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Flash Movie Review: Twisters
FOR ALL THE YEARS I WAS TEACHING fitness and yoga, I had only one accident take place in my classes. It was a cycle class and a new couple who were husband and wife came to participate. I had gone up to introduce myself and asked if they had ever been to a cycle class before. They said yes and I saw they knew how to set up their bikes properly. I wished them success and a good ride before going back to the front of the class. It was fifteen minutes into our ride when the wife got off her bike and went over to her husband’s to adjust the handlebars higher. Things were going along until I moved the class into a standing climb. He moved into position, got off his seat, and suddenly the handlebars came off and he tumbled with them over the front of his bike. I jumped off and ran over to him, asking if he was okay. He kept reassuring me as I did a visual scan over his body, noticing a couple of cuts and all the limbs moving like they were supposed to do. I offered to walk them to the front desk to fill out an incident report, but he declined, telling me he was a doctor, and he was fine. During our short conversation he did say he wanted the handlebars higher, so he asked his wife to adjust them for him. I looked at her and she said she must have gone too high with them; I added that she probably did not lock them into place. With that they left the studio, and I went back to instructing the class. IF THIS HAD HAPPENED EARLY IN MY career, I might have quit. It took me a few years to finally feel comfortable teaching a room filled with members; this is what takes place when you have little self-confidence. Luckily, I had established myself as a competent instructor who diligently looked out for the members in his classes. I have seen it happen where someone changes the course of their career due to a single event. There was a research scientist in one of my classes who chose that field because of their sister’s disease; they wanted to help find a cure. Another example would be a co-worker from a previous job who used to be a firefighter until he got burned during a call, trying to put out a fire in an apartment building. It just goes to show you, the choices we make sometimes get influenced by certain events in our lives. This is why I could understand the main character’s hesitancy in this action, adventure thriller. HAVING LEFT HER DREAMS AND HOPES behind, and now working behind a computer screen, a former storm chaser returns to Oklahoma after an old friend convinces her that his innovative technology will make things safer. With Daisy Edgar-Jones (Where the Crawdads Sing, Cold Feet-TV) as Kate, Glen Powell (Hit Man, Anyone But You) as Tyler, Anthony Ramos (In the Heights, Dumb Money) as Javi, Brandon Perea (Nope, The OA-TV) as Boone, and Maura Tierney (The Iron Claw, Beautiful Boy) as Cathy; this movie was filled with scattered showers. It was so predictable that I pretty knew everything that was going to take place later in the story. Sure, there were a couple of twists, but I felt the writers did an injustice to the characters, making them one-dimensional, borderline cartoonish. Despite this flaw, I thought Glenn still had great screen presence that elevated Daisy as well. The special effects were also a mixture of good and poor. Some scenes were exciting, while others were just okay. I think if the writers had added layers to the characters and opened them up to a deeper level, this film would have had more substance. Instead, this is one of those movies that will just die down to a gentle breeze.
2 stars
Flash Movie Review: Hold Your Breath
IF I AM NOT READING A BOOK or listening to music, I always have the television turned on, even if I have no plans to watch it. I use a TV as background noise because I am uncomfortable being in silence. There is a reason for it. There was a television show that debuted when I was a small child of six or seven years of age. I probably was too young to watch it, because I always dreamt of a horrible nightmare when I went to sleep after having watched the show. Every episode started out with the television screen going black and a single white dot would appear in the center. A voice would come on and tell us not to adjust our television sets, there was nothing wrong with them. I believe the next thing the announcer said was they were taking control of our sets and that is when that white dot turned into a wavy line, getting smaller and bigger at times. I can remember snippets of the different episodes, but each week there was always a “monster” or alien being since the show leaned more towards science fiction as opposed to something like The Twilight Zone. I would be terrified of the monsters; some with extra powers or wanting to do experiments on humans. Even if I closed my eyes during a scene, I still would wake up in the middle of the night from a bad dream. THAT SHOW WAS THE START OF me not liking silence. As I grew older and no longer needed a babysitter, I could not handle being in a quiet space. Any little sounds coming from the house or outside would cause me to jump. One time there was some noise I heard coming from the back porch. I quickly turned off all the lights and hid in the kitchen pantry. Not because I was hungry, but because from there I could sneak peeks at the back door, to see if a human shadow loomed up. I would stand in there for 15-20 minutes before I thought it was safe to come out. Through the years, past my college graduation and moving out into my own apartment, I was the same when it came to hearing noises. Imagine living in a big courtyard apartment building; there were always various noises sounding off; my television and music player were my constant companions. It is as if my mind is always ready to take a pessimistic view when it comes to hearing an uncommon sound that I cannot explain. I do not know if it is a good or dreadful thing, that I understood what the main character was going through in this dramatic, horror thriller. WITH HER HUSBAND AWAY FOR WORK, a wife had to take care of the house and their children during the Oklahoma dust storms that ravaged the state. The fact that there might be something else bad outside made raising their kids all the harder. With Sarah Paulson (Run, American Horror Story-TV) as Margaret Bellum, Amiah Miller (The Water Man, War for the Planet of the Apes) as Rose Bellum, relative newcomer (Alona Jane Robbins as Ollie Bellum, Annaleigh Ashford (American Reject, B Positive-TV) as Esther Smith, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach (The Bear-TV, No Hard Feelings) as Wallace Grady; this movie was beautifully filmed. I enjoyed the atmospheric scenes mixed in with the starkness; they helped with creating the bleakness of the environment. Sarah and Amiah were especially strong with their characters; Sarah was especially riveting. However, my interest periodically faded at times because the script created this series of repetitive scenarios that did not build up the tension or move the story forward. There needed to be more tension that would have led to a stronger ending. Even if I did not like hearing unfamiliar sounds when I am alone, after seeing this picture, I am amazed at the people who survived these storms back in the 1930s in Oklahoma.
2 ¼ stars
moviejoltz 