The Woman in the Window

‘The Woman in the Window’ is a 2021 Netflix original psychological mystery/thriller based off the book by A.J. Finn. It stars Amy Adams (Hillbilly Elegy), Fred Hechinger (News of the World), Gary Oldman (Crisis), Wyatt Russell (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier), and Brian Tyree Henry (Widows).

An agoraphobic shut in (Adams) starts spying on her neighbors, and witnesses a grisly murder of the wife. Everyone thinks she’s crazy, and now she must convince them, even herself, that what she saw, really happened.

This story has been told a thousand times. ‘The Simpsons’ even did an episode about it, Bart breaks his leg and he starts spying on his neighbors and witnesses a murder. I read a book when I was a kid, a pg version of course, but a kid is sitting in his cherry tree and witnesses his neighbor get killed. In both instances no one believes Bart, or the kid. Same as this movie, only this one puts a few small twists on the classic story. Adding booze, and psychotics, so you began questioning what is real and what isn’t. I give ‘The Woman in the Window’ this, it has a great twist at the end, and it is possibly all that saves this movie. Up to that point it’s a very slow burn with little action. Amy Adams is a great actress and she plays a good role, but not a lot happens till the end. It’s one of those that the trailer is more exciting than the movie. It’s not a bad movie but it’s not as good as what I thought it would be. I give it a 6.5/10

Concrete Cowboy

‘Concrete Cowboy’ is a 2021 Netflix original drama based off the book ‘Ghetto Cowboy’, it stars Idris Elba (Luther), Lorraine Toussaint (Orange is the New Black), Caleb McLaughlin (Stranger Things), Jharrel Jerome (Mr. Mercedes), and Method Man (How High). A troubled youth (McLaughlin) from Detroit is sent to live with his estranged dad in Philly, who is a black cowboy, living in a community of black cowboys. He soon learns to love his dad’s lifestyle, but starts to fall in with the wrong crowd in Philly. He now must choose which path to go down.

The cool thing about this movie is, it’s based on a true story. When you think of Philadelphia, you probably think of Freedom, Rocky, the Philadelphia Eagles, and cheese steaks. One thing you probably don’t think about is horses. Apparently there use to be several communities of black cowboys and horses, and one by one they got shut down, and developed over, until only one remained, the Fletcher Street Stables. This by itself makes the movie worth watching, plus they actually have a couple of the cowboys star in the movie, and you get to hear them talk about it in the credits. Really cool stuff, now let’s talk about the movie itself. McLaughlin is a great up and coming actor, it’s good to see him in stuff, and who doesn’t love Idris Elba? The man is awesome in everything he plays. So much in fact, he’s being casted as the next James Bond. They do a good job starring side by side in this film. Outside of them, Jerome plays a great job as the troubled friend, Smush, who has already ventured down the wrong path. Method Man plays a great part as well, as a cop, which I always find comical when a rapper plays some sort of legal job in a movie or show. It’s a heart touching movie, and isn’t a tear jerker like most dramas. I tend to not like the real sad movies. Overall it’s a must watch. I give it a 9/10.

His House

‘His House’ is a 2020 Netflix original horror/thriller starring Sope Dirisu (Gangs of London), Wunmi Mosaku (Luther), and Matt Smith (Doctor Who). A refugee couple leaves their war torn home of South Sudan by fleeing to England. They must go through the system and stay at a government chosen house until they are cleared by the English government and can become full citizens. Only something evil is lurking within the house, something that doesn’t want them there.

The trailer looked a little weird, but it has 100 percent rating on rotten tomatoes, which I typically don’t go off rotten tomatoes, their scores tend to not always be accurate. IMDB gives it a 6.5/10, which I typically go off of IMBD, their scores tend to align with mine, but I figured I would give it a shot. It starts off the bat with ‘Mother’ type feels, something weird is going on, you’re just not sure what. ‘Mother’ is extremely weird and is not a good movie whatsoever, so luckily ‘His House’ doesn’t follow that direction. It is actually a pretty deep movie, I wouldn’t describe it as a horror, but more of a psychological thriller. you see what’s going on with the witch in their house, but the movie is about what you don’t see, about their personal demons, about what they’re battling on the inside. Once you find out what exactly why the husband has his inner demons, it changes the whole movie. It’s pretty messed up. ‘His House’ genuinely surprised me, like I said it’s a pretty deep film. I give it a solid 9/10.

