Film Friday :: 2018 in film

You can’t really compare some of the movies I saw this year to each other in any meaningful way. Widows and The Hate U Give are, for example, in a whole different class than Aquaman, which is in a whole different class than Crazy Rich Asians, etc. So it’s back to the ol’ categories for me.

Ranking Superhero Movies

4. Avengers: Infinity War
Of the three Marvel and one DC films out last year, this is the one I enjoyed myself at the least. Ironically, it’s probably also the one I have the most elaborate opinions about. The thing about Infinity War is that there are parts (most of them discussed in my initial linked review) that I really enjoyed, but it also (I didn’t admit to this before because ugh, how embarrassing) triggered a panic attack for me (long story that’s far too psychological to get into). So that’s cool. It’s a very, very mixed bag of a film, and Endgame honestly looks exhausting and DC levels of darkness, but it’s transitory. I know that. And then we’ll be in a new phase, one that’s hopefully even better.

3. Ant-Man and the Wasp
The fact that I liked this more than Infinity War overall still shocks me, believe me. But here’s the thing. I walked out of this movie smiling. I walked out of that one doing the opposite of that. It’s not a particularly deep or insightful film. With the exception of Quantum Zone pseudoscience, I can’t imagine it will have many lasting effects on the cinematic universe at large. But it also had Hope being awesome and it also had Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) being awesome and even though it ended on snap-related cliffhanger it did so once we the audience had been speculating about what that would entail for weeks and not after we’d just been punched in the face with sadness for two hours. That counts for a lot.

2. Aquaman
This practically just came out but it came out in 2018 and it counts, so there. And it was a great time. The details of why (a kind and supportive protagonist, really amazing female characters, the importance of a superhero movie or really any movie about being mixed-race that’s ultimately so positive, etc.) are ones we already mostly discussed, but. I really cannot recommend this movie too much. It’s equal parts neon shiny flash, earnestness, and give-no-fucks comic book storytelling.

1. Black Panther
I mean, duh. Here’s the thing: I legitimately almost forgot this movie only came out this year. We’ve watched it at home on at least three or four separate occasions already, and every time I notice new things. Every time I feel things. Every time I am in awe. I really hope it actually wins some of the awards it’s nominated for, because it’s not just a great superhero movie or a great action movie or whatever. It’s a great movie period. It’s transcendent. And it’s one of those things that I watch and go “I feel so lucky to even have been around when this first came out, to have gotten to be a part of that in the tiniest way possible.”

Revenge Fantasies

7. Proud Mary
A very traditional revenge fantasy (tropes galore) but by no means a pointless one, and one that is stylish and fun. Haters can reexamine their life choices.

6. Black Panther
Well, at any rate it features Erik’s (Michael B. Jordan) revenge fantasy. He wants to make Wakanda pay for what it did to his father, its former prince, and what negligence he perceives it to have partaken in on a global scale. But there’s been a lot of debate about “Killmonger was right” rhetoric, and it’s not my place to get into it a lot, but I’ll say I strongly support Nakia’s (Lupita Nyong’o) viewpoint instead, which is in effect revolutionary kindness. Using resources to help, not to hurt. That’s a kind of beautiful revenge too, in its own weird way.

5. Avengers: Infinity War
The thwarted revenge fantasy. Nebula (Karen Gillan) and Gamora (Zoe Saldana) want revenge on Thanos (Josh Brolin). It doesn’t work. It goes very poorly. But that purple asshat is gonna get his by Endgame, and if Nebula doesn’t strike the killing blow I’m gonna cut someone. She deserves that.

4. Ocean’s Eight
The comedic revenge fantasy, and one that goes exactly according to plan. Debbie (Sandra Bullock) gets revenge on her ex (Richard Armitage). Pretty much all of the other women get revenge on whatever is holding them back. It’s weirdly uplifting.

3. Sorry to Bother You
Revenge on capitalism, kind of. Sort of. In a very, very strange way. It’s also revenge on moviegoers who thought they were going to get a simple movie that they could easily wrap their heads around, which is still funny to reflect on.

2. The Hate U Give
No no, hear me out. This is also about revolutionary kindness, and it’s that kind of revenge. Revenge against an unjust society. It’s a story about people refusing to be silent and fighting for basic rights and decency in the face of a whole lot of bullshit, and that’s sometimes the most inspirational revenge fantasy available.

1. Widows
And then you have this, which is also a traditional revenge story. A group of widows joins together to commit their deceased husbands’ last perfect crime and get their lives back. You can’t really practice this kind of revenge in real life, as opposed to revolutionary kindness as revenge which you can, but it’s still very satisfying to watch.

