March Madness Memes

Movie Reviews

I read somewhere that the Academy Awards just came and went. Now I have no idea who won an Oscar, as living in a tent without electricity and lately also without Internet would imply that I do not have a television. Even when I do have a TV, however, it sits unused by me. I can count the number of times I’ve turned on a television of my own volition one one hand in the last 30 years or so.

That is not to say that I never watch TV or encounter movies. That stuff plays in the background in a lot of places. I’ve also designated my 11-15 hour international flight to and from the USA and Thailand as the one place where I use the in flight entertainment system to check Movies: New Releases.

It was sparse pickings on my last flight. I fell asleep during two movies I was trying to watch and turned off another (Emilia Perez, the Oscar nominee darling) for being just too cringe unwatchable. The songs were catchy but that’s the only Academy Awards I would’ve thought to consider it for. I came of age during a time when say Disney’s original Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King were the biggest yearly blockbusters, so the concept of characters spontaneously breaking into song is not novel to me. Emilia Perez seemed to rely entirely on gimmicks: OMG it’s a musical! Set in Latin America with diverse characters speaking and singing in Spanish! About a trans mafia boss! And I suffered through The Barbie Movie on a previous flight (ultimately I’d give that movie 3 perhaps even 3 1/2 stars-there was some banter between Barbie and Ken that was meme worthy, a decent mom daughter storyline and a good diatribe about how hard it can be for women-but men too! in our current dystopia). Emilia Perez was just…bad. The plot was hard to follow and the underlying social commentary was nonexistent.

They seemed so obsessed with whether the Mafia boss was “really” trans or was just trying to hide his identity that they largely glossed over whether his (or her) gender could actually be changed at all. I’d rate it as unwatchable trash, however many stars that merits. I could not get through it. The fact that it got 13 Oscar nominations tells me everything I need to know about the current state of movies. I think I’m better off without the television.

There was some Marvel themed crap that I passed on altogether, being that the entire genre just seems to be begging to be replaced by AI wholesale. All of it: the storylines, the actors, the dialogue, the plots, et cetera. And then I hit on one gem which I might even give five stars.

It was a rom-com tearjerker called We Live in Time. Precisely because it was not woke it probably received zero attention. I mean does Great Britain even have white people anymore? Who is underrepresented nowadays?

Is that actually Venus or a Starlink?

It seems to me that everything has turned into a hyper reality show. Who knows what is fiction or not anymore?

Does anyone else have movie reviews?

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