Author: Angela Gosselin

Honey Boy stunned me. Quite honestly, after walking out of the theater, I was dazed and reflective and really grateful to have experienced this film. I had a lot of mixed thoughts on this movie, and so I suppose I’ll give sorting them a try.

Firstly, it has to be recognized that this movie is just upsetting. It’s a sad movie and the wisps of hope and joy found throughout the film seem to only amplify the grand sadness underscoring everything. When looking into just how autobiographical this screenplay is for LaBeouf, one finds this film to be (sorry that all the critics are saying this but it’s just true) a large act of therapy and coping. The meta references to this film being made within the work itself combined with the jarring real-life photos of Shia and his family at the end credits point towards an attempt by LaBeouf to lay everything out, place it together, and try to make sense of how he got to where he is. The fact that LaBeouf plays the character reflecting his father adds to the coping going on as you can see him working to access his father’s head space. This performance, along with truly all others in the film, was arresting and touching. (To be honest, I’ve always been really skeptical of Lucas Hedges’ work but I feel like he really inhabits a different life in this movie.)  LaBeouf’s time on screen specifically transcended the plot as one watches reality and art intertwine and speak to each other.

This leads me to the conflicting thoughts that grew out of this experience: when can we get gritty and touching movies of trauma that extend beyond white men? Of course, this is when I lose a big group of people as apparently pointing this out is now a cliché or punchline or something, but I can’t help but wonder how many more stories we have of women and people of color’s struggles and how they deserve an outlet and audience like Honey Boy. Obviously beautiful movies like that are being made, but I guess I just feel this movie got a much more understanding audience compared to films that are “Oscar bait” because they’re representing the struggles that a white American audience doesn’t want to engage with. It doesn’t help in this case as FKA Twigs’ character, one of the only central female characters, is an unnamed prostitute that simply serves as a newfound mother figure (verging on an uncomfortable sexual role) to protagonist Otis. Or that in general the only women in this film are either mother figures, therapists, or strippers. This choice may help in understanding the molding of Otis’ worldview but also… “Shy Girl” at least deserved a name. This take deserves a lot more nuance but I wanted to bring up something that crossed my mind while sitting in the theater.

Honey Boy deserves a (critical) watch as it is well made, touching, and speaks to the celebrity culture of the past few decades in terms of its plot as well as its conception and execution.

Waves is a film of a suburban African-American family coping with the various things life throws at them. Coming from director Trey Edward Shults, known for It Comes at Night. It will surely be interesting to see how a horror director takes on a drama like this one, especially one set in a sticky Floridian climate. Simply looking at the trailer, it’s evident that the cinematography was handled with care–we’ll see how that coincides with the plot and performances!

Student tickets are $8.50, stop by the State and catch up on all the great movies coming out this month.

Honey Boy is a film about a coming of age amidst fame. As much as the phrase “coming of age” may cause one to recoil from the assumed avalanche of clichés to come, this movie’s screenplay is by Shia LaBeouf and is slightly autobiographical. I think that alone is enough to engage people critical of the tired structure it confronts due to LaBeouf’s uneven and highly publicized trajectory post-Disney. The high acclaim I’ve been seeing from critics both in the newspaper and in social media doesn’t hurt your reasons to go, either.

Honey Boy is showing at the State Theater, so grab an $8.50 student ticket and try to forget about the insanity of finals season!!

“You’re tearing me apart, Lisa!”

“Why, Lisa, why, why?!”

“Everyone betrayed me! I’m fed up with this world.”

“They betrayed me, they didn’t keep their promise, they tricked me, and I don’t care anymore.”

Tommy Wiseau’s cries of anguish in cult classic The Room never get old, at least not for the loyal crowd that came out last Thursday. I found this to be one of the best The Room experiences I’ve had, as the crowd was clearly full of long-time fans and therefore not participating at the deafening pitch of the full house of virgins at Rocky at the Michigan Theater. The excited shouts of “Water!!” when a stock shot of bodies of water in San Francisco appeared, the encouraging “Go, go, go!” when the panning shots never seemed to end, and other beloved call outs (now including the offhand, “Ok, Boomer,” when Lisa’s mother is giving her advice) made for a really interactive and chaotic experience.

The film itself honestly can’t really be summed up via text. I can tell you that it’s poorly written, produced, and acted and thus one of the best cultural works in recent history, but that doesn’t really capture the specific disjointed and slightly baffling nature of this film.

Finally, the spoons. I have to talk about the spoons. To spoil one tradition of this movie experience, there is a specific framed photo of a spoon on the set that gets the most screen time in the film. Every time one spots said photo, it’s necessary to shout “SPOONS!” and (plastic) spoons are thrown in the air in celebration. This viewing had so many spoons and enthusiasm that between sightings people would reach down and into the aisles to gather spoons to throw at any triumphant moment for Tommy in the movie. At the end, people jumped on stage to throw the immeasurable amount of utensils back at the audience. The spoon obsession is simply the oddest and most enjoyable part of seeing The Room.

All this being said, this movie is also an amazing look into unfiltered male ego, misogyny, and conservatism. The tone deaf nature of this film broadcasts this uncomfortable mindset, but in such a poorly executed way that it feels made to be ironically consumed. There’s no guilt in booing Lisa, the classic “woman as temptress” archetype, because she’s so cartoonishly evil that there’s no way to not be in on the joke.

Next time you see The Room making the rounds, whether that’s in Ann Arbor, Royal Oak, or elsewhere, grab an unsuspecting friend and enjoy bemoaning the betrayal of the pseudo-Christ himself, Tommy Wiseau (er, “Johnny”).

The cult classic, The Room will be showing Thursday, December 5th at 10pm this week. It’s the same protocol as Rocky: don’t read a synopsis, don’t look up the show rituals, just come and be prepared to get pelted with spoons.

For the spoiler-prone folks, The Room is one of those, so-good-it’s-bad type deals where the ego of man is given a shoestring budget and a movie set. The film is rich with discontinuities, uncomfortable intimate scenes, and acting so bad it almost feels like an ironic, auteur-driven choice like that of The Lobster and other cerebral movies of the past decade. The Room is the ultimate oppositional viewing experience, so grab a student ticket for $8.50 and join the celebration of a masterpiece.