INT./EXT. THE OUTSIDE WORLD

A girl with a MoviePass in New York City trying to get her money's worth and improving on her lack of commitment to personal projects. Hence, the blog.

[intexttheoutsideworld]

The Incredibles 2 (2018)

It’s been a long time coming, folks, but here we are.

The Incredibles 2 is the long awaited sequel to Disney’s OG superhero movie The Incredibles that was released all the way back in 2004. The sequel picks up where the original left off with the Parr family suiting up to take down The Underminer who was planning on robbing the bank and destroying the city with his bigass, doped-up drill. Following more or less in the same vein as the original, The Incredibles 2 tells the story of family conflicts and its resolutions along with featuring a kickass plot that involves the Parr family having to save the entire world from total doom. It’s a wholesome, badass, and nostalgic movie for those who have seen the original. But if you haven’t seen the original movie, then what are you even doing with your life? I loved every minute of it and for a supposed animated kids-targeted movie, it sure as hell is more realistic than Ant-Man and the Wasp. Why? Because it featured fucking foundations under houses, that’s whyasdfaieuhfaciuhdfa

I need to chill.

Final verdict, though: 4.5/5

There will spoilers throughout the rest of thos review.

I have to admit, one of the main reasons why I love this movie so much is because of the small references it makes to the original movie or scenes that were written in so that fans of the original movie would be reminded of it. I don't care if all of it was just clever manipulation on Disney's part in order to get audiences to like this movie, I just don't. Why? Because all of the throwbacks are incorporated into the movie seamlessly and does not break the narrative flow for the sake of inducing nostalgia. However, you can tell that Disney did extensive research on what fans of the previous movies zeroed in on in terms of significant moments that stuck out in the original movie because there were references to

And to

These references aren't in-you-face about it, but for those of us who grew up with the original movie and have been waiting for years and years on end for the sequel, it's nigh impossible that you can miss them. In addition, I also really like how they made Elastigirl's first superhero act in the sequel to be that she would need to stop a train from going off the rails. It's the defining act that launches her name back into the public eye and is a nice juxtaposition to Mr. Incredible's own training-stopping act in the first movie. The juxtaposition in this sense is more or less saying that both characters are of equal footing both in and outside of the household and also in terms of capabilities. It could also carry a feminist message that girls can be just as tough and brave and [insert adjective here] as boys can, and it's a nice little message that's not glaring or preachy and I really appreciate it.

In addition, the juxtaposition of the two characters also adds to the conflict that is sorta brewing between Bob and Ellen wherein Bob is lowkey jealous of Ellen for having taken his spotlight in the public's eye while he's stuck at home babysitting the kids. The ongoing issue of Bob's, or Mr. Incredible's, ego transfers from the first movie into this one and while there are some extremely funny moments that happened because of this ego, we don't really get to see it explored in the movie in any further than Bob being frustrated from time to time. Therefore, the conflict between Bob and Ellen isn't really developed further in the movie as well in the sense that it doesn't really contribute a lot to the plot in terms of having a negative, significant impact on the characters' relationships with each other which subsequently leads to the characters being faced with a personal conflict that they have to resolve in order to handle the imminent threat of the enemy. Rather, the conflict is treated as more of a filler for the dramatic aspect of the movie. And while I do love me a good drama, the reason why I wish they had explored the conflict between Bob and Ellen further is because the main villain of the movie pushed for the separation of the two and seemed to have regarded Ellen as a potential ally if only she'd change her perspective just a smidge. If the movie had delved deeper into the conflict, fleshed out the kinks, and considered the ways which it could play into the larger narrative of the movie, I think that would have significantly enhanced the plot.

But it's time we move on from looking at The Incredibles 2 as being the sequel to The Incredibles for it is, in a lot of ways, its own movie. So, it's only fair that we review it as such for as the famous and beloved Edna Mode once said:

You know what, I can't decide which character I like best.

Sometimes I think I like Dash best because he's the human version of r/zoomies but other times, I think I like Violet best because I was totally that broody and emo when I was fourteen. And Jack-Jack is just a d o r a b l e. But then there's Edna.

Originally posted by alittlebiteverything

I can’t decided. They're all just so wonderful.

But I'm getting sidetracked.

As I've said before, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie when I was sitting in the theatre and loved every minute of it. The chemistry and playful family dynamics within the Parr family is just wonderfully written and skillfully incorporated into the first fighting sequence and it’s honestly such an amazing scene to watch. However, no movie is perfect, and, sadly enough, that also applies to The Incredibles 2. Some of the flaws which I find the movie to have are that:

At times, conversations between characters are intentionally written to be more complex and serious than they need to be and bring up points that ultimately don't get revisited again.

