In between the lines

In between the lines

Dear Nick Toti,

American Vandal. It took me a while to figure out that this show was not an actual documentary series. American Vandal could be categorised as a mockumentary or a mock documentary. There are many shows that follow this same mockumentary story line that are already on Netflix, for example: Making of a Murderer and Jinx. The only difference about those two shows and American Vandal is that in shows like Making of a Murderer and Jinx, the characters are based on real people, whereas in American Vandal, the characters are all actors. I could see American Vandal being the type of production that you would enjoy taking a part in the composition of.

I am just going to go out and say it. Twenty-Seven dicks were spray painted onto Twenty-Seven cars in Hanover High School, which is located in Oceanside, California and the suspected felon is Dylan Maxwell. For starters Nick, I feel like after completing the first season of American Vandal, you would have many positive takeaways. Not only would you get a good sense of how the production business flows, but also a good sense on how to pick the “right” directors, actors, and most importantly, the film editors.

One editing factor that stuck out to me the most was how clips changed very abruptly, and when there was a transition slide between one scene and the next it would be something that we have all seen before in documentaries. This was the fact that when Hanover High School was interviewing class clown, Dylan Maxwell, and his family members, peers, and teachers, the director would always make sure to include one very simple factor. Lighting.

Lighting made such an impact on how the viewers perceived the severity of each interview or interaction. For instance, when Peter Maldonado (the reporter on the Hanover High School news show/ the student who documents all the allegations) documents Dylan’s mother, she is first shown outdoors giving Dylan a big hug and kiss and saying, “ I’m sorry.” In a crying tone. The next scene flips very quickly to Denise Kavanagh (Dylan’s mother) sitting in her kitchen pleading that her son is innocent. The light has a very soft flow to it, and Denise’s hair is illuminated from the open window that she sits in front of. Although the her hair and eyes are glowing, everything else in that one particular scene are dull and depressing.

Overall, American Vandal is the show for you, and I am confidant that after watching a few episodes of it, you will have learned at least a few tricks to keep up your sleeve for those times you feel in doubt. Also, chopping each episodes off with a cliffhanger question is one of the smartest moves in film making. Not only does it make people beg for more (manipulations without them even knowing it), but in the act of doing this it gets the heart rate up of the viewer, and therefore the viewer will impulsively click on the next episode. So, with that said, I will leave you with one question: Who will be the next big thing in this array or chaos?

On Luke Cage

Throughout your presentation on Thursday you made a lot of interesting points about life, but the one that stuck out to me the most was your phrase: "Filing the gaps in my damn education." This stuck with me because that's exactly what I didn't do in high school that I'm trying to do in college. For this post today I decided to watch Marvel's Luke Cage. The show is filled with characters of varying educational levels all at different successful parts of their lives.

