Gorgon Reviews

If you have seen my reviews in the past, you might know that I love the concept of the computer screen movie. (If you haven’t seen my reviews in the past, welcome! Read more please?). Not that there is a whole lot of these mind you.

We have Unfriended, Unfriended: Dark Web, an episode of Modern Family, and uhhh…I am sure there are more. Maybe. Maybe I’ve even seen them.

The biggest issues I have had with these things in the past, aside from bad plot or acting, was that they failed at the details. We would have characters start music, and the music would just go away when the movie felt like it. They would be Skyping, and everyone wouldn’t talk at all on Skype while the character had to google something. Just dumb shit like that.

I just want it to be really accurate to a real computer. Every one of us knows what a computer looks like and how they work (mostly). So don’t give us non working computers, damn it. I want Searching to rise above the rest and give me a work of art.

I want you to have 10 tabs open that you will totally get to eventually.

David Kim (John Cho) and his wife Pam (Sara Sohn) had a little girl, and named her Margot (Michelle La). They introduced her to piano. They recorded videos of her for a digital scrapbook. They have her first days of school, they gave her an account on their old windows machine. And really, Pam was better at all of this.

David is good with computers too, but he worked more, and loved his family, and took more videos, but she was the one who helped Margot fall in love with piano and keep track of their schedules.

And then one day, Pamela finally succumbed to cancer. This of course changed their whole family, and David didn’t really know how to handle it. He still raised his daughter, making sure she had her piano lessons, went to her things, and communicated, but maybe it wasn’t enough.

Because one night, she didn’t come home. He had some missed calls while sleeping. And after a few excuses were checked, she still wasn’t there. And now with the help of his brother (Joseph Lee) and the Detective assigned to his case (Debra Messing), he has to realize how much he didn’t know about his daughter the last couple of years, find her friends, do his own searching (movie title) in order to hopefully find her daughter alive.

“Fucking Millennials, always putting themselves on the camera, allowing them to maybe be found by their parents in the future. ” – Parents of Millennials.

Searching is good, like really really good.

I could go talk about in detail about how I cried three times, including the first 10 minutes (good news for you Up fans). How real Cho felt as the dad. How smart the movie unfolded. How tense I was and how well it flowed together.

But really, I just want to talk about the specific details I mentioned above. We saw Cho open tabs and not read them. Hell yeah. We saw him have to pause music or videos in order to use his face times. Hell, we saw him do this at work too.

And best of all, BEST OF ALL. When a character messages a character, we see that they indeed have talked in the past, and there are past conversations. This keeps happening to quite an annoying level. He had past conversations with his daughter, with other people, and she had them with others as well. His little apple phone app that showed he called people changed throughout the film (because it takes place over almost a week for the most part) changed over time, and looked realistic in that regard.

Oh, and the plot is awesome, Cho is awesome, this was great. All other computer screen films I liked in the past are now shit (which most people agreed with already). This is a gold standard. I can’t wait to see how this genre evolves and of course, quickly becomes shit.

Editor’s note: Since writing this article, which were indeed my first thoughts on the film, unbiased by others, I have read a review of Kin that I can clearly state is better than mine and makes a better point. Read it here at Texas Art & Film. I am almost ashamed because I usually notice issues like this one, but I simply missed it maybe due to the better cinematography and music of the film.

I went into Kin mostly blind. I didn’t really like the name, but I knew nothing about the story, nor did I see any ads anywhere. It felt like a secret release, but hey, I don’t watch a lot of commercials so it is hard to see.

The only thing I knew was two of the main actors listed in the movie. It still was clearly an indie movie, but while watching it, I was surprised at just how many other actors I knew or recognized. It has at least five famous or notable people, none of which are the “lead” in this film. It is surprising given the lower overall budget of the movie.

Sometimes, actors just do lower budget films for less because they like the story or whatever. And James Franco just does it for shits and giggles. I think he wants half of his films to be movies people have never heard about before.

Half of this photo is new, half of this photo is really old.

In the near future, Detroit is a piece of shit. This is true generally always, in every movie, about the near future Detroit. It is also somewhat true about present Detroit.

