The Foxy Film Fan

For better or worse, film has changed drastically since my last post to this blog. Star Wars  stopped being fun, the horror genre continued being amazing, The Joker  made me cry (a lot), Marvel kept making me shrug and say "it was alright, I guess," the Suspiria  remake let me feel smart as I explained what was happening to my poor confused family, and audiences read the disturbing accounts of Harvey Weinstein's sexual abuse over the past several decades. Everyone was shocked until they stopped being shocked, and eventually Weinstein was allowed to return to doing whatever it is rich men who get away with sexually abusing women do in their free time. Bumping into an ex is always uncomfortable, and writing this post feels strikingly similar. So, this is me avoiding eye contact and awkwardly shifting my weight from one foot to the other as I mumble my excuses. "I got lazy," "my measly UberEATS wages didn't cover the cost of how many movies I needed t...

The Paranormal Activity  series has become infamous for its routine of constant jumpscares and its title has become somewhat synonymous with lazy popular horror which people will line up to see year after year on opening night. Admittedly, I am not a big fan of the series in terms of its convoluted storyline and difficulty with upholding simple historical accuracy in films and sequences which flash back to previous decades. However, bearing all of that in mind, I do firmly believe that Paranormal Activity (particularly the first film in the series) is extremely important to the horror genre as a whole, even with its glaring flaws and reliance on jumpscares, simply due to the fact that it made horror films something that were easily accessible and easy to create for those who initially believed they might not have the budget for it. Prior to Paranormal Activity  perhaps the most notable cheap horror movie was The Blair Witch Project  a film which might be unnerving ...

I, like so many others, was skeptical when I heard news of the new M. Night Shyamalan film. For years he’s been disappointing film goers of all kinds, and with the release of the likes of The Last Airbender it became questionable who his target audience even was anymore. It almost began to seem as though he had lost sight of who he was, as though he wasn’t even the same director responsible for classics like The Sixth Sense . The announcement of Split failed to excite me, and though the premise seemed fascinating I refused to get my hopes up, especially with a trailer that provided enough room for one to imagine the film hastily devolving into another laughably bad mess like The Visit did. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case. In fact, Split was so good that there were many instances in which I had to remind myself that I was in fact watching a film by the same man who made After Earth and The Happening . The premise to Split is simple and not unlike that of an episode of...

In a genre filled with quick cuts and constant jump scares, The Babadook offers the exact opposite. Focusing on a grieving widow who is struggling to raise her son alone after the loss of her husband, The Babadook  gives a more sincere and heartfelt look into the horror genre than most other films. In fact, one might even say that it offers love and empathy and is straining to comfort its viewers despite the horrific themes and occurrences which take place in its one hour and thirty-five minute runtime. Of course, that isn't to say that the film isn't absolutely terrifying in the instances that it needs to be, while viewers watch the son and mother duo screech and dodge attacks from the terrifying Babadook, a twitching eerie tophat wearing monster lifted from the pages of a horrific children's book which has decided to latch on to and torture this particular family. The film is decent, and I'll admit that the main reason I am so attached to it and adore it so muc...

Starring the always fantastic  (and often eerie) Tilda Swinton, "We Need to Talk About Kevin" is a phenomenal film based on an equally fantastic novel which presents the difficulty of raising an out of hand child from the perspective of the mother, who sees a terrifying darkness and lack of empathy within her own son which she fears she cannot do anything about. Ezra Miller is wonderful in his portrayal of a teenager brimming with rage and hatred toward the world around him, though one must suspend their disbelief at the notion of him being the son of Tilda Swinton and John C. Riley. Questionable genetics aside, his brooding and angsty performance is almost too good, and it's expertly paired with the sort of haughty arrogance found in most troubled teens. Though the film is a slow burn and stumbles awkwardly through its pacing at time, the movie's narrative is greatly assisted in its frequent usage of flashbacks and flash forwards, which meld together to create ...

Embers (2015) Taking place in a post apocalyptic world in which a disease which makes creating and maintaining memories impossible, Embers  offers a glimpse into the lives of several different people who have their own ways of grappling with the harsh world in which they have no way of knowing who the people around them are. Interspersed between these glimpses into the lives of those too poor to afford a way to escape the disease, we are offered a look at the empty life of a young woman who lives in a shelter with her father, untouched by the disease but horribly bored with nothing to do but test her memory time and time again. With its fascinating premise, beautiful and meticulous camera shots, and slow atmospheric soundtrack, I really wanted to like Embers . Unfortunately, Embers  failed to hold my attention throughout the course of the film, as it wavered awkwardly from scenario to scenario and fell into the trap of repetition as married couples forget one another an...

A Series of Unfortunate Events (2017) Like many other people in their twenties I spent my adolescence eagerly devouring the books within the grim and gothic Series of Unfortunate Events , I was among the first to watch the Jim Carrey adaptation of the film, and naturally I binge watched the entire Netflix series in one sitting. Regardless of the interpretation, I adore the aesthetic, dark humor, and grim yet educational dialogue which shows children that it's alright to be a little eccentric and asks them to embrace their strangeness without shame because its what makes them unique individuals. One could even say that in a strange way it's almost a John Waters and Tim Burton collaboration for children, which makes for media that is absolutely delightful whether it takes the form of a book series, a film, or a Netflix adaptation. The Netflix adaptation of A Series of Unfortunate Events  is perhaps even more true to the dark nature of the series than the previous film ha...