Sausage Party [2016]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (O)  Fr. Dennis (0 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review


Sausage Party [2016] (directed by Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon, screenplay by Kyle Hunter, Ariel Shaffir, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, story by Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg and Jonah Hill) is a film that I could not bring myself to spend money to see.

First, I'm honestly getting tired of the crudity.  I don't think of myself as a snob and have _generally_ enjoyed the Simpsons and even South Park over the years.  But I find myself getting tired of these after a while: Seriously, there's "more to this world" than puke, farts and dumb sexual jokes...

Then, I _don't like_ confusing _people_ with _things_.  I _don't mind_ personifying animals or even plants.  But I do find it _much more problematic_ when we start personifying cars, planes, and yes even _unduly_ personifying _toys_ (even though as kids we do use (play with) dolls / "action figures" as stand-ins for people).   But a car is _not_ a person.  A hotdog / hotdog bun _aren't_ people ...

And I am concerned that when we start thinking of "a car" as "a person just like you and me" we can start treating _people_ like _things_ as well.

Last week, I wrote exactly about this ... there was a scene in the DC Comics inspired film Suicide Squad [2016] where in preparation for evacuation a "tough as nails intelligence officer" ordered her four assistants to "wipe their hard drives (on their computers)" and as soon as they initiated that task, she proceeded _to shoot_ her four assistants each in the head (to presumably "wipe" _their_ own internal "hard drives" (brains  as well).

PEOPLE ARE NOT THINGS.  And when we start thinking of a _sausage_ / _sausage bun_ as "a person" we can start thinking of PEOPLE as mere "sausages" / "sausage buns" (to be consumed or even disposed of if we don't particularly like them...)

So even the film's crudity aside ... I DID NOT LIKE THE DIRECTION THAT THIS FILM WAS TAKING US.  We are OBJECTIFIED / COMMODIFIED ENOUGH AS IT IS ... we really _don't_ need to go further with that direction.

WE ARE NOT THINGS (and THINGS are not "just like us")


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Confused ... by Love [2015]

MPAA (UR would be PG-13)  Fr. Dennis (2 3/4 Stars)

IMDb listing


Confused ... by Love [2015] (written and directed by Crosby Tatum) is a small, simple and at times quite poignant African American dramedy that played recently at the 2016 (22nd) Black Harvest Film Festival held at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago.

It's about two college educated late 20-early 30-something couples -- Ferguson and Tiffany Marie Middlebecker (played by Keith Mascol and Jamie Perez) and Reggie Maxwell and Joline 'Jo Jo' Thompson (played by Simba Dibinga and Jordon Lloyd) -- African American, who honestly had trouble believing that they were still (or possibly returning to) the straits that they were in.  All of them knew poverty, _real_ poverty, when they were growing-up.  And all of them believed that their college degrees would have lifted them out of it.  And yet to their horror, they were _all_ staring at failure and being thrown out _onto the street_ ... again.

Yes, no doubt. that pretty much all of them had made some bad decisions, some worse than others:

Ferguson a writer, _may_ have procrastinated with his current manuscript, perhaps blaming it too much on writers' block (though it does happen).

Tiffany Marie, his wife, who _had_ spent time as a child literally on the streets _homeless_, now a "radio personality" on some local radio station, had been something of a spendthrift (even as Furgeson was _not really writing_ ...)

Reggie saw himself as "an entrepreneur" and had been taking all kinds of chances "in the media business" -- movies, records, commercials, radio sound spots, whatever -- doing _anything_ to keep afloat and (perhaps) scrape ahead, including having stolen a story from Ferguson a few years back that he had converted into a successful credit on some film (without acknowledging that the idea had come from Ferguson).

Jo Jo was probably the most sensible of them all, but she had been Ferguson's girlfriend "back in college" before breaking-up for reasons unclear and ... was now returning into Ferguson's world ... by Reggie's side (who already wasn't necessarily in Ferguson's best graces because of the "stolen story" affair).

