Diary of a Wimpy Kid
March 19th, 2010
ofc this would be the most formative kids media for me growing up. smth under no delusions abt glorifying "family values" or "the magic of childhood" or whatever, just putting the vulgar cruelty of american suburbia on full display. on one hand, i kinda have to respect it for how unflinching it is. every adult in this movie is unhelpful at best, actively harmful at worst, and basically a non-presence otherwise, which is pretty accurate to my middle school experience. not even the "nuclear family" offers much comfort if any. in fact, its dysfunctional hierarchies and total lack of empathy makes it a special kind of hell in itself. there's nowhere to escape from the awkward purgatory of preteen existence, except maybe under the bleachers with the other autistic outcasts. i also appreciate how this film thru greg that even the scrawny little geeks who whine abt being unpopular all the time can end up like ghoulish sociopaths largely thru their own persecution complex. probably a lesson i should've internalized much sooner than i did lol. on the other hand though, ill never forget years spent having panic attacks over made-up cheese touches at my school and freaking out abt wearing a backpack with 2 straps, bcuz everybody that grew up with this series also took the exact wrong lessons from it. still, the ending was unexpectedly sweet to see again, and reaching the credits and hearing that dorky pop punk song with all the animated scenes from the book filled me with a weird melancholy remembering just how important this series was for me at one point, taking me back to first discovering it with my friends as a webcomic on funbrain b4 it was even published. like it or not, it'll always have some kinda innate personal value for me ig, more than almost any other kids media i was exposed to at a similar time. then i see jeff kinney has kept writing these over a decade after i grew out of them and greg is still in middle school and this shit is now a multimillion dollar franchise with spin-offs and animated movies and disney backing, and that melancholy is instantly replaced with deep existential dread remembering how easily even my own childhood nostalgia can be weaponized. blegh. still, pretty decent kids movie.
Who Killed Captain Alex?
2010
the purest apex of everything cinema is and should be. unrestrained creativity and communal passion coming together thru sheer force of will, unfettered by technical constraints or the lingering traumas of civil war, to produce an absolutely joyous no-budget spectacle occupying a world entirely of its own. bursting at the seams with such reckless sincerity and a genuine sense of heart that it deeply deeply annoys me whenever anyone is smugly looking down on this film for being "weird" or lacking polish without recognizing its actual value. its not "so bad its good", its just good. stop hiding how u rly feel behind so many layers of ironic obfuscation. white art nerds are all for it when french dudes irreverently push the boundaries of what cinema is capable of, but when its poor black people in a postcolonial country, they refuse to see it as anything more than joke fodder and a party gag for them and their friends who all have access to infinitely more resources and opportunities but dont even have a fraction of the vision. it makes me rly glad to see the initial wave of awareness stoked by cynical 20-something youtuber guys has been gradually overtaken by legitimate appreciation and support for isaac nabwana's work, and that such support has allowed him to keep making movies into the future. also i echo the sentiment that every single movie ever made should have video joker commentary.
