Top Gun: Maverick

Movie: Top Gun: Maverick

Nominated for: Best Picture, Best Sound, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Song, Best Visual Effects, Best Film Editing

How I watched: Paramount Streaming

When I fell asleep: I was too busy undecorating my Holiday Tree

When it had me: Goose's kid

When it lost me: 1986

What systems does it challenge: I want to say "unmanned flights" but I'm not sure if that counts?

Content Warning: I don't think so, I'm still figuring out these parameters.

Ok. Deep breath. I've got this. 

I really hated Top Gun and anything Tom Cruise did for most of his career. His cocky grin thing does not evoke charm for me it evokes assholery to the nth degree and I have trouble with his face.

Now I'm going to be nice. This wasn't as bad as I thought it would be! The tension surrounding Rooster and Maverick was a big plus for me. I was able to feel empathy for Maverick in this movie because of Goose's son. He has guilt for surviving when his best friend didn't, a desire to protect his son and a need for...speed? No! A need to be a god damn human being and find a balance between protecting someone and holding them back.  

Tom Cruise's acting ability has markedly improved over the decades and I felt like that was clear in watching this movie. Watching Val Kilmer in this moment was hard and gives you lots of feelings to deal with. In fact, Tom Cruise's acting ability might have been hiding behind that very real sense of grief in that scene.

So it surprised me. Hooray!

And also? Best Picture? WHY? Best Screenplay? UGH! You're killing me a little bit.

When the shoe-horned love interest wants to see Maverick, do you know what she does? Well, I'll tell you! She drives to the hanger with her teen daughter, sends her teen daughter in to gesture vaguely at Maverick until he notices so that the love interest can position herself in a perfect lean against the car in order to look like a poster from the 1980s that I'm guessing maybe Tony Scott used to have on his wall? And then the supposed lovers go flying, abandoning her teen to spend the afternoon in an airplane hangar!!!! What even? Can I humbly request we award no Oscars for this? Please and thank you.