#c messily reviews a book

[sometimes-reading]

Thoughts on Normal People by Sally Rooney

Okay, I know I'm in the minority on this one. This book is a very popular adult literary romance that has been praised countless times and it was ... not that great?

The second half was much improved from the first half, as that was pretty much when actual things started happening, and the concepts and characters were interesting enough. I think I understand what the author was trying to do, and it was sometimes effective, but I feel like the writing style absolutely destroyed the book for me.

In a book with a very loosely structured plot and few genuine plot points (...) I can still really enjoy it if the writing is good and elevated. But the writing in this book was so overly simplistic and simultaneously pretentious that I was completely disengaged from the story. I think I understand what she may have intended with this writing style - she probably wanted to reflect the normalcy and ordinaryness of her subjects (they are "normal people" of course) with a very blunt and simplistic writing style, but for me it was not effective and it completely took away from the psychological sophistication she was attempting to achieve in her character portrayals.

Also, the ending. What? The plot was so cyclical and again, maybe that was intentional, but it was immensely frustrating to have events repeat themselves and see the characters repeat the same mistakes without growing at all throughout the novel and then ultimately sinking back into their ways and deciding to go their separate ways again. It was so unsatisfying and made the story feel like it went nowhere. Overall, I did end up feeling emotionally invested in the characters and probably would have liked it more if it weren't for the writing style, so I gave the book 2 stars on Goodreads. If you like the book, that's awesome and I think I understand why, but it just didn't fully click for me.

Side note: his is actually one of those few cases where I would say the TV adaptation is better than the book - I watched the series after reading it and it really stuck to the story outline, achieved a style that mirrored the normalcy of the story better than Rooney did (in my opinion), and enhanced my emotional response to the characters' journeys.

Also, quotation marks won't kill you. Use them.

[dragonologist-in-the-making]

Take A Break

Pairing: Sirius x reader

Request: Hello! Could you write a Sirius x reader where she's like the only person not interested in him and is focused on grades, so he's super confused when she pays him no mind? And of course drama queen tries everything he can to get her attention??😁

A/N: This is pretty dialogue heavy, and probably not my best work, but I still hope you enjoy! Feedback is welcome!

Wordcount: 1.5K

Sirius Black had gotten very used to using minimal effort to get attention. Boys, girls, teachers, everyone seemed tuned into him for some reason or other, and he had long moved past the odd feeling that brought about and accepted it as a part of his life. Walking down the corridors often resulted in groups of girls giggling at him, people stepping out of his way without a second thought, his jokes never went unlaughed. He may have no longer been Black family royalty, but the majority of Hogwarts students certainly treated him like a prince.

It was another regular day for him and the rest of the Marauders. They had joked with McGonagall in transfigurations, caused a minor scene at lunch, talked to each other as if they had a secret no one else could know about. Which, of course, they did, but nobody knew that. The extraordinary part of the day for Sirius Black, however, came in his astronomy lesson.

He had noticed her before, of course he had. He often stole glances towards her, her y/h/c hair tied up in a ponytail, the colour of her y/h sitting against her skin. They knew of each other, they had often worked together in the earlier years of Hogwarts in projects they were paired together for, but they had since fallen out of each other’s orbits, leaving Sirius to admire her from afar. Watching the crinkle appear between her eyebrows as she concentrated on her star chart, he knew that he couldn’t wait any longer to ask her out. Out of all the girls he spoke to, and she wasn’t even one of them, y/n was the one who could never leave his mind.

He watched her packing away her equipment at the end of the class as he quickly stuffed his things in his own bag, urging Remus to go ahead without him. Feeling an unusual sense of nerves settle in his stomach, he approached her, clearing his throat to announce his presence. She turned towards him, flashing a bright smile as she swung the bag over her shoulder and tightened her ponytail.

“Hey Sirius, it’s been a while. How have you been?” Checking the time on her watch, she started to walk towards the door and descend the stairs from the tower, Sirius following behind her.

“Oh, you know, I’ve been alright, getting along like always.” He laughed, relieved to hear a chuckle from her, bouncing from the walls of the tower and echoing around them.

“Yes, I’ve seen. It’s quite hard not to, actually.” They had reached the bottom of the staircase by now, and Sirius knew that they were about to head off in different directions for their classes. “I’m assuming the great Sirius Black didn’t seek out a conversation with me for nothing?” She asked, clearly seeing straight through him, causing a slight blush to colour his cheeks.

