How White of You

Movies: Sorry to Bother You

Ok, first of all, if you haven't seen Sorry to Bother You yet, stop reading this and go see it. It's better going in knowing NOTHING. For once in my dumb life I *didn't* read a billion reviews before seeing the movie and I was very happy I got to have the full experience.

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Ok, now that you saw it--- HOLY SHIT, RIGHT?

Lakeith Stanfield, best known for his role as Darius in Atlanta and also that black dude at the party who flips out when Daniel Kaluuya takes his picture in Get Out, plays Cassius Green--a man barely scraping by in Oakland, CA and living in his uncle's (played by Terry Crews, with hair!) garage. He takes a job as a telemarketer in a soul-crushing cubicle farm and a coworker (Danny Glover) encourages him to use his "white voice" to do better at his job. Cassius' white voice isn't his own voice but "whiter", it's REALLY fucking white--David Cross supplies the voice and you know how white David Cross sounds.

Cassius' success gets the attention of management who promote him to "Power Caller", which comes with a pay raise so huge he can't refuse, as well as a private golden elevator to a penthouse at the top of the building, filled with beautiful people selling...well....they're not exactly selling discount cruise vacations to elderly people up there.

Right as Cassius' star is rising, his coworkers, lead by Squeeze (Steven Yeun), are staging a strike in order to get paid better and receive benefits. Cassius' artist girlfriend, Detroit (the always wonderful Tessa Thompson) joins their ranks while also enjoying the benefits of Cassius' newfound wealth--but their relationship is hanging by a thread because Cassius is changing by hanging out with all those power callers and using his white voice all the time. MONEY MAKES PEOPLE WORSE. I'm not being sarcastic. It just does. How many kind and authentic rich people do you know? The only rich people I know are entitled dipshits who don't believe white privilege exists.

(Yes, I know. Wealth is relative. I'm probably in the top 1% if you compare me to the rest of the entire world. I, too, am an entitled dipshit).

So anyway, the shiz really hits the fan when Cassius is invited to a party at the home of a guy named Steve Lift (played PERFECTLY by Armie Hammer) who created a company called "Worry Free" where workers sign lifetime contracts to live, work, and eat in the same building without being paid because their living expenses are covered. Yes, it's literally slave labor--though, notably, all the ads and commercials for "Worry Free" feature white people.

So Cassius goes to Steve's mansion and is forced to perform a rap song for a group of drunk and high white people ("boring cunts" as Steve refers to them) but since Cassius can't rap, he just repeats the phrase "n*gger shit n*gger shit n*gger shit" over and over to a beat and it's a hit. The white people yell it right back to him.

The whole party scene was absolutely bonkers and hilarious--reminded me of Django Unchained where they go to that debauched party at Calvin Candy's house in New Orleans.

But then, right as Steve requests a private meeting with Cassius to talk about a project that he'd be a fool to turn down, Cassius accidentally discovers what Steve is REALLY up to and...man. To say the movie takes a sharp left turn isn't accurate--the movie launches into a different plane of existence.

And that's where I'll stop with the plot synopsis. If you read all this and haven't seen the movie--GO SEE IT.

Sorry to Bother You, which is directed by rapper Boots Riley, reminded me of a lot of films that touch on similar issues. The one movie it really felt kin to is Spike Lee's Bamboozled about a black man (Damon Wayans) who creates a TV show that incorporates blackface and minstrelsy as a "fuck you" to his white boss, but it backfires and becomes a hit--netting him power and money even though he created an insanely racist product. Similarly, STBY is about what happens when a black individual achieves success by fitting in to white culture and in that process ends up fucking over other black people (and poorer people).

It also reminded me of Django Unchained with its moments of crazed debauchery and pitch black humor and, of course, Get Out, especially in the last third. Despite all these comparisons, STBY never felt derivative--it is fully its own weird and wonderful thing. Even if all the ideas didn't come together seamlessly, it is so unique and bizarre that its minor flaws are 100% forgiven.

Sorry to Bother You is many things: an Oakland fantasia, a pro-union comedy, a perverse exploration of white privilege. But it is also one thing: a movie that must be seen to be believed.

Grade: A

Frozen in Terror

TV shows, books: The Terror

Welcome to another book/show twofer review! Today I'll be reviewing Dan Simmons' epic work of historical horror The Terror as well as the AMC television show based on that book.

