His House 🏚 // Let Them All Talk 🛳 // Coherence 🏓
Happy Thursday. I’m making sure I have your weekend movie night covered with a pretty eclectic mix of recs today.
In movie news: Last weekend’s SAG Awards did little to bring clarity to this year’s chaotic Oscar race.
Viola Davis (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom) and Youn Yuh-jung (Minari) both pulled off upsets for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress respectively.
Meanwhile, Chadwick Boseman (Ma Rainey) and Daniel Kaluuya (Judas and the Black Messiah) continued their domination of Actor and Supporting Actor.
Something to make you smile: Youn Yuh-jung’s adorable acceptance speech brought some light to these recent dark times for Asian-Americans. Watch here.
His House 🏚
▶ Streaming on Netflix
His House is a British horror thriller directed by Remi Weekes in his directorial debut. After a harrowing journey across the sea from war-torn South Sudan, Rial (Wunmi Mosaku) and her husband Bol (Sope Dirisu) find themselves as refugees in a small English town. However, beneath the walls of their new house is an old horror from their past. Here’s the trailer.
Why it’s great: His House is unapologetically a horror movie. Around every corner of the eponymous house is a terror that goes bump in the night. The movie’s excellent sound design lures you around those corners and guides you through a gauntlet of hide-your-face-in-your-hands scares that will appease genre enthusiasts. However, like much social horror — Jordan Peele’s Get Out and Us or Wes Craven’s classic The People Under the Stairs — the frights are caused by a larger human condition. 93 mins.
Let Them All Talk 🛳
Let Them All Talk follows Alice (Meryl Streep), a regarded writer, who invites her two friends from college (Candice Bergen and Dianne Wiest) and her nephew (Lucas Hedges) on a cruise from New York to London to accept a prestigious author award. Over the course of the trip, old wounds are reopened, romances are explored, and everyone talks… a lot. The film was directed by Steven Soderbergh and features mostly improvised dialogue by the cast. Here’s the trailer.
Why it’s great: Take three of the greatest actresses of our time (Streep, Bergen, Wiest) and two exciting up-and-comers (Hedges and Gemma Chan), put them on a boat, and *ahem* let them all talk. That’s what Oscar-winner Soderbergh did to create this mostly plotless but wildly entertaining romp of regret, love, and change. The stripped-down direction allows each actor to just breathe through their characters to satisfying effect — with some sensational one-liners to keep you laughing. 113 mins.
Coherence 🏓
▶ Streaming on Hulu and Prime Video
Coherence is a lo-fi sci-fi that follows a group of friends that gather for a dinner party the night a comet is set to pass overhead. However, as the comet approaches, weird events start to happen — the power goes out, their phone screens shatter, and they find a box on the doorstep with pictures of themselves in it. Soon they realize they have to question everything they think they know about their world. Here’s the trailer.
Why it’s great: Coherence was shot over five days on a microbudget of $50k, but that doesn’t make it any less impressive or riveting as the most expensive science fiction epic. The movie is a puzzle that both the characters and the audience need to solve. There are clear clues and directions that will help lead you if you look closely enough to see them. In a way, it feels like a low-budget Christopher Nolan movie — sleek, intriguing, confusing as hell, but rewarding when you figure it all out. 88 mins.
2 trailers to watch
Monster is a legal drama directed by Anthony Mandler with a screenplay by Radha Blank, Cole Wiley, Janece Shaffer. Based on the novel of the same name, it follows an A-plus student whose life falls into turmoil when he’s charged with murder.
The film stars *takes breathe* Kelvin Harrison Jr., Jennifer Ehle, Tim Blake Nelson, Nasir "Nas" Jones, Rakim "A$AP Rocky" Mayers, Paul Ben-Victor, John David Washington, Jennifer Hudson, and Jeffrey Wright.
Space Jam: A New Legacy is a sequel to the 1996 original sports comedy film this time trading Michael Jordan in for LeBron James as he teams up with Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Marvin the Martian, and the other Looney Toons.
The film stars LeBron James as a fictionalized version of himself, Don Cheadle, Khris Davis, Sonequa Martin-Green, and Cedric Joe.
📽 P.S. You can see every movie I’ve ever recommended right here.
🍅 I’m also a Tomatometer-approved critic on Rotten Tomatoes! You can find new movie reviews here and here.
How have I not heard of His House... I've been trapped indoors for 6 months and I swear Netflix has never suggested it!