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shannonsketches · 5 months ago

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Hi I'm back again to ramble about stooooorryyyyyy and complain about how corporate genre classification rules are dumb and hurt story adaptations for market valuuuuue

For those of you who are new here or just don't know why I'm so douchey about storytelling sometimes a lot lately, I admit, it's because I work in story, it's fully my job and the thing I do for a living. And because it's my job I have a lot of really incredibly storytellers in my life and on my radar. I see so many folks doing really really good work struggling to pay for basic needs while corporations make bank steamrolling good stories with their 'mass market appeal' guidelines and garbage marketing strategies that smash good stories into a little bite-sized Content box with a bright neon genre sticker and god forbid you stray from that genre's formula because this streaming service will cancel your run no matter how popular you get (I've been so bitter about the animation industry recently, hahah, if you're not aware of what's going on with Animation companies in recent years, please check it out! Our animation union here in the US is entering negotiations in July and public support means the world!!)

anyway,

I've been thinking about anime and animation and comics and manga and chatting with writer friends about our Issues with genre tropes and standardized structures, and I've determined that I genuinely and honestly believe almost every contemporary (within the last ~20 years or so) Action series adapted from a comic/manga/book series would be better and closer to the source material if it were categorized as an adventure series instead. Corporate requirements to be classified as an Action show are so, so stupid and limiting. I think most people see action and assume "This will be as a story with a lot of Action in it", but the base requirement for qualifying as an action series in tv animation is actually "Action needs to be The Point of this story"

I'm not sure if it's the same in Japan, but here in the US, to qualify as an action series iirc, you need to have some kind of action sequence at once every 5-10 minutes, which means everything must be centered around getting to the action, which usually means that instead of the story motivating the action, the action motivates the story.

And that can be handled really well! Trollhunters remains one of my favorite examples of well-written and frequent action sequences that serve a character-driven story, because the writers recognize that Action Sequence ≠ Fight Scene (which is a helluva Pro-Tip if I ever got one). Unfortunately, action = fight is a deeply pervasive mindset, which often results in flattening a story while sprinting toward Rule of Cool / Big Punching.

And the difference between character and plot driven isn't always particularly obvious! It's just what the story is framed around. If you're ever reading a book or a manga or a comic and it feels like it's about the characters and how they're dealing with getting through things that happen, but then the movie/show adaptation seems like it's more about the things that are happening to these characters (think like. Bladerunner vs Ridley Scott's Avatar. Both sci-fi, both action, but one is about how the characters affect the plot and one is about how the plot is affects the characters, ykwim?), that's what that difference is. There's no Wrong Answer, either, they're both great storytelling strategies, but like any other tool, both have types of stories they are best suited for.

Most long-form storytelling from a sole author is character driven, because generally a sole author is going to have a point of view they're trying to express, and the different parts of the author's experience are reflected in their characters (not necessarily in a way that endorses a character's beliefs or actions, but in a way that their beliefs and actions are considered and understood, so those characters feel genuine in their motivations. That allows the very real people in the audience to connect and respond to those characters in different ways and at various depths). Very little is arbitrary, because when it's just one person doing all the work, every choice is a lot of effort (especially in sole-author comics and manga, where you have to write and draw all of your choices, and then maybe also color them). So if it's not meaningful to the story, it's usually not worth the time and effort to keep things in the story that aren't important to you.

Also, if you have a publisher then you have page limitations (which tend to be very tight in comics and manga), so you have to be extremely considerate of the editing process. You have to really keep an eye on what matters in your story, why your characters are doing what they're doing, how their whys affect their whats, and what the consequences of those choices are efficiently and effectively, otherwise your readers (and your editors) are going to get confused, bored, or angry (which some might do anyway, but at least it won't be because you were sloppy) and your editor is going to tell your publisher not to hire you anymore.

On the other hand, a lot of modern storytelling in a corporate setting, like an animation studio (especially if original author does not have any input), tends to be more plot-driven, and structured specifically to get you invested enough in What Happens To Mr Guy Man and Friends Next to sit through the commercials. Often an executive will be hired onto a Popular Title project without knowing or caring much, if at all, about the source material (remember human teeth 3d sonic?). To a corporation, the story does not matter at all. The point of adaptations is 'Hey! You like this thing? Here's more of that thing. Tune in tomorrow and get us that advertiser money. Also, buy the merch.'

In that (granted, worst case) scenario, the What is most important, the Who is secondary, and the Why is tertiary, if it matters at all (which is when you'll see fandom doing a lot of heavy lifting and digging for that subtext, power to the people, it's me I'm Bitches). (Corporate) Plot Driven storytelling in television is very Soap Opera / Stay Tuned in its approach, made much worse if it's a plot-driven narrative that airs every single weekday all year round. In the US we get season breaks, but that is not the case elsewhere.

That is largely why DB/Z/S's and a lot of other anime is Like That in terms of excessive padding, random irrelevant mini-drama plots, our beloathed '*screams for ten episodes straight*', and the occasional proper "Yes, And" -- simple character-driven one shot fillers to break up the action. It gets especially wild when the show is being produced while the manga is still being written, which is how you get situations like FMA '03 vs FMA Brotherhood.

And look, if you're lucky, the crew genuinely does really care and you'll have a LOT of fans in the production pipeline thrilled to be working on a dream project (and that can also come with its downsides, mind, and I am always squinting at Toshio Yoshitaka for the way he goes out of his way to throw my boy under the bus asddfsa), but the truth is that a lot of animation professionals are just doing the job they're paid to do, and it's more about taking their own ideas and plugging in whatever characters already have a built-in audience to get a script/episode/show cleared with executives who just want it to past the censors and on the air for those sweet sweet advertiser dollars (it may or may not surprise you that most adults in the corporate world do not give a sole singular shit about storytelling or animation, which is why the industry is being stepped on in a very unsexy way).

I am getting off topic but ALL THIS TO SAY:

Based on the way (contemporary) action genres in tv animation are required to be structured, in contrast with how much more freedom comics and manga still have to play with and stack genres, I think a lot of "action" (especially shounen) shows would benefit from being (correctly) re-classified and advertised as Adventure. Not because it's fully accurate, but because the point of the stories is generally much more about the characters and the journey they're on (internally or externally). Even if there is a lot of action involved, the journey is what motivates the action and gives it purpose in the scope of the story, which an adventure classification would allow, rather than the action rules making the whole story about setting up the next high-octane fight scene, because current genre classification rules for tv is Extremely Stupid due to corporate marketing.

On the exact same hand, action can be and often is a great genre (Redline my beloved), but there's a reason why action protagonists in tv animation are so susceptible to Main Character Syndrome (especially when the target demographic is young boys (and you see it The Most in shounen anime)), even if it isn't necessarily reflective of how that main character is written in the manga/comics. Because the primary purpose in corporate animation adaptations is Make Money with Merch (shout out to George Lucas for making that a whole thing back in the 70s).

And, to give Toei credit where credit is due, the success of the Main Guy Good Buy His Thing business model is why the DB franchise has been going strong since the 90s. Same reason Pokemon is still popular. And The Simpsons. And Star Wars. And Spongebob. And Mickey Goddamn Mouse.

For Maximum Money, a protagonist will be reframed as a Hero (Standard Edition) with limitless Rule of Cool, because that is what works best for mass market appeal and merchandising (especially for young boys). See, you have to love Goku, child. Look how Objectively The Strongest and The Best he is. Oh, you like Vegeta? Don't be stupid. You'd have to be some kind of GIRL to like Vegeta. Are you a GIRL? A little baby GIRL? A little baby girl with FEELINGS? Goku is stronger than Vegeta. Goku is stronger than everybody. Goku is The Coolest and Strongest Guy. Everybody knows that. And if you buy this backpack with his face and or perhaps insignia on it you will absorb his power and be just as strong and popular and buff as Goku. Tell your mom to buy this backpack right now or everyone will think you're a weak idiot at school tomorrow. They will point at your noodle arms and laugh at you. But not if you have this backpack. It has Goku on it. Nobody Beats Goku. Goku will kick your bully's ass. Goku will kick your teacher's ass. Goku will kick your ass. Unless. You buy. This backpack. Fine. This one has Goku and Vegeta on it. Happy? Buy these Goku Reese's Puffs too. You fucking girl. What do you mean you want a backpack with Gohan on it? You can Go-han straight to HELL.

Anyway ksldakj Thank you for letting me ramble on your dash about media again!

Remember Kids: Good quality shows can and should have well paid and well rested production crews, so make sure if you're an animation fan of ANY genre to support your local union efforts!!

#media crit #i am just ranting about the industry and corporate bullshit sucking the lifeblood out of meaningful storytelling don't mind me akljdasjkld #this isn't about dbz...but it's not...not about dbz klasdaskljd

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imasimpforstevengrant · 5 years ago

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Why do we like this clown so much?

Change the "we" for "I" and you get an usual tag I use whenever I post my content in Tumblr. And it sounds funny at first but whenever you start diving into that phrase, the deeper it becomes. So, I finally have decided to share my thoughts about this strange but wholesome attraction to this deeply flawed character. It's not something I usually do since I don't know how to write down my feelings properly and also in english so please forgive any typos (I'm from Chile so don't be surprised lol).

So...Why do we like this clown so much?

Why was it that a character precisely designed to scare and to disgust the fuck out of us ended up unchaining a series of feelings that shouldn't have taken place in a beginning?

Let's take a look at the background: Joaquin Phoenix was cast as Arthur Fleck/Joker in 2018. The first image of him as the aforementioned character revealed a deeply disturbed man. We knew the plot. A man driven to insanity after a brutal history of abuse, creating concern in people if the upcoming film would inspire real life violence. Incel violence and mass shootings, more specifically.

(the image in question)

As 2019 arrives, the two trailers generated so much hype that media needed to fuel its concern about it. Since it wasn't your typical comic book film, media basically bombed our minds making us believe this film was going to be a total disaster, an excuse to cause harm to others among other nonsense, as if the film would justify everything Arthur would do in the film, eventually. As the release date is closer, the film receives thunderous applause and unanimous praise from critics. At this, fans rejoiced and expressed impatience to watch the film.

October 5th.

People left the theaters amazed, shocked and genuinely moved by the inhuman treatment Arthur received in the film. The fear media tried so desperately to infuse in us with all the incel bullshit and such turned out to awake one of the most positive, best feelings in humans:

E M P A T H Y

The word that so gloriously cleared away any dark thoughts or actions not only proves media was wrong but it turned out to ridicule it in way nobody will forget: Hundreds of people advocating for mental illness, calling out to the kindness that could change a person's bad day and questioning how politicians and rich people are indifferent to social problems proved how much as a society we have changed in comparison with the one shown in the film.

However, since we are on Tumblr, I'll get straight to the point and try to explain why the fuck does this clown has us dying out of love and compassion (and lust).

I. Background.

As nurturing as we women are for a biological matter, we see a man deprived of a good job, is on seven different medications, working like a slave to sustain his ill mother, putting aside his own health and well-being to look for her, struggling to make his dream of being a comedian despite everyone stepping on him, underpaid and treated like a freak for a disorder he did not ask to suffer, which makes it impossible to be indifferent to all the horrible ordeal that eventually will reach the limit of what he can tolerate without going insane. It is impossible to not say or think, at least, that someone (even if it's just one person) should stand for him just as it is impossible not to feel the need to throw ourselves at him to shield him from people who hurt him or simply offer him our shoulder whenever he has had a bad day, specially when he learns he was sexually assaulted by his step father.

This horrid behaviour terrifies newer generations because they get a taste of what being a social outcast was like more than thirty years ago in comparison with today, where there's more acceptance and treatment for mentally ill people like Arthur. We see in him someone who could have been saved with a proper education and emotional support instead of descending into madness as a criminal. Others simply saw themselves being treated like him at some point in their lives and couldn't help but put themselves in his shoes.

II. Personality.

TRUTH BE TOLD:

There's something called "attraction by proximity". It is the explanation to the eventual love you feel whenever someone doesn't catch your eye at first terms of physical attraction but his/her personality does attract you. This happens to be the base of this situation. His shyness, introverted nature, tenderness and innocent desire to make people laugh and put on a happy face awake some kind of tenderness we cannot resist. This combined with the gloomy background increases our understanding (but not justifying) of the bad decisions he'll eventually take during the course of the film. This traces a line of harsh, almost hurtful contrast of the violence he shows later on the film. Once again, it is not justified in any way but it is certainly understandable.

III. Appearance.

Arthur Fleck is unconventionally attractive.

This happens to be a plus for most women. He is out of the male beauty standards (no abs, not too muscly or particularly tall), which makes him even more unique. It is precisely the fact that he's not a model one of the reasons women love him. He could easily be your man next door or your colleague or the guy you always see but never dare to talk for fear to bother him Because it's about proximity. Arthur looks like your common neighbour. He's not meant to be your typical desirable male protagonist at all.

... And yet.

Jesus Christ, he's so fucking hot I can't even---

It's not about how beautiful his green eyes are, his long slender fingers, his hair or his smile only. It's the charm behind it.

Another "magnet point" is the way he dresses. I know he's impoverished and his wardrobe tend to be repetitive but it is so unpretentious, so simple that is hard to not fall for. The modesty of the shirts, ironed trousers reminds us of a mature man deeply withdrawn into himself, love starved and longing to be seen and loved by others, like a war veteran who still fights the most important war: with himself. Is someone who needs to be listened and understood.

AND OF COURSE WHAT'S NOT TO LIKE ABOUT IT?

He's also brought back the old gentleman outfit, white shirts, red/yellow vest, red suit and elegant dancing moves and the retro style of the film boosts this attractiveness.

People keep comparing him with the previous interpretation of Joker (Leto's) whose costume appealed to young women with a tattooed, gangster, mumble rapper crazy-guy wannabe which didn't connect with the audiences (young people in general). This supposedly was to match or even have a sexy, tormented and desirable villain like Marvel's Loki. We all know how that story ended but it's the link for the next point below.

IV. Transformation

This is a particularly strong point considering how much we loved to watch the process of this weak, powerless, forgotten caterpillar into a beautiful and visible butterfly that will gracefully stir its wings for everyone to see its colours.

When Arthur transitions to the Joker, it's so cathartic to see taking revenge on those who wronged him (even when we're not supposed to root for him) like seeing his shyness fading away into a vivid confidence when dancing half naked in the bathroom, or witnessing him making way to make his name known to people in Murray Franklin's Show:

Adding to this newly gained confidence, there's another turn on: the way he walks.

At the beginning, his pace is hunched and limping, displaying his submission to violence, which makes the viewer more satisfied to see his broken yet beautiful soul turning the past pain of his existence into art: he lets music guide his moves as a way to tell the world he's a new man by cutting most of the sick, evil roots that harmed him, that he's invincible, that no one can stop him. Watching this cathartic display of euphoria was the most iconic scene in the film, following his speech at the TV and the inevitable meltdown that caused Murray's death.

Going to further appreciation, even his clown make up is beautiful. Why? Simple. The combination of colours, shapes and the intimidating glare just embellishes even more the character.

The dark blue triangles in his expressive eyes makes the light green colour to highlight, specially in dark backgrounds, giving the impression he's piercing your soul whenever he stares directly at the camera. Same can be said about the red smile and emerald green hair. They boost an already intimidating look.

The cold and warm colours paint a picture of a man full of intense emotions, mirroring it in a simple yet masterful artistic way.

Another interesting point is the way Joker dresses. Usually we had almost every single live adaption of this character in purple coat, hat, etc. But this particular version is not following any comic, which gives more freedom to creativity and once again, out of the standards of what we could have expected.

Red is a colour related to passion, action, love, strength, motivation and excitement. As for yellow, it indicates freshness, happiness and enlightenment and finally, green. Green is renewal, growth and regeneration. Colours that represent a new stage in his life, a mirthful chapter at last. We finally get to see our battered, always humiliated protagonist (or hero) descending into madness, but finally free from his repressed man who held his soul captive like a bird to fly away, to never come back. An insanity that despite being his downfall, turned out to be his ticket to freedom as he walks to the light in Arkham Asylum dancing at the end.

Ladies and gentlemen: behold the film nobody asked... But the film we fucking deserved.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk

❤️💚💛

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anticipatingevaporation · 5 years ago

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Joker

I just came out of Joker, one of my most anticipated films of the year, and let me tell you. I have a lot of thoughts. Unfortunately they are frightfully mixed, so this is going to be part review, part me trying to work out exactly how I feel about this film…

So as a preface, I am both a DC fan and completely done with this superhero wave of films we’re somehow still stuck in. I haven’t gone to see the last 5 or so Marvel movies because I find they aren’t really doing anything innovative or new. They simply don’t appeal to me anymore. The only time I find myself interested in an upcoming superhero/comic book film is when I see it doing something new with the genre. Take the recent Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse, for example. The story structure, animation and choice to introduce Miles Morales was so intriguing to me, so I went to watch that film and loved it.