The conflict between the kids and the parents doesn't really play a big role in the story even though it is presented in such a way that makes one think it will. However, the conflict is considered by the movie as a "knot" in the story that needs to be "untied" by the end of it. Therefore, it leaves the resolution of the movie feeling a bit… underwhelming.

Building off of the previous bullet points (even though I don't consider this to be a criticism of the movie because I honestly just find this to be funny but I had to include it for it's a point to be made about the subject matter), the ending teaches a terrible lesson when it comes to listening to your parents because it literally teaches the exact same opposite of what a child should do.

In terms of the first bullet point, considering that college students are within Disney's target audience for The Incredibles 2 because they are the ones who grew up with and are the main fans of the original movie, it makes sense this bullet point exists. However, because the unspecified, aforementioned conversations in question are written to lowkey take on a serious tone, what that tells the audience (or, the people who aren't kids, anyways) is that the problems and issues which are raised throughout these conversations are going to play an integral part, or at least be addressed, in the story as the movie goes on. But they don't—and that's a problem. I'm not going to sit here and preach about how extraneous details which are made glaring but are actually just superfluous within a work of fiction is obsolete and kinda annoying and ultimately don't do anything for anyone at all—that is, if they don't affect the work in question negatively.

Moreover, circling back to the statement wherein I said that this movie is more intelligent than the Ant-man sequel and considering that Disney wants to make The Incredibles 2 more appealing to the now-college-students, it just kinda make even more sense as to why the movie come off as being smarter than it should be and why the sequel to Ant-man appears dumber than it should be. Even though both movies feature more or less the same characteristics such as sci-fi elements and action comedy and so on and so forth, the presentation of Ant-man and the Wasp and the medium through which it is presented—live action cinema—insinuates that it might be slightly more attractive to young adults and older audiences while the presentation of The Incredibles 2 and the medium through which it is presented—3D animation—insinuates that younger children are going to be more drawn to it. Therefore, because the ultimate goal is to have as wide an audience range as possible, the content of these two movies needed to be altered slightly in order to attract the most viewers as possible. But all of that's just my postulation.

Moving onto the second bullet point. So, at the beginning of the movie, the children are told to abstain from using their superpowers and from helping their parents fight crime. The two sides argue about it, and the conflict is established. But, as I've said before, this conflict doesn't really create a problem for the family nor does it have any effects on the plot in any way. Then, when the parents is hypnotized and yada yada yada, and the kids are left to their own devices to fend for themselves, they decide to go save their parents and is successful in their attempt and aren't punished for having disobeyed their parents. The conflict is now resolved. Do I need to tell you why this is bad story-writing? I do? Well, I don't want to because the answer is long and technical and I'm lazy and this isn't one of those movie analysis essay videos that you see on Youtube, so here's the short version for you: a good story needs to come from the characters and a good plot needs to be built and developed upon the character(s)'s weaknesses. If you want to make the audience connect with your character(s) and for the conflict/struggle/etc. in the story to be compelling, the conflict needs to negatively impact or inhibit the character(s) in a way that forces the character(s) to face their own weakness and triumph over it. Here's a different way to think of this sequence: if a person likes to clean and does it often and it doesn't interfere with their life in any negative way or at all other than it makes their surroundings cleaner, that person is fine and there's really no story to tell. However, if a person likes to clean and does it often and it affects their life in a negative way in the sense that they are unable to function unless their surroundings is spotless or something of the sort, then there is a story to be told—one where the character learns how to overcome their struggle/weakness; and a good story would be built around their struggle/weakness.

Going back to The Incredibles 2, the conflict between the kids and the parents is introduced and resolved but the climax to it is never presented. The same goes for Bob and Ellen's conflict. I feel like all of this is sacrificed in the face of having to deal with the villain in the movie and if you've read my A Quiet Place (2018) review, you'd know why this is not a good thing. Of course, one could brush off all of these conflicts in the family as something that’s meant to be there in order to make the movie feel more realistic because every family bickers and goes through similar conflicts as the ones shown in the movie. But as I've stated in my review of Ant-man and the Wasp, you can't just do that man. Why?

Originally posted by: crazyexedits

IT JUST DOESN'T WORK, OKAY? IF YOU WANT A MOVIE THAT'S BOTH REALISTIC AND ENTERTAINING GO LEARN HOW TO INCORPORATE REALISTIC DETAILS INTO YOUR CHARACTERS AND INTERWEAVE THEM INTO YOUR PLOTS INSTEAD OF JUST TOSSING RANDOM, RELATABLE DETAILS IN THERE AND CALLING IT A DAY.

