Megan Watches Movies

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movies that i've gotta add:

 

top gun: maverick

pearl

the woman king

 

i am finally getting back to the movies

 

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Falling For Christmas (Released 2022, Seen 2022)

 

LINDSAY LOHAN IS BACK. It feels monumental to think that this is Lindsay Lohan's return to film and it feels pretty perfect for her. Lindsay Lohan has never been a great actress, but in her most notable roles from The Parent Trap to Mean Girls, what Lindsay Lohan has always been able to rely upon is that she does have a natural charm. And from the decade of kind of darkness from Lindsay, she was so mired in various controversies and tabloid exploitation it felt like she was never going to return to that form. But she does in this movie!

 

Falling for Christmas is no where near Great Cinema. But it's the perfect kind of mid-RomCom/Holiday movie that I want to just turn on and watch for like 100-120 minutes. There are fewer and fewer of these movies getting theatrical releases but they do feel perfect on streaming services. They aren't movies that you want to shell out like $20 to see in theaters, especially with all of the respiratory pandemics we face. But they are fun to watch in your living room with friends (or by yourself) chatting and laughing along. And as a CONNOISSEUR of mid-made for tv/streaming Holiday films, I have to begrudgingly admit that my current, past, and future enemy Netflix has kind of perfected this genre of movie. The quality is high enough to surpass most of the Hallmark/Lifetime productions and weird enough that they don't really blend in with each other. I mean, all the offense to Candace Cameron Buré but every single one of her shitty Hallmark movies could be the same movie with a different title. You aren't going to watch Falling for Christmas and then watch The Knight Before Christmas and think they are the same movie.

 

Anyway, the actual movie is bonkers. Lindsay Lohan (whose character's name is Sierra but really I called her Lindsay the entire time) plays an heiress who is dating a flamboyant social media influencer (who I first thought was gonna be her gay BFF but it turns out they are dating! The movie also was like unsure of what was happening with that character as well but Tad is great so it's all fine) who after a gusty wind knocks her OFF A MOUNTAIN she gets amnesia and is saved by struggling ski lodge owner/single dad/widow Chord Overstreet (Trouty Mouth from Glee with some questionable facial hair decisions!). You can guess what happens. Maybe the most bonkers part of it all though is that Chord Overstreet's character's mother-in-law is like "Wow, Chord, Lindsay Lohan seems like the perfect person to replace my dead daughter" and there is a scene where my friend was like "wait, is the Mother-in-Law in love with Lindsay Lohan too????" This is a movie where there are exactly ZERO plot points that make any logistical sense and it all works because Lindsay Lohan has a natural charisma to her.

 

10/10 enjoyed myself every minute of this movie. Would 100% watch again.

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Avatar: The Way of Water (Released 2022, Seen Jan 2023)

 

Let's get this out of the way, Avatar is just as stunning as its predecessor. I can't deny it. However, while in 2009 these visuals felt like nothing that had been in theaters before, it's hard to say the same for 2023 when every movie you see in theaters looks incredibly good. (Also, I saw this with my Aunt so I normally would not have seen it in 3D because those glasses always have the effect of dulling the movies visuals, that's how I saw it, and it was fine. I also wear normal glasses so 3D glasses are far from my preferred way to see a movie).

 

That all being said, I HATED Avatar.

 

Avatar clocks in at a whopping 192 minutes. And you feel every single minute of it. I'm not somebody who is inherently against long movies (Dune and Drive My Car were two of my favorite movies of 2021) but anything that runs longer than 120 minutes really has to earn it. Avatar does not. The movie is titled Way of Water and they don't even reach the water until an hour in. Then instead of moving any of the action or plot, James Cameron seems content to just plod around showing us the cool underwater visuals he can do and let the story languish. Zoe Saldaña is ostensibly the lead actress of the movie and she disappears for the middle third of it while we focus on the kids. This is a three hour movie that could have been 90-minutes (or even generously 2 hours) and would have been better off for it. It also feels deeply settled in to playing the role of "middle film of a series" and by that I mean that it starts and ends at pretty much the exact same place. It's a movie whose plot could have been an email.

