Rachel Stephens

*Spoilers ahead* In a nutshell, this movie showcases that too many men crumble without the mental & emotional labor of women. Have them take care of their own children for 90 days and they'll be crying in elevators after needing to shutter their business - and that's even with a consistent sitter and family to help care for the minor children of the man. This movie shows the absolute selfishness of too many men today. They don't see their wife struggling under the mental load of having to do 100% of the childcare, housework and emotional labor, often while also working outside the home. They don't notice their wives self-medicating or packing up to leave. They don't consider how their wives are single parents while they go to client dinners and social events that pertain to their passions. These men don't care about their wives nor their children. They don't know their children's life threatening allergies, their teachers' names, what grade they're in, what their kids like for lunch or at bedtime. They don't know their classmates or parents, how to get them ready for school or important events that they as a parent need to attend. It never dawns on them that all of this is part of the mental load they signed up for when deciding to not use protection with their partner. While the film is fiction, it showcases a very real problem that many women and children deal with - a self absorbed man in the house that doesn't do his share of the mental load nor carries his share of the emotional labor despite wanting to be the "leader" of the family. Naturally, the self-absorbed and emotionally neglectful father relies on his oldest daughter by parentifying her - she's there to help him navigate raising his other, younger children. He doesn't know or care about what matters to her, but she's the person he calls when he's lost or needs rescuing from the consequences of his actions. He gets moody when she can't drop everything to be his last minute plus one to work events, but he has no problem forgetting their already established plans and bailing on her last minute time and time again. She's not a daughter, a person with emotional needs or her own life, she's simply a tool to help him accomplish his goals and to show up for him. She's there to boost his mood and edifying him when he's down. He doesn't consider her feelings, time or labor but he can manipulate her emotionally by calling her "his soulmate" so that she'll stop being mad at him when he failed to show up yet again for her in her time of need. This is a movie about how men, most men, do not even begin to experience an iota of empathy except when they're left "out of nowhere" and they have to do a fraction of the mental load and emotional labor as the women in their lives. These men end up losing everything that they used to bolster their ego because they can't manage the betrayal and flakiness that they've shown others to happen to them. Only after they have no other options do they decide to start using their neglected children as a distraction from their failures and loneliness. As an oldest daughter, this movie was extremely realistic. Great writing. Unfortunately I don't think the main character has grown from what took place and is still as lost and clueless as when the movie began. But that's pretty much real life, right? October 2024

Saw this opening weekend thanks to a discounted promo ticket from my cellular carrier. The only good thing about this movie was seeing it in 4DX at a Regal theater. The best part was the pre-movie commercial that shows all the features of the 4DX theater, including what looked like snow falling from the ceiling. The film was absolutely unwatchable. The movie was on par with Alita Battle Angel for boring nonsense. I have no clue who these characters are or why I should care about them. If it wasn't for the 4DX chair, I would have walked out.

