Category: recs

The Not-At-All-Awaited Gnatty Awards

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Here we are, the final day with 2018 swiftly approaching.

And very good riddance to 2017. Not that some great stuff didn’t happen but I am exhausted and so is most everyone I know.

We aren’t owed anything, god knows, but here’s hoping the new year brings with it some new energy for new hope.

As for me, I achieved my resolved goal of 2017, which was to start writing this blog. Good for me.

It was a pretty good year for films. I enjoyed an awful lot and I found an awful lot to be truly excellent (overlapping, but not unified, circles). And I finally faced the fact that I won’t personally be able to make everyone I think should see them watch all the films I enjoyed. Doesn’t stop me from buying them in hope, though.

Now without further ado, I present the final damned list of movies I saw in 2017 (for the first time, in a theater), and the not-at-all awaited Gnatty Awards. These are awards I award totally on my own recognizance and whim to the people I feel like in categories I made up. (I will be sticking to movies that came out new this year, instead of all the ones I’ve seen.)

Top 3 laughing movies:
3. Bad Mom’s Christmas
2. Lego Batman
1. Thor: Ragnarok

Top 3 crying movies:
3. Lady Bird
2. Gifted
1. Lucky

Top 3 angry movies:
3. Atomic Blonde
2. Hidden Figures
1. I Am Not Your Negro

Top 3 fist-in-the-air triumph movies:
3. Battle of the Sexes
2. Hidden Figures
1. Wonder Woman

Top 3 Action Films:
3. Hitman’s Bodyguard
2. Wonder Woman
1. Atomic Blonde

Top 3 Horror Films:
3. IT
2. Colossal
1. Get Out

Top 3 Scifi Films:
3. Thor: Ragnarok
2. Star Wars: The Last Jedi
1. The Shape of Water

Top 3 Romance Films: 
3. Call Me By Your Name
2. The Big Sick
1. The Shape of Water

Top 3 Drama Films:
3. Lady Bird
2. Lucky
1. Moonlight

Top 3 serious genre films:
3. Colossal
2. Star Wars: The Last Jedi
1. The Shape of Water

Top 3 lighthearted genre films:
3. Spiderman: Homecoming
2. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
1. Thor: Ragnarok

Top 3 surprisingly sweet & uplifting films:
3. Table 19
2. Logan Lucky
1. Tom of Finland

Top 3 things I was looking forward to but which turned out to be huge disappointments:
3. The Mummy
2. Vallerian and the City of A Thousand Planets
1. Dark Tower

Top 3 sex scenes:
3. Call Me By Your Name
2. Atomic Blonde
1. Professor Marston And the Wonder Women

Top 3 films that I was skeptical of but which turned out to be surprisingly good:
3. Baywatch
2. Blade Runner 2049
1. Spider-Man: Homecoming

Top 3 films that were fucking superb, but which I will never voluntarily watch again (probably): 
3. The Zookeeper’s Wife
2. Dunkirk
1. Baby Driver

Top 3 films I adored that didn’t fit in the above categories:
3. My Cousin Rachel
2. XXX: Return of Xander Cage
1. Kong: Skull Island

Here are the superlatives of the year:

Film I am most likely to watch eleventy billion times for the rest of my life: Thor: Ragnarok

Film I am betting folks didn’t see that I am going to forcibly show them: Logan Lucky

Film I am most likely to show to my mother: The Big Sick

Film I am most likely to show to my brother: The Hitman’s Bodyguard

Here is the full list of what I saw in the theater (with some duplicates, you’ll notice.)

