We Are Who We Are (2021)

Man these kids are annoying as hell, but I guess that's sort of the point. The first handful of episodes get filed under the kids-behaving-badly Euphoria genre. But Luca Guadagnino's style is such that it's filmed in an interesting and loving way. He recreated his own military base set to film on; there is definitely a message in there about Donald Trump and race and the military abroad. There was way more gratuitous nudity than I was expecting. And one episode verges on child porn. But getting past those episodes, the last two are excellent. There was a lot of Bologna nostalgia in the last episode. They filmed on location, and I recognized all the places. I love that they call San Luca the most beautiful place in the world, cause it's extraordinary and picturesque. I love that Guadagnino filmed mundane everyday places that I recognize too, like Piazza 8 Agosto, Bologna Centrale, that little window with the canal, etc. Take me back!

Shazam! (2019)

Let's start off by stating the obvious, the dialogue is bad, really lame and cheesy. The question is whether this was intentional. I like to think the writers were fully aware and actually revel in the tonal awkwardness. That said, I don't think the trailer is a very good representation of what the movie actually is. There is no reference of the central conflict between superhero and villain in the trailer. The movie provides origin stories to both. We're sort of mislead into thinking the movie is about a kid with the power to turn into an adult, which is kind of lame. And that's certainly part of the gimmick. But there is a broader mythology that I was unfamiliar with. Points for casting. There were some genuine laughs. And points for the human part of the story. They could've just made an interesting story about a foster family, but it's a little more than that.