Fantasia Festival 2019: Little Monsters (2019)

Little Monsters (2019)

Director (and writer): Abe Forsythe

Cast: Lupita Nyong’o, Alexander England, Josh Gad, Diesel La Torraca, Ava Caryofyllis, Kat Stewart, Marshall Napier, Charlie Whitley

Little Monsters is a 2019 Australian horror comedy-thriller that tells the story of a washed-up musician who ends up chaperoning his nephew’s class field trip in the heart to win the heart of the teacher however little do they know that, they end up driving into the heart of a zombie outbreak.

Between a lot of Taylor Swift‘s Shake It Off and a balance between humor and horror, Little Monsters is a horror comedy that does a lot right. It has to do with well-timed laughs and cleverly maneuvering its script between separating the reality into make believe where the kids are involved. Because the scope is fairly narrow and set mostly in one location, the Pleasant Valley Farm and despite the class of kindergarten children, the film focuses on a fairly small cast and all these elements do it a huge favor. It magnifies each character during the film to give it more space to develop and connect with. Every zombie movie gives its unique twist on the zombie trait (at least it tries), in order to make it stand out in a sea of endless zombie films and here, the reveal comes fairly late and yet, has so much charm to it.

A lot of Little Monsters is pulled together by the humor and how the characters deliver it. The definite star here is Lupita Nyong’o who is fabulously hilarious as a school teacher, Miss Caroline straddling the line between being a caring school teacher as she is sweet and gentle with her class of 5 year-olds no matter how docile or annoying they can be, but so fierce when things start to endanger them, best shown with one of the best scenes between her and Josh Gad‘s character, Teddy McGiggle. To the 5 year olds, this is all a pretense of a game in action and yet, the few children that have their focus all have the unique traits of different types of children in these situations which surprisingly, adds to the humor as the adults try to make sure that little make-believe stays alive.

Looking at the other roles, both Alexander England who plays Dave, the wash-up musician and nephew and Josh Gad’s role of Teddy McGiggle, a famous kid TV celebrity follow a very familiar character trajectory. Teddy McGiggle is a kid TV celebrity and with any rich celebrity is the human villain because of his selfishness and it becomes obvious where this arc will finally lead. As the other comedic role here that mostly delivers, there is one or two moments that the humor he delivers goes a little over the top (but humor is subjective so it may change to the viewer and how you accept Josh Gad’s humor in the first place). Dave is also quite comedic however, his story is more on the touching side. There are some slower moments that might feel a little misplaced and achieve the one goal to pull Dave and Miss Caroline. While unnecessary, it does help to give the character some depth.

Overall, Little Monsters is a great horror comedy. Its funny with some tense moments. There are some flaws but its easy to overlook them because of the overall film’s charm. Lupita Nyong’o’s character gives it a lot of life as she shines being both fierce and caring to spin a tale for her class. The script is well-written and pulls all the elements together with clever writing using music as a fantastic medium of diversion. The three adult characters also creates a balance for where they stand on the zombie outbreak spectrum. As the audience, the movie as a whole allows us to see things that the main characters don’t see especially the outside dangers from worried parents to how the army plans on attacking the situation, making it feel more urgent than the characters feel for the unknown impending danger. Its hard to call a zombie film, even one structured as a horror comedy, touching but somehow, Little Monsters subconsciously does all that.

Queen of Katwe (2016)

Its been a long time since I’ve caught a new release at the theatres. But I got a free early screening of Queen of Katwe on Wednesday so I freed up some time to go. Especially since I’m those people who like these inspirational Disney movies. To be honest, I’ve only heard about this movie and how it was about a child and their journey to become a chess champion. I really didn’t know much about it but taking a quick look at the cast already made me want to go check it out.

Queen of Katwe (2016)

Director: Mira Nair

Cast: Madina Nalwanga, Lupita Nyong’o, David Oyelowo, Martin Kabanza, Taryn Kyaze

An Ugandan girl sees her world rapidly change after being introduced to the game of chess.-IMDB

 Queen of Katwe is a Disney real-life based on a true story inspirational story. What makes this one better than all of the rest? It has a powerful cast which delivers outstanding performances and a setting that we haven’t quite seen before. Call my world of movie viewing small (because there are still a lot more movies to discover, I know that), I have never seen a movie that exposes the raw hard lives as such in any Disney movie before. Our main character here is a real child who lived through these events called Phiona who lived in a rural city of Katwe in Uganda. She lived in below average standards and can’t go to school in order to help her mom sell corn along with her siblings to keep up with their lives and maintain a roof over their heads. While this is about hard times as her and her family gets hit by one thing after another, its a story about her years of perseverance to achieve her dreams. It was brought by someone who saw the best in her when no one else could, her coach who took the time to introduce her to the game of chess and her mom’s views on it as well to promise her a better future.

