Year in Review: Abundant Good Things Edition Redux

Happy almost New Year and New Decade, everyone!

As this year rapidly approaches its end, I want to harken back to the first end-of-year Abundant Good Things edition.  2014 was a remarkable and transformative year for me, as I then noted, filled with milestones and once-per-lifetime moments and achievements.

Looking back over this year, I am struck by how fitting that summary is for 2019 for what has happened in my personal life... and of course, how discordant it is with the greater world around me.  That contrast is particularly striking as I formulate what my resolutions will be for the coming year.  But I'm planning to get to that in another post.

For now, I want to wrangle my admittedly somewhat sleep-deprived and therefore underly-focused brain into reflecting on the good that happened this year, because it was, as today's title states, truly and humblingly abundant.

In generally chronological order:

• I continued doing work that I enjoy.

I just can't overstate how gigantic this is in setting the tone for my life and for this year.  I am in private practice with a colleague I deeply appreciate and respect.  This year, we became partners in our shared practice, with ideas for how to expand in the future.  I work at a hospital with which I'm proud to be affiliated.  I work with people I care about and who make me feel valued.  Finally, I am fully in charge of my work and thriving in that self-determination.  I am just so grateful to have arrived at this professional place this early in my career.

• In the first month of the year, Husband and I adopted a puppy.

After years of wanting a dog and repeatedly postponing because our living situations just weren't right for it, we took a chance on a foster-to-adopt event a 90 minute drive away and walked away with a sweet, meek, perhaps a bit sad-looking pup who promptly lost a baby tooth and then slept, bathed in relief and safety, on the long drive home.  Over his first year with us, he has blossomed into a gorgeous, intelligent, playful, loving little man.  He is excellent at fetch, receiving belly rubs, bounding rubber-limbedly across fields and carpeted rooms, thankfully and ever-so-gently accepting carrots and ice cubes as treats, and greeting people joyfully.  

• I attended several glorious weddings.

Over the year, multiple good friends and family members got married.  Each wedding was such a wonderful opportunity to celebrate love between people I care about and to enjoy the company of other friends and family.  In retrospect, I'm struck by how thoughtfully and beautifully personal each of the weddings I attended this year was to each couple.  It's such a privilege to be included in these rites of passage for people I care about.

• I became pregnant.

Obviously the most tectonic development of the year and, likely, of my life was being pregnant.  I'm extremely lucky to have had an altogether easy and uncomplicated pregnancy, which allowed me to keep working so I could financially prepare for the birth of my child and enabled me to keep enjoying my life outside of work so I could emotionally and practically prepare for the birth of my child.  This outcome is yet another manifestation of inequitably distributed privilege and resources in the United States, which I benefit from as a white person.

• Several family members achieved major academic milestones.

I'm so incredibly proud of my family's academic accomplishments this year, which include completing law school, medical school, graduate school (with a *second* Master's degree!), and college.

• Husband and I took not one, but two proper vacations*.

Last year, I acknowledged that the demands of working and moving meant that Husband and I hadn't been able to travel as much as I'd have liked, and that made me sad.  We have been extremely fortunate in recent years to be able to take really incredible trips (thanks, frankly, in huge part to family members helping us).  I have deeply savored those experiences during and long afterward.  One such trip contributed to last year's resolution to focus on learning more about my family's heritage.  

Beyond the obvious enjoyment potential of going on vacation, I've also come to regard taking vacations--or not--as a major bellwether for how tenable work is and how much I'm able to set and enforce limits and balance between work and my life outside of work.  Not taking proper vacations is a major warning sign that limits and balance are not happening in a healthy manner.

So, it's a huge source of happiness and relief that Husband and I were able to take two week-long vacations this year, including one to celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary.

* = Just the two of us, not just a long weekend.

• I enjoyed several weekends with dear friends and family.

In addition to the more substantial trips Husband and I took together this year, I got to enjoy weekend trips to New York City, Philadelphia, New Jersey, Savannah, Portland, Seattle, New Hampshire, and upstate New York to see people I love.  Among other things, I got to swim in a lake, attend graduations, eat delicious ice cream, go to a haunted prison, watch storm clouds roll in over a nighttime beach, eat pie and drink coffee in a classic New York diner, and eat oysters in Pike Place Market.  It was all pretty great!

• I saw even more great art.

I enjoyed some wonderful art thanks to some excellent museums, including one of my very favorites, and one I'd never been to before!

• I taught a college course.

I've wanted to teach for years--it's actually a significant part of the reason I pursued a PhD, as I was under the (perhaps false) impression that that degree would make it easier to get a teaching position.  So getting to teach a college class in its entirety was a huge professional milestone.  In an odd way, kind of snuck up on me: through collegial connections, I was offered the chance to teach a course this fall that I could write from scratch, and I accepted, and all of a sudden this was just a thing I got to do!  Teaching was an incredibly positive experience that I hope I get to replicate many times over.

• Husband and I BOUGHT A HOUSE.

What.  How.  What.  Even as I sit in this beautiful place, it is weird and stunning that this is a thing we did.  This is unquestionably the fruit of immense labor on Husband's part, because I would not have had the patience, persistence, and fortitude for a financial and logistical undertaking of this magnitude.  It seemed completely ridiculous as we were undertaking this process, but now that it's over, I am incomparably grateful we've done it.

