tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41458738842797727652024-03-19T06:07:26.834-07:00Jimmy The JiverJimmyTheJiverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18326518202165095790noreply@blogger.comBlogger33125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4145873884279772765.post-43127168172275318082018-03-29T21:49:00.002-07:002018-03-29T21:53:52.488-07:00Ready Player One 2018 Film<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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As with my last <a href="http://jimmythejivermiscellanea.blogspot.com/2018/03/a-wrinkle-in-time-2018.html" multilinks-noscroll="true">movie review</a> I stated that I'd do only one more review for 2018 and here it is. Ready Player One, adapted from the novel that unites MRA and SJW in mutual hate. No I will not review Infinity War, fuck that.</div>
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I went to the theater I usually don't go to because it's more expensive and boy do they put their upcharge where their mouth is. I got to sit in a leather recliner with buttons to adjust it and it was lovely. </div>
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This movie smoothed over a lot of problems I talked about <a href="http://jimmythejivermiscellanea.blogspot.com/2018/03/ready-player-one-novel-and-its.html" multilinks-noscroll="true">here</a>. It changes and pair downs the challenges. That's a problem with adapting novels though, they always hat to cut an consolidate and that is why I think movies should stick to adapting short stories and adding to them and leave the novels to mini-series that can flesh out what is dropped in movies. I'd have vastly preferred the Harry Potter series as a BBC or Grenada series, that lasted seven seasons instead of the Hollywood eight films (most inconsistent in stage design, direction and acting choices) that cut so much out and butchered the fourth book badly.</div>
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The challenges here are a race, a Shining reenactment and Adventure. The racing challenge was stupid and comes off as 90's/00's nostalgia, cannot remember any 80's racing games, though I could be mistaken. I hate the movie Shining, so I didn't enjoy that, or the elevator of blood because I'm having blood problems as we speak, but I like that we got some development with AECH. I liked that Art3mis solved it when she found the ballroom of zombies dancing to Midnight, The Stars and You (which is in The Shining) which is the closest I had to a nostalgic cry because I was introduced to it outside of Shining's context and was thus not ruined for me like it was for everybody else. I feel that it's the same as people being introduced to Singing In The Rain in Clockwork Orange, Stanley Kubrick sure knows how to ruin good things. As for Adventure it was in the novel as a gate, but used here as the last challenge worked. Unlike the novel, there's no completing gates. Just the challenges to win the keys.<br />
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Other nitpicks I have about the movie are The Rebellion (yawn...), everybody being in the same town (movie coincidences) and drones that look like they haven't changed much in thirty years.<br />
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I didn't mind the changes in what the character's avatars looked, because more people ought to do crazy stuff with their online personas instead of, me: but skinny, me: but without birthmark, etc. They gave Art3mis the birthmark, but like Wade they didn't make her fat, so win/lose. AECH gets to be a black lesbian played by a black lesbian. They de-aged Sho to eleven years old which is such a Spielberg move, but neither are played by actor's of Japanese descent. Their avatars Wade: Cartoon-like with exaggerated features, white and blue hair, Art3mis: A pink bird humanoid, AECH: A cyborg orc, Daito's a Samurai and Sho's a Ninja. They expanded I-Roc's role to bounty hunter working for IOI. He says some of the funniest lines. At one point he says: "There's three things in the world I hate, Steampunk, Pirates and Tabbouli, like why do they even..." As my brother likes steampunk, my sister likes pirates and my pop likes Tabbouli, I felt like he was calling out my family there and laughed.<br />
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They have the club scene in the novel in the movie with changes. Of course they play Blue Monday and Stayin' Alive because you can license those songs easily unlike Cyndi Lauper, or Billy Idol apparently. At one point Wade gets a selfie with a cat-furry who's so cute, but sexed up in wrong way, but she turns out to be a turncoat for IOI. I know it was in the novel, but I fucking hate Travolta mode. I swear if I ever got the power to make a Hollywood film, no Saturday Night Fever references.<br />
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One other thing I'd like to mention is the lack of licensed Rush songs.</div>
JimmyTheJiverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18326518202165095790noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4145873884279772765.post-28558151542383634102018-03-29T21:17:00.001-07:002018-03-29T21:56:56.034-07:00Ready Player One (Novel) And It's Controversy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I want to get out of the way that I'm writing this whatever it is (not a real review), without the context of the film adaptation. I'll get to that review later. If I had reviewed this book back when I first read it I wouldn't have had to devote paragraphs upon paragraphs of the representation problem. I'd have just said, here are the things that rubbed me the wrong way. The end. Jolly good read.<br />
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And it is, if you don't have a knee-jerk reaction to nostalgia. It's funny that my brother who turned me on to this book, me, another friend my brother turned on are not 80's kids really. We're 90's kids. We still enjoyed it anyway. Everybody who hates this book hates pandering Nostalgia. They hate successful geeks who made it and get to shove their love and passions down people's throats. I want to say that I don't have Nostalgia. My childhood is one dark pit and a lot of things I liked are ruined by the darkness going on in those times. I like media of many era's with bias for the 20th Century, most of it made before I was born, so I can't have Nostalgia, I just figure I stumbled on some treasure I can appreciate other's can leave behind as they age out. Cline could have made every reference and Easter Egg about the 1930's and I'd have had more of emotional resonance than I do with 80's, that I enjoyed, or discarded after the fact from it's time.<br />
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These people also hate Kevin Smith and his type of geek humor. I don't, even though he's said and had character's say shit that piss me off. Mallrats and the fucking often parroted Superman/Wonder Woman breeding shitfest, or Chasing Amy's Archie's the bitch, Jughead's the butch bullshit. The slashing isn't bullshit, it's the assumptions of putting them in a stereotypical dynamic and undermining Jughead's aromantic personality and function. This isn't an indictment of Smith though, it's a Cline review, and I will say one last comparison that when I would read Parzival and AECH, I read them as a Dante and Randall dynamic from Clerks.<br />
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I have read the book years ago, and I've met Ernest Cline himself. I didn't ask too much questions because I didn't want to pester him and make an ass of myself. You see acting like a warrior for better representation just gave me a kiss off and hostility in my days of dealing with jerks like Ethan Van Sciver. So there's a time to be civil. I could have said make better female characters, research people with different backgrounds and have them proof-read your work, but it was a brief meet and greet and I figure I take the picture of my brother and him standing by the Delorean and be done. Could I have made a difference in the world of shutting down old, entitled, geeks? No probably not. The thing I learn about any discourse is that the person on the other side is going to dig their heels in deeper into their thought process. Did we not learn this with the election two years ago? I think perhaps had I not been on the go, as one aspiring writer (who am I kidding) and a successful writer, perhaps I could have talked to him and he would have listened to what I had to say on representation, even if I'm not the right person to discuss race matters and gender. I'd like to think Ernest Cline is a sensible guy who could learn. That's just faith, I guess.<br />