Hidden Figures, 1/7/2017
Moonlight, 1/16/2017
Arrival, 1/28/2017 (first seen 2016)
XXX: Return of Xander Cage, 1/28/2017
Lego Batman, 2/10/2017
I Am Not Your Negro, 2/11/2017
The Space Between Us, 2/11/2017
Split, 2/11/2017
Cure for Wellness, 2/19/2017
Get Out, 2/24/2017
Moonlight, 3/3/2017
Logan, 3/4/2017
Table 19, 3/12/2017
Kong: Skull Island, 3/12/2017
Power Rangers, 3/25/2017
Life, 3/25/2017
The Zookeeper’s Wife, 4/8/2017
Gifted, 4/8/2017
Fate of the Furious, 4/14/2017
Postcards From The Edge, 4/26/2017
Colossal, 4/27/2017
Guardians of the Galaxy vol 2, 5/6/2017
Baywatch, 5/25/2017
The Circle, 5/26/2017
Alien: Covenant, 5/26/2017
Wonder Woman, 6/1/2017
Wonder Woman, 6/4/2017
It Comes At Night, 6/10/2017
The Mummy, 6/10/2017
Valley Of The Dolls, 6/14/2017
My Cousin Rachel, 6/18/2017
Baby Driver, 7/3/2017
Spider-Man: Homecoming, 7/7/2017
War for the Planet of the Apes, 7/15/2017
The Big Sick, 7/15/2017
Dunkirk (70mm), 7/20/2017
Valerian and the City of A Thousand Planets, 7/21/2017
Atomic Blonde, 7/30/2017
Night of the Hunter, 7/31/2017
Atomic Blonde, 8/4/2017
Atomic Blonde, 8/5/2017
Wonder Woman, 8/11/2017
Dark Tower, 8/12/2017
Logan Lucky, 9/4/2017
IT, 9/13/2017
Mother!, 9/17/2017
Kingsman 2: the golden circle, 9/24/2017
The Hitman’s Bodyguard, 9/27/2017
Battle of the Sexes, 9/30/2017
The Mountain Between Us, 10/7/2017
Blade Runner 2049, 10/8/2017
Friday the 13th, 10/13/2017
Friday the 13th: Part 2, 10/13/2017
Professor Marston And The Wonder Women, 10/15/2017
Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, 10/21/2017
Suburbicon, 10/28/2017
Lucky, 10/29/2017
Thor: Ragnarok, 11/3/2017
Murder On The Orient Express, 11/11/2017
Thor: Ragnarok, 11/12/2017
Justice League, 11/18/2017
Bad Mom’s Christmas, 11/25/2017
Lady Bird, 12/3/2017
Darkest Hour, 12/10/2017
The Shape Of Water, 12/10/2017
Tom of Finland, 12/16/2017
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, 12/20/2017
Star Wars: The Last Jedi, 12/24/2017
Molly’s Game, 12/29/2017
Downsizing, 12/29/2017
Call Me By Your Name, 12/31/2017

Thanks for everything, y’all, and I will see you in 2018

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My current level of inability to cope with my life is represented by the 113 unread emails in my personal inbox. Not helped by the fact that I’m working this weekend because it’s finals.

Don’t let anyone kid you, college students — everyone hates finals. It’s not just you. Staff, profs, teaching assistants….anyone who has to deal with them.

In spite of extra work, I am going to try to get to see The Shape Of Water this weekend, and possibly also Darkest Hour.

Here’s some recommendations for folks who actually have time this weekend!

Netflix

First, I would like to note that Netflix has several big-time franchise movies right now, including Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (super fun) and Rogue One (super not-fun but quite good).

It also has one of my favorite cheesy action flicks, XXX.

The first time I saw this movie, when I got to the end of an early scene where our hero is jumping a motorcycle off a building that was in the process of exploding, I was like, “This is the best fucking movie I’ve ever seen.”

It isn’t, actually, but the action scenes are a lot of fun. I kind of love the whole franchise, tbh. The films are not an intellectual challenge or anything, but they’re playing into being exactly what they are – badass stunts and explosions aplenty.

In fact, let’s take a moment to consider the stunt persons. They are epic. I appreciate what they do.

I am also totally psyched for the new season of One Day At A Time that will be coming out in January. If you haven’t watched it, try season 1. It’s fun, thoughtful, kid-safe and charming.

Hulu

Hulu has Gifted, which I’ve watched some of and is quite good and Runaways, which is one of my favorite freaking Marvel comics runs of all time. The trailer made it look amazing, but I haven’t gotten around to watching it yet.

