I remember hearing about this movie when I was growing up, but everything I’ve heard about it was terrible. It seemed like nobody liked it, and that feedback discouraged me from wanting to watch it. And it wasn’t until a few years ago, where this film “crept” back into the conversation. But this time, people would say that this was a misunderstood gem that got wrongly paired with all these dumb teenage comedies from the late 90s/early 2000s. One evening I discovered Not Another Teen Movie on one of my streaming services, so I have decided to pull the trigger and see it for myself. To see once and for all what this is all about. And let me tell you, I was shocked by how much fun I had alongside my girlfriend, who at first didn’t want to watch it but ended up watching the entire film with me. And not only that, she laughed throughout it, at some points harder than me.

Not Another Teen Movie honestly reminded me of one of my favourite movies of all time, Airplane! (1980, my review here). And before I go any further, let me clarify something before I lose any shred of credibility I might have had at some point. It’s not on the same “playing field” as Airplane!, as that is clearly the superior film. But the reason it reminded me so much of that film is simple – this might be the last parody film that plays it straight. Almost every single parody film we’ve gotten starting mid-90s and (unfortunately) continuing with the “infamous duo” Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg, and their filmography was, to put it mildly, fucking horrible. And that was my main worry coming into this film that it will be full of awkward jokes, mostly naked/semi-naked people “because funny” and they would just take scenes from famous movies, and overact in them. Because that is what parodies have been known for and “evolved” into, unfortunately.

But not this film. There is a story that quite simply takes advantage of all the teenage films we’ve known from mainly the 1980s and pokes fun at them. But, and this is important – it never seemed to be mean spirited. You can feel the love; coming from the people behind this movie while they acknowledge that films they grew up on might have been a bit silly at times. And (this is where the Airplane! comparison comes in) they rarely wink at you. Everybody here plays it straight. And maybe that is why people didn’t respond to it as well, thinking this film takes itself too seriously?

It’s insane to think (knowing what we know now and how big he’s gotten) that this was Chris Evans‘ first role. Because he is one of the biggest reasons, this movie works as well as it does. His character dances on this fine line between dumb and charismatic while playing everything straight but not “Shakespeare” straight. As mentioned prior, it is not just him, but pretty much everybody involved. They all understand what they are doing here. It felt like the director told them not to be afraid to have fun with it but don’t have too much fun; otherwise, it wouldn’t have worked.

I can’t lie to you, I have laughed a lot, so I guess you could say this movie has worked for me. Whether it was the making fun of horniness of teenagers by having Cerina Vincent be naked for the entirety of this film (and her name being Areola) or the jab about having the one token black guy, who is only there to say things like “Damn!”, “Shit!” and “That is whack.” as said by him in the film. And here’s the thing about that – we laugh because we know it’s funny, but at the same time, he does more than that in this film. He isn’t just the stereotype, even though that’s his primary purpose here, to display it.

Overall, Not Another Teen Movie is funnier than I expected. And dare I say even more clever? Yes, I do dare to say that. Because this film has moments, it could have easily fallen into the same traps as the “parodies” of the late 2000s and went overboard with everything. But this film never does that. Every time it gets a bit crazy, the film always tries to balance it out with “a story”, even though it’s your typical teenage film story. I would say give this film a chance if you’ve never seen it and if you have and it’s been a while, I would suggest a re-watch. You might be surprised how much you will laugh, as long as you know teenage comedies, mainly from the 1980s.

That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke

As with Ari Aster’s previous movie Hereditary (2018), Midsommar is… wild. And that is still underselling it. But unlike Hereditary, this is one of the rare horror/thriller films set (mostly) during the day in the light. And it doesn’t make it any less effective or creepy. Ari Aster has quickly become one of the directors to watch both of his films I really liked.