All of that being said, I was very excited to see Joker. I find the DC characters generally more interesting and complex and the dark tone this movie appeared to have really intrigued me.

Now I’m not a mega fan who has read every Batman comic, however I have read The Killing Joke, arguably the most famous one, and there is one quote in it that I kept coming back to. The Joker tells Batman “All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That’s how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day.”

This film delves into that idea in a thought-provoking fashion. Here, we are introduced to Arthur Fleck, a man whose life is plagued with tragedy. This film asks the question of what it would take for a man like that to snap. It explores the society this man finds himself in and whether or not they are complicit in who he becomes.

Joker does many things well. Firstly, this film would be nothing without Joaquin Phoenix’s performance. He is magnetic in this role. At every single moment, there is that flicker in his eye that depicts a man on the edge of madness. It is equally unnerving and fascinating. When his transformation is complete I found myself genuinely perturbed and afraid. This Joker is frighteningly real. Phoenix is in almost every frame of the film, and I honestly think it would have fallen apart in the hands of a less talented actor. At one point he is just so phenomenal that I said out loud, “He’s winning the Oscar.” There is no doubt this will go down as one of Phoenix’s best performances among many. He’s just that good.

The lore surrounding Batman has been well documented since the 1930’s and depicted in multiple forms again and again and again. It has been done so many times that it’s easy to become tired and difficult to alter without angering a huge number of fans. Joker has an interesting take on this well known story; controversially giving the titular character, someone who has famously never had a true backstory, an origin. A big part of the Joker’s character was the fact that it was never made clear what pushed him to become who he is. While some storylines suggested it, it has never been outright stated.

In director Todd Phillip’s adaptation, it is a cruel society that creates the Joker, thereby making everyone around him complicit in his downfall. It asks some very interesting questions about mental health and how those suffering are treated in society, particularly the lack of compassion people tend to have towards the mentally ill.

It also discusses class divides and the blatant disregard the 1% seem to have for the 99%, effectively creating a different interpretation of the famous Wayne family that I found very interesting and not an unbelievable stretch to take.

The score is also fantastic: a haunting string melody that is perfectly used to underscore the poignant moments of the film. The soundtrack is just as great; music is well placed to keep you in the world and highlight that 80’s timeframe.

I also loved the Joker’s look in this film. His suit and makeup are brilliant, the hairstyling and the way he walks. Right down to the laugh and why he laughs, a unique and brilliant choice this film makes. Everything about this character screamed the Joker. However it never felt like an imitation of a version of this character we had already seen. It was remarkably unique while also staying very true to the character. When Phoenix walks down the hallway, flowers in hand, you know it’s the Joker, but it’s also Phoenix’s Joker. He makes the character very much his own while encapsulating what it means to be the Joker. (More than can be said for some... other recent adaptations.)

However I don’t think I loved this film as a whole. That being said I think this is certainly a film that makes you think about it for a while and this opinion may very well change in a day, or a week or upon repeat viewing. But based on this first watch, I think my issues with this film lie with the plot itself.

I think while I loved the individual elements of the story, and the character, performances, style and tone, I didn’t feel they all connected smoothly and cohesively all the time. At times it felt like a series of brilliant moments that lacked connective tissue melding them together. That being said, I’m really glad to see a film that doesn’t feel pressure to give you all the answers all the time. Some plot points are deliberately left unclear, which leaves room for debate and falls firmly in line with the Joker’s famous lack of backstory.

The plot itself had numerous twists and misdirects that left me genuinely shocked and on the edge of my seat throughout. I like that it left me guessing. I couldn’t predict what was coming next.

My biggest issue with this film is that it is very direct and clear with its themes. In that it lacks subtlety at times. One of my biggest pet peeves in movies is dialogue that sounds clunky and unrealistic. There was more than one instance of heavy handed and on the nose dialogue to be found here. Particularly during a climactic scene that took me out of the film for a bit.

When I say the film is direct and clear with its themes, I mean that there are clear bad and good lines being drawn. So while the cruel and unforgiving society is the impetus for Arthur Fleck’s transformation into Joker, it often felt like everything was going wrong for him, in order to justify his evil turn. Bad thing after bad thing kept happening to him to the point of absurdity. I understand that the point is to show Gotham as a nightmare place to be, but when Arthur gets beaten up for the 3rd or so time, it started to feel ridiculous and excessive.

Every single person in Arthur’s life treats him poorly. There is no compassion to be found anywhere for this man. Which makes his turn understandable but the world to be somewhat unrealistic and extremely grim. I personally find the morally grey far more fascinating than the straight up black. So I felt at moments that if this dark world was given more complexity, more twisted corruption as opposed to point blank awfulness, it would feel more realistic and that much more upsetting.

I think Phillips was just scratching the surface with what he could do with this world and I would like to see it delved into deeper, to expose what other horrors Gotham contains.

This film has gone through quite a bit of controversy for the violence and potential message it could spread. While I completely understand the possible criticism that this film simply gives those who are already unstable and wanting to incite violence a justification for their actions and an example to emulate, I have to say that:

It is not the onus of a filmmaker or artist to deliver a “positive message” through their art. It is to make their audience think, to influence their emotions and perhaps make them reconsider how they see the world. It is simply ridiculous to hold an artist responsible for how audiences respond to their art.

Joker, while a compelling character to watch, is never framed as a hero. He is a legitimately frightening individual whose life is never painted as something to strive towards. This is a troubled individual’s story and it is horrifying to watch.

In the end, despite the small problems I had with the film (I don’t think I loved it), it definitely made me think. I love this angle being taken towards DC characters. It is high time Warner Bros. understand that this is the treatment these characters need. Poorly emulating something else disappoints everyone. This film is doing so well because it is depicting this character in the way he should be shown.

These dark, gritty and realistic takes on comic book characters are far more intriguing to me. They make the viewer think about the society they live in, the injustices that are occurring and what we can do to put an end to them. This is where comic book stories shine, when they make us consider our own world in a new light.

While I didn’t completely love Joker, or instantly think it my favourite film, I haven’t stopped thinking about it since the credits rolled. And I think that is the type of film we need in the comic book space. One that makes us think, discuss and debate.

I’m starting to think that Joker didn’t give me what I wanted, but perhaps it’s what I needed…

#long review sorry not sorry #I still feel like there's so much to say abt this film #testament to the quality i guess #hmmm interesting #enjoy!#Joker #My Review #Joaquin Phoenix #DC

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britesparc · 5 years ago

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Weekend Top Ten #389

Top Ten Things I Want from The Batman

So last week I celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of Tim Burton’s Batman by listing the things I thought he got “right” about the character (“right” being, I acknowledge, arbitrary). This time around, sticking with a similar theme, I’m going to flip the switch and look to the future. Matt Reeves’ long-gestating Bat-pic The Batman is finally gearing up, having recently cast its Dark Knight in the shape of erstwhile vampire Robert Pattinson. The saga of The Batman, its Affleck-ness and its connectedness with the DCEU as-was, is almost worth a movie on its own (I really hope there’s a book written about it at some point, or at least a long-form essay; the ins and outs of what became of the DCEU and the de-Snyder-fication of their film slate is potentially fascinating). At any rate, we’re going to get another Batman film and that’s quite exciting. Especially as it is – potentially – a chance to course-correct issues that I had over the previous incarnation of the Caped Crusader. Ben Affleck was very good, but he looked a bit sad and hefty in the suit (the silly cowl essentially removed his neck), and he killed a lot of people. Like, tons. What’s up with that?

So with all that in mind, and given everything that’s come before, here’s a list of places where I hope Reeves and Pattinson go with their Bat-epic. Or even don’t go! You’ll see what I mean, as we get into a list of things I want from the new Batman, The Batman.

No Guns, No Killing: this is a big one for me. The Batman I love in the comics – most of the incarnations, anyway – is very strict about this. For him, murder is the worst crime, and his whole deal is being Anti-Crime. Therefore he would never, ever kill. Also he views guns as, literally, the “weapon of the enemy”. Even Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy – which is probably the closest to the comics in terms of his “one rule” – had him bedecking his equipment with guns and “not saving” people. Here, I’d like a very strict code.

White Eyes: okay, I’m not asking for an MCU Spider-Man here; I know comics characters have whited-out eyes in costume and that doesn’t usually translate to live-action. But Batman would/could/should wear some kind of eye-piece. Even if it’s goggles that he removes/retract into his cowl. What I want to avoid is the blacked-out “panda eyes” look of seeing his real eyes within his cowl. I just find it a bit daft for Batman.

A Working Batsuit: whilst I’m on the subject of Batman’s Bat-duds, one thing that I loved about the Nolan-verse was that his outfit was sensible. Obviously not too sensible, as he’s, y’know, dressed as a bat, but it looked like a suit designed to fight crime in. The Burton/Schumacher suits looked like sculpted pieces of rubber, no good for movement; the Snyder suit looked like fancy dress with “cosmetic damage” and rubbery wrinkles. The MCU, on the other hand, is great at making superhero suits that look iconic and super-y but also workable; Captain America wears some kind of oversuit with, presumably, armour on the inside, and also a cowl of sorts, but one which allows him to move his head and which looks functional despite also having a dirty great “A” on it.

Sweet Wheels: similarly, I’d like a Batmobile that’s more “car” than “tank”. The Burton/Schumacher films, as was their want, gave Bats a car that was more form than function; going the other way, Nolan and Snyder had heavily-armoured war machines that owed a big debt to The Dark Knight Returns. I’d rather lean towards the former, but really, can’t he just have some souped-up Knight Rider thing that’s fast and stealthy? He’s more Black Widow than War Machine don’t forget.

Heh: Batman has, by his own admission, “a sense of humour that nobody gets”. I don’t want a relentlessly dour grimdark Batman. Give me a Batman who can crack a wry smile or a sardonic one-liner, even if he’s being bitterly ironic. To be fair most screen incarnations of Batman have had some sense of humour, but Batman v Superman in particular was almost relentless in its miserableness so I’m hoping The Batman has a funny bone, pitch black as it may be.

A Real Gotham: although I praised to the heavens last week the Anton Furst-ified Gotham of Batman and Batman Returns, I’d like it if the new film hewed closer to Nolan’s vision of the city as a “real” place. Sure, give it stylised embellishments; make it “New York at night” or some twisted version of New Jersey or Chicago or whatever. But I don’t think we need the ridiculous mile-high statues of the Schumacher films, and the less said about the frankly terrible CGI cityscape from the opening minutes of Justice League the better. Shoot on location, or use really good CGI. Make it 10% weirder than normal and I think we’re onto a winner.

Make Batman John Wick: I love how John Wick fights. He’s all business. Boom, boom, the guy’s down, blam, blam, he’s dead. It’s all about minimalising risk, fighting as efficiently as possible. He gets the guys down because, well, the longer they’re up the more chance that they’ll kill him. Batman should fight like that. As few moves as possible, but target them precisely; nothing flashy or extravagant, just get the guys down. Obviously he doesn’t kill or use a gun (see point number 1) but I want a Batman who looks cool when fighting, looks like he trained with monks and ninjas and assassins and wizards. Basically, let’s have some genuinely impressive-looking fight scenes for once.

Make Batman Sherlock: I have high hopes for this one, as the word round the internet campfire is The Batman will be much more detective-focused than previous films (to this date, the two Batmen who are the most sleuth-y are Adam West and Kevin Conroy). But Batman is supposed to be the World’s Greatest Detective so, y’know, let’s see him detect. Greatly. Er, around the world. Make it a proper crime film, a whodunnit. That’d be good.

Make Batman Weird: not necessarily “Tim Burton weird”, but just give us a sense that this is a Batman who has a sci-fi closet. A Batman who, maybe, has fought Monster Men, Killer Crocs, sentient mud and murderous flora. Nolan’s Batman was super-serious and Snyder’s Batman was super-miserable so whilst I applaud a more street-level focus and a noir-ish tone, I hope the possibility exists for a world full of Man-Bats, immortal warlords, dollotrons, and more.

A Wider World: I really hope this one is viable. The plan was for the Justice League-centred movies to form a spine, telling a story arc over multiple films, with the stand-alone tales functioning as spin-offs. As it turned out, the “spin-offs” were the successful ones, and with Batman being rebooted from Batfleck to Battinson, it looks like the “Extended” part of “DC Extended Universe” is up in the air (so is the “Universe” part too, I guess). I don’t know if Justice League or the preceding films are still in continuity even, or if continuity is still a thing, but all the same what I want from a DC Comics adaptation is a shared universe. I’m not a big fan of Zack Snyder’s incarnation of that universe (too dark, miserable, and po-faced), but I still want to see Bruce hanging out with Clark, teaming up with Diana, arguing with Arthur… I want that feeling you get from the MCU (and the comics, for that matter), that Wakanda going public or SHIELD being disbanded or Tony Stark dying is going to have repercussions in other films. I think The Batman is going to be pretty much self-contained in the same way as Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Shazam, but all the same, I hope the potential is still there. In much the same way as I’m very happy for the film to be a street-level noir with the potential to one day have a sequel featuring Batman and Robin fighting off Mister Freeze in a Bat-UFO, I hope it focuses on Bruce and Gotham with the potential to segue into a Justice League movie or have a sequel set in Themyscira or something. Don’t close off the universe, is what I’m saying.

So there we are. I’m aware that this is, essentially, a fanboy wishlist of My Ideal Batman, coming from a straight white bloke in his thirties who graduated from Year One through Knightfall then “New Gotham” and found his Batman apogee in the works of Grant Morrison. Matt Reeves has his vision and it’s good that he sticks to that (for better or worse, I still would have liked to have seen how Snyder’s proposed Justice League arc had played out – although I am emphatically not a “Snyder Cut” devotee). But I feel there’s a sweet spot between stylised and realistic, between comics-accurate and designed-for-film, that hasn’t quite been reached with Batman yet (The Animated Series came closest). Nolan’s films are obviously the best, but I do think that the more realistic you make Batman’s world, the less realistic he himself becomes, and you make the central conceit (trust fund orphan did a lot of push-ups then dressed as a Dracula to Fight Crime) all the more silly. I’m still a bit sad that we lost Affleck, but I’m very excited by where we’re going to go. I just hope it doesn’t preclude a World’s Finest, Justice League Unlimited, or – heck – even a Robin movie somewhere down the line.

#top ten #batman #dc comics #the batman #matt reeves #robert pattinson #dceu #movies #comics

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minaminokyoko · 5 years ago

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Spider-Man: Far from Home--A Spoilertastic Review

Oh, my baby boy is back and it feels good.

Like many of you, I was looking forward to FFH due to the trauma left behind by our final film with all the Avengers present, and I needed to see my sweet Spider Son to try to dry my tears. I'm happy to say Far from Home is just the popcorn flick we need this summer: light, enjoyable, fun. I do admit to a bias right off the bat, before I begin the review: I am one of the hugest fans of the Iron Dad and Spider Son dynamic, and so I knew by default that I wasn't going to like this movie as much as the first one. Sorry. I am a skank for adopted family tropes, and I think Iron Dad and Spider Son was one of the strongest relationships developed in the MCU period. Losing Tony is just...agonizing. I've sectioned it off in my brain as Did Not Happen just to get by, honestly, and so keep that in mind as we proceed.

Spoilers ahead.

Overall Grade: B

Pros:

-Lemme get this out of the way: MY SONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN MY SPIDER SON OH MY GOSH PETER PARKER IS SUCH A GOOD BOI AND A SWEET SMOL BEAN AND I HAVE NO MATERNAL INSTINCTS EXCEPT WHEN IT COMES TO MCU PETER PARKER AND I LOVE THIS CHILD MORE THAN ANYTHING AND I JUST WANT TO PROTECT HIM AND HUG HIM AND BRUSH HIS HAIR AND COOK HIM DINNER I LOVE MY LITTLE BOY Y'ALL.

-Ahem. Tom Holland still shines in this role. I really, solidly care about Peter Parker. He's a great kid and he's very realistic in the way that he's written and acted. He's just a shy, awkward little nerd with a heart of gold who unfortunately has been forced into the worst situations that he's not ready for. I wanted to punch "Nick" in the face for how much goddamn pressure he put on a kid who is literally still in the goddamn mourning process just like everyone else. Peter has so much to deal with and he's only had these powers for a short amount of time, so it's natural that he's so frustrated and anxious and he wants time to go after things that are important to him. I found that very understandable and sympathetic, even if the "I just want to be normal" trope has been done to death in superhero media. MCU Peter has so much heart and I'm proud of this baby for what he's able to accomplish.

