#also that Washington monument one is really good imo...

[vault81]

love the cover photos for the Jack Travel Logs becoming more unserious as they progress

[ziracona]

What is exor-Josh?

Okay, so. Spoilers for Until Dawn necessary to answer this so don’t read if you want to avoid that.

So. The 2016 playstation game Until Dawn is a decision-based story driven survival horror game with eight playable protagonists. All eight are determinate and can live or die depending on player choices. However, one of the eight, Josh Washington, the character the tragedy of the game centers around, even if he survives is never given a happy ending.

Now, that’s actually part of whay makes Until Dawn a phenomenal game imo, because it’s a deeply genre reflective piece, especially about the treatment of mental illness and demonization of it in and by horror, secondarily about the discarding and appropriation of indigenous tradition. The game leads you to believe, as all the characters do, that Josh, who is psychotic, depressed, having a breakdown, and terrorizing his friends elaborately because they are responsible for his sisters’ deaths one year ago, is also responsible for the incredibly dangerous things going on and death of one of the friends (determinate/assumed). It plays very in line with classic horror mentally ill = evil, and the characters and player tie Josh up in a shed once he’s finally stopped from what he was doing, and refuse to believe him he hasn’t hurt anyone and insist he has to the point that he, mid horrific breakdown, becomes unsure himself and has like a complete collapse and monumental hallucinations.

Right after it’s gone that far, there’s the midpoint reveal Josh was not lying, and the things up here killing people are Wendigo. (There’s fascinating history here—the Russians who first colonized the area refused to believe native tradition and beliefs and camed up with what they called ‘Wendigo psychosis’—a mental illness that made you go crazy and eat people—to try to explain stories away. So there’s like four layers of respect indigenous tradition and quit fucking doing this to mentally ill people in horror going on in just the game thesis alone. The team worked really closely with tribe members from the areas involded and there’s some really cool interveiw stuff—also, fun fact, Until Dawn is the single most accurate/respectful presentation of Wendigo in any piece of western media I am aware of. They’re often portrayed with horns and like deer people, a style I believe invented by Steven King? But that’s wildly off and just made up, and in traditional lore they look like starving elongated pale humans with no hair.)

Anyway! Sorry. I have so much love and so many thoughts on UD I get carried away. So, the midway twist suddenly puts you in the position of “Oh fuck, Josh didn’t hurt anyone, and we didn’t believe him so we hurt him and then tied him up and left him like a gift for the monsters.” and you spend a good portion of the remaining game trying to get him back before it’s too late. No matter what you try though, you cannot truly save Josh. He is either killed by a Wendigo extremely graphically, or he is left alone in the mines and possed/taken over by one of the Wendigo spirits and beginning to turn himself by the time he’s found. I like this choice as much as it hurts, because it forces the player to think. If you could save Josh, it’d be “Well it was messed up what happened to him, but it turned out okay!” And you’d get to move on. But no matter what, it is never all turning out okay for Josh, so you do not get that option. Almost the entire fandom back when the game dropped was distraught over this and Josh’s treatment, and there was a reason. It was exactly the intended one. The unsatisfying way his story ends regardless makes it so you end up unable to brush off the rest of it as okay, and it ruminates instead, and is a really, really good genre reflective on how mental illness is treated in horror specifically. I am sure some people exist who reacted different bc there’s so many period, but I have played UD /many/ times and with a bunch of people, including my baby brother at 12 and a 24 yo dude who hated Josh on sight because he’s got a really manipulative family member who uses his disorder as an excuse to ve shitty, and I have never once played UD with someone who did not after the halfway plot twist, no matter how annoyed or mad at him for his shit they were before, did not both care about and feel extremely bad for Josh and try hard to save him. The choice worked. Really fucking well.

That said, it uhhhh, fuckin sucks for Josh! And while I think the game benefited from ending how it did, I think a super hard to find secret ending where things are less awful (like of the kind maybe nobody found for a whole year even) could have done a good job of both making the thesis really sink in like a knife, and letting the poor traumatized guy get a happy ending. Because both would be ideal, you know? I know you can’t always do both, but I wish. That said, they probably made the rightest call how they left it, esp with RoB releasing so soon after. Anyway! Most of the fandom also was in mourning for Josh, and I believe it was @danji-doodle who originally popularized exorjosh and coined the term? Basically, it was a kind of fixer but fixer in line with canon AU, where in the “Josh is possesed by a Wendigo spirit” ending, be was sucessfuly exorcised/saved, and rehabilited. It was very cute and sweet. Because it centered around him being sucessfully exorcised and rehabilitated, and was specifically a Josh-fixer AU, it was called ExorJosh.

