The fall TV schedule is still kicking me all over the place and keeping me from my moviegoing but I’m attempting to get back into the swing of it, to some degree.
This week has had me loading up a few background movies to watch while working throughout the day and it’s fun picking out the right ones to do that with. I’ve gone for comedy silliness that I enjoy such as She’s Out Of My League to slower and tenser works like Prometheus. I’ve also plugged into some familiar staples with a run through several Marvel movies over the course of a day in release order starting with Doctor Strange, which meant it’s weirdly balanced with serious stuff and really silly stuff with Thor: Ragnarok and Ant-Man and the Wasp.
I did finally manage to get myself back out to the theater and I’m making sure I do more of that in this month because there’s a lot I want to see. I actually made it to a Saturday afternoon flick, which is rare as I dislike crowds, but a movie like Bohemian Rhapsody felt like it needed to be seen with a larger audience. I’ve been a huge fan of Rami Malek since seeing him in Mr. Robot and I loved the way he seemed to just capture Freddie Mercury’s mannerisms so well on stage and just the quirks and flamboyance of all so beautifully. While the film left me wishing it had gone into a few more areas in a deeper way, and after the Live Aid concert as I wanted to see how A Kind of Magic got made, it’s definitely a lot of fun.
But it also reminded me of something going on earlier this summer as there were a lot of complaints going on about the first trailer and its lack of mention of his battle with AIDS and that it leaned into his relationship with Mary as opposed to his bisexuality. I ended up seeing a lot of interpretations of this in a way that had people thinking that the movie itself wasn’t going to cover it at all and that lead to a lot of negativity about it. While there are certainly issues to be had by it there’s also the piece in it from Mercury where he says he doesn’t want to be the poster boy for the cause, he just wants to make music. I can imagine that sentiment easy in that while it would be a part of the film it wouldn’t be something that he’d want to dominate it.
It’s a solid film with a lot of really fun moments, some fantastic performances, and a whole lot of great music.
This week didn’t have any iTunes or home video release pickups on the movie front since it was so heavily leaned toward horror for sales and there’s not a ton that I gravitate towards there.