#this would be a lesser movie if it didn't take itself SO seriously

[chinzhilla]

𝔗𝔥𝔦𝔯𝔱𝔶-𝔒𝔫𝔢 𝔇𝔞𝔶𝔰 𝔬𝔣 ℌ𝔬𝔯𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝟸𝟶𝟸𝟺

I thought we could help him. But I was wrong. It's time we cut out the cancer.

Malignant (2021) dir. James Wan

[ordinaryschmuck]

Superheroes are stupid, but that's why they're awesome

This might be an opinion that might get people to hate me, but it's worth saying: Superheroes are stupid.

Now, that's not a bad thing. In fact, superheroes being stupid is a large part of why they work. I mean, think of your favorite superhero. Think of how they look or what their powers are. Think about the villains they often fight day after day, week after week, year after year. Think about THEIR NAME.

Spider-Man, Captain America, Wolverine, Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, The Avengers, The X-Men, The Justice League, The Teen Titans.

Everything about a superhero is stupid, and the best stories aren't JUST the ones where Joker cripples Batgirl or Green Goblin dropped Gwen Stacy off a bridge. I mean, those ARE good stories, but they're not good because they were super serious or incredibly dark. They're good because writers EMBRACED the stupidity of superheroes.

Believe it or not, but embracing stupidity means more than just making jokes or comedies. It also means playing the stupidity straight, telling a story so good that no one could care about nonsense like powers, suits, and even names. Think about it: If a serious story DIDN'T embrace the stupidity of all those things, then it would do away with all of them.

Daredevil may be a crime drama about the cold death grip a mob boss has on the city and the constant battles to fight against him through the justice system, but it still features a blind lawyer who knows martial arts and jumps across rooftops in a devil costume. And the Dark Knight Trilogy might be a more realistic depiction of Batman, but it still has him dress up as a bat as he battles Two-Face and The Joker. Despite telling more serious stories about superheroes, both of them were still willing to embrace the silliness of the character. They just played them for straight instead of for laughs.

And with that said, there's nothing wrong with making comedic stories with superheroes either. Guardians of the Galaxy may have made jokes about the lunacy of a talking raccoon, but that talking raccoon also turns out to have the most tragic backstory of the entire MCU. The Suicide Squad may have people placing bets over which supervillain dies first, but the movie is still about the dark corners of the US government and how it views convicted criminals and "lesser" countries.

A superhero story can embrace stupidity in a serious and comedic fashion. They just need to remember that...

A. Don't reject the notion that superheroes are stupid. Do that, you have a movie like Fant4stic, which takes itself too seriously to the point where it can't even say the name Fantastic Four.

B. Don't lean too much into stupidity. That'll get you something like Batman and Robin, filled with so much cheese and camp that not many people can stomach it.

Whether you play it straight or play it light, never forget how stupid superheroes are. If you forget it, you forget what made them last for decades, nearly centuries. Writers embraced that stupidity and told great stories because of it, and fans couldn't care because they got a good story that lets them see past the stupidity.

We know superheroes are stupid, but that's what make them awesome.

[rookie-critic]

Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023, dir. David F. Sandberg) - review by Rookie-Critic

The first Shazam! was a very funny, if not a little messy and tonally inconsistent, take on a superhero film. It wanted to be a goofy comedy, but still felt like it needed to adhere to a trappings of the genre and being a part of a larger connected universe. Fury of the Gods is basically just a lesser version of the original, with everything about the first film dialed up, which has its pros and cons. The pros are that everything that was funny in the first film is still funny here and the theme of found family still rings very true. On the former, Zachary Levi brings a ton of charm to the screen, and the whole "child in a super powered adult's body" shtick is mostly endearing. We're also getting a ton of that style from the other family members this go around, as the end of the last film (spoilers for the first Shazam! here, but if you've seen any promotional material for this one this shouldn't come as a surprise) saw all the children in the foster family receiving Shazam powers. Adam Brody, Meagan Good, Ross Butler, and D. J. Cotrona are all very funny as the aged-up versions of their respective characters, and Grace Caroline Currey, who plays Mary, the eldest of the foster kids, gets the unique privilege of playing both her regular self as well as the Shazam-ified version of her character, and does a pretty great job at both. However, the real superstar of both this and the original film is easily Jack Dylan Grazer, who is a bonafide scene stealer in everything I've seen him in. For all of this film's faults, and there are a decent number of them, I really didn't care as long as Grazer was on screen being hilarious.