 

The characters are broad caricatures. It's clear that James Cameron misses the masculine male archetype that used to be the dominate male character in these big budget Oscars which means that Jake Sully is the worst protagonist of a film that I could imagine. (If you compare to another traditionally masculine movie that I did enjoy, Tom Cruise in Top Gun is painted with a more nuanced brush). There was little likable about Jake Sully in the original Avatar (a traditional masculine man who is a white man who decides against colonizing a planet but then for whatever reason becomes the leader of the indigenous people there) and The Way of Water doubles down on all his worst characteristics to the point where he's bad at everything. He's a bad dad, a bad husband, and a bad leader. His one good trait I guess is being able to shoot a gun. Jake Sully is so bad as a character that at the big emotional moment about 145 minutes into the movie that I felt he deserved the pain inflected on him. Zoe Saldaña is good as always, but because the movie wanted to turn focus away from Jake Sully, she gets very little in the way of screentime, plot, or the script. Jake Sully is a bad protagonist and I don't know if James Cameron really realizes it.

 

And then finally, the problems that plagued the original film are still here. Namely, how James Cameron treats and sees Indigenous people. It feels James Cameron when writing the script thinks "well they can't call it a white savior movie if everybody is just different shades of blue." For heavens sake the Māori inspired TEAL Na'vi are lead by WHITE Kate Winslet doing her best (and by that I mean racist) "native" accent. The Sully kids are all white. There is still so much whiteness. It's clear that James Cameron does not respect the indigenous cultures he appropriates in the films. And until that changes, Avatar is going to continue to be a very bad series.

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I’ll do every nominated movie this year. Even though my belief is that the Academy Awards are dumb 

[.Rei]

Give us M3gan!!

[Alex95]

I still haven’t seen the new Avatar because I’ve been too lazy to sit in a movie theater for 3+ hours when I didn’t even like the first one all that much

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13 hours ago, .Rei said:

Give us M3gan!!

you mean the greatest film i've ever seen in my entire life

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5 hours ago, Alex95 said:

I still haven’t seen the new Avatar because I’ve been too lazy to sit in a movie theater for 3+ hours when I didn’t even like the first one all that much

LOL I effectively got paid to see it because I saw it with my aunt who overpaid me for the tickets. Because I felt the exact same way you did about the first one. It's not a great movie!

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M3GAN (January 2023)

 

Giving the people (@.Rei) what they want and it's M3GAN.

 

I think the optimal viewing experience of M3GAN is watching it in a group. Whether that's in a theater full of people, at yours or a friend's home with a group of people, or online chatting about it while it's happening. I saw it in a theater full of gays. Not intentionally but I know that's how it happened because as I was mouthing along to Nicole Kidman's AMC ad so was everybody else. And this is the type of movie where if somebody yells at the screen "YAAS Queen" while the android is attacking somebody then it's fine because the movie feels like it plans for that to happen.

 

There's nothing new or inventive about M3GAN. If you've watched the trailers you know what's going to happen. If you've read the tagline or premise you probably can predict what will happen beat by beat. But M3GAN knows that. It knows that you are going to come without a lot of suspense. What it excels at and why it's gotten such good reviews and why this movie is going to persist is that it plays the line of horror comedy perfectly (The Menu also does this very well but it's a movie with more surprise and with a little more black comedy to it). There is a kind of bonkers-quality to M3GAN that makes me very much wonder what goes on in Akela Cooper's head as she writes scripts like this and like Malignant. I think what makes the movie so successful is that we the audience KNOW that the creepy android that's straight uncanny valley is obviously a bad idea. And the movie doesn't try to play it any other way. It's a hard thing to do.

 

Anyway, it's wild that like everybody involved in this movie has no idea why it's so popular with the #GAYS. It's because you have a doll that is the embodiment of a Real Housewife going around murdering people and occasionally giving us a musical number. The reason we like M3GAN is the same reason we like the best Real Housewives: she dresses better than I can and she's not holding back in being a bitch. And the fact that the people who made it don't seem to understand why that's the reason is probably the reason why a show like Real Housewives became a cornerstone franchise of a cable network and why Real Friends of WeHo is the worst rated TV show on IMDB.

 

 

[.Rei]

I went and watch it last week and in about 10 or 15 minutes in I knew exactly what kind of movie it was gonna be and I loved it for it

 

and like you said the horror/comedy mix was done to perfection!!

 

also the whole dancing was the most absurd thing but also the best thing ever

 

[.Rei]

17 hours ago, Alex95 said:

I still haven’t seen the new Avatar because I’ve been too lazy to sit in a movie theater for 3+ hours when I didn’t even like the first one all that much

me too!!

