Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Movie: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Nominated for: Best Supporting Actress, Best Costume Design, Best Original Song, Best MakeUp and Hairstyling, Best Visual Effects

How I watched: AMC, a long time ago

When I fell asleep: I did not

When it had me: Beautiful Visuals

When it lost me: The fights

What systems does it challenge: I'm not clear

Content Warning: I don't think so (It's been a while since I saw it.)

This movie felt as if they had a script all ready to go and then something tragic happened and they had to throw out that script and come up with a new one, with a  new main character in a short span of time. Which, is what happened.

The movie gives us a very lovely memorial to Chadwick Boseman and his character, gorgeous visuals, wonderful characters, well-acted, a lovely world to return to and beyond all of that, kind of a jumbled mess.

There was a lot of interesting stuff in the film that really had me bought in but in the end felt unresolved. Issues of Faith and Science and how they compliment each other and when they don't. Can you lead a people when you don't share their faith? Can faith look different to a scientist but still be valid? Really cool content and I don't know what decision the character made about it in the film.

There was deep, engaging conversation between the main character and the villain. How do you protect resources? Are you ethically required to share them? Where does protection cross over into needless aggression? These two people were communicating and seeming to hear each other on very nuanced matters and then minutes later they were fighting to the death and it wasn't clear to me why the conversation even stopped.

It was a jumble of good and baffling moments with a weird tacked on Martin Freeman story line added in. 

What felt like the biggest dramatic movement of the film actually happened in the end credit scene, which was, again, baffling.

I'm very sorry for this family of film makers to not only have lost someone so dear to them but then to also be required to keep to a schedule that might have made this follow up not nearly as amazing as it could have been.

 

Navalny

Movie: Navalny

Nominated for: Best Documentary Feature

How I watched: HBO Max

When I fell asleep: once toward the end

When it had me: Contemporaneous Footage

When it lost me: It didn't

What systems does it challenge: Putin

Content Warning: I don't think so.

I knew Alexei Navalny was Putin's most vocal/most famous critic. I knew there had been an attempt on his life and that he ended up in a Russian prison. This documentary covers that whole period with up close and personal footage from his family and supporters and is filled with surprises.

I LOVE a good investigation and this move includes one with some jaw dropping results. It's that moment where I think how did this documentary film maker luck into this story!

Getting to know the Navalny's was interesting. They were different than I would have supposed; more western and less ruffled by the life threatening danger they face. There were insights into Alexei, the politician, but in some ways the movie provided more questions than answers. It feels certain that if he survives and Putin doesn't, he will lead Russia one day. But that feels a long way off.

This was a very satisfying watch.

Babylon

Movie: Babylon

Nominated for: Best Costumes, Best Production Design, Best Original Score

How I watched: Apple TV

When I fell asleep: I think I drifted at the very end

When it had me: a scene about filming with sound

When it lost me: the trailer

What systems does it challenge: I can't tell if it is challenging or celebrating systems

Content Warning: Self Harm, Addiction, Non-Consensual Acts, Rape, Abuse, Mental Health 

This movie was THREE HOURS and NINE MINUTES! I'm furious.

When I saw the trailer with its frenetic style and the celebration of debauchery, I inwardly cringed. I was worried that this was going to be one of those movies where debauchery was the whole point. After watching the movie, I'm still not clear about the whole point. 

The film begins with a party that assaults your senses with an absolute barrage of insanity and all of that promised debauchery. It feels gleeful and celebratory. It feels like I should be longing for the good old days of the wild beginnings of Hollywood. Yes, a woman is murdered and it will be covered up and yes, property is being destroyed, and yes, addiction is running dangerously rampant but look how free everyone is! Look at the unrepressed dancing! So I'm confused about whether Hollywood is the protagonist or the antagonist. I think it's both in this film and that is why it is unfortunate to sit through three hours of a movie that is fighting itself.

There was a similar confusion around Margot Robbie's character for me. There is no better description for her in almost every role than the Manic Pixie Nightmare Girl and here she was turned up to 11. Is she a poor girl, bent on stardom that is being abused by Hollywood or is she a monster that grabs at everything around her without asking for permission first? I feel like we should care about what happens to her but she doesn't care about anything so maybe not?

We see the circus-like atmosphere of shooting silent film with no regulation, protection or unions. Everyone is in constant danger, people are dying and being replaced and none of it matters but the dying of the light. It's grotesque and awful, really. But it's also presented in a slapstick way with a shrug of the shoulders and a shake of the head, almost as if to say, "It was crazy, right? These guys were legends for working like this!"