Yet now they all needed each other especially Ferguson and Tiffany Marie who stood to lose their house.

Again, this is a _very simple story_ ... but there is a _lot of pain_ and a _lot of painful truth_ being faced.  So while this is a film that will often make you laugh, it will also make you cry.

Honestly a pretty good job for a "small indie film" ;-)


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All the Difference [2016]

MPAA (UR would be PG-13)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
PBS POV program listing

Chicago Reader (L. Picket) interview w. director


All the Difference [2016] (directed by Tod Lending) is a documentary that followed two students who were among the first graduating class of the Urban Prep Charter Academy for Young Men operating in the Englewood neighborhood in Chicago through their years in college.  The film played recently at the 2016 (22nd) Black Harvest Film Festival held at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago and will play nationally on PBS' POV program in Sept 2016.

The documentary sought to explore what could be done to increase the chances of African American males of attaining college degrees.  Currently only 1/2 of African American males attain a high school diploma, only 1/2 of those who do choose to go onto college and only 16% of African American males actually finish a bachelor's degree in 4-6 years following high school graduation.

The strategy that Urban Prep seems to be taking is above all _raising expectations_ making going onto college the presumed goal of every single student attending their Academy.  Then the Academy provides a good deal of mentoring support and perhaps above all teaches their students to not be afraid _to ask for / seek out help_ when they they needed it.  

Both of the students followed -- Robert Henderson who went on to Lake Forest College a predominantly white. classically "small liberal arts college" in northern Illinois, and Krishaun Branch who chose to go to Fisk University a historically black university in Nashville, TN -- faced enormous challenges when they arrived at their respective college campuses for their freshmen years.  Robert had been raised by his grandmother after his mother had died in a car accident when he was 12.  Krishaun had flirted with gang activity before his mother put him in the Urban Prep Academy.  Both were from the Englewood neighborhood in Chicago, one of the toughest, most crime ridden neighborhoods in the city.  Yet Robert had come to Lake Forest College with good grades and great hopes that he could make it through its pre-Med program.  Krishaun with lesser grades had hoped to get a degree from Fisk and become a Federal Marshall.  Both came to their respective colleges depending _entirely_ on grants, work-study programs and student loans.  Their grants depended on maintaining reasonably high (or even very high) grade point averages.  They also came with the burdens of their entire families, community and even their former Prep School _counting on them_ to finish / succeed.

This last motivating force -- that all kinds of people, from their families, community to their former Prep School depending on them to succeed -- really could not be underestimated in helping them do so.  One of the two students followed in the documentary, Krishaun, attended the screening and _flatly admitted_ (to the knowing acknowledgement of the Audience) that he _really_ DIDN'T WANT to be "a failure" in this documentary or to his former school.  And honestly RAISING THE BAR like this -- making failure (by-and-large) _an unacceptable option_ -- MAY have made ALL THE DIFFERENCE to these young men.

Now the two were _not_ thrown simply "thrown to the wolves."  They were prepared quite well in their Prep School.  They graduated with legitimately good grades, were taught skills, study habits, and above all _the importance to ask_ when they needed help -- be it with school work OR with working out finances.  But the Academy's "raising the bar" and making "easy failure" _unacceptable_ (despite the self-evident challenges) SEEMED TO WORK.

In any case, this is definitely a worthwhile documentary for _all people_ interested in helping young people (especially young people at risk) to succeed and ought to promote good discussions among parents, educators, community leaders and even / above all among _young people themselves_ about the tools and skills that our young people need to learn / come-to-have-access-to in order to do so.

An excellent thought / discussion producing piece!


