#for all my issues with AHM (which are many) at least the characters and their weaponry are properly powerful

[robotsprinkles]

okay

I do like earthspark overall

but god I wish for once we could get a tf show (or just. anything) that doesn't do the "humans are better than Cybertronians at everything" bit.

In Earthspark's defense, it's not TFP.

MECH and Silas somehow being able to make an optimus clone and fight better than Optimus himself with it is idiotic on so many levels and I have no idea how they thought it was good writing.

(yeah sure Optimus has been fighting a war for four million years and 1v1s Megatron on the regular and knows the ins and outs of his body and has all the wisdom and knowledge and skill bestowed by the matrix but some jackass military prick who's at most got 50 years of combat experience controlling a second rate knockoff with what's basically an arcade control stick can kick his ass without trying)

okay before anyone gets pissy at me for saying Earthspark did the "humans are better than Cybertronians at everything" bit, I'm being mostly hyperbolic, and also: (this gets long and rambly so I'm putting it under a readmore")

I'm mostly saying Earthspark did the bit because GHOST and Mandroid were both unreasonably effective at defeating and capturing Cybertronians, on top of being able to mind control them.

(I really don't like humans being able to defeat Cybertronians on any consistent basis unless it's like. a motorcycle or minicon or micromaster getting hit by a bunch of HEAT rounds or 120mm sabot or a prolonged barrage of 20-30mm autocannon fire or specifically anti-Cybertronian weapons like inhibitors and mode locks and EM/EMP blasts and the like because then it just makes it seem like Cybertronian weaponry is on average about as effective as a nerf gun. but then you get the issue of "if humans have such effective anti-Cybertronian weapons that can incapacitate a Cybertronian in one shot why aren't the bots and cons using them instead of blasters that seem to do piss-all against anything that's not point blank")

I'm willing to give ES some leeway on the "can mind control Cybertronians despite that generally being something only people with powers or specific weapons for it can do (like Mindwipe and Bombshell and sometimes Soundwave and mnemosurgeons if you want to count them)" thing because GHOST did have Bombshell in custody and could prooobably have acquired cerebro-shells to study and experiment on. (though I don't remember if Mandroid ever had any time with Bombshell so. if he didn't then screw that, leeway lost). but also if cerebro-shells are as easy to reverse engineer as that you'd expect the Autobots to have already come up with a defense against them. Perpetual arms race and all that.

Personally, I'm not fond of humans being able to reverse-engineer Cybertronian tech and anatomy like it's nothing because I really don't care for the sci-fi trope of humans' thing being "we're so clever and smart and adaptive and so much better than all alien races at learning and improving". It's overdone and the positioning of humanity as special and/or unique that a lot of sci-fi does annoys the hell out of me

(Tangent time) as an example for why I think the "humans can reverse engineer any alien tech ever" trope is stupid and bad (sci-fi) writing: if an alien race had gravity manipulation tech that operated via graviton manipulation, (modern) humanity would flat out have no idea how it worked — even if this was a version modern humanity that universally accepted gravitons as real — unless they had the documentation from the aliens explaining that's how it worked, because "Unambiguous detection of individual gravitons, though not prohibited by any fundamental law, is impossible with any physically reasonable detector [...] a detector with the mass of Jupiter and 100% efficiency, placed in close orbit around a neutron star, would only be expected to observe one graviton every 10 years, even under the most favorable conditions. It would be impossible to discriminate these events from the background of neutrinos, since the dimensions of the required neutrino shield would ensure collapse into a black hole" (yes that's from wikipedia but it's also true (enough for the purposes of this dumb argument. if physicists want to tell me the ways this statement is wrong in any way please do I want to learn things)) (tangent over)

obviously Cybertronian anatomy doesn't function off anything similar to gravitons (in that canon has never said Cybertronian brains or sparks or anything contain or use unprovable or undetectable (to human) particles) (though you might be able to make an argument for Energon being something like that) (it generally seems human organisations' ability to detect Cybertronians is gained from Energon detecting tech given to them by Cybertronians so)

But. y'know. There's saying "1940s humanity could probably reverse engineer a Ferrari" and saying "13th century medieval Europe could definitely reverse engineer an F-35"

[eriisaam]

This may be partially a personal post, and partially a blog update, but I wanted to apologize for an earlier reblog post (which the original had been taken down, though was up hours earlier).

To preface, I struggle with reading and writing at times, and sometimes have problems processing what's being said or written, leading me to occasionally misinterpret things. By no means is this meant to excuse this, but I wanted to offer explanation of it.

This is relevant, as there was an earlier post I reblogged calling attention to an ongoing issue where crowdfundings - particularly those for Gaza evacuations, resources, and fees therein - have been noticed and hijacked by potential scammers and bots trying to take the opportunity to redirect much needed funds away from actual people in need, and what I interpreted as a word of warning of the rising problem of scammers trying to steal posts, false-claim verification, or show suspicious behavior typical to bots of other sorts we've had in the past in other contexts, had instead focused less on the issue of scammers making it more difficult to get these people in need better signal boosting to get funds, and way more crueler, sinister and dismissive of their situation that my failure in reading comprehension didn't originally pick up as it should've. And I'm sorry for that.

I want to apologize and reiterate that the intent behind what I originally thought was the point being made is that yes, many of these campaigns are legitimate. And their actually have been many a person who approached me via DMing me that actually turned out to be genuine people who are trying their best to get eyes on their campaign, and when I do find them out after trying to do my due diligence, I'm glad to be able to help for what I can, even if to the extent of signal boosting their messages and hoping it reaches the eyes of others who can offer greater help.

I don't want the take away otherwise of my ongoing frustrations with trying to figure out these people from accounts that don't quite check out to be twisted into thinking all of them were scams, and none of them could be trusted otherwise, or call into question the character and validity of whoever the scammers since learned to name-drop by default now (Ahmed being the most common name dropped, but far from the only one), which seemed to be the actual take of that earlier message after all, to my disappointment and frustrations. More, I thought the point was more 'Please continue helping people in need, but be careful too to try to verify them if you can. Not every message is necessarily trustworthy and there's still scams to watch out for.", when the point it seems they were actually trying to make is to dismiss all of them period.

While I am not perfect at it, I have equal amounts of doubt and fear I'm not doing my best in vetting correctly as I hoped, and it's never a good feeling in regards to fundraisers in need - Gaza-related or even in general - to end up not following through with requests with dire risks on the line if I end up doing the checks wrong, I do try to do my best to check what I end up getting with the resources I have on-hand provided by what I could find, and at the very least I avoided reporting anyone (for better or worse) in this regard in the chance I end up wrong to avoid making this even harder on them.

I at least wanted to make it clear and upfront that I will continue to share what resources and links I can that I or mutuals end up finding, will continue to try my best to vet through what DMs come my way (although I do warn I may not be the best person for the job), and I apologize earlier for reblogging a post that was actually the complete anti-point of my earlier points I wanted to carry across than I originally thought.

I urge you all to do what you can and comfortable with. Keep sharing what you can, keep donating what you can, and keep passing along resources like the masterlists or helpful links otherwise. As a reminder, I try to tag these posts under the Important tag, which you can use the tag to either easier find these campaigns, or important call-to-action or health-related news otherwise in general. Please use this tag as you see fit, and in the future from now on, I may post a brand new tag in addition to the Important tag to better sort between Important posts which bring up vital news of other sort and Important notes in regards to crowdfunding posts.

Maybe I'm not being as coherent as I wish, and maybe I'm overfretting, but I do feel better to hopefully make my stance clearer, and I apologize about earlier potentially suggesting otherwise, all because I didn't read things properly.

[kryptonitecore]

Reread: All Hail Megatron, Part 3

On a second read, I think my view of All Hail Megatron has softened somewhat, or at least I’ve got a better sense of what I do and do not like. The human storyline is consistently the weakest part, for me. While I can understand the interest in a human perspective on the alien invasion storyline, I’m not sure that Spike Witwicky’s generic military action hero character was the way to go. Perhaps an actual civilian perspective would have been better? Another problem is that there are a lot of human characters introduced at the beginning, but very few are developed in any real way. Shane McCarthy manages to take many of the Cybertronian characters through some kind of change or development, in fact, through some fairly major ones that have lasting impacts, but the humans just show up one after another: Andy Reid, the pilot who dies, Sparkplug, Mrs. Witwicky, Sarah, Bridge, Spike… I have to think that focusing more closely on a few characters might have yielded a more memorable storyline.

After Megatron is defeated and the nuclear bomb is stopped, issues 13-16 are made up of short stories from a range of different artists and writers. It’s an interesting choice, but it means that a quarter of the whole run is made up of what are, essentially, patches. Most of the short stories are either filling in part of a character’s perspective that didn’t make it into the main storyline or establishing the status quo for a new series, at least some of which I think could have been incorporated if they’d been willing to just use the full sixteen issues in the first place.

They go:

‘Old Ways’ by Simon Furman and Don Figueroa

This one is a bit of a hard sell for me. Figueroa goes for Bayverse-inspired artwork so this is the issue with the ‘night demon’ Ironhide - he’s very toothy. The choice to have a lot of the scenes set in Cybertron’s past in a washed out sepia seems a bit of shame, as although it makes the divide between past and present clear it also limits the visual interest in some of those panels.

The story mostly serves to enable a series of flashbacks and establish Optimus and Ironhide’s relationship… which is nice, but maybe a bit late considering what is about to happen very, very shortly in Transformers (2009). The story is simple and serves its purpose in that it shows how their relationship progressed from contentious to mutually respectful. It’s not terribly interesting on its own, but it becomes more interesting when other stories bounce off of it - like the Prowl story below.

‘Uneasy Lies the Head’ by Mike Costa and Chee Yang Ong

This short story is alright. In fact, I would say it’s the best issue by Costa that I have read so far. My problem with it, however, is the way it serves as a sort of harbinger of a lot of the issues I have with Costa’s work on the ongoing in Transformers (2009). Chee Yang Ong’s art style is curious! He did a fair bit of work around this period of IDW1 and some of his lighting is interesting.

The story centres on establishing what has happened to the Decepticons following their abandonment of Earth, Megatron’s near death, and Starscream’s rise to interim leader. The most glaring thing is the very abrupt implosion of the Decepticon cause. The titular ‘head’ wearing the heavy crown here refers to Starscream, as he realises how bad the situation is: he’s about to face a bunch of infighting, the Decepticons lack direction without Megatron as a figurehead, and they are running out of energon and other resources, apparently having spent almost everything they had just keeping Megatron alive. When I say this is ‘abrupt’ I really do mean it. Around the midpoint of AHM, the Decepticons are near total victory to the extent that characters are worried about what to do after the war. Now, all of that has disappeared… Losing Earth makes sense, as does Megatron being injured, but I can’t help but wonder about the rest of the faction’s resources? Throughout the previous fourteen issues we’re told about the Decepticon Empire, that their outposts are thriving, that they have overwhelmed various Autobot installations en masse, etc. The faction struggling so severely after Megatron’s defeat would make more sense if there hadn’t been so much emphasis placed on how close they were to complete victory. Instead, the sudden collapse comes across a bit rushed - perhaps I’m missing some context?

The other problem is the lack of activity from the Decepticons. It’s not very obvious in this short story, because the format is so limited, but having read further ahead I think this story starts to show how little the Decepticons are going to matter for parts of Costa’s run. The existential issues they are supposedly facing take place mostly off-panel: the energon starting to run out, deciding to spend almost everything on Megatron’s life support, evacuating the Earth, the leadership challenges… All of these things are briefly mentioned as having either already happened or being about to happen. The reader doesn’t see any of this, despite how potentially interesting and narratively important these things could be.

A zoomed in example of this is the trajectory of Starscream’s character - this is, in a sense, a Starscream-centric story. The first fourteen issues of AHM are not at all Starscream-centric, but they do end on a major change. Starscream abandons a coup attempt in order to merge his supporters back in with Megatron’s and ensure a Decepticon victory and he doesn’t let Optimus finish off or capture Megatron, all of which ties into a couple of scenes where he and Megatron discuss leadership and the potential end of the war. The decision to rescue Megatron instead of abandoning him for his own benefit was a very decisive moment that McCarthy created, something shown to be surprising to characters in the story and probably to actual readers, as well. Anyway, it was a character arc that had some real momentum and then it just… stagnates. Costa has Starscream cave under the pressure of leadership/the sudden One Ring-esque influence of the Matrix almost immediately, not in the sense of acting out or making bad tactical decisions, but more in the sense that he locks himself in a room and doesn’t engage. Even more glaringly, very few other Decepticons seems to react to this, whether to try and intervene or to try and take advantage. Essentially, the faction kind of goes dormant for several years in-story.

I don’t love the role that the Matrix ultimately plays in this. I feel the role of the Matrix in IDW1 is very unsettled, anyway. Megatron stealing and hiding it, then Starscream using it to shore up his own leadership position is good, in fact, it’s kind of similar to the whole ‘Chosen One’ thing in Robots in Disguise. From what I’ve read so far, though, it seems like a lot of it just didn’t come to fruition. If I was cynical about it, I might suggest that Costa wanted to limit the number of Transformer characters he needed to write, especially ones that didn’t interact regularly with humans, so shoving most of the Decepticon faction onto an asteroid where they are out of the way of the increasingly Spike Witwicky-heavy storyline might have suited the story he wanted to tell.

‘Replay’ by Shane McCarthy and Emiliano Santalucia

Another flashback-heavy short story, this time focusing on Sunstreaker. We have almost a montage of the terrible things that have been done to Sunstreaker, especially centring around his imprisonment by the Machination and his merging with Hunter O’Nion, followed by a ‘recovery’ on Cybertron. As the title implies, the story is interested in both replaying moments from earlier issues in more detail and in getting at how Sunstreaker has been traumatised by his capture and torture and, consequently, how that is driving the decisions he makes. It’s very simple, quite pared down in terms of dialogue, and I actually like it, as I think it effectively reinforces and adds some extra emotion to Sunstreaker’s storyline.

‘Rebirth’ by Andy Schmidt and Andrew Griffin

This feels like an awkward bit of an issue and I think some of the voices are off - Cyclonus is quite informal, for instance. This mostly updates you on what Galvatron and Co. have been up to. It seems to have some continuity errors, which is unfortunate because it’s written by the editor.

‘Everything in its Right Place’ by Nick Roche

Well, the Radiohead reference is ominous. As is the fact that Prowl is getting punched in the face again, as I think that’s the second time in five issues - both times it was by another Autobot, which is interesting.

This is full Roche Prowl and ties into both Kup’s Spotlight issue and Last Stand/Sins of the Wreckers. It’s wordy, essentially one long monologue from the perspective of the character, but that does enable a nice comparison between Prowl’s spoken dialogue and his thoughts - it’s effective. I think Prowl’s personality was going through a bit of a nightmare around this point, as you had Furman’s version, Costa’s version, Roche’s version, and, McCarthy’s version - I can see why Roche’s Prowl tends to be better remembered though, as his characterisation is very decisive.

Another thing, and this is just trivia and empty speculation, but here we go: it’s noticeable just how many people from the Ark-17 or from Kimia, some of whom worked with Prowl or on his projects, ended up joining the Lost Light rather than staying behind on Cybertron. Swerve and Brainstorm were at Kimia, then we’ve got Perceptor, Trailbreaker, and Siren on the Ark-17. Sizzle is the only character from that gaggle who doesn’t end up on the Lost Light. I think spending time working for Prowl changes a mech.

‘Lost and Found’ by Denton J. Tipton and Casey Coller

This story mostly expands on McCarthy’s decision to retool Perceptor as more of an action-focused sniper and I think it is helpful in that it elaborates on how his helplessness and his dependence on Drift to rescue him drive his new surge for independence. My real objection is just that this newfound physical competency comes very quickly and that it seems a little late in the four million year war to suddenly have this realisation. I mean, surely Perceptor must have been injured/in a near-death situation before, right?