-The allusions to Tony and the void left behind hit home quite hard. Especially that fucking gravestone part of the Mysterio sequence. That was just...cruel. Tony taught Peter so much, and he genuinely loved that kid. He grew to love him and trust him and worry about him, and it's so awful that Tony won't get to see him grow up to be his own man. I'm grateful for the time they had together, and I really love Tony leaving Peter the glasses and the A.I., knowing that while he might still make a mistake, he would do the right thing in the end. (Side note: EDITH is as funny as it is fucked up, "Even Dead, I'm the Hero." God fucking damn you, Tony, that is so in-character and it hurts my soul.) "Nick" shoving all that pressure onto Peter made me want to kick his ass, especially since he talks down to him and tries to blame him for not being ready when he only just got into the game relatively speaking. But I also loved the sequence of him in the plane doing exactly what Tony used to do in his lab. It's such a great parallel, showing that Peter is his own person but he's also a chip off the old block, and that is very sweet to see. (I also squealed at the Led Zeppelin comment, oh my son, such a cutie.)

-I was extremely hesitant about them choosing Gyllenhaal for the role of Mysterio (not because of his skill as an actor, just because he looks like a giant puppy, sorry) but now I see why. He's an unstable narcissist and it fits him. What a jerkoff. I was furious with how callous he was and how he shifted blame everywhere like it's just SO necessary to kill all these people for fame, fortune, and money. Ugh, what a shitbird. So kudos to him. I didn't think he could pull it off, but he sure as hell did.

-The effects were fantastic. I really do think the illusion sequence will go down in MCU history as one of the most visually creative, disorienting, heartbreaking things we've seen so far in the saga. It was harrowing, especially the Iron Man suit crawling out of the grave. What a kick in the fucking nuts for Peter, and for us.

-Peter and MJ, while it did get a little overwhelming, were cute as shit. And I'm glad that the modern films are removing the stigma of the "I can't let my family and friends know I'm the hero" thing. It was definitely heavily done in the 80's, 90's, and early to mid 2000's and I'm fine to see it being phased out at least in terms of the MCU. It's a little more realistic that most of your family or friends would be able to handle your secret, and not only that, help you out on occasion. I'm glad she knows and their kisses were freaking adorable. Sweet babies.

-That. First. End. Credits. Scene. What a fucking killer. First off, God bless whoever at Marvel Studios listened to the thousands of fans begging them to cast J. K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson again, continuity be damned. The man IS the embodiment of the character, and I absolutely fucking ADORE that they gave us the nod and the wink we all wanted even back when Spidey was Andrew Garfield. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Next, oh my God, my sweet baby boy, my smol bean, got called out and branded as a murderer. Fuck, this is gonna be a serious problem, and considering the fact that we don't have the next MCU film lined up yet (at the time this was posted, and mind you, San Diego Comic Con is in two weeks, so maybe they'll clarify) the consequences could definitely be crazy. Poor Peter. He's gonna have a lot of work to do in order to undo this mess and prove that he's not Spidey, but this could also mean they're adapting some part of the Civil War story, maybe. We'll see, but that was a big ass bomb to drop.

-The Skrulls second credit scene was a genuine surprise, and it made sense. I thought Nick felt a little off the whole movie, and that really does explain why--it's someone else doing an impression of him and trying their best. Nick would've been smart enough to know probably right off the bat that Beck wasn't who he said he was. His story was way too noble and convenient. Nick would've probably have run facial recognition and then it would ping for a former Stark Industries employee, and that would've been a wrap. I like that it being a Skrull justifies what would be a plothole. Neat idea.

-I appreciated the Spidey's eye view of the action. Those were some cool shots and they were centered well, so you didn't feel nauseous or anything. It kept you in the action and was very engrossing and cool.

Cons:

-The bystander syndrome that everyone got this time around is a little irksome. It's the same reason that while I really, really love Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2, I default don't like it as much as the first one since everyone got put into the bystander spot except for basically Peter in the very end. While it was nice to have them defend themselves, I'd have liked it more of MJ and Ned and the others figured their own way out of escaping the drones. Why? Because it would show Peter that it's not always on just his shoulders. His friends are competent and they can help, and I think that would've been a better way to go rather than him doing it himself.

-Some of the humor was flat. JB Smooth and the other teacher are the worst offenders, I'd say. They were given too much screentime and they're not that funny.

-The May and Happy subplot goes almost nowhere and isn't fully explored, and I kind of would've been fine if it hadn't been in the movie at all. It doesn't add much.

-The ending was kind of unclear? Did Beck actually get shot and die from his wounds? If so, then what was the official story about the drones and his body and whatnot? It's all pretty damn vague. If Beck is dead, that's disappointing. I kinda wish Marvel would stop killing the villains at the end of almost all the films. Longest running recurring villains are Loki and Thanos, I think. Vulture lived, and I'd like him to return in the future if possible. You can use actors more than once, Marvel, they're not tissue paper.

-Nitpick: It did almost feel like we missed a movie where Peter likes MJ. She was more a cameo in the first one than a full lead, so it almost felt like there's a short film somewhere of them getting closer and him getting over Liz and liking MJ instead.

-Nitpick: Same with the whole "other guy also likes MJ" subplot. Eh, I could leave it out and not miss it.

-Nitpick: I still can't with how they expect anyone to buy that Night Monkey story. I mean, it's black suited Spidey no matter which way you look at it. And yes, people should immediately notice he's at the very least one of the students at Peter's high school, and then it can't be too hard after that. I mean, Peter doesn't even change his voice while he's in the suit.

-Nitpick: I was kind of hoping for more clues or reactions to half of everyone, you know, being fucking murdered by Thanos for five years and returning to their lives. But I guess that was just pushed aside because it could become a whole rabbit hole issue. Still, though, I was hoping someone would tell us if the Snapped just don't remember being dead or if there is some kind of afterlife they experienced. (Side note: wow, holy shit, the teacher's mini story about it was dark and awful but I did laugh out of shock. I mean, damn. Low blow, wifey. Low fucking blow.)

-They mention spidey sense but I'd have liked it if they explicitly explain why he has it sometimes but other times he doesn't? It seems to fluctuate, but why and how? Is it more like anxiety or an extra sense? Is it based on his emotional health? I want clarification.

All in all, I had a good time and I'd put this in the middlegrade MCU films. I still really enjoy Holland in the role and I want nothing but good things for him and this franchise.

#spider-man #spider-man far from home #far from home #movie review #film review #spoilers #spoiler alert #iron dad #spider son

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themyskira · 6 years ago

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The Life of Captain Marvel - issue #4, part 1

Last time, as Sadie the Kleaning Lady closed in on the town, Carol and Marie pulled out all stops to avoid progressing the plot, throwing tantrums, chucking mysterious alien devices out the window without a second thought and melodramatically swooning into a lake.

But despite their best efforts, the plot has arrived in the form of a naked blue cyborg, forcing Marie to reveal her true identity as a Kree soldier.

This issue, we get hit with Carol’s new origin story, the sheer stupidity of which is so immense that I’m going to split this recap in two to cover it.

The issue opens with a flashback to Marie/Mari-Ell’s childhood, narrated by Marie. The POV shift is jarring and out-of-place (until this point, the entire story has been told from Carol’s perspective), but this is what happens when you spend three issues of a five-issue mini doing nothing to drive the story forward: the next twenty-odd pages are going to be all infodump.

We see a young Marie — I’m just going to keep calling her Marie, to cut down on confusion — in combat training, systematically taking down a good dozen bigger and stronger Kree teens. Marie tells us that this was her childhood, raised to be a soldier in the Kree Empire’s endless wars, taught to survive but not to live.

As she grows older, she seeks harder and harder training, pushing her body and her abilities to the limit and, fuck me, you just went ahead and stole Carol’s origin story, didn’t you?

Marie: Come on, General F’Zon! Gimme another shot at that Pain-Trainer! General: No, Mari-Ell. Marie: But I’m supposed to be seeking painful learnings, remember? General: Learn that a Level 11 Pain-Trainer will rip your suit to ribbons. Marie: Ugh! It’s my turn, I’m going! General: Mari-Ell! Wait!

Ambitious? Impatient? Forever pushing herself to go higher, further, faster, to punch holes in the sky? Look past the hacky dialogue, and this is Carol to a tee. Or it was Carol, before you went and made her an alien who didn’t need to push herself to her physical and mental limits to succeed, because she was already superior and destined for greatness.

Wait, no, I take it back, turns out Marie is just ~*special*~ too, because on the next page she tells us that she never lost a single battle and enjoyed an unbroken path of success and promotion until she was appointed the youngest captain in history of Intelligence Empress Pam’a’s Elite Guard.

Yes, Carol’s mother is Captain Mari-Ell. Captain Mari-Ell. Kill me now.

Pam’a sends Marie on a covert mission to Earth, and then we cut back to the present day, where Carol has been once again reduced to a blithering incompetent.

Carol: M-ma? Who— who are you? Marie: I’ll explain, I promise. But right now, we need to move. That thing’s a Kree Kleaner. And it’s here for me. Carol: But if you’re… you’re… Marie: A Kree soldier. Carol: …then… then I’m… Marie: You are Car-Ell, daughter of Mari-Ell, Captain First of the Supreme Protectorate, Champion of the Kree Empire, Daughter of Hala by bloodright and by starlight… Carol: Ma, stop it. This is crazy. You’re you. You… you just made me pancakes…

Oh, bullshit.

This is insulting, and I don’t just mean “Car-Ell” (CAR-ELL, FOR SHIT’S SAKE).

Carol is a soldier. She knows how to compartmentalise and she doesn’t crack easily under pressure. Her mother has just revealed herself to be an alien, and that is some personally earth-shattering stuff, but right now there’s a deadly Kree cyborg threatening innocent lives — including those of her family — so the identity crisis is gonna have to wait. She is going to get in the game, stop the bad guy, and then she’s going to have her meltdown.

Ah, but it gets better.

Marie: It’s coming. Get out of the way, Carol. Let me handle this. Carol: Ma, you can’t!

While Carol and Marie argue over who gets to punch the bad guy, Pine-o-Klean is able to get in a barrage of laser-fire. Both women dive out of the way; Carol full-on faceplants, while Marie lands in a neat crouch, saying, “Trust me, Pumpkin. I can.”

Carol is a tactician. She has commanded troops and she’s led superhero teams. She has led alien armies into war. There’s no way Carol wastes time arguing over this. Because while her heart may be crying out at her to protect her mother, the soldier in her would recognise like — would recognise a fellow officer and somebody with superior knowledge of their foe.

And, you know what, let’s assume Carol’s not at her best. She’s shaken by this revelation, and the instincts to protect her mother and to distrust this stranger with her mother’s face are both shouting at her to keep Marie out of the fight. Here’s what happens: After the initial moment of shock and ‘who are you?’, Carol forces herself to focus her mind on their attacker. She turns to Marie: ‘You said it was here for you. What is it and how do I stop it?’ Marie starts to answer, and before she reaches the ‘but’, Carol has impulsively thrown herself into the fight. She’s not prepared for it; she gets in some hits, but the villain gets the upper hand before Marie appears between them and staves it off.

This establishes the villain as a formidable threat, demonstrates Marie’s fighting prowess and sets the stage for the inevitable team-up in issue #5, all without having to throw Carol under the bus. She fails, yes, but not through abject incompetence: her actions are understandable and in character.

Anyway, yeah, none of those things happen. Instead, Carol freaks out for two pages, falls on her face, then watches helplessly while Marie fights Dishwasher single-handedly.

(lol bum)

No really though, whose idea was it to make the assassin a nudist?

Of course, it was a man. Forget I asked.

So then Marie… temporarily explodes the Janitor? Or something?

idk, it’s unclear and nobody particularly seems to care what’s happened to the homicidal naked cyborg or how quickly it might regroup or what it wants or how many ways it can kill them.

“Um, wut?”

JJ Danvers asking the question on all of our minds.

Carol: Ma? I mean… Captain? Marie: Thanks, Captain. JJ: Captain?!

JJ: Hold up, Beans. The Kree thing is contagious? You gave it to Ma? Carol: I think… she gave it to me. Right, Ma? Marie: What humans see as Kree ‘powers’ are just our biological adaptations to a life of combat. JJ: “Our”?! Marie: They’re triggered in battle, usually around adolescence. Sadly, most of us have known war by then.

So, um. Can somebody who knows more about the Kree tell me if this is even vaguely the way that their powers work? Because I am not hugely up on the Kree, but my understanding is that the usual Kree powerset is simply superhuman strength, stamina, agility and durability, and that those Kree characters with additional abilities like flight and photon blasts are the result of genetic/mutagenic manipulation, advanced technology and/or mixed parentage (e.g. Teddy is part-Skrull, Phyla-Vell and Genis-Vell are part-Eternal).

Marie is basically telling us that she — and, later, Carol — developed the powers of flight, energy absorption and photon blasts purely as a biological reaction to being hit often and hard enough.

But wait, there’s more.

Carol: Wait— So if I didn’t ‘get’ my powers when the Psyche-Magnetron [sic] exploded… Marie: You activated them. You triggered an ancient Kree defence mechanism. Not borrowed. Not a gift. Not an accident. Carol: My powers. Marie: They’re not anyone’s but yours. They never have been. Carol: I don’t… believe it. Marie: But you feel it. Light and power and speed and strength, because it’s who you are. Carol: Who we are.

YOU FUCKING WHAT.

“Not borrowed. Not a gift. Not an accident. … They’re not anyone’s but yours. They never have been.” YES AND NOBODY HAS EVER SAID OTHERWISE, YOU ABSOLUTE FUCKNOGGIN.

So, okay. Let’s pick this apart.

The assumption that the writer and editors behind this comic appear to be working from is that Carol’s pre-existing superhero origin is flawed in that it denies her power and agency within her own story.

There is an argument to be made that this is the case.

Looking strictly at the 1969 Captain Marvel #18, in which Carol first gains her powers, we see a story that casts her as a pawn in a battle between two men, a woman halfway into the refrigerator. She has been kidnapped by the villainous Yonn-Rogg, when her love interest Mar-Vell arrives to save her. Yon-Rogg shoots at Mar-Vell, but hits Carol instead, inciting Mar-Vell into a rage.

“Carol! Carol Danvers! She was struck by your wild-eyed blast... perhaps killed!”

Yon-Rogg has already been responsible for the death of one of Mar-Vell’s loves, and now he may have caused another! Mar-Vell is on the brink of killing his foe when he reels back in horror at his own actions — and suddenly realises the Psyche-Magnitron is about to explode. He grabs Carol and runs, shielding her from the blast with his body.

“WAIT! That humming... growing ever louder...! The Magnitron... it throbs with heat... light... as if to explode! And the girl... still draws a faint breath!”

In fact, it was only much later, in 1977’s Ms Marvel #2, that this was retconned as the moment in which Carol became superpowered. As written, her experience in Captain Marvel #18 truly was nothing more than a helpless damsel being rescued by the noble hero.

Ms Marvel doesn’t give Carol much more agency in her origin story: while the exploding Psyche-Magnitron is said to have given her incredible abilities, the strain on her mind was such that it split into two personas, ordinary human Carol Danvers and Kree warrior Ms Marvel. The two are initially unaware that they even share the same body, let alone that they’re actually the same person. Since each 'blacks out’ when the other assumes control of the body, for a while Carol genuinely believes she’s going crazy. It’s not until Ms Marvel #13 that the two personalities are integrated and Carol is able to fully own her superhero identity.

“Oh no... this can’t be happening. I’m in my apartment, in my bed... and I don’t know how I GOT here!”

Superhero origins are rarely static, though, and in the four decades since then Carol’s story has undergone various additions, transformations and retcons. Her background as an Air Force pilot and civilian contractor has been fleshed out to establish her as a hero and legit badass long before she became super, and some of the dodgier aspects of her backstory have either been re-interrogated (Yon-Rogg and the Psyche-Magnitron, in DeConnick’s run) or else studiously ignored (there’s a reason nobody remembers the split personality nonsense).

Nevertheless, the broad strokes of Carol’s origin — a woman caught in the middle of a confrontation between two superpowered men, an exploding alien device that imbues her with the male hero’s powers, and her subsequent adoption of the male hero’s symbol, costume and name — remain more or less unchanged. And with a movie poised to introduce the character to a new generation of readers, now is a good time for a modernised reinterpretation of the story that addresses some of the dated or sexist elements.

So if we accept that Carol’s current origin story is flawed, the next question we have to ask is, what’s the problem that needs addressing?

And this is where The Life of Captain Marvel comes undone.