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Indignation [2016]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (L)  ChicagoTribune (3 1/2 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (4 Stars)  AVClub (B)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (G. Kenny) review
AVClub (E. Zuckerman) review  

Indignation [2016] (screenplay and directed by James Schamus based on the novel [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] by Phillip Roth [wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] [IMDb]) is an appropriately R-rated movie that along with Walter Sellas' still recent cinematic adaptation (2012) of Jack Kerouac's celebrated "beat generation" novel On the Road (1951-57) could help Viewers, both young (in their 20s) and of my 50-something age, better understand how we got, culturally, from the post-WW II Era to the Present Day.   For this film presents an American college experience, that while certainly believable would seem almost "of another world" to most Viewers today:

The story, set in 1951 (a year into the Korean War), centers on Marcus Messner (played by Logan Lerman) a butcher's son, Jewish, from Newark, NJ, and the _first of his family_ to be able to go (on scholarship) to College.   Now there's _so much_ in that sentence that seems distant from the present day.  Yet in talking to one of our older (though still movie going) friars, he could relate.  That is because he too grew-up in a _then_ mixed (Irish, Italian and Jewish) _blue-collar_ neighborhood (in his case on Chicago's West Side near our Basilica of Our Lady of Sorrows) that with the exception of faint echoes of said distant past -- the (Italian) Shrine to Our Lady of Pompei as well as at least the legacy of the hustle and bustle of the once legendary Maxwell Street -- is as "lost to time" as the (heavily Jewish) Newark neighborhood recalled in Roth's novel / this film. 

Then a good part of Marcus' "indignation" in the current film / story centered on the requirement (still at the time) of attending a once every 2 weeks "Chapel Service" at the (Ohio) Liberal Arts College where he was attending where one or another of the College's professors would give an already quite watered-down non/interdenominational lecture on "civics" / "ethics."  Marcus, Jewish by ethnicity, atheist by conviction, found these still _mandatory_ lectures both offensive and a waste of time.  Other Jewish students at the school (there was already a Jewish fraternity at the school at the time) found creative ways to ditch said lectures while still being counted at attending them.  But Marcus was uncomfortable with these methods of going around said rule.  Instead, he objected to -- and clashed with the College's Dean (played very well in the film by Tracy Letts) over -- the rule itself.

Finally, Marcus got confused (and on multiple levels) by a similarly misfitting student named Olivia Hutton (played by Sarah Gadon) from a very WASPy if divorcing family from relatively nearby Cleveland, OH, who on their first date surprised him by, well ..., "blowing" him.  In 1951, that would surprise most people ;-).  Marcus comes to explain for himself (and perhaps even correctly) her apparent impetuosity (it also becomes revealed by a scar on her wrist that she had previously tried committing suicide...) on her parents' divorcing.  But the _larger question_ was perhaps why would her parents have divorced in the first place.  And indeed the question of divorce comes home to Marcus' family as well, as Marcus' mom (played very well by Linda Emond) seriously contemplates at one point (and for the first time) leaving Marcus' dad (played again superbly by Danny Burstein) for a tragic (if fascinating discussion-producing) mix of both outward anxiety (_not_ being "quite enough of a man" in/to the outside world) and inward / at-home abusiveness (trying "to compensate" for this at home). 

And over the whole story loomed the Korean Conflict and the larger Cold War.  Would Marcus' precious "indignation" over being _forced_ to go to "chapel services" that he _didn't want to go to_ become so great that it would cast him out of the school and thus into the Service and off to Korea?  On the flip side, should mere (youthful?) stubbornness over "not wanting to go to chapel" be just reason to send someone arguably to his / her death? 

The story arguably becomes its own metaphor:  Everything in this film seemed to be slow moving and even so trivial ("Okay, you have to go to 'chapel services' ... once every two weeks ... so what?") and yet as Olivia herself intimates to Marcus at one point, everything's also _about to explode_ (she tells him that she has "8000 emotions running through her head every second").

About to explode indeed ... excellent / thought-provoking film!


