Rewatches February 2022

After the relatively stuffed month that January turned out to be, I had to scramble to make my efforts look decent in February, but I think I managed nicely...

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017) A lot of viewers dismissed this because they didn't think Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne carried enough weight as its stars, but I love the results except as a version of the current popular interpretation of world history being an unapologetic destruction of virgin territory, which is ridiculously simplistic.  

Vice (2018) A fever dream that allows the viewer to believe what they want to about its conclusions (the ending cleverly leans into the current culture divide), although it clearly has one interpretation in mind as Christian Bale hilariously leans into the Dick Cheney voice even in his early years.

Walk the Line (2005) When this was released in theaters I'd been listening to Johnny Cash music pretty heavily with my dad, so I was very prepared to enjoy a movie about him, and while Roger Ebert was very much mistaken when he claimed there was no distinction to be made between Cash's singing and Joaquin Phoenix's version, it's still fun listening to Phoenix's, and this is easily my favorite Reese Witherspoon performance, in which she stops trying to be a precocious individual and actually is one.

Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) For me, anyway, the Wallace & Gromit shorts were the last time I particularly cared about short films that weren't attached to Disney and/or Pixar films, so this feature-length version of their shenanigans, with its ridiculously adorable rabbits, will long be one of my favorite animated movies.

Warcraft (2016) The career of Duncan Jones fell apart fairly completely shortly after this, and watching Warcraft specifically again was to find I maybe wasn't as interested in the movie itself, originally, as the career of Duncan Jones, but it's still an accessible alternative to a fantasy landscape that isn't beholden to any specific knowledge of the source material.

The Way of the Gun (2000) It's amazing how paranoid critics have been about "another Tarantino," so that they've routinely rejected any material they deem remotely similar, including this movie, which is a great showcase for Benicio Del Toro and Ryan Phillippe, both of whom as a result had a much harder time impressing their careers, and talent, on the popular consciousness because of it.

We Are Marshall (2006) Looking back, I'm not quite as enamored with this one as I used to be.  In 2006 it was, as it in hindsight remains, for me a spotlight outside of Lost for the appeal of Matthew Fox, but as it was for me then an introduction of sorts to Matthew McConaughey, I've since watched other material I think I can say I reliably enjoy more.