2021 in review

personally, i had a pretty great year this year. my boyfriend moved in with my fiancx & i, i got to see my other partners... not as much as i’d like, but a non-zero amount, i got meds for my adhd which helped me get back into reading as a hobby (hence the list of favorite first reads included here), and i made even more progress with my transition!

obviously the ongoing pandemic and rapidly deteriorating political situation in my capitalist hellscape of a country was a dark specter hanging over everything, but i still have a lot to be thankful for this year, and i’m going to keep holding on to the things and people i love. i will never stop fighting for them.

🌑🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘🌑

movies

1. the matrix resurrections s-rank

2. my little pony: a new generation s-rank

3. aquaman a-rank

4. muppets haunted mansion a-rank

5. halloweentown a-rank

6. no time to die a-rank

7. dune (2021) a-rank

8. candyman (2021)

this is just an incredibly good horror movie. i’m genuinely kind of at a loss for what to even say about it. it has one of the best endings of any horror movie ever. it’s so fucking cathartic. a-rank

9. godzilla vs. kong (2021) a-rank

10. ghostbusters: afterlife a-rank

🌑🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘🌑

books

1. wild magic

by tamora pierce

oh my goddess.

tamora pierce has always been one of those authors who whenever her name came up i felt a vague tugging like i was missing out on something that would be a Really, Really Big Deal to me, so to have that confirmed in such an immediate, overpowering way upon reading my first book by her is stirring feelings i don’t quite have words for.

i have always wanted more fantasy (especially magic-focused fantasy) in my library, but the few times i’ve tried to get into fantasy i’ve been recommended epics with thick plots and paper-thin characters, and like... there’s a REASON i think lord of the rings makes much better movies than it does books, y’all! so to have something THIS exactly what i’m looking for fall into my lap is really something else.

project rewatch 2021 progress

now that my boyfriend moved in with us, he’s gonna join in too! yay!

if you’re just joining us, on our first anniversary my fiancx and i had a slumber party and we decided to each make a list of movies we watched over & over as kids so we could start watching them together. because we’re dorks.

the matrix resurrections (2021)

what if the kind of Love Conquers All story that i was always writing in my messy, earnest high school fanfiction (which should tell you that it’s important and meaningful to me in a way few kinds of narratives are) but set in the universe that taught me how to tell stories? written and directed by one of my favorite filmmakers/heroes? and afforded the weight of a hollywood budget?

i get why some people are disappointed. the score, which helped lift the trilogy to thunderous heights, and even a lot of the visuals are just kinda… not as special? not bad per se, but certainly not what you might expect from a matrix movie. gone are the highly choreographed fight scenes that push the limits of what we’re allowed to expect from fight scenes in hollywood blockbusters, which is doubtless extra disappointing considering how excited everyone was about getting a post-john wick keanu reeves back in the shades.

and yet… and yet.

i’ve heard grumbling about the fact that neo is rescued not because of some grand need for his return, but because bugs & friends… just kinda feel like it? and this so completely misses the point i just kind of don’t even know where to start? like, you really want to tell me it would’ve been better to have some incredibly overwrought, contrived need for neo rather than just… compassion? not wanting your hero to suffer endless torment forever when you can fucking do something about it?

how do you miss that point when it was neo’s kindness to a synthient child decades ago that made the formidable adult she now is willing to help him rescue trinity? his sacrifice that brought humans and synthients (including said synthient girl) together in peace? has it occurred to no one that heroes do the right thing because it’s the right thing?

it also feeds into neo returning to the fold of the human world, and discovering that far from receiving a hero’s welcome with parades he probably would’ve hated anyway, he’s… inconvenient. and that’s way more interesting to me than him getting dragged out kicking and screaming because he’s needed.

it also parallels his desire to save trinity being motivated by, you know, the fact that he fucking loves her. and bugs & sati & co. chomping at the bit to help because it’s the right thing to do.

speaking of which, bugs’ crew (and bugs herself) are a group of messy queer genderfucks, and i am only just now talking about that and am going to move on almost immediately because there is just too much else to talk about. HOW DOES THIS MOVIE EXIST???

