Tag: 2 out of 4

When I first heard that Oscar Isaac was set to play Gomez Adams, I was ecstatic. Perfect! I love it! Let’s do it! Probably one of the best actors who could play him after Raul Julia did it in the early 90’s!

And then they announced it was actually an animated movie and he was just doing voice work.

Ohhhh….boo. What a waste. Anyone can be Gomez in terms of voice acting. That almost seems to imply that if they eventually do a live action one in the next decade, they probably won’t pick Oscar Isaac for it now. And life is disappointing.

Not off to a good start, The Addams Family animated movie.

But thanks for focusing on making sure Morticia was boob focused most of the film?

Not wanting to start with our house of weirdos, this film starts with the marriage of Gomez (Oscar Isaac) and Morticia (Charlize Theron) in a likely eastern European village. But alas, their families are labeled freaks and they are chased out of town by torches and saved by Fester (Nick Kroll). They decide to start their family far away, somewhere no one will find them and disgusting. An abandoned mental asylum they find in New Jersey!

Now thirteen years later, they are loving their mountain top paradise, surrounded by swamps, raising their kids Wednesday (Chloë Grace Moretz) and Pugsley (Finn Wolfhard) and their man servant Lurch (Conrad Vernon).

Things are happening quickly though. Pugsley has his mamushka coming up to prove to all of his family he can protect them with a sword so all of the extended family is coming.

And then? The fog disappears! It turns out someone drained the swamp and put up a perfect community below the mountain. A perfect city with perfect citizens called Assimilation, that Margaux Needler (Allison Janney) is fixing together to sell as part of some reality show. And this sudden big scary castle on the mountain is not going to help her one bit.

Also featuring Snoop Dogg, Bette Midler, Titus Burgess, and Elsie Fisher.

Oh and Wednesday joins public school and becomes a trend setter.

Giving us a prologue for The Addams Family it turns out is completely unnecessary. Is it cute? Sure. But it also tells us their house is an asylum, not a MUSEUM, which is not only in the old theme song, but literally that theme song is used in this movie as well. Unacceptable.

This Addams Family cartoon didn’t go far enough. Enough in like, any direction. They didn’t have too much shocking or spooky or weird, as a lot of it is just replaced with explosions, from bombs and boulders.It was just very tame. And in terms of humor, actual good jokes were few and far in between. I watched it with a very full theater with a lot of kids, and rarely were there chuckles.

This is a film that is played way too safe. I am not saying they need extreme dark humor, or to make it not family friendly. They just didn’t do really anything with this large and interesting cast of characters. Gomez is a bitch. Morticia doesn’t really do much at all. Pugsley and Wednesday look a bit too weird and don’t feel like real characters.

Come on Oscar Isaac. Demand a reboot with you playing the live action lead now.

I’ve tried to review a few a few boy band documentaries in my time. Backstreet Boys: Show ‘Em What You’re Made Of came out in 2015, made me cry, made me feel connected, and I gave it a 4 out of 4. Although yes, that number was probably too high and definitely didn’t make my end of the year list.

Earlier this year, we got The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman Story, which deals more with the Backstreet Boys and N’Sync, about their former manager, who formed them and swindled them out of tons of money. It involved legal fees, it started the war between the boy bands, and all of that.

I never wrote the review because it was on YouTube, but it was overall just okay. A lot more N’Sync focused, not balanced. I can’t believe they couldn’t get more people to say their stories.

But what about the other side of the fandom? Not the boys or men on the stage, but the women down below, screaming, fainting, crying in fits of passion? Are they just robots in this boy band equation? Are they people too, or do those years just get blacked out for these people and after awhile they go back to functioning members of society?

I Used To Be Normal: A Boyband Fangirl Story wants to tell their tale.

There is power in their voices.

The majority of the documentary is interviews with a few women, who all became obsessed with some band. They talk about how they were before hand, when they gained the desire to love the band, what they did as mega fans, and how they still feel now, some of them years, or even decades later.

We don’t just have the 90’s here. We have a more modern representative for One Direction! We have one of the many people who were extreme fans of The Beatles. And we have those obsessed with Take That, an Australian boy band, and Backstreet Boys.

Variety is nice, but I feel like I would have preferred more individual fans with various stories, instead of just focusing on one per band. Sure, some of these fandoms changed their lives, and still affect them to this day. But it starts to drag when we only get these stories, as the interesting tidbits seem to get fewer and fewer between.

