Avatar 2: The Way of Water (2022)

Nominated for Best Picture, Best Sound, Best Production Design, and Best Visual Effects    Honestly, fine.  Okay.  James Cameron clearly loves pushing the boundaries of special effects and that's great.  I'm sure other movies will benefit from this.  I just really wish he found better stories to attach millions of dollars of VFX and mo-cap to highlight.  Because this one sucks.  Content warning: animal death (it's CGI but still), whale hunting

Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) has settled down with his wife, Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), and four children in the blissful knowledge that once repelled, no Earthlings are going to come back to the Planet Made of Money and try and steal its resources again.  Except that's stupid because of course they are.  In fact, his old nemesis Quaritch (Stephen Lang) got a brand-new avatar body just to try and fuck up Jake's world.  In an effort to keep his children and wife's people safe, Jake convinces his family to uproot and flee the forests to seek asylum among the Reef People of water-adapted Na'vi.  His Magical Girl adopted daughter (Sigourney Weaver) does just fine, but his younger son (Britain Dalton) finds assimilation much harder until he meets a fellow outcast in a Pandoran whale who violated his species' edict against violence.  Things are all good under the sea but Angry Smurf Quaritch isn't going to stop looking for revenge and enlists a whaling crew to draw Jake out.

It is extremely pretty.  Visual effects are top-notch, turning everyone into giant-eyed blue cartoon people in the most realistic way possible.  Sound effects are great, too.  Alien whales sound like alien whales.  Spaceships and maglev trains and explosions and all manner of wildlife.  Sounds great.  Production design is good.  Makes the Na'vi homes that aren't purely CGI look realistic, like somewhere you'd like as your Zoom background.  Best Picture?  Not on your fucking life.

The story was clearly a secondary concern next to the visual effects.  It is filled with cliché-ridden dialogue, boring tropes, and regressive 1950s heteronormative ideals of family dynamics.  It's over three hours long but you could easily cut 40 minutes of the characters just staring in wonder at their surroundings.  You get one (1) "staring in wonder" scene for effect.  Everything else is masturbatory on the part of the filmmaker.  And there was zero reason for the whale hunting sequence to go on as long as it did, unless you are deliberately trying to traumatize.  You could have achieved the exact same effect just showing the cluster of dead whales and the goo extraction scene.  You didn't need to have extended play-by-play showing the mother whale deliberately separated from her calf.  I promise, we get that the whalers are the bad guys.

It's currently still only available in theaters but it'll be on Disney+ in a couple of months.  It's not worth it.

Ace in the Hole (1951)

  This was the pick for Cinema Club this week and I managed to shoehorn it in between Oscar nominees.  Content warning: racism against Indigenous Americans, violence against women

Chuck Tatum (Kirk Douglas) used to be a big deal in the reporting business but a string of consequences sees him landing in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  Chuck is desperate for a story to get him back on the national news level, and thinks he finds one in Leo Minosa (Richard Benedict), a two-bit gas station owner who gets trapped in a cave-in while looting priceless artifacts from the local indigenous cave dwellings.  Chuck spins a tale of angry spirits, cursed objects, and other racist rhetoric to inflame public sympathy for Leo.  It works and suddenly Chuck is being courted by every national outlet.  He decides to keep this gravy train running, partnering with the corrupt sheriff (Ray Teal) and the chief engineer (Frank Jacquett) to slow down the rescue operation and deny the other reporters access to the site.  

Hey, remember when this kind of sensationalism was cause for shame?  Probably not.  Journalists manufacturing outrage, playing both-sides, and manipulating emotions for clicks is so endemic now, it feels like that's how it always was.  But it wasn't.  In the 50s, Chuck Tatum is an odious character, a smarmy weasel only out for himself.  In the 2020s, he's every talking head on a 24-hr cable channel.  More than anything else, that makes the movie feel dated.  That he's considered a villain in this narrative.  And that he eventually expresses remorse.  That's also gone the way of the dodo.

Douglas is fantastically watchable, even when he's being vile.  I really wish they had found a different lead actress than Jan Sterling, however.  She's so flat in her line delivery and so monotonous in her facial expressions.  It's such a waste of what could have been a great, seething scenery chew role.  

