#oh fuck lex luthor is going to run for president again

[t4tails]

the flash could honestly beat anybody so long as theyre sufficiently agitated by his personality first

[holy-asd-batman]

Live reactions to Superman/Batman Public Enemies

Ooooh Kara!!!!

Clark is fucking ugly

Why did the anime girl run

I do like her voice not her design

IS THAT SUPPOSED TO BE AMANDA WALLER

They did her dirty

At least all of them ugly, equality ig

Kevin Conroy, the man the myth the legend <3

God they're married

And Clark and Lex are so divorced vibes

Lex going through the motions of Bombs, their yours my friend

How are Metallos pants still on??

DON'T THROW THE GRAVESTONES CLARK THAT'S DISRESPECTFUL

Also Bruce shows up and gets his shit wrecked in 0.5 seconds

Sure blow up the entire graveyard

"Do us a favour and lose the sense of humour." "Do us a favour and buy one"

CLARK HE'S OPERATING ON YOUR HEART AND TRYING TO REMOVE THE KRYPTONITE, WHILE THE FIGHT IS STILL GOING ON. NOW IS NOT THE TIME

The pic of Bruce just lying like the family guy meme

The casual banter while both of them are seriously in danger of succumbing from their wounds -> married

I'm enjoying Luthor so far. He's just lying and spreading blatant misinformation and he's loving it

Kara's design is so ugly, her boobs are too big and her eyes are too far apart. She looks like a porn version of a Disney Princess

WHO IS THAT SHE’S HOT

Banshee she looks cool

How Solomon Grundy holds Batman is how I treat him in my mind

Deadshot is spinning guns nice

KORI NO I LOVE YOU GIRL, WHY ARE YOU WORKING FOR LUTHOR

Wait wasn't Bruce inside that Tornado

Lex Luthor and Ru-Paul have the same speech patterns

Bro the argument "He's the president" sounds so stupid to a non-american

Like imagine going this hard for fucking Mark Rutte or worse Willem-Alexander

Batman spitting facts "I don't see any patriotism here"

Did Powergirl just kill someone and cause the death of another

Yep RIP Captain Atom and Major ‘I forgot your name’

Wait isn't this the meteorite that supposedly annihilated Blüdhaven

And kicked off No Man's Land

If a meteorite that size was involved wouldn't this be a UN problem and not necessarily a American Issue

Billy come on, I trusted you

I love the thoonk sound that happens when Billy hits Clark

NICE ONE BILLY GET HIS ASS

"Just taking my supplements"

Luthor is insane I'm loving this

Wait is Bruce just standing there half-naked

Luthor is so unhinged

Besties flying away

LUTHOR SAYING BITCH WAS SO OUT OF LEFT FIELD

Oh the general is going to die

I may be making a separate post with screenshots of Luthor he is absolutely bat-shit insane

Ohhh I do not like Toyman’s accent

WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT MECHA SUIT

FUCK YESSSSSSSSSS

Every line Luthor says is just Gold

Bruce this is the tenth time you got swung against a wall with your grappling line

THE GOODBYE FROM BRUCE AND THE FALLING SCENE HOLD ON

this is so homoerotic

Oh Clark is mad mad

Comics have been described as Modern Mythology

These two are Patroclus and Achilles the way they keep sacrificing themselves for the other

Clark is mentally dragging Luthors corpse behind his carriage

Yeah Bruce wouldn't have survived that

The crowd cheering for the explosion of the Meteor while Clark looking devastated cause he knows Bruce died... Hold on...

Luthor still being a bitch

Oh Captain Atom is alive

Titties out Luthor, I salute you

He's Alive!!

Ahwwww Clarks smiling again

That hand-holding was not platonic

"God bless America, God bless Me!!!" You got this Luthor I BELIEVE IN YOU

[alexisluthor]

No-Show

Lex’s eyes scanned the room time and time again. It got so bad that whoever had the misfortune of talking to him, only got about 15% of his attention. They were all bloodsuckers anyway - that’s how he justified not feeling bad. Still, the hollow feeling in his chest persisted. He could trace the edges of that hollowness, cut his fingers on its glaring sharpness. 

He was looking for Clark. 

Ashamed, he lowered his head and brought the champagne flute to his lips. The taste of alcohol already resided on his lips, but it wasn’t enough to drown him entirely. He wanted to drink to the point where he no longer searched for Kent’s familiar broad shoulders, the wild curl of his dark hair, the sharp emerald of his cutting gaze. 

Luthor shook hands with scores of people, carelessly losing track of their words and names. Still, they came to him, pulled into the gravity that surrounded him. Gravity created by the fathomless depths of his bottomless pockets. 

He had invited Clark. 

He had invited Clark to the event before this one, three years ago. And to this event. Both times he had taunted Lex with, “I might come. You never know.” 