Anyway, fun fact! While in production for Until Dawn, Supermassive also made Rush of Blood, a firstperson VR shooter. The shooter is basically an incredibly fucked up first person experience of Josh having a breakdown and getting possesed, inside his head how that looks to him. The last thing you fight is the specific Wendigo that possesed and is trying to take him over (truly horrifying), but while an arcade shooter and very surreal, it does actually make ExorJosh canon. Which I was thrilled about, bc I was very sad after UD. Somehow most of the UD fandom doesn’t seem to be aware of the existence of the game, or well, don’t know what happens in it anyway. So I am very sad for them. The game’s been out since 2016/17 I can’t remember for Rush of Blood off the top of my head. :’-] But anyway, it’s a little open to interpretation because of the hallucinative nature of the experience, but considering if you kill the Wendigo (I should note, in line, albeit really extra-ly, with Algonquin legend. It is possible, though unusual, to exorcise someone possessed by a Wendigo by destroying its heart of ice, either physically with boiling medicine made for that, or spiritually in an internal battle, which is how the last boss fight goes.) —There’s also a secret ending where you wake up at the end of UD/the matching Josh scene from it, and the most hard to get trophy, where you can see the doctor for moments (though to you he looks like a corpse you see in the first game) before returning to the nightmare, is called Moment of Sanity. —If you win/kill it, you wake up with the doctor you see off and on in it and are told you’re not cured yet, but that this looks really good for you and you’re probably gonna make it now (I’m paraphrasing but that’s the gist). So it’s basiclaly confirmed and I am very happy for him bc Josh deserved to fight free and live happily again. :’-]

Anywya the TLDR is ExorJosh was a really popular Until Dawn au where Josh got the Wendigo ending but was cured/exorcised, thus ‘ExorJosh’. Popularized by a big fandom comic artist, it was the most popular AU by far, and the company more or less made it canon too actually in Rush of Blood. Good for my son: he deserved this. TuT

[roominthecastle]

"Rassvet” delves into the time period between Katarina’s first suicide attempt in February, 1991 (following her run-in w/ the Osterman death squad) & the strategic “resurrection of Raymond Reddington”. Timeline-wise we are good here, imo, otherwise things get... interesting. More behind the cut:

Red told Liz that her mother walked into the ocean 2 months after the Christmas fire (1990). This date checks out. At the shelter, we can hear the news announcing the results of the Lithuanian Independence Referendum. This happened (for real) on February 10, 1991. We also know that Ilya/Red had his first surgical procedure on October 3, 1991. So it’s an 8-month period and not 6 as Liz says, but it’s not that big of a difference (you’re bad at simple math, Liz, and I can relate). Dom says that the various reconstructive surgeries took place over a one-year period, so Ilya/Red likely walked into the first bank towards the end of 1992. Katarina was still alive here and that matches Dom’s claims that 1) he came to the US after the collapse of the Soviet Union (so anytime after December 31, 1991) and 2) that he met Katarina a few months after he arrived, then he never saw or heard from her again. And this is where Dom’s story ends.

Katarina’s “death”, however, is trickier. The show’s been playing fast and loose w/ Red’s “I’ve never lied to you” for a while now, and what he’s told Liz about her mother’s death is def on the very loose end here. Ilya/Red claimed Katarina committed suicide. Well, she did (“I went into the ocean to end my life.”), it was just an unsuccessful one and Ilya/Red did believe her to be dead for a while. He also claimed she was never the same after the fire, and her death is treated as a symbolic one throughout this episode, too (“The woman who walked into the ocean is dead.”). But I still think she is likely dead for real now, she just died later as a consequence of their Reddington Charade, likely as a result of a betrayal that contributed to why Red is the way he is today, why he accepts nothing less than utmost/undivided loyalty, and why he feels so much guilt around Liz, believing that he can never give back what he took from her.

