Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is a fully "okay" movie. I still like the magic and the creatures. It raises some questions about characters I previously thought of as "good," like Dumbledore and Queenie. I'm interested to see where they go with the rest of the series.

I had a lot of problems seeing Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. I wanted to see it in a theater on my birthday. It was only playing into theaters by then, one in Shoreline, and one in Tacoma. The one in Shoreline only had one showing a day. I don't see movies in theaters very often (in fact, it's about once a year, on my birthday). I didn't realize that a lot of the theaters have switched over to having you pick your seat when you buy the ticket.

I didn't get to the theater until about five minutes before the movie started. The only tickets that were left were in the front row. I tried it out, but it was impossible to see anything. I should have just seen a different movie, but I wound up not seeing anything at all, which really sucked.

I wound up waiting until Grindelwald came to the $4 theater to try again. I normally sit in the back row of the theater, but the screen at the Crest was so small that I wanted to sit in the middle. I ended up not being able to do that, even though there were open seats where I wanted to be. So I had to sit all the way in the back. For about the first third of the movie, I felt like I couldn't even see it, and I kept missing a bunch of dialogue because I couldn't hear it, either.

I read a review that said Newt's affect gets really annoying. Maybe my perception was just colored by that, but I definitely agreed. Like, just stand up straight at least.

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword

You pretty much know the plot of King Arthur from the trailer – Arthur has to kill the evil king – and Guy Ritchie’s style doesn’t exactly mesh seamlessly with the genre and tone. But it’s fun to watch anyway; Charlie Hunnam is a charismatic lead, there are some great musical choices, and it looks amazing.

 
I like Guy Ritchie’s movies, and I knew I wanted to see  King Arthur: Legend of the Sword as soon as I saw the trailer. His style of dialogue doesn’t 100% mesh with the tone of the movie, but it wasn’t disastrous, and I like it, anyway. It was kind of funny to see them setting up the assassination attempt like a heist. The whole “here’s what everybody’s going to say” schtick isn’t my favorite, though.

Spy

Spy had potential, but the vibe is just off. It's not serious, it's not a parody, and it doesn't do a good job of being in the middle. It is consistently funny, but it could've been a lot better.

It's October, and apparently Spy is the second movie I've seen that came out in 2015. I really liked The Heat, and you can pretty much tell from the trailer which if Melissa's movies are going to be unwatchable. I figured this one would at least be passable, and that wasn't far off. There was something weird about the tone. It didn't quite work. I've seen most of the commentary, and the director keeps talking about how it's not a spoof or a parody, and they were going for serious (as much as they could with a comedy), but the general feel of the movie was really off.

I had a hard time investing in the plot. Maybe Melissa works better when she only has one person to play off, like in The Heat, than so many people. There were a *lot* of funny things about the movie, but something about it really brings my rating down. Most of the songs were jarring and just terrible choices in general, and the CGI was inexcusable. 

Sherlock Holmes

Breaking and Entering

Jude Law needs to stop playing this character, but the parkour stuff is cool.