Movie Review: Freaky

Posted on November 14, 2020 by jjcwn • Posted in Uncategorized • Tagged Freaky, Freaky Friday, Vince Vaughn • Leave a comment

The new movie “Freaky” is one of those films that receives high reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, and because I am maintaining a blog I felt obligated to see it. The first mystery was why this mostly average movie is receiving such high marks by the critics and the second mystery was why Vince Vaughn – mostly an A or a B list actor, agreed to make this teen-parody-B-horror movie in the first place.

This film is a parody of the many “Freaky Friday” movies, the last one released in 2003 with Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis. The plot is: due to some freakish event, two people switch places and inhabit the body of the other person. In the case of Freaky – a serial killer played by Vince Vaughn takes the place of a teenage girl played by Kathryn Newton. The rest of the story contains nothing really new or innovative, other than the presence of Vince Vaughn, who tries to act like a 17 year old girl for half of the story. The longer this goes on, the stranger the experience of watching Vince Vaughn play a 17 year old girl gets. There are attempts to be funny that mostly fail and the parody attempts will all be lost on most younger viewers who are not familiar with the previous Freaky Friday movies. There are the same old fake shock horror scenes, where someone pops out of nowhere, some over the top scenes of blood and gore, and that all too familiar trickery making the audience believe that someone is dead when they are really not dead. The movie viewing world is more than tired of this in all movies.

My guess is that there were agreements to make this film, and soon after, a realization that nobody would see it because of the weak premise. So a decision was made to pay Vince Vaughn a great deal of money, hoping that his presence would bring in viewers. After production a decision was made to release this movie into the “throwaway Pandemic fire”, period we are all in, to at least get some money back for this film that will ultimately lose money.

In the end, I have no idea why the critics are giving this movie an 85% on Rotten Tomatoes, because it is nothing more than an average teen horror movie. My rating is 60%, for only the attempts at some humor but with no positive recommendation.

Movie Review: Let Him Go

Posted on November 7, 2020 by jjcwn • Posted in Uncategorized • Tagged Diane Lane, Kevin Costner, Movie Reflection • Leave a comment

The new movie “Let Him Go” is the first movie released in theaters since the Pandemic that is high quality, and with the bankable stars: Diane Lane and Kevin Costner, with a great story and great cinematography – in this case, the barren vistas of North Dakota.

The story here is mostly believable, all the way up to the end, when there is an expected Hollywood climax. In real life, nobody would do what the characters do at the end of this movie. Within these two hours are scenes of domestic abuse, child abuse, massive injustice, a criminal family known as the “Weboys” and impressive scenes of conflict and tension performed at an extremely high level.

Margaret and George Blackledge live on a horse ranch in very rural North Dakota where life is cold, flat and at times very harsh. Ever since I saw the great movie “Fargo” in 1996 I have always wondered why anyone would want to live in cold, flat and sparsely populated places like North and South Dakota. At the start of this story Margaret and George are living with their son, his wife and their infant son and then, unfortunate events do occur that lead them into having to track down their grandson Their search leads them to meet a criminal family known as the Weboy’s in an even more rural area of North Dakota.

As the Blackledge’s try to visit with their grandson, a series of high stress events happen, starting with a dinner, where the Blackledge’s and Weboy’s meet for the first time – arguably the best acting in this film. A line is drawn where the Weboy’s make it very clear that they do not want the Blackledge’s to see their own grandson ever again.

The acting throughout this movie is outstanding, and the actress Leslie Manville is a standout with her role as Blanch Weboy, the patriarch of the Weboy family. Manville’s acting is so strong, she may just be nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actress, despite this depleated Pandemic movie year.

Many years ago I learned that one of the fine arts of screenwriting is the use of reflection to show something early in a story, that gets used again in a much more significant way later. This movie has an example of a reflection that starts with Margaret Blackledge whispering in an ear of a dying horse, and ends with one of the most powerful examples of refection that I have ever seen in a movie.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for Let Him Go are only around 75%, but my rating is a solid 90% for the great story and acting. Movies like this one remind many of us that one of the reasons why we go to the movies is because very often a great injustice is revenged. Unfortunately real life far too often, does not work that way. I highly recommend this film.

Netflix Series Review: The Queens Gambit

Posted on October 31, 2020 by jjcwn • Posted in Chess, Uncategorized • Tagged Beth Harmon, Chess • Leave a comment

The new Netflix 7 part series “The Queens Gambit” is about a child prodigy, in this case a young 9 year old girl, who happens to be a one in a billion chess genius. While in an orphanage she learns chess from the school janitor and after only a few games, the janitor realizes that she is a gifted genius of Chess. When it comes to child prodigies, there are only 3 kinds, Mathematics, Music and Chess and this series is one of the best of its kind when it comes to Chess prodigies, the last one was “Search for Bobby Fischer”, released in 1993.

Even for those who are not true fans of the great game of Chess, this series will win you over and maybe even make you a convert when you realize the extreme challenge that Chess is to master. There is so much you have to know, and any real player knows that with just one small mistake a game can be lost on the spot. For years the debate has been, “is Chess really a sport”. Chess was on the cover of Sports Illustrated several times in 1972 during the Spassky Fischer match in Reykjavik Iceland. In my opinion, chess a sport, because of the toll it takes on the body because of the stress of playing any game against a top player.

This series is extremely well written, photographed and acted throughout the entire 7 hours and holds the rare distinction of getting 100% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 97% from the audience. The high score on IMDB is 89%.

The actress Anya Taylor-Joy plays the child prodigy Beth Harmon, and as she becomes an adult in her 20’s playing in tournaments, she develops a severe drug and alcohol problem to deal with the extreme stress of playing Chess professionally. Her acting in this series is worthy of an Oscar, even thought this production will probably only be considered for an Emmy Award. Over the centuries, there have been several top chess players who have gone insane due to the stress of dominating this extremely challenging game. The most severe example was Bobby Fischer, who became an anti-Semite, in his later years, even though he was Jewish himself.

The Queens Gambit is one of the best movies of its kind that I have seen, and I give it my highest recommendation. I am also including a link to the analysis of the championship chess game in this series, that was taken from an actual Grandmaster game that was played in 1993.