So the dates are fine and, at the end of the day, “Lizzie, your mother is dead” is a statement that holds true, imo (at the very least as a “clever turn of phrase” if Kat is “gone” like Samar is, i.e. never coming back, never able to reach out). For now, I am at peace w/ this.

We also have confirmation that Ilya/Red was indeed there when Liz shot her father. They pulled the dying Reddington from the flames before the firefighters arrived, but he soon died in Katarina’s arms. Then -- after burying him -- Ilya/Red and Kat probably went their separate ways bc he only read about her suicide and had no idea that she survived. In fact, we find him back at work at the Embassy all perky and business as usual, which feels emotionally disjointed from the importance Katarina seems to suddenly take on in his life when he decides to sacrifice everything to protect her. Interestingly, he makes no mention of Liz in this initial vow of protection. In fact, he seems to have no particular investment/interest in Liz whatsoever, and, as we know, his promise of taking care of her “as his own” is never followed through, either.

So if Katarina is as important to him as that monumental sacrifice implies, how come he wasn’t out of his mind with grief before when he thought she’d drowned? With Liz, he is emotionally consistent: his devotion is 100% and so is his devastation when he believes her to be dead. I don’t see this w/ Katarina. There is an inconsistency here that makes me think that there was more behind his willingness to take over Reddington’s identity than a childhood pledge but the answer to this is in the missing parts of the story.

I am def not disputing that Katarina was important to him. They clearly had a bond. I think that childhood pledge was real, too, bc it’s something Dom would know about and it got repeated. I also buy the unrequited & unconditional love scenario bc it fits Red’s personality and he already dropped a comment about this to Liz. But I don’t see them as lovers.

Katarina was decidedly not interested, she was devastated by Reddington’s death, even had a second suicide attempt. She was in love w/ Reddington and also married to/lived with Kirk in Soviet Russia at the time Ilya/Red was stationed in Washington, so I really don’t see how tacking on a 3rd (long-distance) relationship would have fit her life or why. In this ep, they also stayed in separate hotel rooms, Ilya/Red knocked before trying to enter hers -- this behavior doesn’t match two people being in an established intimate relationship (even if it’s on-again, off-again) and I got the same vibe from Red’s POV in “Cape May”, too. Liz is his life and heart, the woman he loves, and after this latest episode, the parallel btw how Katarina and Red react to the death of the person they were in love with is clearer and stronger than ever. For Katarina it was real Reddington. For Red, it is Liz. And I am not even gonna get into the “my child is being raised by someone else” angle but it parallels, too: Katarina put a pin in her original “plan” and came back to make sure Liz was safe. Red did the same for Agnes.

Anyway, what we have in “Rassvet” is, imo, a blend of standard limited 3rd person narration + a curious (infuriating? depends on your perspective) case of an unreliable narrator, which resulted in 2/3 of the messages I got that range from “WTF did I just watch?” to “it doesn’t really add up” and “what about his family??” I don’t believe it’s supposed to add up (yet) and stuff is missing (for now) for a reason.

This ep taps into the signature style of previous flashbacks:

“Cape May” is Red’s distorted recollection filtered through a cocktail of opium, guilt, grief, and suicidal ideation

“Requiem” is Mr. Kaplan’s trip down memory lane that’s skewed by her severe physical/mental/emotional traumas

“Rassvet” is a classic story-inspired-by-true-events Dom tells his granddaughter

There is no objective record of past events presented to us in TBL. We never had that and we might never will. We have memories from sources that are compromised -- biased, altered, censored, redacted -- in various ways, and “narrators” who are unreliable for various reasons. In other words, we have stories and storytellers with agendas.

The lack of reliable omniscient narration becomes evident in “Rassvet” that fittingly revolves around the creation of an identity from a mix of hard facts and anecdotes -- “some true, grounded in reality, some invented” -- for a purpose that (imo) remains partially obscured. It is perfectly captured in both Red’s scene w/ Liz and his subsequent confrontation with our most recent storyteller, Dom: “I know the broad strokes, I know who I am. I need to know the details of exactly what you’ve thrown out there into the ether.”

