Tag: moviebuff

The Wiloughbys

On By lhmendelsohnLeave a comment

This week I watched the Netflix movie, The Willoughby’s. I secretly love to watch kids’ movies, (they’re my guilty pleasure) so I was looking forward to this movie. *WARNING SPOILERS AHEAD* I don’t think there is any way I can talk about the messed-up events in this movie without spoilers, so you have been warned.

The Willoughbys (2020) - IMDb

For a kid’s movie, this movie is downright depressing. This movie is about the Willoughby family. In this family, there is Father, Mother, Tim, Jane and The Barnaby’s. Father and Mother are absolutely obsessed with each other. In fact, they have so much love for each other that they don’t have any to spare for the children. All 4 of the kids are ignored and neglected. They are barely even fed. The kids are so neglected that the Barnaby twins don’t even have their own names, they are both named Barnaby. One day, a baby in a box shows up at their door. Jane and the Barnaby’s sneak out to grab the baby and bring it in the house. Jane wants to keep it, but Tim doesn’t want to get in trouble with Mother and Father. Eventually, the rambunctious baby gets found by the parents and poor Tim gets punished. His punishment is to sleep in the coal room. On the wall of the coal room, Tim marks a dash for every time he’s been down there. The whole wall was filled with dashes. It was super sad to see him curl up in a ball on his pile of coals and sleep there for the night.

The Willoughbys | Netflix Official Site

The movie is narrated by a cat. The cat’s viewpoint was able to see everything. It would’ve made the movie completely different if the viewpoint was by the children. I enjoyed the birds eye view of everything that was going on in the Willoughby household.

Netflix's The Willoughby's Post-Credits Scene Is Super Gross

Together, the kids grow tired of being neglected and they hatch a plan. I find the plot of the movie itself to be pretty morbid, but then they throw in jokes about killing their parents and being free. It was all quite shocking! The 4 kids craft a dangerous trip for their parents to go on. One that is sure to kill them; filled with piranha’s, volcanoes and more! Their parents take off without a thought about the kids. The kids are happy and free for a little! That is until Nanny knocks on the door. Nanny is a large burst of energy and is so excited to be taking care of the children. Nothing the kids have ever been exposed to before. The movie goes on and you see their bond with Nanny grow. That is, until Tim thinks she is conspiring against them and working with Mother and Father. Tim takes drastic action and calls the place no one should ever call…. Orphan Services. Orphan Services is basically CPS in this movie. They dress in all black suits and I would compare them to men in black. Orphan Services surrounds their house and takes the kids away from Nanny. The kids are all split up into different foster homes. I found these scenes gloomy and are something I’ve never before seen in a kid’s movie. I’m not going to say it was “nice” to see these scenes, but it definitely was different and unique to see the plot progress like this. It’s not a happy-go-lucky movie where everything goes right and in the kids favor.

Fast forward many many scenes, and Nanny rescues the kids and they all go out to find Mother and Father. I thought the Orphan Services scenes were depressing, but here is where it gets WORSE!! Mother and Father are hiking a snowy mountain when they lose their trail and are basically going freeze to death. Luckily, the kids come just in time and find them to defrost them. In your head, you think YAY, the parents are going to realize how much they love their kids! BUT NO!! They unfreeze and then literally high tail it off the mountain, leaving the kids and stealing their only transportation. They have no clue how to drive the kid’s blimp, crash into a sharp point at the top of the mountain, and literally fly off and explode. The kids have no gear and are slowly freezing. They’re all losing hope, when Jane starts singing and bringing back hope to them. Her singing is magical and warms the kids and make them visible for rescue from nanny.

Jane’s Saving Song

This movie was so unconventional and unique. You never see cartoon movies where the kids are so neglected and mistreated many times throughout the movie and things don’t go perfectly and according to plan. There are so many loops and it’s a rock coaster of an experience. It had a very heartfelt ending, as expected. I’m happy that the kids got to experience happiness with someone that truly loves them. Overall, I’d give this movie 10 kids out of 10! It’s on Netflix, so I’d recommend checking it out!

👩🏼‍🦰👩🏼‍🦰👩🏼‍🦰👩🏼‍🦰👩🏼‍🦰👩🏼‍🦰👩🏼‍🦰👩🏼‍🦰👩🏼‍🦰👩🏼‍🦰(10)/ 10

A Movie That WON’T Have You Singing Along!

On By lhmendelsohnLeave a comment

This week I checked out the musical movie genre and watched Cats. Going into this I knew that the movie had terrible reviews and only had a 20% on Rotten Tomatoes. This might have led me to have a personal bias before I set out to watch the movie, but I tried to push those thoughts out of my head. My mom saw Cats on Christmas, but I decided to skip out. She thought it was good movie, but then again, she doesn’t have the best taste in movies.

