The truth wants to come out, and then there's a fear that it's going to destroy something.

Couples Therapy, S3 (but also S1 and S2) — 5/5

This may somehow end up being my favorite show of all time. If you don't know the premise, it's simple—couples go to a therapist to talk about their problems. The cameras are hidden; the therapy is taken seriously. Orna Guralnik looks at each of them, actively listening, and searching for what they're actually saying within the words they're actually using. She's a master molder, guiding the conversation, pushing them further, bringing them back. Making sure the other person is listening as well. And then the show wisely shows her own private sessions as she looks for advice from others as to how to meet these people. Wise, because it shows that this is a job that extends beyond her sessions. She can only help them if she can herself grow into what they need. I admire her. In some ways I aspire to be like her. Sometimes I, as the viewer, want her to jump up and shake these people and say "Don't you realize what you're doing?? Don't you understand what you are??" And to occasionally see her speak up and create clear boundaries is marvelous in its effectiveness, and its right-ness, though of course she can't just jump out of her chair to slap them across the face. So many of these people seem like they'd be so much happier if they just left each other, but that is not something she can say. Each episode is an entire movie, each of these couples' lives an entire universe, split into four 7-minute segments. I couldn't binge the show because each episode feels special, both because of the heaviness in each episode but also selfishly I wanted to drag it out as long as possible. Every entrance into these peoples' lives is something learned, something gained, something worth talking about. And when they succeed, you succeed with them. And when they fail, it's heartbreaking, but you also understand it needs to happen. Sometimes therapy is just building up the courage to say goodbye. Orna in that way is like an angel, guiding them to a set of doors and asking them which they want to open. She will take you as far as she can, but the final choice is yours. And in her way, in her responsiveness, she shows me a way to be, and still how much further there is to go.

And you will not know, until many years later—

or never at all. 

I have a specific definition of alive,

which is I want to feel like I am being changed.

— Jenny Odell

I'll be out your atmosphere.

They Cloned Tyrone — 4/5

What a lovely timelessness they've created. It's got a stuck-in-time-ness of those small towns that had a heyday and then industry left and what got left behind simply stopped moving. John Boyega plays it serious, straight out of the '90s, accompanied by Jamie Foxx's 70's-era pimp and Teyonah Parris' ho talking about blockchain. It's a composite town, a composite time, and it works marvelously; it all works as a purposeful aesthetic to the plot. It's a place built on the idea of what those places are, all these times still living together in a prism; a cage. It's an idea of a place you've likely never been. It's all green and grimy and filled with people who don't realize they're already dead. From that setting springs a super-fun plotline and a wonderful meshing of tones that doesn't quite come together at the end. It builds mystery and intrigue and a momentum that unfortunately gets dead-stopped by exposition. And not very clear exposition? I got confused. I'm not sure whether I needed this world to wrap itself into a neat little bow, or to just embrace the fun of it all and go with it, but it doesn't quite do either. But whatever—everything else is in this place is worth visiting again.

Think of only what is.

The Little Mermaid (2022) — 2.5/5

It's unfortunate that the movie wasn't better received because, while it's not great, it might also be the best of these live-action Disney things? (This of course excludes Cinderella which was genuinely good but somehow feels distant from all the ones between this and that?) It does the thing that those do which is to make a primarily beat-for-beat remake but make it 10x slower, but this one unlike those feels most like a cartoon. Halle isn't a great actress, but she's a great caricature. She's naive and innocent and bubbles. Melissa McCarthy and Awkwafina are already live-action cartoons and they're just left to do their thing—which is great. Let them do their thing. When you hire Maurice Chevalier, you are hiring him to be Maurice Chevalier. There are times this movie felt like the Disney live-action movies from the '60s, in their innocence and charm and slapdashery. But it's this fucking art direction house style of these live action monstrosities which bring it down. Every time it tries to feel real, it feels less authentic to the world. Straight up, serious question, why the fuck isn't a newt playing a flute nor a bass playing de brass? The visuals too often aim for beauty instead of fun. I do not care that you've brought the bottom of the ocean floor to life with photo-realism and many gigabytes of data and Intel processing power. I just want to watch the fluke as the duke of soul (yeah). It's not great, for all of the above reasons (and please god make these movies less than 2 hours long) but there's something in here that makes it better. And that includes continuing to cement Lin Manuel-Miranda as the heir apparent to Howard Ashman — 'The Scuttlebutt' is kind of a bop — though that also deserves criticism as his two other tracks are definitely not-a-bop. Not sure if that's as much a criticism of him as much as a lack of editing in a desire to sell the idea of EVEN MORE SONGS (ONLY $19.99). It would have been better if it had been smaller. Too bad it didn't do as well as all those others. A good lesson might have been learned. Then again, the lower expectations only help it. 