“Love, I would happily talk to you for hours just because. But you’re right, I did want to ask you something.” She stopped at the top of the next staircase, turning to look at him with a curious expression in her bright eyes. “I was hoping you would come to Hogsmeade with me this weekend?”

She took his hand in hers and looked at him softly as she spoke. “I’m sorry. I’m flattered you asked me, I really am, and I love spending time with you, I just don’t have the time to have the fun that you do, or I’ll never get the grades I need to get the career I want.” She squeezed his hand before letting go, and he felt his heart squeeze with it as she left him and scampered down the stairs, turning back to him at the bottom and giving a little wave, complete with an apologetic smile.

“Sorry mate.” Sirius jumped when James’ hand clapped down on his shoulder, clearly having watched the exchange. “What are you going to do now?”

“I guess I’ll take a leaf out of your book Prongs.” Sirius sighed as the two of them began to walk through the corridor to their next class. “Just, with a little less creepy stalking.”

…

Y/n was sat in the Great Hall, waiting for her friends to arrive and sit with her for lunch, head stuck in one of her favourite books she had picked up in the library a few days earlier, to pass the time while she waited. Hearing someone sit next to her, she bookmarked her page and looked up, surprised to find a certain dark-haired boy sitting in the empty seat by her side.

“What you reading?” He asked, smiling brightly. She held the book out to him silently, placing it into his open hands. “Les Misèrables? J’aime bien ce livre!” She started, staring at him for a couple of seconds before she finally opened her mouth to respond.

“Tu peux parler le français?” His smile grew wider as she spoke to him, enjoying the sounds of the language he rarely got to speak anymore, finding pleasure in it even if there weren’t many parts of his childhood he enjoyed.

“Mais oui, mademoiselle. It’s impossible to be a part of my family and not learn French growing up. How did you learn it?”

“I grew up in France, my family only moved here a couple of years before my eleventh birthday. My parents worked out there for most of my childhood, so I learnt it quite naturally. It’s a beautiful language.”

“Even more beautiful when you speak it.” He laughed loudly as she shot him a dry look, clearly not impressed at his cheap line, although he noted how she averted her eyes and how a smile tugged at her lips. He passed the book back to her, letting his fingers brush over hers ever so lightly. “My offer still stands, if you ever want to take it. Hogsmeade, just say the word.”

“I wish I could, I really do. I’m just not as naturally clever as you and your friends. I have to put so much work in to get the grades that I do, I just don’t think I can fit a relationship into my life at the moment.” Sirius started to respond to her, trying to deny what she had said about him and his friends, but he was interrupted fairly quickly.

“Pads!” It was Remus, standing next to James and Peter, who were all beckoning him over. Sirius sighed, irritated at his friends as they seemed completely oblivious that he was talking to someone else, to y/n.

“It’s okay, they need you.” She encouraged, a hand on his arm as she gently pushed him away. “Have a nice weekend.” And with that, he had been pushed back to the Marauders, and once again he was left looking at her across a room, wishing he could be back by her side.

…

She was sat in the library, filling her Saturday with a self-imposed review of recent lessons, trying to commit it all to memory before exam season began and the stress became overwhelming.

She had lost track of how long she had been sat there, knowing only that lunch had come and gone before she had managed to drag herself away, and now there was an empty pit in her stomach she was ignoring. She was looking over her potions textbook, trying to memorise the method for brewing the elixir to induce euphoria. She had the book closed in front of her, as she muttered under her breath, trying to recall what she had read.

“So then you add the porcupine quills, and after that you… stir four times… clockwise?” She cursed herself as she struggled to bring the words to the front of her mind, beginning to open the book again when a voice interrupted her.

“You stir counter-clockwise.” Sirius was sitting at a table across from hers, alone, his own notes sprawled out in front of him. “You’re louder than you think.”

“You’re studying?” She asked, surprised to see him, and surprised to see him alone, actually doing some work. He nodded, grinning at her shock, messily collecting his belongings and transferring them to her table as he took the seat opposite her.

