Part 19

 Here is what I am watching (so far) during the quarantine for COVID-19 

***

365 Days

I forced my best friend to watch this hilariously bad movie after one of my fave YouTubers reviewed it. The film, directed by Barbara Białowąs and Tomasz Mandes, is sort of marketed like a Fifty Shades of Grey rip-off, although it's really more reminiscent of Beauty and the Beast. Basically, a Sicilian mob boss, Massimo, kidnaps a woman, Laura, he saw once from afar and brings her to his enormous villa. He tells her he's going to give her 365 days to fall in love with him. He won't touch her unless she consents (he tells her this while holding her down and forcibly cupping her breast), but also warns her that she shouldn't tease him, as he can't control himself around her.

Annnnnnd it takes like seven days for Laura to go from outraged, to flirtatious, to in love with Massimo (to be fair, Massimo did take her shopping like, three times in the seven days). That's pretty much it. There's a twist at the end of the movie that obviously leaves room for a sequel, but yeah, overall nothing happens in the film except shopping and a lot of dick-sucking. I'm not joking. There's like 3 or 4 extended scenes of fellatio in this movie. 

Personally, I found 365 Days FUCKING HILARIOUS. I'm not sure if my friend thought it was a waste of time or not, but I was laughing for most of the movie (which is not a comedy, btw). I'm not gonna lie: the sex scenes were pretty hot. You even see a flash of D in there. But the characters are terrible, the music is worse, and the plot is non-existent, so treat this only as bad movie night fodder and go in with rock bottom expectations.

Grade: F+

***

The Belko Experiment

I think there is a better movie somewhere inside The Belko Experiment that just didn't make its way out. This horror/thriller takes place in a business office in Bogota, Colombia that employs mostly Americans for some reason. What do they do there? No idea--it's not really relevant to the movie. On this particular day, a voice comes over the loud speaker telling everyone they have pick two of their coworkers to kill or something worse will happen. Everyone thinks it's a joke, until they realize that steel doors have covered all the windows and exits, locking them inside. After they fail to pick two people to kill, a bunch of folks' heads explode! Turns out that a condition of working at Belko Industries was that you had to have a chip implanted in your skull, which is supposed to protect employees from being kidnapped (which I guess is a common thing in Colombia??). Well, turns out those chips are explosives. LOL. 

The voice comes back and tells the remaining employees that now 30 of them must die, and if they fail to meet that metric, 60 will be killed. So basically, this movie is Battle Royale meets Office Space. The movie has a decent roster of lesser-known, but very talented actors, including John Gallagher Jr., Tony Goldwyn, and John C. McGinley. But despite the talent and interesting concept, The Belko Experiment is pretty forgettable. It's entertaining while you're watching it, but it's not going to haunt you the way a good horror or thriller should. It's also a bit nihilistic, which didn't bother me but did surprise me. You kind of assume that the "good guys" will find a way to band together and outsmart the "bad guys" and that the entertainment will be the creative ways people find to get out of their predicament without resorting to violence. But, no. Basically, it really is just a battle royale. Which is fine but not what I was hoping for. The Belko Experiment is just movie popcorn: tastes good while you're eating it, but it doesn't fill you up. 

Grade: B

***

The Loved Ones

Now here is a horror movie that haunts me, but not because it's good. It's because it honestly kind of goes too far. The violence in this film, which is clearly inspired by The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, is creative and relentless in a way that left me feeling gross and worse for having watched it, which--as readers of this blog should know--is a difficult bar for me to reach. I'm open to watching a lot, and I mean A LOT of violence. But something about this one just felt like too fucking much.

Here's the basic plot: high school senior Brent (Xavier Samuel) turns down weird girl Lola's (Robin McLeavy) request to go to prom with him. Lola and her dad then kidnap Brent and subject him to an insane amount of torture. Here's a partial list of some of the stuff they do to Brent:

• Inject bleach into his vocal chords so that he can't speak.
• Force him to pee in a cup while threatening to cut his dick off.
• Carve initials into his chest and throw salt on the wounds.
• STAB KNIVES INTO HIS FEET, PINNING THEM TO THE FLOOR.
• Drill a hole in his skull and prepare (but don't succeed) to pour boiling water into the hole. (Cool Jeffrey Dahmer reference, bro!)