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The book has some problems, but none that I would scream as blatant J.K. Rowling trash, but still coming from an older singular world view. This is probably why the future shouldn't be written by white male Generation X writers. However, whatever we're called now, are currently being outmoded by Generation Z as we speak and our values have turned out to be racist and archaic as our parents, or worse even because they still had the Holocaust etched in their minds. Our generation studied it and either got gunned down by cops if black, decided to be nazi's if white, or got worn out by the constant undermining of each other that fed into the hatred older people have of twenty year olds. Or so the generation theory goes. I'm not convinced it plays out quite like that. The thing is that when this whole gun legislation blows over and it's business as usual, I'm not convinced the white side of Gen Z isn't any less racist then we have been and if equality becomes more norm it's because white people will have aged and bred out.<br />
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With that in mind, I get the arguments, did Wade have to be white, or male? No probably not. I suppose no protagonist never need be both ever again, but here we are still.<br />
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Other problems in the book, are just how stereotypical are Daito and Shoto? Daito, I think is Japanese American? Correct me if I'm wrong. How much does white American culture feed into how Japanese Otaku culture is nevermind... It's not up to me to decide what is offensive.<br />
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AECH turning out to be a black lesbian, a cop out to not actually write a black lesbian? or an appropriation of the trans-narrative for a non-trans character. Don't know. Lots of women pretended to be men on the internet and didn't turn out transmen afterall like me, so I don't know. The argument is that the future should be less homophobic and racist to allow AECH to be comfortable to choose an avatar that reflects who she is, escept with the way things are going, I just don't see the future as better on identity rights and writing it that way divorced of modern commentary could be glaring. Even if the population becomes less white in the future, I just don't think by 2044, the power won't rest in the hands of white people. They're still the older generation. Perhaps we'll see a change by 2100.<br />
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One thing that isn't mentioned a lot is Art3mis and if you're me and have watched Fanboys, screenplay by Ernest Cline, you sort of know he has one way of writing geek girls, AECH notwithsatnding. Sarcastic, spunky and geek out about anything that isn't Star Wars, or Star Trek, or any space stuff. Girls can like James Bond ironically, make period puns with their Halloween costumes. These girls in Art3mis's case have to love distaff products like She-Ra, Supergirl, and the female-led John Hughes movies. Basically girls can be geeks, but they stay in their lane of what's catered to them. I don't think Ernest Cline did this on purpose, he just didn't know other types of women? A lot of the older women geeks retired into obscurity and started families while men like him and Kevin Smith grow up to make a career out of being a geek. There's tons of girls who hold themselves to this girl-only, pink-only mentality. I've known those types, but I also know the types who appreciate traditionally male products and franchises. The reason being that girl stuff is for girl's only, but because there's less of it, girl's have to seek out boy, or neutral for all products if their mother allows them. So a girl might be able to relate to Luke Skywalker, or Batman, because they're human, but a male can't afford the same courtesy to Princess Leia, or Catwoman because they have Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Chewie, Obi-Wan, the villains. It took until the last season of Batman: TAS to introduce Batgirl after all and in three episodes until they revamped the show to be a team format. Before you had the brief appearances of Summer Gleason and Renee Montoya if you wanted non-villains to look up to.<br />
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Before Cline's time growing up in the 80's, the earliest Star Trek Con organizers in the 60's were women, the earliest Star Wars fanzines in the 70's were edited with columns and had submitted stories by women. I found this out by digging through fanlore wiki, looking through credits and citations and finding either downloadable scanned fanzines, or in most cases the library university information where this stuff is filed in boxes. Some of these women writing Star Wars fanfic did become authors, maybe not on blockbuster levels, but they have goodreads pages, book listing on Amazon and I've lowkey wanted to message them about their fanwork, but think that's kind of cruel because these women are in their 60's having written a body of work of origial work and I message them about that story in that fanzine they hoped long buried?<br />
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The last thing about the novel I don't want to talk about, but feel I have to: The masturbation controversy. The passage spread around on social media out of context with no further commentary than it's sexist. It probably is, because it comes from the mouth of a socially awkward problematic nerd (Halliday) who someone initially in a similar place (Wade) eventually sheds as he makes meaningful connections with other people. Don't forget that in the novel he buys himself a blow up doll and then disposes of it in shame because he realizes how pathetic he is. The thing is whether the question is whether men, specially nerdy men on the internet with no real life social skills are toxic and disgusting, the point they always tried to tell me when I judge these men, is that masturbation is a normal function and that I, a dysphoric transmale who is completely not sexual or partake in bodily functions, is the weird one. Yet I here plenty of discourse that trans people should get to use their genitals, asexual people totally masturbate as it's a biological function, not a sexual one, and thta I'm still the oddball one. So my question is when did everybody agree with me on the masturbation passage in the novel as being gross and that men shouldn't masturbate? Did I step in Bizarro world?</div>
JimmyTheJiverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18326518202165095790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4145873884279772765.post-7295456905821954792018-03-15T20:13:00.002-07:002018-03-15T20:18:57.582-07:00A Wrinkle In Time 2018<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I think this will be the second to the last movie review I'll do this year as summer blockbuster fatigue season moves in.<br />
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I read A Wrinkle In Time back in seventh grade for school and it blew my mind, the way it presented a science fantasy setting with Meg and family, Calvin and the Witches fighting against the forces of darkness while trying to find her missing father. A lot of the typical heroes journey, light vs. dark themes show up in this 1964 novel before it became required in all fantasy before Tolkienism set in completely. I have seen the 2003 movie version and I hardly remember it outside of the bad cgi affects. With that in mind here's my observations on how this new adaptation by Ava DuVernay movie holds up:<br />
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Meg Murray is a clever child of two genius parents who starts to lose her way when her father leaves for four years. Charles Wallace is her adopted younger brother (not adopted in the novel) and he's a cutie who stands up for his sister when teachers talk shit. Meanwhile their stuck up neighbor who heads a popular clique gives Meg shit for her missing, or dead father, taunts her and basically says they wish she had disappeared too. I didn't have that kind of gossip when I was growing up, but I was always told the line when picking on others is to not give them shit for having dead, jailed, or absent family members. That was a no no in my school district. Otherwise everything else was fair game (everything else), so these kids as portrayed in this movie whether accurate to current real life, or not, just goes to show that they're mean about anything just to be mean, which sounds about right. So Meg's Principal in the movie and her mother pull the whole bullshit that since Meg threw the first hit (smacking a ball in the neighbor's face) she has to apologize even though they started the taunts. This is why I hate parents and school staff. This shit. Whatever I'm over it. Also the Principal lecture's Meg over her grief as if it was some moral defect, which is bullshit.<br />
