Author Archives: casewright

Creeped Out, S1E1, Marti, Review by Case Wright

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Creeped Out is a Netflix release that really isn’t.  I have noticed that Netflix will call something an original series even though they just bought the rights.  This show was originally produced by CBBC, explaining why the second episode has very hard to understand British accents.  I checked Bruce McDonald’s IMDB and yes…he’s english and wrote for the Eastenders.  Eastenders or EastEnders (sp?) is show that I believe is about poor people in London or something…I’m not investigating anymore than that.

I watched the first episode Marti with my girls (7,9).  They were quite scared by the opening and one other scene that I will get to later.  The show is a lot like the 90s show The Outer Limits.  It has a lot of spooky and technology themes that teach a morality or cautionary tale.  I was primed to like this show because I loved the Outer Limits and one of the writers is really nice: Melinda Snodgrass (follow her on twitter).

The story opens with Kim.  Kim is a pretty girl in high school who none of the boys pay attention to because that actually happens in real life.  She has nerdy friend that also is a pariah for no particular reason.  Kim is forced to hang out with her loser friend and pine for a boy who looks like Justin Bieber.  She gets a new phone and pays for it somehow.  This phone is indestructible and self-aware.

The phone’s AI calls himself Marti.  Marti is really really creepy.  He works autonomously to make Kim popular and succeeds.  Kim gets the attention of the cool kids, including Bieber.  Just when Bieber is about to go out with her, in true Lifetime MOW fashion, Marti reveals himself to be a jealous psycho boyfriend.  He threatens to destroy Kim’s new found popularity unless she agrees to be only his.  YIKES.  When Kim gets fed up, she tries to destroy the phone, it doesn’t work.  Kim tries to call customer service and a woman answer who slowly takes Marti’s side.  Then, the voice switched to Marti’s voice and my daughters both screamed.  They didn’t understand why fully it was so scary, but I finished the show alone.

Marti blackmails Kim to take him to the prom and she agrees.  It’s really creepy.  She eventually defeats Marti, but he destroys her popularity.  She entombs Marti in cement, but then considers releasing him six months later because she really liked being popular.

The show had a real Outer Limits vibe and played upon human weakness and need to be loved.  There’s always been the morality tale of giving up your soul for fame, but this is more basic.  Kim wants to be loved and our technology has never made us more isolated from real love.  Marti’s popularity is twitter popularity: fake.  Marti gave her multiple friendships that were ended as quickly as they began like muting or blocking someone.  On the other hand, Kim’s nerdy friend took the good with the bad and continued to love Kim.  It spoke to dependence and isolation because of technology and our total dependence upon instant love.

 

Star Trek: The Next Generation, Mirror Broken- Review By Case Wright

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Happy Horrorthon!!! This review is going to be a deep dive into eeeeeeevil nerdism.  I understand that not everyone reads this site is a techie nerd, BUUUUUUT I think we have a healthy plurality. Nothing is better than to merge an evil universe with my love of Star Trek.

I’m going to give brief recap of the Star Trek Mirror Universe.  There’s a parallel universe in Star Trek that basically capitalist/imperialist.  In that timeline, humans are aggressive and conquered the Vulcans.  You can tell they are evil because they are avaricious and have beards- Think if Seattle/Portland went less drum circle and went more Roman.  It’s common to kill your superior to advance in the chain of command, it’s totally capitalist, and more fun in some ways because it’s a lot less model UN and much more Model Viking.

The evil universe never appeared in the Next Generation, but it did appear in Star Trek: The Original Series and then the second tier properties of Enterprise, Deep Space Nine and Voyager.  In those second tier properties, they set up a timeline that when the “Good Kirk” encouraged Spock to be reformist, it worked.  Too bad for Earth because the Empire got attacked by the other Alien Races we conquered and now Humans are pushed back to their solar system and will likely to be conquered.

Where there’s life, there’s hope.  In this comic, the writers Steven and David Tipton imagine if Jean Luc Picard was an uncompromising badass who is determined to bring the Terran Empire back to its former glory. How does he do this besides being really JACKED? Picard sets out to steal the Galaxy Class Enterprise.  This creates a great heist story, but it’s also super fun because it explores all of the old characters from the Next Generation and I mean ALL! There are character that were all but extras in Next Generation that are featured in the background of the book.  There are so many interesting takes on our old heroes.  Barclay is cunning, Data is experimenting with Borg-technology, and Geordie has his paramour from Next Gen, but she’s an alcoholic.  It’s so fun to go down this rabbit hole.

