I have recently been wondering if I'm too hard on movies. The public seems to really enjoy some films I just can't stand. Recent examples include Project Hail Mary, Tom Holland's Spider-Man franchise, and anything by Christopher Nolan since Memento. Do I hate them only because they're popular? Am I watching them wrong? Is the problem me?

With that in the back of my mind, I just tried to watch

95/2665. Poor Things (2023)

And I really didn't care for it.

I'm still stinging from the ending of the previous Yorgos Lanthimos/Emma Stone collaboration, 2018's The Favourite, which featured an extended sound ("music" is the wrong word) crafted to make the audience as uncomfortable as possible, so I was never particularly enthusiastic for this. When Poor Things opens to a very similar noise, I knew I was in trouble. It killed any excitement I had mustered toward the 2+ hours in front of me, and from that point forward I was looking for a convenient exit, which I eventually found shortly after the one-hour mark (still several minutes short of halfway) when The Monster watched a sailor strangle a seagull for shitting on him.

Soundtrack aside, my bigger complaint is that Lanthimos and I strongly disagree on what should and should not be shown. Prude that I am, I'm still not talking about that bird or the many, many sex scenes. (They are not designed to titillate, but I did begin to question why so many of them? I would not be surprised if The Monster screwed that seagull killer in the next scene.)

This is self-evidently a cold fairy tale of a naive girl's coming-of-age story in a funhouse mirror society built to turn women into slaves (Frankenstein meets Jane Eyre, if you will). But if the goal is to engage the audience in a philosophical study of autonomy and feminism, take a lesson from, say, Edward Scissorhands and gloss over the details instead of spending the first quarter of the run time grounding The Monster's creation in quasi-science fiction. Like learning how hot dogs are made, the knowledge of pig intestines and rat assholes kills the magic, stripping away the allegorical veneer and leaving only an unresolved uncanny valley of the ethical questions about the nature of consciousness, control, and consent in the sexual behavior of those unable to understand those basic concepts. No, thank you.

Obviously, Ms. Stone had the time of her life acting her heart out in a one-of-a-kind role. Good for her. However, it has become increasingly clear that the parts that interest her to play are no longer the parts I care to watch. (I'd say "Never go full retard," but she did win her second Oscar for this. So you do you, girl.) Stone and Lanthimos have combined for two movies since this one; I have no intention of seeing either. Oh, well. At least I'll always have La La Land.

Sure, I could endure the second half to see if the movie sticks the landing. But this is an adventure story, and all adventure stories are move about the journey than the destination. If I'm not having fun or learning anything along the way, why should I bother going on that trip? Maybe I do just hate everything I see these days. Maybe I need to just get comfortable with that. But I definitely don't need to waste any more of my time on other people's crappy journeys.

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Some of the movies I watch deserve extra attention.

114. (1173.) Aloha (2015)

This is not one of them.

Aloha is the worst kind of films, the kind that is almost great but misses the mark. The cast is particularly stellar — Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone, Rachel McAdams, Bill Murray, Jon Krasinski, Danny McBride, Alec Baldwin; a real murders' row. However, the scriptwriter and the director let them down. Unfortunately, they were the same person. Cameron Crowe has made some great films in his day (Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous, Say Anything...). As I said, this is not one of them.

The first act is abysmally bad, underserving all characters and telegraphing the end. It's bad enough that Stone is supposed to be playing a Hawaiian. Worse, romantic leads Stone and Cooper have no real screen chemistry. Cooper gets along much better with McAdams, and this supposed "romantic" comedy suffers for that misplaced relationship.

Those problems are just the tip of this iceberg. Bill Murray's part was written as a Bond villain. Krasinski is playing a walking plot device and isn't even given any lines. The "space" elements are entirely pointless, and when the second act ends, the audience is given no context to understand what they're seeing on screen. Like I said, it's bad.

There are hints here of a better movie peeking out. If the Hawaiian lore had been handled more subtly, if the criticism of the civilian corruption of the military-industrial complex had been given more attention, if the characters were developed more organically . . . . There's a good movie under here somewhere. Too bad no one got to see it.

As I said, this movie doesn't deserve this much attention. If you haven't guessed by now, the real reason for this post is to explain that I'm now missing only 3 movies on my Emma Stone career checklist (Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, 2009; Magic in the Moonlight, 2014; and Irrational Man, 2015).

Gotta watch 'em all! Even the bad ones.

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OMG! THEY STOLE LA LA LAND'S OSCAR!

I don't usually watch the Oscars because I don't care to sit through the pomp and circumstance when I can just read a list of winners the next day. But I tuned in this year because, well, La La Land. So, yes, I saw the Academy Awards' worst screw-up in 89 years as it aired live. Fittingly, it felt like a moment from the least represented genre at the Oscars: a horror movie.

Seriously, I'm not particularly surprised that the award went to Moonlight. I haven't seen it, but it gets great reviews. I'm sure that after years of functionally, ahem, segregating movies made by and featuring minorities, the Academy voters understandably jumped at the chance to reward a great movie about a young, gay, black man. Good for them. I also champion giving Oscars to films that didn't have great box office success. (La La Land's $140,000,000 gross to date may not be in Rogue One's orbit, but it's light years from Moonlight's $22,000,000.)

I'm not even disappointed that La La Land didn't win. It is a great movie, and I do love it. (Have I mentioned that?) I've seen it twice and counting. I will probably see it again before it leaves theaters. That said, I'll be the first to admit that it's a bit lightweight with an underbelly of unseemly sycophantic emphasis on the mythical "magic" of Hollywood and a distinctly whitewashed cast. I can understand how it's not everyone's cup of tea.

But to get the Best Picture declaration wrong? To fail to correct the error before the La La Land cast and producers took the stage? To deny Moonlight its moment in the sun by casting doubt on its win? To give Warren Beatty the wrong envelope and embarrass him in front of an audience of millions? (In the post-awards press conference, Best Actress award-winner and national treasure Emma Stone said she was still holding her card when Warren Beatty read it again. That means there were two Best Actress cards and no Best Picture cards? WTF, Academy!) Frankly, I feel bad for everyone involved.

So congratulations to Moonlight. I will see you one day. Until that day, even though the Academy didn't choose to recognize it, La La Land remains Best Picture in my heart.

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This heavily scripted short "about" Emma Stone feels fabulously Old Hollywood, like an MGM promotional puff piece. Is Emma anything like the person appearing in this video? Who cares. More please.

(FYI: Note that the video was uploaded on October 18, but National Dress Up Your Pet Day is January 14. Has Vogue been sitting on that footage for nine months? Or was it released three months early? I guess those would have made it 75 questions.)

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