Let's Cee a Movie

Ironic title story

Look, every headline can’t be gold.

Marriage Story concerns the lives of Charlie (Adam Driver) and Nicole (Scarlette Johansson), who, after several years of marriage, have decided to get a divorce. At first, my sympathy lay with Nicole because, by all appearances, Charlie was a terrible husband. Then intentionally or not, Nicole does several things that manipulate the situation to her advantage. For instance, she’s the first one to hire a lawyer, Jen (Laura Dern), after they both agreed not to. Then I started feeling sorry for Charlie. Then, after Charlie’s lawyer advises him to settle for terms that would be best for everyone, he decides to view the whole thing as a competition instead and hires another lawyer whose just as underhanded as Jen. So, all in all, Nicole and Charlie are equally awful.

The perfect palate cleanser

It’s not the worst Netflix original I’ve seen.

The film follows a group of main characters who only go by codenames to avoid emotional attachments. And if that sounds familiar to you, it should because that’s writers Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese reusing the same idea from their previous film, Zombieland. (NSFW)

What’s Swedish for Wicker Man?

**Good thing I started the year with Little Women, because…**

I hate this movie. As someone who didn’t like Hereditary, writer/director Ari Aster’s previous film, I wasn’t expecting to like this movie, and it exceeded my expectations in that department. Because not only do I hate this movie, but it’s that particular kind of hate that left me angry after watching it.

The joys of having a sister

A good movie to start the year off with

Little Women follows the lives of four sisters who are, of course, the little women of the title. Jo (Saoirse Ronan) wants to be a writer. Meg (Emma Watson) is a poor housewife. Amy (Florence Pugh) is under pressure to marry rich to take care of the rest of her family. The limited amount of ways that women can earn money during this era is a big focus of the film. Beth (Eliza Scanlen) is a quiet musician. Together there joined by Laurie (Timothée Chalamet), the handsome boy next door.

Two movies that won’t leave you foaming at the mouth

A horror retrospective.

Rabid (1977) is a movie from director David Cronenberg, whose films are well known for their body horror and sexual weirdness. The premise is that following a motorcycle accident that her boyfriend Hart Read (Frank Moore) got into for no discernable reason, Rose (Marilyn Chambers) is taken to a nearby plastic surgery clinic for treatment. There Dr. Dan Keloid (Howard Rhyspan) performs an experimental skin graft that, as you can guess, ends up going horribly wrong. The procedure ends up creating this phallic looking stinger from her armpit that sucks blood. It also infects people with a rabies-like virus, hence the title of the film.

Twas the night before Christmas…

I hope you asked Santa for another unnecessary remake (Unmarked Spoilers)

Why did this movie have to be called Black Christmas? Yes, it’s a slasher movie set during Christmas and about a sorority, but beyond that, the two films have so little in common that I don’t know why this couldn’t have been made as a stand-alone movie. Is it trick horror movie fans who come in expecting to see a regular horror movie, but instead get a film that’s super woke? And by woke, I mean heavy-handed and not as thought out as it should be.

Ta tatatatta tatatat ta tatata ta tatata

After 42 years, it all leads up to this…until Star Wars Episode X

Palpatine’s back b*****s. How? The force, I guess…does it matter? This way, we don’t have to deal with a whole movie of Kylo Ren (Adam Driver). I know he thinks his Uncle Luke (Mark Hamil) was going to kill him, but that dosen’t mean he has to act like a whiny teenager about it. And annoyingly, this movie once again continues the question about whether or not Kylo Ren will turn good, even though that plotline has long overstayed it’s welcome. (spoiler) Overall, I’m glad that he dies at the end of this, even if he did finally turn good. (/spoiler)

Number’s up

And then there were…

Jesus, look at the cast of this movie. You have master detective Bond, James Bond (Daniel Craig) investigating the death of Captain Von Trapp (Christopher Plummer). The suspects include (deep breathe) Captain America (Chris Evans), Joi (Ana de Armas), Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), John Givings, Jr. (NSFW)(Michael Shannon), Sonny Crockett (Don Johnson), Lynn Sear (Toni Collette), Hannah Baker (Katherine Langford), Bill Denbrough (Jaeden Martell), Beatrice Bellacourt (Riki Lindhome), and Martha Kent (K Callan). F**k, that’s not even everybody.

To die, to sleep

A sequel that the filmmakers don’t want to call a sequel.

The novel version of Doctor Sleep starts with Danny (Roger Dale Floyd) before introducing our new villains. The adaption of Doctor Sleep does the opposite because having a bunch of energy vampires called the True Knot eating a child’s shining by torturing them to death is a more ‘exciting’ way to start a movie, I guess. Though what’s funny, the Knot’s leader telling a young child that her friends call her Rose the Hat (Rebecca Ferguson) is similar to a scene in It: Chapter Two. Except there, the kid has enough sense to immediately back away from the creepy stranger, forcing the monster to get extra clever.

DUNDUN DUN DUNDUN

How many versions of the same movie are we going to get? (Unmarked Spoilers)

After Halloween, I have another franchise that seems to be as unstoppable as its main villain — consisting of The Terminator, the one that started it all. Terminator 2: Judgement Day, the unquestioned apex of the series that has almost everything you could want in a movie. And all the others that I want to say are, on average, above par. Before I go on, I feel like I level with you that I liked Terminator: Genysis. Yes, I know, that and the fact I liked The Last Jedi has never made me doubt my critical capabilities more. Though if you want to keep reading even knowing that, by all means.