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The movie mostly follows the plot of the book with minor changes and a lot of cuts. Meg and Charles Wallace don't have twin siblings to join them in their journey. Calvin does show up, but most of his development and use of "diplomacy" hardly comes up so he's sort of just their as the platonic, but potential love interest. I dig that he and Charles Wallace have classic male haircuts, none of this crew cut crap, or shaved sides shit men do now that's disgusting. It gives them that sixties vibe that this movie has due to it's source material, though it's updated for today.<br />
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There are lines of dialogue in the movie that I swear are lifted from the book, but I can't be sure because I haven't read it in years, but it feels familiar, but their are some updated changes I don't mind. For example different people Mrs, Who quotes, such as Chris Tucker himself. Also at the end when they talk about the heroes that fight on the side of light against the dark, the list is slightly changed to include later people than the book's publication. I don't mind that honestly. It would have been too dry if they stuck exclusively with what L'Engle references.<br />
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A lot of this movie's appeal in marketing was the casting of the three witches because the children are unknown. Oprah Winfrey, Mindy Kaling and Reese Witherspoon. Most people complained that Oprah plays Mrs. Which who in the book can't keep her form and is often a bright light, but they reference that in the movie with Which's legs being transparent. I didn't mind the change, you don't cast Oprah to be a disembodied voice in a live action movie. Kaling was disappointing as Mrs. Who, only because no matter who played Who they would have been resigned mostly with quotes than original dialogue. Witherspoon as Mrs. Whatsit could be both annoying and amusing. I didn't mind her change in the movie being this visually stunning leafy serpent/flying carpet thing instead of a centaur pagasi type being. I have an irrational hatred of horses, so other people will be pissed at this change, but I still have nightmares of the earlier movies horrible cgi transformation.<br />
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As I've said before I was happy they mostly stayed accurate with ages. They cast fourteen year old’s, or close to, Storm Reid and Levi Miller to play Meg and Calvin instead of aging them up and giving them sexual tension like every other young adult movie ever in the last twenty years. Charles Wallace as played by Deric McCabe was bumped up from five to six years, which isn't a big deal.<br />
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Other cast-members are Chris Pine as the dad, Gugu Mbatha-Raw as the mom, Andre Holland as the Principal and Michael Pena as Red. I'm sort of glad the marketing didn't emphasize Pine over the Witches.<br />
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One of the casting choices I'm a bit annoyed with is that they cast bearded Zach Galifianakis as The Happy Medium. Now I swear my memory was that this character was genderqueer, or agender, but that might have been only in the older movie adaptation as according to wikipedia she's a woman, so what the fuck happened here? Was one more woman with a speaking role too much to ask for in a movie about female empowerment? If I hadn't known this, it wouldn't bother me. It's one thing to change character's race, whatever background it then informs on the character because white people have almost all the roles so losing some doesn't matter. Changing a character's gender on the other hand is kind of annoying. Disney is guilty of this when is comes to source material female characters turning into guys all the sudden, like Bagheera in every Disney Jungle Book movie adaptation and no changing Kha to a girl in the new adaptation was not a consolation.<br />
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Anyway this movie is a visual treat and has a mythology and similar themes that would fit in with Kingdom Hearts which is a shame it won't make it in there when we're stuck with crap like Tron Legacy making it in the last title. I feel like a lot of the journey is cut and, or rushed and no there aren't big blockbuster battles, or cheap, stilted young adult romances. The battle is strictly personal and between family, the light and dark. I didn't expect more. Other people disappointed: Sorry, new movies spoiled you. This movie would have fit in with a lot of 90's family movies, but the visual effects at that time would not have made this possible and they probably wouldn't have done diverse casting like making the main character, her mother, and not one, but two of her mentors as poc. Another good thing about this movie is that it doesn't bait you for a sequel that might not be made. If it does get a sequel, I'd like to see more of the family, the three witches and the It fleshed out more.<br />
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I've read rumors that Ava DuVernay is now going to helm the Fourth World/New Gods for Warner Brothers. Here's hoping it's a hit like Wonder Woman and that DuVernay doesn't have too much studio meddling fucking it down.<br />
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JimmyTheJiverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18326518202165095790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4145873884279772765.post-70638871091029476192018-02-21T16:00:00.002-08:002018-02-21T16:00:42.470-08:00Black Panther 2018<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Saw Black Panther yesterday bringing an end to the last Marvel movie I
have anticipated seeing. After seeing this I can safely say that other
than a Black Panther sequel with expansive potential it all goes down
hill for Marvel's cinematic universe. No hyperbole.<br />
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Warning: My review has spoilers and jumps around incoherently.<br />
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I
honestly would look elsewhere for in depth reviews than here because I
am a comic book fan first and comic fans are annoying when judging the
quality of an adaptation. I will say ahead of time that I'm pleased
with how this adaptation's changes because they work for the tight
narrative. Films are different mediums than long serialized comics. As
this is a sound and moving vision medium, you get cool scenes like
T'Challa suplexing a rhino and Shuri using driving tech from her lab in
Wakanda that pilots a car remotely in Busan, South Korea with her
brother riding on top trying to pursue Claue. Other highlights are the
ceremonial dancing, the ancestral plane, the waterfall fights, both of
them, the one with Killonger was adapted from the comics, the fight
between T'Challa and Killmonger on the magnetic trains tracks under the
city. This movie unlike every other Marvel movie besides maybe
Guardians, Vol 2 actually has eye-popping color. Strange that movies
adapted from the four color page have muted, ugly grey and brown tones
and washed out reds and blues. What is wrong with Marvel? Also the
soundtrack and score was good too, which again most Marvel movies are
background noises, or they're Guardians and have a Jukebox song list.<br />
<br />
The
cast of characters have complex motivations that feel real instead of
merely being informed. That sounds like a generic statement, but I mean
it. I always get the feeling in a lot of films that many characters have
no depth outside of "they killed my dog, I want justice!" Killmonger
has complex feelings about Wakanda and how it should conduct itself in
international affairs. This movie doesn't shy away from racial problems,
which makes stock tropes like Killmonger's dad murdered as a traitor
more complex. If this was a white story the traitor betrays because he's
greedy filth and that's it. His father did something shitty helping a
shifty white guy steal Vibranium from Wakanda. However, he had problems
with Wakanda hoarding their metal and tech advancements from the world.
So here the traitor's got a point whether he went about it wrong, or
not. His being killed for it was one thing, leaving his son behind in
America created a bigger problem T'Chaka couldn't forsee. The film
questions Wakanda's isolationist policies and rather than acknowledge
and move on actually addresses it with T'Challa making decisions to
rectify that which opens up for a sequel that explores Wakanda's place
in the world.<br />
<br />
I'm pleased that they changed Nakia from being a
former Dora Milaje turned spurned, traitor femme fatale henchwoman to an
Wakandan undercover agent and proper love interest to T'Challa. I mean
the options would have been shoehorning Storm who's off limits, or
bringing in American Monica Lynne, who they could have reinvented and
given Agent Ross's role, I guess. Dating a CIA agent would be weird
though and bring a lot of questions. This will probably piss off comic
purists as well as Killmonger's origins being changed, W'Kabi being more
adversarial, giving T'Chaka a brother and giving T'Challa and Shuri the
same mother. Usually that stuff would piss me off, but here it works.