Ace in the Hole is a stone-cold classic and worth revisiting.  Unfortunately, it's only available under some really niche streamers like Filmbox, which you can get as a free trial, even though it should be on the Criterion Channel.

Triangle of Sadness (2022)

Nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay    Believe it or not, this is a comedy.  Not a very good comedy, but still.  Content warning:  projectile vomit, sewage overflow, animal death (off-screen, donkey)

Carl (Harris Dickenson) and Yaya (Charlbi Dean) are models and Instagram influencers who are given a free cruise on a luxury yacht.  They are young, beautiful and surrounded by the ultra-rich.  The front-facing staff do their best to accommodate even the most ridiculous guest requests.  The captain (Woody Harrelson) is a drunk but an affable one.  These factors combine, falling over like dominoes to kick off a series of tragedies, leading a handful of guests to become stranded on an island.  Suddenly, Abigail (Dolly De Leon), formerly a below-decks housekeeper, is the only person with any useful skills.  

I was initially interested in this because I thought it was going to be like Fyre Island and just two+ hours of schadenfreude.  But there are really no consequences and now I'm mad that The Menu didn't get nominated instead.  Both have an Eat the Rich vibe but the Academy said "we would only like the film that makes Rich People Uncomfortable at Dinner, not the film that makes Rich People Terrified at Dinner, thank you."  

I'm sure there's meant to be a point in here about Influencer culture, "unskilled labor" being a myth, fragile masculinity, and capitalism vs socialism but honestly, it's all been said before.  There wasn't anything original about this film (but it will probably still win, just like Promising Young Woman).  I have no idea why it was nominated for Best Picture.  That is baffling.

Triangle of Sadness is currently showing only in theaters, but I wouldn't worry about it.  

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)

  Not an Oscar nominee.  Marvel is kicking off Phase 5 of the MCU with the lovable Scott Lang, returning in a starring vehicle for post-Thanos Big Bad, Kang the Conqueror.  

Janet Van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) has a secret.  Years ago, while trapped in the Quantum Realm, she was seconds away from helping a fellow refugee escape, only to discover his plans of multiverse conquest/destruction.  So she sabotaged his ship and spent the rest of her time before rescue attempting to lead an insurrection to contain his power.  Then, in the present day, her step-granddaughter, Cassie Lang (Kathryn Newton), creates a beacon to map the Quantum Realm, accidentally broadcasting their location.  Janet must protect her family by ensuring Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors) doesn't escape once and for all.  Oh, and Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) is there, too.

Almost every review I read of Quantumania called it a misstep for the MCU, the worst film yet, proof that Marvel is out of ideas, blah blah blah.  The movie is perfectly fine as a piece of entertainment.  It's funny, the pacing is good, the acting is good, visual effects are good.  Ant-Man remains one of the most lovable Avengers and that's fucking saying something.  I wasn't a huge fan of the voiceover narration bookends but otherwise Rudd is fine.

But the MCU has no idea what to do with female leads.  This was Janet and Cassie's story.  If they wanted to make Scott think he was the protagonist, like Daniel Day-Lewis in The Age of Innocence, that could have worked.  This should have been (and I suppose it still kind of does function as) a launch point for Cassie Lang to take over as Ant-Woman?  -Girl?  -Person?  The Ant?  Whatever.  She's going to be in the Thunderbolts movie to let Paul Rudd retire his character.  (Internet says Ant-Girl, Stature, and Stinger depending on which comic.)

Jonathan Majors continues to be the greatest gift Loki gave us. (Aside from Crocki.)  He is phenomenal here and I can't wait to see him chew all the scenery as his variants.  

Quantumania is currently only in theaters but will be on Disney+ in probably four months.

Aftersun (2022)

Nominated for Best Actor    Ugh.  Don't watch this one either, unless you like seeing a suicidally depressed stranger's vacation footage.  This was supposed to go up on Monday but I had some computer issues.  

Sophie (Frankie Corio) is in Turkey on vacation with her father, Calum (Paul Mescal), capturing as many moments on home video as she can while navigating adolescence.