The White Tiger

‘ The White Tiger’ is 2021 Netflix original drama starring Adarsh Gourav (Die Trying), Rajkummar Rao (Newton), Vijay Maurya (Gully Boy), and Priyanka Chopra (Baywatch). A poor Indian man becomes a driver for a wealthy family, when he sees how the upper-class live he strives to break out of the rooster coop that is poverty and make something of himself.

‘ The White Tiger’ is up for an Oscar for best adapted screenplay in the 93rd Oscars, which happens to be this Sunday. So after Sunday it may be an Oscar winner, not just a nominee. The majority of Oscar nominated movies are really good, not all of them though. Some are just artsy terrible films that are nominated, that’s just how it is. So where does ‘White Tiger’ fall? Honestly, it’s a pretty good movie, it’s dark, it’s gritty, it’s a rag to riches story, and who doesn’t love a good rag to riches story? The accent’s are a little thick, which is okay, it does take place in India. Just be prepared to turn on the subtitles. It’s also a bit of a slow burn, the run time is a little over two hours, which it’s a great story, but not a lot of action. So you feel the full two hours at times. The biggest shock and awe of this movie is how they treat the driver (Gourav), you’re pretty much appalled at it the whole movie. Overall, it’s worth checking out. I give it a 7.5/10.

What Lies Below

‘What Lies Below’ is currently Netflix’s number 1 movie on the top ten. It’s a 2020 thriller starring Ema Horvath (Don’t Look Deeper), Trey Tucker (The Space Between Us), and Mena Suvari (American Beauty). A teenage girl (Horvath) returns home from summer camp, and finds out her mom (Suvari) is dating a new man (Tucker) who she intends on marrying. He seems perfect, almost too perfect to be human.

So the movie doesn’t have any big names in it, which is okay a lot of good movies don’t. This one starts out pretty cheesy though, so I knew we were in for a ride. The story is slow, very slow. It’s easy to guess what’s going on, and it’s just weird. This isn’t a very long review because there’s not a lot to say about it other than this movie, well sucks. I would suggest giving it a hard pass, I give it a 3/10.

Bad Trip

‘Bad Trip’ is a 2021 comedy starring Eric Andre (The Eric Andre Show), Lil Rel Howery (Uncle Drew), Tiffany Haddish (Uncle Drew), and Michaela Conlin (Bones). ‘Bad Trip’ is a mix of a scripted movie and hidden camera pranks, think of ‘Impractical Jokers the Movie’. Two best friends, Bud (Lil Rel), and Chris (Andre) steal Bud’s sister’s (Haddish) car to take a road trip to New York city so Chris can try to win over his high school crush (Conlin.)

So we’ve seen movies like this before where they mix a scripted story in with actual hidden camera pranks. Again think of ‘Impractical Jokers the Movie’ and ‘Borat’, ‘Borat’ is pretty much the first movie to do this and then the others followed suit. I personally would prefer them do one or the other, either make it a script or just hidden camera pranks kind of like ‘Jackass’ did, but I give ‘Bad Trip’ this, they make it work. There are several laugh out loud moments in this film where I found myself cracking up. I’m personally a big fan of Tiffany Haddish, and Lil Rel, they’re both hilarious. Especially when they work together like in ‘Uncle Drew’. As equally hilarious as this movie is, it’s vulgar and crude. Sexual scenes, vulgarity, drug use, nudity, you name it, it’s probably in this movie, but that’s Eric Andre’s sense of humor. I don’t always like it, but he is a funny dude. So if you get offended easily, this movie is not for you, I give it a 8/10 though. It’s currently streaming on Netflix.

Seaspiracy

‘Seaspiracy’ is a 2021 Netflix original documentary looking at the environmental impact from the fishing industry. It is made by, and stars Ali Tabrizi, a British film maker.

This is a very heavy movie, it almost made me sick to my stomach. Forewarning, parts of this film are hard to watch. The stats dropped over and over throughout the movie is mind boggling. There’s too many named to even list, and I’m not even going to try but two that stuck out to me is 1. 11,000 to 30,000 sharks are killed every hour fishing and if the sharks and whales die out we will too, 80 percent of life on this planet is in our oceans. Without realizing it, we depend on whales and sharks. 2. We keep hearing about plastics filling our oceans, plastic straws are bad right? Let’s use paper straws, plastic straws kill sea life. Well we’ve been mislead, plastic straws only make 0.03 percent of plastic pollution while fishing nets make up 47 percent of plastic pollution. Plastic straws aren’t the issue here, it would be equivalent to banning toothpicks in order to help protect the Amazon. So why aren’t we hearing about any of this? Where are the environmental groups? Where is the outrage?