Look. I get that this movie thinks that it is especially edgy because the torturers are a teen girl and her dopey dad, but this movie goes beyond shocking in an engaging way to just plain disgusting. It's hard to grade the movie because as horror, it fucking works. I was horrified! And honestly, there are movies I've seen (ahem, The Poughkeepsie Tapes) that are far more disturbing. But this one just didn't do it for me. It felt like too much violence and too little plot. Like, I'm cool with the insane amount of violence in Tarantino movies because there's a lot of interesting dialogue and action sequences in between the scenes of eyes getting gouged out. But like I said, the main feeling The Loved Ones inspired in this viewer was exhaustion. Recommended only for horror enthusiasts. 

Grade: B-

***

Oxygen

A forgettable and unrealistic sci-fi film starring Melanie Laurent as a woman who wakes up in a coffin-like container with a computer voice telling her that her oxygen is running out. She also doesn't remember who she is and must use her smarts to figure out where the hell she is so that she has a chance at survival before the clock runs out and she asphyxiates. 

This movie has already been made and it was titled Buried and starred Ryan Reynolds. With Buried, I felt the insanely high stakes of the film and was sitting on the edge of my seat until literally the last second of the movie. It was also depressing as hell, but in terms of making me feel something, it did an excellent job. Oxygen, while entertaining (especially in its first half before you really know what's going on), is just not as good. The sci-fi element actually takes away from the movie because there are things the character can do in the movie that seem really unrealistic, yet she can't do other basic things (like find an alternate oxygen source). Essentially, the technology in the movie is super advanced so that it can help the main character remember who she is and contact people for help...but like, not advanced enough to have a secondary oxygen source? That really took me out of the movie. 

Like The Belko Experiment above, Oxygen is good for a night of entertainment, but it's not going to be a movie you're thinking about a week later.

Grade: B-

***

A Glitch in the Matrix

This documentary by Rodney Ascher (who previously directed a really excellent doc about the movie The Shining called Room 237--check it out!) is about people who believe that reality is a simulation. I've heard this theory before and honestly thought it wasn't that crazy, but then I read a bunch of reviews criticizing the director for giving a platform to "crackpots" and "nutcases", so fuck me I guess. 

To be fair, it's one thing to idly think to oneself "whoa, what if we're just like, a video game for aliens mannnnn" and do another bong hit. It's quite another to allow this theory to rule your life. So maybe Ascher *is* doing society a disservice by inadvertently promoting a theory that could contribute to more and more people experiencing derealization. The film kind of tackles this problem by giving a lot of time to a man named Joshua Cooke who is currently serving a prison sentence for murdering his parents in the early 2000s after he became obsessed with The Matrix and convinced that reality wasn't real. Why he had to test his beliefs by murdering his fucking parents is anyone's guess, but I can see how becoming "infected" with the idea that we are not living in "true" reality but some kind of simulation could make a person go a little coo-coo.

A Glitch in the Matrix is far less interesting than I thought it would be. Interviewees (in addition to Cooke) include anonymous believers in the theory who are disguised as elaborate animated avatars and who claim that they know we are living in a simulation because they like, thought really hard about goldfish and then walked around town and saw...a goldfish on a sign oh my god you guys it's the matrix!!! Or how about the theory that if you go into a bookstore, most of the books have no words...until you open them because the computer knew you were going to open it and filled the book!! Of course, this theory is impossible to prove because...because it's bullshit you guys. We're probably not living in a simulation. And even if we are, so what? Does it actually change anything about our day-to-day lives? Am I going to kill someone because "nothing is real"? No, I am not, because 1) I don't want to kill people and 2) prison is going to feel pretty fucking real when I go there...which is what Joshua Cooke found out after he murdered his parents.

I think what's more interesting that the actual simulation theory is the fact that more and more people are sort of disassociating from their lives and relationships due to technology these days. And don't @ me if you're a tech nerd who thinks tech is neutral--I'm pretty convinced at this point that the echo chambers sites like Facebook, Reddit, and 4chan created have contributed to the rise in extremist violence all over the world. Tech may be neutral, but that doesn't mean it's all good for us. 

A Glitch in the Matrix is a fairly interesting film, though not as thought-provoking or mind-blowing as it could be. It sets out the be an exploration of how science fiction and technology have merged to change our view of the world but ends up be an inadvertent dive into the darker corners of the human psyche.