Red used to be Ilya but the Ilya we see in this episode is Dom’s version -- idealized and incomplete, mostly to fit the story and Dom’s reasons for telling it. This is why Red needs to know what exactly has been said, imo. Liz has already told him the broad strokes and he is Ilya, but the details Dom used to color over things ended up painting a distorted picture that made Red twitch as he listened to Liz in that restaurant. “I know who I am”, he tells Dom but it sure seemed that he only recognized parts of himself in what Liz repeated back to him. The technicalities of him becoming Reddington were told. The whys and hows of his mental/emotional de-evolution are still unclear, imo. This is what Liz touches upon, as well, when she asks him why he stayed Reddington after his alleged original motivation (accessing the $40-million “frame fund” to use it to stay ahead of those hunting Katarina and him) was satisfied. And he naturally dodges her question.

Red detests monsters who masquerade as saviors. This was established at the very beginning when he demolished one of Liz’s idols, as was his view of himself as a violent, ruthless man and self-proclaimed monster who’s sick with guilt and grief and can only atone by protecting Liz. But now, thanks to Dom’s story, she has a skewed view of him as some selfless hero with the purest of original motivations. He was visibly uncomfortable when she believed him to be her father bc he is not that. He is uncomfortable to be perceived as her hero, too, bc he is not that, either, and he def does not see himself that way, either.

Red knows what we know and is angry about it: Dom omitted parts from his narrative and embellished or maybe even invented others. Dom blamed Red for Katarina’s death. He forgave her betrayal but not Red’s (which reminded me of Aram’s situation w/ Levi and Red’s reaction to it), and we have seen Red blaming himself, too, but that tragedy, the event necessitating a “Hobson’s choice” (either letting both Liz and Katarina die or saving one) is missing from the story. Dembe once told Red that Liz may never be ready to hear what he did to Katarina, but there is no trace of that in Dom’s story; it is all unconditional love and pure sacrifice. There is no trace of Red’s own family tragedy, either, but I still don’t believe any of this is forgotten or rewritten.

The former is likely omitted bc Dom’s “storytelling agenda” was to reconnect with Liz, smooth things over, and help everyone move forward. This motivation was floated in the previous episode via his carside chat w/ Red that’s all about the topic of forgiveness: “Why did she turn you in? What did you do that made her want to do that?” | “I haven't ever been totally forthright about myself. She thought she'd have a better chance of finding out more if I was in prison and couldn't interfere.” And it is brought to a conclusion -- on Dom’s part -- at the end of “Rassvet” when he tells Red: “What you need to do is to thank me for putting all of this behind you.” I think the story was Dom’s way of offering forgiveness to Red (a response to his “You forgave Katarina but not me” in the previous ep) and helping him move on. He believes he told Liz enough to give her closure, too. Red seems to disagree, claiming that this likely made things worse. He’s probably right and I cannot wait to see how it unfolds.

I think the other major omission -- that of Red’s family tragedy that’s been alluded to in earlier seasons -- is not in Dom’s story bc he doesn’t know about it. At least I had this feeling when Red showed up on Dom’s doorstep after Liz’s “death”. Dom acted like Red had never experienced the devastating loss of a family, saying sth along the lines of “You think now you know how I feel?!” If he knew about Red’s/Ilya’s wife and daughter, he never would have said that, imo. Also, Red was an operative and worked in the Ambassador’s Residence in D.C. that still housed the Soviet embassy in 1991. When he met younger Dom in Moscow, he greeted him by saying “Sir, it’s been too long.” So they were likely not in touch for a long time and Ilya/Red was stationed in the US for who knows how long and for what mission (it seems he was translating a report on a USA/USSR Maritime Boundary Agreement when Katarina’s crossword code popped up on the screen). This “blank period” gives us room for that missing story piece (which likely happened around/after 1987) and a plausible reason for Dom to not be aware of it.

Dom was not aware of the existence of the Cabal, either, until Katarina got caught up in their web, so I think it’s v likely that they were also responsible for killing Ilya/Red’s family, which -- coupled w/ wanting to protect Katarina -- would be a proper, plausible motivation for him to take on Reddington’s identity given that it provided him w/ something even better than $40 million: tangible access to the Cabal and the Fulcrum. The new identity brought the seed money and a stepping stone to launch his Odyssean mission.

[saturdayam]

Saturday AM Movie Review: SPIDERMAN: HOMECOMING

.So, let's just get this out of the way...SPIDERMAN: HOMECOMING IS EXCELLENT!

