Golly, this movie was boring. I have no idea how many times I checked my watch, but it was a lot.

Thanks to convenient plot devices, nearly every character from Ghostbusters: Afterlife is back, even though the new movie is in New York. So many internships in Manhattan for small town Oklahoma kids! Everyone seems to have had the character bled out of them. Mckenna Grace as Phoebe does the best with what she’s given, but she sure isn’t given very much. Tons of characters could have disappeared without an impact on the story.

I heard that this movie was trying to lean more into the Real Ghostbusters cartoon, and if you leave out the sex dungeon jokes it definitely seems like an episode of a cartoon instead of a movie. There’s a Ghost of the Week, a problem to solve, and everything is back to the status quo at the end. There was also just about enough plot to carry one 30 minute cartoon.

…oh, and one more thing…

The Walter Peck Problem

In the first movie, William Atherton as Walter Peck is a representative of the EPA who tries to shut down the Ghostbusters. In this movie he’s somehow become the mayor, and he tries to shut down the Ghostbusters.

Both times, he’s right.

An EPA inspector absolutely should be trying to stop people from running around New York with portable nuclear accelerators that can (and do) endanger people and destroy property. A mayor absolutely should stop people from causing death and destruction. Ray casually giving a ball that tested off Evil Scale to someone to use for low security experiments definitely lead to multiple deaths.

Peck’s problem isn’t that he’s wrong about the Ghostbusters; it’s that he uses bad methods to get rid of them. If he had better management skills (or better advisors) the big bad ghost never would have been released.

Snack Shack is from an alternate reality where Richard Linklater directed teen sex comedies, then decided to get rid of most of the sex. Characters and plot points that seem like they will be important to the story just disappear. Two very mature looking 14 year old boys take huge financial risks and it’s mostly fine. They also drink an impressive amount of beer, but it doesn’t seem weird because they look like they’re well past drinking age. None of it makes any sense, but that’s fine. The real story is the relationship the “kids” have with each other, and with the other folks in their lives. Not a great film, but watchable. It’s a watch while folding laundry kind of movie.

I didn’t laugh out loud very much, but I think a lot of that is because I saw it in a nearly empty theater. This is definitely a “see it in a crowd” kind of movie.

There are tons of old movies I’ve always wanted to see but never manage to get around to watching. I usually end up thinking “oh, I’ve waited this long- I can watch it later.” And then I don’t. Lucky for me there’s a partial solution: Alamo Drafthouse movie festivals! Make a movie an event and I might actually make time for it.

Orlando doesn’t always work, but Tilda Swinton is great as the titular boy/man/woman. She breaks the fourth wall a lot- I bet Phoebe Waller Bridge got some ideas from here- but it felt like an acknowledgment that the audience is part of the story.

Lots of character actors you might recognize in cameos, including Billy Zane at his Billy Zaniest.

(The rest of) Elemental

I ended up going back and finishing it. It’s not exactly bad- it’s more like it feels pointless. Pixar’s really lost the emotional core of their movies. I watched less than two hours ago, and I can only remember one character’s name. It’s not even a main character. There are multiple pointless subplots, like a special flower that looks like it’s being set up for some big purpose, but ends up just serving as a reference point for the main characters’ feelings.

(Less than half of) The Oscars

A pretty rough start full of flat jokes and failed bits, but it started to find its legs when John Cena showed up. Even so, I was disinterested enough that I moved to my computer to do work and watched in a tiny window in the corner of my monitor. The stream kept crashing, and I never rushed to restart it, so I missed a lot.

I didn’t agree with all the choices, but at least Green Book didn’t win this year.

Elemental

I’ve seen the other four Best Animated Film nominees, so when Katherine said “Want to watch Elemental?”, I said “sure!” And when we were about a third of the way through it and Katherine said “This isn’t very good- want to watch something else?”, I also said “sure!” Maybe I’ll finish it tomorrow, but it sure didn’t feel like it needed finishing.

Afterward we switched to…

Yesterday

When this came out five years ago, I had nearly zero interest. It looked like the whole movie was in the trailer, and it pretty much was. But the cast is charming, Ed Sheeran is a hoot, and the cover versions of the Beatles songs weren’t bad.

This did not go where I expected it to go!

One of the best movies about how relationships I’ve ever seen. Friendships are start, grow, face challenges, and change. New relationships become old ones. People are changed by who they meet. No words, but absolutely clear thoughts and feelings.

Unrelated to the actual film: the title of this post is a lie. I did not use a pass to see this- I actually bought one of those ticket things. Don’t tell the Blog Post Title Police!

Dune Part 2

Gosh, what a lovely looking film about far-future political intrigue centered on a sandbox planet. 160ish minutes with lots… of… slow… intense… talking… but it never dragged. Most difficult suspension of disbelief for me: Timothée Chalomet, hardened desert fighter fighter.

I bet it was hard to deal with all the sand. It’s coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere.

The Shorts

It’s hard to talk about these with out giving stuff away, so I’m going to be extremely vague.

The After

Holy cow, David Oyelowo can act. This could have easily slipped into unnatural melodrama, but Oyelowo never wavers.

Red, White and Blue

Strong story and performances, but unlike The After this one can’t quite avoid the melodrama.

Knight of Fortune

My favorite of the nominees. Funny, sad, heartfelt, touching.

Invincible

If you’ve ever wanted to see a 16 year old deftly anchor a 30 minute film, watch Léokim Beaumier-Lépine in Invincible.

The Wonderful Life of Henry Sugar

I don’t know if it was seeing in a theater or just having more time to digest it, but I enjoyed this more the second time around.