Gerald's Game: Yes, Your Kinks Will Get You Killed

After listening to Nick Toti's speech, I decided that I definitely wanted to watch a horror film for this week's blog. While I'm a huge horror fan regardless, Mr. Toti made me more interested than usual in watching one of the specific genre. So, I picked the most surreal and psychological horror film that Netflix Originals had to offer: Gerald's Game, based off of the 1992 novel of the same name written by horror icon Stephen King. The adaptation is directed by one of horror's brightest new stars Mike Flanagan (Hush, Oculus). The basic plot of the film revolves around a married couple played by Carla Gugino and Bruce Greenwood. After experiencing extended marriage problems, they decide to get their kink game on in the remote summer house to spice their love up a bit. The situation turns a 180 when Greenwood's Gerald suddenly dies of a heart attack during their "love making," leaving Gugino's Jessie handcuffed to the bed posts, unable to get out of them. Gerald's Game, along with It, has definitely made 2017 a strong year for Stephen King adaptations (minus The Dark Tower of course).
The first thing I want to focus on is the psychology of the film. This is a film that is every bit about a woman forgiving her tragic past as much as it is about her trying to escape. Essentially, the plot is just there to act as a window to exploring this woman's past, eventually taking a back seat to the real plot: Jessie becoming psychologically strong enough to escape her demons, which I think is incredibly interesting. This is the closest movie that I may have ever seen before that actually allows you to know what the character is thinking without a narration. While tied up, Jessie talks to imagined versions of Gerald and herself, which also helps the audience understand how she views Gerald herself as well as how she wishes she really was with the imagined version of herself being calm, strong, and always offering good advise. Had the film been solely about her trying to escape her sexual death trap, then it would have gotten very old very fast.
The film also has a very interesting and thoughtful look at sexual abuse, something that was also explored in It. Unlike It, the sexual abuse is a much stronger element here and, while It did handle the controversial topic well, Gerald's Game handled it stupendously. Without getting to deep into spoiler territory, the events in the film are all basically caused by Jessie being abused as a child by her dad, played very well by a creepy Henry Thomas (by the way, that's Elliot, the little boy from E.T.). Through the use of superb editing, Jessie's past is gradually revealed through impeccably timed flashbacks, something most King adaptations struggle to do well (the original It from 1990). At first, Jessie will act in an odd way towards something seemingly innocent, which at first appears to be annoying. Later, however, the audience is shown why a certain event makes her tick in such a way, not only making her actions understandable but making the audience feel bad after judging her actions. The editing of the film is almost poetic and very reminiscent to the work done on last year's multi-Oscar winner Manchester by the Sea. Had the editing not been done well, the whole sexual abuse aspect would come off as odd and out of place.
I really must also sing the praises of the acting in this film as, for the most part, the film consists solely of the three actors I have previously mentioned, all who did a wonderful job. Gugino definitely shined in her dual role as her imaginary and real self, easily flipping between helpless and distraught to confident and strong. Greenwood is also terrific in probably the best role of his career. For most of the film he plays the imaginary Gerald, a far cry from the lovable, reserved real one who lays on a floor dead while being eaten by a stray dog for much of the film. This Gerald is insincere, narcissistic,  and manipulative. I personally have never seen Greenwood go so far out of his acting range as he did here, not to mention he did a great job of doing it as well. As I already have mentioned Thomas himself was also very good, mainly due to his creepy performance. His performance is very important to the success of the film as it is he who holds the whole abuse plot over his head. His performance as a perverted father feels all too real and far more accurate than these kinds of characters are normally portrayed as. It really is so weird seeing the lovable, cute Elliot from E.T. turn into a pedophile creepy dad, but Thomas really does pull it off quite strong.
The only real problem I did have with the film was the last 20 minutes. Without getting into spoilers, the first part of the finale is pretty generic and cliched. It's the kind of ending just by reading this blog post you could probably figure out. The second part is just odd and completely out of nowhere, concluding an unnecessary subplot that felt like it was in the movie just to make it more of a horror film than a thriller. While this subplot is actually generally creepy, it bogged the film down and messed with the overall themes and point of the film.
Overall, I think that Gerald's Game is the second best Netflix Original that I have seen up until this point. If you have not checked it out, I definitely recommend it, especially with today being the inaugural day of October, a.k.a. the month of Halloween. To Mr. Toti, I also recommend the film. It may not be overly surreal like a David Lynch film such as Eraserhead and it may not have an overly indie feel like It Comes at Night or It Follows, I still think it is one of the strongest hollywood horror films to come out in the past couple of years.

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

            This week in class we had a guest speaker come in named Nick Toti, a former Truman student who is now pursuing his dreams in film making. I loved hearing all about his life and how he got to where he is today. I am not going to be going into a field even close to what Nick is doing, but pretty much all of his advice was very applicable to life no matter what you are doing, which I thought was awesome and took a lot from. I really enjoyed his philosophies on life and how he has gone about going for what he wants to do. The fact that he is really in it for the joy of doing what he loves and not for money is very inspiring to me, and probably the biggest take away I got from his visit.