I will also note that they didn’t break up the format enough during this documentary. Only at one point do they back away to talk about what it means to be a fan, or the boy band formula, or anything like that. It is important to talk about it, but I wish there were more interruptions from the fangirl narrative that kept the information flowing and broke up the monotony.

Eventually all of these documentaries can be put together to form a more cohesive boy band focused 90’s experience that will be truly telling of the times, and I cannot wait for that.

Between The Darkness, formerly called Come Save The Night, is a straight to VOD film that deals with another home schooled family in the woods.

These have become popular lately, with our recent films like Captain Fantastic and Leave No Trace. Why not be off the grid and live on your own? Why do we have to conform to society?

Now this is a much more indie film than those other two, which also were really indie. It doesn’t also have big names attached, so it can maybe tell an even more intense and dark story.

But I will say now while watching, that I figured out why I was asked to review the film by the company. And it is a unique reason. This film has the word Gorgon in it. It is used a lot, actually, and referring to the real mythical creature, not some other version of Gorgons like in Small Soldiers. And damn it, if I can’t be the official source of all movies that deal with Gorgons, then what is the point?

I think everyone now is secretly a Gorgon in this film.

Roy Grady (Lew Temple) our man in the woods with his family, lives in the woods! With his family! He has a daughter, Sprout (Nicole Moorea Sherman) and a younger son, Percy (Tate Birchmore). They have a lot of land, legally, but they don’t have phones and the kids never leave the land. Sprout had an older sister, who died within the last few years, and their mom also died years before that. Very sad times.

Now Roy is very weird. He is teaching them about the gods, the Greek mythologies, as their official religion and focus on life. Thus the name of the youngest kid. And because he teachers her about mythology, Sprout starts to believe she can see Gorgons in the woods, and other monsters. They are out to get her, and her dad isn’t buying it.

But it turns out that there are a lot of secrets in those woods, and she will discover them as her life begins to unravel and change at a faster rate.

Also starring Danielle Harris, Daniela Leon, and Max Page.

Warrior.

By the end of the film, sure, it got really weird, and took us to a place I didn’t expect at the beginning. Unfortunately, one could easily describe what the ending was about, but the minor levels of interpretation and details are all fuzzy and quick.

We don’t really know why the dad is such a dick. For most people to go and live in the woods and worship ancient Greek gods, you wouldn’t also expect them to be homophobic or anti-liberal while being anti-Christian. So his character is hard to comprehend.

I think this film had a lot of good ideas, but maybe the budget constraints and timing lead to it feeling like it was missing a lot. It wasn’t too short, it just didn’t move the plot along always at a good pace.

I did really enjoy Sprout as the main character and think that she has a lot going on for her, but it just doesn’t add up enough. I root for her, but understand that I am not getting enough of a complete story.

Between The Darkness has a lot of ambition, but is unable to reach its lofty desires in a narratively pleasing way.

When I first heard about Aquarela, I knew I had to see it, because I knew a lot of people wouldn’t go out of their way to see it and what’s the damn purpose of my site if I don’t go and see it?

It’s a documentary, and I try to champion documentaries on here. It is about water. And that is about it.

This is not a documentary talking about climate change. It doesn’t have scientists explaining things over beautiful footage. It doesn’t have an overarching story of people doing things in the water. It is more or less just footage of water, or its frozen version ice, just doing its thing. We have /some/ talking, which comes with subtitles, but that is few and far between. Because the humans are not meant to be the star, but the water is.

Now, this film was done with incredibly detailed cameras. It was filmed at the insanely high 96 frames per second. If you remember all the Hobbit fiasco, some of those films were shown at 48 frames per second, and it rubbed plenty of people the wrong way. But because this is nature, seeing it in a higher frame rate seems like a fantastic idea just to get all hard on nature.

I can’t tell you what level I saw the movie at, but I assume I saw it at 48fps, so not as good as the filmmakers intended.

Oh, and because this movie is Denmark in nature, it also features a lot of metal music. In fact the composer was the main member of Apocalyptica, a Finnish cello metal band. You’ve probably heard their covers of Metallica or some Christmas stuff.

It’s Water, folks, water.

Okay, now yes, there are actual problems with this documentary. Not including the over hour wait to see it due to having the wrong codes. For 90 minutes, I think around 45-50 minutes of it are about ice and glaciers. That is half the movie! About ice!

And it had some great shots. In fact, the best part of the movie is in the beginning. Just so you know, a person dies in the first 20 or 30 minutes. We don’t see their body, but we see what causes it, we see the attempt at a rescue, and we see reactions of his friends. It is the highlight due to being a tragedy. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie does not hold up.