This actually is a very good film to show what's it's like hiding your depression from everyone around you.  Calum is trying very hard to be a good dad and make a memorable vacation for Sophie.  We, the viewers, get to see the cracks in the façade but Sophie only knows through hindsight.  Paul Mescal is excellent in this, especially for a relative newcomer.  I don't think he'll win but I hope it's a huge boost to his career.

Unfortunately, the handheld camera work and silent disco nightmare scenes detract from the message to an unsalvageable extent for me.  Also, it is only 1 hr, 42 minutes but it feels like eight hours.  It is excruciating.  No disrespect to Frankie Corio, she's an actress doing her best, but I found Sophie grating and annoying.

Aftersun is currently only available in theaters.

Babylon (2022)

Nominated for Best Production Design, Best Original Score, and Best Costumes    Don't watch this movie.  It's over three hours and it's not worth one minute of your time.  If you want the full experience, watch 15 minutes of The Great Gatsby, an hour of Singin' in the Rain, 20 minutes of The Artist, and weirdly, 10 minutes of Orphan.  That's an hour and 45 minutes total and you will have achieved the same effect, minus the projectile elephant diarrhea. You're welcome.

Content warning:  suicide by gun (off-screen but there's blood spray), drug use, anti-Semitic slurs, animal death (snake, rat), projectile vomit, projectile diarrhea, and kinks including but not limited to: piss, little people, carnies, amputees, bloodsport, and a geek.

In 1926, Hollywood is a hotbed of innovation.  The film industry is booming and Nellie La Roy (Margot Robbie) knows she was born to be a star.  Manny Torres (Diego Calva) works as a fixer for studio executive Don Wallach (Jeff Garlin) but dreams of making it big.  Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt) is the studio's highest paid silent star and a champion of pushing the medium to newer, greater heights.  Elinor St. John (Jean Smart) is a gossip columnist, both friend and foe to the industry.  Sidney Palmer (Jovan Adepo) is a jazz trumpeter tired of playing in the background.  Fay Zhu (Li Jun Li) is a queer actress and title writer, adept in front of the screen or behind it.  Babylon tracks these characters from the Golden Age through the early 30s, the end of the silent era, the rise of talkies, and the implementation of the Hays Code.

I really wish Damien Chazelle would just quit and do jazz.  That is clearly his passion and he should pursue it.  This movie is long, repetitive, and (a cardinal sin) directly references other, better movies doing the same content.  However, it does blow smoke up the the collective ass of Hollywood which the Academy loves.  I don't think this will win anything and it frankly doesn't deserve the nominations it got.

It's currently only available in theaters.

All Quiet on the Western Front (2022)

Nominated for Best Picture, Best International Feature, Best Cinematography, Best Production Design, Best Sound, Best Costume, Best Hair and Makeup, Best Original Score, Best Visual Effects, and Best Adapted Screenplay   I don't know why we have to re-learn every year that War Is Bad but here we are.

Paul ( Felix Kammerer) is excited to join the Prussian Empire's army with his school friends.  They are promised honor and glory on the front line in France but are soon overwhelmed by the misery and terror of the trenches.

It took me six days to get through this movie, partly because of the subject matter and partly because it is over two and a half hours long.  Every single Best Picture nominee has been over two hours and I swear it has taken months off my life.

Did this movie need to be made?  Probably not.  It's interesting to see how the Germans viewed one of their major losses.  And obviously, you could double feature this with 1917 to see the victors' side.  I don't know why you'd do that to yourself but you could.

Best Picture is obviously on the table.  The Academy loves a war film that makes them feel bad.  They get to pretend to be all virtuous.  Cinematography was excellent.  Production Design, Hair and Makeup, Costumes, Sound, and Visual Effects are all related to the WWI setting but I think they'll get overlooked.  It's now my frontrunner for Original Score, though.  The drums fucked me up and that doesn't happen to me often.  Adapted Screenplay?  Ehhh.  It's definitely famous but I don't know if it was the best interpretation of the novel.

It's currently streaming on Netflix.

The Fabelmans (2022)

Nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Score, and Best Production Design    Hey, look, another self-serving coming of age tale about an affluent cishet white dude.

