What is it to be an alien?

Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story — 3.5/5

Yet another movie that makes me cry, while also leaving me empty. Do I know Christopher Reeve better? Yes. Do I have a better understanding of him? Ehhhh. Often, Dana Reeve feels like the more interesting person here. Christopher Reeve feels compelled by necessity; she feels compelled by love. He must prove something to his father. He must walk again. I believe in my whole heart that to be good, truly good, you must sacrifice something of yourself. His sacrifices are born of pain, of the world that has happened to him. Hers are born of personal choice. At the end, Christopher Reeve tries to sum up being a hero as being ordinary, and overcoming the insurmountable obstacles of everyday existence. I think that's a definition of resilience, not heroism. But I do think it sums up Christopher Reeve: he tried to bring Superman down to earth.

Stray thoughts (I will begin doing stray thoughts):

• I really enjoyed the 3D Christopher Reeve/Superman floating in space that they would often return to. It's a beautifully abstract way to connect the emotional dots of a real life story and just, in general, make a documentary more visually interesting. 

• Given the giant Superman-shaped cloud over the whole proceedings, it would have been fun to intersperse his story with that of Superman's. Namely, he (ultimately) and Dana (especially) seemed to be great parents, and they've got great kids as a result. "Doomed Planet. Desperate Scientists. Last Hope. Kindly Couple." That last one's the kicker. Pa and Ma Kent are integral to the origin of Superman. He was born great, but he was raised to be good.

Nothing about this feels right.

Captain America: Brave New World — 2.5/5

As a Marvel apologist, forgiving most of the sins that others struggle to forgive, I feel like this may actually be the worst thing they've put together. ("Put together" being more of a compliment than this movie may deserve.) At their worst, Marvel movies still float on compelling actors / characters, and unfortunately I just don't think Sam Wilson is all that interesting. Steve Rogers had at least a grandpa energy to him, a stoicism that felt displaced in time, but Anthony Mackie plays it with step-dad energy—"I'm not the dad, I'm just the dad that stepped up"—trying to prove he belongs but never actually becoming someone that we're interested in following. He shows up, but who actually is there? There's a touch of living up to the legacy of what came before, and into a place that white America doesn't necessarily want him to be, but most of that was explored in the preceding show, so it just becomes a very small hint of a character. The rest of the movie wants to be a smart thriller, chess pieces pushed around the board, but all the moves are dumb, resting on a villain who looks dumb, sounds dumb, and frankly, the movie hardly seems to even want to make him the villain. I love Tim Blake Nelson but wow does he not belong here. Thunderbolt Ross is a far more compelling placement for that evil energy, but they've neutered him via the love for his daughter. But within all the bad, there are some pretty good action set pieces, namely the precipice-of-World War 3 missile fight at Celestial Island, I find Shira Haas' height and posture incredibly fun to watch, and Harrison Ford and Carl Lumbly give the movie some of that grandpa energy which I did not, before this movie, realize was so integral to this franchise working. But the damning spike in the center of this is that Bucky Barnes appears for approximately 2 minutes, and infuses the whole affair with a charm that has always befit these movies, and Anthony Mackie, for his part, plays well into. While he's there, you realize what's been absent up until then. And when he leaves, Sam just turns back into Stoicism Man. He's a good man! I'd want this guy to be president! Just not the star of a movie.

The language

in which to look away.

- Omar El Akkad, talking to Chris Hedges about his book 'One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This'

Dumpster-fire of a world.

Borderlands — 1/5

This movie only makes sense if Cate Blanchett is living out a real-life version of Lydia Tár. It's bad, like everyone says, and worse, it's boring. What a fun world to be just tossed in the trash.

Wak wak.

The Penguin S1 — 1.5/5

This was bad. Colin Farrell disappears into the role, and no one stepped up to take his place. A star-fueled vehicle with zero star power. The whole show's just adding a fat-suit to a nothing premise, a nothing character. It's all talk talk talk, wak wak wak, jesus, everyone explaining themselves because everything lacks inherent characterization. At least in comic books, the rules are that you are allowed to talk, but you must do so under the guise of a fight scene. Maybe—maybe—there's a solid two hour movie inside of the fat-suit padding. If the whole show were building towards how Oz treats Victor at the end, maybe. But in its bloat, the muscles and skin just peel off. Two seconds after saying he can't afford to have family, he returns to the arms of his mother, and to his lover. It's just a lot of effort put in to barely trying.

The lost boy.

La Chimera — 3/5

It's both better and worse than the 3/5 I've given it, mainly in that it creates a compelling world but takes way too fucking long to get going. I believe I remember Alan Moore saying he wrote 'Jerusalem' to be a bit of a slog to confront and drive away casual readers. As such with this movie, and these movies in general. They challenge us to keep watching, and my constant opinion of them is "if I just force myself to finish it, it will be worthwhile" and it is worthwhile enough times to keep putting myself through it. But man, fucking, get a move on. As the last half comes around, things start to feel like something. Josh O'Connor is a star, self-evident, and even more particularly Carol Duarte is something unique. In less than 60 seconds, as she starts dancing, he, and I, fall in love with her, and the whole movie turns on its head. Alice Rohrwacher knows how to be poetic, which I'll define as being able to piece together a feeling through fragments. I can't really pinpoint what the movie's about, other than being lost with the occasional malady of not being lost, but it feels like something, something untouchable, but there in front of you all the same. It's a world of lost souls, digging through graves, trying to find something worth keeping.

You, who looks like you, but you're not yourself.

A Different Man — 3.5/5

I struggle with this one. I enjoyed it, particularly in contrast to the body-horror-in-a-different-way 'The Substance' which also plays with stylistic flourishes, though overdone and more celebrated, while this one had a humanity to it absent from that one. The first half, or even three-quarters, is a banger of low-key surrealism, centered around a sympathetic lead. Sebastian Stan does a great job of splitting himself between the before and after, feeling like the same person, but different, but the same. He does a good job of mucking up his good lucks, bringing it to a place of a guy who could be hot but doesn't know how to put himself together. By the time Adam Pearson shows up, the movie's riding high on petty jealousy that someone didn't need to change what they were to become who they were. But then that ending! Your disability doesn't make you who you are? It doesn't matter if you've changed your mask if you live inside a shell? I mean... yes? But no? It feels like telling a shy person "have you tried talking to other people?" Fuck you, friend. Or fuck me for placing too much pity on them to think that the disability does mark their life. Shit, maybe I'm in the wrong here, fuck.