aaronlbacks

As a fan of Bo Burnham since he was posting rap songs on YouTube, I am proud to say he made a pretty solid directorial debut with Eighth Grade. Firstly, as anticipated, this movie is hilarious as hell, and the comedy written in is quite smart as well. And even though the comedy is sharp and witty and IMDb classifies this film as a comedy, I don't think Bo's intentions were to make the audience guffaw. To me, it felt more like a drama with comedic elements thrown in, and I really like that decision. It gave the appearance that he had a message to get across to any struggling eighth grader out there, or even any sort of adult because the theme is quite universal (and kind of trite in the way he portrayed it, but I'll discuss that later), that hope always lays on the horizon, and I'm glad that he was passionate enough about this message that he didn't want to smother it in comedy, even though he could have done so quite easily. While I'm praising the writing, I ought to applaud Bo on the fact that he has a really good eye for watching and scribing how people interact, and teens of this age are so complex to write, especially of this age, it's honestly a miracle he was able to portray them this accurately and consistently for the entire movie. Like I worked at a Boy Scout summer camp for the entirety of this summer and by being around kids this age for like two months, I can say he really hit the nail on the head with how they act - the memes, the social media, the cliques, all of it. I wouldn't be surprised if this movie is seen as a sort of time capsule of this era for future generations, similar to what Dazed and Confused is today. But regardless of all the trends that will inevitably pass, the relatability of blossoming human emotions at this age, and coping with who you want to be in life is explored beautifully and will definitely stand the test of time. I definitely felt for Elsie Fisher, who plays Kayla Day, the eponymous eighth grader of the film, and does an amazing job for such a young actress, as she stood in the bathroom working up the courage to enter a party of strangers who thought she was weird. Or as she called to have her dad pick her up early. Or as she explored crushes, and her boundaries in an incredibly frightening scene towards the end of the movie. (I'd like to address this scene as I felt it was incredibly well done and made me feel super anxious as I'm sure Kayla felt in the moment. But the downside is that its inclusion confused me a little bit? I'm sure it happens in life, but if you take the scene completely out of the movie, it doesn't affect anything, which it definitely would have in real life. This is the one major pit fall in the writing.) Generally just the sense of trying to fit in. And while the film was enjoyable while it explored this theme, it did it in a very lowest common denominator way which was quite disappointing. I found that even though this movie was only an hour and a half long, it started really dragging at some point because there were so many scenes I had seen a million times and the end was so predictable. And compounding on that, the shot composition of the film was quite bland too and that likely contributed as well because the visual department was lacking. Swiss Army Man from 2016 explored many of the same themes of self-discovery in a much more interesting way and it ended up becoming one of my favorites from that year. It's a fine line that needs walked when handling a message that's been used since Shakespeare ("Above all, to thine own self, be true."). And that's a little disappointing coming from Bo Burnham because I know what he's capable of and I feel like he could have done so much more with this movie. But maybe I'm expecting too much out of his debut because it really isn't that bad. I hope he learns a lot from this movie and perfects his craft in the time in between his next movie. Watching him evolve and accomplish so much at such a young age is incredibly inspiring and I can't wait to see what Bo does next!

