Hi there! I hope everyone had a great week. Today I will share some thoughts on two Netflix movies that I had a chance to watch in the past week. And as always, there’s a playlist of 5 songs I have been listening to lately. Have a nice weekend!
THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW
After multiple postponements due to the pandemic, the long-awaited psychological thriller based on A.J. Finn’s novel is finally being released on Netflix today.
Joe Wright directs the movie, and he counts on a stellar ensemble to bring Finn's characters to life – Amy Adams plays Anna Fox, with Oscar winners Gary Oldman and Julianne Moore providing A-list support. The cast also includes Jennifer Jason Leigh as a woman who claims to be the real Jane Russell, Fred Hechinger who plays Russell’s son Ethan and Brian Tyree Henry from one of my favorite shows, ATLANTA, who plays Detective Little. The film also has the stars from THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER – Wyatt Russell as Anna’s tenant David, and Anthony Mackie as Edward Fox.
The film follows Anna Fox, an agoraphobic and depressed child psychologist, who is confined to her New York City apartment, spying on the apparently ideal family who has just moved into the opposite building. Despite being hiding in her apartment, Anna interacts with a variety of people, including her musician tenet David and members of the family in the apartment across the street, including 15-year-old Ethan and his mother Jane. After witnessing a brutal murder through her window, Anna enters an even deeper depression. She faces a feeling of helplessness trying to get others to believe what she saw. Which brings her to a breaking point.
At this point you are probably thinking, “this whole premise is a ripoff of Hitchcock’s REAR WINDOW” and you are absolutely right. The difference is that Jeff (Jimmy Stewart) is a likable, reliable, smart person, and Anna Fox is a sad, lonely, drug abuser, whining drunk.
Technically the film is perfect. The cinematography is gorgeous. The set production and performances are both top-notch. But it is hard to live up to expectations when your film is a carbon copy of one of the best psychological thrillers ever made. No matter how beautiful it looks and how great Amy Adams' performance is (and believe me, it is amazing). People will always compare it to the Hitchcock film which is much, much better.
THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW arrives on Netflix today May 14th.
ARMY OF THE DEAD
This new Zack Snyder movie has a great premise. Following a zombie outbreak in Las Vegas, a group of mercenaries takes the ultimate gamble: venturing into the quarantine zone to pull off the greatest heist ever attempted. Unfortunately, the execution of this fun idea falls way short.
Snyder came up with the idea for this deeper stint into zombie genre conventions shortly after finishing DAWN OF THE DEAD his 2004 film debut. Which is a remake of George A. Romero's 1978 film. ARMY OF THE DEAD is fun at times but it is mostly a hot mess. I will break this review into 2 parts, the good, with everything I liked about the movie. And the bad, with all my grievances about it.
The good:
The flick is very stylish. Super colorful and very well shot. The deaths are extremely gory and gross. Which works very well in zombie movies. The visual effects are very well done and creative. Also, Tig Notaro steals every scene she is in. It is hard to believe she wasn’t in the film when they first shot it and was included late digitally.
The bad:
The writing is as messy as the gore that spills all over in the movie. The characters are incredibly superficial, and very cliche. Their motivations to get into an area infested with zombies are mostly ridiculous. There's also a lot of pacing issues. There is absolutely no reason this film needed to be two and a half hours long. There's easily at least half an hour you can take out of the film just by tightening up most of the scenes.
Overall ARMY OF THE DEAD is a stylish but conventional popcorn zombie movie with an inflated budget and running time. The flick is being released in select theaters today, May 14th and on Netflix on May 21st.
Top 5 songs
These were the 5 songs on my heavy rotation this week. You can listen to them on Spotify and YouTube.
1 - KennyHoopla - hollywood sucks//
2 - Weezer - I Need Some Of That
3 - Aly & AJ - Symptom of Your Touch
4 - MOD SUN - Edge
5 - Ida Maria - Dirty Money