It's a film and it has to condense things, draw tighter relationships
and dispense with some of the tired sexist tropes that do no favors for
black women. A lot of women love interests come out blander, pointless,
or replaceable, Nakia wins in adaptation compared to the source
material.<br />
<br />
I think the only minor flaws are Agent Ross, he could be
cut. Was he there to have one heroic white guy? Does that really matter
to have the squeeing Sherlock fans money? Also the ending fight with
all the tribes as they disagree on siding with Killmonger, or T'Challa.
That's formulaic, but expected. Okoye asking W'Kabi to stand down was an
interesting way to end it though, and I feel like there's a bigger
story there that was cut. Do not sit on this movie if you have any
intention of seeing it because it's not the same by the numbers formula
other than the big fight at the end that still looks visually
impressive. At least T'Challa and Killmonger get a one on one final
fight, mercy and refusal scene that works.</div>
JimmyTheJiverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18326518202165095790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4145873884279772765.post-749860906908519352017-12-08T11:48:00.000-08:002017-12-08T12:23:37.060-08:00You Had Your Chance<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I'm slowly becoming an avid reader of Frederik Pohl as I get his
paperbacks little by little. I don't have the biggest budget for
recreational things and internet comes first until that too gets to
high and I'll just ghost everyone and update sporadically through
libraries and wifi spots. It could be sooner if net neutrality is
repealed.<br />
<br />
The question of why read Pohl when I can read more current science fiction is because accuracy and miring in current troubles is not what I'm here for when reading sci-fi. It's why I'll never be a true fan of the form. I want the fantasy of it, the parallel world that doesn't exist and has it's own rules,
not the forecast of cold, hard facts you read in this weeks science
journals, or the mere parody of today's social trends turning into
tomorrow's exaggerated post-apocolyptic dystopias. That ain't me. Though
all these old stories were written with those two mentalities and methods in mind, they long since
been outmoded and I don't have a lot of interest in forecasters current
predictions unless the book is that good. I read science fiction of the
past like a parallel reality and as a context for the times it was
written more than anything.<br />
<br />
Recently I finished reading Age of The Pussyfoot by Pohl. It was about a fireman who died in 1968 and was cryo-freezed and wakes up in the 25th century where there's a the possibility of a Sirian invasion and people carry around controller like things on their belts that mine as well be smart phones. Also because people with insurance plans can get cyro-freezed, people can also put hits on people. Sexual norms are looser, nuclear families aren't the norm. Couples pick a name to refer to themselves, family members also have special names for each other in the context of their relation. I might steal this idea, honestly. It was a short book the way I liked that gave a glimpse of a place to get my mind running. That's what I'm here for. People wanting more detail and painstaking development will be disappointed. For one I liked the subplot of the main character going homeless and hanging out with the forgotten men and that ends too soon, but it's fine.<br />
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The first time I enjoyed Frederik Pohl's writing was when I was browsing through the bookshelf of a thrift shop and found a hardcover collection of the Starchild Trilogy he wrote with Jack Williamson, another writer I like. Williamson would write the first drafts and Pohl would add, fix up and edit it. So it's more a Williamson book, honestly. The cover has a hippie in a spacesuit riding what looks like a dragon. I'd show you, but this website sucks for uploading on my crappy internet. The Reefs of Space changed my life. The story involves a scientist being demoted and given an explosive collar that could detonate if he gets out of line, or doesn't check in with his appointments. He's called a "risk." The problem is he has amnesia and can't remember important details that would exonerate him. The government is ruled by a computing machine and there's people who read the ticker tape and put it into action. The story has noirish mystery and feel with some thriller elements, even if I don't like amnesia plots (a common abused neo-noir trope that shows up in maybe a fraction of old noirs). Though I have an irrational phobia of coral in real life, the idea of it growing in spacelike a forest is beautiful imagery even though it's scientifically impossible. My favorite part of the book is the body bank. That's the one part everyone sort of ignores more than the rest when reviewing, but I think it has more development than the reefs of space itself and it's the culmination of the protagonists lot in life. The psychology of facing his ex-girlfriend, an undercover agent who turned him in was well done, but creepy. I think this may have influenced part of Miyra's characterization in my Red novel. I also liked the junkman mystery and the main character possibly being him and his identity crisis. My biggest disappointment was the protagonist coming to terms with his identity and then his memories come back that he isn't the junkman so he can live happily ever after with the semi-annoying love interest. If I crib this idea, I'm definitely playing it differently.<br />
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This gets to my new point. Since I'm feeling sick and want to vomit, I can't write, so I mine as well read. I had the choice of a Nero Wolfe mystery about a radio host, or two Frederik Pohl books. One was Plague of Pythons, which from what little I gather is about people who are mind controlled into doing horrible things that make me sick. I hate mind control stories as a rule. The other is Drunkard's Walk. The problem with this first edition book is that there is nothing on the back, or on the inside that tells you what you're in for. Just a bunch of blurbs about how cool The Space Merchants with C.M. Kornbluth is and I know this back when they were written before what was classic was decided, but everybody who's heard of Pohl has heard of Space Merchants at most. So my brother decides to flip through the book and tell me some things. The main character's name is Cornut, ewww. He's a professor. Math's involved including Pascal's Triangle. He has a wife, there's a senator, there's a guy with this name and that, one sounds suspiciously close to the author's, an author avatar, perhaps? He decides to read the last line and he won't spoil it, but he basically describes it like some Snape as Terminator shit and I'm like, whoa, I got to read this. He asks me if this was written before Day of The Daleks and Terminator. Yes. So Harlan Ellison can shut the fuck up. My brother surmises a strange plot involving the character becoming Darkseid and looking the equivalent of the anti-life equation and other things. So not wanting to spoil the ending, I decide to look up the wikipedia article to see if it had more plot information. The article has one sentence only. Something about a professor who discovers a monstrous plot. Very vague. Needless to say the plot is probably nothing like my brother's imagination. Also the original Galaxy digest cover totally looks like a superhero surrounded by atoms and holding a beer bottle. Definitely look up the article. Also the first two parts can be read through scans on Internet Archive. I wish they could make those scans have a text format that isn't fucked by the incoherent ocr they use because I do not fucks with smart phones, tablets, or kindle fire. Burns my eyes like reading a computer screen for too long. Either I find the original digests, or someone makes a text file for my black and white kindle. That's why I haven't taken advantage of all Internet Archive has to offer and mostly stick with the slow releases in Project Gutenberg.<br />
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Also one of my big regrets is that while Frederik Pohl was still alive and blogging, I didn't muster up the courage to comment on one of his articles and tell him how he influenced me. Got me that much closer to actually writing.</div>
JimmyTheJiverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18326518202165095790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4145873884279772765.post-31643322469816741602017-10-21T04:13:00.000-07:002017-10-21T04:13:05.017-07:00Nate Heywood Is An Emotional Abuser<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Rewatched last Legends of Tomorrow Episode again because my brother missed it and he loves Victorian Circus motifs and Billy Zane, so he had to watch it.<br /><br />On watching this a second time, I've come up with why Nate bothers me. I'll get to that, so let me explain the situation before I make accusations:<br /><br />Nate's upset about Amaya showing up after leaving without saying goodbye, he decides to get drunk and blows the team's cover. Whatever everyone ends up idiot balling in this episode even Sara so he's not the only offender and everyone can take some of the blame here, but man is Nate the cause of the idiot snowballing.<br /><br />Everyone else has explained better than me why Nate's been acting like an asshole before he got drunk and how he basically seems to be dense when it comes to reading the room with his beau when making donuts. I'm aromantic and even I'd be charmed by Amaya making donuts from scratch. True fact my greatgrandmother made homemade donuts. I've never tasted them, but my grandma raves of them and can find only one bakery that's open in limited hours, limited days of the week and has a first come first serve policy and those are the closest she'll ever get to tasting something similar to her mother's homemade donuts because she don't know the art of making them herself. She was a child when Amaya would have been an adult to put it in perspective. Getting off topic.<br /><br />Amaya comes back to the Waverider trying to be professional for this mission she got dragged back under false pretenses that Nate was okay with it. Later when things go wrong she talks to him about her reasons for leaving, he makes the whole mess about her and blames her for all of it backfiring. The whole mess they are in this episode, he puts on her shoulders for not being honest with him. Basically he won't own up to any of his own mistakes, whether they be mutual things like the two of them aren't communicating with each other well (Barry and Iris dealt with this), or how he makes everything about himself. Maybe drinking his problems away and denying it as anything more than hanging out isn't a good look and did in fact cause the whole cover to blow. What it turns into is Amaya withholds secrets (well he doesn't exactly give her confidence she can talk serious when often he just wants to have amazing sex and eschew romantic things and kind of brushes off her need to make sure her grandchildren are born and the timeline is stable last season).<br /><br />It turns into “Look what you made me do.” Nate Heywood is an emotional abuser. Is he ever nice to Amaya in their downtime? He seems to only be tender to her when their lives are in danger because otherwise it's he won't talk to her, okay he'll talk to her and call her out on her bullshit and sweep his own under the rug. That's their relationship.</div>
JimmyTheJiverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18326518202165095790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4145873884279772765.post-2088201070196476652017-10-13T19:01:00.002-07:002017-10-13T19:01:52.543-07:00Cross Media Will Never Understand Oliver Queen And Dinah Drake-Lance<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I know this is old news and old complaints, but man do I hate cross media missing the point on Oliver Queen. They get it in their head that he's Bruce Wayne and then make assumptions based on that. This is what's ruined him in Smallville and Arrow. They decided that Oliver can't marry his should be battle partner Dinah, or Laurel depending on the media and that he better marry the cute, nerdy blonde girl with the laptop that the showrunners poured all this time into when they decide they don't know how to write a girl vigilante better than Oliver, nor fathom he can be into such a woman. This is an irritating trend, i hope they don't repeat if ever they're adapted in the movies.<br /><br />Oliver Queen loves badass women. Honest. He can be a blowhard and border on patronizing, but he knows to let Dinah steal the show because she doesn't need him. but they like each others company and fighting crime together. He's not the guy who makes his women stay safe at home, the office or in the arrow cave punching computer codes talking into his earpiece. Never was. Why does tv get this wrong? He trusts Dinah to get them out of situations when he's at a loss. Trusts her to be the powerhouse fighter she is because while he has some moves, he's more of a long range kind of guy and she's hands on. They're a team. No media outside the better comics runs get this and yes there's plenty of shitty comic runs that throw this out the window for the sake of drama and writer's male insecurities. That's a problem, no doubt, but so is these tv shows being unable cast the appropriate actors and screen test them for proper chemistry and then write them without undermining Dinah/Laurel as a character.<br /><br />Look I know we all prefer Dinah to be with Barbara Gordon, but because of the Bat embargo on cw this shouldn't even be an issue. That showrunners have to undermine Dinah/Laurel to prop up Oliver's usefulness is the problem. He's not the alpha male. He's the battle partner. He's not Bruce Wayne. He's closer to Steve Trevor, but that he has a specific skill in trick arrows and street fighting instead of guns and military training. He and Dinah are battle couple, but she takes down most of the enemies more efficiently. He does his part, but he's not the star of the show. This is why Arrow is a faulty premise. They had to change Oliver's character out of the gate in order to justify him dating Felicity, or Chloe instead of Laurel/Dinah. They had to make every other woman vigilante evil, reckless, incompetent, or just utterly undermined to make them all bad choices so the real woman who doesn't fight gets the prize. What the hell does that say?<br /><br />I understand that we need more female characters that aren't martial arts badasses, but are useful in less glamorous ways like being a hacker, a journalist, a doctor, a scientist. That's not the problem. It's the problem that there's no room for women who are brawlers to have the same kind of humanization and nuanced femininity. Dinah in the comics is not only the best martial artist, sometimes a g-man, sometimes a cop, field agent to Oracle, chairwoman to the JSA and JLA, she also owns a flower shop, likes gardening, is a mother figure to many characters, is arrow's team mom when they stop embargoing her. She's not just miss fanservice badass. This shouldn't be an argument on being a better character, or worse character for your fan favorite blonde support character.</div>
JimmyTheJiverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18326518202165095790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4145873884279772765.post-79047903377289707912017-07-30T21:26:00.000-07:002017-07-30T21:26:23.819-07:00Bear Witness, An Old Shame<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
So, I'm writing a novel where one of my characters is a gangster and has amnesia from as an after affect from using his innate demi-god powers. He spends a lot of his recuperating and paid vacation time watching all kinds of movies at the theater and he likes to quote from said movies. None of the movies are real. I did this as a challenge because you're not writing a fantasy world that isn't Earth and including quotes from The Godfather, or Titanic because it would take you out of the story. So I used one from my brother's fortune cookie he got a couple days ago because it actually says:<br /><br />You will always have good luck in you. Personal affairs.<br /><br />So I decided the not very useful advice is bad dialogue from a movie called Personal Affairs because the second sentence is such an afterthought as to be like it was quoting from something. This got me into busting out my old folder: Debt To Hollywood, a dead project and old shame where I was going to make a story about timeless Hollywood following the filming and backstage politics of a studio and its actors, directors, producers and whatever. I knew I had to have written some mock movie titles and plot synopsis's somewhere for my amnesiac gangster to quote from. Most of these files span from 2013 and January of 2014. I dumped this project after and then by the end of October, I abandoned all projects I was working on completely and formulated a new project from scratch for my first Nanowrimo where I wrote manuscript over 60k words and never looked back.<br /><br />One of the better fake movies I wrote I intended to be a dumb action revenge movie starring my Clint Eastwood expy. It's called Bear Witness and in retrospect it sounds like a parody of The Revenant, which I've never watched.<br /><br />Bear Witness<br /><br />In the Alaskan wilderness, a scientist toils away in his lab when the other scientists barricade his fortress and accuse him of the murder of his wife and fellow scientist. In an act of cruel and unusual punishment, they strand him in the snowy tundra with an angry bear who he soon finds out had mauled his wife the night before, after she dumped chemical waste in the river killing the bear's family. After the two grief stricken widowers have a fight to the death in the snowy tundra, the man barely (heh) escapes alive to return to the compound. The other scientists forgive him after he explains his story. To save the compound from a raid of deadly bears, the man must wear a fur suit and disguise himself as one of them to infiltrate their lifestyle. After the bear sniffs him out he takes his grenade at the bear and walks away from the fiery blaze.</div>
JimmyTheJiverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18326518202165095790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4145873884279772765.post-82461859317971848992017-07-26T21:23:00.000-07:002017-07-30T21:37:15.555-07:00Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, A Film Review<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I saw Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets yesterday and I liked it in spite of not liking the two leads. When the production credits segued into the beginning prologue to Bowie's Space Oddity, I got chills and sang.<br />
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My brother and I were the only people in the theater which means it's probably a box office bomb and no sequels will be made, but I enjoyed being able to talk and point out details. I've honestly not read the source material, but I've had the translated graphic novel collections (all probably incomplete and edited unfortunately) sitting on my Amazon account for years now, but I've honestly not bought anything on Amazon in over a year because I don't have a steady income so I can't compare it, but I will say that they should have cast leads that didn't feel like twentysomethings playing young adult teenage protagonists. It was jarring.<br />
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These are shallow complaints honestly, but Dane DeHaan ladies man status seemed informed than shown. Cara Delevingne came off better than in Suicide Squad, but I still don't like her as an actress and honestly would have preferred Rihanna with an age appropriate male lead. Scarlet Johansson with her Avengers look would have looked accurate to Laureline in the comics, but that's nitpicky and none of us really want to see her keep getting roles anyway after that Ghost In The Shell debacle.<br />
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What I liked about the film is that it proves you can do a space opera with tons of nonhuman aliens that isn't Star Wars. A lot of comparisons will be drawn to Star Wars and Fifth Element, which the director lifted a lot of design elements from the original comics. To get it out of the way yes the original Valerian and Laureline comics predate Star Wars so their ship resembling the Millennium Falcon is the source material and changing it to modernize it, or kill comparisons is sort of inauthentic. I like that they kept a lot of the retro feeling that probably is in the source material instead of foregoing it for bland apple sleek futurism, or whatever is in for portraying the future now. The sprawling cities made up in the satellite not only remind me of Fifth element, they remind me of paintings of Trantor from Isaac Asimov's Foundation books. That's a good thing because I fear that if Foundation ever got adapted we're stuck with modern sleek with no definitions. Everything looks lived in Valerian, most set designs for the future, or the past don't. They looked pasted on and sparse.<br />
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The plot isn't anything amazing, or world bending, but it's the adventure that I liked and it teaches a moral lesson of foregoing protocol when an injustice is made. When the bad guy of the film says he's a soldier and will take genocide over humiliation, (paraphrasing, I know i have some words off) you wanted him to get it.<br />
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Another thing I liked that will bother people is the nineties style writing and dialogue. It was refreshing. I watch a lot of films from my childhood that would now be called out for bad writing because people have earnest emotions and say what they mean and then ridiculous stuff happens that escalates, or fixes a sticky situation and they don't break the fourth wall and turn snarky over it. If Cara Delevingne rolled her eyes less like a poor man's Emma Stone, or Dane DeHaan did more than ape Keanu Reeves's speech patterns it would have felt more classic.<br />
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Of course there's probably a lot of things people especially on tumblr would have a discourse over, like Valerian housing a woman's soul. I as a transmale didn't find it offensive, but it's not for me to say how a transwoman would feel about that. Things relating to the body and mind become a tricky (hate that fucking word) or, problematic in sci-fi fantasy when you factor that in. It's why I see Ready Player One failing with it's avatar controversies in an age of social media dictating that you answer for your identity on a constant basis. Rihanna's character will definitely bother people. Herbie Hancock doesn't get enough to do. The relationship between Valerian and Laureline will bother people too among other things I can think of.<br />
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Anyway, I don't regret seeing this movie and will probably own it if I see it discounted. I would like for some sequels to happen, but it's not going to happen because we can't have cool things. I wish we could have more space opera's that aren't Star Wars, Star Trek, or Marvel. I think this movie does way better than what a lot of people complained about Jupiter Ascending lacked. It's just a shame it isn't perfect enough to garner another chance and we probably won't see another space opera property outside of the big three for another decade, or more because of diminishing returns and then we're back to lazy post-apocalypse, tired teenage dystopias, boring cyberpunk and isolation, stuck in a spaceship survivor genres.<br />
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By the way I saw the preview for A Wrinkle In Time and and I know people are going to hide their racism behind unnecessary creative liberties arguments. Unnecessary creative liberties would be aging up Jonas four years in The Giver so he can have hormonal teenage angst and making it in color because people can't sit through the art direction of Schindler's List and Sin City, so his seeing color loses meaning, or how it had to be scored because people need to be bombarded with sounds constantly instead of daring to see a cinematic experience that could challenge you, or make you feel unsettled.<br />
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Meg was cast to look thirteen as the books. That's promising. So all the complaints about how Oprah shouldn't materialize and be a shining light with a disembodied voice is a nitpick. That's a necessary change because I've long learned that masking named actors backfires. That's why all superheroes barely wear their masks if they have them at all. It was wasteful of Star Wars to waste Lupita Nyong'o as a voice under motion capture, at that point anyone can do the role. Valerian at least showed us Bubble's two forms, Rihanna and blue squishy alien. I think about the fact that Julia Roberts in Hook had to have a lot of closeups to justify her being Tinker Bell because she'd otherwise be a glowing silent light.</div>
JimmyTheJiverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18326518202165095790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4145873884279772765.post-64659884143689884942017-07-23T20:43:00.000-07:002017-07-30T21:35:04.126-07:00Chester Bennington, A Retrospective As A Brief Fan<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Though I don't want to admit it, I've been thinking a lot about Chester Bennington and Linkin Park in the last few days. Honestly, I haven't followed the band since Meteora. I think I gave the next album a listen and I don't remember it's name, nor do I care to look it up, but I remembered it was bland and didn't have the fire of their previous efforts. Some time after, they did a song for the Transformers soundtrack and became a laughing stock.<br />