They also have the adorable and under-rated Girls Just Want To Have Fun.

It’s a dancing movie about friendships among girls and the usual teenaged stuff. It has a great soundtrack and is quite a feel-good watch.

It also has a surprisingly great cast – Shannon Doherty, Sarah Jessica Parker and Helen Hunt are all in it. Also, watch for a random appearance from one of my faves, Robert Downey, Jr.

Prime Streaming

I got a delightful surprise this week when I came home one night to find out that Amazon’s streaming video is now accessible from my AppleTV (which is my household’s main source of stuff to go on the ticky-talky box). That’s probably neither here nor there to most of you, but I wanted to mention it, in case it was.

Prime has The Big Sick, a film I’ve mentioned favorably, before. It’s a warm and moving movie probably even if you’re not already on the Kumail Nanjiani bandwagon, which I certainly was as a huge fan of his stand-up.

An aside, I finally started listening to Nanjiani’s X Files podcast and it is a freaking delight.

They also have Mr. Robot, a tense techno-thriller show with some really interesting character stuff.

If you’re looking for something lighter, consider the action comedy Rush Hour 2. For some reason the first one isn’t on streaming, but the sequel is and I don’t think it’ll hurt from the lack of the first, if you haven’t seen it.

Kids

In term of movies for little observers, Amazon is weak on movie options, but they seem to have all the Christmas specials ever made right now. Hulu still has all the freaking Disney. A good one to try might be the kid-aimed sports movie The Mighty Ducks.

On Netflix, check out Zootopia, if you haven’t. It’s an animal-as-people movie that’s better and more thoughtful than I imagined it could be. They also have a metric tonne of Christmas stuff if that is your jam.

GOOD LUCK and see y’all next week.

 

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Happy Friday, nerds.

This weekend I am planning on seeing one or more of the following: Lady Bird, The Man Who Invented Christmas, Roman J. Israel, esq., and Coco.

Movies I’m looking forward to in the coming weeks with great glee include The Shape of Water, Guillermo del Toro’s Abe Sapien whump and romance au fanfic, Downsizing, which looks like a bizarre mid-life crisis fantasy film, and, of course, the new Star Wars. I already have it penciled in to cry miserably as soon as I see Gen. Organa come on the screen. I will, for the record, be saving The Last Jedi to watch with my mom when I head Southwards to see her for Christmas, so I will be maybe the last person to see it.

The sacrifices I make for family. *dramatic sigh*

Here are some streaming recs if you’re planning on staying in, this weekend!

Netflix

I finally started watching The Punisher this week. I thought it would be a tough watch because the character of Frank Castle pretty much equals wicked levels of violence. The show is, indeed, violent, but it also has deeply thoughtful engagement with its violence and with PTSD, the various costs of soldier-hood and with the emotional state of people who lose someone or lose part of themselves. All in all, I’m finding it a much easier watch than Jessica Jones (which was excellent, but suuuper difficult, for me) in spite of the violence.

If you’re in for something shorter, Netflix is streaming the biopic The Imitation Game. — I have been furious about the story of Alan Turing ever since I had first heard it. In spite of this movie’s flaws, it tells his story with compassion (though not in the depth I had hoped).

If biopics or Benedict Cumberbatch aren’t your thing, consider the film 9. It’s animated, but not for young kids. The story is pretty scary and deeply emotional. It’s a beautiful, but dark tale set after the apocalypse.

Hulu

Hulu has Contact – a big cerebral piece of science fiction starring Jodie Foster from the novel by Carl Sagan. It’s full of Ideas and well worth a watch.

Prime

Amazon has the only Thanksgiving film of which I am aware, Home for the Holidays. It’s a comedy about family bullshit, so cw for all that entails.

Kids

Amazon has the adorable and hopeful Happy Feet. Hulu has the 90s live-action George of the Jungle, which is extremely silly but has some good gags.

