Moonlight, The Play That Goes Wrong, The Lego Batman Movie

Like everyone else, I've pretty much made the transition to having DW as my main site now, but haven't quite got the hang of how to post from Semagic, so working on it. A couple of days ago I was also delighted to discover that mindstalk, who I don't actually know, had pulled my username randomly from the DW hat, so to speak, and gifted me a year's paid time in order to support DW. That was a lovely gesture, and so I suppose I'd better start using it. Thanks again to them :)

Finally got around to seeing Moonlight (um... several weeks ago now), another film I wanted to see before I knew it had been nominated for an Oscar - call me a sucker for a serious film featuring a gay black protagonist. I went in expecting at the very least to be pleased, given that it won Best Movie (...eventually) and everything. And then it finished, and I was all "...what?"

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Also went to see The Play That Goes Wrong, another production I'm pleased we stole from London's West End. The conceit is that we are watching a production of "A Murder at Haversham Manor", proudly brought to you by the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society, not generally known for its high quality productions. But this year it'll be different! as the proud first-time director (and cast member) informs us. And just as you'd expect, everything that can go wrong, does.

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( Bonus weird metafannish associations )

Then saw The Lego Batman Movie today. Um, that was... weird. It was entertaining, certainly, and felt like the kind of thing I ought to have liked, but it was so OTT and fanservicey in so many ways (I could hear the hypothetical squee even while I was watching) that it left me kind of bemused. It felt post-post-modern, if that even makes sense, and if it doesn't, so be it. But it had that hyper-self-aware quality about it that goes another step beyond the intertextuality that's become standard fare nowadays. It not only referenced other Batman movies (as well as many others), but the entire culture and viewership and fandom surrounding those movies/comics/TV shows. I guess I just don't appreciate too much meta in my media in general, and there was so much meta. But then I also sometimes long for the days when the fourth wall was firmly in place. Old-fashioned, I know.

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