Tag: Nesta Cooper

If ignorance is bliss, what does that mean for the movie Bliss? Is it also ignorance?

The is a good question, and honestly, the movie Bliss is definitely going for this quote when it picked the title. You can live your life happy. You can live your life normal. But what if there is more out there? What if you are in a simulation and trapped? Would you want to know that? You wouldn’t be blissful in that regard.

But bliss can be brought by different ways. Through narcotics, for example, that just wipe away your worries, and make you forget about the bad.

Huh, maybe this film is about both.

I don’t know what is happening here, but ACAB.Greg Wittle (Owen Wilson) is some sort of person with a job and a family. He isn’t that successful at either. He is divorced. And even though he has a big job in in his firm, his performance has been notably slipping lately.  In fact, his boss wants to talk to him about that specifically, and fires him.Aw shucks.

Well, an argument happens with his boss, and Greg books it out of the building to hide out across the street, where he meets Isabel Clemens (Salma Hayek), a girl from his drawings. She helps him get out of a few jams, so he trusts her now, and is whisked away in the city.

Sure, she may be some level of homeless, but she says she does it to live off the grid. She knows that they are living in a simulation and that Greg is one of the few real people in the simulation for a visit along with her. She proves it by giving him a pill that gives him the power to mess with the world around them, like they are kinetic. Oh shit. This must be real!

But what about Greg’s kids (Nesta Cooper, Jorge Lendeborg Jr.)? Are they really fake? Will being on the streets, hiding from the world improve his life? Can he escape this situation?

Also starring Bill Nye.

You mean to tell me the Bill Nye? The Science Guy? Is in this film? Wow!

Bliss wants to be a movie that has it both ways and keeps itself open to interpretation to keep the conversation going. Never fully giving an answer. But honestly, after watching it, I can only see one answer. Is it drugs? Is it a simulation?

This isn’t a spoiler, it is my just thoughts on the film. But when watching this movie, throughout, the only thing I can ever think about is that this movie is about drugs and drug addiction. It just has the simulation angle as a hook to get people to watch it, and hey, people addicted can totally live their reality thinking their reality isn’t real. (Damn, what a sentence that was).

And when examining this film as a movie about the dangers of drug addiction, and seeking out help, and letting them overtake your life, this is a much better film. If you examine it as a movie about being in a simulation it is pretty bad. It doesn’t have a great ending, despite believing it to be a simulation still, and uhhh, I just don’t get a lot out of this thought process.

So why the low rating? Well, there is a certain simulation scene, that takes up way too much of the movie. It is like, the entire second and maybe part of the third act. There is no reason to be in that mode for so long. It is so boring. It is uninteresting. It is like ten minutes of content that they just stretch over 30-40 and it slows the movie down. It is really quick early on and stays that way for a good chunk. A slow down could be helpful, but not if we are just sitting there wondering what is the point and waiting to get back to the actual story (because we all know its coming).

Wilson and Hayek are okay at the acting in this one, this is probably one of Hayek’s better in the last few years, but she also has been in a lot of shit lately, so that doesn’t say a lot. The film does a good job of having us feel for the daughter character, and we can all be so lucky to have a kid like her.

1 out of 4.

Oh, it is the spring time. Is it time for an inspirational sports movie? Shit, I didn´t know. I wasn´t ready.

The more and more inspirational sports moments they decide to turn into films, they more obscure or recent they have to grab them. When we had Million Dollar Arm a few years ago, it was literally only a couple years after the event. We used to have to wait 10+ years to get a film about the sports event in question. Hell, we finally got a Tonya Harding movie just last year.

I honestly don´t know if The Miracle Season is a current event or something really old. I just know it is a volleyball film, which is not really common at all. So it is an inspirational volleyball film to get people excited about that sport, and winning and stuff.

Want to know the last inspirational volleyball film I remember watching? Phat Beach.

Holy shit, did they find a missing Mara sister for the lead role?

First of all, get ready, this film is set in Iowa. Now, everyone is not white in the movie, but they probably had to add some people of color because reality is too scary and they want to imagine it not so intense.

The main two white girls that this movie is about are Kelly (Erin Moriarty) and Line (Danika Yarosh). She was Caroline, but hated it, so she want by Line or Liner. They were BFFs since 3 years old, and their families have been close. And now they play volleyball together, going into their senior year of high school. Their team won the state championship in volleyball the previous year, and now they are ready to repeat!

Well, the coach (Helen Hunt) is. The rest seem to be cocky and goof off, even after losing their first game. Long story short, Line dies in a scooter accident, and now the team is even more fucked. She was the captain, the center, and the life force of their program. Her dad (William Hurt) is going through the most, because his wife died of cancer a week later, but her condition the knew about.

This is a true story again, so you know most likely how this story is going to end, or else, why would the movie exist?

Also starring Jason Gray-Stanford, Burkely Duffield, and Jillian Fargey. A few other girls on the team that stand out include Lillian Doucet-Roche as the freshman, who isn’t blonde, Tiera Skovbye as the most athletic one, who you can tell from the other blondes by her hair band, and Nesta Cooper, who is someone who isn’t even white like the rest of her team.

There we go. There’s that classic sports ending movie shot.

First of all, let me note that originally I was going to rate this lower, because I was annoyed at how they were “Hollywood-ing” up a real story, which happens very often. Creating a bit of extra drama in order to keep things going, instead of sticking to the truth. Well, then I watched a 14 minute special on the events, and every part I assume was extra was real. My bad.

Secondly, here are some coincidences. This film is about the death of Line of course, and the team coming together to repeat. It is also about Kelly, her best friend, coping with their loss and turning into a leader for the team to rally behind as well. Kelly after the events of the film went on to college at Iowa State from 2011-2015, where she probably played some volleyball too.

Well, I was at Iowa State from 2012-2014 for graduate school. I was a Geophysics graduate student, and she was a microbiology student, and those two sciences shared the same relatively small building on that campus, so there is a really good chance I have walked by or seen this real life person before. Heck, I had even bought things from the Microbiology club for their fundraisers. I find it a bit bizarre that this person who went through these crazy life experiences was near my own personal existance for so long without knowing, and now they have a movie about them.

Well, Kelly went on to graduate school to be a PA, and is currently in Houston, Texas trying to finish that. Hey. I am in in Houston, Texas.

Cough. Okay. Sorry. Moving on. To talk about the actual movie? Well, the acting is really average to below average. Yarosh was insufferable as Line. Way too much, and that may have been Line in real life, but it sort of just irritated me. I was ready for her to die. They loved spending time on their grief, so they didn’t spend as much time as I would have hoped on actual volleyball.

Outside of the occasional montage, the volleyball games were basically described by the first 1-2 serves and the last 1-2 serves, without much in between. Most of the characters don’t have any discernible personality. The freshman player has the next most personality after Kelly, and that is because of her fresh-ness only.

The Miracle Season is an okay film for its accuracy to the story and its ability to make you feel a bit compelled. It is not one where you will be blown away by the acting from any party involved. It has minor issues occasionally like one near the end where the server changes in between points at a time when that totally wouldn’t happen. But again, this is our only volleyball movie for the next 20+ years probably, so it will have to do.

2 out of 4.