Spoiler Alert Sunday :: our thoughts on a lot of movies.

So it’s been a crazy summer. It’s been a crazy year. Etcetera. We’ve seen a fair amount of movies that we haven’t yet reviewed, and part of it is that we keep just forgetting to write reviews because we get back late or we have other things to do or we’re just tired all the time or when we think about it it’ when we don’t have time to do it or who the hell knows. But also, I realized that part of it is that we’ve genuinely enjoyed most of the movies we haven’t posted reviews of but we aren’t overflowing with insightful comments about them. So… here. We’re just going to go through each movie and say some stuff. Sorry, guys.

The Favourite

So this is a movie about horrible people treating each other horribly. It’s about women who are queer, but they’re horrible people, and the other people around them are also horrible. It’s a period piece where nothing is pretty and in fact a lot of things are kind of yucky or grotesque. Olivia Coleman completely and 100% deserved her Oscar, but she’s not a likable character in the slightest. No one is. But then again, it’s sort of refreshing watching a movie where everyone, women and men alike, are just aggressively bad people, and they all face some consequences for that in one way or another.

Us

Jordan Peele should be allowed to keep making whatever media he wants to make, and I’m not usually one for horror but I love his horror. Us is an odd movie, and one that demands at least a couple of rewatches because you’ll definitely miss some of the clues the first time around. It does a lot with a very simple concept: what would you do if the people invading your home weren’t after your stuff, but they were after you? How do you escape if the intruders know exactly how you think and look exactly like you? It leaves some questions unanswered at the end of the movie, which I think makes it more powerful, but this will no doubt frustrate some viewers. Still, even if the ending is too much for you, it’s a visually interesting movie with some incredible performances (Lupita Nyong’o and Winston Duke definitely deserve awards for this movie).

Mary Queen of Scots

We rented this movie, admittedly, and it was alright. This was probably the least flattering portrayal of Elizabeth I I’ve ever seen. Margot Robbie and Saoirse Ronan give good performances. Also there was an internet kerfuffle when Gemma Chan was cast as Bess of Hardwick and racists got really mad about HISTORICAL ACCURACY!!11!!!!1!!! (She is in the movie for about ten minutes total and does nothing but stand by Elizabeth I and give her sad longing looks, so you do feel pretty bad for the poor little lesbian.) But this movie is mostly worth mentioning because of the scene where David Tennant, playing a Scottish Protestant clergyman, shouts “WHUUUUUUUUURES” in reference to female monarchs. (He means “whores,” which isn’t funny, but his accent makes it hilarious.)

Booksmart

This movie is so good! It’s earnest and sweet and despite the inevitable “best friends engage in dramatic social activity, come to conflict with each other, seem to have a falling out, and reconcile” plot it doesn’t induce the usual cringe that that does (at least for me). Also, Kaitlyn Dever’s (remember, Kaitlyn Dever, who I adore from Justified and Short Term 12 and and and) character is a little lesbian who actually successfully engages in positive lesbian activity, and Beanie Feldstein (who was in Lady Bird, among other things) is a lesbian in real life, so this is a very gay-positive movie. Billie Lourd is absolutely incredible in this movie, playing the protagonists’ indecipherably weird classmate (at one point she even makes an Almost Famous reference, which sent me over the moon, let me tell you). There is a significant issue with the movie, though: there’s a subplot with a young-ish “cool” teacher, who’s supposed to be maybe in her late 20s-early 30s, who helps out our two lead characters in their quest to get to a party…and then hangs around said party and ends up sleeping with one of her students. The student is stated to be older than 18, because he’s been held back, and it kind of feels like the movie is excusing it because of that. But nope! It is still gross, weird, and inappropriate for this teacher to be sleeping with one of her students! That’s the biggest problem with the script and it honestly feels like that subplot was accidentally left in there from an earlier draft. Other than that, though, it’s a really delightful comedy, and Olivia Wilde is clearly better at making directing choices than acting choices.

Always Be My Maybe

This movie was hyped up a lot on Twitter, as it’s an Asian American romcom and we don’t see a lot of those in the US. Ali Wong and Randall Park star as childhood friends who boned once, had a falling out, and then didn’t see anything of each other for twenty years until Wong returns to her hometown to begin setting up her new restaurant. From there, it’s pretty standard romcom fare, but created by Asian Americans, which really does make a difference to this story. I liked Crazy Rich Asians a lot, but this romance feels more real to me. I’d definitely recommend it even if you’re not usually a romcom fan, I think there’s enough here that most people will be charmed. (Also, Keanu Reeves is in it and he’s incredible as usual.)

Men In Black International

This movie is serviceable. It’s exactly what you expect from a Men in Black movie. It’s fine. The real reasons to see this movie are Tessa Thompson and Chris Hemsworth, who are flipping delightful together and apart per usual. Thompson’s character M is pretty much the reason for the plot to happen, which is pretty cool. She’s written in a way that reads pretty clearly as neurodivergent and queer for anyone who recognizes that: she’s obsessed with aliens, she’s wary about letting people in but she is good at forming bonds with people once she trusts them, and she makes connections and notices things that most people wouldn’t notice. Also, part of the conflict is resolved because she’s good at making friends when she wants to. M and Hemsworth’s character, H, have a great vibe that could or could not be romantic, and at the end of the movie they’re implied to still be working together but you can read it as totally platonic if you want to.

Spider-Man: Far From Home

This movie is fun! It’s less fun if you think about it for a minute, because it’s about a bunch of teenagers being put into very dangerous situations, and also nostalgia for a billionaire capitalist who was an asshole, but still. Tom Holland is great as both Spider-Man and Peter Parker, which has never happened before in a live action movie, and Zendaya is the best MJ. (Zendaya’s MJ is also pretty aggressively coded as neurodivergent. It’s been a good time for that.) This movie also did a fun thing with its villain Mysterio/Quentin Beck (Jake Gyllenhaal), and by fun I mean “pointedly topical.” He says in no uncertain terms that the goal of his villain team is to (well, to get back at Tony Stark, which is a pretty solid mood, and) engineer events to suit his agenda. To change the narrative. To create fake situations that will make people need help that specifically he can provide so he can be a hero. To unite people in fear so he can more easily take advantage of them and make them lift him up. Uh, that sounding familiar yet?

Little Woods

This was the debut film of Nia DaCosta, whose career I will be really interested to follow based on this movie. It’s a quiet movie, more atmospheric than anything, and the story is mainly about two sisters doing their best to get by when everything is going wrong. Ollie (Tessa Thompson) is trying to escape her hometown, after having been on probation for illegally crossing the Canadian border while transporting drugs. Her probation is almost up, and she’s hoping to move now that her adopted mother has passed away, but her sister Deb (Lily James) is making that difficult. Deb finds out she’s unexpectedly pregnant, days after the bank announces that their childhood home is being foreclosed on, and Ollie has to find a way to help her get to Canada for an abortion and get the money to save their house. The movie is mostly just characters interacting with each other, and that might sound boring, but it’s the kind of slow, quiet storytelling I really like.

