De-Cinema-Ber Day 4: It

***Edit because apparently I don't know the date...... Oops. December 3 apparently only happens once a year, not twice....***

I've been trying out horror lately, so for day 3 4 let's talk It (2017, Bill Skarsgârd).

Full disclosure: this was my first real horror movie. I saw Crimson Peak (2015, Tom Hiddleston, Mia Wasikowska, Jessica Chastain) 2 years ago but that wasn't really horror. I saw Get Out (2017, Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Bradley Whitford), but that was more dark comedy than scary. I talked myself into seeing It because a) I heard really good things, b) I saw The Dark Tower (2017, Idris Elba, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Taylor) and rumor has it they're working on a whole Steven King cinematic universe and I want to be up to date, and c) my go to theater had a sensory friendly screening so I got to see it with the lights on.

So there I was, first real horror movie ever. And you know what? I was ok. I kind of liked it. I didn't walk out scared. I haven't had nightmares. I wasn't even particularly scared while watching the movie. The jump scares got me of course, but beyond the jolt of brief adrenaline, I didn't experience real fear.

It did make me think about fear though, which to me is why this was a really great film.

If you are completely unfamiliar with It, I'm guessing it's due to a conscious choice to avoid it since it's not exactly a new movie, but I will sum up:

In a small town in Maine, people, especially children, disappear at an alarming rate. A plucky group of misfit pre teens find themselves hunted by a shapeshifting creepy thing to whom they begin to refer as "it." Each of the kids has something hard or frightening happening in their home lives, missing siblings, parents with munchhausens, abusive parents, etc.

It is basically a creepy clown boggart with a little dementor thrown in for good measure. It feeds on fear. Luckily, when the kids start focusing on what is real and what is it they can focus on beating the thing.

It's a cool question though. What is fear? Obviously when you're in a position to be afraid it is how you know that you want to get away. Of course we all have fears, but when those fears aren't present, what is the emotion? The more you think about it, the less it exists. And suddenly *poof* the shapeshifting killer clown from outerspace (I think? That's what I'm getting from google. That isn't covered in this movie but I guess people know that from the original movie and the book) doesn't have power over you.

Besides that, the kids have very real things to be frightened of in their lives. The clown is just copycatting those things and basically why bother.

Beyond an exploration into the deep philosophical concept of fear, this is also a pretty blatant coming of age story. We see one of the most blatant "ok this is a period" moments of all time when the girl is covered by a literal wave of blood. Blood comes shooting out of the drain and drenches her entire bathroom. You couldn't have less subtle imagery if you clobbered the audience over the head with it.

So there you have it. I saw a horror movie and convinced myself fear doesn't exist.

***obligatory special shout out to Bill Skarsgârd for being really attractive and making the whole creepy killer clown thing weird AF 'cause omg he's prettyyyy***

De-Cinema-Ber Day 3: Justice League

Ok soooo..... DC is not Marvel. Has anyone, you know, told them that?

This is a good time to mention, Ben Affleck is the only Batman I've ever seen. Pretty sure Man of Steel (2013, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Russell Crowe) was my first Superman movie. Not that I've seen any since.

So basically here is my take: DC movies are kind of terrible. The one really good one was Wonder Woman (2017, Gal Gadot, Chris Pine). You know what made it good? Women. When I saw Batman v Superman (2016, Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill), I kind of thought Gal Gadot's character was bland and boring. I was excited for Wonder Woman before I saw it but not because of her entrance in Bruce and Clark's shadow. I was excited because it was a girl superhero movie written by women. That it wound up being really good was kind of just a bonus.

Apparently, we were all right about those women writers though. Which makes me a little sad. Diana Prince was plenty sexy in her feature film but she made herself sexy. She wasn't filmed particularly sexually. She was just filmed. There was no male gaze. There were superhero power poses, the same ones the men take. Compare that to Justice League (2017, Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot, Henry Cavill, Ezra Miller, Ray Fisher, Jason Momoa). So many hip pops. SO MANY HIP POPS. WHY SO MANY HIP POPS. SHE STANDS AND SURVEYS DAMAGE AND POPS A HIP. WHY DOES SHE DO THAT.

Full disclosure, yes, it is a standard way for women to stand. Yes I do it too. It is very possible that if I go through Wonder Woman I will find plenty more Diana hip pops. However. WW hip pops will not have Diana standing next to male superheroes who got 99% of the one liners who are definitively not popping their hips.

I will give some credit for not as many butt shots as they could have done. They didn't have any of those Black Widow sashaying away from kicking ass shots. That's a plus. I guess. But the standard is clearly unbelievably low.

