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traincat · 3 years

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I feel like I've read a ton, but I'm honestly still pretty new to comics rn. That being said... What is one more day? Ik we don't like it and it happened a while ago, but that's about it [,=

Time for Spider-Man History With Traincat: Highly Controversial Storylines! And that feeling is totally normal with comics with huge canons -- you can read a ton and still have some fairly big blindspots in your understanding of the total picture. That being said, this is kind of a big one, both in terms of Spider-Man history/canon and in terms of how Spider-Man fandom functions. I would say probably no other storyline has had quite as much impact on how the fandom views and interacts with the source material as One More Day/Brand New Day. It's been the Wild West out here ever since it happened. (Which was in 2007, so like, yes, fairly long ago, especially when you look at how Spider-Man canon has evolved since, but in the grand scheme of things, also kind of recent. One More Day is not old enough to rent a car.)

So when people talk about Spider-Man's One More Day, they're usually actually talking about two related arcs: One More Day and Brand New Day. For the sake of simplicity, I'm going to be covering both. For the sake of transparency, I am going to admit that I think One More Day, as a self-contained story, is good, actually. This is controversial! I admit that! But I stand by my stupid opinions on this blog, for some reason. I think One More Day when you examine it on its own, by which I mean you ignore the decade and a half worth of canon that came after it, as a Spider-Man story and as a PeterMJ-centric story holds up under scrutiny and that people who don't like it don't like complicated love stories and might actually throw their own mothers under buses. No offense to the OMD haters. Little bit of offense to the OMD haters. Brand New Day, which is the continuation of One More Day, on the other hand -- largely bad. Very largely bad.

But let's backtrack. One More Day is a four issue crossover storyline that takes place directly after Civil War, during which Iron Man and Captain America got divorced and divvied up the superhero community and Spider-Man made some startlingly bad decisions and made a fugitive out of himself and his family in a manner that got Aunt May shot, and Spider-Man: Back in Black (Amazing Spider-Man #539–543) which examines Peter's actions immediately after Aunt May is shot and ends with him humiliating the Kingpin in front of an entire prison. One More Day consists of Amazing Spider-Man #544 -> Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #24 -> Sensational Spider-Man v2 #41 -> Amazing Spider-Man #545. In One More Day, Aunt May is dying, all of Peter's efforts to save her have thus far failed, and, consumed by guilt, he is rapidly running out of time. Approached by Mephisto, a literal demon from hell, Peter is offered a deal: Aunt May will live -- and Peter's identity, which was previously revealed to the world at large during Civil War, will once again be hidden from the memories of all but a select few -- if Peter trades him his marriage to Mary Jane. Peter and Mary Jane struggle with this, but eventually both agree to the deal. The clock strikes twelve, the deal is done, and Peter and Mary Jane's marriage fades into history.

(ASM #545) A reasonably simple premise for a story that caused so many problems -- most, I would argue, not actually the original story's fault. So obviously, this was an unpopular move -- Peter and Mary Jane had for a long time been a fan favorite Marvel couple, and in a fictional universe where most relationships are doomed as soon as they begin, the enduring Spider-Marriage was sacred ground. And then, with a snap of its fingers, it was gone: Peter wakes up in Aunt May's house, no longer married, with Mary Jane out of the picture. (She would not return to the book on any sort of consistent basis for over 50 issues.) In the wake of One More Day began Brand New Day, which is basically what it sounds like: a promised "brand new day" of "exciting" Spider-Man content and a publishing schedule where Amazing Spider-Man came out three times a month. (Which sounds good on paper but I think in practice caused more problems than it created good storylines.) Peter, newly single again, had new love interests! And also Harry Osborn was alive again for some reason! I generally like Harry's post-BND stories so that part's fine with me.

But overall? Brand New Day is a mess. It knows it wants to tread new and exciting ground with Peter -- tell new stories! ensnare new readers! make them fork out for a book three times a month. -- but it doesn't know what those stories should be. Readers who were invested in Peter and Mary Jane's relationship -- a major facet of Spider-Man comics for decades at that point -- felt rightfully betrayed that the marriage could be so easily traded in and that Mary Jane herself, perhaps the second most important figure in Spider-Man comics after Peter, could be tossed aside. From a personal point of view, I think Brand New Day fails in large part because it abandons what has always made Spider-Man such a compelling series, and that's the mix of Peter's personal life with his vigilante life. BND sees Peter with new friends, new jobs, new love interests, etc -- it is very much a brand new day! But it isn't a better day compared to the stories that came before it. I do like some post-BND stories, especially American Son (ASM #595-599) and Grim Hunt (ASM #634-637), but compared to pre-BND where I think the majority of canon is good, it's a very lacking body of work that is hurt by the way it divorced itself from the PeterMJ marriage as Spider-Man's central relationship.

"But Traincat, I thought you said you liked One More Day?" Yeaaaaah. I do. This is why I keep saying I like One More Day on its own merits, and not on the merits of the stories it opened the doors for. I like a good romantic tragedy in fiction, and the way Peter and Mary Jane's final scene in One More Day plays out is beautiful. I like the idea of Peter caught in this impossible situation, being asked to choose between two women he loves more than his own life. A really common criticism I see leveled against One More Day is that Peter should have chosen his relationship with Mary Jane over May's life, which is -- okay, I think it's weird that people keep insisting on this, not in the least because by asking Peter to sacrifice his aunt's life they're essentially demanding he commit a callous, out of character act in order to further his own interests. It's also weird because the thing is, Peter already chose Mary Jane over May -- that's what gets them into this situation. It's literally in the scene where May is shot:

(ASM #538) When the gun goes off, Peter's spider-sense kicks in, and he covers Mary Jane, leaving May in the path of the bullet. He does choose Mary Jane over May, regardless of whether he realized what he was doing. And that's why he can't make that choice a second time. His actions in One More Day do make sense for him as a character, whether or not any individual reader likes them, and Mary Jane's actions make sense, too -- after all, she's the one who ultimately tells Mephisto that they agree to the deal when Peter can't bring himself to voice it.

A lot of people also like to nitpick One More Day by going, well, why could (x) or (y) with life saving powers save Aunt May which is like -- yeah, I guess, but if we're going to ask that about this specific comic book near death setup, you kind of have to do it with every single one, and I'm not going to stake every single moment of comic book drama on whether or not that gold kid from the X-Men was busy at the time. Comics are soap operas in flimsy paper form: serialized longform storytelling that relies heavily on melodrama. Sometimes you have to go with things. Sometimes you sell your marriage to the devil. Stuff happens. That in and of itself doesn't make One More Day a bad story -- and while some people blame the Spider-Marriage's dissolution entirely on One More Day, I think that's a little shortsighted when you look at the history of Spider-Man since the turn of the century. It's clear -- and Marvel themselves have been perhaps a little too open about this -- that Marvel in the past few decades has had trouble with the direction they want to take Spider-Man. They WANTED Spider-Man to appeal to a distinctly youthful audience that they didn't think they were actually reaching -- understandable, considering that Marvel nearly went bankrupt around 2000 and was saved by Ultimate Spider-Man, an out of main continuity series which retold Spider-Man from the beginning and focused heavily on Peter as a teen -- but the problem was Spider-Man in the main continuity was at that point in canon a happily married man who was pushing the dreaded 30 whether or not they wanted to admit that. This is also why Marvel has continually pivoted away from Spider-Man having kids, because they feared that making him a dad would age him too much and make him unrelatable to their coveted audience of Teens. (This is also why almost every new Spider-Man property, especially the live action movies, perpetually stick him back into high school, despite that occupying a very small slice of 616 canon.) So around the year 2000, they started trying things in relation to the Spider-Marriage, which was viewed as a major problem -- after all, what's more adult than being married and liking your wife. First, they had Mary Jane presumed dead. Then, they had Mary Jane and Peter separate. Then, when Mary Jane and Peter had only recently gotten back together, One More Day struck. If One More Day specifically hadn't gone the way it had, it's pretty clear that the Spider-Marriage was going to go one way or another -- it's a little bit of a shame it happened when it did, because OMD is the end of J Michael Straczynski's run, and JMS wrote a really beautiful Peter and MJ relationship. But Marvel as a company and especially editor in chief at the time Joe Quesada viewed Peter and Mary Jane's relationship as a major problem in how they wanted to portray Spider-Man and thought that striking the relationship from the books would allow them more freedom in their portrayal of him as younger and more relatable to their Desired Audience of people who I guess really wanted to see Peter sleep with characters who weren't Mary Jane.

(ASM #546. Younger! Fresher! Less attached! Kissing random women in the club!)

The problem with One More Day has always been in the follow through -- from the content of Brand New Day to the pacing of events to the fact that Marvel withheld key information for such a long time that it allowed misinformation to thrive. After all, what does it MEAN to trade Peter and Mary Jane's marriage to the devil? It altered the events of canon in Peter and the majority of other characters' memories so that the marriage didn't exist, but it left people wondering -- did the relationship as they remembered it existed? How much of Spider-Man canon was altered? And the answers didn't come for over 100 issues of Amazing Spider-Man. One Moment In Time or OMIT (Amazing Spider-Man #638-641), which revealed that while Peter and Mary Jane never got married in the altered canon they did continue their long committed relationship up until just after Civil War, was published in 2010, so essentially readers were hung out to dry without answers for three years. That's a long time to string people along, but not as long as it took Marvel to confirm that the popular fan theory that Mary Jane retained her memories of the original timeline as part of her own deal with Mephisto was also true, which happened this year. I would say, at least from my perspective, a lot of the frustration doesn't come from the individual One More Day storyline so much as how Marvel has continually dragged out the aftermath, using the promise of a Spider-Marriage return to keep fans on the hook. Which is why One More Day continually comes up in discussion of current Spider-Man, because Spencer's run has relied very heavily on imagery from that period with a serious question of whether or not there actually was going to be payoff, something which is still up in the air.

This has been Spider-Man History With Traincat, brought to you by anonymice like you.

#traincat talks comics #long post #*replies

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vidavalor · 3 years

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SamBucky people... a balm for the broken-hearted here...

About what the producers/directors, etc are saying...

I’m not going to say that their approach to this does any service to anybody-- *including* the studio morons who can’t see that they could make $ by having more LGBTQIA characters in their stories (and that seems to be their primary motivation so...)

The thing is, once the people involved in the show define a character’s sexuality, they are also doing something else-- they are also specifically saying what a character *isn’t*. If the producers say that Bucky is bisexual, then there are fans out there who are going to feel betrayed. I’m fairly certain there are maybe like I dunno five? fans who actually think that Bucky is straight (lol) but fans tend to ascribe whatever their wishes for a character are onto that character. They project far, far more than what a show’s canon actually suggests. Think about how, as SamBucky shippers, if the producers said in an interview tomorrow that Sam is asexual, you’d be disappointed because then it would feel in violation of canon to ship SamBucky in the way you already were. (BTW, if a show doesn’t make *some* character asexual at some point soon.... grr.) Would it still be a great show? Of course! Would we still love Sam? I would hope so because Sam is awesome! But you can see my point which is that confirming one thing eliminates something else. Producers don’t want to do that because they don’t want to alienate fanbases. They want as many people as possible to watch their stuff so they traffic in vagueness with most characters, with only cishet ships really getting any daylight as canon because that is still how the majority of people identify. Is this good? God, no...

Marvel is also really the worst with it. The comics, often written decades earlier, were often more progressive than the MCU is. But this doesn’t mean that there is a lack of *intent* in how something is made. As a writer, I can tell you that TFATWS is written with romance beats-- not the story beats even of a buddy cop drama. That could maybe get you through the first two episodes. Past that, it’s a romance. More than that, it’s a damn *Hallmark* romance, minus a Christmas tree. TFATWS is one cookie baking scene away from Sam & Bucky having made out under a gazebo at the Delacroix Dancing Reindeer Festival or something. The actors are clearly acting with intent-- this isn’t just Stan & Mackie’s “natural chemistry” or what have you. There is no universe on earth in which the actors, the director, the producers, the *studio*, looked at the dailies (early rough cut of filmed scenes) for the boat scene where Bucky reaches for Sam’s hips and went “oh, this will definitely come across as Bucky isn’t the slightest bit interested in men”. There is no way that a scene of two guys rolling in a flower field was not meant to contain a heaping dose of homoeroticism. And those are just two of the examples-- if I went on and got into actual subtle ones, I’d be recapping *every single Sam and Bucky scene* in TFATWS and you all saw it.

For an example of how this attitude can exist and not be kind of toxic to a fandom, anyone who hasn’t seen it already should go check out Good Omens. If you think SamBucky is a love story, wait until you watch an actual enemies-to-friends-to-married couple that includes a 6,000 year slow burn and is one of the most romantic stories ever filmed (all while being insanely smart and funny at the same time.) There’s no overt declaration of love, no kiss but there is also absolutely, positively zero doubt that this angel and this demon (who are each a little of both, really) are over the moon crazy in love with one another. When this is put to the co-writer of the novel & producer of the series, Neil Gaiman, he affirms that it is a love story-- that Crowley and Aziraphale love one another. Even though the vast-- and I mean vast-- majority of people watching it will see it as a romantic love, the Good Omens fanbase has people who see different things in the relationship. There are a lot of fans who are into the potential asexuality of the characters. (Personally, I don’t think this works-- not because I have an issue with asexuality because I don’t but because there’s some fairly overt examples of sexual attraction between the two. Anyone who has seen it or will see it... Aziraphale in the Bastille. Enough said.) Anyway, the point is that there are fans whose interpretation differs from the others and, in a spirit of a state of being supportive of the freedom to be who you are which is really a major Good Omens theme anyway, the producers will simply say that it is a love story and that the two male-presenting leads love one another. Sound familiar?

It’s what Marvel is trying to do with TFATWS and SamBucky. The difference is the tone. Good Omens is a community full of positive LGBTQIA representation and love for all people and everyone involved with the writing of the novel and the production of the show really reflects that attitude. Marvel.... doesn’t have the best track record with this stuff. Granted, these are not comparable things. Good Omens is the ultimate in niche-y stuff-- it’s a long-running and large fanbase but compared to Marvel, it’d fill a thimble. Marvel is trying for a big tent approach to its movies and tv shows-- to have something for everyone eventually-- but the problem with this is that it doesn’t really give anyone much of anything that is well-defined... and that’s kind of their goal. They want you to be able to see what you see in things. It doesn’t mean that they aren’t actively trying to create things for you to see but it does mean that most of the stuff they make that is not a cishet relationship could have an entire romantic arc for characters-- and TFATWS does-- but it’s also going to leave open doors all over the place to try to attract the most viewers.

By that definition, TFATWS is shockingly gay. There are an enormous amount of tells built into the story to lead the viewer in that direction. Bucky didn’t want to go on the one date he went on with a woman and ran out of it in the middle, after talking about guy profiles on dating sites. Sam has been in 89 pieces of canon and other than a howyoudoin? at Black Widow that goes nowhere-- in front of another guy who was from the 1940s-- Sam hasn’t blinked at a woman. Neither of them get actual love interests in TFATWS but for one another. They spend the entire series proving themselves to themselves so they can prove themselves to one another. The list is endless.

No matter what they’re saying Bucky’s sexuality is or isn’t or what Sam and Bucky’s romance is or isn’t, they’re just dancing around things to try to keep from becoming “the gay Marvel show” in the media and keep viewership numbers up because, sadly, there are still too many people who won’t watch a show about hot, gay superheroes for some reason I do not understand...

So if you’re feeling a little faint of heart, just keep in mind that you can believe your own eyes and these two are in love, no matter what crazy verbal gymnastics the people who made this show for you are doing to try to pretend they didn’t just write you a six-hour long gay superhero Hallmark movie.

#sambucky #captain america #the falcon #the winter soldier #the white wolf #sam wilson #bucky barnes #tfatws #marvel #mcu

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theblackqueen-ofmyheart · 3 years

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Rant post because I’m tired of seeing Loki critics who don’t engage their critical thinking skills. I don’t think I should have to offer more warning further than that but if I do. Fair warning, reading further will probably tick you off to some degree if you have criticized the show so far. Also spoilers.