I also thought it was a bit of an anti-climactic showing for Monstructor, who gets one-shotted.

Some of the reactions to Perceptor changing his role also seem a bit… odd. I can understand characters having reservations or not taking him seriously at first, but Blaster saying ‘you’ve defiled yourself’ seems like it needs a bit more context.

‘Hidden’ by Zander Cannon and Chee Yang Ong

A precursor to Cannon and Ong’s Bumblebee miniseries, once again I actually find Ong’s art pretty interesting, with lots of heavy shadows and varied colours for the sky. I think this story helps to get across some of the human perspective that didn’t make it into AHM’s main story so much, in this case the paranoia and confusion of humans trying to understand which vehicles are normal and which are not. 

Is it just me, or is Bumblebee’s characterisation all over the place, though? Not quite as much as Prowl’s, but it’s still pretty inconsistent.

Some of the whiniest humans.

‘The Man of Steel’ by Mark Costa and Guido Guidi

The short story that gives us the infamous nurses panel… Oh, it’s a sad, sad set up. ‘He’s the closest thing to a superhero we’ve got’ announces the general, as he turns the handle to open the door. The reader turns and discovers a splash page - in an eleven page story, mind you - of this:

That, but with more miniskirts.

It would be funny if it wasn’t a bit of a desperate attempt to make Spike seem cool. It’s not just a single slightly cheesecake-y page either, all of the characters are kind of insulting about the nurses, too. That, or they refer to them as ‘the view’. This approach to female characters will not improve in the coming issues by Costa. The jingoism also starts chiming in, too.

Speaking of uneconomical comics writing, was it really worth killing off Thrust in a single panel just to demonstrate Spike’s point, especially as the Coneheads were already down Ramjet?

With its slow pace, splash pages, and macho posturing this short story is unfortunately a better indicator of what the 2009 ongoing series would be like than ‘Uneasy Lies the Head’ was.

[magnificent-nerd]

Muslim Supervillains: a tired stereotype

Image description: Supervillains clockwise from top left, Iron Man 1 (2008), The Boys TV (2020), Batman vs. Superman Dawn of Justice (2016), and Wonder Woman 1984 (2020). Please note the frequent use of Yellow Filter.

I decided to list all the times Muslim and Muslim background actors and/or characters (also referred to as SWANA and/or MENA, which stands for South West Asia and North Africa, and Middle East and North Africa) have been given the role of 'supervillain' in live action superhero movies.

Spoiler: it's a lot.

It's also more times than any Muslim actors have appeared as 'good guys' in a superhero movie which, obviously, is really bad typecasting and overt racism.

-

In chronological order:

Iron Man (2008)

The Ten Rings, a terrorist group made up of multiple MENA and Muslim groups, led by pantomime-level villain Raza (actor Faran Tahir), and also including actor Sayed Badreya among the supporting villains without names.

Sayed Badreya commented on being typecast and always killed in Hollywood movies in this GQ article: "I die in Iron Man," says Sayed Badreya. "I die in executive decision. I get shot by everyone." (x)

-

Batman vs Superman (2016)

From the theatrical cut of the movie we have an unnamed African 'General' and some rando mercenaries/terrorists that Lois Lane interviews in Nairomi, Africa, referred to only as "the desert" throughout.

All reference to the General's actual name are only available in an extended/deleted scene. So, all in all, a very shallow depiction of these characters and merely used as a prop for the Lex Luthor angle.

-

Venom (2018)

There is one baddie for the entire movie and he's played by Riz Ahmed, a British actor (just like the lead actor, Tom Hardy, is also British).

Riz Ahmed plays Carlton Drake, a somewhat stereotypical supervillain doctor who has basic and forgettable world domination goals for reasons.

Despite the fact Ahmed gives a great performance, and the fact that at least here is a MENA supervillain that isn't dressed or presented in any of the stereotypical ways these movies usually present MENA and Muslim supervillains, he is still a Muslim actor playing a one and done bad guy, and it's pretty two dimensional.

Technically he plays two supervillains in this movie, being the voice actor for his symbiote, Riot. He still dies, though.

-

The Boys (2019 - 2020)

Alright so The Boys is a TV show, but I have to give it an honorable mention for such a spectacularly racist depiction of a Muslim supervillain character, who is not only badly written but barely appears onscreen for more than a couple of minutes in total at the end of season 1 (2019) and the first couple of minutes of season 2 (2020).

See my post on Naqib here.

-

Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)

Arguably the most cartoonish and racist depiction of Arabs and Muslims as generic villains and baddies (since The Boys TV) with no motive other than to 'bomb stuff' for 'reasons', set against a generic White Savior narrative. (Yikes.)

I honestly don't think there is anything redeemable about this movie either, and I'm pleased it got fair drags from critics upon its release for multiple issues, not just the overt racism and Islamophobia. (x) (x)

But the fact that Warner Bros thought this racist depiction of Arabs and Muslims was okay to release in 2020 really says a lot about the racist state of Hollywood generally (but that's another post).

-

There we have it!

That is a full list of Muslim supervillains (and in the case of Venom, a supervillain played by a Muslim actor).

And sadly that's also it for Muslim character representation in live action superhero movies. They are all bad guys!

(Wow, who saw that coming /sarcasm.)

Read on for side notes, and how upcoming Disney Plus show Ms Marvel isn’t going to automatically fix this industry wide problem when it has its own casting problems:

Side note: there has been a fleeting glimpse of a nameless background character here and there, but only once in a movie and twice in TV shows.

A couple of fleeting glimpses from nameless extras hardly makes up for all the Muslim supervillains we've had to see over the years.

For example, it took Marvel/MCU/Disney 13 years to show any Muslim characters onscreen at all, from Iron Man in 2008 all the way up to Disney Plus show Falcon and Winter Soldier (2021). Please see my post about how badly Disney failed at good rep for these nameless extras.

-

Now, before anyone pipes up with 'but Disney Plus is bringing in Ms Marvel soon!', let me inform you that many of us are wary of and upset with Disney for their casting decisions, and many other problems to do with the Ms Marvel show (x) debuting in 2022.

One stand out problem is the casting choices which further perpetuates colorism.

Colorism means favoring white, light skinned, and western features in actors, therefore affecting the casting and depiction of SWANA, MENA, and Muslim characters, lending a distorted, white-washed, western, and Orientalist lens to SWANA and Muslim representation.

What we've seen so far with the Ms Marvel supporting cast (not the lead herself) is a cast made up of way too many non-Muslim and non-Pakistani actors to play Muslim and Pakistani characters.

Brown people are not interchangeable, yet studios (especially Disney) rely on the ignorance of western audiences to get away with this blatant colorism.

The Ms Marvel show also has light skinned, biracial, and even Christian actors cast to play monoracial, brown skinned, Muslim characters. That is not okay!

Yet of course, when it comes to the one character who will likely be the villain on the show (as he is in the comics, Kamran) the actor cast to play him, Rish Shah, is quite clearly darker skinned than say, Aramis Knight, also cast in the show to play another love interest to the lead, Kamala, and general good guy. This is colorism; brown skin = baddies, light skin = goodies.

Casting white and more western actors for the good guys, but brown and Muslim actors for the bad guys, is typical colorism and Islamophobia at play within the industry.

So, no: the Ms Marvel Disney Plus show won't 'fix' Islamophobia in superhero movies.

We still have a long way to go.

~*~

Have you spotted any Muslim, MENA, and SWANA characters in superhero media lately? Tell me!

Visit me on twitter, visit my blog.

[shamemp3]

☕️ + who is the best spider-person and why

THIS IS HARD…i have many favorites and i usually cant pick between them but if i have to narrow it down it would be btwn miles and peter (but probably miles). like obviously most of the spider people have same general core values of like altruism and responsibility towards others and the whole Guilt thing but with miles you see it explored SO well and he’s still very young too and we get to see how much he believes in being there for his neighborhood and his personal responsibility to everyone aroond him and on top of that we get to see how being a hero affects him mentally which we dont rly get with the other spideys and while that doesnt make them WORSE bc it just depends on the writer its just. hard not to love miles when you see how he thinks and cares about his friends and family and community … like something i liked abt saladin ahmed’s run was miles’ journalkeeping. also we get to see how frustrated and angry miles gets when he CANT help people (ex. the school shooting champs issue) and his talk with kamala where she’s like “we’re the same we cant stand aside” or smth like that is very close to my heart. idk i just love a lot when his conflicts are explored and we see him make mistakes and have internal conflict with himself and his feelings and its so very human !!! he is so empathetic and he will always attempt to peacemake before anything else and he always tries to be there in the littlest ways even if its not a hero crisis (with kenneth!!!) and he cares so much and his moral compass is unshakeable (not to say that of the other spider people isnt) but i dont know his spidey feels the most Homey and community like to me which is what spiderman is all about… and peter’s DEFINITELY does too like esp w fnsm 2019 and all the special issues where you see him step up for new york but it makes me upset how we RARELY get to see how he’s affected mentally by this one example i always bring up being superior spiderman … and tbh aside from fnsm 2019 we’ve BARELY had any good peter comics since straczynski and thats definitely more on the writers than peter himself bc he still is one of the most humane and community-based characters to me at least but … i think i’d give it to miles tho in terms of favorites they are still tied i think

send me a ☕️ on smth and ill give my opinion!

[popculturebuffet]

Ex-Arm: Forbidden Weapon Patreon Sponsored Review:  Dead Eyes, Brain Jars, Can’t Loose (Patreon Review for Emma Fici)

Hello all you happy people! And i’m stepping out of my usual comfort zone today for this one. See usually I cover western animation and comics. I have nothing against Anime and Manga: I grew up reading Shonen Jump and watching Dragon Ball Z, Yu Gi Oh (Whose card game I still play a LOT), Yu Yu Hakusho (Which is still one of my faviorite shows to this day), Pokemon, Tenchi Muyo, and Ultimate Muscle among MANY others. I still want to finish Hunter X Hunter and Jojo’s Bizzare adventure and watch the shaman king and eden’s zero’s animes and manga wise i’ve enjoyed the fire force manga, what i’ve read of my hero academia, and Pluto, which is one of the best comics i’ve read period. There’s good stuff I just forget it’s there sometimes and let it stack into my already large watch queue. 

So NATURALLY instead of any of the good stuff my first anime episode covered on this blog.. is one glorious clusterfuck of a bonkers premise, a clear rip-off of a much more popular property, and some of the worst animation I have ever seen. And it’s only not THE worst because this happened. 

Fun Fact: This show was written and drawn entirely by unpaid high schoolers. Prove me wrong. 

Ex-Arm WAS made by actual adults.. but ones who had no experience in animation, but were confident they could make it work. And being NEW to a medium isn’t excuse. Plenty of people make the jump and land just fine with writers such as Saladin Ahmed, Rainbow Rowell, and Ta-Nehsi Coates all making the jump from novels to comics smoothly. 

No the issue is clear arrogance: the crew was CONFIDENT they could make an anime without actually talking to anyone who had made one, let alone in CG. And suicidal overconfidence with no skill to back it up NEVER ends well when making a show. It’s how you end up with two seasons of a boy who just hit puberty’s dry erase markered abomination up there, and how we ended up with an anime that looks more like it’s own shodily made tie-in game than an actual  show that aired on television and streaming this very year. 

But it did so join me under the cut as I get into the weeds of one of the most hilariously bad things i’ve seen in my life. 

So we open in 2020 with a mass of screaming color inverted people being pulled into the sky to their doom. I gotta give it to the Manga this is based on, they predicted EXACTLY how 2020 would go. Most Sci Fi really misses the mark.  We still don’t have flying cars, actual hoverboards or super fighting robots, but we did have people floating to their doom thanks to some weird color inverted teenager so kudos. 

We get our intro.. and it is a LOT. The song, Rise Again, is honestly incredibly forgettable.. which I find inexusable for two reasons. The first is while I may not watch much actual anime I listen to anime themes and english covers of said themes all the time. I know my stuff and this theme is just.. nothing. It’s literally nothing. I mean a series this stupid at LEAST deserves a triumphuntly bad or too good for it intro. In between just dosen’t cut it. The other reason is simply that the end theme, Diamonds Shine by Dizzy Sunfist, is glorious. It’s really damn good and would work as an OP.. which begs the question why they weren’t swapped. Were they trying to reward people who actually stuck around for the credits? 

Speaking of credits while the opening theme music is unforgetable the opening itself. .is like the show itself hilaroiusly bad. Now most anime intros are utterly beautiful, long, gorgeous affairs with tons of exciting animation, sometimes hinting to the future sometimes giving a general ideas of things, really showing off waht the show is. Ex Arm is a bunch of clumsy animation interspresed with about 80 character intro cards like this. 

Just the spinning awkward CGI intro that you’d expect from 20 years ago.  It looks like the bastard child of those weird 90′s x-men animated credits

And the breif intros of Spidey and friends at the top of Spider-Man the new animated series.... not one of the recent ones nor some revamp of the original but one made by sony in 2003 to capitalize on the first of the Sam Rami trilogy and to directly serve as it’s sequel... and even then THAT intro does this sort of thing better than ex-arm only having three and with sai dintro itself being really damn good

The animation ALSO looks better than Ex-Arm.. and came out 18 years ago.  And if you think well “holy shit this show has embarrassed itself a lot with just an intro”, well strap in because this show has not yet BEGUN to embarrass itself. 

So we go back in time to 2014, a time when we were on only our second live action Spider-Man film series, a young Steven Unvierse had only just to begun to unravel the tangled mess Rose had left behind, and Gravity Falls had only just begun what would tragically be it’s final season. 

And none of that matters to our setting as we head to a Japanese High School Classroom. Because 70% of anime and manga involve a high or middle school, even when your about to rip off ghost in the shell. 

It’s here we meet Akira

... I haven’t even seen that movie, i’ts been on my to do list for years, and I know tha’ts TETSUO. 

No akira’s that kid I showed before. You’ll know him by his near constant thousand yard stare that says “my brother puts a pinch of acid in my breakfast every day” 

Akira is doing fine till his buddy tries to get him to do some sort of party related thing that involves phones, with Akira not having one because he’s technophobic. And I don’t mean someone who dosen’t LIKE phones or technology or it’ sinfluence on people and is trying to avoid screens and what not, I mean someone whose so ungodly terrified by just his friend HOLDING UP HIS SMART PHONE that he passes out with wavy lines and this look on his face. 

Yeah while the cold open and intro were hilariously bad on their own terms... this is where the series REALLY lets the drugs kick in. Now a main character having some phobia or personality flaw or quirk is actually pretty common, either a sign of supernatural things or just something to make it complicated when the person coming onto them happens to be the thing they hate. Like say a guy dosen’t like bees, well guess who just because the selected mate of the hive queennnnn.. lucky bastard. 

It’s a common anime trope, so it being present here isn’t a BAD thing it’ own. It’s not a trope that would make me WANT to watch a show, but it’s also one I haven’t seen enough in the anime and manga i’ve consumed to really judge.  Conversely I can judge having sexual harassment or embarassment as a running gag, because i’ve seen it way too often even in fantastic works and it’s just creepy every time.

So the idea isn’t terrible PERSAY.. but the problem here is it’s not just some small fear or some nerveousness or something... the kid is having full on breakdowns, passing out from simply being SHOWN one of the most common devices in the world, and having to be taken to the nurse’s office... and the show tries to play it off like “oh you just need to live live buddy”. 

That’s.. actually what happens: We cut to him and his brother talking it over , their parents having died because of course. First off i’m 100% convinced his brother is actually his dad and his brother-dad’s parents simply raised akira, because look at them

He looks old enough to be his dad. And Secondly his brother treats him having FREQUENT PANIC ATTACKS AND PASSING OUT OVER A VERY COMMON BIT OF TECHNOLOGY as “oh well your just a bit withdrawn bro you need to put one foot forward, jump in and live life to the max brosef, live it up bromigo, find your juliet bromeo”. I get people ARE that dumb about psychological issues in real life, it happens, but the SERIES ITSELF frames it like Sensei Brodad is right! If you wanted it to JUST be a self confidence issue and the techphobia tied into that then DON’T exaggerate it 98 degrees. 