Fast Color

I wanted to get to the theater for this, but it was only able to get to about 10 theaters in total. Still, I think this is my favorite movie of 2019. It stars Gugu Mbatha-Raw as a woman named Ruth, who is living in a future dystopia where it hasn’t rained in years and water has to be carefully rationed. The viewer is slowly shown what’s going on with her: all we know at the beginning is that she’s on the run and sometimes she has seizures, during which bad things happen. The story is about three generations of black women with superpowers, but it’s also about survival, resilience, and the ways in which we learn to protect ourselves and the people we love when we know we could cause them harm. I really wish this had been wider release, because I think it’s so important and honestly one of the best superhero movies I’ve ever seen.

Hobbs & Shaw

Was this our most anticipated movie of 2019? Maybe. Have we been clapping our hands like giddy children every time we so much as see a poster for it? Maybe. Are we aware that this is a complete nonsense movie full of nonsense? Yes, which is the answer for why we answer affirmatively to the first two questions. After The Fate of the Furious, we pretty much signed our hearts over to this franchise and any of its related presentations, and this movie lived up to our (technically low) expectations and then some. Hobbs & Shaw follows the adventures of Luke Hobbs (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) and Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) as they try to stop a crazy cybernetically-enhanced criminal named… Brixton Lore (Idris Elba). He’s like a ton of bricks, get it? They’re also joined by, and in fact their adventure is necessitated by, Deckard’s sister Hattie (Vanessa Kirby). Anyway, it’s what you want and expect. A lot of vehicular mayhem ensues, a lot of other action mayhem ensues, there are explosions and a lot of far-fetched weaponry is used, Helen Mirren reappears as the Shaw matriarch and Eiza Gonzalez cameos as the leader of a criminal girl gang (and where’s that movie?) and Ryan Reynolds cameos as a CIA agent who thinks he’s bros with Hobbs and also wants to tell you his Game of Thrones opinions (I’m not even kidding about this). The final showdown takes place in Samoa and Hobbs’ family of Samoan car designers offers a beatdown with their collection of ancestral weapons and also their swank cars. It’s a perfect storm of nonsense and beauty.

–your fangirl heroines.

Spoiler Alert Sunday :: our thoughts on Captain Marvel

Captain Marvel (which we did see opening weekend but were busy preparing for Emerald City Comicon and therefore didn’t blog about, and then I was a lazyass who also didn’t blog about that yet because adulthood is exhausting) is a pretty good movie, with a few absolutely brilliant scenes and some structural issues that make it a little exposition-heavy in the first third especially. In a lot of ways, it’s an important movie, especially for young girls and young women. I like it quite a bit – and I find it frustrating in some ways too. But overall, I think it’s definitely worth a watch, and hopefully a step in the right direction for Marvel regarding female characters.

Now, my issues with the movie. First, the marketing and buzz really went hard on the “girl power” angle, which I think was a smart business decision. After all, this is Marvel’s first female-led movie (after eleven years of the MCU, which is…certainly a thing to note), and one of the first mainstream movies about female superheroes since 2004’s infamous Catwoman seemed to largely kill studios’ enthusiasm for them. DC’s Wonder Woman had a similar marketing strategy, to great effect. However, one thing I find frustrating about both movies is that they both star and center white women. The issue with this is that making the movie all about “girl power” and suggesting that all girls and women who watch the movie can identify with Carol and Diana can feel alienating to some women of color. (I am biracial Chinese and personally I related to Arthur in Aquaman more than either Diana or Carol, though I like all three movies and characters a lot.) Wonder Woman is a little more technically egregious about this, given that the only significant women of color are some of the Amazons, who mostly don’t have speaking parts. Captain Marvel does have Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch), Carol’s best friend, and her daughter Monica (Akira Akbar), who play more significant roles. (There’s also Gemma Chan’s Minn-Erva, who has about ten minutes total of screentime and is the second Asian actress recently cast in an MCU movie who has a secondary role as an alien with “alien” skin color. This is not a great look, Marvel.) The Rambeaus are delightful, and welcome additions to the MCU, but the “black best friend” trope is a repeated one in the MCU (Steve and Sam, Tony and Rhodey, etc.). Maria’s role in the film is largely to be an emotional touchstone for Carol, to remind her of her life on earth and cheer her on. This isn’t necessarily a problem, especially given the MCU’s relative lack of significant female friendships, but it is part of a troubling pattern that should be discussed. Hopefully, future films will allow Maria and/or Monica to have their own character arcs and storylines. I have seen a lot of women and girls of all races express their excitement about Carol, Monica, and Maria, which is great, but I also want to be sure to acknowledge the discomfort or exclusion felt by some others.

Additionally, viewers unfamiliar with Monica Rambeau as a character may not know that she was actually the first female character to take the Captain Marvel title in the comics. This article by Court Danee does a decent job breaking down the issues with this, and as the article is written by a black woman, it’s important to acknowledge the optics in choosing Carol over Monica. Marvel deliberately chose to tell the story of a blonde white Captain Marvel over a black Captain Marvel. This, again, was partially a business decision – by 2013, when the film began its first stages of development, Carol had been established as the new Captain Marvel, and the comics would continue to promote her under this moniker for the next few years. I can certainly see the logic in wanting to tell a story about Carol, while also including Monica as a secondary character and likely setting her up to take the mantle in future movies. (Further complicating things is that the Ms. Marvel title, which Carol had previously held for several decades, has also been passed down to the teenage Kamala Khan as of 2013. Trying to establish Carol-as-Ms.-Marvel in a movie, only to have her change her name later, would likely confuse and alienate audiences who are not as familiar with legacy characters and the ever-changing codenames of many superheroes.) However, it is important to question why Marvel felt that a movie about a white character rather than a black character would be more marketable. And as mentioned, it does tie back into the “girl power” marketing – because Marvel wanted Carol to be as relatable as possible, they played into the idea of whiteness as default. There is a frustrating tendency for even franchises that attempt to be progressive or court new female fans to cast white actresses for their leading roles. The Thirteenth Doctor in series 11 of Doctor Who is played by Jodie Whittaker, who is a joy to watch – and she is a blonde, thin white woman. The 2016 Ghostbusters film did a bit better, as Leslie Jones is one of the four titular Ghostbusters and Melissa McCarthy (as a fat woman) does not fit the stereotypical Hollywood leading lady stereotype (and Kate McKinnon as Jillian Holtzmann is playing a clearly neuroatypical, queer woman), but three out of four team members are still white. It is a frustrating tendency in female-led geek properties that the leading ladies are white and often blonde. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, expecting all women to relate to a white female character can feel exclusionary and even grating, especially when it is marketed as a triumph of representation for “all” women. So, while I can understand why they chose to use Carol for this story, I feel that it’s also important to consider why they did, and the implications therein. (Full disclosure, I actually “met” Monica in comics years before I met Carol, and I’ve been fond of her ever since, so I’d love to see her get her due in the movies too! She’s a significant character in Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. if you want something fairly short and fun.)

