SOUTHEAST ASIA REPRESENT. Y’all, it’s really hard to describe what it feels like to see a Disney protag that looks like me. (We got close with Moana, as well as Lilo & Stitch, but not quite.) I mean, not just one, but a BUNCH of them. Like, Raya’s hair is what my hair has been for most of my life.
And then! And then! They set this whole dang thing in a post-apocalyptic landscape? (Seriously, both Heart and Spine being basically courtyards of stone is horrifying.) And Raya is, like, a jewel thief, technically? And Namaari, y’all Namaari. My eyes are all hearts, guys, I can’t even.
Except for Con Baby. WTF? What?
Anyway, Boun is the real hero of this thing, guys. If there’s one person you can trust in the world, it’s the person who makes the best congee.
Our Heroes just, like, stepping back and becoming stone kind of made me break into sobs. I don’t know if the whole, We must learn to trust each other, moral of the story landed like it was supposed to, but whatever. It was nice. I have, like, a billion questions about the new system of governance, but FINE. THAT WAS BEAUTIFUL.
Judas and the Black Messiah, 11 March 2021, streamed via HBO Max
This is not a movie interested in holding your hand. Like, if you’re not familiar with the political and cultural context for the Black Panther Party, catch the hell up. Daniel Kaluuya’s getting a lot of praise for his role as the leader of the party because he’s uniformly excellent. LaKeith Stanfield (Sorry to Bother You) as the FBI informant who infiltrates the group, though? In some ways, it’s easy to play charismatic; it’s not so easy to nail the creeping horror of ambivalence. And Dominique Fishback plays the romantic partner to Kaluuya’s Hampton as, like, a human being with her own desires and ambitions. (I find Martin Sheen’s J Edgar Hoover a supreme dissonance, because Hoover was a white supremacist asshole. Meanwhile, Jesse Plemons continues to be the Plemonist.)
It’s rough, knowing this story will end with Hampton being assassinated by the Chicago cops. The violence leading up to that is stark, too. This isn’t an easy film to watch--that’s the point.
Nomadland, 18 March 2021, streamed via Hulu
This movie is strikingly quiet and also, lordy, Amazon fulfillment centers are a very specific kind of nightmare, aren’t they? (And yet this was apparently an extremely positive portrayal.) But there’s also something mesmerizing about the idea of just not being rooted anywhere--or maybe that’s just me? (But then again, I am a person who prefers to sleep in parking lots rather than check into motels while on the road.) We’re getting a portrait of Fern in that, yeah, she’d prefer to have her old life, but she’d really prefer to be nomadic than to depend on other folks. Or as Bob Wells put it, “throwing off the tyranny of the dollar.” Choosing to live in precarity rather than being forced to do so? Kind of? Y’all, what feelings is this movie trying to provoke? It’s actually kind of unclear.
A lot of the film is done documentary-style--framing people just telling stories, with a complete lack of music underlining the pathos. Random ten- or twenty-second clips of slices of life. And if I understand correctly, some of the folks are actually nomads in fact, playing fictionalized versions of themselves.
In a lot of ways, this movie reminds me of Leave No Trace, wherein the protags lived off the grid in public forests and all. There’d be something to dig into these two, as a pair. And Fern seems to be taking a tour of all the landscapes of the interior, and there’s just...there’s a lot of beauty when you’re on the road that you’d never see anywhere else.
Zack Snyder’s Justice League, 20 March 2021, streamed via HBO Max
How. Is. This. Movie. So. Long. (I want to say four hours is overindulgent, but as someone whose writing is all about making a world feel more lived-in, can I really argue with Jason Momoa speaking Icelandic? No, no I cannot.) If we made all the slo-mo scenes regular speed, I’d bet we could cut it down into three hours, at least.
I've been watching the Snyder cut for what feels like several days now. (I am largely enjoying it, but...will I ever be able to rejoin society? Or am I doomed to sit here evermore, mentally plotting fanfic set to dramatic montages?)
— Patti Poblete (@voleuseCK) March 21, 2021
It turns out I remember zero things about Batman v Superman despite having watched it only, like, a few months ago. So there’s that, and also that I’ve never been a fan of Snyder’s movies in the first place. But there’s something to be said for a cohesive artistic vision, PLUS I hear tell Ray Fisher gets a fair shake in this one.
