The Post (2017)

Occasionally, I ruin movies all by myself, just with the power of mind. My mind is that powerful, readers!

I get an idea into my head of what a movie is going to be like, or be about, then I'm disappointed when it's not the thing I imagined it was. Sometimes, I can go back and learn to appreciate the movie for what it really was.

I would like to think that that is going to happen with The Post, but I doubt it.

You see, I thought that this was a female empowerment movie. I thought, based on everything I read and everything I saw, that it was about Kay Graham (Meryl Streep) finding her place and her voice as the publisher of the Washington Post (a role her father passed on to her husband; she only took the mantle after her husband's death). I spent the entire movie waiting for the decisive moment when Kay says, "Let's go."

Isn't it dreamy to think of it that way? That when faced with a federal government and Supreme Court challenging decision, she simply said, "Let's go"? Decision made! Lives altered! Let's go already!

But ...

1) it takes far too long to get there and
2) it doesn't stop there. It's not quite on the level of continuing on after Huck tore up the letter, but it feels like it.

Of all the liberties that they took with the actual story (Graham gets a "you go, girl" from a stranger on her way into the Supreme Court and Graham walks out into a sea of proud women after the case has been heard are two examples of the movie trying to goose its feminist cred), I would have preferred it if they had just left out the part where, two hours after that let's go, all of the men in Kay's life try again to badger her out of her decision. Let the "let's go" stand! Let it be the powerful moment that it is!

Really, though, I knew that the movie had lost me when the Supreme Court decision is handed down, and the result make its way into the newsroom. Carrie Coon (my beloved Nora!) is repeating the vote to a rapt newsroom when this fucking guy walks in from the wire room and yells over her. He just walks in and starts yelling, like he thought the entire newsroom was silent and waiting for him.

Maybe this is exactly the way it went down. Don't know; don't care. All I know is that a woman was talking about something important, and this fucking guy decides he's just got to scoop her.

Maybe we'll get 'em next time, Carrie (and Kay).

The Maze Runner: The Death Cure (2018)

Friends, I think it's important that I share some thoughts with you about the third Maze Runner movie. 

Not my thoughts, though. A group of teenage boys sat next to me (why?) and the one right beside me had some critiques. 

On Aidan Gillen: "What's going on? Is he in love with her or something? A bad actor. That's a bad actor." [I felt the same in that moment, folks. The very same]

And as the credits rolled: "Weak. It's a good story, though. It's a good story! It was just too telegraphed -- the music, the camera work. No surprises. Everything's obvious."

This young man also cried when (spoilers) Newt died, and repeatedly looked my way when either anything mushy or anything sad happened in order to gauge my reaction. This resulted in my reaction to pretty much everything being pressed lips as I tried not to laugh at his ... concern? Fear that he would have to witness my emotions in some way? Desire to reach out and comfort me if I did outwardly show my feelings. Who can say.

Also, from the two teenage girls who sat behind me and bawled their eyes out when Newt died: "Thomas could have saved him. He had a knife. He could have cut himself! He's a dumb a-s-s." 

Sadly, no one seemed to think that Teresa the Teenage Epidemiologist was as funny as I did.