Now, the film's biggest pro is also its greatest fault, and that humor that made the first film stand out has a large tendency to feel quite forced in this one. Some of the lines feel thrown in out of left field, existing for no other purpose than to attempt at a laugh, and it makes those moments feel more awkward than anything else. Also, I feel as though the filmmakers were very aware that people liked the duo and chemistry between Grazer and Levi in the first film, and sought to capitalize on that, regardless of how much time it sacrificed for both actors' counterparts. Asher Angel, who plays the un-Shazam'd Billy Batson, gets what amounts to maybe 5 minutes of screen time, and the same can be said, albeit less so, for Adam Brody, who plays Grazer's character Freddy Freeman's Shazam-form. There are times in the film where you absolutely would not be blamed for forgetting that Zachary Levi/Billy Batson even is actually a child, because he seems to hardly ever switch back, which hurts the aspect of the film that makes the comedy work: watching Levi act like a child in the body of an adult superhero.

The film also has the same problem as the first in that, for what is by all accounts a comedy, Fury of the Gods takes itself very seriously in bursts, I would say even more so than the first. There are a few moments that are outright dark, and while I'm not one to generally turn my nose up at clashing tones in movies, it is so stark of a difference between the comedic and the dramatic that it was hard not to just be confused. I found myself asking who they thought their target audience was multiple times. A lot of the drama surrounds the film's antagonists, played by Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu, and while they are both amazing actresses who are clearly outclassing everyone else in the room with them, they sometimes feel like they're from a different movie, much like Mark Strong's villain from the first Shazam!, albeit less so. Taking the good with the bad, though, I didn't hate it. The Shazam! films ask you to check your brain at the door, and I did, and because I did, I found Fury of the Gods to be a harmlessly good time. I can see this one being divisive, but if you enjoyed the first one, I think there is enough similarity between the two to keep you interested.

Score: 6/10

Currently only in theaters.

[eukaryotesrool]

Lion King is a franchise that has always meant a lot to me, my favorite Disney movie of all time (and given the current climate, I doubt that's gonna change)

Now, if you didn't know, they're making a new move. Mufasa The Lion King, which promises to be the next introduction in a sprawling franchise of hyper realistic Lion King CGI movies, likened to Star Wars by Disney employees. It will be a prequel focusing on Mufasa's (and to a lesser extent, Scar's) origins.

Now, I could rant about how unfitting the animation style is, how souless and cash grab-y the whole things sounds, and how they go against pre-established Lion King lore (not even in cool ways) BUT, that's probably been discussed a thousand times since the movie was annnounced way back when, I wanna criticize (and poke fun at) a recent article.

"The first Lion King was criticized for being too close to the original." -CBR

Yeah, among other things. I think people would be a lot more forgiving if it was a good unoriginal remake.

"The latest prequel pushes the boundaries and tells a new story and Disney's live-action department can learn a lot from its performance."

Now this, THIS is the line that got me heated. Lemme just repeat the important part.

"The latest prequel pushes the boundaries and tells a new story."

THE LATEST PREQUEL PUSHES THE FUCKING BOUNDARIES AND TELLS A NEW STORT! (Paraphrased)

That is a demented sentence, holy shit. I don't think I need to spell it out, but it isn't boundary pushing to tell a new story, that's the default form of telling stories.

"Oh, but they're just saying it's an improvement on what the departments been doing."

Fair, but take this into account. Does Captain Assaultman deserve praise when he does the bare fucking minimum and stop assaulting people every time he does anything?

Anyhow, some other bits stuck out to me.

"Disney is in a fascinating position as it gears itself up for a potential Renaissance era anew."

Huh? Buddy, HUH?

Don't get me wrong, Disney's a century old, they've made movies bad and good, they COULD absolutely bounce back and make the greatest movies- nay the greatest stories ever told. But what have they done to imply a Renaissance? Make mediocre-at-best movies?

"renew them with original ideas and a live-action edge."

Did you have to say that? To my face?

"Disney strengthens its image and, more importantly, improves upon its storytelling again."

Yeehaw partner, that's right, yet another fat Disney win. Dear Mickey, this company doesn't know what failure means!

Seriously, this article is so shill-ish, it feels like a Disney bigwig wrote it themself.

1: I don't think Mufasa The Lion King being made strengthened Disney's image in anyone's eyes except, apperantly the goober who wrote this article. The movie has to fight an uphill battle to prove itself to audiences, and that is a GOOD thing.

2: What improvement on its story telling? Were you part of the test audiences? The movie could be an insult to the very idea of storys, like you watch it and just keel over from sheer bad writing. All you know they improved on is actually telling original stroies, which is hardly something to praise, as I've said.

Anyway, just wanted to rant about it. I'd like to close off by saying something nice though, the CGI used in the new Lion King remake and its upcoming prequel is genuinely gobsmacking, that stuff rocks. I just wish it was used in a good movie, and that instead of invading a franchise better suited to other mediums, it had a new IP (or an old one that didn't work so welll with the tech of the time) to really push the visuals to their fullest.

