In the dark of the night, evil will find you.

Anastasia - 3.5/5

Feels like a 1950s musical drama. A loose charm floats through it (Meg Ryan was the bomb, yo) before hitting a hard wall made of sudden realizations of affection. Like Maria and the Captain, they are two people better at sparring than being in love. They know how to do one, don’t know how to do the other, and so they stiffen up. It becomes very functional at the end because it needs to wrap up this love story that had previously been an identity story. Rasputin, the villain feels distant and afterthought-y throughout but he and his mouse bat are wonderful scenery and I really liked that evil song of theirs.

What did Jung say about glowsticks?

Chronicle - 3.5/5

You know how sometimes short stories are just excuses to throw a good idea out there without necessarily having to do the work of writing enough words to make it an entire book? This feels like that. An interesting idea, extended out. It didn’t necessarily get deeper – just longer. But man, what fun. The found footage-ness sometimes ends up focusing too much attention on the camera, but it adds to the tension and the visceral thrill of it all so I’ll call it even. 

Chaos is order yet undeciphered.

Enemy - 3.5/5

If the whole movie exists for that final image, then brav-fucking-o. Genuinely frightening in that, and genuinely creepy for the rest of it. One review describe the look of the film as ‘urine-soaked.’ Yes. It strikes me as a movie worth revisiting – worth figuring out. But I’m lazy, so.

Sweep the gutters.

Big Eyes - 2.5/5

Never more interesting than the Wikipedia article. Pops of color are just window dressing. I wish it was weirder. It’s just the story, told straight through. 

We drift into some unknowable

and unfuckable place.

A few people cried; most people were silent.

Godzilla - 2.5/5

Aaron Taylor-Johnson vs. Godzilla. The movie’s just stuck on this miracle dude who this force of nature cares naught about. He is our feet on the ground, eyes to the sky, I get that, but we don’t need him, we just need eeeeeeyes. Here’s my simple fix: we’re not following one dude, but a collection of dudes and dudettes. Each reacting to this thing in their own way, discovering its relative humanity vs. these Mutos as destruction surrounds them. An anthology of reactions to this beast from 20,000 fathoms. In this way, he is not just the titular tidal wave, but the star. 

All climates are the same for love.

In Search of the Castaways - 3.5/5

It’s good in a way that we don’t allow anymore. Filled to the brim with casual charm and no one’s ever really in danger. It’s the movie equivalent of the teacup ride. 

Some gay-ass crime.

Super - 2.5/5

It’s a surprisingly un-cynical movie, for as dark as it sells itself. If anything, it’s a bit too maudlin with its final message of hope. I think James Gunn’s strength as a director is how casual he is. He’s not afraid to just throw something out to see if it works. He’s just having a good time, my man. He’s like one of those stand-ups that laugh at their own jokes, and you laugh at them laughing more than you might laugh at the joke. Or something like that.

I’m de captain now.

Captain Phillips - 2.5/5

Paul Greengrass likes to direct the moment. Not the before, not the after, just what’s happening as it’s happening. No real context, even when context would make a rounder story. It’s interesting, but less so with real stories – this and ‘United 93.’ Stories in which we know the ending. It’s hard to get invested in the moment when you know the inevitable. But Tom Hanks crying at the end was all right, boss. I’d like to have felt more of that.

You destroy their achievements and it’s as if they never existed.

The Monuments Men - 2/5.

The question it asks, repeatedly, is whether the greatest works of art are worth a single human life. The answer, repeatedly, is yes, but it never answers with enough emotion. It builds up the men (somewhat) but it doesn’t build up the art. It shows us paintings and statues and assumes we know its inherent value. It never says why art is beautiful, why art is worthwhile. That should have been easy, I’d imagine. That, and it could have probably dropped a character or two. If you’re already playing fast and loose with history, you might as well abuse it to tell a better story. 

Heterosexual romance between two white people.

They Came Together - 2.5/5

You know what, it’s a bit lazy. It’s only a half step away from those ‘Not Another… ‘ movies – a stock plot as an excuse for occasional absurdity and funny faces. And Paul Rudd makes the funniest faces, guys. He’s so entirely self-aware of how his body/face moves and it’s glorious and hard to replicate by most everyone else in the cast. Beyond the very controlled anarchy of he, I don’t think the filmmakers give themselves enough leeway to go completely off the rails. It’s stuck to this linear storyline which is the least important thing about it. I’d rather have all the funniest parts from this and the deleted scenes made into as much of a single entity as possible. As is, it feels more like ‘The Baxter’ than ‘Wet Hot American Summer.’ 

Come home, my son, when you are ready.

Merantau - 2.5/5

Iko Uwais looks like a hero so he plays a hero. Yayan Ruhian looks like a villain so he plays a villain. The action is great but I think the movie as a whole is a first pass at defining the characters that will make these guys more interesting beyond how they appear – Iko becomes more of a Jackie Chan with a bubbling anger instead of humor. Yayan becomes a weirder and weirder (redeemable) villain in each new movie. The action’s great but it’s more interesting to see the start of something that will become wonderful.

Balalalala.

Big Hero 6 - 3/5

I don’t think it understands its own origin story. This movie has a genuine heroic figure in Tadashi – a good, noble person who just wants to help people. And his lil’ bro learns from that but… doesn’t really. At the end of the movie, he’s still a botfighter and the lesson of Tadashi wasn’t that the world needs more fighting robots; it needs more heroes that hug you when you feel bad. It needs more nurses. During the end montage, you don’t see them being heroes, fighting villains – you see them rollerskating on top of subways. That’s not helping, that’s indulging. 

To see my failure as morally or politically superior to their success

would be to indulge in a version of the Laingian fallacy—that because a destructive society drives people crazy, there is something dishonorable about managing to stay sane.

The problem with their freedom

is that they were given it rather than taking it.