Why say something like that? Why keep alive that little flicker of...

“Lex?” 

Luthor turned and breathed a heavy sigh. It was Wayne.  “Am I not who you were hoping to see?” the fellow billionaire asked. His blue eyes sparkled beneath the crystal chandeliers. He smelled of custom cologne and his muscle bound body was clad in a Versace suit that cost as much as a car. 

“No. You’re not.” 

“Kent’s not coming,” Bruce deadpanned. 

Lex’s deadly gaze rose, his heart beat climbed in pace. How the hell had Bruce known who he was waiting for?

“What? You expected he would?” Bruce added with a chuckle. “He said that he hoped you would ‘finally move on and leave him alone.’ Doesn’t sound like he’s too fond of you. You’re not the stuff of legends, you’re the stuff of the past.” 

Lex’s jaw was snapped shut so tight that he felt the bones groan in protest. 

Luthor’s eyes were daggers, his mouth a weapon deadlier than any in Bruce’s arsenal. He turned towards his once boarding school friend and took a deep breath in. He’d put on a lot of weight in prison and it wasn’t fat.  For the first time in his life, Lex Luthor could stand toe-to-toe with Bruce and win. 

Despite Bruce’s bravado, the tiniest muscle in his face twitched. 

“I’m the president of the United-fucking-States,” he ground out. “Tread carefully.” 

Wayne huffed a laugh. “And that still wasn’t enough to impress him was it? Is that why you did it? To impress Clark? Well, it didn’t work. You are enemies. You’re nothing more than a nuisance to him. It never mattered how good you were, how brilliant, how many inventions you made or how many books you published. You’re no one.”

“I’m more than you’ll ever be,” he hissed. 

“Oh, I doubt that. I see him on a daily basis. I work with him.”

“Is that what the silent treatment is called now? Working? All you two do is fight. You started off tight, but you’ve drifted. Now you hang onto a tenuous connection - probably out of obligation more than anything else. You’re just as doomed as me,” Lex smiled. “One day, you’re gonna wake up and not have that golden boy’s smile light upon your face. One day, you’re going to be in the shadows with me - buried in the silence - drowned by the very darkness you profess to love.”

Bruce’s eyes shone murderously, but a twisted smile began forming on his face. He stepped closer to Luthor. A whole hoard of security formed a line of defense behind the newly elected president, but Lex held a hand up, waved them off. 

“At least I got to experience that light at all,” Bruce said, “and because of that - I’ll have more than you ever will. You can have the entire world and it’ll never be enough, will it? Not until you have him? And you never can.” 

That hole that lived in Lex pulsed painfully in his chest. 

“He’ll never love you Luthor,” Bruce whispered into his ear. He took a step back with a shit eating grin. 

“No, he won’t,” Lex said, catching Wayne off guard. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I would die for him. That doesn’t change the fact that I...” the words caught in his throat. Bruce was too close to right. Everything he had done was in an effort to be ‘good enough’ - but he never was. 

“What good would it do?” Clark had answered to Lex’s invitation. The words hit like a slap and continued to sting afterwards. Lex finished the sentence in his own head. ‘What good would it do to see you when all I do is hate you?’ ‘What good would it do to come when I’ve spent forever trying to get away from you?’ ‘What good would it do to see you when you’re already a lost cause?’ The hole in his chest only grew. ‘...finally leave me alone...’ ‘finally.’  Lex swallowed, tasting the alcohol on his withering tongue and wishing there were more. 

Bruce wasn’t sure what to make of the sight before him. Lex was never silent, Lex was never selfless. He knew the real reason Clark wouldn’t come. Kent wouldn’t show because Luthor was a magnet. He was youth and beauty - wit and cunning - talent and tenderness. Most of all, he was unpredictable. He could very well flay Clark alive with a single, broken glance. 

Despite having everything, Lex was shattered, and nothing cuts deeper than something already broken. What if he were to hug Clark? Touch his shoulder? Smile in his general direction? What if his soul-on-display nature was enough to unlace Clark? Tear him asunder and drag him into the tormented existence that Lex already faced on a daily basis? 

Lex the stoic. Lex the powerful. To everyone else, he was someone to be feared. But to Clark, he bared his soul. And Clark? Closed the door. Too afraid to look. 

Bruce kept tabs on Luthor when Clark had so utterly destroyed him. He expected a tantrum or a move for world domination. What he saw instead was a man in his million dollar pent house, quietly drinking himself to death. A man who ate too little and slept too much and grieved. Grieved at the prospect of never seeing Clark again. Not the Clark he knew from a decade ago. Not the Clark from Smallville. The one who smiled and offered his presence in times of trouble. 

