“13 Reasons Why” is not a movie but instead a 13 episode series streaming on Netflix about a young teenager who enters high school with all the expectations of a student with their whole life ahead of them. The series focuses on a female who happens to be very pretty with no visible sign of deformities, always trendily fashioned and no brain malfunctions. In other words, she seems quite normal. For some reason, she was taken advantaged of via a form of bullying over the years, which caused her reputation to take a roller coaster ride during her time in high school while her self esteem plummeted as well. After committing suicide, 7 double sided tapes, that she made for the students who contributed to her demise were allocated for each one, which made for a brilliant series everyone should see.
The series starts with Clay Jensen (Dylan Minnette), who returns home from school and finds a mysterious box of seven double sided cassette tapes laying on his porch. The tapes are recorded by Hannah Baker (Katherine Langford), his classmate and unrequited love, who tragically committed suicide two weeks earlier. These 7 double sided tapes reveal an emotional audio diary, detailing the 13 reasons why she decided to end her life. With each package of tapes, Hannah instructed the following: each person who receives a package is one of the reasons why I killed myself, so after each person has completed listening to the tapes, they must pass the package on to the next person. If anyone decides to break the chain, a separate set of tapes will be released to the public.
NOTE: Each tape is addressed to a select person in her school and details their involvement in her inevitable suicide. Responsibility for the separate set of tapes was given to Tony Padilla (Christian Navarro), who is Clay’s best friend.
These are the school members who Hannah held responsible:
Episode 1 Tape 1 Side a
Justin Foley (Brandon Flynn) – Jessica’s boyfriend and Bryce’s best friend
Episode 2 Tape 1 Side b
Jessica Davis (Alisha Boe) – was Hannah’s best friend
Episode 3 Tape 2 Side a
Alex Standall (Miles Heizer) – Jessica’s boyfriend
Episode 4 Tape 2 Side b
Tyler Down (Devin Druid) – School photographer
Episode 5 Tape 3 Side a
Courtney Crimsen (Michele Selene Ang) – Most popular girl in school
Episode 6 Tape 3 Side b
Marcus Cole (Steven Silver) – Basketball team player
Episode 7 Tape 4 Side a
Zach Dempsey (Ross Butler) – Basketball team player
Episode 8 Tape 4 Side b
Ryan Shaver (Tommy Dorfman) – School poetry curator
Episode 9 Tape 5 Side a
Justin Foley (Brandon Flynn) – Jessica’s boyfriend and Bryce’s best friend
Episode 10 Tape 5 Side b
Sheri Holland (Ajiona Alexus) – Cheerleader
Episode 11 Tape 6 Side a
Clay Jensen (Dylan Minnette) – Hannah’s true love interest
Episode 12 Tape 6 Side b
Bryce Walker (Justin Prentice) – Justin’s best friend
Episode 13 Tape 7 Side a
Kevin Porter (Derek Luke) School guidance counselor
In addtion, Lainie Jensen (Amy Hargreaves), was Clay’s mom, Olivia Baker (Kate Walsh), was Hannah’s mom, Andrew “Andy” Baker (Brian d’Arcy James), was Hannah’s dad and Matt Jensen (Josh Hamilton), was Clay’s father.
If you subscribe to Netflix, you merely have to choose “13 Reasons Why” to experience this incredible story that could change the way one looks at what bullying can cause. This is a life changing look at a very serious problem. Many schools are viewing the series as a possible standard for their students. I think it’s a must see for everyone!
Unfriended is unique! A movie based totally on a chat screen with approximately 5 friends, better known as cyberspace. The movie is 1 hour and 22 minutes long. During that time, all we saw was typed conversation between these friends and a former friend who committed suicide several months ago. All scenes are controlled by the dead girl via Skye and Facebook. I consider this a horror movie, which I am not a fan of. I maintain, if you take away the sound from a horror movie, it falls apart. Unfriended was actually a little different. While sound played a big part, so did many other things, like the dialogue and the character of these friends. The movie was suspenseful and different enough to make it better than the average horror flick. It falls apart for me because dead people can’t type or control computers or chat rooms. Dead is dead! If the death of this person were questionable, I could have jumped on board but I can’t get behind a dead person doing anything. Too bad because otherwise, this movie was brilliant. It was more about principle and cyber-bullying instead of scare tactics. It’s almost impossible to critique this movie without spoilers, so I’ll leave it at this: if you don’t mind putting aside the obvious, go for it, but wait for the DVD. I saw it because it was my grandson’s birthday and this is what he wanted to see. Lucky me!
I can’t say I liked Inside Llewyn Davis. I found it a little weird. I understand the movie was about a young folk singer who had no where to live in 1961 and that he slept on anyone’s couch, and that he was unsuccessful at being discovered, and of course, he had little to no money but, because the film only spanned over 1 week of Llewyn’s (played by Oscar Isaac) life, I didn’t really get a since of consistency or relevance. The cast was awesome but the story, for me, was not. I’m not sure why this movie received high ratings (I looked it up in IMDB and found it received a rating of 7.8) and 2 Oscar nods. Maybe I’m missing something. I found it boring, discombobulated, slow and dreary. I might add Justin Timberlake played Jim, another singer and friend to Llewyn. John Goodman also starred in the film as another homeless person (Roland Turner). The movie took place mostly in Greenwich Village in New York. Apparently, Llewyn had a singing partner who committed suicide by throwing himself off the George Washington Bridge. Like I said, this movie was all over the place. It’s probably worth seeing if you’re into folk music and a bit of Greenwich Village history. Other than that, I would skip this one.
CAROL's WORLDS 