• And, finally, my child was born.

Despite my considerable angst ahead of time, bizarrely, labor and delivery wasn't so bad.  And now, incredibly, a new person is here, and they are perfect.

With that: I am hopeful for the goodness that 2020 will bring, especially with this new person in the world.  

Happy New Year, dear friends!

{Heart}

Movies for the Unknown

Hi team,

It's time to follow up on my admittedly cryptic post from August with some clarification of the things that made me strongly convinced (inaccurately) that I had not watched any movies that month.

Shortly--perhaps extremely shortly--I will be having a baby.  I am extremely excited to finally meet the tiny nugget I've been growing for the better part of the year.  For a long, long, time, I've been excited not only to be pregnant, but to get to be someone's parent, and to discover who my children are as they grow and reveal themselves ever more.  I've been extremely lucky that this pregnancy has truly been easier than I ever would have expected, which is consistent with my goal for this phase of things to be aggressively unremarkable.

Which brings us to the events of the near future, when inside-nugget will become outside-nugget.

Pregnancy?  Totally excited about that.

Parenting?  Even more excited about that.

Labor and delivery?

I mean, never having done it before, I actually can't accurately comment on whether I like it or not.  But certainly, the idea of the whole process is definitely not my favorite.  I'm working on identifying strategies that might help me approach this brief phase of things with as much calm, courage, and strength as is reasonable to expect of someone who's never done it before, but it's of course hard when I have absolutely no idea what to expect.

So far, I have some ideas for breathing techniques, visualization techniques, and things to say to myself to coach myself through discomfort and anxiety.  I will very fortunately have people with me who love me, plus hopefully the support of a birthing coach.  I have a pain management plan that I am grateful to be able to fall back on and will almost certainly use, because as my mantra in preparation for labor/delivery has quickly become: I don't need to be a hero.  Meaning: I don't need to prove how tough I am.  I just want the baby to come out safely and for both of us to be okay.  Not protractedly being miserable whilst achieving that outcome would be great.

However, no PsychoCinematic Birth Plan would be complete without movies.  Conveniently and apparently, L&D can be a whole bunch of hurry up and wait, so it would also be wise to be prepared with some comforting ways of killing time while we wait for the moment of transition from inside-to-outside.

So, any guesses on what movie I've chosen as my time-killer brain-comfort-food for these lulls before the action kicks into high gear?

Oh yes. 

You know. 

Seriously: "The Lego Movie" (2014) has been one of my unexpected favorites for *5 years* now, and I anticipate it will not disappoint under the forthcoming circumstances.  It is sweet, funny, inventive, and diverting: everything required when things might feel uncertain and uncomfortable. 

This will also present an opportunity to convert PsychoCineMom to fandom status, as she will be part of our captive audience and, when she previously attempted to watch the movie, she was thrown by the extremely chipper opening track.

Which, just to make sure we're all reminded of how goddamn delightful (and IRONIC, Mom!) this movie is, goes like this:

For good measure, Husband and I will also be prepared with ample supplies of other soothing, sweet, and positive tv show favorites.

So on top of not knowing how the nugget's entry in to the world will go, here's another thing I don't know: what the future of this blog and my movie-watching annual resolution will be. 

Realistically, of course, it will be really hard to adhere to both of these commitments--especially in their original form--as I get acclimated to being someone's parent.  While I want to be reasonable and gentle with myself in accepting that I might need to loosen the expectations I hold myself to on this front, as I've acknowledged many times before, watching movies and making time for occasional writing are also really important aspects of my self-care that I have arduously cultivated and in some periods fought to preserve. 

I don't aspire to the kind of parenting that leads to the erasure of every other aspect of who I am--to the contrary, both because that would be bad for me, but also bad for the nugget, Husband, and other people I love and relationships and roles I care about.  So at least as of now, I hope to maintain at least some momentum by continuing to watch and write about movies sometimes.  A realistic and kind compromise here will very likely require a reduction in my annual goals both for watching and writing, and there are worse things than that.  Right now, I'm a bit sad because I think I'll miss movies and miss this blog if I spend less time with both.  I'm going to do my best to just give myself space for that feeling and see what happens once the nugget is here.

I hope to see you all again soon!

{Heart}

A Halloween Sampler for All Souls: 2019 Edition!

Halloooooooooooo!

Happy Halloween dear friends and readers!  Once again, it is that special and spooky time of year: time for a review of this year's creepy movies!

As is our grand tradition, for today's post our usual 1 - 5 rating scale will be augmented with the scary/intense rating system of 1 - 5 exclamation points thusly:

! = not at all scary 

!!!!! = so scary!

Let's dive right in!

"Us" (2019)

Rating: 3 Scary Rating: !!!!

If you remember my extremely enthusiastic reaction to "Get Out" (2017), you can probably imagine how sincerely excited and hopeful I was for director Jordan Peele's second foray into feature-length horror.  I WAS SO EXCITED--so much so that I dragged Husband to a showing on opening weekend, convinced it would be worth the effort to see "Us" with a large audience.

