Tag Archives: self harm

Film Reviews: No Time to Die. Hair. Luckiest Girl Alive. 13: The Musical. Glass Onion. Don’t Worry Darling. The Watcher. Halloween Ends. Everything Everywhere All At Once

19 Thursday Jan 2023

Posted by in blake shelton, movies, Naomi Watts

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No Time to Die

This is how my dad and I spent our Christmas Eve. I’m struggling to see how Bond will return after this, but nonetheless No Time to Die was a fun addition to the franchise. I still wish they cast Tomasz Kot as the villain, like Danny Boyle wanted, he would have been amazing in this role.

8/10

Hair

I watched this previously as a kid, but didn’t remember it well. The ending is the perfect metaphor for how unprepared American youth were for the Vietnam War. They take it very literally, preseting us with a shocking ending, as one of the characters cries as he boards the plane, to later meet a tragic end.

7/10

Luckiest Girl Alive

I was surprised to learn Jessica Knoll wrote the script, because the film was so much weaker than her book. Chiara Aurelia plays the younger version of Mila’s character and is just as amazing in this role as she was in Tell Me Your Secrets and Cruel Summer.

6/10

13: The Musical

Sometimes I wonder if anyone still remembers that Liz Gillies and Ariana Grande both got their start in the original 13. Graham Phillips, who later starred on The Good Wife, played Evan in the Broadway version. I love musicals, so naturally I still remembered the chorus to two songs from this one and didn’t hate this movie.

5/10

Glass Onion

Absolutely nothing happens in the first hour of this film, which is also significantly worse than the first one, with very average acting and characters who happen to be both extremely annoying and pretentious. The murder couldn’t be less original… and yet they are still making a third one of these somehow?

4/10

Don’t Worry Darling

Matthew Libatique sure knows how to film things prettily. His shots and Pugh’s acting save the show.

5/10

The Watcher

I watched this because Murphy cast Naomi Watts as one of the main characters, but I ended up loving almost every minute of it.

8/10

Halloween Ends

Not enough Laurie Strode or Michael Myers. And the new male lead was annoying.

5/10

Everything Everywhere All At Once

The self-harm aka the paper cut scene made me furious and there were some other things I didn’t like, but I sure enjoyed Michelle Yeoh’s acting.

6/10

The Aviator. Short Term 12. Far North. Starting Over. Hustle. He Said, She Said. Fruitvale Station. Secrets of Eden. Cyberbully.

09 Saturday Jul 2016

Posted by in greys anatomy, Jessica Lange, movies

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The Aviator

A beautiful portrayal of obsessive compulsive disorder. OCD characters show up extremely rarely on film, usually in one episode of a TV series. A show that went into the subject a little deeper and didn’t judge it or downplay it was Grey’s Anatomy. In season 10 one of supporting characters, Miranda Bailey developed OCD behavior for a couple of episodes, before being treated and put on medication. Back in season 2 there was a patient who had a very severe case of OCD and had to be assured everything was ‘clean, clean clean’. Most of the time if there even is an OCD character, it’s only mentioned superficially. Fortunately, in The Aviator it is perfectly shown. So realistically in fact, DiCaprio had to go to therapy himself as his own OCD amplified. Shame he didn’t get an Academy Award for his fantastic performance, I’m sure he would have won if people knew about his own struggles and how he risked his sanity to some extent. Plus his Howard Hughes performance is so much more important than his The Revenant role. Another aspect of the film that caught my attention was the focus on Hugh’s famous flying accident, that many people don’t know of or don’t remember. Every film layman has seen at least 5 Scorsese’s films, sometimes by accident, and this one comes up in those 5 most popular ones. I love how Scorsese adjusted scenography and colors with each year in colored film. Notice how blue the film seems at the beginning? More often than not Scorsese’s films lack focus on his female characters, they are added as a decoration, very stereotypical, but The Aviator ladies had just enough screen time, at times I thought they actually got a little more than expected. Cate Blanchet gave a wonderful performance as usual, and her Katherine Hepburn accent was quite delightful. One thing, which I suppose didn’t happen and was added by the scriptwriter was the last scene of Howard with Ava Gardner, portrayed by Kate Beckinsale, having a final chat with Howard and effortlessly helping him get better without realizing this saying ‘Nothing’s clean, Howard. But we do our best, right?’, which calmed even me down. The film didn’t focus on Howard Hughes the director/producer, but the aviator, which is understandable since he quit cinema for planes and later was overtaken by his disorder. If you haven’t seen the Outlaw or Hell’s Angels yet, do so.

