Intermarkets' Privacy Policy
Support


Donate to Ace of Spades HQ!



Recent Entries
Absent Friends
Bandersnatch 2024
GnuBreed 2024
Captain Hate 2023
moon_over_vermont 2023
westminsterdogshow 2023
Ann Wilson(Empire1) 2022
Dave In Texas 2022
Jesse in D.C. 2022
OregonMuse 2022
redc1c4 2021
Tami 2021
Chavez the Hugo 2020
Ibguy 2020
Rickl 2019
Joffen 2014
AoSHQ Writers Group
A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published. Contact OrangeEnt for info:
maildrop62 at proton dot me
Cutting The Cord And Email Security
Moron Meet-Ups






















« Saturday Afternoon Chess Thread 08-31-2019 | Main | Saturday Overnight Open Thread (8/31/19) »
August 31, 2019

Saturday Evening Movie Thread 08-31-2019 [Hosted By: MovieGique]

Part of the problem with modern Hollywood fare is that, not only are the movies terrible—or at least terribly bland—the trailers are awful. You can't tell whether you want to see a movie because the trailers are all the same and they all seem to spoil whatever meager surprise the movie might have in store. In the case of Ready or Not, for example, there are no less than two accidental murders ("accidental murders" makes sense in context) shown which set the tone, yes, but also spoil a lot of the early jokes. And AMC is showing 20+ minutes of trailers now, not to mention pre-trailer "content" as if we didn't all have so much consarn content in our lives we actually needed more.

ready or not 01.jpg
I swear, it's less of a commitment these days to get married than to go to a show.


But I sat through one of these 20 minute trailer/torture sessions and learned the following:


  • LOUD is EXCITING!

  • LOUD is DRAMATIC!

  • LOUD is FUNNY!

  • LOUD is SCARY!

  • LOUD is EVERYTHING!


I mean, I assume that 1) I'm an old man, and; 2) young whippersnappers today are just hollering their heads off while texting on their gizmos instead of paying attention to the (awful, awful) trailers. But the aggressive loudness and corporate sameness of the trailers actually makes the current crop of movies look worse than they probably are.

But, hell, I pay my $25/month tithe to AMC so I'm gonna see a damned movie, no matter how awful. And I had a feeling that this one might be to my taste, as I love a good black comedy—or even a bad one, to be honest. (I'm not as picky as my critique might suggest.)


And? Well, Ready or Not was good. It's not gonna knock your socks off by any means, but it's fun and well-made, and (as The Boy) pointed out, made by people who seemed to actually care about what's going on.


ready or not 02.jpg
Andie MacDowell, looking like she cares. (She does, but she's gonna kill you anyway.)

The story is simple: Grace (Samra Weaving, Three Billboards Outside Ebbings, Montana) has married Alex Le Domas (Mark O'Brien, Arrival) and per family tradition, the new member must play a game. Alex's very wealthy family runs a gaming dominion—board games, quaintly enough—and this is just one of their little quirks. Why, the two most recently married siblings played Old Maid and chess. How charming!

But Grace gets "Hide and Seek", and as the movie opener shows, in hide-and-seek, the new member hides and the rest of the family seeks—and kills—the hapless newlywed. This happened 30 years earlier and we see Alex's older brother Daniel (played in adult form by Adam Brody, Yoga Hosers) protecting him from viewing the murder or participating. (Daniel is now an alcoholic jerk who likes to hit on Grace.)

Anyway, this is your set up: A bunch of rich people and their servants chasing Grace around a mansion and points beyond.


ready or not 03.jpg
It doesn't end well for the servants.

The story raises a lot of questions, of course: We can gloss over the whole underlying question of why would anyone do this, though the movie gives us a premise that is serviceable enough for the genre. But what the movie does rather well is address the emotional "why". Why would Alex, who presumably genuinely loves Grace, put her into this situation? The movie gives us several possible answers all while raising a lot of absolutely necessary questions regarding Alex's character. This creates some good tension.

And it's the sort of thing that The Boy and I talk about when we say "somebody cared". It's easy enough to have some cool effects and thrilling moments all piled up into a hash. But when you treat your characters with a certain amount of respect—not just as vehicles for plot points—you get what we call "a real movie".

For example, it's very clear that none of the Le Domases really wants to do this. They feel they must. And they're not especially competent—a fact highlighted in the over-revealing trailer—which leads to the darker comedic moments. But they all have different reactions to their fates.

