Movie Monday #15

1) Dungeons & Dragons: This movie starts with that whole dead-wife-as-motivation thing, which is so annoying. However, I quickly forgave it when I saw Michelle Rodriguez’s armpit hair. Armpit hair! On a woman! In a popular mainstream movie! And nobody was weird about it, or anything about it at all! So anyway, star Chris Pine, who holds the current title for Best Chris, does not know that you can’t just go around resurrecting people such as his dead wife. The beautiful man from Bridgerton (I BURN FOR YOU) is there doing nice sorcerer things, and HE must’ve watched Buffy because he is very aware that resurrecting the dead can go horribly awry. This is a very cute and funny movie about found family, populated by extremely good-looking actors. Recommended!

2) Trainspotting: Okay wow. Nobody told me. This movie comes in hot with an extended poop sequence. Not too long after that, there was more poop. I have never seen so much poop in a movie. Actually, that’s not true because I have seen Triangle of Sadness, but this is definitely second place. I didn’t think it could get any worse after so much poop, but I did suspect that was Chekov’s Baby crawling around and UNFORTUNATELY I WAS NOT WRONG. Nobody told me. Yikes. Yikes. Recommended, but probably not for the very sensitive.

3) The Juniper Tree: I didn't like this movie at all. I also didn't hate it. I would prefer if I'd hated it because then it would have at least provoked a reaction. Other than about ten minutes toward the end that were pretty disturbing, this movie entirely bored me. The characters do a lot of spinning wool into string, spooling the string, and tying the string. To be fair, I imagine living off the land was probably actually like that but it doesn't make for an entertaining film. Anyway, the moral of this story is that parents need to put effort into fostering a nice relationship between their kids and their new spouses because the fairy tale model of stepparenting has exclusively poor outcomes. By the way, Bjork is in this. Not recommended even if you're very bored because this will not help.

4) The Dead Don't Die: At the end of the world, all the main characters will be men. This movie is silly and funny enough to kind of make up for its failings. Also, you could make a movie where Adam Driver sits on a trash heap and reads the phone book and I would probably still like to watch it. There's a fair amount of breaking the fourth wall which was kind of funny and kind of confusing. There is a totally dropped thread about some kids. I'm not sure why Tilda is in this movie, but I don't guess you really need a reason to have Tilda, or if you don't it's worth making one up which might've been what happened here. Oh, there's a great Moby-Dick moment! This was cute, and it's under 2 hours. Basically recommended.

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Statement on the 2023 Hugo Awards

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Movie Monday #14