How is it that life-long Oklahomans seemingly don't know the first thing about tornado safety protocols in this film? Before I get into this review, my family is from Oklahoma and I lived there for 10 years. I've lived through many tornadoes. The choices that every character makes is proof that the writers have no clue how people prepare to wait out a tornado or how slowly they form. As far as how realistic is this film? There are umpteen zillion chemicals taken up by a tornado as it moves across the land. A handful of barrels filled with absorbent diaper material would do nothing to stop a tornado. The biggest tell that the writers don't know how Oklahomans prepare for a storm is that not a single extra or character was frantically mowing their lawn after hearing Tulsa's channel 6 chief meteorologist Travis Meyer mention that there is an ongoing tornado watch until 9 PM. Not a single green sky. Immediately I could not suspend my disbelief. As someone who lived in Oklahoma, specifically in Stillwater (and Tulsa), which was mentioned in this movie, as well as have family who have lived / live in Sapulpa and El Reno, which were also mentioned in this movie, and have been to Enid, which was mentioned in this movie... Nothing about this film was realistic. I grew up with tornado drills in elementary school. You get low to the ground, in a stable area away from windows and cover your neck. Preferably, you get in a bathtub with a mattress over you if you don't have a storm shelter. Unlike the movie, you don't seek shelter in an underpass (it's extremely dangerous and we're taught this in school.) You get out of your car and lay down in a ditch or ravine, as low to the ground as you can get if no buildings are around. You don't run around outside, get in your vehicle to drive home, or run out of a building to get into an empty pool to ride out a tornado that spontaneously formed into an immediate F5 on an otherwise clear day. The tornado sirens don't sound once as the tornado goes immediately overhead like in the film. I don't understand how characters from out of town directing towns people to go inside of a building - while a tornado is actively passing over them - is helpful or necessary in this film. No Oklahoman is going to stand outside trying to hold down a street fair tent while a tornado is actively passing over them. If you've ever lived in Oklahoma during tornado season, you know that this is not how tornadoes behave, how tornado watches happen, or how Oklahomans act during an approaching tornado. It would have been nice if the Oklahoman characters actually practiced tornado safety so viewers would internalise these tips if they're ever in a tornado. The choices that were made by every character, including the extras, would get them all killed.

Did we see the same film? I'm not sure why this movie is getting rave reviews. I saw it opening night, and while it is creepy, what is most off-putting is how nobody acts human. Agent Lee Hawker acts like a robot. Why? Why does her boss want her to see her mom? Why does she seem to have a strained relationship with her mom? Why does her boss want her to meet his wife and daughter when it's super late at night, and then for her to sit in the little girl's bedroom? When do people ever act like this in real life? I don't understand why this woman acts so strange for the entire film. When Long legs (why is he called that?) She doesn't bother to call 911, or alert her boss or her mom or anyone. Why? This character doesn't act at all in ways any rational person would, yet there's no explanation to why she's behaving irrationally. Who is Long legs, what is his story other than he makes dolls that somehow allow him to control people remotely to off their families? Why does the mom become a hoarder? Why are people opening the door for a nun claiming that they've won a prize from a church? Would you invite someone inside your house who claimed you won a prize from a church that you don't attend? Why doesn't Agent Hawker shoot the doll first, or try to shatter it or something in the last scene? Sure, the cinematography is fine, the soundtrack is creepy and the pacing is unsettling, but the story is underdeveloped. This film left too many questions and I couldn't suspend my disbelief that humans would act like this.

J.Lo Doesn't Have Friends Who Can Tell Her No J.Lo comes across seriously mentally unwell and self-involved in this bizarre vanity project. Her life story doesn't even mention her twins except in a single line of song that also mentions Ben "slipping inside" of her. Cringe. What I got from this film is that J.Lo should be in one of those wedding dinner shows. She could plan different types of weddings where she's the star / bride. It's clear that J.Lo just likes to be a bride and be the center of attention at a wedding. She doesn't love these guys, they're just props for her apparent wedding kink. What does "being in love" mean to J.Lo? It seems like it means being the perfect prop at her wedding reception. Once that's over she doesn't know how to be a partner who is in the trenches of daily life, let alone how to be a mom. I'd bet everything her kids are basically strangers to her, mostly being raised by nannies. I think J.Lo believes her own BS in this script, with a line about how good things are supposed to happen to you when you're a good person. She doesn't understand how she's not a good person. Even I've met employees of venues who have nothing good to say about how she treats staff, and I'm not even in the industry. If she believes good things happen to people when they're good, ummm newsflash, by no standard is she a good person. Being rich or famous doesn't make you a good person. She's not a good person which clearly has carried over into her failed personal relationships. In this mess she comes across as a bad friend, a lousy partner and someone who isn't great at writing screenplays. Her remaining sycophants/ friends should have an intervention but it will probably end up in another tone-deaf vanity project. She should spend the next $20 million on her fantasy wedding dinner show instead of trying to sell out arenas or date. It might be a better grossing vanity project.

