Tag: Shiloh Fernandez

Gorgon Reviews – Watching Shitty (Terrible) Movies So You Don’t Have To. My long standing tagline and life philosophy. But for the most part, lately, my movies have just been everything in theaters. Some shitty, some not.

This is not a strange indie film. We Are Your Friends a film that was released throughout the US, but no one saw it. Almost no one. At the time of its release, it had the third worse opening for any film with over 2000 theaters showing it. It was the worst for live action movies.

Since it came out, Jem and the Holograms somehow decided to beat its box office records.

So We Are Your Friends only got to live in notoriety for about two months. Now it is second fiddle and now it won’t even be remembered for being never seen.

It may be remembered for having the same name as a famous Justice song though.
(Sweet music video alert)

Cole (Zac Efron) wants to be a great DJ. He is a small time guy, working the local clubs. He thinks he will be big one day. He just needs the perfect first song and the perfect opportunity. He definitely understands DJing though. He knows how to work a crowd, get them moving, and make the optimal BPMs .

He has three friends, Squirrel (Alex Shaffer), Ollie (Shiloh Fernandez), and Mason (Jonny Weston).

They need cash to make their dreams come true. But also, they like to party.

And party they do. They party a lot. And get ladies and stuff. Starring Jon Bernthal as a scummy dude, Wes Bentley as a pompous dude, and Emily Ratajkowski as a woman who doesn’t just want to be there for her looks.

Putting my hands on my head is the only way I know how to dance.

Who doesn’t love Zac Efron? He has successfully turned himself around from pretty boy Disney child into a guy who does what he wants. For the most part, he wants to do risque comedies. He did That Awkward Moment and Neighbors. And he is going to be in the Baywatch movie, which will hopefully be as good as the 21 Jump Street franchise.

But this isn’t risque or really a comedy. I mean, it is supposed to be, but it feels like a terrible drama the whole time. Having attractive women, even ones that show their boobies, does not make it really risque either.

We Are Your Friends has a boring plot, the kind you can figure out within the first fifteen minutes. Any surprises are actually completely random, and most of them serve little to no purpose. The same old romance things happen in this film that happen in all shitty romance movies.

And guess what? Spoilers. He does the song by the end. He makes people dance.

Hip hip fucking hooray. Some good music as the soundtrack though, but literally it felt about 20% of the film was saved for party montages.

If I was a White Bird, I would stay far away from blizzards.

Correction, if I was any color bird, I would stay away from all forms of snow. Fuck that. Birds and snow don’t go together. I am also under the impression that penguins are secretly fish. I don’t think my bird body could deal with snow, let alone lots of it.

So sure, a White Bird In A Blizzard may be impossible to see, but if you are any bird in a blizzard, you are probably fucked regardless, right?

Maybe the moral of this movie, that I haven’t watched yet, is that you are fucked either way, but sometimes you are fucked and invisible.

What? This shit isn’t even a metaphor? She is literally in a blizzard people, wearing white, and being white!

First off, get your time machines ready, this movie takes place in the past. Namely, the late 80’s and very early 90’s. So not too distant, but also before some of you were born.

No cell phones, no GPS, no facebooks, so when Kat’s (Shailene Woodley) mom, Eve (Eva Green), goes missing, there is not a lot they can do to find her. She vanished with no trace and no sign of fowl play. Kat’s dad, Brock (Christopher Meloni), is terribly shook up. Brock is a beta bitch, a pushover, and really doesn’t know how to live comfortably after this news. It seems Eve just grew a bit crazy, being a housewife, not getting to be as wild as she used to be, having to make dinner and stay at home all day. So she just bailed, especially when Brock didn’t really fulfill her sexually.

And who could fulfill her sexually, based on her movie history? And based on his TV history.

Either way, all of this has messed up Kat’s social life a bit. She is blossoming into a flower and doesn’t want to be like her mom, so she has sex when she wants and with who she wants. Usually her neighbor/boyfriend (Shiloh Fernandez). But maybe older men who she shouldn’t be messing with. Maybe.

