Do Revenge, 2022

Popular Drea wants revenge on her boyfriend for publishing her sex tape, and exchange student Eleanor is haunted by a rumour. The two teenagers team up to take action against their tormentors.

Initial release: September 16, 2022

Director: Jennifer Kaytin Robinson

Distributed by: Netflix

Budget: $10 million

Cinematography: Brian Burgoyne

Music by: Este Haim; Amanda Yamate.

Do Revenge is a 2022 American teen black comedy film directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, who co-wrote the screenplay with Celeste Ballard.  It stars Camila Mendes, Maya Hawke, Austin Abrams, Rish Shah, and Sarah Michelle Gellar, and it is loosely inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train (1951).  It was released on Netflix on September 16, 2022, and received generally positive reviews from critics.

TRAILER

PLOT

Drea is a popular student attending Rosehill Country Day High School, an elite private school in Miami on a scholarship.  However, she becomes a social outcast after an intimate video she sent to her equally popular boyfriend, Max, is leaked online.  Despite his denial of her, Drea blames Max for the video's release and punches him in the face, resulting in their breakup of her.

 Over the summer, Drea works at a tennis camp where she meets Eleanor, a tomboyish, shy girl from a wealthy background who is transferring to Rosehill as a senior in September.  When Drea's car fails to start, Eleanor offers her a ride and tells her about also becoming an outcast when a false rumor spreads that she forcibly kissed Carissa, another Rosehill student, at a summer camp years earlier.

Realizing they will not get justice on their own, Drea and Eleanor devise a plan to exact revenge on the other's enemy: Drea on Carissa and Eleanor on Max.  Following a makeover, Eleanor slowly infiltrates Drea's old clique of popular students, while Drea tries to get close to Carissa by working at the school farm, also befriending Russ, an unpopular student and Carissa's friend of hers.

 Eleanor is invited to a pool party thrown by Max, where she discovers he is cheating on his new girlfriend, Tara (Drea's former best friend of his).  Drea runs into Carissa at the beach with Russ, and steals her keys to the farm's locked greenhouse full of marijuana and magic mushrooms that Carissa is storing.

 At the school's Senior Ring Ceremony, Drea places the drugs found at the secret greenhouse in their classmates' diner with the intention of stealing Max's phone to obtain evidence of his wrongdoings from him.  She also anonymously tips off the headmaster about the greenhouse, getting Carissa expelled and sent to rehab. 

At the Valentine's Day assembly, Eleanor shares Max's texts to the entire student body, but the plan fails when Max and Tara pretend to be a polyamorous couple, which in turn becomes the school's latest trend.  Drea spirals after getting rejected from her dream school, Yale University, and concocts a new plan to destroy Max and her popular former friends at the upcoming Admissions Party, which can only be attended by those accepted by Ivy League schools.

 Eleanor begins to accept her new popularity and Drea's old friends, beginning a relationship with Max's twin sister Gabbi.  When Max and his friends surprise Eleanor for her birthday, Drea crashes the party and nearly jeopardizes their revenge scheme for her.  They fight, going their separate ways after Eleanor asserts that there is no evidence that Max leaked Drea's video of her.  Gabbi overhears this and breaks up with Eleanor for taking Max's side.

Drea, seeking dirt on Eleanor, visits Carissa at a rehab facility. Carissa reveals Eleanor is actually "Nosey" Nora Cutler, a girl they both went to summer camp with. It was Drea who outed Nora and spread the rumor, an event she had forgotten, which prompted Eleanor to change her name and undergo a rhinoplasty. Drea confronts Eleanor, who reveals she had been playing her all along, aiming to cause the same pain she endured from the rumor. Eleanor threatens to frame Drea's mother, a nurse, for drug possession if she refuses to expose her old friends at the Admissions Party. Later, Eleanor purposefully T-bones Drea's car, sending her to the hospital to create an elaborate sob story that permits access to the party.

During the Admissions Party, Drea reveals Eleanor to be "Nosey Nora" to Max and friends, but immediately regrets it and apologizes to Eleanor for her past actions.  Their emotional reconciliation is interrupted when Max reveals he discovered their plot against him.  He plans to expose them and confesses to releasing Drea's video of her, unaware Eleanor is videoing him.  The girls project Max's confession to the entire party, turning everyone against him.  Max is expelled from Rosehill and his spot at Yale is offered to Drea, who rejects it.  She and Eleanor skip graduation and drive off into the sunset.