Hollywood steamrolls over the concept of consent. What an absolute snooze of a film. My husband asked me multiple times if I'd like to leave the theater early, but alas, I had to finish it out to make sure there was no saving grace. 1. How does one forget which classmate raped them, multiple times, where they'd throw out an unfounded accusation at someone? This is written off as a "shrug" when Jessica's character realises this guy didn't even live in her city or go to her school when she was assaulted. 2. Does Hollywood expect us to not care about consent? A man with such advanced early onset dementia that he forgets where he's going or where he lives cannot consent to a sexual relationship with his caregiver who is also a social worker that just so happens to look like his dead wife. This man thinks he's with his dead wife yet his caregiver quits so that she can now sleep with her charge? No wonder his brother was furious - this is an egregious abuse of a vulnerable person. The movie glosses over this. 3. What was with Jessica's character's brother-in-law telling her to leave his house for confronting her mother for making excuses for her dad raping her? The brother-in-law should be more supportive of Jessica's character in that instance rather than protecting his mother-in-law from tough conversations. Why he acts like this was never explored. It was weird. Hard pass on this movie.

Pregnant woman jumps off bridge to escape her sadistic husband. Instead of dying on impact, she's dragged from the water, barely alive by a crazed doctor. The doctor decides that rather than nurse her back to health, he'll do a cesarean, and remove the mother's brain and replace it with her baby's, as her brain must have been bad if she were su*c*dal. The entire rest of the film is Emma Stone having sex and going full *Tropic Thunder warning* for the entire film. Full frontal nudity of both sexes throughout. The doctor's assistant agrees to marry Emma Stone (baby brain in mother's body) despite the fact she is so mentally handicapped, she can barely walk or form a complete sentence. Nevermind that's a huge breech of the duty of care between a provider and a patient, nevermind that the patient can't consent due to her disability and doesn't know what marriage even is, nevermind it's a LITERAL INFANT in an adult woman's body. Basically it's a one-sided Freaky Friday, except all Emma Stone's character wants to do is have sex non-stop. The doctor's assistant is considered the good guy in the film, while the audience is tortured with shots of Emma Stone having predators have sex with her and then tire of her as she becomes less infantile. Emma decides to become a bisexual prostitute who then replaces her original sadistic husband's brain with that of a goat after he tries to drug her and have her clitoris removed. What is the message of this film? That without the chains of society, innocent children would do nothing but mast ur bate or have s ex with adults? Emma Stone's character literally mast ur bates with an apple (!!!) at the dinner table. Why? On top of the egregious filth of a script, it's STEAMPUNK. Seriously, who wrote this script? Josh Duggar? Jimmy Saville? I don't care how nice the filming is or the costumes when this is the story. This is the worst film I've ever seen to completion. FILTH!

If I knew nothing of Napoleon, I'd be utterly confused about what was happening in this film. There is no hero's journey to follow and nobody to root for. Who is Napoleon? Why is he in France? How did he get to his position? The film begins with the death of Marie Antoinette and pretty much dives right into Napoleon being in charge somehow. Why Napoleon? No idea. Early on we meet Josephine's minor son who is never seen again on screen after a one-on-one meeting with Napoleon. Why does Napoleon meet with him? Why does he grant his request? Why is he interested in Josephine? No idea. The film feels as if you're a time traveller who is moving forward to different snapshots of Napoleon's life. There's little context or explanation. Lots of battle scenes, troop movement, flag signaling and even smelting to make munitions but not a lot of context. Why is Napoleon going here or there? No idea. What is his end goal? No idea. Why do Napoleon's men have an affinity for him? No idea. There are large spans of time between scenes so suddenly Josephine's daughter is a grown adult speaking with Napoleon. No clue who she was until Napoleon mentioned Josephine being her mother. Who are all of these people? No idea. How are they connected? No idea. The film is beautifully shot. The costuming is perfection. The set design is dreamy. Nobody can say that Ridley Scott doesn't know how to make a movie or that Joaquin Phoenix isn't a fantastic actor - it's simply a poor script.