Back to the story, Picard assembles our familiar crew and seizes the Galaxy Class Enterprise for his own.  He could just take off and be rich, but he doesn’t.  Through some cool maneuvers, Picard decimates the Klingons and Cardassians …..nooooooo not the ones with large posteriors …. the ones with the krinkly heads.  Anyway, they go on war rampage and look like they might actually get to restore the Terran Empire!

TERRANS UNITE!

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American Vampire – Review by Case Wright

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I got my computer back!!!! Happy October Horrorthon!!!

In every sport or endeavor, we can think of our stars: the paragons.  Stephen King is an unquestioned master of horror.  In comics, Scott Snyder looks down from that pyramid as well.  I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Scott Snyder a few times and you would never guess that he was the greatest comic book author in a generation.

I went up to Scott at the Emerald City Comic Con to have him sign my trade paperback.  He was surprised because my trade was not rare at all, but I wanted him to know that I loved his art so much that I wanted it signed, regardless of worth.  Because of that, he took out time to talk to me even though there was a line of autograph hounds.  Stephen King, on the other hand, I have no idea what’s he’s like in real life.  I have a hunch that he’s like most people I have known from Maine: DIY, tough, and fair.

American Vampire was a Supergroup: both King and Snyder wrote this book with the beautiful art of Rafael Albuquerque.  They took the genre of the Vampire and, much like the theme in the story, they made it evolve.  The result was a trio of interconnected revenge stories with wonderfully flawed heroes and anti-heroes.  The artists forced you to root even for Skinner Sweet – a man who thinks he’s not only above the law, but beyond it.  Skinner Sweet typifies the American Id: dangerous, violent, and oddly fair within his code.

The book opens with two struggling starlets in the 1920s Hollywood: Pearl and Hattie.  Pearl is all-in with the art; whereas, Hattie is more of the hack opportunist.  They are staying in a cheap apartment complex where a mysterious stranger hangs around.  Pearl is invited to Hollywood party where it turns out she is the main course for a host of hungry vampires.  Near death, the mysterious stranger finds her dying and he makes her like him: An American Vampire.  A vampire, unlike the relics of europe, he can walk in daylight and has few if any weaknesses.   When Pearl rises to her new undead life, she goes on a rampage of revenge to destroy those who stole her humanity.  Yes, I just got chills too!

The story flashes back to the old west where a lawman, Book, has captured Skinner Sweet, but not for long.  He busted out in an awesome train attack by his gang.  This is where we learn about the haughty European vampires and how they are arrogant, weak, and in our way.  Sweet tells Book that he sent poison to his wife, engendering Book’s revenge story against Sweet.  During the train attack, Sweet is turned into a Vampire and when he eventually rises Sweet and Book are sent on a collision course of revenge against the other.

There’s more revenge in this book than a Sicilian novel.  It must be burned into my Italian DNA to love these revenge stories, but there’s more to it that my accident of birth.  Revenge stories tap into the universal of what makes us human.  We’ve all been wronged and we have all wondered what it would be like to mete out own justice and live by our own law.  Skinner Sweet is not as much evil as he is part of civilization; he’s the American ID of our rugged individualism.  Pearl’s character is part of society, but must seek out her own revenge because as a vampire, she is unable to use society to bring her justice.  As the story unfolds, it’s clear that Pearl and Skinner Sweet are the most honest in their quest for revenge because at times Block uses his badge to hide behind his vendetta.  In all three stories, the vendettas are so satisfying and pure.  This book is rage distilled to its purest form.

Gerald’s Game- Book Review by Case Wright

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Hello Horrorthon Readers! It’s a great day to get scared and Retweet and Reblog my work! “Gerald’s Game” is a throwback for Stephen King.  It was published in 1992 and his readers were used to near or over 1000 page tomes.  This book clocks in at a meager 332 and is very pithy and often gross.  At this point in King’s life, he was in the middle of or just finished a relapse into drugs and alcohol.  Gerald’s Game mirrored his life in many ways; he was tormented by his past and incarcerated by his unresolved demons in his present.

