Well, it’s been a week, and I’m happy to report that I succeeded with my challenge. I watched all four films and earlier this week, that family member watched “Everything Everywhere All At Once” for the first time. The response: Well, he certainly had the most low-key reactions I’ve ever seen anyone make to the film.
Anyway, a promise is a promise, and so I’m bringing my brief takes on each of the films that I watched for the first time. Also, just as a heads up that this is going to be a very casual take on it all. Aside from the fact that I don’t review films on here a lot, but I also have a very busy weekend ahead of me. Also, I just got the new COVID booster yesterday and my arm is in pain.
Here we go:
“Forrest Gump” (1994)
This is going to be really unpopular to hear, but I didn’t like it. There were too many problematic elements about it; from the way the female characters were written, to the way BIPOC characters were depicted. Also, if you’re going to have a neurodivergent character as the central protagonist, can you at least make that clearer that he is and not leave us second guessing ourselves?
“The Wizard of Oz” (1939)
There wasn’t a ton to gain from this one. While I’ve never seen the film until then, I’ve seen several community theater productions of it, so it wasn’t as if the story was new to me. It was fascinating to see how they made do with the special effects, in a time where the technology we have not didn’t exist then. It was cute, nostalgic, and very much of its time. The number of times Dorothy cried during the second half of the film irritated the hell out of me.
“Captain America: Civil War” (2016)
Out of all four films, I think this was the one that I liked best. It was action-packed and nuanced in a way I hadn’t expected. Also, the late, great Chadwick Boseman makes his debut at T’Challa in this film, and he deals with an inner conflict that, again, I hadn’t expected, just from watching “Black Panther.” The film was really long though — longer than, I think, it could have been.
“Dune” (2021)
I ignored the hype for this film when it initially came out last year, and I’m glad I did. It was slow, boring, and hard to follow. I also think it had a run time longer than necessary; so much to where I kept pausing it, just to see how much there was left of it.
Well, needless to say it was a fascinating experiment. I’m not sure when I’ll do this again — because I very likely will do something like this again someday — but I hope that next time, the films I wind up watching will be more in par with my interests and align with the qualities I look for in a film.
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Lola By The Bay 