Always fascinating to see how many movies I’m never going to watch.
We rarely see R-rated movies, so going to see Deadpool & Wolverine opened up a whole new tranche of trailers, pretty much all of which we won’t be going to.
Red One – Doing a Santa Claus action movie, complete with Dwayne Johnson and a very ripped J K Simmons, looks amusing enough that I can see us streaming it some time.
Heretic – Hugh Grant as a religious (anti-religious?) fanatic that runs a couple of female door-to-door proselytizers through a horror maze thingamabob … nope. Even though I like Hugh Grant.
Wicked – Never saw the stage show (just never worked out), but the trailer looks pretty darned cool. This one we’ll likely see in the theater.
Speak No Evil – See, the problem with horror movies is that they say, “Let’s take something that everyone gets paranoid about, like meeting what seems like a nice family while on vacation and accepting their invitation to stay with them at their isolated farmhouse, only to discover that was a Really Bad Idea, and make a movie of it and everyone will want to see it,” whereas I say, no, that’s stuff I am paranoid about and do not need to see that paranoia instantiated in a film.
Borderlands – Something video-game based, which looks like kind of CGI action-adventure fun, but my son advises against it, so that’s likely the end of that.
Joker 2 – I really don’t need to see a picture that focuses on the Joker. No matter (in fact, probably very matter) how good it is at portraying the homicidal lunatic that’s driven up life insurance rates in Gotham. Let alone seeing another retelling of Harley Quinn’s abusive relationship with same. Nope. I used the time to run off to the restroom before the movie started.
A Complete Unknown – This is the year-or-two of Timothée Chalamet, and he looks like he’ll make a great Bob Dylan, and I really have no interest in a Bob Dylan biopic. But at least it’s not Bob Dylan jump-scaring people and then carving them up with a butcher’s knife. Unless there’s more to the story than I know.
Captain America: Brave New World – Clearly trying to riff off one of the best Captain America (in fact, MCU) movies, Winter Soldier, with its politics and spy tropes and betrayals, I’m just not convinced yet by the trailers. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’ll go see it. But I’m not sure what I’ll think of it when I do.
Alien: Romulus – Because the original focused on a bunch of adults, so clearly the only way to milk more money from the Alien franchise is to have it focus on a bunch of teen/twenty-something and What Inevitably Happens When They Try To Steal Stuff From That Mysteriously-Deserted Space Station. The trailer showed me absolutely nothing I haven’t seen before, so I don’t see much reason (even if I were a fan) to go see it.
Hmmm … so … not a lot of prospect there in movies that thought advertising before Deadpool & Wolverine was a good idea. The only thing I can say is, well, the movie trailers were a hell of a lot more interesting than the more conventional ads that have infested movie trailer time like … well, like face huggers on a mysteriously-deserted space station …
A very funny, very actiony, very enjoyable way to wile away a couple of hours. NO SPOILERS.
3.5 Acting 4.5 Production 3.5 Story 4.0 OVERALL with a ♥
We went to see Deadpool & Wolverine on Friday (opening weekend) night. I kind of pushed for it — we’ve enjoyed the DP movies in the past (usually to our surprise), but the rest of the fam didn’t seem enthused — until we were watching it.
Deadpool & Wolverine. Their relationship is … complicated.
I run very hot and cold on Deadpool in the comics. I tend to take my storytelling fairly seriously, and DP — along with “fan favorites” like Ambush Bug and the Impossible Man and Mr Mxyzptlyk and G’nort and even Lobo — are intrinsically silly characters that I usually get tired of pretty quickly.
I’ve also got only a moderate tolerance for Wolverine, as one of these characters who is so over-used it isn’t even funny.
Live action is a little difference, since movies with a given character tend to come out far less frequently. I enjoyed the first couple of Deadpool movies, despite myself, and Hugh Jackman is Wolverine. So I figured … this should probably be worth a go.
And, in fact, this movie is a very, very fun (and bloody) romp through the Marvel Cinematic Universe, tying together narrative lines from the previous Deadpool movies (with plenty of flashbacks and talky-talk for those who don’t remember that far back), things having to do with Wolverine movies (with the same caveats), recent doings in the MCU, and plenty of Fourth Wall commentary about 20th Century Fox, Disney, and whatever else turns out to be funny.
There’s a plot or three here, much more coherent than you might imagine, especially with a zany character like Deadpool, slathered with a Church Spring Picnic-full of Easter Eggs, and much capering about the Marvel multiverse (with plenty of meta commentary). There are even some lengthy serious moments! And character advancement!
But there are really two things about this movie that stand out (speaking broadly and non-spoilery). First, is that it’s fun. Well, unless you dislike F-bombs, and find huge gouts of CG blood disturbing. I was usually smiling, and I was laughing out loud (embarrassingly so) more than once.
And second, it is a HUGE love letter to the 20th Century Fox Marvel movies — various iterations of the Fantastic Four, Daredevil & Elektra, and, of course, the X-Men. With the Disney acquisition of Fox’s movie properties, they are able to — and actually do — some delightful things, even as they fade into the multiverse.
Good times. I look forward to getting this one on Blu-Ray so I can pause a thousand times and point and laugh some more.
I enjoyed myself.
Besties — as much as that might mean for either of them.
Wow. I’ve been doing a piss-poor job of updating the blog here.
Yeah, yeah, all the normal reasons. Job really stressful. Busy with stuff at home. But ultimately it really is about prioritization: I’ve doing plenty of stuff with my quotations blog, and even my gaming blog has been getting some love.