One of the main problems with the film is of scale. We eventually are on the ocean, with two people on a boat, and for way long we get footage of them, I dunno, turning dials and cranks on their boat. No dialogue, no reason for what they are doing, just cranks cranks and waves. And we see very big impressive waves! Or tiny ones. I don’t know, because the scale is really damn hard to tell.

Eventually we also see some hurricane disasters, and river things, but they have way less time than the other two parts. And also during this part is this very strange out of focus cave scene, and it takes FOREVER to get through with no real reason for its purpose.

It feels like this documentary has too much filler and didn’t get enough diversity in its extreme water scenes.

It also doesn’t have enough metal music. I think it brings in metal only three times, maybe four, during the movie. And that is great. This whole thing should just have gone for extreme footage and metal. That would have made it more entertaining, like a concert film with water extreme visuals. But the metal is too few and far between.

Overall, it is pretty to look at, but its unevenness with its structure and focus, its lack of scale, and lack of party, means almost no one will care about this documentary.

I am sure you are all hoping to see Angel Has Fallen for the same reason I am hoping to see Angel Has Fallen. That’s right, for Radha Mitchell to return to her role as worrying wife of our main protagonist. She is the star from the first two films who always shined.

Well, bad news for the Rad-heads out there. She is not in this movie! She has been replaced with Piper Perabo, who you would recognize as one of the girls from Coyote Ugly. Replaced, and they were thinking we wouldn’t even notice! The nerve!

But in all honest, I liked Olympus Has Fallen enough, it was good. I thought London Has Fallen was really, really, bad. The last time a movie dropped that much with a sequel and then came out with a third film we were given Taken 3. And no one needs or wants another Taken 3 to occur.

I hope they were Taken notes.

Taking place within two years of the previous movie, Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) is still protecting the president after the events in London. His health has deteriorated, lot of injuries in his body and spine, sort of addicted to pain killers too. But hey, he’s doing it for the job, damn it. Oh and the president changed. The former Speaker of the House and VP, Allan Trumbull (Morgan Freeman) was elected president! No, Aaron Eckhart never died, just finished his term and went off into the night.

Well, on a totally normal fishing weekend, some vans unleash a large army of tiny drones. The drones are not there to go pew pew, but BOOM BOOM, as they are kamikaze drones that pack a big explosive punch when they crash. So technically they are like, really smart missiles only, with cameras.

And these drones lay waste to the secret service people, but end up ignoring Banning. They also fail to get the President, who instead gets knocked into a coma, thanks to Banning’s work.

Unfortunately for Banning, the crime was filled with evidence to make it not only look like he did it, but that he took money from Russia to do it. So now he is the most wanted man for this crime, and despite his innocence, he figures he needs to elude the law and run around until he can prove his innocence that way.

Also starring Piper Perabo, Jada Pinkett Smith, Lance Reddick, Nick Nolte, Danny Huston, and Tim Blake Nelson.

Baptisms have gotten more intense in this world.

Angel Has Fallen is better than London Has Fallen! I feel like this rarely happens. A movie has a terrible sequel, and then goes for a third film that is actually better. It’s not better than Olympus Has Fallen. Angel is still a pretty stupid movie, but it is more entertaining and follows a good moral code.

A lot of times when we get to the “oh man, they were set up and framed and now all their friends are after them!” part of a franchise, things take a weird grey area. In some movies, the “hero” then kills everything in his or her path to prove their innocence, even if it is colleagues from the FBI/CIA/Shield/Secret Organization. So they do a bunch of bad illegal things en route to prove their innocence. I am happy to say that this does not happen here. He kills only the bad organization, and goes out of his way to not harm the good guys who are just told to bring him in.

It is really an awkward thing to have to look out for.

Again, this movie is stupid. Plenty of terrible tactical decisions set up just to make the movie longer / more intense fight scenes, instead of just resolutions to our problems. The bad guy motives halfway through the film stop making sense when it is clearly time to give up. The introduction of Nolte’s character came out of left field with no reason to assume he’d be a character for three movies.

However, the action is better, the plot is a little bit better (not a lot, little), and it has plenty of entertaining scenes along the way. The twists and turns are extremely easy to guess, so it almost seems insulting to leave certain reveals so late in the film as if we weren’t paying attention.

And most importantly, it is miles above London Has Fallen. That’s all we really care about.

I was hoping Ready or Not would fill a very specific niche I thought I needed in my life. A movie so graphic and funny and entertaining, I could look past its flaws and just have a good quick night out at the movies.