Sammy Fabelman (Gabriel LaBelle) has wanted to make movies since he first saw The Greatest Show on Earth.  He has devoted himself to this end, recording his family, making his siblings perform in skits, anything and everything to get the perfect shot and see it on screen.  His mother (Michelle Williams) loves and encourages Sammy's creativity.  His father (Paul Dano) appreciates the work but still views it as a hobby, not a money-maker.  Sammy struggles to balance the love he feels for his family and the love he feels for film-making.

This is a mostly autobiographical film by and about Steven Spielberg.  It's not his best work, but I suppose it would have to be his most personal by default.  I think it's really mid-tier.  Williams is good but Dano is better and probably should have got the nomination.  Judd Hirsch is in it for less than five minutes and I am utterly baffled at this nomination.  I found the story boring and not really original because one of these comes out pretty much three times a year.  Production design was good, but not mind-blowing.  All in all, this feels like a legacy pick, not one on merit.

Currently, it is only in theaters.

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (2022)

 Nominated for Best Animated Feature  I had never heard of Marcel the Shell because I am An Old but it is apparently a very well-regarded series of YouTube shorts that now have a feature-length adaptation.

Marcel the Shell (Jenny Slate) and his grandmother (Isabella Rossellini) live in a house that gets rented out as an AirBnB.  One of the guests is a documentarian named Dean (Dean Fleisher Camp) who decides to film some shorts of his tiny host.  Marcel and Nana used to have a much larger family but they were lost when one of the house's owners moved out, accidentally relocating them.  With Dean's help, Marcel hopes to find the family he lost.

This is very cute but almost off-putting for me.  It's skirting a very fine line.  The animation is stop-motion mixed with live action and it's pretty seamless.  It helps that Dean doesn't physically interact with Marcel nearly at all.  The humor is a mix of low-brow and meta which didn't always work for me, but I could see it being a family film.  I don't think it has much of a chance in this category but I'm always happy to see stop-motion being recognized.

The movie is only available in theaters right now but the shorts are on YouTube if you want to see those.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

  This was the Movie Club pick for last week.  I didn't hate it but I'd probably never rush to see it again.

Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) is a small town doctor who notices something strange.  People keep coming to him and complaining that their loved ones have been replaced by people they don't know.  They look the same, have the same memories, but the emotions are gone.  Dr. Bennell is even called out in the middle of the night to the Belicec house, where Jack (King Donovan) and his wife, Teddy (Carolyn Jones), have a weird body on their pool table.  It appears dead but taking on life, specifically Jack's.  Miles and his old college flame, Becky (Dana Wynter), soon find themselves on the run from the pod people who have taken over the town.  They must find help before this invasion can spread.

I don't like this version as much as the 1978 version, which I've written about previously.  McCarthy comes off as super smug to me, which is off-putting.  The writing is atrocious, absolutely a product of its time with all the casual misogyny you'd imagine.  Dana Wynter is given nothing to do but stand there and be beautiful (which she does admirably) and Carolyn Jones (RIP) is just an exposition machine.  

It does have a more hopeful ending (apparently a last-minute studio addition, as well as the framing narrative) which may or may not appeal.  Depends on how you like your horror. 

It's streaming on Tubi.

The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)

 Nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor (x2), Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Score, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Editing    I have decided that I just don't like Martin McDonagh movies and I really wish the Academy would stop nominating them for stuff.  Content warning:  dead animal (miniature donkey), suicide

Colm (Brendan Gleeson) and Padraic (Colin Ferrell) were good friends, until Colm decides that he has moved past the limited engagement he was getting and would rather focus on his music and trying to create a legacy that lives on beyond him.  Padraic takes this poorly.  He continues to push Colm, demanding answers, violating boundaries, dragging the entire village into their friend-breakup.  

Oh my Gooooooooood, if I heard the word "nice" one more fucking time in this film, I was going to put a brick through my TV.  The only reason anyone gives a shit about this is because it's two dudes having a spat.  If Colm was a woman, this would have been a Lifetime Original Movie about her rejecting a Nice Guy (TM) and him destroying her life with his obsessive bullshit.

Take it from someone who knows: sometimes you just grow apart.  You don't owe anyone an explanation.  Sometimes you might not even have an explanation.  Who you choose to spend your time with is your business.  