What I usually do here has traditionally been “my life” (boring), “my pop culture stuff” (uninspiring of late), and “my politics”.
Aha.
Politics has been — a wildly stressful hot mess. Trump & Co. are simultaneously terrifying and fury-inducing in their smug proto-fascism and very direct threat to people I love (and, hell, to me under certain not-necessarily-the-worst-case scenarios). Biden’s problems filled me with existential dread (since somewhat alleviated by Harris — but that’s a whole other set of posts). And, with everything else going on, it’s just hard to write about and face that terror and dread and fury in a way that isn’t just incoherent keyboard smashing.
Sigh.
(And, yes, feel free to mutter “Trump derangement syndrome” … and keep walking on.)
Can’t promise I’ll be more active here, but it’s bubbled to the top of my attention again, so … let’s hope for the best.
And weakening the rule of law out of fear doesn’t make anyone any safer
Timothy Snyder has a good piece here on the dangers involved in the “commentariat” pushing SCOTUS to a “pitchfork” ruling on Colorado ‘s pushing Trump off the ballot. By saying Colorado Supreme Court should be overruled because its ruling is “divisive” or will “inflame” the January 6th folk who were carrying around virtual torches and pitchforks, the politicos and pundits on both sides of the aisle would fundamentally weaken the rule of law … and simply encourage the folk waving pitchforks to wave them more, knowing they will get their way.
Haley and DeSantis belittle the rule of law by preemptively declaring they would pardon Trump were they elected President
Is it must me, or is there something deeply unserious about both Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis pledging they would, of course, pardon Trump of any federal convictions. Regardless of any further evidence. Regardless of what judges and/or juries decide.
Sure, DeSantis insists it’s just akin of Ford pardoning Nixon to help “re-unite a divided country.” Except, pardoning Trump wouldn’t reunite anything. For Trump opponents it would be seen as complete and utter politics. For Trump, and his mob, it would be taken as an exoneration. And Trump would be stirring up the next insurrection, unabashed and emboldened.
Ford could barely get away with pardoning Nixon — and, in fact, it sank his chances of a second term — because he was respected and liked going into the job, and wasn’t seen as being part of Nixon’s corrupt coterie. He was deeply criticized for poor judgment in pardoning Nixon, but it wasn’t seen as as partisan corruption. That would hardly apply to either Haley or DeSantis doing the same thing for Trump — especially, in the circumstances they describe, he would already be convicted, something Nixon never was.
Do I really think that Haley and DeSantis think Trump shouldn’t be punished for what he did, or that they are seeking some sort of cleansing national unity? Of course not. At the most obvious, they are hoping to garner presidential votes by appealing to the Trumpist mob. More likely, they simply want to tee themselves up as being part of the MAGA movement that, however the election in November turns out, will propel them to future power.
Who’d think that a movie about a kid’s toy would be one of the most human films of the year?
4.0 Acting 5.0 Production 4.0 Story 4.0 OVERALL with a ♥
First off, let me say that the production aspects of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie are … incredible. It is a beautiful movie and an incredible homage to its subject matter and its selected era aesthetic.
The movie itself is far more complex, with dozens of delightful, if not bravura, performances (Margot Robbie is, no matter what Helen Mirren says, perfection), coupled to an intricate narrative and examination of concepts around feminism, patriarchy, interpersonal relationships, societal norms, existentialism, capitalism, self-actualization, and a stubborn defiance of expectations to turn an message movie about dolls into a cartoon of easy heroes and villains.
I’m always a bit leery about saying something is brilliant, or even profound, but I will say that Barbie is simultaneously entertaining, nostalgic, hilarious, moving, inspirational, and thought-provoking, and I look forward to re-watching it a number of times in the future.
(And if it doesn’t have a broad spread of Oscar nominations, I’ll be quite put out.)
Lindsey Graham deserves to either be remembered forever, or forgotten forever.
As Lindsey Graham takes the last, squishy bits of spine he had left, carefully places it in Ziplok bag, and leaves it in the back of Trump ‘s fridge, somewhere between 2003 KFC leftovers and a container of Putin’s favorite borscht.
Graham backtracks on earlier Jan. 6 criticism of Trump: ‘It depends on what the conduct is’
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Sunday appeared to backtrack on earlier criticism of former President Trump’s actions on Jan. 6 and suggested instead that his presidential immunity defense was “a l…
A nice, neat, fun, high-budget intro to the new Doctor
Finally watched the Doctor Who Christmas Special, Holiday Special, or Special No. 4 (depending on which advert you see for it).
I think the Fifteenth Doctor is going to be a lot of fun, full of compassion and whimsy. Not gotten a solid coherent read off of Ruby yet, but we’ll see.
The plot it self was moderately intricate, left some bits dangling for RTD to come back to, and, if a bit fantasy-heavy … well, Doctor Who has always been fantasy with most the numbers filed off.
Trump’s rule: If you don’t have something nice to say about someone, say it even louder.
I find it difficult to believe that Trump has particular feelings, one way or the other, over care and treatment of transgender kids, except that it makes a convenient cudgel for him to rile up the troops.
“DeWine has fallen to the Radical Left. No wonder he gets loudly booed in Ohio every time I introduce him at Rallies, but I won’t be introducing him any more. I’m finished with this ‘stiff.’ What was he thinking.”
I mean, DeWine is about as reliably Right as you can find. But after taking the time to look at what the Ohio lege’s gender-affirming health care ban would do, he took a principled stand and said, “No, this is going to hurt people.”
