#but the characters and story in the trilogy were leagues above

[spinsterssister]

i just finished mass effect andromeda and wow. what a ride. i’ve spent the past 4 months playing all of the mass effect games and damn, i get it, i get why everyone loves these games so much, i’ve had the best time. i already miss this universe and i can definitely see myself going back and playing the og trilogy again

[fabianocolucci]

Regarding the meta-narrative competition between the MCU and the DCEU

When it comes down to the two biggest comic book cinematic universes, there is no doubt that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is perceived as much bigger, more successful and more critically acclaimed than the DC Extended Universe.

Of course, there could be many reasons for that. The MCU came first, which gave the DCEU the aura of “you are merely an attempt to follow a successful franchise”, there isn’t a Kevin Feige-like figure who has supervised the DCEU from the start, one had set a path to follow through (leading up to Infinity War) while the other simply seems like a collection of movies that just share the same universe, and so on.

However, I have always felt like there is some narrative in how the people seem to enjoy that the MCU is more successful, even to the point of rooting for it.

You see, in the years before the first Iron Man movie premiered, Marvel had a lot of monetary issues, and they had to undergo through many choices in order to stay afloat. One of these choices was to sell the movie rights of their superheroes to various studios.

This is why, between 1998 and 2008, there have been more Marvel movies than ever before, since those studios obviously bought those rights in order to use them. The biggest heroes (X-Men, Fantastic Four and Spider-Man) had more than one movie, even though it was the Blade trilogy which technically kick-started everything.

As a result, when Marvel Studios was launched, they basically had to work with whatever superhero they could get the rights to. It was pure coincidence that some of these heroes (Iron Man, Captain America and Thor) were core members of the Avengers, which led to the plan of making movies about them, in order to lead towards their big team-up. Other heroes were considered to get a movie in that frame, such as Ant-Man and Shang-Chi, but they would only come in later.

This feels like a good story of someone hitting rock bottom and trying everything they could to not sink further, only for them to rise so high above that everyone wishes they could be like them.

DC, on the other hand, never had this issue, as it has always belonged to one movie studio (Warner Bros.), which means they never had to deal with “I can’t use this character in my movie because of their rights”. Sure, on their TV side, the story may be another one, with many cases like “you can’t put this character in your show because maybe we could be making a movie about them” (for instance, Wonder Woman never appeared on Smallville because they planned to make a movie about her. Said movie came out six years after Smallville, which ran for ten seasons, ended), but that’s something for another post, maybe.

As a result, they could bring in their big guns from the get go. In fact, while the MCU’s Phase One was all about introducing movie goers to the members of The Avengers, the DCEU first started with an origin story for Superman… before jumping straight into making a sequel where the Man of Steel literally fights Batman before teaming up with him and Wonder Woman, all while other important characters like Aquaman and The Flash make cameo appearances.

DC could do that because they didn’t feel the need to introduce Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman to moviegoers, since they are definitely more common and well known than, say, Iron Man before the 2008 movie.

Their cinematic universe felt like it was safe, to the point where they took its success so much for granted that, back in 2014, when they only had one movie released, they revealed their plan for the following six years, including not one but two Justice League movies. Not to mention, one of them was a Suicide Squad movie, which could have been felt as another gigantic power move, since, back then, MCU villains were criticised for how poorly they were developed, while DC had the ability to literally make them the stars.

Everything was set for the triumphant takeover of DC, which would have seen its shared universe become the bigger one.

And yet, what happened?

Well, Batman v. Superman “only” grossed 873 million Dollars. Mind you, this is by no means a failure, but, meanwhile, Captain America: Civil War, released a few weeks later, grossed about 300 millions more.

The first time DC’s biggest superheroes have met in live action did not outperform a movie where most of the main characters had been brought to mainstream audiences within the last 8 years, with the obvious exception of Spider-Man.

Many factors may have contributed, but that proved that the DCEU was not going to dethrone the MCU.

The subsequent movie, Suicide Squad, while managing to win an Academy Award, failed to please many critics and fans, and, while Wonder Woman was a much better film, it had the challenge of going against Spider-Man Homecoming, which managed to gross more once again.

On top of that, Justice League’s troubled production meant it was a box office bomb, compared to Thor Ragnarok. We’ve gotten to the point where the first silver screen iteration of the Justice League couldn’t even perform a team-up movie between Thor and the Hulk, whose previous solo movies are, to this day, still seen as weak spots within the MCU.

That, from a moviegoer perspective, seems like a form of justice, some sort of validation. The MCU had to earn its place among the big movie franchise. In order to have 10 of its films gross more than a billion Dollars, they actually had to flesh them out and develop them onscreen. In fact, only one movie out of those 10 featured a character that had not appeared anywhere else prior to that film, and that is Captain Marvel, and that was 11 years after the franchise had begun.

Seeing a company trying its best in order to stay afloat become this successful feels like the just triumph of blood, sweat and tears. Seeing its biggest rival, who wouldn’t even have to try so hard in standing in their place, fail seems like karmic retribution.

You may have noticed how much people enjoy seeing the DCEU not live up to its potential by how many videos and article about that pop put, especially when an MCU movie proves itself to be successful. Seriously, it’s as if people think “alright, Marvel is successful again, time to remind you of how much of a failure the DCEU is”.

And you know what? It seems like an interesting scenario to study and discuss about.

Of course, this is merely my opinion. I am curious, though: what do others think? Is there some sort of meta-narrative in how those two franchises are perceived? Let me know. Meanwhile, I head out.

[lol-jackles]

What do you think is making the dark knight trilogy a much more memorable film than the marvel films? Even after all these years, people still look back and praise those films.

The story: Every film has a story, but only few have a soul.  No comic or superhero film had really been as grounded in the real world as much as what The Dark Knight trilogy did.  The films was like a crime drama with interconnected numerous different action movie sub-genres; thrillers, crime films, heist movies, psychological thrillers, detective stories, and still somehow managed to respect them all and take their central plot conceits seriously and above all else, it’s main character Batman himself.  Batman works together with the police and DA Harvey Dent but it doesn’t feel like comic book schlock or character fan-service; it feels like a gritty cop story.  So much so that audiences were shocked when Dent became his villainous disfigured alter-ego.  You wouldn’t expect an important character from Lethal Weapon or Die Hard to become partially disfigured and lose his mind and wreak havoc on an already terrorized city.

This is why I’m super stoked about Matt Reeves’ upcoming Batman because he promised a neo-noir detective story.  Batman’s detective skills are generally unexplored or neglected in live action films so I really appreciate that the new  Batman movie is going the Sherlock Holmes route.  

Marvel is more about “stand back and be in awe of my action sequences''. That’s not a way to tell a story for contemporary pop culture heroes.

The legacy: So back to Nolen’s Dark Knight, the script and dialogue were quite human and the trilogy showed the personal side of Bruce Wayne without idolising him as a God while turning Batman’s ideals into a legend.  Nolen does not try to portray moments or creates scenes to show that Batman “demands” respect, rather, Bruce’s actions and his choices throughout the series evokes respect from us.   

The villians: Now we get to a point which typically makes or breaks a good action flick; the villain.  Just like Batman, the villains of the trilogy are also mortal human beings and their fight with Batman is philosophical.  The first villain  Ras Al Ghul was actually Bruce's mentor and when we got a look into the League of Shadows, we saw how easy it is to be corrupt.   

The Joker is the ultimate antagonist for Batman who believes that deep down everyone is good and innocent and Joker asks what's the meaning of innocence if it can be bought, it can be changed and even challenged.  Joker believes that even those people who are the best can be brought down to being ugly.  Most of the time Joker just gives choices to people and lets them decide.

Bane was the weakest villain because his and Talia’s motivations are not fleshed out enough to really discuss, and they don’t really make you think.   Nonetheless Bane was a good character because of his spiritual connection with Talia.  When Talia was born in prison, Bane found his purpose and a reason to live by protecting her. Bane never actually escaped from prison because he spiritually has not been able to rise above it and is still in prison.  Talia is a constant representation of hope out of darkness for Bane.  As long as he helps her, he is spiritually outside of that prison.  

Special effects:  The Dark Knight trilogy was shot on old-school production equipment with minimal CGI, yet it conveyed a lot in the shortest scenes. There’s depth in each and every scene in the films, something that I find missing from a lot of films in the MCU. There’s tons of CGI for a simple plot in the MCU and DCEU.

[ljones41]

"THE DARK KNIGHT RISES" (2012) Review

"THE DARK KNIGHT RISES" (2012) Review Seven years after it had begun, Christopher Nolan's three-movie saga about the D.C. Comics character, Batman, finally came to an end. The saga that began with 2005's "BATMAN BEGINS", ended with 2012's "THE DARK KNIGHT RISES".

The trilogy’s third film, set seven years after 2008's "THE DARK KNIGHT", began with the aerial kidnapping of a nuclear scientist by an escaped terrorist named Bane. The scene shifted to Gotham City, where a fund-raiser was being held at Wayne Manor. The only person missing was millionaire Bruce Wayne, who had given up his vigilante activities as Batman after claiming he had murdered former District Attorney Harvey Dent. During the fundraiser, Bruce caught a maid breaking into his private safe. She turned out to be a resourceful cat burglar named Selina Kyle. Aside from a necklace that once belonged to Bruce's late mother, Selina did not steal any other object from the safe. Curious over Selina's actions, Bruce resumed his Batman alter ego and tracked down Selina. He discovered that she had been hired by a rival corporate CEO named John Daggett to lift and steal his fingerprints. Bruce also learned that Daggett had hired the terrorist Bane to attack Gotham's stock exchange and bankrupt Wayne Enterprises. And along with Police Commissioner James Gordon and Wayne Enterprises executive Lucius Fox, Bruce also discovered that Bane was a former member of the League of Shadows and planned to continue Henri Ducard's (aka Ra's al Ghul) goal of Gotham City's destruction. Bruce asked fellow millionaire Miranda Tate to take control of Wayne Enterprises to ensure that Daggett and Bane will not gain control of their clean energy project, a device designed to harness fusion power. Re-reading the above made me realize that Christopher and Jonathan Nolan had created a very complicated plot. For me, the plot became even more complicated two-thirds into the movie. "THE DARK KNIGHT RISES" obviously exists under the shadow of its two predecessors - "BATMAN BEGINS" and "THE DARK KNIGHT". I would say that this especially seemed to be the case for the 2005 movie. Batman and James Gordon's decision to lie about the circumstances behind Harvey Dent's death in the second movie had a minor impact upon this third movie. But Bruce's relationship and later conflict with Ra's al Ghul seemed to be the driving force behind his conflict with Bane in this third film. I had heard rumors that Christopher Nolan was initially reluctant to make a third BATMAN movie. Personally, I found that rumor a bit hard to believe, considering how "THE DARK KNIGHT" ended with Batman accepting the blame for Harvey Dent's crimes and death. But there were certain aspects of the script he wrote with his brother Jonathan that made me wonder if he had truly been reluctant. There were certain aspects of "THE DARK KNIGHT RISES" that I found troubling. It seemed a pity that the second movie ended with Batman and Jim Gordon's decision to lie about the circumstances behind Dent's death. I found their decision annoying back in 2008 and I still do. The impact behind their lie proved to be hollow. It merely kept Batman off Gotham City's streets and led Mayor Anthony Garcia and the city to pass a strong anti-criminal law that proved to be hollow following Bane's arrival in Gotham City. I also found Bane's mid-air kidnapping of a nuclear scientist and escape from a U.S. marshal (portrayed by Aidan Gillen) rather somewhat idiotic. I understood that Bane needed that scientist to weaponize the Wayne Enterprise device.  But I never understood why that U.S. marshal failed to take the trouble to identify the hooded prisoner (Bane) before boarding the plane.  In the end, the movie's opening sequence struck struck me as unnecessarily showy. Was this the Nolan brothers' way of conveying Bane's role as a badass to the audience? If so, I was too busy trying to comprehend the villain's dialogue to care. I understood why Batman had not been seen in Gotham for so long. But what was the reason behind Bruce Wayne's disappearance from the public eye?  His physical state was not really that severe.  Rachel Dawes' death? Rachel's death did not stop him from going after the Joker and Harvey Dent in the last movie's half hour. Was it an injured leg? How did he injured it? And why did Gotham's citizens failed to put two-and-two together, when both Bruce and Batman finally appeared in the public eye a day or two apart after many years? The only person who managed to discover Bruce's alter ego - namely Officer John Blake - did so through a contrived reason. For me, the movie's real misstep proved to be Bane's three-month control over Gotham City. As a former member of Henri Ducard's League of Shadows, he planned to achieve his former leader's goal of destroying Gotham City. And he planned to use Wayne Enterprise's energy device to achieve this. One - why not simply build or snatch his own nuclear device? Why go through so much trouble to get his hands on the energy device? Why did Wayne Enterprises create a device that not only saved energy, but could be used as a bomb, as well? And why did it take three months before the device could become an effective bomb? The Nolans' script could have frustrated Bane's attempts to acquire the bomb during that three-month period . . . or anything to spare the audiences of that second-rate version of the French Resistance. The latter scenario seemed so riddled with bad writing that it would take another article to discuss it. And what was the point of the presence of Juno Temple's character Jen? What was she there for, other than being Selina's useless and cloying girlfriend? And Wayne Enterprises executive Lucius Fox was last seen declaring his intentions to leave the corporation for good, following Batman's misuse of cell phones in "THE DARK KNIGHT". In this movie, he is back, working for Wayne Enterprises. What made him change his mind? But not all was lost. I found Bruce's introduction to Selina Kyle very entertaining and sexy. Even better, the incident served as Batman's re-introduction to Gotham City and allowed him to discover Bane's plans regarding Wayne Enterprises and the energy device. One of the more interesting consequences of "THE DARK KNIGHT" proved to be Rachel Dawes' last letter to Bruce. Its revelation by Alfred Pennyworth after seven years led to an emotional quarrel between the millionaire and the manservant and their estrangement. At first, I had balked at the idea of Bane carrying out Ra's al Ghul's original goal to destroy Gotham. After all, why would he continue the plans of the very person who had him kicked out of the League of Shadows? But a surprising plot twist made Bane's plan plausible . . . even when I continue to have problems with his three-month occupation of Gotham. Many critics had lamented the lack of Heath Ledger's Joker in the movie. As much as I had appreciated and enjoyed Ledger's performance in the 2008 movie, I did not need or wanted him in "THE DARK KNIGHT RISES". Tom Hardy's performance as the terrorist Bane was good enough for me. Mind you, I found it difficult to understand some of his dialogue. And when I did, he sounded like the late Sean Connery. But I cannot deny that Bane made one scary villain, thanks to Hardy's performance and intimidating presence. Before I saw the movie, I never understood the need for Marion Cotillard's presence in the film. I thought her character, Miranda Tate, would merely be a bland love interest for Bruce. Not only did Cotillard ended up providing a subtle and intelligent performance from the actress, her Miranda Tate proved to be important to the story as the co-investor in the energy device and for the plot twist in the end. "THE DARK KNIGHT RISES" provided some solid performances from other members of the cast. Matthew Modine shined as the ambitious and arrogant Assistant Police Commissioner Peter Foley, who proved to be capable of character development. Another solid performance came from Brett Cullen, who portrayed a lustful congressman that had the bad luck to cross paths with Selina Kyle. Both Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman continued their excellent performances as Bruce Wayne's "heart" and "mind", manservant Alfred Pennyworth and Wayne Enterprises executive Lucius Fox. In the end, the movie was fortunate to benefit from four outstanding performances. One came from Gary Oldman's excellent portrayal of the now weary, yet determined police commissioner, James Gordon. His guilt over the Harvey Dent lie and discovery of Batman's true identity provided Oldman with some of his best moments in the trilogy. Another came from Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who was superb as Gotham City beat cop John Blake. The actor did a wonderful job of balancing Officer Blake's intelligence, passion for justice and disgust toward the bureaucracy. When I learned that Anne Hathaway would end up being the fifth actress to portray Selina Kyle aka Catwoman, I must admit that I had my doubts. Then I remembered that Hathaway was an Oscar nominee, who has also done action before. Watching her sexy, yet complicated performance as the complex cat burglar removed all of my doubts. She was superb and her sizzling screen chemistry with star Christian Bale made me wish Selina had been Bruce's love interest throughout the movie. Speaking of Bruce Wayne, Bale returned to portray the Caped Crusader for the third and final time. I must admit that I found his performance more subtle and complex than his performances in the previous two movies. Bale did an excellent job in re-creating a slightly aging Bruce Wayne/Batman, who found himself faced with a more formidable opponent. I was a little disappointed to see that "THE DARK KNIGHT RISES" lacked the Chicago exteriors of the 2008 movie. In the end, Gotham City resembled a collection of American and British cities. But I cannot deny that I found Wally Pfister's photography very eye catching. And Hans Zimmer's entertaining score brought back memories of his earlier work in both the 2005 and 2008 movies. I have a good deal of complaints about "THE DARK KNIGHT RISES". It is probably my least favorite entry in Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy. For me, the movie's main problem centered around the script written by Nolan and his brother Jonathan. But despite its flaws, the movie still managed to be both entertaining and intriguing. It also has an excellent cast led by the always superb Christian Bale. It was not perfect, but "THE DARK KNIGHT RISES" did entertain me.