This movie deserves nothing.  Damn sure not Best Picture or Best Director.  Colin Ferrell did a better job in The Batman than here.  I would give Gleeson an edge over Barry Keoghan but neither of them deserve it more than Ke Huy Quan.  Kerry Condon was legitimately good but she's running in 3rd right now behind Angela Bassett and Stephanie Hsu.  I don't know about Score yet but 1000% no on Original Screenplay because see above Lifetime Original Movie, and Editing was nothing to write home about.

Banshees of Inisherin is streaming on HBO Max but it's not worth it.

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022)

 Nominated for Best Animated Feature    Man, the internet has been all over this movie and for once, it seems justified.

Puss (Antonio Banderas) has roamed the land, spreading justice, merriment, and thievery wherever he goes, despite the bounty on his head.  But there is one bounty hunter he cannot escape:  Death (Wagner Moura).  Death has tracked Puss through 8 of his nine lives and is eagerly anticipating his final collection. Puss attempts to hide in the home of a cat lady (Da'Vine Joy Randolph) but is tracked by Goldi (Florence Pugh) and the 3 Bears crime family who want to hire him to steal a map to a fallen star in the Dark Forest that grants one wish.  Puss decides to steal it for himself, but does not count on running into his old flame Kitty Softpaws (Salma Hayek) also looking for the map, or an annoyingly persistent Chihuahua desperate for a friend (Harvey Guillén).  

This is The Seventh Seal for children.  There have been other animated films that dealt with mortality, found family, optimism vs pessimism, and regret.  The Last Wish isn't reinventing or subverting.  In fact, it leans into the tropes, which could have made it an incredibly boring, predictable film.  But because it portrays those tropes so well and the characters feel fully-realized, instead, it's a solid family film that has limitless re-watchability.  This is definitely one I plan to own.  It's currently only available in theaters but keep an eye out in the next couple of weeks for it to drop on HBO Max.

Tar (2022)

 Nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, and Best Editing    Boy, I hated this!

Lydia Tár (Cate Blanchett) is at the top of classical conducting world.  She has a book tour, a lecture series at Julliard, a beautiful family, and the respect and envy of her peers.  But then one of her former students commits suicide, leaving behind allegations that Tár promised her professional favors and then blacklisted her after she broke off their physical relationship.  Tár blows it off, but also instructs her assistant (Noémie  Merlant) to delete any and all communications from the dead girl.  Meanwhile, a new cellist (Sophie Kauer) catches her eye.

Director Todd Field wrote the story with Cate Blanchett in mind from the beginning, but you wouldn't know it from watching it.  He wanted to interrogate having someone other than a cishet white man as an abuser and it mostly works.  The questions are there, however, I would have liked to see Blanchett's Tár act less like an insert of a cishet white man.  Everything is completely spelled out and there is no ambiguity, no nuance.  It's just decaf coffee in a commercial.  "We've replaced this serial workplace harasser with a lesbian.  Can you tell the difference?"  And maybe that's the point?  That power is wielded like a club by those with it in the exact same ways?  I just felt like there was more to be said that didn't.

That being said, Blanchett is incredible.  She played her own piano pieces and accordion, learned German, and did all the actual conducting.  She 100% deserves that nomination but I still kind of hope Michelle Yeoh gets the win.  I wouldn't be mad, per se, if Cate won but I'd be a little disappointed.  It's a no from me on any other category, though.  

Tár is currently streaming on Peacock.

Navalny (2022)

 Nominated for Best Documentary Feature    Getting into the first documentary of this year's Oscars!  

Alexei Navalny is a vocal opponent and opposition leader to Vladimir Putin.  He has campaigned for years to improve democracy in Russia, arguing for free and fair elections, using his YouTube channel to call out corruption in government, and rallying the people of Russia to expect better from their elected officials.  In 2017, on the plane back from shooting a segment in Siberia, Navalny collapsed and was rushed to a hospital.  Kremlin-backed doctors and cops blocked any inquiry into his condition and refused to release him until international pressure forced their hand.  A hospital in Germany determined that Navalny had been poisoned with a nerve agent.  In 2020, a Belgian researcher reached out to Navalny with evidence that not only pointed directly to Putin, but to the specific government-funded assassins sent to do the job and the specific lab from which the poison originated.  Navalny, who never lost his sense of humor during his ordeals, decided to use social media and put Putin on blast, coordinating an exposé through multiple international outlets, YouTube, and TikTok.  