 

[#jeah]

Can’t wait for your EEAAO write up! I didn’t love it as much as most did but am interested in your thoughts!

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12 hours ago, .Rei said:

also the whole dancing was the most absurd thing but also the best thing ever

The first time M3GAN sang my entire theater was SCREAMING because of the absurdity of it all

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Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (Seen January 2023)

 

Not since Blockers have I seen a movie with as deceptively bad marketing in trailers as Puss in Boots. Because I saw the trailers and expected this to be a goofy movie about like Puss in Boots learning how to retire. And instead it's a drama about learning to live the life you have and facing the fact that you are one day going to die!!!!!!!!

 

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is the best type of kids movie because it's one that doesn't try to dumb down material just because it is inherently targeted towards children. It treats its audience as if it has the emotional capacity to understand the subject matter and it's all the better for it. And I think that's why you see it getting these well-deserved rave reviews. I don't think it's a secret that the Shrek franchise has felt kind of stale resulting in Puss in Boots: The Last Wish as it's first proper installment in over a decade. I'm not going to lie, Shrek 3 was so bad I nearly walked out of my showing. It was so bad I didn't even both seeing Shrek Forever After nor the first Puss in Boots. And I think that smartly this movie does not assume you've seen really anything beyond Shrek 2. It's as much a standalone movie as it is a member of the franchise. A lot of the fairy tale humor we expect from a Shrek movie is there (Little Jack Horner and Goldilocks and the Three Bears are the two featured fairy tale stories here). Overall the movie is funny and heartfelt.

 

And even more so, the animation is some of the best Western animation I've seen since Into the Spider-Verse. The existing gifs out there don't even do it justice. It honestly feels like a complete overhaul of what we've come to expect from Dreamworks which honestly hasn't been known for pushing the boundaries of animation. But watching this, it blows like even most of the recent Disney/Pixar/Illumination etc out of the water. I watch A LOT of animation, and this movie left me feeling genuinely impressed.

 

Puss in Boots is worth your time. Especially because you don't even need to be versed in any other member of the Shrek Franchise. It's around 1hr45min and ever moment feels deliberate and earned. Watch it in theaters. When it comes out on streaming. ETC.

 

 

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Infinity Pool (Seen February 2023)

 

I know it's going to seem a little odd since the featured gif for this is Alexander Skarsgård being walked on a leash, but I feel that Infinity Pool didn't really go far enough. I actually wonder if I would have liked this more if I didn't know the premise beforehand so I could go in a bit more blind. I actually feel the trailer gave too much away (I feel that's a problem with a lot of horror/thrillers trailers these days and actually one of the reasons that Hereditary  was so successful in it's plot because the trailers deliberately mislead you. It's a fine line though because you don't want to be so misleading that you get a Blockers style thing. You want more vibes than anything).

 

To save you what I felt, I'm going to focus on vibes, and given the movie's and director Brandon Cronenberg's focus on the aesthetics of the movie over a lot of everything else that feels correct. And don't get me wrong, a movie can be 1hr52min of aesthetics at the sacrifice of being more decisive in its social commentary. It's clearly meant to be a play of being so rich to the destruction of a man's soul. And I think it could have been played more that way if they gave Cleopatra Coleman a more interesting counterpart as Skarsgård's character's wife Em to Mia Goth's more seductive and mysterious Gabi. Instead it's hard to see what's keeping Skarsgård from falling into this hedonistic and morally corrupt lifestyle that Gabi and her circle indulge in.

 

One more criticism. For this movie, it would have felt more complete if you saw Alexander Skarsgård's penis. The fact you don't see it but you essentially see full frontal of Mia Goth (and some other women) is just disappointing for a movie that is so much about hedonism that it really only indulges in showing us the women and the only man we see naked is meant to be a grotesque comparison to his female companions. I plead for the 2020s to give us more dicks in R-Rated movies.

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Top Gun: Maverick (Seen May 2022)

 

A long time ago so this is mostly vibes but again the voters of the Academy surely just did their voting on vibes anyway (well vibes and targeted campaigns LOL) so there's no difference between me and an Academy voter.

