Change Your Image
jjohnson-26005
Reviews
Dune: Part Two (2024)
Beautiful cinematography- needed more character development
This is such a beautiful movie- the sand, the costumes, the action sequences, the interior sets! It's a visual feast. We do see more of the worms this time too!
There is a character reveal part the way through, though, and I found I didn't care and didn't understand its importance. I needed more back story to care about these characters. I also found the main love story underwhelming. I'll keep watching future Dune movies, but I'm not immersed in them like I was for, say, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, or the Avengers saga. We need a movie focused on character development with a bit less battle action.
Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (2023)
Taylor and her entire concert production are awesome, but they could have done something new for the movie format
Taylor and her entire staff worked really hard to make a spectacular event for concert-goers. The stage, the costumes, the lights, the sets, and especially the performances by Taylor and her backup singers and band- all wonderful.
My only quibble is that the movie is literally a tape of the concert. There's nothing extra or new for the movie format.
This is the kind of thing where you want to belt out the lyrics! Nobody sang in my theater, though plenty of people were moving along with the music and mouthed the words. Movie theaters traditionally ask the audience to be quiet, but I think audiences for the show would LOVE being able to sing during this one.
I wish the movie had interspersed some sing along lyrics printed on the screen or even included just one card at the beginning encouraging people to sing along. Had they done that, this would have been a one in a lifetime experience for me!
Every Body (2023)
While not its primary purpose, this movie changed how I view trans people
The movie profiles three intersex people and describes what it means to be intersex. Prior to seeing this movie, I did not know that intersex people existed. These are people whose physical genitalia doesn't match the normal presentation for their chromosomal sex. For this reason, these are people for whom gender at birth is ambiguous, since they have biological traits of both genders.
This first great thing about this movie is that it presents cases where the phrase "gender assigned at birth" makes sense and is explained! I'm a liberal voter, but have bristled at how trans vocabulary uses "gender assigned at birth". I never got it- how could gender be "assigned"? By profiling intersex people, this movie explains cases where in fact gender is very deliberately chosen.
The second great thing about this movie is that it presents intersex conditions simply as "different bodies", people for whom a typical combination of chromosomes and genital anatomy didn't happen. I think most people can point to something that makes their body different from "normal"- intersex people just had this happen when it came to their sexual anatomy. The concept of "different bodies" really humanized intersex, and by extension, trans, people for me. You can physically see on an intersex body why gender is ambiguous. What's not to say that trans people had different sex hormones in utero, and their brains are different? In order words- trans bodies are different too- we just can't see the differences?
Finally, the third and last great thing about this movie is the story told by Alicia Roth Weigel. She is a beautiful, blond-haired, dress-wearing, very feminine looking woman. If you saw her on the street, you'd think she is a typical woman, but she has XY chromosomes! She is the perfect spokesperson to show that genital anatomy and chromosomes together don't fit perfectly into two boxes. Trans stories are often told by people whose physical look is atypical for their gender. Ms Weigel tells her story as someone who identifies as a woman and also looks very feminine.