Tuesday, March 17, 2020

U Talkin' 2 Me?

Even though you're stuck in a moment you can't get out of, it is still a beautiful day on this  St. Patrick's Day, so I thought I would rank the songs of an obscure Irish band. And I'm doing this with or without you. 

I have chosen to rank the songs from their 2006 compilation album, U218 Singles, even though there are really sixteen singles because two of them are new songs just for that album and I'm not ranking those. 

16. "New Year's Day" -While I do like all the songs that I will be ranking today, there have to be ones that are on the bottom and if I'm being honest their early songs (anything that pre-dates 1987!) are going to be bottom tier for me. This song is fine, but I can never remember how it goes until I listen to it.

15. "Sunday Bloody Sunday" - Another of their super early singles. This particular song isn't very melodic or catchy and has more of a harsh sound. I know some people "can't believe the news" that I ranked this so low, but what can I say? 


14. "Desire" - De-siiiiiii-iiiiiii-re. This song sounds so Irish with its harmonica and blues-y rhythm! (I kid, of course, this song is as Americana as it gets). Great beat throughout the song. 

13. "Vertigo"  - This song. Is so. Catchy. But it is. Also. Kinda. Dumb. It really. Gets. Into. Your head, yeah yeah, yeah.... (Can you tell I was trying to write that to the tune of the song? Yeah, I realize it doesn't translate very well with text!) Before I listened to this song for this project, I was trying to see if I could remember how it went because it had been a little while since I last heard it. I was able to get "Hello, hello, I'm at a place called vertigo", but then all of a sudden, I start getting "You make me feel like I can fly" in my head and I've got  Elevation in my head. This song reminds me of that one, but just not as good, as you'll soon find out considering where I placed that one on my list! 

12. "Walk On" - They played this song at the live 9/11 benefit concert that aired on all the channels a couple weeks after the terrorist attacks. I don't remember this, of course, I came across it while looking up this song. However, I do remember this song being played during an episode of Alias. Oh, priorities! To be fair, I've probably seen that episode three times and the live benefit concert was only aired just the once. I like the beginning of the song where the name of the album it's from (All That You Can't Leave Behind) is uttered and the ending is my favorite part with the chanting of the "All that you _____ "lines.  I still like the rest of the song, but the middle does kinda drag. Hot take: ATYCLB is my favorite U2 album (although the last few songs aren't really that good).

11. "Pride (In the Name of Love)" - I know a lot of people love this song (as in they usually rank it in the top three) and I DO like it, but I just like the majority of their other singles better! If it's any consolation, I have it ranked as the highest pre-1987 single! I do think it is their first truly great single (sorry, Sunday); it's actually from their fourth album. I've listened to their first three albums and they literally all sound the same to me. 

10. "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own" - I like this song, especially the chorus. It has a very melancholy feel to it. 

9. "Mysterious Ways" - The opening guitar riff (and the same one that plays throughout) on this song is sick. I would try to emulate it for you, but I don't think it would come across on text! You probably already know it and if you think you'e never heard this song, I bet you would recognize it instantly. 

8. "With or Without You" - Surely I can't be the only one who thinks of Ross and Rachel when they hear this song? Honestly, if I hadn't done a Friends re-watch a couple years ago, I wouldn't have remembered this song plays in an early episode. Ross calls a radio show to dedicate the song to Rachel because he upset her (I believe this was the time when he made a pro/con list about her and she found out about it), but Rachel calls the radio station who abruptly stops the song after she tells them what he did! 
It has a very romance song feel to it, but if you listen to the lyrics, he says, "I can't live with or without you." I'd be a little offended! But I do love the song.

7.  "The Sweetest Thing" - This song is so adorable and if you ever hear it at a wedding, the groom better have blue eyes and the bride better have brown eyes ("Blue eyed boy meets a brown eyed girl") otherwise, why are you playing it? I know this song from their first Greatest Hits album, but after doing research about it, I found out it was never on any of their studio albums, instead it was released as a B side for the single of "Where the Streets Have No Name." I was super confused for a second because I forgot about the existence of "B sides". You see, children, a long, long time ago before there was iTunes or Spotify or what have you, people could buy singles without buying the entire album. Usually there would be an extra song on the other side of the record or cassette. Back in my youth, I did buy a couple of CDs of singles (Mariah Carey's "I Still Believe" comes to mind) and they usually put on a couple other songs or remixes of the original song. Yeah, I know, I don't know how people lived back in those days! When Napster came into my existence it was truly the best day of my life. Ah, Napster, we shared so many good memories together. Usually the suckier songs are reserved for B sides (I mean, they didn't make the official album, so...), but this song is really good so it doesn't surprise me they put it on their compilation albums. 

6. "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of" - Hmm, this song seems highly appropriate for what's going on now!  This song could also be known as "A Song That You Can't Get Out of Your Head". I like the part where he says "my oh my", like he just tacked it on there because the line needed more words. "It's just a moment; this time will pass", indeed. 

5. "Elevation" - Or, should I say, "El! Uh! Vay! Shun!" I was tempted to put this song even higher, or, ahem, elevate it :::insert groan here::: I don't know if I can have it surpass the other songs though, it's probably way too high as it is, but, god damn it, I love this song. I do not remember this song playing on the radio (it was a single), but I do remember it being used as promotion for movies and the '02 Olympics. I think this may be the only song ever to use the word "excavation". 

4. "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" - I mean, this song is a classic, what else do I have to say? I feel like this is their most singable song because as soon as it comes on the radio, you know all the words and has a easy melody to hum/sing to. Am I the only one who sings this song when I'm trying to find something and can't find it? 

3. "Where the Streets Have No Name" - I love this song. I absolutely have no knowledge when it comes to music terms or instruments, but I love the constant beat/tempo of the guitar and drums. It is insane that this song came from the same album as "With or Without You" and "ISHFWILF" and they were all stacked as the first three songs! 

2. "One" - "Is it getting better?" Yes, Bono, yes it is. "Did I disappoint you?" No, Bono, no, you did not, not with this song! As you can see, "One" almost made my number one, but not quite. "One" is my number two U2 song!  Mary J. Blige also does a version of this song with Bono (thirteen years after the original)  and while I think that one (heh, no pun intended) is great too, the original is still the best. The other three songs in my top four, plus With or Without You and Pride still get radio play, but for some reason, this song gets ignored. I don't get it! At least they sang it on Glee so it got some love there! This is one of those songs you sing while waving your phone in the air (or your lighter if your super old school!) You sing your bleeding liberal heart out on this song, Bono!