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Les Cowboys [2015]

MPAA (R)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
Allocine.fr listing*

LaCroix.fr (C. Renou-Nativel) review*
LeParisien.fr review*
LaVoixduNord.fr (PHL) review*

aVoir-aLire.com (J. Godinot) review*
Critikat.com (M. Pokée) review*
APUM.com (I. Navarro) review*
Cine Para Leer (F.M. Benevent) review*
Slant Magazine (S. MacFarlane) review
Way Too Indie (C.J. Prince) review


Les Cowboys [2015] [IMDb] [AC.fr]* (directed by Thomas Bidegain [IMDb] [AC.fr]*, screenplay by Thomas Bidegain [IMDb] [AC.fr]* and Noé Debré [IMDb] [AC.fr]*, original idea by Thomas Bidegain [IMDb] [AC.fr]* and Laurent Abitbol [IMDb]) is a thoughtful indie-style piece about a quite random French family "from the Provinces" (from somewhere in rural south-western France at the foothills of the Alps) whose parents, the father Alain especially (played wonderfully / poignantly  throughout by François Damiens [IMDb] [AC.fr]*) just happened to have a thing for American country western music and its lifestyle.  The film _closed_ the recent 2016 Chicago French Film Festival organized annually by the French Diplomatic Mission to the United States and held since its beginning at the Music Box Theater on Chicago's North Side. 

 Now it may seem somewhat surprising that a film about "a quite random French family from the countryside that happened to have a thing for American country music / its lifestyle" could then be characterized as _thoughtful_ / _poignant_.  My comment here is not intended to be a "knock" of American CW music (I like / love American CW music and have a Czech nephew back in Prague who's an enormous fan of the "tremp" lifestyle).  I just wish to note here that the "random French family from the countryside's" taste here is an _interesting_ and even _poignant_ FLOURISH that informs the rest of the story.  But THE STORY _very quickly_ and _radically_ GOES ELSEWHERE.

For we are introduced to Alain and his family -- wife Nicole (played by Agathe Dronne [IMDb] [AC.fr]*, 16 y.o. daughter Kelly (played by Iliana Zabeth [IMDb] [AC.fr]*) and son Kid (played as a 13 year old by Maxim Driesen [IMDb] [AC.fr]* and later by Finnegan Oldfield [IMDb] [AC.fr]*) -- beginning a random late summer / early autumn day (in apparently 1994) coming to a lakeside Country Western jamboree being held somewhere in the foothills of the Alps.  They're all dressed in cowboy hats and otherwise Western garb.  They spend the day eating barbecue, watching a few carnival style rodeo events, dancing to CW music -- Alain, even straps on a guitar at one point and plays a poignant CW song "Tennessee Waltz" on stage -- and ... at the end of the day, Alain's wife Nicole starts asking "has anyone seen Kelly?" 

What happened to Kelly?  Well, sometime during that seemingly innocuous / random "family outing" SHE _ditched the family_ and ... ran-off with her boyfriend named Ahmed (about whom neither Alain nor Nicole had even known about).  They find-out about him only in the hours / day that follow(s), as they start going through Kelly's stuff at home, in preparation to going to the police ...

And the two (Ahmed is apparently 18) simply vanish ... Not even Ahmed's parents (played by Djemel Barek [IMDb] [AC.fr]* and Leila Saadali [IMDb] [AC.fr]*) know where they disappeared to though they fear the worst ... Ahmed, his dad (who ran a random automechanics' garage at the edge of town) confesses, appeared to have had some radical Muslim tendencies (tendencies that he / the rest of the family disagreed with).  But now the two -- Ahmed and Kelly -- were gone and Ahmed's own parents tell Alain and his then 13 year old son that they honestly could have disappeared to anywhere.

THE REST OF THE FILM IS ABOUT ALAIN and his SON "KID" (who as the film progresses, grows-up) LOOKING for Kelly and Ahmed ... in Antwerp, in Berlin, in Yemen, back in Marsailles, even, by then early 20-something "Kid" as a young "volunteer doctor" for Doctors without Borders, post-9/11, in Pakistan.