 Drea apologizes to Russ, Eleanor reconciles with Gabbi, and Max joins a toxic masculinity support group.

Rating: 8 Stars

Rough Night, 2017

"Jess (Scarlet Johansson) and her four friends reunite after ten years to celebrate her impending wedding. However, things take an unexpected turn when the girls accidentally kill the supposed  male stripper that they had hired". The problem is he was not the stripper"

TRAILER

Rough Night (released in some countries as Girls' Night Out) is a 2017 American comedy film directed by Lucia Aniello (in her feature debut) and written by Aniello and Paul W. Downs. 

 It stars Scarlett Johansson, Kate McKinnon, Jillian Bell, Ilana Glazer and Zoë Kravitz in lead roles, as well as Paul Downs, Ty Burrell and Demi Moore in supporting roles.  The story follows a bachelorette party that goes wrong after a male dies.

In 2006, four friends, Jess, Alice, Frankie and Blair, bonded during their first year of college.  A decade later they reunite as Jess is about to marry Peter.  Alice decides that the four should spend the weekend in Miami partying.  They are also joined by Pippa, Jess's friend from her semester in Australia.  Alice, who considers herself to be Jess's best friend, is immediately jealous of Pippa.

 The friends get high on cocaine and party at a club and then decide to hire a male stripper. 

 At the vacation house, he makes Jess uncomfortable with her rough talk.  Alice decides to take a turn and jumps on him, causing them both to fall and the stripper to die after hitting his head on the fireplace. 

Before they decide what to do, Jess takes a call from Peter and mentions that her friends hired a stripper and she is confused.  Peter thinks that she is leaving him and becomes distracted.  His friends tell him that he should drive down to Miami to win her back from her.

The friends purchase a burner phone to call Blair's lawyer uncle.  After telling them they moved the body, he tells them they could face up to fifteen years in prison unless no body is found.  They decide to dispose of the body, throwing it into the ocean.

 After doing so, they think the neighbors' security camera caught them on tape, and send Blair to seduce them for the footage, only to discover the cameras don't work after she has slept with them.  By this point, the body has washed up back on the shore and they must come up with a new plan to dispose of it.

A police officer knocks on their door and Frankie knocks him out after he gropes her, only for them to realize he was the stripper they had hired, leaving them to wonder who was killed.  They try to dispose of the body again, with the stripper's car, only to return defeated after a car accident.  Then when Alice finds out Jess invited Frankie and Blair to a bridal shower over her, Jess berates her for her obsessive clinginess and storms off to prepare for the consequences.

 At this point, two police officers arrive and tell the women they are not in trouble as the man they killed was a violent criminal who had been on the run from the police.  As they interrogate the women Pippa realizes that the "police" are actually accomplices of the man killed.  Realizing they are caught, the men tie up the women and the now-awakened stripper and threaten to shoot them.

Jess meanwhile has missed most of the drama due to being upstairs taking a shower in preparation for her mugshot.  Realizing what has happened, she subdues one of the captors using hairspray and handcuffs and fights off the other one as he prepares to kill Blair.  After Alice shoots the second captor, the first reappears, having removed the toy handcuffs, only to be run over by Peter, high on the drugs he took to keep him awake on his roadtrip to Miami.

 Jess reaffirms that she wants to marry Peter and they do it that weekend at a foam party with her friends.  Frankie and Blair reunite as a couple and Alice hooks up with Scotty, the police officer stripper from the bachelorette party.

Cast

• Scarlett Johansson as Jessica "Jess" Thayer
• Jillian Bell as Alice
• Kate McKinnon as Pippa/Kiwi
• Ilana Glazer as Frankie
• Zoë Kravitz as Blair
• Paul W. Downs as Peter
• Demi Moore as Lea
• Ty Burrell as Pietro
• Ryan Cooper as Jay ("Scotty"), the fake stripper
• Colton Haynes as Scotty McBody, the real stripper
• Dean Winters as Detective Frazier
• Enrique Murciano as Detective Ruiz
• Bo Burnham as Tobey
• Eric André as Jake
• Hasan Minhaj as Joe
• Patrick Carlyle as Patrick
• Karan Soni as Raviv
• Peter Francis James as Uncle Jack
• Caldwell Tidicue as DJ (Club Liv)
• Stephan Amenta as Guy at Party

Rating: 10 Stars

Pixels, 2015

A special team of arcade gamers is put together to fight a mysterious  alien race invasion video game, they watch classic games of the '80s and presumes them to be a declaration of war.