[crowdvscritic]

round up // NOVEMBER 20

Hi, I’m tired. Actually, my friend Celeste created a piece of art that puts the emphasis needed on that sentiment:

I’m very tired. November felt like it was three years and also felt like it went by in a blink and also I’m not sure where October ended and November began—how does time work like that? (I’ve yet to see Tenet, but maybe that will explain it.) But like Michael Scott, somehow I manage, and lately it’s been like this:

Late-night Etsy scrolling. Browsing beautiful, non-big-box-store artwork is very calming just before I go to bed. I’d recommend Etsy stores like Celeste’s chr paperie shop, which I know from experience is full of great Christmas gift ideas. 

Taking a day off of work to do laundry. I’m not sure if it’s more #adulting that I did that or that I was excited to do that.

Eating Ghiradelli chocolate chips straight from the bag. I actually don’t recommend this as a healthy option, but this is also not a health blog.

Watching lots and lots of ‘80s movies. One day I’ll ask a therapist why this decade of films is so comforting for me despite its many flaws, but for now I’m just rolling with it.

Reading. Have you heard of this? It’s a form of entertainment but doesn’t require screens—wild!

Memes. All good Pippin “Fool of a” Took jokes are welcome here.

Leaning into the Christmas spirit by ordering that Starbucks peppermint mocha, making plans to watch everything in that TCM Christmas book I haven’t seen, and keeping the lights on my hot pink tinsel tree on all day as I work from home.

This month’s Round Up is full of stuff that made me smile and stuff that sucked me into its world—I think they’ll do the same for you, too.

November Crowd-Pleasers

Sister Act (1992)

If in four years you aren’t in an emotional state to watch election results roll in, I recommend watching Whoopi Goldberg pretend to be a nun for 100 minutes. (Though, incidentally, if you want to watch that clip edited to specifically depict how the results came in this year, you’ll need to watch Sister Act 2.) This musical-comedy is about as feel-good as it gets, meaning there’s no reason you should wait four more years to watch it. Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 7.5/10

Nevada Memes

Speaking of election results, Nevada memes. That’s it—that’s the tweet. Vulture has a round up of some of the best.

SNL Round Up

Laugh and enjoy!

“Cinema Classics: The Birds” (4605 with John Mulaney)

“Uncle Ben” (4606 with Dave Chappelle)

RoboCop (1987)

I’m not surprised I liked RoboCop, but I am surprised at why I liked RoboCop. Not only is this a boss action blockbuster, it’s an investigation into consumerism and the commodification of the human body. It’s also a critique of institutions that treat crime like statistics instead of actions done by people that impact people. That said, it’s also movie about a guy who’s fused with a robot and melts another guy’s face off with toxic sludge, so there’s a reason I’m not listing this under the Critic section. Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 8/10

Double Feature – ‘80s Comedies: National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983) + Major League (1989)

The ‘80s-palooza is in full swing! In Vacation (Crowd: 9.5/10 // Critic: 8/10), Chevy Chase just wants to spend time with his family on a vacation to Wally World, but wouldn’t you know it, Murphy’s Law kicks into gear as soon as the Griswold family shifts from out of Park. The brilliance of the movie is that every one of these terrible things is plausible, but the Griswolds create the biggest problems themselves. In Major League (Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 6.5/10), Tom Berenger, Charlie Sheen, and Wesley Snipes are Cleveland’s last hope for a winning baseball team. Like the Griswolds, mishaps and hijinks ensue in their attempt to prevent their greedy owner from moving the Indians to Miami, but the real win is this movie totally gets baseball fans. Like most ‘80s movies, not everything in this pair has aged well, but they brought some laughs when I needed them most.

This Time Next Year by Sophie Cousens (2020)

They’re born a minute apart in the same hospital, but they don’t meet until their 30th birthday on New Year’s Day. So, yes, it’s a little bit Serendipity, and it’s a little bit sappy, but those are both marks in this book’s favor. This Time Next Year is a time-hopping rom-com with lots of almost-meet-cutes that will have you laughing, believing in romantic twists of fate, and finding hope for the new year.

Double Feature – ‘80s Angsty Teens: Teen Wolf (1985) + Uncle Buck (1989)

In the ‘80s, Hollywood finally understood the angsty teen, and this pair of comedies isn’t interested in the melodrama earlier movies like Rebel Without a Cause were depicting. (I’d recommend Rebel, but not if you want to look back on your teen years with any sense of humor.) In Teen Wolf (Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 5/10), Michael J. Fox discovers he’s a werewolf.one that looks more like the kid in Jumanji than any other portrayal of a werewolf you’ve seen. It’s a plot so ‘80s and so bizarre you won’t believe this movie was greenlit.

In Uncle Buck (Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 7.5/10), John Candy is attempting to connect with the nieces and nephew he hasn’t seen in years, including one moody high schooler. (Plus, baby Gaby Hoffman and pre-Home Alone Macauley Culkin!) This is my second pick from one of my all-time fave filmmakers, John Hughes (along with National Lampoon’s Vacation, above), and it’s one more entry that balances heart and humor in a way only he could do. You can see where I rank this movie in Hughes’s pantheon on Letterboxd.

Lord of the Rings memes

This month on SO IT’S A SHOW?, Kyla and I revisited The Lord of the Rings, a trilogy we love almost as much as we love Gilmore Girls. You can listen to our episode about the series on your fave podcast app, and you can laugh through hundreds of memes like I did for “research” on Twitter.

Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson (2019)

Most adults are afraid of children’s temper tantrums, but can you imagine how terrified you’d be if they caught on fire in their fits of rage? That’s the premise of this novel, which begins when an aimless twentysomething becomes the nanny of a Tennessee politician’s twins who burst into flames when they get emotional. The book is filled with laugh-out-loud moments but never leaves behind the human emotion you need to make a magical realistic story.

An Officer and a Gentlemen (1982)

Speaking of aimless twentysomethings and emotion, feel free to laugh, cry, and swoon through this melodrama in the ‘80s canon. Richard Gere meanders his way into the Navy when he has nowhere else to go, and he tries to survive basic training, work through his family issues, and figure out his future as he also falls in love with Debra Winger. So, yeah, it’s a schamltzier version of Top Gun, but it’s schmaltz at its finest. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 7.5/10

November Critic Picks

Double Feature – ‘40s Amensia Romances: Random Harvest (1942) + The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)

Speaking of schmaltz at its finest, let me share a few more titles fitting that description. In Random Harvest (Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 8.5/10), Greer Garson falls in love with a veteran who can’t remember his life before he left for war. In The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 8.5/10), Gene Tierney discovers a ghost played by a crotchety Rex Harrison in her new home. Mild spoiler: Both feature amnesiac plot developments, and while amnesia has become a cliché in the long history of romance films, Harvest is moving enough and Mr. Muir is charming enough that you won’t roll your eyes. You can see these and more romances complicated by forced forgetfulness in this Letterboxd round up.

The African Queen (1951)

It’s Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn directed by John Huston—I mean, I don’t feel like I need to explain why this is a winner. Bogart (in his Oscar-winning role) and Hepburn star in a two-hander script, dominating the screen time except for a select few scenes with supporting cast. The pair fight for survival while cruising on a small boat called The African Queen during World War I (in Africa, natch), and the two make this small story feel grand and epic. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 9/10

Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)

A young man’s (Dennis Price) mother is disowned from their wealthy family because she marries for love. After her death, he seeks vengeance by killing all of the family members ahead of him in line to be the Duke D'Ascoyne. The twist? All of his victims are played by Sir Alec Guinness! Almost every character in this black comedy is a terrible person, so you won’t be too sorry to see them go—you can just enjoy the creative “accidents” he stages and stay in suspense on whether our “hero” gets his comeuppance. Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 8.5/10

Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife (1937)

What would you do if you found out you were to be someone’s eighth wife? Well, it’s probably not what Claudette Colbert does in this screwball comedy that reminds me a bit of Love Crazy. This isn’t the first time I’ve recommended Colbert, Gary Cooper, or Ernst Lubitsch films, so it’s no surprise these stars and this director can make magic together in this hilarious battle of the wills. Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 8.5/10

The Red Shoes (1948)

I love stories about the competition between your life and your art, and The Red Shoes makes that competition literal. Moira Shearer plays a ballerina who feels life is meaningless without dancing—then she falls in love. That’s an oversimplification of a rich character study and some of the most beautiful ballet on film, but I can’t do it justice in a short paragraph. Just watch (perhaps while you’re putting up your hot pink tinsel tree?) and soak in all the goodness. Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 10/10

The Third Man (1949)

Everybody loves to talk about Citizen Kane, and with the release of Mank on Netflix, it’s newsworthy again. But don’t miss this other ‘40s team up of Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles. Cotten is a writer digging for the truth of his friend’s (Welles) death in a mysterious car accident. Eyewitness accounts differ on what happened, and who was the third man at the scene only one witness remembers? 71 years later, this movie is still tense, and this actor pairing is still electric. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 9/10

The Untouchables (1987)

At the end of October, we lost Sean Connery. I looked back on his career first by writing a remembrance for ZekeFilm and then by watching The Untouchables. (In a perfect world I would’ve reversed that order, but c’est la vie.) In my last selection from the ‘80s, Connery and Kevin Costner attempt to convict Robert De Niro’s Al Capone of anything that will stick and end his reign of crime in Chicago. Directed by Brian De Palma and set to an Ennio Morricone soundtrack, this film is both an exciting action flick and an artistic achievement that we literally discussed in one of my college film classes. Connery won his Oscar, and K. Cos is giving one of the best of his career, too. Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 9.5/10

Remember the Night (1940)

Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck in my favorite team up yet! Double Indemnity may be the bona fide classic in the canon, but this Christmas story—with MacMurray as a district attorney prosecuting shoplifter Stanwyck— is a charmer. I’ve added it to my list of must-watch Christmas movies—watch for some holiday cheer and rom-com feels. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 8.5/10

Photo credits: chr paperie. Books my own. All others IMDb.com.

[timeless-hollywood-classics]

Joseph Evans Brown (July 28, 1891 – July 6, 1973) was an American actor and comedian, remembered for his amiable screen persona, comic timing, and enormous elastic-mouth smile. He was one of the most popular American comedians in the 1930s and 1940s, with films like A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935), Earthworm Tractors (1936), and Alibi Ike (1935). In his later career Brown starred in Some Like It Hot (1959), as Osgood Fielding III, in which he utters the film's famous punchline "Well, nobody's perfect."

Brown was born on July 28, 1891, in Holgate, Ohio, near Toledo, into a large family of Welsh descent. He spent most of his childhood in Toledo. In 1902, at the age of ten, he joined a troupe of circus tumblers known as the Five Marvelous Ashtons, who toured the country on both the circus and vaudeville circuits. Later he became a professional baseball player. Despite his skill, he declined an opportunity to sign with the New York Yankees to pursue his career as an entertainer. After three seasons he returned to the circus, then went into vaudeville and finally starred on Broadway. He gradually added comedy to his act, and transformed himself into a comedian. He moved to Broadway in the 1920s, first appearing in the musical comedy Jim Jam Jems.

In late 1928, Brown began making films, starting the next year with Warner Brothers. He quickly became a favorite with child audiences, and shot to stardom after appearing in the first all-color all-talking musical comedy On with the Show (1929). He starred in a number of lavish Technicolor musical comedies, including Sally (1929), Hold Everything (1930), Song of the West (1930), and Going Wild (1930). By 1931, Brown had become such a star that his name was billed above the title in the films in which he appeared.

He appeared in Fireman, Save My Child (1932), a comedy in which he played a member of the St. Louis Cardinals, and in Elmer, the Great (1933) with Patricia Ellis and Claire Dodd and Alibi Ike (1935) with Olivia de Havilland, in both of which he portrayed ballplayers with the Chicago Cubs.

In 1933 he starred in Son of a Sailor with Jean Muir and Thelma Todd. In 1934, Brown starred in A Very Honorable Guy with Alice White and Robert Barrat, in The Circus Clown again with Patricia Ellis and with Dorothy Burgess, and with Maxine Doyle in Six-Day Bike Rider.

Brown was one of the few vaudeville comedians to appear in a Shakespeare film; he played Francis Flute in the Max Reinhardt/William Dieterle film version of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935) and was highly praised for his performance. He starred in Polo Joe (1936) with Carol Hughes and Richard "Skeets" Gallagher, and in Sons o' Guns. In 1933 and 1936, he became one of the top 10 earners in films.

He left Warner Brothers to work for producer David L. Loew, starring in When's Your Birthday? (1937). In 1938, he starred in The Gladiator, a loose adaptation of Philip Gordon Wylie's 1930 novel Gladiator that influenced the creation of Superman. He gradually switched to making "B" pictures.