 

I didn't really have any intention of seeing Top Gun Maverick. I've actually never seen the first one and I don't really like Tom Cruise. But a friend of mine wanted to go and asked me if I could go with her since I have AMC A-List and see movies all the time. And again I ended up getting COVID from seeing Lightyear so I really go see anything. And I think I had a really fun time. Top Gun Maverick isn't re-writing the script or anything on a US Military propaganda movie but it does everything very well. It's a fun time. The movie isn't that deep. There's not much to really say beyond the like "cool factor" of the movie. And the fact that pretty much every scene and area is like really familiar to me. And I'm always a sucker for practical effects, especially in this day and age where some of the top grossing movies are basically entirely CGI when it comes to stunts. 

 

I think my biggest criticisms of the movie have to do with how they approached making a Top Gun movie for release in 2022. Obviously they wanted to diversify the cast but even with a diversified cast, it felt like anybody who wasn't one of he main white guys was a token character. I mean for goodness sake they cast Manny Jacinto and I don't think there's a single clear shot of his face. Additionally, I don't know why Kelly McGinnis wasn't asked to come back for even like a brief moment (lol actually I do know why). And it's also weird that Meg Ryan wasn't in this at all considering that the central character conflict is Maverick's guilt over Goose's death and projecting that guilt onto his son Miles Teller (I don't know his character's name NOR do I remember Glen Powell's character's name). And just facetiously, for such a homoerotically charged movie, it would have been improved if Miles Teller and Glen Powell kissed just a little.

 

This movie is a fun romp. It's also military propaganda. Somehow it manages to be less jingoistic than Avatar.

[Alex95]

When people talk about "turn off your brain and watch a movie" that's what Top Gun Maverick was to me. It was a very fine popcorn movie, very well done. Is it one of the "best pictures of the year"? No. But I enjoyed it well enough. It's not topping my end of year lists, but I didn't regret seeing it.

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13 minutes ago, Alex95 said:

When people talk about "turn off your brain and watch a movie" that's what Top Gun Maverick was to me. It was a very fine popcorn movie, very well done. Is it one of the "best pictures of the year"? No. But I enjoyed it well enough. It's not topping my end of year lists, but I didn't regret seeing it.

that's exactly how I feel. It felt a little left field for the Academy to nominate it, but since expanding to 10 they probably felt relieved they didn't have to nominate a superhero movie to get their like "blockbuster" best picture nomination

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The Woman King

 

Going from a film I don't think should have been nominated for Best Picture to the film that I think was so unfairly shut out of the Academy Awards that if I hadn't already given up on the validity of awards after Carol won ZERO awards and Suicide Squad won ONE award in the same ceremony that I would have given it up here. I read this article from The Hollywood Reporter dictated by Gina Prince-Bythewood and what struck me was this quote:

Quote

As I moved through this awards season, I was struck by the Academy members who simply didn’t want to see the film. People thought it was a compliment at some of our screenings to tell me they had to be dragged there, because they didn’t think it was a film for them, or spoke of contemporaries who couldn’t be convinced to come with them, and being so surprised by how much they loved the film. To hear that over and over, it’s tough to stomach.

 

I'd say it baffles me. That Academy members (and voters) would think it was a chore to see this movie. But it doesn't. It's a movie helmed by a black director not named Jordan Peele (whose Nope was also unjustly shutout as well) or Spike Lee. (Or Steve McQueen whose Widows also starring Viola Davis was shutout). (Or Barry Jenkins who lost to f*cking Damien Chazelle who directed the thoroughly JUST FINE La La Land) starring a nearly entirely black cast and helmed from top to bottom by women. Maria Bello and Dana Stevens wrote the story with input from Gina Prince-Bythewood; Cathy Schulman and Viola Davis join Maria Bello to comprise 3 of the 4 producers (Viola Davis's husband is the 4th producer); each of cinematography and editing are headed by a woman. The big exception is Terence Blanchard a black man (and former Academy Award nominee) who is responsible for the Original Score. And Academy members, who are 81% white and over 60% male, saw that and thought this movie wasn't for them.

 

There's a reason why Andrea Riseborough's "grassroots" campaign targeted voters through suggesting Viola Davis and Danielle Deadwyler had nominations on lock and thus no need to vote for them as opposed to Cate Blanchett or Michelle Yeoh. (LOL Ana De Armas's nomination is even more egregious but AMPAS will always look for a way to exclude black women from the biggest categories).

 

But they'll see and nominate Top Gun Maverick even though that's a story for military propaganda. Or Avatar which is James Cameron's way of being like "I can't be accused of cultural appropriation or racism if all the characters in my movie are blue."

