#2,254: Batman v Superman: The Dawn of Justice

10 Cloverfield Lane - ★★★★★ 
This was a delight. It's like a free movie - no months and years of the internet dissecting everything before release, and a budget low enough that it's basically free to the studio too. And then it's good! A huge score, puzzles for the characters and for the audience, a winning cast, and one of those nice tight scripts that uses everything.

Living in Oblivion - ★★★☆☆
Maybe not the right choice to watch this on my day off from a film shoot; it's too real. Made me chuckle that so little has changed in 20 years, right down to the lingo.

Zootopia - ★★½☆☆
I hope it's the same person on every one of these movies that pipes up with "hey, I know! We can show a whole city! You know, it'll be just like a real city, except with all these specifics about [movie topic]! In fact, I'll go get started on some sweeping city shots while you guys figure out the story for the next three years."

I had some little complaints, but they can mostly be swept under the rug by remembering it's a kids' movie. Still, too many callbacks.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice - ★★★½☆
I was nervous about this one, but you know what? It was fine. I gave Age of Ultron more stars at the jump because I was feeling more invested in those characters at the time, but with a little distance I'd say BvS is about as good.

Both have some exciting stuff and some stuff you wish they'd cut and some confusing stuff that's supposed to make sense on the rewatch that you do five years from now after a bunch of other movies get made.

This is probably the best on-screen depiction of Batman in action, and thank heavens, it's skillful, experienced, professional Batman instead of Year One. Obviously everybody's rumbling about the idea of Batman with a gun. Batman would never kill? Is there a Batman movie where he doesn't kill? Isn't whether or not Batman would take a life the central arc of his character in the previously-best Batman movie, The Dark Knight? (A struggle against which he loses, by the by.) I think the Batman we see here, maybe he might not kill again, maybe he's pulled up from a wretched place by these events, remembering he's not alone out there.

I also liked how Lex is actually a supervillain this time around. No complicated real estate swindle, just a maniac going about his maniacal goals. It's weird how popular opinion seems to default to thinking filmmakers make mistakes more often than unconventional choices. (To wit: Man From U.N.C.L.E. shows us that Henry Cavill is perfectly capable of charm and humor. It's almost as though the movie were making some kind of point by showing the alien character as removed from humanity in some way...)

I like this movie more than anyone I know, but it did engage my editorial sense to want to cut out a good 10-15 minutes, and maybe put a few scenes back into the correct order.

#2,250: The Good, The Bad, The Weird

The Good, The Bad, The Weird - ★★★★☆
This movie is like 12-grain bread. Even if you don't like it, you have to appreciate how much work it must have been to make.

Deadpool - ★★★☆☆
Hits the nail on the head as an adaptation - exactly what you (meaning me) would expect from Deadpool - and that's probably higher praise than it sounds, given how far astray some of Fox's other attempts have gone. Plus the costumes looked great!

Sukiyaki Western Django - ★★☆☆☆
The whole of this movie is greater than its parts, but making it through the parts was a real struggle. I think there's a version out there that's half an hour shorter than the one I saw, which just has to be a better cut.

Triple 9 - ★★☆☆☆
I wonder what happened to this movie. How did so many good actors sign up for this? The opening heist scene is kind of fun, but you're better off with Band of Robbers, which uses the plot of Triple 9 as the idiot character's comically bad plan.

Also, this has one of those posters that seems like a joke that went too far when an exec saw it by accident and thought it was badass, even though it's a shot of the main characters embarrassing themselves.

#2,246: The Revenant (is terrible)

Short Term 12 - ★★★★★
With Hail, Caesar!, the second half of a double feature about the trials of administration. It's great.

Hail, Caesar! - ★★★½☆
Another Coen brothers movie about a million moving parts all coming together to assemble a greater whole in which nothing happens.

The Witch - ★★★☆☆
Man, as if frontier life wasn't hard enough. I like movies where I don't know exactly how it's going to turn out. It's probably too late for you, but with-a-full-audience is almost certainly the way to see this movie.

The Revenant - ★½☆☆☆
Impressive work by the technicians that assembled it, but so hollow inside. Like an incredibly high budget student film.

Sometimes it seems funny to me how people in LA applaud when a movie is over, even though of course the projector can't appreciate their applause, and yet this didn't stop me from rolling my eyes at this movie as hard as I could with each time wasting obstacle that appeared. Tom Hardy was a highlight, and I would bet on this movie to win the Cinematography Oscar, since it's probably the nominee with the most CG. I can't imagine rewarding a filmmaker with so much contempt for his audience, except of course it worked last year. (At least I hope it's contempt, because at least that would indicate he's doing this on purpose.)

Movie Rewatch Week!

I've seen and reviewed these movies before, but now I've seen and reviewed them again!

The Big Short - ★★★★☆
Having read some of the source material in between viewings, I'm even more impressed with the adaptation. This movie's got my vote for a screenplay Oscar.

World of Tomorrow  - ★★★★★
"Okay!"

Dope - ★★★★☆
Still a lot of fun. Those scenes with the copped jokes really stand out as jarring though. Maybe even more this time.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens - ★★★★★
Also still lots of fun. I really like the shuggoth sequence on Han's freighter.

I think it's interesting that this is the first time in Star Wars history that the story of future films will be built on reveals instead of retcons. We'll look back at Han's reactions and asides the way we review Obi-Wan's carefully wording and meaningful looks, and this time it will be possible that they were intentional.

#2,242 - Room

13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi - ★★★☆☆
I guess this is the best glory-of-war-in-January movie yet. Still, I walked out wondering what the point of it all was. On the other hand, I didn't really have any idea what happened with Benghazi, and now I can pretend like I do.

Victoria - ★★★☆☆  
I watched for the gimmick, because I like movies with weird constraints, or, as you say, gimmicks. I found this one simultaneously a) pretty interesting and b) a little flat. Each section is a little bit less than the one before. The long first section is necessary to convince you that the heist portion could happen, which is okay, but the 'on the run' portion is where it fell down for me.

Joy - ★½☆☆☆
This was lousy! Just a big messy melange, curiously devoid of movie magic. It reminded me of American Sniper in the way it constantly looked like actors on a set, and never like a *movie.*

Room  - ★★★★★ 
This was great! The perspective and how it parcels out the information, the plotting, the performances, all great. I just hope it gets seen enough to win all the prizes it deserves.