The Review: The People V OJ Simpson

The People V OJ Simpson 9/10

If you hated OJ before The People V OJ Simpson you will hate him even more after watching. This aired on 2016 on FX but I watched this on Netflix. When I used to see ads for this I had no desire to watch it. I lived through the shit so there was no need to check this out. But Cam watched it and said that it was really good so I gave it a try and was happy I did. This stars Sterling K. Brown as Christopher Darden, Kenneth Choi as Judge Lance Ito, Sarah Paulson as Marcia Clark, David Schwimmer as Robert Kardashian, John Travolta as Robert Shapiro, Courtney B. Vance as Johnnie Cochran, and Cuba Gooding Jr. as O.J. Simpson. Throughout this series I loved the acting and chemistry between Paulson and Brown. They were really fucking good. I also appreciated the show staying true to how people dressed and noticed that even on the freeway chase scene old cars were on the road. I pay attention to that kinda shit. One thing I did not like though was the budding relationship between the two of them. I doubt that really happened and it made me make cringy sounds.

The Review: American Animals

American Animals 9/10

There will be some spoilers in this review. This movie was awesome! B&H asked if I had seen this movie called American Animals and I had kinda heard the title but knew nothing about it or who was in it. I need to point out how well this movie was edited and how good the soundtrack was before I forget. The transitions scenes were amazing and were not done in a distracting way or like “Look at how cool this is!” I enjoyed the fuck out of this movie and wish more people, including me, had seen it sooner. You can rent it online but I wish that it had, I don't know, better marketing or something. This stars Evan Peters as Warren Lipka, Barry Keoghan as Spencer Reinhard, Blake Jenner as Chas Allen, and Jared Abrahamson as Eric Borsuk. This are all real people by the way which is awesome.

The Review: Hotel Artemis

Hotel Artemis 4/10

This movie was not terrible. It just seemed like whoever directed Hotel Artemis was out of their depth. There is a really good cast of people including Jodie Foster, Sterling K. Brown, Sofia Boutella, Jeff Goldblum, Charlie Day, Brian Tyree Henry, Jenny Slate, Dave Bautista, and Zachary Quinto. Foster runs this hotel for criminals where the rules are that no weapons are allowed, no non members, and no killing of guests. Picture that hotel from John Wick but not as good. I like those kinda rules like when criminals still have some sort of guidelines they have to go by. This movie however seemed to break all these rules in one night. It didn't seem. It did. During an insane night filled with riots and curfews the most feared man that owns the hotel shows up, Foster has to operate on him, and killers that know each other from the past just happen to all be there at the same time.

The Review: Fyre

Fyre 8/10

First things first. I will never feel bad for someone that is able to go to a shady sounding festival for thousands of dollars because they saw some models in a video and one of the people running it is named Ja Rule. I watched Fyre on Netflix and laughed way more than I thought I would. I also shook my head a lot in disbelief. This is a documentary about the shit show that was the Fyre Festival which I followed by watching TMZ as it happened. This was full of behind the scenes stuff and interviews with people who were part of running the festival, people who were helping to build it, facilitate the lunatic Billy McFarland whose idea it was to have this, and folks who actually went to the event. I knew this festival was bad with the tents people slept in instead of the damn near cottages on the beach they were shown online and the LAUSD sandwiches they were served. I did not know just how bad the whole thing was.

The Review: IO

IO 1/10

I decided to check this movie on Netflix called IO out. Not sure why really. Just something to do. It is pretty lame. This woman named Sam Walden played by Margaret Qualley lives by herself doing science shit. The planet is gone. Like, all the people have left except for a few and there is one ship left to leave for IO and live. She has a boyfriend or something she writes to who is already in space living that life. She is carrying on her father's research and then one day a guy named Micah played by Anthony Mackie shows up in a hot air balloon looking for her father. Her boyfriend breaks up with her, it turns out her father died years ago, and the last ship is leaving soon. They end up in a forced relationship that felt creepy because she looks like a kid and he looks like a grown ass man. This movie was not long but felt long. And boring. Not sure what vibe they were going for. Even Mackie's acting seemed off. When he got upset it felt like he was acting. The setting looked nice though. I will say that.