Oh well. Life sucks. Kat feels lost. And she has to rely on her relationships, her friends (Mark Indelicato, Gabourey Sidibe) and the Detective (Thomas Jane) to help her get by unscathed without being too messed up.

A strong independent black woman and a gay male, the best of best friends represented.

Whoa. This movie dealt with some serious issues. Let’s compare them to Miss Woodley’s other work!

Divergent didn’t really deal with anything serious, as it was clearly just an intense high school film. She didn’t make it into the final cut of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 movie, so no issues at all. The Fault In Our Stars was about death and life at a young age, so we are getting closer. And The Spectacular Now also had a lot of serious issues.

But the issues in this movie are definitely the most serious. And most shocking, given her status as a younger franchise leading woman now. Because this movie deals with a lot of sex, and because of that, sex happens, and yeah, I can see why maybe the Divergent producers maybe wanted to hide this movie from the general public. They might not want their young star being in movies all naked and having sex with older men. Might ruin imaging.

This might be why White Bird In A Blizzard didn’t get a super wide or public release. It kind of just snuck out of nowhere on my radar. It is based on a book, but who cares.

Or or or or hey. Or maybe. Just maybe. It didn’t get a wide release because it wasn’t the best film?

I mean, it had some nice moments. But it also had a lot of dull ones. I don’t think it fell into too many cliches, it just didn’t really seem like a movie that would never stick with me too long after watching it. I won’t forget about the entire movie in a month, just most of it.

Sometimes, titles tell the entire story.

Other times, they tell you jack shit. Seriously. The East? I am a fan of cardinal directions as much as the next guy, but the title should try to grab in viewers. It should be special.

I feel like I know nothing going into this film! Oh wait, that is completely true. Sexy. I love blank slates. I just hope I don’t get it confused with The West.

Shit, that joke was so weak, it brought one of our main characters to drinking.

Eco-terrorism often gets frowned upon…and rightfully so. Fuck terrorism in general, but I kind of super hate eco-terrorism. Eco-terrorism punishes humans for crimes against the environment or animals, which is never never okay. Seriously. Humans are far more important than both of those things, so I really hate it. Fuck PETA, fuck Whale Wars, fuck all of that stuff.

Hmm, I hope I am not biased.

The East is an secret Eco-Terrorist group that may be a complete fiction. The film starts with a few of their members throwing mass quantities of crude oil into a rich guys AC unit, probably ruining his house. He also was responsible for an oil spill and didn’t really try to get his company to clean it up. That is more acceptable I guess.

Sarah (Brit Marling) gets a job at the start of the film in a company lead by Sharon (Patricia Clarkson). Long story short, she is to find and infiltrate The East movement. They are a security company, and they want to prevent future attacks on their customers, while also proving that they have the best intelligence unit.

Guess what, she does it! Yay. Being smart is awesome. She is able to find their small mountain society, with a very free spirit loving culture. It is lead by no one, technically, but we all know it is lead by Benji (Alexander Skarsgard), because he is charismatic and has a beard. Other high members include Izzy (Ellen Page), Luca (Shiloh Fernandez) and Doc (Toby Kebbell), a doctor. Nice name, doctor.

As Sarah tries to work to destroy the society from within, she must first become one with their ways and ideals. Like every spy cult movie before it, she might have some difficulty keeping her own priorities straight and not getting lost in the message.

Kumbaya at 8, bottle spinning at 830, and sleep by 9! Hooray.

Yeah, I know I came in a bit biased, hating eco-terrorist groups, but really, I don’t think that affected my thoughts on this movie.

They don’t do too many acts in the actual film, because they don’t want the new girl knowing too much right away. Pretty smart, given the circumstances. The reason my biases shouldn’t matter is that the only two or so acts that they do in this film are all pretty reasonable. They are both related to punishing people for hurting other people, a noble endeavor. They both also prove a point in a way that makes sense. Again, I am fine with what the group did.