I think devout Christians don't inherently hate atheists, or even if they were touched by the Lord's word, they would never hate a fellow brother, but content like this must at least make them shake their heads and search for points where that atheist "took the wrong path in life." This movie was an embarrassment. It's an ostentatious crazy man, dressed only in robes and sporting sporadic hair and long, chipped fingernails, yelling slurs at people on the street as they quickly shuffle by him with groceries clutched closely to their chests so that he may not grab an apple out of their bag, take a bite, and then proceed to harass them, spittle and apple juice flying onto their face as they weep for their dignity. That man is Seth Rogan, and the victim is me. In short, this movie made me feel sad, depressed, lonely. And very uncomfortable I might add. The animation felt off in a really gross way. In a way, the animation reminded me of those like animated pornography videos where it takes the Family Guy characters and they have sex. Like it was that cheap, creepy, and unnatural, and a few parts here and there made my skin crawl due to how uncanny they looked. But the worst part, regarding animation, was just the character designs; not only is the theme presented to you like you're a dumbass, the jokes are presented to you that way too. Wow, that bun was oddly anthropomorphic; was it supposed to make me horny? Its limbs really creeped me out, like they come out of nowhere and they sort of just like disappear into the bun's ass, but they don't really mold at all? I guess all of the limbs in this movie were kinda weird and gross. Weird and gross things also reminded me of all of the racist stereotyping in this movie? Like wow the Jewish bagel has a big nose and it doesn't get along with the Arab lavash. Idk it just felt really distasteful, especially in a day and age where everyone gets called out on their BS. Generally however, I think it's good to poke fun in this way because it reminds us that nothing really is sacrosanct and everything is on the playing field as far as comedy goes, but this edgy humor offended me more because it was bad more than any of the wide variety of controversial topics it brushed (religion, abstinence, race, Stephen Hawking? (RIP)). I will admit however, a few got through my cracks, for I am not impervious!, and they gave me a chuckle, and if it can at least intentionally entertain me a little bit, it's not a perfectly awful movie. Anyhow, the most offensive piece of this whole movie was the atheist "WAKE UP SHEEPLE" point of view. Hey Catholic over there! You're blinded by God's semen in your eyes! One, this sort of statement is incredibly preachy and just generally offensive, and it would just push the wool further over the eyes of that individual. (To be transparent, I think I would identify as an atheist, depends on what side of the bed I wake up on). And they address how atheists shouldn't be as preachy as religious people and then they aren't and it just solves the problem? Providing a rational dogmatic argument in a debate on religion, WHERE YOU CAN'T BE DOGMATIC, against a holistically brainwashed opposing community is not going to sway anyone whatsoever. No one will give a damn. But of course, this movie just has to follow a beat by beat generic movie structure where all the sad parts have to be resolved really quickly because this animation is super expensive and we can't afford to make an actual reasonable ending and the villain has to be defeated even though he wasn't really the main antagonist and was more of just a nuisance, but you know, whatever I guess. Another positive thing I have is that while it hits the sad part where the characters divide up (because they always have to!), it brought this about in a way that just makes sense. And even though it's a really clichéd move, it executes it very soundly. But back to the theme, I think the movie would have been much better if a character came onto screen and just read a very extensive (well, not too extensive because most of these ideas were pretty thin and were exhausted waaaaay before the 45 minute mark) monologue expressing the opinions of the writing crew rather than just writing a script where the characters are talking to each other, but they're always actually talking to you. Any line could have been taken out of context and just stated as a fourth-wall breaking statement to the audience and it would make sense/wouldn't feel out of place. Also, it felt they really wanted to get this message across so they dumbed it down like even below the common denominator. Below the common denominator in math doesn't even really make sense, but somehow this movie managed to do just so because it just that stupid. And I wanted to add that I really hated most of the transitions between the two main story arcs - a lot were really corny and they always came at awful times and interrupted whatever flow this movie had going for it. Idk I can't really sum this up other than just simply saying it's a mess, a stain on the movie industry, the eight deadly sin, and generally just an embarrassment to the entire human condition.

Yeah Idk, if this is one of the best of the past few years, the horror genre is most definitely in the toilet right now. Not that there's never any quality films being released, but the feces always seems to float to the top for some reason. Must be the average horror director's diet I guess; a combination of bad teenage actors, a poorly written script, a super weird concept, and just a sense of wasted time has never sat well in my stomach. Not that this film was garbage by any means, because it really isn't, but it just hit too many beats and missed too many marks for it to be a good movie. I'll start with the strongest characteristic of the film which was most definitely the camerawork. The way it spins around the environment at a fixed point is incredibly eerie and pretty smart too. Generally, there's at least a few extras in the setting who happen to be walking towards the camera (which is the main shtick here - Maika Monroe has been "infected" with this weird occurrence where an entity disguised as a random person follows her slowly until it finally catches up and kills her after she had sex with a man already "infected."), and I was always franticly searching for the one with blacked out eyes. The constant extended zooms and pans were very unnerving and gave an air of admonishment. This alone puts it above a bunch of horror movies in that it has a creative concept in how it's filmed, and it uses this concept professionally in order to obtain what it wants. I also want to praise the fact that this film did get my heart beating a few times without using a jumpscare (even though a few were used throughout, they really could have been removed). And lastly, while the concept was weird, it was pretty original and I think if it were executed better it would have been an intriguing movie. And that's about it for praise. So maybe the biggest downfall was that it was so boooooring. The blood-pumping scenes are so few and far between and the space in between is filled with blasé dialogue about "Hey whadda we do guys?" "Idk man! I'm scared!" "AAAAAAAAAAA." Or actually, scratch that, the biggest downfall was that this movie gave the sense that it thought it was way more important and way better than it actually was, similar to It Comes At Night from last year as well. This is just any other schlocky horror film except that it looks nice. Really! If you closed your eyes, would the dialogue and ambience be enough to carry it? I can at least appreciate a movie like Happy Death Day, also from last year, for having fun with the material even though the material is a cheap knock-off of Groundhog Day. At least it doesn't have a pretentious miasma masking it attempting to make me feel like I'm watching some horror masterpiece. If it's a masterpiece, it just will be - no need to try and convince me it is. A masterpiece certainly wouldn't have CGI that just looked this awful for some reason? A masterpiece wouldn't make the antagonist so GOOFy lookin the way it walks. A masterpiece would have a more climatic ending that didn't rehash an attempted solution that had already failed like three times already in the movie! Go watch The VVitch if you want a good modern horror film that takes itself seriously. Or rather, go watch Happy Death Day for a fun, shlock-embraced mess.