1. "Beautiful Day" - "It's a beautiful daaaaayyyy!" Yep, their most overplayed and popular song is my favorite. (Although it probably has some competition for being their most overplayed and/or popular). It's not just my favorite U2 single; it's my favorite U2 song. Look, I admit that I love this song for the nostalgia it brings me. It was kind of hard to escape this song in the early 2000s; it was pretty much everywhere. When he sings the bridge with all the "See the [whatever]" stanzas, the only one I can ever remember is "See the bird with the leaf in her mouth." 

Here are three honorable mentions:
-"City of Blinding Lights"
-"Even Better Than the Real Thing" - honestly, I'm surprised those two weren't even on that album!
-"The Wanderer" - so this is actually a song I was long familiar with because I own a Johnny Cash album and it's on that album because he sings it! I guess U2 wrote the song and it is on one of their albums from the '90s, but they got Johnny Cash to sing it. And this was probably one of my top five favorite songs on the Cash album, so who knew it was actually a U2 song? I sure didn't until literally a month ago! 

Monday, March 9, 2020

Brotherly Love

Step Brothers
Director: Adam McKay
Cast: Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Mary Steenburgen, Richard Jenkins, Adam Scott, Kathryn Hahn
Released: July 25, 2008
Viewed in theaters: July 27, 2008


Is Step Brothers a totally stupid film? One might say unequivocally so. Did I laugh my ass off while watching it? Most definitely so! There are so many stupid moments and dialogue in this movie and some of it's so absurd which makes it so funny.

The movie knows you came to watch Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly interact as step brothers who act like they're twelve, but they're biologically forty. Brennen (Ferrell) still lives at home with his divorced mom, Nancy (Mary Steenburgen) after being laid off from PetSmart and Dale (Reilly) has never gotten a job and still lives at home with his widowed dad, Robert (Richard Jenkins), who's a doctor (and Brennan is not impressed that he attended medical school at Northwestern and John Hopkins). Nancy and Robert meet at a conference and they are immediately attracted to each other and both find out they have forty-year-old sons who still live with them. Dale has always coasted off his father's accomplishments and quit college his junior yer because he wanted to join the family business even though he never went to medical school. Brennan has always been in the shadow of his younger brother, Derek (Adam Scott) who is extremely successful and a complete douche. It seems like he has some extreme self-esteem issues, which I'm sure would have been explored more if this was a drama. (By the way, I read on the IMDb page (take that with a grain of salt) that Adam McKay wanted to make this a drama and that shocked me! Now I know Ferrell and Reilly have done dramatic roles, but I don't think they're been in one together.) At least Brennan has had a job (at PetSmart), but it sounds like Dale has just mooched off his father his whole life, who seems to enable it.

Nancy and Robert get married and Nancy and Brennan move in with Robert and Dale and we soon get the first scene with the new step brothers. This all happens within the first three minutes, so, like I said, the movie knows what its audience wants.

For the time being, the two grown men will have to share a room and I just loved the heavy sigh that Dale heaves when his dad asks him to show Brennan their room. It is such a thing a teenager would do. On their way to their room, Dale shows Brennan the room with his drum set which he dubbed the "beat laboratory". His one rule is that no one is to never, ever, ever touch his drums. (Will it surprise you that Brennan will play his drums later on? No, I didn't think so.)

Unsurprisingly, Brennan and Dale don't get along and we see a montage of them doing nasty things to each other: Dale knocks Brennan off his father's boat when the family is out on the water and writes "I [heart] crystal meth" on the back of his shirt and Brennan puts make-up on Dale in the middle of the night to make it look like he has gruesome stab wounds on his forehead and neck, so when Dale is walking around the mall the next day, everyone is startled when they see him. Sure, it's a funny gag, but I find it hard to believe that Dale wouldn't have noticed it. Most people use the bathroom when they wake up in the morning and would immediately notice when they looked in the mirror! But most egregiously, he plays Dale's drums when Dale is gone. Dale knows something is up when he comes home because Brennan, who's sprawled out on the couch watching TV is all sweaty (he was really rocking that drum set) and when Dale questions him about it, he tells him it's because he was just watching Cops. (I don't know how watching a tense show would make you sweaty....) Dale also knows something is up because when he goes to inspect his drum set, he finds one of the drum sticks has a chip in it. He questions Brennan about it and tells him he knows he's lying about the reason for being sweaty because Cops doesn't come on until four. This results in Brennan running upstairs and threatening to put his junk on Dale's drum set and proceeds to do just that (luckily with prosthetic genitals, because eww). That results in them getting into a huge altercation and knocking each other into the drum set and smashing into the walls and rolling down the stairs and into the front yard where the fight just escalates. Nancy is trying to stop them by spraying them with a hose and all the neighbors are watching these two grown-ass men just going at it. It finally ends when they each hit each other with a baseball bat/mallet at the same time. In the next scene, we see them sitting on the couch together watching TV while they hold ice packs to their heads. It's the first time we actually see them not trying to kill each other or saying mean things to each other. I loved when Robert turns off the TV and Dale whines, "Dad, what are you doing? It's Shark Week!" Yeah, don't mess with Shark Week!

Robert announces that he and Nancy have set some new rules: they will fix the dry wall (the one they punctured when they were fighting) immediately, they have one month to find jobs or they're out of the house, and no TV for a week. I love the enraged "WHAT?!" from the two of them when they hear the last rule.

You know how when you hear a certain song, it makes you think of a movie it was featured in? I'm not talking about specific songs that were written as the movie's theme songs, but just popular songs that when you hear them, you automatically think of a movie they were used in because they are prominently feature in them. For instance, whenever I hear "Edge of Seventeen" by Stevie Nicks, I always think of School of Rock. And in this case, whenever I hear "Sweet Child of Mine" by Guns 'n Roses, I think of this movie. We are first introduced to Derek when he, his wife, Alice (Kathryn Hahn), and two children are singing that song in the car on their way to visit his mom and new stepdad. Adam Scott played the nicest guy ever on Parks and Rec and he's such a douche bag here that's it so funny. He gets angry when his wife can't hit a note and berates her, telling her he doesn't spend $1200 a week on voice lessons for the family for nothing.

We get some backstory on why Brennan doesn't like Derek: when Brennan was 17 and Derek was 14, they were both in their school's talent show. Brennan sang a song dressed as a pirate. Derek started taunting him and humiliated him, making fun of him for wearing make-up, and even the audience joined in. The moment was so traumatizing for Brennan, that even though he loved to sing, it drudged up bad memories and he was never able to sing in public again. We see the flashback and of course Will Ferrell and Adam Scott are playing their younger versions. Look, I know Adam Scott looks super young for his age, but it might be a stretch for him to play a fourteen-year-old! In the end, Derek won the talent show by lip synching "Ice Ice Baby", probably the douchiest song ever.

