Tag: Drama

These films were watched as a part of the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF). Next Sohee has its Seattle premier on Tuesday, May 16, 2023. The Hill of Secrets has its Seattle premier on Friday, May 19, 2023.

In this dual review, I am going to look at two films out of South Korea. Do they have a lot in common? No, not really. But they do deal with youth experiences, at vary different levels. And they deal with the expectations on these kids, whether via extreme pressure, or a complete lack of pressure and apathy. And thus, a good enough reason to double up on these movies.

Next Sohee is about a girl named…Sohee (Kim Si-Eun)! Surprising, I know. She is the top student at her high school, always putting in the work to get the best grades, make her teachers happy, and never fail. She is also a pretty damn talented dancer, best in her group. She even has a boyfriend. As part of her school program, she is given a job! It is a prestigious job because it is from a big corporation, one type that her school never gets job opportunities from. They only wanted the best.

Well, it turns out the job is a call center job. And the goal of the call center is to not help the customer with their internet plan. But it is to instead give them the runaround, transfers, and get them to change their mind about canceling. It is to not make things easy, and that leads to anger, and it leads to self resentment. But she can’t just quit this job, her school and family is counting on it. But the call center culture has its own rules and standards that make things unbearable, until Sohee can no longer take it. And after that? Who is to blame.

Also starring Hee-jin Choi, Bae Doona, Yo-sep Song, and Yoo Jung-ho.

Certainly not Sohee. It is a SOCIETY problem.

Next Sohee is a film to talk about real issues going on in South Korean schools. For example, ranking of students, so publicly, for every little thing and assignment, builds that competitive stressful experience. But apparently, so do the call centers. And even if you do good, if you are 28th out of 28, you feel terrible, and will be chastised. Even if all of your goals are met. But when it turns out that schools themselves are ranked based on how their students as employees do, putting these pressures on teachers to have their students go through inhumane work conditions, and all of society is working to just tear down these poor kids. It is heart wrenching.

It is pretty obvious to tell what sort of thing happens to Sohee in the film, and I am sure the trailer says it as well. Because a good half of the film takes place later, while a police agent is discovering all of the issues that went on in her life, that could take a normally great kid into someone gone tragically too soon. It is like a journalistic expose, in movie format. And yet it also asks the question, well, even if we know all of this, what can be done to change it? Which is a harrowing question on its own.

4 out of 4.

In the Hill of Secrets, this time our protagonist is just a kid in elementary school. It is about Myung-eun (Moon Seung-ah), a girl from a poor family. Her mom works all the time, her dad is a bit of a slacker, and she has siblings that don’t care about her too much. She is dreadfully embarrassed by them. But for some reason this year, she decides she is going to put on a new façade at her school. She is going to tell people her dad is a business man, her mom stays at home, but they are both also extra busy because of a sick grandmother, so they can never come to school for events.

She also is going to run for Class President, beating out the popular kids! Her teacher is happy to hear her ideas. She even has a suggestion box for them that she stuffs with her own ideas so she can incorporate changes in the class without it looking too weird? She even starts writing at a high level, which she hasn’t done before. But things start to change when a new girl enters the class, who also has ideas, and can write well, but is from a tragic background and actually letting people know. All of this while Myung-eun is lying! Well, maybe she needs to lie even harder. But maybe, just maybe, she needs to tell the truth, even if it will hurt her family more.

Also starring Sun Jang, Kang Gil-woo, Jang Jae Hee, and Sunwoo Lim.

I have both found the hill, and see where she writes down secrets. Movie solved! 

For a film like this, the film lives or dies on the performance of the lead, which is a child actress. No pressure. And she definitely knocks it out of the park. Her life seems so sad at the start, and you can’t help but feel bad for her. It seems like her parents are distant, and don’t want her to draw attention to herself. Sure they will celebrate her victories, but in minor ways because they are limited on funds, and can’t go to the school itself to interact with her there.

It is a story of a determined girl who DOES have a lot of good ideas and tries to pull herself up purely based on perception and boot straps. But just like a child, she acts irrationally nonetheless, and responds poorly to situations she could not predict. In fact, she acts quite childish a few times, which help ground the character and the film. This isn’t some family film about doing your best and being the best you can be and everything will work out. No, it goes for a deeper level of realism.

The Hill of Secrets is not a very flashy film, but it is also well shot and tells a simple story. Families come in all shapes and sizes, and you never know what might be the catalyst for change in your household.