Grade: B

The COVID Diaries--Part 18

 Here is what I am watching (so far) during the quarantine for COVID-19 

***

Saint Maud

This concise (85 minutes) first film by Rose Glass is a creepy psychological horror film about what can happen when religious fanaticism and extreme loneliness collide. Maud (Morfydd Clark) is private hospice nurse who takes a job caring for a once-renowned dancer, Amanda (Jennifer Ehle), who is now dying from stage four lymphoma. Maud is also a newly converted Catholic who talks regularly to God and begs Him to give her a purpose. After a brief conversation with Amanda about her fears of death, Maud is convinced that her purpose is to save Amanda's soul.

The horror comes in the form of body horror--some of which we know is all too horribly real, such as when Maud put tacks in her shoes and then steps into them with her full weight (the sound effects here really sell the scene). But some scenes of Maud twisting, contorting, and even being lifted into the air by some unknown force--well, we're not sure if this is all in her head or really happening. 

Saint Maud is well worth the watch for horror and suspense fans, but even non-horror fans might want to give this one a try. The horror is less about demons or ghosts, and more about the lengths fragile people will go to convince themselves their mission is right. 

Grade: A-

***

Bamboozled

Bamboozled is a Spike Lee film released in 2000. Damon Wayans plays Pierre Delaroix, a Black man working for a television company. His racist boss (played perfectly by Michael Rapaport) wants Pierre to create a sensationalist show about Black people--not a "Cosby clone" that portrays Black people as smart and hardworking. Insulted, Pierre goes the "I'll give him a show so disgusting, he'll regret he ever asked" route--he formulates the idea for a show based on old minstrel shows, featuring Black actors in blackface with names like "Sleep n' Eat" who talk in an exaggerated southern accent. Basically: take all the worst stereotypes of people of color, throw a healthy amount of n-words in for flavor, and serve to his shitty boss.

Well, the show is a hit. I'm not sure whether Spike Lee was inspired by The Producers or not, but he takes a page from the Mel Brooks classic by having the scheme to create a terrible show blow up in the creator's face when said show becomes enormously popular. Now Pierre is in the awkward situation of deciding between accepting the accolades (and money) that are rolling in due to his blatantly racist "Mantan: The New Millennium Minstrel Show" and quitting, which his secretary, Sloan (Jada Pinkett Smith) encourages him to do.

There's a lot more plot, and the film, unlike The Producers, is actually quite tragic. Not only is it meant to educate the viewer on the history of minstrel shows/blackface, I read it as an indictment against Black individuals who take advantage of systemic and cultural racism for personal gain. I've talked in this blog before about how I took a pop culture in American history class in college and we were shown this film. A white women--blond "I want to talk to the manager" bob and Vera Bradley bag and all--said "I am so sick of apologizing for being white" after it was over. What that (I'm sorry, but I have to say it) stupid bitch didn't grasp is that Spike Lee did not make this film for racist assholes like her. Like many excellent examples of Black art and culture, this just isn't about us (white people). But it's still absolutely worth the watch no matter your color.

Grade: B

***

The Thing

I was kind of surprised not to like this movie more. It's a stone-cold horror classic (specifically, body horror, one of my favorite sub-genres) directed by John Carpenter. But I found it a little too slow for my liking.

A group of researchers are working at a base in Antarctica when they discover what appears to be an alien spaceship, as well as a dead...thing...that doesn't look quite human. They bring the...thing...back to base to autopsy it, but soon starts causing havoc because it is essentially about to latch onto people (and animals) and transform them into horrible creatures. 

I think The Thing is a classic for two reasons: one, we don't really know what "the thing" is. It could probably be explained as a cross between an alien and a virus. We know it's not from this earth, but instead of being a traditional alien, it doesn't really have a single form. And it can jump from person to person via attacks, so it acts like a virus in that it infects you. So, already, the ghoul is twice as scary as a regular horror movie bad guy because it's so unpredictable and strange. 

The second reason is that the real meat of the movie is not The Thing itself, but how it quickly causes the men to turn on each other and become paranoid and suspicious of the very people they previously trusted with their lives. As always, horror movies are all about the subtext, not the text. And in this case, the subtext is...what if a person you previously thought of as a friend or colleague might secretly not be who they say they are? In fact, what if that person had the power to turn on you in a horrible way at any moment. 