Which just teed him up for Trump’s criticism because, hey, hurting people is what Donald is all about.
Trump hits Ohio governor over veto on proposed gender-affirming health care ban
Former President Trump went after Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) for vetoing a proposed ban on gender-affirming health care for transgender minors Saturday. “DeWine has fallen to the Radical Left,” Trum…
I am trying a new experiment, as my normal posting here (for things other than movie reviews) has been a bit, um, lacking.
Since I have been more active posting over on Mastodon, I will start pulling my posts from there over here. As some of the metadata (like post title) stuff is missing, and wanting a chance to clean up some of the formatting bits, I’ll be importing in draft mode, and then manually publishing it.
That creates a bit of a lag but with diligence and discipline (ha!) I’m sure I’ll stay caught up.
My goal here is not necessarily to garner a huge audience (the days of blog-centric Internet are long past), but to re-establish this site as my “extended memory,” my journal, keeping track of stuff I’ve done, thought, written, etc.
If it works out, I’ll eventually post about how I did it, technically.
(And, yes, I could use the blog as the source and use various tools to post to Mastodon — or, heck, ActivityHub to making things here visible over there … and maybe I’ll eventually go that course. But using a Masto client to write things remains a lot easier, which is the key to sustainable blogging, even of a micro sort.)
Because the only acceptable answer in the GOP is that the Civil War was about Big Government!
It makes little difference what Nikki Haley actually believes. She simply cannot be trusted. She has shown herself adept at saying things that sound relatively sane one sentence, and then making appeals to the MAGA Right with the next.
She is either a fanatic herself, or (my belief) disingenuously willing to glibly court the fanatics.
And she is still arguably the least-worst of the folk at-all-possibly-getting-the-GOP-nomination-for-President .
Haley declines to say slavery was cause of Civil War
The former South Carolina governor instead said it was a dispute over how ‘government was going to run.’
UPDATE:
Aaaand … Nikki Haley backtracks, admits that, yeah, slavery was the cause of the Civil War … which will doubtless draw more criticism from both sides.
She then deflects and says the person who asked the original question was a “Democratic plant” … which is altogether possible, but doesn’t address her inability to give the answer she knows is true in the first place.
So Haley is willing to tell the truth about the Civil War when forced to, but not when she isn’t. Got it.
If you can win in your own district … move to another!
So, scared (and rightfully so) that she will lose next year if she stays in her own CO-3 district, given how much folk have grown to dislike her shenanigans there, Lauren Boebert is carpet-bagging over to CO-4, where old school reactionary Ken Buck is retiring from.
That makes the Dem running again in CO-3 less likely to win that solid-red district… but I doubt the CO-4 GOP are going to be any more tolerant of Boebert’s bad behavior.
Florida’s race to get rid of Evil Sex Books has swept up a number of Jewish authors
But, hey, let’s talk about how “liberals” are anti-Semitic.
“Florida district pulls many Jewish and Holocaust books from classroom libraries”
A global bestseller by a Jewish Holocaust victim; a novel by a beloved and politically conservative Jewish American writer; a memoir of growing up mixed-race and Jewish; and a contemporary novel about a high-achieving Jewish family are among the nearly 700 books a Florida school district removed from classroom libraries this year in fear of violating state laws on sexual content in schools.
The purge of books from Orange County Public Schools, in Orlando, over the course of the past semester is the latest consequence of a conservative movement across the country — and strongest in Florida — to rid public and school libraries of materials deemed offensive. While the vast majority of such challenged and removed books involve race, gender and sexuality, several Jewish books have previously been caught in the dragnet.
The Orange County case is unusual for the sheer volume of books removed — 699 including some duplicates, according to documents the district provided — and for the unusually large number of books about the Holocaust and Jewish identity included among them.
Trump says that if he doesn’t get full immunity, he’ll prosecute Biden without it. “Merry Christmas”
Short Trump: “Presidents get total immunity. But only me. Biden I will totally prosecute for shit.”
What an asshole.
“Trump rails against special counsel Jack Smith in Christmas Eve posts”
The former president said Biden would be prosecuted without presidential immunity for the way he handled the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 and his handling of the U.S. southern border.
Trump said in another post that Smith is one of Biden’s “misfits and thugs” who are going after him “at levels of persecution never seen before in our country.”
“It’s called election interference. Merry Christmas!” Trump said.
Trump rails against special counsel Jack Smith in Christmas Eve posts
Former President Trump railed against special counsel Jack Smith again in Christmas Eve posts on his Truth Social account. Trump claimed in one Truth Social post that he is “fully entitled” t…
A surprisingly low-key but satisfying wrap-up to Indy’s career
Hey, “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” is now streaming. Let’s watch it!
TL;DR: Not a great movie, plot-wise (but, then, Indy movies never are). But from a satisfying character study, it rocked.
Yes, there are SPOILERS below. You have been warned.
4 Acting 4 Production 3 Story 4 OVERALL with a ♥
Okay, first off, that’s a horrible title, as it turns out. I’ve been trying to figure out a better one, and haven’t but … still, not good.
So there was all sorts of controversy over the CG de-aging of Harrison Ford for the first chunk of the film. I thought it worked just fine, as a matter of fact. There was plenty of (presumably doubled) action to carry through the visual illusion. Really, the only thing that doesn’t work in the WW2 sequences is Harrison Ford’s voice.
That said, mad props to Harrison Ford following that up with a full torso nudity at age 80ish. He looks old and horrible and absolutely, therefore, sells where the character is at.