“I was trying to tell you at lunch the other day. I don’t just naturally take to all my classes, I do have to work for them. I just find the time to have fun, too. Y/n, you can’t spend your life holed up in the library, you’ll miss everything. Taking a little time off isn’t going to make your grades plummet. If anything, it will probably make you concentrate better.” She sat for a moment, taking in his words, and finally nodded.

“I’m willing to give your method a try. So, are you going to let a gal take you to Hogsmeade?” Nothing could beat the breath-taking smile that broke across his face, and she knew that following her heart was the right choice that day.

“I don’t know, I’m kind of busy studying.” He laughed, growing even louder as she threw a roll of parchment at him, hitting him squarely in the forehead. She met his eyes and they were shining at her, and she knew he was worth taking a break for.

[back-and-totheleft]

The Doors and JFK at 30

In the late 1980s and early ‘90s, few American filmmakers were as restless as Oliver Stone. He fired off seven movies from 1986 to 1991, each one a shotgun blast of confrontational ideas and virtuosic style. “Platoon” won four Oscars. “Wall Street” summed up an era of excess.

Stone was particularly busy in 1991. He started the year with “The Doors,” a psychedelic rise-and-fall biopic about the rocker Jim Morrison, played by Val Kilmer. He ended the year with “JFK,” a kaleidoscopic portrait of the hunt for truth in the wake of a national tragedy.

Thirty years later, “JFK” and “The Doors” remain fascinating artistic artifacts, brimming with the brash confidence of a director on a hot streak. They also X-ray some of the cultural fault lines that continue to divide the United States three decades later.

“JFK,” a three-hour epic featuring a stacked ensemble cast, both reflected and anticipated a country in thrall to conspiracy theories. “The Doors” dramatized the agony and ecstasy of the counterculture, revealing why the sex-and-drugs scene was seen as equal parts alluring and revolting.

The films parallel each other in striking ways. Stone, a veteran of the Vietnam War, was then Hollywood’s boldest chronicler of the 1960s, and both of his 1991 projects represent attempts to reckon with that decade’s knotty legacies. They blurred fact and fabrication, memory and myth.

In the eyes of many observers at the time, neither film was an unqualified success. “The Doors” drew mixed reviews and flailed at the box-office. “JFK” performed well on both fronts, but some historians and commentators assailed its fast-and-loose relationship with the factual record.

But in many respects, facts were beside the point.

‘Speculations’ and ‘nightmares’

In 1964, the Warren Commission concluded that President John F. Kennedy was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald and that Oswald had acted alone. Stone was far less convinced, and “JFK” was intended as his “counter-myth.”

Kevin Costner, nearing the apex of his star power and industry clout, stars as New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, who investigated the events surrounding Kennedy’s assassination on Nov. 22, 1963.

Garrison’s crusade takes the viewer on a dizzying tour of midcentury American paranoia. He eyes a sprawling cast of potential culprits: the CIA, the Mafia, Cuban freedom fighters, the military-industrial complex — the shadowy men behind what Stone calls our “untold history.”

“The movie was misunderstood as advancing one particular conspiracy theory, when in fact it was exploring several,” said Matt Zoller Seitz, a veteran film critic and the author of a 2016 book about Stone’s career. “It gave the conspiracy mindset a bigger and more prestigious platform, and I think without ‘JFK’ you don’t get ‘The X-Files,’ for example.”

“JFK” is the near opposite of a by-the-books historical docudrama. The film is a lurid panorama of half-truths and speculation. Stone’s approach alienated some op-ed writers and commentators, who criticized the director months before the movie even premiered.

The columnist George Will huffed that Stone was “a man of technical skill, scant education and negligible conscience.” Walter Cronkite, the CBS newscaster who broke the news of Kennedy’s killing to the nation, reportedly decried the “mishmash of fabrications and paranoid fantasies.”

The film critic Roger Ebert offered up what might be the most salient interpretation, though, writing in a 2002 retrospective: “I have no opinion on the factual accuracy of ... ‘JFK.’ I don’t think that’s the point. This is not a film about the facts of the assassination, but about the feelings.”

“I have no doubt Cronkite was correct, from his point of view. But I am a film critic and my assignment is different than his. He wants facts. I want moods, tones, fears, imaginings, whims, speculations, nightmares,” Ebert wrote.