I first read The Terror in graduate school and though it took about 2 months to read (the novel is 700 or 900 pages depending on whether you're reading a trade or mass-market paperback) I was enraptured by it. The novel blends historical reality with fictional horror. It takes a real-life event: the John Franklin expedition of 1845 to find the Northwest Passage, which ended in the deaths of all the men from starvation and scurvy and adds a supernatural element: a monster hunting the men on the ice.

The novel has multiple perspectives: John Franklin himself, a man of great hubris who ignores the advice of his fellow Captains and Lieutenants to modify their course when it becomes clear that the ships on the expedition, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, will soon be stuck in pack ice. Additionally, we see the perspectives of Francis Crozier, Franklin's second in command and the protagonist of the story, Dr. Harry Goodsir, and various men on the ships.

What truly makes this story unique is how seamlessly Simmons weaves together the real life horrors of starvation, severe illness, the unforgiving landscape of hellish cold, cannibalism, and murder with the supernatural horrors of the mysterious "Thing on the ice" that is introduced in the first 20 pages and is not fully explained until the final 50 pages, yet keeps the reader in suspense the entire time.

The book was adapted into a ten episode series for AMC starring Ciaran Hinds as Franklin, Jared Harris (best known as one of my favorite characters from Mad Men, Lane Pryce) as Crozier, and Tobias Menzies (whom Outlander aficionados will recognize as Frank Randall/Black Jack Randall) as the third in command, James Fitzjames.

The order in which I watched/read the show/book is this:
Read The Terror in grad school
Watched the show a few months ago
Re-read the book
Re-watched the show (with closed captions)

And I'm glad I read the book and watched the show twice because the show is damned hard to follow unless you have closed captions, already know the story, or both. Think: dozens of British actors who all look the same when bundled up, have similar character names (sooooo many Johns, James, and Thomases), and all have thick accents (the first time I watched the show, I thought they were all saying "left-tenant" instead of "Lieutenant"). By re-reading the book and then immediately re-watching the show, I picked up on many things I missed in the first viewing.

This might sound like a lot of work to you so if you're at all curious, my recommendation is to watch the TV show with closed captions so you can at least follow who's who. If you're looking for a spooky good time though, the book delivers more tension and creepiness than the show does.

The show's strength lies in strong performances by Jared Harris, Tobias Menzies, and Adam Nagaitis who plays Cornelius Hickey, a scheming man who tries to undermine his superiors. Additionally, Nive Nielsen, a singer-songwriter and budding actress who is Inuk, plays Lady Silence, an "Esquimaux" woman who has a spiritual connection to the monster on the ice. Appropriately, they cast a Native person to play a Native character and she does an amazing job elevating the character above any kind of "noble savage" stereotype. In fact, Lady Silence has the power to both save and kill the white men aboard the ships. Although she is one of the few female characters on the show (which makes sense, given the time and place it is set), she is fully fleshed out and three-dimensional. The story wouldn't make sense without her.

The book and tv show are pretty niche. If you love sea-faring stories, you'll love it. If you like historical fiction and/or horror, you'll love it. Otherwise, you might find both the book and show long and tedious. Given the fact that the novel is one of the few books I've ever re-read, you can see where I land.

Grades:
The Terror, the book: A+
The Terror, the show: A

Neighborly

Movies: Won't You Be My Neighbor?

There's a lot to unpack regarding my deep, deep feelings about the Fred Rogers documentary Won't You Be My Neighbor?

My parents tell a story about how when I was a little girl, I once called Mr. Rogers a "screwball". Very cute, but obviously 5-year-old Jenny couldn't possibly know what "screwball" meant so I clearly picked it up from an adult or adults in my life. If I can lovingly and gently throw my parents under the bus for a minute, what I think I picked up on was the fact that Mr. Rogers was very pro-feelings and I was raised in about a 50-60% pro-feelings household. Meaning, I was allowed to feel feelings, but I was encouraged to go to my room to cry.