Lex was in trouble. He had trouble. He got in a car wreck - lost his hand. And still, no one walked through that hospital door. No one cared. Clark didn’t care. All he wanted was for him to care. To matter. So he acted out and emailed too much, he slid farther down the slippery slope of villainy and no one caught him on his way down. Least of all Clark. 

Alone. Surrounded by an ocean of people, the entire world’s eyes upon him, and he was still alone. 

“President Luthor,” one of his guards came up behind him. “We’re ten minutes late to start the dinner.” 

“Go ahead, start it,” he gestured vaguely. 

“I feel bad for you,” Clark’s letters flashed across his mind. ‘I pity you,’ is what they truly said. The black with which they were written seared straight into Lex’s flesh, sealed right to his bones, and he closed his eyes against them to pretend they weren’t tattooed across his chest like a poorly hung ornament.

“Start without you?” the suit behind him said incredulously. 

“Yes,” Lex answered.

The suit disappeared. 

“Not the best way to treat your guests at your inauguration. Shouldn’t you be present? Shouldn’t you be gloating? Or dropping nukes?” 

Lex just looked down upon Bruce with eyes that said, ‘you know nothing.’ His hand hurt. Or rather, his lack of a hand hurt. His good hand reached into his pant pocket and fiddled with a Vicodin and a Xanax. He remembered how the entire world melted away with a little white pill and just knowing that serenity existed was enough to keep him sane for now. 

“I am pathetic,” he said suddenly. “I am. I wanted Clark here, more than anything, more than...more than I wanted the presidency.” 

Bruce’s eyes went wide.

“I know I’m nothing to him, and I don’t care. I would trade all of my dignity and grace for two minutes, for one handshake, for one... ‘I’m proud of you,’” he swallowed. “And I don’t get that. It’s bad enough that I don’t get him. But I don’t even get that - and it kills me.” His breath was caught in the knot that had formed in his throat. “You can think whatever you like about me, and so can he. He hurts me, and I hurt him, because it’s easier...”

“Easier than what?” 

“I never wanted the world. I don’t even want him. I just wanted to say goodbye.” 

“Easier than what?” Bruce pushed, stepping forward, but Lex was stepping backwards, floating away, disappearing into the crowd. He had brought something small and white from his pocket and popped it into his mouth, burying it under an ocean of whiskey before plastering another fake smile upon his face. 

Bruce followed through the thickening crowd until he found himself in the grand dining room. A man was on stage. 

“Ah, there he is...the man of the hour,” the man’s eyes lit up. “Please give a warm round of applause to the  46th President of the United States of America, Alexander J. Luthor,” the man motioned towards Lex who walked to the stage as the dinner guests erupted in applause. 

Lex’s hands went to either side of the podium, gripping it as he looked out on the sea of faces. 

Outside, Clark...Superman... was hovering above the sidewalk on the outside gates of the White House. He wasn’t allowed to hover on the grounds or drop in unannounced. Still, even at a good distance, he had watched Lex’s and Bruce’s entire interaction. Super hearing and x-ray vision had it’s advantages. Sometimes. This wasn’t an advantage though. He wished he hadn’t seen or heard anything at all. 

Lex’s hand-signed invitation to his inauguration remained trapped between his heroic fingers. It burned to the touch, it scorched to look at, it skewered him. Not as much as what he’d just witnessed though. 

He could go in. He could turn tail and run as far away as he could, as fast as he could. He could fly away. He could zip to the fortress and bury himself in ice for a century. 

But he did none of those things. Instead, he hovered there as time dripped down the drain, holding the invitation.

[tessatechaitea]

Wonder Twins #6

Every comic book series needs one cover where the bad guy becomes over-sized to crush Earth in their hands.

Looking at Zan and Jayna here, I just realized I could wind up in my sister's body. Gross. Please stop The Great Scramble!

I'm not saying my sister's body is gross (I'm also not saying it isn't! I'm not choosing sides on that debate!). I'm just saying I would be profoundly uncomfortable forever if my mind wound up in my sister's body. I would never be able to masturbate again! But what if I could get my sister, in my body, to jerk me, in her body, off? That isn't weird, right? She's just doing what she always did and I don't have to touch my sister's naughty place (which is now my naughty place?). That's probably the only real solution to this problem! Anybody grossed out by my sex talk can go suck on a dog turd because Mark Russell makes sex jokes too!

LOAD "Load",8 RUN

Superman is super worried about The Great Scramble because he could wind up in Aquaman's body. He calls for the Justice League to stop helping victims of natural disasters and concentrate on stopping The Great Scramble. I don't know what his plan is but I know it's not "give The Scrambler what he wants and make the world a fair and just place for every Earth citizen" because Batman would just shoot it down. He just wants to stop random violence in back alleys not upset the status quo which serves rich people. The Scrambler is hiding out at Polly Math's place because she loves his plan. Plus I bet she gets immunity as his sidekick. Superman doesn't know the hell Polly Math is so he has no chance of figuring out where The Scrambler is hiding. He contacts the president to let him know the world probably isn't screwed but maybe be prepared for the worst?

