Wowie zowie.

Super Mario Bros. Wonder — 3.5/5

[Played in 2-player mode] I think I have a mounting frustration with these games because they introduce ideas and then just... go onto the next idea. There's no sense of ever-escalation. You don't get better, you just get on with it. But, that said—it's full of ideas!! So many levels felt like they could be their own game (and thus the disappointment that they weren't furthered). But, then, friends, when there is legitimately a hard level (like the very last two special levels)—wheeeeee.

I can't tell if we're connecting, or if I'm creating a bad memory for you in real time.

May December – 4/5

It's good. It might be great? That frickin' hot dog scene is such a fun scene, friends. It mostly feels isolated in the movie, this building tension and hilarious payoff that doesn't have an exact parallel in any of the remaining movie. So of course it must be the key to understanding everything else!! I wish more movies had such obvious clues. And it's a movie about searching for clues!! That random sentence, that off-hand glance, that something that tells you something. You're looking for a reason, a rationale, a sign that things can't be all right, with Natalie Portman's eyes as our surrogate. There has to be something wrong here. We desire a reason for people to be the way they are; something deep inside that has gone unannounced. We need something to go off of. I learned a new word for this review—interiority. And, in regards to my take on it—does Gracie have any? She'll never tell us—or rather we'll never believe what she'll tell us, unless it's the worst possible version. Maybe she's deflecting, putting all of her anxiety into things that aren't worthwhile because it's easier to put it into small potatoes than deal with the mounting shit on her doorstep. There's this thing that happened—but she's worried about her pies. Everyone was talking about her and will do so again—but do we have enough food to feed everyone? It only becomes real if you sit and think about it—so don't sit still. Alternately, is she so devoted to the relationship because sticking together is the only thing that doesn't paint her as a monster? It's only wrong if it isn't true. "The heart wants what the heart wants" only works if the heart keeps wanting the same thing, forever. Is she a master molder, in total control of her feelings and of those around her—or—is she putting her feelings to the side so as not to have to face them—or—finally—are we putting all of our feelings onto her? Slow zoom in, obvious musical cue, and—maybe there's nothing going on in there at all. 

And that's just Gracie. Joe and Elizabeth are their own objects to be dissected. So, yeah, I think it might be great. It's fun to think about. 

It's only wrong

if it isn't true.

They will not have forgotten how to treat strangers.

Paddington — 3/5

It's cute, sticky sweet, not much of anything. The miracle of this movie, which I like, is that it set the stage for the next one, which I love. I look at movies like this sometimes and think "well, I'd never have greenlit a sequel" and then am very glad that I'm not the one in charge.

When the sun comes up, I'm down.

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off — 1.5/5

The first episode reads like late-stage live-action Disney: exactly the same, except twice as slow. Everything you love, only worse. It's a beat-for-beat remake that has lost every beat of musicality from the movie. But, at least, by the end of the first episode, it chooses to go somewhere different, and so it kept me curious enough to see what happens next, to see if it eventually catches its rhythm. It doesn't. 

There are questions beyond me.

There are answers beyond me, too. 

It's only going to get worse now.

Reptile – 3/5

A pretty generic cop movie except for a few key participants who were making the most of it. Benicio's carries the quiet energy of his performance from Sicario, and the sound guys were having fun creating tension where there wasn't any. It's the first performance from Benicio where I felt like, behind his Michael Madsen eyes, he could realistically play decency. Where it most succeeds is feeling like 'this is what it feels like to turn against your friends,' and it falls apart because, as these movies always do, they settle for gunfights.

Hedgelords.