‘You don’t care about money because you’ve always had it.’

Does that look clean to you?
Nothing’s clean, Howard. But we do our best, right?

‘You listened to my phone calls?’
‘No! Honey I would never do that! I just read the transcripts.’

I don’t want them bribed, Jack. I want it done legally. I want them bought.

‘I feel like a little adventure.’
‘Do your worst, Mr. Hughes.’

9/10

Short Term 12

How have I not heard of this film till yesterday, when I saw it expiring on Netflix ? It was simply wonderful, one of the psychological meets mental issues meets social problems films. The minute I read the description on Netflix, I had a feeling this is were the film was going. Short Term 12 tells a story of a young social worker sexually abused by her father in the past who meets a young teenager who she suspects is going through similar abuse. I absolutely loved that the medusa and shark children story the girl wrote referring to her abuse, may as well have been about the girl’s relationship with a razor. The film includes some of the most accurate quote about self harm I have seen captured on film. I highly recommend this independent masterpiece to everyone.

‘When I was your age, I had to stand in a courtroom with a bunch of strangers and tell them all the ways that he abused me. What he hit me with. How he got drunk. How he forced me to take a shower with him. Got me pregnant. I sent him to prison. I didn’t talk about it. I didn’t think about it. Until I met you.’

‘Last night, that girl sat next to me and she cried and she tried to tell me the only way that she knew how.’

‘It’s impossible to worry about anything else when there’s blood coming out of you.’

‘All fucked up now, damn near 18. All the pictures in my past ain’t never fading. I’m always wishing for something amazing but when your life is shit then it ain’t no trade in so put me in your books so you know what it’s like to live a life not knowing what a normal life’s like put a label on my head so you know what it’s like not knowing what a normal life’s like look into my eyes so you know what it’s like, look into my eyes so you know what it’s like, look into my eyes so you know what it’s like to live a life not knowing what a normal life’s like.’

‘Once upon a time, there lived a young octopus named Nina and she was very happy. But then, on Monday, the Shark showed up. “Do you want to be my friend? Just let me eat one of your arms,” said the Shark. Nina had never had a friend before, so she donated an arm to her wonderful new friend. Every day that week, Nina and the Shark would play together. And every night, Nina would give him another one of her arms to eat. On Sunday, after playing all day, the Shark told Nina that he was very hungry. “I’ve already given you six of my arms, and now you want one more?” She said.“I don’t want one. This time I want them all. Because that’s what friends are for.” When the shark finished his meal that night, he felt very sad and lonely. He missed Nina very much. So, he swam away to find another friend.’

‘I know the rules: no belts, no razors, no scissors, no fucking freedom.’

‘Grace, you are a line staff. It’s not your job to interpret tears. That’s what our trained therapists are here for.’
‘Then your trained therapists don’t know shit.’

‘Take the advice you give your kids every fucking five minutes and learn to talk about what’s going on inside your head.’

‘Please don’t be offended if I’m not very friendly, but I’m going to be living with my dad soon, and I don’t really like wasting time on short-term relationships. So, you know, it’s nothing personal.’

9/10

Far North

A lovely but monotonous film starring Jessica Lange. I am not sure why Patricia Arquette’s character was a bit on the crazy side and slutty too, but the film as a whole was satisfactory. There was this one very relatable scene where Jessica’s character talks about her rushing to move out the minute she could and not thinking about coming back home and now realizing it’s nice to have somewhere to come back to and explaining to her sister that there are worse things than raising your child in the house you grew up in.