So Akira goes off into the night to the convince store and is targeted by a shadowy figure... and i’m questioning less WHY the guy is targeting our hero or has his photo.. and more the photo itself. 

It’s clearly one of those little school photos you give out to your friends, which means Japan has those which is neat. But it also means they went to the trouble of STEALING some kid’s wallet sized photo of a teenage boy for the express purpose of kidnapping him to steal his brain. That will have SLIGHTLY more context in a bit but not much. 

So one transition later Akira exists the convince store when he notices a bunch of hoods harassing another teenager wanting to take her away with them despite her being no. He dickers about it , not sure he can take three guys. .but decides to take his brothers advice and just leap in and do what he can anyway.. and gets hit by a bus as he sprints forward

I’d just like to contrast this with another anime I mentioned, one that ALSO got started when it’s hero got hit by a car trying to do something noble, Yu Yu Hakuso. See that series, for those unfamiliar with it, stars high school pun Yuske Yurameshi, the biggest hood around who frequently skips school, has an alcholic negglectful mom and generally seems like he’ll be a punk and out for himself his whole life. Then one day he sees a child nearly get hit by a car, and jumps in front of it to push the kid out of the way, dying, but going out doing something noble. 

Both have the same idea: a character dies changing the way they are and their thrust into a new life because of it. The diffrence is context. Yuske finds himself in the land of the dead, guided there by the ever bubly and sarcastic botan. This ends up being a problem though: See as things were fated to go.. the kid would’ve been fine. A scrape or too but it would’ve been a one in a million freak miracle. No one EXPECTED Yuske to do what he did, nor to have such inner nobility in him. So Koenma, son of the god of dead King Enma, gives him a second chance: do some good deeds, prove he can be a better person, and he’ll let him come back. And he does, via some shenanigans. Not only that but seeing the people he lost gives Yuske a reason to WANT to come back: he sees his mom as neglectful as she was loved him, his only friend Keiko is devidsted and even his rival who he beat up all the time Kuwabara genuinely misses the guy.. it’s partly because he never got to kick Yuske’s ass but ‘tis clear he misses him. So by helping them, Yuske earns his way back, and while still a little shit, has come back a better person. The continued strangness after this is likewise linked: Koenma offers Yuske a job hunting spirits as his agent, since Yuske’s time dead means he can use “spirit” attacks, and see ghosts, which gets the boy much needed money, purpose and more friends. 

My point is i’d rather be watching or reviewing Yu Yu Hakusho right now. My other ponit is that there it’s used for thematic reasons and gives us a credible ease into the plot. Here... our hero dies, he becomes a brain in a jar weapon thing, and while it MIGHT have some pathos later, ZERO minutes are spent on im dwelling on what he’s lost or reflecting as a character. He spends the rest of the episode understandably freaking at what the hell this is. Which granted is what yuske did for an episode.. but they also added in pathos: what he’d lost, slowed down took some time before getting into shit. Here their so impatient to get to the cool sci fi bullshit we get no sense of character for akira. He was afraid of machines and kind of nervous> That’s it. His death comes off as a black comedy because we didn’t really KNOW him before he got hit by a truck. If your going to put a plot device like this in your shitty anime, maybe check to make sure that i don’t know, one of the most storied ones period hadn’t done it better!

So we jump ahead past BOTH previous timelines to our main one of 2030 where two officers are intercepting a super weapon. Mokoto Arma and Minami. Arma is as the gag probably gave away is a ripoff of Mokto Kursnagi from ghost in the shell, an anime i’ve only seen bits of but a pantsless unitard wearing robot who works for the police.. I mean I don’t have to KNOW GTS and film like it’s my own child to connect the obvious dots. I have eyes. And i’ts okay to take inspiration from something but COME ON. There’s also a grizzled officer with a weird eye thing, if a diffrent weird eye thing. They were not subtle

Anyway Arma and Mini have obtained a super weapon in a briefcase , and we get a fight scene. And while the animation has been laughably lackluster so far.. here’s where it kicks into overdrive as man oh man this is one laughably terrible fight scene. It looks like Arma is just fumbling around at the speed of sound, got places to go gotta break up this arms deal, with hits either barely connecting or looking moe like slaps or the weakest punches. Nothing has any flow or impact, it’s just all so weak. And of course infamously one shot of Arma doing a flying attack with both knees.. looks like she’s hitting the guy with her crotch. 

Yeah i’ts pretty lackluster and shows why MAYBE, just maybe making an action show when you don’t know how to animate, let alone do action is just POSSIBLY the dumbest thing to come out of this country since people started thinking “FUCK scientifically proven vaccines i’m gonna take horse dewormer!”

So our heroines end up outgunned, out manned, outnumbered and out planned so they need to make an all out stand and Mini suggests opening up the box. 

We get a cut to Police HQ where all of the police, including characters who are in the intro but don’t get enough focus for me to pick out their names from the 80 other in the intro. The point is we find out what an Ex Arm IS: a high tech device that can do super powered stuff. Basically your standard justificatoin for superpowers. We see one guy mow down an army by being able to turn intangiable who looks...

So going back a bit, our heroes open the ex arm to reveal a round computer thing.. which of course has Akira in it, specifically his brain. Yes I wasn’t exagerating or making my usual clever quips when I made refrences it to it earlier, the premise of this is that they jammed some random high school kid’s brain in a super computer at some point.

Never forget that while Ex-Arm is stupid.. it’s also GLORIOUSLY stupid and the animation isn’t the only notably messed up thing about it. 

So yeah Akira naturlaly takes this well as Mimi proves to be entirely stupid: asking him to boot up and then being obtuse when it’s VERY obvious this thing’s brain has no idea where it is, that it’s 2030 or that it’s not a WMD. His response to Mimi mentoining he’s in 2030 and the situation he’s in, being under gunfire with a sexy police android whose eye’s he’s seeing through and an idiot while his brain is in some weird machine sums up this show in a nutshell. 

Including him being naked in the weird cyber space thing.. he’s just.. naked for some reason.. 

So our heroine, her peppy useless sidekick and brain boy run into the facility and are chased by phasing guy. They try hooking The Brain That Wouldn’t Blink into the computers but he can’t do it.. it was intiutive with Ghost in the Fanservice’s brain but not this and he’s too caught in his own head. The girls end up having to take a runner and run into creepy ghost hand man leading to another awkward fight scene. 

It’s what you’d expect: the anime equilvent of this

So Akane ends up disabled forcing her to call on resting vietnam veteran face to help leading to this gem of a line

So Akira takes his brother’s words to heart, I wasn’t kidding about the framing and decides to leap into it.. this bein ga girls body. So yeah in TWENTY GODDAMN TWENTY a major plot point of this anime is “cis gendered male hops into female body and get it it’s awkward”

Let’s finish this this review is already days behind: so we do get an intresting finish as while Akira stumbles at being a lady super fighting robot, he does cleverly use his acess to the cameras and what not of the base to review the fight footage, realizing that the Phantom Meance here can’t see what’s behind him or sense what’s in front of him and thus tricks him into phasing a hand into the ocean. This is something I love about anime and why I keep coming back from time to time: the fights can be clever. Sure some are just shoutin gan dpunching, and tha’ts just as fun in the right context, but a lot are about strategy and trying to get your oponent to make the wrong move. It’s why I love jojo so much despite having only read the second and third arcs and seen part of the fourth: it’s all about clever stategy using unusual powers. This isn’t Jojo, by a long shot but it’s SOMETHING, which is more than the entire runtime of this episode has given me. 

So with that our heroes are surronded by guns and Akira finds out he might of caused an apocalypse. Oops. 

Final Thoughts: Ex Arm is really bad.. but damn was it fun.The anime is generic as hell mostly ripping off ghost in the shell but anything else it has, super powers run amok, cyperpunk, is all cliche, and it’s protagonists are all vacant arcytpes: Awkward teen hero, stoic fanservice badass, peppy girl. I’ve seen them all in other works and done better. There’s nothing to them and nothing good. 

So why was it fun? Because it’s a perfect storm of elements that make something so bad it’s good: legendarily perplexing animation, an overconfident creative team who has no idea what their doing but presses on anyway, a plot that’s both uniquely bonkers and clearly leaning on several cliches. It’s everything that makes a so bad it’s good film great in an anime package.  I don’t know WHEN i’ll get back to this.. but honestly while I went in meaning for this to be a done in one and Emma will be rolling on to something else next month for her patreon I will probably come back to this someday. 

So if you enjoyed this review follow for the possible sequel among with aton of other great stuff and considering joining my patreon

PATREON LINK RIGHT HERE

Thank you for coming, thank you for staying, thanks for reading’ 

[ariainstars]

TRoS Speculation: Maybe It Was Intentional…

All right, since the subject obviously doesn’t let me go, new speculation on my side. WARNING: this is a longer post.

 Ever since the 80es, Star Wars has become a universal phenomenon with millions of fans all over the world. And while fans often agree, they more often than not disagree about the characters, the themes, the different turn of events etc. Star Wars touches very many different kinds of people deep down due to the emotions it provokes. Many of us have grown up with the saga, some with one trilogy, others with another. Others have read the EU novels or watched the TV shows first. The saga’s themes are so many that they appeal to all kinds of people, and the approaches are varying. There are very many topics on which we will never make everybody agree. Being the foundation for many fan’s view of the world, the root to a lot of their ideals, the source of many a dream, the saga has become a hugely personal matter. No wonder viewers all over the world can quarrel about it so venomously and get downright aggressive if you only introduce a new line of thoughts. Many fans feel that the saga belongs to them and not to the man who created it and the creative studios who are now employing it to develop new stories.

We have made our mistakes in our fandom, too, in the years since The Force Awakens came out. We were so excited in what we believed was investing into a redemption arc, love story and happy ending, connecting all kinds of dots throughout the saga and analyzing it from almost every angle. Some of us simply thought that who didn’t think like us was stupid. But many other fans believe that this saga is only about Good against Evil and not about human feelings. They keep seeing it as some superhero story, a comforting world where to retire when reality got too much, a place where bad things happen but then the hero eventually comes to take care of it. They stick to their conviction that the good guy (or the one you root for even if he’s a villain) is the one who’s the coolest. Many of them love the OT above all and plainly refuse to see anything positive about the PT or ST because they always expected to see the New Adventures of Han, Luke and Leia. Some of them have waited for literally decades for the OT’s continuation. We, who also love the other trilogies (or at least the sequels) were at times disrespectful and arrogant looking down on them and believing that they simply don’t know what the saga actually is about. And all of us need heroes. We apply our own problems, needs and expectations to them and wait for them to fix the problem as an example for us. That’s also why we expect them to get their happy ending.

I have seen videos and read articles about how highly divisive The Last Jedi was. Some fans (a few of them even with tears in their eyes) openly declared that the saga was ruined for them. Similarly to us, who identify with Ben Solo and / or Rey, they had often found courage in the examples set by their heroes and it was offensive and hurtful to them to see Luke Skywalker reduced to a hermit who drinks green milk, rejects the ways of the Jedi and was personally responsible for his nephew’s fall into his abuser’s clutches. They were entitled to their feelings of disappointment and inner numbness as we are now. I know of people who actually survived many ugly periods in their lives finding solace in the saga. Some in one part of it, some in another. And we all got duped and let down, each by one chapter of the sequel trilogy, like some naughty, sadistic kid was kicking apart our favorite doll house a few days before Christmas.

I assume now that The Last Jedi was an experiment to gauge the audience’s reaction. It touched many a sensitive issue. My personal approach is that in order to like it, you don’t only have to be a fan of the sequel trilogy and its characters in general, or a hopeless romantic who wanted to see Rey and Ben Solo’s love story. You have to accept in the first place what the prequel trilogy painstakingly tried to explain to us (though it wasn’t actually said but more shown): that the Jedi were no heroes but got destroyed by their own hubris, and that Anakin Skywalker was largely a victim and not someone who became a villain because he enjoyed being evil, like the typical Batman or Superman villains. The prequels are not a fairy tale like the original trilogy but a cautionary tale following the lines of “society creates its own monsters.” It was only logical to deduce that if the Jedi were so perfect and the Old Republic so idyllic as Obi-Wan described them to Luke when they first met on Tatooine, Vader’s rise and the creation of the Empire couldn’t have happened in the first place. This was never said as clearly and concisely as by Luke to Rey during their second lesson on Ahch-To:

“Now that they’re extinct, the Jedi are romanticized, deified. But strip away the myth and look at their deeds: the legacy of the Jedi is failure, hypocrisy, hubris. At the height of their power they allowed Darth Sidious to rise, create the Empire and wipe them out. It was a Jedi who was responsible for the training and creation of Darth Vader.”

This is the message of the prequels in a few sentences, and a pivotal change to the “superhero approach” to the Jedi which might qualified if you only watch the OT and never question its themes on a larger scale. If you accept the Jedi’s failure for a fact, all of the rest falls into place - Vader being but a broken, sad old guy, Luke’s disillusion, his decision to give up the ways of the Jedi, his first lesson teaching Rey that the Force is not some kind of superpower, his forgiveness towards his nephew, the glimpses of goodness we saw foreshadowing Ben Solo’s redemption. The prequels also make much more sense this way than watching them expecting to see the Jedi being super-cool heroes and Anakin becoming Vader because he thought it might be fun.

But many fans chose not to see or accept what The Last Jedi actually was trying to say: that things couldn’t continue the way they did, because the Old Republic and the Jedi (though they didn’t actually have bad intentions) were deeply flawed. Leia tried to build another republic without any major changes that we are aware of, and Luke wanted to rebuild the Jedi Order without effectuating the considerable changes their Code would have needed. Both failed. It was e.g. never explained why Luke spirited his students away to a lonely planet for their training, but the fact that they were taken from their families when they were too small to make a choice and stick to it - Ben e.g. wanted to be a pilot like his father and not a Jedi - already shows the same pattern. Luke had not learned from the faults of his teachers until his exile. Logically, Episode IX ought to have continued these themes and showed the ST protagonist finding a new and better approach to the Force. Instead, what we got was another (in my opinion: redundant) Ultimate Battle of Good Against Evil, in other words some kind of superhero film which largely ignores the themes of its predecessor.

Any fan is entitled to his opinion. If someone hates the PT because it shows a stagnant society and the Jedi as highly flawed, because they didn’t get to see Darth Vader becoming over-the-top cool but were confronted, in Anakin, with a deeply compassionate person crushed by expectations he never could meet in the first place, if they judged him a whiny brat instead of an intelligent guy who clearly saw through the flaws of the society he was forced to live in and simply didn’t find the right words to express it: they’re entitled to it. Same goes for not feeling the tension between Rey and Kylo in the ST, for judging Kylo quickly (again) as a whiny brat instead of a complex, tormented character, for not appreciating new characters like Rose on account of not being Star-Wars-y enough. These feelings mostly stem from the fans’ long-standing wish to see an actual continuation of the original trilogy, not a new instalment where a new generation takes over and the old heroes are relegated to the background and, additionally, their characters and past decisions are openly criticized.

We may claim that fanbros are simply too stupid to understand what the saga is actually about. Well, maybe they are, or they are just too lazy to look at the bigger picture. But they have a right to that.  Of course, it doesn’t entitle them to harass the studios, directors, creative team or actors the way they were, mind you: what e.g. Kelly Marie Tran, Ahmed Best and Jake Lloyd had to endure was a disgrace. There are very many fans who disagree with the PT and ST without getting bitter or even vicious.

This doesn’t mean I have changed my mind. I still believe that the Jedi were everything but heroes, that Darth Vader is a tragic figure, that the main themes of the saga are family, hope and new beginnings and not “the coolest ones win, ka-boom, the end”; that what it means to say is that human feelings are in the end more important than power, even an enormous power like the one the Force can provide.