No marvel didn’t pick between incest and homosexuality. Mobius and Loki had no romantic chemistry. They barely had chemistry as friends. Loki and Slyvie didn’t have romantic chemistry either but at least they had chemistry as friends. And the kiss was her using his moment of vulnerability to her advantage. If you’re upset about queerbating you’re the type of shipper Anthony Mackie was calling out. You saw two men on screen and immediately decided they were gay for each other despite Mobius activity torturing, belittling, using and manipulating Loki. And even if they did have chemistry loki and Slyvie are both Bisexual or pansexual depending on how you’d like to label them. If they were to end up together, yes, it would be weird but that doesn’t make them any less bisexual or pansexual and if you think it does then you’re more of an issue than marvel is.

“I thought the Loki show would focus on Loki not these other people” you mean these other people who are mostly Loki variants? These other people who are also loki? We were never told it would focus solely on 2012 Loki, we were just told it was a show about Loki. No matter which Loki it focuses on it’s still focusing on Loki.

“Kang was annoying. I didn’t like him” GOOD, maybe we aren’t supposed to?? Almost every story has an antagonist. Kang was one of the the antagonists of Loki, not every antagonist needs to be likeable. People got too comfy thirsting after villains to realize not every one needs to be someone you can like. Hats off to the actor for making Kang someone not everyone will like, especially because he was honestly fun and bubbly.

“Ewww, Loki and Slyvie kissed” did I like it? No. Did I want it? No. But like I said before it was a tactic to get what she needed. If the Slyki shippers want their moment let them have it. Who is it going to harm? If you don’t like it you can see it as a tactic. If you did like it see it as romantic as you want go shippers! And I know we all saw those “would you fuck your clone?” posts that would go around and most of the time loki would be under “yes, who would know how to fuck me better than me?” We all knew Loki would fuck another Loki given the chance this is old news.

“Why was this not explained? Why was that like that? Why was??????” Google it….Wanda vision and Loki have very strong comic ties, google it and you’ll likely find your answers.

“Wow, Loki can’t even enchant something without Slyvie’s help because she’s soooo important” HE SAYS HE CANT FFS!! More than once even. On the train he is amazed she knows how to enchant minds and that she taught herself how to do that. And then right before they go to enchant Alioth he says he doesn’t know how. Her gripping his hand tighter doesn’t have to be anything more than her reassuring him that he can do it if he tries. Or maybe her communicating mentally with him to show him how to. You guys were the ones who decided it was him being useless without her help. And again, so what if that’s the direction it was going? If it focuses on slyvie over 2012 loki it’s still a show about loki.

“The ending was so unsatisfying” I’ll give you that it was pretty bland and anticlimactic but remember there’s a season 2 coming and we don’t know what’s going to happen there.

You can be upset about the show but at least use your minds and what was freely given before you pick it apart like what you’re criticizing isn’t explained in one form or another or at least isn’t something that’s a given. I have so many loki hate tags blocked right now and I’m still seeing loki hate popping up and it’s ticking me off how little people are using their thinking skills over this show. Do I love loki? Yes. Do I think they were done dirty by the show? To a degree yes. Can I still enjoy it instead of picking it apart? Yes!

I’m not a Wanda or a vision fan so I didn’t watch Wandavision past a few episodes because I didn’t like it much. Instead I stayed up to date by interacting with people who did watch it, Google, and comic knowledge because it is comic content heavy, much like Loki. I didn’t pick it apart despite not liking it. Y’all kept watching a show you’re disappointed by then wonder why you’re still disappointed like you didn’t set yourselves up for it. It’s something even kids know, don’t like something walk away. The internet is great for keeping up to date with things you’re not actually interacting with if you want to know what’s going on but don’t wanna actually subject yourself to it, supernatural drama is a great example.

#Loki spoilers #I don’t even know what to tag this as beyond that #loki criticism critic #??#“prepares myself for any hate on this post or my in box“#oh look at that….I did a tag thing…huh #Loki #mobius #Slyvie #rant post #tagged with characters so people with those tags filtered can filter this #yes I know it’ll show up for people who follow those tags #but maybe they need to see it

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queermediastudies · 4 years

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Little Effort for LGBTQ Representation in a “Maximum Effort” Superhero Movie

In comic books, one of my favorite characters is and has always been Deadpool. He is “popularly known to be pansexual and isn't particularly choosy about the gender of his partner, much like he has no particular affinity to anything. While this wasn't reflected in the 2016 film starring Ryan Reynolds, both Reynolds and director Tim Miller have hinted that this might come up in the sequel” (Vijaykumar, 2016). After watching it, I feel that the movie succeeds on some marks for giving out adequate LGBTQ representation, but not for the character one might expect. The movie Deadpool 2centers around Wade Wilson’s “one or two moments” that make him an (anti)hero. After losing his love Vanessa from the first movie, Wade finds himself attempting to create the X-Force in order to protect Russell, a mutant teenager from Cable, an experienced and genetically enhanced time-traveling soldier on a quest for revenge. Most of the movie focuses on the drama that ensues after Deadpool’s vain attempt to die is foiled by his own mutant abilities, his grudging acceptance of life and a sense of responsibility for Russell only to then (spoiler alert!) die. Except he doesn’t. Yet, in all of the CGI fights and snarky comments and constant breaking of the fourth wall, the movie does actually manage to discuss some elements of LGBTQ identities and representation. There are two main topics surrounding LGBTQ issues that the movie Deadpool 2 focuses on: the alleged hypersexuality of bi/pansexual people and alternatively, the de-sexualization of queer couples already in a relationship. Deadpool’s‘R’ rating and the characters’ own desire to “Fuck Wolverine” by getting better ratings in the second film took away from the potential of better, full-fledged LGBTQ representation stemming from the titular character, however, the film manages to cover up some of its pitfalls by succeeding in portraying a healthy lesbian relationship between one of the already established characters in the franchise and threading subtleties that condemn conversion therapy and argue for acceptance of others.

At the start of the film, Deadpool makes a valiant, but luckily, unsuccessful attempt at suicide with the first two words being “Fuck Wolverine.” This merges directly into his habit of breaking the fourth wall and speaking directly to the audience and promising that he’ll be dying in this film too. Deadpool, played by Ryan Reynolds then goes on to explain what led up to this moment which can be quickly summed up as the love of his life, Vanessa, was killed and he feels responsible for her death. The fact that Deadpool only begins to show more signs of a queer sexuality after Vanessa (his love from the entire first movie dies) indicates that being queer means exhausting every other opportunity of expressing yourself. Without the director and actor Ryan Reynolds discussing it in interviews, the average viewer would have been largely unaware of Deadpool’s canon queer identity in the comics. GLAAD actually gave the first movie some flack for its “veiled references” to Deadpool’s sexuality, however, the second film does not seem to take the subject much further (Romano, 2018). It is easy to view Deadpool’s flirtatious manner with Colossus as simply a moment of weakness and used as a joke, rather than an affirmation of his queer identity and sexuality.

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The other, more direct aspect of LGBTQ identity that is given in the movie is between Negasonic Teenage Warhead and her girlfriend, Yukio. The following scene occurs just prior to Deadpool’s confrontation with Colossus.

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“The power-couple proves groundbreaking, proving to be the first truly open, explicitly LGBT couple in superhero cinema” (Armstrong, n.d.). Despite this being the first out relationship in a Hollywood movie, the moment isn’t treated like a groundbreaking moment. In some ways, this could be seen as negative, because it isn’t treated like a big deal, but Armstrong argues that it could also be a way of trying to prevent alienating viewers by “mak[ing] any LGBT representation too visible [then] make certain audiences uncomfortable” (n.d.).

In the article from Scott, Darieck & Fawaz, the authors explore queerness using the X-Men as an example (2018). The queerness in X-Men characters is even more pronounced for certain individuals, such as Iceman who are actually labeled as gay/bi/pansexual, alongside of Deadpool. There is a scene in the second X-Men movie in which Iceman “comes out” to his parents, except rather than dealing with sexuality, it is about his mutant status (Puchko, 2018).

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Exchange the word “gifted/mutant” for “gay” in the previous clip, and the movie would have passed for solid LGBTQ representation. This movie was filmed before “the character Iceman realizes that he has been in the closet after his younger self confronts his older self in Uncanny X-Men (in a messy time-travelling episode)” (Vijaykumar, 2016), but the franchise as a whole still works to entice LGBTQ viewers for the marginalization that mutants feel in society that mirrors the lack of acceptance for LGBTQ individuals. Going back to the film, although Deadpool 2fails at giving enough exposure and time to focus on Deadpool’s pansexuality, it still adopts many of the themes from previous X-Men movies that argue for acceptance alongside of Negasonic’s relationship with Yukio. The movie provides its own anxious teen serving as a symbol for queer youth and their fight against with bigoted condemnation through flame-throwing Russell Collins” (Puchko, 2018). Russell, or “Firefist” lashes out in violence because of the torture suffered at the hands of Essex House’s mutant-hating headmaster whose techniques are similar to real-life “pray away the gay” conversion therapy (2018). Given that Russell is seen purely as a victim, regardless of the violence he instigated and the reckless choices he made that led to Cable searching for revenge against him in the first place show how damaging the lack of acceptance is for people in marginalized communities. Russell was persecuted because of his mutant status, and despite the film not exploring the canon texts of queer visibility in the comics in any nuanced way, it still provides some representation what is still a hilarious movie.

I only just recalled the Celine Dion music video that came out before the movie that Deadpool did a music video to and is the song for the very Bond-esque opening credits for this movie. Check it below, both the music video and the opening credits.

Music video:

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Opening credits to Deadpool 2:

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Given that I’ve read the Deadpoolcomics, I saw the moments where Wade is flirting with Colossus as an affirmation of his sexuality in the most “Deadpool way,” that is, ridden with crude humor and sexual overtones. However, it is understandable to me where audiences would downplay those moments because the movie does not return to them or make them “a big deal,” when it needs to be in order to provide a critical and engaged LGBTQ character. Additionally, Deadpool’s character is very much an anti-hero. Although we see him have a couple heroic moments in this movie, he is still a mercenary who has a murder tally in the hundreds for the movies and thousands in comic books, which doesn’t bode well for overall positive LGBTQ representation. Also, given that the network Fox was subsequently bought out by Disney just prior to this movie’s release makes me concerned for the future of Deadpool and the X-Force as a whole because of Disney’s now long-running trick of the presenting their “first” LGBTQ character appearing in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scene in recent movies (Beauty and the Beast, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Onward). Personally, I identify as pansexual, so seeing a superhero movie where it was at least alluded to more directly, alongside an explicit lesbian couple appearing on-screen simply gives me great joy although I definitely want to see Hollywood go further in how it portrays queer characters. My biggest issue with the movie was actually that the character Yukio has already been portrayed in X-Men films and is actually at one point, dating Wolverine. Therefore, her relationship with Negasonic does not make any sense if one follows the movies and comics very closely, however, it is a sin I was willing to forgive because other than Yukio’s rather small presence in other movies, she shines in Deadpool 2.

References:

Armstrong, B. (n.d.). Deadpool 2 is Groundbreaking, But Still Lukewarm LGBT Representation. Retrieved October 2020, from Metzia.com <https://metiza.com/culture/lifestyle/deadpool-2-is-groundbreaking-but-still-lukewarm-lgbt-representation/>

Puchko, K. (2018). ‘Deadpool 2’ is the gayest superhero movie yet. That’s not saying much. Retrieved October 2020, from Mashable. <https://mashable.com/2018/05/20/deadpool-2-queer-representation/>

Romano, N. (2018). What Deadpool 2 gets right and wrong about Hollywood’s first LGBTQ Marvel heroes. Retrieved October 2020, fro, Entertainment Weekly. <https://ew.com/movies/2018/05/18/deadpool-2-lgbtq-superheroes/>

Scott, Darieck & Fawaz, R. (2018). “Queer About Comics.” American Literature 90(2), 197-219.

Vijaykumar, N. (2016). Wonder Woman and other LGBT characters in comics universe. Retrieved October 2020, from The Week. <https://www.theweek.in/webworld/features/society/lgbt-comic-characters-wonder-woman-deadpool.html>

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#queer media studies #deadpool #deadpool 2 #comics and zines #lgbtq representation #lgbtq relationships #wade wilson #ryan reynolds #pansexuality #xforce #xmen #hollywood films

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vanessakirbyfans · 4 years

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One can imagine an American director such as Norman Jewison or Sidney Lumet directing a film about the legal battle at the heart of “Pieces of a Woman”: A terrible tragedy has occurred, and an expectant young Boston couple (played by Vanessa Kirby and Shia LaBeouf) have taken their midwife (Molly Parker) to court. The media are all over the story, which casts the entire practice of home birth into question. But instead of focusing on the trial, Hungarian director Kórnel Mundruczó concentrates our attention on the couple, both of whom are shattered by the experience — but especially to the wife, who has more to rebuild than just her relationship. It is her very identity that’s on the line in this mature, masterfully acted human drama.

Though he’d been invited to Cannes before, Mundruczó (“Delta,” “Johanna”) grabbed the world’s attention a few years ago with a movie called “White God,” in which all the stray dogs of Budapest rise up against their bipedal overlords. It was a bombastic but ultimately ridiculous film — a B-movie variation on Hitchcock’s “The Birds” treated with utmost seriousness — which developed a cult following while adding nothing significant to the cultural conversation. He returned three years later with a more substantive film, surreal refugee fable “Jupiter’s Moon,” although technique once again eclipsed the telling.

Early on, it feels as if the same could happen to “Pieces of a Woman,” Mundruczó and screenwriter Kata Wéber’s first English-language project: A few minutes in, after establishing salt-of-the-earth construction worker Sean (LaBeouf) and his relatively refined wife Martha (Kirby), Mundruczó launches into one of those stunts that will go down in film history. Decades from now, whether they love or hate the movie (it’s the kind that divides), audiences will still be talking about the virtuoso 23-minute “oner” — an elaborate, unbroken plan sequence that stretches the duration of a scene, à la “Children of Men” — in which Martha gives birth.

The shot starts casually enough, with Martha’s contractions arriving six minutes apart, but quickly escalates as her water breaks. Sean calls the doula, only to learn that she’s busy with another delivery. The woman sends a replacement, Eva, who’s warm and encouraging (qualities Parker so effortlessly embodies), guiding them through the process. Your average viewer may not notice that Mundruczó doesn’t cut, choreographing DP Benjamin Loeb’s camera so it’s right in the middle of the process, but they will certainly feel the mounting tension. Can he sustain this all the way through childbirth? In short, yes, Mundruczó intends to capture the miracle of delivery in all its joy and agony — stripped of glamour, yet completely spontaneous and unpredictable despite the careful planning this scene must have required.

Think of all the great actors who’ve gotten the chance to die on camera over the years. But how many have been able to give birth before our eyes? It’s a wondrous thing to watch, although the tone takes a turn toward the end of the scene, and suddenly this precious rite shared by so many women assumes a sharp pang of suspense. There’s blood in the bath, and the baby’s heartrate isn’t where it should be. Audiences must discover for themselves what happens, but suffice to say, the results aren’t typical, and it will take the rest of the film to process the shock.

It’s hard to proceed without giving away too much. Sean and Martha seem so close during the delivery — a couple from separate classes, where the gap between their white- and blue-collar identities is bridged by an intuitive intimacy that renders them stronger together — but as they both try to make sense of this tragedy, their inner demons reemerge, and they seem less like a couple and more like two separate, susceptible people.

We learn that Sean has addiction issues. “I’ve come back from death before,” he says. This latest setback could send him to the brink again. Meanwhile, Martha has weaknesses as well. She carries the damage wrought by a domineering mother, Elizabeth (Ellen Burstyn), who remains an invasive presence in her life. Elizabeth has never approved of Sean, but senses a way to manipulating the situation through him. It’s her idea to sue the midwife, although it’s unclear what the family hopes to gain by doing so. Will this bring the couple closer together? Not likely.

In some marriages, pregnancy can drive a wedge between the parties, upsetting whatever magnetism attracted them in the first place. In others, parenthood and the responsibilities it confers become the cement that holds a couple together. For Sean and Martha, we sense that they needed this child. The complications could be their undoing.

With mesmerizing skill, Mundruczó and Wéber (who, significantly, share “a film by” credit) explore the ramifications of loss on these two fundamentally good but imperfect people. Many would-be parents have faced similar challenges, which makes “Pieces of a Woman” both empowering (to see this universal human experience so sensitively depicted) and somewhat risky: No matter how respectful the filmmakers intend the film to be, their treatment examines Martha and Sean’s trauma through the lens of melodrama, which thrives on conflict rather than the kind of communication they so desperately need to heal — and which seemed to exist in their relationship prior.