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The Review: Killer Mike Trigger Warning

Killer Mike: Trigger Warning 8/10

Jasmine suggested this new series on Trigger Warning starring rapper Killer Mike. Each episode is less than half an hour long, there are six episodes, and each has a different topic. This show starts off hard and strong. Living Black has Mike make an attempt to only support Black businesses for three days. I did not think it would be that hard honestly. He lives in Georgia. Well, it turns out that he could not smoke the weed he normally does because it is grown by White people in California. He could not eat almost anything he owned. He even had to find a Black owned cell phone company. While traveling he managed to find a Black bus company because he was not even trying to ride all those miles to the next town on his Black owned bike company. Even when he finally found a place to eat his friend and partner in crime El P got him to ask if the food came from a Black owned farm. Nope. It really made me think about how hard it would be for me to attempt something like this. I assure you it would be close to impossible living in West Hollywood.

You Had One Job: Punisher Season 2

Punisher Season 2 (1/10)

This will be filled with spoilers and long. “Oh, shut up!” is not something I expected to say a lot while watching season two of Punisher on Netflix. It seems that the second season of shows based on Marvel characters have to suck. Daredevil season two was horrible except for Punisher which is funny in hindsight. Luke Cage season two was garbage except for Bushmaster. Jessica Jones had a horrible second season. I barely even touched Iron Fist season two. Bernthal seemed ready to come back and do what he did the first time around and I was all for it but even during the first episode I had some idea that this may not be what I was hoping for. By the third episode I realized that this was a shit show but I was gonna finish it regardless. It got worse as it went on which is amazing. They introduced characters that were like Punisher-lite. Entire back stories for others I did not give a fuck about. Yeah, they had to pad this out because it has way too many episodes but when you really look at it this entire season could have been done in four episodes. I almost feel like they made this terrible on purpose because they knew there would be no season three. This is not The Review of Punisher Season 2. This is me bitching and ranting. Before I start getting into specific characters and such let me tell you about the shitty sound on this. Netflix has a habit of hiring people who are not good with sound editors. As someone who was once an assistant editor you are given guidelines for how low and how high things can be. There are a lot of checks before it gets to air. This show sounds like they had temps doing the shit. Conversations sounded like mumbling while the music came through loud and clear.

The Review: Eighth Grade

Eighth Grade 7/10

Cam had watched this a little bit ago and now that it is on Amazon I decided to watch Eighth Grade. I is hard to even write that word properly. This movie is about a girl named Kayla Day played by Elsie Fisher. It is the end of junior high for her and she is trying to prepare herself for high school by pretending to be someone she is not. She makes videos and posts them giving out self help advice that she doesn't follow, pretending to be far more confident than she actually is. Her father Mark played by Josh Hamilton does not know how to handle having a kid at this day and age. This is just what I get from watching. She gets invited to a party of a girl who obviously does not like her and does not have a good time. She has a crush on a boy that is a future felon. She gets a tour of her high school she will be attending and everyone looks like giants which is true.

Sitting In The Aisle: Bohemian Rhapsody

Bohemian Rhapsody 9/10

Theater Whore is now called Sitting In The Aisle. If you want a gritty, drug fueled, angst ridden, rated-R depiction of the life of Freddie Mercury then I suggest you watch one of many documentaries of the band online or read a book. Otherwise you can be like me and my friend and watch a really fun movie about the life of one of the greatest performers of my life called Bohemian Rhapsody. I did not expect to like this movie as much as I did. Seriously. I did not think that the star Rami Malek looked like Mercury and Cam reminded me of other films I liked based on real people where they looked absolutely nothing like them. And honestly over time I got used to Malek and just saw him as Mercury. I also knew that they would not be able to cover the amount of information in the lives of Mercury or any of the characters. That is what twelve part documentaries are for. Not a film.