And as the years go by, life / history, both big and small, goes on" -- "stuff", important "stuff" happens, of course, in Alain's own family as does other important "stuff" in the world as well (notably 9/11 as well as the subsequent Madrid and London bombings). 

Through it all, Kelly's mom, Nicole, gets _occasional_ word (a letter every couple of years, postmarked from truly random locations) from her daughter ... informing her of events in Kelly's life (now with a random Muslim name), notably that Kelly's come to have a number of children of her own (by Ahmed), but obviously these children would never know their French grandparents.  Kelly, for her part, never got word of ANYTHING that's happened to her birth family ... because, well, she never left an address in her letters, and the very occasional letters were again seemingly sent from random cities / countries across Europe / the Middle East.  (Ahmed's father notes at one point that "at least your daughter writes ... we haven't heard _anything_ from our son since he left us"). 

How does it end?  I'm not going to say ... but the film becomes a contemporary French update of the classic American "Western" The Searchers [1956] [wikip] [IMDb].  As such it makes for an excellent if often quite sad / poignant (and _perhaps_ very French ...) story ...


 * Foreign language webpages are most easily translated using Google's Chrome Browser. 

** To load Websites from South, East and Eurasia in a timely fashion, installation of ad-blocking software is often required.

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Suicide Squad [2016]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (L)  ChicagoTribune (1 1/2 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (1 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (1 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (C. Lemire) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review  

Blame it on a number of things -- a continued attempt at "brand differentiation" with DC Comics [wikip] [DC] (owned now by Warner Bros. which is owned in turn by Time Warner, Inc) trying _really hard_ to be(come) "the bad boys" of the Comic Book universe with certainly _a darker vision_ of the world than more "boy scout-ish," "socially redeeming/redeemable" vision of rival Marvel Comics [wikip] [MC] (now owned by Disney); and then a cinematic roll-out of a vast number of DC Comics characters, some of whom will almost certainly have their own spin-off movies in the coming years -- but Suicide Squad [2016] (screenplay and directed by David Ayer) by almost all accounts (see the reviews above) comes across as "a mess."

I'd also add the warning to Parents: While rated PG-13 (and many of you _may_ appreciate this because you won't have to sit through this often dark film with your teens as a result), there are aspects of this film that really deserve an R-rating.  So definitely _don't_ take your little kids to this film and even talk to your teens about the film afterwards.  The film's cynicism warrants airing / discussion.

The story presented continues the exploration of a preoccupation articulated in the DC Comics inspired film released earlier this year, Batman v. Superman [2016]: Even if humanity proved "lucky" with Superman (who had used his superpowers to defend humanity), how could humanity defend itself against "Super beings" who proved not nearly as nice?

The "contingency plan" offered in this film by a _really tough_ Special Forces "suit" / commander named Amanda Waller [DC] [IMDb] (played by Viola Davis) to her reluctant superiors at the Pentagon was the assembly a (DC Comic book) "Dirty Dozen"-like unit of terrestrial (arguably) super-villains who, having done her homework (to identify each this unit's member's "pressure points" / potential "weaknesses") Cmdr Waller was confident could be "controlled" and hence "guided"/"formed" into a "world class" Bad-A.. [TM] special forces military unit like _truly no other_.