It is here where “JFK” still reverberates in the addled, deeply fractured America of 2021 — not as a literal account of events but as a collage of issues that still tug at the national fabric, justifiably or not: distrust of government, skepticism of institutions, conspiracy theories, rabbit holes.

“I look at ‘JFK’ now and I see Covid denialists who make it seem as if the virus was created by scientists out of ‘The X-Files,’ the same ones who are going to inject us with DNA from bees, or whatever,” Seitz said. “I think there was a genie that was let out of the bottle with that movie.”

“It is a deranged film when you stand back from it,” Seitz said with a laugh.

Nevertheless, many people around the world still doubt the official narrative of the Warren Commission report and hope more information comes to light.

Jay O. Sanders, a character actor who played Lou Ivon, one of the investigators on Garrison’s team, said in an interview earlier this year that, to this day, strangers still approach him on the street and ask him who he believes killed Kennedy.

“The moment we explored in the film was one of the most important moments to countless people in this country," Sanders said. "It was a loss of innocence. It was a loss of hope."

‘Doors’ to self-destruction

Stone is said to have been intoxicated by The Doors ever since he first heard their music while serving in Vietnam. “The Doors,” a hallucinatory and borderline campy biopic about the dark poet of Nixon-era rock-and-roll, was the director’s acid-kissed homage.

“The Doors” charts Morrison’s rise and vertiginous descent into alcoholism, drug abuse, live-concert antics, cruelty and general R-rated debauchery. It is a frequently unflattering character study — and one that was razzed for exaggerating the musician’s behavior.

“In a way, it feels like the movie Jim Morrison would’ve hallucinated as he was dying,” Seitz said. “There’s a lot of deliberately disorienting touches ... that make you feel like you’re on drugs.”

The film climaxes with a raucous concert in Miami. Kilmer’s Morrison antagonizes the audience, clashes with police officers and appears to expose himself onstage. He bellows what amounts to a personal manifesto and philosophical mission statement: “No limits! No laws!”

The movie is freewheeling but nonetheless adheres to the standard rock god biopic conventions, the stuff of the John C. Reilly parody flick “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.” It also functions as a sociopolitical Rorschach test.

You might be gripped by Stone’s reverential vision of Morrison (who died in 1971 at 27) as a counterculture prophet who urged his adoring fans to stop being “slaves” to the starchy American establishment.

But then again, you might see “The Doors” as a cautionary tale — wittingly or otherwise — about the excesses of the peace-and-love years, with Kilmer’s version of Morrison as a Dionysian narcissist who symbolized the destructiveness of heedless social rebellion.

Oliver Gruner, an academic at the University of Portsmouth in the U.K., explored these contradictions in his 2016 monograph “Screening the Sixties: Hollywood Cinema and the Politics of Memory,” a look at how the American film industry has dramatized the decade.

“Here was a film that on the one hand celebrates an individual associated with hippie lifestyles, but on the other seems vehemently skeptical of the counterculture,” Gruner wrote.

America in 2021 is still conflicted on what to make of that frenzied decade. “The Doors” is not a film about politics, yet the chaos at its core might help us understand why the norm-smashing spirit of the ‘60s split the country and riled soon-to-be-ascendant social conservatives.

In a mixed review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin offered this crisp description of Stone’s larger-than-life subject: “Nowhere did the best and worst of the '60s collide as messily as they did in Jim Morrison.”

But in the course of 141 minutes, she wrote, Stone is not entirely “successful in offering any final assessment of either the ‘60s or his hero than in bringing both back with strange and spectacular power.” The same might be said of “JFK,” a movie of urgent questions without clear-cut answers.

But maybe that was by design.

It has been said that America never got over the ‘60s. Stone seemed to intuit as much. How can you conclude a story that never really ended?

-Daniel Arkin, ‘JFK’ and ‘The Doors’ at 30: Why Oliver Stone’s portraits of the '60s still resonate," NBC News, Oct 2 2021 [x]

[ethenell]

Sundance Recap

In what was an uncharacteristically light year by my admittedly extreme standards, I managed to get in ten screenings over the ten days of Sundance’s 2017 incarnation. But in those films I found a wealth of unexpected cinematic treasure. In general, Sundance can be tough to predict, and screenings that get booked weeks ahead of time can easily turn out to be a mixed bag. But, this year, the stars aligned, and I managed to see almost every buzzed-about film on the festival slate. And, as luck would have it, most lived up to the hype.