Because the problem the creators identify is this: Carol gets her powers as a result of a battle between two men. She gets powers patterned after those of a male hero. She carries on the legacy of a man, and she bears the name, symbol and costume of a man. And for this reason, they conclude, Carol’s origin is Sexist™.

Based on this simplistic assumption, the creators set about displacing the male Mar-Vell in favour of a woman. They create an alien mother as the source of Carol’s powers. They give the mother a name, costume and symbol reflective of those Carol uses. And then they smugly congratulate themselves for being Feminist™, despite having only served to erode Carol’s agency further.

The real problem with Carol’s origin story, I would argue, is that she’s an entirely passive character within it. A helpless captive, she does little but yell at Yon-Rogg that he’s mad and that Captain Marvel will stop him, before being hit by a laser blast for the sole reason of making Mar-Vell sad. She collapses, semi-conscious, and is carried to safety by Mar-Vell, unaware that the radiation from the Psyche-Magnitron is transforming her.

It’s crappy by any standard, but it’s particularly egregious in the context of the hero Carol is today — one whose story has come to be defined by unerring determination, an urge to constantly push further and reach higher, and a refusal to ever back down.

Making Marie the source of Carol’s powers doesn’t repair this lack of agency — it makes it worse. Carol not only remains a passive figure in the events that (for all intents and purposes) bestowed her powers, she becomes an increasingly passive figure in her own life.

Her ambition and determination to fly, to punch holes in the sky and glimpse the other side of space? It’s no longer a personal calling that she doggedly pursues in the face of every rejection and roadblock. It’s her Kree blood calling her home, a ~destiny~ that’s written in her DNA. Her fierce grit and persistence as she pushes her body to its very limit? No longer particularly relevant; as a half-Kree, she has always been physiologically superior to humans in every way. Her successes in the Air Force and in NASA are no longer hard-won; they’re just second nature.

By contrast, consider Kelly Sue DeConnick’s early run on Captain Marvel, which revisits Carol’s origin story through a time-travel adventure. It introduces past and present female mentors in the form of Helen Cobb and Tracy Burke -- women who have supported and inspired Carol throughout her life in a way that the virtually absent Marie/Mari-Ell never does in this story. It subtly retcons the effects of the Psyche-Magnitron to underline Carol’s agency — it’s not merely a freak accident that turns her into a Kree hybrid with Mar-Vell’s powers, it’s the overloading machine responding to the force of Carol’s willpower and making her wish manifest.

“I wished... for more time, that I’d done things differently, but mostly I wished that I’d been powerful enough to stop it. That I’d been strong enough to save myself, to save my friend. The device magnified brainwaves and manifested them as tangible weaponry. It was a wishing machine, almost... but one designed for war. In its last act, it gave me what I wanted. It made me powerful.”

It enables Carol to confront her own self-doubts and affirms that, powered or not, no matter the personal stakes, she is a hero who will not quit.

Carol [narration]: I don’t go in because I’m choosing to change anything. I go because he’s hurt and I can help. I go because I’m an Avenger and that’s what we do. Carol: Mar-Vell! Mar-Vell, can you hear me? Past Carol: [reaching for Yon-Rogg’s gun with a bloodied hand and pointing it at him] Y-you’re mad. C-Captain Marvel... battles to save both his world... and my own!

And you could absolutely go further on this! Give us a retelling of Carol’s origin in which she’s not Mar-Vell’s damsel, but his equal ally. Go a step beyond the original Captain Marvel comics — in which Carol rightly suspects that ‘Walter Lawson’ (Mar-Vell’s secret alter ego) is being duplicitous and goes to great efforts to catch him in his lies — and have her actually uncover Mar-Vell’s true identity. Have them confront Yon-Rogg together, and have Mar-Vell be the one who gets shot. Have Carol — injured, outgunned and hopelessly outmatched — defy Yon-Rogg even in the face of certain defeat, and let this be the moment when the overloading Psyche-Magnitron answers her unbending will with the power to enforce it.

And yes, by all means, give Carol’s mother a more substantive role in her backstory, give her more female role models and colleagues and friends, and continue to build the diversity of the Marvel Universe! All of these things are important! But boosting women’s representation is fucking meaningless if none of those women are given any agency, and that’s what is happening in this comic.

That’s it for this time. Stay tuned for part two, when Marie reveals the story of how she came to Boston, why it’s totally not Joe’s fault that he was an abuser, and why we should overlook the hulking mountains of evidence that Marie is a terrible parent and embrace her as Carol’s One True Hero.

#comics talk #the days of our lives of captain marvel #carol danvers

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that-shamrock-vibe · 6 years ago

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Movie Review: Venom (Spoilers)

Spoiler Warning: I am posting this review a week after the film is released worldwide, so if you haven’t yet seen the movie don’t read on.

Critics vs Consumer:

Alright, so I touched upon this briefly in my non-spoiler review, but I am actually quite disgusted at these critics and alleged “fake reviews” that are determined to tear this movie down until everyone hates it. I get that Venom comes out at the same time as Lady Gaga’s A Star is Born, but both are completely different movies in terms of genre and story so there shouldn’t be any type of competition.

As I mentioned the comparisons to both Jim Carrey’s Liar Liar and Halle Berry’s Catwoman are absurd. First of all the movie is carried mostly by Tom Hardy’s acting which both the aforementioned movies failed on and also, while I understand the one scene in this movie at the restaurant could be compared to Catwoman, it’s not in any way as random or senseless, in fact it is quite funny and organic to the story.

I also do not see why the public puts so much stock in what critics have to say about movies, they are just people who happen to have most likely studied movies. The main point of movies are to entertain and that opinion belongs to the individual not to a few snide individuals.

Characters:

As always my plan is to go into a character analysis of all the main players based on my fondness for them and also what they contributed.

Eddie Brock/Venom:

Tom Hardy was a fantastic choice for this role; not only did I find Eddie relatable as a reporter, studying media myself I do feel were I to pursue journalism this is how I would tackle it, but also just Hardy’s personality in general resonated so well here.

It was great to see Hardy in a movie as himself for a change rather than having some sort of mask obscuring his face...mostly obviously, but also Hardy proved apt at action sequences. I genuinely yelped with joy at the scene when he’s originally escaping the Life Foundation with the symbiote and yes while the hallway fight scene was very strategic in its editing so you couldn’t tell if it was Hardy or a stunt double jumping off the wall, it was still brilliant and I haven’t seen a comic-book movie do a continuing hallway scene like that since Iron Man 2 with Black Widow. Atomic Blonde is still the best when it comes to continuing hallway fights.

Eddie’s life in the beginning of the movie was also rather organic from having a fiancée to formerly being a reporter at the Daily Globe which are both comics-accurate, although I am surprised by the number of people that believe Eddie has worked for the Daily Bugle and I put that down to the 90s animated series which, for simplicity I am guessing, had Peter and Eddie working in the same place so that Eddie getting fired would spur his vendetta against Peter.

Speaking of the animated series, yes this does compare somewhat to the animated series with how the character of Venom behaves however I still rate Hardy’s version of the character higher than both that version and definitely Topher Grace’s interpretation. In fact if this version of Venom was in Spider-Man 3, it may have saved the movie.

Now I mentioned comedy, and from the minute Venom started talking as a disembodied voice, I was sold on the comedy; it is somewhat in poor taste to make a villain who is known to eat people a comedic character but this is where I think the movie could have excelled if the writing and directing was better.

I would have loved more exposition into the symbiotes; we had brief descriptions of their biology and behaviour from both Carlton Drake and Dora Skirth on separate occasions, however I would have loved them to explore an adaptive personality of the symbiotes. For instance, it would have made perfect sense for Venom and Eddie to pick-up and mimic traits of the other; Eddie became comfortable with Venom eating people towards the end, so if the movie had explored the fact that Venom’s language and personality switch was a result of being bonded with Eddie, because he did touch upon that towards the end when Eddie asked Venom why he decided to save the planet and Venom responded “Because of you” but they didn’t fully develop the symbiotic bond enough on an emotional level to warrant that one moment paying off to mainstream audiences. I could be spitballing ideas completely in the dark but I do believe that was the intention of the symbiote-human bond.

Having said that, this was a completely comic-book accurate portrayal of Venom, from the look to the personality. I loved during the scene where the SWAT team is cornering Eddie and he and Venom mimic the SWAT team’s actions of “Mask! Copy!”. Originally when I saw that in a promo clip I did not understand why they said that but now seeing the whole scene it does make sense and is very funny.

My favourite scene is possibly when Eddie first becomes aware of Venom and he makes the elaborate assumption that he has a brain tumour, it’s just the delivery of the line which made it so funny. But that whole motorcycle chase was brilliant and demonstrated Venom’s power wonderfully, even healing Eddie’s broken leg when taking over his body fully.

Also I loved how much of a wingman Venom was to Eddie because it did make sense the symbiote would want Eddie to be happy because it keeps him as a symbiote happy; happy host happy parasite, but Venom being the one who prompted Eddie to apologize and attempt to get back with Anne was a very friendly thing to do in exchange for obviously inhabiting his body.

Another great moment with the two is when Venom tried getting Eddie to jump out the window of his old work building and then in the next scene Eddie is waiting by the lift and all Venom can say is “Pussy” was hilarious.

The one thing that doesn’t make sense to me is the lack of explanation in Venom seemingly leaving Eddie after destroying the rocket containing Riot, but then in the next scene he and Venom are reunited with no explanation. It is simply Venom saying goodbye in one scene and then supposedly a day or two later they’re back in business...no explanation is given!

Anne Weying:

Michelle Williams could have very easily just been the stereotypical MJ damsel character in this movie, fortunately she was far from being a damsel. Deciding to essentially start off the movie by breaking up the main character and their love interest was an interesting move because it led to a continuation of Eddie pining after her and eventually at least being on a civil level.

I think her reaction to meeting Venom was quite genuine, freaking out at the site of Venom about to eat that guard and then Eddie taking control to try and explain was a very realistic moment. Being able to be at least friends with Eddie allowed for her to care about him without obvious romantic entanglement getting in the way. Although the fact that Venom then tried to harm Dr. Dan partially because it feels Eddie and Anne should be together made things slightly complicated.

During that hospital scene when the symbiote is forced to leave Eddie’s body and inhabits a dog in order to try and reconnect with Eddie was also interesting, not only because Anne proved herself a very capable woman with her ability to “handle weird shit” but also the fact she identified Venom had merged with the dog and the two, I am guessing, decided to merge to save their mutual friend was also rather savvy of a character pegged as the stereotypical love interest.

Speaking of She-Venom, this is possibly the scene that has caused the most uproar with this movie which, in my opinion is slightly unjustified but also understandable as it goes back to that lack of symbiote exposition. As I said, if the writers had made it so it was explained that Venom had grown to care about what happens to Eddie and looking out for his wellbeing or that it had felt what Anne feels for Eddie which led to that kiss then it would have made a lot more sense, and in my opinion took away from what was an awesome moment in the first appearance in film or television of She-Venom.

Also Michelle Williams played a blinder in an interview when stating that she was “ready to play She-Venom” but not specifically stating that part of her character would appear in this movie.

I do hope, if there is a sequel, that Eddie and Anne do end up back together because not only do I believe their chemistry but also Dr. Dan just didn’t do much for me.

Carlton Drake/Riot:

In terms of this being a “dated” comic-book movie, the villain was definitely a large part of that. Riz Ahmed very much gave a Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor or Julian McMahon as Doctor Doom type of villain as Carlton Drake. That’s not necersarrily a bad thing and both those villains had their pluses but it was just another businessman in a suit at the end of the day.

I did like the running like of “Have a nice life” first used by Drake to Eddie as a precursor to him destroying Brock’s career to the point he couldn’t even use his name in print anymore. Then at the end of the movie when Venom says the same to Riot just before the rocket explodes with him in it it further supports my annoyance of wishing the movie definitively explored the fact the symbiote and host were becoming more like each other.

Speaking of Riot, while I liked the character and the fact he was essentially a living weapon, I do think it was a missed opportunity not to make Scream the main villain symbiote. Not only is she an agent of the Life Foundation in the comics but her host Donna Diego was already in the movie as that homeless woman Eddie was friends with. Also it would have been nice to have a female villain in the Spider-verse as so far we’ve only ever seen male villains in any Spider-Man movie.

But also on Riot’s origin, the fact it took him so long to get from Malaysia to San Francisco with no exposition as to whether or not he’s been learning about Earth and instead just going from person to person, starting off with “Jameson” by the way which is a brilliant Easter-Egg for John Jameson III who is the son of famous Daily Bugle editor J. Jonah Jameson Jr, but not even showing us the fact he knew his kin were at the Life Foundation which is why he went there and chose Drake as his host. It just screams (ironically) missed opportunity.

Once symbiosis was achieved though, it did seem like Riot as a character was in control and Drake was just the vehicle being used. I do think, while Drake wanted Venom back under his control it was the fact Riot who demanded Venom to return to the homeworld that made it seem like Riot was the true villain of the movie.

I am actually glad they killed both Drake and Riot at the end of the movie, usually in Marvel movies it does annoy me they can’t keep a villain longer than a movie but both Drake and Riot had served their purpose so it was time for them to go.

Dora Skirth:

This role was interesting because, at first, her role plays a lot like Nebula in the first Guardians of the Galaxy in that she is the somewhat loyal right-hand of the main villain, there Ronan here Drake. However the fact they did not show any true villainous qualities in Dr. Skirth’s character and instead just made her a scientist who knows when she oversteps natural boundaries was a very fleshed out character.

It is also interesting that most of the background characters in this movie are created for the movie yet still managed to make an impression. I do feel her character was very believable in terms of working for the villain but trying to go behind his back to the movie’s hero is a real-life thing of working for someone you know is corrupt but being too scared of what may happen if they find out you’re trying to stitch them up.

Dr. Dan Lewis:

Alright so I have made it sound like I am not a fan of this character but that is only really in relation to him getting in the way of Eddie and Anne. I know in the comics the two are exes but I wanted to see more of them together in the movie.

I will say I did like that, once he got his head around the situation, he was ready to fight the symbiote by using the MRI machine. Granted it was not in a concealed room and Venom escaped through the air vent but it was still a very cool scene watching Eddie and Venom be separated.

I know he is still with Anne at the end of the movie but especially after that kiss between Eddie/Venom/Anne you would think she would have at least told him because in his defense he does seem like a cool guy, he’s okay with Eddie as Anne’s ex still hanging around so he may be understanding of the situation?

Mrs. Chen:

I just wanted to give a quick shoutout to my favourite minor character Mrs. Chen who owned the bodega Eddie frequented. Not only did she remind me of Delmar who owns the grocers in Spider-Man: Homecoming in terms of how the movie’s main character interacted with them, but also she was not shy to say her piece.

I also liked the fact that, even though we knew it was coming from the trailers, that scene of Eddie/Venom eating that thug at the end was foreshadowed towards the start of the film.

Ensemble:

Then in terms of the others, really there’s only the Life Foundation’s head of security and Donna Diego but while they both made an impression they didn’t take away from the main characters, if anything they aided them which is the right role to be in.

Post-Credits:

So there are two end-credits scenes that play after the most god-awful rap by Eminem I’ve ever heard, the first is relevant to the movie and the second is the big waste of time they make you sit through the entirety of the credits for. I have issues with both but for different reasons.

The mid-credits scene shows Eddie arriving at San Quentin Prison for an interview, the best thing about this is San Quentin Prison is the same prison Scott Lang was released from in the first Ant-Man movie. But he is there to do an interview with none other than Cletus Kassidy who in the comics is the first host of Carnage.

Now I had named who I thought would be great for this role during my fan-casting frenzy for Sony’s Universe of Marvel Character...but with the three suggestions I put forward, none of them were Woody Harrelson. I am not happy with this reveal, yes I knew Harrelson was cast in the movie but had no idea it was in this role. Not only is Harrelson 16 years older than Hardy so playing Carnage who is supposedly Venom’s “son” seems weird, but also that blood red wig, while fitting for the character, looked ridiculous on Woody Harrelson. I still think they should have gone with Will Poulter, but hopefully Woody Harrelson will surprise me in the sequel, I do still like the actor I just don’t think he’s the right fit.

The very end-credits scene is a promo for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse which has no relevance to this movie what so ever other than the fact they’re both Spider-Man related. I just think this was a bad PR stunt to have a movie that is already being hated by some people immediately followed by an upcoming movie debuting Miles Morales...why not just have a trailer at the start of the movie? It still looked good and showed how Miles Morales meets Peter Parker but I do not understand why they showed it.

Overall I have to say this was a good Venom movie but not a great one and also I do think the 90s/naughties comparisons are apt as the movie does have that feel, but that isn’t a bad thing when you’re talking about a PG-13/12a rated movie about a supervillain who is known to eat people. Give it the higher rating and you may get what you want.