I wonder how the contract negotiations regarding this cut went? I wonder if folks will start appreciating how influential editors are to crafting narrative? (This is just SO MUCH stuff that got cut out, which is common, but dang.) And, OH MAN, how much better is this without that one random family inexplicably near the old reactor?
On one hand, more Themyscira, yay! A Green Lantern! J’onn! And RYAN CHOI. More Diana, more Barry, more Arthur, more Victor. More cranky Bruce and sassy Alfred! (“What are your superpowers again?” “I’m rich.” I will never not cackle at that exchange. As well as Flash’s face when he realizes Superman can track him in Speed Force time.) As terribly flawed as the DCEU movies are, these are excellent actors playing archetypal characters, and yeah, I do want to spend more time with them. And they all have distinct relationships with each other! There is so so so much great stuff in this and everyone is having so many feelings. WITH THE POWER OF LOVE.
On the other hand, more Steppenwolf.
For the most part, all the new stuff is basically extra flavor and oh, hey, some character development! But also, they super-revised everything about Atlantis, didn’t they? Also, Atlantis did a piss-poor job of guarding their MacGuffin. The Amazons shame you, fish-folk. Also, the anti-life equation? Change machines? Really? Also, your auto-defense system senses danger, Victor? Also, “there’s no us without him,” like, geez, Bruce. Also, parademons are way less scary when they have guns. Also, no way Our Heroes stared down Darkseid without Aquaman in the back flipping the bad guys a double bird.
Anyway, we should probably talk about how Cyborg can now redistribute all the world’s wealth, right?
Mank, 21 March 2021, streamed via Netflix
Put aside the black-and-white photography--the echo folded into the dialogue evokes the period beautifully. That’s some beautiful work, sound engineers. Bravo. Then again, this is a movie crafted especially to make us aware of how it’s been crafted.
I legit had no idea what this movie was about and had not heard about it until nominations season kept throwing it at the wall. But, as we all know, movies are most artful when fictionalizing the art of making movies, in which case Mank is just, like, an inexorable meta wank.
Trial of the Chicago 7, 23 March 2021, streamed via Netflix
There are a lot of movies about the Vietnam War this time around, aren’t there? Or maybe it just feels like that to me? It’s not only before my time but, like, everyone in my family was in Southeast Asia at the time? Mostly the Philippines but, yeah, also in Vietnam. So there is just a TON of stuff that means I will never be the primary audience for these movies.
THAT SAID. This is a Sorkin production, which means I know the precise level to which I will enjoy it, as well as the precise number of times I will end up banging my head against the wall. Ah, Sorkin. You are so predictable.
There are no grey areas in Sorkinland. The banter is witty, the morality is stark, the racism is overt, and the women are negligible. Truth will always win out over bigotry or, if it doesn’t, we will all know what’s happening. And yet, even through all of that narrative sculpting, the point comes through: Hey, guys, the American judicial system is fucking racist.
Preaching to the choir, my man.
News of the World, 24 March 2021, Blu-ray via Redbox
I’m pretty sure I read this book? It’s pretty nice, in an old-timey way: A dude makes his living traveling from town to town in the frontier, reading newspapers to the folks thirsty for knowledge of the outside world. Then he picks up an abandoned and/or orphaned kid. Also, she doesn’t seem to speak English--only Kiowa. Then we get to see lots of crappy things that happen on the road back in Ye Olden Times. So if you’re into that kind of thing? (It’s good. It’s just not...remarkable? I guess?) And Tom Hanks never disappoints, of course.
The Sound of Metal, 26 March 2021, streamed via Amazon Prime
So, uh. Riz Ahmed has a look in this, and I wholly approve. But yeah, he’s a drummer who’s losing his hearing, and oh man, if you’ve ever experienced tinnitus, they have got it down. (Look, you don’t go to as many concerts as I have without having to deal with it, a’ight?) Ahmed’s character Ruben is, however, actually going deaf. The look of the film is slightly desaturated--kind of like a documentary filmed in the 80s, if that makes sense. And they spend much of the movie having the audio reflect what our protag is experiencing. (Also: Cochlear implants cost $40,000-80,000 and aren’t covered by insurance? Geez.) And one kind of fun touch--as Ruben learns ASL, they start subtitling the ASL for the audience, too.
