Finally saw A Wrinkle in Time. I liked it. I didn't love it. Though I don't quite know why. It wasn't that they changed the book too much, but maybe it was the seemingly randomness of some of the changes.

The visuals were great. I loved that they made you think spatially from the very beginning. And they seemed a nice callback to how some of I Will Follow was filmed.

I thought it dealt with well with the latter part of the book that I don't really like. Two things I missed from the opening were the dark and stormy night in the middle of nowhere aspect (when you really see how freakish Charles Wallace is before IT) and the ant and the string (which is in one of the trailers so they did film it).

I was going to come in here and post an expanded version of my Twitter thoughts about Ready Player One but then my brother sent me this McSweeney's article and I can't breathe I'm laughing so hard.

my brother sent me this McSweeney's article

Excellent choice of ship names!

Saw Love, Simon yesterday and Annihilation today. So basically the same movie twice.

I actually really enjoyed Pacific Rim, though about 75% of that was John Boyega, who is just ridic charismatic. Eastwood, as noted, is an actual charisma void.

I also thought the script was trying to be completely aware of its ridiculousness, even if it didn't always work. And there was some originality to the plot that I didn't expect.

Also, that was Glados as the computer in Gypsy, right? Little distracting.

Glados

Same as the first Pacific Rim.

You expect me to remember things from that long ago?

Recent trips to the multiplex:

Ready Player One: Minor Spielberg, but I had reasonably good time. It has a couple of outstanding set pieces -- a big thrilling car chase, and a creative knock-out of a scene featuring a very well-known film. But the characters are super-thin, especially the lead. I guess fittingly since he's basically a self-insert gamer avatar. The only one who brings the movie any degree of soulfulness is Mark Rylance's James Halliday, the creator of the whole VR universe, which... I mean, it's Mark fucking Rylance so kinda expected, I guess? The resolution is pat and the entire thing doesn't bear too much scrutiny (the stakes seem quite slight in retrospect) though.

Isle of Dogs: Immaculate visuals, fab voice cast, and the dogs are AMAZING. The setting... erm. I'll link to this thoughtful article by Alison Willmore at Buzzfeed rather than going into it myself: [link]

The foreign exchange student character is really kinda unfortunate. If it were just Atari and the dogs, and the other Japanese characters were treated a bit more thoughtfully, I would have given it much less of a side-eye.

On an unrelated note, someone pointed me to Kanopy a few weeks ago and I finally checked it out yesterday, and HOLY SHIT Y'ALL. Basically, it is a small scale streaming service with a tidy list of well-curated films including some classics from the Criterion collection, available for free access to anyone with a library card, provided that your library is participating in the service. I work for a university so logged in using my credentials without any issues. I installed the Kanopy app on my phone and projected stuff to my TV using Chromecast, then was off to the races. I mean, FREE MOVIES! I went in and added, like 40 films to my watchlist immediately, movies I've been meaning to watch for a while, like a bunch of Kurosawa (I'd never gotten around to watching Yojimbo, even though I love Rashmon, Ran and Seven Samurai). And it has some of my all-time favourites, like In the Mood for Love and My Brilliant Career and Cronos, Guillermo del Toro's Mexican vampire film from way back! I AM EXCITE! Very well worth checking out if you want to try some fare off the beaten path. Here's the link: [link]

So my BFF had his screenplay selected to be a finalist at the Nashville Film Festival, and he asked me to go with him to be his plus-one! Which means I'm going to get to go to a lot of movies (yay!). But I'm finding the website for the festival really hard to navigate and kind of overwhelming.

If anyone would be willing to take a look (Vonnie K.? megan walker? Anyone who would like to) and make some recs for 5/17-5/19 to help me narrow it down, I'd really appreciate it!