Visual Effects

Rogue One - This is such a nuanced and more grown up look at unrest and resistance. These characters have guilt, darkness, blood on their hands. Everyone who signs up for the mission to sabotage the death star is looking for some redemption. They have either done too much for their causes or not enough. There is a high price to be paid for this, too! 

My favorite part about Rogue One is that there are so many people that have to dig deep in dire circumstances in order for the mission to be successful. If any one of them had failed, the rebellion would have lost. Each one of these heroes not only had to draw from immense bravery but they had to do so with no guarantee that their plan could ever be carried out. They have to rebel on their hope and faith alone! So tragic.


When I think of Luke and Leia with their clean white outfits and their straightforward, indignant defiance of the Empire, I can't help but feel their privilege has protected them from a lot. But no matter. I don't care how or when people join the fight as long as we are all working together to defeat Trump. Or the evil empire! Whatever. What were we talking about?

Oh, Visual Effects! Yeah those were pretty cool, too.

Doctor Strange - Seriously mind blowing effects! I get dizzy watching these sequences where you manipulate the time space continuum and bend a whole city street around you just to be a pip to someone who is chasing you. I mean, I don't just get dizzy because they are turning the world upside down, but also just thinking about how to conceive of, design and implement an action sequence that incorporates such unreality.  It's pretty cool, but it's even better when it happens in a movie that is actually enjoyable in terms of plot and character as well!

Jungle Book - This live action realization of the old Disney cartoon has non stop visual effects, some which looked seamless and others not so much. The movie was fine but I really don't like talking animals! I prefer the animated classic.

Deepwater Horizon - Wow! The movie exhaustion is setting in. It took me two nights to get through screening this and I still nodded off several times. It was a standard "Mark Wahlberg-is-a-hero" kind of movie. Lots of loud and complex noises (it's nominated for Sound Editing, too) and the hero does a LOT of slow motion hugging at the end.

Kubo & the Two Strings is under Animated films.