the “neo’s main move is basically force push” thing, while a lot more valid of a complaint, actually fits perfectly with the aforementioned “embarrassing” fanfiction that to this day i defiantly refuse to be embarrassed by. on top of that, neo and trinity’s powers are fueled by proximity to each other. their love is so powerful that having them close together powers the entire fucking matrix, but if they get too close they’ll be too powerful and be a threat. and and and they’re forced into taking a leap of faith and trinity is the one who flies this time, reversing their dynamic and showing that she’s just as powerful as neo, making their status as true equals even more obvious (even though they were actually already there in all but superficial power level).

you guys… fuck. this movie caters so perfectly to 15-year-old me it’s almost kinda alarming?

the money shot of this movie is neo and trinity desperately reaching for each other while held back by hordes of armored cops, while the big bad shouts in panic to STOP THEM from touching each other because they’ll be too powerful if they’re united. and one breathtaking action scene later they’re kissing passionately in the real world and i fucking sobbed, y’all. i think i might’ve actually cried harder than i did when trinity died in revolutions, but they were resoundingly happy tears. that… doesn’t happen every day, okay?

and then they confront the analyst to let him know they’re gonna fucking remake the world with literal rainbows in the sky and i just. FUCK! this is exactly the movie i needed right now.

this movie is a godsdamned resounding vindication of the kind of storytelling i was doing as an adolescent, only better in every way. i cannot begin to properly convey how important this is to me. i’m not completely sure this won’t end up being my favorite film of all time after a suitable cooling off period.

and believe it or not, i have some even more personal reasons for loving this movie that i’m not sure it makes sense to talk about, but maybe i will on a subsequent viewing. who knows? all i know is i don’t think i’m gonna run out of things to talk about in this movie anytime soon. i’ve barely scratched the surface. i just needed to get all this out there right now because seriously damn. s-rank

the spider-man cinematic universe

spider-man (2002)

you simply do not get the unstoppable juggernaut of the modern superhero movie scene if it isn’t for sam raimi’s first two spider-man movies, but despite any surface-level similarities and causal relationships these movies could scarcely have less in common with the relentless marvel/disney engine spewing out three to four largely interchangeable movies a year.

these movies defined the way a generation saw peter parker and mary jane watson and all the other characters in their orbit, but if somebody tried to bring their own weirdness into the proceedings to this degree today they’d get edgar wrighted.

admittedly, i think edgar wright is severely overrated and that not enough people are talking about the fact that the man CANNOT WRITE WOMEN, but somehow i don’t think the studio that propped up joss whedon and took almost three phases to get to a female-led flick and fridged black widow gives a damn about that? pretty sure it was the whole wanting to make a movie that was recognizably his thing that was the sticking point. and, you know, in spite of the extremely famous studio interference in the third and final act, wow, these movies are so recognizably raimi’s.

these movies made me care about superhero movies. that passion couldn’t survive my increasing political education opening my eyes to the fact that the mcu-led modern superhero movie landscape is an evaporating layer of paint over the most blatant u.s. imperialist propaganda this side of radio free asia, but watching these really does take me back to a more innocent time.

it’s also impossible to really go back, though. and while that observation is often made wistfully or mournfully, that’s... very much not the place i’m coming from. because gods, i do not want to go back to not noticing that it’s pretty fucking weird that this movie wants you to sympathize with peter when after watching m.j. chased out of her front door by her drunk father’s shouted abuse, he trails after her and bemoans his inability to approach her and try to chat her up??? not to ask, you know, whoa, hey, are you okay??? but to ask her if she fucking wants to go on a date??? yeah. YEAH. do not want to be blind to that shit anymore, sorry.

