#2,180: Ant-Man

Misery Loves Comedy - ★★½☆☆
Probably not a very good movie, but fun to put on in the background and listen to comics chat.

FWIW, I'd probably vote that the terrible childhood thing is a predictor, but not a direct precursor. I always think that I'm an exception to the rule, but then I realize that's just because I'm not miserable now.

Mr. Holmes - ★★★★☆
Fun, lovely, sad, faked me out once or twice by not going for an insane twist reveal thing. Uses the time that could have been spent on insane twists instead on earned payoffs. It has that classic novel-ish, multiple time period structure. Also has BEES!

Paper Towns - ★★★☆☆
Another solid high school movie of 2015. I recall really liking the music as it's used, but the soundtrack album sounds like one boring, samey blob.

This is a much less subtle movie than It Follows, and I delight in reading each review that misses the point. Of course, I would do well to imagine these reviewers complexly - not as idiots, but as people. Perhaps as idiotic people!

I dug the adventure gameness of the third act (of five), but Me And Earl And The Dying Girl is probably the better movie here, and carries a very similar message with more charisma.

Ant-Man - ★★★☆☆
I bet this would have been a good Edgar Wright movie. It'd be interesting to see the script he left behind. The one they shot has some pretty cliché lines in it, but I like to imagine that they were written deliberately, a counterpoint to the intended stylish visuals. Instead, we got Paul Rudd standing still in the middle of a frame saying something bland. It feels like the difference between Airplane! and Zero Hour!, except in this case the deadpan dry dialogue actually was written to be done as a comedy... and nobody noticed.

From the first announcement, I agreed with the popular wisdom that Marvel would never make a movie starring Hank Pym, but now I kinda wish they had.