This film was watched as a part of the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF). Anu has its world premier on Sunday, May 14, 2023. You can see my interview with the director here!

If there is anything we vastly need more of, it is stories of non-white people in films. I fully believe that, and it is up to us as movie watchers to seek out these stories when they become available.

That was my driving factor for seeking out the film Anu. Anu is actually based on the book, Looking for Bapu, which came out in 2008. Written by an Indian-American woman, about a kid growing up in a mixed culture environment. And now, with Anu, telling the same story, is with Indian American director, Sudeshna Sen.

See? Exactly what I want, new perspectives, from people who aren’t like me, and non-male directors is only a plus at this point. Throughout these festival reviews, I will try my best to highlight and seek out films that aren’t the standard.

And if I don’t, Anu said she would glare at me all night and I don’t need that on my mind.

Anu (Diya Modi) is a preteen Indian American girl living in the Seattle region (hey, that is where I live. And where the festival is!) and has to deal with normal preteen girl issues. However, her life starts to change really early on when her grandfather, Bapu (Abhijeet Rane) passes away unexpectedly. With this, her life does begin to unravel a bit. She loved her Bapu, and she misses him, and how can she go on living without him?

From there though, she begins to see visions of him as a ghost! And it is definitely real. Anu wants to begin a quest to bring him back to life as a reincarnation of Siddhartha. But before that can happen, she has to go on a spiritual journey…in her own neighborhood and school. She has to become holy. Whether it is fasting, giving fortunes, or changing her style, she knows she needs to be able to bring him back, that is the only solution left in her life.

Also starring Lowell Deo, Pratik P. Shah, Tanvee Kale, Hudson Bruener, and Eden Campbell.

Clearly a walk to remember. Oh, no, different movie.

Anu is a classic coming of age story, or at least, a coming of age story, where culturally the way the character acts and interacts with her surroundings makes it more unique than the standard film of this variety. First I want to talk about the main actress, Diya Modi. This is her first feature length film where she has a major role and she knocks it out of the park. It is arguably my favorite aspect of the film. Her character has flaws and makes mistakes and acts like a girl that age, and is not some “perfect kid” learning to deal with death. She is a regular kid, learning to deal with death, through the good and bad reactions one might go through based on what they were taught.

Rane as Bapu was also delightful, and I wish he had more screentime. (This is arguably the plot of the film as well, getting him more screen time).

And although it is easy to remember the things that Anu did in the film in order to complete her spiritual journey, I will acknowledge I don’t remember much more of the film. It was great to see local sights and sounds, and just hear a character saying “Ballard” (a neighborhood of Seattle), but I don’t think the other supporting characters added enough for the full film. Her parents, her friends, it all becomes a little bit of a blur.

Anu is certainly not close to being a bad film; it was certainly a unique and interesting film! It is just also one where I was hoping for a bigger character catharsis and cast to help elevate it into bigger and better levels. It also gave me enough interest to seek out the book the film is based on, even if it is meant of elementary/middle school aged students.  I hope that the lead continues her acting career, not just for diversity sake, but because she handled the lead role so well.

New Jackie Chan movie?!

Hooray! It has been some amount of time. Honestly, I think I just naturally assumed at this point he retired. As of this moment, he is 69 years old (nice) and spent his life doing action films and hardcore stunt work. It must take a tole on his body and at some point, you gotta stop pushing yourself so hard and actually enjoy the fruits of your labor. You know, unless the retirement age keeps going up. But that is another topic.

This time Jackie Chan is seemingly picking a new sort of costar. A horse. A horse he is, presumably, going to Ride On. Thus the title.

But over the last fifteen years, there was no guarantee we would get classic Jackie Chan action. He is in more drama films and films where he has a small role. So this could have all been a ruse, who knows!

There is a mask, what if it is not Chan behind the mask?

First of all, this was not a ruse! Lao Luo (Jackie Chan) is an old man, who is mostly staying out of people’s way. He has a daughter, Xiao Bao (Haocun Liu), who wants him to just be chill and careful. It turns out he used to be a stuntman for films. So he had to do hard tasks, and his body took a beating. Huh, sounds familiar. But eventually, at some point, a mishap did happen, and it took a big toll on Luo, where he for sure had to stop.

This led to other issues. And eventually, many debts.

