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The Prom (2020)
You know what? This should be out there.
It's not amazing. It's a little tone-deaf, and over-simplified. But I WISH there was a movie like this out there for me and my gay friends growing up.
We're in our thirties now, and it's tough to take ALL the scenarios LGBTQ+ kids face today and put a face and story to them in one film. The songs are pop and a little saccharine (but not unlike similar musicals like the very successful Hairspray, Little Shop of Horrors, Bye Bye Birdie, Grease, Dear Evan Hansen, The Last Five Years, Baby, etc.) and Meryl Streep is phenomenal as always. I also loved Keegan-Michael Key as a straight ally with a voice. As is I went in with low expectations, sat on the fence for a bit, and came out with the overall feeling of my title and first paragraph. If this movie had been out there when I was in high school, the conversations I've had since the early 2000s with high school friends could have happened a LOT sooner, with a lot more understanding, empathy, and love expressed at a time kids need it most.
I appreciated the tongue-in-cheek jabs at celebrity liberals, and how the animosity posed at small towns was also highlighted as being bigoted in its own right. The message overall is to stop making assumptions-whether it's about your Trump-supporting neighbor, or your Biden-supporting other neighbor.
Growing up gay, or in the alphabet community, or even as an ally doesn't get solved by a solo on the Internet. BUT films like this will continue to balance out perspectives and understanding, and are important overall.
Side note: I don't care at all that James Corden is straight and played a gay man. I don't know any other gays who feel that way either. If a character is being honestly and fully represented on screen, who cares who the originating actor is? It's a CHARACTER. If they successfully fulfill the role of that character, it doesn't matter who that person is in real life.
Our House (2018)
Slow burn, scares don't really pay off.
I love the premise, hence four stars. It could have been a new twist on the haunted house horror cliche, but at over an hour in, with 15 minutes left, the horror only begins to churn. Even the bathtub scenes seem like lazy filler, which is truly too bad, because all of the "reveal", the foster child, etc. could have been built in beforehand without giving that "twist" away. It's too bad that an 'original' (because it was based on another concept) idea never paid out in solid scares, or even thoroughly contiguous plot.
Likes: the struggle of Ethan and Matt in new roles in the family. Nice smoky ghost effect. Original concept. Person facing a corner has always been good since Blair Witch, and I'm surprised it's still underutilized.
Dislikes: everything else, including Hannah, Tom and the delay in actual horror.
Freaks (2018)
Entertaining, beautifully shot, poorly executed plot.
I went all in with expecting to like the movie. And I was genuinely entertained with the whole film. But I have to admit that the first hour filled me with expectations that simply weren't met.
While I'm all for complex and even selfish protagonists, Chloe was a walking deus ex machina with a toddler's motivations. This film had great actors, amazing cinematography, a fantastic plot but suffered from such a terrible script that I kept getting dragged from the film to go "Really?!"
The grandfather wants to manipulate the child, the child is fine with trying to kill her father multiple times, the powers are never exactly explained, and several innocent people die in favor of a heavy-handed "don't hate people who are different" philosophy that I personally and wholeheartedly agree with, but hate how the film played it out. If the intent of the filmmaker was to portray the "freaks" as destructive, unpredictable, self-involved and freely murderous people, well, they succeeded, and it's difficult to find a true corner to back.
Despite the good acting and lovely shots, I have to give this one a 4, ending up more frustrated that such great material went to waste than anything.
Nobushi no Gourmet (2017)
Utterly charming
I began Samurai Gourmet thinking it was a low-key food-related show I could have on in the background while cooking or cleaning at home, something for a little quiet noise and great food shots. Instead, I ended up captivated with the whimsical nature of the show, and the childlike delight of the lead, Takeshi Kasumi. I watched all 12 episodes over the course of an evening, smiling more and more each new episode.
Kasumi's reverence for food and memory is sweet, but not saccharine, and his relationship with his wife is just darling. While the pacing might feel slow to some, each episode went by quickly for me, without dragging. His interactions with the Ronin are fun each time, and his subsequent actions (or inaction) after each appearance of the Ronin add to the subtle complexity of his character. In all, I was surprisingly enchanted, and adored every gentle moment of joy in the series. It made me feel nostalgic, and wistful, in a lovely way.
77 Minutes (2016)
Thorough documentary with weirdly aggressive director
The documentary as a whole contains fantastic interviews from victims and witnesses, rarely seen footage of the massacre, and a good chronology of events. 77 Minutes would have been a perfect documentary if it had been left at that, but Charlie Minn takes an oddly aggressive vendetta against the responding officers and those in authority, pinning them under unrelated interrogation and demanding explanations for logical behavior. He seems to completely forget that they didn't have modern technology, nor were mass shooting protocols in place yet. It's cringeworthy to watch him ask the same questions over and over, as though cross-examining someone on the witness stand. It's as though he imagined that this would be some deep investigative triumph uncovering a corrupt secret... but it's really just badly done ambush journalism. Takes a great doc and cuts the stars in half.