Ty Watches "The Assessment"

I just watched the movie "The Assessment". I had seen some clips from it on Instagram and it piqued my interest, so I decided to give it a try.

"The Assessment" stars Himesh Patel and Elizabeth Olsen as a married couple in the not so distant future. Earth has been ravaged by something, and survivors started a new world on the outskirts of society. In this new world you cannot have children the usual way. You have to go through what is known as an assessment. This is where the movie gets nuts.

The first fifteen or so minutes show us how Patel and Olsen live their lives. They appear to be scientists and they have made considerable contributions to the new world. Then Alicia Vikander shows up as the assessor. This is when the movie shifts into high gear. I have really grown to like Vikander. She is kind of a perfect actor for sci-fi movies. She is so cold and mean and aggressive as the assessor. Her whole job it seems is to act like a child and put Olsen and Patel through some wild tests. The tests start out normal enough, but then they appear to be sinister and mean spirited. Vikander nails this aspect. Patel is kind of perfect as the put upon husband who thinks he is ready to be a dad, but it may be way more than he bargained for. Olsen is perfect as the expected mom. She shows great signs of frustration and anger and grief. She clearly has had something happen in her past, and she is still struggling to get over it all.

I found this movie to be compelling and fascinating. I didn't think it would get to my emotions at all, but I was wrong. I was very impressed with Olsen and Patel's performance, but it was Vikander who truly stole the show. I thought the visuals and look of the movie was pretty spot on for what a not so distant future could look like. I really liked Patel's "office" that he worked in. He had this whole room with a big black box on the ceiling where he can perform his tests. He appears to be some kind of creator who can make artificial animals that almost feel real. He is struggling to make the fur feel real, but he is continually trying to get it right. He also seems to have issues trying to make his creations feel fully real. Olsen has this entire greenhouse where she grows plants and food. She has one of the last orchids that has ever existed in her greenhouse. She takes incredibly great care to make sure this greenhouse continues to provide for her and her husband. But then when Vikander shows up and does her job, Patel and Olsen's whole world is flipped upside down. She takes this couple through the ringer. It appeared to me that she was maybe taking things a little too far in fact. She acts like one of the brattiest kids I have ever seen. But we eventually come to find out that she has some things to deal with as well.

My only true gripe with the movie is the length. The ending took a little too long for my taste. The movie clocks in at about 1 hour and 50 minutes, but it could have easily been 90 minutes. I understand why they did what they did in the last 20 minutes, but there was some stuff early on I thought they could have left out and the movie would still have been good.

I like when I find little gems like this out in the world. I had never heard of this movie until about a week ago and was glad that I turned it on yesterday. If you like sci-fi movies, check this one out for sure. And if you like your sci-fi with a little bit of family drama, definitely check it out. I'm glad that I did. 

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

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Better Late than Never on "Tenet"

After many years of wanting to see "Tenet", the time finally arrived this past Saturday. I've been taking my son to his uncle's house to watch what we consider good movies, and "Tenet" was the pick last week. I remember seeing the trailer prior to the pandemic. It helped that it was Christopher Nolan directing too, he is one of the best doing it right now. But, the pandemic happened, I wasn't willing to go to a theater, even if it was rented out, and then it kind of slipped my mind all together. It wasn't until our previous movie night that it was brought up and that stoked my interest once again.

We were all finally able to get together on Saturday, and as we sat down, I didn't really know what to expect, but I was excited. It also helped that we were told by the only person in the room to have seen the movie to not try and make it make sense. He let us know it was a movie about "vibes". He explained that if we let it wash over us, he thought we would enjoy it more. That was a great piece of advice. As the movie started, with the knowledge to just watch and enjoy, I found myself doing as such.

I liked the movie quite a bit. For all intents and purposes, "Tenet" is a spy thriller with beautiful people wearing nice clothes and doing kickass fight scenes. That was the best way to approach the whole movie. Sure, there is a story involved, and it helps to pay full attention, but if you look at it as a modern Bond movie, another bit of advice from our host, you can have a good time. John David Washington plays the lead role, he is credited as "Protagonist". He is wonderful in this movie. He looks sharp. He seems to be fully locked in and enjoying himself. He has some of the best fight scenes in the movie and he is our narrator all along the way. This felt like a big deal to him and it shows on screen. Robert Pattinson is in and out of the movie, but his role is way more important than his screen time lets on. He is integral, he is also sharply dressed, he gets to play aloof, but you know he has a lot going on. I become even more of a fan of his with each cool and unique role he takes in movies. The dude can act. Kenneth Branagh is the villain, and he is about as villainous as you can be. He is mean and egotistical and yells a ton. But it's this well seasoned, well renowned actor doing it, so the role is done better than most. Elizabeth Debicki is the "damsel in distress" in this movie, but she also gets to do some very cool stuff, and she gets to take out the worst of them all in a very satisfying manner. And we also get to see Himesh Patel, Michael Caine and Martin Donovan show up on screen for a scene or two, and they make the most of their time.