So now he is just is raising a horse, notably Red Hare, basically his best friend. They train together and trust each other. So when some debt collectors come and try to attack Luo, he is able to fight them off, with the help of his horse, and some recordings have this go viral.

Turns out, this was just what he needed to get back into the game. An older man, sure, but the horse? Hell yeah. They can do exciting horse action stunts, doesn’t matter his age.

Where does that leave us? An old man, who was already injured before, putting his body on the line again. And still debt issues and legal issues at the same time. Too much for a retired life.

Also starring Rongguang Yu, Kevin Guo, Jing Wu, and Joey Yung.

Is there anything stronger than the bond between a man and his horse?

Ride On is a film that has a lot going on with it. In fact, I would say, too much.

In one obvious way it feels like a love letter to Jackie Chan’s career, just hiding it behind a new face. It is really easy to see this plot aspect, especially when it comes to the character trying to protect the horse, yet still push the horse to more and more dangerous stunts, despite the obvious limitations. The initial disgust and anger towards using CGI for a stunt, even though it was one that clearly would hurt. And of course another moment looking at a montage of the characters “past stunts” when they were younger.

That is the movie I was hoping to see, while still getting the benefit of some interesting cool fight and stunt work. Yes I wanted it both ways.  But I knew that at least the fights and stunts throughout the film would actually be helped with CGI and safety would be a concern, because it is not the 80s anymore and there would be no chance of disaster.

And so I was happy with the fun fights and stunts and classic Jackie Chan humor with these fisticuffs, just also with a horse.

Unfortunately, the film is bogged down with the legal and debt story. That is likely another aspect of stunt work they wanted to highlight. These people are movie stars, whose bodies decay and don’t get the riches the face stars get. And they have legal problems that can tear their lives apart. But that aspect of the film just wasn’t given to us as well as the other exciting parts. It slowed down the film, and didn’t really give the best context.

I wondered of course if this film, Ride On, was meant to be a retirement film for Chan. But IMDB showed 7 titles currently in Upcoming, it means that Chan had a couple year break, maybe from just COVID concerns, and now he is still going forth and ready to do his thing.

On a Wing and a Prayer is a catch phrase. It means you are likely fucked. You don’t have the talent, or resources, or training, or something to make it through the situation. You know, like a plane that only has one wing. So how can it fly and land? Well, it is going to need that prayer element. Hope the universe can guide them to safety. Hopefully luck is on their side.

A film like this could be about anything. Hell, most films involve odds like this where the heroes overcome despite not having the right resources and need a lot of luck. But why not use that phrase for a literal movie about a plane problem? Heck, any plane disaster movie could have used it as a title. Like. Plane. United 93. All of them.

But it would be nice if it was about a one winged plane. Unfortunately for the movie On A Wing and a Prayer, the plane will have both wings the whole time, so the lack of resources will come from another place. And the prayer will come from Jesus, I guess.

Damn, no one is in that seat. Looks like it will have to be filled with the holy spirit. 

This film is a lot about Doug White (Dennis Quaid), a pharmacist. He has a wife (Heather Graham) and some kids, but really, the relationship we care about is the one he has with his brother, Jeff (Brett Rice). They are best buds, they do a random BBQ cook off together and win? Despite the fact that they just are regular people. This is meant to be a character trait I imagine.

Anyway they hang out, and days later after they go back home, Jeff dies! A shocker for sure. So they go to the funeral, and are flying back home in a tiny private plane with a pilot and just their family. When not many minutes after take off, the pilot dies as well! Damn, maybe Doug is just a jinx. Men around him just dying.

Now they are already in the air, and the autopilot is on, so they have time. But what if he needs the autopilot off because the safest thing would be to turn around to try and land? Doug has been taking pilot lessons. Not really. He did his first ever lesson, which has almost no actual training. So he lacks the experience to get it done. It takes a lot of people working together at nearby traffic control, and people outside of that, to give him any hope of success.

But hey, maybe Jesus will take the wheel?

Also starring Jesse Metcalfe, E. Roger Mitchell, Abigail Rhyne, Jessi Case, and Rocky Myers.

Oh nevermind, seat’s taken, Jesus. 

It is important to point out that sure, this film is based on a real story. And hey, anytime a real person who survives a crash and lands, despite not being a pilot, good on them. I love to hear it. I am super glad they didn’t die. But not every one of these stories needs to be made into a film.