This is a film I feel everyone needs to watch, if it doesn’t have you ready to run through a wall and help our oceans, I don’t know what will. For the importance of this movie alone, I give it a 10/10.

The Last Blockbuster

‘The Last Blockbuster’ is a 2021 documentary about you guessed it, the last Blockbuster. Interestingly enough there is one lone store surviving in Bend Oregon. This movie not only takes a look at this store but also the rise and fall of Blockbuster, the giant, in fact ruler, in the video rental world to just one lonely store. It also features a handful of celebrities who talk about their experiences with Blockbuster. Some are just cinephiles, while others, interestingly enough, got their start by working at Blockbuster. It features Kevin Smith (Clerks), Brian Posehn (Just Shoot Me!), Doug Benson (Super High Me), Paul Scheer (Fresh Off the Boat), Samm Levine (Freaks and Geeks), Jamie Kennedy (Malibu’s Most Wanted), and Ron Funches (Trolls).

Everyone can remember the nostalgia of Blockbuster, the yellow and blue of the store, the way it looked, it’s still a picture in your mind. I honestly wasn’t a big Blockbuster fan, even though I can still remember all these things, I personally thought they were expensive. There was a ma and pa video rental store in my town called Pick-a-Flick that was more reasonable, and more of a homey feel to it. That’s what I personally think about when I think of video rental stores, not Blockbuster. Blockbuster is the stake that drove into the heart of little ma and pa video stores, and essentially wiped them all off the face of this earth. With that aside, it’s a pretty interesting film and is interesting to hear the celebrities talk about their experience with Blockbuster, and as a movie lover I can appreciate that. It’s just a little long, the run time is an hour and half, but there is only so much that can be said about Blockbuster. If they cut out about 30 min. it would be very good, as it stands, it drags some. It’s also interesting that Netflix is streaming this documentary. Netflix offered to sell their company to Blockbuster, when Blockbuster was in their height, and Netflix was still fairly new. As the story goes Blockbuster laughed Netflix right out of the room, and now look who’s laughing. It’s little bit of a jab from Netflix in streaming it. As I said it’s an interesting watch, it just drags a bit. I give it a 6/10.

Yes Day

‘Yes Day’ is Netflix’s new 2021 family comedy starring Jennifer Garner (Peppermint), Edgar Ramirez (Gold), Jenna Ortega (You), Julian Lerner (Leo the Lionhearted), and Everly Carganilla. A mom (Garner), and dad (Ramirez) give their kids a yes day, where they can’t say no, but yes to all the kids requests, with a few ground rules of course.

So the plot sounds identical to Jim Carrey’s movie ‘Yes Man’ where he decides to say yes to everything and give up saying no. This is just the watered down family version. The trailer looks pretty good, and I like the concept, but the movie doesn’t deliver. It’s one of those where all the best parts are in trailer, and not too funny past that. It’s a good family movie that your kids will probably enjoy, but just not a good stand alone movie. Fun fact though, Jennifer Garner actually has yes days with her kids in real life, which is pretty cool, and would be a cool thing to try. The movie though, I give it a 5.5/10.

I Care A Lot

‘I Care A Lot’ is a 2021 thriller on Netflix starring Rosamund Pike (Die Another Day), Peter Dinklage (GOT), Eiza Gonzalez (Baby Driver), Dianne Wiest (The Birdcage), and Macon Blair (Murder Party). A sleazy business woman makes her profession by claiming elderly are incapable of taking care of themselves and makes herself their legal guardian. She then goes on to stick them in a nursing home and sell all their possessions including, their house, car etc. while pocketing all the profits. She thinks she has finally found the ultimate target but soon finds out she made a horrible mistake when the elderly lady has ties to the Russian mafia.

I don’t know if I have ever been angrier while watching a movie. The main character (Pike) scams elderly people and sticks them away to never see daylight again, and essentially gets away with it at every turn. In fact, they push the fact it’s okay to be yourself and be a wolf and not a sheep, like WTF. It has so much build up and then nothing, she gets off scot free. They push her as the hero of the movie, I was ready to write boycott this movie, but without giving away any spoilers, the ending does reel everything back in, and all is right with the world again. I was seeing red, Pike’s character is probably one of the most evil characters I have ever watched. If you do watch it, watch it all, don’t get mad and give up like I almost did. Even with them pushing it’s okay to scam elderlies and be a wolf not a sheep. I give it a 7.5/10.