Midsommar is an acting vehicle for Florence Pugh. She’s had a few other movies in 2019 (when this movie also came out), so it’s hard to say this was the film that launched her into the stratosphere. But honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised as she is front and centre in this uneasy film and she needs to make some brave choices for her character as… it’s hard to describe her journey. Her character Dani starts the movie being almost a doormat due to a family catastrophe. That sequence, by the way, was the reason Ari Aster is somebody to watch out for – from the first moment he sets up the tension, and you know something is wrong. And he starts to slowly reveal just how much everything is way worse than you thought. And this defines Florence’s entire character for most of this film. She needs to deal with a lot; she’s trying to do her best and could really do with a pleasant Swedish holiday without getting tangled up with a local pagan cult, you know?

I think this film works mainly due to Ari Aster’s mind. Not to discount the performances by all our main actors, but here’s the thing. While watching Midsommar, he drops many hints throughout the film, and you know they will matter. A lingering shot here on the ominous-looking wooden hut that’s “off-limits” a glance at a disfigured member of the cult there, and we all know something is going down. But with Ari, it’s truly not about the destination; it’s all about the journey and how he gets you there. His tension building is off the scale. I have been thinking about this film for a while now, and that’s when it hit me. He isn’t “reinventing the wheel”; he’s thinking about the wheel in his way. We’ve seen thousands of “there is something wrong with these people” films, and let’s face it, some of them are not great. That’s because those films focus on the “weirdness” too much. But Ari almost embraces it. You never feel like he’s judging these people (even though they should be judged); this film almost feels like a documentary feature. But without the complete detachment from the people of this community, that wouldn’t have worked either.

The main thing I also appreciate in both Midsommar and Hereditary is how sparingly he uses jump scares. Both films have some, but they are justified, and they aren’t your conventional jump scares. And that’s due to the simple fact that he knows how to get you. Ari Aster knows that often we aren’t terrified of the dark rather than what is lurking in there. And if we are scared of that, it would be terrifying even in the daylight. You just need to spend some time building the uneasy atmosphere, where you can cut the tension with a butter knife. And have all your protagonist sitting on the metaphorical powder keg full of dynamite, while in the distance, we can see a faint figure approaching with a lighter.

The other thing that made this film memorable – the horror/cult stuff is almost a B plot because the movie is all about toxic relationships. Whether it’s our main duo that shouldn’t be together or the toxicity of cults and how you can justify anything, as long as you have somebody around you who will agree and support you, but it’s not just about that, the movie is about many other things. I think Midsommar is definitely one of those “the more you watch it, the more you can read into it” kind of movies. The only question is, would you want to watch this multiple times…?

My only thing about this film and why I am not giving it the absolute rating was simple – towards the end, I felt so overwhelmed by the runtime (2 hours 28 minutes) and thought the length wasn’t justified. The film did drag at times, albeit slightly, and that’d take me out of this otherwise masterfully built atmosphere. I think you could have easily lost around 10/15 minutes and still have the same impact, and the film wouldn’t have suffered, on the contrary.

Overall, Midsommar is a film that it’s hard to watch. It deals with many heavy/uncomfortable topics set against uncomfortably sunny Sweden. It’s a unique experience where I almost guarantee you that you won’t see many movies like this (at least not mainstream ones). It’s also a great “Hey world; here I am” acting vehicle for Florence Pugh. If you haven’t seen her anywhere but MCU and want to know why she will be one to look out for in the future, watch this film, and you will see her immense talent on full display. This role was risky and could have easily gone wrong, but Florence said no and delivered one hell of a performance. Even if you don’t like creepy horror films, this film is worth watching for Florence’s performance alone.

That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke

One thing I admired about Nobody is how quickly the movie announced itself. For better or worse, you know what you are in for after the opening two minutes of this film. And, paradoxically, that opening (or the decision to start your movie from the ending) informed me that I might not have the time of my life with this film. And I wanted to like it so bad!

Nobody couldn’t be more John Wick if it tried. The only way this film could get more like John Wick (and I half-expected for this to happen, by the way) is for Keanu Reeves to show up unexpectedly, and say “Woah. There truly is Nobody like you.” and then disappear. No explanation is needed. Because whether you like it or not, this is what Nobody is underneath it all – a movie that sacrificed everything for the sake of being “cool”.