This is Derek's first time meeting Robert and Dale. He wasn't able to come to the wedding because he was busy fishing with Mark Cuban, Chris Daughtry, Jeff Probst, and Bobby Flay. (Interesting group). This isn't the only time Derek will name drop: he will also mention hanging out with Chad Michael Murray and Seal (on separate occasions) in different scenes. Robert takes an instant liking to Derek and gets mad at Dale for interrupting the story when he asks Derek a question about the fishing trip. This throws off Derek's train of thought and he says, "Don't be mad at Dale for ruining the story. And possibly the evening."

Brennan has been hanging out in the tree house during dinner to avoid Derek and Dale joins him, telling him he was right about his brother. Derek pops up a few minutes later to taunt both of them. When Dale asks him what his problem is, he replies that he doesn't have a problem, that he made over 550K last year as the VP of "the biggest executive-helicopter-leasing company on the Western Seaboard" and asks them how much they made. He also adds salt to the wound by telling them that he hasn't had a carb since 2004 and lifts up his shirt to show off his abs. This was obviously a male model who was wearing the same clothes because when they show a close up of his abs, you just see the person from the neck down. As he points to his abs, he tells them, "Every day I lather this up with Keihl's in the shower." Haha, I'm sure Keihl's love the promotion! Or maybe not since a totally douchey character was promoting them! He tells Brennan that he'll offer him a job at his company as a Christmas present for their mom, but Brennan refuses.

He taunts them some more, telling them they both look like they want to punch him in the face. When he straight up tells Dale, "punch me in the f**king face", Dale does just that and knocks him out of tree. This is a major turn on to Alice who kisses Dale and tells him that she will pleasure herself to the image of him hitting Derek. They will have a couple of dalliances, but this storyline won't really go anywhere. Lucky for Dale, Derek never finds out that his wife cheated on him with Dale (though I'm willing to bet that Derek has cheated on Alice many times!)

The shared hatred of Derek has also bonded the two step brothers and Brennan shows Dale something only three other people have ever seen: a samurai sword signed by Randy Jackson. When Dale asks him why it's signed by Randy Jackson, Brennan tells him he bumped into the Idol judge and all he had on him was this sword and "you're not gonna not get Randy Jackson's autograph." I have so many questions: where did Brennan bump into Randy Jackson? Most importantly, WHY was he carrying around a samurai sword? I loved Dale's response: "I would've done the exact same thing." This prompts Dale to show Brennan his night-vision goggles and this scene probably has one of my favorite lines when Brennan says, "Can you imagine if we had the when we were twelve?" and Dale replies, "Even better. We got them when we're forty." I mean, I suppose at any age, night-vision goggles are pretty cool.

The two of them bond even further when they play a game where a question is asked and on the count of three, they both answer at the sane time. They both answer "velociraptor" for their favorite dinosaur (though, let's be honest, isn't that everyone's favorite dinosaur, especially those who grew up with Jurassic Park?); they both agree that Good Housekeeping is their favorite non-pornographic magazine to pleasure themselves to (God, I hope Nancy reads them before her sons get a hold of them, eww!); and if they were girls, the one guy they would sleep with would be John Stamos. Look, I can't blame them. I recently saw him on the first season of You on Netflix (and he pops up for a minute in the second season) and dude still looks really good for being in his mid-50s.

As Brennan exclaims, "Did we just become best friends?" and Dale replies with an enthusiastic, "Yep!", we get a montage of them getting along set to "You Make My Dreams Come True" as they do karate in the garage, watch a violent movie, pee at the same time (yeah, that one was weird), and rearrange their room.

They decide to make their beds into bunk beds so they have more floor space. When they ask their parents if they can do that, Robert tells them they don't need permission because they are adults. He is a little annoyed because he has arranged interviews for both of them the next morning and it is late and thinks they should be getting rest instead of moving their beds. From their bedroom, Robert and Nancy hear hammers and a power drill. Robert yells at them not to use a power drill and Dale yells back that it's his tooth brush. At their finished work, Dale proclaims, "Look at that! That looks like something you'd buy from a store!" (It doesn't). You already know what's coming next: Brennan lays down on the bottom bunk and Dale jumps up on the top. He's casually chatting as he climbs up to the top bunk and you're not really paying attention to what he's saying because you're just waiting for the inevitable; which of course, is for the top bunk to collapse on the lower bunk (and poor Brennan!) Dale runs to his parents' room, crying, "It's so bad! There's blood everywhere!" This freaks out the parents, but Brennan only has a cut on his arm.

The next morning, Robert tells the two of them that they can pick out anything from his closet so they look sharp for their job interviews. It's too bad both he and Nancy had to leave before they saw what their sons chose to wear because they would have not approved. They both wear tuxedos as they interview as a team for three different jobs, including one that requires them to clean bathrooms. Actually, I'm surprised that Robert owns two tuxedos! During one interview, done by a woman named Pam, Brennan can't get her name right and keeps calling her "Pan" no matter how many times she keeps correcting him. Adam McKay plays one of the interviewers and Brennan and Dale turn the tables on him telling him that they are going to interview him and engage in a game of F**k, Marry, Kill where his three options are Oprah, Barbara Walters, and his wife. Unfortunately, we never hear his answers! Seth Rogen has a cameo as the third interviewer who runs a sporting goods store and is set to hire them because they seem cool enough, but after Dale lets one rip (in a smalll room, mind you) he quickly revokes the job offer. Later, he will tell his dad, who heard about what happened, that he thought it would be silent. Um, he does still realize it would still stink, right? God, I love how stupidly funny this movie is.

With his drum skills and Brennan's claim of people who have heard him sing calling him "the songbird of his generation", Dale thinks they should start "an international entertainment company" which they'll call Prestige Worldwide. Brennan thinks this is a great idea and they both agree that their parents met just so this very idea could form.

Meanwhile, Robert's dream is to sail around the world on his boat, The Gilded Lady, with Nancy. He originally thought he would have to wait two years before he had the funds to do so, but after talking to Derek, who happens to have a realtor license and told him he could sell his house for thirty per cent above market, he decides that he would rather sail around the world sooner than later. When they tell Brennan and Dale their plan to sell the house, their sons ask what about them and Nancy replies "We thought you should take responsibility for your own lives." Their parents have been generous enough to put enough money in their accounts for a security deposit on an apartment and adds that they are both going to see therapists. I laughed when Robert tells them, "You're adults. It's time you start acting like adults!" and Brennan looks at Nancy and whines "Mo-om!" like a petulant five-year-old. Then I laughed even harder when Robert tells them they're doing this because they love them and Dale replies, "Dad, I'm doing this because I love you: f**k you."  Then I almost died laughing when Brennan tells Dale that when his mom is "of age", he's putting her in a home.