Her recruits:

Deadshot [DC] [IMDb] (played by Will Smith) the most accurate hit-man alive ... but one who could be controlled by both threatening / rewarding his cute as a button daughter Zoe [IMDb] (played by Shailyn Pierre-Dixon);

Harley Quinn [DC] [IMDb] (played by Margot Robbie) the now utterly psychotic (hence merciless  / remorseless) girlfriend of The Joker [DC] [IMDb] (played in this film by Jared Leto).  They had met when The Joker had been in prison and she, as Dr. Harleen Quinzel, had been his prison psychologist.  However, his insanity proved stronger than her capability and rather than changing him for the better, she fell in love with him and well, now they have the most crazy, obsessive relationship this side (or any side) of reality.  Her attachment to The Joker appears to be _her_ weakness that Cmdr Waller believed that she could use manipulate to her advantage; 

The Enchantress [DC] [IMDb], a 10,000 year old witch whose spirit archeologist June Moone [DC] [IMDb] (played by Cara Delevingne) accidentally released after coming across an idol in which it was trapped.  Now the Enchantress resides in June Moone's body and periodically posesses her.  How to control her?  The Enchantress craves her own heart which had been contained in a separate urn from the idol which had held her spirit.  Cmdr Waller now carries around The Enchantress' heart in a special "nuke-football"-style briefcase which she uses to extract demands of The Enchantress.

Diablo [DC] [IMDb] (played by Jay Hernandez) a tormented former inner-city gangbanger who was born with the ability to ignite things at will when he loses control / gets angry.   He'd actually prefer to be calm, but can pushed into losing his control.

Killer Croc [DC] [IMDb] (played by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) again tormented by a genetic mutation that makes his skin scaly like that of a reptile, he's spent most of his life away from humans preferring the sewers where his inner rage as risen to match the strength of his already reptilian physical qualities.

Katana [DC] [IMDb] (played by Karen Fukuhara) a grieving / angry Japanese martial arts expert / vigilante whose slain husband's soul (along with countless others) is trapped in her samurai sword.

and Capt. Rick Flag [DC] [IMDb] (played by Joel Kinnaman) a gung-ho / patriotic second generation U.S. special forces guy tasked by Cmdr Waller to lead this very unique unit.


Now this unit was created to offer the Pentagon a means to respond to "Super-Villain threats."  It turns out, unsurprisingly, that such a unit proves "hard to control" and ... (unsurprisingly) one of this unit's members "goes rogue."  The rest of the story follows ...

Setup this way, the film is actually not altogether bad, but as is typical of DC Comics' stories, this one is quite dark, darker certainly than most Marvel Comics' stories.

There's a scene in particular that ought to disturb viewers in which Cmdr Waller has to evacuate her standing HQ and is told to "wipe the hard drives" of the computers present.  After her assistants presumably initiate the wiping sequences, SHE PROCEEDS TO QUICKLY SHOOT (in the head) ALL HER ASSISTANTS AS WELL.  It's one way to "scrub clean" / "kill knowledge" of a super secret project BUT ... AND ... remember THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A PG-13 MOVIE (!!)

As a result of scenes like this, one's left with a pretty disturbing film that _ought_ to leave a lot of viewers reeling.

So Parents don't let this film go without discussion: Teens would you really want to be involved with a project _so secret_ that your Commander could _shoot you_ for simply having been part of it?  

This has got to be the craziest portrayal of a "National Security State" gone amuck ...


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Nerve [2016]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  ChicagoTribune (2 1/2 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (3 Stars)  AVClub (B-)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (K. Walsh) review
RogerEbert.com (O. Henderson) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review  

Nerve [2016] (directed by  Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman screenplay by Jessica Sharzer based on the novel [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] by Jeanne Ryan [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] [IMDb]) is a VERY WELL CRAFTED truly _teen oriented_ "PG-13" film that PARENTS should at least know about BUT one whose makers knew their responsibilities quite well... and hence kept the film within PG-13 boundaries and even told the story in a way that will probably more convincingly scare teens into being much more careful about their online habits than any amount of well-meaning talks from concerned parents / teachers ever could.

The film's about an online game called "Nerve" (the name of the film as well as the book on which it is based) which could be described as the recent Pokémon Go phenomenon's very even extremely Evil Twin.  Basically, the Game's online participants are divided into two groups: "The Players" and "The Watchers."  The Watchers have to pay (nominal though presumably increasing fees) to "watch" The Players "play", while The Players are dared to do increasingly crazy tasks by some kind of online artificially intelligent "Hive Brain", while of course video-streaming themselves (with their cellphones) doing them. 