In 1939, Brown testified before the House Immigration Committee in support of a bill that would allow 20,000 German-Jewish refugee children into the U.S. He later adopted two refugee children.

At age 50 when the U.S. entered World War II, Brown was too old to enlist. Both of his biological sons served in the military during the war. In 1942, Captain Don E. Brown, was killed when his Douglas A-20 Havoc crashed near Palm Springs, California.

Even before the USO was organized, Brown spent a great deal of time traveling, at his own expense, to entertain troops in the South Pacific, including Guadalcanal, New Zealand and Australia, as well as the Caribbean and Alaska. He was the first to tour in this way and before Bob Hope made similar journeys. Brown also spent many nights working and meeting servicemen at the Hollywood Canteen. He wrote of his experiences entertaining the troops in his book Your Kids and Mine. On his return to the U.S., Brown brought sacks of letters, making sure they were delivered by the Post Office. He gave shows in all weather conditions, many in hospitals, sometimes doing his entire show for a single dying soldier. He signed autographs for everyone. For his services to morale, Brown became one of only two civilians to be awarded the Bronze Star during World War II.

His concern for the troops continued into the Korean War, as evidenced by a newsreel featuring his appeal for blood donations to aid the U.S. and UN troops there that was featured in the season 4 episode of M*A*S*H titled "Deluge".[5]

In 1948, he was awarded a Special Tony Award for his work in the touring company of Harvey.[1][6]

He had a cameo appearance in Around the World in 80 Days (1956), as the Fort Kearney stationmaster talking to Fogg (David Niven) and his entourage in a small town in Nebraska. In the similarly epic film It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), he had a cameo as a union official giving a speech at a construction site in the climactic scene. On television, he was the mystery guest on What's My Line? during the episode on January 11, 1953.

His best known postwar role was that of aging millionaire Osgood Fielding III in Billy Wilder's 1959 comedy Some Like It Hot. Fielding falls for Daphne (Jerry), played by Jack Lemmon in drag; at the end of the film, Lemmon takes off his wig and reveals to Brown that he is a man, to which Brown responds "Well, nobody's perfect", one of the more celebrated punchlines in film.

Another of his notable postwar roles was that of Cap'n Andy Hawks in MGM's 1951 remake of Show Boat, a role that he reprised onstage in the 1961 New York City Center revival of the musical and on tour. Brown performed several dance routines in the film, and famed choreographer Gower Champion appeared along with first wife Marge. Brown's final film appearance was in The Comedy of Terrors (1964).

Brown was a sports enthusiast, both in film and personally. Some of his best films were the "baseball trilogy" which consisted of Fireman, Save My Child (1932), Elmer, the Great (1933) and Alibi Ike (1935). He was a television and radio broadcaster for the New York Yankees in 1953. His son Joe L. Brown became the general manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates for more than 20 years. Brown spent Ty Cobb's last days with him, discussing his life.

Brown's sports enthusiasm also led to him becoming the first president of PONY Baseball and Softball (at the time named Pony League) when the organization was incorporated in 1953. He continued in the post until late 1964, when he retired. Later he traveled additional thousands of miles telling the story of PONY League, hoping to interest adults in organizing baseball programs for young people. He was a fan of thoroughbred horse racing, a regular at the racetracks in Del Mar and Santa Anita.

Brown was caricatured in the Disney cartoons Mickey's Gala Premiere (1933), Mother Goose Goes Hollywood (1938), and The Autograph Hound (1939); all contain a scene in which he is seen laughing so loud that his mouth opens extremely wide. According to the official biography Daws Butler: Characters Actor, Daws Butler used Joe E. Brown as inspiration for the voices of two Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters: Lippy the Lion (1962) and Peter Potamus (1963–1966).

He also starred in his own comic strip in the British comic Film Fun between 1933 and 1953

Brown married Kathryn Francis McGraw in 1915. The marriage lasted until his death in 1973. The couple had four children: two sons, Don Evan Brown (December 25, 1916 – October 8, 1942; Captain in the United States Army Air Force, who was killed in the crash of an A-20B Havoc bomber while serving as a ferry pilot)[8] and Joe LeRoy "Joe L." Brown (September 1, 1918 – August 15, 2010), and two daughters, Mary Katherine Ann (b. 1930) and Kathryn Francis (b. 1934). Both daughters were adopted as infants.

Joe L. Brown shared his father's love of baseball, serving as general manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1955 to 1976, and briefly in 1985, also building the 1960 and 1971 World Series champions. Brown's '71 Pirates featured baseball's first all-black starting nine.

Brown began having heart problems in 1968 after suffering a severe heart attack, and underwent cardiac surgery. He died from arteriosclerosis on July 6, 1973 at his home in Brentwood, California, three weeks before his 82nd birthday. He is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.

For his contributions to the film industry, Brown was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960 with a motion pictures star located at 1680 Vine Street.

In 1961, Bowling Green State University renamed the theatre in which Brown appeared in Harvey in the 1950s as the Joe E. Brown Theatre. It was closed in 2011.

Holgate, Ohio, his birthplace, has a street named Joe E. Brown Avenue. Toledo, Ohio has a city park named Joe E. Brown Park at 150 West Oakland Street.

Rose Naftalin's popular 1975 cookbook includes a cookie named the Joe E. Brown.[14][15] Brown was a frequent customer of Naftalin's Toledo restaurant.

Flatrock Brewing Company in Napoleon, Ohio offers several brown ales such as Joe E. Coffee And Vanilla Bean Brown Ale, Joe E. Brown Hazelnut, Chocolate Peanut Butter Joe E. Brown, Joe E Brown Chocolate Pumpkin, and Joe E. (Brown Ale).

[aion-rsa]

Zack Snyder’s Justice League: Joker Epilogue Explained

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This Zack Snyder’s Justice League article contains spoilers.

Despite the heroes’ best efforts throughout the four-hour epic, Zack Snyder’s Justice League still ends in scorched earth, with Darkseid’s forces decimating whatever’s left of the planet’s surface, turning it into a wasteland. Even after defeating Steppenwolf and preventing the disaster of Unity, it’s still not enough to stop what’s been coming to Snyder’s version of the DCEU since Bruce had his first “Knightmare” in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Or so it seems in an almost 10-minute-long epilogue, which includes a cameo from Jared Leto’s Joker especially shot for the Snyder Cut.

Joker’s inclusion in the movie might seem jarring to some, considering he has no bearing on the actual story being told for most of the film’s runtime. In fact, you could pretty much skip the epilogue completely and not lose much of the experience if you’re only watching for the main plot. That said, the tense conversation between Batman and Joker — as they look upon what Darkseid’s wrought on their planet — does raise some interesting questions as to what might be next for these archnemeses were Snyder to get yet another shot at the DCEU.

Ironically, Snyder actually shot the brand-new footage for Leto specifically because he thought he’d never get another chance to work with these characters. The director “couldn’t leave this universe without having a Joker/Batman scene,” according to producer Deborah Snyder in an interview with CBR. But shooting the scene in the middle of a pandemic was tricky: it involved sending a truck full of costumes to Leto’s house, who would then try them on for the director during Zoom calls to see what worked. According to Deborah, “there was a lot of Zooming and photos and things like that, but so much thought went into creating the character.”

This might explain why the “Joker Christ” look — a version of the villain wearing a crown of thorns featured in a Vanity Fair article — didn’t actually appear in the movie. It was likely one of the costume ideas that were nixed before filming. Something similar happened with Leto’s now-infamous “We live in a society” line in one of the trailers for the Snyder Cut, which the director says was ad-libbed by Leto himself while filming the epilogue. As you now know, that line is nowhere to be found in the scene, either.

So, what did make it into the epilogue? How did Snyder use his final chance to have these versions of Batman and Joker meet in a DCEU movie?

The Batman/Joker History

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For one thing, Snyder touches on some very familiar elements of their dynamic. Like with past iterations of this relationship, Ben Affleck’s Dark Knight and Leto’s Joker are truly inseparable. Even when faced with the end of the world, when all bets are off and the rules no longer apply, the hero and the villain still decide to team up instead of settling the score once and for all. Joker is especially cognizant of their connection, mentioning how Batman created him and how his beloved Bat now needs him to undo what Darkseid did, even though it’s unclear just what the clown can do against such insurmountable, cosmic odds.

Bruce’s threat that he’ll eventually kill Joker is a particularly weak one when he’s also welcomed the Clown Prince of Crime onto his team, and equipped him with a bulletproof vest and an assault rifle no less. Their tense back and forth in this scene is just another section of their eternal dance, even as the Joker dares Batman to kill him. But if Bats were to give in to the temptation and end the clown’s life, who would be there to give him a reach–

Harley Quinn is Dead

We learn a few other things from their brief conversation (and one has to wonder why they’ve decided to do this in the open where they can be spotted by Darkseid’s parademons or Evil Superman): Harley Quinn has died in this possible future, but not before expressing her true hatred for Mr. J. Whether it was always the plan for Harley to break away from her insane beau in time for Birds of Prey or Snyder was trying to connect the dots after the fact is unclear. But her death is clearly a particularly sore spot for Joker, who for a second seems to want to break his own proposed truce and take a shot at the Batman.

“You’re good,” Joker finally says when he regains his cool, realizing the Dark Knight wants the clown to give him a reason to put him down for good. Self-defense ain’t the same as murder in the Snyderverse, right?

The Death of Robin

Robin’s death is finally addressed with one of the coldest lines in the entire epilogue: “I’m happy to discuss in any way you like, why you sent a Boy Wonder to do a man’s job?” the Joker asks Batman. This is in reference to a couple of things. The vandalized Robin suit displayed in the Batcave is a stark reminder of what is likely Bruce’s biggest failure in this universe, but we’ve never actually learned how the Boy Wonder died despite the references to the meteoric death sprinkled across Snyder’s earlier DCEU work. We know the clown did it but not how (perhaps for the best) or the events that led up to Robin’s death.

Read more

Movies

Zack Snyder’s Justice League Ending Explained: The Sequels and DCEU We Never Saw

By Mike Cecchini

Movies

Zack Snyder Wanted to Make a Batman vs. Joker Movie After Justice League

By Mike Cecchini

But that single line of dialogue delivered by the Joker suggests that some version of the 1988 comic book storyline “Death in the Family” has happened in this universe. In those comics, Robin (the second one, Jason Todd) goes off on his own to find his biological mother against Batman’s wishes, and instead comes face to face with the Joker, who murders him in extremely gruesome fashion. It’s a death that haunts Bruce as much as the deaths of his parents, which Leto’s Joker also references, along with Batman’s real name.

Batman Must Die

Most importantly, the epilogue seems to exist so that the Joker can plant a seed in Batman’s head: only his own self-sacrifice will be enough to stop Darkseid once and for all. This is a storyline that Snyder had planned to explore further in future Justice League sequels, a proposed trilogy that would have culminated with the Dark Knight’s death and the rise of a new Caped Crusader.

It’s unlikely that we’ll ever see this trilogy now that Snyder and the DCEU are parting ways, but the epilogue leaves the road clear for a sequel nonetheless, with Joker alluding to a time-travel plot that would involve Batman’s new crew going back in time to undo Lois Lane’s death and Superman’s villainous turn.

The DC Comics Inspirations

This is hardly the first time the Dark Knight and the Clown Prince of Crime have joined forces to fight a greater evil. Most recently, they’ve teamed up in the DC comics by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo, particularly in Dark Nights: Metal and Last Knight on Earth, post-apocalyptic stories set in nightmarish wastelands that the director might have at least skimmed while writing this epilogue. In both of these stories, Joker is a key part of Batman’s ultimate victory. In Last Knight on Earth, Joker even finally become’s his “best friend”‘s sidekick.

But in terms of what inspired the grungier look of Justice League‘s Joker, it seems that the filmmaker and Leto went back to the Grant Morrison era of the character for inspiration. Just as Morrison and Tony Daniel’s “reborn” Joker was a clear influence on Leto’s get-up in Suicide Squad, the jarring butcher (?) costume worn by the clown in the epilogue might have been inspired by a similar look introduced in Morrison’s Batman and Robin series (above). Either way, it’s a very odd fashion choice when you’re about to go fight a New God, but then again, Joker isn’t exactly your average dresser.

With this Batman and Joker scene, Snyder reaffirms his love for these characters. Regardless of whether you find his take on their relationship worthy or not, it’s impossible to deny Snyder’s attention to detail when crafting his final DCEU scene, one full of references to Batman and the Joker’s past as well as their potential future. In his own divisive way, Snyder writes a love letter to these characters and goes out with a smile.

The post Zack Snyder’s Justice League: Joker Epilogue Explained appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[popculturebuffet]

The Color of Friendship Review (Commissioned by WeirdKev27): A World of People

Happy Black History Month! Another day, another comission from longtime supporter of the blog Weird Kev and like a good chunk of his-non duck asks, he asked me for something outside my usual wheelhouse. In the past this has meant an episode of the short lived fox show whoops in which we found out how Santa dealt with the end of the world, didn’t know how doors worked, and interacted with some characters so thin you could remake the episode with just Mick Foley in a santa suit and carboard cutouts playing the characters lines and it’d be about the same, and earlier this month Sorry Wrong Meeting, an episode of a sitcom i’d never seen an episode of the Jeffersons about the KKK. So unsuprisingly his big comission for Black History Month was the 2000 Disney Channel Original Movie, The Color of Friendship. 

I couldn’t find much on the making of the film, which dosen’t entirely suprise me as at the time this came out, Disney was releasing around 10 a year and whlie that stopped shortly, it still was a whopping 6 a year for some time, ocasionally more ocasionaly less, slowly dwindling down to the two of year we have now. Though it’s still an ongoing concern and has been since the channel started in 83, closing in on 40 years ago, so it’s still impressive Disney hasn’t just outright phased them out. Then again the popular ones make them a lot of money and some like High School Musical and the Descendants Trilogies have broken out so big they’ve lead to spinoff books, tv series in the latter’s case, and all that stuff making them money hand over fist. So making some cheap movies that MIGHT end up making them rich and usually star people that are already on shows they have or were at one point is a no loose proposition, especially now they add an extra release to the Disney Plus callender twice a year. And while the library has it’s gaps and i’ve griped about them enough.. I will say it’s stil la damn good library and it’s nice to be able to watch a film like this, as the dvd was LONG out of print and likely horribly expensive, and while renting it was an option, it would’ve chipped into what I got commissioned for the film. Still would’ve done it it just would’ve sucked to loose money on the deal, if only two bucks, for something I had no control over. Still would do that over adding it onto the comission fee. Point is stuff that’s not been easy to get for some time is now just a few clicks or taps of the remote away, and having the VAST majority of disney’s long and storied history from theatrical to dcom to weird tv oddities like.. this thing

I don’t know what Fuzzbucket is, and frankly I don’t want to know.. I mean I will for a comission or something but i’m not going to go out of my way to find out what that thing is and if it can give me scabies through a telvision screen despite being fictional and proabably long dead. At least I tell myself it’s long dead so ic an sleep at night without worrying about that thing breaking into my house and watchnig me while I sleep changing “SOON JACOB, SOON”. So yeah while you’ll hear me complain about the gaps in DIsney Plus’ library a lot on this blog. 

