Ever since I started the Cineplex monthly membership program, I’ve been seeing a lot more movies at the theater. Sometimes that backfires on me (as it did when I saw Oppenheimer with a blurry screen) but most other times, I feel like it enhances the experience. Packed, opening night showings are usually more fun than watching a movie alone at home. These are all of the films I saw in a theater this past month.

The Childe

South Korea | 2023 | 118m | Korean, English

The Childe is a Korean movie about a Filipino boxer struggling to raise money for his mother’s surgery. One day he is told that his estranged, dying, and rich father wishes to meet him. Unfortunately for the main character, there are also several assassins who wish to meet him as well, for related but competing reasons. It’s an interesting premise that also exposed me to certain Korean-Filipino cultural issues that I was totally unaware of. My main issue with the movie was that it begins as a dark, brutal action movie but then abandons that tone and decides to be a goofy black comedy by the end for no good reason.

3/5

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

Japan | 1984 | 117m | Japanese

When I first saw Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind years ago, I remember not finding it as captivating as the other Hayao Miyazaki movies I had seen. Rewatching it now, I have much the same impression. Miyazaki’s later film, Princess Mononoke, tackles many of the same anti-war, environmentalist themes as Nausicaä but with a much richer plot and characters. Nausicaa herself is too perfect of a character, by which I mean that she has few shortcomings and isn’t relatable. Plus, the giant insects she befriends just don’t carry the same whimsical appeal as the creatures in something like Totoro, you know? Nausicaä is still worth watching for its gorgeous overall aesthetic and powerful orchestral soundtrack.

3/5

Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning: Part One

United States of America | 2023 | 163m | English, French, Italian, Russian

You have to respect how much effort Tom Cruise puts into his movies. Even if only part of the plot meant anything to me (I don’t recall seeing any of the other Mission Impossible movies), I was still entertained by the wild action scenes of Dead Reckoning: Part One. The action scenes in the train toward the end of the movie were worth waiting through the 3-hour runtime.

2.5/5

Oppenheimer

United States of America, United Kingdom | 2023 | 180m | English, German, Italian

I might have to watch this one a second time. Not only because I clearly did not give the J. Robert Oppenheimer Wikipedia entry a deep enough read to be able to care enough about any of the secondary characters once this movie turns into a political drama, but because the projection at the 70mm showing that I went to was blurred the entire time. To me, the interesting story is the atomic bomb, not all the political squabbling from later in Oppenheimer’s life. I would have preferred if they traded some of those scenes in Washington for more scenes to explain why any of the women in his life were so into him despite his aloofness.

2.5/5

Barbie

United States of America, United Kingdom | 2023 | 114m | English, Spanish

I’m undecided on whether Barbie is as straightforward a movie as it appears or if it’s actually a brilliant, multi-layered satire. Barbie gets to experience firsthand how she has been treating Ken (as a second-class citizen), but when she has a chance to make things right, she and the other Barbies gleefully reinstate their glittery, pink matriarchy. It felt like no lessons were learned. But when I think back on the scene where Barbie is told to pick between the sandal or the high-heeled shoe – a clear parody of the red-pill/blue-pill scene from The Matrix – I have to wonder if the “real world” that Barbie visits upon taking the red-pill-sandal is meant to be perceived by the audience as every bit as over-the-top and inauthentic as Barbieland. Is the director subtly telling us that neoliberal, rainbow capitalist, Mattel, Inc.-style feminism has its equivalents to the manosphere’s ideas of red pills and “escaping the matrix” – and they’re no less sexist and ridiculous? Is the director saying that the real, real world is not actually cleanly bifurcated between Barbieland and the Tate compound? But honestly it’s hard to tell. (And what does it mean that Barbie ultimately doesn’t get a choice in which pill/shoe she takes? “You have to want to know,” Weird Barbie tells her, removing the high-heel option.) Yeah, I’m probably overthinking this, but I feel like I need to watch this one a second time, too. What is for certain is that the set, costume design, and music are fantastically creative. If nothing else, Barbie made me think, and that’s more than I can say about… like, Mission Impossible.

2.5/5

The First Slam Dunk

Japan | 2022 | 124m | Japanese

The First Slam Dunk is a surprisingly high-grossing CG anime basketball movie. It weaves flashbacks about the protagonist’s relationship with his brother with present-day scenes from one long championship game that lasts the length of the movie. I went in without knowing much about the series, other than having read the first two volumes of the Slam Dunk manga. I definitely enjoyed the scenes from the basketball game more than the flashbacks, but I think the character development is handled well enough that one could go into this movie with no background knowledge and be engaged.

2/5