4.5/10

Starting Over

A Burt Reynolds film you only saw if you’re a huge Burt Reynolds fan or if you were a divorcee starting over in 1979. Jill Clayburgh looked so much like Diana Keaton in this film. The second hal of the film got more romantic comedy like with Burt throwing balls and making her fall into the little basin. Are we supposed to be happy he tried to get back together with his ex-wife or are we supposed to treat it as a betrayal?’ Hight difference and sexual element?’ The storyline wasn’t special but Jill Clayburgh and Candice Bergen were both nominated for an Academy Award for their roles.

6/10

Hustle

And I thought Starting Over was weak. Without a doubt the worst film of both Burt Reynolds and Catherine Deneuve. I only liked the surprisingly tragic and somewhat random ending. If you cut out the grieving parents, you’d have a really shitty film.

3.5/10

He Said, She Said

Kevin Beacon’s character was a little too shady with not being able to decide whether he does love Elizabeth Perkins’ character enough or not, once saying she loves her and another time that she can’t marry her. I am always shocked that Elizabeth’s career did not start off after this. I am glad she finally got recognition for Weeds, but her 80s/90s films and her character on Weeds are two completely separate things. The film was a bit cheesy at times, but what romantic comedy isn’t.

6/10

Fruitvale Station

A moving biopic about the 2008 New Years Eve tragedy. This films is produced by Forest Whitaker and it stars Michael B. Jordan and Octavia Spencer. Not only was Oscar targeted as a black man, he also had to come across a dumb cop who mistook a gun for a taser. 22 is way too early to go. Thanks to Netflix for showing me this. There’s not much I need to say about this, go watch this especially now with what’s happening yet again.

‘Nooo! Don’t go. I’m scared.’
‘Scared of what?’
‘I hear guns outside.’
‘You know what, baby? Those are just firecrackers. You’ll be safe inside, with your cousin.’
‘But what about you Daddy?’
‘Me? Baby, I’ll be fine.’

‘You shot me. I got a daughter…’

‘I told him to take the train. I didn’t know they were gonna hurt my baby. I should’ve let him drive, but I wanted to keep him safe. You gotta let me hug him. Please, let me hug him. He didn’t like to be alone.’

‘Where’s daddy?’

7/10

Secrets of Eden

John Stamos as a priest, what in the world is this? No one actually suspected the priest, as it was just too obvious, so I was quite invested to see how it all came together. I don’t think I’ve seen any of these actors before other than Uncle Jesse and the Breaking Bad wife. Every once a while there’s a Lifetime film worth watching, and this isn’t it.

4/10

Cyberbully

I liked the other Cyberbully so much more. The 2010 one starring Emily Osment was filmed from the perspective of a victim of bullying and this one is about a bully being bullied. I expected something more jumpy like Unfriended or at least a better threat than a bunch of naked pictures being posted. I didn’t even know people made sites just to laugh at Youtubers for how unprepared they are, I thought It was just mean people commenting stuff on their channels, like since the dawn of the Internet. Honestly I only liked the last scene – not really a spoiler – when she yelled ‘Dad’ and you could hear him running to her. -Spoiler – I hated that we never found out who the person who did this were. Please check out the 2010 Cyberbully, it was wonderful, and skip this mediocrity.

3/10

Fathers and Daughters. Anesthesia. Miss You Already. Max. The Barefoot Executive. Bushwacked. The 33. Vacation. Wicked Little Things. The Killing Room. Charming Christmas. Indigenous. Jamie Marks is Dead.

14 Sunday Feb 2016

Posted by in Lauren Graham, movies, parenthood

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A bigger post, cause I owe you so many reviews. Don’t worry, they’re coming this month.

Fathers and Daughters

I did not like the direction it took, but we all know there’s usually a reason for girls to sleep around. I expected the film to be a little more emotional, but I’m still glad I reached for it. Why would Amanda’s character give that original script away? It’s such a nice little souvenir from her dad. Little Minx from The Whispers is definitely one of the kid actors to look out for.

7/10

Anesthesia

Dull characters of five separate stories that don’t exactly interact the way they should. The film should focus on the Professor’s life only, not his stiff family. How he taught, helped Kristen’s character in starting her recovery and him being stabbed. The writer of this film thought ‘oh let’s see how many problems can we fit into the film and maybe we’ll find some sort of deeper meaning at the end’. Why all the secondary characters? Why spend 1/3 of the film on the addict who tried to help the professor at the end? I watched it when I read about the attack, and honestly the attack itself, professor’s retirement speech, and Kristen’s self harm storyline were the only profound-like elements.