That being said, I still love The Incredibles 2.

And before I forget, the last bullet point speaks for itself. Kids arguing with their parents and defending themselves for not having done what their parents asked them to do, but then when they disobey again, it pays off in strides and the kids don't get reprimanded? Yeah… not the best lesson to have your kids learn.

That's it for this review, kids. Tune in next time to experience me shitting all over Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) and The First Purge (2018).

Sidenote: I love this scene so much.

Sidenote #2: Edna Mode is K W E E N, okay? Also, this is me around kids.

[intexttheoutsideworld]

Review: Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)

That's not how physics work.

Ant-Man and the Wasp is an American superhero movie directed by Peyton Reed starring Paul Rudd (Scott Lang), Evangeline Lilly (Hope van Dyne), and Michael Douglas (Hank Pym). It is based on the characters and storyline created by Marvel Comics, and is a direct sequel to the movie Ant-Man which was released three years prior. In addition, it's also part of the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe. Therefore, the movie takes place two years after the events of one of Marvel Studios's most successful movies Civil War (2016) wherein Scott is enlisted to help Captain America and his friends go up against Iron Man and his friends. Ant-Man and the Wasp deals with the fallout of the aforementioned fight and the legal repercussions that Scott has to endure because of it. However, as his house arrest draws to an end, Scott is forced to break the law once again in order to help the people whom he let down by having gone out on his own to assist Captain America in the fight. The movie focuses on Scott finding a way to accomplish both goals without comprising either his freedom or his chance to mend his broken relationships in addition to finding Hope's—his love interest and one of the people whom he let down—mother who is stuck in the quantum realm.

Going into this movie, I didn't really have any expectations for it. I just wanted to see if they would all fade away into grey particles at the end of the movie. (Spoiler alert: they don't disappoint.) However, I still left the movie theatre feeling more or less disappointed by the movie. I don't think I can really review this movie without revealing at least some spoilers so consider yourself warned.

Peyton Reed returns to direct the Ant-Man sequel after having taken over the original movie's project back in 2015 when Edgar Wright left because of "creative differences." And I gotta say, without the slight hints of Wright's visual comedy and glimpses of the version of the movie which he wanted to make shining through in the final product, the sequel to Ant-Man comes off as being pretty tepid. Ant-Man and the Wasp is your favorite but warm beer. It's the prettiest dress in the store but is also several sizes too large. It's that one last bowling pin you can't knock down. It's the type of movie Mindy St. Claire would be allowed to watching while living in The Medium Place. (The Good Place is also one of the best TV Shows out there so go check it out.) In short, Ant-Man is two steps away from being the next Civil War for me but it's too… passable of a movie for me to hate it.

And yes, I hated Civil War. Come at me, bro.

I'll start by listing out the two most common MCU movie problems which Ant-Man exhibited with gusto and which I thought weren't that glaring or at least bothersome until now:

They have terrible villains.

The excessive amount of jokes in the movie, especially the ones positioned at moments which are supposed to be intense or emotional, more often than not undermines the seriousness of the situation in a negative way, and therefore, bear a high risk of making the movie fail to suspend the audience's disbelief.

There are three main groups of people out to get Scotty and Co.: the FBI, the high-tech-parts-selling/greedy/murderous/morally-fucked/we're-doing-bad-things-because-we're-bad gang, and Ghost and Bill Foster. The FBI is keeping a keen eye on Scott because of his direct involvement in the Civil War fight and they're after Hope and Hank because it was their tech that Scott used in the fight in Civil War and any association with any person that's affiliated with Team Cap is against the Sokovia Accords and is considered to be against international law. There's this whole expositional soliloquy that the Special Agent in charge of Scott's case gives to his kid during the first fifteen minutes of the movie that's passed off to be a humorous moment so if you don't get it now, you'll get it when you see the movie… I guess. Then there's the high-tech-parts-selling/greedy/murderous/morally-fucked/we're-doing-bad-things-because-we're-bad gang (we'll just call them the HTPS/G/M/MF/WDBTBWB gang from now on) who is out to get them because they want their shrinkable lab because $$$ and. Well. The HTPS/G/M/MF/WDBTBWB gang is pretty self-explanatory. They're the filler villains used as a plot device so we can have dangerous action scenes and kill them off without feeling like we have a moral obligation to feel bad for them. It's a win-win situation, you see.