Anyway, though. There are a lot of parts of this movie that are good, and it’s an experience that I (original heroine, as drift partner was explaining the downsides – not because I don’t see them, I do, but because she’s better at articulating those points, and because I, a white woman, shouldn’t really be the one getting into them anyway) found overall positive. First, let’s talk about Brie Larson. Brie Larson is an absolute fucking delight as she always is, and as I’ve found her for nearly a decade (I feel like I’ve been on the Brie Larson train longer than a lot of people, because of United States of Tara and then Scott Pilgrim, so I am oddly invested in her success). A great deal of Carol’s story is wrapped up in her own identity: when we meet her, she’s “Vers,” a Kree warrior-in-training who doesn’t remember her past and struggles with powers she can’t always control. (Spoiler: that’s Kree interference. I knew this immediately upon seeing the regulator on her neck, similar to but not the same as the one that freaking Kasius – a Kree – put on Daisy and the other Inhumans in season 5a of Agents of SHIELD. Considering drift partner and I were possibly the only people in our theater who watch SHIELD, there were no murmurs of recognition, and it’s possible this evaded most people, but the fact that it’s interference is ultimately revealed and it didn’t really matter if you knew it or not. I just felt sort of smug for knowing in that way I sometimes do when I can tell that I picked up on something that, for example, gatekeeping geek boys maybe didn’t.) Vers is openly troubled by her amnesia, but she’s also been training with Yon-Rogg (Jude Law, setting off alarms from the get-go) and wants to impress him and the Kree’s Supreme Intelligence. She pushes to be involved in Starforce and specifically his team, which through a series of happenings leads her to Earth, and once on Earth, well… she learns some things about herself in the past and then struggles simultaneously with reconciling them with what she knows about herself in the present, what she believes, and what she feels. Yon-Rogg is also constantly telling Carol that she’s too emotional, trying to get her to operate less for herself and more for the greater good of the Kree, and she’s therefore constantly battling between those emotions and what she’s been taught is logical and correct behavior. Brie Larson does a very, very good job portraying this. People have criticized her for not emoting enough, ironically, but the thing is that she’s emoting very subtly at any given moment. At no point in this film did I look at her face and find myself confused by her expression or doubting her sincerity. She just looked like someone who was trying to play down what she was feeling because she felt like she had to.

(All of this, incidentally, is part of a pretty standard warrior narrative, but it’s also interesting on a meta level because of Carol being a woman, who are very often being criticized for being too emotional, for being temperamental or irrational. I, a woman who is very used to playing down emotions so as not to cause trouble or let people read me in ways I don’t want them to, found all of this actually very familiar.)

Sammy L. was clearly having a great time in this film, and it’s fun seeing Fury interacting with someone he’s not having to babysit (i.e. the Avengers) or not not co-babysitting with (Maria Hill, Melinda May). He’s getting to have a lot of fun, and you definitely see a softer side of him. He loves Goose the cat*! He also helps wash dishes after dinner, which has incited men’s rage.

Maria and Monica, despite the aforementioned problems, are wonderful. They join Ramonda (Angela Bassett) and Shuri (Letitia Wright) in the small pantheon of excellent MCU mother-daughter relationships, and beyond that they’re both such valuable characters. Neither of them doubt themselves, they just follow their hearts and desires: Maria helps Carol do cool spoiler stuff, Monica gets as involved as a ten-year-old possibly can. They both emote deeply and meaningfully and create a real, positive home and family.

And then there’s Minn-Erva. We love Gemma Chan, so we automatically loved Minn-Erva, but make no mistake: she’s a pretty awful person when all is said and done. She’s a villain in the comics, apparently, and she’s definitely closer to that than a hero in the movie, but she’s so damn funny when she gets the chance to be. She’s snide, she rolls her eyes, she talks to Carol like they’re characters in Mean Girls. She should have had more to do, but she’s a delight.

I was about to write a paragraph about all of the soundtrack choices, too, but then I realized that you should probably get to experience those fun surprises for yourself. Those and a lot of other cultural touchstones made it so 90s that for us, two people who were children in the 90s, it could be either delightfully nostalgic or uncomfortably familiar (pre-90s computers just make me laugh, but as someone who has memories of 90s computers, seeing them in action evokes a weird emotional response). A lot of the story has to be experienced, too. None of it is entirely surprising, but it’s worth a definite watch.

Also, there’s a cat*, and Goose is the best damn cat* you’ll see in a film this year.

–your fangirl heroines.

Spoiler Alert Sunday :: our thoughts on Serenity (2019)

Or, the unquestionably bad Serenity.

Serenity (2019) is a truly baffling film, which seems to have been made for nobody in particular.

This movie has been somewhere on my radar for almost a year now – I remember seeing the entry on Wikipedia and being mildly intrigued because Anne Hathaway was in it. It had no plot summary and was merely described as a “thriller.” At one point it was scheduled to come out in October; I assume it was pushed to January because the pre-screenings can’t have been anything but disastrous. I saw exactly one standup for this movie at a theater in November 2017, and no other marketing at all. (I, meanwhile, saw blips about it on Instagram… because I follow Anne Hathaway and she posted like two pictures.)

Then I forgot about it. Until I happened to be on Twitter and saw an article entitled something like “Serenity Has the Craziest Plot Twist You’ll See This Year.” “Huh,” I said, “I wonder what it is.” So I read the article.

There’s no way to explain this movie without explaining the whole movie, so buckle up. You’re in for a wild ride.

The film is set on an idyllic, albeit somewhat run-down island called Plymouth Island. Baker Dill (Matthew McConaughey) is a fisherman who takes rich tourists out on his boat while trying to catch an elusive giant tuna that he has christened Justice. He also occasionally fucks rich widow Constance (Diane Lane) if he’s really strapped for cash, leading to one of the most incredible pair of lines I have ever heard come out of anybody’s mouths: “You’re a hooker.” “A hooker who can’t afford hooks.” (I want to make this into a meme somehow, it is so beautifully ridiculous.) Dill pushes everyone away, including his first mate Duke (Djimon Hounsou, who is much too good for this movie as usual), and spends most of his time either obsessing over the tuna, drinking, smoking, or gazing off into the distance while we, the audience, are given hints about his relationship with his absent son Patrick. A strange man (Jeremy Strong) follows him around the island, but cannot seem to actually connect with him.

Then, a fancy lady (Anne Hathaway) arrives on the island. Karen is the femme fatale of the piece (really: you expect someone to say things to her like “what’s a gal like you doing in a place like this” or to call her a dame or a broad), and god bless Anne Hathaway for making something out of this absolute joke of a character. She may have been flatter than a sheet of scrapbook paper, but by god, I couldn’t help but feel for her. Anyway, Karen goes to meet Dill, and it’s then that we learn that they were once married and she is mother to Patrick, who still lives with her. Her husband (Jason Clarke) is violent and abusive, and as a result Patrick spends all his time on his computer, often in the dark and even sometimes with a blanket over his head. (That’s a clue.) Karen wants Dill to take her shitty husband out on his boat and “let” him fall overboard, so that he’ll die and she and Patrick can escape. Dill rebuffs her, but is later convinced to at least take the husband out fishing.

