Vacation Brain: Movies

As my own work goes into a quick winter hibernation, I put eyes on some things I'd been wanting to get to, and was happily surprised a few times.

First, we finally watched Shang Chi: Legend of the Ten Rings, the payoff on an Easter egg from Iron Man 1, over 4000 MCU minutes earlier:

Holy hell, it's great! Martial arts action? You bet! Bad-ass good guy you never doubt even for a second? Hell yes! Marvel quippery, special effects budget, and an emotionally committed cast and crew? Of course! Awkwafina doing her, eh, thing? Just a bonus!

Representation matters, of course, and here the MCU gives us a crazy-powerful dude and weapon combo, a glimpse at the mystery surrounding the age and origin of said weapon, and with the star, a central position for Chinese-born Canadian Simi Liu. Also Michelle Yeoh and Tony Leung!

Now I wanna go watch it again...

Next up, after reading about a great entry into the Western genre, I found it and we checked it out:

Holy hell, it's great! The piece I read about it said that while it was a nearly all Black cast, it was also a generally badass Western movie. I am very fond of Silverado and Tombstone, Gunsmoke, Quigley Down Under...much of Clint Eastwood's western oeuvre, even the Japanese samurai movies that were inspired by American westerns, and that were then used to make more American westerns. I'm a fan, I guess.

Anyway, this one is the Tarrantino-ing of the genre, but it's action packed and gory, and the Black cast is very cool. When they venture to Maysville, "the white town," I laughed and laughed. The dirt is white, the buildings are white...the production crew said they played with nearly 70 different shades of white for Maysville.

Some of the characters in the movie are based on historical Black cowboys even if the story is fictionalized. These dudes finally got a glamourous showcase.

Next up was Margot Robbie and Sebastian Stan beautifying the place up:

I enjoyed it, but felt like the beautiful-hot Robbie and Stan playing the in-reality trashy-hot Tonya and Jeff Gillooly was a distraction. The violence I never knew about, and how hard Tonya worked became clear. 

At the time---the early '90s---I was into American figure skating, because Kristi Yamaguchi had taken over for Katarina Witt as the top lady, but there were some new amazing chicks coming up in America. Tonya Harding among the top of that list. I realize now that it was because of her ability to land that triple axel in competition. The first I really heard of Nancy Kerrigan was after the attack. I remember Tonya's broken lace in the competition, and then watching Oksana Baiul crush it during the final and Nancy's (as Robbie's Tonya puts it) "stepping in dog-doo face" while receiving her silver medal.

Next was a documentary that was suggested by my dad:

It wasn't all about psilocybin. It did make some awesome observations: Homo sapiens isn't the only animal that eats psilocybin 'shrooms, and there's the idea that the psychedelic experience had a profound effect on the early human's ability and desire to communicate. Hello, language development.

But the movie really gets into depth about mycelium, about how it makes soil possible, can survive in space, and helps trees communicate across enormous swaths of landscape. It's the tree (and forest at large) neural network.

The movie makes the case early to WATCH IT ON SHROOMS.

Last on my Vacation Brain: Movie moment was the newest sequel from an old flame:

It's okay. I liked how they leaned into the "Matrix 4" jokes, and how the first one created the visual cliches that we all know now, but leaning into all that. You couldn't just move forward without addressing it, right? The first Matrix movie is so influential and was a touchstone of the era, to make this movie 20+ years later you'd have to lean into it at least a little, to be sincere, right?

Anyway, it's okay. It's not spectacular and it's not terrible. 

I have other Vacation Brain time-wasters in my skull, waiting to get out before I get back to work...