We who are angry and disappointed with TRoS now like to blame how it went that way due to the influence of angry white dudebros, misogyny, Calvinism, racism, the overall political situation, the Mouse only wanting to make money etc.

But we ought to consider that The Last Jedi, which was so deeply controversial, hit theatres only two years ago. Have mentalities, politics and social structures and Disney’s overall approached changed so considerably, in so short a time, to produce two so radically different approaches to the saga within the scope of two years?

Sorry, I can’t believe it. it doesn’t really make sense.

The Mandalorian is met with universal acclaim, no doubt partly due to the fact that it’s a standalone story without the huge dynastic weight the saga has on its shoulders. Being a TV show, it had more time to introduce characters and situations and develop them. And it worked out fine. It had all the Star Wars themes - a lot of action scenes, sure, but it was also about belonging, family, redemption, protectiveness, friendship. Meaning that the studios didn’t lose track or are too dumb to think up a good story.

The Rise of Skywalker seems to bring the saga to a closure, but it could also be a wholly new beginning; the beginning of what I was foreseeing and still believe was in the cards - a new galaxy with a new and better political order kept together by a common belief in the Force as a whole; a new Jedi order where Force-sensitive children are not torn away from their families but can choose whether they want to become Jedi or not; and where Jedi are not taught emotional detachment. This would mean balance at last, a balance from which everyone would benefit. I have no idea how Ben Solo could be revived but I still am certain that he would be an excellent father figure, the perfect foil to his grandfather; and that the best thing for Rey would be to take care of children who are lost and abandoned the way she once was. And with Rey being a Palpatine, there is an interesting ground from which to explore her character’s tendency to the Dark, mirroring Ben’s. The basic approaches for this kind of development were all there in The Last Jedi. But a project like that would be something completely different from the original saga, and it would take a lot of time. Maybe that’s why the studios dropped it in favor of appeasing the angry fanbros who didn’t receive The Last Jedi well at all.

Anyone has the right to think that the original trilogy is the one and only and that the rest is rubbish. But the heroes of that story had their friendship, their family, their adventures, their successes, their happy ending. Even the heroes of the prequel trilogy had their moments, including Anakin Skywalker. Our heroes didn’t. That’s why this ending is so bitter for us and so hard to stomach. Essentially, we were right - we knew that Ben and Rey belong together, that Ben would redeem himself and make peace with his family, that balance would come. What we didn’t get was our happy ending.

The Force Awakens was still more or less accepted, because despite the many new themes and choices it wasn’t subversive and controversial in its approach. The actual wasps’ nest was stirred with The Last Jedi. No argumentation could convince antis that it is actually a well-made film and that their personal approach on the saga is too narrow-minded to appreciate it. They wanted the same villains, the same settings and costumes, the same heroes (or at least rehashes). And they had a right to want that, exactly as we had the right to expect a better development and ending for our new heroes. The hardcore OT fans wanted and expected The New Adventures of Han, Luke and Leia kicking ass. Well, it seems The Rise of Skywalker took care of that, finally giving them what they wanted and ignoring or “correcting” the course of events from The Last Jedi.

So, that’s it now. The OT fanbros got “their” Star Wars. I hope they’re finally appeased. They can ignore anything that happens next. That the saga is finished does not mean that the Star Wars universe came to a standstill.

If fans of the original trilogy felt entitled to ask for The Last Jedi to be removed from canon, or at least to be “fixed” in some way, so can we. In case you didn’t see it yet, the petition is already there: https://www.change.org/p/lucasfilm-continue-ben-solo-s-story

Let’s tell the studios to keep TRoS the way they prefer, but that we wish to have our Star Wars now. Let us not steep down to the level of who made the lives of actors who played characters they disapproved of a living hell (see above) or say over and over “Star Wars is dead” when we don’t know what’s in store for the future. With the Star Wars universe, you always have to be patient. In the meantime, we can write and read fanfiction and other stories and purse our own lives, telling our own happy endings.

Happy New Year everyone. Feel free to reblog. 😊

  P.P.S. On a side note: Rey’s last scene shows her where Luke used to be, on Tatooine watching the suns set. The twin suns. In A New Hope, this was shortly before he met the other half of his soul who had been separated from him right after birth - his twin sister. Considering that it was explicitly said that Rey and Ben Solo share the same soul, it might be a hint about the future. I’m not trying to make false promises or to fuel wrong expectations here. Just sayin’. 😉

[maysurprisedyou]

The Guilty Fallen (Good Omens)

(TW: suicidal character, attempted suicide)

Years had passed since the world had been renewed. Aziraphale and Crowley had since become free to be comfortable in each other's company without the interference of their respective celestial offices. Although it never really worked like that. Not perfectly. They were, after all, on earth.

Yes, something had been eating away at Crowley, and it was now on its final course.

If I hadn't fallen, I would've been there for Aziraphale to stand up to those bullies who call themselves archangels...

Piece after piece of his sanity was being taken year after year until all of his being was telling him, "The best way a fallen angel like you can help him is by going away. Maybe then those poor excuses for angels would leave your Angel alone."

(Now, it is important to note that while a few years is an impressive amount of time to keep quiet about such irrational fears, these are immortal beings. Years for them pass almost like days...)

And yet time does take its toll, no matter how short it may feel, and Crowley has reached a point of near insanity from an issue that he's let bubble inside of him for far too long.

If I hadn't hung around him, maybe the forces of heaven would see Aziraphale differently. If I had just kept to myself, maybe... maybe everything would have been different.

And perhaps that would have been the case. But it was too late now, and it was time he finally made a choice.

___________________________

Aziraphale stared down at his ansaphone nervously. He wished desperately that maybe he had missed a call back from the demon, maybe the timing had simply been wrong every time he'd tried.

It had been weeks, and Crowley was nowhere to be found.

In a nervous fit, Aziraphale had made his way to Crowley's flat, searching for any sign that the demon was still there.

He was met only with the plants, which he promptly watered as they were shaking in near dehydration.

Despite himself, the angel soon found himself praying. Praying directly to God this time after he'd realized he'd lost faith in the others up there. "God..." he began, his throat feeling dry already. "If there's some way... some way I could find him. I would do anything, truly. I know he's fallen, but he was an angel once... He's all I have left..."

The tired old angel sighed, taking his coat as he left the flat and began wandering with no real destination in mind.

His thoughts were racing faster than they'd ever gone before, so much so that he only lifted his gaze when a familiar town appeared in front of him. He had walked for a little over a day.

Tadfield brought a great mixture of feelings to Aziraphale's heart. It was almost as if coming to the place where the world was meant to end made one's life flash before his eyes.

Meanwhile, four bikes approached him in his trance.

"Are you alright?" a slightly deep voice asked.

The angel snapped his gaze to the speaker with a head of curly hair. Last he'd seen him, he was much less tall.

Aziraphale stepped to the side slightly. "Ah, hello, yes, quite alright. Sorry for blocking the road, keep on then."

But the group stayed. "Excuse me for asking, if you don't mind, were you here four years ago?" the boy asked.

"Well, yes, I did happen to be here," Aziraphale replied, giving a small smile and leaving it at that.

The boy's gaze remained along with the rest of his group. He noticed the man hadn't aged a bit, although there were dark rings under his eyes, and he appeared rather thinner than he'd remembered.

(Of course, angels don't need sleep or sustenance, but if you go so long training a body to desire something, it tends to show when you refuse it that.)

But the boy noticed something else, too.

"Is your friend here as well? The one with the sunglasses?"

Aziraphale's smile vanished as quickly as it came. "Well- I'm afraid..." he began shakily, "I'm afraid I can't find him, young boy."

He then proceeded to confide in the boy, adding in rather too many unnecessary details as the rest of Them quietly slipped away to leave the two alone. By the time they had finished talking, the sun had begun to set.

"I could help you find him," the boy offered lightly. "The world isn't infinite, after all, reckon he'll show up here at some point."

"That would be all too kind- ahm..."

"Adam."

"Right. Adam. I would appreciate it immensely... It's hard to imagine a world without him at this point... I'd rather not see that fear come true."

_______________________________

Crowley was no longer putting effort into keeping himself from being found. He missed his Angel with a stronger passion than he'd ever felt, but he did all he could to turn his brain away from such thoughts.

However, there's only so many things you CAN think of as alternatives, and Crowley was coming to the end of the line.

When he took in his surroundings, he realized he had stumbled into Tadfield, his insides churning at all the memories this brought him. The last time he'd been here, he'd been looking at everything through a windshield full of smoke. Now all was quiet, the night bringing a tranquility he felt was undeserved.

Maybe here I can do it... end it, once and for all. I would be gone, from this world at least. Hell knows I wouldn't be back down there to get another body.

Thoughts like these swirled in his mind endlessly as he made his way towards the airbase, where he would be making a very permanent decision.

____________________________

Aziraphale got up with a start. The love he had felt emanating from Adam had quickly switched to alarm.

"Is he-" Aziraphale dared to ask.

"Yes," Adam answered hurriedly, calling over the rest of The Them as he grabbed his bike.

They would ride yet again to that fated airbase, the former four horsemen, with an angel in tow.

(Aziraphale saw no qualms in letting his wings out to keep up with them. His company was the former antichrist, he had surely seen wilder things.)

They raced to the airbase, not wasting a second.

And when they arrived, they were greeted with a terrifying, yet beautiful sight.

____________________________

"Might as well go out with style," Crowley said to himself quietly. "I've fallen once already, seems fitting to go out that way the second time."

He had formed this plan on the long trudge to the airbase, revising it inside his head until he felt it was foolproof.

He winced at the slight pain in his wing. This was only to assure that he wouldn't chicken out at the final moment. Enough to fly up, but incapable of saving him when he would soon find himself plunging back down.

Taking a deep breath, he let his wings fan out further to prepare his ascent. He willed his mind to be silent. This was it.

______________________________

Aziraphale watched in horror at the breathtaking sight before him.

His angel, his fallen angel, arcing beautifully in the air, the moon casting him in shadow. Something was dripping from his left wing.

And Aziraphale knew, oh he knew. He knew exactly what he was doing, but he couldn't stand by to watch it happen.

_________________________________

It was time. Crowley had given himself up to the wind whistling through his wings, nipping at the fresh wound there.

I wish the best for you, Angel.

He felt himself falling, this fall feeling longer and much more painful than the first.

Just as he nearly hit the earth, however, he felt strong arms wrap around him instead, and his eyes opened to see his Angel, his marvelous Angel, staring down at him with all the worry and Love in the universe.

"You're safe," his savior whispered, tears appearing in his eyes. "Thank God you're safe."

Crowley found tears forming in his eyes as well. He had spent all this time convincing himself he'd never see the face of this angel again, yet here he was, arms wrapped tightly around him as if he were the most precious treasure in the world.

Crowley's heart welled with feelings of regret, sadness, and deep joy.

"Aziraphale, why are you here? I was only doing it to protect you- I never wanted you to see me like this-"

But Aziraphale hushed him, holding him close as he blew a healing wind onto the other's wound, the pain dulling to a slight throb.

"I'm sorry I j- well I- I didn't want... you're still an angel and I'm. Well I'm not." He desperately tried to explain himself, digging for some sort of excuse, some sort of validation for his actions, unsure of whether it was for him or Aziraphale anymore.

"Oh, Crowley," Aziraphale responded softly. "Something as small as that would not keep me from loving you. I've loved you for a long time, Crowley. Rather more than 6000 years at this point, actually. I'd never wish for us to be apart, even if it meant accepting that I've fallen. I've chosen my side, dear boy, and that side is with you. Never forget that."

Crowley couldn't find the words to respond, looking down slightly and telling his Angel to put him down, without really meaning it.

Our side, he thought to himself. It really could be that simple.

[letterboxd]

TIFF Premieres.

We reveal the highest-rated world premieres at Toronto, and unpack the Letterboxd reactions to the TIFF People’s Choice winner, Jojo Rabbit.

The ten highest-rated narrative feature films at TIFF this year were, in order: Parasite, Bacurau, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Marriage Story, The Lighthouse, Knives Out, Uncut Gems, Pain and Glory, Honey Boy and Jojo Rabbit.

Of those, only Knives Out and Jojo Rabbit had their world premieres at TIFF; the others have had the chance to climb the Letterboxd ranks over the past several months (with the exception of Marriage Story, which premiered at Venice, and Uncut Gems at Telluride).

But when we looked at the ten highest-rated narrative features based purely on TIFF world premiere status, that shook things up. We get some Midnight Madness, several local Canadian features, three women directors, and Riz Ahmed speaking both in English and American Sign Language. We made a list:

The top ten premieres at TIFF 2019 as ranked by the Letterboxd community.

Unpacking the People’s Choice winner

The Taika Waititi-directed Jojo Rabbit won TIFF’s coveted Grolsch People’s Choice award, a gong that often points directly to Oscar success, as outlined in this IndieWire explainer. The first runner-up was Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story, and Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite claimed third spot.

We were at Jojo Rabbit’s world premiere screening, where the atmosphere was buoyant and the jokes landed just where Waititi intended (for most audience members, but we’ll get to that).

A still from Taika Waititi’s short film ‘Tama Tū’ (2005).

Considering Jojo Rabbit in the context of Waititi’s earlier films, it’s rewarding to see threads that run through his other work all tied together in this. War, and the ordinary people who get stuck in it, is a topic of fascination, from the silly humor juxtaposed against a tense waiting game in Tama Tū, his short about a small contingent of the 28th Māori Battalion fighting in Italy in World War Two, to the scene on the beach in Boy, where Boy, his brother and their wayward father Alamein play at “war” with sticks. (The name is no accident: El Alamein in Egypt was the site of the longest WWII campaign fought by New Zealand soldiers, including members of the Māori Battalion. It's telling that Alamein prefers to go by his Crazy Horses gang name, "Shogun".). Then there’s the epic finale of Hunt for the Wilderpeople, which literally involves the New Zealand Army.

Te Aho Eketone-Whitu, James Rolleston and Taika Waititi in ‘Boy’ (2010).

Children in sticky situations—usually caused by adults—is another common thread, whether they’ve been left to fend for themselves outside a rural pub (watch that one here), or lifted from the city and fostered out to a remote farm, or sent to a Nazi Youth boot camp. These are horror scenarios, but by focusing on the worlds and friendships that children create for themselves in these circumstances, Waititi invites us to see how ridiculous grown-ups are; often more childish than the children they’re supposed to be parenting. That stupid Terminator argument between Ricky Baker and Paula the child welfare officer in Hunt for the Wilderpeople; the “foolish sucka!” scene in Eagle vs. Shark; the debate over whose turn it is to do the bloody dishes in What We Do in the Shadows.

A still from Taika Waititi’s short film ‘Two Cars, One Night’ (2003).

Colonialism and its consequences sit heavily beneath all of Waititi’s work, even Thor: Ragnarok, in its examination of the bloody history of Asgard, the events that precipitate a refugee crisis, and what it means to lose your land, and your people. Absent parents—and the effects of yearning for father figures in particular—are common themes, too. This is true even when a parent is present. Witness Alamein's plea in Boy: “Can you stop calling me ‘dad’? It sounds weird.” And the slow transformation of Sam Neill's "man alone" Wilderpeople character.

Waititi said at the Jojo Rabbit premiere that the film is a love letter to solo mothers. This applies off-screen as much as on: his mother introduced him to Christine Leunens’ book Caging Skies, upon which the film is based, and his wife, producer Chelsea Winstanley, who spent many years as a solo mother, provided inspiration for the imaginary friend storyline. Finally, Jojo Rabbit is also an ode to freedom, especially the freedom of one’s own mind in the face of inappropriate heroes and dangerous ideologies.