The story depicts Jessie, a woman, who has become subservient to her husband.  Over the years of their unequal marriage, she has given up her career and identity at his request to be his quiet lawyer’s wife.  This manifests into Gerald’s last desire of pure possession.  He begins play a sex game with his spouse where she role plays a handcuffed woman and he plays a pirate rapist.  To get the full effect, Gerald uses an off season beach house to use for his game because there will be no one who could come to her aid.

When Gerald begins to perform is rape-game, Jessie decides that she has had enough.  She stands up to Gerald, but he decides to rape his handcuffed wife.  This causes Jessie to snap and kick Gerald right in the balls, giving him a fatal heart attack.  Jessie’s road to hell turns into the autobahn.  A dog comes by and eats her husband’s dead body, causing her psyche to kick into high gear hallucinations.  In order to save herself, she must deal with her past and how all of her decision led her to her current situation.

This book also deals with two horrific acts that recur often in King’s work – Incest and Rape.  The rape/incest scene in this book is purely vomit inducing.  We are forced to live through Jessie’s horrible present and past.  Her psyche appears often as a college friend and her younger self as a puritan who is being pilloried for sexual enticement.  The sexual enticement charge being her self-blame for her father raping her.  The book makes you live through each and every moment of her losing her sense of self and volition.

As in his other books, King likes the idea of a primitive sacrifice to conquer a monster or a demon.  We see that in It, The Stand, Misery, and his many other stories.  In this story, her psyche let’s her know how free herself after she deals with the ghosts of her past.  The solution: she must …… I’m not spoiling it that much.  You know me better than that by now.

I would recommend this book, but the creepy factor is extremely high.   I would recommend this book in audio or paper format.  It is perfect for a plane ride or if your weekend plans fall through.

Harrow County – Countless Haints, Review by Case Wright

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Happy Horrorthon!!! We are in the thick of it folks.  October is happening! We’re all eating things with pumpkin flavor, baseball’s in full swing (pun intended), and we all get into trying something scary.

There are few things that truly scare me as much as clowns do, but I’d rather sit on Bozo’s lap than live one solitary moment in Harrow County.  Harrow County is a comic series by Cullen Bunn and Tyler Crook published by Dark Horse.  Saying this comic is scary is like writing that Charles Lindbergh dabbled in flying planes.  After the first few pages, I was thoroughly creeped out and turned on all the lights in my home.

The story revolves around Emmy, a nearly adult woman, who is discovering that she is not an ordinary farmer’s daughter, but terrifyingly powerful witch.   Years earlier, Emma’s “mother” Hester was an evil witch with the powers of Satan.  The townsfolk weren’t too fond of all of her child sacrifices and dark arts so they decide to shoot, stab, hang, and burn Emma’s “mother”.

*Slight Spoiler*—- Emma learns that she is the born again version of Hester and not an actual daughter.  Emma was born from murder and vengeance and Harrow County is about to reap the whirlwind.

The art of this story is so off-putting and chill-inducing.  Their eyes pull you in as if you are one of the townsfolk being judged and co-opted by good or evil.  The story has a wide streak of ambiguity; it never allows you to fully see the true good or evil of any the characters after the first five pages.  In essence, the characters are real.  They are you neighbor, your brother, your sister: imperfect and conflicted.  This duality is exemplified by Emma’s only a friend a ghost or “Haint” who is actually bifurcated.  One half of the friend acts as Emma’s bodyguard: pure rage that is only muscle akin to the Human Body figures from biology class and the other half of her friend is a kind and scared bag of skin who acts as a guide for Emma.  The bifurcated friend is a great visual example of our rage that hides just under the surface of all people.

This story is scary as Hell.  Go Buy It!

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I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives In The House- Review By Case Wright

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Welcome to the second day of October!!! Woohoo! There are a lot of great horror movies to watch and this is not one of them!  HERE WE GO!  I will only refer to this movie as I AM because the above is too much to write unless I create some shortcut key and I am NOT doing that….EVER!

