Aquaman was indeed a cheesefest and half an hour too long, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Honestly it's probably worth the ticket price for Jason Momoa's introduction alone. And I kinda dug all the cheesy song choices (although She's A Mystery To Me seemed a step too far.) The main villain was a snoozefest, but I enjoyed the secondary baddie for his punk attitude and for his glee when he was Iron-Man'ing his suit. Apparently he's a well-known Aquaman villain?)

The BEST was when Aquaman emerged riding a... Crayfish Rock Godzilla monster?? I laughed long and hard at that, it was so preposterous. And apparently the scuttling sea monster guarding the Trident was voiced by none other than Julie fucking Andrews (!!)

I keep having mild freakouts over all the reverse age makeups they've been doing. They're getting pretty good at it, although this movie was not the OMG level they achieved with young Michelle Pfeiffer in the latest Ant-Man movie (like, Temuera Morrison was a stone-cold hottie back in the day, and I feel like they could have made Tom look waaaay hotter. Nicole Kidman looked flawless, but it's hard to do wrong with that face.)

Other films seen in the multiplex:

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Is a goddamn masterpiece. Gosh, what stunning animation, and what fantastic storytelling. With a spot-on cast! (Jake Johnson as world-weary alterna-Peter in particular was perrrfect).

The Favourite: LOVED IT. All the stuff Lanthimos gets away with under the shiny period film trappings! With inventive camerawork and tricky tonal balance between comedy and drama and gorgeous clothes and sharp, witty, nasty dialog and amazing performances in every single role, MY GOSH. I know they're pushing Olivia Colman for a Best Actress nom but it's really a three-header, with Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz being just as brilliant (Stone joins a rare company of American actors who can pull off a believable British accent.) Def. up there as one of my top ten films of the year.

At Eternity's Gate: Willem Dafoe is excellent as expected as Vincent van Gogh, but I kinda hated the directing style by Julian Schnabel. It's very mannered in a way that I found *extremely* annoying. Like, I had almost a visceral negative reaction to it. (all the handheld shaky cam footage was no help.) About the only positive thing I can say is that Oscar Isaac is in it playing Paul Gauguin, looking hot as usual and speaking almost flawless French in one of the scenes, like goddamn.

Mary, Queen of Scots: A handsome biopic with Saoirse Ronan in a fine form as Mary and Margo Robbie as Elizabeth. All the men in it are uniformly terrible, and I was left in a towering rage at the end of it on Mary's behalf, like, I wanted Tessa Thompson's Valkyrie to ride in on her horse and stab all the motherfuckers IN THE THROAT. So if feminist rage in period clothes is what you're after, this is your film.

So if feminist rage in period clothes is what you're after, this is your film.

I should point this out to JZ.

As always, Vonnie, I love your reviews. So well deeply informed and well put.

So word on the street is that Bumblebee is actually good? For someone who gave up on Bayformers after the first one, is it worth seeing in the theater or should I just wait for Netflix?

Kalshane, I saw it with my folks over Xmas and thought it was pretty good. (I'm the same as you re:Bayformers). It's not a spectacle-heavy movie, so I wouldn't say you MUST see it on the big screen, but I'd definitely recommend it.

Cool. Thanks. Depending on what's going on this weekend I may take my son to see it. (He hasn't asked about it but he likes Transformers well enough. He's watched most of what's available on Netflix cartoon-wise.)

The trailer made it look like a note-for-note ripoff of The Iron Giant.

Admittedly, that's a formula for a big improvement over the previous Transformers movies.

Well, we both like The Iron Giant, so if this movie is even half as good I'd call it a win.

I actually thought the original Bayformers movie was okay (not great or even good, but not terrible) but my understanding is the sequels repeatedly amp up the elements I hated about the first one.

I liked the third Transformers movie, where the girl reveals the skill she learned as an inadvertent evil minion and eggs the old villain into reclaiming his evil and kicking the butt of the baddie-come-lately. I like when tropes get tweaked.