I wasn't wrong about the value of seeing the movie with a big opening-weekend audience--they absolutely enhanced our viewing experience, but unfortunately not because the movie was everything I'd hoped.  While "Us" was absolutely inventive and at times pulse-pounding, as you'd hope a good horror movie would be, it was also over-burdened with an unfocused and confusing plot and backstory.  Compared to the taught and bracing social commentary of "Get Out," to my chagrin "Us" left me feeling a bit fuzzy-headed by its over-complicated universe and distracted by its plot holes.  What helped save our viewing experience was the very entertaining laughter and mockery deriding the unintentionally funny bits of the movie from our fellow moviegoers.  I would definitely still recommend seeing it, but with dampened expectations compared to "Get Out."

"Deliver Us" (2017)

Rating: 2 Scary Rating: !!

This year's documentary entry!  While unsettling, because it lacks any narration or interviews to give its footage more context and explanation, "Deliver Us" unfortunately doesn't deliver as much intensity and intrigue as I'd hoped it would.  Don't get me wrong--it's definitely still unsettling to watch footage of actual rites of exorcism--but this film could have delivered so much more.

"The Endless" (2017)

Rating: 3 Scary Rating: !!!

While the moderate production value of this movie might be a bit distracting at first, the cult/sci-fi/horror mash-up "The Endless" certainly makes up for that with an interesting premise that reveals itself gradually throughout the course of the film.  It doesn't pack a huge horror punch, but it's definitely tense and intriguing!

"Joker" (2019)

Rating:1 Scary Rating: !!

Long ago, I bemoaned the boatload of emotionally monotonic films fixated on the soulless male psychopath.  Well, here we are again.  To "Joker"'s credit, it is in possession of a discernible a plot arc--there is a beginning, middle, and end, and by the film's finale the titular Joker has arrived somewhere very different than where he began.  That said, I just can't help but be extremely bored by the mercilessly flatlined emotional arc of this film and films like it.  To use what is definitely a Mom word, this movie is so concertedly and aggressively grim I can't help but roll my eyes at it.  I needed some emotional variation--humor, a flash of hope or sadness, something--to break up the monotonous two hours of bleakness of that comprise this movie, and it never came.  But they threw in some violence, so I guess at least it's a bit scary?

"Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (1956)

Rating: 2 Scary Rating: !!!*

* Scariness not based on the movie's original scary intent.

This year's throw-back-y entry!  This year, Husband and I watched the original "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" for our annual evening of jack-o'-lantern carving.  It was a perfect selection--campy and fun.  However, it was definitely and unintentionally alarming when we had a simultaneous moment of revelation about the intention behind the film's conceit: that it was a pro-McCarthyist film, not anti.  Watching the product of an industry that was profoundly negatively impacted by Communist blacklisting and fear mongering is certainly a bit dizzying and creepy--but again, not for the reasons originally intended!

That concludes this year's scary movie offerings!  I hope you all enjoy a holiday that is precisely as fun and frightening as you wish it to be!

{Heart}

Erratum: "Once Upon a Time" I Saw a Movie and Totally Forgot About It

Hello!

Remember how last month I was like, "Aw I feel bad because I didn't see any movies in August"?

So.  About that.

I absolutely did see a movie in August.  Admittedly, only one movie.  But still: I went out to see it in a theater, making a whole night of it.  It was a thing I watched in its entirety.  I didn't fall asleep in the middle of it or get nauseated and have to leave early.  There is really no excuse for me just totally omitting this experience from my memory.

Except.

The movie I saw was Quentin Tarantino's "Once Upon a Time... In Hollywood" (2019).

And it was just so forgettable.

Some bullet points:

• At a 2 hour, 40 minute running time, it is unforgivably long, especially given that it is

• packed with boring dialogue from a director we know can deliver snappy, memorable dialogue even when characters are just shooting the shit together, so what the hell happened??  And worse still, that bad dialogue is happening in 

• yet ANOTHER self-worshipping movie about making movies, so many of which are mind-numbingly, preciously self-revering and therefore boring and therefore don't need to be made.  Worse still, it is

• kiiiiiind of deeply misogynistic?  Like: 

• The film super briefly alludes to the fact that the ostensible hero of the movie murdered his wife as if this is nothing more than a kind of Joan Vollmer-esque piece of trivia/footnote?  

• And the inevitable Tarantino gore-fest at the end directs WAY more extensive and vicious violence at two women than at their male counterpart who arguably bears much more responsibility for the heinous acts they planned to commit?  

• And actually this male ringleader is dispatched with comparatively little suffering, especially in Tarantino terms?

• And while we're revisiting this premise of revisionist history revenge fantasy that may be becoming a bit of a preoccupation of Tarantino's, instead of going all the way with it and having Sharon Tate be her own damn savior--especially after you showed her training with Bruce Freaking Lee--we have two random dudes (one of whom, again, MURDERED HIS WIFE OMG THIS IS NOT A SMALL MATTER) save the day instead?

• Also speaking of preoccupations--and I don't mean this as kink-shaming because to each their own, but it was just genuinely distracting--what is Tarantino's thing with showing us the dirty soles of women's feet?

Apparently this is truly a thing of his.

So yeah.  It was irritatingly problematic, but also, it was dull.  

In summation, the good news: I saw a thing last month, and therefore did not go a full month without watching a film for the first time in recent memory.

The bad news: my streak is unbroken because I saw this utterly bleh movie.

I gave this one a 2.

See you next month!