Netflix has the inspiring Queen of Katwe, true story of Phiona Mutesi, a chess champion that came up from slums in Uganda to become a competitive chess player. The film is not an easy watch, as it is unflinchingly honest about poverty and its consequences, but it is a great story and done with all the polish you’d expect from a Disney film.

As a bonus, you’ll come out with this stuck in your head:

which is fun.

I hope y’all have a great weekend!

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Hey all. I’m seeing Justice League this weekend, and I may also try to get to Lady Bird.

Here are some streaming recs for this week.

I shy away from recommending things that I feel like everyone has seen, but in truth there is nothing everyone has seen. So today I’m going to rec some stuff I believe was widely viewed, and which is good enough to justify that popularity.

Netflix

Netflix has the incomparable Men In Black. I wind up loving a lot of movies based on comic books. This one’s antecedents are in a relatively obscure indie that started coming out in the early nineties. The movie was enough of a powerhouse at the box office to create a franchise. No doubt this was in part due to Will Smith’s starring role. Coming just after his role in Independence Day, Men In Black solidified Smith’s ability to carry off an action comedy role.

Smith wound up starring in a ton of scifi action movies over the following decades. And references to this movie still float around my cohort to this day.

The film also capitalized on the popularity of tv’s the X-Files, which was a strong performer throughout the mid nineties.

It’s really quite funny and full of some great action scenes and one-liners.

Rated PG-13, Men in Black is safe for a lot of kids, I should think.

Hulu

Based on the classic TV show from the 60’s and 70’s that many folks of my generation saw in reruns, the 90s Mission Impossible movie adaptation took a lot of well -known tropes from the show and gave them a high Hollywood shine.

Scenes and tropes from this movie (and from this franchise) wound up referenced in a lot of other places. So you might see something you recognize, even if you haven’t seen it before.

Mission Impossible is also rated PG-13, but the violence in it is more realistic, as is the peril. I wouldn’t recommend it for kids.

Amazon

Amazon has the 1995 adaptation of Sense and Sensibility starring Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, Alan Rickman, and Kate Winslet. I had already been an Austen-head (Aust-fan? Austling?) for years when it came out and it’s since become one of my comfort movies.

I saw it on a very awkward date with a fellow in college, but I love it anyway. Thompson, in addition to starring, was the person who adapted the novel for the screen. I think it’s a fantastic job, in spite of the many differences from the book.

It’s rated PG and is fine for kids, I believe, though I don’t know how interested that they’d be.

Kid Friendly

Check out E.T. on Netflix (the first movie I remember seeing in the theater), or on Hulu, check out a bunch of classic Disney films, including one of my favorites as a kid, The Rescuers.

= = =

Have a good weekend, folks!

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Even though it is Friday, it is Thorsday.

I’m seeing Ragnarok at 8 tonight. I hope very much that it lives up to its hype.

That’s my only real movie plan for the weekend. Thor, incidentally, will be my fiftieth movie this year. Goal for 2017 met. Everything else I see will be extra credit.

Here are some streaming recs for this week:

Netflix

Netflix has Begin Again, which is a favorite of mine. A movie about music and musicians and about fucking up and finding oneself.

If you want something meatier, Netflix is also streaming Carol right now, a thoughtful, heavy drama about a lesbian couple in the 1950s. Directed by Todd Haynes, of whose work I am generally fond (he directed Velvet Goldmine, which is one of my all-time faves), Carol is a beautiful film as well as a deeply affecting. It won high honors at the Cannes film festival and has picked up quite a slate of accolades since then.

It’s not exactly a happy film, but it doesn’t have the traditional queer tragedy ending, either. Between the performances and the lovely cinematography, it’s well worth seeing.

Hulu

Hulu is also streaming Carol, right now, and if you can handle subtitles, It’s also streaming the offbeat, funny sports film, Shaolin Soccer.

For some reason, this trailer is dubbed, but the movie on Hulu isn’t.

Shaolin Soccer is PG-13 and may be kid-friendly for older kids.

Amazon Prime Streaming

Amazon has Chef which is one of my favorite feel-good movies. It also has Florence Foster Jenkins, a funny, feel-good biopic starring Meryl Streep.