This film has incredibly low stakes. I mean yeah, the life of the family on the plane. But it still feels like the film was filled with filler. [Editor’s note: That was an interesting sentence]. I wouldn’t say that we needed some kids nearby listening on a monitor. Did that help much? Nah. It just took away from the plane, which had not a lot of actual content to fill out the film. Heck, the beginning of the film was so awkward. The BBQ cookout win looked like it was all done in one take, no one really was caring much during that part of filming.

The idea of “Jesus taking the wheel” I always find to be a strange one in general, in real life. But to have that be a literal moment for this movie? It is certainly an interesting choice. On a Wing and a Prayer is a sort of religious movie. It doesn’t go as hard as something made by Alex Kendrick, so it feels a least a little bit realistic. But letting the end of the film rely on this sort of moment just, honestly, made me sigh and roll my eyes.

On a Wing and a Prayer is a drama film, not a thriller. It tells a relatively simple story, where we know everyone will be fine by the end. But even if it isn’t a thriller, it should have some level of thrills in it to keep my attention. But unfortunately, it never could.

Alright, alright, alright.

I mean. I thought of the candy bar. And the baseball player. Ruth and Ruby are pretty similar. That has to have been involved in the thought process to name this movie Baby Ruby. Give it some sense of familiarity.

This is a film that came to me suddenly and without warning, so I knew nothing about it, but hey, I recognized one of the actors at least.

I knew nothing like one of those literary characters. Can’t remember his name.

Jo (Noémie Merlant) is an influencer/vlogger, who has a pretty big following amongst the world. She does the nice photos, nice home set up, nice marriage, all of that. People know a lot about her! And then she also got pregnant.

Her husband (Kit Harrington) just has a regular job, but supports her. And the film opens with them returning home with their baby, ready to start their life as parents. But then this baby, Ruby, cries a lot. All the time. Constantly. It seems to hate Jo almost. When they go to stores. When they go on walks. Over night. It is like Jo cannot do anything to please this kid.

So she doesn’t feel great about this whole being a mom thing. She hasn’t even posted pictures of her kid online yet! Wow. What about her fans? Speaking of fans, she keeps running into the same people, like Shelly (Meredith Hagner), who is also a new mom, and hangs out with a lot of new moms. And they all seem so perfect. Why is their life so much better than hers? And is there something sinister about this group? About her nanny?

Jo’s visions start getting worse and worse. It’s almost like they want to steal her baby from her…

Just guess how many babies are actually in this photo!

Recently I watched a different psychological horror, about a woman in bed rest during a big amount of time before giving birth. And then there was also ghosts. But it was maybe a metaphor, maybe not. Everything spooked her. It was pretty poorly done.

Thankfully, Baby Ruby was not poorly done!

In terms of movies that are metaphors for postpartum depression, this seems to be a really good one. It doesn’t go hard into a supernatural aspect for the thriller. But it does go through a lot of situations and conversations and amplifies them up to really make it more obvious for those who have never experienced ppd. One of the biggest moments I recall was an argument between the couple, where the husband said some very obvious shitty things. The type of lines that can get normalized in society, but based on everything up that point it really punches hard.

The beginning got to be a little weird, but in reflection, I do think it stands well. I hate it when they do too much cross over between reality and supernatural, when they are going for a metaphor overall. But in this case, it is a nice metaphor, if not super realistic.

Well acted, and well thought out, and well experienced.

My first thought from this title, was that Alice Darling sounds like a name, so it is a good thing that they put that comma in there. And it turns out, I was right. Here is someone named Alice Darling, she is a singer and was on Spotify. Also her album is called Alice Darling too.

I found this out when checking to see if this movie was based on a book. The title, and aura of the film, gave me based on the book vibes. There is a chance this is the fault of Still Alice, which was also based on a book.

But sure enough, Alice, Darling is not based on a book at all! It might be loosely inspired by real events from the creator, but that is as far as we will get. Speaking of the creator, it was directed by Mary Nighy, her first feature length film, and it was written by Alanna Francis, her second screenplay. That’s right. We got a movie about some women, written and directed by some women. Honestly, this happens so rarely I just feel compelled to point this out.

Staring out of windows, being a darling, just Alice things.

Alice (Anna Kendrick) is in a relationship! Haven’t you heard? Simon (Charlie Carrick) is an artist, and has art, and does galleries with his art, and I guess he has success and makes money. He cares and provides for Alice, who still has her own independence thing going on. She has a job after all, and friends. Or does she?