Eli Solinski (Myles Truitt) is a kid having problems at school. He is a black kid. He is getting suspended. Turns out his mom died recently. His mom being someone who adopted him, and he has had a hard time adjusting. His dad (Dennis Quaid) is very strict, but supportive, and stuck in his morals. His older adopted brother, Jimmy (Jack Reynor), has been in prison for awhile due to stealing some things, and he has been a bit of a stain upon the family.

Well, Jimmy gets back home, and it is awkward. It is also awkward because he needs some money. He took out a “loan” in prison for protection, so he wouldn’t have to worry about getting shanked. And his loan sharks want their money back right away, which he doesn’t have, his dad doesn’t have, but the job office might have some.

Around this same time, Eli, who has been stealing copper from some of the many abandoned warehouses, stumbles upon a strange sight. A gun. An…alien gun? Something that whirrs and boops and is totally not normal.

Long story short, Eli and his brother are going on a road trip. Some bad people are after them, but they have money, guns, and Eli doesn’t know anything bad is going on at all.

Also starring James Franco, Zoë Kravitz, Carrie Coon, Ian Matthews, and Gavin Fox.

Alien guns make my favorite gun sound, pew pew pew.

I really did go into this movie thinking it would be shit, only knowing it was some sort of family film and science fiction. But I was surprised at how hard this film tried to be a contender. It didn’t reach its lofty goals, but it had a lot of good going on with it.

The soundtrack behind it is one that is meant to really draw you in, with an electro pulse to keep tension up in non tense moments. The camera lingered over scenes. The film embraced silence without dialogue constantly to catch us up on their emotions and potential growth. It is a slow build and not just a rainstorm of action scenes to keep the viewers excited while things explode in alien gun glory.

No, it is a film about family. It is slow, and there is some crime and sad killing moments.

Now the ending of the film feels very convenient. The clues are there, and it offers at least one surprise, but it also ends the film in a weird note. Too many things are wrapped up without the appropriate fallout one would expect. It sets up a franchise that everyone can tell while watching will never come to fruition.

And honestly, it is too slow. Build is one thing, but this movie didn’t always build, but instead sort of stalled at points. The road trip felt like it would go on forever, and it was frustrating that things weren’t really moving along faster.

This was a good idea for a film, and clearly care was taken into it. It just could have also been a lot better at the same time.

Muppets. Saying. Fuck.

That could have been the original pitch for this movie. Or maybe just Muppets dying and being killed. Or Muppets smoking. Basically, Muppets being adults and corrupt and crime.

Incorporating Muppets into the real world with real humans has not been an issue. Hell, that is how the show has always worked and movies. It is fine, people accept it, all good.

But with this movie, The Happytime Murders, they want to put Muppets in new situations! More action, violence, and whatever it takes to get an R rating so little Johnny doesn’t accidentally have his childhood ruined, or something. This is probably Deadpool‘s fault. Superheroes got to be edgy, so now Muppets get to be edgy.

Edgy Muppets doesn’t have to be a bad thing. They just have to be smart about it.

This picture is a metaphor for Joel McHale’s new show going up in smoke. But also literally.

Phil Phillips (Bill Barretta) is not your normal private eye. You see, he is a Muppet. Or a puppet officially, I don’t care about the nomenclature. He certainly does not have bones in his body (unless you count the human hand…). He used to be a cop. He was the first ever puppet cop, but for whatever reason, he was kicked off the force and there is some bad blood between the two sides. And Phil doesn’t even have blood.

During an investigation of a ransom, Phil finds himself at the scene of a murder, where one of the victims is from the first ever TV show starring mainly puppets! Phil is worried about this killing, as it seems like a hit job. Phil’s brother was on the show, so he doesn’t want his brother to get offed as well from some unknown assailant.

But yet, more cast members start dying. And the clues aren’t leading closer to a suspect. Can Phil solve the murder mystery? Or will his stuffing just get all over the place by the end?

Also starring Kevin Clash, Dorien Davies, Drew Massey, Melissa McCarthy, Elizabeth Banks, Joel McHale, Maya Rudolph, and Leslie David Baker.

I am sorry I am showing something so graphic in a review.

Going into this movie, I expected that they would do some gross stuff with Muppets, but overall, it would try to be your normal, run of the mill, buddy cop crime comedy entity. Boy was I wrong. This movie wanted to do “gross” stuff with puppets, and that is it. It is almost entirely void of humor in this regard. The first 2-3 times having a Muppet swear or do something adult like can constitute an original joke. But then to just repeat that same punch line 100 times and call it a film is not what anyone would define as a good time.

