Do you ever miss when theaters were filled with mostly original ideas?
I mean, the movies have always had its fair share of sequels and reboots throughout it's history. It just feels like more than ever it's been getting clogged of these films. Though it is, admittedly, at a surface level I'm judging this by. I'm aware there's a plethora of original indie films out every day. But, once in a long while, you get a Get Out. A sleeper hit that has brutal commentary AND great visual metaphors. But somehow broke $170 MILLION, with a $5 million budget.
The film is about Chris Washington, a photographer, with his girlfriend Rose Armitage, go on a vacation to her parents for a weekend. Chris is a black man, Rose is a white woman, (bringing this up, since it's important to the film), and the parents have no idea what he looks like. Chris' hilarious TSA agent friend Rod warns him that this will go bad, but Chris is confident he can survive. Starts off innocently enough. The parents are awkwardly racist, painfully cringe but innocent enough. However, it starts to escalate as the weekend goes on. The black workers of the house are acting very strange (yeah, it goes there), the whole family is acting strange, and as soon as Chris realizes what's going on, his only option is to, GET THE FUCK OUT.
Get Out makes me happy, because it's a film I never would have thought would be as popular as it was. Especially since, it's a film that attempts to knock down that stupid saying everyone had after President Obama was in office, "Racism is over now", when really it just got covered by a not so thickly veiled blanket of "lets try not to be racist". Which is cool, but it didn't really solve anything. Get Out is absolutely showing that. This is not only a film depicting "liberal racism", or "thinly veiled racism", but showing a certain "crisis", of white people wanting to adopt black culture, or wanting "the black experience", but director/writer Jordan Peele, is showing a more metaphorical perspective to this.
By the way, this will have massive spoilers. I mean, I'm assuming you saw this, if not, I highly recommend you do.
Okay, so. Get Out also has so many wonderful sequences and metaphors, that I'd like to explore. Firstly, The Sunken Place is easily one of the most breathtaking cinematic scenes I've ever seen. Poignant, terrifying, and deeply compelling. I can't explain to you how I felt when the Chris was screaming his absolute heart out, and nothing. Jordan Peele explains this is how it is to be marginalized, that if you get out of line, you are silenced/sunken. That alone speaks volumes of the levels we have yet to achieve as a society as a whole.
Not to mention, the whole body stealing idea. In this, they want to take the identity, but without letting the actual man, the man who had to live in that body, be free. They want to use them, but not give them their just due. It's damn good depth for a simple plot that plays like a cheesy horror film.
Plot wise, it's a very 80's, kind of really simple, thriller. I mean, stealing brains? Cult family with weird scientist father? What? It's not a huge problem, but it just felt weird that on one hand, the film deals in heavy ideals and metaphors, on the other hand, it has absolutely hilarious moments, which keeps the movie from going full on dark, and, this is the thing that pieces these elements together? If I have any 'flaw' with this film, this is it, and honestly, it's not terrible. It makes for an entertaining film, I just wish the contrast of the deeper stuff and the plot wasn't so vast. But I mean, look at It Follows that film had 80's references and nostalgia to go around. It's deeper meaning wasn't bogged down by the plot at all. It was merely just the weakest part of a near perfect film, same could be said here.
I could go on for days about the many metaphors hidden in this film. Like, controlling you with a silver spoon, white milk separate with the fruit loops, bingo game looking like a slave auction. But those are things you can decipher yourself. It makes the film feel more special.
Get Out is a film I am absolutely happy got made, and got as much success as it did. I want more Jordan Peele films. And I want more Jordan Peeles making films like this. I want better and smarter films like this. It's terrifying, enlightening, hilarious, and deep.
9.5/10
I mean, the movies have always had its fair share of sequels and reboots throughout it's history. It just feels like more than ever it's been getting clogged of these films. Though it is, admittedly, at a surface level I'm judging this by. I'm aware there's a plethora of original indie films out every day. But, once in a long while, you get a Get Out. A sleeper hit that has brutal commentary AND great visual metaphors. But somehow broke $170 MILLION, with a $5 million budget.
The film is about Chris Washington, a photographer, with his girlfriend Rose Armitage, go on a vacation to her parents for a weekend. Chris is a black man, Rose is a white woman, (bringing this up, since it's important to the film), and the parents have no idea what he looks like. Chris' hilarious TSA agent friend Rod warns him that this will go bad, but Chris is confident he can survive. Starts off innocently enough. The parents are awkwardly racist, painfully cringe but innocent enough. However, it starts to escalate as the weekend goes on. The black workers of the house are acting very strange (yeah, it goes there), the whole family is acting strange, and as soon as Chris realizes what's going on, his only option is to, GET THE FUCK OUT.
Get Out makes me happy, because it's a film I never would have thought would be as popular as it was. Especially since, it's a film that attempts to knock down that stupid saying everyone had after President Obama was in office, "Racism is over now", when really it just got covered by a not so thickly veiled blanket of "lets try not to be racist". Which is cool, but it didn't really solve anything. Get Out is absolutely showing that. This is not only a film depicting "liberal racism", or "thinly veiled racism", but showing a certain "crisis", of white people wanting to adopt black culture, or wanting "the black experience", but director/writer Jordan Peele, is showing a more metaphorical perspective to this.
By the way, this will have massive spoilers. I mean, I'm assuming you saw this, if not, I highly recommend you do.
Okay, so. Get Out also has so many wonderful sequences and metaphors, that I'd like to explore. Firstly, The Sunken Place is easily one of the most breathtaking cinematic scenes I've ever seen. Poignant, terrifying, and deeply compelling. I can't explain to you how I felt when the Chris was screaming his absolute heart out, and nothing. Jordan Peele explains this is how it is to be marginalized, that if you get out of line, you are silenced/sunken. That alone speaks volumes of the levels we have yet to achieve as a society as a whole.
Not to mention, the whole body stealing idea. In this, they want to take the identity, but without letting the actual man, the man who had to live in that body, be free. They want to use them, but not give them their just due. It's damn good depth for a simple plot that plays like a cheesy horror film.
Plot wise, it's a very 80's, kind of really simple, thriller. I mean, stealing brains? Cult family with weird scientist father? What? It's not a huge problem, but it just felt weird that on one hand, the film deals in heavy ideals and metaphors, on the other hand, it has absolutely hilarious moments, which keeps the movie from going full on dark, and, this is the thing that pieces these elements together? If I have any 'flaw' with this film, this is it, and honestly, it's not terrible. It makes for an entertaining film, I just wish the contrast of the deeper stuff and the plot wasn't so vast. But I mean, look at It Follows that film had 80's references and nostalgia to go around. It's deeper meaning wasn't bogged down by the plot at all. It was merely just the weakest part of a near perfect film, same could be said here.
I could go on for days about the many metaphors hidden in this film. Like, controlling you with a silver spoon, white milk separate with the fruit loops, bingo game looking like a slave auction. But those are things you can decipher yourself. It makes the film feel more special.
Get Out is a film I am absolutely happy got made, and got as much success as it did. I want more Jordan Peele films. And I want more Jordan Peeles making films like this. I want better and smarter films like this. It's terrifying, enlightening, hilarious, and deep.
9.5/10
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