{Heart}

An Unintentional Hiatus

Hey there friends,

I come to you today with a confession: Perhaps for the first time in the history of this writing-about-films endeavor, I watched no movies in this entire month.

This is not for lack of interest.  There are definitely movies I want(ed) to see this month--past tense in at least one case because I unfortunately missed my chance to see one in theaters.  For the others, I'm hoping to take advantage of this long weekend to ensure I don't lose out on seeing at least one of them on the big screen (especially since this is my second chance to see one of them after it was featured in a certain film fest I am very fond of).

It's also not for lack of trying.  I started "What Men Want" (2019) last night, but commenced watching it too late in the evening and fell short of finishing it.  It's also a bit long for a romantic comedy, if you ask me (almost two hours long), so that wasn't helping things.  I only have a half hour left to go and will likely finish it eventually, but likely not in time for it to technically be watched in its entirety by the end of this month.

Alternatively, it's not entirely for lack of opportunity.  Family visited for the weekend earlier this month, and last weekend Husband and I traveled to see family and friends in our beloved old home city.  (I still miss it so much, although now living in our new and also-beloved home city significantly eases the ache of leaving it again.)  That left some other weekends during which movie viewing could theoretically have happened.

At its simplest, this shortfall is due to other emotional and practical demands on my time and energy.

Given the nature of this blog, it is of course absurd and redundant to attest that I love movies.  I love them so very much.  I love the places I get to see movies in our new home.  And yet, there were kind of an inordinate number of demands on my overall life force this month.  Many of those demands were extremely positive, yet nevertheless a lot of work.  Unfortunately, that meant that when there were technically opportunities to go see films, or even to watch something at home, I felt depleted and therefore drawn to entertainment that was less demanding from an emotional, attentional, and time-commitment perspective.  While they may be relatively minor, it is a commitment of time, attention span, and emotional vulnerability to watch new movies.  I really hate to acknowledge it, but sometimes, when I'm feeling particularly drained, watching a film might not be the most skillful approach to self-care for me.

So instead, this month has been a month of reruns.  Husband and I have been primarily watching "Parks and Recreation", which has been a welcome and soothing choice (especially because you know how much I love Aubrey Plaza).  It's been exactly what I needed: to feel pleasantly and comfortingly diverted by a familiar, well-made, and much-appreciated show.

I'm hoping--perhaps not altogether unrealistically--that many of the more intense demands of August will subside at least a bit in September.  I therefore hope to resume movie-watching where I left off in July.  Happily, I've watched so many movies already in 2019 that even taking an entire month off won't meaningfully disrupt my progress toward my annual movie-watching goal.

Looking forward to sharing those with you soon.

{Heart}

How to Survive a "Decade of Fire"

Hey team,

I want to talk about one of the most remarkable movies I've seen this year: "Decade of Fire" (2019).

I feel deeply grateful that I not only got to see this film, I got to see it at my favorite film festival of all time at a screening with director Vivian Vazquez present.

"Decade of Fire" surveys the rampant fires that destroyed whole swaths of the Bronx during the 1970s.  Staggering amounts of devastation unfolded as countless fires engulfed buildings and left whole city blocks in smoldering rubble.

"Decade of Fire" captures the misery, peril, confusion, and fear experienced by the residents of the impacted neighborhoods.  This pain was deepened by the extent to which many people living in the Bronx internalized the profoundly damaging and racist media narrative that the residents of the very burning communities were to blame for their destruction; to hear the news coverage and public discourse tell it, residents of the Bronx were just too neglectful, criminally-motivated, or morally derelict to care for their own homes.

Director Vivian Vazquez and a friend as a young woman.

Investigating and ultimately, rightfully, rejecting this narrative, the film expertly identifies the true culprits that contributed to the devastation.  These factors include redlining of communities of color which caused dramatic decline in the quality and condition of available housing, dangerous and fraudulent behavior by exploitive landlords who paid children to commit arson so they could collect ill-gotten insurance payments often without ever being prosecuted, closing of fire stations in and near the Bronx,  and racist messaging and neglect from the highest reaches of governmental power on down.

Stunningly, residents nevertheless stayed and fought for the Bronx.  They banded together to rebuild, refusing to abandon the communities they loved.  In some cases, they formed radical collective construction teams to reclaim burned-out buildings and transform them into gorgeous and modern housing.

Residents of the Bronx rebuilding.

As Ms. Vazquez fielded questions after the screening, it became clear that it did not escape the audience's notice that the Bronx depicted in Vazquez's masterwork echoed the Baltimore of today.  The comparison is heartrending, as well as its sense of time standing still; the city faces so much despair and hardship, and we have so far to go. 

But just like the people who stayed and fought for the Bronx, and who ultimately victoriously rebuilt the Bronx, there are people with immense heart, resolve, and grit in Baltimore who aren't going down without a fight.  We know that every person living here has value and a voice.  We know what this city deserves and the greatness it is capable of.

There was a moment at a Baltimore Cease Fire event months ago that I'll never forget.  At an event whose central focus was healing and building community in the wake of seemingly relentless violence, there was a response to some people's questioning whether they should stay here that deeply resonated with why we stay and fight, and why these communities and cities are worth fighting for.  First, the person responding made the very important point that abandoning a city like Baltimore is in many ways futile because, "I don't know where you could go that isn't impacted by white supremacy."  And then, in loving and reverent defense of this city, they said, "Baltimore is magic."