In fact, we only get really one sex Muppet joke. Their version of adult is just drugs, alcohol, smoking, swears, and murder. But we all really know that to be an adult, you gotta do the sexy stuff. There is just one sex scene and it is extremely regular. If I have two Muppets having sex, I don’t want them to just be loud screaming while people are uncomfortable. That is normal ass lazy joke humor right there. There needs to be something Muppet centric really about it. They do one act that makes it apparently unique to Muppets, something that would put Aziz Ansari to shame. But you know what we didn’t get? We didn’t get Muppet Dick. We didn’t even get Muppet Nipples. Technically, we got Muppet Vagina, but that joke was quick and a common throwback, still making it unoriginal.

Don’t gloss over that last point. If I am going to watch an adult Muppet movie, there better be Muppet titties. That is all I am saying.

Another non subtle feature is that Muppets are shit upon by the humans of society. And a lot of them are prejudice against them. Oh, okay, this is another metaphor for racism. Except it feels incredibly tacky, never super relevant, and maybe sort of belittles civil rights things in general? Hard to say, but their goal of adding it to the film felt extremely shallow.

To try and add on to a different point, let’s point out two glaring things that happened in succession. One, several cop characters claim a character was found at the scene of ALL of the murders. But at that point, he was never seen at one crime scene when it happened, and had never interacted with the character for years. So it was a bit confusing to hear that multiple times.

And two. They have an FBI character suspend a Lieutenant cop. At what fucking point can an FBI agent do anything like that to a cop? Is this movie assuming that the FBI are just bosses to cops? It goes Sergeant, Captain, then FBI field agent? It isn’t even an accident, because they made several attempts at jokes to make sure you knew that character was in the FBI.

Minor nitpicking? Maybe. But that was just two nonsensical errors I remember specifically for happening right after one another. This film is probably even more full of shit like this. The Happytime Murders isn’t original, clever, or fun. It is lazy. They spent all their time on designing sets instead of designing something worth being watched.

I chose Never Goin’ Back over Dog Days, and at least at the time of writing this I really feel like I made the best choice.

Sure, I have never seen Dog Days and probably won’t until December at least. But it can’t be good, right?

Sorry, this isn’t a bullshit review of a movie I haven’t even seen.

Never Goin’ Back is set in Texas and that’s why I needed to review it right away. That is the reason it won the screener lottery.

At least it has the Texas feeling of walking into a grocery store right.

Life in Texas can be hard, especially if you have to live near Dallas, which everyone agrees is the worst part of Texas (Houston pride). Angela (Maia Mitchell) and Jessie (Camila Morrone) are roommates in a poor house. Sure, they are just 16 and 17. But they are under guardianship from Angela’s older brother (Joel Allen), who is sharing this home with them and another roommate (Kyle Mooney).

This house is not a nice place to live really. There is a lot of drug doing and lesbian stuff (oh no!!), all from our girls. However, the brother does like to frequent in drug dealing occasionally, which is way worse.

Jessie wanted to do something nice for Angela’s 17th birthday, because they have had bad birthdays in the past. So she spent money on a weekend cabin on the beach! I mean, it is just Galveston, but they have always wanted to do this. It just happens to be their rent money due in about a week.

Oh well, they will just work a shit ton at their waitress job, double shifts every day, to earn it back. Then they can have the best weekend ever.

Unless everything starts to go wrong. Then yeah, that can be an issue.

Also starring Marcus M. Mauldin, Kendal Smith, and Matthew Holcomb.

Get tips, get high, get beach.

Never Goin’ Back is a simple story about girls wanting to leave their hum drum life, if only for a moment, to experience what they feel like is bliss. You know, Galveston’s beach. Galveston’s beach is known for being quite lame, but acceptable for being one of the only fully commercialized beaches in the area. Even other characters mock them when they hear that they are only going to Galveston.

Either way, I laughed quite a few times overall. The situations were relatively unbelievable/over the top, but the girls had a lot of chemistry together, especially Mitchell (Who was one of the stars of Teen Beach Movie and Teen Beach 2!), who was a firecracker with her lines and ideas. Morrone was more of a follower in this film.

