afterbite

Saw it earlier this week. I remember liking the first one, but this one bored me, sadly. The humor didn't hit for me - some of it felt punch-downish, and the rest just didn't land (for me). I have absolutely no investment in the Wichita/Columbus "romance", so all of that was a big miss for me as well. I was hoping for and expecting more. Maybe that was my downfall.

I'm so glad you posted this, because it's been a while since I read the books. I didn't think either of these things happened (especially the Gestalt thing, because the therapist business just happened), but couldn't remember. I spent the first 2 episodes convinced that Gestalt knew about the memory loss and made up the 'we slept together' thing to test the extent of it and to see what Myfawny would say in response. I've spent the last 2 episodes wondering which of them she slept with. It sounded like a one night thing, but I can't escape the mental picture of the other three just sitting around, eyes blank, focused in on the action.

That's actually just a cross-post. If you want the actual AMA, you can find it here.

This article talks about the styling choices for Captain Marvel in the Endgame trailers we've seen. I hadn't really put much thought into the fact that this is actually the 2nd film in which Brie has played Captain Marvel - they filmed Endgame first. This movie is often described as an origin story without prior introduction of a character when looking at the box office and the various ways it fits into the rankings in re: how many $$ were taken in. This is true, but it's also interesting that we'll see a whole movie of the actress evolving into the character after we see a whole movie of her being the character.

I think there are definitely the loud-mouth fringe people who are the 'whiny, fragile fanboys', but a distressing number of guys (distressing to me), can't seem to bring themselves to discuss this movie, even in a positive light, without saying 'Yeah, there was your girl power rah rah, but otherwise, this movie was fine. It wasn't too political.' This, to me, reads as 'If a guy has a 'guy power moment', that's normal. It's not a 'guy power' moment. It's just par for the course. If a girl has any scene where she infers that she doesn't care what a guy thinks, it's 'girl power', so okay, okay, let the feminists have it and move on. It was enough that we noticed it and thought it was cheesy, but we're not like those other guys brigading Rotten Tomatoes.' I'm not saying that I think this way of discussing the movie is deeply malignant, but it's really, really irritating. There's an underlying assumption that if something is empowering for women, it's girl power. If it's empowering for men - what even is that? That's just normal, right?

I thought it was a blast. It did start a little slowly and has some of the same problems that every origin story has, but overall, I thought it was delightful. I loved it when she came into her own. I loved her friendship with Maria and Maria's daughter. I didn't really watch the trailers and don't read the comics, so I was absolutely not expecting the twist of Skrulls as good guys (or Skrulls as hilarious). The 90s references made it all the sweeter for me. Loved the air battle in the grand canyon - it seemed like it could have come out of any one of those pilot-helmed movies of the 80s and 90s. Loved her entrance on Earth. The pacing wasn't always the best and there were a few moments when it felt like she was still settling into the character, but I will definitely be seeing this again. I even really liked the Kree as enemies here, because it gave it a nice, small scale feeling (up until then end with Ronan, which I didn't exactly love because it was a tad too hammy for me, but I'll give it a pass because Captain Marvel got to wreck a whole lot of stuff and I'm into that.) I'm hoping that Captain Marvel takes the path of Captain America - moving from an origin story with some typical origin story quibbles into a second entry that's absolutely top of the Marvel pantheon.

Excited to see a topic on this movie. I saw it last week and loved it. It's complicated and frustrating and hilarious. All of the women had really satisfying story arcs, in the sense that they had complex motivations and were imperfect but also understandable. I was reminded of Keira Knightley's comment (paraphrased) that she loved doing period pieces because she got to be a fully realized character in them (and not, I presume, a rather one-dimensional love interest like many roles sent in the modern day are for winsome young women). Everyone here was sympathetic and somewhat reprehensible all at once, and I loved it. I probably enjoyed Weisz's role most of all. It was a delight to see her stomping about, being surly and manipulative, and just not being in the mood to put up with any of this foolishness. It made it all the more poignant to see the moments where her true affection for Anne shone through. Colman was a delight, giving such a layered performance that you could see that she spent most of her time as a shell of the woman she once was but also, on occasion, demonstrating the keenness that she'd developed over time as a figurehead who had to know that most everyone in her life was trying to manipulate her in one way or another. Stone did an amazing job humanizing her character just enough for us to understand why she was doing what she was doing. It was extremely frustrating to know that she was just trying to find a place where she was secure again (and then getting a little greedy, but wouldn't we all) while also being so short-sighted and indifferent to the suffering of others. Good catch @Black Knight on the significance of the last scene. I took it as a statement that they had all put themselves into a specialized version of their own personal hell because of the decisions they'd made and that it was showing that they'd trapped themselves together in it, but I like the nuance you talked about quite a bit.