Okay yes, she has a job. But it is limited, and Simon doesn’t like to see her gone so much. He also has helped change her diet to be more healthy. And he also doesn’t like it when she is with her friends so much. Her friends, Tess (Kaniehtiio Horn) and Sophie (Wunmi Mosaku), haven’t seen as much from her lately. Alice cancels her plans more often, or she leaves really early from their engagements, and just isn’t there. When Tess wants to do a week long trip at a Cabin for her birthday, it takes more convincing to get Alice to join, who is very reluctant, but she does want to go.

So she does the noble thing, and just lies to Simon that it is a work thing, and she will be busy. Why does she lie to him about hanging out with friends? Why does she fear saying anything wrong to him? Why is she so distant? Well, her friends are ready to confront her and help her out through this relationship, that might be a lot more one sided than Alice realizes.

See, she has friendship on both sides of her! Like a sandwich!

Friendship and relationships can be hard. Being in a relationship can mean spending less time with your friends, and being more involved away from them, doing less than you normally would. But is that always a bad things? Or is it normal?

That is questions I had to ask myself watching the film. Because it would be messed up if your friends held an intervention to spend more time with them, if you were just super into a new relationship. But that is one of the themes this film explores. How much is too much? How much of an emotional codependence is a good thing, depending on the stage of the relationship? And what happens if the relationship is actually really one sided, with the side being taken advantage of, or used, not actually realizing it?

I won’t use the g word here, but abuse doesn’t have to be physical. It can just be controlling and emotional damage being done. A general fear of being looked down upon. And worse, which I won’t get into.

The film did take some time getting going. The flashbacks that were often literal flashes in length, weren’t super helpful. I wish it really delved a bit more into that aspect. I think Kendrick and Carrick both did really well with their characters. It was unfortunately the friend roles that seemed to lack more. I couldn’t believe them as much, and it made a few of the bigger emotional tics jarring as a result.

If anything, this film is a real strong in its messaging of what happens if Love is actually just a codename for Control.

Here is an interview with the director of Unidentified objects, Juan Felipe Zuleta! 

Everyone wants to talk about the UFO’s, but what if they aren’t flying? What if they walk? What if they teleport? What if they just sit there like a rock and do nothing?

I guess they would just be called UOs, Unidentified Objects. They are less exciting than UFO’s, but they still are unidentified, so I guess no one knows what they are. They are mysterious.

So for a film that goes by that name, we know it has to involve some aliens, but the walking variety. A welcome change, if I am being honest.

I can confirm, neither of these objects look like they can fly. 

Peter (Matthew Jeffers) lives alone in NYC, and honestly, he prefers it that way. He is angry at the world for many reasons. There is a pandemic, that is one of them, sure. But he is gay, a dwarf, and just in general doesn’t have many friends.

So who knocks on his door? Winona (Sarah Hay), one of his neighbors, whom he doesn’t really talk to ever. But she has an emergency. She needs to go on a small trip, and doesn’t have a way to get there. It is to visit her sister. And she offers to pay him almost $2000 for the trip. He does need the money, so…screw it.

However, it turns out that she did mislead Peter on their destination and the reason. First, they have to go into Canada. Second, it is with a goal of getting to a specific spot at a specific time in order to meet…aliens! She believes in them and has some good information. But they will have to sneak across the border, and meet a lot of interesting individuals along the way. Not that they aren’t interesting individuals themselves.

Also starring Elliot Frances Flynn, Hamish Allan-Headley, Kerry Flanagan, Tara Pacheco, and Roy Abramsohn.

Canada means lumberjacks, that is a fact. 

Unidentified Objects on its own sounds like a story you may have seen over and over again.  A road trip film about unlikely companions, to discover something about the world, and hopefully, themselves. And sure. Yes, this is one of those films. And yet despite that, it feels quite unique in its story telling and it is worth the time.

The strength in the film lies mostly in their leads, who both bring about what feels like real passion and real emotion to their roles. This isn’t a zany road trip film. The people met along the way would normally be the types of characters at the butt of the jokes for our main characters, but everyone met is explored and given room to breathe. Whether that is good or bad for the leads depends on whom they meet along the way, but despite being a film about going to potentially meet aliens, it reminds grounded and it excels in that aspect.