The acting itself is decent overall, but not anything I haven’t seen before.

I, however, hated the ending of this movie. It was a mess. I can say I didn’t see it coming, but eh, a shocking ending doesn’t mean it is any good. I say it was a mess, because there was so many ways it could have gone, that when it finally decided on a path, it then immediately ended and I was just left wondering why? Why is that the best actions to take? To me, it didn’t make a whole lot of sense, so I almost felt like I wasted two hours getting to that point.

Again, decent acting, I especially liked the Ellen Page “lake side” scene. That sounds pervy, but really it was for the good acting. Just it had a plot that I was unable to ever really get attached to, with a poor ending.

An Evil Dead remake is something that has been talked about for a long time. Heck, theoretically, Evil Dead 2 was a remake of The Evil Dead, in a way. Continuity and all be damned! But everyone knew this was going to happen for the last decade, and like everything kind of involving Sam Raimi, it took its sweet time.

After all, he has mentioned remaking it himself. Or adding a sequel. Or making a movie off the musical (which is fantastic). Just nothing happened with any of that, until now. But this isn’t Raimi’s film, this is someone elses. Can they do what he hoped to accomplish with the first Evil Dead, with a higher budget?

With some more “real actors” too, instead of just his college buddies?

Oh hey look, the movie begins before the actual plot. That is nice. Get your sacrifices on yo.

Much later, we have a cabin in the woods with a work shed. Mmm, work sheds. We have Mia (Jane Levy), out of Michigan St, with her friends, a nurse Olivia (Jessica Lucas), and high school teacher Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci). But they are waiting for her brother, David (Shiloh Fernandez) to get there. That asshat is late. Eventually he shows up with his girlfriend Natalie (Elizabeth Blackmore) and they are ready to start their stay in the family cabin!

But why? It’s old and decrepit. It also smells bad. Well it turns out that Mia is there with her friends and family for one main reason. To quit using hard drugs cold turkey. No matter what, they can’t let her leave, no matter how much she begs and pleads, and makes up excuses. I think you know where this is going.

It turns out the unbearable smell is coming from the basement, which is full of dead animals, burn marks, and a book wrapped up in barb wire and trash bags.

Then you know. Shit goes down.

Including everyone’s favorite Evil Dead cliche, tree rape!

Hey! Do you like blood and gore and outrageous scenes of decapitation and demonized people? Well, hopefully you do, since you are thinking about watching an Evil Dead movie. I think this film has everything that the first film wanted to do, which is great, because it was the goal and all. There is some sick fucking shit in this movie, and I definitely felt uneasy, but hey, that’s the point of this movie.

I love that there is little to no CGI in this movie, and that all the effects are done with make-up work and prosthetics. It makes it feel more real, and thus more gross.

Certain staples in the first and second Evil Dead made it into this film too, but they were not used the same way. I loved that the film was able to keep me guessing as to how all the events would go down. Hell, even the trailer did a good job of not spoiling everything, although it did feature scenes that did not make it into the movie. Probably a good thing in my eyes. They might be in the unrated version of the film, aka the version that originally was given an NC-17. Yikes.

Right now the current rumor for the future of this franchise is between two ideas. This current updated version is probably in the same universe as the beloved 80s version, and will either have a sequel or be a trilogy. If it is just a sequel, there is rumors that there will be an Army of Darkness 2 starring Bruce Campbell, then a 7th movie overall connecting the survivors of this franchise with Bruce in a final final film. I personally doubt we see an Army Of Darkness 2 (see earlier comments on Sam Raimi), so I think they will do the trilogy route then have the 7th connecting film. But hey, we will see. They could make surprise me and make me as giddy as a school girl.

Did I mention this scared the piss out of me?

Don’t forget to watch the entire credits!