Baltimore is magic.  It has no business being beautiful, resilient, brilliant, creative, brave, strong, innovative, poetic, and enduring, but it is each of those things.  White supremacy can't stop it.  Corruption can't stop it.  Systemic oppression can't stop it.  A bigoted and neglectful farce of a President can't stop it. 

Baltimore's magic is powerful.  Those who can't or won't see it have no goddamn clue what they're missing, and good riddance to them.  We get to thrive in that magic whether they see it or not.

You can learn more about "Decade of Fire", including watching its trailer, here.

{Heart}


PS: However shockingly unacceptable it is for a sitting President to be actively racist and disparaging against an American city, I urge anyone reading not to be distracted by only the latest incident of his pathetic misbehavior.

Do not forget that the President's tantrum against Baltimore was precipitated in part by Congressman Elijah Cummings' advocacy for innocent asylum seekers, including many children, who remain in despicably inhumane conditions in detention facilities along our Southern border.

If you're even the slightest bit irked by the President's behavior in recent days, please immediately contact your elected officials to express your outrage at the treatment of our fellow human beings, many of whom are your future fellow citizens.

Just like the 1970s in the Bronx and the Baltimore of today, we'll survive this ugly era.  But only if we fight back.

Snap Judgment: You Don't Have to Be Book Smart to Love "Booksmart"

Hihi,

It's been almost exactly a year since our last Snap Judgment!  We are horrendously overdue for just such a treat.

Let's talk about "Booksmart" (2019)!

• The odds are stacked against it.

"Booksmart" (2019) could by all rights have been a classic (read: boringly predictable) teensploitation movie in the grand tradition of "Breakfast Club" (1985), "She's All That" (1999), and most pointedly last-hurrah-rager-party movies like "Can't Hardly Wait" (1998) and "Superbad" (2007).  To up the level of challenge, the film even follows a pretty standard story arc from last day of school through circuitous-and-wacky-journey-to-party to actual party to party aftermath.

• ...Which makes it ever more the delight!

Given the well-worn territory it treads, "Booksmart" could have been a truly unremarkable movie. 

And yet!  It is one of the most entertaining, charming, fresh, and innovative comedies I've seen in a while!  First and perhaps most importantly, it is genuinely funny.  Its many pit stops in the journey-to-party are fun tangents when they could be tiresome and laborious delayings-of-the-inevitable-arrival at THE party.  Even the closing credits are eminently watchable.

• The movie is intersectionally feminist and this only makes it awesomer (duh).

I love it when a movie proves that you can be repeatedly laugh-out-loud, inventively funny by NOT relying on cheap, predictable, punching-down jokes.  It's only in retrospect that you notice the jokes that weren't made, because you sure as hell don't miss them.

• Great performances partner with a wonderfully humanist ethos.

It's not easy to pull off across-the-board solid performances in a film with a large ensemble cast, but "Booksmart" demonstrates it can be done!  The main characters of Amy and Molly (as portrayed by Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein, respectively) are extremely fun and compelling to watch, especially as they navigate fluctuations in their confidence in themselves and in their friendship.  Minor characters like Gigi (played by Billie Lourd), Theo (Eduardo Franco), Alan (Austin Crute), Miss Fine (Jessica Williams!!), and especially George (Noah Galvin) enrich and fully round out the story.

With such a wide cast of characters, it is truly noteworthy that "Booksmart" resists falling into the common-in-teensploitation-movies trap of moralizing and judging about "good" and "bad" people.  While many characters in the movie certainly encounter minor yet survivable humiliations, these serve only to further humanize them rather than serve them their just desserts.  

Instead, in Vonnegut-esque style, every person in "Booksmart" matters.  By the end of the movie, you understand that every single one of the characters in "Booksmart" is a valuable, redeemable, complex human being.  This only deepens the enjoyment of the movie, because it lacks in mean-spirited schadenfreude and instead introduces you to a range of characters, each of whom you get to know and enjoy.

• And finally: Olivia Wilde!!

I have loved Olivia Wilde a whole whole lot ever since my now-distant days of being an inordinately fervent fan of 13 on "House".  She's basically the only reason to watch the reboot of "TRON: Legacy" (2010).  And "Booksmart" is, kind of astonishingly, her feature-length directorial debut!  It is such a victory that I'm stunned she hasn't been doing this for a long time.  I am so looking forward to whatever projects she helms in the future.

Taking all these components into account, it is perhaps not surprising that I gave "Booksmart" a 5.  

...Incidentally, this has nothing to do with the fact that Husband's first comment before we even left the theater was, "You're going to give this a 5, right?"

I strongly recommend that you find "Booksmart" quick before it's out of theaters!

{Heart}

Micro Post: The "Perfect Bid" for a Perfectly Pure Documentary

Hey team!

I'm here to share a sweet little documentary that I recently enjoyed in my latest micro post!

Today's film is:

This absolutely delightful movie tells the story of Theodore (Ted) Slauson's superfandom of "The Price is Right" and how it led to the improbable but legitimate "perfect bid" episode of the show.

There is so much to blissfully enjoy about this surprisingly pleasant movie.  Truly, almost absolutely everyone in this film is sweet, sincere, and positive. 