Kid Friendly

Amazon has Aardman Animation’s Shaun the Sheep feature film. It’s pretty hilarious and lives up quite well to the legacy of Wallace and Gromit.

Hulu has Lilo & Stitch, which is one of my favorite kids movies that I’ve seen as an adult, and also has Honey I Shrunk the Kids, a goofy eighties movie that I don’t think I’ve seen since the actual eighties, but of which I have fond memories.

Netflix has Coraline, a pretty spooky kids movie done in breathtaking stop-motion animation. It may not be good for younger kids because it does have some genuinely unsettling stuff.

It also has Finding Dory, which I have some trouble believing anyone with kids won’t already have seen, but if you haven’t, it’s well worth it. A surprisingly beautiful story about what family means.

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Sometimes there are those films that you walk out of not really wanting to talk about them. Films that carry an experience so intense or personal as to overwhelm the capability to craft sentences. Sometimes it takes a few days to be able to talk about them. Sometimes you never really can.

Art is like that. Sometimes it’s ethereal beauty, sometimes it’s a sobbing punch in the stomach. As long as it moves you, right?

Lucky is neither ethereal nor is it a punch. It’s a very down-to-earth movie about some giant, sweeping, world-swallowing concepts. The film takes up something fundamental and real and human and, through daily minutiae, tells you a tale much deeper and more emotional than a recitation of the events in the film would convey.

It’s a movie about coming to terms with the inevitability of death. It’s about how you carry on living your life in the face of something so enormous (and particularly how you do it when you don’t believe another life comes after this one). It is real and it is raw and it is visceral, without containing any exceptional events or large plot points.

The film begins with Harry Dean Stanton as the title character, doing his morning routine in underwear. The film doesn’t shy away from showing his body. It also doesn’t shy away from showing the spikier parts of his personality. The portrait it paints is of a man not particularly refined or pleasant, but he is easy to identify with.

While he’s coming to grips with his fear of death, you are right there with him in the thick of that fear. Through its simple beats, the film rakes you over the coals.

It reminded me of nothing more than this edition of “A Softer World”:

I have a two part question. 1. What would you do if you were going to die? And 2. How did you ever convince yourself you weren't?

The film ends, amazingly enough, on an upbeat note. However, thinking of its turns and its points is making me cry again right now. Like getting old itself, the film is not for the faint of heart.

It doesn’t help that Lucky was Stanton’s final film. He died September 15 of this year. I have no doubt that, at 90 during the filming, his own emotions fueled this performance. The character has a lot in common with him. I hope it helped him through a scary time. I have no doubt that it will help others through integrating the inevitability that they will die.

Me, meanwhile, I’ll be sitting here with a heavy mind asking myself how I ever convinced myself I wasn’t.

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HEY ALL. IT’S ALMOST HALLOWEEN, WHICH IS THE FREAKING BEST. Moreover, it’s actually getting chilly here, now, finally. I’m not used to having to wait for chilly in New England.

Also it is almost time for Thor: Ragnarok, about which I am almost unreasonably psyched. I love Taika Waititi. I love Tessa Thompson. I love the Hulk and Bruce Banner. I am hyped.

But Halloween is days away and Thor 3 is nearly a week away, and this weekend, we must content ourselves with other things.

I am planning to see Lucky (cause I didn’t get around to seeing it last weekend, oops). And Suburbicon. With options on a ton of other things, but the second season of Stranger Things came out and I have holiday crafting to do, which may combine to keep me at home for a big chunk of the weekend. We shall see.

Here are some quick hit streaming recommendations. I am typing this up way later than usual, so I’m going to try not to say too much about the films.

Amazon Prime Streaming –

I didn’t think to look at the free-with-your-prime-membership options till this week. There is so much good stuff on there.

If you are interested in horror and particularly in deconstructing/interrogating horror tropes please check out the phenomenal Girl With All The Gifts. I swear to god, I am not recommending it just because Gemma Arterton is in it. It’s a coincidence that I keep recommending her films. She knows how to pick ’em, I guess. (Major CWs for child endangerment, abusive language towards children and various sorts of gore).