From the advertising, that is what it looked like it was going for! It had a very strong You’re Next vibe, but with more ridiculous of a plot, and a slight game theme, to tingle my innards. Mostly full of lesser known roles would lead it to be something where many could shine and a lot of creative deaths!

But to be fair, I also assumed that The Belko Experiment would fulfill a similar niche. And it didn’t. The plot was wasted, the deaths (a majority) were boring and just, meh.

So Ready or Not could go either way, I see it!

Hell, and this image has a nice Evil Dead / Ash vibe going for it.

Grace (Samara Weaving) and Alex (Mark O’Brien) are getting married! They have only known each other for 18 months, but they are in love. And it turns out Alex is from a really, really rich family. Richer than god. Board game things, for hundreds of years, and they are wealthy af.

Grace didn’t know that! She is not a gold digger. And she knows that Alex is not close with his family, but hopes that this wedding and herself can maybe bring them closer together and bring Alex back into the fold. A good idea. They seem mad at her, but she they are having the wedding at their mansion so help appease things.

Well apparently there was just one more part of the deal to be made and everything would be peachy. They just had to gather at midnight on the night of the wedding, and do a ritual game play. And unfortunately for Grace, she drew Hide and Seek, which thanks to that families alleged deal with a devil, they have to hunt her and sacrifice her before dawn. Or else.

Grace thinks this is the worst wedding night ever. We here at Gorgon Reviews tend to agree.

Also starring Adam Brody, Henry Czerny, Andie MacDowell, Elyse Levesque, John Ralston, Kristian Bruun, Melanie Scrofano, and Nicky Guadagni.

Something something something in-laws, amirite? 

For a movie with a technically unique and fun concept, it really went out of its way to be as boring as possible for long stretches. Given the concept, we had plenty of points where it could have gone against the grain and it just refused.

Huge stretches in the middle have the entire extended family doing absolutely nothing (Despite starting off trying to do things) and just letting a butler attempt to fetch her. It would be one thing if that is how they started off the search, but they were all involved and then, eh, maybe he can do the impossible and find her on his own (Which should not have been doable) and save the day for them.

And it just dragged and wasn’t exciting. Because we were told that there was a ritual component that she had to be alive for, it also meant that sure, eventually the ritual would happen. It might work, it might not, who knows, but it would never get to the point where she just escapes before dawn. We were guaranteed for a set back for the ritual, and sure enough, a guarantee was made.

Early on it was more exciting, with a varied cast of characters. I do wish it went more quickly into the after wedding affairs, but that wasn’t too bad. The ending was relatively exciting as well, and quite eye popping at times. But then I think back to that middle, where there were so many family members, and how none apparently could be killed besides the occasional helper.

Again, wasted for a bigger climax, but ruined the thrills in the middle.

Once again, I am left with a dumb title (Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw) to try and find a solution for it. Most people would just call it Hobbs & Shaw, because that is the real title. But they had to cram Fast & Furious in there so that people knew it was connected. Not that previous titles needed both Fast and Furious in order for people to get it.

This film comes out after 8, with FF9 and FF10 (not Final Fantasy) coming out in 2020 and 2021. So, unless FF9 happens at the same time as this film, I think it is safe to say we could just call it FF8.5.

Now, I had a lot of negative reactions to this movie’s existence, just like Vin Diesel. How can I cheer on Shaw? HE KILLED HAN. HE SHOULD BE IN JAIL, or you know, killed. How many lives does he have to save for it to be okay that Han died? How many?

Let’s get out Haka on and defend his honor.

Where is Toretto and his largely growing crew? The one that has only one person “retire” and some even come back from the dead (except for Han)?

I guess they are busy, and for some reason, the only people who are available to help the CIA are Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and Shaw (Jason Statham). Note, neither of them work for the CIA. Hobbs is some sort of cop…guy…and Shaw is a criminal hiding in plain sight that we are all just cool with I guess.

Either way, this bad guy Brixton (Idris Elba) was killed by Shaw awhile ago, but he survived enough to become a Cyborg. He has implants in him, making him strong, more bulletproof, faster, all of that. He wants to steal a super virus for his secretive boss who saved his life. However, Hattie (Vanessa Kirby) another law abiding criminal stopper, was able to stop him by running away after she injected the virus into her own body! Yay!

Now there is a ticking clock before the virus capsules dissolve and kill her, then go airborne and kill the world. And again, for whatever reason, Hobbs and Shaw are the only two men for the job, literally no one else can help, not teams of people, nothing. Well, and apparently family.