I grabbed the snacks and sat down to prepare to watch Cats. Within the first couple minutes, I was already confused. There was about zero dialogue in the first ten minutes. I believe that the first couple scenes of a movie are crucial to set the plot and introduce any main characters. I was not getting any of that from Cats. The whole movie they barely talked without singing. I like to think that I enjoy musicals, but this movie might’ve changed my mind. Every single scene, back to back, was filled with songs. Songs that you really had to sit there and pay attention to and listen to every single lyric to understand what was going on in the scene. Although the music attempts to have a fun energetic vibe, it is overall nonsensical and not enjoyable. When the music ceased, nonstop cat puns and hissing were weaved into each scene; “cats got her tongue”, “cat’s out of the bag”, it never ended.

How I felt watching Cats

The first scene, the main character is quite literally dumped into the scene. The world the movie is set in, is not introduced. I found myself struggling to understand the dimension the cats were living in. Were they the only ones living in the town? Were there any humans around? How did they all get there? I had many questions!

Another question I had was about the look of the cats themselves. Some of the cats were wearing accessories like necklaces, earrings or hats, while others had full outfits complete with shoes and another portion weren’t even wearing anything at all. Does that mean that the cats who aren’t wearing anything are naked the whole film? The CGI look of the cats was unsettling as well. The cats had cat ears, whiskers and tails, yet they had human faces. It was very unsettling; just check out the gif below!

Although, there were many many negatives, I did have a few positives. I enjoyed Taylor Swift’s scene where her Cats character, Bombalurina, is hanging out above the cats laying on a moon and sprinkling cat nip onto the crowds below. The cats got high on the cat nip while she had a nice musical number with lots of backup dancers. I also liked the main character’s, Victoria the White Cats, dances. Francesca Hayward is a trained ballet dancer so her dance scenes were fluid, graceful, and overall beautiful.

Overall, I’d give this movie a solid 3 cats out of 10. It didn’t WOW me, I found myself hating that they sang almost every single line and the CGI/animation made me uncomfortable.

🐱🐱🐱(3)/10

Oh the Horror!

On By lhmendelsohnLeave a comment

I have decided to start out my movie journey with my least favorite category; horror. I have never liked horror movies since I was little. If I do watch something scary, it will typically lean more towards thriller than horror. I’ve never been a fan of paranormal movies or movies with jump scares, those are the worst! Fortunately, my best friend/roommate is a horror aficionado. My room is light, bright and pink themed. But you take a quick trip down the hall into her room and it’s black themed, full of skulls, dead bats and overall darkness. I got lots of horror movies recommendations from friends and took those into account, but ultimately decided to go straight to the Queen of Horror herself for the final picks. She gave me lots of suggestions in every category out there. For anyone who isn’t aware, there is more than one category of horror. Below is a quick outlay of the various sub-genres.

Image result for horror movies subcategories"

After my consult with the Queen of Horror, I decided to watch Hereditary, a recent horror movie directed by Ari Aster.  Midsommar is one of my favorite movies and it was also directed by Ari Aster, so I figured I would possibly like Hereditary. Turns out I was wrong!

As I sat down to watch Hereditary, I made sure of a couple things. First, that I had a big blanket to hide behind when any scenes scared me enough that I couldn’t bear to watch any longer. And second, that I was with friends so a horror movie would not be as intimidating. A big difference between Hereditary and Midsommar is the lighting. Midsommar takes place during a summer solstice so it is shot in constant sunlight with hardly any dark scenes. Hereditary was a mix of daytime and nighttime, but the majority of the movie took place at night which upped the scare factor for me. Not being able to see exactly what is going on, like ghosts and demons lurking in the shadows, makes movies a thousand times worse for me. But for the most part, I powered through the movie and tried my best to not look away. It was on the incredibly gory scenes that I found myself wincing and closing my eyes at.

(SPOILER ALERT!) The one particular scene that made me cringe and look away for was the scene where Charlie gets her head taken clean off by a pole. Not only was the accident itself very graphic, but they made sure to show every second, which is an Ari Aster specialty, he loves the gore! Right after Peter, the older brother causes the accident, he is so in shock that he drives home with her body still in the back seat and just goes to bed without saying anything or doing anything else.

The actors in this movie were phenomenal at showing raw emotion. Alex Wolff, who played Peter, played a teen severely depressed living with the guilt of killing his own sister extraordinarily. The mom, played by Toni Collette, really brought to life her neurotic character who did insane things to help her cope with loss.

This movie is full of cults, spirits, omens and death and all in all, I liked this horror movie enough to watch it again. I didn’t find myself having the keep every single light on in the house feeling that I normally get with other scary movies. I would give it eight ghosts out of ten ghosts for sure!

👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻(8)/10