I covet an abandoned town in post-apocalyptic world though.

I still daydream about buying an abandoned town.

So, I signed up for MoviePass on a lark and the card arrived after some delay. I figured, even if the business model is unsustainable, I'll get enough mileage out of it while it worked, since I watch 3-4 movies a month on average throughout the year. And turns out it covers most of my local theaters including the big local AMC multiplex.

Anyway, I tried it out last night and went to see The Greatest Showman. It worked out without a hitch! As for the movie itself, I honestly can't believe it's a movie and not an awkward adaptation of a Broadway musical to the screen. The art decorations and set pieces are stagy as hell and the entire thing is built around a handful of song-and-dance numbers. It was schmaltz from top to bottom without a subtle bone in its body. Hugh Jackman in particular, oh boy. He's obviously charismatic as fuck and can be a powerhouse when directed well, but I think Jackman's personal instinct is to go as broad as possible when given any opportunity and well, this film gives him plenty.

That said, I enjoyed some of the numbers. The one in which Zendaya and Zac Efron sing a love duet on trapeze is *gorgeous* and worth the price of the ticket (well, a MoviePass ticket - I'd have been annoyed if I had payed a full price for it). Rebecca Fergerson has a small but memorable role as Jenny Lind, the opera singer, and GOSH is she ever so beautiful. I feel like she should be a much bigger name than she is right now. Apparently she is back in the latest Mission Impossible movie? I loved her in the last one.

Apparently the movie is doing reasonably well in the box office and I will eat my shorts if it isn't adapted as a musical on stage in the next couple of years, which is clearly where it belongs.

I really wish Greatest Showman had just made up a fictional circus dude, because I really did enjoy it as a musical, but DEAR GOD WHAT A LOAD OF REVISIONIST BULLSHIT THAT WAS.

The relationship between Barnum and his troupe was painted over with a ham-handed brush but it must have been deeply sketchy. I was like, "it's probably a blessing I know little to nothing about the dude."

The tl;dr version is that several of the freaks shown here accepting jobs as consenting adults were in fact adopted/purchased as children. Even if he truly did care for them, they were his property, not his employees.

My tween daughter adored The Greatest Showman and begged me to take her to see it; I kept whispering "There's a sucker born every minute" to the spouse while we were watching it.

I was in a written for grades 5 - 8 musical about PT Barnum. It was not Barnum. I now can't believe that I was in the chorus of dancing hundred year old women while another 5th grader sang the role of Joyce Heth.

Trailer for Mission: Impossible - Fallout: [link]

First impression: Aha! So THAT's the infamous mustache on Henry Cavill that necessitated all that creepy CGI in Justice League!

Second impression: That bathroom fight scene is pretty kickass and looks like it fucking HURT

Third impression: They better not kill off Rebecca Ferguson's character OR ELSE (she is named Ilsa Faust -- BEST NAME EVER -- and I want her and Emily Blunt's character from Edge of Tomorrow to meet, shut up about difference franchises you don't make the rules)

Fourth impression: So did Jeremy Renner's character croak offscreen or what

Fifth impression: wait, didn't Michelle Monaghan's character die in that one MI movie I did not see??

I know Tom Cruise is on the never-list of many people, but I honestly really enjoy these movies a lot. On that note, here's a review of MI - Rogue Nation by Matt Zoller Seitz (one of my all time favourite film critics), which distills down why the movies in this franchise are so enjoyable with just the right amount of affectionate mockery: [link]

So the IMF is disbanded, over the objections of Tom Cruise's buddy and fellow butt-kicking super-agent William Brandt (Jeremy Renner), whom I guess is his superior, and—I have no idea what happened in this movie. Something about Spectre, or Hydra, or The Syndicate, yes, that's it, the Syndicate, a group comprised of rogue agents who are sneaking all around the world blowing things up and killing heads of state and destroying major companies and taking candy away from little kids on Halloween, too! Just swooping down out of the sky, on jet packs, and stealing their candy! OK, they didn't do that last thing. But they did everything else on the list. These are really bad people!

I didn't realize this new installment was coming out and at this point, I am more psyched about it than the Solo movie, the trailer for which was all things underwhelming. (Except Lando in that fur coat, glory be)

She might have been pseudo-dead, but at this point we definitely know she's not for-real dead.

I should probably watch that movie at some point for completeness' sake. I think I went "whatever" at that time because the second movie was such a let-down. I mean, John Woo! Thandie Newton looking so breathtaking that I could barely look upon her face straight-on! But the villain was so boring, ugh. But #4 and #5 were great and this one doesn't look too shabby.

I can't believe the damn thing has been going on for 20+ years.