Ted's extremely detailed recounting of his "Price is Right" journey illustrates the capacity of the human mind for passion and discipline--qualities which clearly contributed to his role in that remarkable episode of his beloved game show.

Slauson displays his name tags from his many trips to airings of "The Price is Right."

Previous host Bob Barker is deeply charming as he recalls his time hosting the show with deep fondness and gratitude for the audience that made it possible for him to "never work a day in my life."  Showrunner Roger Dobkowitz gives us a sneak peek into the inner workings of the show, as well as the friendship he developed with Barker.

Dokbkowitz and Barker: still adorable buds.

All in all, the movie is a lovely testament to how a humble yet extraordinarily dedicated everyman fan can accomplish greatness.  In this way, the movie is reminiscent of other memorably gentle yet interesting documentaries like "King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters" (2007).  Especially on a tough day when one needs to be reminded of the kindness and decency of humanity, this film is just the remedy.

I gave this film a 4.5

It's currently streamable on Netflix.  Please enjoy!

{Heart}

I Watched Both Fyre Festival Documentaries So You Don't Have To

You're welcome in advance, everyone!

THAT'S RIGHT.  I shamelessly and with gusto watched not one, but TWO documentaries about the famously, catastrophically doomed Fyre Festival.  And now, I will summarize them both so you can choose which to watch depending on your preference, or to watch both fully aware of what you're getting yourself into, or watch neither because you're possibly a better person than me!

To be honest, I only remember even hearing of Fyre Festival as it was actively unravelling, so I only hopped aboard the hateration extravaganza when it was already abundantly clear what a fiasco the whole thing was.

Except I do!

It therefore wasn't until the whole thing dramatically fell apart that I saw, for example, this extremely over-hyped advertisement for the festival, which by that point had revealed itself to be a grotesque contradiction of the discomfort, woe, and absurdity that awaited the silly, silly people who paid thousands of dollars to attend this nonsense.

Now, for your schadenfreude-y enjoyment, there are not one, but TWO documentaries available, each promising to help viewers understand just what went wrong.  They varyingly succeed, yet both offer significant entertainment value.

Documentary 1: "Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened" (2019)

Important disclosure alert: this film was co-produced by Jerry Media and Matte Projects, who are responsible for producing some of the promotional materials that ultimately lured the undiscerning monied set to Fyre festival.  This may possibly account for the noticeable absence of anything that might implicate Jerry and/or Matte in the disaster that the festival inevitably became?

If you're looking for a moment-by-moment recreation of the utter catastrophe that was Fyre Festival, this is your film.  It provides enough backstory to make it excruciatingly clear that this festival was never remotely coming together; sure the promotional videos were pretty (thanks Jerry/Matte!) and there was lots of boostery buzz from overpaid "influencers" (I shudder apologetically at using this term and promise never to utter it again) on Instagram, but literally nothing else was actually happening, nor should anyone with any sense have ever thought it was happening.  I've never planned an event more major than a wedding, and it was quite obvious to me that a few months is not enough time to, for example, literally create plumbing and other basic infrastructure from scratch on an undeveloped patch of an island. 

There is very much this sense of Icarus, pumped up on hubris-flavored energy drinks, attempting to reach heights of posh "exclusivity" and crappy EDM, only to plummet to the earth below as his wings of FEMA tents held together with cheese sandwiches melt under the heat of the unforgiving Caribbean sun.  And I am admittedly and somewhat unabashedly here for it.

With that preamble, the movie then spends the majority of its time with the festival-goers as they negotiate the ever-more-obvious train wreck that was Fyre Festival.  In a gleefully spiteful way, it's certainly entertaining.  I don't often like to dwell in that emotional space, but honestly, it's just extremely difficult to muster pity for people with
a) absurd amounts of disposable income that
b) they probably didn't work too hard to earn because
c) THEY SPENT IT ON TICKETS TO FYRE FESTIVAL.

That being said, the film also focuses on the financially devastating consequences for citizens of the island who were recruited to work for the festival, many of whom were not compensated despite being left to bear the brunt of hundreds of hungry, grumpy, entitled festivalgoers.  So there is some fleeting moral center to this movie.

I gave this film a 3.  Stream it on Netflix here.

Documentary 2: "Fyre Fraud" (2019)

For those of us with a true crime bent and therefore wanting a much meatier dive into the "but seriously HOW?" of Fyre Festival, this movie is for you.  It provides a much more thorough, and therefore satisfying, exploration of the super obvious early criminal inclinations of Fyre Festival co-founder Billy McFarland and achieves the notable coup of a first-hand interview with the conman himself.

There is still a decent amount of footage of the actively flailing festival in this film, but it's not so much the centerpiece as the former documentary.  Instead, "Fyre Fraud" looks much more extensively at the spoiler-alert-this-guy-is-obviously-a-criminal-in-the-making before and the wow-some-psychopaths-really-don't-learn after.

Bonus: because it is not face-savingly co-produced by people directly implicated in the failure of the festival, it also does the job of examining how Jerry/Matte and other contributors played a role in attempting to pull off this fraud.  (I would say the movie does a good job of looking at the other major players, but because this wasn't even attempted in the first doc, the comparative nature of "good" is a bit moot.)

I gave this movie a 4.  Stream it on Hulu here.

