Ready or Not (2019)

3.5 stars ✨

This comedy slasher flick has a lot to say about wealth. It does it in an over the top way, but it does.

Grace (Samara Weaving) grew up in foster homes and wants nothing more than a real family. She is getting just that as she prepares to wed her rich boyfriend Alex (Mark O’Brien).

After the ceremony Alex reveals the family tradition: whenever a person joins the family, that person must draw a card and the entire family must play the game on the card. Grace draws the most dangerous card: hide and seek. The La Domas family become the seekers and the person who drew the card is the hider and the family must sacrifice the hider before the sun comes up.

Grace was unaware of what was at stake as Alex never revealed to her the family tradition before that point. Alex was hesitant to marry Grace as he knew the risk, but he gave in because Grace really wanted a wedding. She wanted a family as she never had one growing up. Grace also wanted Alex to fix the rift between him and his family as he hadn’t spoken to them in years. Of course, Grace is furious once she realizes her life is at stake.

She arms herself with the weapons in the family’s study and prepares to defend herself. This is a horror comedy so don’t expect much blood and gore. The La Domas family and their odd tradition does bring in laughs especially since this is the first time in decades that someone has drawn the hide and seek card and the younger members of the family make mistake after mistake in their nervous state. 

The matriarch Becky LaDomas (Andie MacDowell) seems as loving and caring as any mother at first. The more things go awry the more nuances come out in her performance as her calm facade falls away. 

The entire ensemble is fantastic. Weaving stands out and I’m sure has a bright future ahead of her. Her expressions and delivery are spot on. Melanie Scrofano as the drugged up daughter is funny. She is the biggest wreck out of everyone and accidentally kills two of the maids in the process. Her husband played by Kristian Brunn is also funny. Having been assigned the crossbow, he needs to take a break before starting the hunt to look up tutorials on how to use it. 

Another standout is Nicky Guadagni as Aunt Helene. She more than anyone is eager to kill Grace and conduct the ritual. Adding to the comedy is the clothing she is wearing and the permanent bitch face she has from start to finish. 

Ready or Not is great up until the end which felt uninspired to me. Still I enjoyed it up until this point. If you’re looking for standard horror fare, this isn’t it. If you’re looking for a good time, I think you’ll enjoy this. It’s fun to laugh at these over the top rich people and the lengths they’ll go to keep their riches. I don’t think anyone out there is keeping their riches by sacrificing people, but people do weird things to stay relevant.

American Moor at the Cherry Lane Theatre 🎭

Actors deal with a lot of crap. The things we have to go through can be incredibly frustrating.

The actor played by Keith Hamilton Cobb in “American Moor” is auditioning for “Othello”. The actor makes is quite clear that auditioning is a major frustration as actors only have a few minutes to prove they are worthy of a role.

This is clearly a semi-autobiographical piece as the actor, also named Keith, delves deeper into the annoying aspects of auditioning. The audience is the actor’s sounding board as he vents everything on his mind.

The director is a faceless entity sitting somewhere in the audience. He’s late for the audition and proceeds to continue as though nothing is wrong. The director is a much younger man, clearly not as experienced as the actor, yet he talks down to the actor as though he knows everything.

One of the actor’s many gripes is that directors talk about Shakespeare and his plays as though they know everything Shakespeare intended.

All the research in the world could never reveal Shakespeare’s true intentions as he’s been dead for centuries. The only thing that the young white director and Shakespeare have in common is that they believe to know what a black man is thinking. These racial tensions are the prevalent story in Mr. Cobb’s play. Yes, he is auditioning for the role of “Othello”, but he knows firsthand what it’s like to be Othello in the sense that they are both black men who want better things for themselves, but society does not aid them.

Society hinders them in their journey.

The actor explains all this to the audience. He does not however, tell this to the director as he wants the job.

Of course in telling the audience, we are continued to be made aware of a major problem still found in this industry. There is still a major lack of diversity on the stage, and if there isn’t, there is probably a lack of diversity in the director’s seat. That lack of diversity in the director’s chair may unwittingly prevent an actor of color from fully expressing their opinion on a character, which occurs with the actor in this play even during the audition, and this is where the frustration stems from.

Some may take this personally while watching the show. The anger and frustration are justified though, and truly never sound accusatory.

It also makes sense as we watch the actor and director interact. The director played by Josh Tyson, stops the actor a few lines into Othello’s monologue, and gives him adjustments.

The actor does not agree with these adjustments. The actor tells the director why he has made the acting choices he has. There’s nothing he can ultimately do however, except do the adjustments as asked.

The actor does so and it is what it is.

“American Moor” finds clever ways to tie the actor’s experiences and Othello’s experiences together. Just as Othello must switch the way he talks in the presence of senators, the actor talks differently to the director than he does to the audience. As his frustration with the director grows, you expect the actor to break at any point.

As interesting as this play was to watch, it did get repetitive at times. Points that were made before the director shows up were made again afterwards. As the actor’s frustration grows, the points get drilled more than once.

