Movie Review - Aquaman, BirdBox, Dumplin'

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Jason Momoa is gorgeous.  The muscles, the tats, the intensity.  I'm normally not a long-hair-on-guys type of gal but I'll make an exception here.  I looooved Khal Drogo in Game of Thrones and hope to the heavens that there will be at least a cameo in the final season. 

Jason Momoa is beautiful

Jason Momoa as Khal Drogo, rocking the guyliner

(Sidebar: to me, Game of Thrones is best enjoyed by watching the HBO series as well as reading the bookes. There's no hecking way I'd understand what was going on just by reading the books - there's so much detail and so many characters, even the maps and family trees in the books are only moderately helpful. Likewise, the series is amazing to watch but I still miss some of the nuances the book contains.  And while the books are way too daunting to re-read, I've watched each season of the series 2-3 times each and always find something I hadn't seen before. And every now and then there are Khal Drogo dream sequences. So the books and the series are companion pieces. It also helps that I've got a friend who is a GoT savant and can explain anything in gob-smacking detail.)

Anyhow, despite the dreck that was the Justice League movie, Momoa's Aquaman character was a fun breath of fresh air so I was eagerly anticipating the stand alone flick. And then there's promo photos like this:

Jason Momoa as Arthur Curry aka King Arthur aka Aquaman; he even makes a manbun look good in this movie

I managed to stay awake for the whole movie and Momoa is fabulous (did you see him on Saturday Night Live? He did a good job, especially as an Elf on the Shelf) but he's just about the movie's only redeeming quality. The one other redeeming quality? Yahya Abdul Mateen who plays one of the many (too many) villains.

Yahya Abdul Mateen as Black Manta in Aquaman

Yup, muscles and intensity. It appears I have a type. Hello, Hugh Jackman as Wolverine.

Hugh Jackman (aka my husband) as Wolvering in X-Men Days of Future Past

Honestly, it's Jackman's back that really does it for me.  Not even the backside, the back.  I mean, the front is OK too but it's the back that gets me. Seriously, I gasped out loud when he first came on screen in the original X-Men.

Be still, my heart

No, really, be still...

A few years ago I read an article that referred to this type of character as the 'noble savage' which I guess is the male equivalent to the 'hooker with a heart of gold'. Whatever.  These guys are hawt.

I got myself all side-tracked.  In sum, Aquaman sucked but the eye candy was fun; go watch GoT; Hugh Jackman is at the top of My List and the original X-Men movie happened to be really good as was X-Men Days of Future Past and I can't count how many times I've watched either of those Two Boops Up-rated movies.

Sadly, not every movie ever made can star Hugh Jackman. But there are a couple on Netflix that are Must See: Bird Box, and Dumplin'.

Yes, Bird Box is all the rage on social media now and has over 50 million streams. But I first heard about this I think in an Entertainment Weekly book review a couple of years ago.  If I could only read one magazine for the rest of my life it would be EW. It covers movies, TV, music, theater, books, video games, and overall entertainment zeitgeist. (They also happen to have an awesome GoT blog.) So I read Bird Box in hardcover. It was one of the most atmospheric, paranoid stories I've ever read. I turned my teenage nephew onto it and he has talked about it for years. The Netflix movie was good - I wasn't expecting to see John Malkovich in it - but there were a few scenes I'd hoped would be in the movie that were only in the book. If you haven't already watched it, read the book first. Movie by itself: One Boops Up.  Book: Two Boops Up.

And finally there is Netflix's Dumplin' where the overweight, Dolly Parton-loving, high-school-age daughter of a former beauty queen decides to enter a pageant. I was expecting a basic everyone-tries-to-stop-her-but-she-goes-on-to-win-the-pageant-and-everyone's-heart plot but it was surprisingly much richer than that. I don't want to hand out any spoilers, but know that I was misty-eyed almost through the entire movie. (Sidebar: I can't stand Jennifer Aniston. After watching her play the beauty queen mom, I still can't stand her.) Two Boops Up, check it out.