This isn't to criticize my parents or how they raised me because I think they did a pretty good job, and I have the money to pay for a therapist to sort out the stuff they goofed on. But I do think that I was a sensitive child and I now wish I could have heard Fred Rogers' message a little more clearly because I think it would have helped me. As a 32 year old adult, I'm not ashamed to say that I need to feel special and I need to feel loved. I have the strength to reach out and ask for these things from the people who are able to give them to me: family, friends, and even strangers I pay. I get monthly massages because I want to be touched. I meet with a therapist because I need to be heard. I'm often single, so I can't always rely on a partner for touch and for an ear to listen, so I cultivate many, many friends whom I also try to give affection and love to since these things work better as a two-way street. I've grown, I think, into a woman who loves deeply, despite my feelings of anger and fear at the world and what this country has become.


To admit that we need love, we need validation, we need to feel special is to admit that we are human. And yet, think about how hard it is for many of us to admit these things. Think of all the ways feelings have been beaten out of us as we've grown older. This is especially true for men, I believe, but it's true for women as well. Women are constantly encouraged to not be honest about our feelings and needs in order to take up less space and time.

Fred Rogers, as Won't You Be My Neighbor? reveals, understood children in a way very few people were and are able to: he could get down to their level but never lose respect for them. The doc shows that Rogers addressed racism, assassination (specifically Bobby Kennedy's assassination), divorce, tragedy (the Challenger explosion, 9/11, etc) and perhaps the scariest issue of all: one's own personal feelings of inadequacy.

In a scene so deeply touching that I wept into my popcorn, Betty Aberlin (known as Lady Aberlin on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood) sings a duet with Daniel Striped Tiger.

Daniel sings:
Sometimes I wonder if I'm a mistake
I'm not like anyone else I know
When I'm asleep or even awake
Sometimes I get to dreaming that I'm just a fake
I'm not like anyone else

And Lady Aberlin sings:
I think you are just fine as you are
I really must tell you
I do like the person you are becoming
When you are sleeping
When you are waking
You're not a fake
You're no mistake
You are my friend

Think about that song: it addresses the deepest fear everyone has--that we are not enough. All the evils in the world can be traced back to this fear. That we're not worthy of love. And Fred Rogers, a man people mocked and called "gay" and "feminine" and other supposed insults (because being feminine or gay are so terrible, right?) had the guts to address it on camera.

At one point in the doc, one of Rogers' sons mentions it was hard growing up with a man some people believed was "the second Christ" and, I have to admit, it does seem like Fred Rogers was almost supernatural in his kindness and his gentle strength. But the film reveals that even Rogers struggled with feelings of inadequacy and--perhaps especially in his final years--the question of did it really make a difference? Honestly, I'm glad he passed away before he saw the current state our country is in.

That said, here's how I see it: events on a national and international scale, such as racial animosity, natural disasters, terrorism, political oppression, etc have always been part of life and always will be. Likewise, hardships on a personal level, such as imposter syndrome, addiction, and abuse will always be part of life. As "Christlike" as Fred Rogers was, he was not, in fact, Christ and he couldn't stop these things from happening. But what he could do is help children understand and cope with these hardships and painful feelings and experiences. So he did make a difference. He made an enormous difference.

A friend once told me that the work of activism is ongoing. Activism, in whatever form it takes is by nature never complete because the world will never be perfect and safe for everyone. To choose to do activism is to choose to do what you can knowing that the goal isn't perfection. The goal is to make life more bearable for both others and yourself. This is what Fred Rogers did and what he inspired in so many others.

I beg you--please see this movie and let it make you cry. As a kid I cried a lot and sometimes had to go to my room to do it, but as an adult I cried in public watching this movie. Tears are the natural response to the exhaustion of being a kind person in a world that wants to hurt the most vulnerable. Let Won't You Be My Neighbor? inspire you to keep working. Don't give up hope. Things are scary and infuriating right now, but this is actually not new--the problem of power and violence and hate has been around since people have been around and it will never go away. But instead of letting that thought break you, let it encourage you not to try to change the entire world, but to make all the difference in the world to the people you are closest too--tell a friend you love them. Offer a hug. Pay for someone's coffee. Tell a child that they are special and loved and respected. We owe Fred Rogers that much, considering how much he gave us.

Grade: A+ 

Tainted Blood

Movies: Hereditary

I know a lot of y'all out there reading this are very curious about Ari Aster's film Hereditary, which is being hailed as one of the scariest movies EVER and also totally bat-whack insane. So for those of you who haven't seen it yet, I'll do a brief review without spoilers (although you really should go in completely blind) and for those who are too scared to see it (or want to be prepared), I'll write a much more detailed plot description below that.