And technically the events of this film stem from an issue that isn’t their fault, it is really hard to feel bad for them. The protagonists are main characters who continually make bad decisions, just like those around them make bad decisions. And the fact that it ends in a very gross way doesn’t feel funny, just, well, gross. And of course, the lessons learned at the end of the movie are…um…exist and do bad things and everything will work out at the end?

Either way, Never Goin’ Back does provide some laughs and plenty of shenanigans, but still has a lot to be desired in terms of great story.

Honestly, with a title like Puzzle, I didn’t know what the movie would be about. Certainly some sort of drama. But I could also consider a mystery or thriller. The stars could be in all of the genres!

But more importantly, I didn’t know it was based on a foreign film. Not even until the credits roll was this made obvious to me. It was a 2010 film from Argentina of the same name! Well, but in Spanish.

The other film title was Rompecabezas. What an amazing word. Puzzle itself is a fun and amazing word. But Rompecabezas? Hot damn.

Look at all those Rompecabezas pieces.

Agnes (Kelly Macdonald) has a very unfortunate name, reserved for old ladies, and maybe that is why she in fact seems like a very old lady. She doesn’t have a job of her own, or any real notable hobbies. Her husband (David Denman) owns and works an auto repair shop. He has a crew, he works every day, he works hard. He gets home and supper is on the table. Everything is taken care of at home. Agnes cleans, she prepares, she shops, she goes to church group. She doesn’t need or want that smart phone for her birthday.

But someone got her a gift, a puzzle, a whole thousand pieces. And she decides to try it out. And there goes her time! Hell, she puts it together twice, because why not.

And it turns out she is really quite good at this puzzle thing. When she goes all the way to NYC to a shop to buy and look for more (because that is where the first one was bought), she finds a note that someone is a puzzle champion looking for a partner. A puzzle partner? For competition.

Agnes doesn’t really do things. And this is way out of her way. And it would be with a man (Irrfan Khan). These are not things her husband would be able to understand. Not that it matters, since they have been disagreeing more lately, especially about the direction of their sons (Austin Abrams, Bubba Weiler).

No. Fuck it. It is Agnes time.

I am sure her married won’t be tested at all.

Puzzle was a very simple film that had a few weird stretches, but overall gave a wonderful performance by our lead Macdonald.

Well, I guess I will give more details. Both sons played their roles well, as catalysts and having their own personality. Denman seems forever plagued to live in roles of bad husbands and lovers. It just must be that face. (Logan Lucky aside, but he was still clearly a jerk in that relationship).

But Macdonald is a goddamn quiet force in this picture. Her mannerisms, her quirks, her voice, her attitude and face, and her growth throughout the picture. It is clearly her film and her life and we are just passengers along the way. I love, love, love her performance.

And in all honesty, yes, I wish the film would have ended differently than it ended it up going. And it took me over a week to write this review, but I believe it is a great ending for her character and breaks a few cliches. A surprise in that regard.

Who would have thought that a movie about joining a puzzle competition could be so captivating? Probably the same people who made movies about spelling bees.

Didn’t you know? Didn’t you know it was time for another young adult dystopian book to transition into movie magic?

Because we need more of these teenage trilogies to copy the success of The Hunger Games. You know, start off strong, and get really terrible and no one care by the time the final film comes around.

I didn’t want to watch the trailer for The Darkest Minds before going into it, but I had to make sure my kid could see it as well. And the trailer is more than enough to know to pass on this film.

Let’s stand around naturally, yes, yes, good. This is how kids hang.

Set in the future, or not, maybe just some other Earth, kids start dying. They don’t know why, but a long disease with a long acronym is blamed that scientists are trying to stop. Just people under 17, spaz out and die suddenly. Like SIDS on steroids I guess. But not all kids die. In fact, quite coincidentally, the ones who do not die get powers instead.

No, not random powers. Just one of a set of five. They are going to get super smart, levitate items, or create/control electricity, probably. These are the most common and “acceptable” level of powers. They correspond to the colors of green, blue, and yellow. Next is Orange, and it involves memories, mind control, thought shit. Ruby (Amandla Stenberg), our hero, is going to be like this. The government when they start rounding up these rabble rousing kids wants to terminate the oranges on site, because they are scary. And then there is Red. And ooooh boy, apparently Red is so big bad and scary they gotta keep it a secret from us assholes, and they are also on the to be killed level.

