Theatrical viewing is still not in the cards for me, though it gets closer as I hope that all that I’m hearing about Regal Unlimited pans out. I’ve got a theater that’s a two-minute drive from me that’s a Regal and everything else is too far away to be worthwhile. So I hold out hope to get back to my Moviepass days like it was from 2011 until the new owners introduced that poorly thought out $9.99 plan.
Until then, however, I’m a creature of home video (through iTunes) and streaming. This week had me indulging in my moody teenage angst drama self as I watched Then Came You. These films are obvious emotional manipulators and I like to leave myself open to it and enjoy being twisted about in order to fall for it. Some work, some don’t. This one was kind of middle of the road and I found myself far more interested in the main character’s relationship with the flight attendant than anything else, or wished for more with the family since it included Tyler Hoechlin and I’ve liked him since Teen Wolf and his brief turn as Superman on Supergirl. Maisie Williams is alright here but the writers just leaned too hard into how the character acts and her personality (and accent) just takes it up a few more notches so that it gets to be a bit much, making the connect harder.
I hadn’t seen this since it was in the theater but my significant other hadn’t seen it yet and I love Spider-Verse. It’s such a great looking film and leans into the weirdness just right with a fantastic cast. Watching it at home is very different from the theater with this one and it did feel smaller, but the production is just fantastic. I’m sure there are problems people have with it but this is damn near a flawless film for me from start to finish.
Netflix dropped an experimental 15-minute film this past weekend with Anima, which is something I hope they try more of. The collaboration is between Thom Yorke of Radiohead and writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson. It’s a three-song piece done up with visual storytelling as one piece that’s certainly interpretative. I’m hard pressed to say too much about it just yet as I only saw it once and was intrigued. The solo album came out at the same time and I really want to be able to take in the piece as a whole before trying to parse this piece too much.
Lastly, family viewing this past week had me finishing off the Mission: Impossible run of films with them. We’ve been watching them irregularly over the last six or so months and I wanted to get the last one wrapped up so we could get back to one-off movies for awhile. This film continues to be my favorite with some great sequences and a whole lot of “Imagine the green screen used for that and then realize they didn’t green screen it” with looks of shock and awe. These films continue to make the whole extras section worthwhile to see how they do it because it’s way too much fun. I love the energy of this film and was once again surprised they pulled it off for the running time it has, especially since the third act is like 45-minutes long.