Let’s start with the things I enjoyed – the casting is excellent. Bob Odenkirk pulls this role off and is the main reason this movie wasn’t more laughable in my eyes. Although even an actor of his calibre couldn’t pull off the “Give me the goddamn kitty cat bracelet, motherfucker!” line and make it sound cool. He tried, I will give him that, but he didn’t manage. But it wasn’t his fault as this is just one of many examples of how this is just a “copy of a copy” kind of film. “-The films we are copying all had a line like this, so we need to have our own! Quickly, what could set him off? -I don’t know, boss, what about a kitty cat bracelet? -Brilliant, that’s why we are paying you the big bucks!” And as much as I would like to write “I’ve enjoyed seeing Connie Nielsen in this film” I can’t, because sure, I did see her in this film, but the people behind this film wasted her character. This movie didn’t give her anything meaningful to do; one can’t help but wonder why they didn’t copy the “our protagonist has a dead wife” from John Wick too? It wouldn’t make this film any better, nevertheless, it might at least “kind of” excuse the movie for wasting Connie Nielsen.

Whom I absolutely loved seeing was Christopher Lloyd. I just wished they would have given us more scenes with his character kicking ass. Yes, this is a film where Saul Goodman kick-ass alongside Doc Brown, and I couldn’t enjoy it, even though I’ve tried. And don’t even get me started on RZA; who is here for five minutes…? Why do modern movies do this? Why hire some great actors or entertainers and give them not even five minutes of screen time?

My biggest issue with this film is simple. It really is John Wick if he were older. And also, if the stakes were much lower and the world-building wasn’t as intriguing, and the way our main character “gets pulled back in” was absolutely random. Because here’s the thing – the movie starts with one route (he is going after the people who broke into his home). And even if that were predictable, I would still like this more than what the movie evolved into after. Where our hero takes a random bus (presumably home), and because some random Russians crash into the bus and then board the bus, and then LOUDLY threaten to rape the only girl on the bus. Only then our hero randomly stumbles into the main “big bad” (by proxy, of course, because naturally, the big bad is the brother of one of our rapey random Russians, or RRR, how I like to call them), only then the rest of the movie can happen.

See, if you are going to rip off pretty much everything from John Wick (evil Russians, secret society, hero with a past where everybody is afraid of him once they realise who he is), why not copy the intention of John Wick? He wasn’t out looking for a fight/problems and randomly stumbled upon RRR; there was a reason he was after them. That was my main issue with Nobody; I didn’t buy the randomness of this premise and therefore couldn’t enjoy anything that came after. And look, I understand I am on an island here, as it’s highly rated across the board (7.4/10 on IMDb, 3.5/5 on Letterboxd), so I realise I am in a clear minority here. I honestly wonder how many people rated this film so highly because of the charismatic cast (mainly Bob and Christopher together). Because let me try this experiment – let’s remove Bob Odenkirk from this film. Everything else stays the same. The same script, action sequences, everything else remains. Put there some random, run of a mill actor. Do you still like the movie as a whole, or does it start to show its cracks?

I generally dislike this type of mental exercise as removing the best part of any movie will always hurt any film, no questions about that. But it does speak to something “deeper”, and it is a simple question, whether the movie works without that person. I can imagine (although this might be sacrilegious to say) that John Wick, for example, has somebody else than Keanu. It doesn’t matter who, because the point is, the film still works as they have developed the secret society of assassins well. The stakes would remain the same. Sure, the movie might not be as successful as with Keanu, but the quality (unless you’d hire somebody who couldn’t act) would remain the same. Whereas Nobody, had you removed Bob Odenkirk, would become a laughing stock of a movie as now I believe, it’s “shielded” from any criticism by the massive fan support for Bob. And he deserves it as he is simply a brilliant actor and seems like a decent guy in real life. It’s almost like there was a meeting, and people collectively decided: “Look, the movie clearly has issues, and it’s just a John Wick rip-off, but we STAN because Bob, ok? All clear?” And I didn’t get the invite to that meeting.