6.5/10

Miss You Already

We all have that one slutty friend who sleeps around, and has weird sexual encounters which put them in trouble. The film was pretty much what I expected, even though I thought it would be lighter and more uplifting, and giving some piece of hope to people who are left to deal with a loss of their loved ones. None of the characters were especially likeable, and I think it’s true that you need to leave someone behind for a while if they’re in one of their crazy spirals, so they don’t drag you down with them, but on the other hand, that’s not what a best friend would do, but there’s only so much a person can take. I heard two other actresses were supposed to play Drew Barrymore’s character but dropped out due to scheduling conflicts. Rachel Weisz was one of them, and boy would I have loved this film so much more if Rachel starred in it! Just imagine it… Toni Collette and Rachel Weisz playing friends? Yes please! We surely missed out on something special! The other actress who was considered for the Drew Barrymore role was Jennifer Aniston. I still would have liked her better for this. I hope she dropped it for Cake, not Horrible Bosses 2.

6/10

Max

What a enjoyable drama/adventure/family film. Yes all three in one, which doesn’t happen that often anymore. I honestly don’t think it could be much better. The final woods scene is captivating and I bet It’ll stay on minds of many pre and 13teens, like Bridge to Terabithia did on mine. The ending credits are accompanied by a rendition of Bob Dylan’s Forever Young. The film also stars Lauren Graham, who portrayed one of the main characters on Parenthood. And Parenthood has a legendary theme song, that just happens to be Forever Young. A coincidence? Maybe, but also a nice touch for someone who misses their weekly dose of tears Parenthood never failed to provide. I like Lauren as a mom, in Max she tried to get her husband and son to reunite while mourning the loss of her son, and she’s definitely the selling argument here. Max is a delight to watch I would recommend for entire family. I’ll show it to mine, and hopefully they’ll adore it as much as I did.

‘A hero always tells the truth no matter what people think about him or no matter what the consequences are. And you have always been that way Justin.’

‘Dad’s left a really weird message and disappeared.
Let’s do this.
Max… go search.’

8/10

The Barefoot Executive

Most of the time I’m disappointed with the films they give us on Netflix UK. I know Americans are getting all these nice titles and over 70 new films a day, and we the British get only one or two really crappy ones per day, and every other day we don’t get anything at all. The Barefoot Detective comes off Netflix tomorrow, so I have just finished watching it. It is a really witty Disney film from ’71. It gets funnier by the end when everyone assumes two TV executives want to jump off a building, when it’s the titled monkey who locked them out. Their own TV station films it all live and it’s just amusing. ‘They took it of the air and I don’t even know what happened to John’ don’t we all TV obsessed people know it oh so well. I was disappointed when the main character let them buy him off, but it’s a family film, so it all ended well.

‘We interrupt to bring you a special newscast of a sensational suicide try on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. Our special UBC helicopter enables us to bring you an exclusive close-up view of the pair attempting suicide. These pictures, live from the scene.’
‘There you are. Another first for UBC. Oh, no!’

6/10

Bushwhacked

Not as funny as I expected it to be, would it be better if I watched it as a kid? Maybe if I was a scout. Did they really take the charges away and gave him an award for basically kidnapping the kids? Family films are so outlandish sometimes. Also, I think that was Patty form The Leftovers.

‘Ok, it’s two longs and one short.’
‘No, no, no, stop. Stop wait. Two shorts and one long.
‘Oh great! What are we supposed to do, cross that letter out?’

‘What is this, a parade? Come on! Would you move your wrinkled asses? I’m in a hurry here! Ha ha, I’m gonna run you over!’

‘Oh my God, we’re trapped with a murderer!’
‘A psycho murderer!
 ‘I don’t think they cover that in the manual!’

3/10

The 33

The Chile mine catastrophe starring Antonio Banderas and Juliette Binoche. I thought it was wonderful, and It left me tear-y eyed through most of it. It’s unbelievable that after 69 days all 33 of them made it out of the mine.