Without further ado, here’s my rundown of the films I saw at Sundance 2017.

10. Wind River

After penning back-to-back successes with Sicario and Hell or High Water, Taylor Sheridan quickly established a specialty in crackling action thrillers with a finger on the pulse of Middle America. So, while his directorial debut continues to take on issues largely ignored by us “coastal elites”, the real shock is how poorly developed it’s characters are, and how messily its plot unfolds. His first two efforts were airtight, and Wind River doesn’t come close to living up to them. Jeremy Renner is reliably stoic, and a supporting cast of Native American actors are largely impressive, but Elisabeth Olsen’s formidable talents are completely wasted by Sheridan’s subpar script. On the bright side, he shows a great eye for mis en scene - utilizing the stark Wyoming landscape to great cinematic effect. But his previous efforts succeeded largely because of his sharply-written characters - and the distinct lack of them is precisely what sinks Wind River. [ C ]

9. Nobody Speak: Trials of a Free Press

This documentary take on the Gawker-Hulk Hogan trial was among my most-anticipated titles of the fest. But it’s take on an extremely nuanced debate ultimately amounts to a one-sided screed about our deteriorating First Amendment rights, declining to meaningfully indict Gawker for it’s many grievous sins and account for their place in this story. In spite of its lopsidedness, the film is consistently engaging and draws interesting parallels between the Gawker case and Sheldon Adelson’s incognito acquisition of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, condemning the frightening ability of billionaires to influence the operation of independent journalistic outfits while remaining in the shadows. They’re not necessarily wrong, but the film would benefit from an argument which matches the nuance of the issue it takes on. [ B- ]

8. An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power

Al Gore’s groundbreaking 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth shined a light on the frightening state of the battle against climate change. In the decade since then, a lot of progress has been made, and the crusaders in this righteous battle have reason for optimism. But this follow-up film also points out that some of An Inconvenient Truth’s more explosive predictions have already come true, as humanity has failed to react to the mounting crisis quickly enough. The film could be criticized for focusing too much on Gore instead of the movement - which can come across as a bit self-congratulatory - but it’s hard to argue too vigorously once you’re reminded that Gore has been outspoken on climate change since the eighties ... If you’re that far ahead of the curve, you’ve earned the right to pat yourself on the back a little bit. [ B ]

7. A Ghost Story

David Lowery’s latest was one of the most talked-about entries in the fest for no other reason than people’s amused incredulity that likely soon-to-be-Oscar-winner Casey Affleck spends the majority of the film as a ghost underneath a bedsheet. But in spite of that conceit - which initially drew scattered laughter in the screening I attended - A Ghost Story is a strangely affecting tale of grief and the passage of time. It’s outlandish and sometimes brash in its approach, but it’s also oddly profound and presents an intriguing treatise on the inevitability of death and the uncomfortable fact that life will not cease in our absence. For a riff on the haunted house film, A Ghost Story is appropriately haunting. [ B+ ]

6. Landline

The reunion of Jenny Slate and Gillian Robespierre, the actor + writer/director duo from Obvious Child, was one of the most exciting inclusions in Sundance’s initial slate of announced films. Landline is a different film than Obvious Child - for one, it’s much funnier - but it cements the Slate-Robespierre collaboration as one to watch for the foreseeable future, while featuring great turns from Edie Falco, John Turturro, and a major breakout from Abby Quinn. It’s a grown-up take on the coming-of-age tale, setting family dysfunction against the backdrop of mid-90s New York. In taking on a more ambitious narrative, Landline loses a bit of Obvious Child’s focus - but it nonetheless feels like a welcome step forward. [ B+ ]

5. Icarus

Scoring one of the biggest acquisition deals ever for a documentary film, Icarus is equal parts Supersize Me, Citizenfour, and some kind of Russian riff on All the President’s Men. Not sold yet? Let me provide a bit more perspective - Icarus begins as a film by an amateur cyclist from Boulder, CO seeking to prove that he can undergo a dramatic PED regimen and avoid detection from even the most sophisticated agencies in all of sports. In the course of this pursuit, the filmmaker eventually finds himself at the very center of the explosive doping allegations against the Russian Olympic team. The film’s first half leaves a bit to be desired, but once it hits its stride, Icarus is as exhilarating as documentaries get - combining an endlessly intriguing central figure with a topic that feels relevant today, and might be even more so by the time it hits major audiences. As is the case with all great docs, you couldn’t make this shit up. [ B+ ]