Is it fair, for instance, to bring all the characters together — not just the couple, but also Martha’s sister (comedian Iliza Shlesinger, striking in this serious role), her husband (filmmaker Benny Safdie), mom Elizabeth and the caught-in-middle cousin-cum-lawyer (Sarah Snook) who agreed to take the case — for the kind of overcooked family gathering one might expect from a “Sopranos” season finale? And isn’t the film’s symbolism a bit too on-the-nose? Sean builds bridges, a career that has a direct resonance on his relationship. Martha obsesses over apples. While her houseplants go neglected, she tries to sprout their pips, as if to prove that she can create life (when grafting is the way to go, but nowhere near as elegant a metaphor).

A complicated personality off-screen, LaBeouf brings tenderness and vulnerability to the role, revealing a side of himself we seldom see — this despite the fact he literally turns his back to the camera during his most brittle scenes, including a key exchange with Elizabeth when Mundruczó shoots him from behind because head-on would be too painful. The director was right to enlist an actor as mighty as Burstyn to play the mother-in-law. The choice makes the character that much more imposing, and her conviction turns a late monologue into a showstopper: “I know what it’s like to start over. You have to burn bridges.”

But this is ultimately Kirby’s movie, as the stage marvel (better known to audiences for her work on “The Crown”) delivers her most impressive screen performance to date — not just the remarkable commitment of that childbirth scene, but the way she navigates the character’s uncertainty for the rest of the movie. Martha has such a complicated reaction, both physical and psychological, to her delivery that it couldn’t have been easy for Kirby to decide how to play so many seemingly contradictory facets: devastated yet resilient, angry but empathetic. The courtroom scenes, when they come, are less about the case than Martha’s feelings of guilt. Mundruczó and Wéber gave her the pieces from which to assemble this character, but only Kirby could have taken that puzzle and turned it into such an astonishing portrait.

#Vanessa Kirby #Pieces of a Woman #Kornel Mundruczo #Review #Articles

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niralamba · 5 years

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Xavier against Magneto

interview for GQ México, May 2019

link to the source below =>

In an interview, the actors James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender tell us about their participation in Dark Phoenix and their history behind the X-Men saga. James McAvoy has it clear, he is jealous of Michael Fassbender and the rest of the cast in the x-men saga. The reason is simple: he would have liked for Professor Xavier to have a suit too. One very showy, a superhero one, and yes, he is a little bit jealous. "Yes, a little, the truth is I would have liked to wear an attractive superhero costume, even so, I have the look of an action man with a turtleneck, which I like" says Professor X and his reflection comes after a decade to be in the skin of the mutant leader and when many point out that the mutant path has come to an end. Sometimes, memory fails and more with superheroes movies, because the first thing that comes to mind is the marvel cinematographic universe, the MCU monopolized our attention the recent 10 years, however, if we analyze it carefully, those who marked the pattern for the action genre of the 21st century was the mutants and they got it through the first X-Men (2000) by Bryan Singer. Dark Phoenix is the twelfth feature film of the franchise and the fourth installment of a series that continues to explore the origin of its characters. And also it would seem that it wants to play with our heads, what is known as a deja vu, why? Everything points out that the film is closing the circle of its era with 20th century fox before Disney takes control of the rights of the franchise and will do so adopting one of the most complex storylines among its fans, the dark phoenix created by Chris Claremont and John Byrne in 1980. Some years ago, the franchise of x-men first class (2011) managed to renew the popularity of the series thanks to the exploration of the origin of the enmity between Professor Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr aka Magneto, generating more than satisfied viewers and with the expectation of seeing more thanks to the work of two actors who are not only the pillars of this story, but in recent years emerged as icons of Hollywood and world cinematography, and what better to chat with them about what it holds for this movie (and what the future may leave) A FAMILY MORE THAN MUTANT. If something they have in common the trajectories of McAvoy and Fassbender is that their natural histrionic talent has allowed them to diversify and not fall into an interpretation stereotype, from one film to another we see them in very different characters, disparate, for example: Michael looked futuristic and chaotic as David in Prometheus, while James showed off his talent in Split and Glass playing Kevin and his multiple personalities. But x-men has something special for them, something that motivates them to come back and repeat "I think it's a combination of several factors" says McAvoy "We all enjoy playing these characters as I do, I love this company of actors, here there's a true family that goes back 10 years ago and for which you feel a lot of loyalty and affection " In that sense, Michael agrees with that idea and delves into what it's like to be a fundamental member of this family. "I love the journey that has led to Dark Phoenix and I specifically wanted to return, because Simon Kinberg would direct, I wanted to do everything I could to make things turn out well, he is a fantastic collaborator and seeing him in the director's chair made me very emotional" says Michael, highlighting the fraternity that has been formed within the production crew, although it's not the only reason that motivates them. The depth of their characters, as they have evolved throughout the movies, in addition to the political and social settings where they are developed are also excellent pretexts. The mutant phenomenon within x-men brings to the table racial issues, class, social inequality, prejudice and the reasoning of these issues, through their characters is, in essence, the pillar of the franchise. Magento seeks to locate his race above the pyramid and Xavier appeals for equality with humans, but how do they develop in this new delivery? What evolution we will see from Magneto and Xavier? Michael answers enthusiastically "Finally he has become the leader of Cuba that has always lived inside him! (Laughs) He has formed Genosha, his own community: an independent state/nation where the mutants live in harmony, without being attacked and in where anyone who agrees to help can be incorporated, is a self-sufficient community, not locatable and that was the struggle of Erik during the franchise " For his part, McAvoy makes it clear that the professor also presumes a profound transformation "Charles may be the leader of a social movement, but now he is the leader of a political movement, I think that's what he looks like now. which justifies by saying that he is loyal to his principles, although it seems to me that he has forgotten that those principles only exist to protect his family and his species, Charles somehow has forgotten that" says James, almost in love with his character. It's true, Dark Phoenix's argument is one of the most popular and puts one of his allies Jean Grey in direct confrontation with them, a situation that drives the characters to join forces, rethink their current situation and evolve. "What I find most interesting about Charles is that he is not selfish and he is not very vain, he is very wise and his empathy is what drives him and his detachment and almost sacerdotal nature are what defines him. somehow that disappeared in the two previous films and returns in this one. It was something that I liked, I really enjoy exploring that notion of fallibility" James finishes. REVENGE TIME. In Latin America, Simon Kinberg's name may not be as popular, but he is a select member of the mutant family, he has written and produced previous installments of the franchise, such as Apocalypse, Days of Future Past and he also wrote The Last Stand. Now his revenge has arrived. On this occasion, Kinberg debuted as a director and his place in that chair was something natural for Fassbender who knows and appreciates him. "Kinberg was very relaxed, very confident, he seemed to be doing this for years, he is also a very intelligent man, he is the kind of person who doesn't speak unless he knows about the subject, he observes, he listens. That makes a great director" Says Michael. While James, in turn, points to the particular style that the director printed on his debut. "The interesting thing was his instinct to make the film something more subtle, based on the performance, we're still going to have a show, but that was his way of doing it, going down to make it look more real. of the emotional drama "says McAvoy. Added to the cast is the consecrated Jessica Chastain (Zero Gravity, The Help) and her participation, although she is not the star, is key in Phoenix's journey to this dark stage. She is one of the reasons for her unbalance, to keep her out of control. Although her skills in front of the camera were that this duo almost completely missed. "It was great that she joined," emphasizes Fassbender. "But we didn't have many scenes together, just a few moments in the final scene, she is present with Jean, so it was mainly through acting patterns that I interacted with her character" James is not left behind the anecdote. "I think we only have one scene together ... unfortunately! In fact, I have a couple of scenes with her character, but she was not there, sometimes, it was just a special effect, one of the reasons she says that she took the job was because she expected to meet and act with me, but barely and we crossed paths! " RISE OF THE PHOENIX. When Sophie accepted the role of Jean Grey, surely she knew that in her hands she had a vital character for this cinematographic stage who, incidentally, is considered by experts as the most powerful female figure in the Marvel universe. In Apocalypse, Phoenix only had a few flashes of its potential, although it made it clear that in this movie it would have greater strength. Fassbender, from the beginning of his participation, was more interested in the weight of the different female characters but clarifies that the conjuncture we saw today did not influence for this to happen. In fact, that was the original idea almost 10 years ago. "I think the seeds of female roles were present, Simon had some unfinished issues after The Last Stand, he wrote the script! So that was already there, and at the moment this happens, it seems to be in sync with what happens in the real world, but Simon has always thought this way, equality in everything, both for female characters, as for male ones ", he concludes. With the premiere getting close, the fate of Jean Gray along with Professor Xavier, Magneto and the rest of the X-Men will be solved, and Dark Phoenix will unveil us if it represents the end of this cinematographic universe that infected of emotion the audience, it also had inconsistencies and errors. In this last letter, we will see until the final credits. For now, neither Fassbender nor McAvoy knows what the future holds for what they consider as one of their most endearing characters. "As far as the X-Men are concerned, I've always said: If this is the last one, it's been great, we have new owners of the franchise and who knows what they're going to do? But if this is the last one narratively, it feels like a good ending " James concludes. goodbye mutants?

#Michael Fassbender #fassy #fassbender #james mcavoy #x-men dark phoenix #gq #interview

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cinemamablog · 4 years

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Duality of the Female Psyche in Film

“What’s she thinking?” seems a recurring question in film. Filmmakers historically marvel at the female mind, complicated and full of contradictions, with social expectations and internal passions often at war. A woman can simultaneously be introspective and vocal, ingratiating and aggravating, and countless other contradictory personality traits. Well-meaning adults teach us as young girls to be sweet, kind, docile, but we learn from life that the lessons ingrained in us don’t always serve us well. In Freudian terms, this internal conflict occurs between the weak ego (the part of our mind that makes decisions and navigates the real world) and the strong id (our instinct, unaffected by external lessons learned). And so our minds play tug-o-war with what we’ve been told and what we feel instinctively, a stressful game, enough to tear any less-than-strong-minded individual apart.

In film, obviously one of the most visual art forms, why not communicate this internal duality by using multiple characters, each actor representing opposing components of a woman’s mind? Filmmakers like Ingmar Bergman, Robert Altman, and Sophia Takal did precisely that.

In Ingmar Bergman’s reverberating psychological drama Persona (1966), Bergman muse Bibi Andersson plays Alma, a chatty nurse with a secret. She watches over fellow muse Liv Ulmann’s character, Elisabet, an ominously observant actress who refuses to speak. Alma opens up to Elisabet, sharing details of her most shameful and sordid experiences, but later regrets her decision to spill her guts when she discovers proof of Elisabet’s betrayal. Their beach side getaway becomes a waterside nightmare of dream logic and questionable identity.

A little over a decade later, Robert Altman admittedly took a note from Bergman’s book, though the overall idea for 3 Women (1977) came to him in a dream. As the title suggests, the three characters in 3 Women each personify an aspect of womanhood before they begin a game of musical chairs with their personalities. Similar to Bibi Andersson in Persona, Shelley Duvall plays Millie, a loquacious nurse, though her chatter gets on her co-workers’ nerves. And like Liv Ulmann’s, Sissy Spacek’s character Pinky quietly watches Millie. In contrast to Liv’s blank stare, Pinky fawns over Millie with admiration. At least, she does at first. Altman paints the third woman, Willie, played by Janice Rule, as a “mysterious” pregnant bartender. Externally a tabula rasa, Willie exists to labor and take care of the hearth. Roger Ebert deemed her character an “earth mother” type.

After a period of observation, Pinky tries Millie’s identity on for size. Especially in our youth, women often test out different personas based on cultural influences: fashion plate, riot grrrl, one of the boys, etc.… But Pinky takes it to the next level, adopting Millie’s talent for gab (except using words to harm instead of to bond) and insisting her name is, in fact, Mildred. Out of frustration and frayed nerves, Millie reverts to a state of shy innocence, reminiscent of Pinky’s initial demeanor. Their identities weave around each other until the titular three women achieve a harmonious balance among themselves, trading personality traits in order to find the perfect fit.

A more recent metaphor for the ego/id split within a woman’s mind, Sophia Takal’s Always Shine (2016) begins with a quote from John Robert Powers, the founder of a modeling agency: "It is a woman's birthright to be attractive and charming. In a sense, it is her duty... She is the bowl of flowers on the table of life.” Caitlin FitzGerald’s character, Beth, plays the role of a people-pleasing actress, who puts her own needs on the back burner for the sake of success. She lives her life as the bowl of flowers, not wanting to shake the table on which she makes her living. She agrees to a scene of nudity in order to get cast in an indie production, though her body language at the audition signals that she feels uncomfortable with it.

In contrast, Mackenzie Davis plays Beth’s struggling actress friend, Anna, a talented but abrasive woman with the drive to succeed. Hardly a shrinking violet, she intimidates people and demands the attention of a room, qualities that pseudo-feminist male screenwriters love in their “strong female” characters but despise in real women. Anna’s jealousy of Beth’s blossoming career radiates off the screen: she yells at Beth when making a point, serves withering glares, and gets in her personal space. Anna’s knack for intense confrontation transforms the main plot line of “two actresses on a retreat” into a horror story of dueling and merging psyches. Anna shatters the metaphorical bowl of flowers and smears the mud on her face, longing for Beth’s demure posture and pleasing manner to rub off on her.

Alma, Millie, and Beth play the role of the ego in their respective stories. They exhibit a repressed manner of pleasantness; the ideal woman by 1950s standards! They meet the expectations of a “nice girl”: a blank slate upon which men can project their fantasies and by which other women can feel unthreatened.

Elisabet, Pinky, and Anna are the id personified. They do what they desire, without respect (and sometimes with disdain) for cultural mores. They antagonize the ego: sometimes challenging their need for tidy explanations with silence or insolence, sometimes aggressively disputing the social system that punishes a woman for obeying her instincts.

These films explore the potential outcome when the dual nature of the female psyche clashes, with each director reaching a different conclusion: madness and denial, harmony and matriarchy, or death and delusion. Women, however, deal with this dichotomy every day. We trust our instincts when we walk to our cars at night or when we decide how to best raise our children. But then we also bend to our ego’s (and society’s) demands when we bite our tongues from speaking the ugly truth or when we dress our children in drastically gendered clothing. Women walk the tightrope in our minds in our daily life (usually) without suffering from a psychotic break or identity crisis, so I look forward to more films written and directed by women regarding the female psyche.