Enjoy (or don't)!

{Heart}

What He Said

Hi everyone,

As you're likely aware, the Academy Awards were held a few weeks ago.  There were some nice things that happened:

--Hannah Beachler was the first Black person to be nominated--and win!--for best production design (for "Black Panther" (2018)!), and she gave a wonderfully inspiring speech!

--A movie that finally helped me understand why Spider-Man is great won best animated feature.

--Olivia Coleman's acceptance speech was absolutely adorable.

--Alfonso Cuarón won twice, including for best director, and gave a beautifully principled speech about the importance of film as a portal into lives and stories we might otherwise not see (which is relevant for my forthcoming beef with awards that occurred later in the evening).

Also Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga successfully confused like 70% of viewers about the difference between acting and IRL love.

However, there is also the issue of what won best picture.

Maybe I've gotten spoiled over the last few years by some of the really wonderful progress in evidence of who and what has been winning awards in the last few years of the Oscars, but it just seemed like some problematic BS was afoot when "Green Book" (2018) won best picture.

New York Times critic-at-large Wesley Morris shared his analysis of this award on an episode of my new favorite podcast and confirmed my suspicions.  Honestly, anything I have to say is going to be less cogent than what he said. 

So I suggest everyone just take a listen here.

The only thing I'll add is: he's definitely right about "Do the Right Thing" (1989).

{Heart}

Micro Post: Walk the "Catwalk" to the Delightful Movie You Didn't Know You Needed

Hey there!

I'd love to share a sweet little movie I love that you might love too!

It is:

This absolutely freaking precious documentary, released in 2018, is the most charming thing I've seen in a while.  It features:

--Ridiculous-looking cats and their ridiculous-looking grooming regimens.

--Also really beautiful and cute cats.

--Interviews with some of the deeply wholesome, good-natured people who raise, show, breed, and judge aforementioned cats.

--Canada.

Spoiler alert: This movie is distinctly lacking in genuine drama.  Instead, it revels in gently self-deprecating self-awareness, showcased through goofy music reminiscent of "Napoleon Dynamite" (2004) and little animated sequences demonstrating the relative standings of the featured cats as they make the rounds of the titular cat show circuit.  Throughout, it is clear that the people involved in these cat shows are sincerely committed to their cats yet predictably quirky in a way that is entertaining yet soothing. 

I gave the movie a 4.

So, if you're having a tough day or simply want to see a cheerful little film, try out "Catwalk: Tales from the Cat Show Circuit".  It's streamable on Netflix now!

{Heart}

2018 Movie Round-Up!!

Hiiiiiiiiiiiiii!

Oh my god you guys it's time for the

best

post

of the yearrrrrr!!

This year's awesome gif co-host: April Ludgate, played by Aubrey Plaza (and sometimes it's just straight up Aubrey Plaza), who I dearly love.

Without any additional superfluous ado!

The PsychoCinematic Year in Movies

2018 Edition

1. A Gray State (5)

2. Jim & Andy (4)

3. The Post (2.5)

4. Manolo: The Boy Who Made Shoes for Lizards (3)

5. Freeway: Crack in the System (5)

6. The Square (5)

7. Black Panther (5.5)

8. Colossal (2)

9. Seeing Allred (5)

10. Annihilation (4)

11.  What Happened, Miss Simone? (5)

12. Icarus (5)

13. Leaning Into the Wind: Andy Goldsworthy (3.5)

14. A Wrinkle In Time (2)

15. Take Your Pills (3.5)

16. A Quiet Place (4)

17. Logan Lucky (4.5)

18. Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press (5)

19. Avengers: Infinity War (4)

20. Who Took Johnny (5)

21. The House (2)

22. Before the Flood (4)

23. Abacus: Small Enough to Jail (5)

24. RBG (5)

25. Solo: A Star Wars Story (3)

26. Ocean's Eight (3)

27. Deadpool 2 (4)

28. Game Night (3)

29. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (1)

30. Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (5)

31. Ant-Man and the Wasp (2.5)

32. Three Identical Strangers (4)

33. Blockers (3.5)

34. Sorry to Bother You (4)

35. Dark Money (3)

36. BlackKklansman (3.5)

37. The Spy Who Dumped Me (3.5)

38. Crazy Rich Asians (3)

39. The Wife (1)

40. A Simple Favor (4)

41. Lizzie (3)

42. Fahrenheit 11/9 (4.5)

43. Venom (3)

44. Voices of Baltimore: Life Under Segregation (4)

45. A Star Is Born (4.5)

46. Tag (1.5)

47. Colette (4)

48. The Innocents (4)

49. The Hate U Give (5)

50. Bohemian Rhapsody (4)

51. City 40 (4)

52. Border (3.5)

53. The Favourite (4.5)

54. Dallas Buyers Club (5)

55. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2.5)

56. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (3.5)

57. Get Him to the Greek (2)

Yet again: 5 extra movies!

With the exception, oddly, of November, I was again able to keep up a pretty consistent movie-watching habit throughout the year.  I also struck a decent balance between watching movies through streamable services and seeming movies in theaters.  All happiness-inducing and wellness-maintaining things!