I'd be happy to hear your thoughts on Mufasa The Lion King!

[roxannepolice]

Ur the only bitch in the house respect. Seriously though, I saw TLJ and liked better than Tfa because I appreciated it more because i like a bold fuck up more than a safe rehash. But then I saw it on netflix and I had the thought, 'does lf not want me to care about the resistance/rebels?' because if they didn't then quite frankly that's how you'd do it, all the 'failures' boil down to either wanting to kill the ppl viewed as space nazis to hard or being 'too compassionate' and even after (cont)

them being reduced to what? a a couple dozen? they’re all standing around chill like they just broke for a meeting break around a water cooler. meanwhile the big bad who’s gonna be that for at least im betting a third of the finale is on his knees crying. i know its supposed to be ‘crime never pays’ or whatever, but seriously, they’re down to a single ship, they’re potential allies said ‘lmao no’ and the biggest source of funding just got blown up. they’re gonna win and we know that but the /narrative doesn’t even pretend otherwise/. and i thought, oh god maybe it is as shit as everyone says. but then you gave me hope but I still have one remaining fly in soup so to speak. There’s gonna be a ST after the ST and we all know it. It may be 20 yrs or whatever but it’s coming. So how do you idk rationalize the idea of integrating the shadow of the empire with the need for there to be an enemy for the war of the warry stars? stormtroopers are ~iconique~ and it was always the biggest stumbling block I had to the stormtrooper revolution. Why would any company worth its stock swap out an instantly recognizable and marketable baddie for idk some other cgi alien army or whatever? love to hear ur thoughts and thanks.

Thanks, anon, those are some really great points! 

Yes, I am a bit frustrated with the way the good guys™ of this trilogy are depicted as - as a collective because obviously we felt for Paige Tico - virtually invincible, getting not one but two jedi ex machina to get them out of the problem. Maybe I should mention that while I use the ex machina term quite extensively, I don’t consider it a bad move by default - sometimes a lightning from a clear sky can have its dramatic beauty. What is frustrating is when a situation is clearly not hopeless yet the text insists it is only solvable by supernatural intervention, as, imo is the case with rock lifting Rey. TBH, when the resistance run into the rocks blocking their way, my first thoughts were huh, they can blast their way through, maybe a shot from MF will clear the way, or maybe we’ll get some teamwork scene where all the members will combine their forces to quickly deal with the problem. But no, we got Rey lifting rocks with the force and being amazed at herself lifting rocks and resistance also being amazed by her lifting rocks and Luke crying joyful tears at the thought of her lifting rocks - and in result the only character I actually felt for was the man who was faced with his holy murderous uncle basically praising the girl, to whom he offered a galaxy, for dumping him, as practically everyone else in his life did. This is some very human venom that gets spit in the I’ll destroy her and you and all of it line. 

But still, I insist the screenwriter who also came up with the You’re nothing but not to me line which is still being analyzed 8 months later and also manged to give a beautiful and satisfying end to the journey of one of cinema’s icons, isn’t oblivious of the contrast between those two scenes and bordering on emptiness lightness of the political subplot. Just imagine how much satisfying the rock lifting would have been if we have seen Rey simply fail at anything before this scene - for example, if before taking up the ls to train she wasn’t training with her staff only, exactly, trying to put rocks on top of each other - and failed and then picked up the ls in frustration. Then her “apotheosis” at the end would feel much more earned and it’s really basic rules of storytelling I point out, so it’s not a matter of Rian Johnson being Fellini and Antonioni and also my countryman Roman Polański all rolled into one only a good movie making craftsman that he is to figure this out. Of course, there is much symbolism and subext to this scene but again - the subtext and symbolism in the overall movie point out to an ending more complicated than gratuitous dragon slaying.

Ending the whining and turning to the actual question - what about future installments? Well, first of all it is very possible that next trilogies will be perhaps closer to usual action based movies, maybe not completely dropping the deeper psychoanalitical symbolism but also not operating on it like the Skywalker saga has been and should be so till the end. It very often seems to us that once we finish the psychoanlysis all our problems will disappear but that’s really not the case - it may be that they’re only about to commence. TBH, I was fully prepared for this trilogy to drop the jungian elements, since RotJ could technically be the end of individuation - Luke reconciled his father’s self and shadow, as well as understood his own shadow. So when tfa’s opening crawls informed me the new villains are actually old villains revamped I felt almost disappointed - only to be positively surprised by one of the stormtroopers turning out to be trilogy’s hero. Still, after tfa itself I was inclined to think creators were just too lazy to come up with something new and maybe are giving some commentary on neo-bad things springing up across the globe. But tlj and additional materials made me think that they really have something new to say about the conflict. Ex-imperials were exiled rather than reintegrated or even imprisoned, galactic history kept Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader seperate entities, finally Anakin’s denied shadow was directly complicit in his grandson’s fall - all that reeks of repression and the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. Because Leia would, and as it turned out did, find it much harder to deal with her father’s memory than Luke, as it wasn’t he who was held still to watch his whole planet get blown up - and yet it was Leia who passed the Darth Anakin genes on, so obviosuly she would have to deal with her father someday.