Seriously, it's much, much more than mere "good".

This is easily the Best SPIDERMAN movie EVER!

BEST MCU MOVIE? --- well, let's say it's in the top 3 or 4 but for many, it'll be the favorite.

It's literally re-watchable. Many, many times over.

I'm nearly 30hrs from a pre-screening ( the movie opens July 7th) and I'm just buzzing for the chance to see it again. That's a big deal cuz as a 40-something comic fan who has seen MANY COMICBOOK, SUPERHERO MOVIES -- I've found myself extremely jaded over the last few years. Special effects have given us so many possibilities that previously only comic books and animated productions could visualize. Imaginative new worlds and ideas that were the exclusive province of truly gifted animators, writers, and/or comic artists are now easily presented for the masses via a living, 3D cinematic expressions in movies and a rising number of TV shows.

But something has happened.

I noticed it when I went to a Licensing Executives-only screening of Peter Jackson's KING KONG (many years ago--- God, I'm getting old) and that was this emptiness. By emptiness, I mean....this lack of spark, personality, and/or life. Think Big Trouble in Little China, GHOSTBUSTERS (the original) and the original Superman. Those films have a personality and I remember watching that kick-ass foot catch by Jackson's Kong thinking "WOW - this wouldn't have happened with the 1970's or 30's version of Kong". On the other hand, I left that screening thinking the plot was contrived and characters were lame. It had the technical wizardry but little heart.

I think WB / DC COMICS DCEU is the modern day example of this. Clearly, Snyder's Superman is displaying his powers in ways that had never been seen on screen before. There are shots in MAN OF STEEL and BATMAN V SUPERMAN that are lifted straight from the comic books. That said, both of those movies have storylines and acting that are so...lukewarm (if not, straight juvenile) that the franchise is just getting decimated by Marvel Studios despite DC/WB having a damn near 30 years headstart on Marvel with successful film adaptations (Donner Superman and Burton's Batman) and the fact that Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman are the most popular superhero characters globally by a wide margin  

SPIDERMAN HOMECOMING could have fallen under the weight of franchise fatigue (this is the 7th Spiderman film in 17 years) and/or just the behemoth that Marvel has wrought on the global box office and yet this film does not suffer from the things that afflict so many effects-heavy cinematic spectacles. This film has so much charm and personality that it's just...amazing! A lot of the reason for that is the story and the focus on a YOUNG PETER PARKER. Another reason for that is for one of the most diverse and accurate portrayals of high school --- ever.

Now A LOT has been made about the diverse cast in this movie and it should never be a shock to fans of Saturday AM how many people in the GEEK space bring negative, bigoted views to comics and anime. To be clear, SPIDERMAN's cast is incredibly charming from top to bottom. Tom Holland's Peter Parker has a Queens accent, loves Legos, and has the perfect wide-eyed enthusiasm. I am in for this kid big-time. He has so much charm and earnestness and he's not trying to 'play the nerd' ala Maguire or be the lonely heartthrob ala Garfield. There are two scenes that really stand out to me - one when Peter screws up on the Ferry (from the trailers, great scene folks) and then another during his first actual moment with the Vulture (it's in a car and it will shock you) and his simple reactions to both moments are so well-acted and so perfectly rendered to the story that for me it cemented the idea that HOLLAND IS THE PERFECT SPIDERMAN!

His class/ school, however, is where the film truly shines. Laura Harrier plays Liz, Spiderman's crush while the famous Zendaya plays a character sure to pop up in future films named Michelle. That there are two female leads and they are both women of color is some Saturday AM level stuff! I mean it. The same arguments I've had about having a minority main character in a manga and the refrain (laughably from other minorities at that) "it would just be forced to add a person of color" as if it's NOT forced to add in white/ European looking characters into Japanese society or future worlds (ala Attack on Titan). I can only imagine that some Sony exec tried to pull the same stunt -- "Hey, you can't have two women in Spiderman that he likes or hangs out with be black!!!" As if Queens, NY is an all-white town. Now, not everyone works. I will say that Flash Thompson played by Tony Revolori seems miscast for reasons other than his skin color -- the lack of menace, the height all conspire to make him a jarring choice for being the well-known bully. That said, the diversity adds so much to this film because it feels REAL, RELATABLE to everyone. From the school principal to the deli owner to the kids in the hallway of Peter's school, seeing so many people of color just adds such texture to the world that Peter inhabits and makes the idea that this is the MCU from the street level surprisingly feel more accurate than Marvel's Netflix shows.