Which is, a Man out of Time, old and in decline, working for a (it feels) less prestigious college, and literally plummeting into retirement. The audience recollections of his past adventures are assertively upstaged by the first Moon Landing. His adoring students of bygone films are now bubble gum-popping, jaded, and disinterested in stupid old “history.” His grand romances are reduced to a tiny apartment and divorce papers.
But it’s played very straight, no melodrama. It just is, grounded, mundane, in keeping with where Indy is in his twilight, a life of memories, bounded by noisy neighbors and the concrete jungle of New York.
God bless John Williams. The soundtrack is, with a few leitmotifs, unique unto itself … but so very, very Indy.
The story and direction (and Harrison Ford) convincingly give us age, even frailty, punctuated by a great right hook. Perfect.
I was really kind of hoping that CIA Lady would be a “figure of authority who ultimately sees that the bad guys are actually bad guys and she should be on the side of the protagonists” character. Alas, no.
The car/car/tuk-tuk/tuk-tuk chase through Tangiers is delightful, arguably the best action sequence in the film. Indy’s skill, competence, age, and incompetence are beautifully balanced.
I love that Indy represents received knowledge in competition with Helena’s street smarts, with her having a leg up in modern ruthlessness and him having a leg-up in experience.
The one least-believable part of the script is the idea that the ship carrying the Antikythera was manned by “one hundred centurions,” which is like saying “one hundred master sergeants,” which is kind of nonsensical.
A decent round of applause for addressing the “Mutt” problem — not just addressing it, but actually making it a key part of the backstory as to where Indy is at the opening of the film. It plays a part of the setting (the Vietnam War era) and the backstory (and not-so-backstory) of Indy and Marion.
So, yeah, Indy is not the worst sort of grave robber (accusations notwithstanding), but only because he donates what he robs to museums (phone call from Lord Elgin, Dr. Jones). That said, any archaeologist in the audience would be crapping their pants over (a) Indy’s treatment of the university artifact collection and (b) the recovery, opening, reading, and treatment of the Grafikos.
I loved how the references to Helena’s relationship with / obsession over his obsessions with / asserted disappointment from her dad had very, *very* clear parallels with Indy and his own father. Rubbed in when she noted his role as her godfather.
Okay, nice to see the Big Brute Killer Bad Guy hoist by his own over-sized petard.
Good Lord. It’s the “If you could kill Hitler …” time travel question, pivoted with “… and create a better Reich from it” as a plot element. Fantastic.
The final fate of the Bad Guys is fitting, but relatively low-key. That said, their fate is not actually tied to the fate of Our Hero, which is both weird and actually kind of fitting.
I was really wondering if they would pull the actual time travel trigger. And … they did, marvelously. And then I was really wondering if they would have Indy stay in the past. And … they resolved it quite on-point.
I love that, at the beginning, we are told that “Mutt died in Vietnam, Marion was inconsolable, Indy didn’t handle that well, their marriage fell apart.” And, when Marion returns at the end … maybe it wasn’t quite the way he described it. “Are you back?” I am not at all surprised that Indiana Jones is not a reliable narrator.
And, after a movie with lots of John Williams cues that are quite Indyesque music, with brief moments of leitmotifs … we get the full, bad-ass Indiana Jones March over the closing credits.
Character-wise, it’s a pretty large cast. Most are competent figures in passing, tropes to play a scene or five and be disposed of. The bad guy henchfolk fall into that category. So does the kid, Teddy. Toby Jones’ Basil Shaw is fun, but more of a plot device. Antonio Banderas’ Renaldo feels like a character who was contractually required to be prominently displayed in the posters, but who mostly ended up (appropriately) on the cutting room floor. John Rhys-Davies returns delightfully as Sallah, adding to the character’s richness but definitely in a supporting role.
Those aside, there are really three main characters. Harrison Ford is, of course, Indiana Jones, and plays him with weary enthusiasm and splendor. Phoebe Waller-Bridge is a delight as Helena Shaw, Indy’s almost-Irene Adler / god daughter, uber-competent and very much not a romantic interest for the protagonist (thank heavens). Mad Mikkelsen’s Dr. Voller plays a worthy anti-Indy, the Nazi physicist / scientist who’s out to re-write history; he never gets much motivation other than “Nazi scientist!” but plays the role gamely.
In sum … a movie that flows in a competent narrative from scene to scene, with fine (if not spectacular) FX and action scenes … but a truly marvelous character sketch for Indy, and a profoundly fitting wrap-up for his career.
A look back at Season 4 of NuWho, and the best Companion ever.
David Tennant as the Doctor (Ten), and Catherine Tate as Donna Noble.
I will confess, I am a total Donna Noble fan (and have been for some time). So prepping for the 60th Anniversary Doctor Who specials by rewatching the Donna Noble season was a task I readily welcomed.
After endless ages in Doctor Who S1-2 of the Holy Beloved Rose Tyler, and the weirdly abortive S3 “oh, she’s falling for the Doctor, too” tenure of Martha Jones, having a Companion for S4 that was (a) out for a good, interesting time, (b) not falling on love with the Doctor, (c) sassy and independent, (d) definitely not falling in love with the Doctor, (e) nagged by an inferiority complex, and (f) oh so very much not falling in love with the Doctor, was like a breath of fresh air.
The chemistry between David Tennant and Catherine Tate was lovely. The dynamic of a Companion who wasn’t cowed or dominated or (as noted) smitten with the Doctor was delightful. There was humor, there was terror, there was so much of an EveryPerson about Donna, that every moment in her early tenure was a delight.
