Movies seen in autumn/winter 2025
Dec. 31st, 2025 07:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessI'll be posting twice tonight as I was offline for the last couple of days and I want to get these out/up while it's still 2025 here.
In September, I meant to go see the new (‘final’) Downton Abbey, but didn’t. October was also a total washout, and I wasn’t really following film news closely enough to say for sure what I’d have gone to see – The Roofman, perhaps. Not one of the billion horror movies that was out. I thought about going to see a film by the end of November, but circumstances didn’t allow.
So, December came, and then I had a cold. I will mention Relay, which I saw on streaming, but I think may have been briefly out in the cinemas. Recommended if you want to watch an ingenious thriller with a touch of competence (or just-paranoid-enough) porn and crunchy characterisation. It stars Riz Ahmed and Lily James (both playing Americans, which tickled my brain.)
But the first film I saw at the cinema after a three-month hiatus was The Running Man, and eh, it wasn't really for me. I haven’t read the book or seen the first movie adaptation (apparently it’s closer to the first.) At first, I thought ‘this is streamlined’ then ‘this is a bit baggy’ because of the episodic thing. There’s one section featuring Michael Cera that I thought was the most Edgar Wright section, although they missed the obvious (to me) Arrested Development link with the next bit. For a film that’s meant to be set five minutes in the future, some of the attitudes are retrograde (or of the 1970s/80s), and the ‘faked material’ stuff seems to be lagging behind what AI deepfakes were doing…last year. Glenn Powell is fine as the lead and there’s an extended action scene where he’s just wearing a towel, Colman Domingo brings some razmataz to his part, but The Hunger Games is probably the version of this story that speaks to me, not this.
I finally went to see Wicked: For Good (on Boxing Day). I’d been prepared for it being weaker than the first film (as the second act of the stage musical is, supposedly. I hadn’t seen it.) And it is, but I was invested and wanted to see where it ended up. The songs aren’t as good, for one thing, although Erivo and Grande’s singing continues to be excellent. Elphaba is basically useless as the leader of the rebellion, has some success as an animal rights activist, then gets the (underwritten) guy, suffers some losses, decides to lean into the stereotype, no wait, she’s Oz’s Dark Knight, and then she pulls off a magic trick the Wizard would have been capable of, so she doesn't actually die, which I was preparing for. I didn’t love what they did around magic there, and Elphaba's arc is mostly a downer.
Most of the characters, well, not Madam Morrible, who becomes Goebbels, basically, (or Nessarose, even if she’s a product of her upbringing) are sympathetic at times. This included Glinda for a lot of her crying jag. The message and plot become confusing as it becomes all the more meta, giving new backstories to The Wizard of Oz characters. There’s both padding (the ending) and some underdevelopment, but the production and costume design continue to be wonderful – it makes fake flowers look good! I’m glad I saw it on the big screen, even if it wasn’t as thrilling as the first movie.
During Twixmas, I finally got to see Zootropolis 2 (and I wasn’t the only one, it was a full – small – cinema, even though it’s been out for a while.) It was better than I dared hope, frankly. It’s set about a week after Nick has joined the force and is about the new partnership’s problems – for a lot of the film, Judy and Nick would not be able to pass the Broccoli test. I was surprised by how much ship fodder we got, although it’s couched as a platonic partnership, and the film has important lessons about true friendship, but also diversity (don’t expect Disney movies greenlit this year to follow suit.) You could bring your own subtext.
Can the warring partnership save the city form a new threat (while being on the run from the ZPD)? Does the plot entirely hold together? Never mind, there’s Zootopia expansion, clever details, injokes (it matters less that it’s a ridiculous amount of time since that last film when it’s animated, and they seem to have got everyone back, unlike as with Inside Out 2.) I recognised David Strathairn’s voice as one of the new characters, and I knew I knew Pawbert’s voice, but had to wait to find out it was Andy Samberg. I chortled a fair bit, but I admit I’m invested in this world, having bought the DVD, shipped Judy/Nick and read fic, even if I don’t have the excuse of a child.