So, overall I recognize The Thing as a classic, even though I didn't love it. 

Grade: B-

***

The Sixth Sense

I rewatched M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense for the first time in like a decade and a half and I have to say that it holds up! The experience was so different than when I first saw it at age 14. When I first saw it, the film legitimately scared the absolute shit out of me. So most of the movie was spent curled into a ball waiting for the next shocking image to appear.

Now that I am a hardened horror fanatic, I can watch this film and appreciate just how good of a movie it is because I'm seeing beyond the jump scares. Do you guys remember that Toni Collette, who plays Cole Sear's mom, was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for this movie? And guess what: that nomination was much deserved! Collette does a wonderful job of adding an emotional heart to the film. 

As a grown-ass adult in my mid-thirties, I now see the more tender aspects of the movie about a little boy (Haley Joel Osment...still stunning in the role) who sees dead people. The Sixth Sense is about love, loss, and family as much as it is about ghosts. While Shyamalan has to keep his cards close to his chest about what's going on with Bruce Willis's character and his wife, he can show the full range of emotion between Cole and his mom, who is desperately concerned for her son's wellbeing. There are so many scenes where she is crying and begging him to tell her what's wrong, but Cole can't because he wouldn't be believed.

If you haven't seen The Sixth Sense since it was in theatres, I highly encourage you to check it out again. Although Shyamalan has a reputation for being a cheesy/terrible director, his first film holds up and you might be surprised at what you discover.

Grade: A-

***

The Mortuary Collection

This is a fun little horror movie that has a frame story (a girl applies for a job at a mortuary) and four mini horror movies contained within it. Sam (Caitlin Custer) shows up at Raven's End Mortuary to inquire about a "Help Wanted" sign outside. The mortician, an imposing older man named Montgomery Dark (Clancy Brown) shares stories with Sam about how various people died throughout the history of the mortuary. Each story is essentially a morality tale about someone who commits a misdeed and is severely and grotesquely punished. Sam counters with a story of her own about how "in real life, the bad guy wins". 

I can't say more than that, since I would give away too much, but suffice it to say that this is an entertaining movie that fits a lot of different kinds of horror into a succinct 2 hour film, including horror-comedy. 

Grade: B

The COVID Diaries--Part 17

Here is what I am watching (so far) during the quarantine for COVID-19 

***

Goodfellas

I'm not sure how I went this long without seeing this mafia classic. Martin Scorsese's film adaptation of Henry Hill's memoir, Wiseguy, about how Hill became part of the mob while growing up in Brooklyn, is just so good and so outrageous in the way that all mafia films are. There's a lot of screaming, crying, shooting, drug use, etc. Ray Liotta turns in his career-defining performance as Henry Hill, who starts out as a kid just running errands for the local mob boss and works his way up the ladder, only for it to all come crashing down--forcing him to go into witness protection after becoming an FBI informant.

This is such a well-known, well-respected film that I don't think I have to relay the plot. To be honest, it's not my *favorite* mafia movie (that would be Scorsese's The Departed), but it's really worth a watch for any film buff. Plus it's where that Liotta laughing gif came from.

Grade: A

***

Scare Me

I have to say, this movie was a true disappointment. This "Shudder Original", starring Aya Cash, Josh Ruben, and Chris Redd, got pretty good reviews when it came out. Cash and Ruben play Fanny and Fred--two writers who are staying in neighboring cabins for a weekend away so that they can focus on writing. During a power outage, they hang out together and decide to pass the time by telling scary stories.

This is really a movie about male fragility, as it becomes clear that Fanny--already a published author--is simply better at storytelling than Fred. His resentment grows and grows until it reaches a crescendo at the end of the film.

But in general, the film is not only not scary, it's actually pretty boring. The acting is certainly great and the story had promise, but I feel that it did not deliver. 

Grade: C+

***

The Beach House

Another mediocre Shudder original, The Beach House is about the horrors of infection. A young couple, Emily (Liana Liberato) and Randall (Noah Le Gros), are looking forward to a weekend alone at Randall's parents' beach house. Unfortunately, they find that an older couple, Mitch (Jake Webber) and Jane (Maryann Nagel)--friends of Randall's parents--are already staying there. Not wanting to be rude, the couples decide to share the beach house...and, uh, share some mind-altering substances as well. 

