31 December 2020

Miscellaneous Movie Moments LIII (December)

Wonder Woman 1984, 25 December 2020, streamed via HBO Max
  • Amazon Ninja Warrior looks really cool but, like, how many Amazons are there? I feel like that stadium is WAY too large, given the size of the island and the relative density in the spaces we’ve seen.
  • How annoyed would you be if you were one of the women competing against a demi-god? (Tiny athlete actress is ADORABLE, though.)
  • Yeah, sure, a jewelry store in a MALL is totally going to have a side business in black market antiquities. That totally checks out. I have zero questions.
  • Pedro Pascal is waaaay pleased to use his face for acting, isn’t he?
  • Steve really takes well to being in a different body decades in the future, geez. (Did people not miss that poor, possessed guy? Was he weirded out that half of his apartment seemed to be rearranged?
  • I’m with Steve about every single outfit he tried on, guys. But could we just follow around all the Smithsonians for the next two hours? I’d be so down.
  • I...am not sure what thought processes Diana used to think, Hey, let’s just steal a plane. Diana. GIRL. Do you not understand why they track everyone’s flight paths?
  • Kids, don’t fly your plane directly into fireworks. Those things are literally bombs.
  • Wow, way to remind us all how gross and terrifying men are.
  • Oh man, I wonder what that museum guy had to sacrifice for that cup of coffee.
  • Steve must have been an excellent wingman.
  • Diana’s boots--shaped leather with bands to adjust their width--are exactly perfect for people with non-model legs. (Given my shortness, tall boots never work on me.
  • Wait, I’m pretty sure that’s not how particle beams work?
  • NGL, I kind of would love every WW movie to have Steve honorably sacrifice himself before Diana defeats the big bad. I would sob through the last half hour of every one of them, but I’m okay with that.
  • I have a lot of questions about Alistair’s custody agreement.
  • While the moral of the story is ostensibly “Truth is Better Than Lies,” or “More Isn’t Better,” it kind off comes off as “No, Women Cannot Have It All.”
  • Diana learning to fly (or, uh, glide really far, technically) is a beautiful sequence. I feel like it needed a little more breathing room, but otherwise.
  • That helmet is an heirloom, Diana! You better go dive for it later on.
  • Does Max have to say “granted” for every wish? That’s, like, 7 billion people, dude.
  • Wait, even if the original wishes are undone, wouldn’t the ripple effects still be there? Like, people being shot or whatever?
  • Is it weird that I would have liked Barbara to not renounce her wish? Like, that would have been waaaay more interesting.
  • The Smithsonian Natural History Museum’s breakroom is gonna be hella awkward on Monday, isn’t it? Do Diana and Barbara still hang?
  • OMG ASTERIA. YOU SURVIVED THE BATTLE.
  • I like the flickering they used for the credits, instead of the traditional scroll. It’s just a nice change of pace, y’know?




Enola Holmes, 26 December 2020, streamed via Netflix
  • It turns out I don’t recognize Millie Bobby Brown when she has hair. Also, she’s getting very Natalie Portman-looking, isn’t she?
  • I have extremely enjoyed pretty much all works within the Sherlock pastiche genre. As well, I am SO WEARY of the Holmes Family o’ Functional Sociopaths, so even better to have the Holmes Family o’ Weirdos, instead.
  • Claflin and Cavill remain much too handsome.
  • The constant fourth-wall-breaking narration is kind of twee, but I’ll let it pass. I mean, it’s sort of the era for epistolary novels, right? (I was more bothered by the Wes Andersonesque prologue, honestly.)
  • Enola is a dab hand with haircuts. Did you see those layers on Tewkesbury? With a knife, even! (For real, though Tewkesbury is, like, the pure embodiment of every floppy-haired boy that every smart awkward girl had a crush on when she was fourteen.)
  • "A lady!"
  • "Politics doesn’t interest you. Why?”
    “Because it’s fatally boring.”
    “Because you have no interest in changing a world that suits you so well.”
    Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn.
  • It was by Enola’s fourth, or perhaps fifth, change of costume that I wondered just how much Eudoria left for her behind the painting. It didn’t look like that much.
  • What passes for young people flirting in this movie is, WOOF, not good. But I suppose these particular young people would be pretty crap at flirting.
  • The more I see Cavill act, the more I feel affronted by Snyder’s version of Superman.
  • Was that armor made of mithril or something? Geez.
  • Lestrade’s “How did your sister get there before you?” was so delightfully smug that I forgave him for being a prat earlier.
  • She’s sixteen and you met last week, Tewkes. It’s a little early to ask her to move in.

The Midnight Sky, 31 December 2020, streamed via Netflix
As long as you give me austere life-after-the-apocalypse movies, Hollywood, I will keep watching them. And adding in stranded-in-space? Catnip. But is anyone else amused by how Clooney grew a Serious Wilderness Beard so we wouldn’t focus on his handsome mug?

Interweaving the flashbacks with the wintry present gives me some serious Arrival vibes, though of course it’s not quite as philosophically complex. The contrast between Clooney’s never-ending Arctic with the modular enclosures of the spaceship is striking--and makes the flashbacks to sunshine and normal life all the more alien.

The scene with the peas is pure magic. The first half of the movie is gorgeous but sloooooow, and then we hit the last, like, 40 minutes and it’s all Very Hard Choices. This is more of a thinky movie than an action one, but if you’re into this kind of thing, it’s totally your thing.

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