THE PLATFORM (2019)

Rated: NR

STARS: Ivan Massague, Zorion Eguileor, Antonia San Juan
DIRECTOR: Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia
GENRE: Horror/ Science Fiction

It's "trickle down economics" taken to it's most literal extreme! The Platform, from Spanish director Galder-Gaztelu-Urrutia, is a crazy gross-out horror flick that wants to deliver a message about the haves and the have-nots, and how the haves are selfish and disdainful of those below them (in today's world the haves are the ones who got there early enough to scarf up all the toilet paper, and the rest of your asses be damned). But it's the same point Bernie Sanders has been making since day one in a much less cringeworthy fashion.   

Goreng (Ivan Massague) wakes up in this weird dystopian prison facility, and is informed by his older cellmate, Trimagasi (Zorion Eguileor) of how things work. There are over two hundred levels in this place, and the ones on the top level eat like kings, then a platform with their leftovers on it gets sent down this big elevator shaft to the lower levels. Depending on what level you're on, you may get to eat, or you may not get to eat. 

Trimagasi has it down pat. You eat like a pig for the few minutes the platform stops at your level, before it starts descending and making its next stops. Prisoners get shuffled around periodically to different levels, so those at the bottom are not always stuck there and vice-versa. Don't get too used to your good fortune, because it's only temporary.  Kinda like real life on any level. 

I have always found it disgusting watching people eat, and this guy shoveling it into his pie hole is the first gross-out moment. But when it turns cannibalistic, The Platform reaches a new level of depravity.

Others come along, men and women--they seem to just drop in on Goreng--and there's even a little "dirty" sex on the menu (between people who must not have showered for months or years). People get peed on. People get shat upon. There were many look-away moments for me.

Goreng maintains his humanity to some degree (for a cannibal), and laments that if everyone took only what they needed, there'd be enough to go around for all. 

The Platform is not for polite company. Unless you have a dark, dark, sense of humor and a strong stomach, you'll want to skip this barf-inducing bonanza.

Now playing on Netflix.

Grade:  D

JILL'S TAKE

'Barf-inducing bonanza.' I like it, Timoteo. (How 'bout 'an upchuck extravaganza' or 'puke-worthy cinema'?) All I can say about this weird, weird film is: I am very impressed. Not with The Platform but with the fact that my co-writer actually watched it all the way through! I did, too. (While I was trying to eat my dinner....)

Let me start with the good stuff. I thought the opening theme music was pretty darn spooky. (Buen trabajo, Senor Calleja!)

I wish I had more to say about this film. Nothing stirs my craving for vicarious violence more than a good prison drama. But once it's set in the future, I lose interest. And I found the premise a bit repetitive. I mean how much food, in various states of disgustingness, can you keep offering the viewer?

Sadly, the recent movies on Netflix leave a lot to be desired. Not so with the bingeworthy series such as "Ozark," "Rectify," "Unbelievable," "Hell On Wheels," "Frankie & Grace," to name a few.  But we can't exactly review episode-by-episode, can we. So far, we've been opining about unadulterated dreck. But just like real life right now, I'm hoping things'll get better soon!

Grade: F

ARRIVAL (2016)

Rated: PG-13

STARS: Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker
DIRECTOR: Denis Villeneuve
GENRE: Sci-Fi / Drama

Here's the deal. If you don't catch onto the "twist" in Arrival (and we're not talking Chubby Checker), you'll likely be confused throughout most of the movie. I caught onto it late, near the end, realizing that if I saw the film again, I'd get a lot more out of it. (Is it just a ploy to get you to buy another ticket?)  A film is always more enjoyable when you know what's going on. Arrival (with an Oscar nomination for Best Picture) is like life, in that sense. You feel your way through it, and at the end you look back and see just where it was you went wrong. But unlike the movies, there are no do-overs. So son, you're going to have to feel your way through it on your own, the way we all did. For if I revealed the twist, it would be a SPOILER!

But hey, it's Amy Adams. I'd like to be able to say I've never seen an Amy Adams movie I didn't like, but a more accurate statement would be I've never seen Amy Adams in a film where I didn't like watching her. 

Amy plays Louise, a noted linguistics professor whose services are recruited by the army when a dozen big UFOs--that look like gigantic cucumbers standing on end--land at various sites around the globe. Louise has the best chance to communicate with the aliens inside, who look kinda like big octopi (octopuses?) wearing burkas. When she and her team make contact with the "heptapods," as they are being called, Louise begins to slowly decipher their language, which consists visually of something looking like circular shaped Rorschach blots. Throughout the film, Louise is seeing dream images of her with her daughter, who succumbs to disease and dies in her teens. 

What's it all mean? Why are the aliens here, and what are they trying to tell us? It has something to do with the nature of time. In the end, there's a message about cooperation among nations, and how we are often too quick to reject what we don't understand, rather than going the extra mile to learn to really communicate.

But Arrival is so sloooow throughout the first half. On the other hand, it's a lot more cerebral than your average earth-versus-aliens movie. There is much food for thought. And the question that looms large--like a huge spaceship sitting in a field--is if you had your life to live over again...knowing how it would turn out...all the shit and all the sorrow, along with all the joy and all the love...would you go along for that same ride again? Arrival is telling us: don't be so hasty as to automatically say no.

Grade: B  

JILL'S TAKE

At the end of Arrival, I leaned towards Tim and whispered, "Lucy, you've got some 'splaining to do!" I admit it. I was totally lost. Bored. And completely confused by this "sensitive" sci-fi saga. Maybe, if there'd been a subtitle on the poster that read: "Time isn't what you think it is...", I would've been able to grasp what the hell this movie was about. However, I did learn one important lesson; I now know why I don't enjoy futuristic films. They make me feel extremely stoopid!

That being said, I was also annoyed at how under-used Forest Whittaker (The Last King Of Scotland) was. He's such a great actor and his role here, as some bigwig general, is miniscule at best. The same could be said for Michael Stuhlbarg who plays a nervous Agent Halpern. (Stuhlbarg was absolutely brilliant as gangster Arnold Rothstein in the TV series "Boardwalk Empire.")

If I had to say something positive about Arrival, I'd give high marks to the graphics. (Wonder how these aliens would have said "Good job!"in their ink blotty language?) The visual and special effects guys must have a had field day. I was also relieved that the aliens didn't resemble E.T. or any of those other bug-eyed knock-offs. Still, if my two cents is worth anything, I'd avoid this befuddling film!

Grade: D