Movie Moments X: December 2017 and January 2018

Two months and twenty-nine movies!

Lady Bird, 02 December 2017, Riverdale 10 VIP Cinema

• The diegetic music choices for #LadyBird are possibly my favorite thing about it. “Crossroads,” “Crash Into Me,” “Cry Me A River”? <3 li="">I think my second favorite bit of #LadyBird was the coach staging The Tempest. I kind of wish we'd been able to see the tech rehearsal.
• Oh, the POC count for #LadyBird: three secondary characters of import and six incidental characters (two who spoke).
• #LadyBird is very much paired with #20thCenturyWomen in my mind--overlapping locales, prickliness, and specifically detailed authenticities.

Girls Trip, 02 December 2017, DVD via RedBox
This movie is so fun, y’all. It’s 100% a movie I would recommend if you're hosting a movie night but have an eclectic bunch of invitees.

Colombiana, 04 December 2017, DVD via public library

SO BADASS, THIS KID.
Watched #Colombiana, and it's along the same lines as #Haywire, #Salt, and #AtomicBlonde: Superb action starring a woman, with a window dressing "plot." (I love it.) Also, the first segment of the movie is tiny Amandla Stenberg parkouring her way through Bogota after stabbing a dude through the hand with a knife. IT’S AMAZING.

San Andreas, 04 December 2017, DVD via Netflix
Independence Day, but with earthquakes. DELIGHTFUL. I mean, the Rock’s character is terrible at his job (you’re a first responder and you frickin’ STOLE a helicopter to go on, essentially, a road trip?), but it's fun in a spectacle sort of way.

This Is Where I Leave You, 06 December 2017, DVD via public library
Just as I’ve sworn off rom-coms about affluent white people, I’ve become wary of the White Family Awkwardly Connects genre, but I like enough of the actors in this project--Connie Britton and Kathryn Hahn and Timothy Olyphant, y’all--that I figured I'd risk it. And, pleasant surprise: instead of wacky and twee--as, let’s be clear, every set-piece is set up to be--it ended up being sometimes rather specific, and once in a while, lovely.

Brooklyn, 11 December 2017, DVD via public library
It’s way disconcerting to see Saoirse Ronan play an Irish adult (which, well, she is) after seeing her convincingly play a teenager from Central California in Lady Bird. This is a beautifully-written movie, and an excellent showcase for Ronan, but I’m also sort of unconvinced this was a story that needed to be told. (Six minutes after she went back to Ireland, I was like, GIRL. GET OUT NOW. These people don't care about you or your agency as a human being.) But it was well-told, so.

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, 15 December 2017, DVD
In the run-up to The Last Jedi, I discovered that a couple of friends had never watched the original set. It’s genuinely fun to watch folks watch the early movies--there’s a weird valley between what they’ve absorbed through cultural references and what actually happens in the movies. (Most memorably, in a past first-watching of A New Hope, a colleague turned to us afterwards and asked when Luke and Leia were finally going to hook up. LOL.)

Star Wars: The Last Jedi, 16 December 2017, McCain Mall Stadium 12
I love this movie. I love how beautifully it shuffles around the hero’s journey milestones, drawing and countering what’s happened in the movies before. I love that Luke follows the patterns that Qui-Gon and Yoda and Obi-Wan before him, in that it beautifully highlights the baked-in flaws of the Jedi belief system’s form of governance. I love that, aside from Luke, its protagonists are NOT straight, white, cisgender men. I love that it grapples with institutions and rebellion, and hierarchy and transparency, and what it’s like when the folks running things take time to think, instead of immediately attack.

I will stan for this movie until the end of time.

A Bad Moms Christmas, 16 December 2017, McCain Mall Stadium 12
This is indeed as raucous and nonsense as Bad Moms, and it indeed showcases three of my favorite (white lady) actors (Kristen Bell, Mila Kunis, and Kathryn Hahn) as just straight-up goofballs. And it passes the Bechdel test without even daring a hint that the concerns of dudes might possibly eclipse that of these women.

Doctor Strange, 17 December 2017, streaming via Netflix
My sister and niece hadn’t seen it yet, and I really wanted them to watch Thor: Ragnarok, so.

Boss Baby, 17 December 2017, streaming via Netflix
Okay, so this is definitely not as horrible as the marketing campaign implied.

Sing, 17 December 2017, streaming via Netflix
“But how do shrimp participate in this economy?” I bellowed at the screen.

The Hitman’s Bodyguard, 20 December 2017, Blu-ray via Redbox
I'm down with #TheHitmansBodyguard starring three POC and a (White) Canadian. Also, I'm pretty sure that Reynolds, Jackson, and Hayek didn't have a script, but just a few story beats and a directive to just be as aggravatingly vulgar as possible, and daaaaang they delivered.

Thor: Ragnarok, 22 December 2017
I love this movie so much.

Pitch Perfect 2, 24 December 2017, DVD via Redbox

• So, like, Elizabeth Banks is playing the same character in #PitchPerfect, #HungerGames, and #MagicMikeXXL, right? Like Perd Hapley?
• I sort of hate everything about this franchise outside of the music? And also how adorable Anna Kendrick is.
• Okay, also, pairing Anna Kendrick’s character with a number of different women featured in the movie. I enjoy doing that. Beca/Chloe. Beca/Aubrey. Beca/German woman. Beca/Elizabeth Banks.
• “So what the hell makes you special?” is criticism I am always thrilled to hear on American media because I am a communitarian socialist, basically.
• Keegan-Michael Key is a treasure.

