Author: Ga2so

There’s this thing that happens in most comic book series: they have a great run, then someone else takes over and you keep reading for a while even though the new stuff isn’t good either from nostalgia or “in case it gets good again.” These Crisis movies are the film versions of that. Part One wasn’t very good, but at least it was a little fun to watch them set up the premise. Part Two doesn’t even have that. There are two main stories, one for each of the sidekicks of the Big Bad and Big Good, that feature verrrryyyy sloooowwww exposition. Then there’s a third story that mostly repairing equipment and repetitive fighting of generic looking shadow monsters. I was so bored that right in the middle I decided to stop and clean the litter box.

Part III, the conclusion, comes out in July. I’m guessing I’ll skip it.

A couple of days ago I wrote “there are other ways to show the vulnerability of a character beyond nude stress eating in a bathtub.” Apparently the directors of Tuesday and this movie heard me; the bathtub scenes in their movies feature no stress eating. That’s right, it’s apparently Accidental Contemplative Bathtub Scenes Week! Every movie I’ve seen so far has featured a woman and a bathtub, and in two out of three the scenes actually supported the story!

This movie is strong, even if it is… Canadian. Rachel Sennott shows pretty much every emotion, and she’s great at it.

Man, this movie does not work. See the faces they’re making up there? That’s 95 percent of their interaction. It might work in a light comedy, but it’s a catastrophe in a story about a father and daughter visiting Poland to visit Auschwitz and examine the horrors inflicted on their family by the Nazis. Also: someone please let director Julia von Heinz know that there are other ways to show the vulnerability of a character beyond nude stress eating in a bathtub. It felt like she thought “Dunham doesn’t mind being naked; let’s throw that into the mix.”

Bonus fun: I always try to do something interesting for the front page feature image, but I couldn’t figure out what to do for this. Then I thought “They’re in Poland. I’ll color the picture to match the Polish flag!” So I looked up the Polish flag. It’s this:

Which translated to this for the featured image:

Good enough for this movie.

More stuff I want to show to my students who worry that they don’t have the tools or skills needed to make a decent movie. Hertzfeldt tells a more engaging and compelling story with pencil drawings of stick figures than most big studios do with huge budgets and millions of dollars worth of actors, locations, and graphic effects.

Side note: they fixed the shake machine at the Alamo Drafthouse and I had a reward for a free treat, and that automatically improves a film.

I saw two movies this weekend, both of them because I had been walking around all day and needed a break.

The Watchers

Actually, because I accidentally bought tickets to the Spanish subtitled version it was called “Observadores.” That was the biggest surprise in the movie. Some other surprises: how many pointless red herrings were in the film, and how obvious the “twist” was. Ishana Night Shyamalan has learned a lot of lessons about movies from her father. Unfortunately, it seems like she’s mostly learned the wrong ones.

Furiosa, again

Still fun the second time around. My only complaint: The projection in the San Francisco Alamo Drafthouse (in the smaller theater at least) was surprisingly pixelated.