Tell your sister you were right, the actual last words Anakin has ever spoken, take on a brand new meaning now, don’t they?

But  perhaps more importantly, as far as storytelling and marketing are concerned - the real question isn’t why should they drop iconic villains only how long can they actually keep up the same villains without them losing all dramatic value? Aside from the movies repeatedly employing storytelling devices to keep us unworried about the heroes, that’s the main reason why the political conflict in this trilogy is so emptily obvious, or at least, as I hope, seems emptily obvious. Now, of course, you never really expect villains to win in kids’ movies but a new villain is always someone that needs to be introduced, recognised, have his methods and motives exposed - and that iteself makes the story more interesting. A new villain is someone heroes need to learn, adjust to and this is what triggers their own inner journeys as well as tells the audience something new. Rebels and empires are basically angels and demons at this point and how may times can you watch white clad blondes with circles vanquish red-and-black clad brunets with horns as you know there’s no way it won’t end this way? Empires are Star Wars equivalents of Daleks and let’s face it it’s the Weeping Angels that scare us now, Daleks we just want to exterminate our sadness.

also dr Who bases on time travel so linear storytelling doesn’t apply

The only type of villain that can stay the same for who knows how many episodes is the mastermind with a secret organisation who always sneaks away - but no massive political-military organisation. And even they finally become their own parodies.

I should add, Solo very positively surprised me in this aspect - actually I would say it’s the Stories that keep me so optimistic about this trilogy, what with Galen Erso, Saw Guerrera and imperial officials from a Forman movie - with their depiction of crime syndicates. Dryden Vos isn’t your usual chaotic neutral criminal that’s still lesser evil than evil empire - it’s he who used up Enfys’s people resources of coaxium, yes, to sell them to the empire, but it was still he who was responsible. This really makes me think Disney-LF has some wider vision of the GFFA - and there are more potential for conflict there than just angels and demons RRR and Hugo Boss uniforms

And to wrap up, don’t forget our beloved turtle like helmets I can’t be the only one who always thought of turlte shells looking at stormtoopers? technically started as the good guys - so it’s possible we’ll keep their iconicness.

[threecirclesofvaryingsizes]

Am I having a panic attack bc I ate too many salt n vinegar chips and now my tummy is upset or is it bc I'm seriously thinking about stepping into a church by myself and on purpose and the idea of having to take church seriously is stressing me out

Like I believe in God and I'm a big fan of Jesus and its not like I have specific religious trauma bc quite frankly I didn't have any specific religious upbringing. And I think that's part of the reason why it's stressing me out

Bc religion is important to me but it's also deeply personal and private to the point I don't think many people know that I am, in fact, religious. I just don't like bragging about it. I hate bragging about it in fact. I carry a little Bible with me a lot of times (along with a portable witch's altar but that's besides the point, mind your business).

But like, my own family doesn't even know that I'm religious probably. My mom and my brother are very much Not Religious (I think my mom has her own trauma that I have not unlocked the backstory on) my brother is just an agnostic Gen Z (tho he has trauma from boy scouts and that was the only time we ever went to church was for boy scout stuff)

Dad is religious and he was always regretful that he never took us to church as kids but I do not regret that. I'm glad he didn't. I have no way of knowing what church he would have taken us to but I'm glad the opportunity for religious trauma never presented itself to me so I can be free to love God and Jesus and all that

But now I'm here, stuck on my own conundrum, needing counciling on a subject and I have no idea how to go about that. Are churches just open whenever like in movies? And you can just go and talk to someone whenever? Bc I work Sundays (lol) so I can't really go to service.

I have a specific church in mind (thanks to some cursory googling) but yeah. Do I just walk in and say, "yo I need to ask you something, but also please don't try to get me to join? I don't want to commit to anything I've just reached my spiritual limit and would like some free counciling please."

Also, a lesser stress is the concept of how am I getting there bc DING dong I am 24 years old and do not drive. I need a ride but I can't ask one from my mom or my brother (because I'd be to embarrassed to ask them to take me to church) and I can't ask my dad (because surprise surprise my main questions are about him) but like, that's what public transportation/lyft/straight up lying to them about where I'm going is for.

Also also why do churches have weird hours? One I was looking at opens at 6pm tomorrow. Is that just a weird Wednesday service??? I don't know?? I wasn't raised in the church!!!