Alex's mom, Becky (played by Andie Macdowell, whom I liked better here at 60 than I did in heyday in the '90s) is really nice to Grace and seems to really mean it. But she also really means it when she sets out to kill her—for the family. Meanwhile, brother-in-law Fitch (Kristian Bruun, Mark O'Brien's co-star in How To Plan An Orgy In A Small Town), is very much on the fence as to whether or not the murder is really necessary. By contrast, Daniel's wife Charity (the very hot Elyse Levesque, who shares credits with Bruun on "Orphan Black") is in the "better safe than sorry" camp.


ready or not 04.jpg
L-to-R: Bruun, Melanie Scrofano (who plays Bruun's drug-addled wife), Henry Czerny (as papa Le Domas), MacDowell and Levesque.

In other words, from a comical/comic-book premise, we get characters who act how people might actually act in such bizarre circumstances. So you end up caring. That means that when Grace suffers, you feel some of that pain. When she nearly gets away, you root for her to make it that last mile. When she stops one of her attackers, you're happy for her, in sort of a grim way. This is a hard thing to do in black comedy, which has a tendency to flatten characters out to make some sort of ironic point.

I realized how it was going to play out just before the climax of the film, but at the point where there was only one reasonable dramatic choice, so it kept me guessing as long as it could—without ruining itself by trying to add a shocking twist! I could tell from the beats how the denouement was going to go as well, and it was a bit...garish...I guess you'd call it? But it was probably the only thing a modern audience would've accepted, so no points deducted there.

Co-directors and frequent collaborators Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett have only one other feature under their belt, the disappointing Devil's Due. But if they can pull off a movie like this—and it does seem to be doing well—they have a bright future ahead.


ready or not 05.jpg
As bright as a bride on the morning after her wedding.

digg this
posted by OregonMuse at 07:52 PM

| Access Comments




Recent Comments
tubal: "So, if a governor resigns, the Lieutenant Governor ..."

MAC V SOG: " Popular Left-Wing Political Commentator, Jennifer ..."

TheJamesMadison, finding suspense, madness, and humanity with Michael Powell: "400 The governor appoints the replacement for a pe ..."

Eromero: "By the light of the full beaver moon…… ..."

My 14 year old self : "Beaver hunt! ..."

Archimedes: "[i]Foamboy as Sec. of State will essentially be an ..."

rickb223 Gold & Silver Spot Prices [s][/b][/i][/u]: "Why are there armed IRS agents? Posted by: I gott ..."

Kindltot: "[i]I brought home my gym uniform in junior high an ..."

Debby Doberman Schultz: "Jennifer Rubin is popular?? Who knew? ..."

Tonypete: "Anybody commenting on the Full Beaver Supermoon wi ..."

t-bird: "[i]The Captive Slave[/i] Pretty nice watch he's ..."

It's me donna : "400 The governor appoints the replacement for a pe ..."

Recent Entries
Search


Polls! Polls! Polls!
Frequently Asked Questions
The (Almost) Complete Paul Anka Integrity Kick
Top Top Tens
Greatest Hitjobs

The Ace of Spades HQ Sex-for-Money Skankathon
A D&D Guide to the Democratic Candidates
Margaret Cho: Just Not Funny
More Margaret Cho Abuse
Margaret Cho: Still Not Funny
Iraqi Prisoner Claims He Was Raped... By Woman
Wonkette Announces "Morning Zoo" Format
John Kerry's "Plan" Causes Surrender of Moqtada al-Sadr's Militia
World Muslim Leaders Apologize for Nick Berg's Beheading
Michael Moore Goes on Lunchtime Manhattan Death-Spree
Milestone: Oliver Willis Posts 400th "Fake News Article" Referencing Britney Spears
Liberal Economists Rue a "New Decade of Greed"
Artificial Insouciance: Maureen Dowd's Word Processor Revolts Against Her Numbing Imbecility
Intelligence Officials Eye Blogs for Tips
They Done Found Us Out, Cletus: Intrepid Internet Detective Figures Out Our Master Plan
Shock: Josh Marshall Almost Mentions Sarin Discovery in Iraq
Leather-Clad Biker Freaks Terrorize Australian Town
When Clinton Was President, Torture Was Cool
What Wonkette Means When She Explains What Tina Brown Means
Wonkette's Stand-Up Act
Wankette HQ Gay-Rumors Du Jour
Here's What's Bugging Me: Goose and Slider
My Own Micah Wright Style Confession of Dishonesty
Outraged "Conservatives" React to the FMA
An On-Line Impression of Dennis Miller Having Sex with a Kodiak Bear
The Story the Rightwing Media Refuses to Report!
Our Lunch with David "Glengarry Glen Ross" Mamet
The House of Love: Paul Krugman
A Michael Moore Mystery (TM)
The Dowd-O-Matic!
Liberal Consistency and Other Myths
Kepler's Laws of Liberal Media Bias
John Kerry-- The Splunge! Candidate
"Divisive" Politics & "Attacks on Patriotism" (very long)
The Donkey ("The Raven" parody)
Powered by
Movable Type 2.64