But not family in the sense that Toretto uses, just actual family.

Also starring Helen Mirren, Eiza González, Eddie Marsan, Eliana Sua, Cliff Curtis, Lori Pelenise Tuisano, and Ryan Reynolds.

Oh, here are the men in black as well.

This movie didn’t have to exist. The story it is telling is meant to set up something greater. Is that something greater going to be answered in FF9/FF10? Because it certainly isn’t in this movie. It is like a prologue, just 8 chapters in.

For a franchise since Fast Five that has been basically a superhero movie without superheroes, it is interesting that they finally decided to just give us people with super powers. Elba’s character is fast strong and a super villain, so now the stunts they want these characters to do finally make sense and have a reason for being that great. And since the threat wasn’t dealt with, they can have more super bad people in the next films, and hey, technically, maybe the good guys will get super charged.

I have too much to say and I don’t really want to spend my life writing about this movie!

It is entertaining at points, but it is very long. The ending is interesting, but I feel like the action piece before it in the factory was more exciting of an ending, and at least realistic for the universe. I really thought the movie was about to end. Somoa felt so long and extended that movie.

The screenwriter of this movie responded to the Justice for Han movement (which I will admit, I didn’t know people agreed with me on until after I saw the movie). He said he gets it, and eventually, Shaw will be redeemed I guess. The “line” in this movie about Han is total bullshit, because there is no reason for us to assume it is about Han at all. Shaw has killed dozens, maybe hundreds of people. No way he is probably thinking about Han, telling this to people who have nothing to do with Han.

And I don’t have time to wait. If Shaw doesn’t ever go to jail to answer for his crimes, and actually stay there, then saving the world isn’t good enough.

This movie is average. It is likely forgettable, and it feels really forced to put these two together. Really, no reason.

But the biggest question. Which of the two is Fast and which of the two is Furious? Because we would all probably say Shaw is faster, but also, furiouser. So why is Hobbs even here? Because we like him?

When people are murdered, there is a small time frame where police can accurately attempt to gather crime scene evidence. Blood samples, footprints, fingerprints, whatever. For missing kids, they usually say the first 48 hours are the most important for finding them, and that is true for murderers as well.

In 2008, for the case of 13 year old Aarushi Talwar, it may have made all of the difference. She was found murdered in her own room in the morning by her parents. They are an upper caste family in India. Wealthy enough to have servants who come to their house to clean, and one who even lives in the house. And he was missing.

So clearly it was probably the servant, who then ran. Why did he do it? No clue. But rumors could run rampant.

Unfortunately, the next day he was found murdered as well. Except he was on the roof of their home (that no one checked on day one). The door was locked, it definitely wasn’t a suicide, and now we have two murders that they have no idea how to explain. They were behind closed doors (the title!) that were locked, with no forced entry points. Did one of the two let someone in who became violent? How could the parents not have heard? And of course, seriously, was it just one of the parents?

I mean, it could have been her, I wasn’t there.

The idea of honor killings is prevelent enough in India to be a thing people latch onto. Like, if those two were in a relationship, did the dad kill them for destroying their honor? We don’t want to assume things about these dead people, but these are the stories the media picked up.

Basically, the media is in two languages, Hindi and English. The English media tended to report stories indicating the parents did it, the Hindi media tended to report stories indicating other servants did it. The caste warfare system was real. More importantly, the idea of media influence is very, very real.

From day one, the crime scene was basically ruined do to extra guests. Everything the police did was heavily reported by the media, who would stand by in groups of 20+, trying to get anything out of witnesses, the police. Everything was scrutinized and judged and yelled about. They directly made the initial solving of anything almost impossible, and stayed as a thorn in everyone’s side demanding answers and making all practical normal procedures fall out the window.

This is a case that was passed around across various groups, different levels of police and different groups in those groups. Because of screw ups, weird results, or not following all leads. It is a messy situation, and thanks to appeals, yes, we still have no official killer on record 11 years later.

It is a really interesting story, but one I think could have used a bit less detail. 2hr40min felt two long for this two-parter (which some time ago was a 4 parter apparently?). It was very much unbiased in that I couldn’t even lean a direction to tell you who I’d believe after all the evidence.

It also still noted the struggle of the caste system, since the media made the whole thing to be about the 13 year old girl, and practically never said the name of the servant who was also killed.