            To tie this into a Netflix series, lately I’ve been watching the show Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and there is a lot of correlation between Kimmy’s life and Nick’s life. The show follows the story of a thirty year old woman named Kimmy Schmidt who was in a bunker for several years with a reverend who told her and three other girls the apocalypse was happening. This sounds like it would be a super depressing tale, but it’s actually a comedy. A lot of the comedic elements of the show have to do with the fact that everything Kimmy knows about the world is from the 90’s, and she is learning a ton about the modern world when she decides to move to New York after getting out of the bunker. This reminds me of Nick’s story when he talked about filling in the holes in his damn education, because in this show Kimmy is doing the same, just with her life. At one point, she decides to go back to school to get her GED because all she has is a middle school education. She’s also getting to experience things like dating, having a job, and having adult responsibilities for the first time, all in very comical fashion. People tend to have strange impressions of Kimmy because a lot of things she says and does are very childlike.

            I would definitely recommend this show to pretty much anyone, not only because it is hilarious, but I do think there is a lot that can be learned from this show. It is one of my biggest beliefs that it is never too late to turn your life around for the positive and that you have to take your happiness into your own hands. Kimmy Schmidt is a perfect example of this. Obviously if these same events actually perspired in real life the outcome would most likely be very different. Regardless, the way Kimmy handled the situation was pretty amazing and inspiring if you ask me. The other people that were in the bunker just continued on with the way their life was before they went in, as if nothing had changed. Kimmy however, didn’t want to let those few years define her entire life and immediately began a new chapter. This show is a huge exaggeration, but the biggest take away is that bad things happen to everyone in our lives, but you have to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and make the best of it. I think we can all learn something from Kimmy Schmidt.

Shrek's Swamp Stories

This week, I have met an awesome guy Nick Toti who was a graduate student at Truman State University and now has a wonderful job in the film industry in LA. Throughout his discussion, he has mentioned one statement which I impressed the most: “Horror is an accessible form of surrealism.” This week, I decided to watch the first episode of Sherk’s Swamp Stories. At first, people will think that what is the connection between a cartoon movie and element of horror which I referred above. Do not underestimate a movie through it outlook until you actually experience it. Like me, when I choose this series, I did not imagine that I would pick Nick’s statement about horror. However, when I saw it, this episode had changed my perspective. Although this is cartoon movie, they all include horror materials in a well organized.

The first element in every scary movie is sound effect. With the support of enigmatic music, the audience can easily understand the main theme of the movie. Introduce the movie with the wind whistled and the wolf howled, the movie seems to create a door which leads the audience to the world of mystery. Nothing is more effective in panic the people than the wind whistled and the wolf howled. By watching a movie in a dark room or watching alone, these elements bring to the viewer the image of he or she is standing in the open area with no human activities. All he or she can hear is the sound of the animal which is represented by the night and the scary sound of nature. This will bring a slightly cold feeling along the back of the audience. Another sound which is very useful in getting people attention is thunder sound. Noisy, combined with lightning, and happened after the silent scene, thunder sound brings to the audience the surprise element. Similar to jump scare, the thunder is a wonderful tool which may cause people a heart attack. 

Besides the sound effect, the visual image is a magnificent material which is also crucial in conveying the horror movie. Furthermore, by associating with the sound effect, the frightening scene at that time can convey its full potential. In every horror movie, especially cartoon (I think), mysterious jungle and haunted castle are very useful. In the magnetic jungle, there will be many unexpected things which the audience cannot predict, and that is the most interesting part in horror movie. People’s imagination is magnificent. The more they want to know something, the more they will imagine it in an ugliest and scariest image. Moreover, combine the scene with the thunder sound, it will be scarier. Similar to the jungle is a haunted castle which also contains many scary elements. Another detail in the movie which is also adequate is the torch when Sherk and his friend enter the castle. The light from the torch is very weak and can only illuminate a narrow area. To the audience, it pretty normal, but if you imagine you are the character in the movie it is another story. Visualize you are entering the haunted castle, and the only thing you can use to see things around is the torch. You cannot see everything clearly, and you will imagine that there will be something come out of nowhere. The filmmakers are very intelligent when using this material because they understand the audience’s psychology: they scare what they do not know.