I applaud Russell and Byrne's choice to let the DCU have a different president.

Zan uses his powers to become a disgusting fly to learn where The Scrambler is hiding rather than working a deal with the League of Annoyance. I wonder if Zan craves shit when he's a fly? Probably. But even though all the clues point to Filo Math's place, Zan can't figure it out. Jayna does figure it out though and she goes to talk some sense into Polly and The Scrambler. But Polly logically suplexes Jayna's argument into the hospital. It's one of those scenes Mark Russell does really well where he explains social problems through character and plot in much the way good comic book writers have been doing for so long that Comicsgaters never really noticed until they felt their frail white masculinity threatened. I'm sure they'd read this, scoop out their eyes, roll them around the room, and then tweet death threats to Gail Simone. But if you gave them Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams early seventies run of Green Lantern/Green Arrow, they'd probably say, "Fuck those faggots too!" Hmm, that sentence really got away from me. I was going to point out that they probably wouldn't have had a problem with those stories even if they were absolutely non-abstract social justice stories but then reality slapped me across the face and said, "You know how those fucking assholes would really react, right?" So sorry about saying the f-word but I just got too into the character of a Comicsgater. It was worse than when I contemplated having to masturbate in my sister's body. Seriously though, I can't understand the argument about comic books ignoring character and plot to simply put forth social justice agendas because when I think back at all the comic books I've read for the last forty years, the majority of them by a large margin were stories about increasing social justice. What the fuck were these Comicsgaters reading all these years?!

"With our bank accounts!"

If I knew the exact time The Great Scramble was going to happen, I'd leave my body sitting naked in a tub of chocolate pudding with The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick wrapped around my penis. Lex creates an app called Lexema that will allow family members to stay in contact after The Great Scramble. I just figured everybody would stay in contact because they're still the only ones with their names and passwords on their social media platforms and emails. Unless most people don't know how to use computers in libraries and/or use those password apps to create passwords that their computer remembers for them. I guess Lex probably has a good point with that program. It's not like anybody memorizes phone numbers anymore (which would be useless, of course. I'm just using that as evidence and an example of how people probably won't remember all the passwords they need. I would expect, in The Great Scramble world, the first few months would be all about proving who used to be who and just setting everybody back up in their old lives. Lex's app should be a place where everybody locks in a secret password which they can use to prove who they were prior to The Great Scramble! Man, that would have been the better idea! I think I'm smarter than Lex Luthor! The world governments actually are instituting laws to protect people all over the world when The Great Scramble goes into effect. So The Scrambler's plan is sort of working! Jayna realize that they can stop The Great Scramble and all of those laws will still happen. The Scrambler will be a hero! But before she can reach Polly and The Scrambler, the Justice League arrives and captures them. Because Zan did some detective work as a water molecule to find where The Scrambler was hiding. And with the capture of The Scrambler, the president and the rest of the world decide not to sign all the laws that would improve the world. Stupid meddling kid! Wonder Twins #6 Rating: It's still being written by Mark Russell, right? So A+! And that Stephen Byrne guy didn't do too bad a job, whatever it was he does. Draws the boxes the stories go in or something. They were pretty straight! Good job!

[its-just-like-the-movies]

Date Night!: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

Back when the swell fella who would become my boyfriend and I were in one of those strange middle grounds where we were on our way to becoming a couple and very, very aware of it, our first sort-of-date was when Tommy invited me to go see Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice on its opening night. I, of course, accepted, somewhat reluctantly. I can’t remember if I was expecting the film to be good or bad, though I’m sure before then some of its abysmal reviews had been public. I was also nervous about the whole “oh my god this is probably sort of a date isn’t it”, especially since at the time I didn’t know him all that well. This would be the first of many dates at Ze Cinemah, although after this we’d be perfectly, happily aware that they were all dates. Even better, I think, is our immediate discussions after the film is over, and how eager we are to talk about it and discuss what we’ve just seen. We’ve seen plenty of films together, and maybe I’ll talk about other ones we’ve seen someday, but I can already feel a pit in my stomach drop at having to talk about this stinking pile of steamingness. All said, Batman v Superman is one of those truly atrocious films, like The Judge or The Danish Girl, that works like so much manure and makes me start sparking and frothing with how horrible they were. It’s an energizer more than it is a depressive, though it for sure is both, and there is one thing about our date in particular that haunts me every day. It’s not even something the film did, but something I did, or almost did, but could have done more of. Something that perhaps could have changed the screening for the whole theater, or as Anthony Hopkins keeps saying in the trailers for the new Transformers movies “change the tide of human history itself”. I wonder about it every day and every night, as I sleep and as I wake, and especially as a type this story to you, The Void, and now I must share the tale of my screening of Batman vs Superman with you to get it of my chest, to free myself, and to see where the tides of human history itself shall take me. Also: I’m going to be very mean to this film, and am very not interested in hearing about how wrong I am from random eggs as I and many others I know have been on Twitter. I hate it, don’t care if you love it, for fuck’s sake leave me alone.