8/10

Vacation

Chevy Chase is 72? Where did the time go? Vacation is the continuation of the Vacationseries, but now starring  Clark’s son. The film reminded me of The Millers, probably, because of the road trip, just minus the fun parts, but with the awkward mother-son-sister kissing the whole 90 minutes instead. Most of the jokes were cheap, and did not remind me of the original Vacations at all. Puking and swimming in a waste lake are cheap tricks you pull when you run out of ideas. And honestly, the excessive puking only worked in Pitch Perfect, and while we’re at it, excessive shitting, in Bridesmaids. Why would the driver follow them all the way? Wouldn’t a normal person write down their registration number and called the cops? The opening and ending scenes were probably my favorite. I also liked the little brother swearing all the time. The film tried to be as funny as the original Vacations, but it failed miserably. To music lovers, Julian Casablancas wrote and sang one of the songs in the soundtrack, called 11th Dimension. Check it out if you like The Strokes.

‘This is some bullshit right here!’

‘Stop saying weird shit like that!’

2/10

The Killing Room

Similar to The Circle, but I wish the control room people would not pick who dies themselves, and they’d actually let the victims choose. Why wouldn’t families know where they went, at least one person most have told someone. Most of them did have an emergency contact, so how would none of them say they’re gonna be under this or this address. I liked it till they said it was a government project training American suicide bombers, what? That ruined the whole film for me. Would you sign up for an experiment you would not know the rules of just to get 250 dollars?

5/10

Wicked Little Things

It was a little all over the place, and you’d think the little zombies would go after people responsible for their death not kids and teenagers.

5/10

Charming Christmas

I have been following Julie Benz’s career since Dexter, well at least most of it, I have never seen Defiance or much Buffy and many other films, but I’ve seen a couple, and by some weird coincidence, I watched 3 films of hers in the last 3 weeks. If you’re patient, you’ll eventually see my notes on The Circle, which I thought was an incredible thriller, and The Search for Sophie Parker, which everyone who follows sex crimes in papers and their portrayal in films and tv, should watch. Charming Christmas, also starring David Sutcliffe, or Christopher from Gilmore Girls, was sweet and charming, and that’s about it. I see this pattern with Hallmark’s Christmas films, there’s no backbone in their stories. Even though there is one Hallmark Christmas film I actually loved (Christmas Detour), all of their other Christmas films are just bad romcoms with pairings that don’t even go well together. The storyline is almost never meaningful or interesting, it’s always just ‘finding love for Christmas’ or ‘saving Christmas’, which is not challenging enough even for lovely women who’s favorite film genre is romantic comedy. Charming Christmas was all of that, and I thought David’s character was trying to over-charm us all. No guy is that charming, and just because he loves Christmas? What about the friends/workers with their boring back stories? Who cares that some worker of the main character is a dancer and broke her leg and wants to dance?  They were just trying to fill the holes in the script in, so it reaches 90 minutes. Also, was that Jake Epstein from Degrassi?

3.5/10

Indigenous

It should have just been the biography of the blogger who got killed in one of Panama’s passages almost 3 years ago. If not, why even mention it? It’s not like the creatures took him. This was just like any other woods based horror, with The Descent’s inbreed, blind creatures. It should have just ended with them being killed, they should have skipped posting it on YouTube and declaring sightings of these creatures all over the US, but that’s low budget horror, it can almost never be just right.

5/10

Jamie Marks is Dead

I did not know Cameron Monaghan (Ian from Shameless) was in it until I watched it. I picked this film up because of the cover, and I just felt like a thriller/mystery film. The movie was disappointing, don’t ask me how can you be friends with a ghost, or touch it, I don’t think they’ve been doing any Casper film since the 90s. Why would you run away with a ghost? Why would your girlfriend be okay with you running in the woods with some ghost? Why were Liv Tyler and Judy Greer even in the film? They didn’t bring anything to the storyline. The ending was just as slow paced as the rest of the film, and I think it would have made more sense if Jamie was actually – spoiler – murdered.

5/10