Spoiler-free section:

I'll start out by saying that Hereditary is very, very good and incredibly distressing. There's already backlash against the film (which is Aster's first feature-length film, btw) saying it's over the top and even misogynist and ableist. By all means, read about the film and it's various interpretations, but this movie is pretty fucking well done in my opinion.

Hereditary opens on the day of Ellen Graham's funeral. Her daughter, Annie (Toni Collette, a force to be reckoned) gives an eulogy that reveals her not great relationship with her "difficult, secretive" mother. Later on in the film, we find out much more about this profoundly troubled mother-daughter relationship. Annie is a miniaturist who builds dollhouses and miniature replicas--very cool and also super creepy. She and her husband, Steve (Gabriel Byrne, appropriately understated) are raising two kids: older teen Peter (Alex Wolff, who steals the movie) and Charlie (Milly Shapiro), an odd, introverted thirteen year old girl with some tics and a propensity for drawing creepy ass cartoons.

Not long after the funeral, the family suffers another tragedy which I won't reveal the nature of, but I will say that it sets in motion all the wack shit you saw in the preview. At it's heart, Hereditary is movie about how grief can make us go insane and turn life into a waking nightmare.

The acting in Hereditary is top-notch, with Toni Collette giving a brutal performance as a woman who suppresses a lot of negative emotions and resentment until they explode and Alex Wolff giving a performance of intense vulnerability (when was the last time you saw an older teenage boy in a movie or TV show weeping and crying "Mommy!"? Some people in the audience giggled during those scenes because you don't see older boys cry a lot in movies and TV...because our culture is fucked up in how we limit the emotions of boys...but I digress. Wolff is excellent).

The scares in Hereditary are frightening, especially if you go in blind; however, it's the almost overwhelming emotions the film potentially brings out in the audience that is truly distressing. Let's just say that if you have a bad relationship with a parent, you might want to sit this one out.

Overall: excellent horror film that will leave you feeling emotionally shredded. Highly recommended.

Grade: A-

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SPOILERS AHEAD

Let's just get the biggest spoiler out of the way first. Not long after Ellen Graham's funeral, Charlie, the thirteen year old, dies in a freak, super violent accident. Annie forces Peter to take her to a party and while he's getting high with some friends, Charlie eats cake with nuts in it and has an allergic reaction. As Peter rushes her to the hospital, she sticks her head out the window to get some air and is decapitated by a telephone pole. How you feel about this probably depends on a lot of things, like how dark your sense of humor is. But people in the audience I watched it with collectively gasped and then went dead silent.

In the days and weeks that follow, Annie and Peter are both overwhelmed by grief, guilt, and resentment. They have a confrontation at the dinner table in the film's best and most gutting scene where Annie says she wishes Peter would just admit that Charlie's death is his fault (since he wasn't watching her at the party) and he responds, "What about you, Mom? Charlie didn't want to go to the party. So why was she there?" Of course, they're both right--but they're also both wrong in the sense that it really is no one's "fault", which in a way makes the senseless death so much harder to process. It was just the worst possible thing to happen and it did happen and for no reason other than bad luck.

Annie and Peter start seeing things. Peter sees Charlie in the corner of his room. Annie has terrible dreams of Peter's face covered in ants. These could be the understandable bodily responses to grief, or they could be supernatural. But when Annie meets up with a woman named Joan from a grief support group (Ann Dowd, also known as Aunt Lydia from The Handmaid's Tale, and just as terrifying in this film) who claims she can talk to her dead son, shit really hits the fan.

After Annie forces Steve and Peter to participate in a seance ritual to contact Charlie, the supernatural events ramp up intensely: Peter's own body betrays him at school, and it seems that whatever is haunting the Graham family has it out for him in particular. Meanwhile, Anne discovers a secret that makes her blood run cold: Her mother *knew* Joan from the support group before she died (and Joan didn't mention it), and it appears they were in a devil-worshipping coven together.

Now, again, one's response to this information depends on the individual. I could see a lot of viewers finding the devil-worshipping aspect very cheesy, but I liked it. I'm also a huge fan of Rosemary's Baby, which was clearly an inspiration for this movie.

The final 20 minutes or so goes completely off the rails. It involves Steve spontaneously catching on fire (bye Steve! You were no help to anyone in this movie), Annie floating around the ceiling and eventually beheading herself, and Peter becoming the bodily host to a devil called Paimon and being worshiped by a bunch of old, naked people. Wooo, what a ride.