It didn’t take the two of us long to find a pair of seats, though we immediately moved to the row behind us because our view was partially blocked by the structure of the stairwell. We warned the couple who ended up taking those seats about it, though I can’t remember if they moved too. And the film starts. Zack Snyder has the gall to open the film by reminding us that Batman’s parents died in front of him during a robbery gone wrong. He also seemingly cannot hire Jeffrey Dean Morgan to do much beyond die in the openings of his films, though I remember he had more to do in Watchmen. The visual of Martha’s(!!!) pearl necklace snapping in the gun’s safety as the trigger is pulled is sort of fascinating but also pretty grotesque, all things considered. Batffleck is saying something, though I cannot remember what. We see the funeral, little Bruce running into the woods in sadness during the procession, only to fall into a well or pit or some such hole in the ground. The score, I’m sure, was going crazy.

And then, it happens. Baby Bruce is levitated out the pit by seemingly hundreds of bats flying around him like a tornado, floating him towards the light. This is how we are abruptly told that this is a dream sequence, and reader, I laughed. Not the cackle it deserved, but I couldn’t stop it from escaping completely. I chuckled, giggled, whatever; I’m pretty sure Tommy hit me on the arm to calm me down and get me stop but I’m not quite sure. The giggle is what counts, though, and it haunts me. What if I had just burst out laughing at a moment that the whole theater was palpably flummoxed by? Batffleck wakes up but I am still reeling from the horseshit prologue we have been subjected to. It is not the most nonsensical thing we are going to see in this movie. It is not even the least plot-relevant indulgence that Zack Snyder will take us through, nor the least inexplicable jump of energy or plot logic that we’ll be forced to sit through. Academy Award winner Holly Hunter will be forced to stare dramatically, in close-up, to a jar of piss before she and dozens of other people are killed in an assassination plot meant to frame Superman, whose own close up registers at the subtle, bottomless despair and discomfort of sitting on the can and realizing you’re not quite done shitting, except Henry Cavill also registers as remarkably bored. Jeremy Irons reads every line as Alfred Pennyworth with such bitchy, subtly nasty inflections that I actually found the character an unwelcome presence, though if anyone found this a life raft of something enjoyable happening on screen, particularly Irons, then by all means savor him. Amy Adams will throw a Kryptonite spear into an underwater pile of rubble and, with no indication that Lois Lane has been told why the heroes need it to vanquish the rock monster that is Doomsday, dives into the water and nearly drowns recovering it. Batman slaughters - in fact, he often guns down - dozens of criminals on screen, brands sex offenders, had one montage that’s just him training to become even beefier and another, completely bizarre dream sequence that may also be a warning from another dimension’s Flash where Superman is technically Hitler, and Barry Allen screams about Lois Lane before Batffleck wakes up at his desk, which is meant to convey that this May Have Been A Dream Or Is It Ooooooh. This scene has no narrative impact and is never referenced again, though it is not as patently stupid as is the sight of Superman, wielding that Kryptonite spear, deciding to kamikaze himself by killing Doomsday with the knowledge that he cannot survive any assault the giant may bring on him while he is in such close proximity to said spear, ignoring the two superheroes who have been helping him fight Doomsday this whole time.