look, much like edgar wright, sam raimi’s movies having their own personality doesn’t mean i always like the personality they have. his spider-man movies are the movies of his i mostly like, though. i never cared for the evil dead movies, and i didn’t like the few smaller horror movies of his i’ve seen either. i just... don’t really go in for gross-out horror? it’s never been my taste. but seeing the weirdness and quirkiness and blunt showiness of his style applied to something as clean and broadly entertaining as fucking spider-man??? yeah. YEAH. that’ll WORK!

a brother’s price by wen spencer

 i remembered being hella sad when i was done reading this book (especially after discovering there were no sequels), and, yeah, very much the case again now. i could keep following these characters and this world basically forever. i love them so much! beautiful, clever jerin. eldest whistler, ren, and halley giving us so many different flavors of badass! cullen being this world’s equivalent of a tomboy, but cleaning up so nicely.

the narrative voice is pretty straightforward but there’s something i really like about it? it’s so effortless to get sucked into. i love how protective everyone is of jerin. i love the setting. i love that this is just a dumb, wonderful romance with a side of palace intrigue and military swashbuckling. i love how the gender flip plays into all this.

most of all, i just love being able to, even briefly, live in a world where the expectation of amab people is that they’re pretty and soft and need to be protected and cherished. that you’re expected to be more nurturing, more gentle, more submissive. this book meant a lot to me when i read it early on in college. i was in the middle of questioning my gender identity and sexual orientation, so having something that played with gender the way this did as just a baked-in part of the setting was just so exactly what i needed. as i reread it now i do find myself at timmes wishing that it had been done differently. specifically i don’t like the idea that men had to be more scarce to sort of justify why society developed the way it did? and the society presented here does not seem to have any room in it for transgender and nonbinary individuals, or even amab gay people. (nor is there much room for lesbians, though lesbian sex does at least come up a few times.)

oh, and there’s the fact that everything is based on procreation. procreation is… not something i’ve ever been interested in. i’m ace, actually, so the whole scarcity of males and desperate need for the ones that exist to procreate would… really not work for me? so all the aforementioned is obviously not great for me in terms of wish fulfilment. but idk? even taking it all into account, at times this book is just… perfect. i just want to slip right into jerin’s shoes.

yeah, it isn’t a perfect fit for me, because in this fictional society boys are still expected to eventually be comfortable being called “men,” and… yeah. that one will never really work for me? i’ve tried being a cis boy, a trans girl, an enby, an enby boy… that last one has stuck alright, even if it at times has seemed ironic that i found my way back to some kind of boyhood, but one thing i have never at any point been comfortable with is the word “man”?

and before you start worrying, i get that in actuality, it will be better for everyone (including me) to fight for a more egalitarian society, and i’m certainly never going to advocate for a society like this one, but… still… having had such a hard time carving out a gendered space for myself that makes any kind of sense, and having to explain and justify it all the time… it’s hard to read something like this and not wish that i could just wake up in a world where my kind of boyhood is the default assumption.

(... on the other hand, i kind of love being neutered, and that is very much something that world wouldn’t let boys do. shrug.)

it’s a pity there wasn’t a sequel, and doesn’t seem to be any sign the author is considering one. aside from my aforementioned misgivings about it, i really want more books in this setting. or at least a similar setting. i’ve kind of scoured the internet for recommendations for similar books, and i’m gonna try reading a few that popped up in that search, but i’m not sure i’m gonna find anything that will quite hit this exact same spot.

there’s a flippant part of me that wants to say “maybe i’ll just write one!” but i’m not going to pretend for even a second that i could do so nearly as skillfully as wen spencer did. on top of all the wish fulfillment, this is just such a terrific read! i just really, really didn’t want it to end. s-rank

the resident evil movies

resident evil (2002)

yo it me your favorite paul w.s. anderson apologist here to remind you that the resident evil movies are good actually??? like, this one is basically just a perfectly passable zombie movie with one or two resident evily elements and really bad cgi and the sequels are basically just perfectly passable action hero vehicles for milla jovovich (think an arnold schwarzenegger movie but with a hot lady instead of him) with one or two resident evily elements and bad cgi and yeah i’ll take it!

