My baby you'll be

Oct 28, 2020

"There are no rules in this house,
I'm not like a regular mom,
I'm a cool mom."

PINNED: this newsletter is supposed to be a friendly recapping of the movies in, and coming to, theaters. But things be real weird right now. So until that changes in earnest, I'll either be suggesting old favorites to revisit, pointing out recent flicks you may have missed or calling out notable new VOD / streaming options.

Reading this newsletter the last few weeks (months?) you'd be forgiven for thinking there are no movies playing in theaters. But there are.

Now, they aren't big or necessarily "good" movies mind you, but there are movies. Add that roughly 85% of theaters are open in North America and it gets even more head scratching. So why am I not featuring them? Well, because of this.

"This" being box office revenues. Last weekend, all movies combined(!) made $11 million. That might sound like a lot of money, but it is not a lot of money. Hell, the utterly forgettable Mark Wahlberg action movie Mile 22 made $13 million in its 2018 opening weekend. Suffice it to say, people are scared of going to theaters. Unless you could saaaay rent out an entire theater for like a hundred bucks? Which you can do! And people are doing - a lot, apparently.

All that to let you know that I'll be sure to feature movies of note when they're in theaters, but those continue to look less and less likely through the end of the year (as well as into next). Btw, a big part of that is because theaters in NY / LA are still closed. New York City is inching closer, but if they don't have the movies, it doesn't really much matter now does it? : /

Good thing we have a bunch of forthcoming streaming options and already released gems to watch in the mean time eh?

Speaking of...

PS It doesn't fit this week's theme, but if you're looking for a horror flick and none of the below options are your bag, do check out It Follows. I mention it almost every email because I love it that much. It's terrifying. It's fresh. It's fun.

This Week's Theme: mooooooooooooooom!!!

In honor of both my mother's birthday (today!), happy birthday mom! ❤️, and the forthcoming Halloween weekend, I'm featuring three horror(ish) mother-themed movies.

Btw, the three flicks I'm featuring are by no means an exhaustive list in this lovingly horrific Venn Diagram. For example, if you haven't seen Hereditary, I strongly recommend that one. I also saw Psycho for the first time last year and it was even better than I thought it'd be. Way better actually. A friend also just told me about Goodnight Mommy, an Austrian movie (same director's as last year's The Lodge - also a mother related horror movie) that's apparently terrifyingly messed up, and great! The original Friday the 13th where Jason is nowhere to be seen, but a certain family member is. And of course there's Rosemary's Baby.

Jesus, as I type this I'm realizing there are way more of these than I thought. I guess we all have mommy issues of some sort, and maybe movies are a great way to get some of them exercised.

That, or movies are just cheaper (and more entertaining) than therapy? 🤷‍♂️

THE BABADOOK
(2014)

The Babadook is often referenced as one of the most terrifying movies to come out this century. Hell, the director of The Exorcist called it the scariest movie he's ever seen. What could be so chilling? Well, there's a single mother dealing with depression and isolation years after her husband faced a violent death, a child that's becoming more unruly and even cruel, judgement from other mothers and oh, not like a big deal at all, but also a monochromatic creature called The Babadook that erupts from a children's book who begins to creep, crawl and induce a living nightmare for mother and son.

And while this is a scary movie, it's also a thoughtful one. And lucky for you, those things are not mutually exclusive. Because while there will be things to consider after watching, during there's a good chance the only thing you'll be thinking about is how many fingers you should hold in front of your eyes.

Give It a Shot If: you're a mother looking for a cathartic experience / want to scare your pants off

Details: 98% on RT (238 reviews)
NR, 1 hrs 33 mins, IFC

MOTHER
(2010)

Lucky for me, it's way easier to get someone's attention with this movie, now that Parasite did its thing - seeing as they share a director (Bong Joon-Ho). And while Joon-Ho has been making celebrated movies for years, Parasite took that shit to another level, but that doesn't mean his previous ones were hidden cellars or something.

And while Mother is probably technically a thriller, just consider it relief from the other two movies featured here. Now, that doesn't mean this movie will be "easy." Have you seen Parasite? That movie was great, but undemanding I would not call it. Here, Joon-Ho follows a mother, literally only called "Mother" in the movie, and her son who she takes care of - in part because he can sometimes be a danger to himself. But when the cops think he has become a danger to someone else - as in they think he brutally murdered a young woman - well, Mother has to go full momma bear and rage her way through the community trying to find the real(?) killer.

So it's all straightforward then, right? Riiiiiight.

Give It a Shot If: you love the smothering embrace of a mother, any mother

Details: 96% on RT (117 reviews)
PG-13, 2 hrs 8 mins, Magnolia

MOTHER!
(2017)

Definitely the hardest of the three to explain and most likely to be disliked. Scratch that. Hated. This is a movie that generated some of the strongest (and hilarious) opinions of a theatrical release in a long time. Viewers' thoughts were so ardent that Paramount decided to use the film's polarizing effect as a marketing tool. Even the fact the movie features a lot of names (Jennifer Lawrence in the lead, with Javier Bardem, Ed Harris, and Michelle Pfeiffer) couldn't stop it from becoming one of only 21 movies to ever receive an F Cinemascore (a rating given by audiences after seeing a movie in theaters). Or more likely, the stars' presence helped skew expectations.

All that to say, you've been warned!

The movie's plot as it where is relatively sparse, with the focus on Lawrence (as in the previous film, only named Mother), Bardem (Him) and the home they live in, seemingly miles away from anyone else. Lawrence is in charge of all housekeeping (housebuilding?) while Bardem tries to write poems in sequestration. But then Harris (Man) and Pfeiffer (Woman) show up...

If you're guessing by the naming scheme that there's an allegory here, you're probably right! The real test will be to see if you sit through the whole movie to find which allegories.

Oh, it's also worth noting mother! was directed by Darren Aronofsky, glee-maker extraordinaire; see his other delightful films like: Pi, Requiem for a Dream, Black Swan.

Give It a Shot If: you wanna get straight biblical with it

Details: 68% on RT (374 reviews)
R, 2 hrs, Paramount

Highlights

The Midnight Sky - George Clooney directing a sci-fi about... something?? Note: Netflix joint

The White Tiger - a young servant in India discovers his desires in the world. Based on the book of the same name Note: Netflix joint

Dreamland - Margot Robbie is a fugitive during The Great Depression who gets befriended / captured by a young bounty hunter

News of the World - full trailer for Tom Hanks / Paul Greengrass movie about a traveling newsman who takes charge of a young girl

What's In Theaters +

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