I can discuss how great Madino Nalwanga is at her role playing Phiona and capturing the changes she went through as she achieved success at a young age. She started judging where she came from and wanting more. She lost a bit of herself and eventually found it back. She felt despair when things went bad, and joy when she felt like she could do more and that there was somewhere for her. Phiona’s journey to her success was a hard one but also saw her learn a lot from it. Madino Nalwanga captures it all fantastically. The same goes to Lupita Nyong’o who plays as Phiona’s mother. You can see her pain and worries even as she stays strong for her family. Her character may not be educated in the books but she is educated by her life experiences and for that, she has self-respect and takes care of her kids primarily. Its a beautiful performance. The same also goes to David Oyelowo who plays the coach. These characters come to life because of their humanity and that they aren’t sugar-coated. These were their lives and we can believe that it was.

However, the strength of these inspirational Disney movies lie in the fact that they carry an uplifting message. In a world where we talk about all the bad, its nice to see that despite this being still a less than fortunate situation in the beginning and we all go through hard times (some more than others), there is still a light at the end of the tunnel.  Our future is in our hands.  Maybe to some, it seems corny and silly but Queen of Katwe is heartwarming to watch even if its only small downfall is such a long run time. The best part about Queen of Katwe is seeing how Phiona grows as a person: how her successes change her and how she adapts to these changes. It is seeing her find her passions and realizing that our dreams don’t come because we are smart. Some of us need perserverance, challenges, road bumps to over and to take the time and effort to improve. Our dreams and success don’t happen in one day. It takes hard work and those who fight for it the hardest are those who never let themselves believe they are at the top (aka confident but not overconfident). I’m sure there’s a different message for everyone who watches Queen of Katwe. While it still suffers from many predictable moments, it also never quite loses its believability and authenticity.

Overall, Queen of Katwe is really good. With great performances, even the kids who I didn’t mention each and every one of, were a joy to watch. They put light into a story like this one particularly. This movie is inspirational with many great messages. It is going to be an emotional ride through the few years of Phiona’s life from her discovery of chess to learning to excel at it.

Oscars 2014!

Wow! Two years in a row I watch this! Sometimes, I wonder why I do it since I saw 3 movies that was nominated through all the categories.  Shameful as I’m building a blog that getting more and more focused in that area.  I’m going to try harder this year, thats all I can promise!

Back to the biggest night of Hollywood! My boyfriend was finishing up a movie so I lost a bit of the red carpet action, still, I caught most of the outfits as I did watch the whole Oscars and even used commercial breaks to check out tweets! I have to say that I’m a huge fan of Ellen so I loved her quite a bit! I mean, she crashed Twitter with that crazily retweeted selfie? Did that actually happen? AND she ordered pizza, which was super hilarious! 🙂

Moving along…I did it last year and I’ll do it again!

My favorite dresses at the Oscars last night! (Top 5 because I couldn’t pick 3 *ahem*)

Cate Blanchette

Lupita Nyong’o

Sandra Bullock

Charlize Theron

Emma Watson

Cate Blanchett oozes elegance, at least to me, she’s the symbol of it.  No one quite does it like her! And I’m totally loving the blue shades on Lupita Nyong’o and Sandra Bullock along with the design, simple but so pretty 🙂 Charlize Theron was just stunning (especially when she was presenting next to Chris Hemsworth). And Emma Watson knows how to choose her clothes.  I’d love to mention Amy Adams, Jennifer Lawrence and Anna Kendrick’s dresses. They were super beautiful too!!

Last year I didn’t do the men but they were so handsome!

Matthew McConaughey

Chris Hemsworth

Will Smith

Bradley Cooper

Matthew McConaughey was totally charming in his suit. Chris Hemsworth was hot in his burgundy.  Will Smith was looking pretty good and Bradley Cooper surprisingly took my breath away in his suit 🙂

The best speeches of the night goes out to these two awesome people!

Matthew McConaughey’s speech was really meaningful and encouraging. He thanked his belief and faith, his family and his future self.  That blew my mind! This man was already awesome in my book and think he just went even higher!

Before Matthew McConaughey got his award, her award seemed like the absolute best.  It was completely heartfelt and so meaningful.  I mean reminding children from everywhere that their dreams are valid (paraphrasing her words, of course), is just beautiful!

Aside from actual on-spot live speeches, I feel the Governor Awards is worth a mention because I was totally happy about Angela Lansbury getting it.

Bedknobs and Broomsticks was so fun! She’s awesome! I was very happy to see this!

Aside from her, we have Angelina Jolie that I have to give a mention because I was never a huge fan of hers but her speech was very touching and she’s done some pretty awesome work.  Impressive, right?

Last thing I’m going to talk about is for the songs.  They were all pretty good performances, no? Frozen totally deserved it and Idina Menzel blew me away as always.  She has a monster voice! BUT, the show was hit off on a very positive note with Pharrell Williams performing Happy and dancing with some of the ladies. This right here:

My girl crush on Amy Adams just grew a little (okay okay, maybe a lot)! 🙂

I’ve held you all up too much now so I’ll stop here!

Did you watch the Oscars? Who was the best dressed? Which speech stole the night? Were there any surprise wins?