Spoiler Alert Sunday :: our thoughts on Star Wars: The Last Jedi

We finally went a second time!

So, I absolutely get why people dislike this movie, or have problems with it. I’ve read multiple people’s takes on why it’s not good, and/or why they found it harmful or hurtful, and/or why they think it shits all over established Star Wars canon (it doesn’t). I think many of them are valid interpretations. I’m also really not interested in debating the merits of it. I had fun, I like it, I think it’s a pretty good, flawed movie, and I’m not really interested in fighting about it.

Having said that, here is a spoiler-minimal list of things that are (in our opinions) good about this movie.

• Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran) is a great character and I’m going to fight anyone who says otherwise. She’s brave and clever and loyal and has the best scene ever, where she basically turns into the audience surrogate fangirling over Finn (John Boyega). It’s adorable. I’m very mad I can’t find a T-shirt with her on it because I love her.
• Rey (Daisy Ridley) is still also a great character. She’s stubborn and determined and optimistic and she try. Also it’s fascinating because you can read every emotion on her face and the progressions of those are everything. (Regarding something Kylo tells her about [spoiler], I’ll be very interested to see if the third movie addresses it, because I don’t believe it but I also don’t not believe it. Kylo is a liar and I want to see this plot explored a little more because I don’t know that Rey’s emotional arc re: this thing is done yet.)
• Leia (Carrie Fisher, bless her) is practically perfect in every way and there is pretty much nothing that can stop me loving her aggressively. Of course, the movie yanks you around with her at a few different points, which is particularly heartwrenching now, but you also do have the security of knowing: she is in IX. That helps. Pretty much everything with her causes, if not tears, then watery eyes, at least. The strain of the instrumental theme is officially a killer of my soul. But I’m proud of our space mom, and I will say I pretty much cheered the first time around when she used the Force. Because, to hell with you, fake nerd boys. Leia’s got the damn Force.
• Finn (John Boyega) continues to be a good man who is doing his best and who loves Rey very much. He’s not in it as much as he should be, but he’s wonderful anyway. The saddest thing about this movie is that Finn and Rey spend most of it apart.
• I am also very proud of Amilyn Holdo (Laura Dern). Also, Amilyn is a beautiful name, if kind of born of modernist nonsense etymological conventions, but I don’t care I still like it. But the point is, Holdo is great. Also, Holdo is canon bisexual (thanks to some of the literature). She’s this beautiful soft colorful light in the darkness of this war who does what she can and takes no shit and her moments with Leia killed us hard.
• It is also nice to see so many girls in the (quasi-)background of the Resistance scenes! And a few in the First Order, too (my mom was especially thrilled about Kate Dickie, which was charming), but that’s not as exciting. There are some characters you see semi-regularly (Lieutenant Kaydel Ko Connix [Billie Lourd, Carrie Fisher’s daughter] gets more screen time this go-round, serving as a strong auxiliary member of the Resistance and its new guard; there’s a pilot named Tallie [Hermione Corfield], who mostly factors in the first fight scene but is definitely there; Rose’s sister Paige [Veronica Ngo] has a moment in that scene as well; Commander Larma D’Acy [Amanda Lawrence] seems to be one of the primary officers of the ship and does a lot of explaining) and a lot of other semi-regular background characters.
• Finn and Poe (Oscar Isaac) continue to be extremely gay, although they don’t interact as much as in the first movie. Poe is fond of referring to Finn as “buddy” and “pal,” and when Finn first wakes up from his coma and he is wearing next-to-nothing, Poe definitely sneaks a peek south before leading him off to get changed. They also touch way more times than is strictly necessary. The m/f also continues to be very good, particularly Finn/Rey, as those two spend a decent chunk of the movie worrying or thinking about each other.
• There are many excuses to laugh one’s ass off at Kylo (Adam Driver) and/or Hux (Domnhall Gleeson). This is very good.
• The porgs are cute and all, but I love the vulptex (crystal foxes) and I want a plushie.

–your fangirl heroines.

Spoiler Alert Saturday :: my thoughts on X-Men: Apocalypse

1. Oh my Sophie if only you had been Jean Grey in a more cohesive film. You were wonderful but. Yeah.
2. Lana Condon as Jubilee and Alexandra Shipp as Storm didn’t have enough to do but they were cool also.
3. If they mess up X-23 I am going to do murder on drift partner’s behalf.
4. I wish Rose Byrne’s entire role hadn’t been to be shocked and/or confused and/or starstruck.
5. So Psylocke (Olivia Munn) is the next villain?
6. Also her costume was straight-up terrible.
7. I snorted softly at many moments in this film, ones I probably wasn’t supposed to snort at
8. I also dryly muttered “a-ha-ha” at every attempt at metahumor.
9. I straight-up chortled at “you’re going to need a bigger house” or whatever, though.
10. Super cool how they gave Magneto (Michael Fassbender) a wife and daughter (Carolina Bartczak and T.J. McGibbon) literally just so they could murder them so he was sad.
11. That was also just… a ridiculous murdering. An accidentally-shot arrow hit both of them through the heart?
12. I spent a good half of the time Magneto was present having to bite my tongue so I did not start singing “Night Surgeon” from Repo! with modified lyrics. (“Remember who you are / I reMEEEEMber / remember what you did to Magda / remember who you are / I reMEEEMber / remember what you did to her.”)
13. I also spent most of the sequence where Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac) and Magneto were building pyramids and disasters out of sand and metal garbage biting my tongue so I did not start singing “Let It Go.”
14. I am not comfortable with the amount of adult male face-touching Jean partook in.
15. I wish I’d been taking notes like I did during Batman V Superman, honestly.

