movie spoilers
Death of a Unicorn: Maybe the best performance I have seen so far of Jenna Ortega? I don't know how she's been typecast as a gothy brooding girl in almost every role in which I have seen her, but she's the one sane character in a weekend business trip of her dad's gone wrong. The "Griff" character is pretty endearing too; but it's mostly rich assholes acting greedy wanting to shoot up the blood, or snort the powdered horn of a unicorn Jenna Ortega's dad's character hits with his car. There are some NFT and cryptocurrency jokes thrown in which gives a sense of how aware the script writers were of what steaming piles of shit the current crop of rich broligarchs are. Some vaguely trippy moments and definitely some weird drug references, but a far cry from outright psychedelia; if you want a good trippy movie I don't think I have higher recommendations in the 21st century than 2004's Blueberry (aka Renegade) which is a psychedelic Western (as contrasted with a spaghetti Western; the two main protagonist/antagonist characters basically have a trippy Ayahuasca off instead of shoot off at high noon).
Sikandar (Hindi, with English subtitles): Sanjay Rajkot, alias Sikandar, is basically a king, but y'know, not a king because India is a democracy now or something? But he also owns like 25% of all the gold in the world, or India or something. Anyway, he's married to a beautiful woman, but there's all kinds of weird political scandal stuff going on with the son of some minister (not the Prime Minister, some regional honcho in Mumbai). His wife, tragically dies while warning him about some dynamite at a quarry, while Sanjay is trying to save the quarry manager (who apparently sold some TNT to some other professed quarry person, who was actually someone who used the TNT for a terrorist attack) and she was an organ donor. Bereft, Sikandar takes it upon himself to make sure that the 3 recipients of his dead wife's organs, lead happy fulfilling lives and tries to solve whatever other problems they may be facing first hand. But, something about that minister's son and being in the wrong place at the wrong time and then that minister's son dying, and then the minister having a vendetta against Sikandar? Lots of violence. An OK dance number or two. I feel as if I have seen movies like this before and this wasn't really doing it for me, but YMMV.
ASH: Directly by Flying Lotus, this is a disjointed non-linear SciFi horror film. I kept falling asleep. The best things going for it are: some cool VFX and visuals and sound design and it stars the absolutely gorgeous Eiza González, who more or less stole the show in her skin revealing attire in The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, if it weren't for the righteousness of killing Nazis. Unfortunately, Eiza González is not enough, for me at least, to redeem this movie into something I would recommend for others to watch, even though she appears in some trippy dream sequence at one point that kind of reminded me of The Cell? I wouldn't put it past Flying Lotus to take inspiration from Tarsem Singh Dhandwar's lush visual style, but he would have done much better to imitate the charming imaginative Tarsem opus, The Fall (2006) than delve into horror. At least, for me? The SciFi designs were kind of OK and the Japanese medical bot was quirky and maybe the most entertaining thing in the whole movie. I had watched the recent Eiza González Hot Wings episode and she encouraged folks to view independent cinema, and I dunno if Flying Lotus really qualifies? But I get the impression I would have more fun listening to music and blazing a J with him as she alluded to in her interview, than watching this movie. It's just too all over the place for way too much of the movie, for me at least. It also has a mid-credit scene that just shits all over the almost happy (but really not, lone survivor after all) pre-credit roll "ending". Felt really derivative of a lot of the more recent ALIEN movies and not in a good way. (Like, didn't Prometheus have a medical bot abortion scene? I am pretty sure that was probably the inspiration for the medical bot in ASH).
Bob Trevino Likes It: this is a tear jerker heart warming kind of movie basically about a young woman from a dysfunctional home (her mom left when she was 4 and abused drugs, and her dad, basically had wished her mom hadn't lied to him about birth control and is a guilt tripping narcissistic asshole who cares more about his 60s senior living dating life than his daughter). Anyway, she "friends" someone she thinks might be her dad on Facebook after they have a fight, but it's some other guy with the same name. Turns out, the other guy lives maybe an hour away in another state and is of no relation, but he's kind of a nice guy (played by John Leguizamo) whose wife is already telling him to go out and make friends, but he isn't into drinking beer and watching sports with the locals. Bob and Lily (Trevino, same last name, but definitely not related) interact more and more and Bob helps Lily realize that maybe it's OK to not be treated like a total piece of shit by everyone around her? In establishing some boundaries for herself, she grows as a person, becomes a better friend in her professional capacity as a caregiver, and well, learns more about Bob (not her dad) and his wife and their own tragedies. The last half hour are pretty sad and the preview is sort of misleading insomuch as it seems as if it may be more comedic? There are some uplifting parts for sure, but it's mostly an emotional roller coaster trying to get the audience in the feels. Also, I guess it's inspired by a true story? Not a bad watch but it was only playing at one theater and not a big one, so I don't get the impression this will be around on the big screen for a long time.