My primary problem with the incest portion is that there was no real pay-off. There should have been a point where that secret was revealed outside of the Emily and Stephanie circle. It was just one element of the nonsensical ending, though. Mousy little Stephanie clearly coveted everything Stephanie had, including her house, her wardrobe, her husband, and her cocky, nonchalant way of moving through the world. She isn't a heroine in this story. She absolutely was moving in on Emily's life, becoming the lite version of Emily 2.0. Maybe she spent a few days sad that Emily wasn't around, but the search and the posters, etc., were all about her. She thoroughly enjoyed stepping in to support the grieving husband. She parlayed it all into success via her vlog. It became a battle of wits, and she wanted to win. The problem is that the evolution felt rushed. She went from wine-date mommy friend to clever schemer without enough there to support it. All of this culminates into backstab after backstab, with her as the triumphant winner. She defeats the master and catapults herself into fame and fortune. The problem I had with it, though, was that, story-telling wise, she didn't earn it. I couldn't celebrate with her at the end because she wasn't dastardly enough to win my affection. She was kind of inept and clumsy and awkward while also being not a very good person, and I didn't want her to win. If anything, I would have preferred an ending where she and Emily conspired together to frame and/or murder the husband to their mutual enrichment, with the movie showing that they'd then locked themselves into an ongoing battle full of distrust and manipulation and conniving - an uneasy, destined to implode in a dramatic fashion kind of sociopathic partnership. That's what Stephanie had earned, in a cosmic sense. Not a victory. Anyway, I thought the ending was abysmal. I hated it. In a surprise, Lively had enough swagger to almost make me forgive the tired psycho bisexual trope. I'd estimate that the movie was maybe only 65% as good as it possibly could have been.

I saw it and it was that bad. The most offensive part is that it wasn't really all that funny. It was a mix of 'not quite'. It was not quite a mystery movie, not quite a parody, not quite a(n actually funny) comedy. It threw a couple of gross-out humor gags in a subpar mystery plot and relied too much on 'puppets are doing this - isn't that hilarious!' without actually making it hilarious. That said, the lady in the row in front of me literally shrieked with delight multiple times, so there are those for whom this landed squarely on their funny bone. I thought that was going to be me and was sad when it wasn't.

For those worried about the dog: This movie was just not very good. The dialogue was elementary. Like, really, really bad. The non-shark plot bits were also really not very good. Some of the shots are pretty, but this is Syfy level with a blockbuster budget. I wasn't expecting much of this movie. I knew it was going to be dumb. I just wanted to be entertained, but the overall badness of it seemed to suck away most of the joy I could have taken in the rampaging, enormous shark parts. The fact that it was PG-13 took away from the overall menace, I think. Even though people were in danger, they only felt like they were in danger maybe 35% of the time they were supposed to be in danger. I didn't need it to be super gory, but people either got eaten in scenes with no blood (which made them come off as comedic half the time) or no one got eaten. And the romance subplot... I can't remember when the last time was that I saw something so hamfisted. Highlight of the movie: Jason Statham singing 'just keep swimming'.

Also caught it on HBO. It's more of a parody of a thriller than an actual thriller (even down to the lead's name, which I know comes from the book and isn't pronounced that way in its original language, but they straight up went with and had multiple characters say "Harry Hole!"). Every super serious cut to a snowman gave me the giggles. I can't believe they had this many good actors in a film that managed to be this bad. So glad I didn't shell out for this mess at the theater.

I do wish they hadn't done this. I think I read Bloodlines (one of the new, accepted as canon Star Wars books) just before TFA*, and Han and Leia were happy together and he essentially sponsored something like Indy space racing. They weren't always in the same physical space but they clearly had a good and supportive relationship. I'd have preferred that to Han the crotchety old smuggler. *May not have been before TFA when I read it. I'm horrible with time.

Common decency left the building a long time ago. I may or may not sometimes write stories using fictional characters that I may or may not post on the internet, but I have absolutely been sent messages telling me I should kill myself. I only get a couple a month, though, so I get off pretty lightly.

Every time the T-Rex reappeared to gnash something and flex and roar, I got the sense it was like it was saying "You other guys think you're the stars of this movie, but let's be real. None of the people watching love any of you more than me." When I finally figured out who the teeth pulling trafficker was, I just barely kept myself from saying aloud OMG! Buffalo Bill!

@JessePinkman I went to see this based on your recommendation and am not sorry I did. I wasn't particularly jazzed by the previews, though the part with them going in the water looked cool. The critics didn't seem to love it, so I was even more on the fence. You'd been won over, though, so I thought I'd give it a try. Look, parts of this movie are as hammy as they come, but other parts of it are deeply, deeply satisfying. They play with our emotions in a very obvious way, but I kind of have to give them props for it because they do it well. I'd have loved it more if someone hadn't brought their kid who made dinosaur growls back at the screen every time a dino roared, but thems the breaks. (You might read this and think it was cute, but it was not. Not at all. Imagine watching a pretty poignant scene and wanting to soak it in, only you can't because there's a kid bellowing loud enough to wake the dead like a deranged cow.) Anyway, great action, satisfying kills, and enough to bring me back into the fold after the disappointment of the first movie.