#persona #always shine #3 women #robert altman #sophia takal #ingmar bergman #critique

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smokedcapybara · 5 years

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looks like my exhausted rambling isn’t over yet but this time I’m gonna talk about Tony Stark and why I hate the direction the MCU went (aside from Black Panther, Gaurdians of the Galaxy, and Ragnarok - but why they’re exceptions might also be touched on)

so, a long while ago I talked about how Young Justice and Teen Titans has been exactly what I needed when I first moved to Bellevue - I would imagine the heroes watching over me, making sure I was safe, or coming to whisk me away so I could join them and become a hero myself

I started watching the MCU movies around the end of middle school/beginning of high school and Iron Man, for me, couldn’t have come into my life at a better time

firstly, my first introduction to superhero movies was the Batman Beyond trilogy which was exactly the opposite of what I needed and almost enough to turn me off superhero movies entirely

and then I saw Iron Man, which was so completely different - it was funny and hopeful and bright - but also... well

around that time I’d constructed a mask to hide all my negative emotions - all my pain and anger and fear, everything caused by the abuse I’d suffered in Texas and my mom and brother starting to lash out more and more - and this mask, well to me it looked an awful lot like Tony Stark’s

and that was what I needed, I needed to see myself in him, to have the reassurance that I could move on from my past and become a better person, that I could have happiness, that no matter what others might think or see neither my mask and what was under it made me an irredeemable person

for the whole first half of the MCU I latched on to Tony, him and Loki were my favorite characters because they represented the two possibilities of what I could become - the positive and the negative, and even the negative didn’t look all that bad once you scaled it down to a small, disabled human from the powerful, magically talented god

(I also liked Loki because it was like they’d taken all my own family issues and lain them out in a way that anywhere I looked in the fandom I’d see people indirectly supporting me through their support of him)

I also liked Bruce, Clint, and Natasha, and all the side characters, they were all relatable in small human ways that I was very fond of

Thor and Steve I struggled with though

for about three years - the three years I lived in Texas - my mother was married to a bodybuilder name James, he was abusive and because of this I was traumatized and spent up until recently automatically scared of any large muscular man

sort of a ‘they have to prove they’re not to be scared of instead of the other way around’ kinda thing, and unfortunately Steve and Thor did not do that in those first few movies

so I projected heavily on Tony and tried not to let my trauma color my opinion of Steve and Thor too much and trusted that Marvel would handle their main characters as well as I was used to from things like, for example, Teen Titans or Young Justice

Age of Ultron was difficult but it had some good Clint moments and the ‘language!’ running joke was fun - I was torn up at the loss of Jarvis, of course

and then Civil War came out

they took the character I projected on and one of the characters my trauma made me somewhat distrustful of and pitted them against each other and somehow, miraculously, I sided with Steve

of course I sided more with healthy communication and talking things out amongst themselves before they take sides and start splitting up but unfortunately there wouldn’t have been much of a movie if they’d done that, would there?

and then

and then, Steve admitted to knowing who killed Tony’s parents and not telling him sooner and got upset at him for being upset

I’d managed to get past my trauma enough to recognize that he was mostly dedicated to being a good person, I’d even managed to get past it enough to side with him over Tony for the better part of that movie

but watching that fight, especially the end where Tony was laying there defenseless, was almost like being retraumatized - having the association of large muscular men as violent and dangerous rebranded into my brain - and the letter he sent at the end pulled up all the less physical aspects of James’s abuse

and so Steve was firmly associated in my head with all of that stuff from my past, and it made it so hard to participate in fandom where suddenly everyone was picking a side and declaring one or the other completely in the wrong

and those who like Steve or believed his side was right decided anyone who liked Tony, or disapproved of how Steve handled the whole situation with Tony’s parents having been murdered, was a terrible person and should be torn down for liking him, they reduced Tony to his mask and declared that he’d never be able to make up for his past - called him heartless and more

and those who supported Tony were just as bad

and there was no room for someone who supported Steve’s argument against the accords but was against his actions in the Hydra base(I don’t remember where it was, I watched the movie once and refused to ever watch it again cause it was too triggering for me)

and while the rift in the fandom has softened, its still there - everyone seems to either hate Tony or hate Steve

and those who dislike Tony have had more and more good reason to as the series has gone on and it hurts

because at some point he stopped being a beacon of hope for me while still being too connected to me

in fact, it’s almost like him and Loki switched places with Ragnarok and everything

(here’s where we touch on why Ragnarok is so much better than most of the rest of the MCU, and is in fact my #1 favorite MCU movie)

by the time Ragnarok came out I had lost my main fictional source of hope for myself - I’d only ever found two characters I related to in that way and on that level: Tony and Loki (there have been many other fictional characters I’ve related to but all either on much smaller scale or just in wildly different directions)

and Tony was quickly becoming worse than what Loki had represented for me, my hope turned sour, my mask indistinguishable from the truth, I was a little lost

I distanced myself somewhat from the MCU fandom, I just couldn’t handle it, it hurt too much

and then I watched Ragnarok

Thor was goofy and ridiculous and silly and a definite hero but in an almost washed up way - like his time had come and gone and come again and he was gonna grab it with both hands while it was there but not take it too seriously this time cause he knew better, y’know?

and that was exactly what I needed to get past the ‘big muscular man’ trigger to see him as a whole Good Person and absolutely love him

and him and Loki’s interactions were exactly what I needed right at the cusp of a change for the better in my relationship with my own brother

and by the end of the movie Loki was happy and accepted and understood (and gay, can’t forget the gay subtext) - while still being himself - and that was definitely what I needed

and then Infinity War and Endgame came out and I still haven’t watched either of them yet but I don’t need to and I don’t want to because I’ve had enough spoiled for me to know that nothing good would come of it

and it makes me so sad and angry

Marvel took this series, these characters, that was so important to me at such a difficult part of my life, that I was so dedicated to for so long, and essentially threw it all away, trashed it, ran it into the ground so thoroughly that I decided not to watch any more unless it’s, like, a Black Panther sequel - and that mostly because black superhero movies need to be supported so more will get made cause they’re important (and because Black Panther was good but, I mean, I feel like the rest of this post does a good job explaining that one movie being good doesn’t mean it’s sequel will be or that you should watch the sequel so the representation aspect makes more of a difference for me rn)

and all because... what?... cause they decided drama and conflict was more important than their main team being a team? cause they didn’t want any spoilers leaked so they lied to their actors? because they were more motivated by making money than telling a satisfying story? cause they forgot not all their watchers are cookie cutter carbon copies of each other and all relate to different aspects of different characters for different reasons?

because they forgot that because this series might be a child’s first introduction to the concept of superheroes they have a responsibility to protect and nurture that child’s faith in the world? that’s the responsibility you take upon yourself when working with those characters, any superhero characters unless your story is undeniably adult oriented, and you need to remember that

superheroes are supposed to be our hope that maybe things can be better, maybe we can make a difference, that’s what got Marvel and DC big and they need to do better to remember it

(I liked Black Panther because it was very emotionally impactful and visually stunning and had great characters and representation - so many different important woman characters as well as most the characters being black! - and just overall was, like, the ideal movie)

(I liked Guardians of the Galaxy 1&2 because it was easily separated from the rest of the MCU in my head and it was fun and funny and leaned very heavily into found family which is my jam and it had an A+ soundtrack and Groot was adorable and amazing and Drax was very autistic coded in a Good way, also Gamora and Nebula gave me similar sibling feels to Thor and Loki which is important to me)

#mcu #marvel #tony stark #iron man #capybarambles

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thehollowprince · 5 years

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I've been debating on whether or not to make this post for a couple of weeks now, but thankfully, earlier this morning, someone ctosstagging finally pushed me over the edge and I'll address the issue.

That crosstagging demon is none other than @gay-buchanan-barnes. This little hobgoblin came into the anti tony tag for no other reason than to start drama, because by their own admission, they "enjoy being a troll", which works out for the best because they're the one that gave me the motivation to do this. So here's to you, you obnoxious little shit, I couldn’t have done it without you!

Well, I could have, but it’s more fun this way.

Recently, I’ve seen a big trend sweeping through Tumblr about how T*ny St*rk is bisexual, or, as our friend above said, pansexual. I’m here to discuss said issue, and explain how T*ny being either of those things is offensive, and why so many of us are against it. In this essay I will...

...

Yes, there is an actual essay.

For starters, I would like to point out something that isn’t talked about much on this website, particularly in the whole pro t*ny/anti t*ny debates, and that is that MCU T*ny is different than comic T*ny, of which there are many, many versions. For this, I’ll be discussing MCU T*ny and 616 (mainstream marvel) T*ny. Keep in mind, before we delve too deeply in this, that I don’t read the Iron Man comics, so when I discuss that, it’ll be based off of his appearances in other comics that I’ve read and the quick Google Search I just did.

Now let’s just get into the meat of this.

T*ny St*rk is not, in any way, any kind of good representation for bisexual/pansexual persons. Now, I am a gay man, so please take what I’m about to say with a grain of salt, but I stand by that opinion. One of the biggest issues that bisexual and pansexual persons face, aside from justifying their own sexualities (that’s a separate post in and of itself) is the harmful stereotype that they’re just greedy and that they’re playing both sides, which is where my distaste for people claiming T*ny is good bi rep comes in.

Anyone who knows me or has been on my blog, know that I try to promote bisexuality and asexuality awareness. In regards to LGBT issues, that’s the hill I’ll chose to die on, if I have to.

Apparently, in a recent comic, T*ny takes himself off the market and announces that he’s no longer single, deleting his dating profile with a “sorry ladies and gents” so that he can date.... I believe it’s Janet van Dyne, but I could be wrong.

Well, that right there, the “ladies and gents” thing is just a giant spotlight in the sky signalling that T*ny is bixesual and blah blah blah.

Very quickly, as I said above, I don’t read the Iron Man comics, but I know that he’s been around for 55 years, and I understand that he’s just now getting a new series after he died originally (it’s so hard to keep up with Marvel’s timelines anymore), but one thing I do know is that T*ny never had a “permanent” love interest the way the other heroes did. Like, I don’t read much outside of the X-Men comics, but I know that Betty Ross was Bruce Banner’s girl, and that Sharon Carter was in a relationship with Steve Rogers, Thor and Jane, etc. Those are all iconic relationships from the comics that transitioned over to the MCU, but I don’t recall one for T*ny. If it is Pepper like in the movies, that’s a whole “yikes” situation for me, but it’s not something I recall.

He is, as he referred to himself in The Avengers (2012), a playboy. He sleeps around. His promiscuity is one of his defining character traits, so much so that when I think of T*ny, one of the first things that pops into my head is “manslut”, which, no slut shaming because I believe in sexual liberation, but in regards to him being bisexual, it’s harmful. Bisexual persons fight over and over, with both heterosexuals, and those in the Lesbian and Gay communities, trying to validate their sexuality and make it abundantly clear that they’re not trying to date/fuck more than one person at a time. That’s not what bisexual means.

By claiming T*ny as positive bisexual representation, you’re just reinforcing that stereotype, and more often than not, it’s so that you can claim your headcanons and fanfictions regarding T*ny fucking half of the male Avengers as canon, because it gets your rocks off.

And when called out on this bullshit, I’ve seen plenty of people pull out the “representation” card. I’m here to tell you all that there are actual, canonically bisexual characters in the Marvel Comics. If you’d like to inspect them, or know who they are so that you can look them up, here is a list of them. Here is a list of the few pansexual characters, too.

As you can see, there are actual characters that identify as bisexual and pansexual in the Marvel universe without you having to cram your headcanons down, usually for no other reason that (aside from it turns you on) than to claim that he’s oppressed in some way, or that he represents an oppressed minority in some way. I ranted about this the other day.

All of this brings me to MCU T*ny, who, as I said before but will repeat again, is not comic T*ny. One may be based on the other, but they are two separate entities. Even if - if - T*ny St*rk was canonically bisexual (which he’s not) in the comics, that doesn’t mean he would be in the MCU. We’ve had several things about characters from the comics either erased or altered altogether for the movies, because what is good in comic form doesn’t always translate well to film. That being said, T*ny still refers to himself as a playboy, even after he’s in a relationship with Pepper, which is really telling about him as a character. Keep in mind, that I’m just putting this in here as a What If scenario, because unless Marvel confirms or denies that T*ny is bisexual, he’s strictly a straight.

Before anyone jumps down my throat about how “straight isn’t the default” keep in mind, that T*ny has only been shown in relationships (sexual or otherwise) with women, and while it isn’t nice to assume that he couldn’t be anything other than straight, keep in mind that there aren’t a lot of bisexual characters in comics. They don’t need to rely on innuendo and subtle references, they need direct statements.

To quote one Eleanor Shellstrop, “It’s 2018. It’s like, get over yourselves already.”

At the end of the day, T*ny St*rk is not bisexual, or pansexual, and if you don’t understand how promoting him as such is harmful to the actual bisexual and pansexual communities and if you don’t understand that, than I can’t help you.

Granted, there is nothing to stop you from promoting this, which you’re fully entitled to do, even if it is a bit disturbing, but maybe, don’t be like the person that caused this entire rant and don’t crosstag because you wanna start trouble.

#long post #sorry not sorry #tony isn't bi #or pan #or gay #or anything other than a heterosexual white man #die mad about it #anti tony stark #anti tony stans

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saotome-michi · 5 years

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dele (ディーリー)

Synopsis: A young man, Mashiba Yuutarou, is arrested for kidnapping a boy from his abusive father at the mother’s request. The lawyer who bails him out asks him to work for her younger brother, a dour man named Sakagami Keishi, who runs a business that deletes the clients’ digital data (any files of their choice) after they die. However, Kei doesn’t always know if the client’s dead–he just gets an alert if their computer and/or phone is untouched for a certain amount of time. Since Kei’s lower body is paralyzed due to an illness, it’s Yuutarou’s job to go out, investigate, and confirm the client’s death. What seems like a straightforward enough job turns out to be anything but as Yuutarou finds that a lot can depend on the existence of sensitive data…

Once in a while, if you’re fortunate, you run into a drama that’s so intriguing, so beautiful, and so satisfyingly creative that you keep thinking about it even weeks after watching it. That’s dele for me. It’s been two weeks since I watched the finale and I’m still listening to the soundtrack, still playing over scenes in my head, marveling over the shot angles, the color palette, the lighting, and the reasons behind all of them—because nothing in dele is done without reason and that’s what makes it so great. dele is not just a show, it is an art piece, carefully produced and wonderfully executed. With only 8 episodes it manages to expound into its premise, take it into all sorts of thought-provoking moral directions, and build up the two leads and their relationship to a satisfying conclusion that makes you want more even as you watch the ending credits.

But no show is for everyone and that doubly applies to dele, which is more niche than mainstream. dele fits within a precise kind of genre; it is an introspective look into the best and worst sides of people, and the actions they can make, good and bad. It is about the simultaneous delicacy and tenacity of relationships, of human bonds forged over nothing more than a couple shared moments. It is about the duality and duplicity of people, of individuals and communities, of humankind as a whole. In a way, it feels like a gradual assessment, a judgement.

Yet despite the solemn and despondent atmosphere that permeates most scenes, it is ultimately a positive judgement that dele gives us. There is one scene that comes to mind where, at the climax of a particularly bleak episode, Yuutarou (played marvelously by Suda Masaki) says, “People aren’t filthy, they’re just weak! It’s because they’re weak… that they occasionally get seized by evil intentions and make mistakes. That’s all there is to it.” Out of context, that quote might sound like a negative statement on humanity, but it’s just the opposite. Yuutarou is saying that people are not inherently evil and that there is always the chance to change and act for the better. Living can be hard, the world can be cruel, and people can be weak… and that is exactly why it is important to find others who can help you, to reach out, to keep caring and to keep trying. It is a bittersweet but hopeful conclusion, that is emphasized by the ultimately uplifting outcome of the season.

To add to the judgement motif, there is almost a doomsday element to the drama’s aesthetic. Despite the business’ headquarters being inside the city, the job often takes Yuutarou (and sometimes Kei) into much more sparsely populated neighborhoods, where only one or two other people frequent the streets, while a twangy guitar gives out a progression of notes that would fit right at home in an old western. There is a feeling of isolation and detachment; put that plus the cool color palette (blues, greens, as well as pops of ruddy oranges) and the almost too-bright lighting, and you get a slice-of-life in the most literal meaning. A snapshot of humanity right now, before it’s gone.

Technology is a main character in this show, but technology is only whatever the human characters make of it. It can be a place to hide a secret or a weapon to hurt others. It can be a means of communication or a way of stealing information. However it’s used, its form is at the user’s command.

There is always the risk of writing an overly positive review like this. It’s very possible that you’ll watch this drama and think, “This is nothing special, what was Michi thinking?” And certainly dele is not perfect; some episodes are certainly weaker than others, and the handling of female characters is not the best, with most being either stereotypes or sidekicks more defined by their relationships to men than anything else (meanwhile Kei is possibly one of the coolest depictions of a disabled man I’ve seen in Japanese media in a long time). But somehow dele has wormed its way into my heart and I feel very grateful for it. As someone who is in love with the craft of storytelling, I still have a lot to think about.

(You can watch this drama online for free with english subtitles, but remember to fully protect your computer with an ip blocker, pop-up blocker, and a firewall, because some of those sites can be sketchy!)

Warnings: Suicide, murder, death, drugs mention

#dele #ディーリー #jdrama #suda masaki #yamada takayuki #random blah of letters

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ugly-crying-over-bucky-barnes · 5 years

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Tearing Down Sandcastles Part 20

Summary: Sofia feels stuck in life and has for the better part of two decades. Now she’s nearing her 30th birthday and her luck begins to change when a handsome actor accidentally destroys her niece’s sandcastle.

Chapter Summary: The last two weeks of Sofia and Sebastian being apart.

Warnings: Anxiety, accidental injuries

A/N: Thank you to @what-the-buckybarnes for continuing to help me through my writers blocks. You’re the true mutual

Gif @ bluesteelstan in case you can’t read the watermark

After the little argument, we did our best to make the last two weeks apart work. Sebastian called and texted regularly and I was honest with my feelings. I told him how lots to people were trying to invade my privacy and it wasn’t doing anything to help my anxiety. Since Erica was my sister, it seemed easier for people to get information about men. I shockingly found my name in an online article listing celebrities who were dating ‘normal’ people.

