I have 3 sisters, all younger, not that I usually admit that. We look nothing alike (one makeup artist once had the audacity to question our mother’s fidelity) and we act even less alike – personalities, politics, habits and hairstyles. We are DIFFERENT. With a mere 5.5 years between the oldest and youngest, I still feel oddly protective of 
them and it’s mind-boggling to think that they’re not in fact little girls anymore, but women, and 2 of them mothers with babies of their own. Not dollies, babies. And not even babies: one nephew is already a dinosaur expert, another an enthusiastic soloist, and a third a stunt bike rider. They’re all 5 and under and as handsome as they are smart (which is inherited from the aunt, right?).
I’ll be on my way to see them this weekend since it’s Thanksgiving and all, the holiday where we honour the tradition of my mother being an almost adequate and fantastically bland cook, the upside being we all manage not to overeat.
I have 3 sisters (and 3 sisters-in-law) but I do not have an Other Sister. The Other Sister (as in the movie, and the character) is Carla, the sister who has a mental disability. Played by Juliette Lewis, Carla was sent away as a child when her disability proved too big a 
disability for her family to handle. Now a young woman, she’s moved back home and is trying to assert her independence. Her mother, played by Diane Keaton, has never really known how to parent her. Her sisters (Poppy Montgomery, Sarah Paulson) didn’t grow up with her. It’s making friends with someone with his own challenges (Daniel, Giovanni Ribisi) that inspires Carla to aspire to a larger life.
All of the sisters in The Other Sister are celebrating Thanksgiving in the film, an especially auspicious holiday because it’s the date Daniel and Carla choose to consummate their love. Turkey makes any anniversary more special, as you can imagine. And pie is always good post-sex. Post-nearly-everything. I’m not sure if any of my sisters are marking similar occasions, and I bet I won’t even ask. Instead I’ll say thanks for all the blessings in my life, even the teeny tiny ones like my pink headphones that let me watch sappy movies at work. Happy Thanksgiving to you too.
desert and gives us female soldiers for company. Some of them have been given jobs in name only (Daffi is a “Paper and Shredding NCO” who spends most of her time beating the high score in Minesweeper) and most are counting down the days until they return to civilian life. Their officer, Rama, however, is trying to make this her career…
drugged out of their minds” – models, of course. So how do we punish such a misogynist? We turn him into a woman of course. Yup, it’s an identity swap movie, and there’s not even a cute cat in it to make it remotely palatable. And the worst part is that once “Sam” is turned into a woman, the misogynist bullcrap is ramped up because it’s somehow funny to have a cute girl spouting utter shit. I might, might, look past this if there was anything remotely non-disgusting in the script but in fact, all the men are dogs and all the women are shrews. Like real life! And then there’s all the implausible bits.
goes, putting herself at the mercy of a nutbar pedophile cult leader and his woman-beating cronies. This is the kind of movie into which you can never lose yourself entirely because you keep pulling yourself out of it to yell at the protagonists. You know in a horror movie the whole theatre is practically yelling “Don’t go in there” but of course she goes in there, even though we all knew better? And she gets diced into a million bite-sized pieces? Well this is one of those movies, except it isn’t a horror, and there’s no excuse for doing what it does. Bad writing, I suspect, and a movie that doesn’t really know what it wants to be when it grows up. With two idiot protagonists who keep making the dumbest decisions ever, you won’t care whether they live or die. And for a film that’s trying to shed some light on a pretty gruesome chapter in Chilean history, it’s also succumbing to the misplaced love story temptation. Because nothing overcomes a cruel dictator like True Love between nitwits.
outside of it would have time catching up to them in a hurry. Inside their cozy little loop, they can be as peculiar as they like without repercussion. Or they could until a peculiar gone rogue (Samuel L. Jackson) invents monsters to hunt them. That’s why Abe (Terence Stamp) chooses to live outside the loop – true he has to leave behind his love, but he keeps her and everyone else safe by hunting the monsters in turn. But in his old age, Abe meets an ugly demise and his eyeless body is discovered by his teenaged grandson, Jake (Asa Butterfield ), the only one suspicious enough (or peculiar enough?) to avenge his grandfather’s death.
black man he’s cast in a leading role EVER, and you know he’s playing a villain. Jackson aside, Tim Burton’s casting takes on a very pale shade of white. His sets may be designed in technicolour but Tim Burton himself only dreams in caucasian. And it’s not really Tim Burton’s fault. We’re the dummies who have accepted this unthinkingly for years. He’s had huge ensemble casts with not even a tan among them and I for one haven’t even thought to question it.
Africa. The whole point of this film is rooted in poverty. A chess club is started in Katwe because of poverty – because mothers are too afraid of medical expenses should a child break a bone during soccer. So a board game is just more appealing. One of the big draws in getting the children to come in and learn the game is that the chess is served up with a free cup of porridge.
enough to represent Uganda internationally. As she begins to win, and to travel, she glimpses the life that could be hers if her chess game complies. But now that she’s playing not just to win, but to change her life, and support her family, it’s a lot of extra pressure any little girl’s shoulders.
Disoriented. I walked out of the theatre disoriented. Was it the strobe light effect while the power failed? Was it the glass shards being pulled by Kurt Russell out of his own foot? Was it the bone sticking out of a redshirt’s leg? Was it that 11 people died and I wondered how the other 115 on the rig survived?
Mike Williams (Mark Wahlberg) gets bloody. Jimmy Harrell (Russell) gets bloodier. The stand-in for greedy BP, Donald Vidrine (John Malkovitch), does not get as bloody as you’d hope. They are some of the lucky ones. Deepwater Horizon takes us into the heart of the mess. Tons of mud, oil, fire, explosions, and rag dolls flying all over the screen. It is hard to watch but not too hard to follow. We are provided with title cards and a grade school explanation of the Deepwater Horizon’s mission. They help the exposition fly by so we can get to the destruction faster.
starts believing it, truly believing that her beauty is important and holds power over other people, that’s when things start to bubble.
up with that head-stomping scene in Drive. And all the other scenes in Drive. I described Neon Demon to Sean as “less plot than Drive, and with super models” and also as “this year’s weird movie” to which he replied “Beasts of the Southern Wild weird?” and I answered “No, more like 
not really either of those two things. Surprise third option! I definitely didn’t hate it. Lord it has some of the coolest images I’ve seen in a film, ever. Gorgeous. Stunning. It’s one of the boldest things I’ve ever seen on film and I’m giving lots of credit to Refn’s cinematographer Natasha Braier (what! a female cinematographer??) Together, Refn and Braier create an unforgettable world that is hyper-real, extreme in both its beauty and its grit. The colour palette tells a story all on its own, progressing seamlessly from beginning to end.
found it to be kind of empty. Like there’s obviously an allegory here, about our culture’s emphasis on female beauty, and on a certain kind of white girl skinny beauty in particular. And the dangers of narcissism. And female cattiness, which I almost hate just on principle. But this movie didn’t make me think. Like, at all, beyond “Oh, that’s gross.” So treat it like a high fashion magazine with pretty pages to flip through. I just can’t give it much more credit than that.
ASSHOLES WATCHING MOVIES 