4. City of Ghosts

Following up his Oscar-nominated dive into citizen resistance against the drug gangs in Mexico, Cartel Land, Matthew Heineman once again takes on one of the world’s most dangerous organizations with City of Ghosts, a profile of the citizen journalists at the forefront of exposing ISIS’s heinous crimes to the world, Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently (RBSS). City of Ghosts is a truly harrowing watch, setting the stage for the complex civil war raging inside of Syria, and providing an uncompromising view into ISIS’s horrifying reign. It’s a deeply humane and instantly vital film for these tumultuous times - whatever you feel about the dangers of the refugee program, City of Ghosts forces you to recon with the fact that current politics would send the brave men of RBSS back into imminent danger. I defy anyone who watches this film to find that result acceptable. Heineman may have officially established himself as the most daring documentarian in the world. [ A- ]

3. Thoroughbred

Boasting one of the more impressive casts of the entire festival - Anya Taylor-Joy (The Witch), Olivia Cooke (Me, Earl, and the Dying Girl), along with the tragically-departed Anton Yelchin - Thoroughbred carried a lot of intrigue, despite the fact that it was helmed by a relative unknown. But first time film director Cory Finley has wasted no time proving his chops, as Thoroughbred is a supremely confident debut, more than deserving of the actors who bring it to life. Deliciously twisted and gloriously unhinged, Thoroughbred mixes snappy dialogue over pitch-black undercurrents to great effect. But what truly impresses is Finley’s mastery of the camera, which brings the film’s visual language to life with impressive precision. It’s frankly one of the better debut films I’ve seen in many years, and it’s hard to see it not sticking as one of my favorite films of 2017. [ A- ]

2. Mudbound

Dee Rees returned to Sundance, the site of her breakout festival hit Pariah, with her most ambitious film to date. An adaptation of Hillary Jordan’s acclaimed novel, Mudbound is the story of two families - one white, one black - in the post-WWII South, whose mere proximity turns their interaction into a microcosm of the racist hierarchy that exists all around them. The all-star cast is uniformly excellent, including Carey Mulligan, Garrett Hedlund, Jason Clarke, Jonathon Banks, and most notably, a revelatory turn from Mary J. Blige. But the elegance of Rees’ work here, both on the page and behind the camera, cannot be overstated. Including last year’s festival highlight, Manchester by the Sea, Mudbound is probably the most Oscar-ready film I’ve ever seen at Sundance. A period drama that sets its sights on big time thematic territory and then hits it out of the park, this will likely be remembered as the moment that Rees entered the upper tier of Hollywood directors. Based on what I’ve seen in Pariah and Mudbound, I can’t imagine her leaving it any time soon. [ A ]

1. Call Me By Your Name

Last year’s A Bigger Splash remains criminally under-appreciated - mainly for Ralph Fiennes’ delightfully wacky central performance - but something tells me that Luca Guadagnino’s follow up, Call Me By Your Name, won’t suffer the same fate. Receiving rapturous reviews from all corners of the critical community, Call Me By Your Name is the clear standout of Sundance 2017, and more than deserving of whatever hype it’s picked up during its Park City debut. A story of sexual awakening and the emergence of enduring connection, Guadagnino’s latest film is a transcendent piece of queer cinema that practically overflows with empathy for the characters at it’s center, brought beautifully to life by Timothée Chalamet and Armie Hammer. With the great Sufjan Stevens providing original compositions and songs for the film, the below the line work is unerringly excellent, adding crucial texture to Guadagnino’s vision which hits hard even as it abandons the loose flash of his work on A Bigger Splash. Call Me By Your Name is, at it’s core, a moving love story, and times like these call for films that reaffirm the importance of romantic love in all its various forms and deep complexity. It’s a remarkable achievement, one whose impact is bound to be discussed throughout the year - and perhaps for years to come. [ A ]

[tessatechaitea]

Michael Cray #1

This would be my reaction to seeing Green Arrow too.

That's not San Francisco! As if you could see that many stars from The City.

