Entertainment Binge

By Isaac White.

Back to the movies this week. At least that’s the entertainment medium I’ve chosen to dive into this week. In all candidness I had a hard time finding something to review this week because I picked a couple of stinkers initially. When I knew they weren’t going to work, because I couldn’t stand to watch them for more than 10 minutes, I began to panic a bit. What would you all do if there was no review written by me this week? I’m sure you’d be fine, but I’ll keep my illusion that people are waiting with bated breath every week to read my reviews in order to stoke my ego.

Personal ego pumps done, I’ll mention the works that I couldn’t stick with briefly and tell you why I couldn’t bear to continue watching them. First up was History Of The World Part II. First of all, I know some of you are going to despise me for saying this, but I am not a very big fan of Mel Brooks in the first place.

I took a comedy film class in college as an elective (tough course, right?) with one of the movies on our semester watchlist being Blazing Saddles. I had never watched that before, the idea never seemed all that interesting to me. Although most people seem to have a deep connection to that movie, I couldn’t stand it, the way I don’t enjoy almost anything Mel Brooks that I’ve watched.

I can remember watching the History Of The World movie as a young person, and I didn’t like that either. His work has simply never been all that entertaining for me, however, I thought possibly this show, History Of The World Part II may be a different scenario entirely. The cast seemed comprised of people who I find very funny, particularly Nick Kroll, creator of Big Mouth and one of the stars of the show The League, which is one of my most liked television shows of all time.

History Of The World Part II was literally on my screen for nine minutes and thirty-three seconds when it was turned off. Completely not worth the time and no I won’t be going back later to see if it gets better. I can’t see a world where that show becomes good over time. For me anyway. If you want to give it a shot, don’t say I didn’t warn you. It’s just some hacky pop culture references that just don’t cut it. Which is disappointing because as I mentioned earlier, there is a lot of awesome comedic talent who are part of the show.

The other show I couldn’t stick with to review for you is The Watcher. It’s a new show on Netlifx, a thriller starring Bobby Cannavale, whose performances I usually enjoy. The show didn’t reach out, put a hand on my shoulder and nudge me to keep watching. It half-heartedly pointed at the screen but that wasn’t enough to keep me going past two episodes.

But two episodes is a lot better than not quite ten minutes of one episode of History Of The World Part II right? I thought so too that’s why I’m mentioning it. The Watcher is literally more than two times better than History Of The World Part II. But neither of them is good, and I recommend staying away from both. I have a movie I found the night before I started writing this that had me interested enough to finish it at least. In truth it’s better than “just finishing it.”

The movie I’m referencing is Emily The Criminal, starring Aubrey Plaza as Emily. Who is a criminal. After I watched the film, I found myself thinking that the title is apropos, if not a touch on the nose. After thinking on it for a minute, I decided that the title didn’t bother me too much because I was not able to get through the entire work, but I enjoyed it. For the most part.

Emily is a working-class woman, struggling to get by in the ever-more expensive to survive America everyone knows and loves. Does sarcasm come across well in print? Let me know. We find out that Emily has a criminal background. A background that we discover limits her job prospects, which is why she works in what looks like a Door Dash-type of service job.

Miserable with her job and frustrated with her inability to find a more well-paying gig because of her criminal convictions, for DUI and aggravated assault, Emily is understandably angry. Her anger and frustration are on display in the infancy of the film. During an interview for a job, Emily is grilled by the hiring official to explain her criminal history. She feels he tricked her, which by the way I agree he did, and she has a bit of an outburst. We never find out if they ever hired her though. Hmmmmm. That’ll be the last one I promise.

Desperate to pay off her student loan debt that is dragging her further and further into a hole which she clearly expresses no hope of ever escaping, this is a clear message to the audience about the out-of-control situation that young people are facing in terms of student loan debt. As one with student loan debt myself, I naturally found myself empathizing with Emily on this topic, as I’m sure many of the people watching the film did.

It was pretty clear the director and writers wanted to send a message about student loan debt to the audience in bright lights and letters. One scene shows Emily talking with what must be her loan servicer when she discovers that the $400 she just paid them didn’t even touch the principal balance of her $70,000 in student loan debt. Only the interest, which she asks how much is accruing each month, but we never hear that amount.

We understand Emily’s predicament and a potential savior emerges when a co-worker gives her a number to contact who he says will pay her $200 for an hour of her time. Setting the stage for what is clearly a coming case of criminality, Emily texts the number and we’re off and running.

Spoilers are not something of which I want to share in abundance because I do think this movie is pretty dang cool and you should see it. With that in mind we watch as Emily becomes more deeply involved with the two men who are the ringleaders of what they call “Double Shoppers.”

I’ll pause here to give one of my complaints about the film. This concept of “Double Shopping”, as they call it in the movie, is something I am not familiar with and quite frankly I think the filmmakers did a poor job of communicating exactly how the scam works. All I can say with confidence is that it involves credit card fraud.

Youcef, played by Theo Rossi, is the man who Emily becomes closer to as the movie progresses and he is the number two man in the operation behind his cousin Khalil, played by Jonathan Avigdori. The dynamic between Youcef and Khalil is interesting, one which demonstrates Youcef’s subservience to Khalil, something that doesn’t sit right with Emily as her and Youcef become closer.

As the story moves on Emily goes further down the path of criminality, eventually ending up in some very anxious and thrilling moments. While Emily appears to, in the early parts of the film, to dismiss her actual criminal convictions as something akin to youthful indiscretions, what she partakes in with Youcef and Khalil is in no way something that can be categorized as anything BUT criminal behavior.

One of the reasons why I liked Emily so much as a character is because she just owns that as we see the progression of her actions become more and more serious criminally. You can literally watch her process what she is about to do, knowing that she is going to move forward with what in modern times counts as outlaw behavior, committing financial fraud.

Of course, in the beginning, she is hesitant to take it deeper into the end of the pool which is more criminal minded. The movie wasn’t intended to keep her in that minor criminal stage, the title is Emily The Criminal, not Emily the one-time credit card fraudster.

The acting is superb, particularly by Plaza who turns in a performance that I found to be very entertaining. She doesn’t look like someone who would be a criminal, something which I think the filmmakers were seeking. She does look like someone who is saddled with student loan debt, trying to make it through life with so much trying to hold her down. The fact that she doesn’t really look the part of a criminal is a great thing because Plaza has the chance to show her acting chops, to make us believe this clean-cut woman has the grit to get down in the criminal world.

Don’t miss this one. I’m not saying it’s an all-time great movie. I will, however, say that it’s certainly worth the time to watch and I promise you it’s a true thriller through and through. It has moments of extreme tension, ones which aren’t overplayed by the filmmakers. They let the actors develop them with their skills and they play out very nicely on the screen. I truly enjoyed watching Emily take her shot at something better. I understood why she was doing what she did and yes, I rooted for her to make it through. If you want to know if she was actually able to pull that off, well, you’ll need to watch it for yourself. Emily The Criminal is streaming on Netflix.