Freaking Adorable Romance

4. Love, Simon
Specifically Simon (Nick Robinson) and his quest to find Blue. This is a very sweet gay romance (as well as a sweet platonic story) and a very sweet teenage romance and it’s just 100% worth it. Cynics need not apply, unless they feel they too may have their hearts melted.

3. Crazy Rich Asians
Specifically Rachel (Constance Wu) and Nick (Henry Golding). I am often cynical about m/f romance, I admit this completely. That’s why it’s a shock that this list of adorable romance is primarily m/f. But this is a couple I can very much get behind. They care about each other and want to do what’s right for each other and even though that doesn’t always work they work it out by the film’s end. Love conquers all, etc. Plus, they’re just gorgeous together.

2. Black Panther
Specifically Nakia and T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman). This is how you write exes who get back together. They do. They care about each other. There are never snide remarks. It’s not the ~Huntingbird~ shit I was worrying about it being. It’s just two people who care about each other, still, who are in T’Challa’s case totally undone by the other, who still have identities outside of each other but would do anything for each other.

1. Aquaman
Specifically Arthur (Jason Momoa) and Mera (Amber Heard). Good freaking grief, were these two adorable. As we discussed previously, the build of their relationship (grudging allies to friends to lovers) is believable and charming, and they are so clearly into each other that it’s infectious. Plus, they respect each other, and that’s important. That’s a theme here.

A List, In No Particular Order and Without Commentary, Of Standout Ladies

10. The cast of Ocean’s Eight (Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Sarah Paulson, Mindy Kaling, Helena Bonham-Carter, Awkwafina, Anne Hathaway)

9. Detroit (Tessa Thompson, Sorry to Bother You)

8. Shank (voiced by Gal Gadot, Ralph Breaks the Internet)

7. Mera and Atlanna (Amber Heard and Nicole Kidman, Aquaman)

6. Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen, Ant-Man and the Wasp)

5. The cast of Widows (Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, Cynthia Erivo)

4. Starr (Amandla Stenberg, The Hate U Give)

3. Wanda and Gamora (Elizabeth Olsen and Zoe Saldana, Avengers: Infinity War)

2. Astrid Leong (Gemma Chan, Crazy Rich Asians)

1. The ladies of Black Panther (Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Letitia Wright, Angela Bassett)

–your fangirl heroine.

Spoiler Alert Sunday :: our thoughts on Aquaman

(Drift partner is starting this sucker off.)

If you had said to me a year ago “the superhero movie of 2018 that is going to give you the most personal feelings is Aquaman,” I would have laughed in your face.

Everyone has made fun of this movie for years. The second it was announced, people had jokes. “Haha he talks to fish hahahaha look at his outfit hahaha Superman would kick his ass!” Aquaman has never been DC’s most respected, popular, or lucrative character. Because, well. He’s the king of the ocean and he talks to fish. How could you possibly tell a good story about that?

I am here to tell you, somehow they managed it.

Aquaman, much like last year’s Wonder Woman, is DC shedding the grimdark gritty realism which they have become somewhat infamous for in favor of a brightly-colored, deeply sincere romp of a story about a man who can talk to sea creatures and wields an enormous trident. Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa) is the son of Atlanna (Nicole Kidman), Queen of Atlantis, and a lighthouse keeper named Thomas Curry (Temuera Morrison) who rescues her when she washes ashore after escaping an arranged marriage. They, naturally, fall in love, but when her would-be husband comes after her and her new family, she feels it is necessary to return to him to protect Thomas and Arthur. Arthur, therefore, grows up feeling somewhat adrift and unsure of his place, as a child who fits into neither the human nor the Atlantan world. He does have some connection to his mother’s people through Vulko (Willem Dafoe), who mentors the boy throughout his youth and teaches him to control his powers as well as the trident his mother once wielded. He becomes something of a vigilante of the sea, going after those who target the innocent. However, he soon learns that his half-brother Orm (Patrick Wilson) plans to wage war against the “surface world,” and he has to team up with Mera (Amber Heard) to ensure that both their worlds are protected from Orm’s power-hungry desires.