also it’s paul w.s. anderson so everything is brightly lit and the camera is always moving like michael bay but for some reason less offensively like there’s a different universe where anderson had bay’s slot as the super actually successful director with this kind of style that studios actually trust with money AND I WANT THAT UNIVERSE, GUYS. i want that universe.

oh also i’m very gay for michelle rodriguez in this one and she says a few very horny/dommy things and i’m into it.

anyway, yeah. these are fun. i like them. b-rank

🌑🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘🌑

resident evil: apocalypse

it’s tempting to say the reason this is the worst one is because paul w.s. anderson didn’t direct it (at least, it is for me), but extinction is the only other one not directed by anderson and it’s one of my favorites of the series. also, like, apocalypse isn’t the worst of the series by much! it kind of stuck in my mind as The Bad One for years, but really it’s on about the same level as the rest of its siblings, just a bit behind them.

also, this is the start of milla jovovich: action hero being the central thrust of these movies, so, that’s awesome!

resident evil is badly overdue for one of those It’s Good Actually popular critical renaissances like fast & furious got, but i don’t think it’s ever gonna happen, and that’s just really sad!

the ghostbusters movies

ghostbusters (1984)

“do you believe in ufos, astral projections, mental telepathy, esp, clairvoyance, spirit photography, telekinetic movement, full trance mediums, the loch ness monster, and the theory of atlantis?”

so, let me get this straight. in one corner, you have gozer the gozerian. a nonbinary deity whose chosen form in the movie is a femme with massive Will Step On You energy. their keymaster directly told a horse that all prisoners will be released when gozer is in power. gozer later transformed him into a dog, and upon transforming back he was clearly less than thrilled about being a human again. at their back is a literal motherfucking army of the dead that they don’t even need because they are clearly capable of taking on just about any force the earth can throw at them by themself.

in the other corner, we have the ghostbusters and the city, state, and county of new york.

the ghostbusters. you know. two scientists with their heads in the clouds, a guy just looking to collect a paycheck who both movies barely acknowledge his existence even when he’s onscreen to the point where you kinda wonder why they bothered including him at all, and their de facto leader who is a fairly accomplished con artist and a fairly unaccomplished sex pest. those guys. who the movie shows bravely show standing against the horror of *checks notes* any government oversight of businesses whatsoever.

and the city, state, and county of new york. you know. one of the most racist and corrupt city governments in the world, whose police force is basically a private army whose primary purpose is harassing marginalized groups and hemming them in to “their” parts of the city, keeping them away from the parts frequented by tourists and people who wear expensive italian suits. honestly, the only good thing about new york is actually showcased in the opening act: the new york public library.

and you want me to fucking root for THE SECOND TWO???

spooky movie season mini-reviews

little witch academia (2013) &
little witch academia: the enchanted parade

i kinda loved both of these but what finally clicked for me with the second one is that i hate akko as a protagonist. i love literally everyone else, including diana who i’m not supposed to like because she’s bullying the protagonist but like... she is better than her!! she’s brave, she’s constantly saving people from their own fuckups... yeah her elitism sucks, but with some guidance she can grow out of that! and she’s also the only character in this who points out what i immediately thought of the parade, which is that it’s just weird and degrading to throw a parade celebrating the organized mass torture and murder of witches???

akko, on the other hand, is completely selfish and just bulldozes over her friends’ feelings and then does literally nothing to fix it and just waits for them to come back to her which they do???? and i just want to know what i’m supposed to think about any of this.

but like... these still own!!! all the magic action sequences, especially at the parade in the second one, rule. and again i love literally all the other characters i didn’t even get around to gushing about amanda or any of her crew!! i just... hate the protagonist, and she gets rewarded for awful behavior and just... oh gosh oh no she’s just literally harry potter isn’t she.

please tell me she gets better in the series please i’m begging you. b-rank

🌑🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘🌑

halloweentown

this has been on my “i absolutely need to watch this” list for basically ever, but i kept putting it off. largely because i was terrified that i missed the boat by not seeing it as a kid, and it would be one of those nostalgic faves where you watch it too late and you’re like “yeah sorry i don’t get it.”