=============

“’Marvel actor Sebastian Stan has been in the business for years, appearing alongside other notable stars like Nicole Kidman, Matt Damon, Margot Robbie, and Meryl Streep. The Romanian native recently announced his engagement to the sister of acclaimed director, Erica Valdez. Sofia Valdez now lives with Stan in New York but has remained out of the public eye despite her fiancée’s career.’ I mean do they want me to just suddenly become an actress because I’m going to marry you?” I huffed over the phone after reading the article excerpt.

“It’s just a trashy gossip site. They want drama.” Sebastian assured me.

“Yeah, I’m sure they’d love to hear that you’ve run off with my sister and in revenge, I got with Noah,” I replied sarcastically.

“A scandal for sure.” He chuckled and sighed. “Just try to take it as a grain of salt. No one else has a say in our relationship.”

“They feel like they do,” I mumbled and finished folding a load of laundry. Setting each neat pile on the bed.

“How’s everything else going?” He gently steered me away from the article.

“Busy, which is good. Just trying to juggle it all but I’m glad to be doing something. I sort of felt useless before when I wasn’t working.” I clamped the phone between my ear and shoulder so I could begin sorting the laundry away.

“Sofia, you’re never useless. I want you to do what makes you feel best. So if you feel good about work and classes, then I’ll support you every step of the way. But don’t think you’re useless.”

“You don’t make me feel useless.” I murmured. “You act like I’m the center of the universe.” I teased.

“Because you are.” He insisted lovingly. “You’re the center of my universe and that hasn’t changed since the day I met you.”

I stopped in the closet with a smile on my face. I touched one of his shirts and my heart ached for him. “I can’t wait for you to come home,” I said wistfully.

“I know, babe, but I’ll be home before you know it. I have an early morning though, so I have to let you go now. You have a lecture at four tomorrow right?”

“Yeah, I’m working in the morning.”

“So if I call you at seven, it’ll be noon there…” He thought through the time difference out loud. “Noon work?”

“Yeah, that works.”

“Okay, I love you. I’ll text you when I get up.”

“Love you too.”

==========

But the morning text wouldn’t come. Instead, I was woken up at one in the morning from a call. My sister’s name was on the screen and I knew it was urgent. She was aware of our own time difference and was mindful of the hour she called.

Disoriented, I sat up in bed and turned on the speakerphone. “Hello?”

“Sof, are you up?” My sister’s voice was tense and alarmed me.

“Well, I am now. What’s wrong?”

“Sebastian was in an accident.”

“What?” I bolted up in a panic and threw the sheets aside. “What accident? Is he okay?”

“His agent got in contact with mine because she couldn’t track down your number. She thinks it was a car crash but she’s trying to get more information from the film crew.”

“Oh my God.” My hand flew to my mouth and worst-case scenarios caused an instant panic attack. I sunk to my knees and hyperventilated into my thighs.

“Sof, Sofia, please just breathe with me, okay?”

“I need to get over there!” I exclaimed breathlessly. Frantic tears stained my cheeks and I felt so hopeless. He was on another continent, what if something really bad happened and I couldn’t be there for him?

“You have to get yourself calm first.” Erica did her best on dealing with my panic but Sebastian was much better at settling me.

“Erica, please. What if he’s dying?” I cried hysterically.

“Okay, let me just…” She sounded unnerved, probably because she couldn’t assure me that he wasn’t dying. There was a lack of information because of the disconnected trail of communication. “I will see what’s available for flights. I’m going to have to hang up though. Can you try to go through some breathing until I call you back?”

“Y-yes, yes, I will.”

When she hung up, I tried to calm my trembling body and close my eyes. It was nearly impossible to focus on my breathing because I was too scared. I ended up crumbled on the floor, shaking and begging God to keep my Sebastian alive.

=============

Erica came through and pulled out some big connections to get me on a flight as soon as possible.

No news came through and I was forced to keep my composure through the airport and on the long flight to Germany.

Then I waited in Frankfurt, on my layover, desperately trying to get news from Sebastian’s agent. Before boarding, my second flight to Greece, a text came through. She told me that last she’d heard he was still in surgery. She also explained that a member of the film crew would meet me at the airport to escort me to the hospital.

It was another three hours or so to Athens and the wait was excruciating. I was terrified to get off the airplane, turn on my phone, and read a text telling me my fiancee had died. When we landed, there wasn’t such a text. But there was another from his agent telling me the name of the man waiting for me, a bodyguard that worked for some of the cast.

============

“Sofia?” A tall man with a distinct Yankees ball cap waved me over.

“Yes, Isaac.” I hurried over to him. “Is he okay?” I could delay the polite introductions.

“He’s out of surgery.” He nodded and offered to take my hastily packed duffle. “He should be awake now. I’m sure there’ll be a doctor there to explain the injuries, I’m not entirely sure what happened yet.” He led me outside where a car was waiting for us.

The ride to the hospital was a little more bearable because I knew Sebastian was at least alive. But I didn’t waste time getting into the hospital and to the room, they directed me to.

=============

“Sofia?” He looked shocked to see me in the doorway, probably still under the impression that I was still in Manhattan.

I burst into tears when I saw the state he was in. Several rows of stitches covered over his eyebrow, down his and his left arm. His right arm was in a sling as well.

“Sebastian.” I rushed to his side and tried to hug him without causing further injury or messing with the IV tubes. “I was so worried. Erica called me and I just assumed the worst. I’m so glad you’re okay. I was terrified I’d lost you.” I rambled incoherently through my tears.

“Sh, draga mea, I’m okay.” He soothed and held me close with his good arm.

“What happened?” I hiccupped.

“We were driving to set and got in a bad crash. I didn’t really see what happened I just felt it…we flipped I guess. I don’t really remember anything after the initial impact. Got a little banged up though.” He kissed my hair. The reunion was a little different than we’d expected.

“Like what? Will you be okay? They said you were in surgery for a long time.” I drew back and tenderly touched his face. His skin was mostly cleaned up of the blood but his stitches were fresh and it made me sick to my stomach to realize how deep the gashes must’ve been.

“They said my lung was punctured.” He admitted. “But they said everything went well in surgery so it shouldn’t be a problem. My shoulder dislocated but it’s fine now and the rest of it was just glass.” He shrugged.

I looked at him. It was as if he were talking about a trip on the sidewalk. “Sebastian, I could’ve lost you.” I couldn’t hold back. There were so many emotions I’d kept pent up while traveling for hours.

“It’s okay, love, it was scary but I’m okay. I’m much better now that you’re here.” He sighed quietly.

“Are you in pain?”

“Nah, just drugged up.” He answered and closed his eyes. “

I sat on the edge of the bed and stroked his hair back. “Get some rest. I’ll be here.” After all the times Sebastian had taken care of me I knew it was my turn to step up. It wouldn’t be easy seeing him in pain but I loved him too much not to carry him every step of the way. Metaphorically, of course, I doubted I could carry him.

“Yeah? Even though I probably look like Frankenstein’s monster because of the stitches?” He mumbled playfully.

“You still look handsome, don’t worry.” I kissed his forehead. “You’ll always be gorgeous to me.”

“Hope they don’t scar too much.” He continued rambling on in a quiet, slurred grumble. “More time in the makeup chair. Fucking pain the in ass…” He exhaled and his words faded away before he conked out from the painkillers.

I stayed sitting beside him while he slept. I briefly sent a message to Erica and his agent, telling them everything that I knew. It was a relief to say he would be perfectly fine in the few weeks to come.

Permanent Tags: @what-the-buckybarnes @captainmarmel

Tag list: @tacohead13 @raulesparzalover @lovelybones81

Masterpost

My Masterlist

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joondimple · 6 years

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d r e s s [one]

[angst/smut]

- college! au / fuckboy! jimin au

- involves: jimin / reader / namjoon

- mentions: alcohol, swearing, smut

- writing masterlist

summary: college provided you with the freedom that you’d always wanted. You’d wound yourself up in the dorm notorious for hosting weekly parties, which if attended, you were guaranteed a random hook up. Would running into Park Jimin at one of the parties be a mistake?

a/n: so this is the beginning of my college! au series. Here’s the first part of dress, I’ve already written about 5 parts and I’m excited with the direction of the plot!

part o n e / (?)

A wave of relief washed over you as a confirmation email enters your inbox, after finally submitting your final essay of the semester. Just a mere 2 minutes before the deadline. You mentally swore to yourself never to leave assignments to the last minute again, although you knew that you’d struggle to snap out of the bad habit. Being at university provided you with the freedom that you’d always wanted. Your parents were hard on you and despised your slacking work ethic. You relished the privacy of your own dorm room, content in the thought of not having to worry about your parents constantly checking up on you.

A series of message notifications snapped you back to the present as your screen illuminated your dark bedroom, displaying messages from your major group chat.

[12:01] melissa: you better have submitted (y/n)

[12:01] jess: don’t forget this module has the most credits!!

[12:02] lea: when are u gonna learn girl 😂

you chuckled as you scrolled through the messages, before reassuring the girls that it was all good and you’d finished (just).

You’d be lying if you said that you didn’t love the uni lifestyle. Luckily your housemates were similar in that respect and enjoyed drinking, going out and organising house parties for campus. Your dorm was known for hosting weekly alcohol and sex fuelled parties, which were messy and usually ended up creating drama of some kind. The first year virgins were encouraged to attend as it was a guaranteed place for hookups. Well, anyone who wanted a quick fuck was egged on to go, in fact.

You glanced in the mirror and studied your face in the mirror. Evidence of late, coffee fuelled nights showed in the form of heavy eye bags and untamed hair. Grabbing some concealer and a brush, you quickly untangled any knots and fixed your makeup in an attempt to look somewhat presentable. You made your way out to the communal kitchen, the bass of the music almost completely trancing you. As much as you wanted to drink away the stress caused by the assignment, you were also very aware of the fact that you were beyond delirious.

It wasn’t long before you found your best friend and housemate Namjoon at the group with a group of boys that you failed to recognise. It didn’t surprise you though, his intelligence was undoubtedly charming. You caught his eye momentarily and he grinned, before beckoning you over. You cursed under your breath as you approached them, wishing that you’d taken a shot earlier in the kitchen. You could feel the boys’ eyes scan your body as you came closer to their table.

“Did you make it?” Namjoon quizzed, before finishing what looked like his third bottle of soju.

“The assignment? Yeah. Only just though.” You chuckled, shaking your head slightly.

“Oh (y/n)...” Namjoon sighed. “what are we gonna do with you, sweetheart?”

a shade of crimson crept over you as you chewed your cheek in embarrassment refusing to look at the intimidating men before you, obviously relishing your flustered state.

“It’d be rude not to introduce ourselves, right hyung?” one of the men smirked, running a hand through their hair before looking back at you.

“Of course, my bad.” Namjoon hiccuped, adjusting his glasses to the bridge of his nose.

“Hoseok! Nice to meet you.” The man’s fiery hair almost matched his cheeks that were evidently tainted from several bottles of soju. You smiled warmly, already appreciating the way that his presence lit up the room.

“Jimin.” Your head turned your head to the man who matched the voice. His ash blonde hair fell into his eyes as his pump lips curved upwards alluringly.

______________________________________________________________________

“Namjoon hyung said that you needed some help.” You jumped alarmingly at the voice of the unexpected visitor in the kitchen, before swivelling on your heel to meet Jimin’s gaze. He leaned back against the counter, with his drink in one hand with his head cocked slightly to one side.

“Help with what exactly?” You raised an eyebrow before mirroring his stance.

“Sounds like you’re not exactly a model student, poppet.” he clicked his tongue to emphasise your pet name. Folding your arms, you laughed at Jimin’s remark.

“Even if I was why would that concern you?”

“I don’t have to pay for my tuition fees...” He admits nonchalantly, swilling his drink slightly.

“...My scholarships do that all for me.”

You gasped at Jimin’s confession, remembering the countless hours that you’d spent working three jobs over the summer in order to cover your fees.

“Which is why I think I could help you.” Jimin finished, pouting his lips tantalisingly. You rolled your eyes before turning your back to him and pouring a shot, wasting no time at bringing it towards your mouth. Jimin watched intently as you took it bravely, chuckling to himself as you scrunched your eyes together and swallowed thickly in an attempt to lubricate your prickling throat.

“Can’t handle it?” Jimin smirked, looking up through half lidded eyes. “You live with Namjoon hyung right? I thought you guys were known for being heavy drinkers. You’re not exactly living up to that, are you honey?”

You scowled at his arrogance, before walking over to your alcohol cupboard that you shared with Namjoon. Grabbing a large glass and a bottle of wine, you filled the vessel confidently to the top. Jimin’s eyes widened as you wrapped your lips around the rim, red lipstick imprinting the glass. Within seconds you were gulping down the liquid, your stomach churning as your eyes locked with his, both of you refusing to break the intense contact. Head spinning, you attempted to tune into the muted bass from the main room. Jimin watched endearingly as remnants of the liquid trickled down your neck, pooling in your collarbones. You slammed the empty glass onto the counter, partly surprised that it didn’t smash with the force. Your eyes glossed over your reflection in the partially clouded glass, noting your rouged rosebud lips and wine stains down your neck.

“Impressive.” Jimin smirked. As he edged closer you recognised the sharp smell of grapefruit soju evident on his breath.

“Hey!” a hoarse voice exclaimed suddenly. You hiccuped sharply in shock, much to Jimin’s amusement, as Namjoon’s frame filled the doorway.

“What’s going on?” He slurred, frowning slightly.

“Sorry, hyung. Your girl was just showing me her excellent finish.” Jimin glanced at you, marvelling at the way that your skin flushed a rose colour.

“She never disappoints.” Namjoon grinned proudly. “Sweetheart, I’d get yourself cleared up.” He hummed, pointing at the evident mess that you’d made.

“Or someone else will do it for you.” Jimin smirked, eyes dancing in the dim overhead lights.

#jimin #park jimin #bts jimin #jimin smut #jimin oneshot #jimin scenario #fuckboy! jimin #jimin angst #namjoon #kim namjoon #namjoon smut #namjoon oneshot #namjoon scenario #namjoon angst #bts fic #bts smut #bts angst

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thisweekingundamwing · 6 years

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This Week in Gundam Wing Apr 1st - Apr 7th

Another week, another roundup! Special thanks to all who submitted works, both for themselves and others.

As a gentle reminder, we’re here to highlight any new content from the previous week. If we missed a submission, we’ll be happy to update our post or carry it over to the next week, but if we tried to include everything beyond a week, we’d never get a post finished!

Thank you so much!

--Mod Rem

Fanfiction:

A Little Piece of Gundam Wing

The archive is being ported to AO3! Check it out!

AerisEithne

The Snow Queen

Days after the incident that nearly sparked a new war, Relena returns to the Sanc Kingdom to contemplate her future. She can’t help but wonder which path the perfect soldier will choose… and whether their destinies will continue to collide.

Pairings: 1xR

Warnings: Gundam Wing: Frozen Teardrop, Preventers (Gundam Wing)

@the-indomitable-bhg, Morbidbirdy

Animus

A ghost of Heero's past takes possession of his life, relationships and his identity.

Pairings: 1x3, 2xH

Warnings: Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Post-Canon, Psychological Torture, Blood and Violence, Explicit Sexual Content

@claraxbarton , @kangofu-cb

Bad Company

"The only hell and the only paradise are the ones we build ourselves." - Unknown

Years after the wars, Preventers has decided to tackle one of the most powerful and oldest of all the Terran crime syndicates. Embedded dangerously deep in an undercover operation targeting the violent and bloodthirsty Sinaloa Cartel, Trowa Barton is pushed beyond even his flexible morals - and when his new "partner" arrives in the very unexpected and unwelcome form of Duo Maxwell, the one person he'd been trying to protect at all costs, both men must deal with the realization that preserving peace for humanity is turning into a bloodsport.

What follows is race against time to uncover the evidence they need to bring Sinaloa, and its beautiful but deadly leaders, down - all while keeping each other alive in the process

Pairings: 2x3

Warnings: Violence, Post-Canon, Undercover Missions, Undercover as a Couple, Implied/Referenced Torture, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Human Trafficking, Gang Violence, Explicit Sexual Content, Moral Dilemmas

CosmicAether

Untitled GW Resistance AU

When their communicator breaks down, Duo and Trowa must survive the night before attempting to rendezvous to their extraction point. Duo confronts Trowa about their relationship that night and vow to be more honest with each other, they need only to make it home first.