I will give credit where it’s due, and what is on there is pretty expansive and now includes the Muppet Show, which I give them full credit for as that probably took a LOT of work and money to make happen. Plus WandaVision is fucking fantastic, especially now i’m finally all caught up. 

But while as I said I couldn’t find much on the making of the film I did find a bit on it’s inspiration: It was inspried by a short story wrtten by Piper Dellums, a writer, poet and activist, and daughter of Ron Dellums. Dellums is a notable congressman who fought against apartheid and constantly fought for a bill to divest from South Africa, something that SHOCKINGLY, Ronald Regan tried to veto because he was a racist disney anamatronic what did you expect, and all in all seemed pretty awesome. He sued Bush SR to try and prevent Desert Storm, in his earliest days in office had an exibit near his phsyical office of vietnam war crimes to try and hold them acountable and in general seems to be a fascenating, hardworking man who constantly and religiously fought for the people and against war. 

The story was a real life account of the Piper’s experince housing a South African Student, Marie, who the Delums Family expected to be black.. but turned out ot be white. During Apartheid, south africas racist as hell and horrifying goverment system of segregation that wasn’t abolished till the 90′s. As expected she was racist, but as a proudct of the horribly racist country she came from and much like with her fictional counterpart in this film, slowly grew to realize how fucked up her homeland was and by the time she went back, became an activist She and Piper were very close but her story ends tragically as eventually Piper stopped hearing from her after she was arrested and despite attempts to talk to her.. it was clear by the silence, and by the fact Piper visited South Africa post-aparthied to help and likely would’ve seen her.. that she was likely quitely killed by the state. But her story thankfully lives on, so join me under the cut to see how a 20 year old disney movie aired during black history month handles this difficult real life story, racisim and the 70′s. 

The Cast: Quick bit about the cast since I usually do this for first episodes of an animated show and wish i’d done so for my other film reviews so far. Though to keep things simple, i’m only doing the main four cast members, especailly since frankly outside of Mahree’s parents the rest are more supporting roles that don’t have a lot of screen time and in hte case of the south african embassy workers, are just there to be racist card board cutout villians.  Piper, who keeps her name from real life is played by Shadia Simmons, who eventually retired from acting to become a High School and Acting Teacher. During her career she was in a bunch of Disney Channel Original Movies, including the first two Zenon Movies, and was in a major role in a bunch of live action childrens shows: I Was A Sizth Grade Alien, Strange Days at Blake Holsely High, and Life with Derek, the only one of which i’ve seen and even then barely so I can’t comment on the rest of her work. Simmons does a decent job in the film, and does shine in the more dramtic scenes, not the best part of it but certainly not bad at all. 

Lindsay Haun plays Mahree, and had more of an acting career after this one, having a small recurring role on True Blood as Hadley, while also directing some smaller films. Haun is easily one of the two highlights of the movie and the best of the two main tween actresses by a mile. More on that in a bit. 

Next we have Carl Fucking Lumbly as Congressman Ron Dellums. Carl has had a long and storied career and the fucking is because of what I best know him from: Playing the Martian Manhunter Jon Jonzz on Justice League. And let me not undersell it: his version of Jon is waht made me LOVE the character, still do to this day, being the first time I encountered any version of Jon and the one I still love the most, a stoic man who tries to adapt to a world he feels he can never be a part of, adding shades to his stitled demeanour to show off his emtitons and in general being the heart and soul of what made this verison work and made me love the character with his performance. He’s done other stuff too including Cagney and Lacey, Doctor Sleepand what have you.. but he’ll always be Jonn to me and that’s not a bad thing in the slightest. Unsuprisingly he’s the other standout here. 

Finally we have Penny Johnson as Ron’s wife and Piper’s Mother Roscoe,  who played Captain Sisko’s love intrest on Deep Space 9 and was one of the leads on castle. Haven’t seen either of those but she does seem awesome and does a terrific job here. 

Moving on to the film itself.. it’s really fantastic. It has some awkwardness and goofy bollocks as you’d expect from a disney channel original movie in 2000, but it handles a really heavy subject, race relations, gracefully and clearly with the goal of educating an audience with a lot of white kids in it about race. So I can praise what it does right i’m going to be handling the parts that are a bit wobbly first so I can get to the good stuff

Awkwardness and Goofy Bollocks:

First the out and out criticism: The films TV Movie roots show in places, as this film lacks the polish these films would have later this decade, with the film barely having an opening title sequence and just sorta throwing you in, though to their credit it does open with the utterly awesome Back in Love Again, because 70′s. 

That slaps and that’s an undeniable fact. What’s also an undenaible fact is the film dosen’t try the hardest to be very 70′s in it’s sets and what not, though it does do it a little with the clothes and that not being the case with Mahree is intentional, as her family while wealthy is from another culture and one literally and metaphorically behind the times. 

I will also say Shadia Simmons is a decent actress, but is mildly weak in comparison to the other 3 in the leads, but its more the result of putting a pretty standard child sitcom actress up against two experinced actors who know what their doing and one whose about as experinced as her, but simply has a LOT to work with and goes above and beyond. It’s less that she’s bad and more that she’s simply not as good as what’s around her, and in general I tend to go easier on child actors since it’s not an easy job for a grown adult much less a teenager, it’s very pressurey and there’s a reason a LOT of them bottom out as they get older or retire all together. 

I will say though that Piper’s brothers are awful and I feel are only there because she actually had brothers. The actors try, i’m not pinning this on them but writing wise their just two little shits who contirbute ntohing of value to any scene their in, being generally way to young to get into the heavy topic at hand, and mostly being there for unfunny shneanigans. They aren’t in the film too much otherwise they might’ve ruined it for me, but if Shadia struggles a bit agianst sttronge perofrmances imagine who younger actors with the stage direction “Be the bane of my existence” and you’ll MAYBE see the problem. 

The film also loves cheesy time passing montages, including an actual factual shopping montage, easily the goofiest, but it’s something you’d expect from a dcom and helps lighten the mood. That’s a running theme outside the brothers there really isn’t anything too silly.. until the last act.  See in the last act, the film tackles the real life death of Steve Biko, a South African activist against apartheid who was captured by the state and very transparently murdered in jail. with the government claming he killed himself which no one bought because why would they, and it sparked riots worldwide and finally got the US to take Apartheid seriously according to the film. Though as I mentioned earlier Regan did not in case you thought the republican party being terrible and deeply racist was a brand new thing. It was not. Guys like Tucker Carlson and Former President Trump are a symptom, not the disease.. though they certainly look and feel like some form of plauge. Point is Mahree is breifly taken by the embassy.. whose staff who take her feel like the Disney Channel Original Movie form of Nazi’s. The heavy accents, the way they compose themselves... I half expect an elderly indiana jones to show up to whip the piss out of them. And dont’ get me wrong, the only diffrence between these pricks and a nazi is the fact they don’t call themselves nazis, this isn’t a nuanced horrifying racist to be scared of but a saturday morning cartoon version. 

While  white supremacists in real life can be cartoonishly evil, again see trump and carlson, it does kind of undercut the seriousness and nuance of things to have your villians be cold, cackling cutouts who are 5 seconds away from saying “You are part of the rebel alliance and a traitor take her away” to our heroine, especailly since Mahree’s reaction to being taken away and confusion at everything and at being treated like a prisoner by her own people are very painful and very well acted.   I do get showing them as monsters, because they were, but given Mahree’s father who as a south african police man was DEFINTELY ONE and even outside his racisim doubts and downtalks his own daughter, still feels like an actual person, if not a GOOD person, they could’ve done better and did in the same film. 

But that stuff aside.. I really can’t find much that’s honestly that silly or bad and as you can tell what little I did was more a product of being a tv movie. So now i’ve got the negatives out of the way

This Film Is Pretty Good: It truly is, for a lot of reasons. But the biggest is the nuance. It could’ve been easy to just have Maree as some racist kid needing to learn a lesson who was openly cruel and easy to jeer at.. but the film went iwth the reality: that she was instead an extremley privlaged and insulated girl who simply NEVER knew better. To her her very racist and segregated world is just the way the world worked for her and she dosen’t even consider when the Dellums come to pick her up minus Ron these aren’t servants and her own servant’s words fall on deaf ears, as the poor woman tries to make it clear how miserable her life is and how much she deseprately wants this child to do better. Marhee is never actively malicious even when, due to the shock of her all black host family, she baricades herself in Piper’s room. It’s obnoxious sure and CERTAINLY hurtful and the film makes no bones about it and Piper rightfully calls her out on it. The film dosen’t let her get away with any intetnional racisim like that and after Piper calls her out, she realizes she’s been selifsh and makes a genuine effort. And even then the film makes a good choice in not making it an easy road to realization. Mahree makes a genuine effort in the first place not because of any big revelation or anything, but because she simply hears her dad in her head telling her she’d give up after a week and that, coupled with Piper’s words, makes her see herself as a selfish brat. Even after she’s floored by a mall where black and white people stand side by side aand casually talks about horrors like ID Cards like i’ts a GOOD thing, because that’s what she’s been taught by her dad. That black people are happy being told where they can and can’t go when no they weren’t they simply had no chocie in the matter. And while we do see early on when an asshole at a restraunt assaults a waiter for an accident that Mahree clearly isn’t okay with the more horrifying side of things, she still dosen’t quite grasp WHY that happened, simply that it’s something that does reguarly she dosen’t like. It’s excellently, and unsuprisingly called back when they visit an ice cream place in the states and something similar happens.. but the guy takes it in stride, even ordering a sundae, to Maree’s confusion. 

It’s what makes the film work and all the more striking: As Roscoe makes clear to Ron, whose admant about nto having a racist in the house, this is not her fault. While the film makes it clear Mahree’s behavior at first was not okay and her prejudiece is not okay, it also makes it VERY clear she’s a product of a terrible system and terrible parenting from people who choose to benneift from the system instead of challenge it. She’s only like this because she hasn’t had a reason to ever think diffrent and just took her parents at face value and no mater the country, this is something that sadly happens far too often: Someone hating a group or thinking discrimination is okay because that’s how they were taught and that’s all they’ve known and the only way to change that is to challenge that opinon and try to get them to have some empathy and see the other way and as this film shows it’s a struggle.. and at the end of the day while the Dellums make a concentrated effort, Maree is the one who has to realize what her parents taught her is bad and her country is inherently flawed and NEEDS to change, just like ours did, and STILL badly needs to. 

And that’s where the nuance kicks in as the good congressman is understandable in not wanting a racist in his house... but his wife is equally right that Maree is not some easy symbol of his hatred towards south africa, but a girl who grew up knowing nothing more than the fucked up system, and eventually he comes around, realizing , especially after she apologizes for him even thinking she’d use a racial slur on piper after a very powerful conversation with the two and piper accidently saying she used the South African N Word, almost accidently getting her friend thrown out, that she simply hasn’t been outside her shell and gently guides her to keep reading roots, even letting her take it with her if she wants back home. The film shows the full pain of the situation  but also shows change is posisble. Again it’s not easy, Mahree has a panic attack waiting in an almost all black line in school and it’s shown to be as horrible a thought as it is., but she DOES change and it comes off as real, as someone realizing the system they grew up with is broken and needs to be fixed and she can’t just sit back and let it. 

What makes this happen, besides the aformentioned kidnapping by saturday morning cartoon racists, is Piper confronting her after a friend from south africa forces Piper to acccept that while her and Mahree are friends, Mahree might not seee her as equal and Piper in turn in a heated argument and easily Simmons best performance of the film, that things are broken and wrong and that her “firend”, her nanny/servant back home, is not happy. It leaves Mahree crying and Ron telling her the honest truth: Change was, and again still is but this was 2000 and while we should’ve had this talk disney channel wasn’t ready for it, needed to make things better here.. and tha’ts what south african’s doing> Fighting for equal rights at last. It’s some powerful, heavy as hell stuff you woudln’t expect from a line of movie that also include a robot house, before that was an actual thing, a merMAN dad MerMan, a boy slowly turning into a leprechaun, and at least two diffrent movies centering around wacky kidnappings. It’s a nuanced and hard look at race, as hard as late 90′s jsut turned into the 2000′s disney could get mind, aimed at kids and the film, whiel stilted really has my utter praise. It’s genuinely moving, well acted and teaches a valuable message that while not eveyrone can change.. it dosen’t hurt to try and help them, as well as the equal message that change start with YOU. someone has to WANT to be better and learn and actually let other people in to help them. And I wont’ lie and say this is the most naunced or subtle film.. at time’s it’s about as subtle as a ralph wiggum throught he window

But sometimes you don’t need to be. It also taught kids about apartheid, not me as I barely saw the film, but many learned of something ghoulsih that had barely ended at the time of the film’s release, something I only learned about as a teen via bloom county and a diffrent world, which has an utterly awesome apartheid episode “A World Alike”. Seriously check it out if you have prime, as it shows that america isn’t the only country with a deep history of ingraned racisim. And was it an easy way to have an anti racisim narriative without fully confronting america’s own racist history? Yup. Just.. yup. Can I blame Disney Channel for it when they clearly, while equipped to tackle racisim, weren’t ready to tackle something that dense or heavy, and while Proud Family later would there’s a diffrence between a 20 minute one off episode of a cartoon and 90 minutes of film? Yeah. For what it is and for what the time period is, I applaud this film taking on such a heavy topic with grace. Some goofyiness here and there yes and some lack of subtly.. but still grace. For what it is is, it’s pretty good and i hope to show it to my nieces one day soon. It has i’ts heart in the right place and thus has a place in my heart. See you next rainbow. 

[recentanimenews]

ESSAY: How Does My Hero Academia Fit Into Global Superhero Culture?

  In 1989, Batman became the first film to make over $40 million in its opening weekend. In 2002, Spider-Man became the first film to make over $100 million in its opening weekend. In 2007, Spider-Man 3 hit over $150 million. In 2012, The Avengers nabbed over $200 million. And in 2019, Avengers: Endgame got over $350 million. Despite the fact that there have been concerns over “superhero movie fatigue” for literal decades now, it’s a genre that shows no signs of slowing down. As its universes expand on streaming services like Disney+, it’s apparent the age of the cinematic hero might be an indefinitely lengthy one. 

  As Marvel Comics luminary Stan Lee once said: “The pleasure of reading a story and wondering what will come next for the hero is a pleasure that has lasted for centuries and, I think, will always be with us.” In that quote, it seems our destiny is almost sealed — we crave heroes and we crave their stories and we crave their sequels. 

  This is the environment in which My Hero Academia was born.

    My Hero Academia is, first and foremost, a superhero story. One could argue that most narratives of its ilk are superhero tales — anime like Dragon Ball, Naruto, One Piece, and others are full of good guys shutting down malicious attempts at local or world domination — but My Hero Academia embraces the iconography, both thematic and physical, of the superhero in a way that many other stories don’t. In fact, it might be one of the purest explorations of that kind of universe ever in fiction. It’s a world where heroism is practically currency, where roughly 80 percent of the earth’s population is imbued with some kind of inherent genetic power. 