–your fangirl heroine.

Superlative Sunday :: the 2016 Golden Globes and my thoughts on them

I haven’t seen damn near any awards movies this season, and I really need to get on that.  Also, I watch virtually no awards television.  So.

To See
Carol
Room
Spotlight
Brooklyn
The Hateful Eight

I am incredibly proud of Brie Larson even if I haven’t seen her movie yet.

The Martian does not seem like a comedy and many of the presenters agreed so I’m confused about why that all happened.

Joy was also not a comedy.

I have absolutely no desire to see The Revenant, Steve Jobs, The Big Short, or The Martian.  Or The Danish Girl, for different reasons.

I’m very glad that Inside Out got the award!

I hope that the Spectre people enjoyed their song award because it’s the only award they’re ever going to get for that piece of nonsense.

I am very interested in seeing Mr. Robot and Mozart in the Jungle now, and I’m proud of Jon Hamm even though I kind of hated Don Draper by the end.  I am also proud of Oscar Isaac even though I did not see his show at all or even know that it existed.

Everyone is still wearing Game of Thrones dresses.

Oh yes.  And Mad Max: Fury Road completely deserved all of its nominations and probably deserved to win even though it didn’t because that is a gift to humanity.

–your fangirl heroine.

 

 

Spoiler Alert Sunday :: our thoughts on Star Wars: The Force Awakens

So.  This is a deal.  I loved the original trilogy when I was a kid and then felt lukewarm to angry about the prequels, but this movie had me grinning and emoting all the while through. (While I didn’t see any of them until I was sixteen, when I watched all of them in a day, then read a few of the Expanded Universe books, but have been fairly low-key about the whole thing prior to this.)  So here we are to give you a list of important but non-spoilery points about the film.

• Leia (Carrie Fisher) is a giant badass and my five-year-old self (who was obsessed with her) made really good decisions.
• REY (Daisy Ridley) IS THE BEST and I am emotional about her.
• Leia and Han (Harrison Ford) still have remarkable sexual chemistry.
• I actually loved Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) way more than I expected to. He’s a darling.
• Finn (John Boyega) is a precious puppy and also a badass.
• Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) is a child.
• BB-8 is the droid version of a Corgi and very endearing.
• This movie was just really fun. I think the last time I had this much fun in the theater was probably Kingsman earlier this year, and I honestly don’t remember the last time I did.
• I think that’s the best point, actually, because that’s what the prequels were lacking.  They seemed to be trying too hard to be serious in places, so the “fun” moments felt stilted.

–your fangirl heroines.

Spoiler Alert Saturday :: my thoughts on Drive

Another one for the bullet-points.

• I’m… not actually sure how I feel about it as a whole.  Half of me is pretty content; half of me wishes there’d been more.
• Does this make me a philistine?  That even as I could appreciate the use of a lot of awkward silences and acknowledge that it was a nervy move (people in movies always have a snappy response.  I love snappy responses, I do, but not including them is a bold choice for a filmmaker) I’m… not entirely sure it always worked.  That patient as I am I just wanted something else to happen.
• The performances were stellar.  Ryan Gosling is excellent at carrying a movie at least 75% composed of his face staring at someone or something.  He was remarkably taciturn, and that was at times refreshing (at times I just wanted him to lose his cool, really lose it, and when he did it was satisfying, but).
• I also liked that his character had no proper name.  I like proper-naming minor characters, but I enjoy when just one major character doesn’t have a name.  Like in El Mariachi.
• Carey Mulligan was cute.  She didn’t really do a lot except for have a child and connections to characters that were pivotal to the plot.  But she is cute as a button.  And I like that they never actually had sex.  Call me a weirdo.
• Oscar Isaac was a good trying-to-reform skeeze.
• Ron Perlman was a good straight-up skeeze.
• Brian Cranston looks really, really old.
• Christina Hendricks… baaaby.  I don’t even care that she had like six lines in the whole movie and got her brains blown out.  Even with ridiculous trash makeup and clothes she’s gorgeous.  (And I may have spent the slower moments of the latter half of the film trying to invent a backstory for her… or inventing demented scenarios where it was the Firefly ‘verse and Blanche was just another of YoSaffBridge’s personas.  Those scenarios obviously involved a lack of brains being blown out.)
• I loved the occasional 80s-ness.  The credit font (pastel-neon pink Mistral? Beautiful) and the songs that were new but very retro (all… three of them).  In a way, I’d have loved them to embrace that more.
• I wanted answers.  I’m fine with mystery, but I like knowing a little.  I mostly had “why” questions: why did the Driver do what he did?  Why was Irene’s husband in prison?  Why was Blanche even there? 
• Points for the gratuitous splatter violence, though.  When he stomped dude’s face in, the entire theatre was laughing, and I was glad.  We weren’t the only morbid weirdos there.
• I… don’t know.  I’m still processing this one, I think.

–your fangirl heroine.