Pairings: 2x3

DarkDanc3r

April Writes Playlist Challenge

30 days, 30 songs from a Spotify playlist. Characters and pairings will be at the start of each chapter.

Warnings: Tumblr Prompt, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Fix-It of Sorts, Damnit Prowl Lives

GlassAlice

The Pictures He Drew

Hiatus is over! Last chapter will be up in two weeks. Re-write of a fic posted to 1x2 yahoo groups I wrote forever ago and lost. Only the bare bones of this fic have anything to do with the first one. Hopefully this one is a bit better. Originally posted under name Duos_hallelujah. Simple get together fic with Duo being an artist.

Pairings: 1xR, 1x2

Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Song Fic Kinda, Rape/Non-con Elements, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, these boys are messed up, they need therapy, after war, the pilots trying to live their lives, 1x2, 2x1 - Freeform, 1x2x1, 1xR non con, 1x2 end game, we're back from hiatus, boys just trying to figure shit out, relena is kind of the bad guy, Sorry Not Sorry, i'm anti relena, so expect her to be treated badly, bullied duo, attempted suicide, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, language trigger warnings, a bit dark, Angst

Lithle

Like Oxygen

Five years after the war, Wufei seeks Duo out for one more mission. But Duo has his reasons for wanting to be left alone. As Wufei and Duo grow closer, so do Duo's memories of the war, and with them, the old scars and dangerous thought patterns that make even breathing seem difficult.

--Note: Originally published on FF.net, this is my 'Editor's Choice' edition. It's been edited and slightly rewritten for flow and cohesion.

Pairings: 2x5

Warnings: Unhealthy Relationships, Post War Trauma, Suicidal Thoughts, no EW, Post-War, Post-Canon, POV Duo Maxwell, Explicit Language, Sex, Duo is Broken, Wufei is Pretty Broken Too, Gritty, Get Together

Luvsanime02

Just One Day

Relena gets a surprise on her birthday.

Warnings: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Light Angst, Family Issues, Cocktail Friday

Maldoror

The Source of All Things

Center, a planet where magic and technology blend. Or more accurately, fight tooth and nail. A planet of Sources, holes in our boring dimension letting through arcane power, chaos and pseudo-deities. In this hot-house of myths and very real dangers, Trowa and Quatre find a mysterious man at the end of a shamanic voyage. Portents suggest this Heero Yuy is crucial to Center’s survival. He’s important enough to have some interesting enemies after him, at any rate: a devious killer and thief called ‘Shinigami’, and a very irate Dragon. Beyond them looms an even greater threat. Indeed, the greatest of them all.

Pairings: 3x4, 2x5, eventual 1x2x5

Warnings: Violence, alternative universe, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Plot Twists, fairly graphic depiction of sex, Mild description of self-harm, Mathematical Magic, weird science, crones - Freeform, Magic and Technology brawling and eventually screwing, Eventual Threesome, Kinda, Insanity of arcane origin, The universe is a pile of marbles and other dubious allegories

Two Halves

The two kingdoms of Sanq and Lin were at war for years; a conflagration involving magic, armies and political murder. The conflict left both nations devastated and strewn with refugees. The king of Sanq finds his infant son, lost at birth, among the death and the ruin, a miracle he barely dared to hope for. But there isn’t just one boy, there are two, clinging together like two halves of a whole that cannot be separated. Decades later, the truth behind that second child’s existence will put a hole in the world, or possibly save it.

Pairings: 1x2

Warnings: Fantasy AU, medieval setting with magic, starts with our heroes as children, Cousin Incest, sort of, eventually, being royalty this is in fact the norm and rather expected of them, Canon-Typical Violence

Margaret_Armstrong

Queen’s Rook

Rook; definition:

1. a gregarious Eurasian crow with black plumage and a bare face, nesting in colonies in treetops.

2. a chess piece, typically with its top in the shape of a battlement, that can move in any direction along a rank or file on which it stands.

Queen's Rook; definition:

(chess) A rook on the queen’s side of the board at the start of the game.

Truly, a female bodyguard is just what the Vice Foreign Minister needs. There are dangers about.

Pairings: Canon Relationships, 3x4, 2xH, 1xR

Warnings: Violence, Women Being Awesome, brothers in arms, everyone protects Quatre except Quatre, L2 forever!, The Past Never Stays Buried

@noelleian

The Pact

After seducing Quatre, the other four ex-pilots brave the uncharted waters of their new abilities and learn to cope with the unintentional gifts they were given. But as always, power requires responsibility and the humbling acknowledgement of humanity's weaknesses. The struggle to stay true to themselves becomes a dangerous and terrifying endeavor as they skirt the boundary where conscience bleeds into chaos and the dark abyss of temptation.

Pairings: 1x2x3x4x5, 3x4, 1x4, 2x4, 4x5

Warnings: Smut, Porn With Plot, OT5, Fluff, Humor, Fivesome - M/M/M/M/M, Angst, Newtypes, Possessive Behavior, Alternate Universe - Dark, Non-Graphic Violence, Alpha/Omega, Omega Verse

Green Olive

Duo's had a rough day and needs to unwind, but this time he's in the mood for some company.

Warnings: Friendship, Bromance, Underage Drinking

@noirangetrois

Cocktail Friday

This will be a collection of my Cocktail Friday snippets.

Pairings: Various

Warnings: Cocktail Friday, Alcohol

The Story of Wrong

Duo recounts his experiences during the war in order to explain... well, why he was wrong.

Pairings: 1x2

Warnings: Violence, Major Character Death, Duo POV, Angst, Drama, Tragedy, slight AU, Spoilers, very dark, Heero and Duo don't die, I promise, Yaoi, slowburn, Mental Instability, Mental Health Issues, Mental Breakdown, If those are in any way an issue for you then go ahead and skip this, Eventual Smut, VERY eventual, this is mostly canon-compliant but I've changed a couple things here and there

Outrightmight

MCU One Shot Series: After Colony 195

"It took Bucky a split second to get his bearings. The portal had spit them out into an aircraft hanger. The make and model of the one and only small jet was unfamiliar. He would have said it was of Soviet make, but the 50-foot robot idly standing in the middle of the hanger was making him second-guess himself."

Warnings: Natasha Romanov (Marvel), James "Bucky" Barnes, Steve Rogers, Duo Maxwell, Sam Wilson (Marvel), Heero Yuy, Canon-Typical Violence, One Shot

@remsyk-blog

Souls for the Bayou

For Trowa Barton, exploring the bayou is the ultimate adventure. Drawn to its borders since before he could walk, he spent his childhood learning its paths and uncovering its secrets.

But a chance encounter sets him on a path that spans across time, challenging everything he thought he knew, plunging him deeper into its mysteries than he ever thought possible.

Pairings: 2x3

Warnings: Supernatural - Freeform, Fae & Fairies, Fae Magic, Bayou, Cajun, Childhood Friends, Childhood Memories, Mystery, Slow Burn, Technically Speaking, Young Love, Use of accents, Original Character(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, I don't want to give it all away at once, Fandom Trumps Hate, Time Jump, Suspense, Quatre is a great friend, Mentions of Children Disappearing

Shenanigans

A Collection of my shitposts from Tumblr.

Enter looking for a good time. Expect the tags to change as more installments are added

Warnings: chat fic, shitpost, Professor!Trowa, Cooking, Pinterest, Pancakes, Exercising, Tumblr Prompt, Originally Posted on Tumblr, In depth analysis of riding dick, New Year’s Eve, Jenga, Stupid Dares, Just Heero Things

ShenLong

Bound, Bonded and Betrayed

Heero is the eldest son of the King of Colonia. His 21st birthday is approaching and as tradition dictates his betrothed is soon to arrive. However he is also bound by tradition to select his own personal slave. The events that unfold lead him down a path that not only tests his sanity but his humanity and love as well.

Pairings: 1x2, 1xR, 3x4, 13x11

Warnings: sap, Angst, Bondage, Slavery, Yaoi, Lemon, Lime, Het, Violence, Fluff, AU, OOC. - Freeform

@softnocturne

P.S. I Miss You

Quatre is missing Trowa who is off on a month-long mission.

Pairings: 3x4

Warnings: Fluff, Angst

StarLove18

Believe in Yourself

Children will live what they learn. Pain is costly, until one incident sparks a new flame of hope and a promise to persevere.

Pairings: 1&2&3&4&5

Warnings: Original Character(s), Bullying, Comfort/Angst, School, Minor Violence, Loss of Parent(s), Alternate Universe, AO3 FB Challenge

Thai_tea_addict

Abyss

Duo's not in a good situation when he falls in love with the man next door, and it goes downhill from there.

Pairings: 1x2, 2x3x4

Warnings: Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-con, Alternate Universe - Dark, Dark Character, Abuse, Stalking, Murder, Sadism, Infidelity

Warnings: DARK – please don't read if you think any of the following subject matter could hurt you: depictions of abuse, sexual assault, stalking, murder, sadism (not the fun kind).

Whenpigsfly84

Doormat Babe

A mysterious child is left with Duo one morning. As he seeks for answers he'll have to face his past and prepare for a haunting future he'd never expected. Will he be able to reconnect with old friends or will he lose all those he loves?

Pairings: 1x2, 2&H, 1x2x5, 3x4

Warnings: Violence, Drama, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Character Death, Swearing

White_fox

Life is a Highway

On an impulsive plan to travel from California to New York City to propose to his longtime girlfriend, Heero Yuy did not plan to pick up a hitchhiker in nowhere Texas. Faced with some setbacks and a growing attraction to his passenger, Heero goes through more challenges than he planned on facing.

Pairings: 1x2, 1xR

Warnings: light slash, Fluff, Road Trips, Dubious Morality

Snippets:

@lifeaftermeteor

Duo’s Apartment

@noirangetrois

Ladies Night

@weiclown

WIP

Headcanons / Meta / Discussions:

@remsyk-blog

Gundam Wing on Ao3 - Breakdown of Fanfiction stats

@terrablaze514

Ladies of Gundam Wing

Secret Magic Heero Yuy

Four Months after Mariemaia

Fanart:

@noelleian

Zero Three Zero Four

Hipster Quatre

@remsyk-blog

Duo Maxwell Hip Hop

@showtime-eric

Trowa and Quatre, Sandrock and Heavyarms

Crackposts:

@the-indomitable-bhg

BDSM

Calendar Events:

Cocktail Friday

https://gwcocktailfriday.tumblr.com/

A new prompt every Monday!

Submissions should be posted Fridays between 3 and 5pm EST, and tagged with @gwcocktailfriday

Interview with a Creator by @remsyk-blog @interview-with-a-creator

Remsyk has created an online interview for fandom creators to fill out and then she features one each week so that everyone in the fandom can learn a bit about each other.

This week features @scacao

If you haven’t filled out her interview, go! do! now!

#thisweekingundamwing #gundam wing #weekly roundup

17 notes · View notes

aion-rsa · 3 years

Text

Upcoming Must-See Movies in 2021

https://ift.tt/2LtrBLV

It’s 2021. Finally. If you’re reading this, it means you’ve hopefully gotten through the wreckage of last year unscathed and are ready for a brighter future. And if you’re also a movie lover, this certainly includes a trip (or 20) back to the cinemas. Although a month into the new year, and our hope for a better tomorrow has faded a bit–especially with new COVID variants spreading. Yet there is reason to remain warily optimistic. Yes, including about theaters

For nearly a year now cinemas have remained largely dormant, and given the already shuffling 2021 film calendar, that will continue for the foreseeable future. However, studios (with one notable exception) remain mostly committed to getting new films to the theater this year, and the current 2021 film slate gives reasons to be hopeful.

Indeed, 2021 promises many of the most anticipated films from last year, plus new surprises. From the superhero variety like Black Widow to the art house with Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch, 2021 could be a much needed respite. So below is just a sampling of what to expect from the year to come…

Judas and the Black Messiah

February 12

It’s kind of hard to wrap one’s head around the annual “Oscar race” in a year when little trophies don’t seem so damn important, but Warner Bros. feels strongly enough about this movie that it’s getting it into theaters and on HBO Max right in the thick of the pandemic-delayed awards season. And judging by the marketing, it’s bringing heat with it.

Shaka King directs and co-writes the story of Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya), who became the chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party in the late 1960s and was murdered in cold blood by police in 1969. LaKeith Stanfield plays William O’Neal, a petty criminal who agreed to help the FBI take Hampton down. This promises to be incendiary, relevant material — and it’s almost here.

Minari

February 12

Lee Isaac Chung directs Steven Yeun–now fully shaking off his years as Glenn on The Walking Dead–in this semi-autobiographical film about a South Korean family struggling to settle down in rural America in the 1980s. Premiering nearly a year ago at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won both the U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury Prize and the U.S. Dramatic Audience Award, Minari had a quick one-week virtual release in December, with a number of critics placing it on their Top 10 lists for 2020.

Its story of immigration and assimilation currently has a perfect 100 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics lauding its heart, grace, and sensitivity. A few of ours also considered it among 2020’s best.

Nomadland

February 19

Utilizing both actors and real people, director Chloé Zhao (The Rider, Marvel’s upcoming Eternals) chronicles the lives of America’s “forgotten people” as they travel the West searching for work, companionship and community. A brilliant Frances McDormand stars as Fern, a woman in her mid-60s who lost her husband, her house, and her entire previous existence when her town literally vanished following the closure of its sole factory.

Zhao’s film quietly flows from despair to optimism and back to despair again, the hardscrabble lives of its itinerant cast (many of them actual nomads) foregrounded against often stunning–if lonely–vistas of the vast, empty American countryside.

I Care a Lot

February 19

A solid cast, led by Rosamund Pike, Peter Dinklage, Chris Messina, and Dianne Wiest, star in this satirical crime drama from director J. Blakeson (The Disappearance of Alice Creed). Pike plays Marla, a con artist whose scam is getting herself named legal guardian of her elderly marks and then draining their assets while sticking them in nursing homes. She’s ruthless and efficient at it, until she meets a woman (Wiest) whose ties to a crime boss (Dinklage) may prove too much of a challenge for the wily Marla. It was one of our favorites out of Toronto last year.

The Father

February 26

Anthony Hopkins gives a mesmerizing, and deeply tragic, performance as Anthony, an elderly British man whose descent into dementia is reflected by the film itself, which plays with time, setting, and continuity until both Anthony and the viewer can no longer tell what is real and what is not. Olivia Colman is equally moving as his daughter, who wants to get on with her own life even as she watches her father’s disintegrate in front of her.

We saw The Father last year at the AFI Fest and it ended up being a favorite of 2020; Hopkins is unforgettable in this bracing, heartbreaking work, which is stunningly adapted by first-time director Florian Zeller from his own award-winning play.

Chaos Walking

March 5

This constantly postponed sci-fi project has become one of those “we’ll believe it when we see it” films until it actually comes out. Shot nearly three and a half years ago by director Doug Liman, Chaos Walking has undergone extensive reshoots and was at one point reportedly deemed unreleasable.

Based on the book The Knife of Letting Go, it places Tom Holland (Spider-Man: Far From Home) and Daisy Ridley (The Rise of Skywalker) on a distant planet where Ridley, the only woman, can hear the thoughts of all the men due to a mysterious force called the Noise.

Raya and the Last Dragon

March 5

Longtime Walt Disney Animation Studios head of story, Paul Briggs (Frozen), will make his directorial debut on this original Disney animated fantasy, which draws upon Eastern traditions to tell the tale of a young warrior who goes searching for the world’s last dragon in the mysterious land of Kumandra. Cassie Steele will voice Raya while Awkwafina (The Farewell) will portray Sisu the dragon.

Movies

How Raya and the Last Dragon Became the First Disney Movie Made at Home

By David Crow

Movies

Warner Bros. and HBO Max 2021 Film Slate Destroys Theatrical Window

By David Crow

Disney Animation has been nearly invincible in recent years with other hits like Moana and Zootopia, so watch for this one to be another major hit for the Mouse.

Coming 2 America

March 5

The notion of whether nostalgia-based properties are still viable has cropped up repeatedly in the last few years. However, streaming, which is where Coming 2 America finds itself headed post-COVID, makes golden oldies much safer. This sequel—based on a 32-year-old comedy that was one of Eddie Murphy’s most financially successful hits—sees Murphy back as Prince Akeem, of course, along with Arsenio Hall returning as his loyal friend Semmi.