  Populating your superhero story with powerful people instead of going the typical cinematic route of having one or two supernatural characters with a supporting cast of everyday folk might have been subversive 20 years ago. But in the age of the Avengers, where multiple heroes cross in and out of each other's storylines and the narrative objective was to eventually wrangle them all in one mega-movie, My Hero Academia fits comfortably. That doesn’t render it as uninteresting, though. Instead, rather than build to the issues that will inevitably crop up in a world full of Supermen, these themes are inherent in the story.

    As such, most of the plotlines have to do with the idea of rampant heroism and the backlash that it would create. Plenty of superhero films address this (multiple Batman movies make the case that if there were no Batman there would be no Joker), but in My Hero Academia it is a constant struggle. Overhaul, wearing a variation of a 17th-century plague doctor mask, looks at these “Quirks” as if they’re a disease. Stain is against superheroes using their status for fame. Tomura Shigaraki wishes to destroy society as we know it, hating its values and its borderline divine treatment of figures like All-Might. These patterns are not just repeated in My Hero Academia, but inevitable. They are anime embodiments of that “superhero fatigue” article I shared above, except in this case they hurt and destroy in their attempts to find an alternative to the super status quo, rather than write essays in The New York Times.

  It’s certainly an enthralling formula, though: My Hero Academia continues to be a best seller and has won numerous awards. Its anime has been similarly well-received. Despite the fact that superhero films very rarely have the same box office prominence in Japan as they do in America, My Hero Academia has been able to make an impact. That might be because, at its core, My Hero Academia adapts the ethos found in a hero that many Japanese creators really do enjoy: Spider-Man.

    Kohei Horikoshi, My Hero Academia’s creator, loves Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films. Creator of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Hirohiko Araki gushed over his love of Spider-Man 2 to director Sam Raimi during an interview. Yusuke Murata, illustrator of One-Punch Man, has done some absolutely amazing work when it comes to posters for Peter Parker’s cinematic adventures. Hideo Kojima, a video game designer whose creations are absolutely inspired by anime, called Into The Spider-Verse a “great masterpiece” and was “moved” by Spider-Man 2. After it became the best-selling game to be developed in the West but funded by Sony since 1998, Japanese game developers voted Marvel’s Spider-Man as their 2018 game of the year. So why the embrace of this particular character? 

  Journalist Kuremasa Uno told the Japanese site Business+IT that it’s because Japanese youth are more accustomed to embracing younger heroes. Since so much of Spider-Man’s Hollywood journey deals with him experiencing problems as a teenager and young adult, he fits in among the protagonists of series like Gundam or Naruto. Hideo Kojima even told Famitsu that Spider-Man is “similar to Japanese heroes,” as he has “worries.” 

    The aspect of youth is particularly interesting, as it’s what often renders heroes like Spider-Man to be the most relatable of all of their peers and rivals. In the comic book world, age tends to warp characters, turning them into beacons of impossible standards rather than troubled everymen. We have little in common with the hulking, aging Batman snapping bones in Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns. We are enthralled with the story on a narrative level. Even the legendary curmudgeon of the comic book industry, the supremely talented Alan Moore, found The Dark Knight Returns fascinating because it gave a hero a chance to end, rather than cycle through an eternal series of escapades. If you know Moore’s stance on heroes, that’s high praise, but it’s hard to connect with him no matter how cool he looks taking down the Mutant Leader.

  In youth we find common ground. We all grow up, and for the most part, we all experience that mix of angst, desperation, and uncertainty that comes with finding yourself on a bullet train to adulthood. In my interview with Matt Alt, author of Pure Invention: How Japan’s Pop Culture Conquered The World, the writer/historian affirmed these feelings as especially true in anime: “It doesn’t look at adolescence as a lesser form of adulthood and it doesn’t condescend to the young people experiencing problems.” That is true of My Hero Academia, which treats Midoriya’s teenage problems as valid and worth concern, and is also true to Stan Lee’s affinity for Spider-Man: “He’s the one who’s most like me — nothing ever turns out 100 percent OK; he’s got a lot of problems and he does things wrong, and I can relate to that.”

    So perhaps it is in collecting a cast of characters that, like Spider-Man, are all dealing with youthful problems that Horikoshi found the fantastic formula for My Hero Academia. It’s a world with teachers and Pro Heroes, but there is no real equivalent of a Justice League, no impenetrable class of demi-gods to impart moral lessons on not just younger heroes but the world at large.

  Instead, much like in real-life youth, the characters of My Hero Academia and the class of 1A must discover those lessons for themselves. With that, the reasons for the aforementioned creators’ adoration of films like the Spider-Man trilogy and Into the Spider-Verse seemingly become more clear. Though these films feature a ... ummm ... supportive supporting cast, the integrity must come from the hero alone in the end, no matter how tough their obstacles become. You are born with Quirks, but how you choose to implement them for the good of mankind is up to you. Great power, great responsibility, etc.

    My Hero Academia and Spider-Man are not a 1:1 comparison as, again, the basics of its world and the attributes of its cast fit it more firmly with late-term Avengers films where dozens of heroes interact in a spectacle created by the sheer existence of their number. My Hero Academia rarely feels as lonely as Spider-Man tends to be. But in capturing the relatable qualities of adolescence and focusing on the “quirks” of what is essentially high school life, it does manage to hit some of the same high notes, notes that I imagine contributed greatly to its popularity.

  Does that mean All-Might is an Uncle Ben character, with his “Now it’s your turn” point to Midoriya serving a similar purpose to the “Great responsibility” speech? Eh, a little bit. But in relating it to the superhero genre that currently forms an entertainment monolith around the world, especially when it has to do with the character of Spider-Man, we start to unlock some of the reasons why My Hero Academia has been such a powerhouse series over the past few years. You can see just as much of Midoriya in Peter Parker as you can in guys like Naruto or Asta — characters that aren’t relatable simply because they’re young, but because we connect to their experiences of youth, experiences that are somehow both deeply specific and also beautifully universal.

      Daniel Dockery is a Senior Staff Writer for Crunchyroll. Follow him on Twitter!

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features.

By: Daniel Dockery

[synoxshots]

Tagged by @sentinelapologist to answer some video game questions and rest assured I am about to give some very embarassing answers! (I wish I was kidding)

GAMES:

First game you ever played: This is gonna date me! Right so. I can’t remember it well but Fifa 98 definitely had an indoor stadium so I must have played that, because it wasn’t on Fifa 99 which I have much clearer memories of playing. But that would have come out when I was like, 3/4 years old so I’m not sure if I actually played it so much as went OOH! at whatever my brother/cousin (because we would have been at my aunt’s to actually have computer games) were doing. Or if we were behind the curve with getting it (also very likely). Definitely played Fifa 99 on my cousin’s computer for many years, also Lego Racers (which heh, I redownloaded earlier in the year as well for the nostalgia kick - no lies it holds up!). I have a lot of nostalgia for late 90s/early 00s video game graphics because of this, and tbh Fifa games probably peaked with 99. 

Favourite game: Honestly I’m so invested in SWTOR so it’s hard not to say that, it’s had the biggest impact on my life like. Open world + Star Wars? the dream. I’m more of a SW fan than a gamer so it was definitely the universe that drew me into it in the first place. Also BOTW because oh my god. And I only got into that once lockdown hit this year but honestly, I cannot say how much I adore it.

Game you’ve played through multiple times: Super super into the Lego games, so Lego Star Wars - to the point we had it on the Xbox, and then I’ve downloaded it on Steam and played through it multiple times on the pc. And I’m a completionist, so that’s like, collecting everything not just going through the story once. Fun story, the prequel games were released before RotS came out so I got the basic outline of the film from that game first oops. Also I’ve played through the Crash Bandicoot GBA games quite a bit too.

Game you hated at first but now you love: Don’t think I have one? Because yeah if I’m hating it right off I’m not gonna stick with it. Which is probs why I’m really fussy about buying games and replay so much stuff instead. I have my comfort zone okay

Game you used to love but now you hate: I spent a lot of hours playing Runescape in my life, and every now and then nostalgia tells me ‘hey log in!’ and within two minutes I realise it is the grindiest game ever. I still have my account from when I was like, 11, though, which is a substantial chunk of my life. Also League of Legends - I joined it because a few friends roped me in and it was great when we could play together but going it alone was pretty brutal because fuck up a tiny bit and boom, toxicity. So then I just played ARAM mode and not SR with others, then just stopped altogether. May be partly why group-finder scares me so much, though also y’know social anxiety in general. But let’s not get into that.

Your favourite game atmosphere/setting(s): BOTW for sure, I can just lose myself in that world forever. The music is fab as well and I’ve been trying to learn a bit of it on guitar, music adds a lot to a game/film/anything for me so yeah. But it’s also visually just so beautiful. There’s a lot of planets in SWTOR as well, Tython, Voss, etc.

Game with the best group/companion(s): I don’t really play a great deal of games where I have companions really so gotta say SWTOR! Smuggler gang is my favourite. Just all out nonsense.

A game with your favourite ending: literally drawing a blank here. I think a lot of things I’ve played have been the type to go on and on. 

A game with the worst ending: as above. maybe I just don’t finish things? That said the final boss fight in I think the second of the Crash trilogy games was super disappointing and didn’t match how insanely hard I found that game. (And I’m talking as an adult hahaha, I got the Switch ones this year). also kinda with you on the end of the agent storyline too, I left that one til last because the internet raved about how good it was but in the end I was...underwhelmed. 

Best character customisation: struggling to actually think of games I’ve played with character customisation as opposed to ones where I’m just given a character/choose from a selection. and it’ll be a real sad indicator if I say SWTOR because I am constantly complaining about the creator. though I do like outfit designer. hmm, pass.

HERO AND COMPANIONS:

Your favourite playable character: does it count if they’re my own? haha. in SWTOR I’d generally say a smuggler because I seem to come up with 5000 different ideas for OCs and playing as a gunslinger is super fun (and I’ve learnt to love scoundrel too!). And then in the Lego games I’d play as Shaak Ti a lot, but that was first because she looked cool though I do think she’s neat generally! But she probably doesn’t count as a video game character. Ooooh Link as well, because I’m getting more and more into Zelda games.

Your favourite companion(s): *cough* Theron. Kira. T7. Risha. Guss. Blizz. Gault. Torian. Felix. Nadia. Vette. Talos. Ugh, loads tbh, I’ll forget them all. *gesticulates generally at SWTOR*

RELATIONSHIPS:

Favourite game friendships: I live for the smuggler crew dynamic, and the BH crew as well. And the Jedi Knight/Kira friendship warms my soul. 

Favourite game relationships: obv I’m super biased but Theron/Knight. Smuggler/Risha. Consular/Felix. BH/Torian. I’ll just list my otps here shall I? SWTOR is the only game I’ve done where there’s been relationships I think. still haven’t finished KOTOR.

Favourite companion banter: smuggler crew probably again. Smuggler just never stops. not sure about between companions though there’s a bit of it with the smug as well.

A relationship you weren’t sure of but loved: I knew going into the Docmance how many people hated it but I really enjoyed it! Suited how my Knight was at that point. 

A character you wish you could romance: Elara with f!Trooper, hoping that becomes more of a thing going forward. Also I wanna kiss Tau. And Anri. Basically I see a cool woman come along and I’m just like...is this a love interest?

FUN:

Shoutout to a random NPC: hey Numen Brock! And Lemda Avesta as the first wlw I got to kiss in game!

A game you love watching playthroughs for and want to play: I don’t really watch playthroughs a great deal so I got nothing here! and when I watch playthroughs they’re normally of games I already know well because I wanna experience them first for myself? So I like watching BOTW challenge/speedrun/trickshot videos and stuff sometimes, and ACNH island tours but that’s because I know the games.

Love watching playthroughs but won’t ever play: as above really, but if I don’t have the intention to play them then I’m almost certainly not watching vids of.

Why do you play video games?: uhhhh. because I enjoy them, but also escapism I guess? like it’s easier to throw myself into another world and focus and fixate on that rather than dealing with the general...stuff. it’s a type of relief sometimes innit. 

anyway if you’ve made it this far down in reading this then consider yourself tagged, because this was a long’un!

[esandcasg]

B Dog’s Ranking of Star Wars Films

Some months ago Big A challenged me to list my order of Star Wars films, from worst to best. Having re-watched a number now in recent months I felt it time to get this down on paper. Admittedly I haven’t watched all of them, so this might need updating in the months to come.

Let me know your thoughts or add a similar blog!

11. The Last Jedi

It is something of a tribute to Disney that it took me some time to decide my least favourite Star Wars film. There were two obvious candidates but in the end I went with the Last Jedi. Admittedly, I feel that The Rise of Skywalker is a worse film, but I give the honour of the shittest Star Wars film to this steaming pile of crap because it set the precedent for what was to follow. The whole film is based around the idea of doing something different with the force and the Jedi, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it was done in such a bad way. I’ve recently re-watched it and it felt like 90% of the film is treading water whilst they develop the Reylo relationship. “What shall we do with the other characters?” I don’t know, stick them on a spaceship being chased by a Star Destroyer? “Fuck me, that’s brilliant.”  I recently read that Rhian Johnson’s biggest regret with this film was not being able to do his usual private showing to close friends before it came out due to security issues. I regret that too, cos they’d have told him what a big pile of crap it was.

10. The Rise of Skywalker

The true level of shittiness of this film has been discussed a lot; it was so bad that it even inspired a B Dog film rant blog. The first ever, if I am not mistaken? The fact that they have had to release information intermittently to explain the gaps in the story says it all really. A total turd. 

Don’t worry, my swearing will ease now along with my hatred.

9. Attack of the Clones

My ninth favourite (or perhaps more accurately, the third worst) Star Wars film introduces the prequels into the story with Attack of the Clones. I don’t hate this film like I do The Rise of Skywalker and The Last Jedi, so we start to move out of “hate” and more into “meh” with AotC. I don’t hate it, I don’t particularly like it. I nothing it (nod to #BigAsFilmReviews).

This film has a few things going for it, namely it features a young Hayden Christensen, who of course has a strong resemblance to a young B Dog, and it includes Anakin and Padme’s brilliantly written, acted and directed romance scenes. “You are in my very soul, tormenting me.” Beautiful. I jest of course, it was total cringe. But the issue that I have with this film is that it doesn’t feel like Star Wars. At least with The Phantom Menace there are elements that align with the prequels like the scenes of Tattoine. AotC just feels like a bit of a misfit. I wonder whether it was where George began to get a raging hard-on for green screen and prioritising wanky graphics above, you know, a decent storyline, and that impacts things? Or maybe he started flirting with the darkside long before this? But generally it is an entertaining enough film, just a bit shit.