Suffice it to say, Hereditary is a roller coaster both emotionally and in terms of just the sheer amount of creepy and bizarre images. I mentioned Rosemary's Baby as clear inspiration for the film, but it's also very comparable to Darren Arronofsky's mother! in terms of bat-shittery. Like mother! Hereditary feels creepy and off-kilter from the get-go and ramps up to a wild, off-the-rails conclusion that will make some viewers roll their eyes and others feel a sense of delight, like one feels while riding a roller coaster or taking LSD or whatever people do to feel something EXTREME. Personally, I enjoyed the hell out of the movie and while it didn't scare me too badly in the moment (I read a detailed synopsis, much like the one I'm writing here, before seeing it), it did give me nightmares.

Highly recommended for lovers of horror and intense, bat-shit movies. Not recommended for people who have mommy issues.

Grade: A-

Easy Watchin'

Movies: Deadpool 2, Solo

What would summer be without sequels, spin-offs, and superheroes? I recently saw two movies that I would characterize as "popcorn flicks"--movies that, while not excellent cinema, are fun and entertaining. I don't have a ton to say about either one of them, so I'm going to do a twofer review.

Deadpool 2

I've written in this blog before that I'm not really a fan of superhero movies. And I pretty much stick by that statement, though of course I've seen plenty of superhero movies by virtue of not living under a rock. However, I find many of them either too cutesy or too sincere. Too PG-13, if you will. So you can see how Deadpool, the self-aware, R-rated Merc with the Mouth is one of my favorites.

I LOVED the first Deadpool movie and there was no way in hell I'd miss the second. I left the theatre with mixed feelings about Deadpool 2: overall, I enjoyed it and was happy I saw it. There were a couple things about it I particularly enjoyed, such as the introduction of Domino, a lady superhero played by Atlanta's Zazie Beetz whose power is, simply, good luck. I also liked the hilarious, if short-lived "X-Force" that Deadpool gathers together and the father/son (or, more accurately, big brother/little brother) relationship Deadpool has with a young mutant named Firefist (on which the entire plot is based).

However, the movie felt very uneven and all over the place in both tone and plot. Previews implied that a giant chunk of the film would revolve around the above-mentioned X-Force, which was really not the case. There's also a time-traveling aspect to the film which led to a huge fucking plothole which annoyed the FUCK out of me.

///spoiler for plothole//

Ok, if Cable ends up not going back to the future at the end of the movie, does that mean his kid was never even born? Or, if she was, doesn't that mean he abandoned his family to live in the present?

//end spoiler//

I'm sure there are essays written by nerdy fans who explain this plothole, but I just was like "what the fuck, that makes NO SENSE" at the end.

There's also the "fridging" issue, which I won't get into--you can google "Deadpool + fridging" if you want to read more, but suffice it to say I thought it was lazy writing.

So: Deadpool 2. Good on some counts, bad on other counts. Definitely not as good as the original. But if Deadpool 3 ever comes out, I will 100% be there to watch it.

Grade: B-

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Solo

In addition to not being a superhero person, I'm REALLY not a Star Wars person. I just never connected with the franchise. That said, I appreciate the importance of Star Wars in our culture. But I was invited to see Solo and that was the only way I was going to get my butt to go see it. I would have never just gone of my own volition. Hell, I still haven't seen The Last Jedi.

Solo is a fun movie. It takes a little while to get going, but the second half really picks up, especially when Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover) shows up to give the movie some much-needed sex appeal. Seriously, can they just make a movie about Calrissian being a total boss and fucking sexy space-ladies? I'd go see that movie.

Solo is a heist movie. Basically, Han Solo (Alden Ehrenreich) latches on to some career criminals, Val (Thandie Newton, who I only see as Maeve from Westworld now) and Beckett (Woody Harrelson being Woody Harrelson) and basically fucks up their big score so then he and Chewy have to help them with an even riskier heist so the big boss, Dryden Vos (Paul Bettany, going full space-Nazi here) doesn't kill them all. There are crosses and double-crosses and triple-crosses aplenty. Maybe even a quadruple-cross. I lost count at some point.

