Horses are good company -- The Witcher

Arctic - 2018, Netflix, survival story (fiction).

This movie won't be for everyone: it's slow, it's extremely low-dialog. I however loved it and thought it was very interesting, with impressive realism.

Mads Mikklesen plays Overgård, who is already stranded on the ice when we meet him, after his small plane crashed. He is a hyper-competent sort of person and has apparently been there a while: he has several fishing holes set up with bells to alert him when a fish bites. He has created a giant "SOS" sign by digging out snow down to rock. His watch alarm keeps him on task, relentlessly. He's developing a map of the area and using that to find places to signal with a hand-cranked transponder. His life is relatively safe, and he's just waiting for someone to find him.

One day in a snowstorm, a helicopter appears. He signals the helo, but it spins out of control in the storm, and crashes. Of two people on board, one has died, and the other is injured. Overgård assists the young survivor, a woman who has little English and is drifting in and out of consciousness. He brings her back to his camp and searches the crashed helo for supplies.

One thing Overgård finds in the helo is a photo of the woman and her family. With great tenderness and care, he bends the photo and places it into the breast pocket of his parka. He later places the photo in a window where she can see it if she wakes up. Overgård places his own scarf around the woman's neck and tends carefully to her wounds. His care of this stranger is carried out with the utmost respect. Once when he first carries her to lay her down, Overgård pauses and revels in the moment of touching someone, in the basic platonic sense, just enjoying the warmth of another person next to you. His face transforms.

Overgård must now decide to leave his camp. This woman needs medical care. She was carrying a map of the area, so he can now find his way to a permanent station, a several day's journey. He must pull her along behind him so that he can make sure she drinks water and stays warm.

Overgård has what I think of as a Scandinavian approach to very difficult problems: this needs to be done, there is no two ways about it. So I am going to do it. (Extremely relatable and part of the culture that came over to America with my family members).

What follows is a harrowing journey through an incredibly hostile landscape, one that has a harsh beauty to it. Overgård continues to demonstrate his competence and stamina, but the obstacles continue to increase.

This is a nearly silent film, the ultimate in "show don't tell," and so some things are not explained. The story is simple, but told well. The movie grapples with the idea that our hero might fail, but he is heroic for trying. Overgård represents a healthy and heroic masculinity. He never seems to regard his charge as anything other than someone he needs to take care of and keep alive. Caring for someone gives him meaning and purpose beyond just staying alive. Indeed he risks death to do so, putting the chance of saving her above his own life. If the two of them die, at least they will not be alone.

Content notes: helicopter crash, blood, injury.

Star Trek: Picard was disappointing and bad. Some minor spoilers ahead.

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I saw Guardians of the Galaxy tonight with my roommate. This was a fun movie with a lot of great effects, action sequences, and good music.
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XXY Spanish language with English subtitles. 2007, not rated. Streaming on Netflix.

There aren't many stories about intersex people, and this one is great. Alex is a kid in Uruguay, being raised as a girl but who knows that she is intersex. Some friends of her mother's come to visit, including a teenage boy that she pursues sexually. This film uses silence and quiet well, and is an understated movie about a difficult subject. It is well-acted and the emotions really carry through. I also found it progressive: it subtly argues against a gender binary, and explicitly argues against surgery for intersex people.
There is one very upsetting scene at about 1:01 that includes an assault and (presumed) attempted rape of Alex by some local boys.

The Kids are All Right 2010. R.

I hated this movie! Anti-rec! I have spoken to at least one person who liked it, though, so YMMV.

Julianne Moore and Annette Bening play married lesbians with two teenage kids. The kids look up and contact their sperm donor, played by Mark Ruffalo. Drama ensues and he becomes intertwined in their lives in various ways.

The particular reason I hated this movie is because every character was unlikeable. It was a type of movie where there are problems, the people fight (and don't really make up), then there are more problems, and more, and eventually everything comes to a head. We're supposed to believe the members of this family love each other, but we're never really shown that-- they just seem annoyed to be around each other. Mark Ruffalo's character was likeable some of the time if only because he smiled and seemed to be having fun with his life, unlike everyone else. This movie has also been criticized by some queer people for other reasons, which I think are legitimate (?), but I hated it because it was simply not fun or enjoyable to watch. It's listed as both "comedy" and "drama" but I didn't think it was funny at all!

Desert Hearts 1985. R. Streaming on Netflix.

This was a breath of fresh air, an antidote to The Kids are All Right, and one of the more realistic movies about lesbians that I've seen. Vivian Bell, a professor, travels to Reno for a quickie divorce in 1959. She stays at a ranch to establish residency and while there, meets Cay, a young woman who makes no secret about her sexuality. The romance develops slowly, the sex scene is good, and the major fight is about outness/visibility. The minor/supporting characters (Kay's friends and family) are all very interesting characters. Recommended.