8. The Phantom Menace

I struggled for a while with the order of Attack of the Clones and The Phantom Menace but in the end decided I preferred this one. But it’s a close one.

The issue that I have with this film – even above Jar Jar and the awful dialogue – is that I don’t get the target audience. There is loads of content for kids such as (the aforementioned) Jar Jar and the pod race, yet it is effectively a film about politics and features things like trade blockades. I mean, the opening crawl features gems such as “The taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems is in dispute... While the Congress of the Republic endlessly debates this alarming chain of events.” 

I watched it with Sebastian and he didn’t have a clue what was going on, but he sat there patiently waiting for the arrival of arguably my favourite Star Wars character in Darth Maul. But as I mentioned above, TPM still feels like Star Wars and the lightsabre fight sequence at the end is enough to get it into 8th place. But we are still very much in “meh”.

7. Solo

But not for long as we start moving into “like” territory. I like this film. But the issue that I have is that it’s not really Star Wars. It’s a decent sci-fi film but I can’t associate Alden Whatshisface’s portrayal of Han to the original. It is largely forgettable mind; I have watched Solo once and couldn’t really tell you what it was about. Something to do with Solo and Chewie and Lando, and they went through an asteroid field, and Emilia Clarke got sold or became a slave, and the Falcon got wrecked. That’s all I remember. But I do remember feeling like the whole “Kessel Run” idea was totally different to what I had in my mind – I figured it was a famous smuggling run - and if they really had to do a backstory on Han then they could have come up with something better.

6. Revenge of the Sith

Probably the only prequel that I will stand behind. It is flawed, largely because of the overuse of green screen which can’t be easy for actors/actresses (exhibit A: Natalie Portman who is pretty wooden yet claimed an Oscar a few years later in Black Swan), but I feel like RotS is actually a fairly decent addition to the Star Wars portfolio with the actors starting to get used to the methods of Lucas or perhaps even pushing back a bit helping the script flow better. Hayden Christensen seemed a bit more comfortable playing a more complex and evil character than a loved up teenager, for example. However, there is still a large amount of Lucas “style over substance” going on still and the Darth Vadar “Noooooo” bit at the end is like something from an 80’s Arnie film. “I’ll be back, Kenobi.”

5. Rogue 1

I really enjoyed this film right up until the last few minutes when the arrival of Leia almost ruined it. I don’t quite know why, I think it just felt shoe-horned and unnecessary. There are other flaws that don’t align with the start of A New Hope and the characters lack any real depth, but overall I’ll let all this slide as it was a pretty exciting and well-made film. With Rogue 1 I am sensing stronger feelings… there is good in these films. I can sense it.

4. The Force Awakens

The first time I watched this film I didn’t like it. I think because I just expected too much – or something different - and I didn’t particularly like the way they killed off Han without the film or trilogy really getting going. What was the point? I thought Rey was totally wooden too. But I’ve watched it three times now and the last time – just before TRoS came out – I actually really enjoyed it, bordering on feeling that it was brilliant. I admit it is a fanboy tribute, but… if the cap or evil sith mask fits and all that.

3. A New Hope

It will come as no surprise that the podium spots are reserved for the original trilogy, and we move into love – of course - with A New Hope. It is slightly controversial to have this one in third place as I know a lot of people see ANH as the best of the lot, but I just prefer the other originals being honest. Whilst it is undoubtedly a great film, I find it more of a setting the scene kind of film: it’s a bit slow going in places and even as a kid I don’t feel it had the same levels of excitement as the other two. The toys that I played with weren’t the X-Wing and Tie Fighter from the Death Star scene, it was the AT-AT (I had two) and snow speeders from Hoth, for example. And re-watching them recently with Sebastian it has been the one that I struggled to sit through the most. I guess ultimately it is laying the foundations for the whole Luke vs. Vadar/good vs. evil element, which is what drew me into Star Wars as a kid.

2. Return of the Jedi

I know this film has flaws, but I love it. Well, the old version before Ol’ George started adding shit like the band in Jabba’s palace and another Vadar “Nooooooo”. But the whole film is great: the sequence at the start concluding with the fight over the pit of sarlaac through to the three phased fight sequence at the end. As I have said to you both, I have recently watched the original trilogy with Sebastian and he told me that he was exhausted at the end of the film, and I guess it’s that sort of excitement that I still associate with RotJ. One interesting thing is that watching the recently has opened my eyes to how hot Carrie Fisher was back then. I never really got it. No wonder my dad used to pop in for the Jabba’s Palace bit.

1. The Empire Strikes Back

And therefore the winner goes to the masterpiece that is The Empire Strikes Back. I don’t have anything negative to say about this film, and for me is in a league of its own compared to the other ten films, and up there with one of my favourite films ever. The Hoth fight scene, Yoda training Luke and the cave scene, Cloud City and then Vadar and Luke crossing swords for the first time. From start to finish it is exciting and so well made. But it’s also interesting to have a good vs. evil film finish on such a dark note, with the good guys going off to lick their wounds. In a lot of ways that is also what appeals about this film; it’s not just a straight up good guys win type of scenario.

[thehanniecorner]

Yes, I realize that this post is coming out nowhere near January, but I have been finding it difficult to keep up with blogging lately, so it is what it is, right?  Hopefully, things have calmed down enough in my life that I can get back to writing semi-regularly, but no promises yet!  Regardless, I read a lot in January and am eager to share my thoughts with you.  Let’s get started!

I hope this reaches her in time – r.h. Sin

Rating – 1 Star

Unfortunately, I started off my year with what may turn out to be my least favorite title of 2020.  I hope this reaches her in time is a poetry collection, and while I like to pick up poetry once in a while, I didn’t connect with this collection at all.  First of all, it felt like there should have been a little more editing, as I found a number of sentences and word choices that I think might have just been typos.  Beyond that, the poetry itself reminded me of the “Tumblr style” where poets just break a normal sentence into multiple lines to make the words feel deeper than they really are, which is not a style I enjoy at all.  The good news is, however, that my reading can only get better from here, right?

Emergency Skin – N.K. Jemisin

Rating – 5 Stars

After reading an incredibly underwhelming title, I decided to give N.K. Jemisin’s Emergency Skin from Amazon’s Forward collection a try, figuring that an author this popular couldn’t possibly let me down.  Thankfully, my instincts were right and I loved this short story so much.  Given how short this experience is, I don’t want to give too much away, but I will say that this is a phenomenal science fiction story with the best usage of second person narration that I have ever seen in literature.  This was my first title by Jemisin and I can’t wait to read more of her work in the future.

Randomize – Andy Weir

Rating – 3 Stars

Since I loved Emergency Skin so much, I wanted to give another short story from the same collection a try, which led me to Andy Weir’s Randomize.  This wasn’t bad at all, but I didn’t love it to nearly the same degree as Jemisin’s work.  The hardest part for me is that the central premise, involving the security of gambling machines and whether they can be hacked or not, felt both flimsy and info-dumping in its setup.  The ending was pretty satisfying and I had fun reading this, but I came away from the story feeling like not enough had really been done with the universe.  I’m hoping to get to more of the Forward short story collection a try in the coming months, so I hope I enjoy the others more than I enjoyed this one.

Interview with the Robot – Lee Bacon

Rating – 4 Stars

I decided to pick up an Audible subscription recently in order to read more audiobooks, and Interview with the Robot was one of the Audible Original productions available one month, so I decided to pick it up.  This short audiobook with a full cast follows a robot who looks like a young child.  She gets apprehended by the police and has to tell her strange life story to a social worker in charge of her case.

While listening to this story, I had a smile on my face from beginning to end because it was just so charming and adorable.  That said, however, there were a few pretty good twists and turns that I didn’t see coming and definitely made me feel a lot of empathy towards the protagonist.  Overall, my main complaint is that it was just too short, at around three hours of listening.  I want more from this world in the future, so I hope some sort of sequel comes out eventually.

The Last Wish – Andrzej Sapkowski

Rating – 3 Stars

2020 is the year that I work my way into adult fantasy, and other than reading Game of Thrones last year, reading The Last Wish is one of the first titles that I have ever picked up in the genre.  This series follows Geralt, a witcher, which is a type of mutated human that fights monsters, as well as the many people that surround him.  This specific book is a short story collection that follows, for the most part, Geralt as he goes from contract to contract, killing monsters.

I love the lore and world of the Witcher universe, but I’m not totally convinced that I appreciate the writing style.  It’s hard to tell if this is because of the translation or this is the intention of the original author, but there was a lot of distance between the narrator and the events happening, which made me feel disconnected from the story.  I still intend to continue on, especially after I completely fell in love with the TV series, so I hope that I will connect more with future books and get used to the writing style.

The Outsider – Stephen King

Rating – 4 Stars

Stephen King is an author that I should read way more than I do, because I only pick up one or two of his books in a year, but I almost always enjoy them.  As it turns out, The Outsider is no exception.  This horror novel follows a group of detectives as they investigate the death of a young boy in a small town.  The obvious suspect is the town’s little league coach, as the evidence is quickly mounting up against him.  As the case opens up, however, conflicting details emerge and the truth becomes more difficult to grasp.

Overall, I really enjoyed the mystery and couldn’t stop reading for the entirety of this 600-page tome.  Stephen King has a way of making long books feel like they go by in an instant.  Unsurprisingly, however, the ending was incredibly underwhelming.  Additionally, The Outsider is connected to the Mr. Mercedes trilogy, which I didn’t know, and I got pretty spoiled for the events of that series, which is unfortunate.  On top of all of this, I would like to take a moment and point out that the graphic depictions of the child’s death did not really need to be so detailed, much less have those horrific details brought up at least a dozen more times over the course of the book.  It just felt gratuitous after a while.  I enjoyed this book immensely, but the details I mentioned above kept it just barely out of five-star territory.

Every Heart a Doorway – Seanan McGuire

Rating – 4 Stars

Since The Outsider was quite a lengthy read, I wanted to pick up some shorter titles again, leading me to finally pick up the start to a fantasy series that has been on my radar for a long time:  Every Heart a Doorway.  This series follows a group of children that found doorways to their own personal versions of Narnia and Wonderland.  At some point, however, their newfound homes kicked them back into the normal world and they have to learn how to cope with returning to their own life.  A halfway home of sorts was founded for children struggling with this task, and as it turns out, bringing a bunch of children together who have all gone to vastly different worlds can cause some pretty crazy antics and disagreements.

I love the characters, but didn’t find the plot of this overly engaging.  Given that my rating is still high, it’s clear that my disinterest in the plot wasn’t a deal-breaker by any means, but I just struggled to stay interested, especially given that I guessed the big plot twist almost immediately.  Since these books are so short, I will definitely be reading the sequels.  In fact, given how late this wrap-up is, I can say with great certainty that my February wrap-up will have a lot of news regarding my progress on this series.

Outer Order, Inner Calm – Gretchen Rubin

Rating – 3 Stars

I like to try reading books that push me out of my comfort zone, and it has been a long time since I read anything that might be considered a part of the self-improvement genre.  Therefore, as a chronically messy person, I thought reading Outer Order, Inner Calm might be an interesting adventure, given that the whole book is dedicated to getting rid of unwanted junk to keep life peaceful.

This was an incredibly easy read.  The writing style was simple and easy to digest.  Reading it was actually a pretty pleasant and relaxing experience.  That said, however, I’m not sure how useful I actually found the book, as the advice felt like it was playing it pretty safe.  For the most part, the tips went like “Get rid of things you don’t use anymore” and “Clean your house” with about 75 different variations, each.  I’m glad I read it, but I don’t think I got much out of it.

Everything My Mother Taught Me – Alice Hoffman

Rating – 4 Stars

My final read for the month of January was another short story from an Amazon collection like the Forward collection.  This is Everything My Mother Taught Me, and it’s my first attempt at reading Alice Hoffman.  This follows a young girl who is living at a lighthouse and trying to navigate coming of age with her dysfunctional mother around her.  I can’t say much more than that given how short the story is, but I did really enjoy this.  This is a common complaint for me with short stories, but the main reason it didn’t get five stars is because it just didn’t feel fully fleshed out.  When I read Emergency Skin, I felt like Jemisin did a phenomenal job of packing a full story into a short amount of pages, and Everything My Mother Taught Me didn’t manage this as successfully.  I’m still quite eager to pick up more books by Hoffman, however, as I enjoyed her writing style.

Well, now that it’s almost March, I have finally shared what I read in January.  What did you read in the first month of the year?  Let me know in the comments below!

  January 2020 Reading Wrap-Up! Yes, I realize that this post is coming out nowhere near January, but I have been finding it difficult to keep up with blogging lately, so it is what it is, right? 

[mysterious-prophetess]

Movie Double feature

Today I saw TWO Movies somewhat back-to-back.

Bumblebee AND Aquaman.

One I’d been anticipating and one I was slightly skeptical about.

So I’m going to do my little post movie write up AS a double feature as well.

So first the overall experiences I had with both and then below a read more, I will get into spoiler territory.

Bumblebee

I will admit I had the bar set low because it’s a Transformer’s movie. Though, I was slightly hopeful because Bee was a bug like he was in the cartoon. And also, Bee is my favorite transformer’s character.

I was right to be hopeful. This movie was thoroughly enjoyable. Not once did I glance at my cellphone. Ok I did but that wasn’t because I was bored. 

The pacing could be very quick at times but the human protagonist was actually someone I could give a full damn about. The plot wrapped up nicely and if Michael Bay really wanted, he could reboot the whole franchise and it would work. Easily the best of the....how many are there at this point? Let’s see.....(one google search later) Six. Best of the Six Transformers movies out. Personally, I think Michael bay should just reboot the series.

Aquaman

I didn’t have the bar super high here either but I was hoping for it to be good because of several reasons.

1) I am a HUGE DC fangirl. That’s right I’ll admit it, I prefer DC to Marvel. So, I’d prefer it when DC movies are good.

2) Representation matters. 

3) The way they set up Aquaman in Justice League (especially with the Motherbox thing and Mera) intrigued me.

So, how was it? Well, I will say it was not as good as Wonder Woman. However, it was better than all the other current batch DC movies, though. By which I mean the ones that are already out. Which is something it does pain me to admit since I am (at heart) a hardcore Superman fangirl. So, for me current DC movie rankings in quality (in my personal opinion):

Wonder Woman

Aquaman

Justice League

Man of Steel

Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice (extended cut)

Suicide Squad

The tone flipped back and forth with light and more serious moments here and there. The pacing could be choppy in a few segments and Snyder is back at it again with his choices for editing scenes together. More on that in the spoiler section. But it was also fun and Arthur’s 1000000% done with it was something I could relate to. Yes, it is the standard trope-y King Arthur tale (yeah, pun intended and DC did that too) of good true king versus Bad False King, but it also wasn’t totally stale. The art direction is what really made this movie for me. I loved LOVED how the underwater civilizations looked.

Now time for the spoiler section.

You have been warned. Don’t read if you’ve not seen either.