I have described an odd hybrid of The Lion King and Balto to you, yes, but hold on. The reason that Aquaman is somewhat remarkable is that the story is explicitly about a character who is biracial, who feels a bit out of place in either one of the “worlds” his parents come from. The conflict comes partially from Orm’s desire for power, but mostly from the fact that Arthur is neither fully human nor fully Atlantan. He is both, a “half-breed” (as the Atlantans are constantly reminding us, an extremely loaded term for mixed-race and biracial people and one which I frankly could have been okay with hearing a few less times in this movie, but oh well) who almost everyone immediately dismisses as unworthy of ruling Atlantis. The filmmakers also made a conscious decision to cast Jason Momoa, a biracial man who is of Native Hawaiian and German descent and has been outspoken about his heritage and identity. The Atlantans are all extremely pale white actors, while Thomas Curry is played by a Māori actor. Arthur has Atlantan abilities from his mother, but sports a variety of tattoos that are clearly meant to reflect his father’s culture. Therefore, writing the character as conflicted about his heritage and being part of “multiple worlds” has a double meaning that some viewers may not pick up on, but I as a biracial person immediately recognized. And while it does get tiresome that the only story media seems to like to tell about biracial people is that they are “caught between two worlds” (see also: Balto)…I still burst into tears as the movie ended, because so many of the things Arthur was feeling are things that I have also felt. When I was growing up, the only story I had with a biracial character was Balto. Balto is an animated film loosely based on true events, but centered around the titular character, who is half-wolf. That film, too, is about Balto learning to connect with both sides of his heritage and learning how both of them make him who he is. However, you may have guessed the issue with this: Balto is a dog. I did not learn about other any stories centering biracial people until high school. So, to bring it back to Aquaman, the fact that this film explicitly centers around a biracial character played by a biracial actor is deeply meaningful and important to me. (Other films about biracial characters that I love, such as To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and Shades of Ray, about a biracial Korean girl and a biracial Pakistani man respectively, neglected to cast biracial actors, and in the case of the former, erased some of the important cultural connections from the novel. There have been some important exceptions to this unfortunate trend, such as Belle (2014) and this year’s A Wrinkle in Time, but many casting directors don’t seem to understand how essential it is to find an actor for these roles whose personal experiences as a biracial or multiracial person will inform their performance.)

The film is also sometimes painfully earnest. It presents deeply ridiculous concepts to you on a shiny silver platter and expects you to nod and go along with it. Orm talks about how he will become ruler of the seven undersea kingdoms and thus become the Ocean Master. Ocean Master. That is a phrase that people say with completely straight faces. Additionally, the characters do things such as communicate with whales, manipulate water, and ride enormous CGI creatures into battle with comically straight faces. Everything is treated as if it is just how things are and there’s almost no sense of irony or fourth-wall breaking. It’s quite charming, and it’s really due to the strength of the actors in question, who (particularly Amber Heard) are asked to do some pretty ridiculous things. And wear objectively terrible outfits. I do not think I have seen a superhero film be quite so earnestly ridiculous since Daredevil (2003). This film is miles better than that one, but it comes from the same place of sincerity. You will believe a man can talk to fish.

While I, your original heroine, wholeheartedly agree with all of the feelings drift partner has described (caveat: I, being a very white person, do not claim the same connection to the heritage stuff, but I think it’s very cool to see in a mainstream superhero film) what I want to talk about is women. (Shocker?) Spoiler alert, you think Atlanna is dead for a good chunk of the movie and then she’s not, for… well, pretty much the same reason as Janet Van Dyne in Ant-Man and the Wasp, actually. Oh no, she was sent to a horrible place (although in this case on purpose) but then something something portals magic weird sci-fi bullshit and she foraged and survived by herself for decades in a weird sci-fi bullshit nonsensescape. (This time with dinosaurs!!!! And guarded by kaiju!!!!) And she’s great and she and her son reunite and can I just say sometimes I think about how Nicole Kidman was married to Tom Cruise but now she’s not and suddenly she’s the inspirational, very much alive mother in a superhero movie who finds true love and that’s just really cool. She even gets to do a little bit of (literal) fish-out-of-water comedy at the beginning and that’s always fun.

And Mera. Mera!!!!! I have a soft spot for Mera because of DC Bombshells, honestly, where she does have a romance with Arthur but it’s not something that’s brought up for a good bunch of issues because first you get stories about how she Wants To Help. And also is BFFs (that canonically used to bang) with Diana. I have not been exposed to Mera in any other media, save her brief and very dumb appearance in Justice League (which they do mention in this film, more on that in a minute), and I did some reading today and my goodness she’s had a bad time of it in her comics history (I mean, that’s not uncommon, but babygirl was literally so tormented that she was a Red Lantern for awhile), but I kind of went into this primed to like her. Also because Amber Heard is a lovely (bisexual/feminist advocate/etc.) woman that I respect a lot. (And because it’s exciting to have a bisexual woman playing a [at least in one continuity, which counts] bisexual character. It’s not the first time this has happened, even in a superhero franchise [see also: Saffron Burrows as Victoria Hand, Tessa Thompson as Valkyrie, etc.], but it’s exciting and cool.)