I will say that I absolutely loved the sequence where they try to shoot a film with sound for the first time. Here's a sequence where I think they got the balance correct. This was a lovely short film about the trials of film making with all of its love, hate and mania. Everyone is struggling and hating each other until they finally get the take right and then they celebrate like a family. The punchline is that somebody died while they were getting it right. It's sort of presented like a joke where at the end you shrug and say, "Eh, that's the business, right?" It works so well.

But please don't make the whole movie a cute little joke about Hollywood. You are asking me to sit for three hours! Please make it something more.

By the end of the film I started to think a decision had been made. The film makers now want me to understand that Hollywood is bad because it destroys people but THAT message just made me wish I was watching Nope again. Jordan Peele knew how to tell THAT story with rich metaphor and no ambiguity.

It was TOO long and I was disappointed.

Women Talking

Movie: Women Talking

Nominated for: Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay

How I watched: AMC

When I fell asleep: nah

When it had me: dropping truth bombs

When it lost me: a song cue

What systems does it challenge: Patriarchy, Religion

Content Warning: Sexual Assault, Domestic and Religious Abuse, Self Harm

Based on: Women Talking by Miriam Toews

I was raised with misogyny. It's baked into my bones. When I heard the title of this movie, I responded with the appropriate knee jerk reaction; "ugh, that sounds boring". Because women talking must be either useless prattle or a hyper-sensitive nag session. I see it in myself now and I am able to redirect my thoughts, but it galls me that my first instinct is to say the thing that makes me aligned with those who have more power.

The movie is an excellent argument against my learned reaction because it proves the importance of women talking. Women talking leads to catching predators, support and healing, expressing fears, processing emotions, planning for the future, envisioning a better world. Women talking is good everywhere but essential under a system of oppression.

The acting is searingly good, the movie clips along at a nice pace and we are afforded some wonderful visuals. However, the magic for me was in the nuggets of truth about sexual assault. One woman describes the crime against her as "a banishment from what's real" another claims that worse than the assault was that "they made us disbelieve ourselves." Trauma and betrayal are expressed her in poetry and in scalding honesty.

There are small callbacks to their assault; the severity of their experience is not downplayed but the viewer is saved from having to wallow in the violence and trauma of those events. Their is pain and confusion in the women's responses to their treatment but the focus if the film is forward looking, philosophical and honest.

The conversation covers a seemingly endless sea of angles on misogyny, rape and systems of power. It covers victim blaming and not-all-men and forgiveness versus revenge, anger, depression, helplessness and empowerment. And the note I left with was one of gratitude to have listened to women talking for almost two hours without interruption. They didn't have to face their attackers, suffer new attack, manage defensive responses, shield themselves from backlash, justify their accounts or modulate their tone to suit someone else. I just got to hear Women Talking and witness the importance of that simple yet radical act.

Watching people sit and talk is not exactly cinematic by design but somehow Sarah Polley makes it really work. The movie clocks in at under two hours and you know I love that! This would be a top pick for editing if it were up to me. It's not cutting tons of action but it is its own unique challenge and it was done well.

Blonde

Movie: Blonde

Nominated for: Best Actress

How I watched: Netflix

When I fell asleep: at the very end

When it had me: Just never

When it lost me: Every turn

What systems does it challenge: Golden Age Hollywood, Patriarchy

Content Warning: Suicide, Rape, Child Abuse, Forced Medical Procedures

Based On: Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates (a work of historical fiction)

I'm going to write this review as I watch.

Oh, baby Jesus! This movie is 2 hours and 47 minutes. I'm so angry!

We begin with trauma dumping. From child abuse to assault-as-dues into the industry, setting up Marilyn's fragility in some stilted and awkward ways.

Ana de Armas sounds nothing like Marilyn but she has captured a vibe. She's playing Marilyn as an exposed nerve, like an actual electrical filament that is sparking and twitching from feeling too much and healing too little. She is vulnerable, needy and electric. It's so gross that everyone is going to just grab on to her and touch her to make themselves feel something.

So far the movie has no score. It is spare and bleak and numbing. It feels like I'm sleep walking and I can't take 3 hours of this. Oh no, more male control and abuse! That turns into a kaleidoscopic menage a trois?! Wow, this shit is weird. We're doing an imaginary spaced out relationship thing.

There's a little synth score. Kind of white noise/mood. So many places to cut! I'm re-editing as I go. I am SO bored.