Because of their new circumstances, they know they need to get Prestige Worldwide started and think they should have an investor presentation like they do The Apprentice. (Come to think of it, Prestige Worldwide does sound like a name a team on that show would come up with). Dale tells Brennan he needs to hear him sing to make sure he's as good as he says he is and when Brennan sings, "Something to Talk About", Dale gets this awed look on his face and says that he has the voice of an angel and that it's a combination of Fergie and Jesus. They decide to make a music video using the house (even though the music video they will eventually show doesn't even feature the house) and will go to any length to make sure Derek doesn't sell the house which includes being racist neighbors (they dress up as a Nazi and Klan member) and Brennan made up to look like a dead body as Dale cradles his corpse and cries. (I'm surprised Brennan didn't make Dale up with the stab wounds). There's a call back to Derek's winning song from the talent show as his realtor sign reads, "D-Man Realty" with the tagline, "My homes are nice, nice baby."

I love the scene when Dale is talking to his therapist for the first time and telling him he works as a janitor at a college and sometimes he'll see an equation on the blackboard that he'll solve and that his best friend is Ben Affleck. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? When his therapists questions him, Dale denies it's the plot to Good Will Hunting. Meanwhile, Brennan has strong feeling of love for his attractive female therapist who tells him she does not share the same feeling as him.

When Derek's friends and family gather at a restaurant to celebrate his birthday, Dale and Brennan announce they have "a special surprise" for everyone, telling them they have a "once in a lifetime business opportunity" and are asking for investors for their new company. They show them the world premier of their first music video called "Boats and Hos" which has the two of them rapping extremely vulgar lyrics on Robert's boat as a couple of bikini-clad women are gyrating in the background. Probably the least crass line is the chorus, "I gotta have me some boats and hos." I love that Alice is moving her head to the beat of the music and getting into it. Robert questions who is steering the boat since everyone on board is either rapping or dancing. A horrified look crosses his face when the boat is shown crashing into a rock wall and just folding up into itself. (I'm surprised that Dale and Brennan didn't edit that part out of the video! Yes, Robert would have eventually found out about the boat, but maybe they could have told him later.) On the way home, Brennan asks, "So the big question is, aside from the damage to the boat, which we will fix, what'd you guys think of the presentation?" When he started with "the big question", I thought he was going to ask them if they wanted to invest, which I thought would have been funnier. Robert gets very angry when Nancy tells them that while she doesn't condone what they did to Robert's boat, she does think they show a lot of enthusiasm and inventiveness. They get into a big fight, then Brennan starts screaming at Robert and gets spanked by him.

Earlier in the movie, it was established that both Dale and Brennan sleep walk (seriously, what are the odds of that?) as we see a scene of them walking into the kitchen and making a huge mess as they throw food and dishes everywhere. Dale even put couch pillows in the oven (glad he didn't turn it on!) Things are still tense during the holidays and the brothers sleep walk again on Christmas Eve. They keep bringing presents from downstairs up their parents' room and throwing them onto the bed and the floor, breaking them, and they even bring up the Christmas tree. Robert decides he's just going to wake them up, despite Nancy's warning that you never, ever wake up a sleep walker. He quickly learns his lesson because as soon as he attempts to wake them, they start punching him and throw him down the stairs. I know this sounds horribly violent, but it is also so funny. 

The next evening, at Christmas dinner, Nancy and Robert announce to the family that they are getting a divorce. Nancy reiterates that it's not Brennan and Dale's fault when the brothers begin to question if it is and that they don't want them to blame themselves. Robert, however, tells them, "It is directly your fault. You destroyed my boat, you beat me up in your sleep, and worst of all, you made Nancy and I resent each other. It is absolutely 150 percent your fault!"

Brennan and Dale get into fight over their parents' divorce and blame the other for it. They stop talking to each other and decide it's time to grow up. Brennan asks for a job from Derek and Dale gets a job as a caterer at a temp agency. Brennan wants to step up his game and asks his brother if he can run the Catalina Wine Mixer which is "the biggest helicopter-leasing event in the Western hemisphere since 1997". It's the Catalina f**king Wine Mixer! He hires Dale as the caterer and both Nancy and Robert are also invited.

The band hired to play is called Uptown Girl and they only cover 1980s Billy Joel songs. When someone suggests they play "Piano Man", the lead singer tells him they only play '80s Billy Joel songs and proceeds to get into a yelling match and storm off the stage when people don't understand why they won't play other songs from his discography. According to Derek, this has ruined the event and he fires Brennan on the spot.

Robert gathers Brennan and Dale and encourages them to go up on stage and perform. He tells them a ludicrous story of how he always wanted to be a T-rex when he was a boy and he would make his arms short and roam the neighborhood, growing and roaring, as he chased cats. His dad told him, "You're 17, stop being a dinosaur and get a f**king job." So he became a doctor, always thinking he could go back to his dream later, but he never did and he doesn't want this opportunity to pass by for Dale and Brennan. I love how they're like, "You're a human, how could you be a dinosaur?" Dale agrees with his father, saying, "I'm f**king miserable! I had to get up at ten this morning!" Oh my God, shut up, Dale! I consider it a fabulous day when I can sleep in until ten.

The Catalina Wine Mixer is saved as Dale plays the drums while Brennan performs an opera song which enchants everybody: Nancy and Robert get back together, Brennan's therapist (who's there for some reason) starts to return feelings for Brennan, and even Derek is so moved that he has a better relationship with his brother.

Six months later we find out that Dale and Brennan have a booming karaoke business called Karaoke 'n' Roll where the motto is, "If you can't sing, just sit down."

I admit I haven't seen all of the films Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly have done together and it's been a long time since I've seen Talladega Nights, which might be the only other true contender, but I would say Step Brothers is my favorite movie they've done together. 

Wednesday, March 4, 2020

Unbreakable//Split//Glass

Disclaimer: I will be spoiling the following three movies. These are M. Night Shyamalan films, so obviously they have twists, cuz, you know, that's his thing! Perhaps it's a spoiler that I'm reviewing these movies together if you didn't already know they were connected, but it has been over a year since the last movie came out so I figured everybody already knew about that. 

