Spoiler Alert Saturday :: my thoughts on Jupiter Ascending

What a delightful little nonsense film.

But actually it wasn’t nonsense, exactly?  No more than a lot of high-budget sci-fi/fantasy is.  No more than a lot of movies in general are.  There weren’t particular holes in the plot or anything.  It was a little predictable, and the elements of it weren’t entirely original, but again, it was no more that than anything.

What it was was like Star Wars and Repo! The Genetic Opera had a baby and then the space parts of the Marvel universe and something else about genetic modification had a baby and then those two babies grew up and had babies and those babies took advice from the Lannisters and whoever canonically invented Soylent Green.

And then Mila Kunis was a cleaning lady who was also the princess of space and she hung out with Channing Tatum the werewolf angel soldier with frosted hair and they flew around on laser-gravity roller skates and fought the space Lannister babies.

And then there were hired assassins and one of them was a tiny cyberpunk purple-haired Asian girl with a space motorcycle.

And then Sean Bean was part-bee.  (A bee, a bumblebee, but not an evil bumblebee.)

And then the baby space Lannister had a personal assistant who was Gugu Mbatha-Raw and she smirked so much and had a lovely accent.

And then all the baby space Lannisters (the boys directly, the girl indirectly but c’mon) wanted to marry their reincarnated mom.

And then Eddie Redmayne spoke so softly during most of his lines that I had to stop eating popcorn to hear every word but occasionally started YELLING SO LOUD AND MAKING FACES THAT LOOKED LIKE THIS >O FOR REALSIES and I couldn’t stop laughing.

And yeah.  It’s worth seeing, in my opinion.

–your fangirl heroine.

Spoiler Alert Saturday :: my thoughts on Oz the Great and Powerful

Or, There Is Only One True Oz In My Eyes And This Ain’t It.

Or, Oz the Great and Powerful Douchebag.

Or, NO.

I’ve talked before about my One True Oz, which is to say Gregory Maguire’s (and I accept the musical too, it’s not as dark but it’s still got characters I like and that’s what really matters the most).  But it’s important to mention it again, because when I first started hearing about/seeing things from this movie, all I could think was “and why didn’t they just make Wicked?”  Apparently they’re going to in 2014, but they’ve been saying that for years and it still hasn’t happened.  Also, much as I love the musical, I think the book would actually be better, maybe.  Or like, Hobbit that and make three movies out of the book.  Or an HBO miniseries.  Something.  I just don’t want to see it get ruined, because it is my One True Oz.

Part of my issue with The Wizard of Oz in its original is that it’s very flat, very I Am Good/I Am Bad/What Are Middle Grounds Again?  And I was terribly afraid that was going to be the issue with Oz the Great and Powerful.  One of my people is a big Wizard of Oz person, so he was gung ho about the movie for completely genuine reasons; another of my people is like me about Oz, so we planned to accompany and roll our eyes at each other the whole time.  I didn’t realize how much I would need to do that, though.

Afterwards, the Oz-proper person was discussing things he enjoyed; the Maguire-Oz person shrugged and said “I liked the opening credits?”  As I felt similarly, I will now make a list of things I found fault with and why.

• James Franco.  That really could stand on its own; the only roles I’ve ever found him plausible in are ones where he’s a stoner.  (I mean, I haven’t seen every movie he’s ever made, but of the ones I have seen.)  I could buy him as being a womanizing douchebag, but I could not buy him as someone I was supposed to be emotionally invested in.  Probably because he was a womanizing douchebag.  I really, truly do not like the Wizard of Oz as a character, and he didn’t do anything to change that.  And he overacted even beyond the point of “cheesy showman” at times, just coming off campy and a bit high school improv tournament.
• All of the non-subtleties.  When I am watching things at home, I sometimes take notes because I feel compelled, and this is usually the case if/when I watch Once Upon a Time; a common note is “+1 subtlety,” which means, of course, that something wasn’t subtle at all.  Reimaginings are never subtle, but Maguire’s Oz (and Schwartz’s to a lesser extent) rarely feels like it’s hitting you over the head with its in-jokes.  I lost count of how many times this felt like it was hitting me over the head.
• The audience in the theatre.  I will not judge small children for going “awww” when the computer-generated talking monkey makes a pouty face.  I will judge adults for doing so.  And oh, I was judging tonight.
• Every lady character.  Theodora (Mila Kunis) was Dollstatedly chipper at first and then non-dimensionally ragey once she turned evil, and let’s talk for a second about how screwed up I found the fact that the great wickedness of the Wicked Witch was all because she was somewhat jilted by a generally douchey man.  Because that started to happen and I audibly facepalmed.  Also, at first she sort of looked like Carmen Sandiego, and apparently she and her sister shop at the same clothier who outfits Regina on Once Upon a Time, what with all the black and the leather pants and all.  Evanora (Rachel Weisz) lacked motivation.  She had some potential at first, and though I didn’t like how it was handled I liked the possible which side is she playing angle to begin with, but I didn’t really know what her motivation was other than to control things and be evil (and even that is more complicated than just that, or it should be).  Glinda (Michelle Williams) is a character who usually bothers me (less so in Schwartz’s, considerably less so in Maguire’s, but still she’s not my favorite), and despite being aware of the fact that Oz was not the man he was supposed to be, she still had far too much wide-eyed faith in him to sit well with me.  I caught a couple of beautiful “seriously, what?” looks from her, but not nearly enough.  And I’m sorry, but the prophecy of your father’s?  Why are you sitting around waiting for a wizard when you can do magic yourself and better than he can technically speaking?
• Shallowly: when two people are playing blood relations, they should have the same accent.  Especially since none of the other main characters were British.
• Shallowly: I wanted to tuck that one strand of hair in Michelle Wiliams’ face back where it belonged or tug one down on the other side to match the entire time.
• The love triangle.  Just… no.  That’s not how this story goes.
• The 3D.  Far too many objects flying at our faces or pans over scenes going too fast to process.
• The writing.  David Lindsay-Abaire, I’m sad.  I really like Rabbit Hole, it’s a good play, so what even was this?

–your fangirl heroine.