Meanwhile, we cut back between the three stories: Dill’s obsession with the fish/his son, Karen and Dill’s conflict over murdering her husband, and finally, a preteen boy sitting at a computer screen, frantically typing while we hear two adults screaming in the background. You’re thinking, ah, right, this must be Patrick, these are flashback scenes showing what happens while they’re at home with him, right? Wait.

The film limps along – it really is quite dull, although we at least had the advantage of knowing what to look for in terms of clues about the movie’s ultimate reveal and that was funny – and Shitty Husband reveals himself to be not only physically abusive, but frequently intoxicated, racist, loudly misogynistic, and possibly pedophilic as well. He’s awful, but it’s sort of laughably, cartoonishly awful in a way that you can’t really get that mad about. (You can get mad about the fact that Karen regularly calls Shitty Husband “Daddy” in a pouty boop-boop-be-doop voice that’s clearly something that he thought of, not her, which led me to believe that Shitty Husband must have a Harley Quinn fetish.) Karen and Dill argue over whether or not he should murder Shitty Husband, then they have sex on Dill’s boat. The scene lasts literally 30 seconds, there’s no way she got anything out of that, are straight women okay? Anyway.

Eventually Dill and the strange man from before meet up, they have a deeply confusing talk, Dill threatens the man, and the man drops the revelation that…Plymouth Island is not real, nothing is real, Dill is in a computer game and is himself just a piece of code as created by Patrick, and the boy is fulfilling first his need for a relationship with his dead father by making and playing a fishing simulator, and then changing the rules so that his game-father can kill his abusive stepfather. This is meant to be Patrick’s “test run,” as preparation for him killing his real abusive stepfather. Yes, the twist of this movie is The Truman Show with a little of The Matrix thrown in.

Honestly, after the twist is revealed, it doesn’t matter so much what happens next. Dill takes Shitty Husband out one more time, he lets him get thrown overboard, and then the film cuts to a shot of Patrick grabbing a huge knife out of a toolbox in his bedroom before finally opening his door. He returns a few moments later, the knife dripping blood. We are told through news bulletins on TV that Patrick murdered his stepfather to protect himself and his mother, and that he hasn’t spoken a word since. Then we cut back to Dill, who picks up a payphone and hears Patrick’s voice. They have a conversation about a “bad thing” Patrick did, and Dill reassures him that he loves him no matter what, and “there’s a place for us somewhere.”

And then the final shots of the film are Patrick running down the dock towards his father’s boat, jumping into his arms. It is heavily implied that either a traumatized Patrick fully retreated into his video game fantasy, or that he killed himself. The absolute nicest explanation, if you really didn’t want to walk out of this piece of shit on such a downer, is that Patrick was acquitted of all charges and released into the safety of his home, where he made a new game in which he was a character and could go fishing with his father. (I came up with this in a fit of desperation but even I really don’t believe it.)

So, in short, no, we absolutely do not recommend this, because I literally cannot imagine a target audience for this. Maybe people who just really like a good “gotcha” moment. But certainly not someone who wants a good or logical movie! If you’re an abuse victim, this movie’s moral is, at best, “revenge against your abuser will cause you to retreat into yourself or die.” If you’re an adult who likes thrillers, this movie isn’t thrilling, it’s mostly just really boring, and the script is shitty. If you like these actors, there are dozens of other movies to watch that they’re better in. You watch the film and feel genuinely saddened for Anne Hathaway and Djimon Honsou, who you can see trying but who are reduced to plot devices not unlike they might be in an actual video game, so maybe that was on purpose? It’s doubtful, though. And if you’re a person who likes bad movies, this is mildly interesting for the twist, but it’s not that fun to watch because there are a lot of long boring stretches where nothing happens.

One of my primary assessments of this movie (largely based on Anne Hathaway’s character, honestly) was that it seemed like a film noir written by a twelve-year-old boy who’d only ever heard of the genre but never actually watched anything in it. “Oh, this has murder and darkness and A Troubled Woman,” the twelve-year-old said, but the twelve-year-old had also seen movies of more recent years where you have to make things surprising and… well, that kid tried, anyway. Not very well, but he’s twelve. Give him time, right? Except the thing is that this was made by an adult who’s doing this professionally and should already know these things, so maybe we just don’t indulge him anymore.

I just realized what the target audience is: men who think they’re smarter than everyone else.

–your fangirl heroines.

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 :: our thoughts on The Hate U Give and Widows

For which I let drift partner drive and state that yes, I agree.

The Hate U Give and Widows are two of the finest movies that have come out this year, and you should go see them both ASAP. Unfortunately due to various circumstances we neglected to write out an endorsement for THUG until now, so the theme of this post is “here are two great movies from black directors,” I guess.

The Hate U Give is based on a young adult novel by Angie Thomas, which has been on the New York Times bestseller list for 90 weeks as of this post’s publication. (Yes, you read that right, ninety. As in, since its initial release in February 2017.) Before discussing the movie, however, I need to draw attention to the criticism surrounding the casting of Amandla Stenberg in the lead role, who is much lighter-skinned than the original novel’s cover depicts Starr. The cover artist in particular spoke out about the colorism surrounding the casting decision, and her perspective is definitely worth a read. While Stenberg does an excellent job in this film, the history of colorism in Hollywood and in casting can’t be ignored, and it’s important to draw attention to it. Casting directors: you need to cast more dark-skinned actors and actresses, it isn’t optional. Now, on to the movie itself.

THUG centers around Starr Carter (Stenberg), a sixteen year old who lives in the fictional neighborhood of Garden Heights and whose father owns the local convenience store. Her parents send her to Williamson Prep, a private school, where she feels she can’t be herself because she will come across as “ghetto” since she’s one of the few black kids there. She feels stuck between “Garden Heights Starr” and “Williamson Starr,” and that she can’t be fully herself in either environment. Viewers are introduced to her world, her family, and her relationship with her friends and her white boyfriend, Chris (KJ Apa). The first ten or fifteen minutes of the movie are comfortable, and then Starr goes to a party and meets up with her old friend Khalil (Algee Smith). They talk for awhile, and then when they hear shots fired at the party, they flee and go driving for a bit. Then, a cop pulls them over and orders Khalil out of the car, despite Khalil having done nothing wrong. He shoots and kills Khalil under the false assumption that Khalil had a gun in his hand (he was reaching into the car to get a hairbrush out of Starr’s way), and Starr is the only witness to the murder. After this, Starr wrestles with how to get justice for her friend, despite the fact that it will put herself and her family in danger from King (Anthony Mackie), the head of the local drug dealer ring who Khalil worked for.

THUG was a direct response to the murders of Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, and Oscar Grant, as well as countless other black victims of police brutality. As you might expect, this story isn’t “fun” or “pleasant,” though it does have moments of levity – Starr’s brothers Seven (Lamar Johnson) and Sekani (TJ Wright) get some of the best lines. But it is a very important story for everyone. Even though Khalil is fictional, the fallout of his murder echoes the events following the aforementioned murders, everything from sympathy for the cop who killed him/them to the frantic attempts to find any way to blame the victim for his/their own death/s. Thomas wrote this story because she wanted to draw attention to this horrific pattern, in hopes that awareness would keep police accountable and ensure that any victims received justice.