Unbreakable
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Cast: Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, Robin Wright, Spencer Treat Clark, Charlayne Woodard
Released: November 22, 2000
Viewed in theaters: November 23, 2000



Split
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Cast: James McAvoy, Anya Taylor-Joy, Betty Buckley,  Brad William Henke
Released: January 20, 2017



Glass
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Cast: James McAvoy, Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, Sarah Paulson, Anya Taylor-Joy, Spencer Treat Clark, Charlayne Woodard
Released: January 18, 2019



So who knew M. Night Shyamalan directed a trilogy? I didn't until Glass came out and I heard it was Bruce Willis and Sam Jackson reuniting as their characters from Unbreakable (nineteen years later!) I also knew that James McAvoy's character(s!) from Split was in it, but I didn't realize there was an Unbreakable connection in Split; rather I just assumed Shyamalan thought that character would work well with the Glass storyline; but as we find out, there is a connection between all three movies.

In Unbreakable, we are introduced to a seemingly average man named David Dunn (Bruce Willis) who lives with his wife, Audrey (Robin Wright) and tween son, Joseph (Spencer Treat Clark) in Philadelphia where he works as a security guard at a stadium. However, we soon learn that David is not that average as he is the only survivor of a train derailment. Not only did he survive it, but he didn't even break his bones or get a scratch on him. The way the scene is shot where the doctor (played by Michael Kelly) is telling David all of this is very Shyamlanian. It reminded me of the famous "I see dead people" scene in The Sixth Sense (just no iconic lines!)

Not surprisingly, his story makes the news and one man in particular is intrigued by David. He is Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson) who has a genetic disorder called osteogenesis imperfecta which means his bones are very low in density and are easily broken. He mentions he's broken fifty-four bones in his life, but during a scene in Glass, he will mention he's had ninety-four breaks in his life, so that means he's broken bones forty more times in the nineteen years (or seventeen years....I'm a little confused by the timeline, but I'll explain why later) since the year 2000. Despite all the breaks, he has Type 1, which is the "tamest" version. There are four types and Type 4 is the most severe and, therefore, most deadly.

Elijah owns a comic book art gallery called Limited Edition and writes a note to David on his business card asking him, "How many days of your life have you been sick?" David finds the note under his windshield wiper and he and Joseph visit Elijah at his store. David can't remember the last time he was sick, but figures there must have been a point sometime in his life he's been ill. Maybe the guy gets flu shots. I get flu shots every year and I've been really lucky that I never get really sick where I just want to stay in bed and sleep all day because I'm so miserable. Sure, I have days I may feel sluggish, but nothing severe or anything. The last time I was really sick, like had to call in to work because I was legitimately contagious and go to a doctor was in 2014.


Elijah, being a comic book nerd, proposes the theory that if there's somebody like him in the world who can easily have his bones broken, then maybe there's an opposite of him in the world, somebody who never gets sick and whose bones never break. David tells him that as a child he did almost drown so he did have a near death experience, but Elijah believes that means that water is his kryptonite (just like with the aliens in Signs...oops, hope I didn't spoil that for anyone!) I have to say this movie is ahead of its time as you see Sam Jackson in a comic book store where there are a lot of Marvel comics and posters and cutouts of Avengers characters (I remember seeing one of Spider-Man).

We see Elijah's love for comic books started when he was a child when his mother (Charlayne Woodard) gives him a comic book titled The Battle with Jugaro and tells him, "They say this one has a surprise ending" (haha, Shyamalan, I see what you did there). It is a little messed up how she makes him get the comic book, though. She has it wrapped in a box that's sitting on a bench in the park that's across the street from their apartment where they can see it from their window. She wants to make him work for it to prove he can do anything despite having brittle bone disease. There are a lot of kids playing on the playground and one kid literally runs right in front of the bench with the present that has a big shiny bow on it. I am really surprised no one took it. If this happened in the real world, no way that gift is staying there longer than five minutes! Perhaps he also took a penchant to comic books because kids called him "Mr. Glass" because he breaks like glass and if that doesn't sound like a :::coughcough::: villain from a comic book, I don't know what does.

Joseph tries to test a few theories that his dad may be a superhero. When David is lifting weights in their basement, he asks Joseph to remove a few of them and after he lifts them again, he asks his son how much weight he removed and Joseph tells him he added more. They both want to see how much more he can lift and after using 350 pounds of weights, they add two (full) paint cans to each side. Now that he has proven his dad has super strength, he also wants to prove that he's invincible so in a very tense scene, Joseph, who has found his dad's gun, has it pointed at David and plans to shoot him to prove to him that nothing will happen to him. Both of his parents are rightfully freaking out and telling him to put down the gun. I had to laugh a little when he said "I'll only shoot once." David threatens to leave if Joseph shoots him. So either Joseph shoots and kills him and loses him forever or Joseph shoots and injures him and David leaves. Joseph is hurt by this and says he thought they were friends to which David replies, "Friends don't shoot each other." True dat! To Joseph's parents' relief, he puts the gun down.

Elijah pays David a visit at the university stadium where he works. As they're both standing next to a line of people waiting to get into the stadium, David points out a man to Elijah who thinks may have a weapon because he's wearing a large coat. He says it's just an intuition, but in a scene earlier we saw David brush up against the man and this is how he knows the man is dangerous. Well, he doesn't know he has this ability yet. Of course, the dude just looks straight up shady so I don't think you need to have any premonitions that he has a weapon. As David correctly predicts, the man turns and leaves the line once he sees David start patting down random people. Elijah follows the man down the subway stairs to see if David was right about him. The guy is walking too fast for him and as Elijah is trying to keep up with him, he slips and takes a nasty fall down the stairs and I'm just like, OUCH. For some reason, his cane is made of glass (terrible idea) and just shatters everywhere. Yeah, it looks cool in the movie, but don't use a cane made out of glass. Just not a good idea.

When David realizes he has a gift of being able to see the past crimes of people who he comes in physical contact with, he decides to hang out at the train station where he comes in contact with a whole bunch of folks who have done some terrible, terrible things. It seems every time he comes in contact with someone, the crimes they've committed just get worse and worse. We see a woman who has stolen expensive jewelry, then we see a man who has raped a passed out woman, then we see a janitor who broke into a home and killed the father. Writes note to self: never go to the Philly train station. In this scenario, the wife and two daughters are bound and gagged in their own home and David goes to rescue them. I didn't really understand why this janitor/home intruder/evil man was doing what he was doing: did he have a history with this family? Was he there to steal something and wanted the people out of his way? Obviously for the movie they needed David to be a hero because after he rescues the two girls (the wife does not make it) a sketch of him in his now trademark green poncho is in the paper and when he shows it to Joseph, he immediately knows it's his father and now knows what he knew all along: that his father is a superhero.