This film is a sloooooow paced artsy haunted house film directed by Oz Perkins the son of Anthony Perkins of Psycho.  The concept is that people die in homes and if they don’t have any outdoorsy interests, they remain in the domicile for eternity and mope about and not do much.  Therefore, if you’re an introvert like a political activist on twitter who always takes offense, your spirit will NEVER leave your home and your wifi service will be cancelled….BWAHAHAHAHA!

The story revolves around Lily who is a scaredy cat hospice nurse who is assigned to take care of the dying formerly famous author Iris Blum.  Iris calls Lily by the name of Polly throughout the film?  Why?  Because she was a terrible author. All she ever did was listen to this weird murder victim ghost name Polly and type out what she told her.  I couldn’t live with myself if everyone thought I was a great writer, when I was actually just a stenographer.

In any case, Polly was murdered and put in the wall of the house back in the 1800s and ever since she kinda hangs out for no particular reason except to give hack-writers storylines.  Why does Polly do this? I’m guessing because she lacked hobbies.  There’s a lesson here…get outside! If you’re going to haunt something, do the Appalachian Trail or a library at least; otherwise, you have a very boring eternity ahead of you!  Lily continues to take care of this dying author and she just doesn’t want to die.  Iris does chit-chat A LOT and Lily is introvert enough to quietly listen.  Honestly, Lily going into the great hereafter will likely not be a huge transition except for no copays for dental.

I would put this film in the elliptical watching category except it’s so quiet that you might need really good headphones.  It does have Bob Balaban in the film who must’ve believed that he was auditioning to play a lamppost, but with less feeling.  Of course, it’s hard to say if boredom wasn’t intentional! Maybe this was a brave choice on the part of Oz Perkins?  For far too long, we, the viewer, have expected to be entertained or even have our attention captured.  I would find some pharmaceutical or extra coffee to focus you while watching this or you’ll be looking up possible deductions for 2018 and miss some critical scene with an actor wandering around aimlessly.

I hope you are having a wonderful October.  Stay Spooky, My Friends!

“All The Boys Love Mandy Lane” AKA All the Bland Love Blandy Lane, Review By Case Wright

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IT’S OCTOBER!!!! WOOHOO!!!! The Most Wonderful Time of The Year!!!!

All The Boys Love Mandy Lane….for some reason.  Let’s begin by admitting Amber Heard is pretty, but …. love at first sight obsession?! Word?! Word?!  This film was written by Jacob Forman who went on to …. not much.  Jacob Forman does have a few recent credits as a special thanks over the last few years, which means he let someone sleep on his couch or something who was making a movie.  I wonder if the film deserved to make enough money to afford the futon that he used to get those special thanks.  But it’s on Netflix; so, if you’re on an elliptical and have already caught up on your YouTube subscriptions…. I guess this would be a choice that you could make … on purpose.

Jonathan Levine (director 50/50) directed this mess and he’s a very talented director for … Dramatic Comedy and Drama… Horror…not so much.  It was one of his first films (2006) and didn’t get a US release until 2013 … for good reason.  He’s very good at filming true to life couch conversations, which was certainly evident in 50/50, but in a Horror/Thriller the camera work/direction has to act as another character to pull us into suspense and punch us with payoffs.  This piece uses a lot of shaky cam in a 1980s style with artsy cuts that never allow us to feel worried about anyone on-screen.  The direction is like someone constantly spilling water on your charcoal as your trying to get the barbecue going.

The exploitation premise is simple enough: A bunch of boys try to corrupt a naive virginal archetype – Mandy Lane (Amber Heard).  Mandy is kind of bland and has a friend Emmet who everyone picks on and gets even by somehow convincing a guy to jump off his roof into a pool and he dies.  It’s weird.

After the pool incident, Emmet is a pariah. Mandy, on the other hand, is apparently the paragon of the feminine ideal because every man within 100 miles will give up his eternal soul for a tryst with her.  She agrees to go to a ranch in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of dudes and girls who are equally boring.  They arrive at the ranch and there’s a ranch hand on the property who is supposedly a Gulf War veteran even though he’s 27 and not in his later 40s.  Sigh.  Mandy Lane and all the other girls are obviously smitten with the ranch hand and why not….the ranch hand defies time and math itself!!!  As the song goes, every girl crazy for a …. man who defies the space-time-continuum! [Sung as ZZ Top]  The ranch hand is bored with the teens and returns to his home sweet shed.