This movie might be uncomfortable for white audiences to watch. That’s good. It should be. And you should watch it anyway, and also read the book. (Two other books with similar themes which I also recommend are Dear Martin by Nic Stone and Tyler Johnson Was Here by Jay Coles.)

Now, for a slightly less grim film, Steve McQueen’s Widows is the female heist movie you always wanted but didn’t think to ask for. I hesitate to say much about this movie because I am afraid to spoil literally anything beyond the basic premise, but here goes: this is a movie about Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, and Elizabeth Debicki trying to pull off their criminal husbands’ final heist after said husbands are killed suddenly in an explosion, and also Cynthia Erivo helps. It is directed by Steve McQueen and co-written by him and Gillian Flynn of Gone Girl and Sharp Objects fame. Daniel Kaluuya co-stars as an absolutely brutal motherfucker of a man who does a lot of horrible violent shit and smiles while doing it. (There is no rape or sexual assault in this movie, he just fucks up a lot of people with guns.) Liam Neeson is there but I hesitate to say much about him. (Though I will mention how accidentally hilarious we found the trailer for his upcoming film that played in front of the movie. Cold Pursuit, it’s called, and it’s going to be… exactly what it looks like.) Garret Dillahunt, my best beloved John Henry from Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and also two of the shittiest shitheads from Deadwood although that’s a less pleasant memory, plays Viola Davis’ driver. Colin Farrell plays a politician who mostly got there via nepotism and maybe you don’t hate him all the way through? His father says the n-word once but gets his just desserts. And there’s an adorable Westie that accompanies Viola Davis in almost every scene. Her name (in real life and the film) is Olivia and nothing bad happens to her, don’t worry. (We worried, but for naught.)

I really can’t say enough good things about this movie. This is Ocean’s 8 for adults (which was delightful, but this has a different edge to it that I like slightly more). It should be making bank at the box office and it’s not, and the only way I will be satisfied is if it wins a billion awards and Viola Davis takes home a Best Actress Oscar. (She can lose to Amandla, that’s my only concession.)

There are a lot of movies out right now, but you should absolutely make time for these.

Spoiler Alert Sunday :: our thoughts on Crazy Rich Asians

You don’t have to be East Asian to enjoy Crazy Rich Asians, or have read the book, but I think it probably helps.

I (drift partner – I, original heroine, will mostly be sitting this review out since it’s drift partner’s thing to talk about, but stand assured that I agree and am very in favor of this film) read the book beforehand, because I always try to do that when it’s a story I actually care about. And I will say that I think the movie cut a lot of stuff that I really liked from the book – Astrid (Gemma Chan) has an entire backstory that’s been cut, presumably for time, but then (spoiler?) in the last scene of the movie, she and her first love, Charlie Wu (Harry Shum Jr.), reconnect unexpectedly. This is very sweet in the book – and comes pretty much out of nowhere for the audience members who haven’t read the book. I would have at least left in a line. I also was a bit heartbroken that my favorite scene was cut: the male lead’s parents hire a pastor to help them purge the “demonic evil” from their home, and she barges through each room declaring this or that decoration to be “from Satan” and needing to be destroyed. The aunties run through the house just ahead of her, stashing various ancient Buddhist artifacts in their purses and shopping bags and trying to make a hasty retreat before she can catch them. It is comedy gold and I feel a bit cheated that it was cut. Anyway, the book is a different animal than the movie; I would say that the movie is a more straightforward romcom, while the book focuses a bit more on the family drama aspects and the culture of the wealthy Singaporean Chinese families. They are both worthwhile stories and it would be interesting to see someone compare them.

I definitely see why Jon M. Chu went with a more standard romcom approach for the movie. I’m seeing a lot of people say that this could help usher in a new era of romcoms, and while I think this is maybe a bit dramatic, I do hope that this will help greenlight more romcoms featuring characters of color that are marketed to all audiences. The story is simple: economics professor Rachel Chu (Constance Wu) is dating Nick Young (Henry Golding), and he suggests that they go visit his family in Singapore during spring break so she can meet them and they can attend the wedding of his best friend Colin (Chris Pang). She agrees, thinking it will be fun. Little does she know that not only is his family judgmental of her, an Asian-American woman who was raised by a single mother and whose father is out of the picture, but he has also kept a massive secret: they are, in fact, crazy rich. She flounders, not sure how to handle this, especially after a cold reception from Nick’s mother Eleanor (Michelle Yeoh). The only member of the family who seems to accept her is Astrid (Gemma Chan), who is dealing with her own personal issues – she has discovered her husband is having an affair. Rachel must try to figure out how to get Nick’s family to accept her while not sacrificing herself in the process.

My family isn’t from Singapore, and my dad is third- or fourth-generation, so some of what plays out onscreen, I’m pretty removed from. I recognize the gossipy, two-faced nature of the aunties – my PoPo, my grandmother, slips into these tendencies occasionally and I know that her generation of women in the family engage in this behavior a lot – and I can appreciate the cavalier attitude the family has toward money. There’s a conversation in the book that Nick and Rachel have where he explains that he was taught that it is extremely rude to talk about money or bring it up, which is basically how I was raised. But the dumpling scene, where the mothers and their adult children are making dumplings, was a lovely scene but not one I could relate to at all (my mother is white). Still, I definitely appreciated the all-East Asian cast, since that’s a decidedly rare thing in mainstream Hollywood. This is the first big budget US film with an entirely East Asian cast since The Joy Luck Club in 1993. That’s really, really exciting. I loved seeing so many faces that remind me of my dad and other family members (there’s one dude in the background of the wedding reception that’s a dead ringer for my Uncle Tim, it’s uncanny). And I like so many of these characters that it was a real joy to get to see them portrayed so well onscreen. Shoutout to Gemma Chan especially; Astrid was my favorite in the book and even though she only had a few scenes, she was absolutely perfect. (Original heroine here jumping in to briefly echo this sentiment: yes, Gemma Chan was lovely. Like lovely.)

Of course, the movie isn’t perfect. There’s been a lot of criticism of the way Awkwafina’s character, Peik Lin, was reworked from the book to be closer to the actress’ rapper schtick, which is…well…pretty racist, actually. Here’s a pretty good article about why this new form of performative “blackface” is damaging to black culture and inappropriate to include in this film. Here’s a twitter thread by the same writer about Awkwafina’s role specifically. I’m sure there are other articles on the internet, and I’d encourage you to look into it yourself. It’s not a complete indictment of the film, but it’s important to be aware of the issue, especially since there is pervasive anti-blackness in a lot of Asian communities. On a similar note, the only darker-skinned and/or South Asian characters are two guards who glare menacingly at Peik Lin and Rachel’s car before letting them into the Youngs’ estate. South Asians also routinely get ignored as legitimate members of the Asian/Asian-American community, and colorism is a real issue for Asians as well as black people. Again, it’s important to note this, and to be supportive of stories by and about South Asians. (Sandhya Menon wrote one of my favorite YA novels last year, When Dimple Met Rishi, and followed it up with her second book, From Twinkle with Love, this year. I would really recommend them both.)