Boss Baby, 28 December 2017, streaming via Netflix
I had to babysit, okay?

Cars 3, 29 December 2017, Blu-ray borrowed from cousins
While I spent most of the movie thinking about the Carpocalypse theory, I did take note that this is a story about arrogant dudes disregarding the expertise of a Latina woman (er, “woman,” I guess), and we're served a pretty optimistic happy ending to the whole shebang.

The Shape of Water, 02 January 2018, AMC Tyler Galleria 16
I don't know a lot of sign language, but I know enough to laugh at a joke in #TheShapeOfWater forty seconds before anyone else did. Overall, though, this was as lush and magic realisty as I expected going in--and I loved how they insisted on forefronting Eliza’s agency as a human with natural and obvious desires.

The Mountain Between Us, 07 January 2018, Blu-ray via Redbox
If you want two hours of Idris Elba being handsome that ALSO includes snow, this is the movie for you. (Also, there is a love scene, so. Thanks, universe.) Most of the movie is not a surprise, but the last part of it is a “what now" drama, which is interesting, and the final scene isn't entirely satisfactory, but way fascinating from a directorial standpoint.

American Made, 08 January 2018, Blu-ray via Redbox
This is a terrifically entertaining movie if you can manage to forget it actually happened in real life. But yeah, the American government engineered the drug running that they eventually went to “war” on, and it's awful. And it (almost) ends with the wallop of “You try telling me this isn’t the greatest country in the…” punctuated by a gunshot. Like…damn.

The Foreigner, 09 January 2018, Blu-ray via Redbox
What if the Taken franchise was ALSO a commentary about the othering of immigrants of Asian descent in majority-White nations? And painted a horrifying picture of how intertwined government and bloodletting are tied together? And starred Jackie Chan, most assuredly doing his own stunts? Hell yeah, folks.

Dunkirk, 10 January 2018, Blu-ray via Redbox
Legit watched this solely because I figured it would snag some Oscar noms. It's fine.

I mean, I suspect every Nolan movie is just a Batman AU, which made Dunkirk way more interesting than I anticipated. But yeah, it's...fine. Aside from the score, which intrusively insisted I was watching a horror movie. (Which, to be fair, it IS, but I hardly need a strings section shrieking in minor keys to get the hint.) And incredibly gorgeous. But this is one of those films that I, objectively, see is masterfully made, but have no actual reaction to articulate.

Battle of the Sexes, 11 January 2018, DVD via Redbox
I'm sure this is uplifting until you remember the U.S. women's soccer team gets less pay AND substandard resources in comparison to the men, despite the track record. (In other news, it was first kind of hilarious and then incredibly sad how neither King nor Riggs had any game in regards to their personal lives.)

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, 13 January 2018, UA Breckenridge Stadium 12

• Disclaimer: I never watched the first movie, so I had zero nostalgia or knowledge of canon. That said, I thought the update to video games was clever and believable--and, nicely, very immediately synced with all the folks who saw Karen Gillan in promo photos and asked why she’d be baring midriff and thighs in the gorram jungle.
• Whoever wrote the first act of the movie loves Breakfast Club but has never met actual teenagers.
• Somehow the Rock and Karen Gillan managed to act like two people who have no idea they're attractive. (Also, kudos to Johnson and Hart for believably adopting the cadence of two teenage males who don’t quite know how to be friends again.)
• Seriously, Gillan is the very best at acting like she has no idea what to do with her several miles of legs.
• "Martha, come look at my penis!" is possibly the best acting Jack Black has done in his entire life.
• I actually got teary-eyed at the end, at how hopeful Bethany was about Alex, and her face when they found him.

Proud Mary, 14 January 2018, AMC Central City Classic 10
#ProudMary is basically a really good found family drama starring Taraji P. Henson and an astonishingly good kid actor, spliced with a B-movie about a venegeance-seeking assassin played by Taraji P. Henson. (I loved it.)

Call Me By Your Name, 20 January 2018, UA Breckenridge Stadium 12
This movie completely wrecked me. Oliver’s ever-so-slight flinch when Elio stepped towards him in the spring--egads. I got teary-eyed in that scene in the grass.I was enthralled with our two protagonists as they sat in a corner, giving/receiving a foot rub. I started sobbing at the train station and didn’t stop until twenty minutes after the movie ended.

Molly’s Game, 20 January 2018, UA Breckenridge Stadium 12
Molly’s Game is a movie delightfully riddled with the expected Sorkin banter, starring Jessica Chastain's cleavage and also, almost coincidentally, Jessica Chastain.

Phantom Thread, 27 January 2018, Cinemark Colonel Glenn 18

• It must be so tiring to be friends with Daniel Day-Lewis.
• It soon became apparent that it was entirely appropriate to show a Fifty Shades trailer right before this.
• The movie took such an unexpected turn that my brain still can’t process it.

The Post, 27 January 2018, UA Breckenridge Stadium 12
I cried at the end of The Post, if anyone’s wondering how I feel about the state of American democracy. But, overall, the movie was exactly the degree of superb that anyone would have expected from Spielberg and the unsurprisingly deep bench of (all white, but I suppose historically accurate) actors.

And that’s a wrap for December and January!