Later, the teens start doing a ton of drugs and booze and Emmet or someone (dun dun dun) arrives and starts murdering everyone.  They are pretty gruesome deaths and it does border on torture porn at one point, which makes sense because it was written around 2004/2005 when Hostel was all the rage.  Even though people aren’t returning, all of the guys continue to try to make out with Mandy in the creepiest ways possible.  Mandy Lane has 20 lines of very bland dialogue total in the film and there is a slight twist at the end that fails to thrill.

What bugged me about this film is that horror is always treated as the Red-Headed Stepchild of film.  Everybody seems to think the genre is easy to write and do and this film is proof that both of those assumptions are false.  First, you need to at least have some sympathy for the people getting killed.  Second, you need to explain in someway at the halfway why they don’t just leave.  In this film, it’s not clear why the dudes want Mandy to stay at the halfway point of the film when it’s clear that she’s not interested in any of them.  Third, the camera work and direction to pull you into the house and into the story to ratchet up tension; otherwise, it’s just boring.

I’m glad that Jonathan Levine found his voice soon after this. Amber Heard did a fair enough performance for what she had to work with.  There was good performance by Melissa Price, but from IMDB, it appears that this film probably tanked her career.  In any case, I’m crazy excited that October is here!!!

 

Jack Ryan (Season 1) Review by Case Wright

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There are two types of streaming television series: Get a sitter and watch in rapt silence with your SO and friends and Elliptical and/or Hangover Television.  Jack Ryan is in the latter category.  It’s a solid: NOT BAD.   Ok, it was a little weird seeing Jack Ryan (John Krasinski) put Osama Bin Laden’s AK-47 in a Jello Mold, but I thought it was a nice call back.  JK!

Jack Ryan has been a staple for nerds who like action for decades.  Jack Ryan is a data analyst badass who defeats terrorism and rogue commies, in other words, fictional.  He’s been in countless books, films, and video games.  The only other character that gets this much media has to use The Force.  In this iteration, Carlton Cuse of “Lost” fame takes a crack the characters.

Jack Ryan is a young Marine Vet turned CIA officer with PTSD.  He is teamed up with Greer who in the books and previous iterations was a tough talking Admiral with shitty dialogue; whereas, in this version, Greer’s a down and out muslim CIA officer whose career is in decline after killing a Pakistani asset.  They are on the hunt for the big bad: Sulieman.

Sulieman is the product of the American intervention in the Lebanese civil war in 1986, which…checks out.  He is hell bent on causing all kinds of mayhem in America and abroad.  They make a big show about how he was treated badly throughout his life-  Boo hoo.  I guess it was supposed to make him more human. I thought it made him really really whiny.  So what, you didn’t get your dream job that gives you the right to blow everybody up?!

The big question most of my readers have: Did John Krasinski – Jim- have a passable performance as a super spy?????  KINDA. He was pretty close at times, but was he held back by some purposely slowed down plot points.  I will get to the derpy derp moments later, but really the season should’ve been 6 episodes instead of 8 because there were too many contrivances, which inhibited John’s performance.  I have to write that he was in fact believable.   I did not know what to expect, but he delivered a good performance.

What they got right:

Sleepless nights with PTSD and drinking too much.  They portrayed that spot on.  I thought, I’ve had those late nights.  Ok, Pass!

The SEAL/Ranger team: I’ve known many Special Operators over the years and they are all real salt of the Earth types.  They played those matter of fact tough guys perfectly. Ok, Pass!

The inherent turpitude of civilian government officials: Very good, they’re all presumptive Dirtbaggus Americanus.  Ok, Pass!

The director building suspense? Yep, the direction was done quite well.  No complaints.

What was so very dumb?  NO F#@#!NG Way!!! NFW!!!! NFW!!!

1.  They portrayed Jack Ryan as dealing PTSD, giving him pause to shoot his weapon.  I get that, BUT he’s still a Marine.  There’s a scene where he makes the decision to shoot and misses by a mile just so they could have fight scene later.  This is just dumb.  Marines are ALL crackshots.  If you are in a Marine’s line of fire and he’s got a clear shot, you’re dust.  When you see it, you’ll roll your eyes.