Hey! I didn't guess this movie would have a POV shot from Marilyn's cervix! I wonder if we'll be returning to that one later? (yes)

It's historical FICTION, I just found out! Gods damn it. I'm stuck back in the movie Spencer, all over again.

They are playing Marilyn as an absolute idiot. It's difficult. This movie feels abusive. Maybe that's the point? But I don't like it. The Whitney Houston movie really loved Whitney, which felt right. I don't know what this is.

It's funny that Marilyn only owns one pair of pants in this movie. To be clear, they are GREAT pants.

Each scene, grosser than the last.

Holy shit, her fetus is talking to her. Out loud! Sorry for the spoiler, but it's kind of important that you do not watch this movie.

This movie is obsessed with "daddy issues". Getting more surreal now; faces with enlarged mouths, speeding through footage, locations changing mid scene, Marilyn vomiting onto the camera lens. The stuff with JFK is super disgusting. I feel sick. Who actually watched this? How did it get nominated?

So bloated and troubling. I fell asleep with my cats and had to rewind for the last two minutes. Thank the gods it's over.

Avatar: The Way of Water

Movie: Avatar: The Way of Water

Nominated for: Best Picture, Best Sound, Best Production Design, Best Visual Effects

How I watched: AMC Dolby, with the seats that shake a little so you don't fall asleep! Smart.

When I fell asleep: Nope

When it had me: Zoe Saldana

When it lost me: Often

What systems does it challenge: Invasion, Colonization, Genocide

Content Warning: Animal Harm

Overall, I would say this is a fine movie that didn't need to be quite so overblown. I didn't hate it but, even so, right now I can mostly only think of complaints.

The visuals looked like a video game to me. I remember Avatar (the first one) feeling like a real place but maybe that is just a weird memory. I wasn't blown away by new vistas on Pandora because it just felt like a (really good) game.

I got confused by the lack of concern about mining, stealing of resources and invasion in this movie. The only concern was one family hiding. They didn't clarify if the fight would continue in their absence.

There was a slightly patriarchal vibe. Jake is kind of a typical American father that rules from a grumpy place of fear. I guess it makes sense given his background, but they have always driven home how adaptable he is and able to grow and change with new influences. Just not in this particular case, I guess. 

The story line I found most engaging was of a character, Miri, who has a mysterious origin and some interesting and as yet, untested, powers. I'm intrigued by her, so that's something positive!

My favorite scene by far was one of Zoe Saldana kicking ass.

Do I even have to mention that it was too long? Everyone! Just go cut 30 minutes out of your movie! If you've never made a movie, just cut 30 minutes out of ANY movie! Better yet, give the movies to me! Let me show you how to make them shorter! Please!

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio

Movie: Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio

Nominated for: Best Animated Feature

How I watched: Netflix

When I fell asleep: I wish

When it had me: Italy

When it lost me: too many pinocchios!

What systems does it challenge: Fascism

I am so tired of watching Pinocchio movies. There have been at least 24 film versions made and three of them were released in 2022! There was one made in 2019 and it feels like I just watched it last year. I swear that supply is higher than demand, at least in my household.

What's the same this time? Pinocchio is annoying! He's always naive and carefree in the most dangerous and self-centered manner and spends the majority of the film making the absolute worst decisions. He gets warned about consequences and ignores them over and over again and then fixes it in the last ten minutes. I understand that this is analogous to children and their process of learning their place in the world or growing a superego to balance out their id, but at this point I just seethe at Pinocchio because I've seen this story so many times! How has he not learned yet???

What's different this time? Del Toro's story takes some departures from what you've seen before and links the story to the fascism in Italy during WWII. This gave it some depth (and sadly, relevance) and made it more interesting that a simple re-telling of the Disney movie. The naivete of the main character almost serves as a shield against the virus of fascism. If someone hasn't bought into any systems yet, then I suppose, they are less susceptible to falling in line with peer pressure and political manipulation. Maybe Del Toro is telling us that children will save us from fascism. I'm raising some of Gen Z and I admit to clinging to that hope with him.

In other news Cate Blanchett pulls an Alan Tudyk and voices a monkey that only communicates in grunts, growls and whimpers. So that's something.

Some of the rules set up by this version felt shaky and the movie even ends on a question. Rather than feeling like a whimsical open ending that allows you to decide something for yourself, it felt like the story teller gave up. It was like, "Well, our story ends here, we never decided where this was going." Kind of a weak way to go out if you ask me, but I'm not a fan of ambiguous endings in general.