Hey Mofos!

I had the chance to check out a screening of the film Bob Marley: One Love, it's in theaters on Valentine's Day! 

I will start out saying it was a good biopic, but it wasn't GREAT. I don't know about y'all but I didn't know much about Bob Marley except for some of his legendary music and that he died at 36 years old. 

The film directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green, celebrates the life and music of a Reggae icon who inspired generations through his message of love and unity. During the movie, you get to learn Marley's powerful story of overcoming childhood adversity, political drama, and eventually the journey behind his revolutionary music. Kingsley Ben-Adir stars as Bob Marley and Lashana Lynch plays his wife Rita Marley. 

The film opens in 1976 when Marley is about to play a peace concert in Kingston, Jamaica to heal the rift due to political ish. There's rival gangs, political parties, and pure chaos at this time. Marley can't even protect himself from the violence hitting too close to home. Before the concert, there's a home invasion and Rita is shot, along with his manager, and Marley escapes with a flesh wound. Marley ultimately decides it's time to leave Jamaica. The film is set against the next two years and ends up recording the iconic album "Exodus."

It was nice to see a snapshot of Marley in the light of a family man, a devout Rastafarian, a musician, and a man but it paints a picture of how he evolved into a super star with a message. 

Here's my issue.. by limiting us to a 2 year period of his life, we don't actually get to see much of his actual childhood, except a few flashbacks. I would have loved to know how he got into music, and that journey. There is one studio scene with the Wailing Wailers that will have you tapping your feet, but there's still no clear pathway on how reggae became the powerhouse genre it became. Marley spends some of the end of the film planning a concert in Jamaica after learning he's sick with a rare skin cancer, but I also would have loved to have seen how he handled his illness. The movie is named "One Love" and a clip of the real Bob Marley is singing it. WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THE CONCERT? A true biopic would give us all the tea. This gave us a lukewarm version of his life story. 

The music took me back to my own childhood of listening to my dad play Marley's music so the nostalgia was there. The film left me wanting to know more about Marley's life and wanting to know more about the stories behind the music. 

The actors were amazing in the film. I enjoyed watching them--so maybe just maybe a part two could come out? A Netflix series? Something??

Let me know if y'all go check it out! 

~Meik

 Hey Mofos! I'm still on the grief roller coaster, but stepped out the house to see the upcoming film Argylle. Let's just say that I was more entertained by the security guards checking for phones and her overuse of the phrase "OVERSTAND AND INNERSTAND." This film honestly could have been a limited streaming series and called it a day. It drops on February 2, in theaters!

Let me give you the low down on what it's about from the press release cuz I'm too lazy and tired to write it myself lol. 

The greater the spy, the bigger the lie.

From the twisted mind of Matthew Vaughn (Kingsman franchise, Kick-Ass) comes Argylle, a razor-witted, reality-bending, globe-encircling spy thriller.

Bryce Dallas Howard (Jurassic World franchise) is Elly Conway, the reclusive author of a series of best-selling espionage novels, whose idea of bliss is a night at home with her computer and her cat, Alfie. But when the plots of Elly’s fictional books—which center on secret agent Argylle and his mission to unravel a global spy syndicate—begin to mirror the covert actions of a real-life spy organization, quiet evenings at home become a thing of the past.

Accompanied by Aiden (Oscar^® winner Sam Rockwell), a cat-allergic spy, Elly (carrying Alfie in her backpack) races across the world to stay one step ahead of the killers as the line between Elly’s fictional world and her real one begins to blur.

The top-flight ensemble cast features Henry Cavill (The Witcher), John Cena (Fast X), Oscar^® winner Ariana DeBose (West Side Story), Grammy winning pop superstar Dua Lipa (Barbie), Emmy winner and Oscar^® nominee Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad), Emmy winner and comedy icon Catherine O’Hara (Schitt’s Creek), Sofia Boutella (Kingsman: The Secret Service), and the legendary Samuel L. Jackson. Alfie is played by Chip, the real-life cat of supermodel Claudia Vaughn (née Schiffer).

Argylle is directed and produced by Matthew Vaughn, from a screenplay by Jason Fuchs (Wonder Woman). The film is produced by Matthew Vaughn, Adam Bohling (Kingsman franchise), Jason Fuchs, and David Reid (Kingsman franchise). The executive producers are Adam Fishbach, Zygi Kamasa, Carlos Peres and Claudia Vaughn.

Apple Original Films presents, in association with MARV, a Cloudy production. Argylle is distributed by Universal Pictures.

Now that's out of the way, the movie itself wasn't awful but it wasn't something I would watch again. I was into it, until it got to some parts that were utterly ridiculous and would never happen in a real spy movie. I loved that the writer transported into her own story, but it got a little hard to keep up with her life or the novel life at some points. What I did love is that Elly Conway isn't a size 2 heroine that we are used to seeing. She had a body that most women can relate to (not me, cuz ain't a hip to be found on my body), but I loved that she looked normal and not like she was starving for carbs. I also wanted to reach thru the screen and throw that cat Alfie somewhere. I'm not a cat nor a dog person, so seeing this cat the entire time made my eyeballs itch.