JJ McGee

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DO NOT READ JAMES PHILLIPS’ review if you haven’t seen this movie. There’s a special place in H E Double hockey sticks for people who will spoil alert a movie in their second sentence. THANKS JAMES! NOT! As far as the movie, there’s some pretty cool parts, corny parts, but also some head-scratchers as to common sense capabilities….(like there was 50 ways to do this, that, or the other—so it gets aggravating at times.) Jeffrey Dean Morgan can never do wrong IMHO btw, so he’s worth it alone! (Small role) All in all, it’s a fine movie for wasting some time. Keeps you entertained during almost the whole thing. Lastly, if they’d had the budget, this could’ve been a 4 or 5 stars from me personally. Although it actually made money IRL, the budget was only 3 million dollars! To give you some perspective, the budget for August: Osage County was 37 million dollars. Now I KNOW there was a powerhouse cast in that movie, but that was what ate up all the budget. The movie was shot solely in an old home; a bickering family grieving a death/their dysfunction just erupting. But they absolutely could’ve made that movie for under $500k with different characters. Anyway, just wanted to throw that out there. Enjoy the movie! It’s certainly better than 90% of anything I’ve seen this year lol. (That doesn’t include tv.)

Parasite 🦠 I’d like to make a note that there are NO SPOILERS, and also tell you that the name of this movie serves as a metaphor. There are no “creatures” to speak of; outside of humanity of course. I think this is a misconception that put people off this one. So no more excuses!! 🤷🏻‍♀️ There are some movies where I’ll see the “score” out of a possible 5 stars ✨, and I’ll think, “yep, this is one of those where I can see people not liking it.” The ONLY people I can see not liking this film are the ultra conservative/religious, or the blind/deaf/illiterate, as you need those senses for a foreign film. (As for the ultra conservative & religious… well there’s reality nothing but a tiny fraction of s e x, enough violence to make it what it is—which is incredible, and finally: moral compasses that don’t “exactly always point due north.” Like this if you know that movie quote—paraphrasing to fit my sentence, of course.) I’d venture to say you’d be hard pressed to find an award-winning, record breaking film without a fraction of those things. So don’t count it out if it’s worth seeing an incredible piece of work. Let me also say: I am the first person to shamefully admit I do not care for foreign films, due to the obvious aspect: I don’t want to have to read the subtitles. Let’s now change that to “DID NOT.” 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 After watching this movie, I’m smacking myself over and over, realizing what a fool I’ve been! May I mention btw, that this is the first EVER foreign film to win “movie of the year” at the academy awards? That’s DEFINITELY something that piqued my interest. It also came on during covid I believe, so I figured, “WTH not?!” Welp, I enjoyed it from beginning to end. (I’d like to mention this is one of the only movies I’ve watched again, without having LOVED the ending. But I’m a tough crowd!) and as per usual, my verbosity / loquaciousness is quickly taking over…I’ll try to wrap it up. Another example is this: my father LOVES spaghetti westerns, John Wayne, and action movies akin to Die Hard, The Equalizer, etc. he’s a typical “Boomer.” Welp, my dad LOVED this movie as well. He was absolutely obsessed with how clever, how surprising, how quickly he was so invested within the first few minutes. He said he couldn’t stop watching, and even stayed up until midnight, having originally planned to watch half & go to bed. To wrap this up, I’ll only say my dad owned a video store when I was a girl, (VHSes yall!) and so did a few family members down south of us. So we believe ourselves to be expert movie critics. (Or watchers, one of the two… 🤔🤭😉) My sentiments match those of my sweet dad. This movie is excellent, and deserved EVERY accolade it was awarded. (Also, the protagonist wrote, directed, and starred! Can you imagine?!) Even with ADHD, the greatness of the movie allowed me to graze on by reading those subtitles! I was hooked and never looked away or needed a break. Hope this helps! Phew. 😅… I need to go back and watch it again now! ps— not every movie can make “our” cut. Sweet dad👴🏻 & me do not recommend the other foreign winner since then— it’s called Everything Everywhere All at Once, I believe. Neither of us could stand that one past about 15-20 minutes. And we even know & love some of the actors! Such a shame… oh well, parasite 🦠 still rocks!

