Jeez, Even More Movies?
Dec. 31st, 2020 12:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroHooking Up - She’s a sex-addicted sex columnist; he’s a recently-dumped cancer patient. Through a ridiculous series of events, they end up on a road trip having sex in a lot of weird places. It’s a sexy romcom (though thankfully lacking in gross-out parts) that follows most of the usual formulaic self-discovery. It gets credit for a coda in which they get together after a year of just being friends and getting their own shit in order first. For that matter, they dance around “being slutty is bad” while they’re trying show Darcy’s problem as “being shitty and treating the people you sleep with as objects is bad.” How well they manage is probably very viewer-specific; but at least they’re trying. I think, though, that my favorite part was they way they treat the dad who owns a chain of gyms with the same gravitas as, “You need to settle down and come work at my bank, son.”
Promising Young Woman - A woman, driven by the rape and suicide of her best friend, seeks revenge against both the original perpetrators and men who take advantage of drunk women in general. It’s got a Gone Girl sort of flavor to it; and I’ll admit I was disappointed when it turned out she wasn’t murdering the would-be rapists who took her home. But I give them credit that it wasn’t formulaic and it wasn’t just a wish-fulfillment revenge film. (Upon reflection, we need more female-led wish-fulfillment revenge films. Where’s “Joan Wick”?)
Terminator: Dark Fate - In this variant of the Terminator timeline (it’s the fourth major branch, I think), the events of the first two films happened, and Sarah and John succeeded in stopping Skynet for good in Terminator 2. Unfortunately, things sent to the past obey the “time remnants” theory from The Flash and more T-800s kept arriving, including one that killed John in 1998. Twenty years later, Sarah Conner is a brutal machine-killing survivor when an evil AI called Legion from a different future sends back a terminator to kill a girl named Dani Ramos. I’m entertained that this series has used its timey-whimey mechanics to reboot itself so much and generally keep the best movies in continuity while doing so. It’s a pretty decent action movie and both Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger get some solid material to work with (the scene where this movie’s T-800 is introduced is gold). Maybe a little long, but I enjoyed it. (My friend Ben’s review: “Did you like Terminator 2? Here’s three more hours of it!”)
The Late Bloomer - Did you miss late-90s cringy comedy? Have we got a movie for you! It’s about a sex therapist who discovers a brain tumor that has prevented him from properly hitting puberty; which means he has a massive onrush of testosterone at age 30 and they wrote a movie about a 30-year-old acting like he’s suddenly 13. Apparently this is based (loosely) on a true story, but I feel like the writers had to actively avoid having a conversation with any trans men in order to get this script together. (Short form: Testosterone is, indeed, a hell of a drug, but it doesn’t make you forget how to actually interact with society when you’ve already been an adult for a decade.) In addition, the sexual politics of this movie are a goddamn mess, attempting to make points about “being a man” when in fact the only message they manage is “being asexual is bad.” (The high points are pretty much when J.K. Simmons or Jane Lynch are on screen, in which they’re playing basically the same characters they always do. I’m glad they and Brittany Snow got paychecks, but this isn’t a good movie.)
The Final Girls - I’ve never been much for horror films, but I clearly appreciate self-referential horror comedies. (I think this one was recommended to me after Happy Death Day, and it has a similar vibe.) Three years after her mother’s death, a girl and her friends are transported into the terrible camp slasher film her mom famously starred in. Which leads to a lot of trying to use and subvert the film’s conventions to keep everyone alive. (The sequel hook means that the movie doesn’t properly end or actually explain much of anything, but the emotional arc is all there, so that’s something.)
Promising Young Woman - A woman, driven by the rape and suicide of her best friend, seeks revenge against both the original perpetrators and men who take advantage of drunk women in general. It’s got a Gone Girl sort of flavor to it; and I’ll admit I was disappointed when it turned out she wasn’t murdering the would-be rapists who took her home. But I give them credit that it wasn’t formulaic and it wasn’t just a wish-fulfillment revenge film. (Upon reflection, we need more female-led wish-fulfillment revenge films. Where’s “Joan Wick”?)
Terminator: Dark Fate - In this variant of the Terminator timeline (it’s the fourth major branch, I think), the events of the first two films happened, and Sarah and John succeeded in stopping Skynet for good in Terminator 2. Unfortunately, things sent to the past obey the “time remnants” theory from The Flash and more T-800s kept arriving, including one that killed John in 1998. Twenty years later, Sarah Conner is a brutal machine-killing survivor when an evil AI called Legion from a different future sends back a terminator to kill a girl named Dani Ramos. I’m entertained that this series has used its timey-whimey mechanics to reboot itself so much and generally keep the best movies in continuity while doing so. It’s a pretty decent action movie and both Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger get some solid material to work with (the scene where this movie’s T-800 is introduced is gold). Maybe a little long, but I enjoyed it. (My friend Ben’s review: “Did you like Terminator 2? Here’s three more hours of it!”)
The Late Bloomer - Did you miss late-90s cringy comedy? Have we got a movie for you! It’s about a sex therapist who discovers a brain tumor that has prevented him from properly hitting puberty; which means he has a massive onrush of testosterone at age 30 and they wrote a movie about a 30-year-old acting like he’s suddenly 13. Apparently this is based (loosely) on a true story, but I feel like the writers had to actively avoid having a conversation with any trans men in order to get this script together. (Short form: Testosterone is, indeed, a hell of a drug, but it doesn’t make you forget how to actually interact with society when you’ve already been an adult for a decade.) In addition, the sexual politics of this movie are a goddamn mess, attempting to make points about “being a man” when in fact the only message they manage is “being asexual is bad.” (The high points are pretty much when J.K. Simmons or Jane Lynch are on screen, in which they’re playing basically the same characters they always do. I’m glad they and Brittany Snow got paychecks, but this isn’t a good movie.)
The Final Girls - I’ve never been much for horror films, but I clearly appreciate self-referential horror comedies. (I think this one was recommended to me after Happy Death Day, and it has a similar vibe.) Three years after her mother’s death, a girl and her friends are transported into the terrible camp slasher film her mom famously starred in. Which leads to a lot of trying to use and subvert the film’s conventions to keep everyone alive. (The sequel hook means that the movie doesn’t properly end or actually explain much of anything, but the emotional arc is all there, so that’s something.)
