Movies on a Plane

Hey there,

I recently had the immense pleasure of taking a multiple-years-delayed international trip with Husband and our two children.  Between wrangling our kids and trying to get some sleep, our two flights gave me opportunities to (mostly?) watch some movies.  I say "mostly?" because I watched one without sound and the other two without sound but with subtitles, since baby-wrangling made having a headset plugged in would have readily delivered the losing combination of being both irritating and impractical.

This less-than-optimal viewing experience should probably majorly caveat the following reviews, so take them with whatever dose of salt you think they deserve.

Movie on a Plane #1: "Turning Red" (2022)

This was both a captionless rewatch and a movie I didn't finish for aforementioned baby wrangling reasons.  Given that I didn't think very highly of it the first time around (previously rating the movie a 2), I chose to watch it largely because it was a children's movie that wouldn't offend the prying eyes of my kids, it was a known quantity, and the animation is at least competent and visually interesting enough to provide a little diversion to pass the time on a long trip.  "Turning Red" nevertheless fails to exceed even that very low set of expectations.  I just don't think Disney is up to the task of skillfully constructing a movie about characters navigating early adolescence, and as a result this film is just kind of cringey and uncomfortable.  I don't mean to be overly conservative, but I just think there should be limits on little girls twerking in children's movies, even if they're temporarily transmogrified into a giant fluffy anthropomorphized red panda, and "Turning Red" somewhat mortifyingly exceeds those limits.

I continue to rate the movie a 2.

Movie on a Plane #2: "Bridget Jones's Diary" (2001)

I recall this movie being very well-regarded and enjoyed when it came out, and I must have seen it multiple times over the years because I remember a lot of it remarkably clearly.  It's nevertheless been quite some time since my last viewing, which might explain why its overt racism, fatphobia, and normalization of sexual harassment seemed especially egregious this soundless go round.  The anti-Asian racism, as well as other unappealing and problematic content, are front and center in the first five minutes of the movie, making them completely unmissable and placing a completely unnecessary bad taste in the viewer's mouth from the jump.  The fact that you never even meet the character the film's recurrent Japanophobia is targeting makes it all the more noxious and excessive--for some reason, this movie just needed to find an outlet for some random anti-Asian bullshit, and we're supposed to find it funny(??).  

I also can't overstate how much I *hate* that the main character repeatedly explicitly states her weight throughout the film.  It's a slap in the face to every woman watching every time Bridget reports her own (under-average at the time) weight.  Either we are tacitly encouraged to feel self-hating chagrin that we weigh as much as or more than her, or to feel perhaps a sense of unearned superiority or relief if we weigh less than her, but either way we are being subtly pitted against all other women and ourselves by this surprisingly mean-spirited movie.

And to boot, 2/3s of the main characters are aggressively small-minded, ignorant, shallow, self-absorbed people, and 1/3 of them is an awkward Colin Firth with an inexplicably bad picker.

I gave the movie a 1.

Movie on a Plane #3: "Serendipity" (2001)

I'd never seen this movie before, but chose it because a) why not watch another romcom in the hopes of cleansing my palate post-Bridget Jones and b) I like John Cusack.  And thankfully, it was fine!  For starters, Eugene Levy has a delightful silly supporting role.  Furthermore, I appreciate that the film didn't stick Kate Beckinsale's Sara with a boring manic pixie dreamgirl persona, but instead had her evolve into someone more discerning over the years between her first encounter with Cusack's Jon and their later, inevitable reconnection.  Jon also evolves during this period from being completely unconvinced of the reality of fate to upending his plans for marriage because he is so converted by his conviction that Sara is the fated "one" for him.  I like the ways in which both of the main characters adopt each other's view points over time to some extent, and that the film then playfully toys with them as they try to find each other again, flailingly yet ardently attempting to enforce their own wills over the will of fate.