Netflix

Consider Don’t Think Twice a love letter to improv theater written by Mike Birbiglia and starring Keegen-Michael Key (amongst others). It’s got some funny bits, but the overall feel is thoughtful as the film explores the prices of success and what it takes to be happy.

Hulu

On Hulu, may I recommend 10 Cloverfield Lane. It’s a moving horror film with good turns of relief vs tension and a lot of plot elements that keep you guessing. It’s not terribly gory, but it’s definitely scary.

Kid-Friendly

For kid friendly films on Netflix, check out some of the pg and pg-13 rated stuff in the Halloween Favorites section. Some of my personal faves you’ll find here are Corpse Bride, Nightmare Before Christmas, and The Addams Family and its sequel.

Hulu also has the Addams Family flicks, and also the classic The Neverending Story, just in case you want to give your kids lifelong feels about a horse.

Amazon Prime streaming has another, quite different classic, Bill And Ted’s Excellent Adventure. It also has the underrated Spiderwick Chronicles.

 

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FRIDAY FRIDAY GONNA GET DOWN ON FRIDAY.

Years later, and it still gets stuck in my head on an almost weekly basis. I’m so sorry.

I’m definitely seeing Lucky.

The other movies I’m interested in this weekend are Geostorm and Breathe. I’m also interested in Tragedy Girls, but it doesn’t look as though it’s playing anywhere I can actually get to, in my car-less-ness.

For those of you looking to stay in, this weekend, here are some streaming recommendations.

Byzantium, based on a stage play, is a vampire story that isn’t really a horror story, I’d say. Which is not to say that there’s no bloody vampire death or awful situations – there are. But the movie doesn’t spin around them. It is instead a drama touching on themes of motherhood, family, death and sexism through the ages. It stars the lovely and talented Gemma Arterton, who I have adored ever since I saw her head-butt a guy in the first ten minutes of Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters and Saiorse Ronan whose credits include Atonement and The Lovely Bones.

Gemma Arterton on a chat show saying 'I went to the royal academy of dramatic fucking arts.'.

It’s a heavy film, but beautiful and beautifully acted. Byzantium is streaming on both Netflix and Hulu.

For a more subtle spooky film, consider Berberian Sound Studio. It stars Toby Jones (AKA Doctor Zola, from the Captain America movies) as a foley artist for a trashy horror film in Italy, far away from his home in England. His character is also a war veteran and the work affects him more profoundly than he had anticipated. The film takes many a surreal turn as it explores the disturbing nature of the work he’s doing and what he’s putting himself through to do it. As I recall, you never see one minute of gore. Instead all awful, bloody moments in the film he’s working on are played on Jones’ face or on the equipment he’s using to add realism to the gore-fest he’s working on.

Berberian Sound Studio is streaming on Hulu.

If you’re looking for something more kid-friendly, consider Kubo and the Two Strings. An epic, beautifully animated fairy tale of a film. It’s streaming on Netflix.

Once Halloween is done, I will probably stop recommending so many spooky films. But I promise nothing.

ALSO for local film mavens (or anyone who enjoyed Netflix’s Glow) Channel Zero is hosting a showing of a documentary: G.L.O.W. – The story of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling in the Somerville Theater. Tickets are $7.50 – cash only and the show starts at 8. I probably won’t make it, myself, but I thought folks might like to know!

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[I tried to be as un-spoilery as possible, but it’s difficult to review a film without revealing things about it.]

Romance is generally a genre of story that is deeply wedded to its formulas. Not that there aren’t exceptions in romantic films, but a lot of times if you walk into one, you know what you’re getting and it’s what you’re there for. (Like cheesy action flicks.)

Biopics are similar, just in that, if you go in knowing and liking the person the movie is about, you probably already know at least part of the story you’re about to be told.

It’s always refreshing, and somewhat unnerving, to walk into a film about a person you find interesting and know the general outlines and to be not at all sure how the film will handle its subjects or themes.