Sikandar (Hindi, with English subtitles): Sanjay Rajkot, alias Sikandar, is basically a king, but y'know, not a king because India is a democracy now or something? But he also owns like 25% of all the gold in the world, or India or something. Anyway, he's married to a beautiful woman, but there's all kinds of weird political scandal stuff going on with the son of some minister (not the Prime Minister, some regional honcho in Mumbai). His wife, tragically dies while warning him about some dynamite at a quarry, while Sanjay is trying to save the quarry manager (who apparently sold some TNT to some other professed quarry person, who was actually someone who used the TNT for a terrorist attack) and she was an organ donor. Bereft, Sikandar takes it upon himself to make sure that the 3 recipients of his dead wife's organs, lead happy fulfilling lives and tries to solve whatever other problems they may be facing first hand. But, something about that minister's son and being in the wrong place at the wrong time and then that minister's son dying, and then the minister having a vendetta against Sikandar? Lots of violence. An OK dance number or two. I feel as if I have seen movies like this before and this wasn't really doing it for me, but YMMV.
ASH: Directly by Flying Lotus, this is a disjointed non-linear SciFi horror film. I kept falling asleep. The best things going for it are: some cool VFX and visuals and sound design and it stars the absolutely gorgeous Eiza González, who more or less stole the show in her skin revealing attire in The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, if it weren't for the righteousness of killing Nazis. Unfortunately, Eiza González is not enough, for me at least, to redeem this movie into something I would recommend for others to watch, even though she appears in some trippy dream sequence at one point that kind of reminded me of The Cell? I wouldn't put it past Flying Lotus to take inspiration from Tarsem Singh Dhandwar's lush visual style, but he would have done much better to imitate the charming imaginative Tarsem opus, The Fall (2006) than delve into horror. At least, for me? The SciFi designs were kind of OK and the Japanese medical bot was quirky and maybe the most entertaining thing in the whole movie. I had watched the recent Eiza González Hot Wings episode and she encouraged folks to view independent cinema, and I dunno if Flying Lotus really qualifies? But I get the impression I would have more fun listening to music and blazing a J with him as she alluded to in her interview, than watching this movie. It's just too all over the place for way too much of the movie, for me at least. It also has a mid-credit scene that just shits all over the almost happy (but really not, lone survivor after all) pre-credit roll "ending". Felt really derivative of a lot of the more recent ALIEN movies and not in a good way. (Like, didn't Prometheus have a medical bot abortion scene? I am pretty sure that was probably the inspiration for the medical bot in ASH).
Bob Trevino Likes It: this is a tear jerker heart warming kind of movie basically about a young woman from a dysfunctional home (her mom left when she was 4 and abused drugs, and her dad, basically had wished her mom hadn't lied to him about birth control and is a guilt tripping narcissistic asshole who cares more about his 60s senior living dating life than his daughter). Anyway, she "friends" someone she thinks might be her dad on Facebook after they have a fight, but it's some other guy with the same name. Turns out, the other guy lives maybe an hour away in another state and is of no relation, but he's kind of a nice guy (played by John Leguizamo) whose wife is already telling him to go out and make friends, but he isn't into drinking beer and watching sports with the locals. Bob and Lily (Trevino, same last name, but definitely not related) interact more and more and Bob helps Lily realize that maybe it's OK to not be treated like a total piece of shit by everyone around her? In establishing some boundaries for herself, she grows as a person, becomes a better friend in her professional capacity as a caregiver, and well, learns more about Bob (not her dad) and his wife and their own tragedies. The last half hour are pretty sad and the preview is sort of misleading insomuch as it seems as if it may be more comedic? There are some uplifting parts for sure, but it's mostly an emotional roller coaster trying to get the audience in the feels. Also, I guess it's inspired by a true story? Not a bad watch but it was only playing at one theater and not a big one, so I don't get the impression this will be around on the big screen for a long time.