One thing the Letterboxd reviews out of TIFF agree on: the brilliant young actors (Roman Griffin Davis as Jojo, Archie Yates as his best friend Yorkie, and Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie as Elsa). “One has to congratulate Waititi for his—once again—great casting. The child actors are a joy to watch,” writes Jesse, with Brock praising McKenzie in particular: “Thomasin McKenzie smashes it again, proving with this, and last year’s underseen masterpiece Leave No Trace, that she is one of the best young actresses working today.”

What’s more debatable, looking through the reviews, is Waititi’s command of the film’s tonal shifts. "This is stupid and smart at the same time and is made with a great big heart," writes Ella. “Some things happen that are so heartbreaking that it would be difficult to imagine how the film could go back into joke mode a mere two scenes later, but it does, and it works,” observes Justin. This was all a pleasant surprise to Matt, who writes: “I had no idea Waititi was capable of landing such diverse and effective tones while still keeping things (relatively) fun.”

“Taika’s skill is to masterfully weave humor, sweetness, the absurd and goofiness right alongside weightier issues and tragedy,” Jennifer elaborates. “He does it with such a deft hand that you might miss how incredibly talented he is. He is my modern day Frank Capra.”

Sam Rockwell, Scarlett Johansson and Roman Griffin Davis in ‘Jojo Rabbit’.

However, not everyone was charmed by Waititi’s style. Keith Uhlich took issue with the way the director “prefers to treat his audience like drooling cretins who need their hands held through every shift in tone, reassured that everything, even in a world off its axis, is going to work out”.

“Anti-intellectual nonsense,” writes Jesse. “Waititi claimed to have made this film in order to remember the horrors of nazi Germany and WWII, instead it joins the ranks of narratives that [revise] history… belittling them from their ideology.”

This was concerning to Awilmc: “I was shocked to read a number of negative reviews that said it glossed over the details of WWII… I mean… it was a satire and told through the perspective of a child who clearly wasn’t aware or, at the very least, did not fully understand the circumstances of the devastation and evil around him… Jojo was after all in every single scene.” Adds Karsten, “If there was a film that truly felt like it needed to happen in 2019, it was Jojo Rabbit.”

At several points in the film, characters note that, within the horrendous circumstances of war, people "did what they could". The same is true of Waititi, from whom nobody expects a straight-up drama. In what other movie would "Shitler" be portrayed with a shabby German accent by a Jewish-Māori from the South Pacific?

‘Jojo Rabbit’ is currently sitting at 3.9 out of 5 stars on Letterboxd; higher than any other aggregated score for the film. It opens in US cinemas October 18 and over subsequent months around the globe.

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

Symbiote Spider-Man #1 Thoughts

Tl:dr version: Screw Ahmed’s ASM annual, THIS is a black costume story done right!

I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect with this book.

In spite of the back pages from editor Devin Lewis (who I am shocked to discover is about my age...Jesus) this is a title clearly existing because

a)      Venom had a movie last year

b)      Mysterio will be in a movie this year

c)       Venom is perennially popular

d)      The black suit is perennially popular

e)      There is an event coming up centred around those who were hosts to symbiotes, Spider-Man being the most famous

And as a side note the Spider Office/Peter David himself seem keen to maintain a PAD led title of some sort. No complaints from me, older creators shouldn’t be thrown away, especially one as talented as PAD.

However in this issue PAD has delivered quite frankly his best Spider-Man work in YEARS, possibly a whole decade. His 2099 book? This blows it out the water. His Scarlet Spider work, lol please.

I attribute this to 3 key factors:

a)      PAD is writing a character he honestly likes which wasn’t the case with Ben Reilly

b)      PAD is writing the character in the status quo he’d obviously prefer which wasn’t the case for 2099

c)       This being an untold tale series that’s also a mini, this title cannot be derailed by crossovers which was the case in...pretty much everything Spider related he’s written since 2005

This issue was magnificent.

It is essentially Peter David doing Untold Tales of Spider-Man but set in the Alien Costume Saga.

Untold Tales’ writing intended to evoke a bygone era (coincidentally 30+ years before its publication, just like this series) but with a dash of modernity.

This series is much the same.

The dialogue is mostly modern but leans a bit more towards the past, is happy to use editorial captions for comic references (something most modern comics are afraid to do for some reason) and is doesn’t feel all that out of place with the stories of 1984!

The same cannot be said for the art which is obviously nothing like what Frenz and (to a less extent) Leonardi were doing back then.

However even then, maybe I just didn’t notice but the art honestly seemed...okay. Considering this is Greg Land this surprised me. Maybe someone will do a breakdown to prove me wrong but I didn’t notice anything that wrong with it.

Well that is until Felicia turned up then you realize he was obviously tracing. She looked a little like Pamela Anderson to me but god knows who he was ‘basing’ her on.

The only REAL art problem I noticed was the miscolouring of Felicia’s hair. She was a regular blonde as opposed to the platinum blonde she is supposed to be, but you could just say that was artistic licence.

Though it becomes harder to ignore since she’s supposed to resemble another blonde woman earlier in the story. I guess she was platinum blonde too?????

ANYWAY, the story itself is solid.

It’s a Mysterio character piece first and foremost and you can tell PAD loves this character a lot. I was worried it was going to be another origin for Mysterio contradicting his canon one but it wasn’t. It honestly felt very much like a story we might’ve gotten from back in the 80s had anyone been that interested in Mysterio.

It brings up the good point that, IIRC is entirely true, that (at least at this point in time) Mysterio never killed anyone and has him have a crisis when he inadvertently leads to a woman dying.

Honestly the main problems with this story were the woman arguably getting fridged and how maybe lame the set up for it was. She was literally introduced, established as having a family and axed within the same scene. Okay that scene plus Felicia concluding the costume was alive. I guess you can No. Prize it away but it seems kinda weird that neither Peter nor Felicia brought up how she called it right that day. Maybe they just forgot. Also maybe it was a bit of a continuity error that Felicia calls out Peter for being angry that she doesn’t accept his normal life. Then again I think you could massage continuity to make it fit.

Speaking of Felicia PAD likes the character, PAD likes this era for her and for the series (no shit, this was around the time he began writing Spider-Man so he’s very much at home here) and along with Spencer and Marvel over all he seems to be throwing Felicia much love now Slott is done abusing her.

Unlike in Ahmed’s shitty ass Annual last year Felicia is on point here and entirely within character (love her flirtation) with PAD throwing us a moment that I’m sure must’ve happened off panel at some point but we never get to see it.

Felicia basically confronting the ghost of Uncle Ben. PAD nails the tension between the Peter/Spidey/Felicia love triangle but does it correctly. Too often people oversimplify that she simply wholesale rejected his life as Peter Parker when the truth is whilst that was Felicia’s initial reaction, she did TRY to accept that side of Peter.

Going to Ben’s grave formally meeting Aunt May (she’d previously done so in costume) does that. She likes Aunt May, she’s sympathetic towards Peter (she lost her Dad too remember).

This is good drama no one ever milked!

Plus it, along with many other moments in the issue were just funny, you could tell PAD  was having a good time and he’s a witty writer in general.

I think a key component of this issue’s success is that it’s well researched. I’d somewhat forgive PAD for not re-reading the Alien Costume saga since it was around the time he was working on Spider-Man, but apparently he re-read both trades collecting the Alien Costume Saga and you can tell.

Unlike Ahmed who clearly didn’t read these issues because he made blatantly obvious mistakes, apart from the teeny tiny nitpicks I mentioned NOTHING in this issue is out of place.

And I know because I double checked!

Numerous times I thought I’d spotted an error.

-          Aunt May knowing Peter dropped out of college

-          The Human Fly being alive

-          Spider-Man’s aggression which I thought was being implied to be the symbiote’s fault

Nope. Nope. Nope.

PAD danced between the raindrops of continuity expertly. Aunt May found out Peter dropped out in ASM #253 DURING the Alien Costume Saga. The Human Fly was in fact alive, seen in a story shortly before Peter went to Battleworld. Peter’s aggression has an entirely different and logical explanation.

It was a job worthy of Busieck. Much kudos to PAD! Much shame on Ahmed.

Okay now let’s talk about the elephant in the room, or rather the twin set of elephants.

Yeah in this story...the Twin Towers are just fine.

There is a very interesting explanation at the back of the issue as to why this was.

Essentially PAD and Marvel were in two minds (ironically) about including the Towers for obvious reasons, PAD even having an alternately written scene in mind.

Now from a reader point of view it was a shock, I felt something so that’s good. And PAD being in New York when it happened I think lends him a certain degree of licence to touch on the tragedy. He actually already has in his 2099 book, a character revealed as a latent Inhuman comments that her life was shaped by the tragedy. That was maybe the first time ever since the ASM tribute issue that I recall a Marvel title using 9/11 as a piece of history as a story element much as they use WWII all the time.

The rationale behind doing it at all was that it was more immersive in the period, because obviously in 1984 the Twin Towers were still there. Although I wasn’t sure if PAD’s implication was that if you backtracked from this point in Spider-Man’s life to the point when he had the black suit that the Towers would still have been there. Because the latter would not be true since at most Peter would’ve been 17-18 and that’s if you accept he’s 35 NOW!

Regardless I think it worked well, I think Marvel handled it tastefully and I respect that they made the effort to justify it as opposed to just throwing it out there.

It’s also very much in line with the ethos of Untold Tales because IIRC whilst the stories were not EXACTLY set in the 1960s they were effectively set in the 1960s and had the same fashions.* Along with the Towers PAD also throws out references to the Muppet Babies and Power Pack who were huge in the 1980s.

All in all I can’t recommend this title highly enough.

BUY IT!

P.S. the only other complaint I have is that we’re apparently getting the Spot later and the Spot didn’t show up until after the Saga. So...we’ll see what happens there.

*Even though nobody in the actual 1960s looked or talked much like Stan Lee wrote Peter and the gang to but you catch my drift.

[wildlyfamousmusic]

Another message to Webweildingavenger

Bullshit.

You are essentially arguing that if Gwen Stacy came back and the Green Goblin killed her but it was ‘different’ that’d be okay, even though it’s literally the same versions of the characters. I’m not even talking about an AU or an adaptation I’m talking about Sandman having TWO heartfelt sombee death stories in his canonical biography. This may surprise you but most people die just the once in real life, therefore that should ideally extend to fictional characters intended to be reflections of us too. 

Uh huh. And just because Sandman is dying, doesn’t make this story any less bad nor intriguing. Infact, it could be a heartfelt story and one that could serve an importance later on or at least an impact. 

Killing off Sandman is inherently stupid in the first place as you are removing one of Spider-Man’s more memorable villains off the table, but literally having the same concept behind the story is asinine. 

I don’t see the point. Sandman could be dying. Or at least lead to something interesting that could serve Spidey and him. Something to do with that depending on what the story may take. It’s not as bad as randomly killing off characters good or evil in poor taste unlike the previous run.....

This isn’t like Hunted where killing Kraven again for starters wasn’t the same concept but more specifically was a means to an end, that end being course correcting the fact he ever came back. 

Yep. That was the best part. This however is different for a story like Sandman compared to others. 

With Sandman Zdarsky, as is routine with him, arbitrarily ignored whatever he wanted and ploughed on ahead with HIS version of Sandman’s death rooted in the same concept.

Same concept with an interesting idea. Whatever Flint was going through compared to his other experience, it could lead somewhere. 

So what’s next?

Are we going to go ahead and accept Aunt May finding out Peter is Spider-Man again if it ignores that she already knew or indeed that she finds out after she finds him beat up and they have an issue long conversation about it? Will it be okay for Kingpin to target Aunt May prompting Spider-Man to kill him again? 

None of those would likely be what Sandman had gone through. Whatever Aunt May’s death would be, it should be a satisfying and impactful end to her character. 

“Really,it honestly shows you have some kind of feelings towards Zdarsky.”

a) Duh I hate his work because it sucks shit and 

No, not really. 

b) I can say the same of you in the opposite direction

“Ho early, his work had been great under Spidey.”

No, it absolutely has not. As I’ve pointed out time and time again it’s shit. 

And your reasons weren’t good enough nor really fair and I brought up how they were. you just didn’t respond or accept it. 

"Honestly, Nick Spencer is great. But,even his stuff has problems.”

Never said it didn’t. I critiqued Hunted and his second issue and his latest issue in fact and even the issue where MJ opens up to the therapy group. 

Yes, he has some good stuff and great stuff. But, his strength his missing. He needs to put in more of those strength. 

But there is a difference between having problems but being good on balance and killing off Sandman AGAIN, having Jameson find out AGAIN but ignoring what happened the first time he knew, establishing Spidey has a secret agent secret sister from his secret agents parents’ secret pregnancy and having an embarassing lack of knowledge about how the Cold War worked! 

Stuff with Jameson was not how we wanted. But, it’s a start. And the stuff prior to it like his annual was fine enough. Teresa was one fans from what I’ve seen wanted back and were interested in see how much she could play into the mythos. infact, it would not be just Zdarsky who would find her interesting but so would Nick Spencer, Gerry Duggan, Donny Cates, and may other writers. 

“Like, some of his stories aren’t strong enough. Even Hunted which had a strong beginning and end had a pretty weak middle that was holding back on things.”

The middle wasn’t weak, it had weaknesses that’s not the same thing. 

Weak, Weaknesses, same thing. And if you read my previous message you would understand why. It didn’t feel like the horror survival that it could. It felt like it was holding itself back. just putting some filler HU like Vulture. The middle could’ve been stronger if it felt more like a horror survival.

Game of Thrones had a strong start but grew weak in the middle and ended weakly. The Infinity Saga had weaknesses at various points but none of the 3 phrases were weak. See the difference? 

Game Of Thrones was a series with plenty of episodes that had 8 seasons. Infinity Saga had a strong beginning, middle, and end with what has been given to us. Hunted is an arc that had a strong beginning and end but had a weak middle for many reasons like it didn’t feel horrifying enough, the HUs like Vulture weren’t strong enough, the deaths in the survival weren’t hard hitting aside from Gibbon, things with Vermin before the end was bizarre, everything in the middle felt like it was holding back. 

“Really, as much as Nick Spencer is bringing things back, his writing isn’t really shown the same when it comes to the level of quality like Zdarsky and even Donny Cates.”

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Okay I loves Cates and I’m not going to criticise him. His work is very strong. As strong as Spencer’s? I’d say just different, neither better nor worse. I think some of the concepts he comes up with could be communicated a little better and he ignores continuity to an extent but the continuity he ignores in his Venom run is stuff that’s already a mess anyway. 

Yeah, That strong.

As for Zdarsky ***** please.

Zdarsky is a better Spider-Man writer than Spencer.

Let’s put aside how if that’s true it’s incredibly unlikely that Spencer would’ve gotten that gig instead of Zdarsky. Zdarsky was popuiar at a time when Spencer was reviled. Zdarsky had well recieved work on actual Spider-Man projects whilst Spencer merely had Superior Foes, an acclaimed book not actually about Spider-Man and circa 2018 a long since cancelled title.

How the flying fuck exactly can Zdarsky, the dude who literally IGNORED Jameson’s decades long characterization, his co-writer Slott’s own continuity regarding the mind wipe AND mere 10 year old continuity, be doing a good job? 

Be better than Slott. you see, for a while, we had so much bad stuff from Slott that he basically nearly ruined everything that made the Spider-Man Mythos so unique and brilliant. Zdarsky was the guy to help fix things for a while with better writing, impactful stories, brilliant handlings of the characters, and a much more satisfying end to his run before Nick Spencer took over to fix things and bring some interesting stuff as well as Tom Taylor who mostly has some good stuff and sometimes not and Donny Cates who’ve brought some interesting things. Same with Saladin Ahmed for Miles. 

Do you get it? That’s OBJECTIVELY BAD writing! 

Read my previous post ontop. No, it’s not. It’s Really not. 

