‘He’s All That’ is a film worth skipping
Netflix’s recent remake of the classic romance film “She’s All That,” titled “He’s All That,” is a modern spin on the original coming-of-age movie. The motion picture, starring Tik Tok-er Addison Rae, falls short, banking less on its cast’s acting abilities and more on their internet fame. With a lackluster script and direction from Mark Waters, the Netflix original proves to be just an awkward spoof of the hit ‘90s film it is inspired by, and, ultimately, is unnecessary.
“Dirty Dancing” streams online to raise money for furloughed workers
On Friday, April 24, Lionsgate Movies streamed “Dirty Dancing” (1987) on YouTube as part of a fundraising effort for the Will Rogers Motion Picture Pioneers Foundation. The foundation, according to its description on YouTube, “is dedicated to helping workers throughout the motion picture industry and is currently providing financial assistance to theater employees furloughed by the COVID-19 crisis.”
“Parasite” is a thrilling genre-melding social commentary
Every few years, a genre-bender comes along, breaking some of those conventions but maintaining the essential ethos of that genre. “Parasite,” Bong Joon-ho’s haunting depiction of class struggle in South Korea, doesn’t fit into either category — the film neither conforms to nor breaks free of genre convention. Instead, Joon-ho’s latest thriller is indubitably a masterful genre-melding exercise, gaining the audience’s trust and comfort only to shatter the carefully constructed world later on.
Netflix’s “The King” is entertaining but inaccurate
Dark and complex, “The Lighthouse” is worth the quiet build
“Joker” offers disconcerting perspective on problematic origin story
Schumer’s “I Feel Pretty” Struggles to Empower Women
BY JAHIYA CLARK ’20
Society has conditioned women to believe that they must look “pretty” to be happy, but how valuable is feeling “pretty?” In Amy Schumer’s new comedy “I Feel Pretty,” the running joke for most of the film is that the main character, Renee Bennett (played by Schumer, “Trainwreck”) thinks she is conventionally pretty. The joke is that it’s only in her head.
“Thoroughbreds” is a chilly, sophisticated thriller
BY EMMA MARTIN ’20
“Do you ever think about just killing him?” Amanda (Olivia Cooke, “Me, Earl and the Dying Girl”) asks her kind-of new friend Lily (Anya Taylor-Joy, “The Witch”) in a memorable scene from psychological thriller “Thoroughbreds,” the feature debut of writer-director Corey Finley. As Amanda casually uncorks a bottle of wine, the two teens first discuss the main subject of the movie — their plan to kill Lily’s stepfather Mark (Paul Sparks, “The Greatest Showman”).