So as with any M. Night Shyamalan movie, you know there is a twist coming up. It had been nearly two decades since I last saw the movie and while I remembered the comic book aspect of the movie, I couldn't remember what exactly the twist was. When I re-watched it again, I was like, Wait, that's the twist? That's not a twist. That's so obvious! Maybe back in 2000 it would have been considered a big reveal. David shakes Elijah's hand and we see that Elijah has been involved in some terroristic events including starting a fire at an apartment building, a plane crash, and the very train crash that David survived. We see a security video of him leaving the unattended and unlocked front car of the train. Um, no way this would be plausible post 9/11! Good thing this movie came out a year before when security was a lot more lax! Elijah tells David, "We are connected, you and I" and that he had to make "so many sacrifices" just to find him. He did all these horrific acts because he needed to find the one person out there who was his antithesis and to do this he had to kill a lot of people along the way to find the one person who he wasn't able to kill. Yikes! 

You know when you're watching a movie based on a true event and there's usually text on the screen giving you an update on where these people are now? Well, that happens in this movie which makes it super cheesy, especially since this is not based on true events (duh). Why don't we see a scene of Elijah at an institution for the criminally insane instead of being told it with text on the screen? Just feels super unnecessary to me.

So now we jump sixteen years ahead to the next movie. The way Split begins is a little contrived. We need three girls -two of who are very close friends and one an outsider - to be in the same place at the same time. Claire is having a birthday party at a restaurant and invites everyone from her class, including Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy), the weird loner girl who has no friends. At the end of the party, Casey's ride is late and she tells Claire's father she can take the bus home, but he insists on driving her home along with Marcia, Claire's best friend.


The movie starts immediately once Claire's father is incapacitated offscreen by a man (James McAvoy) who gets in the car. Claire and Marcia are in the back, talking and don't realize the man in the driver's seat is not Claire's dad until a full minute in. Casey, is too scared to say anything and is wondering if she should bolt. When Claire confronts the man, telling him he's in the wrong car, he sprays them with something to make them unconscious and the three of them wake up in some cellar-type room. They can peep through a keyhole where they see another room with a locked door, so they know escaping isn't going to be easy. When they hear a woman's voice talking to the man and see someone wearing a skirt and high heels through the keyhole, they start yelling to be rescued. They are all shocked when it is revealed it is their captor talking in that voice and wearing the skirt and high heels. They just stare at him (her) in disbelief when he (she) tells them: "Don't worry, I'll talk to him. He listens to me. He's not well."

It doesn't take long before they realize they are being held captive by someone with DID - dissociative identity disorder, probably more well known as having multiple personalities. I imagine this has to be a dream come true for an actor to play. James McAvoy plays a character with 23 - soon to be 24 - identities. I believe he only plays eight of them in this movie, but we will see even more of these personalities in the next movie. Aside from the big one we will see at the end, there are really only four personalties that get to come "out into the light". These include a nine-year-old boy named Hedwig who loves rap music and dancing and saying "etcetera" at the end of his sentences; a religious woman named Patricia who has a slight Scottish accent (might as well since McAvoy is Scottish); Dennis, who is the one who kidnapped the girls and always wants to make sure everything is clean and makes the girls take off their clothes if they get dirty (plus he's kind of a perv...); and Barry who is into fashion and is usually the one who contacts and talks to their therapist, Dr. Fletcher (Betty Buckley) who is an expert in DID.  Not only do they each have their own wardrobe, McAvoy gives them each their own distinct personality in the way he talks, his mannerisms, and the way he carries himself. It is very impressive acting.

I don't know much about DID - in fact, I didn't even know it was referred to as DID; I just always called it multiple personalities - but there is something fascinating and creepy about it. It's just unfathomable that someone can have a completely different personality from their own, or several, as is the case here. I assume doctors have ways of diagnosing it and being able to tell a person really has DID instead of just pretending to. We see a scene of Dr. Fletcher giving a seminar where she says there are moments when two identities can take "the light", or the conscience at the same time and talks about a time when it happened with somebody she was working with who was taking notes at the same time with both hands and each hand was writing something different with a different handwriting. The different identities in Split are able to communicate with each other, as when the girls heard Dennis and Patricia talking to each other. There's also a scene towards the end of the film when McAvoy is looking into a mirror and all the personalties are communicating with each other and the camera pans from McAvoy to his reflection. It's very reminiscent of the Gollum/Smeagol scene in The Two Towers.

I'm sure Hollywood movies and shows about DID over exaggerates it greatly and I'm sure Split is no different. I read that people with DID were most likely abused as children or suffered some great trauma as a child which is what we see happen to Kevin Crumb, who is the person played by McAvoy with all the personalties. While we don't get too much of his backstory, we see flashbacks of his mother getting furious with him for not cleaning his room and coming after him with a hot iron in her hand. He most likely created all these personalities as a coping mechanism. Dennis, the personality who is a neat freak, was one of the first to appear and he protected Kevin by making sure everything was clean because if anything was dirty, it would set his mom off. We'll explore more about his parents in the next movie, but I still have a lot of questions.

The two non-entity girls (don't get too attached to them) think if all three of them take him on at once, they can fight him and escape, but Casey doesn't agree to the idea because she knows it won't work. The girls really want to escape because they were told by Dennis that they are "sacred food" and one of the girls think he has a dog he wants to feed them to. She's not totally off-base. When they get a clue from Hedwig that there may be a way out, Claire finds a way through the ceiling and ends up running through a long hallway and in a locker room. I was very confused where they were until it's revealed at the end (I guess what was a bit of a twist too). Dennis fixes the ceiling and keeps all the girls separated, especially after Marcia also tries to escape when Patricia is making a sandwich for her and Casey and she hits Patricia with a chair, but since the door is locked, she doesn't get too far.


Casey has formed somewhat of a bond with Hedwig, the personality who is stuck at the age of nine. After Hedwig mentions he likes to dance to music in his room and has a CD player next to his window, she gets him to trust her by telling him that she gets in trouble at school on purpose so she can get away from everyone and be alone. We see flashbacks of her as a young girl who would often go on hunting trips with her dad and uncle (Brad William Henke). Through each of these flashbacks we learn something about her backstory each time, like the fact that her uncle started sexually abusing her at a very young age and that he is currently her guardian because her father had a heart attack when she was still quite young. Casey doesn't share all of that with Hedwig, but with what she does tell him, he sneaks her into his room and starts dancing to Kanye West. Watching a man in his late 30s dancing to rap music while pretending to be a nine-year-old is both super weird and oddly endearing at the same time. However, Casey can't appreciate his dancing because all she sees is the CD player by a drawing of a window on the wall. There are no actual windows to be found. When she asks Hedwig about this, he gets mad and accuses her of trying to escape. He shows her a Walkie-Talkie that one of the other personalties stole from someone and she takes it and when she finds out she can get in communication with someone on another line she tells them who she is and that she's been abducted. The person thinks she is joking and pretending to be someone else. Hedwig becomes Dennis and is strong enough to overpower her and take the Walkie-Talkie. I thought there was going to be a payoff with this scene later on, but there never was.