Ruben is also an addict, so we get a really interesting intersection of two different communities that might be perceived by outsiders as vastly different from each other. (I realize even as I type this that it’s an ableist statement--assuming folks perceived as disabled couldn’t possibly have, like, other human problems.) The film seems to have been received mixed reviews from the Deaf community, which makes sense--when the two major Deaf characters are actually played by hearing people (though Raci is a child of Deaf parents), it’s going to draw some attention. (I think, however, that mostly the other folks who are supposed to be Deaf are, in fact, Deaf.) I also grok the criticism that this movie is geared more towards folks who know nothing about the Deaf community, rather than the community itself. Also, there’s a weirdness, in that Ruben’s given the choice: cochlear implant OR the Deaf community, and nothing in between, which, what?
All that said, it’s a really good watch.
Soul, 27 March 2021, streamed via Disney+
Well, this is horrifying. A dude on the brink of a lifelong career dream and he straight-up dies hours before it can happen. WTF, Pixar.
And then he falls into the “Great Before” while a bunch of neon outline existential functionaries start a manhunt? WTF, PIXAR. (It’s cute and sweet and inspirational, but W. T. F. PIXAR.) But the core theme is lovely: The purpose of life is to live.
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, 29 March 2021, streamed via Netflix
It’s hard to be anywhere nearing objective about Chadwick Boseman’s last movie, you know? But also: Of course it’s an excellent movie--Chadwick Boseman is in it. Chadwick Boseman does not do bad movies. (Viola Davis has been in less than stellar movies, but she’s also always the best thing in them.)
I did not realize this was an adaptation of an August Wilson play! I’m always fond of those--there’s always a very distinct feel to theatre-turned-film. The patter is faster than the camera, the complex sets still function as flat prosceniums, time is palpably finite, and there is no such thing as subtlety of feeling. And August Wilson is August Wilson, obvs.
The central conflict is, basically, that Ma Rainey wants to do her version of “Black Bottom,” while the studio is pushing her to use Levee’s version of the song, which is faster, poppier. But also, Levee’s getting all up at Ma’s girlfriend Dussie Mae. (There’s also a fascinating visual contrast between the two of them--Levee’s obsession with his bright yellow shoes is a signal of his, like, dapperness. In the meantime, Ma Rainey’s makeup seems to be perpetually melting.) And the other band members--Cutler, Toledo, and Slow Drag--are the most exasperated Greek chorus ever.
It’s triple tension on artistic merits: Ma’s an originator of the blues, Levee’s anxious to evolve to jazzier work, and both are very, very aware of how white folks are going to exploit what they do. And Ma has a monologue that just simmers. “They don’t care nothin’ about me. All they want is my voice.”
In the end, the studio has a bunch of white men record Levee’s songs instead of hiring Levee himself. Sometimes doors just lead to more walls.
Star Wars: Episode VI -- Return of the Jedi, 30 March 2021, streamed via Disney+
So I finished watching Star Wars: Rebels and if I was going to watch everything in chronological order, I’d be moving directly into Rogue One and into the original trilogy. HOWEVER, the epilogue mentions the Battle of Endor, so Episode VI it is!
That’s Rex in the front! HI REX.
First of all, this movie plays waaaay differently after watching all of Clone Wars and Rebels. Second of all, dang, this was definitely made in the 80s. (Those helmets on the Empire’s ship bridges, y’all. I can’t with them.) Thirdly, C3PO is annoying as heck, but poor dude gets the short stick in every single scene he’s in, doesn’t he? (And yet, he must be a pretty advanced and pricey droid to get dragooned as much as he does.) Fourthly, I know I’ve probably mentioned this before, but the add-in CGI stuff stands out so awkwardly. Why, George, why?
Leia and Han have the weirdest relationship, guys. Totally in love, but completely refusing to articulate, like, why they feel that way.
So, like, Boba Fett just...hacked his way out of that sarlacc, didn’t he? The Jawas probably robbed him, and then the Tuskens took him in because they wanted to chow on the sarlacc remains?
The Jedi were wiped out twenty years before this trilogy--how can folks already have forgotten what they’re like? Luke was hella lucky to get away with as much as he did early on. Also, do you think R2D2 tells Luke and Leia about the adventures of young Anakin? ALSO, even decades later, Yoda and Obi-wan are still giving young Jedi bad advice on how to handle their shit. Feelings are not inherently bad, guys!
Anyway, after all of Clone Wars, it turns out I am having emotions about Vader dying in the end! Dang. (Also, uh, who saved that helmet for Kylo?)
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