Ty Watches "A Quiet Place 2"

I finally saw "A Quiet Place 2" this past Friday. It was date night, my wife had the pick of the movie and we had both wanted to see this movie. We jumped on it. It was for rent on VOD and it was on sale. It was a true win win.

I adored the first movie. I thought it was a great idea that was perfectly executed. I think it is one of the better thrillers to come out in a long, long time. The way they dealt with the world they created was perfection. It was a movie that stunned me with how good it actually ended up being. But I was on the fence about a sequel. When it was announced I asked myself why. I just did not think they needed to do it. They ended the first one the right way, it was a tremendous hit and it seemed like it had closure. I did not want a sequel. I'm not a big fan of sequels to begin with, and when you get it right, I would not mess with a good thing. Sequels never help in my opinion. But, when this one raked it in at the box office, you could sense they were going to make, at the very least, one more. So going in my expectations were not very high for "Part 2".

Just like with the first one, I was pleased at how much I found myself enjoying the movie. I was fully in on the story. I liked the fact that they went back in time to show the first day that everything went down. It was nice to see John Krasinki in the movie. I appreciate that he wrote and directed this movie. Emily Blunt is tremendous. I feel like she is a criminally underrated actor. She seems to do mostly good work, picks good projects and is really good in whatever role she is given. The kids in this movie were badass. I liked that they made them heroic. The deaf girl rules and the anxious brother comes up big for the family. I thought bringing in Cillian Murphy and Djimon Honsu was a great choice. Those two are great actors, and they brought some gravitas to this franchise. I also love that a good portion of this movie was shot during daylight. You could really see the monsters. You got a good feeling of what they looked like, how scary they actually are. You also got to see how fast and ferocious they could be. I adored the way they used noise again in this one. That is the whole thing with the deaf child and the monsters, the use of noise, and this movie pulls it off yet again. There were tense, silent moments riddled throughout the story. It was perfect. I also appreciate that this movie leans into the horror aspect a bit more. The first movie is more of a family drama/thriller. The second movie, while still dealing with family things, leans much more into the horror aspect. There are tons of jump scares. I made audible gasps at different times while watching. My wife made a few mentions that certain things scared her. It was another in a long line of solid choices from the movie makers. And, like their other decisions, worked. I was genuinely scared. I found myself rooting for the family yet again. I cheered during the conclusion. And when it was all over, and my wife and I sat down and talked about it, I told her I really enjoyed it. It was well made, well acted, had great pacing and was just all and all well done. I had low expectations, and this movie exceeded them. I do hope they stop here. They do not need to make anymore. They did it.

So, if you saw the first movie, or are a fan of the horror genre and have a general idea of the story, I recommend "A Quiet Place 2". It is a solid movie.

Ty

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

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Ty Watches "A Quiet Place"

This past weekend my wife and I had a date night and we decided to go to dinner and a movie. The movie we chose was “A Quiet Place”. We both like John Krasinski and Emily Blunt. My wife loves horror movies. I like horror movies as long as they’re well made. I’m not a fan of jump scare, cheap scares and loud music scares. But, give me a movie like “Get Out”, “The Shining” or now, “A Quiet Place”, and I will gladly take the scary stuff that comes along with the movie. I was also intrigued because I have only seen John Krasinski in dramadey’s, comedies or on “The Office”, the most recognizable of all his roles. I wanted to see how he did with a different genre. And no, I don’t consider that stupid ass Michael Bay soldier movie he did as branching out. Michael Bay is a lousy movie maker.

As I said, I was intrigued that he was in a straight up horror movie, and that he directed it himself. I also adore Emily Blunt. She won me over in “ Edge of Tomorrow”, and I’ve been a fan of hers ever since. Add the fact that they’re real life husband and wife, and I was fully on board for this movie. I’m going to try to be as spoiler free with my review as possible because I really feel like people need to see this movie, and they should see it in a theater if you can.

The movie opens on a card that says “Day 87”. There has clearly been some kind of disaster that has brought earth to some kind of apocalypse. We see a family in a run down drug store searching for medicine. The first thing I noticed was all the silence. One of the daughters is deaf, so I just assumed that the family chose to use sign language as opposed to talking. But, we get to see some newspaper clippings that say stuff like, “they hunt by sound”, or, “hide underground”. So, we are led to believe that there is some kind of monster/alien that hunts by sound. Again, this is not a spoiler, it is in the trailers. We then see the family living in a country house, and they do use sign language, but it is used for safety. Krasinski is the husband, Blunt is the wife, and they have 3 kids.

Now, for the one spoiler, while in the drug store, the youngest boy wants a toy rocket, but his dad tells him no, that it is too loud. But, behind her parent’s backs, the deaf daughter gives her brother the toy. He grabs the batteries, and as they are walking home, he turns on the toy. He is eaten by one of the monster/aliens before he can be saved. We then jump to about a year later, and the family is still living in silence. The daughter thinks her dad doesn’t love her and blames her, the other son is terrified to go outside and the wife is pregnant again. We get 2 more days for the rest of the movie.

Now, I do not want to spoil anything else, so I’m going to abandon the plot from here. Instead, I want to talk about why I thought this movie was so great. The use of silence and sound is amazing. The way they use the sound for the characters who can hear, they cut to the deaf daughter and we hear nothing is brilliant. The scares are real and terrifying. I was holding my wife’s hand, she was holding mine too, and we both would squeeze hard when we got scared. The alien/monsters looked creepy,  it also cool as hell. I totally bought that something like this could be real. The story,  much like the alien/monster, was believable. Something like this could happen in the future. I fully believe that. Not only was the movie scary, it was sad too, especially for parents. My wife cried multiple times and I teared up a few times myself. The setting was perfect. The very few lines of dialogue were perfectly placed. The relationships were very real, especially Blunt and Krasinski. It was just a wonderful, well made movie. I cannot recommend this movie enough.