Despite being a realistic film, it does feature quite a few dream sequences, to keep the viewer on their toes, and to help explore the characters better, especially our main lead. They almost always got me too, they mostly flowed well from the regular scene, until they didn’t. One cop scene in particular got very weird, very quickly.

With Unidentified Objects, it is a film that is easy to skip from the description alone, but I was blown away by how much I cared about the characters and their individual journeys before the end of it. Strong acting performances from people who aren’t big names. You love to see it.

I don’t usually like to have my movie titles threaten me, but here we are with Everyone Will Burn. Damn, is that spoiling the movie as well? Haven’t had something like this since John Dies At The End. The journey of this movie better be worth it.

Everyone Will Burn is actually a foreign film from Spain, and I didn’t put the title as Y todos arderán, because they didn’t advertise it to me like that. Everyone Will Burn is premiering at Fantastic Fest this year, which has a lot of both foreign films, and horror/sci-fi/strange movies, this one technically falling into that first category.

Who would have thought a title like Everyone Will Burn would end up being a horror movie!?

Well this is just one person burning. Get to the ending!

María José (Macarena Gómez) is done. She wants it all to end. So, she decides the best plan for her right now is to just jump off a bridge.

But then she shows up. Little Lucia (Sofía García). Whom starts referring to her as mother. And who is also covered with mud and maybe some blood. This is not a place for a little confused girl to be, so María decides, rightfully, she needs to bring her back to town to get her help. That is the right thing to do! But on the way home, she gets pulled over by the cops. The cops see the kid, and question her, and believe her when she calls her mom. Guess María will be in trouble now?

Nope. Lucia uses some mind magic, to have one cop kill the other, then burst into flames! Yay!

Oh, that is terrifying. What? Later in town, they apparently have a prophecy about something like this happening. A girl coming in and bringing about an apocalypse. And sure enough, the towns people gossip about this kid, and some mysterious deaths, and assume the kid has to be killed, or else they are doomed. You know, typical small town gossip. But María has taken a liking to the kid, and this gossip is just ridiculous. Right?

Right?

Also starring Rodolfo Sancho.

Mobs are always useful against arsonists.

Now, I hate to admit it, but I need to steal someone else’s word, but they are accurate and they are more creative than I will ever be. This is like a horror film and a telenovela. We have a a standard story about a kid who might be evil incarnate with magic killing powers in a very religious narrative… and also, a lot of people acting very much like gossip is life. So much gossip. So many expressions. So much judging and assuming.

Nothing like some mysterious murders to really make people turn against each other. And you know, want to murder a child. It is that Christian Charity if anything.

Despite the strangeness of these two genres, it feels like a really fresh and unique molding together. I wasn’t bogged down in silly exorcism level horror, which I am pretty much done with. Instead, I got gossip and drama, so I was happy when more people were getting killed. The type of town in this movie made the backstory of our lead make more and more sense, which made her motives in the main story make sense. It was well crafted drama, and not just drama for dramas sake. It helped and made sense for the plot. It gave me different motives to care about other than “oh demon kid = bad, everyone else = good.”

I really, really, don’t care about exorcism movies at this point in my life. So being able to see a sort of demon kid movie in a religious environment without worrying about those scenes, was just bliss.

In particular, the ending of this film is also very strong, due to the above. I didn’t know where it was going, but it surely hit a satisfactory mark.

Hell, and there is a chance that not everything burned at the end. But I won’t spoil that.

Finally, a reboot of Breakin’. We haven’t had a break dancing themed film in awhile. Maybe one of the Step-Up films?

I wish I could begin the review like that honestly. I really would enjoy a film about break dancing, even though I know they won’t try to make it a good story.

Instead, Breaking is about a bank robbery. Or at least, someone who has a bomb in the bank, with a very specific set of demands, and he will not stop until he gets his way. Maybe unless he reaches his…Breaking Point?

And, it features this handsome fellow in one of his final roles. 

Brian Brown-Easley (John Boyega) has gone through some things. He is a former Marine soldier, but now he is just a regular guy, going through hard times. Including money troubles. We seem looking really beat up at the start of the movie. But over what?

We shall see…

The point of the matter is, that later he goes to the bank to do something really basic. No problems, all good. That is, until he asks for a paper, and writes a note to the teller that he has a bomb.

He allows people to call the cops, and most of them to evacuate. The teller (Selenis Leyvis) and manager (Nicole Beharie) are the only two staying behind. Brian is very apologetic and sorry. He says he won’t be hurting him if he has to let the bomb go. He just needs to make some demands.