Food for Thought

I have found that  I really struggle with picking a Netflix Original to watch every week. I don’t want to watch something and write about something that I ended up not liking. I can admit I am a little picky.  This week I watched a  documentary. I expected a full length movie, but this in particular documentary was a series that essentially broke the documentary into separate parts. The parts stress why cooking so important for the human race and how to get back to the original cooking.  The documentary I chose was Cooked.

Cooked is a documentary based off of a corresponding book written by Michael Pollan. His book and the docu-series are broken up into the four elements and how those affect the way people cook and eat. Therefore, this docu-series is only four episodes long. Fire. Water. Air. Earth. These elements continually play a role in how we cook, eat, and ultimately live our lives. I think this series is a kind of wake up call for how our cooking industry has shaped our world, and how we are straying from the original path.

Michael Pollan fully embraced learning about how to better his cooking when he was researching for this book. He completely immersed himself. I think that is what makes this documentary so satisfying to watch.  He is truly passionate about teaching people where their food comes from and how that has changed over our lifetimes.   Each element impacts the way we eat and cook significantly. People don’t realize just how much. Each episode goes in depth in that specific element. To me that puts this docu-series one step above the rest.

Fire. This episode goes into the details of how a culture still uses their old customs of fire to attract and kill food for their people. The Martu are a group of aboriginal people  from Western Australia. They live in the modern world but, travel back to their homeland to hunt like their ancestors did. With Fire. They burn vegetation, which attracts animals to those barren lands. It shows exactly how important fire has always been to humans finding food. This episode also goes into the theory of humanary evolution.  It goes into our closest ape relative and shows the difference in their jaws, which are distinctly similar to ours, and the jaws of other apes. It tells you the theory of why fire is so important to our cooking and why we can’t eat the same foods as the apes.  

Water. In this episode Pollan goes into pot cooking in India, and processed food. He also learns how to cook stews, and other foods in pots. He examines how water plays the part in processed foods, and why there is an increase  in the rise of processed foods. Contrary to the first episode though, Pollan points out that cooking with water is a relatively new concept compared to cooking with fire. He also talks about patience. You have to wait for the water to start softening  some of the foods we can  eat today, that we couldn’t earlier in history. This topic leads into the talk of processed food. It all leads back to the time people allot to cooking and how processed foods are faster. He then brings in a specialist in the history of processed foods.

Air. Everything we do is affected by air. In this specific episode Pollan goes indepth into bread as a staple food. Bread is simply a mixture of flour and water, along with some fermentation. Yet, people could live almost entirely off of bread. Just not the way we think of bread now. Pollan goes into the details of how bread has originated and changed within the last 60 years. This leads the topic of discussion to the fact that people all over the world are reporting an intolerance to gluten, a protein found in wheat and other grains. They tie this all back into food processing. They talk about how if we maybe went back to the basics of cooking, with basic foods, we might not be seeing this rise in intolerance.

Earth. Obviously, we all know that the earth plays a major role in eating and cooking. This episode is all about fermentation.  Fermentation is everywhere.  Cheese, chocolate, kimchi. All of these things have to ferment before they become what we truly think of them as. Fermentation plays a major role in all foods. Foods like chocolate and cheese wouldn’t be what they are without fermentation. Fermentation used to be the way to preserve foods to eat during the winter.

Pollan analyzes cooking and eating in society, then and now. I probably would not have thought about all of the things Pollan brings attention to, if I hadn’t watched this docu-series. I think the specifics of his analysis and his strive to learn and understand how we have evolved from then to now. Another admirable aspect for me is that in the first episode, the camera is not steady and always straight. This shows that they are truly there, that they weren’t worried about how the tapes would look. They only wanted to get to the core of what they were discussing, and wanting to teach. I have admiration for that because while a smooth shot looks nice, an authentic shot looks and makes the audience feel like they are actually there. I enjoyed watching this docu-series and would definitely recommend it to others wanting to learn.