The plot revolves around Akeem’s discovery, just as he is about to be crowned king, that he has a long-lost son living in the States (we’re not sure how that happened, but let’s just go with it). That, of course, necessitates another visit to our shores—that is, if Akeem and Semmi presumably don’t get stopped at the border. The film reunites Murphy with Dolemite is My Name director Craig Brewer, so perhaps they can make some cutting-edge social comedy out of this?

Godzilla vs. Kong

March 26

Here we are, at last at the big punch up between Godzilla and King Kong. They both wear a crown, but in the film that Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures have been building toward since 2014, only one can walk away with the title of the king of all the monsters.

Admittedly, not everyone loved the last American Godzilla movie, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, but we sure did. Still, Godzilla vs. Kong should be a different animal with Adam Wingard (You’re Next, The Guest) taking over directorial duties. It also has a stacked cast with some familiar faces (Kyle Chandler, Millie Bobby Brown, and Ziyi Zhang) and plenty of new ones (Alexander Skarsgård, Eiza González, Danai Gurira, Lance Reddick, and more).

It’ll probably be better than the original, right? And hey with its HBO Max rollout, questions of a poor box office run sure are conveniently mooted!

Mortal Kombat

April 16

Not to be deterred by the relative failure of Sony’s Monster Hunter in theaters at the tail end of 2020, Warner Bros. is giving this venerable video game franchise another shot at live-action cinematic glory after two previous tries in the 1990s. Director Simon McQuoid makes his feature debut while the script comes from Dave Callaham (Wonder Woman 1984, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings) and the cast includes a number of actors you’ve seen in other films but can’t quite place.

The plot? Who knows! But we’re guessing it will feature gods, demons, and warriors battling for control of the 18 realms in various fighting tournaments. What else do you want?

Black Widow

May 7

Some would charitably say it arrives a decade late, but Black Widow is finally getting her own movie. This is fairly remarkable considering she became street pizza in Avengers: Endgame, but this movie fits snugly between the events of Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War. It also promises to be the most pared down Marvel Studios movie since 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and that’s a good thing.

In the film, Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff is on the run after burning her bridges with the U.S. government and UN. This brings her back to the spy games she thought she’d escaped from her youth, and back in the orbit of her “sister” Yelena (Florence Pugh). Old wounds are ripped open, old Soviet foes, including David Harbour as the Red Guardian and Rachel Weisz as Nat and Yelena’s girlhood instructor, are revealed, and many a fight sequence with minimal CGI will be executed.

How’s that for a real start to Phase 4? Of course that’s still assuming this comes out before The Eternals after it was delayed, again, due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Those Who Wish Me Dead

May 14

Taylor Sheridan is among the best writers in moviemaking right now. Having all but cornered the niche around modern Westerns, he’s responsible for the scripts for Hell or High Water, both Sicarios, and Wind River, the latter of which he also directed. He’s back in the director’s chair again for Those Who Wish Me Dead, which has been described as a “female-driven neo-Western” set in the Montana wilderness. It is there a teenager witnesses a murder, and he finds himself on the run from twin assassins, and in need of protection from a likely paranoid survivalist. The film stars Angelina Jolie, Jon Bernthal, Nicholas Hoult, Tyler Perry, Aidan Gillen, Jake Weber, and Finn Little.

Spiral

May 21

Chris Rock has co-written the story for a new take on the Saw franchise. Never thought we’d write those words! The fact that it also stars Rock, as well as Samuel L. Jackson, is likewise head-turning. It looks like they’re going for legitimate horror with Darren Lynn Bousman attached to direct after helming three of the Saw sequels, and its grisly pre-COVID trailer from last year.

Hopefully this will be better than most of the franchise that came before, and given the heavily David Fincher-influenced tone of the first trailer, we’re willing to cross our fingers and play this game.

Free Guy

May 21

What would you do if you discovered that you were just a background character in an open world video game—and that the game was soon about to go offline? That’s the premise of this existential sci-fi comedy from director Shawn Levy, best known for the Night at the Museum series and as an executive producer and director on Stranger Things. Ryan Reynolds stars as Guy, a bank teller who discovers that his life is not what he thought it was, and in fact isn’t even real—or is it? We’ve seen a preview of footage, so we’d suggest you think Truman Show, if Truman was trapped in Grand Theft Auto.

May 28

Just when you thought this never-say-die franchise had shown us everything it could possibly dream up, it ups the stakes one more time: the ninth entry in the Fast and Furious saga (excluding 2019’s Hobbs and Shaw) will reportedly take Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his cohorts into space as they battle Dom’s long-lost brother Jakob (John Cena, making a long-overdue debut in this series). Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Jordana Brewster, Helen Mirren, and Charlize Theron all also return, as does director Justin Lin, who took a two-film break from his signature series. Expect to see the required physics-defying stunts, logic-defying action and even more talk about “family” than usual.

Cruella

May 28

Since Disney has already made an animated 101 Dalmatians in 1961 and a live-action remake in 1996, it is apparently time to tell the story again Maleficent-style. Hence we now focus on the viewpoint of iconic villainess Cruella de Vil, played this time by Emma Stone. She’s joined in the movie by Emma Thompson, Paul Walter Hauser, and Mark Strong, with direction handled by Craig Gillespie (sort of a step down from 2017’s I, Tonya, if you ask us).

The story has been updated to the 1970s, but Cruella–now a fashion designer–still covets the fur of dogs for her creations. This is a Mouse House joint, so don’t expect it to get too dark, and don’t be completely surprised if it ends up as a premium on Disney+ in lieu of its already delayed theatrical release.

Infinite

May 28

This sci-fi yarn from director Antoine Fuqua (The Equalizer) stars Mark Wahlberg as a man experiencing what he thinks are hallucinations, but which turn out to be memories from past lives. He soon learns that there is a secret society of people just like him, except that they have total recall of their past identities and have acted to change the course of history throughout the centuries.

Based on the novel The Reincarnationist Papers by D. Eric Maikranz, this was originally a post-Marvel vehicle for Chris Evans. He dropped out, and the combination of Fuqua and Wahlberg hints at something more action-oriented than the rather cerebral premise suggests. The film also stars Sophie Cookson, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Dylan O’Brien.

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It

June 4

James Wan is already directing a new horror film this year so he’s stepping away from the directorial duties on the third film based on the paranormal investigations of Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga). That task has fallen to Michael Chaves (The Curse of La Llorona), so expect plenty of the same Wan Universe touches: heavy atmosphere, superb use of sound, and shocking, eerie visuals.

Details are scarce, but the plot—like the other two Conjuring films—is taken from the true-life case of a man who went on trial for murder and said as his defense that he was possessed by a demon when he committed his crimes. That’s all we know for now, except that, intriguingly, Mitchell Hoog and Megan Ashley Brown have been cast as younger versions of the Warrens.

In the Heights

June 18

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s first Broadway hit musical gets the big screen treatment (by way of HBO Max) from director Jon M. Chu (Crazy Rich Asians). Set in Washington Heights over the course of a three-day heat wave, the plot and ensemble cast carry echoes of both Rent and Do the Right Thing. While a success on the stage—if not quite the cultural phenomenon that Miranda’s next show, Hamilton—it remains to be seen whether In the Heights can strike a chord with streaming audiences.

Luca

June 18

Continuing its current run of all-new, non-sequel original films started in 2020 with Onward and Soul, Pixar will unveil Luca this summer. Directed by Enrico Casarosa–making his feature debut after 18 years with the animation powerhouse–the film tells the story of a friendship between a human being and a sea monster (disguised as another human child) on the Italian Riviera. That’s about all we have on it for now, except that the cast includes Drake Bell and John Ratzenberger.

Pixar’s recent track record has included masterpieces like Inside Out, solid sequels like Toy Story 4, and shakier propositions like The Incredibles 2, but we don’t have any indication yet of what to expect from Luca.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage

June 25

Can anyone honestly say that 2018’s Venom was a “good” movie? A batshit insane movie, yes, and perhaps even an entertaining one in its own nutty way, but good or not, it made nearly a billion bucks at the box office so here we are.

Tom Hardy will return to peel more scenery down with his teeth as both Eddie Brock and his fanged, towering alien symbiote while Woody Harrelson will fulfill his destiny and play Cletus Kasady, aka Carnage, the perfected hybrid of psychopathic serial killer and red pile of vicious alien goo. Let the carnage begin!

Top Gun: Maverick

July 2

It’s been 34 years since Tom Cruise first soared through the skies as hotshot pilot Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, and he’ll take to the air once more in a sequel that also features Val Kilmer, Jennifer Connelly, Miles Teller, Jon Hamm, and more. The flying and action sequences from director Joseph Kosinski (who worked with Cruise on Oblivion) will undoubtedly be first-rate, but the studio (Paramount) has to be nervous after seeing one nostalgia-based franchise after another (Blade Runner, Charlie’s Angels, Terminator, The Shining) crash and burn recently.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

July 10

With Shang-Chi, Marvel Studios hopes to do for Asian culture what the company did with the groundbreaking Black Panther nearly three years ago: create another superhero epic with a non-white lead and a mythology steeped in a non-Western culture. Simu Liu stars in the title role as the “master of kung fu,” who must do battle with the nefarious Ten Rings organization and its leader, the Mandarin (the “real” one, not the imposter from Iron Man 3, played here by the legendary Tony Leung). Director Destin Daniel Cretton (Just Mercy) will open up a whole new corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with this story and character, whose origins stretch back to 1973.

The Forever Purge

July 9

One day nearly eight years ago, you went to see a low-budget dystopian sci-fi/horror flick called The Purge, and the next thing you know, it’s 2021 and you’re getting ready to see the fifth and allegedly final entry in the series (which has also spawned a TV show). Written by creator James DeMonaco and directed by Everardo Gout, the film will once again focus on the title event, an annual 12-hour national bacchanal in which all crime, even murder, is legal. How this ends the story, and where and when it falls into the context of the rest of the films, remains a secret for now. Filming was completed back in February 2020, with the film’s release delayed from last summer by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Space Jam: A New Legacy

July 16

There are two types of folks when it comes to the original Space Jam of 1996: those who were between the ages of three and 11 when it came out, and everyone else. In one camp it is an unsightly relic of ‘90s cross-promotional cheese; in the other, it’s a sports movie classic. Luckily for kids today, NBA star LeBron James was 11 for most of ’96, and he’s bringing back the hoops and the Looney Tunes in Space Jam: A New Legacy.

The film will be among the many Warner Bros. pics premieres on HBO Max and in theaters this year, and it will see King James share above-the-title credits with Bugs Bunny. All is as it should be.

The Tomorrow War

July 23

An original IP attempting to be a summer blockbuster? As we live and breathe. The Tomorrow War marks director Chris McKay’s first foray into live-action after helming The Lego Batman Movie. The film stars Chris Pratt as a soldier from the past who’s been “drafted by scientists” to the present in order to fight off an alien invasion overwhelming our future’s military. One might ask why said scientists didn’t use their fancy-schmancy time traveling shenanigans to warn about the impending aliens, but here we are.

Jungle Cruise

July 30

Disney dips into its theme park rides again as a source for a movie, hoping that the Pirates of the Caribbean lightning will strike once more. This time it’s the famous Adventureland riverboat ride, which is free enough of a real narrative that one has to wonder why some five screenwriters (at least) worked on the movie’s script.

Jaume Collet-Serra (The Shallows) directs stars Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt down this particular river, as they battle wild animals and a competing expedition in their search for a tree with miraculous healing powers. The comic chemistry between Johnson and Blunt is key here, especially if they really can mimic Bogie and Hepburn in the similarly plotted The African Queen. If they can sell that, Disney might just have a new water-based franchise to replace their sinking Pirates ship.

The Green Knight

July 30

David Lowery, the singular director behind A Ghost Story and The Old Man & the Gun, helmed a fantasy adaptation of the Arthurian legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. And his take on the material was apparently strong enough to entice A24 to produce it. Not much else is yet known about the film other than its cast, which includes Dev Patel, Alicia Vikander, Ralph Ineson, and Kate Dickie–and that it’s another casualty of COVID, with its 2020 release date being delayed last year. So this is one we’re definitely going to keep an eye on.

The Suicide Squad

August 6

Arguably the most high-profile of the WB films being transitioned to HBO Max, The Suicide Squad is James Gunn’s soft-reboot of the previous one-film franchise. It’s kind of funny WB went in that direction when the first movie generated more than $740 million, but when the reviews and word of mouth were that toxic… well, you get the guy who did Guardians of the Galaxy to fix things.

Peacemaker: Suicide Squad Spinoff With John Cena Coming to HBO Max

By Mike Cecchini

Movies

The Suicide Squad Trailer Promises James Gunn’s “1970s War Movie”

By David Crow

Elements from the original movie are still here, most notably Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn and Viola Davis’ Amanda Waller, but the film promises to be weirder, meaner, and also sillier. The first points are proven by its expected R-rating, and the latter is underscored by its giant talking Great White Shark. Okay, we’ll bite.

Deep Water

August 13

Seedy erotic thrillers and neo noirs bathed in shadows and sex are largely considered a thing of the past—specifically 1980s and ‘90s Hollywood cinema. Maybe that’s why Deep Water hooked Adrian Lyne (Fatal Attraction, Indecent Proposal) to direct. The throwback is based on a 1957 novel by the legendary Patricia Highsmith (The Talented Mr. Ripley), and it pits a disenchanted married couple against each other, with the bored pair playing mind games that leave friends and acquaintances dead. That the couple in question is played by Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas, who’ve since become a real life item, will probably get plenty of attention close to release.

Respect

August 13

Respect is the long-awaited biopic of the legendary Aretha Franklin, with the Queen of Soul herself involved in its development for years until her death in August 2018. Authorized biopics always make one wonder how accurate the film will be, but then again, Aretha had nothing to be ashamed of. Hers was a life well-lived, her voice almost beyond human comprehension, and the only thing now is to see whether star Jennifer Hudson (Franklin’s personal choice) and director Liesl Tommy (making her feature debut) can do the Queen justice.

The King’s Man

August 20

This might be a weird thing to say: but has World War I ever seemed so stylish? It is with Matthew Vaughn at the helm.

An origin story of sorts for the organization that gave us Colin Firth and the umbrella, The King’s Man is a father and son yarn where Ralph Fiennes’ Duke of Oxford is reluctant about his son Conrad (Harris Dickinson) joining the war effort. But they’ll both be up to it as the Duke launches an intelligence gathering agency independent from any government. It also includes Gemma Arterton, Matthew Goode, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson as charter members.

Oh, and did we mention they fight Rasputin?

Candyman

August 27

In some ways it’s surprising that it’s taken this long—28 years, notwithstanding a couple of sequels—to seriously revisit the original Candyman. Director Bernard Rose’s original adaptation of the Clive Baker story, “The Forbidden,” is still relevant and effective today. Back then, the film touched on urban legends, poverty, and segregation: themes that are still ripe for exploration through a genre touchstone today.

After her breathtaking feature directorial debut, Little Woods, Nia DaCosta helmed this bloody reboot while working from a screenplay co-written by Jordan Peele (Get Out). That’s a powerful combination, even before news came down DaCosta was helming Captain Marvel 2. And with an actor on-the-cusp of mega-stardom, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, picking up Tony Todd’s gnarly hook, this is one to watch out for.

The Beatles: Get Back

August 27

Peter Jackson seems to enjoy making films about what inspired him in his youth: The Lord of the Rings, King Kong, his grandfather’s World War I service informing They Shall Not Grow Old. So perhaps it was inevitable he’d make a film about the greatest youth icon of his generation, the Beatles. In truth, The Beatles: Get Back is a challenge to a previous documentary named Let It Be, and the general pop culture image it painted.

That 1970 doc by Michael Lindsay-Hogg zeroed in on the band’s final released album, Let It Be (although it was recorded before Abbey Road). Now, using previously unseen footage, Jackson seeks to challenge the narrative that the album was created entirely from a place of animosity among the bandmates, or that the Beatles had long lost their camaraderie by the end of road. Embracing the original title of the album, “Get Back,” Jackson wants to get back to where he thinks the band’s image once belonged.

