From Hocus Pocus 2 to Blonde, Not All These Movies Are Worth Your Watch
From wicked witches and fake friends to tanning bed time travel adventures, here’s some new movies you might want to check out… or not.
Blonde
Ana de Armas plays pop culture icon Marilyn Monroe in Netflix’s Blonde. Based on the 2000 novel of the same name by Joyce Carol Oates, the film is a fictionalized take on the life and career of the blonde bombshell.
While Blonde has some stunning visual cues taken from real life photos of Marilyn Monroe’s life, the film is exploitative, dehumanizing, and polarizing as it portrays Monroe as an infantile woman with daddy issues. A majority of the story is completely made up to dramatize Monroe’s life and add in sexual abuses that never happened. de Armas spends the entire film in hollow tears while battling with her Cuban accent as she attempts to portray Monroe.
What’s worse is director Andrew Dominik’s commentary on Blonde after the fact, with him clearly reducing the icon to being “a guy’s girl,” “a little baby,” and looking at her as “a person who is going to be killing themselves.” He doesn’t care about her lasting legacy or being tasteful, but instead about leaving viewers “shaking,” in traumatizing them.
If you really want to explore Monroe’s life, I recommend checking out Reframed: Marilyn Monroe, which shows female critics and experts highlighting her strength and ambition in the industry.
Blonde is streaming on Netflix.
Bodies Bodies Bodies
Dead bodies and fake friends show up at every turn when a party game goes very, very wrong in Bodies Bodies Bodies.
With the killer (pun intended) cast of Amandla Stenberg, Maria Bakalova, Myha’la Herrold, Chase Sui Wonders, Rachel Sennott, Lee Pace, and Pete Davidson, the film is cleverly written with an twisted and unexpected answer to who really dunnit.
Watch Bodies Bodies Bodies on Amazon Prime.
Hocus Pocus 2
Meta, nostalgic, and focused on sisterhood, the witches are BACK in Hocus Pocus 2! Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy return to the iconic role of the Sanderson sisters, while Whitney Peak, Belissa Escobedo, Lilia Buckingham, Doug Jones, Sam Richardson, Tony Hale, and Hannah Waddingham round out the rest of the cast.
Hocus Pocus 2 manages to capture the spirit of the original film, although some of the emotional moments don’t always land. The cast has great energy and the musical numbers are fun, but nothing holds a black flame candle to “I Put A Spell On You.” The sequel also shows us flashbacks of a teenage version of the Sanderson sisters and explains how they got their powers. The lore they introduce for them and Whitney Peak’s Becca is intriguing, but left me with more burning questions.
Hocus Pocus 2 is streaming on Disney+.
Meet Cute
What do they call doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results? Oh yeah, insanity. That’s what Kaley Cuoco and Pete Davidson go through in Meet Cute.
The film centers around a young woman grappling with suicidal thoughts who discovers that a tanning bed in a nail salon is a time machine. She continues to travel back 24 hours to relive the best date of her life over and over again, only to begin meddling even further into the past to “fix” her boyfriend when things aren’t going how she wants.
Sweet, funny, and poignant in the way it addresses relationships, mental health, and trauma, Meet Cute is surprising in the best way. Cuoco and Davidson have brilliant chemistry and play off each other so well.
Meet Cute is streaming on Peacock.
My Best Friend’s Exorcism
How far would you go to save a friend?
My Best Friend’s Exorcism asks that very question when Abby (Elsie Fisher) discovers her best friend Gretchen (Amiah Miller) has been possessed by a demon.
Based on the book by Grady Hendrix, the ‘80s focused comedy-horror adaptation is equal parts not funny or horrific. Lackluster, boring, and at times offensive in the way they insensitively try to tackle hot topics, My Best Friend’s Exorcism wastes its talented cast. The commentary on the power of strong female friendship seems forced in at the very end to make an undeserved point.
My Best Friend’s Exorcism is streaming on Prime Video.
On The Come Up
Following The Hate U Give, On The Come Up is the second book by Angie Thomas to be adapted into a feature film.
Jamila C. Gray plays 16-year-old Bri who wants to be the greatest rapper of all time. As she faces controversies and eviction notices, making it isn’t just something she wants to do… it’s something she has to do to support her family.
While On The Come Up is well meaning, it comes across as dated, lifeless, and overly sanitized. It reduces its characters to stereotypes with derivative dialogue and forced bars.
On The Come Up is streaming on Paramount+.