which would be depressing as heck because the movie is about a town where it’s HECKING ALWAYS HALLOWEEN, ARE YOU KIDDING? THAT IS THE RADDEST THING EVER!!! but of course i ended up liking it, because it’s about a town where IT’S HECKING ALWAYS HALLOWEEN, ARE YOU KIDDING? THAT IS THE RADDEST THING EVER!!!

the timothy dalton, pierce brosnan, and daniel craig bond movies

the living daylights

it’s a good bond movie but it’s still a bond movie? a guilty pleasure to be sure. like, at a point i don’t really know what to say. dalton is a good bond, and both of his movies are good. the propaganda is as thick as usual. it’s all the equivalent of a big shrug. like, i’m just not ever going to go to bat for these movies, even the ones i enjoy.

the “based on disney rides” cinematic universe

tower of terror

“one word: forget it.”

the quote from the hollywood reporter on the cover promises, “a thrill ride!” i have to imagine they’re talking about the theme park ride. i’ve been on that ride once. I DID NOT HAVE A GOOD TIME. so perhaps this was actually appropriate. d-rank

🌑🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘🌑

the country bears

“at country bear hall you could be different and still fit in.”

it was terrible but there were enough things about it that were wildly entertaining to make it on the whole not a terrible experience? the music was surprisingly good for the most part and all the happy family stuff was nice but what really made it worthwhile was a god-tier christopher walken performance. i loved every second he was on the screen. oh and there is a comically-bad scene in a carwash that was so bad it looped back to good. they were just going for it. c-rank

🌑🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘🌑

pirates of the caribbean: the curse of the black pearl

“i’m dishonest, and a dishonest man you can 

always trust to be dishonest. honestly.”

extremely brave of hollywood to make billions of dollars making movies about pirates and then tell us not to pirate movies.

the addams family megareview

we watched all the addams family movies to get ready for the addams family 2 and then didn’t bother seeing the addams family 2 because the first animated one was pretty bad. still, not exactly upset that we had an excuse to watch the rest of them, especially the 90s ones!

🌑🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘🌑

the addams family (1991)

the things that are amazing about this movie are so unassuming that i always forget that it’s one of my favorite movies of all time until i actually sit down and watch it. and just… there’s so many reasons to love this movie!!

if you solve enough problems, you get to come home

every human being has a basic instinct: to help each other out. if a hiker gets lost in the mountains, people will coordinate a search. if a train crashes, people will line up to give blood. if an earthquake levels a city, people all over the world will send emergency supplies. this is so fundamentally human that it’s found in every culture without exception. yes, there are assholes who just don’t care, but they’re massively outnumbered by the people who do.

this is the first time i have seen this since i saw it in theaters. i saw it with him. he was really excited for it. i was, too, because i love me some space bullshit, but he had read the book and stuff so yeah. this was during a time when i saw a lot of films with him, and he unfortunately left a mark on quite a few of them in my memories, but this one is strongly associated with him.

i did love it when i saw it, though. it was in a virtual tie for my favorite movie at the time with mad max: fury road. the way i look at movies has changed a lot since then, so a lot of my feelings and (especially) ratings of movies from that time are kinda sus. the strong association with him made it extra hard to trust my recollection, but my gut feeling was still that i would enjoy it when i got around to seeing it again. and to my great relief, that ended up being the case.

although not watching it in the interim did have a lot to do with my uncertainty, i think this ended up being pretty much the perfect situation to revisit it. first of all, i had my arch-nerd fiancx and girlfriend who both have read the book and both are major math and engineering geeks, so that helped overwrite a lot of those associations. my boyfriend had also seen and enjoyed the movie previously, and we often have similar feelings about storytelling and how it works/doesn’t work/should work, so yeah. kind of the perfect group to revisit this with.

