Tag: Bojana Novakovic

I, Tonya

Tonya Harding is currently living in infamy, as the most famous figure skater ever. More people know her name than Nancy Kerrigan. More people know her name than the other figure skaters since then and before.

Tonya Harding was one of first people to be sensationalized around the world thanks to the emergence of the 24 hour news cycle. Yes, she was involved in a terrible scandal. A scandal we have never really seen before or after, or if we did, it was a lot more subtle and professionally done.

I, Tonya is a film more about the once incident that will forever define her life, unfortunately. It is about her youth, her skating career, her relationships, and sure, some time after as well.

Happy
And about her happiest moment, in which she was clearly, very goddamn happy.

Tonya Merigold Bethany Harding (Margot Robbie) (I made up those middle names) grew up poor and unloved, which is really how she was most of her life as well.

Her mother (Allison Janney) was the one who spent most of her time raising her, with a lot of failed marriages, men who could no longer stand her. She was beaten, but her mom still put most of her money into skating lessons, because Tonya showed skills at the young age of three. Tonya was crass, a red neck, vulgar, and everything that her mother taught her to be.

This led to some contention in the ice skating community, who demanded their skaters be princesses. She was often not treated right by the judges, even if she landed the hardest of tricks perfectly.

A hard life led Tonya to a hard man, Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan), a couple of people who married their first love when neither had a strong education. More beatings, more of a shit home life, and yet still, Tonya succeed on the ice.

All of this led up to the 1994 Winter Olympics, and I am sure you heard a lot about that one.

Also starring Anthony Reynolds, Bobby Cannavale, Bojana Novakovic, Caitlin Carver, Julianne Nicholson, Paul Walter Hauser, Ricky Russert, and Mckenna Grace as little Tonya.

Family
The real torture is probably how long it took to do her hair.

I didn’t really know what to expect going into I, Tonya. Again, I really only understood the woman behind the incident through parodies and Weird Al. I knew it was classified as some sort of Dark Comedy, and usually Dark Comedies aren’t based on real events, even if they say they are. I also know that this whole thing is from Tonya and companies point of view, Nancy Kerrigan had nothing to do with this film, so there was a chance of bias.

And so I tried to look at it objectively, just as a film, telling a story, not worrying about how it matched up with real events. Like how I did for The Greatest Showman. And yet it was hard to do that as characters constantly broke the fourth wall to tell if these things really did or didn’t happen, and I don’t just mean the documentary feel of the film for some parts.

But at this point I am stalling. I, Tonya was masterful cinema in my eyes. It took a tragic and strange event and gave it human qualities. As far as I am concerned, Tanya Harding was a tragic figure growing up and very misunderstood. She had to struggle a lot through poverty, physical abuse and mental abuse from those who loved her, and yet she still became a success. And fuck it, I believe she wasn’t involved with the incident at this point. Movie has set my mind to a certain point, and I just feel so incredibly sad about it all.

I, Tonya made me laugh a ton, made me cry, but more importantly, it made me think. That sounds like a canned response, but it made me think about what it means to be a celebrity, what it means to have your lives completely under camera all the time, and how you aren’t allowed to ever be weak unless you want to be trampled.

Except when it comes to Trump. The mockery is justified.

4 out of 4.

Devil

My 666th review is Devil. Need I say more?
God, I’m so fucking clever.

Elevator
Hey look, some people in an elevator.

The movie begins with a person jumping off of a skyscraper and landing in a car, pretty far away. Okay. Like, super far. But Detective Bowden (Chris Messina) is on the case! After investigating, he sees that a skyscraper has a broken window, so we are good to go.

But uh oh, the elevator has stopped! That sucks. Must be out of repair. There are five people on it too, a security guard (Bokeem Woodbine), a salesman (Geoffrey Arend), a mechanic (Logan Marshall-Green), an old woman (Jenny O’Hara) and a young woman (Bojana Novakovic).

And uhh, the Devil might actually be one of them in disguise? Hell, they might all be bad people too, and needing to repent for their sins. That is what one of the security guards thinks (Jacob Vargas), and an older non religious guard (Matt Craven). Watching it all go down, except for when the power goes out randomly.

Action
Hey look, an action scene.

Although not the director, it shouldn’t surprise anyone to find out that M. Night Shyamalan is involved with this picture. There might be a twist by the end, but I felt like I had the whole thing figured out as soon as I saw the cast. Might have had some twists and turns, but really, it is all pretty obvious. Don’t worry, someone is the Devil. They don’t pull a The Village.

But the acting is bad, Chris Messina, what the hell are you doing? Your character barely changed tone the whole movie. Not even during your sob story. Logan Marshall-Green I would say is the best character, while the rest of of the cast just didn’t give a single fuck.

Jesus Christ, the Devil is bad.

Not flipping over the table bad. But just bad enough for me to not even write 400 words about it. How could I? The plot is the devil on an elevator!

1 out of 4.