Movie: Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker
Nominated for: Original Score, Sound Editing, Visual Effects
How I watched: Opening Night Fan Event, Arclight
When I fell asleep: Hahaha!
When it had me: Since I was 7
When it lost me: I feel like it did briefly, but I'll have to see it again
What I have to say: First of all, what this movie had to do was completely impossible. It had to wrap up a nine film franchise that began in the 70s and has been a roller coaster ride of mixed methods, visions, techniques and philosophies that has alternately had books, comics, cartoons and the like that have over the course of time been varying degrees of "canon" or not. It had to satisfy nerds and geeks like me who have been loving this world way too hard for way too long while also trying to capture and inspire new audiences along the way. And it had to do this all without our beloved Carrie Fisher to bring us all home as the greatest tough, wise-cracking Princess turned General to ever grace the screen. That meant scrapping large parts of the script that had already been envisioned. It's a completely impossible task, so I wish everyone would just calm down about this movie.
***(There are spoilers, but we've all seen this by now, right?)***
For me, I was engaged the whole time. I appreciated the return to Palpatine because creating a brand new Sith in movie 9 would just feel like bad film making. I appreciated that we saw that the Force exists in kids with brooms in the last movie, but also THIS movie was about Skywalkers because ALL of the damn movies have been about Skywalkers so why change it in the final installment? Disney owns this and you can bet that going forward we will see more characters on other planets who can wield the force.
I loved that this movie started to deal with the question of WHY people end up on the dark side. Rei can see that people (and snake monsters) who have wounds that never heal turn away from the hope and beauty in themselves and become engulfed by darkness. That's some big and lovely crap right there! And finally we begin to see the Force used for healing. Do I wish that had been introduced somewhere else along the way? Sure. But I'm glad it's finally here now because it's a better actual balance to fighting than we have ever seen before.
The BEST thing about the film was watching Adam Driver's transition from Kylo back to Ben. First, it comes from Rei healing Kylo, and those two have been the most electric thing about this whole trilogy by far! But in the sequence where Ben goes to help Rei, Adam Driver and JJ Abrams do the most wonderful thing. They show us that Ben is Han Solo's son. He becomes a Harrison Ford style hero by following a heroic looking jump with a very human reaction, "Ow." He does the Han Solo shoot-accurately-without-looking trick. And then he rushes in without a plan and gets the crap beat out of him! When Rei Force-passes him a light saber, his shrug is so Han Solo I could barely contain myself. In three short moves he does what Alden Ehrenreich could not muster once in an entire movie, he convinces me I'm watching a Solo. That's just good film making.
There was confusing stuff. Finn now is force-sensitive, which for some reason I feel like I have always known. It didn't surprise me a bit but literally no one else felt that way so that was apparently me just misinterpreting something in the past. Rose was under-used, as was the new Kerri Russell character. And Rei's stand off with Palpatine felt like it just kept moving the goal posts on her. It wasn't perfect, but none of it was as bad as Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen trying to have a human conversation. Not even close! I feel like everyone forgot how low the bar had already been set.
For my money, and I have invested a LOT of it over the years, Abrams brought us home. We were limping and a bit bedraggled at times, but we made it. If you felt like you didn't make it home at the end, I'm sorry. That's a tough journey to go on and feel like you were let down. Please take care of yourself and heal; don't let it fester. May I suggest The Mandolorian?
And My Kids: My kids were thrilled to watch an LGTBQ moment of celebration at the end! (Representation Matters.) They had a good time and felt like it wrapped up a lot of things well.
Movie: Knives Out
Nominated for: Original Story
How I watched: In the theatre, with the whole family
When I fell asleep: Never
When it had me: From the start
When it lost me: It didn't
What I have to say: This was the epitome of a fun film! A great ensemble cast playing wild characters, a smart script, editing that deftly moves us along through zigs and zags, past and present and even alternating theories, and a whodunit that pulls off its surprise ending. We all enjoyed this very much.
And My Kids: My kids have an annoying habit of watching about 15 minutes of a movie and then predicting everything that will happen. Accurately. When this movie presented a full telling of the event in question early on, I swear they looked like they wanted to walk out. They were literally whispering to me about it and I was like, "Let the film maker tell you the story for once!" So they enjoyed the fact that there were twists and surprises to discover. They also had great appreciation for the planting and pay off involving the similarity between a real knife and a prop knife.
Movie: Avengers: Endgame
Nominated for: Visual Effects
How I watched: Opening Night Fan Event, Arclight
When I fell asleep: Early on. Just Kidding! No!
When it had me: Watching my kids watch all of those female superheroes fighting side by side was incredibly moving
When it lost me: Confused multiple endings
What I have to say: Oh, man! This was SO LONG ago. I hate writing these reviews. I mean, I could re-watch it but there are other things I need to get around to, and...
Anyway, I remember that when it ended I was awestruck that in something like 22 films, I had basically always been watching one long story. And it worked! On so many levels this was successful. Along the way, I have complained about the fact that everyone in the MCU is a smartass, and sometimes that really undercuts the drama and importance that might come into play in a hero movie genre. I felt like just because we all liked RDJ's witty Ironman, everything molded itself into this one kind of persona. But once I viewed this as one mega-film, it makes more sense. They all had to live in roughly the same world for Avengers: Endgame to ever be a thing that makes sense.
The movie felt like it had a couple of Cap endings and I wish they would have streamlined that story-telling a bit. But overall, I'm impressed by the monster that Disney has created and how well this thing held together. It feels like whatever comes next is going to either over reach, or try to be too similar and suck by comparison! Good luck, MCU!
And My Kids: My kids love the fact that these movies combine drama and humor so well, especially in this installment which they feared would be a real bummer. They were thrilled that the multiple timelines give Loki a chance to live on! And saddened by the fact that Black Widow only gets one more film. Also, they were sad to see Ironman go (especially if you're going to let that super cute Spiderman get all emotional about it! Stop it, Tom Holland!)
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