Last night my husband and I went to the new "Christian" movie in theaters in the US. Like Sound of Freedom and other religious propaganda films from Angel studios, the tickets were free. While I saw this movie for free, here's what I actually thought of it. 🛑Spoilers ahead. This movie seriously misses the mark in trying to be a convincing proselytising tool to get unbelievers to convert to Christianity. As a Christian married to an atheist, time and again, Christian films are inadvertently made to make the Christian who brings a non-Christian to see the film feel warm and fuzzy, while being wholly unconvincing to non-Christians. It was my atheist husband who reserved tickets to this film, not me. As I assumed, he walked out after the end of the film thinking they were all liars. I don't blame him. The film was disjointed and glossed over a lot of science. For example, a woman has surgery but they supposedly purposely had her dead on the operating table for an hour? How did they do that? How did they know she'd have a near death experience or that she'd comeback? They drained her blood and did some sort of brain surgery? As far as I know, a patient is awake during brain surgery so that they can gauge how the patient is faring. My husband said that whole part seemed like a lie. I wasn't convinced by the fact that the doctor said that his patient said that she saw tools that looked like her "dad's socket set." Well, you're having surgery. Common sense says that tools will be there. Also her chart may have had information regarding her surgery, so it just felt bogus. The guy at the end really was not a good fit for this film. My husband said it was weird how he became "best friends" with his abusive dad to the dismay of his mom and sisters. Supposedly Jesus told him that his purpose is to love others. Sure, Jesus Himself in the Bible said that the whole law hangs upon loving God and loving our neighbours, but there's slightly more to Christian salvation than simply loving people. Not only that, the movie completely glossed over why he had a bad relationship with his wife and kids before his accident and afterwards. After his accident he "became a zealot" about telling everyone about his love mission from Jesus, his kids "didn't respect (his) experience" and his now-ex-wife "poisoned" his kids against him and now they want nothing to do with the Bible? Umm, there is a lot that was clearly left out. I'm seeing a real lack of accountability on his part on the continued breakdown of his relationship with his wife and kids. His "testimony" made my husband agree with him in that "people think he's crazy." Theologically, this film is lacking. Scientifically, this film leaves the skeptic unfulfilled. Stop making Christian proselytising movies for people who are already Christian. We are the wrong audience. Start screening your unfinished films to atheists only and go from there.

The Creator was terrible. Nice visuals don't counteract a lack of a cohesive or sensical story. Stuff that doesn't make sense: **Spoilers Ahead** - The US government has a ground and air war against AI in Thailand? Vietnam? Tibet? Known as "New Asia." - Robot Buddhist monks. Carvings of robot Buddhist monks in Buddhist temple. - Asian subsistence farmers protect "AI" robots from Americans because they "have more heart." (???) - Guy looking for a woman who rejected him, that he saw get blown up on a boat by the government, but thinking she'd still be alive, in the exact same spot, years later because the tracker ring she had was still signalling there. - Uploading the last 10 seconds of your life on a memory stick that can be put in a robot, but that 10 seconds is used to tell the dead person that they're dead rather than recall information that happened. Why would you need to talk to a recording? - A baby robot that can grow that was built by a pregnant woman who supposedly got blown up but also has been in a coma since being blown up. Did she build it before or after she was in a coma? - Robots that eat and drink. Robots can be surprised. Elderly robots can be fat under their clothes. - Robot can feel pain and a less painful method of ending a robot is sought (when the rest of the AI robots can simply be turned off.) - Robot baby needed to defeat US who also uses robots. US ultimately defeated by some sort of explosive placed by a human. What is the point of making movies with a story that was farted out during a fever dream? It's like having a small child tell a story that they haphazardly add information "and then they did x" without any consideration for if it makes sense or is consistent with the rest of the story.