Dr. Fletcher knows that Kevin has twenty-three personalties and knows all of them quite well. She usually talks to Barry, who used to be the dominant personality until Dennis and Patricia started taking over and limiting Barry's time in the light. (Not really quite sure how it all works). Barry told Dr. Fletcher about the other personalties and when Dennis is talking to her, pretending to be Barry, she knows it is not him and correctly guesses that she's really talking to Dennis. She also knows the only way to talk to Kevin is to say his full name, but she doesn't want to do that because it would be chaos for the other identities and she doesn't want to hurt them. She is dismissive that Dennis insists that there is a twenty-fourth personality getting ready to emerge. When she receives many urgent e-mails from Barry she visits his place and this is when she discovers the three girls. He turns into the Beast, which is this animalistic being who becomes very large in stature and has thick skin (literally) and can crawl up walls and all these unnatural traits that no human should have. Before he crushes the doctor to death, she has written a note with his name on it, with the instructions, "Say his name." The two non-entity girls are trying to escape by trying to hook a wire hanger and catching a slide bolt and the movie almost makes you think they're going to escape, but no. They are chow for the beast. Dennis had kidnapped the girls as an offering to the Beast who apparently will only eat the "impure young". But, hey, if anyone was wondering, at least Claire's dad turned out to be okay.

Now Casey is the only one left alive and running for her life from the Beast. She finds the paper from Dr. Fletcher and screams, "Kevin Wendell Crumb" and the man that is the host body for all these personalties appears and is very confused. He asks Casey if it is September 18, 2014, as that is the last day he remembers. When he realizes he's done terrible things, he tells her where his gun and bullets are and instructs her to kill him. That would be utterly terrifying to realize you haven't been yourself in over two years; it would be like be in a walking coma. The other personalties start to come out and once again the Beast emerges. By that time, Casey has found the gun and bullets and has barricaded herself into a cage, but the Beast easily bends the bars after Casey has shot him, but the bullets just ricochet off him. When the Beast sees cut marks on Casey's body, he realizes that she has been hurt just like he has in the past and runs off, sparing her life.

She is rescued by someone who finds her and helps her. This is when it is revealed that she was at an old building at the zoo the whole time where Kevin worked. I thought maybe this was the big twist and while it was a surprise, it wasn't THE twist. We see her in a cop car and when the (female) cop tells her that her uncle is there to pick her up, Casey just looks at her and you know she's going to tell her about her uncle. She does because in the next movie she's living with a foster family and mentions her uncle is in jail.

Okay, now for the big twist. Hot take: Split has the best Shyamalan twist. If only because you didn't see it coming at all (as long as you weren't spoiled!) I've already put my spoiler disclaimer at the top. So obviously I knew about the Unbreakable connection so the big reveal at the end wasn't a big shock to me, but it was something I wasn't expecting to see, because, as I mentioned earlier, I assumed Shyamalan made Unbreakable, then sixteen years later makes Split as a totally different entity, then makes Glass as a sequel to Unbreakable and decided he could incorporate the Split characters into that one. It would have been super fun to watch the movie in the theater and see that reveal without being spoiled. I have to wonder if I would have even gotten it. I think I would have, but not right away. First we hear the music the was prominent in Unbreakable, which I definitely wouldn't have remembered. As I literally saw Unbreakable a few days before I watched Split, I instantly recognized it. Then we see Bruce Willis sitting at the end of the diner wearing a uniform with his character's name on it. I know I wouldn't have recognized his character's name, but being that he's only been in two (at the time) Shyamalan films, it pretty much narrows it down to Unbreakable, well, because, you know. And the woman next to him acknowledges him so she can see/hear him, ha! On the news, they are talking about Kevin and mention he is being referred to as "The Horde" because of his multiple personalties. When the woman mentions how he reminds her of "that crazy guy in the wheel chair that they put away 15 years ago" and is trying to remember his name, Bruce Willis is revealed as he says "Mr. Glass." I bet audiences (the ones old enough to remember Unbreakable!) were freaking out when they realized this movie had a connection to Unbreakable and there would undoubtedly be a sequel. Pretty cool.

This takes us to Glass. I'm a little confused by the timeline because it is mentioned that Casey's classmates were killed only three weeks ago, but it is also mentioned that the events of Unbreakable happened nineteen years ago, which would be "real" time. (Although, technically, it really should have been eighteen years since Unbreakable came out in very late 2000 and Glass opened the first month of 2019...but who's paying attention to minute details like that?) So does that mean that Split took place in 2019 as well? Then why does the woman at the end of the movie mention Mr. Glass being put away 15 years ago? Ahh, who really cares that much, right? I guess Shyamalan just didn't catch that. He did catch something else that made me laugh just because it really wasn't that important. So you know how he always has a cameo in all his films, like he was the doctor in The Sixth Sense? In Unbreakable he plays one of the people who David comes into contact with at the stadium and it is revealed he is a drug dealer and/or user. In Split he plays a security guard who works at the building where Dr. Fletcher lived and she uses his help to track Kevin. In Glass, David owns a home security store (his cover when he's not fighting crime) and Shyamalan as the security guard is seen purchasing some extra cameras for the building. He is obviously the same character he was in Split, but then he asks David if he used to work at the football stadium and when David confirmed he did, Shyamalan's character is like, "Oh, I thought I recognized you. I used to hang out there with a bunch of shady people when I was younger, then I turned my life around." Okay, first of all, you KNOW someone tweeted @MNightShyamalan right after they saw Split and asked him if that was supposed to be the same character from Unbreakable and Shyamalan figured he better make that clear in Glass, so he threw that throwaway line in. Second of all, how the hell would he remember a security guard at a crowded stadium from nineteen (or fifteen depending on what timeline you're going on) years ago?? I call B.S.! Nonetheless, it was a super amusing scene.

Since Elijah goes by Mr. Glass and Kevin now goes by The Horde, David also has his own superhero name and he is referred to as The Overseer. His son, now grown, is the only one who still knows his father's true identity and helps him track the Horde where he now has four cheerleaders held hostage in an abandoned factory.

