Wonder Woman 1984. Patty Jenkins. 2020. ⚁

Wow. The CGI on this is horrible!

It looks like Sanctuary! And they pioneered the no-budget greenscreen look a decade and a half ago. How is this possible!

I’m a glass truther: When you have a character wearing glasses, it’s pretty obvious when the glasses have no curve to them whatsoever — because they’ll just reflect light in that flat way. So when somebody is wearing fake glasses like this, it just looks totes fake. It’d be better if there wasn’t glass in the frames at all — then it’d just be a fashion accessory.

Anyway, I’m quite enjoying this movie — people are saying it’s the worst atrocity ever in the history of movies (I think Twitter is saying), but it’s kinda fun? It’s cozy? It’s not good but it’s fine?

They switched her glasses out for realer ones!

Well that rant was totally wasted.

I hoped I was going to go all contrarian and THIS IS THE BEST MOVIE EVER but I don’t even get what this movie is about on a basic level. What are these people even about? This is just a weirdly put-together movie.

It’s not like… “hey! this super-hero movie isn’t that good”. It’s like… “how come nobody stopped this from getting to our screens?”

It’s just horrendously awful. I mean, even on a DC super-hero scale. And that surprises me, because I liked the previous Wonder Woman movie.

Or even “awful” makes it sound like I’m going “yeah, I can see what this is trying to be and it’s not doing that”, but I don’t even comprehend what it’s trying to be.

It’s like a movie out of a different dimension. A dimension where they filmed all the scenes they vaguely talked about being in the film.

The flying scene was awesome, though. And like all the other scenes in this movie, it’s… “what?” “why?” “why now?”

Even on a basic plot summary level, I can’t say why Barbara was the baddie. How did that even happen?

This movie is really a ☐, but I bumped it because I like the flying scene.

But it’s remarkably bad, even on a super-hero movie scale.

The Prom. Ryan Murphy. 2020. ⚂

[fifteen minutes pass]

This thing has a good thing going: The premise is fun, and it’s got a couple of good actors (and then there’s the male actors), and it’s sparkly fun.

But… oy, the greenscreen and the constant CGI. It looks like something made for a low-budget Canadian sci-fi tv series fifteen years ago (yes, I’m talking about Sanctuary).

And the singing… oy… everybody has been autotuned to total musical perfection, which means that every time somebody sings, it’s that horrid, off-phase gruesomeness. (I’m not talking about The Cher Effect, but when they actually use it to correct the pitch. I kinda like TCE, but when used “subtly” for pitch correction… oh, the horror.)

So I’ve put some DJ\Rupture on to drown out the movie whenever somebody starts singing, and I’m surviving.

[ten minutes pass]

Oh, when Meryl Streep sings, it doesn’t sound that awful. Did she get them to switch the machine off?

[er… an hour passes? this is a long movie]

It’s a pretty amusing movie, but there’s these… character development bits… that are really tedious. I feel like there’s a fun movie in here somewhere. If it has been half as long.

*checks how much time is left*

OH MY FUCKING GOD THERE”S ONE MORE HOUR LEFT!!!

OK, I’m taking a break to bake some cookies.

[time passes]

I’m back!

Mmm… cookies…

[more time passes]

The movie seems even worse now? Even if the cookies kick ass?

[the end]

Well, that was kinda dull.

Bates Motel. Richard Rothstein. 1987. ⚁

Oh, I forgot to watch this in when watching the other Psycho movies.

Hm… this is a made for TV movie?

Uh-oh:

[fifteen minutes pass]

This is a pretty odd movie: It’s a comedy (I think?), but the gags would seem stale to a three-year-old, and the rest is kinda creepy.

[half an hour passes]

It’s a strange approach to the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope: This one is really needy, but she does goad the protagonist into doing things, so I guess it’s not that odd.

[twenty minutes pass]

Actually, I don’t hate this. It’s a cheerily inept, unassuming little movie. All the performances are bad, but they’re not really trying to be good, either, so that makes it better. The set design is rather impressive for a movie with this kind of budget, but sometimes it’s more obvious that it’s all plywood and Styrofoam (and scale models) than at other times.

I mean… how can you not like that shot of the guy putting up er spackle up there? That’s the level of proficiency this movie is aiming for.

I feel like this could be a cult classic if only people had seen it, but it’s apparently never gotten wide distribution? (It was included as an unannounced extra on the Psycho box set.)

[ten minutes pass]

OK, now I changed my mind again. This is pretty excruciating.

“Look at my face… my lines…”

*gaze*

OH MY GOD WHAT A HAG.

(Yes, that’s the actual line from that scene.)

[the end]

I liked the ending.

It’s a very confusing movie, but it’s got all the ingredients for a successful, silly riff on Psycho? And I’m totally up for that. But it flubs it seriously in the last third of the movie: It makes sense, plot-wise, but it’s just so boring.

And the twist ending was always obvious, even if I appreciate both the sentiment and the actual reveal.

So… Don’t watch this, probably? But it has its charms, if you’re willing to look for them.