This show was unlike any other, and I am SO glad I continued to watch it. I’d sort of shrugged it off as a British comedy, especially since the first episode was 30 minutes. There was a show that came on a couple years ago with Steve Carell, in which he was kidnapped by one of his patients. The show seems to somehow have “kept it light,” and I found it to be just a tad humorous. JUST a tad. I was hoping this would be sort of in the same realm, but better! Welp… The opening scene had me cracking up, so I dove right in. What I DID NOT see coming was an intense, psychologically winding, horrifying, sometimes (shamefully) satisfying, and neck-hives inducing (at one point or another…) TRUE STORY; one that actually ALSO did MAKE ME LAUGH! What it was, if anything… it was just raw and real. Some won’t be able to “handle it,” or enjoy it, due to its genuinely raw experiences— but the more open-minded audience will find it a binge worthy, jaw dropping experience. Why? Because most of us won’t go through even 10% of what Richard Gadd has gone through —or rather accomplished at the tender age of 34. His acting was raw, touching, and I cannot see from this point forward how he’d even CONSIDER spending it behind the scenes. This man has missed his calling thus far… he belongs on our screens. Anyway, I’m not going to write a synopsis for you, as no doubt you’ve read one. All I’m going to say is that you WILL be entertained; you WILL be shocked…and whatever I write won’t be able to transport you. All I can really say to really describe it is this: have you heard that the largest pit in the world is right here in the United States? Miraculously, Richard Gadd/Donny Dunn will make you feel as if he’s about to transport & hit the bottom of it…all the way from London. If you’ve ever experienced the slightest bit of shame, regret, depression, as s ault, love, unrequited love, shameful feelings, feelings of failure & betryal, and just downright despair? This show will make you feel not so alone, and that is something that even fictionalized tv & movies almost always seem to miss. There’s always something in them that accomplishes the ever-commonplace “suspension of disbelief.” It’s my least favorite thing, and it will cause me to stop watching something almost every time. In this show? I’m standing right next to Donny, feeling his feelings. It’s almost tangible, the realness. Anyway, I do tend to be long-winded, but I want to thank Richard Gadd for sharing this, and encourage him to just keep being himself. It makes me feel a little bit stronger, having experienced a fraction of these events. I’m so thankful to him. Maybe if you haven’t gone through anything like this, it’ll somehow make you more or even just empathetic, whereas before, you may not have. Donny isn’t the only character in this show that is suffering. They’re all only just people, so they too are suffering. The woman who plays Martha, his stalker, is just brilliant, and I should say she too belongs on our screens. Same with Teri! Gosh, I can’t get started on the rest of the cast or it’ll never end. Each person is PERFECTLY PLACED. Just watch it! NOTE/VIEWER WARNING 🚨 If you’re close-minded about sex, sexual orientation, “S abyuse,” and even the “Big R…”, violence, stalking, etc. Or watching these events play out/talked about will upset you, don’t watch it. Contact NAMI if you’re having negative feelings, thoughts, or emotions that are affecting your life. They have amazing resources.

I’ll write this for people who don’t want to be “spoil-alerted,” as I didn’t read any reviews from that standpoint. I could give this 5 stars, only because I feel like it ended too soon, with too many questions left unanswered. You may feel differently! In other words, it’s worth a watch to decide for yourself. This crew followed Teal Swan’s “group” around for a looooong time…. I want to say a couple years? It’s because of this I think we are missing so much. But I’ll stop on that note—just watch! As most pointed out, it’s very well produced, well directed, etc. So I’d never heard of Teal Swan, (Teal is her REAL first name btw…) but I love docs, and especially love “cult docs.” She is definitely an enigma, wrapped in cash, wrapped in a whole lot of wacko. As someone who suffers from MANY different health issues—both mental and physical, I almost saw the little girl in her at times. She’s very mentally ill, and it is evident! She was diagnosed by several different psychiatrists, seemingly at different ages. Does this mean she can’t be “spiritual,” or “gifted?” ABSOLUTELY NOT! I certainly believe there are people who are in touch with the spirit world, and it’s very possible she’s one of them. She sits atop a throne-like chair in front of audiences, and her insight seems pretty real to me. It’s also because of this I believe she believes she’s a “Godlike entity.” She’ll tell you she’s not God, but then when someone questions HER “authority” on all this, she’ll defy this person to find a better person for the job. She’ll tell him, “I’ve never met anyone as enlightened as me, so show me where and who they are.” (Paraphrasing…) Anyway, pain recognizes pain. I can see it and feel it in her eyes, and also in the way she conducts herself. It’s truly an eye-opening look into the mentally ill— and she takes the cake, as she is not only bipolar, but borderline / narcissistic as well. (Amongst other things, of course.) It is seemingly because of her narcissism & BPD, she is able to project these delusions of grandeur that she spins into a web of enchantment. I know that’s a really vague, weird metaphor, but I think it’s apropos in this situation. There has to be some sort of “enchantment” for her to have had 150+ million YouTube views. It’s alarming to me. I actually decided I won’t watch them BECAUSE she is so believable, and I deal with A LOT of pain on a daily basis. I don’t want to get sucked in. But I digress… this is all I will say about this doc for now; I feel like I haven’t helped much, but I promise I’ve tried! It is heart-wrenching to watch; you’ll find yourself thinking she’s really changed peoples’ lives, then realize it’s all part of the illusion. I have empathy for those that are suffering, feeling as though she has all the answers. She doesn’t. Plain and simple.