The Review: Norsemen Season 1

Norsemen Season One 9/10

I loved this show. I had seen that it was on Netflix but thought it was another show like Vikings. I had watched the first two seasons of that show and by the third thought to myself “This is the same thing over and over” and lost interest. So thinking this was a knock off version I never gave it a shot. Never mind the fact that Netflix is notorious for having posters that make me actively not want to give things a try. So while listening to the Joe Rogan Experience comedian Greg Fitzsimmons mentioned this show and how funny it was. I had no idea it was a comedy. None! More people need to be watching and talking about this damned show but I am afraid the advertising is hurting that possibility. This is a Norwegian series and so far there are two seasons and unlike here in America where we make seasons with damn near 30 episodes wasting 20 of them on filler this one and the second have 6 episodes that are about half an hour each. Love it. My spell check is gonna hate me when I start typing the casts names.

The Review: Radius

Radius 3/10

Oh, this had the chance to be so damned good! This will have spoilers. I watched some review show or something and heard about this movie on Netflix called Radius. I liked the premise. People who get within fifty feet of this guy just drop dead. Now, with a movie like this I need for there to be a reason why given. Well I got that reason and laughed my ass off when it was shown. More on that later. So this guy wakes up with his head bleeding near a road and flags down someone for help. The car veers off the road and the driver is dead. He gets their phone to call 911 and can't remember his name but sees it is Liam (Diego Klattenhoff) after checking his wallet. He walks into a diner and everyone is dead. People just dying around this guy! He locks himself in his house thinking there may be some kinda virus floating around killing folk. He is not just killing people either. Birds just drop dead out the sky when they fly over him. He is super effective. Now he knows he is the reason things are dying.

The Review: Solo

Solo 2/10

This movie was boring! It sounds weird to say that considering that this movie is mostly running, shooting, more running, more shooting, running while shooting, and a little bit of story tossed in there. I have seen all but one of the Star Wars movies and have watched them in actual order which no fan of Star Wars will ever suggest you do. Solo is about Han Solo and his origins. Turns out he has not grown or changed from this movie to later ones. It felt like I was watching a really expensive cosplay film. The one thing I did like was that robot L3. That's about it really. Oh, and Donald Glover was good. Maybe the entire film could've just been about him and the root. That would have been interesting. The double crosses got old and it felt like anyone that had a vague idea of Han Solo could have done this. Maybe these new Star Wars films should just make a new movie with no reference to the old ones.

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The Review: Godzilla Planet Eater/Hereditary

Godzilla: Planet Eater 5/10

This will have spoilers. I have been waiting a while to finally get to see the latest animated Godzilla movie on Netflix called Godzilla: Planet Eater. And...yeah. I didn't hate it but if the first film was as hopeless and not fun as this I would not have wanted to see the second let alone a third movie. The first movie made me realize how much of a bastard Godzilla was. I always thought he was just a cool ass monster but never took into account the radiation and the fact that he was so goddamn massive. The second movie was good because there seemed to be some hope as they battled, and lost, against him. They also found this weird group of people that had adapted to the world as it now was. This new movie was just so damned hopeless and pointed out that there was never any hope from the get go.

The Review: Iron Man 2

Iron Man 2 (8/10)

Today I decided to break my own rule I just started by watching something I have seen before. I watched Iron Man 2 which I have not seen in years. Two years ago I re-watched Iron Man and it made me appreciate the amount of growth the character has had in all these years since it happened. I felt the same way watching this one. Iron Man 3 I don't wanna talk about. I forgot that the villain in this one, Whiplash played by Mickey Rourke, had a good reason to be upset and really got into Tony Stark's mind. Robert Downey Jr. was in the damned groove making this. I had forgotten how irresponsible Iron Man had become. This takes place months after the first film and Stark is getting drunk, having parties, and scaring the hell out of anyone associated with his company.

The Review: Forever

Forever 9/10

I fucking loved this show and this will be full of spoilers. If you have not seen this show I would suggest you check it out before even reading this because I knew nothing about this show going in except who was in it. Cam (who also writes reviews you should check out) expressed interest in it but the trailer for it shows nothing really but she was drawn in by the vibe of it. So today instead of watching a movie I've seen before I decided to check out Forever on Amazon and I am super glad that I did. On paper this does not sound like a super interesting show and it what kept me watching the first episode all the way through was the chemistry between Fred Armisen as Oscar Hoffman and Maya Rudolph as June Hoffman. They show the progression of their relationship from first meeting to dating to living together and taking vacation and all the good things about a relationship.