Reader, I am here to tell you that Mera was everything I could want and more. As drift partner mentioned, her costumes are outstanding…ly ridiculous (in one scene she wears a dress both inspired by and accessorized with jellyfish, and it’s horrible and I’m going to cosplay it) and she somehow manages to pull it off. But she’s also a driving force of the narrative. She pops up out of the ocean and Arthur is just like “oh shit, what now” more or less because their first (underwater) meeting was accompanied by Very Bad Bullshit Motherbox Things (I assume most of you didn’t bother to watch Justice League, so, exposition). And he’s like “no no I don’t want any of this” but she saves him and his dad from a very big (Orm-orchestrated) ocean-related disaster and he’s like “yeah, I guess I have to help.” And off they go on wacky adventures.

First it’s underwater to get clues and also talk to Vulko. Mera has her own seacraft to pilot (which she does so admirably) and she assures him not to worry because she can get through the gates with “diplomatic clearance.” This isn’t fully explained, and it may just be because her dad is one of the kings of one of the other kingdoms underwater (making her a princess), or because she’s engaged to Orm, but I also choose to believe, and feel pretty valid in doing, that she has some measure of political power independent of that because she’s well-respected and intelligent and seems to know what the fuck is up. (Am I saying she’s underwater Princess Leia? Maybe. Yes.) Then it’s back to the “surface world” to go on a literal scavenger hunt for the magic trident that will help Arthur save the day, during which Mera wears ridiculous (but comfortable-looking) safari clothes, gets time to experience regret about how her choice to help Arthur has put her at odds with her people (which Arthur listens to and respects), does some pretty cool waterbending (some of which is to kick people’s asses, which is also a thing she can do just hand-to-hand or on, um, fishback), she’s femme in a way that’s accepted but not treated as a detraction from her power,  and also gets to have some of those (literal) fish-out-of-water moments that are so whimsical and charming and goofy. She’s actually a pretty well-rounded character and she actually goes toe-to-toe with the villains of the piece multiple times and she can fight alongside Arthur and pretty much the only thing she doesn’t have going for her is being the true king of two worlds who can talk to the fish. She kicks ass, in short, and I love her.

Also, so does Arthur. I was expecting their relationship to be fine, certainly better than Cavill!Superman’s with Lois Lane (not Amy Adams’ fault, though), but I wasn’t expecting it to actually be something I really, actively enjoyed. And a lot of this comes down to the fact that Arthur clearly respects her, clearly likes her (there’s of course the rocky beginning, but that’s less her and more the situation/his anger at Atlanteans for allegedly killing his mom/etc.), clearly thinks she’s capable, clearly enjoys being around her – you know, all of those things you roll your eyes at couples for not doing sometimes. The progression from “ugh” to “you’re okay” to “I respect you” to “I like you” to “I like you a lot” to “I’m [she’s] gonna climb you [him] like a tree” feels legitimate, largely because there is a progression. It’s not just “ugh” to the kissing parts, but it’s also not just “oh I love you but the narrative never really gets into why.” It’s never even a hate-to-love thing. At first they aren’t coming from the same place, but then they are and they develop fondness for each other along the way. He’s never disrespectful of her, not in a gross sexualizing way (he clearly thinks she’s attractive, but he’s not creepy about it!) and not in a demeaning infantilizing way (he clearly realizes she can kick his or anyone’s ass from the get-go, and he’s here for it – he seems genuinely, incidentally, like a dude who respects women, having also been respectful of/admiring toward Diana in Justice League). By the end of the movie, it’s like, hell yeah, I’m here for Arthur and Mera, king and queen of the ocean.

I saw a headline that was like “Aquaman has no business being this good.” I agree, but I’m also not going to complain. No indeed.

–your fangirl heroines.

Spoiler Alert Saturday :: my thoughts on Machete Kills

When I was in junior high, my friends and I thought it would be oh-so-funny to make what basically amounted to a rip-off of Not Another Teen Movie.  I still haven’t seen that, and I don’t know how many of them had, either, but we whipped out a film about a girl from Alabama who learned to hip-hop, joined the cheerleading squad, then went to the prom, then died of tuberculosis when auditioning for Juilliard in about two hours.  Once we had the short version, though, we got ambitious and decided we wanted to make a full-length, expanded version.  Eventually we had a script about a girl from Alabama, cleverly named Alabama Girl, who leaned to hip-hop from her… neighbor, I don’t remember, who was cleverly named Hip-Hop Boy, after which she joined a cheerleading squad that had a rivalry with another school’s cheerleading squad, went to the prom, and then every cheerleader and also three undercover members of a crime-fighting rock band, as well as a few extras, entered a beauty pageant, which was set to be destroyed by one of the cheerleaders’ bitter sister, then everyone discovered this plot and stopped it by using their superpowers.  After which she died of tuberculosis when auditioning for Juilliard.