Bumblebee

Like I said above, I did not enter this film with high expectations of it. I mean, I don’t hate the other Transformers movies. I’ll just admit up front that if I could cut out the human bits from most of the other five films and just have nothing but giant robot fights, I’d be more than good with that. Especially Dark of the Moon. Just give me the giant robot bits and omit the rest please.

Charlie is actually relatable. Especially to me because I’ve had the sucky as fuck job at an amusement park. I won’t say where or when but trust me: working at a theme park is not fun at all. She also has something of an arc in this film that isn’t “get the girl” or whatever Mark Whalberg’s character’s arc was supposed to be in Last Knight (I didn’t see age of extinction but it seemed his arc there was around fatherhood or something). Charlie is also (as a character) charming enough to help carry the film with Bee. 

I won’t say the Charlie parts were always 100% good, but definitely good more often than not.

The male human lead (Memo?)...he was just Sam Witwicky 1980′s edition and a little less pathetic. 

Bumblebee was adorable in this. I get it was the amnesia but before he lost his voice, it was nice to hear him actually talk and the fact they cast a guy with a young-ish sounding voice was something I really liked since in the cartoon I’m more than fairly certain Bee was a kid or the youngest member of the Autobots. After the amnesia, it also sort of was childlike in his behaviors. 

I even liked the Decepticons. They were barely playing nice. 

I like that the human military was trying to play them right back.

Best line in the movie was when the John Cena character Agent Burns says something like,

“Should we even trust them, It’s right in their name “Decepticons”“ 

That was actually a clever thing to have in the film. 

Something else I liked was the fact that Optimus Prime, Soundwave, and Ravage were all really close to their cartoon designs, and it looked so much nicer to me.

Bee as a Camaro origin story. It was a nice touch. This skews the canon of the films a little but since it’s in my personal opinion they should just reboot it here and run with this new universe, any continuity issues aren’t that big to me.

Were there times the move just went from 0-CRAZY. Yeah. 

Charlie’s family: Borderline abusive at times, and borderline too...much. They weren’t as over the top as the Witwicky’s but that’s not saying much.

The internet already existed in the 80′s for the military as either DARPA or ARPA Net, so that little revelation was stupid.

The bullies who harrass Charlie at that party spot. I’ve never met someone that callus IRL and there is no way the bitchy chick making fun of the fact Charlie’s dad dropped dead wouldn’t have had at least someone aside from Memo and Bee going “Not Cool”

Speaking of that, the whole delinquent thing that they did to rich girl’s house? Funny but not 100% plot relevant. There were other ways to end up with Charlie, Bee, and Memo in a car chase. 

E.G. Bee’s trying to cheer Charlie up by going fast or something.

The nod to the other films with Simmons was nice. 

A solidly enjoyable film. I do actually recommend it.

Aquaman

Now onto a bigger spiel.

Again, due to DC’s track record for film quality with the current movie universe (and beyond) I did not want to have my hopes up, but I already mentioned why I wanted it to do well above.

The tonal shifts from serious to light to serious again could be (to borrow what my dad said) corny. I like corny, personally, but I get that tonal shifts like this can give others whiplash. Fortunately, they didn’t do this all the time.

What Snyder had them do enough times, however, was editing in flashbacks in the main flow of the story with little warning a la Man of Steel and I didn’t like it then, I don’t like it now.

Sometimes the dialogue could be a bit on the nose and clunky but I did like Arthur’s arc in this film. It was slightly incomplete because part of his arc started in Justice League which was learning how to play nice with other people to do something. Then there was the whole reluctant leader thing. It was done well enough, but having seen it done much better in the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings trilogy, I know that attempting this sort of character arc in one film was asking for it to be a little less refined. Which is the result. Yet, despite it relying on a very Arthurian trope of Chosen King with Magic Weapon, it did it well enough that it wasn’t a totally stale thing. The fact he had the magic-trident of King Atlan was something he was actively working to earn throughout the movie. It did actually feel like he had gone through enough of a growth in the film (and part of Justice League) to merit him earning this achievement of his. 

The film did drag a little in places but only twice did I just want them to get on with it already.

Black Manta Ray’s origin was interesting in this universe. Arthur did quasi-create this enemy. 

On the other hand, I can’t fully feel sympathy for a murderous pirate dying because he tried to kill Arthur and Arthur decided that the man who tried to blow him up wasn’t someone he wanted to save. But that’s because I’m a vindictive bitch.

Arthur, later, realizes that he should have done the right thing all along but too late now. He also realizes the value of mercy because of this so...

Mera’s powers are never fully explained, but I find myself mostly ok with that because I just started calling her a waterbender in my head. 

Arhtur and Mera’s relationship evolved semi-organically. They did have chemistry for the most part, but it was almost too cliche at times yet it was fine because it’s the action movie romance cliches that aren’t 100 horrible but it was even at times a little sweet.

So, let’s go over, in detail what I loved about the art direction

Yes, it does look very similar to other underwater cities that I’ve seen in the past in other media, but they also incorporated enough new and nature inspired parts to it that I loved looking at each underwater civilization. The ruins, the tech, the fact things glowed the way they did. That pirate ship air pocket was also a really interesting thing though I kept wondering where Ariel was

I even got that the reason there was water in the Atlantean vehicles was Atlanteans don’t need to worry about things being airtight because they breathe under water. 

Later when it was explained that only a handful of Atlanteans can even breath in the atmosphere it made even more sense.

When Volko was training Arthur in his Atlantean skills and stuff started to glow once he went deeper in the water I actually nodded because there is scientific evidence that every living thing does give off small amounts of bioluminesce. Even we humans do, but it’s so faint we can’t perceive it.

I personally think the Atlanteans should have glowed a little too. 

The different species of Atlantean were very neat. Especially the “feral” ones. Reminded me of someone crossing a Zora with that creature from Pan’s Labyrinth or that thing from Hellboy 2 that Liz made a deal with to save Hellboy.

Onto other things:

The Karathen. I did not expect her to live up to the hype the movie was building her up to be. I was also pleasantly surprised that it was a “she” during the scene where she is trash-talking Arthur without knowing that he can understand her. Then, later, I found out she is voiced by Julie Andrews.

Also, because the Karathen did make such a huge impact in that final fight two things entered my head.

“RELEASE THE KRAKEN” and 

Orm: “I have an army!”

Arthur: “I have a sea monster.”

The Atlantis thrown down was noticed but that got me thinking: Where was the rest of the JL during this. Were they just doing damage control or something after Orm’s little oceanic temper tantrum?

The mid-credits stinger with Mantaray. I knew he wasn’t done because Manta Ray is a major Aquaman villain. I just didn’t think the Atlantis obsessed prof would end up finding him.

I don’t fully get why Nereus would want a war with the surface with Orm in charge, unless he would just strike Orm down later and take his power. 

I didn’t get why the fishpeople didn’t just RUN AWAY whenever Arthur showed up with the Karathen AND wielding the Trident of Atlan. All Fish-People Princess would have had to do was say “my people RUN FROM THE MONSTER” And Orm’s armies (and Orm himself) would be so busy fighting a literal sea monster from their worst nightmares that no one could or would have stopped them.

In fact, I am confused as to why there wasn’t mass panic once the Karathen showed up and she started wrecking all the military vehicles. -\( `-`)/-

Arthur’s ability to speak to the aquatic animals was actually built up to be a major ability. 

Aquaman’s been made fun of in the past for this, but considering he was able to talk to the Karathen, and control a bunch of apex sea predators (turning them on their masters) it isn’t something to be fully laughed off. Outside the ocean, sure it doesn’t really make a huge difference but that’s where making the Atlanteans tougher than land humans comes in. That too makes actual sense with the reasons as to why this was.

Atlanna’s survival wasn’t really too much of a shock for me. I was half-expecting the Trench-peoples to not be totally savage and actually just have a bad rep. 

The Hidden Sea at the Earth’s core bit got an eyebrow quirk. I was half expecting it to be the Caspian Sea....

I would still very much recommend Aquaman.

[mdccanon]

A) Watching someone murder their father and then hearing their sob story the next day about how they did it because their uncle had been mean to them one time doesn't have to be an equally romantic story for every member of the audience. Especially those of us who actually experienced child abuse. I've read some remarkable fanfiction that actually does portray his childhood as abusive.

B) Three movies and no actual voices in Ben's head makes the suspension of disbelief for this snap. Three movies and no clear explanation as to how Snoke tricked Ben into thinking that Anakin Skywalker was talking to him, in a universe where Anakin is a ghost and is therefore still a character. I've read some remarkable fanfiction that has provided the necessary inclusion of actual voices in Ben's head. Some audience members, especially those who have actually heard voices in our heads, would appreciate if his mental illness was portrayed correctly.

C) Three movies and the depth of Ben's redemption is that he killed his father and then eventually felt sad about it. Thanks. Anything to say about the billions of people that you've helped kill? No... Okay...

D) Redemption in fantasy stories? Any range between a somewhat realistic if still stylized story of a villain facing the consequences of the crimes he's committed in a way that still provides drama and action scenes... To therapeutic crescendos of all their past mistakes piling up on them and then pushing back the tide. Redemption in STAR WARS? Here, you have a point. Star Wars redemption is a villain doing villainous things for 90% of the story and then suddenly realizing that they don't like doing it, then immediately betraying their master.

E) Rey has literally never met "Ben Solo". Your point above is that Ben waited until the last twenty minutes of the last movie to become Ben Solo.

Man, does anyone else think that this entire story would have been improved if Leia had convinced her son to act as a double agent against the First Order and that plan backfired on her when he was fully indoctrinated? THAT would have been an actually abusive thing to do to her child, THAT wouldn't have required the writers insisting Ben is mentally ill but he can also just get over it at the last minute, and that wouldn't have insulted our intelligence by starting Ben's whole story with him being tricked into evil by "Anakin Skywalker's" voice in his head, in a universe where Anakin is a freaking ghost and therefore still a functioning character.

I'm going to say the same thing about the Star Wars sequel trilogy that I said about Whedon's Justice League. "If thousands of fanfics have been written fixing all of the plot inconsistencies of the movie, and those fanfics make the concept work so much better, what is the point of still insisting that the movies were written well?"

I've read a hundred well done reylo stories. And none of them relied on the movie's terrible ass writing.

People who think reylo is toxic clearly don’t understand:

a) how an enemies to lovers trope works [spoiler: when they are in the enemies stage, they will fight]

b) that Ben was manipulated onto the dark side and abused by Papatine/Snoke. Palpatine was manipulating his mind and his choices -  the voices in his head.

c) that Ben Solo chose the light. and he did it on his own. Yes, Rey was one of the catalysts, but he had to make the big decision on his own (or with the help of the memory of his father). Throwing away the light saber was symbolic of him throwing away the Kylo Ren persona. 

d) how redemption works. 

e) that Rey was not in love with Kylo Ren, but with Ben Solo.

[beatrice-otter]

An Open Letter to AO3 Regarding Fandom Tagging Changes

ETA: Checking the archive this morning, I found that the Wonder Woman (2017) tag no longer redirects to DCEU, but takes you directly to Wonder Woman (2017).  Also, someone said that even last night, you could (from the DCEU page) click on the "Fandoms" list on the sidebar and filter to just Wonder Woman (2017), but I don't know if that worked last night when the tags were merged, because in my poking around in disbelief, I forgot the 'filter by fandom' option on the sidebar.  I am writing another message to support thanking them for fixing the issue.

ETA 2: @melannen checked with the DCEU taggers and confirmed that redirecting the Wonder Woman (2017) tag was a mistake and not part of an overarching plan for DCEU or any other megafandom.  Somebody clicked the wrong button, I guess, and they fixed it as soon as they figured out it had happened.  Thank you to all the people working hard at tag wrangling and support to keep the archive going, and fix problems like this.

My original letter is below the read-more.