As for the rest of the movie? Yawn. It was DC very blatantly pretending to be Marvel (energy boxes that have to be separated or else doomsday? Check. Evil villain who they knew was coming from a mysterious and slightly explained other plain/world/realm/thingy? Check. Rich guy with cool gadgets bringing together some people with an odd assortment of talents? Check and check). It didn't work super well. They're just trying so damn hard. They've done one thing better than Marvel: they've done the feminist woman superhero. They should keep that up because oh dear heavens nothing else seems to work for them.

***Obligatory special shout out to Lord Nicholas Devereaux because I still think it's hilarious to think he was cast as Steve Trevor so that Marvel couldn't have the full set of Chrises***

De-Cinema-Ber Day 2: A Christmas Prince

For Day 2, we'll be discussing Netflix's branch into sappy movie land with A Christmas Prince (2017 starring exclusively people I have never heard of). I am a big fan of cheesy made for TV movies, especially the Christmas-y ones. I watch A Christmas Kiss at least once a month.

This movie was a new level though. The family was good and the chemistry was nice. I totally bought how she fell for the guy and all. But oh sweet mother of pearl no one was any good at subterfuge and how did everyone struggle that hard?

First, we have the moment when a random wandering person in the palace is confirmed to be someone with precisely zero verification. Then when a journalist is undercover she employs no common sense about hiding anything. She leaves things in the open, she hides her passwords terribly, and she keeps the sound on her phone when she's trying to surreptitiously take photos. Also she's really obvious that she's taking photos.

And then we have the convoluted politics and legal mumbo jumbo. They encounter a moderate constitutional crisis which is solved with a quick and easy hand written decree. None of the documents are ever verified aside from a speedy "it's the king's seal!" The issue they are dealing with is a very complicated legal inheritance question which as far as I know has no answer and every monarchy has its own rules. But first it's an easy no and then it's an easy yes. And at no point in the 20 or 30 years that the late king knew this issue could come up did he do this easy answer until he was on his death bed? Please.

The schmaltz I'll give them. Because it's a movie about an American journalist falling in love with an about to inherit king.

So should you see this movie? Sure. If you've got an hour and a half and want something cheesy and Christmassy. Just try not to pay too close attention.

***Obligatory special shout out to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle who have got me in a mood for royal romances***

De-Cinema-Ber Day 1: Daddy's Home 2

Merry De-Cinema-Ber!

I cut my NaNoWriMo so I promised instead I'm going to write a film review every day of December. I'm calling it De-Cinema-Ber because I'm the funniest person you've ever met. Mmmmkay? Cool.

So. Daddy's Home 2 (2017, Mark Wahlberg, Will Ferrell). Full disclosure, I never saw the first movie. I knew the premise of the co-dadding thing getting messed around because all the grandfathers are showing up and that's about it. Well, I also knew it takes place at Christmas. But I didn't get that from the trailers. I learned that from driving around my home town and seeing all these big white sheets pinned to the ground.

Oh yeah did I mention that? A bunch of it was filmed in my town. I never saw anything other than the trailers and set decorations but I have friends who have pictures of the stars. I can take or leave Mel Gibson (that's a lie. I'd prefer to leave him. He was well cast though. I'll give him that), but Mark Wahlberg being in my town? Amazing. So cool. MW and the Dropkick Murphy's and a snow ball fight on the very same church lawn I regularly cut across? Made me excited enough to subtly text my siblings under my coat in the theater.

Aside from my excitement from seeing landmarks I know and love this movie was mostly not great. I spent a lot of time wanting to punch Mel Gibson's character.

The basic plot is that Brad (Will Ferrell. Does he ever play characters who are grown up and not annoying by the way? He's basically playing Buddy again....) and Dusty (Mark Wahlberg) are trying to come together for their kids' sake. Their dads show up and their plans for a together Christmas go slightly awry. Wedges are driven into already precarious friendships and the kids (and the mom who balances being a background character with actually taking care of the kids surprisingly well) are along for the ride.

In the end everyone winds up together and happy for Christmas because this is a Christmas movie about parenthood and those end with montages of happy family goofy times. Have you never seen a Christmas movie before.

In spite of the mediocrity, a lot of it was very funny and while also forced and predictable the ending was adorable. Some majorly identical parallels to A Bad Moms Christmas right at the end, but cute and fun and funny.

But as I said, the landmarks were why I really liked this movie. And why I can tell you that when you turn a small New England town in May into a ski town at Christmas you pin these white sheets to the ground and it looks kind of dumb in person but impressively snow like on camera. So A+ film set designers. I really didn't think it was gonna look like snow but it did.

Do I recommend this movie? Yeah, sure. It was fun. Dumb but fun.

***Obligatory special shout out to anyone who works at AMC. The characters wind up at a Showcase at one point and that felt very wrong to me and that's why y'all shouldn't be casting me as Darth Vader. I'm too loyal to you guys***