Am I the only one thinking "Good! We could use him these days!"?

We go to the movies more frequently in the summer, mostly to support the lovely couple in a small town who renovated a small theater. It is hard to say if it is me or the 2018 crop of summer fare, but I have been underwhelmed. Granted I missed some that I feel would have been better than those we have seen so far.

Jurassic World - what I expected and enjoyable enough as such, but not any more than that.

Skyscraper - enjoyed more than expected probably because the crowd laughed so often at the absurdity making it more a OTT comedy. So fun when viewed as comedy.

Mama Mia - Um, I guess the scenery and music were okay.

Crazy Rich Asians - Disappointed because so many people loved it. I expected to enjoy it a lot more than I did. Yay for diversity, but I left feeling I didn't get to know any of the characters. It may have been better if I had read the book first.

Happytime Murders - Enjoyed the previews and was looking forward to it, then was let down. Yes, I laughed quite a few times. But the fuck count was probably over 500 and it wasn't required except to get the R rating, and I found it distracting. (Ha, I know my chrome extension would have fixed that!)

Sad making because I generally look forward to summer as being go to the actual theater season for me. In Florida during the winter I generally have to buy tickets in advance to get a decent seat, which is less convenient.

It's going to be cold and rainy here at the lake for the next two days so we're actually thinking of taking the kids into Sault Ste Marie to see Alpha. I don't have any interest but I think the kids will like it.

I went to see Eighth Grade yesterday because it was going to be leaving my neighborhood indie theater this Friday. It was fucking amazing but I've never said out loud "OH NO" (interspersed with "oh HONEY, no") so many times during the span of a movie. Oh man. So much sympathetic cringing!

It also has a killer father-daughter scene that made me bawl like a little baby. Goodness, what a film *turtles self into a little ball*

Apparently parent-child relationships are gonna be my kryptonite this summer because I cried quite a bit during Crazy Rich Asians, too. Granted, I AM the target audience for that film. The Mahjong scene got to me in the major way. like, I totally burst into gross sobbing at "immigrant nobody" line, and was just flood-city all around when Rachel's mother stood up for her at the end of the scene.

Vonnie did you see the breakdown on the Mahjong scene? Apparently the gameplay there elaborately tied in with characters notes and loaded with significance.

Yeah, there was a good article on Vulture and another one at... Vox, I think? The nice thing about how it was written and directed was that, even if you knew nothing about the game like me, you could generally figure out what was happening based on the camera work and the parallel to character motivation. That scene was an invention for the movie, and ended up giving both characters more depth than was evident in the book, I thought.

Also, Michelle Yeoh could glare at me with contempt while swathed in amazing designer clothes all she wanted and I'd still worship the ground she walked on (well, OK, I'd probably burst into tears first for disappointing her).

That scene was an invention for the movie, and ended up giving both characters more depth than was evident in the book, I thought.

A great scene. Vonnie, do you think I would enjoy the book? I have it on my to read list because I was dissatisfied with the character development in the movie.

It wasn't that I hated it because I did enjoy it very much, but not at all to the level that many people did.

I wouldn't say there's a ton of character development in the books...

I think CRA may be suffering from a bit of overhype syndrome. It's a fluffy rom-com with many delights, but not very deep. It resonated with me much more because of my shared Asian-American (Asian-Canadian in my case) experience with the heroine -- that sense/fear of being not good enough for either side of the hyphen, deep-down, is very real, and seeing Rachel asserting herself felt like a genuine moment of triumph. But without that sense of recognition, I could see how it would be mostly a cute rom-com with some excellent food porn and clothes porn, not the second-coming of whatever.

The book is a very fluffy and pretty shallow beach read. Astrid gets a bit more depth in the book, but I find that Rachel and Eleanor in particular are much better realized in the movie rather than in the book, mostly on the strength of the performances. It may be fun if you want a 20% brain page-turner with a lot of designer name-dropping (insert eyeroll) but you won't get much in terms of deeper characterization from the book.

Yes, the performances made the movie for me. My only real objection was I would have had less OTT partying and more banter. I'm more a fan of banter. And yes, overhype did make me think there might be a bit more depth, which I should not have expected from a summer rom-com.