But this movie is doing very well at the box office, as it should be. I think it’s a really enjoyable story and it absolutely deserves to be seen, not just by Asian-Americans, but by anyone who likes good storytelling.

–your fangirl heroines.

Spoiler Alert Sunday :: our thoughts on Ant-Man and the Wasp

As you may well know, Ant-Man was a film I considered insultingly mediocre and perfectly useless, and drift partner echoed that sentiment despite not going so far as to force herself through it in the theater. Ant-Man and the Wasp was something we were looking at from the standpoint of “well, we have to go because Wasp, and maybe he’s better now that Civil War made him funny.” Essentially, we were hoping that it was going to be a Defenders situation where everyone present just routinely mocked the least-marketable male superhero.

It wound up being a surprisingly nice time, actually, and only in part because it did involve quite a lot of mocking Scott Lang (Paul Rudd). They also cleverly subverted my initial cause of concern, namely “how are the events of Infinity War going to affect this movie?” I’ll just say it straight out: they don’t, because this movie takes place some days before the events of Infinity War begin to unfold. How conveeeenient.

One of the great strengths of this movie is that a great deal of the Scott we get is the Scott that’s for other people. Scott the friend/business partner of Luis (Michael Peña), Scott the father of Cassie (Abby Ryder Fortson), Scott the teammate of Hope (Evangeline Lilly) and I guess technically of Hank (Michael Douglas) too although Hank is a garbage old man. Scott is a character who’s best when he’s framed through others because it really helps when you have other characters telling you why you should like him, and this is especially true with his daughter, who for whatever reason thinks he’s the bee’s knees. (Cassie is also just great as her own character, though, so I’m inclined to trust her opinion. She’s a pretty with-it child.)

The plot of Ant-Man and the Wasp is basically “Scott is in his last week of Sokovia Accords-related house arrest but wacky shenanigans mean he has to cleverly get around that!” with a side of “hey, you guys remember Janet Van Dyne? Hope’s mom? She’s Michelle Pfeiffer and she’s alive.” This is to say it’s part just ~wacky shenanigans~ and part a chance for Evangeline Lilly to do some Acting.

Because it’s a Marvel movie, though, there should also be actual villains. The commonplace one is a conniving evil entrepreneur played by Walton Goggins (if you’ve seen Walton Goggins play anyone, ever, you can imagine what he does – a lot of Southern smarm combined with some clever plans and some dumb ones) but it’s the actual super-quality one who makes this movie also worth it. Ava (Hannah John-Kamen), alias Ghost (which I will heretofore call her because Ava is already someone in the MCU dammit and SHIELD Ava was named Ava because that means “voice, sound” and the poor thing’s function in the plot was to be the hearing-deprived fellow space slave of Jemma’s that we actually had a face for and Marvel needs to buy a damn baby name book), is a girl who was in a quantum accident as a child, then used as an assassin by SHIELD (who in SHIELD used her in this capacity is unspecified). She has pseudoscientific dimension-related powers that the film explains better than I can, but she serves as a villain figure because she is Determined To Cure Herself At All Costs, even if that cost is someone else’s life. (You can also probably figure out by the term “villain figure” that we don’t consider her an actual villain, and most of the characters eventually arrive at that point as well.)

Also, Ghost has the advantage of being British. The actress is British, so I don’t know why this surprised me, but it did. Between that and her general vibes (spaced out, remorseless, very sad and wounded) she sort of comes off like Dru from Buffy, which I obviously mean as a compliment.

Anyway, this movie has requisite Wacky Chases, lots of Bullshit Superhero Science (which I say with love), plenty of Hope giving Scott shit, weird tangential musings on the nature of parenthood and family, and enough fluffy nonsense to make a fun little movie. It’s not a standout, but it was a pleasant surprise.

–your fangirl heroines.

Spoiler Alert Sunday :: our thoughts on Sorry to Bother You

As a rule, one of the most surreal experiences is attending events that you can tell part of the audience isn’t prepared for. This happened at Hamilton, it happened at Janelle Monae, it’s been a theme this year, and it definitely happened today when we went to see Sorry to Bother You.

This is not to say that this movie was for either of us, exactly; it’s not. As mentioned, I’m a white girl, and drift partner is white-passing mixed race/biracial (Chinese/white). But we at least clearly knew what we were there for and were open to and appreciative of it. This is not to say our entire audience wasn’t, or that we were the only people who seemed [insert adjective here] enough to get it, but a great many of them… well, you got the impression they were just there to waste a hot Sunday afternoon in a dark/air conditioned theater. (And we can say this with certainty because we were the first ones there and watched every single person and group enter.) Sitting quite near us was one of several middle-aged or older white couples, and this gentleman felt compelled to pass judgment on each trailer they showed, many of which were also not for “white people” movies; there were also a lot of laughs when things were funny, but probably not the kind of funny that most of us in the crowd were supposed to laugh at.

I describe this in detail because in a way it really complements the film itself, and also because there’s only so much we can say about the film itself without ruining it for you. The basic premise of the movie is this: Cassius “Cash” Green (Lakeith Stanfield) is unemployed, lives in his uncle’s house, and feels inadequate compared to his girlfriend Detroit (Tessa Thompson), an anti-establishment performance artist. He ends up scoring a telemarketing job at RegalView, where he flounders for the first few days until an older coworker, Langston (Danny Glover), lets him in on a little secret: Cash needs to use his “white voice” to engage his customers. Once he does this, he begins to rise in the ranks of the company to become a Power Caller. Meanwhile, his coworkers, including Detroit and Squeeze (Steven Yeun) rally to protest their low wages and demand unionization. This is the first thirty minutes of the movie, give or take, and it is literally all we can tell you without spoiling some of the best moments.

What we can spoil: the performances, for one. Lakeith Stanfield was in the ensemble of Get Out last year, in a role that very much prepared him for being able to pretend to do a “white voice” (his “white voice” in the film is literally a white actor, though), and he should probably win a bunch of awards for this movie because he’s really wonderful at carrying it. It feels odd to say Steven Yeun is a delight because it’s not like his character did any particularly delighted or delightful things but it was mostly just a delight to get to see him not in immediate danger and sometimes also to see him get to be funny. And Tessa Thompson, well. Tessa Thompson is… everything. That’s the easiest way to put it. I’m just going to put it out there and say if this was a movie about/by white people, her character would have been written and treated like shit and made as unlikable as possible, and I was worried for half a second about this happening here but I shouldn’t have been. She just got to be an aggressively Afropunk feminist artist with agency and emotional authority, and she is also in fact impossible to stop watching because she’s entrancing and beautiful and her voice is the best thing ever and also, she wore shirts that said things like “the future is female ejaculation” and earrings that said things like “tell Homeland Security / we are the bomb.” (Thompson confirmed on twitter that most of her costumes were shirts she bought for herself.)

