Really, Netflix?

Moonrise Kingdom

Moonrise Kingdom is shameless, non-stop kitschy nostalgia, and it is a weird nostalgia, because it is aimed at an audience that does not remember the stuff it is nostaligic about. It is a movie for the Etsy generation. An Instagram movie. It may be the Wes Andersonest of all the Wes Anderson movies, but I would not know, because I have only seen The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic all the way through, and neither of them left much of an impression, to be perfectly honest. To be perfectly honest, I may have avoided the more beloved of his movies (Rushmore) because I fear the uncomfortable conversations in which I say horrible insincere-sounding things like, "Yeah, a lot of people like that movie" or "I really liked the shoes in that movie." (I'm terrified of hurting people's feelings, I'm terrified of being judged for my taste. Why am I writing stuff here on a blog about movies...?) 

Wes Anderson: I put a bird on it. 

So I had no plans to like Moonrise Kingdom. I thought I would damage my eye-sockets with all the eye-rolling Moonrise Kingdom would require. However. I was totally charmed by it. I thought Ed Norton's Khaki Scouts troupe leader was funny and sincere and believable. Frances McDormand was great. The sweet naive sexuality and romance were flat and unrealistic in the way a good picture book is. 

What does this mean?

Do I have to turn in my dried-up humorless cynic card? 

SW&tH

What if told you there is a movie, in theaters now, with the following actors in it? Nick Frost, Eddie Marsan, Bob Hoskins, Toby Jones, Ray Winstone, Ian McShane. You would think, that sounds like something pretty great, probably fairly violent, maybe a Guy Ritchie crime caper, or maybe some medieval epic, with lots of historical accuracy and very cool costumes. Or maybe you wouldn't think that because you don’t know all their names, but you know these guys.

See? Those guys. Maybe they would be working class weirdos in a Mike Leigh film. Maybe they would be the supporting cast in a new Danny Boyle sci fi movie. What you would probably not think is this: all those actors are the dwarfs in the second weak retelling of Snow White to come to theaters this summer. This is Snow White and the Hunstman, starring Kristen Stewart, Chris Hemsworth and Charlize Theron. Theron, by the way, is a phenomenon. I felt like everyone else understood that this was a silly movie--Chris Hemsworth especially seemed to maintain an ironic smirk the whole time. Maybe that's just his face, or his character. But Charlize Theron, I don't think she knows how to phone it in, and her performance is almost embarrassing because it's too good for the film she's in. Unlike Kristen Stewart. There is an amazing scene near the end of the movie, where Kristen Stewart gives a sort of St Crispin's Day speech, inspiring the troupes, but in that same face-touching, dead-eyed style of naturalistic acting that has occasionally worked really well for her, when she played a sullen teenager. "Iron melts," she growls, in a weird halfway English accent. "But it also writhes about inside itself." I have no idea what any of this means. But I would definitely like to be kidnapped by that band of dwarfs.