But lack of privacy isn't the biggest problem these couples will face. While the foursome are high from edible marijuana, they note the strange texture of the ocean water, as well as the thick fog all along the beach. The next morning, Jane appears to be very ill, and covered in skin sores. It's not long before it becomes obvious that the beach is infected with something--something that can make humans very sick. 

The Beach House has some really gnarly body horror and it is indeed scary in the unique way that "end of the world" type films are. But in general it's not particularly memorable, in my opinion. 

Grade: C+

***

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

To be clear, this was not my first time watching Walk Hard, though it is my first time reviewing it. Walk Hard is an above-average comedy that parodies "rise and fall of a musician" movies, and specifically Walk the Line. John C. Reilly (one of the most underrated and gifted actors alive, in my opinion) plays Dewey Cox--a talented musician from a poor, Southern family. Dewey is estranged from his parents after he accidentally cut his younger brother in half while playing with a machete as a kid. As Dewey's dad reminds him about 50 times throughout the movie, "the wrong kid died". 

Dewey shoots to fame as a rock n' roll star, only to get caught up in drug addiction, as well as an addiction to ripping bathroom sinks out from the wall when he's in a fit of despair/rage. Still, with the love of a good woman, Darlene Madison (Jenna Fischer), Dewey is able to get clean and sing his way to the top. Fun note: that's really John C. Reilly singing! 

Walk Hard is chock-full of celeb cameos, ranging from Jack White as Elvis to Jason Schwartzman as Ringo Starr. The film came out in 2007, riding the coattails of the Anchorman/40 Year Old Virgin train, but I believe it stands on its own as a great comedy. It's one of those movies where so many jokes are crammed in, you can actually miss a few because you're laughing so hard the whole time. 

Grade: B+

***

Abortion Double Feature

Movies: Never Rarely Sometime Always, Unpregnant

You know how some years two movies are released that have strikingly similar plots? Think: Dante's Peak and Volcano (both released in 1997) and The Prestige and The Illusionist (both released in 2006). Well, 2020 was the year of the abortion film, with two films that have nearly identical plots, yet couldn't be more different in tone being released. Those two films are Eliza Hittman's Never Rarely Sometimes Always and Rachel Lee Goldenberg's Unpregnant. Both films are about a 17 year old girl who must travel to a different state in order to have an abortion without parental consent. In both situations, the girl travels with a female friend and finds help in the form of a man or men along the way. Both films feature crises pregnancy centers or people who are anti-abortion attempting to manipulate the main character into deciding not to terminate. Both films end with the young women going through with the procedure.

But whereas Unpregnant is a wacky comedy, Never Rarely Sometimes Always in an unflinching drama that shows how incredibly draining the process is to get this medical procedure when you are underage and living in the good 'ol US of A.

Reproductive rights is my most passionate cause. I believe that the right to bodily autonomy is the most sacred, intimate right one has. Access to abortion and contraceptives is tied to greater levels of education and social/political freedom for women. Being anti-choice is anti-feminist, full stop. While it certainly is understandable for an individual to choose *not* to abort personally, and I strongly believe that we should have a HUGE support system in place for mothers and parents of all ages and income levels, if you actively vote against another woman's legal right to terminate her pregnancy, you are not a feminist because you are putting the rights of a fetus ahead of the rights of a woman. Additionally, providing access to abortion is objectively more ethical than outlawing the procedure, since doing so endangers women's lives. Ironically, the "pro-life" contingent is quite comfortable with maternal death when it really comes down to it. 

Ok, off the soapbox and onto the films! 

Never Rarely Sometimes Always follows Autumn Callahan (Sidney Flanigan in a breathtaking breakout role), a 17 year old living in Pennsylvania. When she discovers she is pregnant (by taking a test at a crisis pregnancy center, where they lie to her about how far along she is--a tactic such centers use in real life), she and her friend Skylar (Talia Ryder) steal money from their job at a supermarket and take a bus to New York City so that Sidney can get an abortion without her parents finding out. 