There are plenty of other absurd, delicious, amazingly shitty one-offs. Michael Shannon is credited for appearing in the film for the three seconds General Zod’s corpse floats in the remains of his spaceship. The President of the United States decides to nuke Superman in the middle of his fight with Doomsday after the latter threw the Man of Steel into the Earth’s orbit (a safe enough distance to nuke him, I suppose). Diane Lane is duck taped and tied to a chair, threatened to be burned alive as Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor throws photos of her with “Witch” written on her face, and all of this is tied into some mythological asinine crap that is Luthor’s motivation for wanting to kill Superman and create Doomsday in the first place. Eisenberg spends the whole film as some combination of Edward Nygma and a meth addict’s impersonation of Heath Ledger’s Joker, and it is by far the biggest trainwreck in the whole film. I think I also resisted laughing once “MARTHA!!???!?!?!?!!!” happened but in truth, I blocked that out of my memory. The sheer joy of seeing Wonder Woman, and hearing the score come alive as she roars into battle, literally, at some points, is all that is keeping me from giving this film an F grade, though perhaps I just can’t rate an Amy Adams film that low. Gal Gadot is at least enjoying herself, which is in even bigger contrast to the stark constipation that Cavill and Ben Affleck are constantly exuding. The film has ideas about literal hero worship, about what Superman could mean or stand for, and wants to have real conversations about his necessity, but it jerry-rigs them through Christic imagery and working hard to undermine the criticisms of genuine challengers and the critics themselves. Bruce’s hatred and suspicion of the Man of Steel seems completely arbitrary, banking on the fear of Superman turning on humanity in spite of his big coming-out party as a global entity being the eradication of his home species for the sake of mankind. Horrific as the collateral damage was, it’s not in line with anything Superman does in the film, is shown as doing, or is framed as doing by Synder himself, who doesn’t pretend for a moment that there’s actually anything wrong with Superman. He’s content to make the man a misunderstood martyr, a golden boy whose death inspires the formation of The Justice League and the warming up of Batman’s glacial, inherently distrusting heart. Superman is basically fridged on behalf of Bruce Wayne, and it’s clumsily executed as Smallville himself is. 

There are so many vile, absurd, abstracted, unnecessary, horrific moments in this film and yet, I still wonder how much that night would’ve changed had I actually burst out laughing at the beginning of the film. What would’ve changed for the whole theater if some jackass sitting hear the back-left had cackled as a small child is literally lifted out of a scene the filmgoing public had seen at least seventy-eight million times by now, one that kicks off an indefensibly ghastly excuse for a Hollywood spectacle lit worse than even the lowest budge episode of The X-Files and colored like it’s scared that bright shades will deflate how Dour and Serious this Cinematic Experience is? Recounting many of the set pieces I’ve already mentioned back to my sister afterwards I couldn’t help cackling at some of them, though I did so far more angrily with Tommy immediately after, baffled not just that I had paid for this film but that it even existed, that anybody who made this gigantic dumpster fire thought that it was in any way a competently crafted, psychologically or emotionally coherent picture. Could we, as a crowd, as a community, have laughed at this horseshit for what it was? I love that in horror movies the audience always make the pact with itself that fine, this is a lot, you deserve a good scream. This picture was even more upsetting, and perhaps if I’d laughed, having taken the piss out of it so goddamn early, we wouldn’t have had to just sit there and take it. We could’ve fought back and laughed at it (with it?), openly railed against it, or just fucking not be quiet throughout this whole ordeal. I will always be haunted by this inaction on my part, and to this day it shames me.

He did try to defend parts of it, but not much, and for sure stole my comments about how Eisenberg wasn’t even playing Lex Luthor when we starting talking about the film to our RA Josh and fellow hallmate Dylan in the hall that same night. Josh peddled the theory that Marvel people had paid off critics to hate on DC’s live-action features, which I challenged by asking why Marvel would even need to do that. It’s not even that DC’s films are so drastically worse than any of Marvel’s features, but Marvel at least has a brand formula at work. Their knock is never that their bad, just predictable and uninspired, though they’ve been getting a little better at going against both those counts lately, with the Guardians films at least. And I will say this for Batman v Superman: It’s awfulness has staked a far larger claim on my mental landscape than The Avengers or Deadpool or most Marvel fare ever has. I liked Man of Steel fine, was particularly impressed by the early minimalism in portraying Superman’s powers, especially his x-ray vision, and was even playing devil’s advocate with family members I saw it with. I’m semi-interested to return to it, but not passionately so. You for sure couldn’t call this film formulaic, perhaps unworthy of all the bombast it’s applying to itself but worthy of notice the way a burning car is, or how Jeff Goldblum and Laura Dern are seemingly in awe of that giant pile of shit in Jurassic Park. As dubious as literally every aspect of this film is, the sheer magnitude of its awfulness is compelling in such a way that I became anticipatory of the film’s eventual Rifftrax takedown as I was watching it. I don’t know how soon into it this idea started, but once Amy Adams dived in to get that spear I could already hear the befuddled joke about Lois Lane: Plot Psychic that Kevin Murphy would probably hurl at the screen, and it made this mess a little bit better.

