Saw The Post last night. (I was going to watch Molly's Game but dawdled too long trying on pants at the nearby Loft store and missed the start time, like damn you Loft for having great sales all the time!!)

On the other hand, I had a pretty good time with The Post, which was well made with good performances, and had topical things to say in only a slightly sledgehammery fashion. It's not really top tier Spielberg though, and I'd put this several rungs below its recent journalism-yay! predecessor, Spotlight.

In a pivotal scene, Meryl Streep was wearing this great gold caftan, which in a weaker year for actresses might have scored a supporting actress nom: [link]

(Much as I liked that garment, however, I think Snoke would win handily in Who-Wore-It-Best Gold Caftan-off.)

So, pleasant movie which I liked fine, but I will probably be cranky if this shoots up being an Oscar front-runner in front of all the other more interesting films of 2017.

I feel like that caftan is 90% of the talk I've heard about The Post, so thank you for the photo!

President and founder of the Society to Bring Back Caftans, here.

I think Laurence Fishburne may be angling to become your poster boy.

Between Fishburne and Streep we're making a strong comeback.

Han Solo movie in May

What? I assumed it was being released near Xmas.

[googles]

sonofagun!

We saw Jumanji tonight, and it was exactly as much fun as I was expecting. (Pretty much fun, in case you were wondering.) Jack Black was unexpectedly fantastic. And I always love Mr. The Rock.

Watched Hateful 8 and Magnificent 7 last night. Hateful 8 was M's choice and it just reminded me why I don't really watch Tarantino movies. The flashback chapter made me go from just hoping the 8 would just all die to hoping they ended up dying miserably because I finally saw characters I liked.

The Magnificent 7 was ok. It felt like there was backstory between Goodnight and Billy that was cut. Snd I would have rather had that then all the parts with Chris Pratt's character.

Since my part of NC got hit with nearly a foot of snow, I'm working from home today with Return of the King on in the background. The lighting of the beacons still gives me goosebumps.

I thought I'd had enough of Three Billboards discourse, mainly because twitter with its back-and-forth sniping is a terrible platform for anything nuanced. But I really liked this measured response penned by Alissa Wilkinson at Vox: [link]

On unrelated news, I did end up seeing Molly's Game last weekend, and uh, that script was the Sorkinest Sorkin ever Sorkined. I thought Jessica Chastain was great (I mean, when isn't she), especially in handling Sorkin's dense dialog and voice-overs. Oh my God, so much voice-overs, y'all. The opening scene is legit great. But I feel like the film loses the way a bit near the end (it is also very long, longer than this type of film should be). There is a scene near the end between Molly and (spoiler), which I have heard praised by some critics on reviews and podcasts, that made me roll my eyes so hard I was almost blinded. Boy, talk about a way to be super-reductive of the protagonist's journey (this also felt very Sorkin.)

That said, the film is snappy and poppy and really quite fun for the most parts. Idris Elba, who plays her lawyer, has nice chemistry with Chastain, and I was like, "well, I wouldn't mind if they did."

This weekend: Phantom Thread or I, Tonya? Possibly both! I also kinda wanna rewatch Lady Bird and The Shape of Water, both of which I'd seen in Toronto 3 months back...