So that’s my spoiler review of Venom, again sorry for the delay but I am still curious how you guys feel about the movie. I am aware this movie has divided a lot of people but I for one would welcome more of Tom Hardy and this movie. Post your comments and check out more Marvel Movie Reviews as well as other Movie Reviews and posts.

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ninjagoat · 7 years ago

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Notes on Supergirl 3x14

[SPOILERS AHEAD]

I've been annoyed with the show for a while now. Season three came out of the gate with four solid eps, and then draaaagged for another seven; before finally putting things back in order: slamming a season's worth of Lena's 'development' into reverse so she can actually have her own worldview and agenda once again; giving the Legion a hidden agenda so they actually have some narrative juice; giving Alex and Kara a genuine ideological conflict for the first time since... I can't remember, and actually having a plan for the World-killers because of it; and, important to me especially, the re-emergence of Winn as a recognised problem-solver.

Which brings us to 3x14, a MASSIVE episode for Winn, and, in terms of scale, a massive episode in general: the two major action sequences are of a kind you'd expect from a season finale; they've landed a *recent* Academy Award Nominee for a guest star; there's a frank discussion of later-life mental illness, and an insight into J'onn's specific attitude toward his adopted race; and a hilarious sequence of our heroes just... hanging out.

In short, in just a few episodes (which, by sheer coincidence, would all have finished being scripted *after* AK was suspended and fired for being a mediocre sex-pest)... they fixed the show.

THEY FIXED THE DAMN SHOW.

Notes below the cut (it’s a long post this week):

- "People being addressed as soldiers going into battle before actually just trying something fun and silly" is one of my favourite tropes, and that look Winn and Kara exchange is one of the best indicators of their long-standing friendship we've seen in a long time (Winn is, of course, Kara's best friend. You many have heard her give statements to the contrary. THESE ARE LIES).

- The choice to have the characters, all played by actors who can sing, do 'karaoke voice' instead of their actual voices is a good one. Having Kara do Beastie Boys side-steps the whole 'we've heard her sing' problem; J'onn and Mr. J are both wonderfully appalling; and Alex letting the lyrics of her ballad run on as she stops to drink is, as the kids say, a Mood (I'll come back to Mon-El and Winn at the end).

- THERE ARE *STILL* NO ALIENS AT THE ALIEN BAR. WHAT HAPPENED TO KEVIN? OR BRIAN?

- James's constant need for validation crashing against Lena's particular brand of emotional - and literal - unavailability is a good choice; we've not really seen James's interest in Lena manifest outside of her needs until now, and it's the first time he's had a relatable problem since 1x06. And pairing him up with Mon-El for this scene - who's having his own issues right now - is nice.

- Speaking of which, Imra's telepathy: is this the show telling us she definitely *doesn't* have mind-control powers, or that Mon-El - currently not the most reliable expert on the Legion - doesn't *know* she has mind-control powers?

- "FELLOW DRUNKS!"

- I'll admit, James was my least favourite option for who could be Winn's emotional support in this episode, given his long history of being really quite bad at it; but in this first scene, he's actually pretty good, providing Winn with the avenues he needs to avoid the old-school masculinity coping methods he's trying to use instead.

- Winn making ABSOLUTELY SURE that his Winslow's dead, even before they tried to put him in the ground, is on point.

- Mary. MARY. The writers knew they had Tony-award-winning Steppenwolf alum Laurie Metcalf on board, and it SHOWS. She's nervous and tentative, but she's also forthright; she takes over the space when she feels she ought to (a lot of her funnier asides could have been put in Cat Grant's mouth with no problem), and physically, tangibly awkward when she doesn't; and Metcalf runs through the gear changes as only a pro of her stature can. In her first scene, she's anxious, yes, and she's having difficulty separating Winn from the little boy she left behind; but it's also clear that THIS IS THE HAPPIEST DAY OF HER LIFE, even if it isn't her son's. Mary is a catalyst for Winn's pain, but has a whole existence outside of it. That's good writing, that is.

- Speaking of Winn's pain... DEAR. LORD. That story goes toe-to-toe with any crappy parent story you've ever heard (and blows all of Lena's solipsistic crap out of the water); and Jeremy Jordan, having done so much with so little every week, completely sells that this is a story he's been waiting two decades to tell, and how being left alone with no-one to be *except* his father's son absolutely broke him.

- The Flying Monkeys sequence is the best action scene this show's ever done. Better than Reign. Better than Crossfire. And again, Mary and Winn: every time they're not focused on the time they've spent apart, it's almost like they were never apart at all.

- Winn calling out James for suggesting he forgive Mary is absolutely on point; and James admitting that he was a selfish, sulky little brat after his Dad died as an argument of how it could have been just as bad if she'd stayed is interesting (James is making it up to her now, though, by... never going home for a single holiday. Ever. Still, baby steps). His argument will also end up applying, subtextually, to his relationship with Lena; stop being ungrateful for the time she's not there for you, and just be happy for the time that she is. It's what she needs you to do. She's got her own stuff going on.

- "He doesn't always get the credit, but he keeps us going around here." Kara's gentle tribute to her friend (her BEST friend) and the adaptive, outside-the-box thinking that's been keeping everyone alive for years is wonderful; not just for what she says, but for how comfortable a rapport she has with Mary, while never forgetting that being told how great her son is by *Supergirl* is as good, if not better, than hearing it from the President herself (and if Mary needs that... it could be arranged).

- On a downer note, anytime a show starts talking about a side character as the "heart of the team" or somesuch... it's usually not a good sign for that character.

- I'm not ready to go into Mr. J's illness yet. I have a personal relationship to stories like this, and I can't write about it in this format. But Carl Lumbly is still ABSOLUTELY the best.

- And I'm not the person to get into J'onn's opinion on his own blackness; except to say, in a week when David Harewood met with British MPs to discuss the 'accidental' deportations of the Windrush migrants, this is a BIG DEAL.

- Since I'm doing asides into side plots: Mon-El and Kara. His apology - agenda-free this time - is honest and heart-felt, and his full disclosure about *why* he's apologising now raises interesting questions: at what point is this honesty defined as over-sharing? Where is the line drawn between being 'open about your feelings' and 'demanding emotional labour from others'? Kara has a firm boundary - they are *not* going to talk about his marriage - and he respects that. But should he have told her about it in the first place, even if it does lead in to the new information about the World-killers? I've said before: Supergirl is the only show with a significant male audience that, whether you believe it should or not, actually tackles questions of what healthy masculinity *should* be (albeit with varying degrees of success), and it's good that they're keeping it up.

- Mary's story is not only an important reminder that the men who commit mass-murder often begin by terrorising the women in their own homes; but also, in the context of Childish Things, addresses Winn's misunderstanding of his own fears. Winn has always believed that his father was a good person, until one day, when he just wasn't; and Winn believed that any time he didn't keep a lid on his own anger, any time that he might use that part of himself to stand up and say 'no' against those that would hurt him, the same would happen to him. But Winslow Sr. wasn't a good person. It took a long time for his anger to consume him, a long time for his battles against perceived slights to affect anyone except Mary. Winn has little to worry about.

- And her decision to take the gun and take on Toywoman(?) alone is immediate, consistent, and believable. She's been without her son for twenty years to protect his life. He will NOT be taken from her now.

- Delightful stunt-casting for Toywoman, by the way (If you haven't watched The Silence Of The Lambs recently... go do that).

- The second action sequence: not as good as the flying monkeys, but still has some banging moments, as the 'heroes' drop out to handle various contraptions to leave Winn to rescue Mary.

- Speaking of contraptions: "Cloth Magic." Comics Mon-El fans, that's got to feel good.

- How many times did Mary have to sit through New Hope when Winn was a kid? I'm guessing 'more than ten'.

- Winn being offended at the idea that he's going to be killed with something as pedestrian as a *firearm* is the absolute business, and annoying because it's a beat I'd already gotten it noted down for my own fic series.

- "You haven't just survived, you have EXCELLED."

- Mon-El *butchering* a song now synonymous with a TV show that *LIVES* in the kind of masculinity he's been used to deconstruct (again, with varying degrees of success) is a solid piece of work. As is his apology.

- Okay, this episode isn't exactly what we all wanted for Winn. No-one has hugged him. No-one has told him they love him. Kara has not re-iterated that he is, in fact, her best friend (because he is). He's not designing the Valor suit. We didn't get to hear him sing. And his twenty-year-long trauma of being alone in the world is resolved a lot more speedily that it really ought to be. But that doesn't matter. Those are indulgences, and that's pretty much what fan-fiction and the Miscast performance videos are for.

What this episode *does* do is reiterate the show's mission statement once again: We, as a people, are at our best when we depend on each other. Forgiving when we can. Understanding when we can't. And more than anything else, simply being there for each other. Whether it's supporting each other through a personal crisis, or through the decline of a loved one; teaching each other new skills, or helping to mend a beloved outfit; or even, sometimes, just having the courage or shamelessness to perform karaoke with your mum; the same truth remains:

WE ARE STRONGER TOGETHER.

- Which is why it's perfect that the show end on Lena. Alone. Keeping the truth from the people she's closest to. She hasn't told James. She won't tell Kara. She's just there, trapped inside the box in which she's imprisoned her oldest friend, with no-one else there to help or to guide her. For all her claims that Kara Danvers is her hero... ultimately, the only person she will ever truly depend on is herself.

And it's all going to go horribly, horribly wrong.

-LyraWatch: I'm bringing it to a close. It's now been eighteen episodes, and nary a mention of if they're still together or where she's gone. It's so very unlikely that she'll be brought up again.

-LenaWatch: 14 episodes (record high: 16). Most likely at this point, Winn and Lena will have a scene at some point after it's been revealed she's been working on Sam (and has probably made things worse); and Winn will, for the third time, have to help bail her out of the war-zone-like situation she'll have created through her own hubris.

#notes #superglue

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defunctionation · 7 years ago

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The Mystical Land of Coffee and Essays

Pairing: Reggie Mantle/Jughead Jones

Summery: This will eventually be a bunch of random one-shots, but here’s the first. There won't be very much plot, mostly just fluff but dang it'll be cute. Follow the misadventures of two guys that love to hate each other and can't live without trying to out-snark the other.

This specific chapter is based on the prompt: “we argued so much during a class discussion that we both got kicked out and we’re still arguing outside of class”

Note: The characters are kind of a personality mix of the comics and RD, but the the events of either haven't happened in the story unless explicitly stated. I tried to find a happy middle ground and honestly there's so little for this pairing at all that I had to do something about it.

AO3 Link

Short story, short fuse

A lot changed between the end of their high school year and the start of college. People were starting to realize that there were more important things to worry about in school now, since everyone there was there by choice. Many were there through loans, working hard to keep up grades so they don’t have to take a class a second time and pay for that extra semester. One of those people was Jughead Jones. His family may have once had money to spend frivolously, but that changes quite a bit ago and he’s learned how to adapt to that, even if that meant having to accept that he would be in debt for many, many years. He got a good number of scholarships to help, mostly from his writing and showing off the time he did in the school paper. It softened the blow, but not significantly.

Reggie Mantle on the other hand got a full ride despite the fact that his parents had more than enough money to help support his schooling. Things changed, but not drastically. Bullying was much less of an issue, it was more of a mild annoyance in the back of a classroom and less of a targeting nerds and throwing them in trash cans or slapping the lunch out of someone’s hands. Being obnoxious in the quad, playing hacky sack and guitar probably, if Jughead had any guess what his schedule would consist of. He could have sworn that he purposefully thrown a frisbee at his soda already. He was still a menace to society, just a little more relaxed than before.

He was easy to ignore if he was out of sight, or at least on the opposite side of the hall or whatever. During class he was mostly tolerable. Stayed pretty quiet, aside from the occasional burst of laughter after the sound of an undecipherable whisper from his friend. Annoying, but tolerable.

It became less tolerable though, when the class discussion happened. It was only a matter of time until they had a spat. In fact, he was sure that it was going to be before the first two months of class starting. There weren’t many voices hopping in, mostly the same three or four people as usual. Archie tried his best to be a part of the conversation often times, but tended to point out the most obvious parts. It wasn’t too helpful aside from the fact he was the one to chirp in first and get things kicked off.

The assignment was pretty simple: read the short story Ponies by Kij Johnson and dissect it’s meaning. It was a morbid story about growing up and having to make unknown sacrifices. At least to Jughead, that’s what it was. He was in the middle of explaining, “The other girls forcing her to take away her pony’s abilities represent having childhood taken away and responsibilities thrust upon her.” When he heard a muttered huff of laughter a couple of desks away from him. There he spotted Reggie looking down at his notebook, pencil moving in small circles. Probably doodling idly, wanting to do anything that wasn’t this. He ignored it for a moment then continued. “Her giving into them was resigning and taking hold of the situation.”

There was a sigh and the sound of a chair straining against someone leaning back against it with all their weight. Reggie was now looking over. “Figures you’d try to think it’s something so edgy,” He said with his arms crossed.

“Alright, did you even read it? What do you think it is if you’re so critical of what my interpretation of it is?” Jughead decided to challenge him, since he decided that he could criticize his analysis so rudely.

“Yeah, I just don’t feel the need to rattle off what I think it is as long as I possibly could, but at least you’re eating up time for the rest of us.” He shrugged his shoulders, folded arms adjusting on his chest to accommodate the challenging action.

“That’s literally the point of this discussion. What do you think it is if you think you know so much about what’s going on in the writer’s head.” Jughead came back with in a rather flat tone.

“Peer pressure, obviously. You’d have to be an idiot to misinterpret that much.” Reggie scoffed, looking around to one of the boys on his right before looking back to where Jughead was to affirm his beliefs. He could actually see where he was coming from with that much but there was no way he would agree with it now that he said it out loud.

“Alright boys, let's simmer down some. This is supposed to be a friendly debate, let's try to approach this with open minds.” The professor piped in, a shorter, stout older woman with hair light brown hair. She hadn’t had the chance before to see what they were like when pitted against each other yet. She was about to learn and Jughead was sure that she was not going to be thrilled with the rest of the semester to have them both in there.

Reggie nodded, sitting up and leaning his elbows against the desk. “You’re so right. I’m so sorry, Ms. Montes. Simmer down, Jones. You’re ruining this discussion for the rest of us.”

Jughead was many things, but a quitter was not one of them. “Right, cause I’m sure Mantle the Moron didn’t carry over here? Now you’re going to be the star student? Peer pressure is such a cop out example that anyone can throw onto an analysis if they try hard enough.” He threw right back, fire flaring back up in his stomach in order to try and win the argument now.

“Boys, we have forty minutes left in class and I refuse to have it filled with your little spat. You two will need to stay quiet for the rest of class or you’re going to have to leave the rest of us to carry on the discussion without you.” Montes warned from the comfort of her seat in the center of the room. Jughead felt a hand on his arm. It was Archie with thick, furrowed brow signalling him to let it drop. He knew that the both of them being in that class made it tolerable and him being there would be great for Jughead to help him out with homework later on.

It worked for a minute or so, until Jughead tried to interject with a point about seven minutes later to one of Josie’s comments and Reggie made a point to obnoxiously call him out on it.

They were both banished from the classroom immediately. Jughead tried to backpedal pretty hard, Reggie tried to defend his side in saying that it wasn’t fair that he got to speak when Reggie was sitting there quietly. Neither defence worked and they were left alone in the hall: shocked and bitter.

“You know, I was hoping your douche baggery was left in high school where it belongs, but obviously you’re not finished with being an ass.” Jughead started, shoving his laptop into his bag since he didn’t really have the chance to before being scooted out of the classroom. He held onto the book and kept it tucked under his arm, turning to look at Reggie to see if he had something to come back with. Knowing him, he probably did and they weren’t going to let it die. This may have even started a semester long feud.

“Yeah, I can’t help it when you’re so wrong that I have to be the one to tell you. No one else wanted to say anything cause you looked so proud of your edgy interpretation.” He rolled his eyes and slung a strap over his shoulder.

“Are you kidding? It’s an edgy story. It’s about mutilating My Little Pony, there’s got to be some stupid, crazy theory behind it.” Reggie started to walk away, obviously trying to dismiss their talk but that wasn’t going to happen just yet. He followed in suit, not missing a step and marching next to him.

Reggie looked over at him, looking him over and seeing the determined stance that he took in following him. He grinned, biting back the warmth in it and twisting it into something cocky. “You really want to talk about this even more? We just got out of talking about it for the other half of that class. You can just admit you’re wrong and go your own way now.” He tried to shoo him away weakly, slowing down his stride to discreetly accommodate Jughead’s smaller steps.