All things being honest, I am absolutely going to see Justice League with my boyfriend, though I wonder how much more excited he is than I am. I loathed Suicide Squad but thought it was so poorly edited I stopped caring and would up having something of an okay time, appreciating Margot Robbie trying to find a character in Harley Quinn and relishing that Viola Davis actively seemed to want to be there a little as I did. Of course I’ve seen Wonder Woman, a step above most recent DC efforts in that it’s compelling, competently told and emotionally resonant, though it really shows Gadot isn’t much of an actress. There’s a lot about it I questioned in the moment but I am so, so appreciative of Wonder Woman as a film that exists, and one I mostly enjoyed seeing even as I actively wished for a better version of the film while I was watching it. Maybe I should just not see these given how much I end up railing against these projects, but I love watching movies with my guy (who I also love) and they are great conversation fodder. Plus, we watch lots of better movies together! Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was the first of many, many delightful date night movies, and we weren’t even dating yet! My guy was easily the best part of the film, though it’d be a discredit to it say that it wasn’t a memorable experience, future boyfriend or no. I truly hope I never see it again, at least not sober, but I got a great story out of it, and a great man too, which is more than a lot of movies have ever given me. And at the end of the day, it’s that the biggest reward a person could get? It’s not like this makes Batman v Superman anything more than a gray, ugly, violent, gross, despicable, unpleasant, misogynistic, time-wasting, utterly horrendous, steaming pile of shit. But hey, it counts for something.

[theretroperspective-blog]