This point, is brought home by the gym teacher played by a hilariously deadpan, Hannibal Burres, adds some great comedy when he suggests the Captain America school videos (which has a great payoff later in the film) is inappropriate because he's probably a "war criminal, now" (thanks, CIVIL WAR). But this diversity message really applies to two characters who are CRUCIAL to the success of this new Spiderman film and series. First up, the VULTURE.

Now, I won't ruin the twist to this film but not only is it a solid one but it really sells the whole idea of this version of the B-grade Spiderman villain. From the first frame of the film, we learn what life is really like for the hard working folks in a THOR, IRON MAN led-MCU and how that may affect a potential villain like the Vulture. Keep in mind, we just elected TRUMP in the US -- so the idea of the people feeling desperate enough to do something crazy is something we should all be able to relate to. And that's where Michal Keaton's character really shines. His actions are logical and while he's the bad guy - you can see how different his life could have gone had he gotten luckier in life -- just like our little Peter Parker.

Likewise, his redesign is AWESOME! I genuinely loved this look. It was creative in its' associations with the Vulture motif while also being synonymous with this world of the MCU. You could see how it could be terrifying in its' own right. I've seen a few reviews where folks have lamented some of the action scenes and while I disagree wholeheartedly (the Washington monument and Boat Ferry were both spectacular and remind of the classic train scene from Spiderman 2) I DO understand the lack of thrill in the battles between Vulture and Spiderman. At this point, neither has really fought to the death against another super-powered character (Spidey's Civil War romp was like a field trip to Peter -- we come to learn) and thus the battles are perfectly thrilling, intimate affairs rather than spectacle IMO. This is a small film. The world is not at stake and in many ways, that's what makes these more precise action beats so strong.

 Peter is still a nerd. He can't talk to girls and he wants to do the right thing even though those actions usually cause him and his loved one's problems. In fact, his friends are still intrinsically a part of his life (as we all can attest to regarding our own high school lives). Ned (played with such charm by Jacob Batalon) is the breakout star of this film. The young, portly best friend dreams of being Peter's "guy in the chair" and thus gives the film something desperately needed in the world of the MCU. He allows Peter to simply relate to someone with his secret without lazily needing to have it tie into a love triangle between the original trilogies' Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) and the reboot's Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) and the Spiderman persona. That the character is also diverse and clearly brought over from the Miles Morales Spiderman comic (he shares more than a passing resemblance to that series 'best friend', Ganke) is one thing - that he's lovable and funny as hell - is everything to this film.

SPIDERMAN: HOMECOMING is fun, it's FUNNY, and it offers a different view of the Marvel Cinematic Universe that suggests that with CIVIL WAR, the original IRON MAN film and the GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY -- Marvel Studios can tell ANY type of superhero story. This is crucial because given the battles between DC, Marvel and many others (c'est la vie, TMNT / Transformers) it means that we don't have to worry that this genre of film will feel stale. Spiderman Homecoming proves you can do funny films with a lot of heart!

Saturday AM score: 5/5

[niobiumao3]

Extended Spider-man thoughts (spoilerz, scroll if you’re on mobile).

Amazing things:

Peter’s super awkward dorkiness throughout the whole film, like right up until the final moments.

THE CAP CLIPS. “Pretty sure he’s a war criminal now, but whatever.”

That Peter’s adult relationships weren’t just all about Tony; he was shown having a relationship with Happy and Aunt May as well. I’m actually sold on Happy as Peter’s sort of guardian now, instead of Tony. I like it more for 100000 reasons.

RDJ’s roll is actually super small, not much more than what you get in the trailer. Housemate referred to him as less a character and more a framing device.

Reference to Tony as war profiteer/defense contractor 10/10

They made an attempt to address some of the inherent issues with Blue Collar bad guy and although they don’t go in depth with it I think it worked great. IMO this is in part because Michael Keaton is fucking amazing and sorely underrated.