The casting is great. The set pieces are beautiful to look at in this movie. The action sequences are incredible and Nolan continues to prove that he does action better than almost any other director out there. The clothes and people are also insanely good looking. This is a cool, fun and interesting movie. I will recommend the whole idea of this being a vibes movie and watching it like it's an updated Bond movie without James Bond. I recommend this movie and I think you will find it pretty damn cool if you do watch. 

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

Come and support Ty and the podcast on Patreon.

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SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing.

Ty Watches "Yesterday"

Yesterday was finally able to go out and see one of my most anticipated movies of 2019, "Yesterday". I talked about it on the pod, I wrote about the trailer, I love Danny Boyle as a director, I am a big time Beatles fan, as I said on the pod, I think they are the greatest band ever, and I really, really wanted to take my dad to see it. I bought tickets for us, and we went, and this movie more than lived up to my personal expectations.

I saw the tepid response from critics, and that is exactly why I don't let critics dictate which movies I go see. I knew that I wanted to see this movie, and I was pretty sure that I would find myself enjoying it. I was right. "Yesterday" is one of the better "feel good" movies I have watched. After watching it I was happy, in a good mood and I wanted to listen to nothing but the Beatles, and the soundtrack, to the movie.

For starters, Himesh Patel, who was the main character Jack, was outstanding. I have never seen him in anything before this, but he absolutely blew me away. For him to show the angst, guilt, confusion and illusion of fame the way he did was tremendous. I mean, imagine waking up in a world, one in which you are a struggling musician, and finding out that no one but you knows who The Beatles are. How would you deal with that scenario? I know that I for one would have trouble remembering all the lyrics. But, to see Patel decide to claim them as his own, then become famous overnight, then have to deal with everything that comes with fame, it was a great job on his part.

Also, the thing the critics seemed to have the most problems with, I enjoyed the love story. Sure, I will always take more Beatles songs over pretty much anything, but this is a big Hollywood movie, and love stories are the name of the game. And Patel's love interest, Ellie, was very well represented by Lily James. James has been in a good amount of some of my favorite recent movies, most notably "Baby Driver", and she is nailing it. In "Yesterday" she is Jack's manager, driver and producer, but she is also in love with him, and has been since they were kids. She is vulnerable and wants him to love her back, and she does such a good job. Joel Fry, as Rocky, was hilarious and fun the whole time. He was the true comic relief. Jack's parents were great and believable. Ed Sheerhan, as kind of a stylized, arrogant version of himself, was great. Kate McKinnon was evil and villainous and hilarious. The cast was just tremendous.

What I think I loved most about this movie was how they showed the current generation reacting to hearing Beatles music for the first time. When Jack gets released from the hospital and he plays "Yesterday" on an acoustic guitar, his friends are blown away. They have never heard anything like it before. They are crying at how beautiful it is. When Ellie hears Jack play songs like "I Saw Her Standing There", or "All You Need is Love" or "And I Love Her", you can she her love for Jack grow and grow, and she wants him so badly to love her like the lyrics in the songs do. When Sheerhan, in a great scene, challenges Jack to a "song off", and Jack comes back and plays "The Long and Winding Road", he is so moved he calls Jack Mozart, and himself Salieri. It is remarkable. When McKinnon gets a hold of him, she decides that, since she claims he doesn't have the right "image" yet, that they are going to release his genius to the world one song at a time until they get his look right. To see his likes and retweets and the amount of followers go up and up and up, it is truly how we consume music nowadays. When he decides, the day before his album is to be released, to play a concert on the top of a hotel, his version of "Help" is not only a great, sped up version of the song, it holds so much more meaning because of how much he is struggling with what he is doing. When, in a great one scene moment, Lamorne Morris, who plays the head of A and R at the music company, goes on his spiel about getting the buzz out on social media, and finding the right album title and getting Jack's look just right, and the pictures that surround him and all the yes men and women around the table, it is too perfect.

"Yesterday" is a wonder of a movie. I loved every single second of what I watched. I cannot wait to see it 4, 5, 6 more times. I will buy it when it comes out on Blu Ray. I have already been telling my wife how great it is, and how much I can't wait to show it to her. This movie is the perfect movie for Beatles fans. But, I also think it is a great movie for anyone that loves music, and for people my age, and also my father's age. To all the parents that played Beatles music for their now grown up kids, go out and see this movie together. I think seeing it with my dad made it that much more enjoyable. I cannot recommend this movie enough. Please go see it.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He is unaware that adding Beatles music to a movie will automatically make it good. Check out “Across the Universe” to see how adding the Beatles can not save the most terrible of films.

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