Spencer meanwhile went ahead and refamiliarized himself with most Spider-Man stories, used that stuff and generally keeps it in line, keeping everyone in character and consistent to their established characterization. 

yes, but while he does that, what I want is better and stronger writing. What he needs  is to make things stronger. Because if there were ever story arcs we would expect in the near future, he needs to make them stronger. And so far, his 2099 arc seems to be that/ 

When he killed someone off a second time he did it with the explicit intention of fixing the fact he ever came back and acknowledging the prior time he died. The story was also different in concept to the original, not the same general idea at all. 

Same with Zdarsky. But, the story with Nick Spencer was a very brilliant conclusion to Kraven and a brilliant take on the story at the end. 

Zdarsky had Spider-Man go on adventures in time travel  and alien crap before following up with the single most overrated Spider-Man mini/AU of all time where he systemically wrote Peter, MJ, and indeed most everyone out of character and failed to demonstrate even basic knowledge of real life history. 

Aliens and other stuff. But, it did give The Tinkerer a very interesting take making him relatable to his views on humanity and an interesting backstory when he confronted Spidey at the end. Plus, the time travel stuff was very well handled bringing in some interesting stuff, emotional and impactful moments, some interesting results, and some brilliant high end struggle.  The stuff was bizarre but handled well. Especially with what it’s like meeting your past self and fix all those mistakes and teaching him to be a better person. 

The stuff with the Nukes was already explained and the stuff took place while the heroes were in Secret Wars.

Spencer in contrast deconstructed Peter’s character in 5 issues before reconstructing him and realigning him at the very least closer to who he is as opposed to what Slott, the BND staff and yes Zdarsky himself contorted him into for over 10 years. 

No, Zdarsky did him well before Nick took over. He just made him more competent before Nick fixed his life. Like I said, woth Zdarsky, Peter 

Made sacrifices for himself 

made a villain a better person. 

ouytbested the other heroes and foes. 

fought off against a team of SWATs while they were gonna bring harm to his neighbors if he didn’t show. 

turned himself in to save his Aunt May 

Nearly risked his life to save all life 

taught his younger self to be a better person 

Gave Sandman the opportunity to have his final moments even nearly revealing himself especially since he sees the good in Flint at the end like he always had 

Get treated with respect from the other heroes instead of being made fun of or look like an idiot

the final issue of his run. 

stuff like that before Ni9ck took over. See what I mean when I said you ignore most pf what Zdarsky did. and compared to the likes of Slott, Waid, Bendis, and the others during BND, Zdrasky did it better. Better before Nick Spencer took over. Better before Sean Ryan took over. And as good as Donny Cates got involved. 

Nick was fixing things and did some good and great things. But, compared to the strength in quality, it hasn’t picked up yet. And since his issue 29, Absolute Carnage Tie In, and first chapter of his 2099 arc, it looks like it’s starting to pick up. And what Nick needs is that level of quality in his work. 

Shit dude, Spencer even USED Zdarsky’s own continuity better than he did in the Lifetime Achievement arc where he gave us a potted summation of exactly who Jameson is! 

No, not really. His Jamson arc was good. But, like I said, the quality of his work needed to be stronger.

Zdarsky throughout his run has REJECTED the idea of the wider Marvel universe intruding upon Peter’s adventures and thereby making him look weaker and less competent as a result. Zdarsky WASTED a 300th issue on that and followed it up with a shitty Black Cat story. 

HOW? He bested both TChalla and Hawkeye making them look like fools, he bested the Six, tried to outbest The Tinkerer, Beated Norman Osborn while trying to save his Aunt May and his younger self, made the boldest sacrifice in trying to stop The Tinkeer, made the Tinkerer into a better person connecting his essence with his, bested Norman’s police force, bested the SWAT team while he was on the run and while his neighbors were at risk from them, gave Sandmam his final moments. Please. Tell Me. How Did He Make Peter Entirely Incompetent The entire time. Because From What I’ve Seen, He Made The EXACT OPPOSSITE. I can expect a few hang ups from Nick’s take. But, neither of them were incompetent at all. it just shows you have some problems with Zdarsky overall. And whatever that is, you need to deal with that.  

Also, his Black Cat story was suppose to be a gag issue.  Infact, it was a Parody of Tom King’s Wedding arc of Batman and Catwoman in that exact moment Bruce proposed to Selina. Look it up.

Spencer took the Gibbon and in one issue wrote one of the best single issue Spider-Man stories of this decade. Zdarsky decided to take the Tinkerer and retcon that he WAS in fact associated with aliens, an idea so stupid Lee and Ditko distanced themselves from it and other better writers further buried that idea in the 1980s. 

The Gibbon issue was good. But, Zdarsky made the thing with The Tinkerer better making him more relatable as well as getting some personal backstory he held for so long.

Shall we compare their pet projects? Okay.

Life Story vs. Superior Foes.

On the one hand a side splitting story that develops a C or D list character into a fan favourite and on the other a story that is so idiotic it thinks that that America wouldn’t  simply win the Vietnam War if they had fucking superheroes on their side! 

Nick made that work. So did Zdarsky, infact, many writers can make many C and D list characters better. 

So….Spencer is worse than Zdarsky how again?

Not to mention btw, it’s pretty weak to try and build up Zdarsky by throwing shade at Spencer. 

You make it li9ke you claim Spider-Man wasn’t better until  Spencer took over which isn’t really the case especially with the @#$% Bendis, Slott, Waid, and the rest had given us before Zdarsky took over. So saying a brilliant writer handle come to fix things hadn’t existed is pretty insulting. Especially since a writer like Spencer, while he is fixing things, hasn’t reached to the level of quality it needed to be. And so far, his issue 29, Absolute Carnage, and 2099 were the strongest we’ve ever gotten in a while. I don’t hate Nick Spencer nor do I find him anything bad. What I want is that his work needs to be in the level of Quality as it should.

“Honestly, the best one he had since his first 4-5 issues of his ASM was his Absolute Carnage Tie in.”

a) There were 2 tie-in issues 

Yes, both good.

b) Many people, myself would argue ASM #29 was better 

29 was great. But the tie ins were an improvememt.

c) Even if one disagrees with that ASM #29 is simply different to the Absolute Carnage tie-in issues as they are distinctly different types of stories

d) Even if those WERE the best that doesn’t support any kind of argument against Spencer because 4/5 of the last 5 issues were good, just because one or two of them were the best of the bunch doesn’t discredit him. Shit the last 5 issues weren’t even BAD! 

I’m not saying the last 5 were bad. The Syndicate arc was a bit weak but good. But, it’s not up to the same level of quality as issue 29, Absolute Carnage Tie In, and 2099 later on. 

e) If hypothetically the Absolute Carnage tie-ins WERE the best issues he did out of the last 5 how does this devalue Spencer? Spencer made 2 issues hijacking his book due to an event, in which the inherently asinine idea of Norman as Carnage was a thing, work to exceptional effect. That doesn’t devalue him that shows you how skilled he is. 

Yes, that’s what I meant when his story on that was the best. And his 2099 seems to be reaching there as well. 

“Honestly,he has alot of stories to unfold in the future. And if he continues to hold back on them,then he Really needs either a co-writer or just put more thought into them.”

Please. Just cut the shit okay.

You are at this point dissing Spencer who doesn’t deserve it (’he needs a co-writer’ my ass) to build up your favourite horse. 

I’m not dissing him as a writer. I Want him to be greater. I Want him to reach that level of quality. If you ignored a previous writer’s best work and said none of the stuff ever happened Before that writer showed up even though that writer’s quality is not up to par, it’s not only ignorant, but, also insulting. After all this time Spider-Man fans suffered, saying this type of @#$% is insulting. And Really, I Want Nick Spener to Reach that level of work. And if we ever get to a very important story arc or more like with some very important ones like Goblin, Kindred, Otto, and stuff, then Nick Spencer NEEDS to put in that same level of quality. otherwise the whole thing would suffer and be for nothing.

[johnnymundano]

Slasher Season 1: The Executioner (2016)

Directed by Craig David Wallace

Written by Aaron Martin

Music by Shawn Pierce

Country: Canada

Language: English

8 Episodes of around 46 – 53 minutes each

CAST

Katie McGrath as Sarah Bennett

Brandon Jay McLaren as Dylan Bennett

Steve Byers as Cam Henry

Patrick Garrow as Tom Winston

Dean McDermott as Iain Vaughn

Christopher Jacot as Robin Turner

Wendy Crewson as Brenda Merrit

Jessica Sipos as June Henry

Mary Walsh as Verna McBride

Enuka Okuma as Lisa Ann Follows

Erin Karpluk as Heather Peterson

Mayko Nguyen as Alison Sutherland

Rob Stewart as Alan Henry

Jefferson Brown as Trent McBride

Mark Ghanimé as Justin Faysal

Dylan Taylor as Bryan Ingram

Alysa King as Rachel Ingram

Victoria Snow as Sonja Edwards

Hannah Endicott-Douglas as Ariel Peterson

Shawn Ahmed as Sharma

Booth Savage as Ronald Edwards

Susannah Hoffman as Marjorie Travers

(Guilty Party: I took the images from IMDB because I can’t screengrab over 8 hours and besides, my dog told me to.)

Slasher: The Executioner is a Canadian TV series about, um, slashers and all that slasher stuff. Bogling about The Internet I discovered that the creator, one Aaron Martin by name, has wisely opted for an anthology format, whereby each season (two at present) is a complete storyline. Apparently there is connective tissue between each season  to engender a feel of them taking place in the same Slasher Universe; which is like the Marvel®©™ Universe but with less quips and more mom porn and severed hands. I say “apparently” because I haven’t seen the second season (Slasher: Guilty Party (2017)) I have seen the first season though and that definitely has more mom porn and severed hands than the Marvel®©™ Cinematic Universe.

Now, if you’re reading this thing which is about a TV show called Slasher, then you might think you like slasher movies, but do you like slasher movies enough to watch what is effectively a 7 hour and change slasher movie? Do you? Huh? Huh? That’s a normal working day right there. You are right to be hesitant, as that doesn’t sound like it would work, at least not as entertainment, maybe as a kind of torture. The usual slasher movie is a timidly formulaic creature, so we can characterise the average slasher movie as starting with a brief kill, then some flopping bonelessly about with a solid hour of “meet the characters”, then 40 minutes or so of mayhem, climaxing with a one on one slobberknocker. Stick to that formula for 8 episodes and you’d end up (NB: the maths is a bit loose here) with an exciting first episode, 5.5 episodes of dishwater dull soap-operatics and then an insanely violent final 1.5 episodes. That would of course be stupid, which is one of roughly a billion reasons why they didn’t ask me to make it. No, they asked Aaron Martin and the Slasher gods should be thankful that Aaron Martin knew what to do.

A nagging sense of fairness demands I should pause to note that hundreds of people were involved in the making of Slasher: The Executioner, but it’s accepted shorthand to say “Aaron Martin…” So, “Aaron Martin” made a long-ass slasher movie, but realising this was a marathon and not a sprint, structured each episode so that it worked within the larger narrative framework. It’s an approach familiar to anyone who read mainstream comics back when they had actual stories (rather than today’s unending conversations punctuated by punching; Calm down, Cochise, I’m not saying they were better back then (most of anything is shit after all), I’m just saying they were different). In effect then, for all the none old timey comics fans: in Slasher: The Executioner the uberplot chugs along while various subplots intertwine beneath it breeding red herrings, developing character and basically raising the stakes until uber and under finally intertwine in a climactic crescendo. Oh, and there is at least one kill every episode to keep your unhealthy interest piqued. Got to have those sweet, sweet kills. It is called Slasher after all, not Magic Picnic Time With The Dancing Rainbow Babies. Those dismissive of the slasher movie (Hi, mom!) often underestimate the variety of slasher movies; they aren’t all set in a holiday camp for randy morons on Prom Night one Halloween which is coincidentally, and impossibly, also Friday the 13th. No, there is also Cherry Falls (2000) and, oh, My Bloody Valentine (2009) and, er, anyway, probably some others. This type being The Small Town Terrorised by Its Past slasher, as it is more commonly known. This is the template which Slasher: The Executioner favours most. (The Internet Elves tell me Slasher: Guilty Party riffs on The Holiday Death Camp template).

Events kick off with the present day return of pleasant, newlywed young artist Sarah Bennett (née Ingram) to Waterbury, where she was born on Halloween night in 1988, when a masked killer cut her from the womb of her mother, Rachel. Rachel’s husband, Bryan, had died about ten seconds earlier from a frenzied knife-torso interaction, leaving nobody to hand out candy to the trick or treaters except the killer, The Executioner, who docilely awaited the police cradling the bloody new-born in his arms. It’s fair to say Sarah has issues with Waterbury, and as her arrival coincides with  the start of a spate of copycat Executioner killings, Waterbury has issues with Sarah. And it’s this business that occupies your eyes and ears for the bulk of the 8 episodes. I mean, that was some spoilertastic stuff back there, yeah? But get this…that was only the opening 10 minutes; there’s plenty of unspoiled stuff and, hey, maybe those first 10 minutes I just got spoil all over aren’t all as they initially appear? That is a distinct possibility. Yes it is.

What then unfolds over the televisually paced course of Slasher: The Executioner’s 8 episodes is slashtastically fun stuff. Pretty much everything you expect in a slasher movie happens, because that predictability is part of the fun of a slasher movie. Crucially, however, some stuff you don’t expect to happen in a slasher movie also happens, which is part of the fun of a good slasher movie. A good slasher movie has to both cater to and exceed expectations, and Slasher: the Executioner is a pretty good slasher movie despite its arse-numbing running time.  But then only a glutton would gulp it down one go; Slasher: The Executioner is most rewarding when taken episodically; which is kind of why they made it like that, I guess. With a gap between each episode you can ruminate and ratiocinate in an attempt to understand the motivations, unearth the clues and unmask the killer. Although, good luck with that; the identity of the killer may be easy to guess (it’s [Redacted]!) but it’s a lot less easy to back it up with clues and evidence. It’s more a case of “It’s [Redacted]” because it has to be, rather than you have been perceptive enough to amass an evidence trail suitable for a Court of Law. But then slasher maniacs rarely see the inside of a Court of Law, so going with your gut is okay in this context.

The cast though? I mean, you’re going to be spending a lot of time with these people and given the nature of the beast some of them are going to have to surprise you with who they really turn out to be. Happily, everyone in Slasher: The Executioner is far better at this acting lark than the usual cast of a slasher movie. It probably helps that unlike most slasher movies the cast is portraying adults rather than the more usual teenagers. Feeelingzzzz aside, adult life is a lot more complex than teenage life, so there’s a lot more scope for surprise behaviour wise. And adults by definition have lived longer than teenagers so they have an actual past which could, maybe, be full of misdeeds and tragedy. That kind of thing would be pretty helpful were you trying to fill about 8 hours of screentime, yeah? Yeah, it totally would. As Sarah, Katie McGrath is maybe a bit of a milksop but this, to be fair, pays off later with a major change in attitude, and also in her defence she is mostly on the backfoot as surprises and violence tend to single her out. And she certainly rallies herself with an impressively sad ferocity come the bloody climax. Brandon Jay McLaren as her life partner convinces as a man too nice to be true, but who just might come through. The killer is great and clearly having a fun time, but their performance becomes a real humdinger once the reveal hits and the pretence can be dropped (in front of the viewer at least). Lots of actors, lots of performances and all of them are lots of fun. Some are more fun than others, but saying more would splash spoil all over the place. In a town this big there might be more than one mystery, is all i’m saying.

Slasher: The Executioner is overwrought, it’s daft, it’s violent, it’s rarely dull and it successfully stretches your suspension of disbelief like so much Silly Putty. Pretty much a dreamy slasher experience all in all. Of course many a long form TV show comes a cropper when it has to deliver a definite ending. But rest easy, the end of Slasher: The Executioner doesn’t reveal everyone is dead, and, no, it wasn’t all a dream. The stakes are high ending wise; after nearly 8 hours Slasher needed to deliver a faceslap of an ending, and while the mechanics of what happen are hardly brain meltingly original, the psychological darkness of it was a bleak delight. In short the ending to Slasher: The Executioner is a TV win: it doesn’t make you wish you hadn’t bothered. As long as you came expecting a slasher, that is. The clue’s in the title after all.