Death Note: Post Mortem

I watched Death Note, the Netflix Original, and well it was not that bad. Save for the ending it was alright. If it hadn't been an adaption of one of the most famous and deep animes of all time, I would have written it off as just another movie with a good premise but poor execution.

The premise of the movie follows some of the shows cliff notes, save for some names, (we're in America now, for some reason, not that it affects the plot at all). Light Turner finds the notebook of the shinigami, (literal translations, death god, death spirit), Ryuk. Light decides he will rid the world of crime. He attracts the attention of interpol and the mysterious detective known as L.

My peers JBurns, and WSills gave their thoughts on the movie. While I agree with mostly agree with what they said and I suggest you read them. I'm going to look more at why I think this movie fails as an interpretation and will heavily pull on the anime for comparison.

Almost anyone who has read the manga, watched the anime, or watched the Wisecrack video on Death Note can tell you it focuses heavily on asking what is justice. Each character has a different take and understanding on what justice is. The show then heavily takes a Socratic take on the various perspectives of justice. Rather than telling us what justice is, the show rather tests the ideals of “justice”. It's obvious you couldn't put that much dialogue on such a topic in a less than two hour movie. The writers clearly understood that, but they went the wrong way about it. They hand waved it away instead of the better but slightly harder way of ADAPTING the themes. In case you're curious as to what the movie did with these deep ideas, they just gave one sentence on the topic with a very Original idea. “There is no such thing as good and evil, only bad and worse”, which we've never seen a Netflix Original ever.

In it's place for central themes we have, we, I don't really know. If you look online you will find a joke that says the central theme is “Don't give your crazy psycho girlfriend a book that can kill people”, as ridiculous as that sounds that is the strongest/most obvious theme of the movie. I embarrassingly forgot to take notes while watching the film, so I'm working from memory. I had three main ideas as to what the themes could be. The first could be that it was making a criticism on the U.S. gun safety laws. The only thing I have to go on is the prominence of the American flag in the movie, but this idea would fail since we have nothing to compare the usage of the Death Note to, the cops use state issued guns so maybe that's the theme. The other idea I had was maybe it was talking about how power will always corrupt people. This fails since only Mia (the American Misa) gets corrupted while Light (unlike in the original) stays a “good” person. The only other thing is a commentary on the abuse of authority. This one is the strongest, we actually have a few scenes that bring seem to talk about that idea, but it's not strongly conveyed enough to convince me of this theory.

In my opinion a good adaption that shows the writers really cared about the series is proper theming and characters. I feel like there is definitely more wiggle room on adapting a central theme, after all many people will have a different idea on what the central theme is. The characters however are something that should be kept very consistent to the original. How did the movie do? bad, really really bad. At the start of the anime and through the stint where Light gives up the notebook we can get a decent understanding of what Light was like before the notebook corrupted him. He was a logical, intelligent, character of a strong moral position, hesitant to even try the notebook, and had a great respect of the law. The movie version of Light is the exact opposite of this, and never changes. He runs heavily on emotions and hormones, quickly revealing the notebook to Mia because he has a crush on her. In the original series Light would plan several steps ahead and never second guess himself. While we did see movie Light use on or two clever tricks, he wanted to pull out of using the notebook as soon as things got out of hand.

I feel like we should talk about L now, he seems to have been ignored during this entire paper. L is probably the most accurate portrayal of a central character. We see him be weird and eccentric, but most importantly in this case, we see him make logical deductions and use critical thinking. That is until Watari dies and he becomes an irrational emotional character. Instead of losing to an unavoidable trap like in the anime/manga. He loses to a cook knocking him out because he was too stupid to not think that the person might support Kira.

Mia is most likely supposed to be based on Misa from the anime/manga. I can only guess this because she is Light's girlfriend shares a similar name. Personality wise she is nothing alike. I think like most people the writers hated Misa and decided to change her. While I have nothing against making Misa less annoying or less pointless I think they did it too much. Mia is far closer to the anime Light. Manipulative, driven, ruthless, and plotting, she even gets corrupted by the note instead of Light. To a point I think making her the main character would have been a better change of pace.