In September, I meant to go see the new (‘final’) Downton Abbey, but didn’t. October was also a total washout, and I wasn’t really following film news closely enough to say for sure what I’d have gone to see – The Roofman, perhaps. Not one of the billion horror movies that was out. I thought about going to see a film by the end of November, but circumstances didn’t allow.
So, December came, and then I had a cold. I will mention Relay, which I saw on streaming, but I think may have been briefly out in the cinemas. Recommended if you want to watch an ingenious thriller with a touch of competence (or just-paranoid-enough) porn and crunchy characterisation. It stars Riz Ahmed and Lily James (both playing Americans, which tickled my brain.)
But the first film I saw at the cinema after a three-month hiatus was The Running Man, and eh, it wasn't really for me. I haven’t read the book or seen the first movie adaptation (apparently it’s closer to the first.) At first, I thought ‘this is streamlined’ then ‘this is a bit baggy’ because of the episodic thing. There’s one section featuring Michael Cera that I thought was the most Edgar Wright section, although they missed the obvious (to me) Arrested Development link with the next bit. For a film that’s meant to be set five minutes in the future, some of the attitudes are retrograde (or of the 1970s/80s), and the ‘faked material’ stuff seems to be lagging behind what AI deepfakes were doing…last year. Glenn Powell is fine as the lead and there’s an extended action scene where he’s just wearing a towel, Colman Domingo brings some razmataz to his part, but The Hunger Games is probably the version of this story that speaks to me, not this.
I finally went to see Wicked: For Good (on Boxing Day). I’d been prepared for it being weaker than the first film (as the second act of the stage musical is, supposedly. I hadn’t seen it.) And it is, but I was invested and wanted to see where it ended up. The songs aren’t as good, for one thing, although Erivo and Grande’s singing continues to be excellent. Elphaba is basically useless as the leader of the rebellion, has some success as an animal rights activist, then gets the (underwritten) guy, suffers some losses, decides to lean into the stereotype, no wait, she’s Oz’s Dark Knight, and then she pulls off a magic trick the Wizard would have been capable of, so she doesn't actually die, which I was preparing for. I didn’t love what they did around magic there, and Elphaba's arc is mostly a downer.
Most of the characters, well, not Madam Morrible, who becomes Goebbels, basically, (or Nessarose, even if she’s a product of her upbringing) are sympathetic at times. This included Glinda for a lot of her crying jag. The message and plot become confusing as it becomes all the more meta, giving new backstories to The Wizard of Oz characters. There’s both padding (the ending) and some underdevelopment, but the production and costume design continue to be wonderful – it makes fake flowers look good! I’m glad I saw it on the big screen, even if it wasn’t as thrilling as the first movie.
During Twixmas, I finally got to see Zootropolis 2 (and I wasn’t the only one, it was a full – small – cinema, even though it’s been out for a while.) It was better than I dared hope, frankly. It’s set about a week after Nick has joined the force and is about the new partnership’s problems – for a lot of the film, Judy and Nick would not be able to pass the Broccoli test. I was surprised by how much ship fodder we got, although it’s couched as a platonic partnership, and the film has important lessons about true friendship, but also diversity (don’t expect Disney movies greenlit this year to follow suit.) You could bring your own subtext.
Can the warring partnership save the city form a new threat (while being on the run from the ZPD)? Does the plot entirely hold together? Never mind, there’s Zootopia expansion, clever details, injokes (it matters less that it’s a ridiculous amount of time since that last film when it’s animated, and they seem to have got everyone back, unlike as with Inside Out 2.) I recognised David Strathairn’s voice as one of the new characters, and I knew I knew Pawbert’s voice, but had to wait to find out it was Andy Samberg. I chortled a fair bit, but I admit I’m invested in this world, having bought the DVD, shipped Judy/Nick and read fic, even if I don’t have the excuse of a child.