[thisiscomics]

Saladin Ahmed’s take on Miles seems very keen to situate him within his community, which is a welcome move in my opinion- now that there are two Spider-Men, it  makes sense to differentiate them as much as possible and aim for different audiences, or at least a different reader experience.

While Spider-Man (Ultimate or otherwise) has always been firmly placed in New York, I don’t really have a clear sense of the people of that city when I think of his adventures. This is perhaps less surprising with Peter, who it seems mostly knows successful news people, scientists and corporate families (and yet can rarely make any money for himself. Has he ever asked for advice from his circle of reasonably well off associates?), and tends to be pretty white, middle class and relatively privileged in his social circle. Given the attention that Miles got as a non-white hero, I don’t think I ever really felt that his race was given much focus in his adventures- yes, the diversity of the cast was significantly improved, it was a more plausible mixture of genders, races, orientations and so on for a contemporary adventure, and I wouldn’t say it ever shied away from its differences to the ‘classic’ Spider-Man, but I don’t hold a lasting impression of his book, under its various titles, looking at the specific cultural and social positioning of its hero (in the way that, say, Ms Marvel did).

Sure, he got all the knee-jerk criticisms from the darker and more ignorant sectors of the internet for being a ‘SJW’ book (still the dumbest insult ever), for replacing an existing character in the name of diversity (um. Ultimate Spider-Man was just a version of Spider-Man, who was never replaced and you could buy his many books the whole time Miles has been around, but, yeah, he’s replacing ‘your’ hero) and so on, but that was all bullshit, as usual. He was just an attempt (albeit an extremely successful one), in the Ultimate Comics tradition, at taking an existing property and doing something interesting and different with it- turning Spider-Man into a legacy hero, widening the cast, introducing new elements to the mythos and generally freshening things up for an audience that enjoyed a Brian Michael Bendis take on Spider-Man. And it was great and it lasted a very long time in comic terms. It was a very strange feeling when Bendis left- it was his character, or so it seemed, even though it was clearly nothing of the sort in copyright terms. What would become of this Spider-Man? Surely they would leave him alone, as a mark of respect?

No, of course they wouldn’t. It’s probably one hell of a mantle to take on with that weight of character history, but Ahmed seems more than happy to accept it. I like to think this change in writer sent those same dark denizens of the internet into further apoplectic outbursts- because even though you have been bitching about how you will never read this ridiculous SJW Spider-Man since he was first announced 8 or so years ago, you still have to get mad about him because, I don’t know, you don’t care and don’t read it?. Not only is this Spider-Man not white (and incredibly damn popular, thanks to the release of Into The Spider-Verse. Yes, angry comics gatekeeper dudes, no one wants a non-white Spidey, you were so right....), he’s now being written by an Arab American (cue diversity hire Spider-Man AND diversity hire Spider-Man writer rants. Never mind that a (award nominated and winning) published author’s first comics work, Black Bolt, was absolutely excellent. Angry internet men do not like facts) and, from day one, we see Miles firmly situated in a contemporary city and its problems. There are kids concerned about deportation, queues for soup kitchens and all the sorts of issues and challenges that make up the fabric of a modern society.

This feels quite different from a Bendis story, but still clearly shares the same spirit that brought about Ultimate Spider-Man and then Ultimate Miles Morales- a desire to portray a Spider-Man for today, familiar in many ways but made to feel a little more fresh by avoiding the burden of continuity, anchored in the modern world rather than the past of Marvel continuity. A Spider-Man that belongs in today’s New York and wants to understand and help it- not just to withstand attacks from super-villains, but to protect its people from any sort of harm, and serve the community as best he can. While Peter’s Uncle Ben was killed by criminal, Miles’s father and uncle became criminals, more victims of circumstance than truly evil, but only his father quit that life and tried to make things better within his community, a role that his son also seems to be taking on, where responsibility is less about great power, but a duty to your people.

From this first issue, it feels like Miles is in good hands with an interesting new journey ahead of him. It’s not Bendis, but after 18 years of his guiding hand, it would be crazy to attempt more of the same, and it honours the character more to bring something fresh to the table. And if Ahmed wants to try and beat the Bendis Spider-Man longevity record, he’s welcome to try!

From Miles Morales: Spider-Man 1, by Saladin Ahmed, Javier Garrón, David Curiel & Cory Petit

[avoutput]

Saturday Morning Symbiosis || Venom

I was having a bad day the first time I tried to go see Venom. I had to drop off my girlfriend on the way to the theater, and we left late, so I was in a rush. I had 10 minutes to get to the theater from her drop off point, but along the way, a series of bumbling mistakes and unfortunate coincidences happened along the way. First, the road I would have normally used was backed up due to the slowest railway crossing in all of Texas, so I took an unknown back route. I was making good time, until I got to the stoplight right in front of the theater, which was now some kind of modern intersection where for some reason you can only turn left instead of pass through. Now I have to drive further away from the theater only to turn back around. Only 4 minutes until the start and I haven’t even parked, but I have faith in myself. I get on my phone and bought my tickets while I was waiting for the light to change. But I accidentally chose the wrong card and charged it to an account I’d rather not use, but it’s fine, I have the ticket. Luck goes my way, I find a parking spot on the ground floor of the garage. I hoof it to the theater, even take a second to validate my parking. I have one minute to spare. I check the ticket, theater 3, row 2, seat 7. I rush up the stairs and whip open the theater door, elated, but only for the briefest of moments. To my surprise, Crazy Rich Asians is playing. I look back down at my ticket, and at the top in big bold print is the name of a completely different theater on the other side of town. Same start time, same company, different theater. I had to walk out defeated. A week passes and I sit down for Venom, in the right theater, without issue. Tom Hardy grunts, stomps, and oafishly crashes around on screen and I can’t help but think back to how hard I had to work to get here. Oddly, the whole experience helped pull me deeper into the film. I was just a good guy trying to get from A to B. I gotta tell ya, that is exactly what Venom feels like.

Much like a trip from A to B, it should feel uneventful. A to Z has a lot of stops, but not A to B. Ruben Fleischer crafts Venom in the same way he has other fan favorites in his catalog, namely 30 Minutes or Less and Zombieland. He has a talent for filming a journey, and watching Eddie Brock’s turned out to be a fun, action-packed treat. Fleischer doesn’t draw the best out his actors, but somehow draws the eccentricities and puts them on display, like a caricature artist on the pier. Eddie Brock, in my memory, has always been characterized as a guy who wants to be great and isn’t afraid to cheat to get there, and that’s kind of how he is laid out here, only we are on his side instead of Peter Parker’s. It was a nice reprieve. It was also nice to be out from underneath the weight of 10 years of Marvel Cinematic Universe films. And you might think without Spider-Man acting as natural predator, would Venom fare well in a universe where he is the apex? It’s rare that the audience is left to come up with a villian for a villian in a comic book movie. Turns out, Venom’s only enemy is other… venoms. Surprisingly, all this works for this standalone comic film.

The major critique here is going to sound more like advice. Don’t ask too many questions. This film is much more of a saturday morning cartoon. It doesn’t have the same depth of emotion you will have experienced in Captain America or The Dark Knight. It doesn’t have a particular hard theme to grasp or discern. It isn’t a puzzle. Its sugar cereal. Count Chocula. Or better yet, its that limited-time run of a cereal based on a movie or one of those Batman Returns cups from McDonalds you get for an extra buck, now found for the same price on the shelves of Goodwill. Everything is on the surface in this movie. Eddie Brock and Venom get along because the movie says they have to. They have a villain because they need one. The major plus in the film comes from Anne (Michelle Williams) who isn’t just some love interest for Eddie. She is a living, breathing person who takes Eddie head on, but is also his love interest. She’s his love interest second. Also, Riz Ahmed puts in time as a great antagonist in the shoes of save-the-world-my-way, scientist/capitalist Carlton Drake. Lastly, in her least funny, but still enjoyable roll, Jenny Slate made a pretty great scientist. Girl looks good in a lab coat.

I can’t say for certain that this is a must see film for anyone, but if like Zombieland and don’t mind it knocked down to PG-13, you are in for a good time. The story and the characters in it are cartoony, especially Tom Hardy’s Brock, who seems to have a problem not lumbering everywhere he goes. Its like he never stopped playing Mad Max. Also, stick around for two post-credits sequences. I won’t ruin it, but, you won’t leave disappointed if you stay. Somehow, the stars really aligned for this one. If the suits at Sony or Big Hollywood had a major hand in this, and it kind of feels like they did, even they get something right sometimes. Give them and the talent behind this film a big hand.

~* 7.5/10 *~

[tigerlover16-uk]

In a way its really wierd to me how angry people get over Super. It's clearly just trying to be a simple comedy action series aimed at kids. Though I suppose there is the ageold ruining my childhood thing. But it doesn't really strike me as very provocative to inspire such strong negative feelings. Im just mostly looking at what it's trying to be. It doesnt strike me as tryhard either. The most powerful being is a audience selfinsert that just wants to have fun. Its so selfaware on many levels.

A lot of people obsess over Dragon Ball and want it to remain this (In their heads) perfect, untouched work of art I think. I’ve never agreed with that sentiment, but Dragon Ball IS one of the most iconic and influential anime and mangas of all time and has a special place in millions of peoples hearts. With that kind of pedigree, I get a lot of people having very high standards for any kind of a follow up.

There are legitimate grievances to be had with Super, and plenty of things that can theoretically go wrong with continuing Dragon Ball’s story (Just look at GT for proof of that).

So it’s perfectly reasonable to have concerns… but, unfortunately the Dragon Ball fandom has the same problem as the Star Wars fandom, Sonic fandom, and really a lot of other major fandoms out there: They let their nostalgia and obsession with the series get completely out of hand, and treat every mistake, big or small, as a sign that the end times have come and that the series is ruined forever.

Some of this does come from nitpicky aspects of the series that only certain obsessive fans actually care about and the majority of viewers are actually casually ignorant to (Like power scaling), some of it does come from places of genuine concern (Animation issues and messed up production early on, stuff like the Future Trunks saga ending, the show running in circles with certain characters rather than letting them progress further, etc), but a lot of it is, frankly, people just wanting an excuse to complain because “It’s not like Z!”.

As someone who grew up with the Star Wars Prequels and 3D era Sonic games, and prefers them to both franchises earlier outings (Mostly… 06 WAS a complete mess, nostalgia aside), I tend to have little sympathy for people whining about how a flawed sequel has completely ruined their favourite series and thus their childhood forever. 

And while I do sympathise with more reasonable fans who have fair reasons for disliking it, I think people in general are being incredibly myopic if they think that Super can actually damage Dragon Ball as a whole.

Like, you want to know why I keep comparing it to the Prequel Trilogy? Because for all the handwringing from petulant manbabies about how their precious (Dated and somewhat overrated, FTR) sacred movies had supposedly been ruined forever… the movies didn’t actually hurt Star Wars much in the long run, let’s be honest.

The Original Trilogy still exists. They’re the same movies they’ve always been, and if you don’t like the Prequels you’re free to ignore them and enjoy the original three movies for what they are, since they do function as a self contained story. There’s still plenty of tie in material from the old and new EU for people who want MORE Star Wars content not related to the Prequels too.

And on that note, we’ve had PLENTY of good Star Wars content since the Prequels came out too, with the tv series Star Wars: The Clone Wars frequently being hailed as one of the greatest works in the entire franchise, if not one of the best cartoons ever made, with some Prequel detractors even arguing it SALVAGED those movies. And let’s not forget how the first installment of the sequel trilogy became the first franchise film to gross over $2 Billion at the box office.

That’s not even getting into the fact that the Prequels also brought in a whole generation of new fans and lead to their love of the franchise, myself included.

For whatever problems the Prequels had (Real, imagined or grossly exaggerated), in the long run… Star Wars was fine. 

Even now with the Last Jedi, which many argue is a horrible movie that hurts the overall story of the Star Wars Saga (Funnily enough, I’m actually in that camp this time), I think similar logic applies. I, and other fans may not like it or a lot of stuff the Sequel Trilogy has done, and with stuff like Solo the Star Wars franchise may be going through a bit of a rough patch in terms of public interest at the moment… but honestly, I don’t think things are going to be bad forever.

People will eventually move on with their lives. People who don’t like the Sequel Trilogy can move on and enjoy the old movies while pretending they don’t exist, and enjoying whatever other spin offs they like, while fans who do like the Sequel Trilogy and modern star wars content can look forward to more stuff they enjoy. 

I can complain about certain directions the series has taken, but as someone who’s endured having people tell me that my childhood favourites ruined their lives (To which I have to say… please go outside and get some air, for Christ’s sake), I have no interest in wangsting about the state of things when I have a lot of better things I should be doing.

That’s not to say no one should complain of course, there are legitimate failings to the Sequel Trilogy and Last Jedi in particular and people have every right to complain (As long as they’re not the toxic fanbrats whining about the “SJW AGENDA!” And bulling the cast, those people can jump off a cliff along with the people who bullied Jake Lloyd and drove Ahmed Best to contemplate suicide). In fact, it’s a good thing for people to be critical since actually constructive criticism is necessary and good feedback for studios responsible for these pop culture franchises.

Going back to Dragon Ball, I personally enjoy Super. I think it’s done a lot of good things, though also had various missteps along the way. But despite those issues and while I hope future works take steps to fix and improve on things, I’m fairly happy with the current state of the franchise and eager for more.

I do think you have a point too, anon. Super itself isn’t honestly trying to be anything revolutionary or even on Z’s level. If you actually examine the show as a whole, it’s basically extended filler that mostly serves to expand the universe, create a big sandbox for future stories to possibly build on, and further develop several characters. The only time it really tried to do anything particularly ambitious was in the Future Trunks saga, where we had villains who questioned the state of humanity and there was an ideological battle going on between them and our heroes, mostly Future Trunks.

Other than that though? We got two movie retellings that were basically self-contained conflicts, a small-stakes tournament that mostly served to introduce a bunch of new recurring characters, and a multiversal tournament that, while it did do some interesting thematic stuff here and there… was mostly an excuse to introduce EVEN MORE new characters, give old ones a chance to shine and develop some more, and have a lot of cool looking fights.

Super isn’t really trying to be Z. It just wants to be a fun show for kids and which nostalgic fans can hopefully enjoy. If anything, I think it was mostly a test run to see whether continuing the franchise with more stories beyond the occasional movie was viable.

There’s certainly gripes to be had, but really Super’s status as a fill-in for a time gap in the Z anime to me just makes it feel a lot more low risk than an immediate sequel to the end of Z, since things do still end the same way they did regardless at the moment. It exists for fans to enjoy if they want to, but it can be easily ignored for fans who don’t and prefer the previous series.

And personally, I don’t think it’s really possible to truly “Ruin” Dragon Ball because the story already got an ending. The original manga, and the two anime adapting it, are a complete story on their own. One with a very open ending that leaves the door open for future stories, yes, but it’s a complete story nonetheless. Whatever directions future series may take, good or bad, it’ll never truly change the story as it originally was, because that manga and it’s anime will always exist for people to enjoy as it was intended.

I hate GT and I’ve complained about it plenty, but while I have very personal reasons for why it annoys me… at the end of the day, it’s irrelevant now. We got a different continuation that ignores it, it’s divorced enough from the original canon that I can just go about my days pretending it doesn’t exist, and I got my closure over it with that last re-watch sorting out my feelings on the series. 

So, really, flawed as it is there’s nothing to be REALLY mad about, is there? It exists, but it doesn’t do me any real harm, and it’s there for people who do enjoy it (For whatever weird reason, lol) to watch at their leisure. So in effect, it’s harmless… or at least it will be once we get another post-EoZ series to prove it didn’t completely close the door on those being made.