I heard an interview Spencer Treat Clark gave on a movie review podcast and he said after some of his friends saw Split, they were telling him he had to see it and he just assumed it was because he worked with Shyamalan in his youth; he had no idea about the Unbreakable connection until he saw it. Luckily for Shyamalan he was still acting as a young adult, but I wonder if he still would have taken the role if he retired as a child actor? Obviously Bruce Willis and Sam Jackson are back, too (well, duh, the movie IS called Glass) and so is Charlayne Woodward in old age make-up as Elijah's mother. The only person from the original movie who isn't back is Robin Wright as Audrey David's wife. She is mentioned as having died from leukemia five years ago. It's possible that they tried to get her, but she had other projects that didn't allow her, but honestly, they didn't really need her.

David is able to find The Horde and rescue the four girls before the Beast is about to maim them. While doing this, he was tracked by Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson) who apprehends both of them (with the help of some armed men) and takes them to Raven Hill Memorial Mental Institution for psychiatric treatment. She tells the two men, who are kept in separate rooms that she specializes in a "particular type of delusions of grandeur: those who believe they are superheroes." David is kept in a room where the walls are equipped with 46 high pressured nozzles which are all connected to a 15,000 gallon water tank right outside which will only be triggered if he tries to escape and Kevin is kept in a room that has strobe lights that go off and change his personalties if he gets too close to the door and ends up confusing him. If Dr. Staple is telling them they're not really who they think they are, then why do they need all these safety precautions to make sure they don't escape?

 The same main alter egos that we saw in Split - Dennis, Patricia, Hedwig, the Beast - are mainly used in this one, but we do see even more of Kevin's other personalties in this movie, especially with the use of the strobe lights. These include a Spanish-speaking woman and probably my favorite, a man who specializes in Japanese cinema from the 1950s-80s. Can you get any more specific than that?

The big scene in the movie is when David, Elijah, and Kevin are all together in the same room, but it was a bit of a disappointment because the characters don't interact with each other, rather they are speaking with Dr. Staple. Well, not Elijah as he doesn't speak until an hour into the movie. David had an MRI taken and Dr. Staple tells him that his front lobe has a "questionable cloud" and that it could mean it's damage from the train accident. She seems to have an explanation for everything that could prove these men are akin to comic book characters. She tells Kevin (well, he wasn't technically Kevin, but I forget which personality he was in this scene...) that he probably learned how to rock climb through videos. When he challenges her and asks how the Beast was able to pull apart the iron bars on the cage she tells him due to the cage's old age, she was able to pull them apart by putting a wrench between them and leaning back and said it was, "difficult, but possible" (yeah, but the Beast didn't use a wrench!) and when he challenges her even further and asks how the Beast survived being hit by bullets, she tells him the gun and bullets were old and the cartridges were compromised from the moisture in the room.

So, yada, yada, yada, we learn that Elijah has been pretending to be catatonic this whole time and his first line of dialogue comes about an hour into the movie when he sneaks out of his room and into Kevin's room where he talks to a few of his personalties and wants to meet the Beast as he has big plans. Earlier in the film we had seen him looking at a local magazine with a picture of a gaudy building called the Osaka Tower, claiming to be the tallest building in Philadelphia. The headline read "The Osaka Tower - A True Marvel" which is obviously a nod to the comic book franchise, though there is obviously a nod to Die Hard and the Nakatomi Plaza, and you know, Bruce Willis.

He tells David that they are going to Osaka Tower where the Horde will be revealed. There are three floors that house a chemical company and Glass is planning to blow up the building with those chemicals. Well, he certainly is telling the right person about this because if there's anyone who can stop a terrorist at a skyscraper, it's John McClane! The movie takes a bit of a detour when the characters never actually go to Osaka Tower, which turned out to be a red herring, and instead have their big showdown in the parking lot of the hospital.

During this time, the Beast has been somewhat of a sidekick for Glass, killing anyone who might get in their way and treating him like a God. However, when Joseph lets it drop that Kevin's father was on Eastrail #177, the exact same train that was derailed because of Mr. Glass and everyone died except for David Dunn, the Beast quickly turns on him. Yes, that's right. It all ties together. So apparently there's a scene in Split where one of Kevin's personalties (again, I can't remember who) is at the train station where he buys flowers and places them on the track in remembrance of his dad. While I remember this scene, I just never made the connection. Now it's like, duh.

So we get a few more details about Kevin's upbringing, but I'm still confused. When we see Kevin's dad on the train, he is reading a book about DID therapy and treatment and it is mentioned he was on his way to see a doctor. A couple questions: first of all, why is he leaving his son with his wife (I assume they were still married, but I don't know for sure because why would he want to be married to such a horrible, horrible woman)?  He knew she was abusing him, right? I mean, I don't know how you miss a mark from a hot iron and God knows what other signs of abuse he had. Why in the hell is he leaving his son alone with this woman?? Also, why didn't he just take Kevin with him? If he's seeing a doctor about his son, then why isn't Kevin going with him so he can be diagnosed? Yes, I realize that if Kevin went with him, he would have died in the train crash and therefore there would have been no movie so it defeats the whole purpose, but, c'mon. Glass tells a seething Beast that if the crash hadn't happened, Kevin would never have been left alone with his mother and if she never continued to abuse him, then the Beast would never have been born. Before the Beast dropkicks Glass, he tells him that his main priority is to protect Kevin and he cannot trust him to keep him safe.

So more yada, yada, yada, to my surprise, all three of the main characters end up being killed by Dr. Staple and her group of armed men. It turns out all along she was part of a secret society who do believe that super heroes and villains exist, but don't want them being known to the public because "there just can't be gods amongst us". But, unfortunately for her, she is unable to keep it secret because she finds out that Glass had streamed the live security feed (it was alluded to several times that the entire hospital inside and out was covered in cameras so their whereabouts would be known at all times) to a private site and the videos showing the three of them doing extraordinary things like lifting a car over or bending steel or crawling across a wall are sent to his mother, David's son, and Casey. The three of them upload the videos that this society didn't want anybody to see and soon everyone in the world is able to see that super heroes and villains do and can exist.

So while I loved that all these movies tied together and he made a sequel to Unbreakable so many years after its release, I felt Glass was a bit of a disappointment. I guess it just didn't live up to my expectations. I was expecting David and Elijah to have more screen time together since they have so much history from the first movie. This is more like a psychological thriller than an actual comic book movie which fine with me because I wasn't expecting a Marvel movie or anything. I think my favorite part of the movie is when the credits rolled and there is a list of 24 names next to James McAvoy's name. I laughed when I saw that.