Ruby has had these powers for six years in a concentration camp, pretending to be a green, and anyone that would test her or question her she would just mind control them into believing her lie. Good times. Until her secret gets too far out, meaning she has to bust out with some helpful adults. Because this is a dystopian novel, no one really means anything they say they mean. And now Ruby has to run around this world, trusting few, guessing, and getting misinformation and very few details because bad plot reasons.

Also starring Bradley Whitford, Mandy Moore, Gwendoline Christie, Harris Dickinson, Patrick Gibson, Miya Cech, and Skylan Brooks.

Guys, guys, guys. Let’s just not acknowledge color, that will fix things.

Oh goodness, it was worse than I thought. I figured this could be cool if it really played up the X-Men element and less the cookie cutter young adult element. But alas, powers barely seem to matter.

Because they decided to make powers fall neatly into five categories, all nicely color coded based on how the eyes bright up when powers happen. Oh good, it is time for cliques and boring grouping again. Grouping is a common and lazy theme in these novels.

There are a lot of holes and stupid plot points in this movie. I feel like throwing a few out there that I recall, some that could be spoilers. Some of these are things thst can be explored in the book but are happily ignored in the movie.

For example, we have a diseases that kills everyone 17 and under? Not at once but over a time span? And the people who don’t die from it also at the same time get powers, but only one of five specific but very different things? Like, why? Why? This is something that might be explained by book three, but there is certainly no one in the movie even asking the most basic questions right now and that is non sensical.

The powers are so stupid. Smarts, telekinesis, electrical control, okay. Those are the main three? Fine. Orange being mind control and memory things? Fine again. Cool. But to make red seem like an extremely scary thing as well, and story wise keep it a secret also makes no sense. It is supposed to be a big surprise, and I was surprised only on how boring it is. It’s fire. It’s fire everyone. Like shooting fire from mouths specifically. Okay. Why is that worse than lightning? Who the fuck knows.

The movie went the boring exposition route of having the main character be new to the events around her so she is just a passenger. It allows the film to explain all these groups to us and to her but never the full story. Because suspense. That’s now how people talk.

When traitors are revealed it isn’t a surprise, it was obvious from moment zero. There is no reason to trust this person at all, and yet, it happens. When the red powers are finally shown we see them fuck up the place. But, the place is supposed to be used over and over. Why are they blowing shit up now when it should be a normal occurrence? Why did we have a long montage of an abandoned mall that seemed to be only in one store, and then finally an attack? Based on their explanation they would have attacked right away.

Why do powers fluctuate? Why would two people who have the power of being smart argue about a situation that has one right answer? Can someone be more smart from the magical same power? Why do we have an orange make everyone kneel and obey but not the four people who are causing problems and trying to escape? Why is there powr disparities when it is convenient? Lazy writing.

What happens to kids when they are above 17? Do powers go away? Will new kids die or gain powers? Why are so many things based on sound frequency difference of ages when presumably people who were 17 and powers now are 23 and powers and not affected by these measures?

Anyways. I’m done. This film is bad. It is rushed. Things aren’t explained. Effects are whatever. Just a mesh of other things with a non unique approach and a waste of time.

Oh yes, political documentaries.

There are gallons and gallons of these things pouring out, trying to keep up with the scandals and political movements forming.

Trump hasn’t made anything easy, but he has given jobs to people who want to make documentaries. It also seems like ant documentary, regardless of subject, will involve Trump somehow and the state of the world and blame him. It’s insane some of the connections.

Now, for Get Me Roger Stone, it is inherently political and related to the Trump presidency. It is about Roger Stone, an extremely famous Republican political advisor, infamous for his past and the lengths he would go to in order to win.

And yes, Roger Stone is potentially the reason why Donald Trump ran in the first place and eventually won.

Oh, everything about this is punchable.

I will admit that learning about Stone was rather interesting. He was technically involved in the Watergate scandal when he was only 19 years old. He wasn’t a big part or anything, but involved nonetheless. This fame led to more opportunities, including eventually leading the Young Republicans.

Eventually, he became a lobbyist and had a big firm that also represented Republicans. He helped elect them to positions of power and then lobbied them for favors. It was previously unheard about before.

He also worked with Paul Manafort, who you may know is going under trial for many various reasons relating to his work before and during the Trump campaign. Unfortunately, this documentary came out in 2017, well before a lot of this information became public.