There is definitely a difference between the actor’s discussions with the director and those with the audience. It does take a moment to get used to, though.

The play is important and will hopefully encourage more dialogue between everyone involved in the industry. It is something that still needs to be fixed. Still, the length of this play could have been cut.

It’s also exhilarating to hear Mr. Cobb’s love/hate relationship with Othello. Othello provides a great three dimensional character for black actors to explore, but that is usually the only Shakespeare role people can see them in as opposed to any of the other Shakespearean leads in existence, which honestly any actor of color can relate to.

Mr. Cobb is great. His interpretation of Othello as well as his delivery of the director’s interpretations were fantastic and I wish we could have seen more of that. I’m looking forward to seeing any future projects he’s in.

Roseanna (Martin Beck, #1) by Maj Sjöwall

“Of course I acted in school plays but mostly as angels or mushrooms.”

This is the first book in a series that follows Swedish detective Martin Beck. He does his job. He’s quite ordinary and there is nothing particularly special about him. He struggles with depression. He works a lot and barely sees his family. He’s married, but he’s no longer happy in his marriage. She wishes he’d spend more time with his the kids and he doesn’t want to. It’s refreshing to see a perfectly ordinary man be the protagonist. 

When Martin Beck is physically home, he isn’t there emotionally. He spends most of his time alone. He doesn’t pursue his family. They’re used to him not being around. 

The crime Martin Beck is sent to solve is the murder and rape of an American tourist named Roseanna McGraw. Her body is fished out of the lake at the start of the novel. The body was found near a small town that doesn’t have the resources to solve the crime, so they send for Beck and his team. Beck becomes close to a detective from the small town and together they team up to lead the investigation. There are no clues or leads to the case.

The reader gets a glimpse into the highs and lows of the investigation. This includes getting in touch with an American detective to help them interview people who knew Roseanna. The reader is presented with the interviews in the format of a transcript. The interviews get personal and uncomfortable at times. This does help Beck figure out the profile of potential suspects. There are dull moments in the book as there times when the investigation comes to a stand still until new clues are uncovered. Beck does finally figure out who committed the crime. At this point, Beck is desperate to solve the crime. He is sure he has found the killer, but has no substantial proof so he has to figure out a way to get him to confess. The book is clever in showing the reality of solving a crime, but it can be boring. 

Dora and the Lost City of Gold (2019)

3.5 stars ✨

I was told too old to watch Dora the Explorer when it premiered in the early 2000s. The show was aimed at toddlers as it followed five year old Dora, her companion Boots the monkey and her talking backpack as the explored different regions of I’m guessing Latin America. Needless to say when a Dora adaptation was announced I was one of the many people who scoffed at the idea. The adaptation takes place ten years later with a fifteen year old Dora at the helm. It can be silly and ridiculous, but it’s surprisingly a lot of fun especially since it doesn’t take itself too seriously.

There aren’t too many films starring a mainly Latino cast. I balked at the idea of watching this film at first, but seeing the success of “Black Panther” and “Crazy Rich Asians” I knew I had to give this one a chance. I loved “Black Panther” and “Crazy Rich Asians” and I loved that I got to support these diverse films that were also genuinely good films. And despite my initial reservations “Dora” was also a good film. Is it going to win Oscars or get nominated like the other two? Probably not, but I went, I saw and I had a great time.

Tiny Pretty Things (Tiny Pretty Things, #1) by Sona Charaipotra

"The moment you think you’re on top is the moment you lost your passion."

I read this book as part of my Popsugar Reading Challenge. The challenge this time was to read a book by two authors. 

This book was fun to read and although it was over the top dramatic at times, it didn’t bother me too much so I give this three stars. 

I loved reading about the mean girls found at the center of this book and the ways they tried to stay on top. This is probably not a realistic portrayal of life at a ballet school, but I lived for the drama. 

There was backstabbing and privilege and threats and bullying. As I mentioned this is probably too over the top to be an accurate representation of ballet school, but it did give a glimpse into the hard work that goes into ballet as well as the pressure they feel to keep their body looking a certain way.

I enjoyed that the story is told in the first person by three different characters. 

*Bette is blonde and thin and the perfect ballerina in every way, but she also lives in the shadow of her sister who became a professional at the age of fifteen. 

*Gigi is the newest student to the New York school adjusting to the differences between there and California and as the only black student at the school she has a lot to prove although she’s currently the best dancer enrolled. 

*June is half-Korean, battling an eating disorder and fighting to prove to her mother that she deserves to stay at the school. 

The book’s main plot points come from different pressures the dancers are experiencing and how that affects how they treat themselves and others. 

The book is easy and quick to read. The chapters are short and sometimes this is problematic because after a major event we cut to a different point in time sometimes without fully exploring what happened. Some things feel unnecessarily rushed and many things are left unresolved with the hope being that everything is answered in the sequel. 