This is a breezy documentary that just skirts the line of hagiography.  Navalny is charismatic, good-humored, and witty with a beautiful family, a tailor-made protagonist to Vladimir Voldemort.  It's an easy story with an almost cartoonishly dumb group of villains, including a henchmen who talks too much.  But the real hero here is Christo Grozev, the "nerd with a laptop" who pieced the entire plot together and presented it to Navalny on a silver platter.  He's basically the entire Leverage team rolled into one guy.

Navalny is currently streaming on HBO Max.

RRR (2022)

Nominated for Best Original Song    This is everything people said about it and I am extremely disappointed it wasn't nominated for more stuff.

A corrupt colonial governor (Ray Stevenson) takes a young girl named Malli (Twinkle Sharma, which is a GREAT name) from her home because he can.  But Malli's village is under the protection of Komaram Bheem (N. T. Rama Rao, Jr.) and he is coming to get her back.  The governor places a bounty on Bheem's head, with a special prize that anyone who captures him alive will be promoted to Special Officer, an elite rank with access to the colonial armory.  A. Ram Raju (Ram Charan Teja) wants that promotion.  He has been undercover in the colonial police for a long time, working his way up the ranks in order to fulfill a promise to his father, a revolutionary.  To gain the trust of the British, he has had to do horrible things against his own people, but he is convinced the ends are worth the means.  And Bheem is just another end to exploit.  But in getting close to Bheem, Ram begins to question his methods and worry about how his goals have become clouded.

The movie takes great pains to tell you that it is fictional and that should not matter to you at all.  It is hilariously, stupidly, gloriously violent.  Almost every moment is completely over-the-top and it's the best thing.  It is Inglourious Basterds on speed.  Bheem fights a tiger.  And that's one of the tamer fights in the movie.  Oh, and to avoid any instance of possibly hurting an animal, all the creatures are CGI.  I was worried that would make it cartoony but I really respect the dedication to not risking a bunch of endangered species just for a movie.  I hope that catches on as a trend.

It is three hours long but I promise they will go by so quickly.  Yes, there is a dance number in the middle (that's what it's nominated for) and yes, it is awesome.  The one at the end is a little more national propaganda-ish but still totally worth it.

Here's the bad news:  it's only available (legally) dubbed in Hindi on Hulu and Netflix.  To get the original Telugu language version, you have to either sign up for Zee5, an Indian-centric streaming service, or torrent it.  The good news is that Zee5 is an excellent resource if you have any interest in Indian films and TV.  

Matilda: The Musical (2023)

  This was not nominated for anything but it does feature Andrea Riseborough, who is nominated for a different film.  

Matilda Wormwood (Alisha Weir) is a bright young girl trapped in a neglectful and emotionally abusive home.  Her only escape is the mobile library, run by Mrs. Phelps (Sindhu Vee), until her parents are fined for truancy, having never sent Matilda to school.  She is looking forward to learning, especially from Miss Honey (Lashana Lynch) but her vindictive father (Stephen Graham) has already called the cruel headmistress, Miss Trunchbull (Emma Thompson) and told her what a horrible child Matilda is.  Miss Trunchbull sets out to break Matilda's spirit but fails to reckon with the child's nascent telekinesis.

I remember watching the 1996 Matilda with Mara Wilson and enjoying it.  The musical was very highly awarded during its Broadway run so I was looking forward to the updated version.  Friends, it is not good. There are some major changes to the material that undercut the message, but the worst part is that it's just not fun.  96 Matilda was fun and colorful and had a little girl overcoming adversity with sweetness of spirit (and telekinesis) but Musical Matilda is basically Kidz Bop Carrie.  

All the child actors are giving their best.  Emma Thompson's transformation to Miss Trunchbull is nothing short of astonishing and Lashana Lynch is perfect as Miss Honey (but Matilda should have ended up with Mrs. Phelps, sorrynotsorry.)  It is streaming on Netflix, but 1996 Matilda is on HBO Max and Starz and you should watch it instead.