What kind of demands? Well. He wants $832. That specific amount. And he doesn’t want it from the bank. He wants his money from the VA that he says was denied to him recently. It is the principle.

Also starring Connie Britton, Jeffrey Donovan, London Covington, Olivia Washington, and Michael Kenneth Williams.

Bringing a bomb to a bank is a good way to be alliterative. 

One thing you might want to know going into this movie is that it is based on a true story. And because of that, it is limited in really what it can tell in this movie, if it wants to be accurate. From the plot of this film, it looks like it was going for accuracy. I would not recommend looking up the actual events before hand, nor the article that became famous talking about the events. Obviously they are spoilers, but even the title of the article is a spoiler.

This film is dealing with a real, and serious issue. It is dealing with PTSD, and of course, police violence against black people, and their difference responses based on the color of ones skin most of the time. It is serious and worth being talked about.

But at the same time, I am a movie reviewer, and reviewing the movie itself. Once we get to the bank scene, which starts relatively early in the film, it feels like Boyega is giving a sort of impression of Denzel Washington in John Q. At least it made me elicit it. A guy holding up people for a good cause potentially. But there isn’t a lot that happens in this story. Just some talking, and escalations, until the whole thing ends. The true story is a powerful one sure, but the emotions weren’t with me along for the ride. And that was devastating.

Boyega wasn’t acting bad, nor the rest of the cast. Jeffrey Donovan’s character was a little weird in the grand scheme of things. But it didn’t seem to go far about the issues that the movie wanted to talk about. It all felt very surface level. It is really easy to make me cry when a movie has a father doing something “for his daughter” and there are emotional build ups, but this one couldn’t get to me in that level.

I think I would rather have a documentary about this subject, and the greater problems reflected in the film. Because this time keeping the story relatively accurate meant it didn’t have a lot to work with. And for one more note, I really wish it kept its original title, 892. That would have felt more unique.

You know, I think Billy Porter might have some sort of deal with Amazon.

Last year we were given the jukebox musical Cinderella, where he played the fairy godmother. This year, he is directing his very first movie, Anything’s Possible. Both of which were straight to Amazon Prime!

As long as the outcome, is income.

I was going to ignore this one, honestly. But once I read the plot description, I figured Porter would be a pretty good director to tackle this subject, and I was excited to see where he would go with it.

A romance story, with lots of ups and down. Hyuck hyuck hyuck.

Kelsa (Eva Reign) is a senior in high school, not sure what she wants to do when she graduates. And sure, yes, she is trans. But she just wants to live her life, and at high school, not just be known as the “Trans girl.” She does have a YouTube channel where she goes over problems that happen to her in life, but it isn’t publicly known in her school, just for people on the internet. People on the internet are different, ya know?

Khal (Abubakr Ali) is also not sure what to do next year when he graduates. He wants to do art, his parents want big success for him and a big fancy school. He is on reddit a lot too, and answers love advice for people, while they help him out as well. And it turns out he likes Kelsa.

Her brains and beauty drew him in, but he is afraid of what others might think. Especially when it turns out that one of Kelsa’s friends like’s Khal, and people know that. Ugh, love triangles.

Also starring Kelly Lamor Wilson, Courtnee Carter, and Renée Elise Goldsberry.

Shitty initials though for their coupling. 

I don’t know how many teen romance movies have a trans main character in them. This feels like the first one? Maybe? Or at least first mainstream one. And usually when we get to the first of a kind of a genre, they rely a lot more on stereotypes, because it is easier to be lazy. They are already original because they are the first to do something!

And yet, the best part of this movie is that it does an amazing job of avoiding stereotypes and avoiding the obvious plot lines. I went in highly expecting very specific lines of dialogue and events, and the movie surprised me. So props to the directors, and writers, and everyone involves for not going a basic route.

Now, despite its own originality, the story is still a high school teenage romance story. It falls into normal pitfalls of that genre, making it hard to keep my interest. It also rushes through quite a lot of the regular plot as well, and by the end I was a little bit just lost at who was angry at who and why.

Not to mention, Khal’s plot line is definitely one that has been done before. Someone who wants to go to /art school/ but his parents disapproves, no matter how good they are at art? Seen that a thousands time.

While Anything’s Possible gives me something that is unique to the genre, and avoids pitfalls, it still fails to provide an overall good story at the same time.