Her first encounter, in the S3 “Runaway Bride” gave us a person-on-the-street encounter with the weirdness of the Doctor. “Partners in Crime” shows both how that encounter has changed her and how the Doctor (a lesson that holds true for every regeneration, but particularly for Ten) absolutely needs a Companion. That’s reinforced in “Fires of Pompeii,” showing how the Doctor’s hit-and-miss adherence to the rules, like a good little Time Lord, can lead to moments of amoral inhumanity, and in “Planet of the Ood” gives the Doctor a boost in the moral outrage over that race’s slavery.
Donna gets pushed a little to the side with a standard alien invasion in “The Sontaran Strategem” and “The Poison Sky,” and, for obviously reasons, continues to play support in “The Doctor’s Daughter.” But she’s back on stage for the Agatha Christie “The Unicorn and the Wasp.”
The Doctor and Donna (and, welcome, River Song!) in the Library
After what is, at that point, a pretty normal Doctor Who season (a few invasions, some weird planets and historical pieces), S4 becomes nightmarishly dark. I would say that “Silence in the Library” and “Forest of the Dead” are the scariest bits of the season, if not for the Twilight Zone-perfect “Midnight,” but Donna remains a presence — her phantom family drama in the Library two-parter makes up for River Song’s introduction pushing her a bit to the side, and her grounding of the Doctor after a very, very unpleasant encounter in the worst parts of human nature are critical parts of what make those episodes work.
All of which leads to an even darker tale in the first of the three-ep season wrap, “Turn Left,” where we see what the world — and, by extension, the lives of Donna and her family — becomes if she never takes the step that brings her to meet the Doctor. It’s an hour of progressive dystopia with shades of Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta, as the various disasters and plots that the Doctor averted over the course of S3-4 actually come to pass when Donna’s not there to pull the Doctor back in “The Runaway Bride.” After the horror of the Library saga and the psychodrama of “Midnight,” “Turn Left” just becomes horribly depressing (with a frisson of horror from the bug on Donna’s back).
Throughout it all, though, Donna remains — if not positive, then resolute. Capable of outrage. Determined to make things better. Self-deprecating, but willing to step up for a fight. She is utterly human and utterly a force of nature.
It’s Old Home Week (or Two) on Doctor Who … but, yeah, I loved it.
That brings us to “The Stolen Earth” and “Journey’s End,” as Donna lets herself be recruited to save the world. The pair of episodes carries a massive, sometimes almost overwhelming amount of fan service, drawing in every NuWho Companion and hangers-on, including key cast members of Torchwood and Sarah Jane Adventures, into a massive, multi-layered conspiracy by and battle against the (of course) Daleks.
Through this, it would be easy for Donna to fade a bit into the background, but she’s a key, if controversial, part of the plot. By the end of things, she’s proven herself, the “Temp from Chiswick,” to be the most important human in the universe … and is, for Reasons, demoted into amnesiac former Companion, unaware of what she’d seen, done, accomplished.
Donna Noble, burning too brightly
It feels outrageously, massively unfair to the character, of course (esp. as Martha heads off to new possible adventures, and Rose ends up with her mom and the Man of Her Dreams, sort of). It’s still gut-wrenching to watch (even as it includes the meme-worthy “David Tennant in the Rain” scene), but, aware how much of it must have been driven by Catherine Tate’s contract (she had a successful career both pre- and post-Who) and the winding down the Russell Davies era, it’s actually a far better ending than “Oh, I’m tired of / traumatized by / unrequited about traveling with the Doctor, so I quit” (which is pretty much what sort of happened with Martha, and with a number of Companions over the decades). It hurts like hell, but it’s also a tribute to the character at the same time.
And where did things go from there? Lacking Donna, the Tenth Doctor goes into what turns into a self-destructive spiral ending with him (and the showrunner) regenerating into Matt Smith’s Eleven and Steven Moffat — accompanied by increasingly Mary Sue-ish Amy Pond and Clara Oswald.
Which, of course, brings us a few Doctors along (Peter Capaldi’s gruff rock star Twelve, and, under Chris Chibnall, Jodie Whittaker’s lovely Thirteen) to the 60th Anniversary specials, with David Tennant somehow becoming the regeneration into Fourteen and (we are told) Catherine Tate back as Donna. How will that work? Well, yeah, I’m a day or two late in watching, but I’m very eager to find out.
Because sometimes the trailers are the best part of the theater experience
There were fewer trailers than usual at our Regal theater prior to our Friday night premiere showing of The Marvels.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes: I am sure that someone thought that there was some huge audience for a Hunger Games prequel (as if “yes, this is how things got so horribly miserable, plus, character hints for the people who end up so even more miserable in the original movies!” was a winning pitch), especially given the last film was eight years ago.
It all looks appropriately post-apocalyptic, and the trailer hints at it all being terribly depressing, despite some fundamental sense that somehow, sometime in the future, virtue will prevail, kindasorta.
Seriously not my cuppa.
Migration:Something animated about birds (mostly? ducks) migrating or maybe taking a vacation, and ending up being stuck in New York City, where hilarity ensues. Looks amusing. Not planning to see in the theaters.
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom: This trailer was interesting for the first ten seconds, until Jason Momoa stopped being onshore and started living in a CGI world under the waves. At which point it all turns into what seems like a synopsis of the entire film. I suspect I will eventually watch it, but it will not be in a movie theater.
On the bright side, this should, finally, finally, spell the end of endless articles about the far-too-delayed end of the DCEU.