Release date: July 23, 2015 (Brazil)

Director: Chris Columbus

Producers: Adam Sandler, Chris Columbus, Mark Radcliffe, Michael Barnathan, Allen Covert.

Combining computer-animated video game characters and visual effects, the film follows an alien race misinterpreting video feeds of classic arcade games as a declaration of war, resulting in their invading Earth using technology inspired by 1980s games such as Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Arkanoid, Galaga, Centipede, Donkey Kong, and Q*bert. To counter the invasion, the United States hires former arcade champions to lead the planet's defense. Principal photography on the film began on May 28, 2014, in Toronto; filming was completed in three months.

"To me the war seemed real because the pixels could be something close to Quantic Weapons that attacked, but was not because when attacked a human, it deteriorate the human in pixels and a Space ship took them there this way", that's why the movie is super interesting. The creator of the PAC MAN shows up, is super nice, worth your time, you will have a lot of fun".

PLOT

At a video game arcade in 1982 with his friend Will Cooper, 13-year-old Sam Brenner seemingly loses a championship game of Donkey Kong to obnoxious Eddie "The Fireblaster" Plant. Videocassette footage of the event is included in a time capsule launched into space. In the present day, Brenner is an electronics installer while Cooper is the unpopular President of the United States. In Guam, the Andersen Air Force Base is besieged by an extraterrestrial force attacking in the form of Galaga and a soldier is abducted.

Brenner works at the home of divorced U.S. Army lieutenant colonel Violet van Patten, and the two are separately summoned to the White House by Cooper. Upon seeing the video footage and meeting with Ludlow "The Wonder Kid" Lamonsoff, Brenner deduces that the aliens have somehow mistaken the videocassette images for a declaration of war, and are attacking Earth with a strange technology that allows them to morph into the video games featured at the championship. The aliens interrupt a television broadcast using footage from the cassette, challenging the people of Earth to a battle where if the aliens win three times, they will conquer the planet. Brenner and Cooper are unable to stop one of the attacks as the Taj Mahal is damaged by the aliens in the form of Arkanoid and a bystander is abducted.

Brenner and Ludlow train Navy SEALs to play the games. Violet develops directed energy weapons that are effective against the aliens. The team later heads to London, where the aliens attack Hyde Park in the form of Centipede. The soldiers begin to lose, so Brenner and Ludlow step in and shoot them down. The aliens send congratulations and a "trophy" in the form of the Duck Hunt dog to an old lady.

Ludlow and Cooper retrieve Eddie from a prison sentence for fraud before going to New York City. There, the team must fight an alien taking the form of a giant Pac-Man, playing as the ghosts. Toru Iwatani, creator of Pac-Man, tries to reason with Pac-Man peacefully, but gets his hand bitten off. Brenner, Ludlow, and Eddie overcome the challenge using modified Mini Cooper cars, but Violet notices Eddie moved at supersonic speeds around the board. Brenner is able to trick Pac-Man into going after him once the effects of the power pellet run out. They win Q*Bert as a trophy. During a celebratory party, however, the aliens announce that the challenge for the planet has been forfeited because someone cheated. Violet's son Matty discovers that not only did Eddie use a cheat codes written on the inside of his glasses during the battle against Pac-Man, but also as kids while playing Donkey Kong against Brenner. Eddie flees while Matty is abducted by the aliens.

The aliens launch a massive attack on Washington, D.C. using an army of video game characters and enemies. Cooper joins the team, while Ludlow stays to fight. An alien takes the form of "Lady Lisa", a video game character on whom Ludlow has had a crush since childhood. Ludlow persuades Lisa to choose love and side with the humans as Eddie, wishing to make amends, returns to fight. Brenner, Violet and Cooper are summoned to the aliens' mothership for one last chance to save Earth, where they face their leader, who takes the form of Donkey Kong, on the starting level with the aliens' captives at the top level. As the group dodges barrels and fireballs, Brenner is losing hope until Matty reveals Eddie cheated at Donkey Kong, meaning that Brenner was the world's best Donkey Kong player. This restores Brenner's spirit, allowing him to keep fighting and avoid the rolling barrels. Once Brenner defeats Donkey Kong, the aliens' forces, including Lisa, disappear from Earth.

The team is hailed as heroes and Cooper manages to reach a peace agreement with the aliens. Eddie apologizes to Brenner for cheating and praises him as the best player in Donkey Kong, and although Ludlow is saddened that Lisa is gone, Q*Bert transforms its likeness to Lady Lisa. Brenner and Violet become a couple while Eddie gets to meet Serena Williams and Martha Stewart. The aliens restore everything on Earth, including Iwatani's hand, before their departure. A year later, Lady Lisa and Ludlow marry and have Q*Bert-like children.