The best comparison we can think of is to Get Out, in terms of both social commentary and darkly comedic tone, which is a bit of a shame because the two movies really deserve to stand on their own merits. But there aren’t that many movies in the “dark racial comedy/social satire” subgenre, so here we are. This movie will probably receive similar attention to Get Out come awards season, at least I hope so, but I suspect the ending will be deeply polarizing. There are going to be people who hate it, and it’s possible that it will keep this movie out of the big Oscar races, but I really hope it won’t.

–your fangirl heroines.

Spoiler Alert Sunday :: our thoughts on Ocean’s Eight

Full disclaimer: what I know of the Ocean’s Eleven franchise prior to this improved installment is gained from unwillingly half-watching scenes here and there in the background of doing something else while I was growing up. I didn’t give a single damn because, well, that’s so many dudes, and none of them were dudes I had any affinity for. Therefore I went into this expecting: ladies doing things. Heist things. I know very little about heists, but I understand the formula.

And I (drift partner) haven’t seen any of the Ocean’s movies either, but I like heist stories and once my friend Dean and I made up a whole movie plot about two warring heist gangs that were made up entirely of ladies. Weirdly, some of the ladies in our movie were also in Ocean’s Eight, to the point that he leaned over to me during a trailer to whisper “did they make OUR movie?” But I have been in love with Anne Hathaway since I was twelve years old and am fond of most of the rest of this cast, so I was totally on board for this.

Anyway. This is a pretty formulaic plot, but that’s not a bad thing. The formula isn’t the point. The point is watching everything come together and watching the characters be their own respective kinds of awesome. Is it a perfect movie? Nah, but it’s sure entertaining. Also it’s funny without being mean (except to the obvious douchebags) and that’s always appreciated.

We’re going to go character-by-character because the plot is… what it is. Not “what will happen” but “how will it happen.”

• Our leader is Debbie Ocean (Sandra Bullock). She’s apparently the sister of George Clooney’s Danny Ocean (was she ever mentioned before? I have no idea, and I don’t care), and Danny Ocean is now dead. Of what? We don’t really know. But he’s dead and she just got out of jail after being framed by a shitty ex (Richard Armitage) and she has a Plan, dammit. She’s gonna Do A Heist. She’s at her Sandra Bullockiest best for much of this film, doing funny voices and delivering intensely elaborate deadpan explanations of things and expressing emotion with equal aplomb. It’s really great that Hollywood finally figured out that she’s at her best when she’s a) surrounded by women and b) unencumbered by dumb romance plots. She’s a little less straight man than usual here, which is fun.
• Next up is Lou (Cate Blanchett). She was previously Debbie’s partner. In crime? Yes. In romance? I don’t know, probably. She spends the film dressed in what might be described as “butch couture,” if that’s any clue. She helps Debbie put the heist team together and is unbelievably everything while doing it. The best part was how she had chemistry with literally everyone, because she’s Cate Blanchett, and also how she seemed like at any moment she might ascend to the next level like the terrifying Elf queen she is.
• Anne Hathaway’s character Daphne was the unwilling participant in this heist, a somewhat vacuous actress. It was great because it was definitely playing into the stereotypes everyone associates with actresses, and for some reason especially with Anne: vain, vapid, selfish, and above everyone else. But then it turns out that she’s been onto them for awhile and has just been biding her time until she knows they’re, as she says to them, fucked. Then it adorably turns out that she really just wanted female friends all along! I think she was maybe my favorite.
• Mindy Kaling’s character Amita is useful because she knows about jewels. Like, she knows a lot. She appraises gemstones for her family’s company and she’s miserable, so Debbie snags her to help them convincingly replicate the jewels they’re going to steal. She’s not particularly a criminal mastermind, she just knows her shit and she’s also really excited about the prospects of getting out on her own and also going to the Met Ball where they’re doing the heist.
• Next comes Tammy (Sarah Paulson). A former criminal cohort of Debbie’s, she’s now retired to the suburbs (where she still fences stolen goods out of her garage, apparently) and is trying to have a family. She’s very bad at this and takes exactly the cursory amount of persuasion to join the team, which she in turn is very good at being part of. A big part of what’s funny about this is that it’s always funny watching Sarah Paulson pretend to be heterosexual and normal (was she maybe also Debbie’s ex? Possibly). Also I (drift partner) definitely thought she was part of a pyramid scheme rather than fencing stolen goods out of her garage for about five seconds, which was pretty funny.
• Lou suggests a pickpocket she knows from running street scams, Constance (Awkwafina). She’s quick and clever and rather less sophisticated than the others but very eager to do this thing. There’s also a very cute bit where Constance shows Amita how to use Tinder, and the only way it would have been cuter is if it was gay.
• Their requisite hacker appears in the form of Nine Ball (Rihanna). She’s chilled out, smoking pot, wearing overalls, just ready to do this shit. Her character is one of those characters who goes by a silly nickname and then another character who knows her by a different name comes in and refers to her as such – in this case, her little sister. I honestly wanted a movie about the two of them, they seemed like a fun pair.
• And finally, there’s Rose (Helena Bonham Carter), an eccentric fashion designer on the verge of financial and emotional ruin. They get her to design a dress for Daphne to wear to the Met Ball, and she’s just… well, she’s also at her Helena Bonham Carteriest. She’s a weirdo but in a picture book way, like “The Most Nervous Little Pixie” or something. She’s using her normal accent or at least something close to it here, which I’ve never heard in a movie before, so that was fun.

This movie is a great summer movie because it’s just a really nice time where a bunch of ladies hang out in pretty dresses or cool outfits being competent and talking about things that are not men. And I definitely support that.

–your fangirl heroines.

Spoiler Alert Sunday :: our thoughts on Avengers: Infinity War

So Infinity War has been happening to the world for about a month now. We went opening weekend, but suffice to say I thought it needed a repeat viewing before we discussed it and said repeat viewing… well, we timed it to follow the SHIELD s5 finale, just in case of something. (We’ll be discussing that tomorrow, and boy howdy, stuff and things, even if it didn’t actually pertain to Infinity War like we were worrying it might.)

Part of the thing about this movie is the official call for No Spoilers. Well, it’s been a month and that’s been broken plenty of times on the internet by now, but just in case you’re my mom and haven’t seen it yet we’ll keep the endgame stuff to ourselves. (Except for to say: it’s comics. Little is permanent.)

Instead, one of our regular lists of things we had opinions about, because overall, it was functional but I was mostly there for details, let’s be real.