Interesting thing about these characters is how tightly the are tied to each other. If one of them changes they all do. Light and L are the clear rivals and the two sides of the same coin, while Misa/Mia is the foil to Light. I think by trying to make Light the hero and a “relatable character” they ruined the whole cast and the show as a side result. I don't think a character needs to be sympathetic to be likable or relatable. The anime Light was repulsive, but we all rooted for him while we also cheered at him losing.

I don't think the movie was awful, sure it wasn't great, it was rushed, and I don't think the team behind it cared about the franchise so much as how much money they could get fans of the franchise to pay. As an adaptation however; this movie is terrible. It changes things that don't need to be changed, and things that should've been changed were ignored. I think the root of the problem was a lack of love and passion more than a lack of talent.

The Fundamentals of Caring

One major takeaway I had from hearing about the life of a seemingly part time film-maker, full time friend, Nick Toti, was that caring is splendid. This week I wanted to find a Netflix Original show that ran the same lines as his life story and focus on one aspect that I found interesting and, frankly, inspiring. To explain The Fundamentals of Caring, simply, is like explaining why people do what they do. They just go for it and do it, right? The movie is intrinsically about a kid with disabilities trying to do what he wants (and sometimes what he doesn't, but he needs) and a caregiver that's helping him along the way. I honestly think it's a rad film and it reminded me of Toti's story on how he got to where he is today.

The movie opens up with a classroom full of aspiring caregivers learning about the rules of how to care, but not care too much. I'm sitting here absorbing the information, thinking why would someone need to take an actual class on how to care? Following that, if people in this class need to know how to care, they must have had really shitty lives up until this point not caring. Cut to the next scene and one of the students in caregiving class and main characters of the film, Ben, is perched on the couch in a potential client's living room. He is asked why he wants to become a caregiver and responds, simply, that he wants to help people. Some small scene cuts thereafter reveal some unfortunate life events of his and that's when I start thinking to myself, okay so it seems like this guy is trying to fill in the gaps in his life by getting a simple job to help deal with or even distract himself from his crappy life. Without giving away too much detail, Ben and the kid, Trevor, hit it off and become joke cracking, unidealized human beings that set out on a trip to explore the world of "big stuff" (since that's apparently what America is known for). Now, at this point, I'm not sure if he's purely trying to help Trevor by granting him new experiences out in the real world, or if he's trying to work through some tough stuff himself, but Ben seems serious about getting to know Trevor and wanting to get out of Seattle.

The movie goes on and more and more things remind me of Toti's life. For example, along their journey Ben and Trevor run into a hitchhiking girl that they end up helping out by driving her to Denver, Colorado. In the car she explains that her mother was always big on helping people and that she "did shit for people... like without them even asking." It seemed like that was the best thing she could say about her mom and it brought me back to Toti explaining that he tries to anticipate peoples' needs before they even ask. That level of care is quite amazing and almost a guaranteed positive reputation. As Toti was going through a divorce, as he explained, he dove into a grand project helping a friend produce a movie. The project was just what he needed to distract himself from the emotional breakdown that he would've had, so in a way the project helped him just as much as he helped it. That's essentially what The Fundamentals of Caring means in my eyes. Ben helps Trevor get through his life with muscular dystrophy just as much as Trevor helps Ben get through his crumbling life.

All in all, it was a movie that allowed everyone involved to benefit from caring about each other. Thank you Nick Toti for reemphasizing this important message, even if it was just a small sidebar of your story.

Movie Hush

Blog Post to Nick Toti

Nick Toti is a Truman State University graduate who is purchasing a career of film direction. His wife is a scriptwriter. Both of Nick and his wife lost direction after getting their bachelor’s degree, and both of them decided to gain a master's degree in Truman, where they found their new direction.

Hush is a horror movie similar to Don’t Breath. The reason why I decided to watch this movie was its rating was a little higher compared to other Netflix Original movies. Honestly, I don’t like Netflix original very much which was not as good as its original TV show. It is hard to connect to this horror movie to you Nick Toti, the positive young director, but I have to do it.