The good thing about Solo is that you don't really need to understand Star Wars in depth to get it. I mean, it helps, but you could go see it without seeing a single one of the other films in the franchise and still have a good time. And at its heart, that's what Star Wars is all about: classic stories about good vs. evil that are fun and that you can watch with the whole family.

Grade: B

GIVE LANDO HIS OWN MOVIE

Unorthodox Desires

Movies: Disobedience

In the opening scene of Sebastian Lelio's film Disobedience (based on the novel by Naomi Alderman), an elderly rabbi speaks to a congregation of Orthodox Jews about how God created the angels to have no will of their own, the beasts of the earth to be driven by instinct, and mankind to have the "privilege and burden" of choice. Man alone, the rabbi stresses, can choose to disobey. In the middle of his speech, the rabbi collapses and the film's title fills the screen.

This "privilege and burden" of free will is at the crux of many world religions. The idea that if one is faithful to God, one will obey...but that obedience will never be easy. Temptations and trials fill the path of the righteous and even if one's religious beliefs include complete forgiveness of all sin, the expectation is that one will at least try to obey. But what happens when religious expectations crash up against not just human desire but human identity?

The elderly rabbi who collapses at the beginning of the film is Rav Krushka, a giant of the local Orthodox community (the film takes place in London). Although the obituary in the newspaper says the rabbi left no children, this is not true. He left an estranged daughter, Ronit (Rachel Weisz), who left the faith a decade before and moved to New York to become a photographer. Ronit receives a phone call letting her know of the death and when she returns to London she is greeted coldly by old friends and family who are suspicious of her. A childhood friend and successor to the rabbi, Dovid Kuperman (Alessandro Nivola), begrudgingly allows her to stay at his house and it turns out he is married to another childhood friend of Ronit's--Esti (Rachel McAdams, about as far from Regina George as she'll even get).

It's revealed that when Esti and Ronit were younger, they engaged in a romance until they were discovered by Ronit's father. Ronit left the faith and Esti quickly married Dovid. This affair was an open secret in the community so now that Ronit has returned, there are whispers about how she'll be a "distraction" to Esti.

Spoiler alert: she ends up being a distraction to Esti.

Disobedience is what we might call an "intimate drama". It focuses less on plot and more on relationships and emotions. Much of the film is shot in tight close-ups, capturing the incredibly subtle emotions of people like Esti and Dovid who have been raised to not express passionate feelings, whether they are sexual feelings or feelings of anger and rage. The women in the film wear the traditional wigs of Orthdox wives: long, silky black or brown hair that in Esti's case covers half her face. Esti and the other Orthodox women also where layers and layers of black or dark clothing so that nothing but their faces and hands are exposed. Even Ronit who is no longer part of their community has long black hair and wears the black layers of a chic New Yorker.

The conservative clothes and tights close-ups make the film feel simultaneously cozy and suffocating--mirroring what a strict religious community would feel like. There's the intimacy and safety of being surrounded by people who support and love you, while also knowing that every misstep will be observed and commented on.

Disobedience doesn't offer any easy answers and doesn't really have any good guys or bad guys. Dovid, Esti's husband, for example, is not abusive. He's also not that great. Despite being childhood friends, their marriage is lukewarm at best. Director Leilo makes sure to hammer this home by showing a scene where Esti and Dovid make love and then later a scene where Ronit and Esti make love in a hotel room and one of the scenes is not just hotter, but way more vital. If you compare sex to food, Esti's sex with her husband is like a cup of watery gruel whereas her sex with Ronit is a Thanksgiving feast.

I found Disobedience to be a tad cliche in some parts, especially the final third. Esti and Dovid's complacency and passivity came off as if they were in the throughs of deep depression where nothing mattered (maybe that's the point? If so, is the director suggesting that Orthodox Jews are by nature deeply depressed? Or just Orthodox Jews in loveless marriages?) Unfortunately, the way the characters were written--even the rebellious Ronit to an extent--gave the film a lethargy and the sense that the stakes were actually pretty low.

Something that I enjoyed about Disobedience is that it drops you into the Orthodox Jewish community and doesn't over explain anything. It expects YOU to figure out what "frum" means and to understand when Esti takes off her wig the first time. I have a passing knowledge of Jewish culture, but I certainly felt like there were things I wasn't picking up on--and that was fine by me because it made the whole thing feel *real* and more, well, voyeuristic to be honest.