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes:So I was there back when the original Apes movies were made, and they were all around the juxtaposition of humans and intelligent apes who oppressed / were oppressed by them. As far as I can tell from this trailer, it’s basically about CG apes and the rise of their civilization, and while the CG apes look to be nicely done, I have zero to no interest in what they are doing.
Wish: For all this seems to have some nifty-looking animation, the story seems like such a pastiche of other Disney films that it’s hard to get at all excited for it. There’s a young girl! Who is magically special! And there is a power figure that doesn’t like it! And danger! And cuteness! And a meta-aware talking animal!
I mean, okay, sure, it’s better than a live-action remake of Sleeping Beauty (coming to theater probably around 2027, by my guess), but there’s nothing there that feels fresh or new or intriguing.
So, net-net … nothing I feel any great urge to see, though a couple I might get around to streaming someday.
Honestly, going back over the list … I’d probably rewatch The Marvels first.
The latest MCU film is a disappointing, sloppy jumble. But it’s also a lot of fun in enough places to make it worthwhile.
Seen in the theater this evening in 2-D. Not much SPOILERy, beyond what you can see in the TV ads.
3.5 Acting 3.0 Production 2.5 Story 3.0 OVERALL with a ♥
This movie was always going to be fighting an up-hill battle. Between constant media reports about “super-hero fatigue” from movie-goers, MCU and/or comics fans who have their very strong opinions about who should be allowed in the super-hero club, and people who disdain Marvel (and Disney) on some sort of principle, any MCU film that is less than perfection is going to take a very loud drubbing.
And, yes, this film is definitely less than perfection.
(To be fair, there are a lot of critics, and sites, that have good things to say about the movie. That there is still a very vocal contingent touting this as yet another sign that the MCU is inexorably spiraling into the toilet speaks to me more about the folk saying that than the movie itself.)
You will probably hear, somewhere, the line that “The Marvels is less than the sum of its parts,” and there’s something to be said for that. This is a movie that went through a major restructuring (from a Captain Marvel sequel to this three-fer) and never quite got put back together correctly. It feels like it needed about three more runs through the writers room, honing and focusing a scattergun storyline and smoothing the oddly frantic jerkiness of its pace, while giving decent attention and story and opportunity for its three protagonists.
Its also the shortest MCU film yet, which seems odd for a movie focused on a trio of heroes, and that dichotomy shows in missed (or edited-out) moments that could have made a big difference in the feel of the piece.
At the same time, and I’m going to bold this: The Marvels is a lot of fun, and there were enough positive moments to outweigh the negative ones for both me and my wife (who is far less a Marvel enthusiast than I am). It is at its best when being relatively light-hearted, even a bit silly (net-net, I think the controversial “musical” scene works), but falls flat when giving us overly-melodramatic emotional conflicts or trying to build stakes for the overall villainous plot.
The original film trailer actually captures some of the better tonal moments.
Interestingly, the final trailer plays up the “serious” super-hero side of things:
The Acting (and the Story)
Kamala is living the dream.
Let’s start with those protagonists. Best of the list has to be Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan, doing a bang-up follow-on to her Ms Marvel TV mini-series and leaning whole-heartedly into fan-girling her idol, Captain Marvel. Actress and character both brighten up everything when on-screen, and the substantial inclusion of her family makes it all the more delightful.
Her story seems to be about trying to prove herself, getting validation as a super-hero from her idol, and maybe enduring some sobering-up moments to show it’s not all skittle and beer behind the spandex. Those aspects never quote connected the dots for me — I could see the outlines there, hints and indications, but in the rush to wrap up the film, it never quite gelled.
Carol, please don’t bring your cat to work.
I liked Brie Larson in the original Captain Marvel, a lot more than some folk seem to. She could be a bit strident, but there was justification for it all down the line, and there was no doubt she was a strong character. Here she’s facing a very real tale of dealing with the consequences of her actions, both with her Earth family (Monica in particular) and with her previously-unseen actions toward the Kree.
That tale of consequences should be super-powerful, something that rarely gets highlighted in super-hero fare, and maybe in a solo film it would have been. Instead, it means too often that Carol Danvers came off to my mind as weak and emotional and apologetic far too frequently. Her eventual efforts to Do The Right Thing and Fix the Problems She Created come too late and feel too brief, like checking a box to solve the problem. Maybe, hopefully, there was more left on the virtual cutting room floor.
Not Captain Marvel, Spectrum, or Photon. Just Monica.
Which then brings us to Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau. After an initial setup (as a child) in Captain Marvel, and an unexpected heroic power bump in WandaVision, this movie takes that teed-up, defined character and …
… does nothing of substance with her except for a very fun mid-credits scene. Monica comes off too often here as whiny, untrained, entitled, uncertain, and for the most part unpleasant, except when she’s called upon to be the movie’s Voice of Expository SCIENCE, and when she finally gets around to becoming a hero. The character, and actress both deserve better.
Dar-Benn is … not good. Not just morally, but as an antagonist.
Every hero needs a villain, and with three heroes we should have a villain that is three times as good, right. Unfortunately, Zawe Ashton, for all her impressive resume, is directed here as a third-rater Kree leader/villain, Dar-Benn.
Given her background and the situation on Hala, there are a lot of interesting ways you could have done that character. An admirably do-or-die patriot for her people that you could almost appreciate as a noble enemy. Or maybe a victim of madness in the face of her race’s impending death, someone you can feel sorry for and hope that she will be helped.