“Because I’m not wrong and I want to know that you actually have points behind your theory and it’s not you picking the easiest way out.” He explained with less heat behind it than there was in the classroom. Like he genuinely wanted to hear what he had to say about it.

Reggie groaned loudly and rolled his head back for a moment. “God, you really are a giant nerd. I could be doing better things than this since we got out early.” Reggie shot back, turning his head to look over at him and scan him for ulterior motives. “I’m starting to think you didn’t write the paper and you’re just trying to use my precious brain for your needs.”

Jughead snorted sarcastically and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, that’s why I was giving a full thesis statement. Also, never call your mind precious again. I think that sort of thing sailed when you were like ten. You don’t get to have a ‘precious mind’ after that cause that sounds like it would also have to be innocent and other sorts of synonyms that fit like a square through a circle peg.”

“Did you just use the word synonym in an actual, real life conversation without prompting?” Reggie shot back in an instant, raising a brow and smirking.

“I know big words confuse you but I can sound it out for you if you need to google it.”

“You know, that’s no way to try and get my views on the short story.”

“Oh, my mistake then. Your mind is filthy and there’s no use in trying to salvage it. Is that better?” There was no sign of regret or genuine apologetic nature in general behind the words at all. “No, not in any way shape or form. We can work on that though. If you admit that my mind is a holy, wonderful place, I’ll be a nerd with you until until the time that class was actually supposed to end. How’s that?” Jughead was tempted by the offer. They had a strict rule about never saying anything good about each other, so using it purely as payment seemed like a trick.

“You’re not going to record me saying that or anything, right?” He asked, using cautious steps now that they neared the on campus cafe. “That sounds like a dirty trick, it would be wrong of me to lie like that to get you to do the classwork that we didn’t do.” He said slyly, a clever looking grin creeping onto his face.

“Yeah, well that’s the price of a beautiful mind. Pay the price or bounce. I woke up way too early for this shit so I’m gonna energize.” Reggie tipped his head in the general direction of the counter and stopped in front of the entrance. “So what’ll it be?”

Jughead slowed to a stop as well, now looking at him with an emotion that was far too intense for the situation at hand. “Hands up so I can see that this stays between us here and now.” He waited for him to comply, giving him a stern look that stopped the witty comment as it touched his lips. “Your mind is a wonderful, holy place. Supposedly.” he refused to look at the smug grin on the athlete’s face as he admitted it, but he knew just from the radiance coming off of him that it was there.

He hummed with pleasure, leaning in ever so slightly and let his hands drop to his pockets. “That’s almost right. Let me hear it one more time.”

“I think the fuck not. That was a once in a lifetime offer and if you missed it, it’s gone for good.” He crossed his arms, now holding the book in his hand instead of pinched under his arm.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get you to say it after you hear how much better my ideas are.” He insisted, walking in and not bothering to hold the door open for Jughead as he followed. “Hurry up before I change my mind.”

“Don’t hold your breath. Or do.” He came back, catching the door as it was closing in on him. They ordered and found a booth in the corner where people didn’t tend to look immediately, and fell into an almost friendly debate over coffee.

#reghead #reggie mantle #jughead jones #jughead #archie #No beta to read #I know there are some literary issues but listen this ship has nothing and it's for fun

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supercultshow · 5 years ago

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Howdy all you Supercultists out there on the interwebz! I’m Bad Movie Professor Cameron Coker (BS in “Bat Nipples” with a minor in “Ice Puns”) and I’ll be posting my hype-tacular speeches every week along with some long lost speeches from past Supercult Shows!

This week winter has come at last to Supercult in the form of one of the greatest cinematic blunders in all of history: Batman and Robin!

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Batman and Robin are back in the fourth film in the Batman superhero series and the second film in the series directed by Joel Schumacher. George Clooney stars as Bruce Wayne/Batman while Chris O’Donnell and Michael Gough return as Dick Grayson/Robin and Alfred Pennyworth, respectively. The dynamic duo are back to protect Gotham City from villainy, but when the cold-hearted Mr. Freeze and the enticingly toxic Poison Ivy attack tensions rise between the two heroes. Can the Dark Knight and the Boy Wonder resolve their differences and save the city from certain destruction? Strength Now. Courage Always. Family, Above All. Batman & Robin!

As of 2019, this is the first and only appearance of Batgirl in a live-action Batman feature film.

According to a makeup artist, Arnold had potentially deadly costume effects. The battery for the LED lights in his mouth would start to dissolve in his saliva and leak battery acid into his mouth.

“Curses!” -an actual line from this already silly film.

Michael Gough: one of the only person to survive all 4 original Batman films (the other being Pat Hingle who played Commissioner Gordon). What a bad ass.

Someone please tell me how all these diamonds somehow combine into a fuel source for a freeze laser.

George Clooney and his stunt doubles went through 50 rubber Batsuits.

After the film’s negative reception, plans for Tim Burton’s “Superman Lives” have been shut down. The movie would’ve been a first attempt to have a shared universe between Batman and Superman, with George Clooney reprising his role as Batman, and with Nicolas Cage as Superman.

Is this a miniature? Is this an overly indulgent set? Does the audience care?? Do the ACTORS??

You want to have plants take over the earth and I want to freeze the planet. Sounds like we should work together!

Two Words: Bat Nips.

This gang is apparently called the Golums, but we all know they’re really called the ‘We Love Neon and Blacklight Club’.

The Batman costume was a 50 lbs. (22.6 kg.) rubber body suit with a 40 lb. rubber cape attached to the headpiece. Batgirl’s and Robin’s costumes weighed 50 lbs each. Mr. Freeze’s weighed 75 lbs.

Oh Bane…it would take 15 years before films did you justice.

I mean, yeah, this movie is bad. But Arnold looks pretty snazzy in his polar bear slippers.

Did we mention that Coolio is in this film? Well…he is. It doesn’t make the film any better or worse. It’s just…a thing that is.

From the opening frames of this film you know it’s going to be a treat. The foam latex laden suit-up scene seems to linger just a bit too long on expertly modeled bird buttocks, bat nipples, and caped crusader cod pieces. The opening would fit just as well in a high-budget Batman burlesque show. Oh, how optimistic the 90s were. The original Batman directed by Tim Burton seemed like such a long shot and paid off spectacularly. Burton discarded the camp of the 1960s Adam West TV series and adapted the atmospheric gothic noir of the 1940s…which is apparently an era when Batman couldn’t turn his head and has no problem with just straight up murdering people. Tim Burton’s version of batman was so iconic that it defined the tone, color, music, and even dialogue choices for the entire character for the next 2 decades. The next three sequels, Batman Returns and Batman Forever, stuck to the formula of the 1989 original for the most part. In each the level of camp was slowly cranked up:

Batman Returns: Let’s take up half the Warner Brothers lot with expansive water-filled Gotham City sets! Let’s focus even more on the villains and really hammer home the tragedy and the childhood pain festering into megalomania! Not only that, let’s have TWO villains instead of just one! Let’s get a combination of real penguins, actors in fiberglass penguin suits, and puppets for the villain’s evil missile-toting penguin army! DID I MENTION THE PENGUIN ARMY??

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Batman Forever: They liked the two-villain thing, so let’s do that again. We’ll get another two actors at the top of their game to play ridiculous, over-the-top, gothic cartoon characters! Let’s go with Tommy Lee Jones, still riding off the high of his starring role in the Fugitive, and then Jim Carrey at his comedic height just a year after the release of not one but three of his most iconic films: Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Mask, and Dumb and Dumber! Oh yeah and let’s swap out the director, the lead, the love interest, and paint the whole film in neon. These things aren’t meant to be dark, gritty, adult films! They’re comic book films for god’s sakes! We gotta sell toys to kids!

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But here’s the thing Supercultists: If you’re going to be this campy you have to be either funny or endearing. Carrey carried Batman Forever and killed it as a genuinely funny and threatening adaptation of the Riddler. Danny DeVito, in his own gruesome way, made us feel for a Batman villain in a way that the batman animated series later sought to emulate with their reimagining of Mr. Freeze and the creation of Harley Quinn.

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So, what happened? Was it overindulgence? Sure, scenes are campier and there are now not 2 but 3 villains: Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, and a neutered version of Bane who serves as a glorified mook for Ivy. Perhaps the concept of pushing the art style even further strained the bounds of reality? Sure, Gotham was larger than life in 19889, but the 1997 version has gigantic futurist statues holding up the buildings as if Gotham was constructed on the corpses of a race of colossi. Perhaps the film lost some of the comedic charm of its predecessors. At last count Mr. Freeze utters something like 27 ice puns throughout the film and at times it can be difficult to discern whether or not the film is being ridiculous on purpose. The opening fight scene looks like Batman on Ice with the heroes literally clicking their heels together to activate ice skate boots.

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Perhaps the problem is higher up than that… Was it the studio pressure to make the film more “toyetic”? The film’s design seems catered to the toy market with every character having a wacky light-up vehicle, set piece, or gadget that could function as an action figure. Batman’s new car features a transparent hood so that audiences can see the colorful spinning bat-engine as if hypnotizing children and adults alike into emptying their wallets at the nearest department store this Christmas. For crying out loud Poison Ivy even has a line “I’m a lover, not a fighter That’s why every Poison Ivy action figure comes complete with him!” *points to Bane* Perhaps it was simply cost? In their bid to get even more top-billed Hollywood names for the latest and greatest (read: only, unless you count things like Spawn) comic book film, Arnold Schwarzenegger was reputed to have earned $25 million for his approximate 25 minute on-screen role as Mr. Freeze, basically a million a minute. Not to mention Uma Thurman, the poster girl for Pulp Fiction, and the, at the time, up and coming George Clooney.

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The whole film cost an estimated $125 million and was a modest commercial success but was a spectacular critical flop. With a 3.7 on IMDB and an 11% on Rotten Tomatoes, it’s no surprise that the film killed the batman film series and nearly killed the entire superhero film genre. The film was voted #1 in Empire magazine’s “50 Worst Movies Ever”, #5 in Entertainment Weekly’s Top 25 Worst Sequels Ever Made, and won a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress for Alicia Silverstone as Batgirl (as well as 10 other Razzie nominations for everything from Worst Picture and Worst Director to Worst Screen Couple and Worst Original Song). Not Joel Schumacher or George Clooney defend the film anymore. When filming was over, George Clooney reportedly quipped, “I think we just killed the series.” He’s even been known to refund people who saw the film and has called the film a “waste of money” in spite of his admittance that it was the biggest break he ever had as a then TV star making the jump to Hollywood.

But we here at Supercult know it’s not the worst film (we’ve seen A LOT worse). At the very least it’s entertaining at times, hilarious at others, and always a feast for the eyes. Even now we can see the 90s superhero film influence on modern pop culture. The next few superhero films such as Sam Rami’s Spider-Man series still attempted to recreate the earnest wackiness of Tim Burton’s series while attempting to avoid the cautionary tale of Batman and Robin. Grittier remakes of batman still pay homage to Tim Burton’s Batman in their aesthetics, their music, and their tone.

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Batman and Robin may be the worst batman film ever, but that makes it the best Supercult Batman film ever, bat nipples and all.

This is why Superman works alone! The Supercult show is proud to present Batman and Robin!

Batman & Robin Howdy all you Supercultists out there on the interwebz! I’m Bad Movie Professor Cameron Coker (BS in “Bat Nipples” with a minor in “Ice Puns”) and I’ll be posting my hype-tacular speeches every week along with some long lost speeches from past Supercult Shows!

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cloakedsparrow · 8 years ago

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Sometimes you watch a movie, and between the seemingly endless screentime of criminally dull characters spouting nonsense dialogue, you marvel how something so lame and expensive got made. It takes a lot of people to make a movie as big as Paramount’s “Ghost In The Shell,” which is estimated to have cost upwards of $110 million. It also takes a lot of bad choices to make a movie this unrelentingly boring and, ultimately, astonishingly offensive.

Based on the manga written and illustrated by Masamune Shirow, “Ghost In The Shell” follows Major Mira Killian (Scarlett Johansson), a groundbreaking cyborg that combines a robot body (that looks like Scarlett Johansson) with a human mind. The mind is her ghost, her soul, her humanity. The shell is robot vessel, which holds her brain and pushes Major to understand her identity in a world where humans race to upgrade themselves with cyber tech like x-ray eyes and drink-all-you-want livers, but robots are treated as slaves. When hunting down a terrorist hacker called Kuze (Michael Carmen Pitt), Major is forced to confront how she doesn’t really belong in either world. This sends her down a path to uncover her human past.

The great irony of the film is that while its plot is all about the search for soul, “Ghost In The Shell” is all style, no soul — or, rather, all shell, no ghost.

Director Rupert Sanders made his name helming commercials, most famously one for the video game “Halo 3: ODST.” But when it comes to his filmography, all he’s got to offer is “Snow White and the Huntsman,” a battle-studded fairy tale re-imagining, which crammed its princess in jeans and pitched her into chilly CGI landscape to create a stylish but stilted adventure. That film was critically panned and considered only a modest box office success. Yet somehow Sanders was gifted a second chance. And what he gave us was the same superficial showmanship.

Set in a futuristic Tokyo, “Ghost In The Shell” drapes the city in giant holograms of robot geishas, smiling bodybuilders, and a drooling corgi. A skeezy bar boasts holograms of strippers (glitchy enough to appease its PG-13 rating), and boxers battling (presumably the future’s pay-per-view fight night system). While some of the production design is gorgeous–the robo-geisha teased in trailers is a highlight–most of the designs seem to have no function beyond looking cool. They tell us little about this world.

With all the holograms and cyber punk flare of “Ghost In The Shell,” I thought of the aesthetic of The Wachowski sisters, who’ve created rich sci-fi worlds with “The Matrix” trilogy, “Cloud Atlas,” and “Jupiter Ascending.” But there’s a huge difference between their designs and Sanders’, in that the Wachowskis’ designs give their world context, life, and depth. Every detail seems to fit and function, and gives audiences some little insight into this fictional universe. Sanders’ stuff just looks like CGI stickers thrown around his dazzling Hollywood star, lacking any purpose beyond wow factor. It makes for a hollow viewing experience, especially when paired with performance styles that feel lost in translation.

From the Marvel movies to the trippy action-adventure “Lucy,” Johansson has brought dizzying charisma to heroines who use their incredible abilities–be it sharpshooting or telekinesis–to topple tyrants and take down armies of armed baddies. In “Ghost in the Shell” she wears a barely-there body suit and scales walls while firing a gun right into the brainstem of any who’d oppose her. She punches out terrorists and single-handedly downs a tank, even when it risks tearing her shell asunder. And yet I felt nothing. Johansson’s charm seems in sleep mode as she struts vacantly through this tedious journey that boasts more tech talk than interesting action. Sanders has somehow drained away the very star power Johansson was supposedly cast to deliver. And that brings us to the scandal that’s followed the film since its earliest casting rumors: Yes. This is an example of whitewashing.

This issue has raging online for years, before the film even went into production. One side insisted that because the Manga — and its resulting 1995 anime — were Japanese, so too should be the heroine of its live-action, American-made adaptation. Others claimed that because the character is just a brain in a robot body, anyone could play the role, so why not Johansson who has a big fan base and a storied history in the action genre? Before seeing the movie, I understood both sides. But after?

This is hands down Asian erasure.

It’s not just that Major was renamed the white-coded “Mira Killian” instead of the original Japanese name Motoko Kusanagi, “Ghost In the Shell” is set in Tokyo. The film is dripping in elements of Japanese culture, from the anime iconography to geishas, and koi fish to traditional sushi restaurants with low tables and visitors in elaborate robes and obis. And yet most of the main characters are white; not just Major, but also her best friend Batou (Pilou Asbæk), her mother-figure Dr. Ouelet (Juliette Binoche), her antagonizing boss (Peter Ferdinando), and the aforementioned terrorist she’s charged to track down (Pitt).

So even if anybody could have theoretically been cast to play the fully robo-figured Major, Paramount chose to cast a movie set in Japan, telling a Japanese story, and steeped in Japanese culture using primarily white actors. That sends a message about who is valued and not, and it’s a pretty insulting one that only gets more clear and offensive as the movie goes on. There are people of color in the film, filling out Major’s team. But aside from her handler (Takeshi Kitano), they barely get five lines to share between the three of them. I couldn’t tell you any of their names, because the movie only cares about them in the rare instances where Major and Batou need back-up. They’re not characters as much as conveniences.

Another shocking scene involves Major hiring a sex worker so she might touch human flesh. Instead of the short-circuiting lesbian scene from the comic, Major — who absolutely reads as a White woman — hires a Black woman so she can poke her and experiment. The optics are bad, especially in the wake of such a successful and woke film as “Get Out.”

And then things get worse!

Spoilers for the third act of “Ghost In The Shell.”