The protagonist was a deaf-mute writer Madison, who lived in an isolated house in a forest. After her friend and neighbor Sarah came to visit her and returned her books, Sarah was chased back to Madison house and killed by a masked man. The man took Madison’s phone, cut off the power in the house, and decided to kill Madison after he realized she was deaf-muted. Sarah’s boyfriend came to the house to look for her girlfriend, but was killed by the man too. Strangling by the man, Madison began to lose her conscious, however, before she became unconscious, she managed to grab a corkscrew and stabbed in the man’s throat.

Without screaming and crying, Hush was a very different movie compared to the normal horror movie. Even though the movie lack of sound effect, the director still set up a successful horrible atmosphere. This movie gave audiences a special experience of horror movie. Audience can feel the protagonist’s desperation via her facial expression and body language.

One thing interesting me was that, when Madison sat on the floor desperately, there was an inside voice talk to Madison. Madison talked to herself that she could not run because of her bleeding leg, she could not hide, and the one way to survive was to kill the man. Inner speech is important to our cognition to the outside world and ourselves. With my limited knowledge, I tend to hold a view that writers would have more inner speech compared to ordinary people because they always sit with silent and write their story down. I wonder if a script writer would have more inner speech compared to common people that are not writers?

In this film, the protagonist seemed to very enjoy her isolated life. I am interested in why the protagonist would like to live in an isolated house. It was easy to understand that a quiet environment contribute to the creation process, but is it necessary to live in an isolated place? Some people like to work at midnight in order to get an inspiration, but the protagonist was a deaf person which keeps her away from any noise. Living inside wood is a horrible thing. Maybe horror can inspire one’s creation.

In all, Hush was a great movie.

Haters Back Off

     A fairly new series on Netflix, Haters Back Off, is a comedy but there was nothing comedic about it, not even the terrible acting. The ratings on Netflix said that I had a 91% match for this show but after watching the first episode, I'm 100% sure I'll never watch another episode of Haters Back Off again. 

     The storyline is not clear at all. The show began with the main character, Miranda, singing pitifully to a video camera someone is recording her on. Throughout the episode, Miranda anxiously waited for reviews to come but they never did until the end of the episode. The confusion is her purpose for the video that she's uploading in the first place. Why is she so determined to get views on this horrendous video of hers? Why would she want anyone to see that video and why is it so important? Without being able to clearly follow the storyline, made it very difficult to focus on what I was watching.

     The role of the characters are unclear. Miranda cannot possibly think that her high pitched voice is appealing to the human ear. It's just impossible unless she has a condition that was not specified in the first episode of the series.  Unless that's the punchline of the show...I sure hope not. Secondly, it took the series some time to verify what family member was recording Miranda singing in the opening of the episode. Miranda’s mom made a comment about her and who I learned to be her uncle Jim, discussing things that could've been taken the wrong way if they were out in public. At first glance, a person would believe that Jim was her father because typically when there's a man and a woman in the house, you'd think husband and wife but not in this case. It wasn't until towards the end of the episode that I found out the guy in the house was Miranda's uncle, which made some of the scenes obscure.
     One thing I noticed in the series is the depiction of the way mother's are treated in today's society. Miranda is very rude to her mother and that made it that much more difficult for me to watch. Miranda speaks to her mother as an equal, actually even less than that. Consequently, I believe shows like this give children the approval of treating their parents as if they're equals. It was frustrating because I give my mother the utmost respect so it was uncomfortable watching Miranda speak to her mother that way. 

    I would not recommend anyone to watch this show because it's absurd and strange. Haters Back Off is not a family comedy, it's the exact opposite. The punchlines are not funny; the main character is different but not in a pleasant way, therefore, I could not relate to her. A show is not enjoyable if you can't relate to the main character which is why I struggled watching it. I survived the first episode but honestly, I don't think I could tolerate watching another episode of Haters Back Off.