Then, we have Ghost (aka Ava, played by Hannah John-Kamen) and Bill Foster (Laurence Fishburne) who are also after Scott and Co. for their lab. You see, the lab in question is used as more or less of a MacMuffin in the movie and if you think about it too much, the logic behind it will start to unravel. Shit like "How did the HTPS/G/M/MF/WDBTBWB gang know that Hank and Hope had the lab to begin with? Sure, they had an inside informer in the FBI but if the FBI had already known that Hank and Hope had such a lab, you'd think that they'd have somehow figured out a way to track it down. Or, you know, issued out a warning to people that should they see a fucking SHRINKING BUILDING or a building that's suddenly enlarged SEVERAL THOUSAND TIMES ITS ORIGINAL SIZE or an abnormal indent on the ground that looked like something really big and heavy with a flat bottom had been pressed down onto it and disappeared, they should contact law enforcements immediately" will start to surface in your mind and you'll go fucking crazy. So just don't think about it.

The motives that drives Ghost and Bill are, to some extent, understandable. Back when Hank was still working for S.H.I.E.L.D., he and Ghost's dad were working on a research project together that ended up in an explosion which killed both of Ghost's parents and fucked her up. So now, her molecules are always tearing themselves apart and stitching themselves back together over and over again. It's supposedly a very painful thing to have to endure but we don't really feel or see that pain because the actress makes Ghost seem like low-rent Bellatrix Lestrange. In regards to Bill Foster, he just happened to encounter her when she was a little kid in a chance meeting and decided that he wanted to help her. He also happens to hate Hank because they were once partners and Hank was supposedly a dick yada yada yada. We also got a shot of Bill stating seemingly innocuously that he hates Hank that's meant to serve as a sort of foreshadowing to the revelation of him being the one who's been helping Ghost all this time but it falls short in my opinion. The directing is just off and I think that's why a lot of the emotional undertones of the scenes in the movie completely flew over my head.

Anyways, back to the topic at hand. Despite their rather well-established backstories, I have a lot of problems with the Ghost and Bill's storylines and their execution. Things like: how the fuck would the extraction of quantum energy from Janet (Hope's mother, played by Michelle Pfeiffer) help Ghost to repair her molecules in any way? Yes, she's been in there long enough that you can posit that she's absorbed a good amount of “quantum energy” (whatever the fuck that is), but how the fuck is one supposed to extract such a thing from a living, breathing person? Is it like extract essence from a living organism? How the fuck do you go about it? How did Ghost and Bill come up with this hypothesis? Why did they decide to steal the lab and the last part that's needed to get the Quantum Tunnel working at the same time? Why not just, I don't know, fucking wait until they've finished building the tunnel then attack them while their guard is down? In addition, at first when Hank and Hope responded to their (insane) plan of extracting quantum energy from Janet with: "No! Are you crazy, you could kill her!," Bill shouted back: "You don't know that!" (These are not direct quotes, guys.) And he was right, they didn’t. But then the movie just moves on to treating the plan as if it would actually kill Janet no matter what anyways? Um, excuse me? You can throw a bunch of physics lingo around in the movie and expect the audience to just take it to mean that the characters are smart but not show the characters contemplating the viability of Ghost and Bill's plans like the smart, rational scientists that they all supposedly are before scratching it off as being impossible and them being the evil ones? Well, here are some pretty useful science-y lingo for you, too: "margin of error," "confidence interval," "the normal distribution," "risk calculation and management," "statistics." Seriously, they're fucking scientists. Don't just rule out a hypothesis without having done a proper null hypothesis test.

I don't want to keep hating on this movie because Marvel movies are one of the few sources that I have left through which I can get my dopamine production pumping, okay? That being said, both Bill and Ghost’s character development sucks balls, man. I don't want to go too deep into it but the characters' beliefs and stances keep flip-flopping back and forth. Bill's on Ghost's side but when she threatens to do some vague, harmful thing to either Hank's and Scott's daughter (I can't remember which one she threatened), Bill turns on her and tells her that he can tolerate a lot of the things she does but not that. And honestly, I'm like???????? What have you tolerated? Can you please expound? What has she done that's made you uncomfortable but because you feel a bond to her, you just let it go? Why don't you want Ghost to do the vague, unspoken thing that she threatened to do even though you've been able to tolerate most of the things she's been doing? Is it because that's just one step toward the darker end of the morally grey area that you don't want to make? But didn't you hesitate to give Hank the medicine he supposedly needed for his illness or else he was going to die even though you obviously needed him to be alive in order to execute your plan? I'm not sure but I think Bill also threatened kill someone if they didn't do what he said.