2.  There’s a terrorist strike by Sulieman and he claims responsibility.  They show his face being plastered on all television networks. He’s on tv more than Anderson Cooper. Then, with no face disguise, he’s NEVER recognized.  We’re not talking just one time, but FIVE times at least.  His face would’ve been burned in everyone’s memory.  It was just dumb,  lazy, and contrived to keep the villain the in the action.

3.  A CIA Officer meets Sulieman’s wife and he just lets her walk away the same day as a major terror attack: NFW! Anyone who said that they knew an Osama equivalent would be sequestered and interrogated immediately, but it was obvious that they needed to pad the plot to squeeze three unnecessary episodes for story arc.

4.  There’s a duo who are drone pilots that are just sort of shoehorned into the story for no reason at all.  I couldn’t even figure out the message if drones were supposed to be good or bad.  I left thinking… Man, drones work really well.  Then, one of the drone pilots gets all guilty about a mistargeting incident and flies to Syria because ya know Active Duty Soldiers just get to go anywhere they like on leave…. NFW!!!!!!! Just think about it…we shouldn’t just get to go wherever we like.  It’s dangerous for us and could lead to a Soldier getting compromised.  NFW!

5.  There’s a plot point where a doctor becomes aware of a biological threat and just sends an email.  WHAAAA?!  She would be calling everyone and their brother to report that because she’s supposed to be smart.

Is it worth watching?

Yes, yes it is.  It’s got real problems in terms of story holes, but my hope is that Carlton Cuse learns from this.  He can DM me if he likes.  I’ll consult or script doctor for a very reasonable rate.  Jack Ryan is great for watching on the Elliptical at the gym or if you’re hungover or something.  It is NOT at this time get a babysitter and everyone be quiet television, but it is …. fun.

 

“How It Ends” A Netflix Film Reviewed By Case Wright – Some Spoilers

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How It Ends is a horror/thriller from Netflix and if you don’t watch, Netflix will probably make you.  The story begins with Will, an up and coming lawyer who is seeing the ultrasound of his soon to be son with beloved Samantha. Will is sweet, but the least manly man to ever unmanly.  He’s wound tight, nervous, and hyper-insecure.  Will needs to get Sam’s father Tom (Forest Whitaker) to give his blessing so Will and Sam can wed.  Will flies from the greatest city on Earth- Seattle to a totally ok City of Chicago to see Tom.

We meet Tom and his wife.  Tom is everything Sam is not.  Tom was a career Marine, manly, confident, and determined.  During the dinner, Tom does everything, but say to Will- You are a wimpy worthless un-man. Tom’s response is both whiny and defensive.  It’s just all kinds of awful.  Then, the power goes out nationwide with F-22s buzzing around Chicago AND all communications are down as well nationwide.  Tom asks if Will rise to the occasion and road trip to Seattle to find/rescue Sam.

I know, I know… this sounds like Taken et al, but it’s not.  It becomes a Father (in-Law) and Son survival story and we watch Will become a Man.  They leave in Tom’s Cadillac and hit the road to Seattle.  Immediately, they find that they cannot stay on the main roads to get there because rednecks try to steal their car at the first rest stop and then an escaped convict tries to murder them.  This is within the first half hour of this very action packed show and we still don’t know what caused the catastrophe.  We get hints, but it’s not Aliens …. I don’t think.  Frankly, I’m still not totally sure of all of the details of the disaster even now.

They decide to stay off the main roads and team up with a teen who has mechanical skills.  Along the way, people are trying to murder them for gas and supplies.  The teen that goes with them becomes part of Will and Tom tribe for a short time and has to kill to protect her new tribe.  Unfortunately, this is too much for the teenager to accept and she abandons Will and Tom to find her way forward alone.  It’s a very accurate depiction of societal breakdown.  During Katrina, towns setup armed checkpoints to prevent looting and mayhem.  I had friends in Mississippi during Katrina and they did exactly that.  They needed to shut ingress and egress from their communities to survive and they did so.  The communities acted like a tribe would.

Will has to learn how to shoot, drive and shoot, do a chest-tube, read people, give up trust, and murder.  We watch him change from a spineless nerd to a confident leader who will readily kill to protect his tribe.  During Will’s transformation, the tribal bond between Will and Tom becomes as strong as steel.   It’s a story that gets to the very foundation of what family does and what it means to be part of a tribe.  The moment the lights go out, we will go from Facebook likes to being real tribal humans again.