Dumb Money — 3/5

I feel like this movie is successful in spite of itself. By the end, you feel the spirit of Keith Gill as a folk hero, by brain and balls just doing something interesting until suddenly it becomes doing his best—ultimately doing it for the people, doing it because it's the closest he'll ever get to saying something aloud and having people listen. I think it's the only kind of revolution that could realistically happen these days, driven by a "fuck it, why not"—and driven by "making money" as our banner to fight beneath—that somehow morphs into a genuine desire to beat them at their game. In getting there, I think the movie doesn't really explain the GameStop saga very well, nor truly tap into frustrations of the working class dumb moneys who partook. So in that I feel like it's made for people who already had a decent idea of what was happening. "You got mad then, now get mad again." And that ladders up to the movie not having the power that it could. Half of me expected a Big Short-esque 'explain it to me like I'm five' approach, and I walk away thinking it should have still cribbed from that movie. Fuck it, why not. Explain it. Help us understand what the fuck was going on here. Instead, it feels like an advertising case study, cribbing from news reports and social media to paint a portrait of the time and "the big powerful idea at the center and, hey, look at all these KPIs." You get the energy of it, but you don't totally feel the weight of it. The splash becomes ripples becomes the seemingly calm sea as all those awful, deserved feelings boil below. And it's not the first time. By the end, as with "The Big Short," the energy of anger just dissipates because we've got nowhere to direct it.

It's not art

if it's not the artist.

Being good

means making decisions that hurt you. 

You are not serious people.

Succession S3/S4 — 3.5/5

Uhhhh, shit, I barely remember. I think it started to feel like a series of flip-flops, are they going this side or that side, who's going to screw over who. Soap opera drama to just... spread the show out. Tom Wambsgans continued to be the only consistent character, and instilled with increasing pathos. He, too, is a villain, but a villain who can be hurt—and return it. Matthew Macfadyen really was a wonderful actor. And he's British??? Omg. Kieran Culkin rose out of the pack to be his own particular star, clearly troubled, clearly incompetent. And I enjoyed the final episode if only because it solidifies the thesis of the siblings' relationship: the only way they know how to show their affection is by hurting each other—and the ultimate act of love is to deprive them all of power. 

I hate you.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie — 2/5

It's crushing the amount of talent that goes into a movie as mediocre as this. It's a Funko Pop model of a movie. It's a highlight reel of 'that thing that you're vaguely aware of from having been exposed to Mario games for the past umpteen years'. Blocks and mushrooms and stars and pipes and toads. But it's most fun when it touches on things we haven't seen in Mario before: an extended family! A plumbing business in peril! Big brothers looking after little brothers! A Bowser in love! Mushroom Kingdom invading New York City! Listing them out here I'm like okay, that's a decent amount of fun to be had. But it's too busy hitting all the bullet points to linger anywhere new. Whenever a joke lands (I particularly enjoy Seth Rogen's Donkey Kong's context-less 'I hate you'), it just makes me wish everything around it could pick up that same energy. It made almost as much money as Barbie, and is the exact opposite. "Give them what they want: nothing to complain about." Mario is simple. Barbie is complex. Here are your two paths, children—both hold equal weight. Please make the right choie. 

Kick off your Sunday shoes.

Blue Beetle — 3.5/5

Music and typography and blue and pink stylistic choices give it a superficial air of the 80s, but—also—there's something inherently 80s inside of it. 'The 80s', in movie terms, is I think not so much a decade as it is a style. Not rooted in nostalgia but pointing towards the types of choices that were made in that decade. 'The Cutting Edge', 1992, is an 80s movie. 'Thor: Ragnarok', 2017, is an 80s movie. This movie is an 80s movie. A return to an optimism that was replaced by the 90s' cynicism and irony and subjugating expectations in the pursuit of clever. It's not lightness in the face of heaviness (Joss Whedon, 'The 90s'), but lightness that sells the heaviness when it comes. It's a surprising amount of emotional weight over plot weight. Early Marvel movies carried that well. Though I decried the lack of a good villain at the time, those early Marvel movies (Iron Man 1, Captain America 1—both 80s movies) still work because it's all about the weight our heroes carry, and the choices they may or may not make. They created a world that you want to return to, but also you never needed to return to: what you already have here is fine. The larger world was assumed. The superhero had a cool costume. The characters were likeable. I had fun in a movie theater. 

—

Sidenote: Die Hard was the first 90s movie. In these next two pages, I will—

We're looking for someone

to take the blame.

Can you be Good

 and be Happy at the same time?