On top of all of that, we never really see the bond between Bill and Ghost. They're not friends or whatever kind of deeper relationship the movie is trying to push. They're more like acquaintances helping each other out because they're after the same goal which severely weighs the movie down in terms of getting the audience to develop any kind of attachment to these characters and their relationships with each other. This aloofness impacts the movie pretty poorly in terms of attempting to establish an emotional connection with the audience but it helps with the logic of the movie's plot development in the sense that maybe it's because Bill isn't as committed to his initial goal and to Ghost that he does a pretty half-assed job in trying to achieve that goal for the rest of the movie. I'm not sure if I meant that as a compliment or a criticism. Maybe a little bit of both? But then if you think about it in terms of character development where a character undergoes changes in their beliefs and perspective then if the movie did intend on Bill not having that strong of an attachment to Ghost and their goal from the start as opposed to Bill having had a change of heart mid-movie then… the writing of his character is pretty shitty. Moreover, even if they did intend on writing his character to have a slight change of heart after the stunt Ghost tries to pull, then the writing and execution of his character is still shitty because we have no build-up to Bill being fed up with Ghost's antics and he still goes on to help her anyway up until the end of the movie where he just… gives up? Honestly, Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure has better character development than this; and we haven't even touched Ghost's character development yet.

Okay. So. I don't get what the fuck Ghost's character is supposed to be. I don't mean that in terms of what her character is supposed to be doing as a function in the movie or what her character on paper actually is. I'm talking about who Ghost is supposed to be as a person. What's she feeling? What's her motivation? Her trend of thoughts? At the beginning of the movie, I see an unknown entity kicking ass. Cool. Then, when she's revealed to be not all that and is actually struggling, I see a person whose life force is leaking from her existence and is, therefore, understandably doing the good guys wrong because she's afraid she's going to die. Great! She sounds like such an exciting and intriguing character. Fast forward and we see her staring at Scott like a fucking lunatic after having knocked out and bound Scott and Co. up. I wasn't kidding when I said John-Kamen's portrayal of the character is the low-rent version of Bellatrix Lestrange. Right then, I thought… okay… she's a little kooky but that could work…? Spoiler alert: no, it fucking doesn't. Why? Because any sympathy I've started to develop for this character gets thrown out the window when the following dialogue insinuates that one of the reasons why Ghost and Bill are doing what they are doing is because Hank Pym fucked them up and so, they're spiteful and are more or less seeking revenge. Oy, vey. After Scott and Co. escapes with the lab, Ghost proposes that she goes after [insert correct name here because R.I.P. my memory]'s daughter which further clues the audience in on the lengths that she is willing to go to achieve her goal. Therefore, it further paints her as being more of a ruthlessly vindictive antagonist rather than a sympathetic one. The movie rides this coat of paint for her character all the way to the end when Janet and Hank returns from the Quantum Realm and Janet heals Ghost with her quantum healing powers (don't worry, we'll get to that in a bit). Then, Ghost tears up and becomes meek and fragile and docile.

Look.

I know what tone that they were striving for in regards to Ghost. I do. They're trying to make her into a desperate character who's doing all of these terrible things because she's not in her right mind—remember, she is supposed to be under a lot of pain all the time. However, the script doesn't convey this well at all and John-Kamen's terrible performance doesn’t help. We can't feel her pain, we can't sympathize with her or her partner Bill. In addition, Ghost's motivations for doing the things she did falls apart when you consider the fact that she once made a deal with S.H.I.E.L.D. in order to have herself killed because the pain was too unbearable. Despite that fact, the movie proceeds to tell you that she's going through all of this trouble and attacking all of these people because she knows she's going to fade away in a couple of weeks and die. If she wanted to die, why didn't she just wait it out? Her actions throughout the movie points to the answer: she doesn't want to die, either because she's scared of the notion or because she sees an alternative solution to her situation. So, she’s fighting for her survival—which makes sense. However, because she's barreling through all of these people and is willing to go to extreme lengths ensure her mortality, the line of logic just turns back to pointing toward the conclusion that she's a ruthlessly vindictive cunt. Of course, you can use the loose argument that maybe the movie is creating a character that's more realistic in the way that her decisions and thoughts and personality is complicated and shit. Because, you know,

But, here's the thing.

This is a movie and a movie needs to character narratives and plots and shit like that because

Prime example: Boyhood (2016) dir. Richard Linklater.

IT JUST DOESN’T. OKAY?

Gifs originally posted by: crazyexedits

Lastly, if the decision which the character makes is a random one that's an anomaly given the context of their decision making history, then sure, it can be overlooked. But when most of the decisions which the character makes are based on the same logic and are in the same vein as each other, then it's a pattern and a pattern always reveal something about the character no matter what. Therefore, once again, I posit that the movie just fails spectacularly in trying to make Ghost a more fleshed out villain. However, at the end of the day, it's just sad to watch it unravel on screen because goddamn it, my precious dopamines.