When Will gets to Seattle, it’s heartbreaking.  Seattle is totally destroyed….sniff.  It just gets you. Even the Clink…The Home of my Beloved Seahawks is gone.  THE PAIN, THE PAIN!  It’s like 2015 all over again! Will’s beloved is gone, but she left a note for her coordinates.  Therefore, Will has to go back on the road to find her and save her from whomever.

Will finds Sam with a neighbor Randy who is at his mountain lodge getaway.  Randy is the epitome of our current society. He is a wealthy-techie-know-it-all-socially-awkward-creep who thinks that all of his thoughts are facts.  He believes that in this new society he will continue to be on top and he tries to take Sam as his own.  Not so fast, the world has changed- sorry the power was down forever so no more facebook updates for you.  Life has reverted back to a tribe-based system and Randy is left behind literally into dust.

I would recommend this film because it has tremendous suspense and dares to show us what we’ve lost trading our friendships for likes and retweets.  You never really know what caused the disaster because that is not the story.  The story is about the immediate reemergence of tribal life and how it enables people to determine rapidly who is a friend and who is a foe.  In essence, the film challenges us to see a possible positive to this new reality.  People are closer and snakes like Randy are easily identified and remedied for the good of the tribe.  We still survive, but we have to do it as human beings.

 

Solo: A Star Wars Story, A review with the spoilers that you deserve! By Case Wright

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GO SEE THIS MOVIE! I don’t remember when Star Wars came out, but I do remember when Empire did and I loved it.  Yes, there were some deeper themes to these movies, but at their heart they were fun like a beach read.  We, the fans, have made these films into something they never were serious think pieces.  I just saw a youtube video where a guy was trying to describe the “correct” routes Han would have to take through the Kessel Run. Give it a rest!

This movie did what the last 6 have failed to do: Entertain.  Rogue One was a melancholy piece of trash about sending an email on a vhs tape.  BORING.  The rest are mind-numbingly painful experiences that are determined to take themselves so seriously that I have had more fun reviewing license agreements for my latest Turbo Tax software.  I really don’t care about Rey or the Ugly Gloomy Kid Kylo Ren who failed to get any of Han’s good looks.  If I were Han, I would have called up Maury Povich about that kid.

This movie did what it was supposed to do first: entertain.  It’s like the other movies never bothered to put that basic principle into the writers’ room.  Ron Howard really did a great job with the film and Alden Ehrenreich really succeeded in capturing a pre-cynical, but still cocky Han.  It could be that I also liked this story because Han reminds me the most of myself: edgy, cocky, wise-cracking, iconoclast, with devastating good looks.

The story even opens uniquely without any moody sad bullshit. Instead, it opens with some text, the title card, and Han driving away fast and furious, and a bit bloodied.  There’s no everyone’s perfect and noble blah blah blah.  Within 30 minutes, you are transported to a high-stakes futuristic train robbery that if it had a couple tumbleweeds and player piano, it would have been a great Western.

Han begins his quest because he loses his love Emilia Clarke.  Han between you and me: you gotta lock that down.  Other than Emilia, everyone else in the universe is gross and scaly even pretty people make ugly kids (see above) there must be radiation in this galaxy far far away or some such shit.  Han figures that if he does enough smuggling and heists he’ll get enough cash, to buy a ship and get Emilia Clarke out of the hellhole from whence she came. It doesn’t quite work out the way he plans, but you see a great character arc as Han become more cynical and savvy as the rogue we will eventually love.

As he is going on his big heist, we watch his friendship develop with Chewy, Lando, and most of all the Millenium Falcon which comes across as a character herself.  Most of the critics who have done middling reviews seem to focus on the box office, but unless you’re a shareholder of Newscorp or an accountant at 20th Century fox, why do you care?!  Another bizarre critique is that it’s too fun or not melancholy enough as Rogue One.  Okay, I have solution for the people who don’t think this amazingly well-done feature isn’t sad enough for them:  Go see this film, then shortly thereafter do a search for political twitter and then click show threads or just look up one of your hollywood heroes and count the indictments.