Disney's Maleficent with Angelina Jolie

i didn't know what to expect from this movie, the promos made it look like a "tim burton's alice in wonderland"-style mess. instead i kinda liked it! it's not a good movie, and the opening with maleficent as a child was bleh, but as soon as it got to angelina jolie and her deadpan jokes i was into it.

i was surprised to see lindy west criticize it for being insufficiently feminist when i walked away thinking it was way more feminist than i would've imagined. but actually i might be conflating "feminism" with "misandry"--every man in the movie is either a monster or a lameoid, and maleficent's M.O. is just to serenely dispatch of them. men and armies keep doing their damndest to attack her, and she's just like "okay assholes" and calls up a bunch of ents to stomp on them.

men and armies keep doing their damndest to attack her, and she's just like "okay assholes" and calls up a bunch of ents to stomp on them.

― it's about equality, ladies (reddening), Saturday, May 31, 2014 1:18 AM (1 hour ago)

sold

Never thought I'd have any reason to see this, but reviews has kinda sold me:

http://www.filmfreakcentral.net/ffc/2014/05/maleficent.html

This was really good. Severing the wings was much more intense than I expected. My biggest criticism about it would have to be that the CGI looks kind of cheap at times (I didn't see it in 3d, that might have improved it).

This played in our one neighborhood theater, and I would pass their marquee posted with "Maleficent". When I first saw it, I thought, "Great! At least one brief generation of kids will grow up knowing that maleficent is a word." My next thought was, "Nah. If you asked them, they'd just think it was the title of some film."