Overall I enjoyed the book. The ending especially leaves the reader with more questions than answers. . The second book is out for anyone who wants to read the books back to back. I felt so unsatisfied with all the new questions brought up that I chose to look at spoilers instead. Patience has never been my strong suit and that ending left me with too much energy to wait. I don’t necessarily hate books that end with a cliffhanger, but most do not leave you with that many questions left unanswered.

I want to read the second book, but I’ll see what happens. I was intrigued by the ballet aspects of the book and I wish the sequel focused more on that because while I loved the drama, I do think drama added for drama’s sake can be overwhelming. 

I also should note that the pictures are not affiliated with the book at all, but my reviews with pictures get more views and ballerinas are beautiful.

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019)

3.5 Stars ✨

“Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” is based on the children’s horror book by Alvin Schwartz. The film is adapted in a way that showcases some of the popular stories found in the book, but with a bigger plot to tie them all together. It’s an interesting way to bring the stories to life, but it is done well.

The film is directed by Andre Ovredal with Guillermo del Toro working behind the scenes as well, we are taken back in time to 1968. The events unfold in a small farming community in Pennsylvania. The main protagonists start their journey on Halloween night after hiding from the town bullies at their local drive in.

Stella (Zoe Margaret Colletti) and her best friends Auggie (Gabriel Rush) and Chuck (Austin Zajur) dress up and head out for a night of tricks. Their plan is to play a trick on the town bully Tommy  (Austin Abrams). Their trick goes off without a hitch, but unwittingly Chuck’s older sister Ruth (Natalie Ganzhorn) is caught in the crossfire. She has agreed to go on a date with Tommy and is in the car when the trick is played. Stella, Auggie and Chuck run to the drive in theatre and end up the car belonging to Ramon (Michael Garza) in an effort to hide from Tommy. Tommy finds the friends, but Ramon is able to fend him off. From there, the group of four head to the town’s boarded up haunted house.

Stella reveals that the former inhabitants had a daughter named Sarah Bellows who was sent to an insane asylum where she eventually died. Legend says that if you ask Sarah to tell you a story, it’s the last story you will ever hear. Tommy finds the friends and locks them in the basement and while the boys are trying to find a way out, Stella takes Sarah’s book of stories and asks to be told one. After the protagonists escape the house, one by one they (and everyone inside the house including Tommy and Ruth) become subjects in Sarah’s story book which Stella finds she can’t get rid of or destroy it.

The scary stories Sarah is writing are the scary stories of the source material. They are incredibly well done. The first story is that of Harold the scarecrow who lives on Tommy’s cornfield and is a great introduction to the stories. All the stories take place in different parts of the town and the use of colors and the contrast between light and dark are the most effective tools in creating the atmosphere. As this film is aimed at the younger demographic, it is not too scary, but that doesn’t mean you won’t feel creeped out by the creatures the characters encounter.

The ending hints at a sequel. This isn’t a bad thing. There are sequels to the book after all. That does mean though, that the film has an open ended ending. The film has a great climax, but the film doesn’t wrap up as nicely as you would like. I’m not personally bothered by this, but I know many people do want a clear ending. I appreciate what this film accomplished. I’m also looking forward to more.

I think that “Scary Stories” handled the source material well. It took it in an interesting direction that I felt overall worked well. I applaud the filmmakers for making a scary movie for younger audiences especially because it relies so much on atmosphere to scare the audience rather than constant jump scares and unnecessary amounts of blood and gore.

Rinse, Repeat at Pershing Square Signature Theatre

The first thing you see when you enter the theatre is the set. The set consists of a kitchen that can be found in any modern home.

“Rinse, Repeat” written by and starring Domenica Feraud is set in the kitchen as Rachel and her mother Joan figure out their relationship to food.

The play opens with Rachel (Domenica Feraud) returning home after four months away. She’s a law student at Yale. However, she isn’t coming home for vacation, Rachel has been an at in patient treatment center recovering from anorexia.

Rachel is home for a trial weekend to see if she is ready to be released from the treatment center. Her parents Joan (Florencia Lozano) and Peter (Michael Hayden) are concerned for their daughter, but are  at odds about how to treat her.

They fail to see how they affect their daughter’s relationship to food. Joan eats little and is incredibly thin.

Peter does all the cooking to ensure that his daughter hits her calorie count at every meal. He does nothing, however, to ensure that his wife is eating. Rachel sees this and finds it difficult to eat when her mother isn’t being held to the same standards.

Adding to Rachel’s stress is her fear of disappointing her mother. Joan strives for perfection and while Rachel dreams of being a poet, she’s attending law school because that’s what her mother wants.

The only one who truly seems to understand Rachel is her younger brother Brody (Jake Ryan Lozano). He is angry at Rachel for almost killing herself and is closed off to her presence at first.

Rachel’s poems are oddly read by her brother throughout the play. This is really the only complaint I have as the play is fully engaging and the characters are fully fleshed out.

This play deals with the cycle that many face, but are unable to escape. A parent has an unhealthy relationship with food and unwittingly passes it on to their child and so on and so forth until someone decides they want to break free and in this play, you want Rachel to break free.