I rarely get into third act reveals. But as was the case with “Passengers,” it’s necessary to discuss the vile story lurking beneath the slick ad campaign. When Major discovers her past, she finds out she’s actually Japanese. Her name was Motoko Kusanagi. She has a living mother who speaks English with a heavy Japanese accent. Her childhood bedroom is decked out with Japanese knickknacks, as if it’s a souvenir shop for tourists. Major is secretly Asian! And still, the filmmakers felt totally comfortable casting her as white. This reveal hits in waves of “no they didn’t” that don’t peak when Kuze discovers he’s also actually Japanese (“Your name is Hideko!”), but when Major visits her own grave, then embraces her mother as if to say, “It’s cool. I’m your rebooted white daughter! I test better globally.”

End of spoilers.

If the social politics of this property bore you, so will the movie itself. Sanders seems to have urged all of the cast to speak in the same deadpan delivery, making every line feel like an afterthought. And with dialogue like, “I don’t think of her as a machine. She’s a weapon,” the script could have desperately used some energy. Instead, the actors, Japanese culture, and story are all put in service to build to action set pieces that are sometimes visually stunning, yet never hit hard because Sanders hasn’t bothered to build the world or develop compelling characters.

I rarely check my watch during movies, but this movie is so gruelingly slow-moving that I had to, if only to assure myself it was almost over. It wasn’t. When I checked, I assumed we were nearly a two-hour mark. It had been 72 minutes. I still had 35 to go, and every one — whether made of quick-cut action, bland banter, or leering shots of Johansson in that high-tech leotard — felt like a unique bit of torture; vapid, yet self-aggrandizing.

In only keeping mildly true to the source material’s aesthetic, Sanders created a film that has spectacle and action, but no excitement. How he was allowed a second chance at a big-budget remake after the mediocrity of “Snow White and The Huntsman” is beyond me. How Paramount poured this much money into a script that reads like a sloppy translation, and action scenes that are so CGI-enhanced they look like video games, I can’t even begin. I’m genuinely astonished a studio movie in the age of incredible offerings like “Logan,” “John Wick,” and the upcoming “Atomic Blonde” can be this totally, absolutely and utterly garbage.

“A Ghost In The Shell” opens Friday, March 31.

#ghost in the shell #article #review #major spoilers #comics to film

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eclipsemediaproject-blog · 6 years ago

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Iron Man (2008) Review

To kick off this re watch and individual review of each film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe we must of course start at that humble beginning that is so cherished by the fans of this franchise: Iron Man. I'm sure it won't surprise anyone to hear that I have seen this movie many times, so I did have some preconceived notions and feelings towards it before this viewing. I still tried to dive back in as unbiased as possible with the mindset of a new viewer. While some opinions have developed further during this latest watch, I find it leaves a similar impression on me no matter how many times I see it. It’s still a fresh take on the super-hero genre that is full of entertaining performances, great dialogue and a fun edge. Even with all the charm Iron Man has to offer, though, its crowning achievement is introducing the world to Tony Stark, who is easily one of the best written and performed characters I have seen in a long running franchise. This is his origin story, and though we have seen a lot of those throughout the years you would be hard pressed to find one executed this well.

I would describe Marvel Studios' Iron Man as a "risk that was played safe". Iron Man was far from a household name before 2008, and while it turned out that his origin adapted well into film, choosing him was risky in itself when the "A-listers" (Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, ect.) had until then dominated cinema. Jon Favreau’s unique style of humor was also a venturesome choice in the superhero genre. However, by sticking to what I believe to be relatively safe story structures as a base, the tone of the movie was able to hit the right chords and as a result Iron Man himself became an “A-lister”. On paper, though, other than rightfully avoiding some common tropes of the genre, the full plot is moderately formulaic. It is the story of a man and the dire circumstances that put fantastic abilities into his hands, forcing him to gain a new moral outlook. With this sense of what is right he uses his “powers” to do good in the world, and ultimately he must face a villain with opposite ideals and unnatural strengths of his own. Obviously these are only the most bare story beats, but they still follow a structure that we are familiar with. So how does such a standard story end up feeling fresh and inventive? Part of the credit must go to Favreau, who took his one of a kind style and blended it into a fun action film. There may be the occasional rough moment in the flow and overall tone of Iron Man, but it’s only natural considering Favreau was working in a genre that was unfamiliar to him. I also found that these moments were few and far between, and noticeable only when paying close attention. Even catching the rare tonal issue, it still doesn’t really detract from the film’s entertainment. Plus it was more than worth it to have Jon Favreau’s particular flare to a movie like this. It is that very style, along with the excellently written characters, that made Iron Man special. That is, of course, along with the undeniable talent of Robert Downey Jr.

When a story follows such a basic formula, even when does so very well as it does here, one of the best ways for a movie to really shine is to focus on strong characters. That is a strength that this motion picture definitely has. The best example of this is undoubtedly Robert Downey Jr.'s portrayal of Tony Stark. Stark has some cool qualities in the comic book stories he originated from- he is a genius, he is incredibly wealthy, and he is a total playboy- there's even some great development later on from what I can tell (though I haven't read very much), notably his use of alcohol to cope with the problems he faces. Despite having a lot of interesting characteristics on the surface, I feel like the character is still missing something in the source material, at least earlier on. For some reason he is still hard to connect with. The cocky, witty, and larger than life persona that Downey brings to the role does a lot to fill that hole in the cinematic franchise, but what truly makes the film version of Tony Stark so compelling is easily Downey's believable performance throughout the strong character arc that was written for him. Tony finally seeing his legacy from the other, darker side of the spectrum is definitely written effectively; but it is the actor's ability to convey his newfound sense of what is right, along with his disillusionment with the life he had before that is truly great.

There was a character that I actually enjoyed a lot more than I remembered during this watch, as well, and that would be Pepper Potts. Personally, I've always liked her relationship with Tony Stark, but her character isn’t given very much growth or development in the first Iron Man. That’s how I feel, anyway, and that is probably why her part in the movie wasn’t one of the main things I remembered. However, despite not having a ton of depth in this movie I don't find her to be poorly written, either. I also found Gwyneth Paltrow’s performance to be pretty enjoyable this time around, too. I especially enjoyed the chemistry between her and Downey, their back and forth being one of the aspects of the movie I liked the most. I was very much invested emotionally in the scenes they shared, and I look forward to seeing their development in future movies as I continue my re watch.

Yet on the other side of the coin is another important character who unfortunately is not a highlight of the story: Obidiah Stane. The character is not exactly weak, and works relatively well in the first two acts. Jeff Bridges also does fine work with what he was given. As he predictably shifts into the feature villain, though, he seems increasingly two-dimensional, cheesy, and ineffective. As we all know, this trend became a recurring problem in the earlier entries of the MCU; an underdeveloped villain with bland abilities who exists mainly to be a source of conflict. This very well could have been deliberate seeing as the heroes are obviously the spotlight in this series, and for this film having a very standard villain that embodies the opposite of Stark’s growth does work... but honestly his role “working” is about the most that can be said for his contribution to the movie. The deepest part of the character is how he represent's Tony's past, other than that he's just an asshole with a bigger suit.

Before I move on from the characters, I do want to mention a couple of the smaller characters who had an impact on the film. The first being Yinsen, the man in the cave with Tony. The beginning of their relationship admittedly felt a little forced, but they did have a few nice moments as they worked together that felt genuine to me. I'm glad that there are some effective scenes to keep me invested in their relationship, because at times he does unfortunately seem to only be there for the plot and for Tony’s development. His death in particular felt forced to me, and even though his reasons for his self-sacrifice weren't too much of a stretch, the scene just came off as an attempt to add some quick drama to the journey that Tony had started. It may feel a little contrived but that feeling is short lived, and the moment is not over-done, at least. Overall the character does serve the film’s narrative and is obviously an important part of Stark’s life.

Other than Yinsen I really wanted to comment on Phil Coulson because... well honestly because I just love him so much. Coulson's role in the movie has its importance, but it is still a pretty small part. The fact that he is so memorable just goes to show you awesome Clark Gregg is as an actor; he has such great chemistry with everyone he interacts with, and his character is a great way of serving the individual story while simultaneously setting up S.H.I.E.L.D. for the Marvel universe. Ultimately, Gregg utilizes a great balance of humor and mystery to convey the next-level "importance" of the organization. In my notes for this re watch, my exact wording is "Phil Coulson is a treasure" and I feel like that's all I need to say.

While the basic story is not the highlight here, there are some things that it executes splendidly. It handles the underlying themes of Tony Stark's path from war-profiteer to hero with great care, not only showing more ugly sides to war but also making it easy for the viewer to understand how Stark thinks and feels both before and after he is abducted. The first Iron Man film also tells what I believe to be the perfect origin story. It does this with a surprisingly effective utilization of pacing, starting with the very first scene. I love the opening minutes, and all they do is use dialogue to give us our first taste of who Stark is. Then we are immediately thrown into the action with the abrupt ambush that leads to his capture. That’s when the story pulls back to give us his history and show us a little more of his character, and having already invested the viewer in the story it very quickly gives us all we need to know going forward. I do typically dislike when a movie starts off with a bang then goes back in time to give us more information that we need, because it can get tedious when we really want to see what happens after the opening action. This is not a big issue here, though, as the pacing is very quick and the movie is still in its early phases when we get back to the initial conflict. We are only "taken back" to show us what is absolutely crucial to know, and it doesn't drag on too long or come off feeling forced.

After Stark’s thrilling escape sequence, he is free from the cave to return home, and we move into the second act... which is the best part of the film. Downey's performance is at its peak during the upheaval of Tony Stark’s original life, and the characters have all of their best interactions during this portion of the movie. For a story that primarily focuses on characters, this is definitely some of the most entertaining material. The third act is, unfortunately, the weakest one, as it has the job of turning Stane into the villain and ultimate climax of the movie. Stane's actions as a villain feel forced, especially his actions that lead to the creation of his suit. Even his final fight with Iron Man just feels like it's happening for the sake of having a "big fight" at the end. Stane's dialogue is a little cheesy, and there are moments where things seem to happen just so that there can be more tension and conflict- specifically when Stark is on the ground helpless and Stane keeps missing his shots by a lot. He even has some throwaway line that goes something like "you ruined my targeting system but I'll still kill you". Not an exact quote but it had that awkward feeling of just being written to give us a reason why the hero is being given more time to act in such tense situation. In the end Stane is a weak villain, and when the movie has to focus on him it is not at its best. However, the wrap up and conclusion of the film that comes after this fight is amazing and pretty much makes up for it. It manages to sum up the story that was being told and remind you of the things that made you enjoy it in the first place. The scene where Tony Stark admits to being Iron Man in front of the press is rightfully loved for being a very cool moment for Tony Stark/Iron Man, but it is also a brilliant ending to an origin story. By definition we are getting the story of how Iron Man came to be, it is very fitting that the movie ends at the moment he is truly "born".

CONCLUSION: Despite Favreau's slight inexperience with the genre, a fairly weaker climax/villain and a few moments that feel like they exist solely to move the plot forward, Iron Man succeeds with an entertaining and unique style accompanied by an absolutely stellar performance by Robert Downey Jr.- and the result is a very fun watch. The cinematography is on point, featuring a few shots that will remain truly iconic... I particularly love the shot of Tony presenting his missiles as they explode behind him, not to mention almost every second of the first time Tony suits up and uses Iron Man to undo the damage done by his company. The score composed for the film also adds what it needs to, and some of the song choices will pretty much make you to get pumped up. This is why a standard origin story for a comic book hero can make you forget that you know where the story is going... if done right, there are so many inventive ways to tell that story with a different voice. Is this the best movie ever? No. Is it the best Marvel film? The answer for me is still no. That said, it was a great stand alone movie, an even better origin story, and set up a universe so subtly that upon first viewing you didn't even notice that it did anything of the sort. The fact that the world building was done in the background made the post credit scene that teased the Avengers so much better. You had no idea how great an established universe around this movie would be, but when you see that it could happen you suddenly realize how much you want one. Iron Man is not a masterpiece of cinema, nor does it try to be. It was just one hell of a fun ride that not only launched what is arguably the biggest film franchise of all time, it also gave us a fresh new look at the tired superhero genre and redefined our expectations of it going forward. RATING: 7.5 Next: The Incredible Hulk

#iron man #MCU #marvel #marvel studios #robert downey jr #review

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recentanimenews · 7 years ago

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Crunchyroll Favorites 2017: Everything Else

Movies, music, comic books, great food, everything goes in this last category. With Part One and Part Two out of the way, here's our final Crunchyroll 2017 Favorites with everything else!

PETER FOBIAN (@PeterFobian)

Blade Runner 2049: I never in my entire life actually scoffed until I came upon news of this movie. On the heels of a few monstrously bad Hollywood adaptations and reboots, I couldn’t imagine this movie being anything but another disappointment. I’m so happy to be wrong. Visually this movie was every bit the cinematic marvel as the original. That’s not to say it’s faultless. The story was perfectly serviceable until the forced shoehorning of Harrison Ford’s character left the plot a mess, but the atmosphere was maintained and it had some great modern takes on the content of the original. If every adaptation were this good I’d welcome them all.

John Wick 2: Another visual marvel that gives me hope for modern movies, John Wick 2 is every bit as good as the first, a combination of novel sequences and set pieces with great cinematography. The unapologetic daisy chain of fight scenes the raise the bar for Hollywood action. Like Blade Runner, the movie suffered a bit for the sake of a cameo, with Reeves and Fishburns' reunion taking up altogether too much screen time, but otherwise the film is a spotlessly choreographed action masterpiece. I can’t wait for the post-apocalyptic part 3, in which John Wick has killed 99.99% of Earth's population.

Atomic Blonde: Capping off my style-over-substance cinematic trilogy for 2017 is Charlize Theron’s rampage through Cold War Germany. I respect this film trying to deliver all the hyper-stylized, tightly-directed action as John Wick while including a compelling story, even if it didn’t quite land. Falling back on a few bored tropes left the later half of this movie feeling narratively stale, but the final sequences were marvelous all the same. I hope this grows into some sort of franchise all its own.

Takeshi Miike’s Blade of the Immortal: Two of the greatest anime disappointments of my anime life were the Blame! OAV series and the Blade of the Immortal anime, which were both made right in 2017. Polygon Pictures provided a Blame! Movie which satisfied (for now) and Blade of the Immortal got perhaps the man most suited in the world to direct its live-action adaptation. This movie is just the kind of bloodbath that the 100-man slayer and the 100-movie director both deserved.

Star Wars VIII: The Last Jedi: It’s honestly cheating putting this movie in this list since it’s 100% anime. I’m pretty sure the middle of this film was just Gunbuster. Unfortunately it did actually sort of feel like two movies, one of them much better than the other. The plot following Rey and Kylo was marvelous from start to finish, as well as its branching conclusion with Luke, but the subplot with Finn dragged on forever and led to some themes that felt confused and left me wondering if they even knew what they want to do with his character (bring back Benicio though). That one scene, you know which one, was inspired (also very anime) and I hope other directors and studios take note.

RENE KAYSER (@kayserlein)

Baby Driver: If you forced me to pin down my single favorite movie, game or song, I could hardly come up with an answer. When it comes to my favorite director, this one’s a lot easier, though: It’s Edgar Wright, hands-down. No other director manages to reinvent himself every single movie while also staying true to what his fans love about him, and Baby Driver is his first “Big Budget Movie” (it does star several big Hollywood actors but only cost $34 million!). It not only combines its visuals with its soundtrack like no other movie but also tells a genuine heart-warming story. While Hot Fuzz will remain my favorite action movie of all time, Baby Driver keeps its distinctive shape in its rearview mirror.

Spider-Man: Homecoming: I’ve enjoyed almost every MCU movie thus far but with me being a lover of great villains, I have also suffered from Marvel’s biggest flaw: Having good antagonists. I couldn’t warm up to Loki like everyone else and had almost given up hope ... but then my third-favorite superhero swung in and gave me a great villain who was also played by a major actor of my favorite one! The rest of the movie may not hold a candle to the first two Raimi movies but I hope that we can keep this momentum with the MCU and may one day see a proper depiction of Dr. Doom.

Wonder Woman: If you were to ask me whether I preferred DC or Marvel, I would easily side with the bat and the man of steel. But even I can’t proclaim the current state of the DCEU as anything but bad while Marvel keeps hitting it out of the park. However, after the two trainwrecks of 2016, Wonder Woman gave us a glimmer of hope and a fantastic movie in which we also finally(!) got a female lead. Justice League was in turn bogged down by its production issues but I sincerely hope that we will start to get a proper representation of all these amazing characters from now on - even if we have to flashpoint it along the way.

