Today in movies I didn't hate:

Yeah, I don't know why I
leave the house either. 

So I don't usually talk about movies on this thing but-ok, that's not true, I talk about movies a lot, guess what I mean is that I don't usually review movies. I don't know what you like, so why should I try and tell you what to go see? But like I said, I don't usually review movies, but I have seen a few movies recently and I want to discuss. You know, one-sidedly. Which is how blogs work. Anyway, I actually saw three movies this past week and in an unusual treat, I didn't hate them. Which is weird because I hate everything.

First, Into the Spider-verse was great. Not just because of what it was; a smart, visually interesting comic book adaptation with something to say about family, and believing in yourself or whatever. But because of what it wasn't: a three hour bloated, jump-cut addled cookie-cutter MCU movie that ends in a protracted Lord of the Rings-ish battle scene.

I'll stop ragging on Infinity Wars when Marvel stops
ripping off their own movies. Yeah. Shots fired.

Above: a typical scene from any of
Bay's Transformers movies. And no, I
don't know what we're looking at either.

Then, and brace yourself for this one, I saw Bumblebee which I'm going to say was not terrible. Not great mind you, but as a fan of movies about robots that turn into things I was pleasantly surprised. Having foolishly sat through each of Micheal Bay's five-yeah, five. Compared to his five incoherent, dumb explosion fests that were similar to, but in no way, not tonally or visually, the Transformers toys were were tricked into loving by the animated toy commercials of the 1980's, Travis Knight's Bumblebee was goddamn Citizen Kane.

It was the 80's nostalgia-drenched Tab to the Bay quintet's Monster Energy Drink. By no means healthy, but it's not going to give you diabetes and an irregular heartbeat either.

It's a super-relatable story about a teen who learns to deal with grief
by befriending a Volkswagen from space. Also John Cena is there.

Above: The murder of Rizzio, captured
on palace security oil painting.

And the last movie I saw over the holidays was Mary Queen of Scots. Because I'm eclectic. The reviews have been kind of mixed, but I liked it for the most part. I say for the most part because I was digging its kind of off-beat, theatrical vibe-the director, Josie Rourke is a theatre director for whom this is her first movie, so it has a cool, kind of stage play feel to it. Anyway, I was digging it when suddenly David Rizzio, one of the Queen's courtiers is brutally and graphically murdered. Ok, so Rizzio's assassination is is a thing that happened in real life, that's not so much my issue.

...you know, uh, yeah, it felt
like that. Thanks Discovery. 

Historically, well, Wikipedia historically, Rizzio was murdered by Mary's husband and some Scottish lords on the grounds that he was having an affair with her, but in the movie Rizzio is the King's lover. Which, ok, but then there's an assassination attempt on the King which fails to kill him, but does manage to kill his new male lover. Then the King is strangled. So of the four named characters to die in this movie (spoiler alert, it doesn't end well for Mary Queen of Scotts either), three are queer. And that felt a little...

This is the culture Shakespeare
based MacBeth on. Macbeth.

According to this, there's historical evidence to back up the queer subplot in the film so I guess this isn't a bury your gays thing. But still, I don't know, maybe I'm a bit sensitive about this after Dr. Culber on Discovery and then that random security guard on Doctor Who the other night who announced how gay he was only to be murdered thirty seconds later. It just seems like this movie could have thrown in a couple non-queer murders just to balance things out a little. Seriously, this was sixteen century Scotland, it's not like they needed to go far to find one.

Anyway, Queen Mary, played by Saoirse Ronan and Elizabeth I, played by Margo Suicide Squad Robbie, were great. In fact, I really want to see Rourke direct a spin off or something where Robbie plays Elizabeth in her own movie. Better yet, how about a whole bunch of interconnected period pieces like that? Like a Tudor Cinematic Universe.

I would watch the shit out of that.