Let's start with this year's least favorite movies:

For being a movie ostensibly meant to uplift its female protagonist but instead 

portraying her as ineffective, dependent, and impulsive, 

and also being so slow at one point I fell asleep:

The Post (2017)

For being an interesting concept that got weirdly and unpleasantly dark 

without really seeming to understand just how dark it was...?:

Colossal (2016)

For perplexingly rewriting a beloved children's book,

being so poorly edited it is bizarre,

and for making me so nauseated I ultimately had to leave the theater:

A Wrinkle In Time (2018)

For being, as aforementioned, so aggressively "okay":

The House (2017)

For being an affront to all that is good in filmmaking, or

for stoking my neverending hatred:

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)

For an unbelievable, melodramatic, and poorly-delivered plot:

The Wife (2017)

For being unsurprisingly dumb and lifeless, but still, and

for seriously asserting that Jon Hamm and Hannibal Buress could be same-aged peers:

Tag (2018)

For having the best things about this movie be its allusions to "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" (2008)

and for trying to convince me that Jonah Hill's character isn't kind of terrible:

Get Him to the Greek (2010)

Fortunately/unfortunately, this is a denser field of contenders than last year.  To be fair, I knew that several of the mediocre comedies I watched this year would be mediocre, and in fact watched them for that cohort of film's perhaps dubious yet still very real virtue: sometimes I just want to add to my list of movies for the year without having to be super emotionally or intellectually invested in a film.  If I'm tired from a busy week and want to vegetate in front of my television while attaining a teeny feeling of accomplishment (one more movie yayyyyy), these movies fit the bill.  So it feels unfair to tap them for Worst Movie of the Year.

Although I gave it a begrudging 2.5, which would normally exclude it for consideration for Worst Movie, I clearly have a lot of beef with "The Post."  Katharine Graham had a pretty incredible life, yet the movie blatantly missed many opportunities for highlighting the things she overcame and accomplished.  However, there were enough redeeming elements to the film that I don't think I can call it the worst thing I saw last year.

Really, there's no other obvious choice for the Worst Movie of the Year:

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)

That God. Damn. Movie.

Truly the worst, and most enraging, movie I saw in 2018.

Moving along to: this year's best movies!

A Gray State (2017)

Freeway: Crack in the System (2015)

The Square (2017)

Black Panther (2018)

Seeing Allred (2018)

What Happened, Miss Simone? (2015)

Icarus (2017)

Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press (2017)

Who Took Johnny (2014)

Abacus: Small Enough to Jail (2016)

RBG (2018)

Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (2018)

The Hate U Give (2018)

Dallas Buyers Club (2013)

A large majority of this list is comprised of documentaries.  Like last year, many of those documentaries are true-crime related, and unlike last year, they are less murder-y and more focused on other types of crime: "Freeway: A Crack in the System" focuses on the global drug trade and lethal national drug policy, "Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press" looks at terrifying attacks on the fifth estate, and "Abacus: Small Enough to Jail" examines the prosecution of a small Queens-based bank accused of fraudulent lending practices.  No spoilers, but "Who Took Johnny" also fits in this category of true-crime but not murder-y true-crime.  In another streak of celebrating lady badassery, "Seeing Allred", "What Happened, Miss Simone?", and "RBG" all celebrate and humanize bold, principled, brave, and controversial women.



As a little counterpoint to all this documentary darkness, "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" was a wonderful follow-up to the grand parade of Antidotes to Toxic Masculinity That We All Knew We Needed but Nevertheless Made Me Cry a Whole Bunch that "Kedi" (2017) led last year.

Stepping away from this year's documentary contenders, "The Hate U Give" adapts author Angie Thomas's excellent debut novel exploring a Black girl's experience of police brutality, code switching, and finding her courage, voice, and identity.  Even though I had read the book, the movie still hits with impressive emotional strength and is a welcome entry in movies intended in large part for a teenaged and young adult audience.

"The Square" was a bizarre, entertaining, zig-zagging and, I worry, overlooked film that I really enjoyed.  I found myself thinking about it a lot afterward, and not only because it's got the funniest and oddest (and to be fair maybe only?) power struggle over a condom I've ever seen.

So here's the thing: I'm fighting the urge to apologize for how obvious my choice of favorite movie is this year.  But my job isn't to do a flashy, shocking reveal; it's just to reflect with as clear eyes as possible on the year of films and choose the movie that most moved and stuck with me.  With that standard, the choice is quite simple.

I've written a few times this year about movies I'm glad were made.  There can be so much unnecessary, empty, and thoughtless mediocrity in media (and in the world) that I am deeply grateful for people who have the integrity and courage to make something weird or new.  Several people have claimed that my choice of favorite movie isn't doing anything special; it's just another superhero movie.

But I call bullshit on that claim.  It would be easy to dismiss this film as "just another superhero movie" if one chose not to take into account how much representation matters, especially in a genre of movies densely dominated by white male protagonists.  It would be easy to call it "just another superhero movie" if one chose to ignore the film's examination of systemic racism or its creation of an intentionally empowering and fantastic heritage for Black children.  And stepping back from the fact that this is an admirable, thrilling, and well-executed film, it's exciting to reflect on its record-breaking debut and impressive box office earnings signal, happily, that we can anticipate many more movies like this one.

My favorite movie of 2018 is:

Looking forward to sharing a 2019 filled with excellent movies with you, dear friends.

{Heart}