Star Wars - Thrawn Trilogy Audioplay: My birds have told me the concept of an audioplay isn’t as common in the US as it is in Germany, so I’ll preface this with a short explanation. An audioplay is basically the same as an audiobook but instead of a single narrator, you have an entire cast of actors who act out the written story which is usually formatted to work with only dialogue and sound effects (though there are ones who use a narrator).

This year I, as a major Star Wars-fan, was delighted to discover a production I had never stumbled upon: An entire audioplay of Timothy Zahn’s famous Thrawn trilogy. While it may seem trivial at first, the people behind this not only got the entire German voice cast of the original movies (who actually dub every movie and even cartoons to this day!) but also paid close attention to absolutely every detail. They licensed John Williams’ famous score and made sure that the listener was able to distinguish each ship by its engine sound, each fighter by their weapon sound and each alien race by their own made-up language. Disney may have eradicated these books from the canon (though they thankfully brought Admiral Thrawn back in the Rebels cartoon) but this production will forever allow German fans to experience this original sequel to Return of the Jedi as close as possible to actual movies - all thanks to some amazing voice work and love from some serious fans.

Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi: As I’m writing this, less than a day has passed since me attending its premiere. So while I may be still blinded by the early “Honeymoon Phase” of still getting my emotions sorted and not having contemplated everything a thousand times, I am currently convinced that this is the best Star Wars movie I have ever seen. Rian Johnson mixed up the characters we love in a tale that’s both completely and yet faithful to the franchise and it almost disappoints me that Disney gave him “only” one additional trilogy to handle. This movie not only changes up Star Wars completely and for the best, but it also serves as a perfect capping stone for 2017 itself. A lot of bad things happened over these past twelve months but the final shot of this movie serves as a reminder that no matter how bad things get, we can still change the world for the better - no matter who we are and where we come from.

Game of Thrones Season 7: Game of Thrones got dumb this year. The time it takes characters to travel doesn’t match up in the slightest, we got a lot of scenes the audience was clearly intended to not think too hard about and a lot of it devolved into fanservice … but I completely loved it! After six years of buildup, we got an entire season with payoffs and while they didn’t always make perfect sense, they certainly were satisfying. I hope that the writing will improve a little for the final season but I’m definitely looking forward to seeing it.

Female Doctor Who & other awesome ladies: This year has truly been great for awesome female leads in popular media. I already mentioned Wonder Woman and Star Wars: The Last Jedi who both have amazing female leads not to forget Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn!) but one of the oldest British TV series also finally made the jump to change things up. At the time of writing, I haven’t seen Jodie Whittaker’s take on the Doctor but I can’t wait to see that Christmas special and what fresh air she will bring to the show!

KARA DENNISON (@rubycosmos)

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Return: If you’re a fan of the original series, you’ll know within the first half hour that the show is back for real. And if you’re unfamiliar with it, the new series is a great jumping-off point. The new selection of movies is impressive, as is the new selection of cameos. Season 12 promises to be amazing!

Doctor Who Series 10: “Extremis”: “Extremis” is one of the riskiest episodes of Doctor Who ever made, and that’s saying something. I’ve been enjoying the Twelfth Doctor’s run immensely, but the fearful and challenging nature of this story makes it stand out for me. The gut drop of the big reveal still hasn’t left me.

A Series of Unfortunate Events: As a fan of Lemony Snicket’s dire children’s book series and all the puzzle-solving that went with it, I was thrilled with the new iteration of the story. Neil Patrick Harris is a perfect Count Olaf, and it’s just the right mix of dire and hilarious. There will be new mysteries to unravel whether you’re a casual reader, a hardcore fan, or a newcomer.

Night Mind: Halloween 2017: I get all my nightmare fuel analysis from Nick Nocturne, the host of the YouTube channel Night Mind. And this year he pulled out all the stops for Halloween. The latest SCP Vault imagines how certain entries might be interpreted by the public, Monster Hunt explores local legends, and his Candy Bowl vid combines an “Internet Ghost Tour” with world-premiere horror shorts. Lovers of the macabre need Nick in their lives at Halloween and year-round!

NICK CREAMER (@b0bduh)

Sick Scenes - Los Campesinos!: For my “the rest” this year, I’m just gonna go with a couple albums that have been circling my brain. And in this tumultuous year of 2017, Los Campesinos!’s Sick Scenes feels like the most urgent of releases. Marrying the band’s consistent indie rock hooks to tortured reflections on surviving in the age of Brexit and Trump, Sick Scenes is simultaneously a symbol of artistic maturation and a redoubling of youthful intent, a resounding cry saying even though we’re all very tired, we’re all very tired together.

After the Party - The Menzingers: If Sick Scenes casts its anxious eye outward, The Menzingers’ After the Party feels like a more inward-focused release, a monologue spiraling into a panic attack as the band’s longtime punk rockers face the onset of true adulthood. At twenty-nine-and-three-quarters years old, I must be the ideal mark for a record that opens on “whoa-a-o-o, whoa-o-o, where we gonna go now that our twenties are over.”

THOMAS ZOTH (@ABCBTom)

Blade Runner 2049: When a sequel to Blade Runner was announced, I made fun of it, because Blade Runner didn’t need a sequel. Any time there was an announcement about it, I would retweet it with a snide comment about how the film didn’t need to exist. But then, rumors started to spread that the film was good. I gave in and watched it, and I agree. A fully worthy companion to the original Blade Runner, less an exploration of what makes humans human and more about how people define their identities in Kafkaesque bureaucratic nightmares. I waited years to hate it and couldn’t. I’m looking forward to buying it on Blu-ray.

Get Out: An amazing directorial debut by Jordan Peele, Get Out is an acclaimed and fantastically realized horror movie, of all things. I love horror as a genre, but it’s usually far from respectable. By making a Rosemary’s Baby of race, Peele manages to make a funny, smart, and scary film that has resonated widely with audiences. I had never seen Key and Peele before this, so this was my first exposure to Peele (who also wrote), and I’m now looking forward to his future work.

Twin Peaks: The Return: In a documentary about the original Twin Peaks, David Lynch seemed genuinely sad that the original series ended the way it did and expressed a desire to go back. So when the series was announced, fans of Lynch knew this wasn’t a quick cash in, especially when Lynch seemed to walk away from the table when he wasn’t going to be given complete creative control. But the series arrived, and no one knew what to expect, and what we got was massively different than anyone could have imagined. At 18 hours, Twin Peaks: The Return nearly doubled the amount of Lynch-directed content in existence, itself a delicious treat, but it also updated Twin Peaks for the modern age in uncanny ways. Stunning and important.

Big Mouth: Images of this Netflix series circulated the internet as an example of how unbelievably ugly American cartoon designs are, and those opinions aren’t wrong. But if you can get past the aesthetic, Big Mouth is incredibly funny, starring favorites Nick Kroll and John Mulaney of The Kroll Show and Oh, Hello. It’s the puberty series that everyone needed during puberty, that you couldn’t watch during puberty because no adult would show this series to a kid. But now you can watch it and heal some old wounds.

Lady Bird: Written and directed by Greta Gerwig, who I mostly know as the voice of Pony in China, IL, Lady Bird is an assured debut film about adolescence in a time period very close to my own. It’s funny and charming, but also saves up some really painful emotional arrows in its quiver for the final act. Centering on the relationship of Lady Bird and her mother, it also touches on larger social questions and the common experiences of high school. Support an up and coming director by checking this one out.

JOSEPH LUSTER (@Moldilox)

Baby Driver: I didn’t see nearly as many movies in the theater as I wanted to in 2017, but Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver was one I enjoyed from the first frame to the last. Some of the musical elements were a little too clever for their own good, but the final product is a fast-paced action/chase/comedy flick that’s incredibly fun to watch.

Thor: Ragnarok: Speaking of comedies, Thor: Ragnarok certainly didn’t seem to leave many jokes on the cutting room floor. Thor is the bro-iest Avenger, but it kind of works. If they had focused more on the Planet Hulk storyline and less on the typical world-ending Marvel plot that swirled around Hela, it probably would have gone down as my favorite of the Marvel movies.

Fantasy Sports No. 3: If you’re not reading Sam Bosma’s Fantasy Sports series, you need to get on these comics ASAP. They’re so colorful and full of energy, and all of Bosma’s designs are damn near perfect. The third one came out this year, but I’d happily list every single installment in a best-of year-end list.

ISAAC AKERS (@iblessall)

Shihai Surunoha Kimito Koi No Aji by MOSHIMO: 2017 was the year I discovered you could actually find some J-pop and J-rock on Spotify, which lead to an exploration of all sorts of new discoveries for me. Among the best was a little band called MOSHIMO, which puts out a charming sort of pop rock sound—with a female lead vocalist who actually plays guitar! You can only watch so many idol lives before you start to long for singers who can play instruments. Anyways, MOSHIMO’s 2017 EP is, I’d wager, their best effort yet, showing a level of musical sophistication that’s a step above their previous works.

Baby Driver: The movie that grabbed the hearts of a great number of anime fans (as shown by its presence in other people’s lists here), I adored the film—which was the only movie I saw in theaters all year—primarily for amazing gimmick of writing a whole film to a playlist. I mean, back when I was at university, I’d skip around campus walking to classes much the way Baby does in the movie, so seeing that aspect of my life made into a whole dang film was pretty fun. It gets a bit long in spots, but overall I had a ton of fun with it.

Duolingo’s Japanese Course: Earlier this year, the popular language learning app Duolingo released the beta of their Japanese course, providing me with the convenient tool I needed to start actually learning the language. I’m under no illusions that I’m going to become fluent using Duolingo’s course, but just having something like this available makes it so much easier to fit some beginning learning into my head and busy schedule. If I manage to go on and truly learn Japanese someday, it’ll be because it started with this course. It’s worth checking out!

NATASHA H (@illegenes)

Mr. Robot S3: I’m admittedly biased about this one; Mr. Robot is one of my all time favorite shows, and this year, Sam Esmail took us on a hell of a ride as opposed to last season, which was far more slow paced and Lynchian. While not necessarily reaching the same highs, season 3 remained incredibly consistent, bringing two very different seasons together in full circle as we travel with Elliot to the depths of despair, but also, back into a hopeful and determined future of self awareness, culpability, and responsibility. The show only continues to break TV standards and I can’t wait for next year to raise my stress levels and churn my brain again.

The Expanse S2: Someone once told me The Expanse was like ‘sci fi Game of Thrones’. While I understand that to an extent, this is a form of clickbait, they’re not completely wrong either. Season 2 ramps up from Season 1 as more political factions are introduced and old characters make relationships with new. The show isn’t afraid to take risks, but at the same time, none of its twists or moments of tension feel haphazardly done. Likewise, the character development continues to be stellar, with no clear ‘good’ or ‘bad’ side to root for. One of my favorite things about this show is how firmly committed it is to diversity, featuring one of the most diverse casts I’ve seen in years. Its attention to realistic space physics is also incredibly neat and something I respect.

Blade Runner 2049: When the trailer for this movie first came out, I was half furious, half terrified. How could a movie possibly live up to the groundbreaking Blade Runner, let alone, be a direct sequel? After seeing it however, I can say that Blade Runner 2049 rose to become one of my favorite movies in recent years, surpassing its original with a soul of creativity and respect that few sequels possess. It borrows the best from Blade Runner, reinvents it for the current age, and then adds nuance in ways I’d never expect. It also happens to be, possibly, the most visually stunning thing I have ever seen. Nearly a 3 hour movie? Totally worth it.

The Night is Short, Walk on Girl: I recently watched Tatami Galaxy a year ago, and while it was great, I still felt like I missed watching it at the right time in my life for it to really have an impact on me. The Night is Short, Walk on Girl corrects this by combining many of the show’s strengths into a single feature film while also expanding upon the show’s main themes. Filled with the same charmful designs, warm and wacky adventures (and characters!), Night is Short is a movie about living life to your fullest, and the need to connect with another human being, even if we can’t fully understand their perspective. It’s one of Yuasa’s strongest works and my favorite animated movie of the year…..

A Silent Voice: …..other than A Silent Voice. Naoko Yamada is a powerhouse in the animation industry, and she brings that talent to this movie based off the manga and one-shot. While many have complained about how the movie fails to mesh the two into a fleshed out and nuanced story, for me, the movie was nearly perfect in its portrayal of topics like miscommunication, depression, anxiety, and self guilt. With stunning animation at every turn along with small but brief details that are rewarding upon rewatch after rewatch, this movie is guaranteed to win you in some way or the other. And make you cry. A lot.

SAM WOLFE (@_Samtaro)

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Return: I was in the middle of a major MST3K kick when I heard that the Satellite of Love was coming to Netflix. Like anyone, I had my reservations about this new series; with an all new cast, and only some of the original writing staff, how would the new show hold up? As it happens, even with new voices, Crow, Tom Servo, and Gypsy were as great as ever, and Jonah Ray was an excellent addition as the human on board. My only complaints were with the new Mads, Felicia Day and Patton Oswalt; their bits were clearly filmed in bulk, and were host to several odd editing tricks (the liquid technology gag was really only there to cover the jump cuts between takes, wasn’t it?). Despite that, the movie selection was great, the sketches were silly, and I’m hoping we see even more from this crew in the not too distant future.

Twin Peaks: The Return: I watched Twin Peaks for the first time in 2014, and I was still antsy with excitement about the show’s final chapter; I can’t imagine what the wait was like for those who watched it when it first aired back in 1990. Twin Peaks: The Return is a masterful metatextual experiment that is as brilliant as it is polarizing. The show is conscientious that the audiences who hung on this long are thirsty for answers, and provides them in deliberate bites of surreal, disturbing television that David Lynch has both spearheaded and mastered. The Return’s slow windup seems loaded with fanservice and levity at first until it shocks viewers with episode 8 (which is presented completely in black and white, and is almost entirely silent), as if to say “alright fairweather friends, it was fun, but your time being comfortable has come to an end.”

The Return borrows a lot more from Lynch’s cinematic playbook, in many cases resembling Eraserhead more than the Twin Peaks it comes from. The result is a challenging, engaging, and almost paradoxical ending that both resolves the now twenty year long mystery, as well as igniting a spiral of new questions about reality, time, and what exactly is at stake for the characters we’ve come to know and love.

I particularly enjoyed seeing how the show flirted with the metanarrative, teasing the audience by introducing Kyle Mclaughlin’s character early on, but keeping Agent Dale Cooper well out of reach, instead forcing us to spend time with the dull but lucky Dougie Jones.

While Twin Peaks: The Return is a far cry from the show it’s derived from, and it’s certainly not for everyone, I would invite anyone who loves serial storytelling to challenge themselves and give it a try (after watching Twin Peaks seasons one, two, and the movie Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, of course).

Grape-kun: I remember waking up one morning to see the top story on the anime subreddit: an aged Humboldt penguin had fallen in love with a life size standee of penguin-girl Hululu from Kemono Friends placed in his enclosure. I knew I would be making a video about this penguin, but I never could have predicted how much of an impact he would have on my life. Over the next nine months, the story developed, and I made a new video for Crunchyroll as each new chapter unfolded. I know it’s silly, but I really felt an affinity for the little penguin who was enamoured with a piece of cardboard. So much so, that when planning a trip to Japan this fall, I had scheduled a day to visit the Tobu zoo and see Grape-kun for myself. Unfortunately, that visit never happened, as Grape-kun passed away just weeks before my trip.

So what’s the takeaway? When this little penguin made an innocuous decision, he was abruptly elevated to the world’s stage, and people several continents suddenly away had opinions about him. There were responses on all sides of the spectrum (thankfully mostly positive), but none of those responses ever reached Grape-kun. Grape-kun just kept doing what he was doing, and I think that’s what we can learn from him: be yourself no matter what the madding crowd says. Rest in peace little guy. Thank you for sharing your story with us.

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That's it for our three-part series on 2017! Be sure to check out Part One and Part Two! If you're still in the mood for past CR Favorites, check out the previous years' features here:

Crunchyroll Favorites 2016 Part One Part Two Part Three

Crunchyroll Favorites 2015 Part One Part Two Part Three

Crunchyroll Favorites 2014 Part One Part Two Part Three

Crunchyroll Favorites 2013 Part One Part Two Part Three

Crunchyroll Favorites 2012 Part One Part Two Part Three

Crunchyroll News' Best of 2011 Part One Part Two

What were your favorite "everything else" of 2017? Comment below and share with us! Remember, this is a FAVORITES list, not a BEST OF list, so there's no wrong answers!

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Peter Fobian is an Associate Features Editor for Crunchyroll, author of Monthly Mangaka Spotlight, writer for Anime Academy, and contributor at Anime Feminist. You can follow him on Twitter @PeterFobian.

By: [email protected]

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

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