 

It's such a shame because this is such an achievement of a movie. It's not a perfect movie, but it's about 95% excellent. And I'll get the two big annoying storylines out of the way first both involve Thuso Mbedu's character Nawi. SPOILERS:

 

1) Nawi's romance storyline with Malik and 2) Nawi turning out to be Nanisca's daughter.

 

END SPOILERS

 

The two storylines are just unnecessary. They don't really add anything. And the romance story in particular actively detracts from the movie. The movie could have written out Malik entirely and the movie would still have the same impact and I struggle to figure out what he really brings. But these two points are essentially the only weaknesses of the movie. The entire cast from Viola Davis to Thuso Mbedu to the ALWAYS welcome Lashana Lynch are stars. I don't think it's controversial to declare this as Viola Davis's best performance of her career. It's easy to imagine an alternate universe of this movie helmed by less capable people. If Nanisca isn't played by Viola Davis and in turn her character turns one dimensional. If the movie isn't navigated by the deft hand of Gina Prince-Bythewood whose interest in telling the stories of women, particularly black women, changes this from a character driven movie to merely another shallow summer popcorn film.

 

I believe The Woman King is out on streaming platforms now, and while that can't replicate the impact of seeing it on the big screen (as this is really a movie that does benefit from being in theaters in the way that like any action historical epic does), it's still a movie that deserves to be seen. It's really fantastic.

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A Thousand and One

 

If Teyana Taylor ever ends up on DWTS we as a nation will have failed her incredible talent.

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Misc Actors and Actresses Whose Talents are Wasted in the MCU

 

As you know, MCU and I are in an apathetic state. Here's the list of actors and actresses I want FREED. Look I know they all are getting the BAG from MCU (well hopefully! The current SAG strikes show that money in Hollywood is fake and all concentrated with executives!).

 

Elizabeth Olsen

I cannot believe that Elizabeth Olsen's first movie was just the absolutely PERFECT Martha Marcy May Marlene. And then after that she was the best part in some mediocre to terrible movies. And then she instantly becomes one of the best actors in the MCU. Despite that she never really gets the chance to shine until Wandavision which was really good and really weird until it devolved into the typical MCU CGI-fest. I can't fault her for getting the bag, but like. I need this woman to star in something that isn't a Scarlet Witch TV Show. MMMM proved that she is so insanely talented. And she's great in movies like Wind River and the underrated Ingrid Goes West. But most of the time she's being wasted by being a side character in the MCU.

 

Brie Larson

Brie Larson is one of the best actresses of today. And now she's playing a non-gay Captain Marvel who they are going to keep insinuating is gay. So in that way it's just like the comic books where compulsive heterosexuality is the only thing preventing the Captain Marvel/Spider-Woman ship from coming true. At least Brie Larson grabbed her Academy Award before getting her MCU role. But it would be preferable to see her in the Fast & Furious cinematic universe. Just free her. Free me. Because as long as the MCU continues like the only movies I will continue to see are the Captain Marvel movies. Because look at Brie Larson.

 

Zoe Saldaña

Free Zoe Saldaña. Not just from the MCU but the Avatar Universe and the soulless Star Trek remake movies. I get it. If I could coast my way to being the highest grossing actress of all time internationally by just like using 10% of my talents I would! How is this woman not in more things?!??!??!!? How is her slate of movies only like MCU, Avatar, Star Trek, Pirates of the Caribbean. I want to see Zoe Saldaña do something!!!!!!! Honestly, I should have started this list with her.

 

Mahershala Ali

We let Mahershala win his academy award, get nominated for a second, and then the MCU was like "that's enough acting, time to remake Blade." Where were the studios making interesting movies to prevent this from happening!

 

Zendaya

The MCU is going to make Tom Holland Spider-Man movies until Tom Holland dies. I don't care if Tom Holland has ever said or ever says "This is my last Spider-Man movie" they are the only consistent thing in the MCU right now and Spider-Man is a cash cow. What, they are just going to let Tom Holland and Peter Parker go back to Sony???? Absolutely not. Until they can make another deal to steal Miles Morales we are stuck with Tom Holland's Spider-Man which means that Zendaya is also stuck in Spider-Man. Free her not just from the MCU but also Sam Levinson.

 

 

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just getting this to a new page

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