That said, Sara and Jon both kind of suck in important ways.  They both are dating other people when they meet, yet spontaneously embark on a day-long date together after their chance meeting at a department store (where they are shopping for gifts for their significant others).  Sara is so obsessed with the concept of fate when she meets Jon that she creates a bunch of ridiculous tests to essentially force the universe to prove that they're destined to be together, which results in them unnecessarily losing touch for years.  She also later gets engaged to an insufferable and self-obsessed goober, which is a bit suspect.  Jon, though, is arguably much worse, as he spends the day before his wedding to a perfectly-fine-seeming woman rushing around New York City frantically trying to track Sara down.  The movie wants us to be so swept away in its contention that Jon and Sara are ~*~*~*DESTINED TO BE TOGETHER*~*~*~ that we look past their deep emotional infidelity to multiple partners, and I'm just not really here for that.  I think we deserve romantic comedies that don't necessitate majorly emotionally damaging innocent bystanders, even if one of those bystanders in an embarrassingly bad musician.

All that said, especially in the context of the very slim pickings on two very long flights, I gave the movie a 3.

In conclusion: hopefully managing to watch three movies even under these non-ideal circumstances means my movie-watching tempo is changing for the better.  May the fates be in my favor.

{Heart}

Compromise

Good evening friends,

Lately I've really been compromising on movie-watching time.  For the last few months, it's been hard to imagine where movies would fit into our lives.  Sometimes it just doesn't seem clear where that could possibly happen.

And sometimes, somehow, we manage to fit a full "Dune" movie into our lives.

So there's that.

Which means that, evidently, instead of compromising on movie time, I'm compromising on writing time.

I'll see you next month!

{Heart}

2023 Movie Round-Up!! Part 1

Hi team,

This year we're going to do the year-end round-up a bit differently.

We're already doing it differently, obviously, given that it's the end of April and I'm just now getting to it.  I inadvertently set myself up to approach this post differently this year when I wrote the preamble to this year's round-up, so I suppose it makes sense to continue to deviate from my routine way of reflecting on a year of movies.

My plan for this year is to write the round-up in three installments:

• Part 1: Overview
  
• Part 2: The Worst Movies
• Part 3: The Best Movies

I'm actually kind of excited to try out this version of the round-up, because in honesty writing the one-big-post version is kind of a bear.  It's one of the longest and most labor-intensive posts I do each year.  As we've already established, I just don't have time for that kind of task right now.

So now, let's commence Part 1: The Overview!

As you'll see below, in stark contrast to this year (so far, at least), I watched A TON of movies last year.  In fact, I watched the second-most number of movies last year in the entire history of this blog, with the sole exception of 2020 (aka the other year I had a parental leave) (but also the year the pandemic started), during which I watched a whopping 95 movies.

Those movies were:

1. Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (4)

2. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (5)

3. The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (3)

4. The Automat (4)

5. The Banshees of Inisherin (5)

6. Failure to Launch (2)

7. Emily the Criminal (5)

8. Wall Street (2)

9. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (4)

10. Notting Hill (1)

11. This Changes Everything (3)

12. Art and Craft (4)

13. The People We Hate at the Wedding (4)

14. Spirited Away (5)***

15. Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King (3)

16. Norma Rae (5)

17. Luca (3)

18. Persona (5)***

19. Thelma and Louise (3)

20. Now You See Me (2)

21. Inside Man (4.5)

22. Crazy Rich Asians (3)***

23. Late Spring (5)

24. To Catch a Thief (3)

25. The Philadelphia Story (4)

26. The Apartment (4)

27. Cléo de 5 à 7 (4)***

28. Early Summer (5)

29. Designing Woman (3)

30. Woman of the Year (2)

31. From Up on Poppy Hill (2)

32. The Big Sleep (3)

33. Rome, Open City (5)

34. Belle de Jour (2)

35. When Marnie Was There (3)

36. Murder on the Orient Express (3)

37. Red Notice (3)

38. Broadcast News (5)

39. Magic Mike (2.5)

40. Audrey (2)

41. The Princess Bride (4)

42. Die Hard (5)***

43. Bad Boys (2)

44. The Lego Movie (5)***

45. Palm Springs (5)***

46. Shadows (4)

47. Winter Light (4)

48. Autumn Sonata (5)

49. Funny Face (2)

50. Malcolm X (4.5)

51. Rye Lane (4)

52. Le Samouraï (5)***

53. The Brady Bunch Movie (4)***

54. The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2)

55. The Goonies (2)

56. Minions: The Rise of Gru (4)

57. Despicable Me (3.5)***

58. Despicable Me 2 (3.5)

59. Wish Dragon (5)

60. Minions: The Rise of Gru (4.5)***

61. Stutz (5)

62. Plus One (5)

63. BlackBerry (4)

64. Heat (4)

65. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (5)

66. Dancing with the Birds (5)***

67. Glitch: The Rise and Fall of HQ Trivia (4)

68. The Jewel Thief (4)

69. Barbie (5)

70. Running with Speed (5)

71. Joy Ride (4)

72. Barbie (4)***

73. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (4)

74. Nosferatu (3)

75. Quiz Lady (3.5)

76. Moana (4)***

77. The Lego Movie (5)***

78. No Hard Feelings (4)

79. Best. Christmas. Ever! (1)

Overall, I'm not only pleased with the quantity but also the quality and breadth of the movies I watched last year.  I watched movies from a variety of eras, genres, and countries.  I watched children's movies, documentaries, silly movies, movies important to the history of cinema, and movies I'd never heard of before.  

I watched a lot of movies I'd seen before and overall enjoyed revisiting.  As a reminder, these latter films are indicated thusly: ***.  In the past, I've used * to indicate that I got nauseated while watching a movie and ** to note that I fell asleep while watching a movie.  Happily, neither of those indicators were necessary last year.

I'm also thrilled with the number of movies I wrote about last year.  A variety of post structures made that possible, including writing perhaps my favorite double header ever, but mostly trying and finally succeeding at keeping myself to slightly briefer posts of a couple of paragraphs is what clinched 2023 as the most prolific blog year to date by number of posts.

Unlike in 2020, I allowed myself to be guided much more by my instincts and interests rather that curated should-y seeming lists of what other people consider to be the best or most important or whatever movies.  Taking that latter tack in 2020 got me into some trouble, including watching some of my least favorite movies of that year.  I'm thankful to have moved past the sense of obligation to decide what to watch based on other people's opinions, because I truly do feel content and satisfied with what I watched last year.

And with that, I think we'll conclude Part 1.  I'm excited to get into the worsts and bests, hopefully very soon!

{Heart}

Living in the Margins

Hi friends,

This month, I watched about a third of a movie and am putting off the 2023 round-up yet again.

I feel sad about this somewhat dramatic and abrupt change in my ability to engage in two things that are really important to my identity as a whole person, not only a caregiver: writing and watching movies. I also feel a bit anxious about this change, because I don't totally understand why it suddenly feels like the already very thin margins on the logistics and demands of my life have suddenly gotten even narrower.  

That's maybe because it's not due to only one thing.  There are the obvious contributing factors, like our Second Child becoming more mobile and communicative in the months before and since his first birthday, and enduring the cliché parade of different kid-borne plagues, the latter of which at best slowed the rate at which we're able to handle the everyday tasks of life and work.  I've also gradually started to increase my work hours while simultaneously trying to stay on top of various routine obligations like doctor and vet appointments.  And then there are the "bonus" unanticipated disruptions, like being sent on a wild goose chase of possibly buying a second car because of a dubiously dire assessment from an unfamiliar mechanic about our current one (lesson learned: always get a second opinion, ideally from a mechanic you already know and trust), or rescuing a cat who showed up in our backyard and yelled at us through the window until we finally gave him the chance to walk right into a cat carrier and set up temporary residence in one of our bathrooms, or the surprisingly large lift of completing enough continuing education credits to renew one of my licenses.

On the lighter side of things, Husband and I have also recently rediscovered our love for Love Island as well as discovering a new show we're really enjoying, which together gobble up the potential movie-watching time in the evenings.  I've been putting a lot of effort into meeting and building relationships with other parents in our neighborhood, and also unwittingly but joyfully building relationships with several types of local wildlife who now frequent our backyard.

It all makes sense when I lay out all the things that have accumulated to the point that they fully color in the page of my life to its very outermost edges.  I just keep waiting for there to be a little more breathing room, a little more consistent reprieve from the happy relentlessness of this stage of life.  It truly is happy, but it truly is also relentless.

I started this blog as an accountability check during grad school, to hold myself accountable to myself for making space for my whole self as I engaged in a process that could easily consume everything I had to offer: learning to be a psychologist.  I am not only a caregiver.  I knew that then, and I know that now.

The happy trouble is, I'm really good at caregiving, and I love doing it.  I love my work and I love parenting and I love maintaining everything that is my family, including my home and all the living things within (and around) it.  It gives me a deep sense of fulfilled, values-directed purpose and satisfaction.  That signals a change in my caregiving that I've taken stock of recently--I'm caring for things in a way that doesn't feel like pouring into a bottomless vessel.  I used to do a lot of that impossible kind of caregiving, and it was at times pretty devastating.  At best, it was draining, made me feel devalued, and cloudied my mental vision.  I think I've become more realistic about what I'm responsible for and what my care can and cannot accomplish, and when I stay within the new boundaries that awareness creates, caregiving feels radically different.

Now, I feel the ways in which my love and care can create an echo chamber in the same way depression, fear, or trauma can.  I feel my own care and love reflected back to me, and added to, when I'm with my children and husband, when I see a fox in our backyard or hear birds singing around our house, when I know more of my neighbors, and when I do my work.  Each of these things is evidence of the love and care I've planted blooming.  I'm tired, overworked, and overwhelmed most of the time now, but I'm also happy and emotionally full most of the time, too.

So where in all this do movies fit?  I don't know.  They don't really, at least not with the regularity they used to.  I've taken to reassuring myself that however over-the-top things feel right now, my life won't feel like this forever.  There will be times when there is more freedom in my days for other things, and hopefully I'll enjoy those, too, because the love and care I plant continues to yield a bountiful and broad harvest.

I'm genuinely so excited for the movies I'll watch when it's possible again.  There's so much good stuff out there to see.

{Heart}

Decently Good "Good Grief"

Hey everyone,

I am accepting that I’m putting off my annual movie round-up for yet another month since this choice is just an honest indicator of what my life is like right now. This is not remotely to say my life is bad. It’s just immensely full, and it’s therefore giving me lots of opportunities to practice being gentle, realistic, and reasonable with myself about what’s possible and what’s a priority right now.

So instead of the heavier lift of a round-up post, I’ll squeeze in a February post on this leap day by writing about a movie I recently watched. 

On a possibly ill-advised whim while Husband was out for the evening for a family event and I stayed home with our children, I watched “Good Grief” (2023), a film about a person mourning the sudden death of his husband. Because how better to take advantage of a solo evening after the kids are in bed than to watch a movie that makes you sad and anxious about spousal loss? This was truly free time allocation at its finest.

Beyond the mild angst and regret I feel about that decision, I have overall mixed feelings about this movie. Let’s get into it.

The film is written and starred in by Dan Levy, who also made his directorial debut on this project. I am aware of how beloved Levy is following his role in “Schitt’s Creek”, and found his scenes in “Happiest Season” (2020) to be the most redeemable parts of that movie. He wields a unique combination of sass and pathos that makes him incredibly watchable, and for the most part I enjoyed his performance in “Good Grief”.

The movie starts out strong enough, quickly submerging us in the social world and relationship dynamics of Levy’s Marc and his two close friends, Sophie (played by Ruth Negga) and Thomas (played by Nimesh Patel). Knowing the premise of the movie (hell, just knowing the title of the movie) lends the raucous Christmas party at its beginning a somewhat obvious-feeling dread. This is not to say that the pivotal moment of the death of Marc’s husband Ollie (played by Luke Evans) doesn’t succeed in landing its gut punch of wrenching shock and grief—it does, but taken altogether it feels a bit artless.

And ultimately, that sense of artlessness, of emotional moments that land in a slightly faltering way, typifies the entirety of “Good Grief”. The turning point when this became inescapable for me, unfortunately, was during a monologue of Marc’s that went on a little too long, to the point that it took on an almost stage-y feeling. Rather than feeling authentic and organic, each major moment afterward was instead dogged by a sense of fastidiously checking off the necessary evolutions and catharses to which each main character was entitled. They felt forced and over-written when they could have been outbursts or conversations that sounded like things real people would say to each other. The performances in “Good Grief” were therefore limited by what feels like a lack of maturity in the film’s writing, which is a shame because the actors were otherwise very enjoyable to watch.

The movie’s settings are beautiful and the soundtrack is great. And the overall existence of this film, as an examination of gay married life, love, and loss, as well as adult friendships and grief, is unarguably a net positive. Despite the dubiousness of the timing of when I watched this movie, I’m glad I did. It won’t be the best thing I watched this year, but I think it’s still worth watching.

I gave it a 3.

{Heart}