We were twelve.  We needed something to do.  (We never filmed it, but the entire script got written.)

I tell this entire story now because Machete Kills very genuinely felt like this to me.  In the most pleasant way.  While Grindhouse and the first Machete were giant love letters to, well, grindhouse cinema, Machete Kills was kind of just a conglomeration of every single movie ever, including grindhouse films, crime revenge dramas, and… Star Wars.  More than just a little bit. Also they had a murderous beauty queen in Amber Heard.

The other fun thing about this movie involves another story about my real life.  My parents’ families live in Texas, so we visit there fairly on the regular.  We usually need to think of things to do while there, though, so when we learned that Troublemaker Studios, i.e. Robert Rodriguez’s place, was where an old airport my dad knew about was, well, we decided to go there.  They don’t advertise it or anything but we definitely creepily drove up to a gate and took a picture of me standing next to a keep out sign, and we’ve seen aerial photographs.  So much of this movie, regardless of the fact that it was different locations canonically, was shot on the premises, and we giggled every time that happened.  We’re pretty sure we even saw the fence in question.

Danny Trejo is pretty legit.  Michelle Rodriguez is very legit.  Hi, Avellan twins and Tom Savini and everyone else who’s in all of these movies.

And sure, I really could have done without the women being put in fridges (although I’ve kind of come to expect that such is the fate Vanessa Hudgens is going to meet in this genre) and this sentence deserves its own paragraph because it is an important statement.

And sure, I don’t really groove on the setup for Sofia Vergara’s character’s misandry, well, that was some pretty intense misandry.

And sure, this is over-the-top as hell.  But it knows this.  It runs with it.  It more than runs with it.  It flies it (literally) into space.

And sure, he was only there for a few minutes, but look, Walton Goggins!

And sure, Alexa Vega.  I’m just going to leave that one out there.

And sure, I know splatter violence is not everyone’s cup of tea, but my goodness was this some splatter violence.  I don’t know if the other few people in the theater laughed at all, because we were laughing too loudly to hear them.

This movie is not overall everyone’s cup of tea, actually, and I know that.  I don’t feel particularly attached to it like I do with Planet Terror, for example, and of course it has its problems like anything, and I don’t deny that, but it was silly and it was what it was supposed to be and that’s something.  Like a SyFy movie with a budget and more known actors or something.

–your fangirl heroine.

Spoiler Alert Saturday :: my thoughts on The Rum Diary

In the form of a series of questions.

• Why was Paul Kemp (Johnny Depp) in Puerto Rico?
  • Was he chasing some great adventure or was it really a last resort?

• What was Sala’s (Michael Rispoli) deal, period?
• What was Moburg’s (Giovanni Ribisi) deal, period?
  • What was his nationality?
  • What was his reason for being in the country?
  • Why was he so messed up?

• Why the hell was Sanderson (Aaron Eckhart) such a d-bag?
  • Was he anything more than an evil investor man?

• What was the nature of his relationship with Chenault (Amber Heard)?
• What was the nature of Chenault, period?
  • What kind of person was she really?
  • Why was she in Puerto Rico?
  • What were her interests?
  • Was she not happy with Sanderson?
  •  Or was she just a tease?
  • What did she do in New York?
  • Did she come from money?  Or did she just steal a bunch of it from Sanderson?
  • Why did I spend at least ten non-consecutive minutes trying to decide how her name was spelled before seeing it written out and going “oh, duh.  French”?  And why did I feel compelled to look it up just now only to discover that it was not on behindthename.com or babynames.com, and is in fact typically a surname?

• Why did Kemp decide to partake in Sanderson’s scheme?
• Did he really not understand what a confidentiality agreement was?  Really?
• Did Sanderson disown him from the plan just because he took Sala to the island, or was it also because he said he was going out which made Chenault want to go out which made her go danceflirt with some tall native man who took his shirt off?
• Why was the drug trip basically just a match in a glass bottle and dude’s tongue being wobbly?
• What did Kemp think would come of his sudden righteousness?
• Why did his sudden righteousness really occur?
• Why was it called The Rum Diary when, despite their common drinking of rum, rum was not really a plot point?
• What the hell was up with Sanderson’s mystery island?
• What did anyone at all really want?
• Was this movie just an excuse for Johnny Depp to be Johnny Depp?

–your fangirl heroine.