These "tasks" would be tailored for each Player by the "Hive Brain" (an open-source computer program) based on the suggestions of The Watchers as well as _everything_ that this "hive brain" could collect about the various individual Players from other Social Media / the Internet.   For tasks completed, the Players would get money direct deposited into their (already existing ... ) bank accounts linked to them, hence a level of creepiness _from the very beginning_ as the "Hive Brain" would search-out _each Player's financial information_ in order to "kindly make (said) direct deposits" for them as their participation in The Game progresses.

So the story centers around a somewhat nerdy (photog for the yearbook) NYC (Staten Island) high school senior named Vee (played very, very well by Emma Roberts, she's a natural for these kind of roles) whose cheer-leading BFF Sydney (played again quite well by Emily Meade) begins the film already as "a Player" in the game (and who encourages Vee to at least signup as "a Watcher" (so that she, Sydney, could get more fans).

Well, after being quite accidentally embarrassed by Sydney after school one afternoon, she decides to join said Game ... as a Player not watcher.  And soon she gets her first task -- kiss a complete stranger for 5 seconds (with 30 minutes to complete said task).  What to do?  Vee calls Sydney's similarly nerdy brother Tommy (played similarly quite wonderfully by Miles Hiezer) who naturally has an enormous if unrequited crush on Vee ... and asks him to drive and accompany her to a local teen hangout to find some random guy to kiss.  There looking around and sizing up the prospects, they decide on an innocuous looking guy (played by Dave Franco) who's sitting alone in a booth.  As Vee approaches him, she notices that he seems to be with a rather odd book for a guy to be reading Virginia Woolf's [wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] novel To The Lighthouse [wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] which actually gives her an ice-breaker: "Hey that's my favorite book! (how odd that you'd be reading it...)."  Well, anyway, she plants a kiss on him.  Poor Tommy dutifully records said kiss on her cell phone and ... she's informed "Task completed, $100 will be deposited into your bank account."  And her number of "Watchers" shoots up to over 100. 

It turns out that "the guy", who's name is Ian, was there, of course, because of The Game as well.  And he has the task of "serenading a random woman" with a really corny song, which he does of course for Vee.  And soon both are given tasks of (1) "take a random woman into the city" and (2) "go with the guy you kissed into the city."  Perhaps a little uneasy, but with adrenaline flowing Vee consents to hop on Ian's motorbike and by way of Jersey and presumably the George Washington Bridge, soon they're in Manhattan and ... the rest of the film unspools from there.  

As the evening / night progress the two are given increasingly challenging / corny and ... FRANKLY DANGEROUS tasks.  They complete them one-by-one, increasing both their cash earnings as well as their number of Watchers ... which inevitably comes to piss-off  Sydney who believed herself to be "the cool one" in her friendship with Vee. 

Now Parents reading this, if you'd be concerned that this film would encourage your teens to become recklessly infatuated with some cyber game like this ... I _don't_ think you'd really have to worry about this ;-).   Indeed, I'd actually encourage you to have your teens go see the film (with you or without you).  Why?  Because I do believe that this film really "speaks teen" ;-) ... After a while, the stunts being asked of "The Players" in this game are so _self-evidently_ dangerous that most teens would go "OMG there is _no way_ that I'd ever do this!  The people who invented this game _should all go to jail_, etc."  And Parents, you could then "just smile" ;-) ... THIS IS ONE TIME THAT HOLLYWOOD DID YOUR JOB ;-) ;-)

Honestly, it's a wonderful film and could serve as a _ very good_ means for talking to your kids about "internet safety" (including _financial safety_) in a way that perhaps would have been hard to do otherwise.  Honestly, EXCELLENT JOB!


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