Speaking of Keaton, holy shit that reveal, lol.

Poor Liz. ;.; I’m glad they fleshed her out and talked about her motivations, and we see an actual interracial family loving one another and I actually liked that the villain’s motivation of wanting to protect his family and loving them so much he winds up making mistakes isn’t shown as his real fuckup; the fuckup is in, effectively, succumbing to his white privileged notion of ‘well since I want to protect what I love I can do that however I see fit, fuck it’. That was a good turn I thought. Loving his daughter and wife, both of whom were black, wasn’t his actual failing, in fact it’s used to effectively explore how people are put into bad positions and have to make hard choices and sometimes they make wrong ones.

Was Donald Glover’s ‘I have a nephew who lives in this neighborhood’ a Miles reference? I hope so.

The HS setting is part of why this movie works. It’s refreshing. It tries to talk about things like staying in school and how kids are forced to grow up too fast and so on, just like those old Hughes movies did, from a reasonable perspective.

Hey you know what else was refreshing? AN MCU FILM WHICH FUCKING REFERENCES THE REST OF THE MCU. Marvel Jesus Christ why did this take you so damned long. Oh right because Sony made this movie. :P (Housemate commented that Sony probably had a list of demands regarding making it clear this was an MCU film, and for once that resulted in pefect worldbuilding: talking about the Accords in History/Gov class, harvesting alien tech and controlling it, the Cap fitness challenge and detention videos…now if only they’d mentioned Grenwich in the science class ;.;)

Also I loved how Vulture wasn’t a dick to kids. Like, he meets Peter and he’s doing the joking dad thing but he’s straight up trying to be a nice dude to him. Vulture, new fave villain. He’s never shitty to anyone who isn’t shitty to him, especially not kids, and just…I get exhausted with the edgey OMG ALWAYS TEH VILLAIN sort of thing, you know?

The Zendaya-as-MJ reveal wasn’t a surprise to me, because Nolan did the same thing with Dick Grayson in Dark Knight Rises. I actually liked it, sort of like the Time gem in Dr. Strange, because it let the movie focus on something other than MJ and Peter. Instead, we can do that next movie, and give it (I hope…) a more proper focus. Here it would have been drowned in too many concerns, I think.

MJ AS SUPER HARDCORE PUNK NERD it was amazing I loved it.

Flash as SUPER HARDCORE NERD KID who was popular AND NOT WHITE.

The multiethnic and multiracial nature of the film in terms of its NY setting was great. NY felt much more like I hear people describe it, in terms of the neighborhoods and settings, etc., and wasn’t shown as this white monolith.

“I’m sure the Washington Monument wasn’t built by sl–er…okay well please enjoy your book.”

Things I am back and forth about:

They basically strip Peter’s actual powers down to super strength and endurance, super speed, and super senses. No web-making, no wall crawling sans suit (that I remember). [Edit: A-ha, actually he does get on the ceiling without the suit at least once, so they kept that, though didn't bother explaining it.] I find this interesting because it suggests once he’s a full adult he could easily stand toe to toe with, say, Cap or Bucky, probably even out-perform them. I’m not sure how I feel about that yet.

Things I did not like:

Needed more Zendaya. ;.;

The hot Aunt May jokes were dumb, like…I’m super conflicted here because I really like Tomei but why someone so young, why NOT go with a great aunt like the original story, that was the whole point. Also like, if you’re gonna go with white Peter Parker then having him be part of a multiracial family would have been a good thing to do so why not that? Why not a Latina or black or East Asian actress? So many options, none of them taken. Whyyyy iiiis sheeeee sooooo yoooounnng ugh it wasn’t necessary.

RDJ’s Tony felt super phoned in. You can tell he’s feeling done portraying Tony.

Pepper’s spot was so tiny and just, it felt more like a fanfic moment of WE’RE IGNORING THAT CIVIL WAR BREAKUP, WTF EVEN WAS THAT and while I completely applaud and appreciate the sentiment, seeing it come to life in a multi-million dollar movie was kinda kinda. How come she wasn’t sewn into the film?

I continue to squint at 20-30yos playing teens. Yes, there’s the alternative problem of teens being misused by Hollywood, but I really am feeling the notion that 25+ young women portraying 15-18yo girls enables the over sexualization of said girls in our real world.