Instead, she comes off as just a “mean girl,” animated more by petty resentment toward Captain Marvel than a deep-seated philosophical stand or a fiery-hot desperation. Her scheme is crazy to begin with, and turning it into revenge tour on Carol just makes it feel more not-in-a-good-way silly. As such, Dar-Benn ends up weakening every scene she opens her mouth in, and keeps a lot of the “serious” aspects of the film from gathering any weight.
The rest of the supporting cast is workable — some random SABER agents, a handsome prince, a Skrull emperor, and, of course, Samuel L Jackson drawing a tidy paycheck for a very pedestrian Nick Fury rendition.
But, again, as legit as all those disappointing elements are, we still had fun. Keep remembering that.
This and That
The backdrop for all this has problems as well. There are some decent VFX, in my opinion — but also some not-very-good ones as well. The hex-grid hyperspace effect from the Guardians movies is still here, but both more simplified and more oddly tactile than before. Okay, fine.
On the other hand, some of the fixed sets (on the initial planet, on the Kree ship) are pretty disappointing, and feel like visual sacrifices were made to make them convenient locations for big battles.
That said, the fight choreographing with three protagonists — especially against the villain, especially when they are body-location-swapping — is very neatly done. Indeed, the whole quantum entanglement / body-location-swapping thing works far better than it should, to both humorous and action effect (see the Original Trailer, above, for examples).
Music-wise, aside from the Captain Marvel primary theme, and the “musical” scene, the soundtrack varies from mediocre to hackneyed. Laura Karpman has an amazing resume and I liked her work on “What If …?” but here the music is conspicuously, distractingly conventional.
Random other thoughts which I will try to keep not-too-spoily:
* So what exactly is Earth’s tech level these day? Apparently we have full-fledged space stations, with energy-cable space elevators, and instantaneous cross-galactic comm units, and recognized and active hyperspace gates. With no discernable difference to the people of Earth.
* On the other hand, the galaxy (or galactic neighborhood) sure seems awfully small. We have a limited number of hyperspace gates, and no indication that anyone but the Kree, the Skrulls (previously), and Earth are out there using them (or worrying about the problems occurring with them). I realize we weren’t going to see a Guardians cameo, but it makes the playground feel a bit cramped and unambitious.
* As always, very much appreciate that Ms Marvel’s costume aligns in style with her comic book version, and that it is “modest” in a non-frumpy way.
* Monica’s costume was unimaginative at best — though I did enjoy the under-arm sashes that the water people offered her, as a call-back to her original goofy comic book uniform.
* My problem with the “musical” scene was not its existence, but that the music was very Earth-conventional in chords and other musical structures. It didn’t feel intriguingly alien, it felt pedestrian Bollywood.
* Whatever happened to the water planet? Sorry, no time to consider that planetary ecological disaster, too bad, so sad.
* Nice to see Valkyrie’s too-brief cameo, but not only it feel way too much like almost-literal deus ex machina to solve a plot issue, but it was a solution to a plot issue that might have made a very big difference in a recent MCU TV show. Crikey.
* I loved the flerkin stuff. All the flerkin stuff. Kamala and the flerkin. Nick and the flerkin. Flerkins in space. So much fun. (Okay, all maybe except the question of why Carol flies through space, into danger, with Goose on her shoulder; it seemed more plot-driven than logical.)
* My wife suggested that SABER’s Employee Assistance Program was going to get a lot of heavy demand for the next few years.
* WTF happened to the other bangle at the end? No, seriously. Horrifying continuity gaffe or a last-minute edit of a cut scene that didn’t get explained (or CGed) in the final edition.
* Man, I sure hope we don’t have a new invasive species problem here on Earth.
Bottom Line
This movie feels like it suffered from too-choppy writing, even with the highly publicized reshoots, exacerbated by a far shorter run time than it deserved.
As a result, character development and coherent plotting, not to mention the opportunity to take a breath from constant planet-hopping, were all in short supply.
It still has plenty of good moments, though, and I don’t mind the somewhat light-hearted, even whimsical nature of much of the film. Not taking itself too seriously was honestly not a bad thing; the movie’s weaknesses came up when it tried to be more serious and started dropping things all over the place.
I can see watching this movie again, though not at theater prices. Maybe on Blu-Ray when it comes out.
Would you like to know more?
A previous version of this review appeared on Letterboxd.
If you are what you eat, you are also what you use to communicate
Marshall McLuhan famously said “The medium is the message,” noting that the nature of the medium used to communicate is itself an essential part of what is being communicated.
I didn’t think about it in those terms a year ago when I pretty much cold turkey switched from Twitter over to Mastodon. But it was, and remains, true. The social media tool I use is a reflection of my priorities, the way I want to communicate, and, ultimately, me and my message.
(Note: I created my Mastodon presence on 2 November 2022; I gave up Twitter for good on 13 December, according to — hey! — my blog entry about the same.)
Why I left
I don’t recall what particular shenanigan Elon Musk pulled to make me make the switch. I’d been watching with alternating waves of mild humor and appalled horror at the whole “Is he buying Twitter or isn’t he?” fiasco of the preceding year. Having actually closed the deal, he started acting like the Joker at an art exhibit.
Not just destructive to Twitter as a company, mind you — crazy layoffs, damaging cuts in support, weird work demands — but destructive to Twitter as a social medium.
Let’s not get too sentimental. Twitter had long had a lot of problems. An open forum of its type could hardly avoid it. But, for all the less-than-good bits of it, there was a lot of great discussion, news, statusing, and commentary going on, and the management seemed to realize that they needed to act responsibly (or at least make motions like they were) for both moral and good business reasons.