At this point there is no reason not to assume Stone as well was involved in some underground things. This documentary doesn’t talk about Russia at all, but in a few years it can probably be updated with at least an hour of content.

It is a shame that I am left feeling that this story isn’t finished. But really, this documentary is about Stone’s past and how he helped shape the 2016 elections (and many more). What we know now is that this documentary unknowingly probably didn’t tell the full story. There is a lot more moving pieces and it is just extremely unfortunate for the documentary.

But really I can’t hold it accountable for that. It is still very detailed and yes I learned a lot.

Give it a watch, it is on Netflix and it will make you hate aspects of politics even more.

What would you do with $54 Million? Would you buy a lot of cars? Would you waste it quickly and go back to your poverty stricken self? Would you cure world hunger? I don’t know if you can with that much, but would you anyways?

Or would you buy a bunch of horses and go to shows and shit?

Well, if that last one sounds good, then I got a documentary for you.

All The Queen’s Horses is not about a queen, and not really about horses. It is about a Rita Crundwell, a former resident of Dixon, Illinois, the city where Ronald Reagan was born! Yeah! A relatively small town, with a small form of government. The people who ran the government had other jobs as well and they shared a lot of responsibilities.

Crundwell was basically their main treasurer. She helped put funds in the right accounts to pay for things. And for decades she did this job. Their town was losing money, and they had to get loans from other areas, but they were doing their best. Even if they were 4-6 million in the hole each year.

And then one fateful day, an assistant found a bank account that no one else had known about. And in this bank account there were several checks for hundreds of thousands of dollars. She got the mayor to look at it, they contacted the FBI, and the race was on to see where this money was coming from and how much of it is actually missing.

Of course, we know what happened. Crundwell took it! A lot of it! For over a decade! About $54 million in all! And she spent it mostly on horses! Horses!

Horses!

I mean hey, people like Horses. I get it. I like things. I like movies. I like games. I don’t think I’d spend that much on any of my hobbies, but how the hell do I know that, I don’t have that kind of money.

To be fair, she had this hobby as a kid, showing some horses. And she just went to be really good at it. And really rich, to buy the best breeds to win more awards to make them worth even more. Her trophy room was huge. She wasn’t just a buyer of talent, she still knew how to work at it and make them win too.

And she knew how to rip off the town she lived in most of her life for millions, eventually getting caught and thrown in jail for forever.

This documentary goes over the whole story. The discovery, the evidence, the trial, the town freaking out, and the after math. After math? Yeah, who is to blame and why did she steal so much without people knowing? Why was a nearby city the first to really figure it out?

And we get to hear about how bad their system was set up including their auditors and banks.

Either way. This documentary was really straightforward. It didn’t offer any overarching theme of american disparity. It just wanted to tell the story and update on how it happened. It did just what it wanted to. It was mildly entertaining and I learned a little bit about the topic.

Nothing to great or groundbreaking. Not something terrible. Just totally okay.

If you are a person, you are supposed to love Elvis. That is the rules. That is the rules I heard growing up again.

He was called The King of Rock and Roll, because people went nuts for him. His moves, his words, his sex aura. He was a musician famous across the world despite only playing in America. He was in the army for a couple of years. He was an actor for a long time after that as well. And eventually, he died, and then fat people in suits pretended to be him for decades after that.

I don’t have any strong feelings about Elvis. I knew the famous songs growing up but didn’t care for it. Just like I didn’t care for The Beatles. I am too young and carefree to care for the trailblazers. It happens. So I have never been crazy about Elvis, and honestly, wasn’t crazy about this documentary.

What I did know, and have learned in the past, is that Elvis didn’t invent Rock and Roll. It is very apparent, if it wasn’t at the time (it was) that Elvis was just singing and playing music already played and made popular by black people at the time. But because Elvis was white, he was able to make it popular, more acceptable (despite plenty of protests) and it elevated him into superstar status on the shoulders of others.

Of course, this is all information they go through in the documentary too. It is just what I really knew going into the movie, so I was ready and waiting to see how they would treat this subject.

By having people sit in his old car.