I was nervous going into Professor Marston and the Wonder Women. I was delighted by the time I came out. The film’s advantages of centering around a non-traditional romance and telling a story about the relationship and their lives instead of the relationship as their lives set it up to break out of any dramatic romance formulae.

It succeded in being very romantic. Also funny, sexy and dramatic by turns. That two of the real-life folks from which whose lives were drawn the story of the film were badass female academics who were allowed to be strong on screen, and angry, and off-putting pretty much guaranteed that the film would be at least half a win for me. But I was blindsided by my investment in the relationship and interior lives of these three people. I didn’t expect to be crying tears of joy for their successes. I did, though.

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women almost reads as a fanfic AU – which I mean in the nicest of ways. It explores problems for unusual people who choose an unusual lifestyle without making the narrative into a moralistic or denigrating tale. It does such a fantastic job of painting its characters early on that you feel like you know them well by the time their biggest troubles hit. I know that both the complexities of the story and the ever after that we get to see in the film are taken from real life, but I did not expect them to be portrayed with such interest and sympathy.

My respect for Rebecca Hall as an actress grows in every film I see her in. She shines in this as the mercurial and brilliant Elizabeth Marston. The film gives her room to be all the things she is – wildly intelligent, bitterly angry at the limitations imposed by her gender roles, defensive of her position, insecure and boastful by turns. And she takes all these qualities and delivers a performance of great depth. The film also allows Marston (who, in spite of the film’s name, does not feel like the film’s primary focus) to be unusual in his own way: deeply invested in emotions, communicative, thoughtful and a great advocate for the rights of women. Bella Heathcote, who plays the pair’s lover, has a quieter kind of strength, but is not portrayed as lesser because of it.

I was captivated by Angela Robinson’s portrayal of complex people and the warm lense through which she invited the viewer into their bond. I think it’s rare in film to see a three-way sex scene portrayed with such emotion and connection as in this film. I adored her work and will be seeking out more of her films in the future.

If you’re in this looking for a deep exploration of Wonder Woman and the creative process behind her inception, this movie will only give you a taste of what you want, but if you’re looking for a deep and moving story about unconventional people, you should definitely check it out.

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Some quick things, before the weekend hits.

Here are the things I’m planning to see this weekend:

I definitely want to see Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, and I am planning on attending a local theater’s double feature of Friday the 13th and Friday the 13th: Part 2 which is happening (unsurprisingly) tonight, on Friday the 13th.

Other films I’m interested in and may not get to are: American Made, The Foreigner, Marshall (damn, I feel like I have seen a much greater than average number of biopics this year), The Florida Project, and Lucky.

Lists like that are why even seeing as many movies as I do, there are always some at the end of the year that I really wanted to see but didn’t get the chance.

Streaming Recommendations: 

And if you are looking for something to watch, yourself, this weekend, but you don’t want to leave the house, here are some films to consider:

Colossal is a film with an enchanting and fun premise that earns its R rating by adressing some scary and serious topics. It plays with the tropes of the monster-film genre to address some awful real-life stuff, including unemployment, domestic violence and natural disasters.

Definitely not for kids (and I’m sure not for some adults, as the domestic violence is portrayed realistically and brutally) the film is moving and heavy. Anne Hathaway and Jason Sudeikis really sell the emotional reality of the outlandish premise.

Colossal is streaming on Hulu.

The trailer does not give a good sense of the film’s overall mood, but here it is:

On Netflix, if you’re on the ‘cute white guys named Chris’ train at all, you may enjoy Finest Hours [PG-13]- a period piece about a real life story of an audacious Coast Guard rescue off the coast of Massachusetts.

For something more kid-friendly on Netflix, you can’t go wrong with Moana. If you prefer something more obscure, consider Penelope. Starring Christina Ricci it’s a modern-day fairy tale about a girl with a curse who can only break it by finding someone who loves her as she is. The film is waay more fun and waaay less disempowering than that makes it sound.

Enjoy your weekend, kids and kittens!