This is what I just sent off to AO3's Support. Hi!  First, before I get started, I want you to know that I have loved AO3 since its beginning.  I know how huge an endeavor it is, and how much work goes on behind the scenes (all of it on a volunteer basis), and I am grateful for it.  I also understand that there are situations where there is no good answer to a problem because of either technical issues behind the scenes or conflicting needs/wants of users, and I actively try to be charitable in how I interpret the decisions the archive makes, for the reasons stated above.  I know that large fandom trees were straining your servers, and you needed to find a solution. The flexibility of the tagging structure on AO3 is about 90% of the reason I love the archive.  And by that I mean, the ability to use tags to find EXACTLY what I want to read, instead of slogging through hundreds (or thousands, in some fandoms) of fics I am not interested, is THE MAJOR THING AO3 has always (until now) done better than any other fic archive or website.  My main frustrations with the archive have been when tags aren't granular enough--when I want them to be more specific than they are.  For example, when I wish that character tags were filtered by whether someone was a major or minor character in the story, or when I'm trying to find fic specifically about X-Men: Days of Future Past and get redirected to all XMFC fic.  And I don't think I'm alone in this.   So any change to make them less granular, even when it might make the back end run smoother, is a big problem for me. In particular, your that solution to current tagging woes (merging sub-fandom tags into one over-arching fandom tag) has broken the archive for me in some of my fandoms, and (if it is rolled out across other fandoms in the same way) will break all of those fandoms for me, rendering the archive virtually useless for doing anything other than reading fic I have already bookmarked. As a first step, merging the individual movies of the Star Wars Original Trilogy together into one tag is a pretty good decision, and I was actually surprised that it hadn't been done already.  It works because the three movies of that trilogy tell one unified story with pretty much the same characters.  There may be people who love one movie in it and hate the others, but I've never met any; and the fandom has not historically split along intra-trilogy lines.  There are very few people who, when they click on "Return of the Jedi" and get all OT fics, are going to be seriously upset or discommoded by it (and many who would actually PREFER to get all fics in that trilogy).  So when I saw the tumblr post saying you were going to do that, I went, "oh, yeah, good idea, that makes sense," and went about my day.  I assumed that other instances of merging things would be similarly merging things that were already a unified fannish category with little individual distinction and went on about my business. Then I found out that all of the DCEU movies have been merged together into one fandom.  That, my friends, is  WHOLE DIFFERENT BALL OF WAX.  Unlike the three movies of the OT, there are NO characters that are shared between all DCEU movies.  There are no overarching plot threads between them all.  There are MAJOR differences in plot, characters, theme, and many other points, between these movies.  It is quite possible to love one movie, and hate, loathe, and despise another.  There are LARGE swathes of the fandom that don't overlap.  There are many people, like me, who love one movie, like another, and actively try to avoid other movies in that megafandom.  This is quite common for megafandoms.  Every megafandom I'm familiar with--Star Wars, DC Comics, Marvel Comics, MCU, Stargate, DCEU, Star Trek--is too varied for people to like all of it equally; you end up with a handful of people who genuinely like the whole thing and most people who focus on parts of it.  Except now, there's no way to separate out the stuff you ACTUALLY want to see from all the OTHER mass of stuff in the megafandom.  And while that's not that big a deal in a small fandom where there isn't much fic to sort through anyway, it's a pretty BIG problem in a megafandom with is, you know, MEGA, with lots of fic. For example, I LOVE Wonder Woman (2017), am only occasionally interested in in the DCEU Superman and Justice League movies, and am only willing to read Suicide Squad fic if it's a Harley Quinn story that's mostly comics canon with a few Suicide Squad details.  With the old way the archive was organized, this was not a problem.  I could regularly look through the Wonder Woman (2017) tag for new fic, dip into Superman and Justice League on the rare occasions that I was in the mood for Batfleck and Cavilman, and pretty much never have to deal with anything Suicide Squad.  Now, I click on Wonder Woman (2017), and instead of getting pages of exactly what I want, I get the entire DCEU.  On that first page of 20 fics, there are currently only four that I would even be interested in considering reading.  Your tag change has dropped my rate of finding interesting things from 100% to 20%.  That is an 80% reduction in my ease of finding fic.  An 80% reduction in how useful your tagging system is. Let me repeat that: your new tagging system has decreased the usefulness of this archive by 80%. We're not talking, "oh, a small reduction in user satisfaction for a HUGE gain in back-end functionality."  I don't know how much easier this makes things on the back-end for you, but it is a FRICKING HUGE reduction in foundational ease-of-use for the entire site.  This is not a minor change.  This makes the most basic function of the site--finding fic to read--80% harder.  The only scenario in which I would view this as a workable solution--not a good solution, mind you, but one that I could accept--is if it was literally a choice between this and closing the archive. Let's talk about what my use of the archive would have to look like going forward if this change is maintained and expanded, so you can see what I mean.  Up until this change, if I wanted Wonder Woman fic, I clicked on the tag and got it!  Now I can't do that.  So my options are: 1) slogging through the entire DCEU, 80% of which I don't want.  This is the only way to be sure I see every Wonder Woman fic I actually want.   Problem: it will take me at least 80% longer to find stuff I ACTUALLY want.  So, I would be less likely to look for new fic, and more likely to just go re-read old favorites, because it's so much quicker to do.   As a reader and a writer, this is a problem for me, because I do want to read new fic, and I want other people to be able to find MY new fic. 2) putting together a long string of boolean search terms, probably based on characters.  So, for example, I couldn't just search for "Diana (Wonder Woman)" because she appears in too much Justice League and Batman Vs. Superman fic (which I very seldom want to read).  Searching for her would be better than just DCEU, because I wouldn't get Suicide Squad, but it would still be a ton of slogging through fics I don't want.  I could search for "Diana (Wonder Woman)" and use the "Search within results" box to exclude Justice League and Batman and Superman.   But that would miss any fics about Etta Candy or Steve Trevor or Hippolyta or any other Amazon in which Diana didn't appear.  So, then, maybe use boolean search terms for Diana OR Steve OR Etta OR Hippolyta, and eliminating Justice League and Batman and Superman.  Except that would still miss any fic that is, say, general worldbuilding for Themyscira, that doesn't have Diana or Hippolyta in it.  And I love worldbuilding, but not everybody tags for it.  Do I have to build up a boolean search string for EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER IN THE MOVIE in the hopes of catching everything?  How many boolean terms can I use at once?  Or do I need to run several separate searches, which would mean sorting through a lot of these fics multiple times, as they would pop up under multiple search strings?  I would STILL probably end up missing things that I would be interested in, and it would take A SHIT-TON of extra effort on my part.  Far more effort, for less reward.  And, again, as both a reader who wants to find new fic and as a writer who wants other people to be able to find MY fic when I write it, everything about this is terrible. 3. Use AO3 Savior to do some of the filtering for me.  I don't know, blacklisting some tags would probably cut down on the number of boolean terms to rack up, but then I would have to go in and un-blacklist things on the rare occasions I actually wanted to read Batfleck fic.  But this would become of less and less utility as people stopped tagging for individual movies and just tagged everything with the current canonical metatag for DCEU.  Also: there is only one site I know if in which browser extensions are required to make the site useable, and that is tumblr which is a shambling hellscape of a site.  Is that AO3's new goal?  To become as user-hating as tumblr?  Because while I appreciate how hard you guys work, that's what this change feels like. Now, I know you may be reading all this and going, "well, yeah, Wonder Woman fic is a problem, but you won't even notice the changes in most fandoms!" Let me present to you a list of the fandoms I have read the most of over the last year: Star Wars (but only some parts of that fandom, and not others) Star Trek (but only some parts of that fandom, and not others) MCU (but only some parts of that fandom, and not others) Wonder Woman (but not the rest of the DCEU) DC Comics (but only some parts of that fandom, and not others) Rivers of London And much as I love Rivers of London, I've spent a LOT more time reading fic in those other fandoms, because there's simply so much more of it, even when you only count the small pieces of each megafandom I'm interested in. What this means is that if you keep this tagging change and roll it out to other megafandoms, you will SERIOUSLY AND FUNDAMENTALLY BREAK how I use the archive.  And given a) how many other people on this archive are in megafandoms and b) how large a percentage of the people in megafandoms only read fic in one corner of that megafandom ... you are seriously and fundamentally breaking the websites functionality for a very large percentage of your userbase. At one fell swoop, you turn AO3 from an archive I love and support (including financially) to an archive I hope is replaced (soon) with something better, because it's a pain in the ass pretty much every time I try to use it.  Please, please, please, find some other way to fix the problem.  If you need money for more servers, or to hire a professional coder to do some serious backend changes to make things workable with the old tagging structure, I'd be fine with that and I would contribute to any fundraiser you did.  Your current choice is not a solution, it's a nightmare.

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[aion-rsa]

The Dark Knight Trilogy: Horrifying Scenes That Still Make Us Cringe

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Later this month, Zack Snyder’s Justice League is hitting HBO Max. Despite the anticipation and a near-guaranteed positive reception from the vocal #ReleaseTheSnyderCut fan contingent, this will likely be Snyder’s last foray in the DC Universe. Indeed, one of the studio’s chief complaints with Snyder’s vision, which they believe impacted box office receipts, was his darker tone when compared with the quippier MCU. However, Snyder’s approach only mirrored many of DC’s most popular storylines, from Frank Miller’s violent The Dark Knight Returns to the on-screen The Dark Knight Trilogy from director Christopher Nolan. Snyder can hardly be blamed for expanding on what audiences were already responding to when it came to DC characters on film.

Less than a decade ago, Warner Brothers was hot off of the success of Nolan’s trio of films that no one would describe as light-hearted or quippy. The Batman of Nolan’s films was not inspired by the kid-friendly or campy iterations of the character found in the Batman TV series from the ‘60s or Joel Schumacher’s films, but by Miller and David Mazzucchelli’s Batman: Year One, and Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s Batman: The Long Halloween. That is to say Nolan and Christian Bale’s Batman sought to be a street-level, gritty, interpretation of the character that emphasized noir and a grounded reality.

Snyder didn’t make Batman too dark for film audiences, that was already done by Nolan. Below are just a few examples of the darkest, most horrific moments from The Dark Knight Trilogy.

“Swear to me!” – Batman Begins

Audiences knew they were in for a different type of Batman from the moment they heard Bale’s gravelly voice while he was in the suit. Whether Bale goes too far with his growly tenor and into comedic territory is up for debate, but the choice is certainly memorable.

Bale really gets to rough up his vocal cords during a specific scene in Batman Begins where the Dark Knight confronts crooked cop Arnold Flass about Dr. Jonathan Crane’s mysterious drug shipments. After failing to strike fear in Flass, Batman hangs the portly man upside down from a building. When Flass swears to God that he doesn’t know anything, Batman replies, “Swear to me!” his face tremoring with rage. This is the opposite of one of George Clooney’s one-liners during his time under the cowl. Bale’s Batman establishes himself as something to be scared of and as an all-seeing force to be reckoned with.

The Demon Bat – Batman Begins

While horror has seeped its way into Batman comics many times, particularly during Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s recent run with the character, there hasn’t been a ton of nightmarish imagery present in the film adaptations of the character. However, the hands down scariest portrayal of the Caped Crusader on screen comes in Batman Begins. When Bruce Wayne said he wanted to strike fear in the hearts of criminals, this must have been what he was talking about.

In the climax of the film, when Cillian Murphy’s Scarecrow attempts to poison Gotham City’s water supply with his fear toxin, the good doctor is confronted by Batman and given a taste of his own medicine. The fear toxin takes effect and Crane begins to see Batman as a demonic, literal interpretation of the Batman, with black goo dripping from his mouth and jet-black eyes. This monster version of the Bat was certainly a step in the right direction for comic fans hoping the Batman films would get the terror element of the character right.

Bruce Attempts to Kill Joe Chill – Batman Begins

This scene from the first film in Nolan’s trilogy is the darkest because of how real it feels for the main characters. The moment happens not when Bruce Wayne is masquerading as a vigilante dressed as a bat, but when he’s a young man still trying to come to grips with the murder of his parents. Bruce learns that Joe Chill has been paroled so that he can testify against Gotham crime boss Carmine Falcone. Bruce waits outside of the courtroom with a gun, intending to kill Chill after his testimony. But when Chill arrives at the public lobby, one of Falcone’s goons beats Bruce to the punch, shooting Chill dead.

Bruce’s childhood friend Rachel Dawes discovers Bruce’s intentions and slaps him across the face. She berates Bruce and tells him that his father would be ashamed of him, something that undoubtedly must be hard to hear for the angry, grieving young Bruce. This moment serves as a sort of rock bottom for the character before he decides to leave Gotham behind and travel the globe, immersing himself in the criminal underworld, a journey that would inevitably lead to him becoming… the Batman.

Joker’s Pencil Trick – The Dark Knight

No one needs to spill more ink about how brilliant Heath Ledger’s portrayal of the Clown Prince of Crime, the Joker, was in The Dark Knight. It’s an iconic performance that has forever shaded the public’s perception of Batman’s greatest nemesis. He’s simultaneously funny and scary, brutal and sniveling, chaotic and cunning. He can make you smile then suddenly want to shield your eyes.

It’s all right there from his first real introduction in the film when he struts into a meeting between Gotham’s crime lords and offers his services in killing the Batman. Nailing the core components of the character, his penchant for showmanship, his violent tendencies, and his twisted sense of humor, the Joker pulls off a “magic trick” by slamming a gangster’s head through a pencil that was stuck upright on a desk. Not exactly the kind of party trick that you’ll see Ant-Man performing in the MCU!

The Death of Rachel Dawes – The Dark Knight

While the Joker hatches many unsettling schemes in The Dark Knight, like televising himself murdering Batman imposters, threatening to blow up hospitals, and the game theory ferry experiment, his most despicable crime is also his most personal one. After being taken into custody, the Joker reveals that he has set up a no-win trap for Batman, forcing him to choose between Rachel, his love, and Gotham’s White Knight, district attorney Harvey Dent. The Joker has them tied up in different locations, rigged to explode on the same timer, and Batman only has time to save one of them. Joker gives the hero their addresses, but in a cruel twist, switches who is where. Bruce believes that he’s saving Rachel but saves Harvey instead. Meanwhile, the GCPD tried to rescue Harvey, but arrives just in time to watch the building holding Rachel burst into flames.

While Rachel may have been an underserved character, only really used as a victim and love interest until her ultimate fridging, her death was still a shock and a dark turn that other superhero movies, barring the otherwise forgettable The Amazing Spider-Man 2, have always refused to make. Rachel served somewhat as Bruce’s moral compass, and her death left the vigilante adrift and prone to his darkest impulses.

The Transformation of Harvey Dent – The Dark Knight

The flipside to the above is that Batman’s last-minute rescue of Harvey Dent leaves him scarred, traumatized, angry, and fundamentally changed. It’s not just that Harvey loses half of his face and becomes a grotesque victim; it’s that the minute Rachel dies, all of his idealism and motivation to be a force for good and change dies with her. With one act, the Joker takes away the hero that Gotham really needs to end corruption and injustice.

It’s not just that Dent falls; he falls hard. He murders police officers (corrupt though they may be), kidnaps children, and introduces as much anarchy into Gotham as the Joker. Ultimately, he’s stopped by Batman, but his death and fall from grace is a demoralizing moment, and the decision to lie and prop up Dent as the hero he was rather than the monster he became is a necessary but deeply troubling withholding of the truth. Don’t let the triumphant score and imagery at the end of The Dark Knight fool you; this is a supremely downbeat ending.

Bane Breaks the Bat’s Back – The Dark Knight Rises

Batman is a badass who is rarely bested on screen. Even in Zack Snyder’s interpretation of the character, he’s able to subdue a figurative god in Superman. However, in Nolan’s third and final Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises, Batman finally meets his match, and it’s not pretty. After being lured into the sewers by Selina Kyle, Batman walks right into a trap and fight with Bane, the jacked terrorist who was excommunicated from the League of Shadows, and is every bit as badass as Batman. After eight years sitting on the shelf and a career of crime fighting that has left him battered, Batman is absolutely demolished by Bane, who pummels Bruce before finally picking the hero up over his head and snapping his back over his knee. Heroes occasionally lose on screen, but not like this.

Alfred’s Arc – The Dark Knight Rises

Alfred Pennyworth is a crucial character in the Batman mythos, and he’s typically portrayed as a compliant, if slightly disapproving, enabler. However, that’s not so in The Dark Knight Rises. Portrayed by Michael Caine, Alfred breaks hearts by revealing to Bruce that Rachel intended on marrying Harvey Dent and sternly telling his surrogate son that his war with Bane will eventually lead to his death and that he “won’t bury” another member of the Wayne family.

It’s one of the most emotional moments of the film. Alfred basically abandons Bruce, a decision that heightens Bruce’s isolation and hero’s journey. Alfred only returns toward the end of the film for Bruce’s funeral where he tearfully confesses to the late Waynes’ gravestones that he “failed” them. While Alfred’s story ends on a hopeful note, with him spotting Bruce alive and well in Italy, it’s still quite the breakup between Master Bruce and his most loyal advisor.

The Story of Talia al Ghul and Bane – The Dark Knight Rises

While the best villains typically have sympathetic backstories, few have as a traumatic and scarring one as The Dark Knight Rises’ villains, Talia al Ghul and Bane. Toward the end of the film, it’s revealed that Talia grew up in the same place that Bruce found himself in after Bane broke his back. Born in a primitive prison known as the Pit, Talia watched as her mother was assaulted and killed by the other prisoners. The pair were placed in the Pit in exchange for Ra’s al Ghul, with Talia’s mother agreeing to take his place in exchange for his freedom. Talia only survived through the protection of Bane, who eventually helps Talia escape the prison, but he’s badly beaten and disfigured in the process.

Following Talia’s escape, she locates her father and he returned with the League of Shadows to exact revenge on the prisoners that killed his wife and the men who put her there. Afterward, Ra’s and the League saw to the treatment of Bane, but were unable to stop the continual pain he experienced. Eventually, Bane is recruited into the League, wherein he is given a mask which supplies him with analgesic gas to curb the constant pain from the injuries he sustained while protecting Talia. If you thought Bruce had a traumatizing backstory, you must have merely adopted the dark.

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