“A Quiet Place” is a movie everyone should see. Even if you don’t like scary/thriller movies, you will like this movie. It is unique. It is original. It is so well made. I find it bizarre that very few critics have it a bad review. Thus movie is amazing. Go see it. I saw it 2 days ago, and I still think about it at least 3-4 times a day. That’s the sign of a well thought out, and well made movie. “A Quiet Place” is a must see movie. I’m glad I saw it, and I hope I’ve convinced some of you to see it too. What a tremendous movie. It was great.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. The last time he saw an alien that was plausible was the time he caught a few moments of "Family Matters". That Steve Urkel is not of our world.

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

"Star Wars: The Force Awakens" and Welcoming the Rise of the Female Action Hero

Maybe Han should have stayed in the carbonite?

Editors note: Part of Ty's goals set forth by the Head Editor at SeedSing was to watch all seven of the Star Wars films. Now that Ty has fulfilled his end of the deal the X Millennial Man podcast on Sunday January 29th will be all about his experience seeing the films. Make sure to bring your ears and listen to the X Millennial Man podcast.

So, I finally saw "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" this past Saturday. I know, I'm probably the last pop culture writer to see the movie, but better late than never. 

Right?

Anyway, I loved the movie. It was adventurous, exciting, well acted, well written, well directed, funny and a great throwback to the original. It could be just because I very recently saw it, but it is my favorite of all seven "Star Wars" movies. I thought it was the most fun and the best looking. "Empire Strikes Back" is a very close second, but I prefer "The Force Awakens" to all other "Star Wars" movies. I could have seen this without seeing the other six and I would have loved it. I wouldn't have gotten the references and the call backs, but I would have enjoyed myself, it was that good of a movie.

JJ Abrams has proven himself, in my opinion, to be a very skillful director that can make old movies or TV shows, a la "Star Wars" or "Star Trek", into extremely enjoyable movies for fans and non fans alike. I never saw any form of any "Star Trek" show or movie, but I really enjoyed the two "Star Trek" movies he made. And, what he did with "The Force Awakens", erasing all the terribleness that is the prequels, bravo Mr. Abrams, you've revived "The Star Wars" movie universe into something enjoyable again.

I could go on and on about how much I like this movie, but my main point of my blog today is, I love that two of the biggest movies in the past 6 or 7 months, have had females being the strongest and most badass characters in the movie. This has to make those moronic MRA assholes nuts. Those idiots have to be losing their feeble minds right now. First, a movie I've written extensively about on this website, "Mad Max: Fury Road", has a female playing one of the most badass characters of all time in any movie ever, Furiosa. It doesn't get much better than Theron as Furiosa in "Mad Max". She kicked so much ass, played the main character in what was always considered a male driven lead role and owned the best movie of all of 2015. The fact Theron didn't even get a nomination is grotesque, another thing I've written about on the site already. She was incredible in the movie. The fight scene between her and Max during the first act of the movie was incredible. The fight was even the whole time, and the only reason Max won was because Nux snuck up on Furiosa and took her off guard. Furiosa basically beat his ass the majority of the fight. I don't think I've ever seen a more kick ass character, be it male or female, than Furiosa. She is the absolute best.

In "Star Wars: The Force Awakens", is it my imagination, or isn't Rey the main character of the movie? She seems to be, at least in my opinion, the new Han Solo. When she is introduced, she's scavenging an old ship and bringing in the best stuff to the traders in Jakku, even though the alien won't give her much food. Then, BB 8 finds her and is immediately drawn to her. BB 8 clearly trust her as much as it trusts Poe. That's very high praise coming from a droid. Then, when she runs into Finn, she ends up saving him by piloting the Millenium Falcon to safety. When Finn sees her at first too, he is on his way to save her from two guys trying to steal BB 8, but he backs off when he sees her kick those two guys asses. He realizes that she can hold her own. Later on, when Finn and Rey run into Chewbacca and Han Solo, I know there's a lot of spoilers, but it's been over a month now, everyone that wanted to see it has seen it multiple times, Han has an immediate rapport with Rey, much more so than he had with Finn. Han even goes so far as to offer her a job working for him and Chewbacca. Even later, when she is captured by Kylo Ren and he has her chained up, his power of the force doesn't work on her. Earlier in the movie, Ren's force worked to perfection on the supposed biggest badass, Poe, but it doesn't work on Rey. In fact, she is much, much stronger than Kylo Ren, who is the new Darth Vader. And that light saber battle between her and Ren, in the snow at the end, what an amazing, amazing battle that Rey wins in the long run. She is struggling at first, but once she realizes that she is a true Jedi, she completely takes over that fight. She is a bad ass fighter and she destroys Ren in the battle. It's incredible. She even takes over Solo's role on the ship(RIP Han Solo) at the end and she's the one chosen to deliver Luke Skywalker's light saber back to him. She's given that order by another strong, kick ass female character, General Leia.

Basically, I love that big time studios and directors are giving these kick ass, no nonsense roles to much deserving female characters. We don't need anymore damsels in distress or the token woman looking for a man because only that will complete her roles in Hollywood. Those roles are old and tired and stupid. I hope these studios and writers and directors keep giving females these awesome roles. We've gotten three great ones in the past couple of years, Emily Blunt in "Edge of Tomorrow", Charlize Theron in "Mad Max: Fury Road" and now Daisy Ridley in "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" and they have all been great. Please keep giving these roles to well deserving actresses.

I love it and they deserve it.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. It is about damn time he got around and saw the Star Wars movies. His training is now complete. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.