Resident Evil

September 3

Let’s try that again. As one of the most popular video game franchises of all-time, the original handful of Resident Evil games appeared ready made for adaptation. Visibly inspired by cult classic zombie movies from George Romero, Resident Evil once even had Romero attached. Instead we got the deafeningly dull Paul W.S. Anderson franchise starring Milla Jovovich. And those decade-spanning monstrosities lacked something any self-respecting zombie film needs: brains.

Now Resident Evil is back in a reboot helmed by writer-director Johannes Roberts. And he’s off to a promising start by apparently focusing on the plots of the first several video games in the series. The cast includes Hannah John-Kamen as Jill Valentine, Robbie Amell as Chris Redfield, Kaya Scodelario as Claire Redfield, Avan Jogia as Leon S. Kennedy, and Tom Hopper as Albert Wesker. So far so good. Fingers crossed.

A Quiet Place Part II

September 17

The sequel to one of 2018’s biggest surprises, A Quiet Place Part II comes with major expectations. And few may hold it to a higher standard than writer-director John Krasinski. Despite (spoiler) the death of his character in the first film, Krasinski returns behind the camera for the sequel after saying he wouldn’t. The story he came up with apparently was too good to pass up.

The film again stars Emily Blunt as the often silenced mother of a vulnerable family, which includes son Marcus (Noah Jupe) and deaf daughter Regan (Millicent Simmonds). However, now that they know how to kill the eagle-eared alien monsters who’ve taken over their planet, the cast has grown to include Cillian Murphy and Djimon Hounsou. While the film has been delayed due to the coronavirus outbreak, trust us that it’ll be worth the wait. Is it finally time for… resistance?

Death on the Nile

September 17

Murder on the Orient Express (2017) became a surprise hit for director and star Kenneth Branagh. Who knew that audiences would still be interested in an 83-year-old mystery novel about an eccentric Belgian detective with one hell of a mustache? Luckily, Agatha Christie featured Poirot in some 32 other novels, of which Death on the Nile is one of the most famous, so here we are.

Branagh once again directs and stars as Poirot, this time investigating a murder aboard a steamer sailing down Egypt’s famous river. The cast includes Gal Gadot, Armie Hammer, Letitia Wright, Tom Bateman, Ali Fazal, Annette Bening, Rose Leslie, and Russell Brand. Expect more lavish locales, scandalous revelations, the firing of a pistol or two, and, yes, more shots of that stunning Poirot facial hair.

The Many Saints of Newark

September 24

The idea of a prequel to anything always fills us with trepidation, and re-opening a nearly perfect property like The Sopranos makes the prospect even less appetizing. But Sopranos creator David Chase has apparently wanted to explore the back history of his iconic crime family for some time, and there certainly seems to be a rich tapestry of characters and events that have only been hinted at in the series.

Directed by series veteran Alan Taylor (Thor: The Dark World), The Many Saints of Newark stars Alessandro Nivola as Dickie Moltisanti (Christopher’s father), along with Jon Bernthal, Vera Farmiga, Corey Stoll, Ray Liotta, and others. But the most fascinating casting is that of Michael Gandolfini—James’ son—as the younger version of the character with which his late dad made pop culture history. For that alone, we’ll be there on opening night… even if that just means HBO Max!

Dune

October 1

Could third time be the charm for Frank Herbert’s complex novel of the far future, long acknowledged as one of the greatest—if most difficult to read—milestones in all of science fiction? David Lynch’s 1984 version was, to be charitable, an honorable mess, while the 2000 Sci-Fi Channel miniseries was decent and faithful, but limited in scope. Now director Denis Villeneuve (Blade Runner 2049, Arrival) is pulling out all the stops—even breaking the story into two movies to give the proper space.

Movies

Dune Trailer Breakdown and Analysis

By Mike Cecchini

Movies

What Alejandro Jodorowsky Thinks of the New Dune Trailer

By Mike Cecchini and 1 other

On the surface, the plot is simple: as galactic powers vie for control of the only planet that produces a substance capable of allowing interstellar flight, a young messiah emerges to lead that planet’s people to freedom. But this tale is dense with multiple layers of politics, metaphysics, mysticism, and hard science.

Villeneuve has assembled a jaw-dropping cast, including Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, Zendaya, Charlotte Rampling, Jason Momoa, and Javier Bardem, and if he pulls this off, just hand him every sci-fi novel ever written. Particularly, if relations between the director and WB remain strained…

No Time to Die

October 8

Nothing lasts forever, and the Daniel Craig era of James Bond is coming to an end… hopefully in 2021. In fact, delays notwithstanding, it’s a bit of a surprise Craig is getting an official swan song with this movie after the star said he’d rather “slash his wrists” before doing another one. Well, we’re glad he didn’t, just as we’re hopeful for his final installment in the tuxedo.

Director Cary Joji Fukunaga is a newcomer to the franchise, but that might be a good thing after how tired Spectre felt, and Fukunaga has done sterling work in the past on True Detective and Maniac. He also looks to bring the curtain down on the whole Craig oeuvre by picking up on the last movie’s lingering threads, such as 007 driving off into the sunset with Léa Seydoux’s Madeleine Swann, while introducing new ones that include Rami Malek as Bond villain Safin and Ana de Armas as new Bond girl Paloma. Yay for the Knives Out reunion!

Halloween Kills

October 15

2018’s outstanding reboot of the long-running horror franchise—which saw David Gordon Green (Stronger) direct Jamie Lee Curtis in a reprise of her most famous role—was a tremendous hit. So in classic Halloween fashion, two more sequels were put into production (the second, Halloween Ends, will be out in 2022… hopefully).

Movies

Halloween: A Legacy Unmasked

By David Crow

Movies

How Jason Blum Changed Horror Movies

By Rosie Fletcher

Curtis is back as Laurie Strode, along with Judy Greer as her daughter, Andi Matichak as her granddaughter, and Nick Castle sharing Michael Myers duties with James Jude Courtney. Kyle Richards and Charles Cyphers, meanwhile, will reprise their roles as Lindsey Wallace and former sheriff Leigh Brackett from the original 1978 Halloween (Anthony Michael Hall will play the adult version of Tommy Doyle). The plot remains a mystery, but we’re pretty sure it will involve yet another confrontation between Laurie and a rampaging Myers.

The Last Duel

October 15

What was once among the most anticipated films of 2020, The Last Duel is the historical epic prestige project marked by reunions: Ridley Scott returns to his passion for period drama and violence; Matt Damon and Ben Affleck work together for the first time in ages as both actors and writers; and the film also unites each with themes that were just as potent in the medieval world as today: One knight (Damon) in King Charles VI’s court accuses another who’s his best friend (Adam Driver) of raping his wife (Jodie Comer). Oh, and Affleck plays the King of France.

With obviously harrowing—and uncomfortable—themes that resonate today, The Last Duel is based on an actual trial by combat from the 14th century, and is a film Affleck and Damon co-wrote with Nicole Holofcener (Can You Ever Forgive Me?). It’s strong material, and could prove to be one of the year’s most riveting or misjudged films. Until then, it has our full attention.

Last Night in Soho

October 22

Fresh off the success of 2017’s Baby Driver (his biggest commercial hit to date), iconoclastic British director Edgar Wright returns with what is described as a psychological and possibly time-bending horror thriller set in London. Whether this features Wright’s trademark self-aware humor remains to be seen, but since the film is said to be inspired by dread-inducing genre classics like Repulsion and Don’t Look Now, he might be going for a different effect this time.

The cast, of course, is outstanding: upstarts Anya Taylor-Joy (Queen’s Gambit) and Thomasin McKenzie (Jojo Rabbit) will face off with Matt Smith (Doctor Who), and British legends Diana Rigg and Terence Stamp. And the truth is we’re never going to miss one of Wright’s movies. Taylor-Joy talked to us here about finding her 1960s lounge singer voice for the film.

Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins

October 22

While the idea of a Hasbro Movie Universe seems to be kind of idling at the moment, corners of that hypothetical cinematic empire remain active. One such brand is G.I. Joe, which will launch its first spin-off in this origin story of one of the team’s most popular characters. Much of his early background remains mysterious, so there’s room to create a fairly original story while incorporating lore and characters already established in the G.I. Joe mythos.

Neither of the previous G.I. Joe features (The Rise of Cobra and Retaliation) have been much good, so we can probably expect the same level of quality from this one. Director Robert Schwentke (the last two Divergent movies) doesn’t inspire much excitement either. On the other hand, Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians) will star in the title role, and having Iko Uwais (The Raid) and Samara Weaving (Ready or Not) on board isn’t too bad either.

Antlers

October 29

Dramatic director Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart, Hostiles) is doing a horror movie. As we live and breathe. And he’s doing it with a huge boost of confidence from Guillermo del Toro, who has opted to produce the movie. Antlers is the tale of two adult brothers, one a teacher and the other a sheriff, getting wrapped up in a supernatural quagmire that involves a young student and a “dangerous secret.” And with a cast that includes Jesse Plemons, Keri Russell, and Graham Greene, we are very intrigued… even if we must wait once again due to a coronavirus delay.

Eternals

November 5

Based on a Marvel Comics series by the legendary Jack Kirby, the now long-forthcoming Eternals centers around an ancient race of powerful beings who must protect the Earth against their destructive counterparts (and genetic cousins), the Deviants. Director Chloe Zhao (fresh off the awards season buzzy Nomadland) takes her first swing at epic studio filmmaking, working with a cast that includes Angelina Jolie, Gemma Chan, Kit Harington, Salma Hayek, Richard Madden, Brian Tyree Henry, and more.

Movies

Upcoming Marvel Movies Release Dates: MCU Phase 4 Schedule, Cast, and Story Details

By Mike Cecchini and 1 other

Movies

The Incredible Hulk’s Diminished Legacy in the Marvel Cinematic Universe

By Gavin Jasper

In many ways, Eternals represents another huge creative risk for Marvel Studios: It’s a big, cosmic ensemble film introducing an ensemble that the vast majority of the public has never heard of. But then, it’s sort of in the same position as Guardians of the Galaxy from way back in 2014, and we all know what happened there.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife

November 11

With the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot criticized (fairly) for its lack of imagination and castigated (unfairly as hell) for its all-female ghost-hunting crew, director Jason Reitman–finally cashing in on the family name by returning to the brand his dad Ivan directed to glory in 1984–has crafted a direct sequel to the original films.

Set 30 years later, Afterlife follows a family who move to a small town only to discover that they have a long-secret connection to the OG Ghostbusters. Carrie Coon (The Leftovers), Finn Wolfhard (Stranger Things) and Paul Rudd (Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania) star alongside charter cast members Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver, Annie Potts, and, yes, Bill Murray.

King Richard

November 19

Will Smith’s King Richard promises to be a different kind of biographical film coming down the pipe. Rather than being told from the vantage of professional tennis playing stars Venus and Serena Williams, King Richard centers on their father and coach, Richard Williams. It’s an interesting choice to focus on the male father instead of the game-changing Black daughters, but we’ll see if there’s a strong creative reason for the approach soon enough. The film is directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green (Monsters and Men, Joe Bell).

Mission: Impossible 7

November 19

Once upon a time, the appeal of the Mission: Impossible movies was to see different directors offer their own take on Tom Cruise running through death-defying stunts. But then Christopher McQuarrie had to come along and make the best one in franchise history (twice). First there was Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation and then Mission: Impossible – Fallout. Now McQuarrie and company have set up their own separate quartet of films with recurring original characters like new franchise MVP Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) across four films.

Movies

Audio Surfaces of Tom Cruise Raging on the Set of Mission: Impossible 7

By Kirsten Howard

Movies

Mission: Impossible 7 – What’s Next for the Franchise?

By David Crow

Thus enters M:I7, the third McQuarrie joint in the series and first half of a pair of incoming sequels filmed together. The first-half of this two-parter sees the whole crew back together, including Cruise’s Ethan Hunt, Ilsa, Benji (Simon Pegg), Luther (Ving Rhames), and CIA Director Erika Sloane (Angela Bassett). They’re also being joined by Hayley Atwell and Pom Klementieff, but really we’re all just eager to see what kind of insane stunts they can do to top the HALO jump in the last one.

Nightmare Alley

December 3

Director Guillermo del Toro is finally back with a film which was originally intended for release in 2020. But like so many others, Nightmare Alley saw its production frozen due to the coronavirus. Del Toro’s first film since winning the Best Picture Oscar for The Shape of Water, Nightmare adapts William Lindsay Gresham’s novel of the same name. With a script by Kim Morgan and del Toro, it tracks a mid-20th century carny played by Bradley Cooper who is also a silver-tongued grifter. But his con meets its match (and is then outclassed) by his chance encounter with a psychiatrist (Cate Blanchett). They’ll make a hell of a team.

West Side Story

December 10

Steven Spielberg has just two remakes on his directorial resume: Always (1989) and War of the Worlds (2005). While the former is mostly forgotten and the latter was an adaptation of a story that has been filmed many times, his upcoming reimagining of West Side Story will undoubtedly be directly compared to Robert Wise’s iconic 1961 screen version of this classic musical.

A few numbers in previous films aside, Spielberg has never directed a full-blown musical before, let alone one associated with such powerhouse songs and dance numbers. His version, with a script by Tony Kushner, is said to stay closer to the original Broadway show than the 1961 film—but with its themes of love struggling to cross divides created by hate and bigotry, don’t be surprised if it’s just as hard-hitting in 2021. Certainly would’ve devastated last year….

Spider-Man 3

December 17

Sony has finally gotten to a “Spider-Man 3” again in their oft-rebooted franchise crown jewel (technically though this film is still untitled). That proved to be a stumbling block the first time it occurred with Tobey Maguire in the red and blues, but the company seems undaunted since Tom Holland’s third outing is expected to bring Maguire back—him and just about everyone else too.

Movies

Spider-Man 3: Charlie Cox Daredevil Return Would Redeem the Marvel Netflix Universe

By Joseph Baxter

Movies

Spider-Man 3 Adds Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange

By Joseph Baxter

With a multiverse plot ripped straight from the arguably best Spidey movie ever, 2018’s Into the Spider-Verse, Holland’s third outing is bringing back Maguire, Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man, Alfred Molina as Doc Ock, Jamie Foxx as Electro (eh), and probably more. It’s a Spidey crossover extravaganza that’s only missing a Spider-Ham. But just you wait…

The Matrix 4

December 22

Rebooting or continuing The Matrix series has always been a tough proposition. While the original Matrix film is one of the landmark achievements in science fiction and early digital effects filmmaking in the 1990s, its sequels were… less celebrated. In fact, directors Lily and Lana Wachowski were publicly wary about the idea of ever going back to the series. And yet, here we are with Lana (alone) helming a project that’s been a longtime priority for Warner Bros.

Movies

The Matrix 4: Laurence Fishburne “Wasn’t Invited” to Reprise Morpheus Role

By John Saavedra

Movies

The Matrix 4 Already Happened: Revisiting The Matrix Online

By John Saavedra

The Matrix 4 also brings back Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Jada Pinkett Smith. This is curious since Reeves and Moss’ characters died at the end of the Matrix trilogy—and also because Laurence Fishburne’s Morpheus did not, yet he wasn’t asked back. We cannot say we’re thrilled about the prospect of more adventures in Zion after the disappointment of the first two sequels, but we’d be lying if we didn’t admit we’re still curious to see the story that brought Lana back to this future.

The French Dispatch

TBA

Wes Anderson has a new film coming out. Better still, it is another live-action film. While Anderson’s use of animation is singular, it’s been seven years since The Grand Budapest Hotel, which we maintain is one of the best movies of the last decade. Anderson is working with Timothée Chalamet and Cristoph Waltz for the first time with this film, as well as several familiar faces including Saoirse Ronan, Willem Dafoe, Tilda Swinton, Léa Seydoux, Adrien Brody, Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, and, of course, Bill Murray.

The French Dispatch is set deep in the 20th century during the peak of modern journalism, it brings to life a series of fictional stories in a fictional magazine, published in a fictional French city. We suspect though, if Anderson’s last two live-action movies are any indication, it’ll have more than fiction on its mind–especially since it’s inspired by actual New Yorker stories, and the journalists who wrote them! We missed it in 2020, so here’s hoping it really does go to print in 2021!

Other interesting movies that may come out in 2021 but do not yet have release dates: Next Goal Wins, Don’t Worry Darling, Blonde, The Northman, Resident Evil, Red Notice, Army of the Dead.

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