That's Oliver Queen waking up after having a nightmare about that time he crashed on a wacky island. Having been raised in the lap of luxury without ever having to fend for himself, he of course becomes an expert bowman and survivalist through sheer force of will. It's important to see that Oliver Queen may have been born rich but he was still the type of man who could make something of himself without his parents' wealth and privilege. Also he remembered how Bruce Wayne left behind everything to become the greatest detective the world has ever seen so Oliver was all, "I need that kind of secret origin too! But a little bit different so that people don't just think I'm Batman with a bow and old fashioned facial hair!" Michael Cray moves to Oakland where he meets the world's least skittish mouse. He touches it and it blows up. I guess that's Cray's superpower? I might have been mistaken as to why he was called Deathblow. Was that blow job joke subtle enough to pass for a G Rating? I wonder if the three people Michael Cray hires for his team will sometimes tell people, "Oh yeah, I'm out in Oakland working the Deathblow job." Then those people will never talk to them again.

Michael Cray's dad plagiarizes my Green Arrow origin story. Is that how plagiarism works? Probably!

Michael Cray's dad explains that Oliver Queen is a rich asshole. He apparently "helps funnel narcotics and guns into the 'wrong' neighborhoods. Crime goes up. Then he privately funds political efforts to hammer down on them with the police." That's almost exactly what Bruce Wayne does! He drives criminals into certain sections of Gotham. Real estate prices fall due to increased crime. Bruce Wayne buys up all the cheap properties and then Batman drives the crime out of the area. Later, Bruce Wayne jerks himself off on the way to the bank! In a scene setting up the reader to despise Oliver Queen so we don't feel icky backing a government assassination attempt, Queen treats a woman who seems to love him like she's a prostitute. Now we all hate his guts! Kill him, Michael Cray! Kill him! Oh wait a second. I already hated his guts! If that wasn't enough reason to hate him, he also makes his sister clean his sex sheets. And if that wasn't enough, he then quotes John Donne! But he doesn't just quote him! He quotes a section of Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions in an odd way. The quote's the bit about the bell tolling for everybody (but mostly for him!) and then ends with an ellipsis to simply finish the quote with "no man is an island." He basically yada yada yada'd a huge section of Donne's pain! Fucking monster! It's also possible Queen just went from a Donne quote to a Bon Jovi quote. "They say that no man is an island. But good things come to those who wait. But the things I hear are there just to remind me. Every dog will have his day! The spirits! They intoxicate me! I watch them infiltrate my soul! They try to say it's too late for me! Tell my guns I'm coming home! I swear! I'm gonna live forever!" Ha ha! You are not, Oliver Queen! That was a stupid thing to quote because you're going to die! Dammit. I just realized that Michael Cray might find out that Oliver Queen is actually Green Arrow and he's really helping people so he'll have to let him live. Although why show him to be such a disgusting piece of shit if that's how the story will work out? I imagine that's how the story would work in the actual DC Universe. But in the Wildstorm universe, we're allowed to think the worst of Oliver Queen and watch him die messily.

I hope she can change his mind with some sweet, sweet government lies!

Ms. Trelane tells Cray that Oliver Queen hunts people. Why not? They're the most dangerous game! But mostly he hunts veterans so that makes him super bad. If he only hunted, say, criminals and pedophiles, people might be able to get behind him. But he hunts the nation's heroes! What a sick bastard! Ms. Trelane doesn't really care that he kills homeless people. I mean veterans! She and Skywatch (or whatever company she works for. Remember how I don't remember?!) just want his technology and market share. But she's up front with Cray about how she's manipulating him to do Skywatch's dirty work. So at least she's honest? Oliver Queen quotes some more Donne while hunting veterans. It's a good metaphor that Queen chooses to use quotes from Devotions upon Emergent Occasions because the book is a meditation on pain and being sick. I think that means Oliver Queen knows he's a sick bastard causing people pain! Michael Cray #1 Rating: Three stars our of four! That might only be a C Average but it also sounds like I really liked it. That way I can defend the score no matter who attacks me on it. If someone is all, "You thought this was that good?!", I can be all, "3 out of 4 stars is 75%! That's average in the ratings system of United States schoolchildren!" But if people are all, "75%?! You hardly liked this at all?", I can say, "But three stars! Out of four! That's practically all the stars!" Nobody's going to challenge me on my comic book rating of this book!