Talking about things unravelling, I can't not mention my fucking suspension of disbelief. Guys, I've bought into almost every single Marvel movie out there, okay? I don't have a problem with turning my brain off in exchange for a good time. But when the logic is so glaringly bad that it impacts my commitment to getting those dopamines zipping through my brain, then we've got a problem.

Fucking quantum healing powers. I'm sorry, I just can't. You don't just mix hard Ant-Man science with Dr. Strange voodoo magic. Sure, nobody thought that a talking tree and a raccoon would end up making people big bucks, but there are some lines that you just don't cross. You can't tout your movie as being science-y and make your characters spout all of these physics lingo then have one of your characters possess healing powers. I don't care if they're quantum healing powers, and I don't care how much you've pushed the narrative that "she's been there so long she was able to soak in all of that quantum energy goodness" throughout the movie. It just shits on every ounce of effort I was putting into trying to keep myself engaged in the movie because my suspension of disbelief up until then had already been mauled by watching over-ten-stories-tall buildings without any foundation shrinking and enlarging and badly written dialogues that could have easily been put into literally any other action/thriller movie and try-hard jokes.

Also, y'all need to stop putting "quantum" in front of everything.

Hey, I fucking took Marvel's bait for Dr. Strange like it was nobody's business so don't go telling me that I'm a no-fun motherfucker who doesn't know how to just chill and enjoy a movie. And don't say that it's just a stupid movie made for kids, just let it go, because I've praised Marvel for their attention to detail and meticulousness when it comes to producing a movie that not only does well in the box office but is also technically good. Of course, the quality of their movies vary from movie to movie but I've always held Marvel in relatively high regards in terms of their technical execution of their material. Therefore, to have experienced Ant-Man and the Wasp and found it subpar to most of Marvel Studios's previous projects, I'm mostly just saddened (and somewhat enraged) by the missed potential for this movie.

Lastly, there are two end-credit scenes. Stay for the middle one. Leave before the last one unless you really like enlarged ants playing drums.

Final verdict: 2.5/5

Sidenote: No fucking wonder the script is fucking lackluster. Five different people worked on it, jesus fucking christ.

[intexttheoutsideworld]

First MoviePass Experience/Customer Service

For those who don't know, MoviePass is a subscription service through which for a measly $9.95/month, you can watch as many movies that are out in theatres as you want. However, you're limited to one movie per calendar day and you can only watch a movie once. That's pretty much how it goes for now but I wouldn't expect it to stay that way for long since MoviePass is either going to change their Terms of Services again or file for bankruptcy 'cause their business model is unsustainable as fuck. But obviously, that's highkey none of my business. $10 for a movie a day in NYC? I'm jumping on that train and riding it until it breaks the fuck down.

First day of using MoviePass and trouble’s already brewing.

Contrary to expectations, it was not MoviePass’s fault. It was mine. Or the theatre’s. Depends on how you look at it. So, what happened was that I got to the theatre, successfully purchased my ticket, then proceeded to go up the 8374738 escalators of the AMC in Times Square (the horror) to get to the theaters. So far so good. Things started to go south when they asked for my ID to make sure that I was over 18. Now, ever since having grown tits and a resting bitch face, not one person has asked me for an ID to verify my age for anything. Period. And yet there this person was, shaking her head at me and denying me entrance because I didn’t have a physical piece of paper on me that stated that I was over 18. The indigence of it all! The world is obviously out to get me as always.

After a little back and forth wherein I may or may not have waived my expensive school ID around and being like “Hey, I’m a sophomore at this school and my ID would have been yellow if I were underage, isn’t that enough?” and her going “I’m really sorry, but it’s the rules,” she got me a refund to my MoviePass card. Now, even though I technically did get a refund to my MoviePass card, I couldn’t sign into another movie or purchase another ticket because I’m only allotted one movie per day and the ticket to A Quiet Place was legit the same price as the ticket to Hereditary. So, naturally, I paid out-of-pocket and requested a reimbursement from MoviePass because I sure as shit didn’t commute an hour and a half to the city roughly five hours before my appointment to see a movie (in Times Square of all places) only to have to go to Bryant Park and sit in the heat and read. The employee had the audacity to give me the stink eye when I came back up the escalators having purchased another ticket. Whaddabeech. My review for A Quiet Place can be found here if you're interested.

