saw two disappointing movies and one absolute classic in theaters over the holiday weekend.
the disappointing first: tomorrowland and pitch perfect 2. i didn't necessarily have huge hopes for tomorrowland, but with damon lindelof writing, i was expecting at least some interesting plot devices and maybe a mindfuck or two. no such luck. how it's possible to make this story boring is beyond me, but they succeeded. the structure of the movie was terrible as well. i'm not a fan of framing devices in general, but they work even less where every POV - the framing device and the multiple flashback perspectives - are filled with bad actors and bad writing. it's too bad, too, because the bare bones of the story do lend themselves to interesting questions. with so many places to go, they chose the simplest and least compelling.
i was a fan of the first pitch perfect. it wasn't some transcendent experience, but it was fun in exactly the way it was intended to be. unfortunately, no such luck in the second installment. literally no one was funny. and they put waaaaay too much emphasis on this new freshman girl and invested way too much in the false tension between anna kendrick and brittany snow's characters. the worst of it was an absolutely bizarre string of ethnic jokes through the movie. i have no problem with ethnic humor when it's done in a funny way and with a realistic attitude about the perspective of the speaker of the joke. but the jokes were honestly so formulaic and uninteresting that i was just confused. sadly, this was elizabeth banks' feature length directorial debut. for all its flaws, i will say that the finale performance was actually pretty great, though it couldn't redeem the rest. but i would still gladly rewatch the original and pretend this doesn't exist.
finally, i saw the shining at a midnight screening and it was fucking amazing as it always is. i saw it a while back in a late night screening during a stanley kubrick festival, so this wasn't my first time with it on the big screen, but i could probably watch this once a month for the rest of my life and not get enough of it. so much nuance and as someone who very, very rarely gets actually frightened during movies, this one can do it to me. the only complaint i have has nothing at all to do with the actual movie, but with the documentary room 237 that came out a couple years ago. it was highly - though undeservedly - praised and its many ridiculous theories about the movie now draw my attention to things that can occasionally take me out of the film. still a great watch, though and highly recommended, of course.
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