Better Never Than Late on "Them That Follow"

Today will be the third day in a row I’m writing about a movie, but hey, I have the time, the channels and there have been a ton of movies I wanted to see and I’m catching up now.

The one I most recently watched is an indie called “Them That Follow”. I remember seeing the trailer when I went to see “Uncut Gems”, and it stayed with me. I never got to the theater, but it was on cable right after quarantine started, and I recorded it. I just got around to watching it recently, and I was underwhelmed.

Now, the cast in this movie is impeccable. Kaitlyn Dever, Walton Goggins, Jim Gaffigan, Olivia Colman, Thomas Mann and Lewis Pullman are all in this. That’s an Oscar winner, a great stand up comedian branching out and doing drama, one of the funniest and most wild actors that crushes western roles and a super funny, young actor. This should have worked with this cast. The story was also interesting, or had the elements to be. The movie is about a religious cult that uses snakes to show faith. That in and of itself, with that cast, sounds super interesting. Add in the fact that the daughter of the preacher is pregnant with a defector from the church’s baby. And, when he decides to come back to church, pushed by his parents, he gets a horrific snakebite they almost kills him.

Again, this movie should’ve worked. It’s should’ve been good. It should’ve been something I thought about for days. But, after finishing it, I found myself shrugging and kind of bored. I mean no disrespect, the movie just didn’t work for me. Gaffigan barely gets any lines or screen time. He’s just there. Olivia Colman was underused and, when she was given the moment, the monologue was poorly written. Pullman plays your typical weird cult religious guy they drinks too much and is abusive. His character was derivative. Dever’s character could have been much more fleshed out, but she only seemed to be there to unintentionally stir the pot. Thomas Mann, as the defector, was too over the top, and I did not care for his southern accent. But I had the highest hopes for Goggins, and his role just fell flat. He was menacing, but never too menacing. He was religious, but never too religious. He was weird, but never weird enough. It felt like he was restrained, and that’s a bummer. If they let him really go for it, this could’ve been an iconic role. Unfortunately, it is not.

I really wanted to like this movie, but it was just a little too boring for my liking. This movie had promise, but it just missed the mark. Maybe next time.

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 "The Favourite"

As I do around this time of year, I try to catch up on some award winning movies from the previous year. Most premium channels are now showing them, and the other day HBO was playing “The Favourite”. I recorded it, and I literally just finished it about 10 minutes ago. Needless to say, I have some thoughts.

First off, I wanted to see this movie because I really enjoyed the director’s previous movie, “The Lobster”. I wanted to see what he would do next. Now I have to say up top, I enjoyed “The Favourite”, but I also have about a million questions that I don’t know will ever get answered, but that’s okay. I like when a movie makes me think about it for a few days after I watch it. That is the sign of a good movie to me. That shows that the director, writers and actors all did their jobs, and did them well. That being said, it’s a super weird movie. It is even wilder, to me, than “The Lobster”.

“The Favourite” just kind of starts, and moves along from there. You get the idea that it’s about a queen, but it takes awhile to get to the real story of the movie. It did start a little slow for my taste, but when it picks up, it really picks up. The movie is about a sickly and petulant queen who basically chooses between 2 women to be her second in command. Olivia Colman is wonderful as the queen. She is petulant and moody and whiny and childish and paranoid. Colman nails this. She is really good in this role, especially when the story starts to pick up.

Now, I don’t want to take anything away from Colman, as I said, I thought she was great, but Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz are far superior in their performances, for me. This is a total departure from what Stone usually does, and man is she wonderful. She is manipulative and willing to do anything to climb the social ladder and only cares about herself, no matter who gets hurt. I’m used to seeing Stone, who I really like as an actor, play the good person, the hero. She is very far from that in this movie, and she nails it. I was blown away by her performance. It makes me like her even more. I don’t know if she was nominated for this or not, but she definitely deserved to be either way. She is so good in this movie. But Rachel Weisz, to me, was the absolute star of this movie. She is so, so, so good. She is strong and powerful and commanding and righteous. She is the queen’s right hand person so much so that she essentially runs the country for me. She is a total badass too. She doesn’t take any crap from anyone, and she’s a fighter. At first I didn’t like her character, but as the movie went on, I grew to love her, and root for her. I couldn’t figure out who to root for for a bit. Then Weisz has this tremendous turn, and I totally bought in. Not only should she have been nominated for sure, she should have won many awards for this role. She was amazing.

There were some other smaller performances from some solid actors, but this was really a story about these 3 women, and it was very well told. The movie is haunting, yet beautiful to look at. The music is absolutely incredible. I found myself, saying aloud to no one, that the music in this movie rules. I would totally listen to this score just for fun. And the three main actors totally nailed their performances.

As I said, I still have a ton of questions, but “The Favourite” is a good movie, and it deserves all the accolades it got. I like the movie, and I recommend it. Just know that it is very strange, and will leave you scratching your head, in a good way.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. Ty dislikes the Oscars so much he never pays attention to them. If he had, Ty would know that both Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz lost their shots at a second Oscar when Regina King won her goddamned deserved first Oscar.

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