A Simple Favor

2018

Johnny's comments:

A Simple Favor (it is taking every fibre of my being to not type Favour) is a comic thriller where cooking vlogger Stephanie (Anna Kendrick) is a high energy, perky mother who gets on the nerves of all the other stay-at-home parents. One day, her son wants to play with another boy, whose mother Emily (Blake Lively) reluctantly agrees and while the two women couldn't be further apart they form a friendship. One day, Emily asks Stephanie to pick up her son and mind him for a day or so as she has business she needs to handle in Miami, but a day turns into another day and Stephanie calls Emily's husband, professor and failed author Sean (Henry Golding), who is also away but not with Emily about Stephanie's disappearance. They call the police and a few days later, Emily turns up dead in a lake. Stephanie helps Sean through the grieving process which leads to them getting together. Also, Stephanie is not satisfied with the outcome and decides to do her own sleuthing and finds out some things that suggest there's more to Emily's disappearance than there seems.

Neat little thriller that sort of feels like part one of an ongoing series than a standalone movie. Anna Kendrick is quite good as the persistent friend who finds out way more than she was supposed to and who also has a dark secret of her own. And there's enough comic touches and intrigue throughout that keep the movie rolling along. Not bad at all.

Blake Lively film clip (collages below)

Anna Kendrick film clip (collage below)

Assassination Nation

2018

Johnny's comments:

Assassination Nation is satirical thriller set in Salem where Lily (Odessa Young) and her friends are traversing through their high school years without a care in the world until a hacker starts releasing photos and texts from people's phone starting with the mayor, who's secrets cause him to commit suicide during a press conference. The principal of the school is next where he is found to have highly dubious photos of his daughter but he stands defiant against the pressure. Then the big one hits, with over 1700 people's phones hacked including Lily's much older neighbour who she's been sharing compromising pics with although her face has been obscured. But a concerted effort both on and offline to find out who the girl is ends with her boyfriend Mark (Bill Skarsgård) outing her and causes her parents to kick her out of home. By now, Salem has turned crazy with accusations as to who is the hacker with vigilante squads forming to kill those involved only for the blame to fall onto Lily. With the vigilante squads, led by local cops closing in and with nowhere to go, Lily and her friends are in desperate straights just to survive the night let alone being social outcasts.

Crazy movie which has obvious parallels to the Salem witch trials and makes a decent attempt at defining where America is at the moment. While I think the ending is a bit of cop out, the movie banks quite a lot of capital to still be a pretty decent and utterly crazy movie.

Odessa Young film clip (collages below)