Hidden Figures

What I love about this movie is how frustrating it is. Watching these women jump these ridiculous hoops to be treated the way they would be if they were white males.... It's so frustrating.

We need more like it. It's entertaining, the characters are fantastic, and the story is gripping. Get it. Watch it. Everyone should watch it.

Coco and the Super Long Frozen Short

So, I took my four-year-old boy to see this movie. He loves Frozen. He loves Olaf. So he loved the short. (It was cute!) But it was long.

Coco, got a little bit scary after a few minutes, around the time we had been in the theater for an hour, and my four-year-old boy had decided he was done. The entire rest of the time he squirmed, complained, asked for water, etc. I had to keep telling him, (in-between bawling because of all the feelings from the movie!) that it was almost over and I wanted to see how it ended.

So, 37-year-old woman liked Coco. Four-year-old boy liked the Frozen short. (And I liked it because he liked it, and, hey, Olaf.)

Let's talk about Coco.

It's... pre-dict-a-ble. SIMI-SPOILER: They do that thing where they make you think it's one thing so of course it's not, it's obviously that one thing since that one thing now makes sense for it to be that one thing.

You know what I mean?

It asks the age-old question, can a movie be enjoyable and meaningful if you know the ending? Well. Yes. It CAN. It often ISN'T! But Coco is an enjoyable, although fairly dull, (PRETTY!) movie. The characters are loveable, but it's a whole heck of a lot like Corpse Bride. Except, instead of a jilted lover, it's a jilting lover.

But I liked it. You might like it. It's not funny. There's ZERO comedic characters. Dante the dog is probably supposed to be our comedy release but... mostly I just felt sorry for him.... So it's "cute" and not "funny." But, like we talked about in our Thor post, some people don't like humor. This one's for you, dudes!

I think it's about time we had a movie like this. 

Murder on the Orient Express

Normally, a movie PACKED with stars makes me trepidatious. BUT, normally, movies directed by Kenneth Branagh, or starring Kenneth Branagh, or movies Kenneth Branagh breathed on, make me want to see them. (Blog spoiler: I did.)

Now... Boonie doesn't get out to the movies all that often anymore. We've discussed this a lot lately. I pretty much only leave my home for super hero movies, comedies, or Star Wars movies. So today I let the comfort of my hearth for a movie unlike my usual genre. And I couldn't have been happier I did!

I haven't read the book. I haven't seen the original. But, I knew a LOT about it going in. I knew who was in it. (Yay! Great cast!) I knew who made it. (See above.) And I knew who the guilty party was. (If you don't know who it is, I won't tell you here, but I imagine you'll think, "OH! Okay. That's what all those things spoof.") Yes, friends. This classic's been around for a while. (Side note... this movie was so good, I'm gonna have to get my hands on everything related.)

Ahem. But can we talk about REMAKES? Oi.

MOST remakes are visionless piles and piles and piles of... some sort of gross substance. They're remaking for the buck-taking. And it sucks. But you can't just... NOT go see the new movie that's remade from that old one you loved so much growing up! And generally... there's something fun or cute about the new one. (Thank you, Luke Evans and Josh Gad for that fabulous rendition of "Gaston." Speaking of Josh Gad... he's TOTALLY IN THIS! Not Luke Evans though. Sorry.)

And while remakes generally should be called "suck-makes," this one should be called "Oh-my-gosh-I-want-to-kiss-this-movie-because-it-is-so-brilliant-and-beautiful."

It starts and I am HOOKED. I have NO IDEA what's going on, but I know it's been 2 minutes and already the big KB (Kenneth Branagh) should be getting more awards for his acting. (Like, it should be raining awards.)

And you know what? I'm done. I've said enough. I don't want to ruin it for you. I just want to express to you how hopeful I am that you see it, so that you can love it and be happy.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Side note: I ugly-cried at one point, and then I pretty-cried shortly after.

Double side note: I'm waiting for the sequel: Murder on the Polar Express.

Thor Ragnarok or Ragnanorak or Whatever

THOR and the Weird Title Nobody Knows How to Pronounce Until The First Few Minute of the Movie - Thank You, Surtur.

So, the movie starts with our recently dumped blonde god of thunder in prisoned by Surtur. Never heard of Surtur? Well, he looks like a Balrog, except he doesn't sound too scary, which is probably why Thor had a hard time taking him seriously... despite how absolutely terrifying he looked.

(I mean, seriously. They look exactly the same. Check it out.)

You tell me which is which.

Anyhoo, so the movie continues, awesome fight scenes happen, jokes happen, tragedy happens, etc. Great! Now let's talk about the number one complaint I hear about this movie: humor.

Seriously.

People are complaining that the movie is too funny.

I know guys. I don't get it either.

Let me tell you a little bit about humor. It's everywhere. It's constant. If a movie doesn't include a hefty element of humor, it doesn't seem realistic, or it seems super depressing. The Dark Knight was funny, and all movies should aspire to be like unto The Dark Knight. Nuff said, but I'll continue.

Here's what I look to get out of a night at the movies - enter-freaking-tainment. I started this blog when I first got married and Hub-hubs and I went and saw every non-rated-R movie that came out. Yeppers! Each one! I got sick of seeing movies. No. I got more selective. I started needing certain things from movies and what I didn't need, I didn't want to waste my time with. Two kids later, and I don't see nearly as many movies, but that selectiveness has only increased because if I'm hiring a babysitter that movie better accomplish what I need it to.