I think the length and the constant switching between English/Hindi, which made it hard for me to focus, is what ruined the overall level of this documentary for me. It has a good story, about the nature of media and crime scenes, but it was also bogged down and muddled.

Eye catching titles means you will definitely acknowledge its existence.

Hail Satan? is about the founding of The Satanic Temple (in 2013) and what the group has set out to accomplish in the years that follow. First and most importantly, The Satanic Temple is different than the Church of Satan. The Church of Satan has existed since the 60’s, but doesn’t really believe in Satan. Mostly atheist members doing stuff for fun, no sacrifices, some magic.

The Satanic Temple is also non-theistic in nature and not running around believing in Satan. However, their goals are social in nature. They are actively fighting for equality, for the separation of church and state, believe in education and freedom. Not radical causes, just thinks set up in our Constitution and amendments, mostly.

They are called The Satanic Temple though for buzz reasons. It gets articles printed, it drives the point home, and sure, there use the imagery because it frankly looks cool.

Horns are optional.

Did you know people still protest things like this? Just the showing of the documentary in Houston at the Alamo Drafthouse had some Christian protesters against this documentary that they have not seen, on title alone.

Except for everyone that matters, this church isn’t a real church. They are doing it to make a point and we all agree on it and its awesome. They don’t think religion should play a part in politics. And to make this obvious, they try and put their religious imagery up when Christian imagery is allowed to make it more obvious for everyone. If the ten commandments get a statue outside of a court house, then they should be able to as well. If they aren’t allowed, they will sue.

Now, putting up their statue would be rad. But they ideally would not want every group to get to have a statue, but no groups at all, so that it can remain separate. And again, this is what people are protesting about stopping for dumb reasons.

The Satantic Temple just wants people to use their brains and follow the laws set out in our constitution, and protect freedoms. And they do it in a fun way.

Now this documentary highlights some of their work and their founding, but overall, it is a rather regular documentary at the end of it. Nothing too eye catching or illuminating by the end. It didn’t change me in any way. It just felt neat. An okay documentary that would be more important for someone who has never heard of this movement before.

I definitely feel as a movie reviewer I am more of a sell out. Where are all the weird movies? The straight to DVD films? The C class films? I used to review it all, now it is mostly theatrical releases, Netflix releases, and the occasional VOD. At least my documentaries tend to be less famous.

Well, heres a pledge. More VOD films! I will try to do one a week.

Starting with Adolescence! It is recently on VOD and has a few people you may have seen in other films and had a limited festival run. Remember, straight to video doesn’t mean bad.

Ah yes, youth, the future, old dude. Yes.

Adam (Mickey River) is an uncomfortable high school senior. He is good at writing, but he has a bad home life. His parents (Elisabeth Röhm, Michael Milford) argue a lot, over bills, jobs, fixing the bathroom for over a month, and so on. They are poor, but surviving, and this has made his life rather long and arduous. He is relatively smart though, a great writer and an artist as well. But he doesn’t apply himself for college.

He is also inexperienced with the ladies due to his shy and nervous nature. Somehow he has a really outgoing friend in Keith (Romeo Miller) who convinces him to skip school to go out and meet ladies. He is so smooth, he tries to feed him lines, and eventually a line works! Somehow, Alice (India Eisley) finds him enduring. She invites him and Keith to hang/party with friends.

One thing leads to another, and they are hanging out a lot more, and having sex. One thing leads to another, and they are doing hardcore drugs and skipping out on life, school, and friends! Oh no!

Also starring Jere Burns and Tommy Flanagan.

Manic Pixie Dream Girl? Maybe more just Manic Girl in this movie.

Adolescence tells a familiar story, youth has rough life and it becomes rougher thanks to drugs! And unfortunately, it also tells the familiar story in a familiar way.

The more tragic character in this movie is our girl, Alice, and she is used as a plot point for our male lead to realize that drugs are bad, and sometimes people you love need to be cut from your life. Sure. But again, it is nothing new.

The acting is done well from our two leads which is the main saving grace. A lot of nice yelling and shrieking and sad drug filled moments. It is awkward at times because River definitely doesn’t look like a high school senior, he looks damn near 30 and I have no idea his age now. He might just look really old and be closer to age appropriate, but he stands out for this reason.

This film also helped answer one other question. What happens to the artists who had kid rap names? Like Lil’ Romeo? Well, he is now just Romeo Miller, one of the actors in the movie, and doing his own adult movie thing. Aooarently they can just dop the lil part of their name and go on strong!

Also, bonus shout out to the toilet scene. It was really well framed and shot, best in the film.