Overall, Nobody is a baffling movie to me. It sacrifices logic and story to being/looking cool every chance it gets (how many slow-mo scenes while old-timey songs play in the background can you have in one movie? The answer apparently is, all of them!) and hides its flaws behind the massive walking charisma called Bob Odenkirk. And the fact his dad is Doc Brown, and they both shoot Russians together at the end also helps. See, that is a sentence I thought I would never write in my life, and yet, here we are. I wish I could enjoy this film as much as others seem to around me. But again, I am clearly on an island here, so I would actually recommend checking out Nobody because who knows? You might like it more than me, and if so, I am happy for you.

That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke

I have nothing but the utmost respect for Guillermo del Toro. If you ever heard him speak about movies, books, art, you know this guy knows his stuff. And Crimson Peak is the proof in the pudding, as they say. Because without him, without his sense of direction and his visuals, you could have the same actors, the same script and make it more boring and bad. At least in its current form, Crimson Peak is a visual feast that is unfortunately on the dull side.

Or maybe, I should phrase myself better. It’s not that Crimson Peak is boring, but the trailers for this film spoiled some of the biggest scares and oversold how scary this film would be. And looking around at different ratings and reviews around the Internet, I might not be the only one saying that.

Crimson Peak is a film where two women rule the screen – Mia Wasikowska and Jessica Chastain. Yes, we also have Tom Hiddleston here in the titular role, but he takes a back seat to these two and frankly, who wouldn’t? And both are great, Mia was believable, and her performance layered. She starts this film as a girl and ends it as a woman. Standing on her own, with the growth in between those two “stages”, was believable, and of course, she’s Mia Wasikowska; she knows a thing or two about this “acting gig”. Jessica Chastain has to breathe in a movie, and I would give her all the awards, just showing my cards on the table. But even I thought that her character could have been shown a tiny bit differently.

I know it was the point of this film for us to know, there is something wrong with her (Jessica’s) character, but I still would prefer it if we didn’t see it from the very first scene she was in. But alas, this is what Crimson Peak was for me in a nutshell. I understood why things happened the way they have, but those decisions mostly didn’t work for me.

What I liked, besides the already mentioned direction and visual flair by Guillermo, was the focus of this film, the main idea. And this is where I might spoil the concept of the film but nothing concrete, so I won’t put the spoiler tag up but proceed at your own risk. I liked how we have ghosts here, but they are not the enemy, the evil force in this film. It’s the people, the living, who you should be terrified of. And this is what I meant by the creative direction by Guillermo. Only he could have a vintage horror film made where you see a few ghosts, but those turn out to be warning our hero rather than trying to kill her.

Unfortunately, even with that idea, the actors, the visuals… it wasn’t enough for me not to get bored at times. I expected a few more scares, to be honest. And even the overall atmosphere of the film wasn’t what I thought I was in for. It’s almost like Guillermo was trying to play it too clever and try to have this Victorian ghost horror story too grounded, to the point you can’t get too scared. And then the “twist” happens that explained a few things, but honestly… was it shocking…? No, as much as it could have been, had Jessica’s character wasn’t telegraphed from the very first scene.

And yet, I need to make this point crystal clear – this movie is still decent. And it’s only like that because of Guillermo. I firmly believe had you removed him from this film and hired somebody else to direct the same actors without his contribution, visual flair, and intelligence, this movie would have become almost a parody of what a Victorian horror should be. So while I might have a few objections to the final film, I still realise this is the best thing we could have gotten.

Overall, Crimson Peak is a perfect way to get someone who usually doesn’t watch horror movies into horror films. I’ve started to watch it by myself, and around 15 minutes in, I got joined by my girlfriend. And since she also loves and admires Jessica Chastain and was intrigued by the visual flair of what she saw, she stayed throughout the entire film and liked it; she wasn’t concerned that it was a horror film. She even said how stunning the movie looked. And I couldn’t agree more. Crimson Peak is a visually stunning piece of Victorian horror that knows what it wants to say. It’s a shame that it couldn’t have held its cards closer to the chest at times, so we are in for a ride with our characters rather than being a few steps ahead of them.

That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke