wicked jaws

In theaters!

Midnight Family is a documentary about a family who operate a private ambulance in Mexico City, and through them, it is a documentary about people doing their best in the midst of systemic failure. Relatable! The number of official ambulances is so small that to call it a mere shortage is laughable, and the void is filled by private EMTs hustling their way around the city, trying to get people to pay who can’t or won’t, and when that fails, trying to make a buck on referrals. The whole operation (and family!) is held together by Juan who is something like 17 years old, and Juan for President, honestly; he’s the best.

I was always going to see Underwater regardless of reviews – I mean cmon, a KStew monster movie? – but it is one of those frustrating movies that hints at intriguing ideas, and then consistently makes the less interesting choice. The movie in my head with all those elements – the monsters! dream logic! softboi Kstew! her brothers-in-arms relationship with Vincent Cassel! the cute intern in the rainbow tshirt! Mamoudou Athie being charming! – was much better. All those elements except please cut TJ Miller thanks because who the fuck wants him around? No one. They should have left him in the rubble. (Also a moment here to wave my Cast Mamoudou Athie In More RomComs You Cowards flag, thank you for coming to my TED talk.)

The day before I saw 1917, a man suggested I “broaden my perspective” by seeing more movies about men as if I have not been seeing movies about men for 40 years. And as I watched it, I thought a lot about why Award Worthy Directing means chest-thumping like putting George MacKay through hell and not, say, creating empathy for Amy March.

Whatever. I went to 1917 for Roger Deakins’ cinematography and also for the possibility that at one point one boy would hold another boy tenderly, and both of those things met my expectations. I didn’t care much about the one-shot trick going in, but by the end I found it a liability. The stakes for the film are of course the question of they’ll get to the line in time to stop the men walking into the German trap. But the stakes are really: will they survive? And in a film so firmly driven by one character (obviously they don’t both make it; this is not a spoiler to anyone who has ever seen a war film) there’s an immediate loss of tension. Anyway whatever it’s fine. It looks great. And if it made you curious about MacKay, I recommend Pride and For Those in Peril.

Everything interesting about The Rhythm Section feels like it came from the fact that it was directed by a woman, and everything cliched and dull about it feels like it came from the fact that it was written by a man. There you have it.

Really, the best time I had in the theater in January was the mini Varda retrospective. Viva Varda!

Home viewing!

I bought Swing Kids unseen on the strength of a scene where two characters dance to “Modern Love”, and it was 100% worth it. The story of a dance troupe put together to “improve morale” in a POW camp during the Korean war, it never forgets the “POW camp” part of that equation, & manages the inherent tonal challenges astonishingly well. If you want a dance movie that also stomps on your heart, have I got a movie for you! Also D.O. is terrific in it, so thanks a lot now my queue at MyDramaList is even longer.

On a related note, I’m still spending a lot of time with Cdramas & Thai BL & most of that is embarrassing but some I will tell you about regardless.

Because the universe is amazing there are somehow *two* different comic Cdramas that star Xiao Zhan & various members of XNine *and* have world-building centered on astrology: “Oh! My Emperor” and “Super Star Academy“. (I mean, this is me assuming “Fights Break Sphere”/”Battle Through the Heavens” *isn’t* about astrology and honestly it could be, who knows.)

I’m halfway through “Oh! My Emperor”, a time-traveling historical which I’m finding a bit of a slog but I’ll keep at it because the girl is adorable and XZ as the guy who won’t get the girl is also adorable.

However, I found “Super Star Academy” thoroughly entertaining. It’s basically a high school for kids with superpowers determined by their star signs, and it’s goofy in a self-aware way that was extremely my jam: secondary characters who complain about their lack of characterization, a chase scene that throws every joke at the wall to see what sticks, a person who isn’t what they pretend to be turning out to be a Gemini.

Also, they have great uniforms. Every episode where Xiao Zhan wears a cape is a good episode in my opinion.

What have you been watching?

* Somewhere Winter was rather the lesser of some multigeneration-spanning romances I’ve seen lately, but I did appreciate that the lead’s devotion to her idol (music star) wasn’t seen as infantilizing as it might in a Western film. It was just another aspect of her worthy of love.

* I am no expert on The Shining – I’ve seen the film a few times but I haven’t read the book – but Doctor Sleep worked for me. It’s better the further it is from Kubrick, but while wrestling with the trauma from that story. Things I particularly loved: Dan working in hospice care, the metaphors for the mind, Rebecca Ferguson using all her wiles as Rose the Hat and being stymied by clever-as-hell Abra Stone (Kyleigh Curran). Plus I didn’t check my watch at all and putting Cliff Curtis in a movie gets an extra star from me every time. But way to fuck me up with an evil found family, how dare you.

* End of the Century is a lovely film about a two men who hook up in Barcelona and realize they’ve met before, 20 years ago. The film explores the past and the what-ifs if they had stayed together and for obvious reasons doesn’t make any attempt to de-age the actors. In fact, the camera almost relishes their signs of aging, giving the effect of the men walking through their own memories.

* The Good Liar should’ve been a half hour shorter and a tight noir, and that cut would be easy to make: just remove everything having to do with Berlin. Spoilers from here: the twist, such as it is, is obvious from the beginning if you’ve seen a movie ever, but I don’t think it’s supposed to be a surprise. What I had a problem with was not the twist, but the motivation for it. Why can’t she double-cross him because she’s wicked herself? No, there had to be Big Motivations like Nazis and murder and sexual assault. It’s exhausting. Just give me Helen Mirren as a wicked lady please and thank you.

* Marriage Story destroyed me. Sometimes I like to be destroyed. Let me have this, Twitter!

* Two Tigers was better than I expected, a buddy comedy about a kidnapper and his victim. The kidnapper isn’t too great at his job, the victim isn’t too bothered about being kidnapped, and together they help each other deal with elements of their pasts to get themselves unstuck.

* I’ve also spent a frankly embarrassing amount of time watching Thai BL shows lately (for which I blame Douyin, which pushed shippy videos of the leads into my feed) & it got me wondering what the appeal is for me (aside from the obvious.) Here’s what I think: they’re soap operas where men spend a lot of time talking through their feelings (non-toxic masculinity!), the characters inhabit largely queernormative settings (any homophobia I’ve seen has been internalized), and Asian men are portrayed as sexual beings and worthy of desire (this is also obvious, but still rare in Western media).

Or maybe it’s just that the world is a garbage fire and I would like to spend my few remaining days watching pretty boys kiss. Probably all of the above.

* Terminator: Dark Fate. With the caveat that I have limited Terminator experience – I’ve seen the first one and maybe the second but that’s it – I loved this queer as hell update. Mackenzie Davis as an enhanced human from the future, here to team up with butch & fierce Linda Hamilton to save Natalia Reyes and also humanity? While landing some punches on ICE? Yes, thank you, more please.

* Synonyms, the story of an Israeli immigrant in Paris attempting to renounce his identity didn’t entirely work for me, but Tom Mercier’s lead performance as Yoav was one of the breakouts of the year.

* I was spoiled for Last Christmas before I ever saw the *trailer* thanks to the surprising percentage of Romancelandia that shows up in my Twitter feed, so when I did see the trailer I thought “yep, that reads.” And they were right! It completely worked for me – sweet and funny and seasonally cheesy – but if you require a traditional HEA from a romcom, it isn’t an experience for you. A small note on this one: I loved how sharp the script was: even throwaway lines on minor characters had zip. Well done, Emma Thompson. And I just continue to want All Of The Henry Golding movies, so get on that, world. Golding as a spy! Golding in space! Golding in a coffee shop AU! I’ll stop now.

* Originally scheduled for release at the end of June and bumped to the end of October for technical – read, censorship – reasons, Better Days is a story about school bullying, revenge, and hope. After a classmate commits suicide less than two months before their Gaokao exams, Chen Nian (Zhou Dongyu) becomes the next target of (the sickeningly well-done) bullies. After the system – both school and police – fail her, she turns to Liu Beishan (Jackson Yee) for protection. It’s a rough journey – they’re both children really – but it ends with hope. One of my favorite films of the year; I’ve already seen it twice. Side note: Zhou’s killing it in excellent on-screen partners from Jackson Yee to Takeshi Kaneshiro (and of course Ma Sichun in SoulMate, also directed by Derek Tsang).

* Pain and Glory is a gift from Almodovar, a story about an aging director looking back on his life and grounded by a gentle and beautifully physical performance by Antonio Banderas – his little shoulder-shimmy after doing a shot is art. It should work for anyone but especially if you’re also a creaky Almodovar fan, which I am.

* Charlie’s Angels. Five stars for relentless misandry and Kstew being queer as fuck. It’s not perfect and not all the jokes land but you know what else that’s true of? Most films about men.