February 1: What Vicky Is Watching

It has been WAY too long since the last What Vicky Is Watching! Well, I’mma change that! For friends new to the blog WVIW is a weekly sesh where I review, rate and recommend movies and shows that will rock your world. No genre or platform is off limits. So let’s crack into it!

Limited series I Am the Night airs Mondays at 9 p.m. on TNT (or stream online)

Cable: I Am the Night

The Short of It:  In 1965 Nevada when young teen Fauna Hodel (India Eisley) discovers she’s adopted she hops a bus to California to find her birth family. Inspired by a true story and  Hodel’s memoir One Day She’ll Darken,  I Am the Night is a crime drama that delves into one of the most compelling unsolved cases-- the Black Dahlia murders. Little does Fauna know her grandfather is Dr. George Hodel (Jefferson Mays) whose infamy in the seedy underbelly of Hollywood and suspicious ties to the murders mark him as a prime suspect. With the help of ruined reporter Jay Singletary (Chris Pine), who has his own connection to Dr. Hodel, Fauna begins to investigate her family’s past and find things are more sinister than she could’ve ever imagined.

What Vicky Thinks: Episode 1 JUST aired on January 28th and I CANNOT get it out of my head. This is a problem I am very ok with. Eisley plays naive and hopeful “Pat” the biracial daughter of Jimmie Lee (Golden Brooks). The only thing she has her doe-eyed sight set on is marrying her high school sweetheart, getting a house and being “his woman”...until she does some snooping and discovers the unthinkable: her mama isn’t her mama and she is not “Pat”. OH. SNAP. I Am the Night’s tightly plotted opening arc is gut-wrenching-- especially when Jimmie spirals into a hurricane of hurt and rage when Fauna confronts her. It’s the first of many jaw-dropping moments...the bulk of which revolve around Chris Pine’s character. Pine NAILS it as the antihero reporter Jay Singletary-- a broken, drug-addicted, borderline emotionally unstable trainwreck. He gets his face smashed in, kicked nearly to unconsciousness and dissolves into delirious laughter when he’s locked in a body locker in a morgue. With dead bodies. All in episode 1.

4 Stars. With a neo-noir aesthetic and commanding performances from Eisley, Pine, and Brooks I Am the Night’s first episode is an emotionally charged hour buzzing with suspense and intrigue. It's everything a Murderino millennial can ask for. Next episode, please? XO  

Also available for rent on Amazon Prime Video.

On DVD: The Little Stranger

The Short of It: In Warwickshire England, in the 1940s Dr. Faraday (Domhnall Gleeson) is summoned to Hundreds Hall to treat an ill servant girl. Her diagnosis? A raging case of homesickness. The Hall is far too shadowy, creaky, and empty. The country doctor, Faraday first visited the Hall as a young village boy in 1919. Back then he was wonderstruck by its fashionable and grand presence, now he is taken aback by its present-day neglected state. The once aristocratic Ayres family has fallen on hard times and dwindled down to three. Roderick Ayres (Will Poulter), a young World War II veteran and owner of the Hall, Caroline Ayres (Ruth Wilson), his unmarried sister,  Mrs. Ayres (Charlotte Rampling), their widowed mother, and Gyp, Caroline’s gentle black Lab. Enamored and entranced by the mysterious and solitary Ayres family and their home Faraday is drawn to them and the Hall like a moth to a flame blind to the darkness pooling at its edges...until malevolent unseen forces lurking in the Hall begin to lash out at the Ayres and anyone who dares to inhabit it.

What Vicky Thinks: The Little Stranger is a ghost story that’s not quite a ghost story.  Avoiding the trappings of the stereotypical “haunted” house Hundreds Hall maintains its English country manor coziness and charm. But it has gone to seed. With its moldering furniture, peeling wallpaper, and crumbling halls the house is nearly unrecognizable from the vision it was in the early 1900s. A melancholy air lingers in the faded and empty rooms like wisps of smoke from a blown out candle. With breathtaking cinematography and nuanced performances by a first-rate cast, The Little Stranger is one of the best films I’ve seen in 2018. Domhnall Gleeson gives a tour de force performance as the ambitious Dr. Faraday revealing darker and darker shades of himself at every turn. Each more horrifying and fascinating than the next. As his obsession with the Hall and Caroline grows The Little Stranger gingerly tiptoes into elegant horror lulling audience into calmness even as the bloodshed and eerie activity grow.   

5 out of 5 Stars. I LOVE LOVE LOVE The Little Stranger. As a big fan of gothic costume dramas to begin with I instantly borrowed the movie. The exceptional acting, beautiful filming, and the gripping atmosphere held me captive and gave me full body chills!!! Avoiding jump scares and exposition it encourages viewers to *think*. This movie is not for everyone. Its slow-burn storytelling, extended pauses, and indirectness may be boring or frustrating to some. But for each of the quiet, contemplative scenes come bone-chilling and haunting plot twists.

All photos from IMDB 

In Theatres: Glass

The Short of It: In this sequel to Split and Unbreakable, M. Night Shyamalan’s Glass takes death-defying vigilante hero David Dunn (Bruce Willis), sociopathic terrorist Mr. Glass/Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson) and serial kidnapper Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy), the man with a Horde of 24 different personalities, and brings them together. Behind the walls of a psych ward. A psych ward where skeptical and icy Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson) takes on all three patients to cure them of their “superpowered” delusions.  

What Vicky Thinks: In a word, Shyamalan’s sci-fi thriller is the anti-Marvel. I mean that in the best way (and that’s coming from a geektastic Marvel fangirl!). Glass is a different stripe of superhero movie. One without CGI or larger-than-life brawls. After its bombshell opening Glass quietly creeps towards a dramatic break that culminates in a shockingly violent and gritty action sequence that hits us like a truck.

The acting is as high caliber as it was in Split. Samuel L. Jackson is impossible to look away from reprisal his role as the wicked, calculated Mr. Glass. Equally phenomenal is James McAvoy, again effortlessly dominating the screen with his provocative performance as Patricia/Hedwig/The Beast. One of the most talented, versatile working actors today McAvoy’s reprisal of the iconic Split personalities and his chemistry with Jackson alone is worth the ticket price.

3.5 out of 5 stars. Did I love Glass? No. But I really liked most of it. Especially how filmmakers chose to not play it safe. That said, although Shyamalan’s classic pull-the-rug-out-from-under-you ending may divide and dissatisfy some moviegoers Glass ultimately stands out in the dozens of MCU and DCEU movies as a capeless spandex-less superhero movie worth watching in its own right.

So what are you watching? 😉