Popcorn Perspectives with Danny Minton
Week of January 27, 2020
Parasite
Rated R for language, some violence and sexual content
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 99%
Available on Disc and Streaming
Perhaps the biggest surprise of this awards season is the extreme popularity of Bong Joon Ho’s latest drama, Parasite. The story follows a poor but street-smart family in South Korea who manage to place themselves, one by one, as servants of a wealthy family not paying attention. But just as they are starting to enjoy their new lifestyles, an ousted employee unveils secrets that are bound to cause extreme complications. Since 2007’s The Host, I have been a huge fan of Bong Joon Ho. His tales are always unique, weird, engaging and unforgettable. This one is no different. And while it’s not my favorite of his growing resume, I am certainly glad he’s getting the attention he deserves. What really works here is the creativity of the storytelling and the eclectic production design. It also helps to have a fantastic cast who can pull off such a tale. Strangely enough, I thought the plotting was a bit contrived and way too convenient. But if you just follow him down the rabbit hole, you’ll have a great time watching what could surprise everyone come Oscar night. A-
Terminator: Dark Fate
Rated R for violence throughout, language and brief nudity
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 70%
Available on Disc and Streaming
This new chapter in the Terminator franchise takes place after T2, as if the other subsequent chapters didn’t even exist. Here, Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), after the death of her son, commits her life to being a terminator hunter. When she meets a young woman getting her own special future protection, she decides to help the girl survive long enough for her to reach her potential. Quite honestly, this should have been a decent hit, rather than the disappointing flop it ended up becoming. James Cameron was back as producer. Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger were back in their iconic roles. And to round it off, Tim Miller (Deadpool) sat in the director’s chair with David Goyer (Batman Begins) as writer. It even had decent reviews. It’s a ginormous production with huge and impressive set pieces and even better special effects. My biggest problem with it was that the third act was a bit of a contrived mess, where everything happens just a bit too easy. But still, this is a big summer movie (which came out in November) and is worth a watch now at home. B
Harriet
Rated PG-13 for thematic content throughout, violent material and language including racial epithets
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 73%
Available on Disc and Streaming
Harriet stars Broadway star Cynthia Erivo as the American hero Harriet Tubman, a runaway slave who in turn fights to help hundreds of slaves escape the South to freedom in the North. Though we’ve learned about Tubman in school, I’ve been dying to see her come to bigger than life in a huge Hollywood movie. Unfortunately, this time out wasn’t that dream film we were clamoring for. Cynthia Erivo is most definitely the perfect actress for the part, but the screenplay here is just too simplistic to deliver the goods. Kasi Lemmons is a really great director and writer, but the narrative was unsuccessful when it comes to presenting such a legendary tale. Perhaps it was too ambitious and needed more of an HBO mini-series approach, but most likely this needed a different set of filmmakers whose skillsets could have made this story shine like it deserved. Here you’ll get a small taste of what made Tubman great, but unfortunately we’ll have to wait for a better project to come around in order to really be hit hard by her history. This is definitely not the biopic this legendary American deserves. C