Netflix And Chill: Bad Hair (2020)

With that title, the central concept (a killer hair weave), and the cool company environment that is the main setting for the film, you'd be forgiven for thinking that Bad Hair is basically another film just like Slaxx. Thankfully, that isn't the case. Not that I disliked Slaxx, not at all, but I just wanted another unique film that didn't feel too similar to anything else around. Bad Hair delivered.

Our main character is Anna (Elle Lorraine), a black woman working at a company that essentially feels like the BET version of MTV. It's an image-conscious place, and Anna is encouraged to change her image. That leads to her getting a new hair weave, which she soon starts to realise can control her as it kills people around her. And there's a chance that her boss, Zora (Vanessa Williams), has the same problem.

Written and directed by Justin Simien, Bad Hair takes what could be a ridiculous concept and uses it to make a number of interesting points. Once you've sat through this, there's a lot more to discuss than you could have anticipated. And I'll circle back to a couple of those points after mentioning the main cast members.

Lorraine is excellent in the main role, as timid and downtrodden as any other character I can think of from the past few years before growing in confidence and power, ultimately being dragged into situations by her hair until she tries to figure out how to change things. Williams is used well for her role, a bit more in line with her work on Ugly Betty than her other movie roles. Jay Pharoah, Usher, and Steve Zissis play three very different male characters, all doing well with what they're given, and James Van Der Beek makes an appearance that feels slightly incongruous until he reappears just before the end credits roll. Elsewhere, there are roles, big and small, for Lena Waithe, Judith Scott, Ashley Blaine Featherston, Kelly Rowland, and Laverne Cox, with everyone playing things nicely straight, kind of, in between the moments of fearsome follicle foul play.

Now to those points being made in a movie about a killer weave. As the movie started, I realised that this was an interesting way to explore something that, as is so often the case, affects women a lot more than it affects men. I'm not going to be silly and claim that no woman wants to be caught on a "bad hair day", but any hair problems can definitely throw the life of a woman into turmoil, particularly anything that stays there as a permanent problem. Just look at the shock some people still experience when they see any bald woman. This is enough to make Bad Hair more interesting than it otherwise might be, but it also layers in a commentary on the pervasive control of those who get a new weave on their head (which provides a way of controlling many African American women in a way that allows a dangerous plantation owner to essentially maintain a number of unwilling slaves).

Despite the comedy inherent here, Bad Hair is a fairly straightforward horror, and one that manages to do what so many of the best horrors do so well, provide a metaphor for some aspect of our society that we would rather glimpse in a mirror than look at straight on. It’s definitely worth a watch, and has potential for a sequel that goes further and gets even wilder.

8/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

Ready Player One (2018)

I had a lot of fun when I read the book of Ready Player One (written by Ernest Cline, who also worked on the screenplay to this movie with Zak Penn) but I didn't rate it as a GOOD piece of writing. If asked to describe it by anyone, or if I decided that I should discuss it with other people, I mentioned the style of American Psycho, but instead of lots of brand names and designer labels it was overstuffed with pop culture references, mostly from the 1980s.

When I started to hear about Steven Spielberg directing the movie version of the movie, I had an optimistic view of what we might get. Spielberg knows that world. He gave us a hell of a lot of it. And he has proven, on more than one occasion, that he can take a flawed novel and pare away the worst parts to give us a real cinematic treat.

I bought my ticket, I bought my treats, and I eagerly waited to be transported to a world full of recognisable characters, moments, and cinephile-friendly easter eggs.

Basically, I got what I wanted. Sometimes.

Sadly, the film isn't the improvement on the book that I hoped it would be. It works in some ways (the casting of the main "baddie" being a big plus point, for example) and then falls down in other ways.

The basic plot, for those still unaware, is as follows. Most people spend their days living in a virtual world called the OASIS. You can do anything you want, and also build up kudos and credit that could help you in the real world. The creator of the OASIS left a number of easter eggs in the world, revealing in a video that automatically played to everyone after his death that the person to find three hidden keys would become the owner of the OASIS, which would make them the most envied individual on the planet. Tye Sheridan is Wade, who spends his time in the OASIS as Parzival, and he thinks he has what it takes to win. He also doesn't mind helping a girl that he is quite taken with, Art3mis (AKA Samantha in the real world, played by Olivia Cooke), and his best friend, Aech. But as they start to make progress on their quest, corporate bad guy Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn) becomes more determined to put a stop to them, either in the OASIS or by dealing with them outside the relative safety of virtual reality.

Almost every aspect of Ready Player One has both good and bad aspects to it. Sheridan is a disappointingly bland lead, but that's okay when you get more of his scenes featuring Cooke. Mendehlson and T. J. Miller are both very good, but I can't say the same for Mark Rylance and Simon Pegg, which is very unusual for the former. And Lena Waithe, Philip Zhao, and Win Morasaki do fine, but aren't half as memorable as the hordes of CGI cameos worth keeping your eyes peeled for (which I understand is almost the driving force for the whole thing anyway).

The script does well at explaining ideas and plot points, it doesn't do so well at giving the characters any decent dialogue in between explaining ideas and plot points.

The visuals are impressive, as you'd expect, but most scenes are far too busy, either with the ongoing action or the multitude of easter eggs. What I expected to be fun onscreen actually ends up quickly becoming quite tiresome and irritating. I may change my mind when able to view the film at home and rewind certain moments, and it at least improves things structurally compared to the sloppiness of the source material, but this is very much a dual-layered experience. As an actual piece of cinema it's a hot mess, yet as a hot mess it's kind of easy to pick and choose various moments to enjoy.

Even the soundtrack falters. The score by Alan Silvestri isn't very memorable and the pop hits used throughout are just background noise when they could have been lined up with better moments to create some movie magic. Hell, the film starts with Van Halen's "Jump" blasting and then just fades it out as you get the initial info dump. High energy potential is just left to sizzle and dry up.

This should have been a home run for Spielberg. He's been back on excellent form over the past few years, he's comfortable working with all of the new industray toys, and movie nerdiness is in his blood. The fact that it isn't proves how hard it must have been to translate the story to screen. So perhaps we should just be glad that this project fell to him, rather than someone who could have made it so much worse.

6/10

The Blu-ray will be available here.
Americans can pick it up here.