it also helps that just, like… duh, of course i love this movie. i’m kind of always an easy mark for space movies, but this one actually has an additional factor going for it. once nasa realizes that mark is alive, the story becomes about this incredibly huge group of smart and dedicated people putting all their resources into saving him. just tackling impossible problem after impossible problem because failure isn’t an option. and yeah, hi? are you kidding me? i’ll take two! that is exactly my kind of shit.

add to that the fact that they managed to make mars look just beyond gorgeous, and the fact that there is a lot more humor and characterization than i remembered. i love how much mileage they got out of little moments in mark’s video logs where he says things like, “luckily [holds up his mission brief] i’m a botanist!” and, “so. yeah. i blew myself up.” and it’s all just so relatable and personal.

i also forgot how amazing commander lewis is! (this is one of vanessa’s favorite things about the movie.) she’s so damn dedicated to her team and constantly putting herself in harm’s way so no one else has to, she’s like a human-shaped wrecking ball when one of her team needs something. it’s just the absolute perfect approach to leadership. and it makes it so cathartic and emotional when she’s the one who catches mark. that’s when i started crying the first time i saw it. this time it was when everyone in mission control and around the world was cheering and celebrating.

this movie is incredible and i’m so glad i can say that without any doubt again.

it isn’t his, it’s mine. s-rank

gamera & friends, part 1: the shōwa era

gamera, the giant monster

“gamera’s a good turtle.”

i love me some gamera but his first movie is just kind of okay, and i remember feeling that way about a lot of the shōwa era gameras, but i’m super open to having my mind changed! i do enjoy the symmetry of gamera being launched into space at the end and the next godzilla movie being invasion of astro-monster. i know that was probably completely unintentional on both studios’ parts, but it’s still pretty cute.

godzilla & friends, part 2: the later shōwa era

invasion of astro-monster (1965)

“on earth, you gave this terrifying monster the name of ghidorah. everything is numbered here. the monster is zero.”

apparently there are a lot of complaints about the special effects budget being noticeably smaller in this one, as well as quite a bit of footage from previous films being reused, but i honestly wasn’t even a little bothered? and like, that brief little godzilla and rodan vs. ghidorah fight at the end is actually a drastically better fight than the bigger, longer one in ghidorah, the three-headed monster? (on a more personal/thirsty note, there’s a moment in the brief fight on planet x where godzilla just runs full speed at ghidorah, jump-tackles him, and briefly straddles him, and i am so fucking jealous of that three-headed bitch.)

in addition to that pretty worthwhile fight at the end, we get a pretty extended sequence of godzilla, rodan and ghidorah just kinda stomping around destroying buildings and it kinda super works for me. this sequence has a ton of closeups of godzilla destroying things by stepping on them or just carelessly thrashing his tail around if you’re into that kind of thing, not that... not that, uh, i am or anything *nervous laugh* the uh absolute helplessness of the humans’ massive artillery barrages to do anything to even so much as slow the monsters down is... uh... also definitely not a huge turn-on or anything. ok but seriously this sequence definitely doesn’t only work for me because i’m a thirsty bitch (... though it certainly doesn’t hurt), it’s also just pretty effective in spite of the alleged constraints on the special effects budget.

the star trek tos movies

star trek: the motion picture

“jim… [grasps his hand] this simple feeling is so far beyond v’ger’s comprehension.”

gene roddenberry had a really good idea that for the most part functioned best when roddenberry himself had as little control over it as possible.

the dc extended universe so far

man of steel (2013)

“welcome to the planet.”

i didn’t hate this nearly as much this time around!

there were some pretty serious missteps, to be sure. kal-el’s birth scene felt weirdly stiff and emotionless. it’s not the kind of moment a zack snyder-directed/chris nolan-produced flick is ever gonna nail, so having that be what sets the tone of your movie is kind of a strange choice? and it really informs a lot of the other problems this movie has, especially early on.

that’s the thing with this movie. all the problems that used to make me way more critical are still there. and on top of those, it has your usual usa propaganda that all of these things have, but it isn’t nearly as thick as say, nolan’s batman trilogy or the marvel movies. it’s annoying, but you kinda know what you’re getting into here.