NO SPOILERS HERE, BUT WARNING ⚠️!! THIS MOVIE IS NOT EVEN CLOSE TO A JAMES WAN “CLASSIC..” I’m actually shocked 😳 that this man did The Conjuring movies!! (Which we LOVED!) We JUST finished the “plot twist,” which has both of us laughing hysterically. Seriously, I wish I could record my husband’s laughter right now. And he’s a scaredy cat 🙀!! 😂😂😂 Anyway, I was laughing pretty hard within the first 90 seconds of this film. They DEFINITELY used the worst actors they possibly could’ve used. It begins in an “asylum gone wrong” situation, uttering cliche lines, such as, “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!?!!” (Well, close enough- you get it.) Annabelle (Peaky Blinders gal) was just terrible as lead…everyone else in the movie is a “no-name.” The female African American actor was by far the most memorable performance, and she wasn’t even in the whole thing. (Which was so unfortunate!) The plot was predictable— like SO predictable it hurts. They “tried” so VERY HARD to do a “plot twist,” but failed miserably. The only reason we still have the movie on is because my husband loves bad horror flicks. I was so impressed with Annabelle in Peaky Blinders, which leads me to believe horror just isn’t her genre, so to speak. I mean she’s British, so I doubt she grew up watching American horror flicks—like so much of her “competition” likely did. I even thought she saved The Mummy— NOT Brendan Fraser’s Mummy, but Tom Cruise’s. I LOATHE TC, (read-Scientologist psychopath!) but I found myself watching it one day with Annabelle as co-lead. She was my favorite part of the movie! But I digress…. Plopping a black wig on the “English Rose” actress just wasn’t convincing enough to make me do anything but cringe 😬... SKIP IT!!

I couldn’t tolerate it for longer than 30-40 minutes. There was constant droning-singing, and the lyrics were so repetitive; I don’t know when I’ll get them out of my head. I knew nothing about this movie—hadn’t even seen the trailer. So I had zero preconceived notions about how I’d feel toward it. I actually googled the reviews, because I’m enough of a “cinema buff” to know it would have better than the one star rating it deserved. I knew there was an audience for this movie… I just didn’t think professional critics would be singing its praises. I feel like if you felt American Beauty’s “plastic bag floating in the wind=the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen,” you might enjoy this movie. If you have walked into an art gallery and thought a yellow square 🟨 was moving, you might enjoy this movie. However, If you want repetitive, HORRIBLE, ANNOYING songs stuck in your head, you too may enjoy this movie.

Rafe Spall is the one that really saves this movie, so it’s unfortunate that he’s only in maybe 15 minutes of it—total. It’s Hathaway’s unconvincing British accent, combined with Sturgess’s constant (badly acted) brooding and whining; it made me wonder why I watched this through to the end. I wish SO BADLY I hadn’t. The ending made the entire story pointless, (I know not EVERY story has to be the happiest of endings, but I didn’t get the point of this one.) All the years of heartaches, mismatches (in love), deaths, etc… It Leaves us— the audience, with quite LITERALLY two minutes of relief from all that, when tragedy strikes, and the possibility of even a semi-happy ending is blown to smithereens. This is a story which relies heavily on anticipation, waiting and waiting for the two BFFs to “get together,” as they clearly love each other. So WHY the author decides (and filmmakers in this case) to blow up the ending is just SO baffling to me. I know for sure it RUINED what was a shaky film to begin with, with the characters not really having changed (except of course a surface level amount of wisdom that comes with age, maybe?) or learned anything. I am SHOCKED that there are any positive reviews for this one. Undoubtedly, they’re Hathaway fans… which is another baffling thing to me, but I won’t “drone” on any longer. But if I save one person from watching this and losing two good hours of his/her life, it was worth it. Watch The Wrong Missy on Netflix for a raunch-fest; but easily tolerable as it’s fun and funny! As for a love story, any other film is likely better than this one, with the movie-ending-ruiner. Peace!