Dragon Ball’s kind of lucky in that way. It got to a point where it had a satisfying resolution where it can hopefully stand the test of time as a classic work of fiction, but people who want more still have the opportunity for that. 

And people who don’t think it should continue, or just don’t like those continuations, are free to not watch those works and enjoy the series the way they want to. Or, even if they don’t like Super, it’s still possible a better series or other products like movies can be made down the line that they can enjoy better.

Just like with Star Wars and the Sonic games.

I may have issues with Super from time to time, but overall I think it did a lot more good than bad, and most of it’s faults could be improved on in future series. The worst thing it actually did was destroying the original future timeline, but even that’s fixable if they just have another story with Future Trunks coming back and have somebody go “Hey, maybe we can use the Super Dragon Balls to bring your timeline back”. 

I get having personal attachment to the series and it’s characters, I do too. And I get people getting emotional when they feel something they like is being disrespected in any way. If people think the show handled Goku’s character badly or did something to hurt the overall ongoing story, then they’re within their right to complain and be upset about that. TO A REASONABLE EXTENT.

I do also get the feeling a lot of people just can’t handle Dragon Ball having a flawed follow up, aswell. Given that Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z are influential classics, it makes sense that a lot of people would be unhappy with anything that didn’t live up to that quality. But I think some people do get overly worked up about it.

Fact is, all franchises have both flawed installments, and a number of duds to show for them. Star Trek has bad movies and the bad series here or there (Enterprise). Doctor Who has had bad seasons. Marvel and DC have had plenty of bad comics and media adaptions. Mario and Sonic and Pokémon and lots of others have had bad games or adaptions. But that hasn’t ruined everything that was good about those series, or stopped them from putting out good new content.

Every piece of media has it’s flaws to be frank, and every franchise will inevitably stumble here or there. Dragon Ball has had plenty of duds before Super. The Broly movies, GT, Return of Cooler, Episode of Bardock, a bunch of bad video games most people don’t even bother to remember, FREAKING DRAGON BALL EVOLUTION. And plenty of stuff about the old series themselves has aged terribly (Especially in early Dragon Ball). But none of that has managed to kill the franchise.

We’ve had bad, mediocre and decent though heavily flawed Dragon Ball stories and products in the past, and we’ll have plenty more in the future. And while there’ll be stuff that is worth griping about, really at the end of the day it’s not the end of the world, and people who do get legitimately angry thinking it is need to relax now and again.

I get people thinking that things should have just stayed the way there were, thinking that Dragon Ball shouldn’t have been continued if that continuation wasn’t going to live up to it’s predecessors. And I’m never going to argue that people shouldn’t complain about things (I certainly do).

But realistically, Dragon Ball was going to have follow ups sooner or later. It’s the biggest franchise Toei and Shueisha have, and one of the most iconic series of all time. Whether I or anyone else thinks Dragon Ball needed a follow up or not, it was bound to happen because we live in a world where milking popular franchises is the name of the game. 

People can complain about it, people can and should have issues with flawed products. People can insist on Dragon Ball’s legacy needing to be preserved. But like I’ve said... the series as you loved it isn’t going anywhere. No one is obligated to support everything the franchise does. So I don’t think getting overly angry or worked up about Super or GT or whatever not being everything they wanted them to be is something to freak out over.

Fact is, for all the complaints... a lot of people still love Super and enjoyed it. A lot of people still love Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z. Super has brought Toei nothing but monetary success, and interest in the franchise is at the highest it’s been since Z finished airing in the West over a decade ago and the franchise went truly dormant for the most part. If anything, I think Dragon Ball actually gets more respect these days than it did for most of the latter half of the last decade, where it became sort of an internet laughing stock in the West.

We’re still getting plenty of high profile and quality products, like FighterZ, which along with Super itself and the movies preceding it has helped draw in a lot of new fans and brought back a good chunk of lapsed ones. There’s a generation of children the world over that are going to have grown up on Super as their first Dragon Ball series, and it’ll be an important part of helping them get into the franchise and the previous series, much like Kai before it. 

And we’ve got a new movie coming out that’s generating a lot of hype and which looks to be giving the franchise a much needed and exceptionally positive visual overhaul, which it’s needed for a while now.

For all the ups and downs, and there have been plenty... Dragon Ball is doing fine. Regardless of what any individual person thinks of Super, Dragon Ball’s legacy isn’t in any danger. The franchise isn’t collapsing, and the overall story and all of it’s characters haven’t been completely ruined beyond repair.

Things could be better. But Z and Dragon Ball could have been better in a lot of places too. It’s okay to be unsatisfied about the current state of things and to voice complaints, as much as it’s okay to be loving the thrill of having Dragon Ball really make a comeback.

Things will be fine. With Super currently off the air, I think now’s the time for everyone to just take a chill and relax. The world didn’t end, and it’s not going to any time soon. (Well, unless Trump throws a hissy fit and launches nukes at everyone but, you know, hopefully that won’t happen).

[thefilmsnob]

Glen Coco’s Top 10 Films of 2020

This has been the weirdest damn year for film--and basically everything else--we’ve ever witnessed. Theatres closed, re-opened, then closed again; dozens of films were postponed, and no one knew where to watch the ones that weren’t. I didn’t see nearly as many films as I usually do and, even so, the selection was relatively underwhelming. Nevertheless, there were still some good pictures released, so, as always, I’m sharing my top ten films of 2020 plus a bonus track...there’s always a bonus track.

#10b. (Bonus Track) Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

Director: Jason Woliner

Starring: Sacha Baron Cohen, Maria Bakalova

On the surface, Sacha Baron Cohen’s characters may seem utterly absurd and childish--and maybe they are--but, the genius behind them is their ability to reveal the ignorance of the people he encounters and make you question where the true absurdity lies. Cohen accomplishes this yet again, even if this sequel isn’t quite as fresh as its 2006 predecessor. Yet, in the United States of 2020, ravaged as much by asinine politicians, disgraceful racism and dangerous conspiracy theories as by the actual Covid pandemic, Borat is an entirely welcome presence. He makes all the right people look as wrong as they should, especially former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani who’s caught red-handed in a compromising position opposite a very young girl, thus exacerbating his epic fall from grace while reaffirming Cohen’s brilliance.

#10. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Director: George C. Wolfe

Starring: Viola Davis, Chadwick Boseman

Despite my initial ambivalence, this movie has lingered in my mind for months and that’s always a good sign. Set almost entirely in one location, a 1920s Chicago recording studio, and focusing heavily on a group of musicians shooting the breeze in its basement while their demanding singer talks business with the big wigs upstairs, seemingly nothing much happens and, yet, everything happens; dreams are envisioned, pain is recalled, ideas are shared and, of course, music is made. Those elements are enhanced by the film’s stellar technical features from the production design, to the costumes to the hair & makeup. Yet, it’s the performers who steal the show, which is expected from Viola Davis but a pleasant surprise from Chadwick Boseman who, sadly, gives his final performance. The late actor saved his best for last playing a young trumpeter whose ambitions are constantly hindered by his inability to let go of his tragic past.

#9. The Way Back

Director: Gavin O’Connor

Starring: Ben Affleck

For those of you with the misconception that Ben Affleck is a bad actor, you might want to watch The Way Back in which he plays a former high school basketball star and current alcoholic who’s dealing with the death of his child and separation from his wife when he’s asked to coach his former team. Sure, this covers familiar ground, but it does so better than similar films, finessing the more predictable aspects, adding some welcome touches and treating the subject matter with the respect and seriousness it deserves. The basketball takes a backseat to the character drama here, so the film’s quality relies heavily on the performance of Affleck which might be his best to date; he makes his character’s inebriation so convincing you can practically smell the beer on his breath. And you hope to God he gets the help he so desperately needs.

Full Review: https://thefilmsnob.tumblr.com/post/613090953214001152/the-way-back-12-out-of-5

#8. News of the World

Director: Paul Greengrass

Starring: Tom Hanks, Helena Zengel

This is a film we need right now for several reasons, not least of which being we get to spend two hours with ‘America’s Dad’ Tom Hanks, a decent, honourable man playing another decent, honourable man in 1870 who encounters a strange young girl on the road near an overturned wagon and promises to return her to her remaining family. With Hanks’s character Jefferson Kidd traveling from town to town reading the newspaper for its citizens, this is also a timely film, stressing the importance of a free and fair press as opposed to the propaganda that saturated the Trump administration and his favourite news outlet. An unusually--yet refreshingly--straightforward and old-fashioned Western for 2020, its highlights include a climactic exchange between adult and child, made so effectively tender with such minimal effort by Hanks, as well as a meticulously crafted chase and shootout sequence at the halfway point, directed with optimal tension and clarity by the great Paul Greengrass.

#7. Nomadland

Director: Chloe Zhao

Starring: Frances McDormand

It’s about time we start including Frances McDormand in lists of greatest actors. In Nomadland, in which she plays a wanderer of sorts who’s lost her husband to cancer and her company town to a poor economy, her performance transcends labels like ‘realistic’ or ‘natural’ and arrives at a place that doesn’t feel like performance at all. She blends in seamlessly with a cast of real nomads playing themselves, living out of vans in the western US, as unconstrained by societal norms as the film itself is by conventional story arcs. We want to see this minimalist lifestyle, which includes seasonal Amazon warehouse gigs and long nights in a freezing cold van, as depressing or unfulfilling, but writer/director/producer/editor (Jesus!) Chloe Zhao dares us to admire both the freedom and sense of community formed among this nomadic subculture. Cinematographer Joshua James Richards also plays with our expectations, bathing the screen in soothing blues and purples, transforming the unremarkable landscape into a thing of beauty.

#6. Da 5 Bloods

Director: Spike Lee

Starring: Delroy Lindo, Clarke Peters, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Norm Lewis

In Da 5 Bloods, writer/director Spike Lee deviates from his usual urban American setting to explore the tropical forests of Vietnam, but his focus remains fixed on the African American experience, their plight and search for justice. His subjects are a group of Vietnam War vets who reunite in present day Ho Chin Minh City to retrieve a cache of gold bars left behind some 50 years prior, originally part of a political transaction, as we see in appropriately grainy 4:3 full screen flashbacks. The reason for this mission is more righteous than a simple payday, but Lee refuses to paint these complex characters with the same brush--there’s even a MAGA in the bunch!--nor does he oversimplify the film’s profound issues. A genre-defying work, Da 5 Bloods is a character study, social commentary, war picture and action/adventure flick all rolled into one with some truly shocking developments and one of the finest casts of the year. How Delroy Lindo was denied an Oscar nomination for his volatile performance is beyond me.

#5. Promising Young Woman

Director: Emerald Fennell

Starring: Carey Mulligan, Bo Burnham, Alison Brie

In one of the most unique films of the year, Carey Mulligan delivers a brave, bold and beautiful performance as Cassie, a woman with a tragic past who spends her weekends at the club pretending to be blackout drunk, only to shame and humiliate the sleazy men who try to take advantage. Writer/director Emerald Fennell does a masterful job at peeling back the layers of this dark revenge tale ever so gradually to reveal Cassie’s true motives while rebuking, not just society’s abhorrent offenders, but those enablers and silent bystanders who try to hide behind a flimsy shroud of innocence. Benefiting from one of the sharpest screenplays of the year and a fitting score, Promising Young Woman never ceases to ramp up the tension, a strategy that culminates in a shocking final sequence which is at once disturbing and satisfying. It’ll all leave you guessing until the final, brilliant shot.

#4. The Invisible Man

Director: Leigh Whannell

Starring: Elisabeth Moss, Aldis Hodge, Storm Reid

Originally conceived as part of the ill-fated ‘Dark Universe’--Universal Pictures’ planned movie franchise featuring its classic monsters--and starring Johnny Depp, The Invisible Man was drastically retooled and produced as a stand-alone film with a modernized story. And like so many horror projects of the last decade, it’s refreshingly inspired and well-crafted with a deeper purpose than merely spooking its audience, though it succeeds at that as well. Writer/director Leigh Whannell uses this movie and the fearless performance of the great Elisabeth Moss to examine abusive partners and their persistent hold on their lovers-turned-victims long after the relationship has collapsed. Moss is stunning as usual, portraying an already traumatized woman trying desperately to convince everyone she’s not going crazy as well, even though that’s exactly how it looks. Equally impressive is the restraint by the filmmakers who use the ‘invisible’ effects sparingly yet strategically, creatively and, ultimately, very effectively, making every scare plausible and entirely earned.

#3. Sound of Metal

Director: Darius Marder

Starring: Riz Ahmed, Olivia Cooke, Paul Raci

In a world in which people are complaining about losing their freedom because they have to wear a simple mask to save lives, it’s good to see a film that shows what real loss looks like. If you can’t imagine being a heavy metal drummer who suddenly goes deaf, writer/director Darius Marder spells it out for you in big, bold, sorrow-inducing letters. He’s aided by Riz Ahmed giving possibly the best performance of the year as a man who, on the surface, tries desperately to hold on to his life and passion while, deep down, he knows that’s impossible. Sound of Metal is a tender and heartbreaking yet hopeful story, but what’s even more effective than the film’s dramatic presentation is its remarkable sound design. At times, characters sign to each other amidst ambient noise. Other times, the sound is muffled as if we’re putting our ears up to a wall and hearing a fraction of the dialogue from the other side. And, less frequently, when Ruben’s condition is at its worst, we hear nothing at all. Just complete and terrifying silence…which speaks volumes.

Full Review: https://thefilmsnob.tumblr.com/post/647329085467574272/sound-of-metal-out-of-5

#2. The Trial of the Chicago 7

Director: Aaron Sorkin

Starring: Mark Rylance, Eddie Redmayne, Sacha Baron Cohen, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Jeremy Strong, John Carroll Lynch, Frank Langella, Michael Keaton, etc, etc, etc...

Aaron Sorkin could write about two accountants conducting a routine audit and make it absolutely absorbing. So, imagine what he does with a courtroom drama about the volatile situation surrounding the 1968 Democratic National Convention and the group of anti-Vietnam War protestors accused of inciting riots at the event. Now an accomplished director too, Sorkin organizes all the moving pieces involved with style and grace while deploying his famously kinetic dialogue. With those lines coming from the mouths of his stellar cast, it’s hard not to hang on their every word and be invested completely in their struggle. I could listen to Mark Rylance’s showstopping line-reading of the simple phrase, “No, he doesn’t!”, all day and never get tired of it. Among its many achievements, The Trial of the Chicago 7 deftly navigates heavy topics like police brutality, unpopular wars and a corrupt justice system, showing just how little things have changed in the last 50 years.

#1. Palm Springs

Director: Max Barbakow

Starring: Cristin Milioti, Andy Samberg, J.K. Simmons

Anyone who knows me may be surprised by this pick, but here we are. Nothing makes sense these days. We’re all as confused and anxious about life as Sarah and Nyles are at a wedding in Palm Springs. Despite what the title suggests, the film doesn’t follow a group of horny teens getting up to shenanigans in the famous resort town, but if I describe the actual plot in depth, I may spoil the fun. I will say these characters seem to be reliving the same events over and over again. What’s so impressive about this film is that, although it repeats itself, it never feels repetitive. The twists and turns, the absurd hilarity blended with bracing poignancy, ensure our unwavering focus on this briskly paced little gem. Yet, it’s the irresistible chemistry between the two leads, played by the equally irresistible Cristin Milioti and Andy Samberg, that forms the glue that holds it all together, whether they’re pulling off childish pranks, discussing their unusual sex lives or debating the very meaning of life. I’m telling you, this movie has everything: comedy, drama, romance, science-fiction (?!), J.K. Simmons, several weddings, an inflatable pizza slice, dinosaurs, a crossbow and colourful beer cans and summer wear that seem destined to become iconic.