Sidney (and Skylar, to an extent) encounter so many lies, horrible adults, and indignities along the way. Nothing that happens is anything out of the ordinary or played up for drama. To just name a couple things that clearly affect Sidney's life, and her ability to receive adequate medical care in this life-changing situation:

1) Her dad is unkind to her, and does this thing where he calls the family dog a "slut" when she wants pets. It's clear that Sidney's parents are not only unsupportive, but might in fact be emotionally abusive to her. The scene where that dad says "you're a little slut, aren't you?" to the dog in front of Sidney comes only hours after Sidney herself was called a slut while performing in a school production. It honestly says so much about why Sidney can't tell her parents about her predicament. 

2) The crisis pregnancy center tells her she's 10 weeks along, but when she gets to the clinic in New York, it turns out she is actually 18 weeks. Because of this, she needs to go to a different clinic to receive a two-day long procedure rather than a simple abortion using a pill. This leads to Skylar and Sidney not sleeping for two nights in a row and running out of money. If y'all don't know what crisis pregnancy centers are, look them up because they are so evil. They actually do stuff like this because it makes it harder for a pregnant person to make an informed choice. They will lie to women because they believe the ends justifies the means, and damn the consequences. 

3) Sidney and Skylar running out of money leads Skylar to sweet talk an older boy the two met on the bus to New York into giving her a loan so they can buy tickets back to PA. There is a scene where Sidney catches Skylar and Jasper, the young man, kissing--and it's clear that Skylar is only doing it for the loan Jasper is giving them. While it's not quite as heartbreaking as sexual coercion in exchange for money, food, or a safe place to stay (as seen in this week's episode of The Handmaid's Tale, which--surprise--also featured a crisis pregnancy center and an abortion!), it's still sad to see a young girl feel she has to make out with a boy in order to help her friend.

But in addition to the above indignities, the movie just shows how tiring (literally) this process can be, with all the barriers in place, especially for women who don't have access to funds, transportation, and/or a place to stay. After the abortion, Skylar asks Sidney how she feels. "Just tired" Sidney replies. You and me both, girl. I'm tired of living in a country that treats women like sex servants and children at the same time. A country where adult men who literally think babies grow in stomachs make and pass our laws. 

Everyone should see this remarkable, powerful film. There are a lot of great films about abortion, but I think that Never Rarely Sometimes Always captures the spirit of abortion in the United States the best.

Never Rarely Sometimes Always

Grade: A

Now, on the other side of the tone spectrum is Unpregnant. Starring Haley Lu Richardson as Veronica, a young woman who finds herself in a similar situation as Sidney. She is 17, pregnant, and living in Missouri with a pro-life mom and a terrible (really, this guy is just The Worst) boyfriend. She ends up reaching out to ex-friend Bailey (a hilarious Barbie Ferreira, an actress who is going places) because Bailey has a car. Although Bailey isn't thrilled that the girl who dumped her once she got a little more popular is now calling in a favor, it's hoes before...FOEtesus (see what I did there?), and she agrees. The two young women have to drive all the way to Albuquerque, New Mexico because that's literally the closest state where Veronica can get an abortion without parental consent. 

Along the way they encounter shenanigans and twists of fate that make up the bulk of the plot and the comedy. It was kind of charming to see these two girls escape from the clutches of a psychotic anti-abortion couple (Sugar Lyn Beard and...Breckin Meyer?! Travis Birkenstock, noooo!!) by stealing the couple's SUV and faking their own death. WACKY! The movie almost kind of has a Juno-like feeling to it in it's turning what would actually be an incredibly difficult decision into comedy gold. Only in this case, Juno doesn't let that chick who tells her that babies have fingernails get in the way of her decision.

Unpregnant is clearly using comedy to stick it to the Man, and I appreciate that. But it can be a little too loose and irreverent at times, and has a couple gaping plot holes. Additionally, it does this weird thing where the only black people in the movie serve to help the white teen girl. Like, there are three black characters who each play a big role in helping out Veronica and then...disappear from the movie. 'K. Not really into that. But overall, it's a funny movie that takes a serious subject and uses comedy to teach us all that women deserve better in this country. But mostly, I just liked Barbie Ferreira in it. 

Unpregnant

Grade: B+

Thanks for reading. By the way, both of these movies are rated PG-13, and if you have teenagers, these are good movies to watch in order to discuss the issue of abortion with your teen. 

You can donate to Planned Parenthood here.