Fast forward two hours later, I had seen my movie and already sent MoviePass a ticket requesting a refund from them but because I'm the ultimate impatient and paranoid bitch, I couldn't just settle down and wait for them to get back to me in due time. Oh, no. I googled "moviepass customer service refund" and boy, oh, boy did the search results tripped me the fuck out. There were accounts of people not hearing from MoviePass after six months of having contacted them, people who were considering filing lawsuits because of MoviePass's shady, fraudulent activity wherein they didn't stop billing their customers even though they had cancelled their subscriptions, and people who never received their MoviePass card at all, etc. Now, being me, I was on the brink of panicking and losing my shit. Well, not really. The movie ticket only cost $8.19 and I'm bound to make my money back whether or not MoviePass refunds me. I also learned that MoviePass has apparently created a FAQ wherein they state that they cannot refund your ticket which you bought out-of-pocket unless you were instructed to do so by a MoviePass Member Associate. However, I'm not the sort of person who would let things go that easily.

So, I decided to call them. But wait… plot twist! They have three different Customer Service numbers? Gasp! And all of them are unresponsive? Double gasp! Each passing moment I was nudged closer and closer to being saddened by the fact that maybe MoviePass really did turn out to be too good to be true and angered by the fact that… well, nothing really, but for the fact that they haven't replied to my email yet because the product itself is pretty great.

But then yours truly decided to try the chat function in the MoviePass app that she had to uninstall then reinstall to get working. I wasn't expecting a reply until at least three days later as the people on r/MoviePassClub also told stories about how they didn't get a reply until a week or sometimes even months later. And yet, I got a reply not even thirty minutes after my initial text message. Needless to say, I was incredibly surprised. They were really cordial throughout the entire exchange and resolved my ticket without any issue and told me that they were going to refund me the $8.19 I had spent on the A Quiet Place ticket out of courtesy just this one time.

Nonetheless, I'm in no way discrediting the horror stories about MoviePass that's been floating around on the Internet and I have no doubt that their Customer Service has been as terrible as reported. However, from what I've experienced so far both in terms of using the MoviePass to go see movies and dealing with their Customer Service, I'd have to say that, personally, I've found their service to be quite enjoyable. But I am incredibly biased for I'd honestly put up with their bullshit Customer Service anyways if it meant that I got to see a movie a day in NYC for the price of $9.95 a month.

If you're an avid film consumer and are thinking of getting a MoviePass for yourself, I'd recommend you to just go for it because despite their reputation, I sincerely think they're trying to turn things around—just don't hold me to that statement a month from now.

I personally haven't had any problems using their services and have been enjoying it a lot. Again, just because I haven't had any problems with them, doesn't mean that they're not a work-in-progress service with a lot of flaws. Therefore, if you're thinking of getting one, I suggest you research them online a little bit before you do. I personally frequent r/moviepass and r/MoviePassClub a lot and they're the two best sources of information about MoviePass that I know. They're going to pull a lot of shenanigans as they used to, I believe, but if you're anything like me and are just in it for the next-to-free movies, then I really think it's worth your time and money (and a heck lot of patience if you run into any of their bullshit).

[intexttheoutsideworld]

Review: A Quiet Place (2018)

You know, I could have met John Krasinski and Emily Blunt at the premiere of this movie if I hadn’t been too busy being a lazy bum. Sad reacts only. Also, not gonna lie, I initially intended on seeing Hereditary and not A Quiet Place. But shit happened and here we are.

PS: I had a mini-adventure going to see this movie using MoviePass for the first time so if you wanna hear about the sort of shit that I get myself into and my experience using MoviePass and dealing with their Customer Service, click here!

A Quiet Place is a movie directed by John Krasinski starring himself and his wife Emily Blunt. It tells the story of a family living in a deserted, dystopian Earth that’s been destroyed and taken over by these James-Cameron-Aliens-like monsters that are blind but are hypersensitive to sound. Everything is all fine and dandy until the wife Evelyn (Emily Blunt) goes into labor and the kids make a bunch of noises and shit because kids gotta kids.

A Quiet Place is a good, enjoyable movie. However, I don't think I'm going to remember it by the time I finish this review and post it. It’s not a movie that will haunt you day and night or whenever you’re in a quiet place (BADUM TSS) for a week and make you jump at the slightest of sounds. The performances are great, and the movie, for the most part, makes good use of its premise. There are some elements that I wish were done differently or think weren’t explored and utilized to their full potential; but all in all, it’s a rather enjoyable movie that won’t leave you feeling like you’re scarred for life after watching it. Final verdict: 3/5.

