Eagerly anticipating this week ... (14-24)

Eagerly anticipating this week ... (14-24)
Ali Abassi's The Apprentice (2024)

10/14/2021

Ma (2019) - Spencer entertains in Taylor's uneven revenge horror

♥♥

 

Star Octavia Spencer's face through a shattered glass makes up this simple poster for Tate Taylor's
 Ma

A group of high school students get a woman named Sue Ann to buy them alcohol, and not long after they are even throwing parties in her basement. - But why is she interested in them doing that...?

 

Ma is written by Scotty Landes (Deadcon (2019)) and co-produced and directed by Mississippian master filmmaker Tate Taylor (Pretty Ugly People (2008)), whose 5th feature it is.

Octavia Spencer (Next of Kin (2008)) is good as the scarred, lonely Sue Ann, SPOILER but we get no answer as to why exactly now, 20 or 30 years after her own traumatic high school experiences, she goes off the rocker... Although there's some timeliness to the implication that violations can be avenged decades later by the victim!

Luckily Ma also has a good secondary cast and sexy youths, although it doesn't really compute that Allison Janney (Away We Go (2009)) is here in a non-role as a mean boss. (The reason must be that both Spencer and Janney are friends of Taylor, as they both acted in his 2008 debut.)

The bonkers ending doesn't hit bull's eye, but Ma is still very entertaining up until this.

 

Related posts:

Tate Taylor: 2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 
2011 in films - according to Film Excess 

The Help (2011) - Taylor and an impeccable ensemble portray heart-thumping change in Jackson, Mississippi 






Watch a 1-minute clip from the movie here

 

Cost: 5 mil. $

Box office: 61.1 mil. $

= Mega-hit (returned 12.2 times its cost)

[Ma premiered 30 May (Germany and 12 other markets) and runs 99 minutes. Shooting took place around February 2018 in Mississippi. The film opened #4 to a an 18 mil. $ first weekend in North America, behind fellow new release Godzilla: King of the Monsters, holdover hit Aladdin and fellow new release Rocketman, where it left the top 5 in its 2nd weekend and grossed 45.8 mil. $ (75 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were France with 2.3 mil. $ (3.8 %) and the UK with 2 mil. $ (3.3 %). The film made in excess of 3.1 mil. $ additionally on the North-American home video market. Taylor returned with Ava (2020). Spencer returned with 3 voice performances and a miniseries prior to her theatrical return in The Witches (2020). Ma is rotten at 56 % with a 5.60/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]


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