• This movie is, in my (drift partner’s) opinion, much more watchable than Civil War, which I think is a dumb exercise in misery. The main conceit of Civil War is that nerds like it when superheroes fight each other for some reason, so here is a threadbare reason for them to fight each other I guess. Oh, now everyone is mad and sad and half of them are in boat jail (and I, not drift partner, have some Opinions about boat jail that are not good and get stronger whenever I think about it). Infinity War made fandom sad, but in my opinion, prior to the last sequence, the movie understands how to tell a comic book story better AND it understands how to juggle more than five characters at once. Civil War was also very bad at this. Infinity War mixes up some of the character dynamics and throws our favorites and least favorites into new and exciting situations like: what if Thor met the Guardians! What if Iron Man, Doctor Strange, and Spider-Man met… IN SPACE! What is it like when some of our core heroes are in Wakanda, in awe and varyingly out of place and getting shit done! It bounces back and forth between 4-5 different groups and does so with enough variety that you never really have time to get too tired of any one scene. (Unless Doctor Strange is in it. We do not like him.) There are a few groan-worthy moments and some deeply dumb plot contrivances, but I did not feel like my soul was being sucked slowly from my body while watching it, which was at times the case with Civil War.
• Let’s talk about those three what ifs, shall we? What if Thor met the Guardians! Well, it turns out that if Thor (Chris Hemsworth) met the Guardians it would involve wacky shenanigans. Thor quite literally smacks into the Guardians’ ship as they’re going to answer his (now demolished) ship’s distress call and they bring him aboard, and it goes pretty much exactly like you’d expect. Quill (Chris Pratt) is jealous of Gamora’s (Zoe Saldana) favorable impression of Thor and Drax (Dave Bautista) makes a lot of blunt comments that can only be described as the rapid development of a massive crush. Thor ultimately goes off on a mission to get a new hammer, accompanied by Rocket and Groot, and Gamora, Quill, Drax, and Mantis (Pom Klementieff) go off to get one of the Infinity Stones. This is the first rearrangement of people.
• What if Iron Man, Doctor Strange, and Spider-Man met… IN SPACE! Well. Bruce (Mark Ruffalo) gets shot out of space and down to Earth before the Asgardian ship goes boom and lands in Doctor Strange’s (Benadryl Crinklepants) house to alert him of the danger of Thanos. Then Doctor Strange goes to get Tony (Robert Downey Jr.) and they piss on each other for a while before battling some of Thanos’ minions, a battle Spider-Man (Tom Holland) eventually joins. Then Doctor Strange is a large box and Iron Man and Spider-Man are both on the same “flying donut” of a spaceship and wackiness ensues. Doctor Strange and Iron Man pretty much just piss on each other whenever they talk (and this only gets worse when they meet up with Quill et al), but at least once Spider-Man is there he makes things better.
• What is it like when some of our core heroes are in Wakanda, in awe and varyingly out of place and getting shit done! The group that ends up in Wakanda is: Steve (Chris Evans), Sam (Anthony Mackie), Natasha (Scarlett Johansson), Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen), Vision (Paul Bettany), Rhodey (Don Cheadle), and Bruce, and of course when they’re there so are T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman), Okoye (Danai Gurira), Shuri (Letitia Wright), and a newly rehabilitated Bucky (Sebastian Stan). And pretty much what happens is shit gets done. Shuri does a lot of science, there’s a giant battle, Bruce doesn’t know how to behave around T’Challa, Rhodey and Sam are best buds, Steve and Bucky are boyfriends, Wanda does cool shit… y’know. The usual. But better, because it’s in Wakanda and everything is better there.
• Ultimately, the standouts to us in this movie were Zoe Saldana, Elizabeth Olsen, and Tom Holland. Zoe Saldana got to show about three times more emotion in this film as in either Guardians film, which was cool, and even though they shoehorned in some needless Gamora/Quill romance to add to the angst or something, she got to shine as an individual and that was so welcome; Gamora’s arc deals with her relationship with Thanos (Josh Brolin) and also to a much lesser extent Nebula (Karen Gillan) and Saldana just gives it her all, performancewise. Elizabeth Olsen comes in with a slight advantage since we both love Wanda to bits and pieces (while acknowledging the flaws with the MCU’s setup of her character, but while also acknowledging that she is our girl) but regardless, there is a scene toward the end of the film that is just a solid 90 seconds of her emoting and I wanted to give her an award immediately; Wanda’s arc deals largely with her relationship with Vision, which let me just say is a lot weirder when Paul Bettany actually looks like Paul Bettany and not a purple robot, and his relationship with the Infinity Stone he carries and the disaster this obviously could create should Thanos get it, but it also gives her a lot of good moments with the team (we’ll discuss this in a minute). Tom Holland…someone told him this was a real movie and he brought it. Spider-Man has been a favorite of mine since I was sixteen and I’ve been waiting since 2009 to see a good Spider-Man again (the last one was Josh Keaton as the animated Spectacular Spider-Man, and prior to that Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield both had something just “off” about them in one way or another). Holland brings a charm and sincerity to the role that has been missing, while remembering that Peter is, deep down, kind of a sarcastic little shit. And in this movie he matches the more experienced actors in terms of performance at every turn (and in one particular case, definitely surpasses them – Holland is British, as is Curdledmilk; however, Holland’s American accent is flawless, and Crabapple’s is…not).
• My standard for this movie was how well-written characters would be when interacting, particularly those who had not previously met. Turns out Thor makes a much more agreeable companion for Rocket and Groot than the other Guardians, even though I still didn’t care about the two of them (there were a couple of throwback jokes regarding Rocket’s penchant for stealing prosthetic body parts, though, and that was sort of funny). Spider-Man is a very good boy and wanted to help all of his new friends in battle, and they were definitely his new friends even if he was afraid they were going to implant him with eggs not ten minutes prior; both times we saw this I flailed joyfully when he sprung forth to make sure Mantis didn’t fall down in a battle. As mentioned, Wanda has some really great little moments and the ones we cared about most were the ones with Natasha: they pick Wanda and Vision up and Natasha promptly scolds them for what amounts to being out past curfew, which is hilarious; there’s a bit in the final sequence that also involves Okoye that’s the most triumphant ladies-supporting-ladies thing I’ve seen in a Marvel movie in a long while (I’m purposely not spoiling the details because I flailed about them, too, in a way I hope some people can still also do).
• Another highlight of this movie (say, over Civil War) is that there are a lot more amusing things sprinkled throughout. Pretty much everything Mantis says (or does, honestly) is comedy gold, particularly if it involves her scary face. At one point when Quill meets up with the douchebag duo and their scene-saving Spider-Man, he shouts, “Where’s Gamora?” and Iron Man replies “Who’s Gamora?” and Drax, while being stepped on and nearly shot with a laser gun or something, adds, “I’ll do you one better. Why is Gamora?” and this is the funniest thing I don’t even care that is my humor. And then…
• That brings us to the villains. There’s Thanos, of course, who isn’t funny. He’s just some big asshole who looks, as Quill aptly points out, like Grimace (from McDonalds). But then there’s also the Children of Thanos, the ones who didn’t wise up like Gamora and Nebula. These fuckers are hilarious space garbage. Ebony Maw (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor) is like a weird Gothic skeleton version of the Shape of Water fishman if it in turn bred with Slenderman, and weirdly his maw is not particularly prominent, nor is it ebony. Better still is Proxima Midnight (Carrie Coon), who is just the worst. She’s the one who talks the most after Maw, and every word out of her mouth is a hilarious cliche about fighting or war or victory or something to that effect. She’s sort of insinuated to be the most powerful of Thanos’ children, at least of the bunch that appear together (Ebony Maw is usually by himself). But every time she’s onscreen she is impossible to take seriously. Also, her name is Proxima Midnight and that is objectively funny.
• SPACE

–your fangirl heroines.