If you want to experience the movie for yourself and don’t want to be spoiled in any way, stop reading here. If you don’t give two shits about spoilers or have seen it, soldier on, my friend.

As I've said, their performances are pretty good in this movie, especially when Blunt’s character goes into labor and wanders down into the basement and steps on the nail that sticks out on one of the steps. I could actually feel the pain and the effort she was putting into stifling her screams because she knew what is at stake. Not only is her character suffering from the pain in her foot, she's also suffering from the pain of her contractions, and on top of it all, she has to fight the urge to scream in agony for fear that the monster—which was roaming around in their house—will rip her and, subsequently, the baby to shreds. Blunt did a good job conveying all of that throughout the scene. It really helped that Krasinski kept the framing of the shots in the scene either cluttered or close to her face so you could really feel all of that anxiety and fear and pain and claustrophobia really building up in your gut. It’s my favorite scene in the movie, hands down.

Honestly, I don't have much to say about the film. It's a well-produced, well-written, entertaining movie that you can just enjoy for 90 minutes then carry on with the rest of your life like nothing happened. There are, of course, plot holes and other things that you could nitpick as you make your way through the movie but I don't necessarily think that it's worth the time nor the effort.

Still, there's one thing that I wish the movie would have focused more on because if they had paid more attention to it, I think would have helped the movie improve a lot in terms of building and resolving its climax's tension and given it more creative situations and scenarios to work with—it's the fact that Evelyn is pregnant. In the first act, the writers definitely does emphasize on the fact that Evelyn is pregnant and that she is due any day now and that could severely disrupt the family's life or potentially bring danger to them, and they definitely made the birth a part of the horror sequence in the second act of the movie when the monster came lurking inside the house. However, the monster's intrusion into the family's home comes first and it's only because the mother's due to have her baby that the stakes are raised even more than they have already been as opposed to because the mother's due to have her baby—something that's definitely can't be done quietly, and the baby is definitely going to be screaming on its way out—and their contingency plan falls through, the monster attacks the house and shit goes down.

In addition, if the attention is shifted from the monster itself and its ability to rip people to shreds along with the possibilities of that happening in addition to preventative measures that are taken by the family members and so much more of these minor details to Evelyn's pregnancy, the birth of her baby, and the concern for its safety, then the movie's plot would have been tightened up and become more focused. Moreover, this route would have enhanced the emotional impact that the movie is trying to push its audience to feel (because I didn't fucking feel it the way it's done in the movie, okay?) and make the third act less lackluster. Because then, we would have an outline of the audience's emotional journey throughout the film that goes like this:

Act I: One of their kids is killed by the monster. Emotional distress takes a toll on the family and everyone is haunted by it but the thought of another kid entering the family makes everyone feel more hopeful and positive. This would fuel their desire to protect the baby even more. The audience sympathizes the family's loss and is now anxious in their seats for what's to come because they know that shit's going to go down when the mother gives birth to the baby.

Act II: The wife is due to have the baby. Everyone is on edge and jumpy even though they've prepared for this moment but then shit goes awry. Despite that, the kid is born safely and everyone survives the attack.

Act III: Something happens that threatens the baby's safety. The family decides to take the offense to the monsters because they don't want one of their own to die again. They figure out a way to kill the monsters. Whether or not someone is sacrificed during this endeavor is more or less irrelevant because the emotional impact on the audience is the same: they're going to be at least a little bit distraught no matter what because they would have sympathized with the family and their efforts to ensure that the one seed of life that's just starting to bloom on the entire deserted and deadly Earth lives on.

If you contrast this to the way the movie is structured, you’ll be able to see just how much this shift in focus would have benefited the movie—something of which you'll have to either have watched or will watch the movie to do because I sure as shit ain't gonna provide you a play-by-play of the thing because I’ve forgotten like half of the movie by the time I walked out of the theatre.

All of this is not to say that the movie doesn't have some of the aforementioned elements or follow more and/or less of the same structure and/or have the same undertone, but if they do, everything is sprinkled along the duration of the movie and don't really take hold because the movie's focus is on something that's external to the movie's main characters—the monster. And it's the monster and its effects on the family that drives the plot along and if there's ever a more annoying advice to writers than "show, don't tell," it'd be that "plot comes from characters." Yet, I think it's still kinda understandable as to why the movie let the monster drives the plot along because it is, after all, a horror movie, and the logic(al fallacy) is that the horror comes from the big bad monster and its immense scary powers! Rawr! I said kinda understandable. Have you people never heard of David Lynch?!

All in all, A Quiet Place is still a decent movie to watch and enjoy. Just. Don't think about it too much. Or at least try.