Musk did away with all of that. His attitude toward social media seemed to be a Hobbesian war of “all against all,” with the most brutal (and view-garnering) voices “winning.” That the bullies and nihilists usually find it easier to out-shout people who really don’t want to shout in the first place wasn’t, for him, a bug: it was a feature.
So maybe it was making it easier on anti-semites, or some new offense against LGBTQ folk on the platform, or even getting rid of blocks on content and users spewing COVID fantasies and Election Denial.
Whatever it was, I had enough. It wasn’t a place I wanted to be. So, in remarkably short order, I wasn’t.
I do still occasionally peer over there, most often by inadvertently clicking on a link to an image pointing there. When possible I try to avoid it.
Because the medium is the message. And, for me, actively participating on Twitter is adding head count and click count and tacit support for Musk and his cronies and the Joker Gang wandering around the place and pissing in the corners.
I find it disheartening that so many Twitter members — news organizations, local and national government agencies, individual contributors I respect — are still on “X” (which rebrand exemplifies so much of what is wrong with Elon Musk and his private soap box). Not only is its technical reliability an increasing concern, but Musk’s abusive behavior against anyone who he takes a disliking to means its business reliability is dodgy as well.
X marks the spot-of-why-we-can’t-have-nice-things
“But, Dave,” you might say, “Twitter still has a huge following! We have thousands and millions of followers who would never, ever dream of moving over onto another platform! We’d lose a lot of money, a lot of influence, a lot of visibility.”
True. Those are all priorities. I suspect that any number of people who have, in history, chosen not to flee a country that was becoming increasingly unstable, hostile to them and theirs, oppressive, etc., used the same excuses. “I have a business here! I have a home! I have friends — fewer, maybe, than before, but I have a place in the community. I am sure it will all blow over soon …”
Those stories sometimes don’t end well.
But enough about Twitter
I’ve been on a lot of social media over the years. I started a blog a couple of decades ago — too late for the birth of my kid, but just in time for 9/11. It saw a lot of use in the following years … but I also early adopted some lighter-weight content gathering. Google Reader in the day. Some early Twitter stuff. Then (insert angelic choir sound here) Google Reader, then, after that, back to Twitter, as life and attention span and stuff made shorter-form stuff a lot easier to do.
And then all the Twitter stuff above, and …
… off to Mastodon.
All the cool kids are doing it.
On the surface, the two platforms are similar — short-form individual messages, threads, etc.
But as so many have commented, the environment on Mastodon is a lot more … quiet. Not in terms of content sharing — I get more messages in than I can keep up with — but in terms of it all being less shouty, less click-baiting, less outrage-to-drive-eyeballs. There’s tough, incisive posting about things, as well as a lot of silliness. There are people dedicated to a given topic, and others who (like me) wander about, making noises about politics, comic books, or silly jokes.
I’m not quite sure it yet feels like home, but it is feeling increasingly comfortable.
While it seems sappy, Mastodon has a lot of welcoming folk on it.
One thing I want to work on is sharing my contact from there to here. One reason I like having a blog is that it’s mine — dependent only on my paying quarterly hosting bills, not on the business plan of anyone else. That said, one of the things I like about Mastodon is its decentralization, so that if one instance is mismanaged or lets the deplorables run roughshod, it’s easy to isolate the damage and/or move to another host if needed.
Anyway, cross-posting on an automatic basis from There to Here — to act as a repository and a place I can more easily pull past info from — is high on my list of things to do (which is still very long).
Mastodon isn’t perfect. That decentralization makes for a few sharp corners when trying to find people or share stuff. It’s actually improved there over the last year, but it’s a slightly steeper hill to climb than simply hopping onto Twitter or Facebook, etc.
I think Mastodon, as a “kindler, gentler” environment, sometimes gets contentious over whether people are being properly kinder and gentler. This pops up in debates about the platform and what should be the soft rules and the hard rules. Content Warnings (a clever tool) can be a touch-point, though I’m generally unaware of the extent of their use (as I simply have the window open to everything automatically, and don’t generally post stuff I think will be triggering to people).
Mastodon’s native inability (at the moment) to QTs is hotly debated whenever the proposal comes up — some groups find the feature too prone to abuse, others find it essential for how their sub-communities operate. I tend to favor them, but I’m able to work around that usually.
But so it goes. Any human community is going to have some sensitive points of friction, and the ones I tend to see on Masto are orders of magnitude less problematic than, say, Twitter debates about Were the Jews were behind COVID or if it was actually the trans people (so maybe we should do something to deal with both groups, just to be safe) …
Lord of the Flies as social media application. Okay, yes, I’m still talking about Twitter here.
At least that’s how I feel about it at the moment. The Masto I see and interact with is very open and accepting, especially to anyone who approaches conversation in a way that doesn’t easily translate into “Here’s my rationale for wanting you gotten rid of.”
The bottom line
This is probably far more info than I needed to share, esp. for something so trivial as my 1st Mastodon Anniversary. But there’s a reason I’m there (and why I’m not at my old there), and it’s probably worth writing down before everything changes again.
Net-net, I not only feel comfortable on Mastodon, I feel the general values and nature of the community there is something I’m willing to be associated with. If the medium is the message, the message Mastodon is currently sending is part of mine.
If you need help or advice getting yourself onto Mastodon, give me a holler.
If you’re looking for me over there, here’s where I am: https://mstdn.social/@three_star_dave