Technically, this documentary as the filmmaker going around with the actual automobile owned by Elvis at one point, and having famous people and musicians sit in it (some of the interviewees include Ethan Hawke, Alec Baldwin, and Chuck D). Some of them are telling his history, some telling how he was perceived, and some just want to get that vibe. But we get to hear them talk, amongst other interviews of people talking.

Despite it being the “point” of the documentary if you describe it in a line, it ended up having very little to do with the overall message and purpose of the documentary. More of it was on just Elvis and his history and life. And, as they make it abundantly clear, it is also a bit about the history of America, how it changed with the times and as it got to where we are now. It has several montage things that lead us to (you guessed it) the presidential election. And the documentary is trying to relate all of this to the life of Elvis.

And well, uhhh. It kind of never really connects for me. It feels like two completely different aspects. The life of Elvis, and then this other stuff, that is not at all gone into tons of detail. It tries to be bigger than it is and just seems to fall flat on my end.

I like that they tried something new, but it has to be a lot more straightforward to drive those bigger and bolder points they were hoping for.

I first saw the trailer for (and heard about) Blindspotting before Upgrade. That is also when I first saw a Sorry To Bother You trailer. A pretty intense set of movies.

From absurd to realistic, they all have similar themes. Okay. Upgrade really doesn’t. But Sorry To Bother You deals with race, acceptance, and fucked up governments. Maybe in a more extreme manner. Blindspotting is aiming to be more realistic.

And I was very excited to see it starting Daveed Diggs. Like most people, I was introduced to him from Hamilton as Lafayette/Jefferson. Since then he has been in a good amount, which is surprising of Broadway actors. He had a role in Wonder, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Black-Ish, and Ferdinand. But these are all straight up comedies, or who cares roles. This is a movie where Diggs should be acting and maybe making us cry.

He would make me cry if he ever cut that hair off.

Collin (Daveed Diggs) was in jail for two months for a felony charge. It involved a fight, and some fire. After jail, he has a whole year of probation. You know, staying in the county that houses Oakland, California (where he was already living, and his mother lives, thankfully). He has curfew. He can’t be involved in any criminal activity. He has to live at a halfway house as well. Just normal probationary things.

And with three days left on his probation, almost a “free” man (with a glaring felony tag that will follow him throughout his life), while returning home he gets to see a police shooting. Right in front of his work vehicle, a cop firing four shots on a running black man who dies quite unceremoniously. And he has to get home before curfew, but he saw a guy get straight up murdered by the police. Was it because he was black? Was it because of an actual threat to society? Was it because he looked at a gentrifying white hipster the wrong way and get involved in stuff way over his head that escalated beyond any one person’s comprehension levels? Is Collin speaking from experience?

Collin just wants to survive. Survive in the city that he was born and raised that is changing for the worse. A city where he feels like he is being kicked out, or killed out, so that others can take his place and make it “better”. He wants to hang out with his life long friend, Miles (Rafael Casal), but Miles might be considered a bad influence on him. And well, he is white and can probably get away with more.

Collin fears the future. Collin doesn’t know where his life is going, but he knows where he wants to be. Safe, alive, and free.

Also starring Janina Gavankar, Jasmine Cephas Jones (the original Peggy from Hamilton), Tisha Campbell-Martin, Utkarsh Ambudkar, and Ethan Embry.

Wanna know how I know where he is from?

Blindspotting is an example of a good comedy drama. It has heightened elements of both without feeling jarring. It is funny, like a good comedy, and it is tense and real, like a good drama. One side does not harm the other in the slightest. It just feels realistic and important and realistic and important.

The director, Carlos López Estrada, hasn’t done anything this big before, but what really sells this movie are the leads, Diggs and Casal. It should be noted that these two are actual real life friends, Diggs from Oakland, Casal from Berkley, wrote this script over almost a decade. They wanted to portray the area in a way that was being overlooked. They wanted to highlight the changing identities of that area of California, the problems with police brutality, racism, and of course gentrification, the latter issue which is in no way subtle.

They hit all of these points and they hit them naturally. This film flows so well, it is like a rap song, if I understood rap songs. Part of me is saying that just because rap is heavily influenced in the script and dialogue.

The ending is really what sells this film. The “final” confrontation that was definitely unexpected. There were plenty of good scenes before that as well, especially the phone call, the post party scene, the flashback, and more. But the ending is powerful and one that will be played over and over again once the film gets to that point of internet digestion.