Little Miss Sunshine (2006): Vacation Without Chevy Chase

What more can be said about road movies featuring families? Get a bunch of wacky characters together in a confined space with a vast land to give a variety of adventures and let them go. Too bad this was done to perfection thirty-four years ago and repeated to death so much that my heart is a cold, stony ground from which no love of the family travel movie will grow.

Little Miss Sunshine is the story of a family driving to a beauty pageant two states away. Dad (Kinnear) is having money troubles. Brother (Dano) is a silent wreck. Uncle (Carrel) just got out of the hospital for suicide. Grandpa (Arkin) is a foul mouth mess. Mom (Collette) is dealing with all these assholes. While on the way, they learn to be a family again.

On the surface, a great film with a lot of heart. The ending dance number is inspired, the path every character takes is earned, and damn that kid is cute as a button. But my heart is closed to the love and admiration they give each other. For they are not Griswolds.

My family took road trips every summer. My dad, mom, sister, and I would pile into the car and drive. We went to amusement parks, national forests, and one time a castle. My memories of my experiences tie with deep recognition the John Hughes classic tale of a family traveling. At the end of our journeys, surely, no lessons were learned other than the world continues. The family abides. Death is near.

The black specter follows us all. As one passes on, more follow. Each of us has a time and that time is unknown, be it on the road or within our hearts. Cold silence follows and the future will crumble like rain in the darkness.

A nice little movie about a family, Little Miss Sunshine passes the time in a delightful hour and a half. The enjoyable plot will not remind you that chaos is inevitable and each of us is falling toward the depth of horror. Hold each other close and muffle the screams with hugs.

Thor Ragnarok (2017) Review: Lest We Mock The Elder Gods

When we at the library think of gods, we do not envision humans with human squabbles. Gods cannot be dreamed of on screens and images. Thor and his Asgardian pals are not gods no matter what thunder or death they can cause. They are beings of flesh and therefore lacking.

Thor Ragnarok has the Marvel God of Thunder (Hemsworth) facing off against Hela, the Goddess of Death (Blanchet), along with Hulk (Ruffalo), Valkyrie (Thompson), and Loki (Hiddleston). First beaten and savaged, Thor finds himself tossed on a gladiator planet where he triumphs and gathers his forces. At no point does a true god of thought and desire enter the picture to tear asunder such pitiful wants and desires.

Our usual Marvel gang are enjoying themselves, dancing around the acting and jokes and crazy plot with abandon. The three newcomers to the MCU are the standouts, however. Tessa Thompson is standout as Valkyrie, giving a strange pathos to what could have been a depressing character. Cate Blanchett rules the screen as the goth queen, giving some much needed good villainy to Marvel's usual bland evildoers. And Jeff Goldblum is at his extreme Jeff Goldblumiest. None, however, can hold a candle to those gods that live beyond thought, time, and dreams and scream into endless voids the sounds of creation.

A much wackier take than the previous Thor films, Ragnarok allowed director Taika Waititi to stretch. The overall plot is basic MCU (bad guy shows up, good guy has challenge, giant space hole, and violence), but within characters are beaten and broken as if they are in a cartoon. With gods and monsters, you can play with indestructible forces for only so long until they turn on you, notice you, and tear your mind from your body like a cork from a bottle.

Overall, a great film but a horrific depiction of gods. No fear or reverence exists in this tale. May the elder ones never see how we mock them.

Moana (2016) Review: No More Heroes or Dead People

Meeting your heroes is tough. When the library met documentary comic writer/painter Eric Powell, we stared at the ground a lot and mumbled how much he meant to us. When Moana of the movie Moana meets her hero, he's a dick.

Eric Powell was not a dick. When we met the Night Raven, she was a dick. More on that later.

Moana, the movie, is about a young island girl, Moana, who leaves her island despite the warnings to find an ancient demigod and get him to fix the world he broke. She does. The end.

First of all, the music, voices, and effects are amazing. Catchy tunes written by the Hamilton writer Lin Manuel Miranda will invade your skull and you will say "You're Welcome." Dwayne "That Guy" Johnson and newcomer Auli'i Cravalho star as Maui and Moana and kick ass at talking into microphones. And the water and the chicken. You will believe a chicken can be stupid.

Second of all, again, not one bit of murder. Look, I understand that there's Disney right there on the box. But at least in some Disney movies a villain can be trusted to get killed or kicked off a mountain. What happens here? Well, spoiler alert. It doesn't.

When we went to the library conference and met the Night Raven, we all knew we could die. And some of us made it out.

Don't meet your heroes, you know?

Battle of the Sexes (2017) Review: Not Even a Hint of Blood

The library went down to the theater and saw the Battle of the Sexes. This was not the movie we expected. Not one person lost their life. Not even so much as a drop of blood.

    Battle of the Sexes, despite the name, is about a 1973 tennis match between Billie Jean King (Stone) and Bobby Riggs (Carell). At no time do King and Riggs do battle in any type of arena attempting to kill or maim each other. Mostly, they hit small green fuzzy balls at each other.

    That's not to say the movie is worthless. The acting is amazing as everyone involved steps up to deliver tour de force performances and… You know what? I'm still bummed about the violence thing.

    Sure, there's sex, but it's the "oh I'm finding my true self and making important social change" type of sex. King's fight for equality is well represented on screen as she excelled at tennis with her fellow women tennis players despite overwhelming odds. She also finds love outside of the devotion she had in her first marriage. Good for her.

    But when I watch a movie with the word "battle" in the title, I wanna see some guts. Blood and shit and people screaming each other's names in ecstasy because tomorrow they might just die violent and horrific deaths. And I didn't get that. I just got a well acted, well written, socially minded film filled to the brim with talent and hope.

    Fucking hope.

     Gross.