Fans of queer cinema should check out Disobedience (and also Leilo's film from last year, A Fantastic Woman, which is supposed to be great but I haven't seen it yet). Additionally, anyone who likes the Rachels McAdams and Weisz will be in for a treat since these two women are excellent. But my general impression with this film is that while it was beautiful and intimate, it was underwhelming.

Grade: B

Mother Nature

Movies: Tully

Motherhood often seems like a rigged game, doesn't it? Women who become mothers do the lion's share of the work of raising a child: everything from pushing the baby out their vagina (or undergoing major surgery to get it out) and feeding it with their bodies to cooking, cleaning, and chauffeuring. Yet mothers are judged so harshly. Take a sip of alcohol while pregnant or breastfeeding? You're a selfish monster. Don't have time to cook fresh, organic meals? Clearly you don't care about Junior's health. Yell at your kid? You're obviously an abusive bitch. And all of this work and judgement with very little support. The United States is one of the worst first-world countries for paternal leave.

And then if you don't decide to have kids? Well, you're also a selfish bitch. Your choice to not reproduce is a direct challenge to all those overworked mothers everywhere.

Written by Diablo Cody and directed by Jason Reitman, the team behind the overrated Juno and the underrated Young Adult comes the perfectly rated Tully. A funny, dark, surprising, and often devastating film about motherhood.

Charlize Theron stars as Marlo, a mom of two with a third on the way at the movie's start. Her husband, Drew (Ron Livingston) is well-meaning, but often absent: he works long hours, takes frequent business trips, and then zones out playing first-person shooter video games with headphones on at night. He's not a bad husband or father, he's just...not present.

So Marlo's rich brother, Craig (Mark Duplass in a small and very Duplassian role) offers to gift the couple a night nanny to help when the baby arrives. At first, Marlo resists, thinking that night nannies are creepy and bougie. But a few weeks after her baby girl is born, Marlo is desperate for help. Tully (Mackenzie Davis, who is great in everything) shows up and Marlo's world changes overnight--literally. She wakes up from her first restful night in forever to a clean house.

Although Marlo is skeptical of the very young and very Manic Pixie Dream Girl-ish Tully, the two quickly become close. Weirdly close, one might say. The movie takes some surprising turns that I already knew about going in--it was fun listening to the audience I was with react to some of the scenes. (Which I won't spoil in this review).

Tully isn't perfect--the resolution seemed to come too quickly and was tied up a little too neatly. And the character of Tully really *is* kind of a Manic Pixie cliche, although the nature of the relationship (mom and nanny, as opposed to boyfriend and girlfriend) really fucked with that trope nicely.

But my general impression was that Tully is a rare film to show motherhood for what it really is: exhausting, often thankless work. Yes, you experience the joy of raising children, but honestly...joy doesn't get up at night and feed the baby. Joy doesn't change diapers. Joy doesn't soothe chafed nipples. The idea that mothers should be paid in "joy" is absurd. The idea that a mother can and should shoulder so many emotional and physical burdens alone is absurd. The idea that if a mother isn't happy all the time, she's clearly a callous, unnatural woman is utterly absurd and dehumanizing to women. Women are people first. We're not baby machines.

You know what else our culture of motherhood in the US does? It pits women against each other. It pits moms against non-moms and moms against other moms. It suggests that one's life choices are a judgement on another's. And women are already fucked over more than men as it is.

I don't want kids. I never have and, despite people saying my biological clock will start ticking any day now, the older I get the *less* I want children. But I see a place for myself as a childfree adult in a culture that works moms to death. Children aren't raised just by their parents--they need other adults in their lives that they can look to and trust. Overworked moms and dads *need* a support system, and childfree adults can help build that net of support. Just because we're childfree (not child-less, mind you) doesn't mean we don't understand the fulfillment children bring to not just their parents, but to their communities. And on the flip side, just because someone is a parent doesn't mean that the don't have an identity of their own anymore.

Tully celebrates that interdependence we've been told we don't need when it comes to raising kids. It challenges the lie that parents and especially moms should be able to do all the work of raising kids AND STILL go to work, have a social life, have great sex, have a bangin' body. Fuck that. We need each other to lean on. We're human beings, for chrissakes. Don't let our fucked up culture of parenthood tear us apart rather than bring us together. If not for ourselves, then for our children.

Grade: A