Let It B

Ah, the B-movie. It had been a source of entertainment for many a stood-up date or theater talk-back participant about as long as the genre has existed. But what IS a B-movie? We've all seen 'em ( and know almost instantly when we have), but what makes a film "B"? What does a movie need in order to be "B"? And what of the iconic B actor? Who chooses to have a career that, in its basest form, means 'sub-par'? B-ACK STORY B-movies (the term) first came about during Hollywood's Golden Age. The name was for movies meant for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom-half of a double feature. In the later '20's (27-28), during the final days of the silent era, the production cost of feature films from major studios averaged between $190'000 to $275'000. During the time when bigger budgeted films weren't being made, studios still had to pay for sound stages, actors they had on retainer, and hired crew. These studios would make low-budget (i.e. lower quality) flicks in order to make extra cash as well as continue to use their people (mostly to keep them from fleeing to other studios), and would sell these lower films alongside their major productions. In laymens' terms, a B-movie is much like the B-side of an album. (For my youngun's, albums are what music USED to come on. Questions at the bottom, please.) Basically these smaller, cheaper flicks got put into theaters to cover run times between bigger pictures. This then led to micro-budgeted studios creating their own B-movies to sell to the studios at cost (usually producing them at around $30'000 and recouping cost plus). All of this comes about, again, due to the end of the silent era. During that time films were preceded by live acts and a variety of short films and news reels. Once sound became law, those were mostly dropped, and in came cartoons and serials, which were followed by a double feature, the first being the B-film, mainly to draw more money from the viewer. But the major studios soon caught on, developing B-units to produce those less expensive films on-site, nearly killing the indie studios (until the indie-wave of the 70's, but that's another blog). With this came the game of BLOCK BOOKING; or, to get access to a studios' more profitable features, theaters would HAVE to also buy their B-movie in a double-feature set. Along with this insidious scheme came BLIND BOOKING, where theaters would have to take the B-movie sight-unseen. In this way studios were assured a good profit on the lower-grade flick, no matter how awful it might be. The innocent years of Hollywood folks! However, many B-movies were serials, with an actor continuing to play the same character in each, such as the 'Andy Hardy' films staring Mickey Rooney. MOVING ON While the original meaning of the term B-movie ended with the double-feature production ceasing in the 50's, the term is still used for films that don't quite meet A-level criteria. "B-movie" now brings connotations of lower-quality films - which isn't ALWAYS true... To quote Wiki: "In it's current usage, the term has somewhat contradictory connotations; it may signal an opinion that a certain movie is (a) a genre film with minimal artistic ambitions ("Sharknado"), or (b) a lively, energetic film uninhibited by the constraints imposed on more expensive projects and unburdened by the conventions of putatively 'serious' independent film ("Turbo Kid"). Or, in more basic terms: A B-movie is a low-budget commercial film that's NOT art house. The term is now also used for high-budgeted flicks with exploitation-style content (such as much of Tarantino's work). But much good has come from the B-movie genre! Some high profile directors like Jonathan Demme began with B-movies. And it's where many A-level actors got their starts. Recent Oscar winner Leonardo DiCaprio got his start in "Critters 3". "June Bug" star Amy Adams got through in "Cruel Intentions 2". And Charlize Theron didn't even have a line in "Children of the Corn 3 : Urban Harvest". And one of the more well known is Jennifer Aniston's turn in the cult classic (and where's my blog on those?) "Leprechaun". And neat-o, there's my segway! BACTORS Both John Wayne and Jack Nicholsen got their start in B-movies, too. As well as our former president Ronald Reagan, who was a B-movie star before he ran our country. But there are MANY actors who are known simply for their B-movie work alone. Here's a list of them (in no order other than as I remember them). PJ SOLES: I know her from the 1979 "Rock 'n' Roll Highschool", about a young girl who idolized one of the world's greatest bands, the Ramones; but she also played the tomboy menace Norma in "Carrie", and doomed-to-die friend Lynda in "Halloween". CRISPIN GLOVER: He became a Hollywood staple, and Lorraine's 'density' in "Back to the Future" as George McFly, and recently was the Red Knave in Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland", but Glover got his start way back in 81 in a TV movie called "Best of Times", and as the star of the cult hit "Willard". MEG FOSTER: She was a woman looking for love - round 2 - in "The Step Father 2", and played 'Holly' in "They Live" alongside Rowdy Piper, but is most recognized portraying Evil-Lyn in the live-action He-Man movie, "Masters of the Universe". CLINT HOWARD: The brother of director Ron Howard, Clint began as a child actor, but has continued with films like "The Ice-Scream Man", "The Fun House Massacre", and "Nobody Gets Out Alive". TOM SAVINI: Tom was originally a SFX creator for "Friday the 13th", but he's also had quite the acting career in films like "Creep Show 2", "From Dusk 'till Dawn", and "The Perks of Being a Wallflower". BRAD DOURIF: He's now a part of the "Lord of the Rings" legacy since playing Wormtongue in "The Two Towers", but he's always been well known by voice, if not face, as Chuckey in every single "Child's Play" film in the franchise. He also stared alongside Jack Nicholsen in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". MICHAEL IRONSIDE: Most recently he portrayed the zealot Zeus in the fantastic "Turbo Kid", but Ironside's been working since the 70's, including "Scanners", "The Hitchhiker", and a personal favorite, the TV show "Sea Quest". CHRISTOPHER LAMBERT: The one and only true 'Highlander', Lambert's also known for playing Lord Rayden in the live-action version of "Mortal Kombat". CLANCY BROWN: I first spotted him in "Highlander" as well, playing psychopath Victor Kruger, but Brown's gone on to have a formidable career on-screen as well as with voice work, playing Lex Luthor in the animated "Superman" series. But I also knew him as Drew's step-dad Gus from "Pet Semetary 2". BRUCE CAMPBELL: Probably the most recognized B-movie actor of all time, Campbell started in the "Evil Dead" series, and has continued being our hero in shows like "Burn Notice" and "Ash VS. the Evil Dead". This might be where I'd say "All hail the king, baby!", but you get what I'm saying. Moving on. BUT THEY'RE A TO US 'We all have different opinions' blah-blah, 'they're like assholes' yadda-yadda. But there have been B-movies that have, through that grand test of time, been elevated to A-level status by their fans. Usually they're referred to as 'Cult Classics', but we all know we'd watch them in leu of some of the newer, block-busting behemoths of today, given the choice. Maybe it's because of previously stated stars, maybe it's the special effects, or maybe they're just so off the beaten path that we just can't help but fall in love with their weirdness. So here are some of the best - no real order, and nowhere close to the total list. THE EVIL DEAD SERIES There's lots of arguments over whether the original film "Evil Dead" should be included, but Sam Rami's occult trilogy is deeply beloved. From the supreme low-budget gore to Bruce Campbell's chin, this series holds one of the highest Rotten Tomatoes scores on the site, even beating out it's recent remake. Eat it, Dead-its! IRON SKY What IS it with Nazi's?? Why do we like watching them die so damn much? Think it was the genocide? Pretty sure it was the genocide. What-ever, this film's premise is enough. Nazi's waiting on the dark side of the moon to launch a final attack on Earth. Wow. I'm pretty certain I know THAT'S how the funding came through. DEATH BED: THE BED THAT EATS I don't know a film fan that hasn't seen this movie. Its premise is its title. It's a bed. It eats people. SHARKNADO There's FOUR of these fucking movies. No wait, FIVE. I don't get it, but it hit a large enough portion of viewers. Welcome back, Tara Reid. THE BLOB Classic (in general and actual terms) B-movie fare. A gigantic blob that consumes everything in its way. First appearing in the 50's with a young Steve McQueen, it got remade in the 80's and is supposedly being remade again. ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES So, mutant tomatoes decide to start eating us. Vegetarians in the 70's were shaking in their faux suede shoes, I'm sure. BASKET CASE Oh man, do I love this one. A man is born with a homicidal deformed Siamese twin that gets detached via surgery, so the two brothers decide to go after those that separated them. And the deformed one gets carried around in a basket. GET IT?!?! POULTRYGEIST:NIGHT OF THE CHICKEN DEAD Full disclosure - I know one of the SFX guys who worked on this Troma feature. Just look for the talking shit sandwich. BEASTMASTER A guy who can talk to animals goes after a power hungry war lord who sacrifices children. And man-bats. TROLL 2 The best- worst movie ever made. But sadly, no trolls. Just goblins. Please go check some of these films out. PLEASE. You're just hating yourself if you don't. So B-movies live on, as they should. Because we all need to be reminded of what a mediocre world we really live in.