So what are my movie-going-needs? Oh wait. I already told you. ENTERTAINMENT. (Only I didn't say freaking... that time.) Make me love the characters, and I will love your movie. Oh hey, know what's an easy way to make me love your characters? Make them funny.

I grew up in a house where our motto was, as my sister termed it, "If you can't say anything funny, don't say anything at all." Humor is necessary to life. Without it... we'd be a horrible and a wretched people. So here's my main point - CAN YOU IMAGINE THIS MOVIE WITHOUT IT? I'm bored just thinking about it... almost as bored as I was watching that last Avengers movie.

It's a good time. Go have fun.

In response to this...

There's an IMDb list of 40 Young Adult novels-turned-movies, ranked by teenagers and it does not speak favorably of said teens.

I wonder if they had to watch all these films before they rated them. Somehow I doubt it, since not even Oscar judges have to watch all the films they judge.

Point being, teenagers are stupid. (I'm kidding. Naturally not all teenagers are stupid... just these.)

Spider-men

Hello all you beautiful people in blog land!

It's been too long.

I have kids now. Kids = expensive movies. Going to the movies is CRAZY with kids now. So not only am I way behind on movies, I'm also way behind on slang. Did you see how I wrote "crazy" and not "cray-cray"? Did you see how I wrote "cray-cray" even though people have already shortened it to "cray"? Yeah. I'm so out of it!!!

Which leads me to something I am not out of, and that is my endless supply of Spider-man movies. (YAY!!! Boo. Meh. YAY!!!!) Oh. That was just me reacting to the different movies chronologically. Don't mind me.

"Oh Boonie, whatever do you mean?"

Well, I'll tell ya. Some Spider-man movies suck. I had to go back and read my blog about The Amazing Spider-man II to see how I felt about it, because I forgot... everything about it. But, that didn't stop me from knowing EXACTLY where it fits in...


(Wait for it)












(Do people still say "wait for it"?)










(Totally out of it.)










WHICH SPIDER-MAN WINS THE BEST SPIDER-MAN EVER SPIDER-MAN SPIDER-SHOW-CASE SHOW-SPIDER-DOWN!

Ahh yeah. Let's do this.

First we had this upside-down-kissing Tobey dude. The trilogy was directed by the awesome Sam Raimi, who also brought us such classics as The Evil Dead II, Army of Darkness, and Xena Warrior Princess. FINALLY we had a Spider-man movie. This was way over due, folks, for those of you who don't remember life without Spider-man movies. Oh the bleakness! This movie was funny. This movie was awesome.

THEN its sequel came out, and it was even better. I refer to it, lovingly, as Spider-man the Comedy, because I laughed the entire time.

But alas, it could not last. The third movie in the series, the crapquel, as it were, was so awful. Is there a person among you who enjoyed Spider-man III? Show me a person who loved Spider-man III and I will show you a person who is making stuff up.

Then we went two seconds and got a Spider-man re-boot. (We were not to live too long in a world without current Spider-man movies.) This one had the Social Network kid in it. (Not that one.) This one had Emma Stone in it. She's awesome. We love Emma Stone. And I saw it once... maybe twice, 'cause it was dull.

The second one was more so.

Ten seconds later we got another re-boot! Kind of. We got a surprise during a Captain America movie! THEN we got another re-boot. This time we got an MJ who's not MJ. We got a "WHAT THE!?!!?!?!?!" (Which is always fun.) We got BATMAN "returning" (Get it? Because he was in Batman Returns?) as a villain! (We love Michael Keaton!) We got a really funny best friend. (We love the guy in the chair.) We got cameos from Captain America, Iron Man, Happy Hogan, and we also got to see Gwyneth Paltrow in her best role ever. (We're so happy she's not faking English accents anymore. We love you Pepper Potts. [Wrote "Pepper Poots" first. Whoops.])

"Whatever, Boonie. Rate the effing movies already."

Sure. Fine. But I think you guys can guess.

WORST:
Spider-man III

LESS WORST:
The Amazing Spider-men (You decide which comes first. I don't care.)

NOT WORST: Spider-man Homecoming

MORE NOT WORST:
Spider-man

BESTEST:
Spider-man II


YAY!!!! Cheers! Open that bottle of Coke! Time to celebrate the winner! Oooh! Let's go watch it now! Only, just don't watch that third one. **shudders**

Thanks for stopping by! See you never! (Because that would be creepy, unless I know you. If I do know you, hi! How's it going? What are you up to? See any good movies lately?)

Batman vs Superman

If you thoughtMan of Steel started slow, then prepare yourself. Deep breaths. In fact, I'm not sure this movie ever got going at all. It's a preparatory movie, getting us ready for individual movies like the up coming Wonder Woman.

And yeah, oh course Wonder Woman was the most interesting part of this movie, and way undervalued.

What got me about this movie was its lack of character. Batman had zero personality. Superman was only interesting because Henry Cavil is. Alfred was interesting only because Jeremy Irons is. There was little imagination. Little creativity. Leaves a blogger little to write.

Every Batman movie worth its salt includes a lovely flashback to the death of Thomas and Martha Wayne, and it always includes Martha's pearls breaking. But this movie over does it and it's ridiculous. You know they're proud of it because they keep showing it. Ugjfjdjtn.

Lex Luthor was channeling the Joker, so much so that when he was acting particularly Jokery my 3 year old son pointed at him and yelled, "Joker!"

Was I the only one not afraid of Doomsday? And like Superman would really kill Batman in order to save his mom. He let his dad die to save his secret identity!

I appreciate someone finally pointed out that Bruce and Clark's moms have the same name. Like Martha's the only name a mom can have. Come on!