Movie Jibber-Jabber #11: Moana, Game of Thrones, Scary Movie Memories

Welcome to the Movie Jibber-Jabber, your semi-weekly look at movie news, reviews, and commentary.

New Trailer for “Moana” Released

Disney's next "princess" movie is “Moana,” set for release this November. It looks great, but then, I feel a little predisposed for excitement: It's co-written by Taika Waititi ("Hunt for the Wilderpeople"), with songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda ("Hamilton"). It stars Dwayne Johnson. I enjoyed “Frozen.” Count me in.

I Caught Up on “Game of Thrones”

I put off watching “Game of Thrones” for six years.

My first attempt at watching the show ended after season one. It wasn't the high-profile death that did it; rather, it was the concern that the story wouldn't go anywhere, instead building and building and building without the narrative machinery to produce satisfying climaxes. Sure, Jon Snow had an intriguing story, the Lannister politics were interesting and Daenerys hatched a couple dragons, but what if it didn't go anywhere? I lost interest. Perverse inversions of classic fantasy characters do not a show make.

I tried again a few years later, and stopped during the episode “Blackwater,” because the show felt unnecessarily cruel, in particular the season-two antics of Joffrey Baratheon. It wasn't in my mind to stomach that stuff at the time. Maybe I was feeling more hopeful about the world, or I was too happy at the time. I don't know.

This year I read about the sixth season's ninth episode, “The Battle of the Bastards,” and how it brought to a conclusion several long-running stories. It sounded cool. It sounded exciting. So I started watching again.

I was wrong about my first impression and partially wrong about the second.

The show has been mostly smart about creating interesting stories for its characters and then ending them when they need to in order to send characters on new quests. The show is also exceptionally cruel, beyond the needs of narrative, to the point where they created a character whose entire motivation is to be as cruel and unusual as possible in a way that poked a hole in the thematic fabric of the show.

Somewhat.

What impresses me the most about “Game of Thrones” is that there is, in fact, a substantial thematic underpinning to the overall story, which is that people are bumbling fools in search of heart, home and temporary advantages. That the political struggles that define life (and death, mostly death) are largely driven by those basic desires. Oh, there are certainly some characters who are smarter than others, but in large part the ones who have any sort of success really luck into it.

Daenerys, for instance, is a lousy leader whose heredity makes her someone with a lot of support, but whose access to WMDs is the only advantage she has. Jon Snow is a dashing romantic hero, who is also impulsive and a poor leader. His brother Robb Stark is probably the most frustrating of the “Five Kings” whose war spans the first three seasons of the show, because he does literally nothing right. Nobody does anything right in this show.

Taking it one step further, though, is the fact that the show's depiction of feudal monarchy collapsing is given the necessary time to do it right. The warring nobles running out of resources. The politics shift as war begins and ends. The culture of King's Landing changes over the course of six seasons. Almost every change in the culture of Westeros feels developed and natural.

That's also why the weakest story in the show is that of Ramsay Snow, the Bolton Bastard who haunts the North for the better part of four seasons. His entire character is basic cruelty. Sure, it could be argued that he stands for a particular kind of person who fills in when a gap appears in the fabric of a culture. I don't think he's presented for maximal narrative effect. His grasp on power is tenuous and ill-described. Characters are purposefully blind to his extremely obvious nastiness and inhumanity. He's desperately difficult to watch and seems to exist as an excuse for cruel story beats.

If I had to note one weakness of the show, it would be him. And he's around for such a grueling amount of time that I think he weakens the show as a whole, overall. He may well be what keeps it from greatness.

Anyway, if I had to explain why I loved watching “Game of Thrones” more succinctly, it would be that despite my fascination with its seemingly pessimistic narrative, I didn't ultimately find the show pessimistic at all. For two reasons!

The first is that most of main characters still left living continually believe in hope and decency in their interactions with each other, and those interactions are what drive the plot. While the nastiness is there, the humanity is, too, and the show finds ways to reward them. The characters are nuanced; even Cersei, ostensibly now the show's primary “villain,” is ridiculously human and flawed. She is driven by power but also family and revenge. Small motivations with massive ramifications create good storytelling.

The second reason is that the show has a decidedly “smash the patriarchy” vibe, the idea that a new regime built out of the war will be led by women because the men have largely murdered each other in the most inefficient way possible. That is a story we need right now, and “Game of Thrones” is telling it best.

Scary Movie Memories #3: Large Marge

“Pee-wee's Big Adventure." I don't know why I was watching it, or how old I was, but I do know it scared the hell out of me. I've never seen the entire movie.

You know the moment.

Pee-wee's hitchhiking across the country and hops in Large Marge's truck cab. Something happens. Her face gets super freaky. I dunno. I'm not watching it again for context because the idea of doing so makes me nervous. Anyway, for a long time I would have recurring fantasies of sitting next to my mom, only to have her turn and have her eyes pop out. It deeply disturbed me for much of my childhood.