was this great? nah. does it line up with the way i’d like to see superman movies go? heck no. but what’s really changed is me. i just kind of don’t have time to be angry about that stuff anymore.

so here we are. man of steel is just fine. it’s entertaining enough. it held my attention. it’s not amazing. but it’s fine. i can live with it. i don’t feel like bitching about freaking man of steel anymore, okay? it’s fine. just let it be. c-rank

🌑🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘🌑

batman v superman: dawn of justice (2016)

thomas, as he’s dying in the opening credits: “martha.”

me: [deadpan] “why did he say that name?”

the more times i see this the more i like it, actually. so that’s something.

especially structurally. this movie is very uncompromisingly itself, and it really kinda does feel like it has the rhythm of a long graphic novel. it also helps that a lot of the individual shots (especially in fight scenes) are composed like comic panels, which has been a strength of snyder’s comic adaptations since watchmen.

also the more i think about it the more the whole “doomsday being tacked on at the end is too much” complaint just doesn’t make a lick of sense to me. doomsday is a non-character that it’s hard to tell a story about other than “he punch superman a lot.” if you ask me, this was actually the perfect way to handle doomsday in a live action film franchise.

mostly i think i just am increasingly appreciating that this movie is something, rather than the carefully crafted bland nothing of the mcu. that matters to me more than whether my tastes entirely line up with snyder’s. just actually bring something to the table, that’s all i ask. b-rank

🌑🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘🌑

suicide squad (2016)

“stay evil, dollface.”

okay what the HELL?

i actually liked it. i actually LIKED it this time!!!

seriously WHAT???

was i just such a fucking marvel simp before that my view of all the dc movies was warped? or is it just because i’ve calmed the hell down about all of this and just see them as movies that are kinda fun?

we rewatched a 3-hour movie because we watched a youtube video about a theme park attraction based on it

you don’t often watch an almost three hour long movie on a whim, but i’ve wanted to rewatch avatar for literally years and just never seemed to get around to it for whatever reason.

i saw it multiple times when it was in theaters, and hadn’t seen it since. i actually even owned the extended edition on dvd for an embarrassingly long time without ever getting around to actually watching it.

every time i watch jenny nicholson’s excellent video about disney world’s pandora: the world of avatar i think to myself, “you know, i should really get around to rewatching that at some point” and i just so happened to be showing the video to vanessa today and--fully expecting the answer to be no--asked her afterwards if she wanted to watch avatar and she was actually game!

my opinion of this movie for years has been “i remember loving this in theaters but i kind of don’t trust that based on what i remember about it,” so it was a pretty huge relief that i actually did still kinda love this upon rewatching it!

i mean, you get to see a bratty sub catboy get constantly bullied and called an idiot/baby by two strong women until he stops being such a big dumb baby and helps smack around a bunch of imperialists in one of the biggest and most cathartic action scenes ever. what’s not to like???

in fact, i would go so far as to say that avatar is one (1) change away from being a five star movie. but unfortunately that needed change is a pretty huge one. jake sully should not be the Big Damn Hero of this movie.

i actually do not hate the idea of him being an audience surrogate character and ending up joining the na’vi? but he should have done so in a subordinate role. i love the na’vi culture, and him joining them makes perfect sense if they’ll have him. but once he did so he really should’ve continued being Just A Guy, and sure the na’vi should’ve leveraged his knowledge of the imperialists’ tactics and he should’ve fought bravely side by side with them, but he shouldn’t have basically singlehandedly united all the tribes and inspired them and led them and all that. it was just way, way too white saviory.

but, like! this movie still rules, you guys!!

it’s just so damn cathartic seeing the na’vi kick some colonizers’ asses!! and no it’s not subtle at all, your bad guys are literally a cliche corporate boss guy practicing golf putts and a grizzled bloodthirsty “oorah” marine, but who gives a fuck?? sometimes subtlety is overrated, and as far as visual shorthand for imperialism goes, this was nearly pitch perfect.

just ditch the white savior complex, and we’re golden! so close. a-rank