Rating: 10 Stars

Sandy Wexler, 2017

Sandy Wexler (Adam Sandler) is a talent manager working in Los Angeles in the 1990s who diligently represents a group of eccentric clients on the fringes of show business. His single-minded devotion is put to the test when he falls in love with his newest client, Courtney Clarke (Jennifer Hudson), a tremendously talented singer whom he discovers at a park.

Official Trailer

Sandy Wexler is a 2017 American comedy film directed by Steve Brill and written by Dan Bulla, Paul Sado and Adam Sandler.  The film stars Sandler, Jennifer Hudson, Kevin James, Terry Crews, Rob Schneider, Colin Quinn, and Lamorne Morris, and follows a talent manager in 1990s Hollywood.  The film was released on Netflix on April 14, 2017.

PLOT

In 1994, Sandy Wexler is a talent manager working in Los Angeles.  He has a reputation for having an extremely eccentric personality and for often telling huge lies to sound more important than he really is, resulting in his clients never finding success except for his first, a man named Alfred.  His current clientele include Ted Rafferty, a ventriloquist, Kevin Conners, a comedian, Amy Baskin, an actress, Gary Rogers, a daredevil, and Bobby Barnes, a wrestler.

Sandy lives in the cabana of Firuz, a Jewish-Iranian, who needs him live there for legal reasons. However, he's confined to that small area of the estate, and watched remotely via surveillance cameras.

While at Six Flags, Sandy sees a young woman, Courtney Clarke, performing in a open show in a park for kids. Immediately entranced by both her voice and her beauty, he convinces her that he can make her a star once he meets her dad, an Alaskan prison guard. The manager explains that he always has to keep a professional distance with his clients, citing his first client as his cautionary tale, saying Alfred had been his best friend but was soon dumped by him and later became huge.

Sandy gets Courtney into a studio to record her first single, which becomes a hit through Capitol Records. They record several singles that become hits, but his antics continue to cause her trouble. Believing she has a stalker, Courtney calls him over. Poking outside her home, he discovers it was only a racoon.

When she invites him in to clean up, Sandy discovers that rapper Bling is her boyfriend. Bling has got her a publicist and convinces Sandy that his presence is a problem to Courtney's potential fame, so he resigns as her manager.

Miserable, Sandy cries for hours. Not able to escape reminders of Courtney, which are everywhere as she becomes a star, he goes to his neighbor Cindy's. She's been throwing herself at him for ages, but when the moment comes he can't, as her bed-ridden stroke-stricken husband is watching.

While Sandy continues to struggle with both his feelings for Courtney and his clients, she grows more and more famous, eventually winning a Grammy. Bobby soon sees success when Sandy helps him become champ, while Courtney, feeling unsatisfied with her fame, spirals into drinking and a string of failed relationships.

Contacting Sandy as she's wasted, Courtney seeks comfort with him, but he is a gentleman and doesn't take advantage of her. The next day, they pal around together at a driving range then, in the evening, they watch his wrestler client Bobby win a championship match.

That night, sitting by the pool, Courtney marvels at how selfless Sandy is, always putting others first. Trying to get him to admit his feelings, she half gives up and they have a one night stand before she flies to NYC to do a video with Lenny Kravitz.

Depressed by Courtney's decision, Sandy is more distracted than ever, which costs him all his clients except Ted. He accompanies him with negotiations at a TV network to take over a program whose clown host just committed suicide. As soon as a deal is reached, Sandy is rushed to the hospital for a mild heart attack.

Sandy wakes in a luxurious hospital room, thanks to Courtney. She tells him that she's quitting the business and leaving to get married in Seattle with an entrepreneur. 

While back at Six Flags, he meets Alfred, finally revealed to be Weird Al Yankovic. Al convinces Sandy to stop telling people what he thinks they want to hear and, instead, tell them the truth. To this end, Sandy enlists many of his contacts, calling in favors.

Sandy has his landlord bring Courtney to Griffith Observatory, where he admits his feelings to her, which she reciprocates, and they're married in a ceremony officiated by one of Ted's puppets (The Aurora Boreal is in the Roof). Sandy's newfound honesty also gets him back his clients as well as many new ones. After twenty years, Courtney and Sandy are married for real.

Rating: 10 Stars