Movie Moments XII: March & April 2018

Twenty-one for two months!

Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope, 01 March 2018, DVD
We finished watching A New Hope in my lit class today. (Alderaan's destruction to the end.) Excerpts from the notes I took:

• All of Chewbacca's closed captions read, "Argh. ARGHHHH."
• Leia sleeps like she's ready to kick a dude in the face as she wakes up.
• It's possible Luke cares nothing about the Rebellion except he has a couple of friends there.
• I would 100% watch a cooking show hosted by Chewbacca and Han.
• We could have 20 more minutes of Obi-Wan tiptoeing around the Death Star and it would still be hilarious every time.
• Why does Luke have a Batman utility belt? Why does he have a grappling hook?
• Are droids accorded status as sentient beings?
• Luke is the best at compartmentalization.
• Why doesn't R2 get a medal? WTF, Rebellion?

Oscar 2018 Short Films: Live Action, 03 March 2018, Cinemark Colonel Glenn 18
I actually got a flat tire and missed the first twenty minutes of the showing, so I ended up renting DeKalb Elementary. Later, I also bought the collection from Shorts TV (they have them for sale on Amazon) so I could show The Silent Child to one of my classes. They’re all pretty excellent--and I appreciate that the distribution has made these more available.

• DeKalb Elementary
• The Silent Child
• My Nephew Emmett
• The Eleven o’ Clock
• Watu Wote

Overall I really enjoyed these! It’s the nature of Oscar films to skew serious--The Eleven o’ Clock being the exception--but they were all quite touching in different ways.

I was also very glad for an intermission, even though these were MUCH shorter than last year’s batch.

Oscar 2018 Short Films: Animated, 03 March 2018, Cinemark Colonel Glenn 18

• Dear Basketball
• Negative Space
• Lou
• Revolting Rhymes
• Garden Party

They also included a handful of “honorable mention” films, and I do wonder how they decide. There were fewer of them this year--but perhaps it’s also because they didn’t have an R-rated 35-minute whopper to add at the end this time around.

• Petite Interludes
• Lost Property Office
• Weeds
• Achoo

Coco, 04 March 2018, streamed via Amazon Video
The reveal on #Coco was obvious from the jump, but dang if I'm not crying anyway.

Strong Island, 04 March 2018, streamed via Netflix
“You stumble out of the garage and into the yard, where you fall. You lie on the ground, hole in your chest, another in your lung.
“You feel the pain and know you will never see your sisters again. Your mother. Your father. You wonder how your family will survive this. You realize that you will not survive this. You realize you starved yourself for thirty-two days for nothing.
“You lie on the ground, bullet through your heart. You can’t speak, and no one speaks to you.
“You do not know your death may, in fact, be the actual death of our family. You do not know that we are silent in our grief, even with one another.
“You do not know your killer will say he had to shoot you. You do not know that your killer will make you out to be a monster. Mark Reilly will make you out to be a monster, and people will believe him. You do not realize that there will be no trial. You don’t know that twenty-three white people will decide no crime has even been committed.
“You realize there may be no heaven. There may only be the ground.”

Annihilation, 10 March 2018, Cinemark Colonel Glenn 18
Dude. It's possible...#Annihilation...is perfect?
Also, #WorldOfWarcraft players, if you've ever wanted to know what a rotting plague bear looks like IRL, #Annihilation is the movie for you.

A Wrinkle in Time, 11 March 2018, AMC Classic Central City 10
So I started crying when Mrs Who quoted Rumi and just never really stopped.

"The wound is the place where the light enters you."
Tomb Raider, 17 March 2018, Alamo Drafthouse Main Street
#TombRaider is a film about a young British noble in working class drag who, after meeting an attractive Chinese man, finds her entire life upended. Also, epidemiology in ancient Japan, and maybe some other stuff.

Pacific Rim: Uprising, 24 March 2018, UA Breckenridge Stadium 12
#PacificRimUprising is pretty delightful. John Boyega, as Pentecost, carries the movie perfectly, and I want to know 300% more about Mako Mori, Liwen Shao, and the post-kaiju economy.

Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool, 31 March 2018, Riverdale 10 VIP Cinema
I am still miffed that Annette Benning didn’t get an Oscar nomination for 20th Century Women. I am now convinced the world needs to see Annette Bening play Juliet. (Jamie Bell was very good, too.) That said, this is a upsettingly sympathetic portrayal of a woman who molested a thirteen-year old in her care. (Grahame was allegedly caught in bed with her teenaged stepson by his father, who was her second husband; the teenaged stepson became her fourth husband years later.) The story is based on the memoir of a man who was in love with Grahame long AFTER that situation, but seriously.

Spider-Man: Homecoming, 31 March 2018, Blu-ray
I was charmed by the movie when I saw it in the theatre, but didn’t feel compelled to acquire a copy for myself until I saw Zendaya and Tom Holland’s Lip Sync Battle and immediately became obsessed with it. So here we are.

Love, Simon, 01 April 2018, AMC Classic Central City 10
#LoveSimon is a perfect teen romcom. Like, astoundingly perfect. I’m so glad it exists.

Thor: Ragnarok, 01 April 2018, Blu-ray
Hela is a delightful expose of the colonizing ethos. And speaking of colonizing, Odin straight-up told Thor to take all of Asgard to Norway, y’all. Come on.

In other news, nods to Tom Hiddleston for doing some exquisite moments of face-acting whenever a family member tells him they love him.

Jane Got a Gun, 01 April 2018, DVD via public library
Westerns gonna Western. This one’s pretty decent, as they go. It does acknowledge that awful things women in the wild west often had to endure, but it avoids exploitation by largely avoiding graphic depictions of assault.

Chappaquiddick, 07 April 2018, UA Breckenridge Stadium 12
White male privilege is a helluva drug. The movie failed at developing Mary Jo into an actual human. At least, however, it makes it perfectly clear what a POS Kennedy was. Like, the entire audience was audibly WTF-ing through the entire film.

A Quiet Place, 14 April 2018, Riverdale 10 VIP Cinema
Given its success, I'm willing to bet some producer is trying to pitch a gigantic sequel to #AQuietPlace. I both do NOT want that to happen, but also want to read the fanfic written about this imaginary tentpole sequel immediately.

Also, envy the film instructors who now can collect #GetOut, #AQuietPlace, and #RearWindow together into a curricular trio.

King Kong (2005), 17 April 2018, DVD via university library
WHY IS THIS THREE HOURS LONG. Also, wow, this is hella racist.

The Legend of Tarzan, 20 April 2018, DVD via public library
On one hand, certainly there’s something appropriate about situating Tarzan explicitly as a tale of colonial oppression. On the other hand, SIGH. Anyway, just as my brain has decided Fassbender IS Magneto, I also just assume Alexander Skarsgard is actually a vampire.

Rampage, 21 April 2018, UA Breckenridge Stadium 12
This is an aggressively dumb movie, but 100% satisfying when judged on its own merits.

Black Panther, 25 April 2018, AMC Classic Central City 10

• T’Challa is wearing his fancy nanobot bulletproof suit, which also absorbs kinetic energy and can be deployed in half a second. Handy, right? Meanwhile, in Busan, Okoye’s wearing a flowing red gown AND THAT’S IT, and she spends half of the trip standing on a speeding car and throwing a spear at dudes in armored cars equipped with semi-automatic weapons.
• I know Killmonger ordered the whole burning of all of the heart-shaped herb and it’s supposed to be all ~~dramatic~~ and everything, but there’s no way there isn’t a botanist somewhere in Wakanda with their own version of the apocalypse seed vault.
• Remember how, on their way to the Jabari, Ramonda tells Nakia to take the heart-shaped herb herself? DUDES. We can still make that happen, right? It only breaks canon a little itty bit.
• I’mma pretend Killmonger is in cryo-sleep or something, because that injury legit looked like the kind folks shake off all the time in action movies.
• So the Jabari are rising in prominence right? Like, the border tribe are totally on time out for the next decade, because RHINOS, guys, seriously?

Avengers: Infinity War, 27 April 2018, AMC Classic Central City 10
YOU HAD ONE JOB.