Honeymoon Killers Critique

Already feeling like your going to die a lone, this movie just propels that feeling. Fear of Marriage? Concerned about going to Match.com cause you’d meet a serial killer? Well, this movie just add those two fears. Director and writer Leonard Kastle takes Martha Beck (Shirley Stoler) a victim of Ray Fernandez (Tony Lo Bianco) to be a lover, partner, and killer. Yes, that did escalated quickly.

Martha is terrifying. She has an over barring mother who wants her to get married so she begins exchanging letter with Ray Fernandez who his mother set her up with on this letter exchange. Martha falls fast and hard. It’s easy to see this might be the first man to ever show any interest. When Ray goes back to his home after they meet the first week end she constantly calls him and wants to see him. SUPER needed! However Ray stays with her and they move in together. Ray wants to continue his day job though. Martha joins with as his sister.

Let’s reflex on this twisted idea for a second. Yes, I will go along with you to get close to this lonely women with money, manipulate them, and take convince them to give you their money for a marriage blessing. She becomes almost a driving force in the scenarios. Sure Ray is the one actually leading them on, but she’s crazy. If I haven’t made that point clear lets have this scene show it. Warning it’s a spoiler. The second women that Martha and Ray travel to leaves by the water. The scene starts with Martha being left to shore while Ray goes swimming with the women. Ray is slightly flirting with the girl, but this is job correct? Martha can’t handle so throws a tantrum and goes in past where she can swim. Martha almost drowns before Ray comes out and rescues her. When they reach a point where they both can stand they have a tender moment, a little too tender for siblings.

The women is obviously uncomfortable and that ends that moment. Even with all this dysfunctional relationship, lying, stealing, and manipulation Ray and Martha dearly care for one another. It is one example of a loving relationship. Do I recommend it? No.

This film is based on a true story. Does is seem to exploit the relationship of the couple? No. To be direct about it at least. The writer was telling this story as it happened focusing on the relationship between Ray and Martha. Without showing it from the perspective of Martha you would not have been able to pity her like you did. The moments where she whined and threw tantrums you would just want to hit her. She’s an adult. However the story begins with showing her life and you feel bad for her. Ray is seen as a bad guy you can’t stand. Ray’s a jerk basically.

As the relationship continues you see they both do really love each other. It’s a little strange but they are both there for each other and the other person comes first in their life. It is sweet to see. Although the moment that was too much to handle would be the ending when they used Myrtle Young (Marilyn Chris). She was the sweetest old lady. Martha bullied her and Ray pushed her to sign her $10,000 over to him. Myrtle become concerned about this and starts thinking correcting and can’t sleep because of not know where her checks are or why she signed them over to a man she just meet the day before.

Martha cannot handle Martha and tells her to stop but the situation escalates. Ray comes up in the commotion and it adds to Martha’s hysteria. Ray tells Martha to kill Myrtle. Martha does! The next they are cleaning up the crime scene and it just seems like a normal day. It’s amazing how that scene wasn’t the most horrifying. The final scene is them going to see Myrtle’s daughter and her family! That scene is what showed the sadistic attitude of the characters. It’s unnerving to see that these characters where not simply made up in the writers mind. Ray and Martha were real people who did this. Oh the chills!

Sassy Pants Critique

Thinking by the title the this movie could be a witty movie or some girl with an attitude. Nope. It’s a story about an under appreciated girl within her family. Forget about the witty part. All families have their dysfunctional parts to them. I believe that is a given. It is a relatable thing. However this movie takes too many levels of dysfunctional parts to a family to make it believable. There is a gay father living with his love, over protective and extremely controling mother, divorced parents, crazy grandma, and teens who do not know how to properly socialize.

Writer and director Coley Sohn seemed to be reaching for a lot within the narrative of this movie. It could have been away that he dealt with his own life. Whatever the reason it seemed like he needed to deal with something and this was his way of doing it.

This first scene opens to this girl in pink sheet, with pink pajamas, going to get dressed for the day in her closet, which is full of pink clothes. The girl, Bethany Pruit (Ashley Rickards) has an mother who is extremely over protective, it is more like a prison. Within the first half hour the extreme controlling side of the mother and rebelling of the daughter is shown. It’s not even a big thing, it’s a dress for her homeschooling graduation. Bethany picks a sexy red dress while the mother forces this pink very childish dress. The forcefulness of the mother goes to show that this is not a mother/daughter bonding time, it is to get a dress the mother picks and leave.

The mother played by Anna Gunn constantly keeps tabs on all the children moments, has them home schooled, does not let them have contact with other children, and is one massive guilt trip. The father played by Diedrich Bader is even more of child, running away from the mother, turning gay and proud.

Bethany wants out of her trapped life. One night she goes to a party with her neighbor and her mother goes to the party and forces her to come home. Bethany has had enough of her mother so sneaks out of her house to go live with her father and his lover Chip, played by Haley Joel Osment. The couple has a party hard mentality and are the extreme opposite of living with her mother.

There is no learning point to this movie. A girl is trapped by her mother, then trapped with her father. Even through all this and not really coming off as being hard working but a plan Jane who just starts designing clothes, she works retail to learn more, and even applies to a fashion college. Her mother finally finds where she is and guilts her to come home saying her grandmother is dying. Bethany return home, works for a local shop to design and the only sane one in the whole movie is the “dying” grandmother who light s cigarette while on oxygen so the mother needs to care for her.

The camera followed Bethany through out this movie. She was the focus. There was no wide shots to see the multiple characters and get more in their head. Had the story followed a wide screen setting, showing the multiple characters, this movie would have been better at showing the screwed up world this family created for itself. It stayed with natural lighting look because it mainly was inside of a house or in a store. Very rarely were the characters shown outside.

The characters rarely moved around the set. The where given one spot they stayed in. Once scene was Bethany talking with her coworker at the mall, Brianna (Shanna Collins) and she was talking about stealing the clothes because they deserve it and also trapping her boyfriend into getting her pregnant so they couldn’t break up. This is one of the few times that a low camera angle is used. It is as if to confuse the audience rather than looking down at them in judgement we are below them. What they are say is “right”.

The camera is never above the characters. It is either at eye level or a low angel. If there was an over view it was Bethany looking out her window at her neighbor Hector (Rene Rosado). That keeps perspective of Bethany though.

This movie still has potential though. Yes, the crazy mother and grandmother dynamic was well done. That is not the thing that fully gets me, but Bethany gets me. She is the main character to this movie, the driving force. She has no drive, nothing really propelling her forward. Does she seem to have a focus on fashion and want to go to school? Yes. But there seems to be no inner passion with her. Till the end. Bethany has been working at the local boutique making a decent amount of money and trying to save enough to get to school. When she losses her job because the boss does not want the focus and all his profits going to Bethany she’s upset. That’s not the kicker (spoiler) her mother stole her money! 

Correct not only is the mother over protective, guilt trips her kids, does not let them grow up and have a life, but she’s a thief. This throws Bethany over the edge and her grandmother is the one to give words of wisdom. Basically it’s your life, you can’t keep blaming your mother or be trapped in it. There comes a point in time where you need to take ownership of your own life.

The movie has a good message but the slow pace with not completely developed characters makes this movie fall short.