Wonkette Movie Night: Everything Everywhere All At Once

"When I choose to see the good side of things, I'm not being naïve. It is strategic and necessary. It's how I learned to survive through everything."

When I first watched this movie I only made it a quarter of the way through before abandoning it. But I was still drawn to it, I wanted to see what others saw in it. So I watched it again, but this time without trying to figure out what the fuck was happening and just go with it. Take the roller coaster ride as I like to say about movies. So with a tasty blueberry Indica in hand I took my seat in the front car and strapped in. A strong female driven cast is a great way to start this adventure. It's about relationships and how powerful love can be. With mind bending special effects where life choices transport you to other dimensions, a journey to finding one's self in all its forms. And then it gets weird. You just have to accept it as art. Once you quit trying to have it make sense, it makes sense.

SPOILERS AHEAD:

Dildos used in an unexpected way. Ok, I know what you're thinking, and you should be ashamed of yourself, besides that’s not even unexpected!  By unexpected I mean as nunchucks. Then there’s the butt plugs, they’re utilized to increase one's fighting skills(typo that was unintentionally hilarious when I first wrote this: butt pugs.)  Lesbians with hot dog fingers that have a touching and heartwarming relationship. An Everything Bagel that threatens to end everything by becoming everything. Which feels a bit meta.

It's about connections, parent and child, life partners at the beginnings or ends of relationships and people just connecting to other people. 
You have all these experiences in your life, that when looked at from a distance can seem very disconnected, and decisions you made that took you to the next place in your life. Like Michelle Yeoh's character Evelyn discovers the different life paths her heart and soul could have traveled. She learns to fight like her husband with kindness and love. And the love she has for her daughter(Stephanie Hsu) has the power to save everything. Ke Huy Quan as Evelyn's husband Waymond Wang, makes one of my favorite quotes from the movie:

"When I choose to see the good side of things, I'm not being naïve. It is strategic and necessary. It's how I learned to survive through everything."

When Michelle Yeoh first read the script she said, “I couldn’t even wrap my head around that whole concept. I’m a dinosaur, I don’t really know how to get online and Google things. They had me going, ‘Maybe I don’t really understand, but you know what? They have intrigued me.’ And I love a challenge.”

Jamie Lee Curtis also felt similarly, that she “couldn’t figure out what the fuck was going on...” That didn't stop her.

“But the entire reason that I said yes to this little tiny weird movie was because I was getting to work with Michelle Yeoh. They say, ‘You had me at hello’ — well, they had me at Michelle Yeoh.”

Understandable considering the incredibly talented Yeoh brought acting skills and the ability to be an action hero to her portrayal of Evelyn Quan Wang. The Academy Awards recognized the work of the cast and gave the movie seven Oscars, Best Picture, Best Director(Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert), Best Actress(Michelle Yeoh), Best Supporting Actor(Ke Huy Quan), Best Supporting Actress(Jamie Lee Curtis), Editing(Paul Rogers) and Best Original Screenplay(Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert.)

The movie can take you to the place of wondering what it would be like if everything, everywhere existed all at once.

A joke that fits perfectly with tonight's movie, because as a full service Movieboss that provides a pre-movie cartoon, I am trying to add a little humor:

A Buddhist monk walks up to a hot dog cart and says to the vendor,

"One with everything, please."

The vendor gives the monk a hot dog with the works and says that's three dollars.

The monk hands him a twenty dollar bill and waits.

And waits some more.

Finally the monk asks "My change?"

The hot dog seller responds,

"Change comes from within."

Tonight's cartoon is from 1933, Betty Boop's Crazy Inventions 

Everything Everywhere All At Once is available with subscription on Showtime, Paramount+, FuboTV and Sling TV. For $3.99 on Prime, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play. $4.99 on Apple TV. 

To make movie requests, see the list of viewed movies and calendars go to WonkMovie.

Got your popcorn? Enjoy!

And as I promised to get you the calendars early, here is December!

We are starting with Monty Python And The Holy Grail, it was our second Wonkette Movie Night and I have slowly been redoing some of our earliest selections as we now have many more people joining and we did some good ones in the beginning. I flipped the script at the end of the month for a film I consider to be an excellent New Year's Eve movie, The Poseidon Adventure (1972). Who doesn't love Shelley Winters?