¯\ _(ツ)_/¯ 

My energy level

doesn't match this role.

— someone in a meeting

All I wanted was a measly sandwich.

Big Top Pee Wee – 1/5

This is bad, and surprising in just how much so. Pee Wee's not just a bad kid, but a bad person. It goes for drama without a deft hand to find the humor in it. It's got a big top circus full of people and still feels small. What kind of kid was I to find something good here? Maybe it was just on a lot. Maybe it was my first exposure to circus freaks, and that idea seemed wild. Maybe I was a dumb fucking kid.

The hard work

of living. 

To burn out brightly,

to smash against the stone, to drown beneath the waves... but to go unnoticed?

Violence

at a distance.

Half-white,

half-what?

— my dad, upon hearing I was seeing a mixed girl

Permanently and cosmically... alone.

Knock at the Cabin – 2.5/5

I like the idea behind this a lot! However, may I present to you: the delivery. It's based on a book but feels more like it's based on a short story. It's not that it has no weight, it's more that it doesn't know how to carry that weight. The spiritually-tinged horror—the cosmic horror—that it hints are wonderful, and frightening, and it both plays that hand too softly and not hard enough. The entire world relies on your decision? Great. I love it. Make me feel it. But it doesn't, so it relies on the fairly bland couple at the center to sell it—but not enough is done to sell them to us. One is angry. The other is nice. The thin characterizations cannot carry the weight. Why not explore The Nice One's spiritual background more? It needs to be explored. It's almost as if the movie is afraid of being a religious movie. It had a chance to get across the Fear of God, but it shies away. The thing that ends up standing out here, the person who can carry the weight, is Dave Bautista. He's actually a great match for M. Night's at-times stilted dialogue. That isn't meant to be insulting! His bulk hides a childlike naivete; a hopefulness amidst the Terrible Thing He Is Asking. He's a Believer. I wish the movie could have made me a believer as well.

You stupid, horrible bully.

Matilda (Live Musical) – 3.5/5

Matilda (Original Movie) – 3/5

Matilda (Netflix Version of Musical) — 2/5

Wow!! What a fun way to experience art!!! It's exciting to see so many versions of a thing, if only to see clearly the individual decisions that make that thing work and which then make another thing not work, though the things are fundamentally the same. Each actress that plays Matilda holds the world on their shoulder, turning it cutesy or heroic or a little bit sociopathic. And within all the various cover versions, you can see there is something great here. The cheapness of the original Matilda matches the chaos energy of the original Willy Wonka. The pure kinetic energy of the live musical's songs and humor and stage design along with thematic changes that push it towards something with meaning. And the uh I actually have nothing good to say about the Netflix version except it so thoroughly frustrated me that it could not see what it had in hand and so I spent a lot of time thinking about the movie and rewatching scenes and having this conversation with myself? Fuck it's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory sleek premium joyless garbage. I so desperately want to grab all three versions and mush them into something that more closely resembles the original Willy Wonka. Eliminate the teacher. Embrace the chaos of childhood and those little fucking sociopaths. Free itself from its source material to become something new; something better. 

No, no thank you.

The Blackening – 2/5

It's possible that Jermaine Fowler is my least-favorite working actor. What a corny motherfucker. The rest of the movie is a good idea that can't figure out what kind of comedy it wants to be. Slapstick "Scary Movie" or black slasher trope "Scream." It's closest to succeeding at the latter except for all those dips into the former. Welp, too late to save it now. Try again with a sequel, there's a good movie in here somewhere.

It's a pavilion-type structure.

Cocaine Bear – 2/5

A lot of yelling. Grisly violence that I think is trying to be funny, but is only violent. Keri Russell walks away from this unscathed, and Alden Ehrenreich proves yet again that he's a great comedic actor. And I'll also give props to Aaron Holliday for being, I don't know — a character? Everything else is too many things.