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Before all of that though, I loved this band. They were what I could follow when Korn was taking forever to release a follow up to Issues and when they did, it sucked so hard. My father took me and my siblings to see Linkin Park at Cobo Hall, Detroit where I got to see them from a balcony. Adema opened and Cypress Hill was there too. At that point in time they hadn't even released Meteora yet, but I think they were working on it. They played off album cuts like My December and High Voltage which I bought as four track single on cd just to have even if it was a ripoff. My siblings and I used to scavenge download sites for demo's and outtakes which I'd burn to a cd and listen to. One of them I remember was named Carousel. I'd find songs from Chester's time in some obscure band called Grey Daze and I admit I enjoyed What's In The Eye a lot even though it sounded nothing like Linkin Park. I remember a live song that was something like Wake Me In The Morning After, a couple years ago my friend had Underworld, or was it Gothica? on and it had that song on the end credits.<br />
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I'd still say Hybrid Theory was their best effort. They had limited budget and time making that album and I liked it more than Meteora, which was their last good effort from what I've listened to since. Reanimation may be one of the best remix albums I've ever owned.<br />
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It's hard to say what drove me towards their music. Part of it had to with the sound collages maybe the depression and angst spoke more to me than I care to admit. I'd always tell my rational mind that I don't hear voices in my head, or that I don't have mental issues outside of learning disabilities. That the artists I listened to felt real pain and I don't. Of course that's bullshit, but it's been my long coping mechanism to deny anything wrong with me and think I'm okay. I'm not saying that I've never had suicidal thoughts, but that I mask it as a wish I was never born sentiment because you don't admit you'd be selfish enough to leave your loved ones behind after how many years and resources they poured into you, but unexisting is okay because they'd be none the wiser and had never spent the money and hardship ensuring your continual existence. So even if I theoretically thought I should go off myself, my anxiety would get in the way of doing it. Admitting that I've thought this out loud makes me real antsy because we don't talk about these notions.<br />
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We live in a society that treats suicide as the ultimate taboo. You don't admit to that train of thought, or sympathy towards those who take it further. You just don't. It's considered cowardly, selfish, sinful and we don't talk about it except to scorn the dead and move on, while continuing to curse their name if brought up. It's why I think adapting Thirteen Reasons Why was a stupid move. You can't tell that story because the answer's always, suicide's bad. There's nothing interesting, or though provoking you can do with the subject because of it's limitations. It has none of the complexity and grey areas as taking another life.<br />
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One thing that keeps ringing through my mind from my time on Tumblr. There's so many posts that try to assure us that we don't owe others our emotional welfare, our bodies, our existence, but doesn't the taboo against suicide say otherwise? Perhaps I'm making some fallacy here, but the argument against suicide always boils down to the people dependent on you that you screwed over offing yourself. You screwed them of financial support, of emotional welfare, of love, and showers of hugs and kisses, consultation, conversations and experiences. It always boils down to that.<br />
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At the end of the day I have no judgement on Chester Bennington, or his fans, or naysayers, but everybody else I know will. I know if it had been a drug overdose this would have been more divisive than what it is. We're not supposed to say he's no longer suffering. We're supposed to say he's burning in hell for what he did to his family, and what he did against perceived spiritual intentions.<br />
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In the end it doesn't even matter anymore. His family's opinions about this matter more than our collective experience as fans, moralizing naysayers and trolls.</div>
JimmyTheJiverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18326518202165095790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4145873884279772765.post-9185964127956141522017-06-02T23:30:00.000-07:002017-07-30T21:30:44.629-07:00Wonder Woman 2017<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Saw Wonder Woman movie last night. From the beginning I couldn't believe what I was seeing because most of my life everybody acted like Wonder Woman's the one character you can't adapt in modern times. It's too big of leap of faith and somehow Green Lantern isn't? That they portrayed Paradise Island and set it in a non-contemporary time in World War I. It was too much for me to hope for World War II because of Marvel's stake on it and there can never be no Justice Society ever, but how often do we see any movie that's during this time that wasn't made during the silent era , or early talkies before World War II drowned it out?<br /><br />They reaffirmed my faith in Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman. I'll never forgive the self-misogynist women and the typical men over that outcry. I bet those same women are the same ones who freaked over the possibility over Adam Driver as Nightwing, but are now over the moon over his portrayal of Kylo Ren, the abuser. You all are obvious in your shallowness.<br /><br />They made me like Chris Pine in a role. Not Steve Trevor, I already liked the character. Chris Pine has never done it for me as Captain Kirk. I'm so glad to not see him play some cocky blonde guy asshole. He played Trevor just right. He had guilt and the occasional misplaced protectiveness, but wouldn't you if you worried for someone whether they were capable, or not? Here's hoping they don't do some nasty great-great grandson as love interest Sharon Carter bullshit for the sequel. They better not recast him as Hal Jordan either unless they're really serious about that Tom Cruise rumor, in which case, fine cast Pine.<br /><br />Seeing Remus Lupin as Ares, while an interesting twist instead of William Stryker wasn't as bad as people made it, but I am sick of this idea that Ares has to be portrayed by a British guy. No offense, but the British actors they pick are never scary and imposing and what was with the Burt Reynolds porn mustache in the flashback where he was in chains?<br /><br />My only real criticisms with the film is the Zeus twist that you could see coming from a mile away, but I give them props that they left the whole conceived, or breathed life into distinction alone. Nothing she knows is necessarily wrong, just that she's the Godkiller, not the sword. For all we know she was still made of clay and had life struck into her as she said previously, like the animated film, but I also know they love Wonder Woman to deal with big lies and maybe I'm just clinging in denial because I want to like this movie. It's odd too me that even with Wonder Woman reclaiming her appeal with women they have to drop the goddess patrons always in favor of Zeus. It's sort of gross and the basic derivative origin to all and every Greek myth hero.<br /><br />One thing that's telling though is that this film didn't want to piss off the two different factions that are fans of a character named Wonder Woman. I still say Azz's is WWINO and you can fight me. However, I notice that they kept the Marston/Perez Mars/Ares as her archenemy. They left her as the only child on Paradise Island to ease any question of of amazon sex pirates, however making her the only child reinforces that stupid Zeus twist, so… At least we didn't have to see broody origins of the other children bullying her as a freak of nature, so win.</div>
JimmyTheJiverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18326518202165095790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4145873884279772765.post-49808625284760957122017-05-06T14:38:00.000-07:002017-07-30T21:34:22.821-07:00Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Saw Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 yesterday and all though it's more popcorn fair and changes a lot of the source material, I'd call it a solid flick and one of the few properites I still look forward to at Marvel besides Black Panther.<br /><br />The choice of music isn't as good as the first movie, but I dug the Come A Little Bit Closer scene, Father And Son and The Chain. Even My Sweet Lord was used well even if it's not a favorite. I liked the score too and wouldn't mind a soundtrack of that for writing music.<br /><br />I know I'm going to get heat for this, but I liked the father/son theme more than I thought I would because even if I saw it coming, I still liked that it subverted the common Star Wars redemption arc that never challenges viewers anymore. It's always a forgone conclusion in Star Wars that love of shared blood equals redemption (hopefully it's subverted with Kylo Ren), which is why they'll never have the balls to just make Palpatine Anakin's blood father. That would have made the saga better. Luke redeeming his father from the abuse of his grandfather.<br /><br />Anyway, this movie does what comics do well, but movies don't touch on often, bring home the point of your family is your bond and not just because of heredity. I liked that they fleshed out the complex relationships between Peter and Yondu as father and son and Gamorra and Nebula as sisters, both adopted forms of family. Both Peter and Nebula have awful biological fathers compared and contrasted with Peter's tenuous relationship with his adopted father and Gamorra's complex issues with her own adopted family, her adopted father a tyrant and her sibling relationship damaged by that as a result. Love it.</div>
JimmyTheJiverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18326518202165095790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4145873884279772765.post-13711091867179427762017-02-08T00:09:00.001-08:002017-02-08T00:11:11.707-08:00Why Nate Heywood When You Have A Vast Library Of Better Characters?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The one unsolvable conundrum. Why are we supposed to care about Nate Heywood? He's Detroit League reject, a legacy of a 1970s Captain America expy with superstrength backdated into World War II and no matter how many time they try to make Steel a thing and happen by putting him in All-Star Squadron, or a modern Justice Society comic, or on Legends Of Tomorrow he leaves me cold. I mean I know I don't like Infinity Inc. characters, or most of the Justice Society legacies they came up with in the 90′s, but they still could have picked anyone, but Nate, who's identity should have been left for use for John Henry Irons in Supergirl.<br />
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Honestly they could have given us anyone else new this season that would have served his function while being infinitely more interesting. They want a legacy that can bond with Vixen, they could have had Stargirl modern and retroactive in the past, they could have used Cyclone and introduced us Ma Hunkel in the past. They could have gave us Beth Chapel as the new Dr. Midnite they can make them related if they wanted to even though she's one of the rare Infinity Inc. members to not be a bloodline in the comics it'd work in the show where they play fast and loose with that stuff, Rick Tyler as Rex's grandson if they wanted a mystery there on who Rex had been involved with before getting involved with Amaya, but then that could have brought an icky Peggy/Sharon dynamic so no thanks. A Liberty Bell who's an Earth-1 Jessie Chambers, granddaughter to superheroine Liberty Bell and a normal guy named Johnny Chambers as a nice nod. A Jade who's the great-niece of Obsidian and possibly an improvement on the very lacking comic version. Fury who like Steel is a backdated golden age legacy, but could have given us some Amazonian plots and would work nice as an historian character. They could have retooled Silver Scarab, Nuklon (Atom Smasher being confusing), Jakeem Thunder, Amazing Man (another backdated golden age character with more interesting powers).<br />
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Anyone and they could have done something interesting with these I.P.'s DC can't be bothered to anything with, but to fill a trademark. They could have given us a toned down Dr. Fate, The Spectre, Johnny Thunder and reinvented them. This is thinking of the characters not used before like Black Canary, Wildcat, Mr. Terrific, Sand, Atom Smasher, Jay Garrick, Jessie Quick, Atom, the Hawks who are traditionally associated with the Society. Wonder Woman and Green Lantern of any kind is of course a no go.<br />
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They could have gone anywhere else more interesting than what we got with Nate as another hunky white guy with a generic Captain America aesthetic with none of the charm.</div>
JimmyTheJiverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18326518202165095790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4145873884279772765.post-36922892385249645522017-02-07T06:16:00.004-08:002017-02-07T06:45:28.395-08:00Why I'm Not Reviewing Supergirl<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I've stopped doing any blogging habits outside of Tumblr where with the click of the button I can just regurgitate whatever someone else posted and add 2 cents if I'm charitable.<br />
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There's a lot of reasons I haven't written any posts. The anniversary of my mom's death came upon me a week ago. My aunt has cancer, my cousin's visiting. Food poisoning, friend's birthday, and I got a cold and a bad case of period hemorrhaging (won't be on hormone therapy for the foreseeable future) at the same time. Lovely.<br />
<br />
So in between these times I've let my viewing of Supergirl slipped. Last Monday it was the birthday and the cold. This Monday, cold, ear ache and aforementioned hemorrhaging.<br />
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In the end though, I'm just sick of the Monel as the writer's choice of the ultimate love interest. No matter how much Monel changes the narrative still doesn't justify the reward. I wouldn't hate the character if they just left that off the table, but they won't stop pushing it.<br />
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The show has had better writing for the most part this season than last, but it's that damn character that ruins it. Contrast this with Flash where I'm devoted no matter what plans, or how sick I get. Last season is generally more well received than this season has been so far, but there's a big difference in my eyes for why I can stand it better in spite of the wasted Flashpoint potential that didn't need to happen to write this season, awful character dynamics, wasted Dr. Alchemy, stupid Savitar, wasted Iris, the quick resolution of Caitlin going off the deep end and other problems I can't remember to mention. What I will say is that what makes this season worth watching even more than last is that there's no Parry Spivot! Yeah that's a large factor, but I also like the stronger West-Allen in spite of my gripes with Iris being wasted, I love Julian in spite of my gripes with Dr. Alchemy, I love the cast in spite of my gripes with the character dynamics. I'm intrigued by the fallout of Savitar in spite of my wish for Savitar to go away.<br />
<br />
I don't think Supergirl has many things left to keep me hooked, just enough to maybe marathon it in the future and then be disappointed by the end result that she's stuck with Monel, Winn will get with Lena and James might get with Lucy off screen. Yeah none of that interests me in the slightest. At this point I'm more interested in J'onn and M'gann in spite of feeling wrong saying that because I'm so used to M'gann being portrayed as martian teenager not as an equal to J'onn. Than again Monel is nothing like the sweet boyfriend he is in the comics to Shadow Lass either so both mine as well be two different chracters who share a similar name. I support Alex and Maggie, but I'm not really invested in them either. I hate to admit this, because I've wanted a gay couple in the CW superhero shows and have found the lacking of it odd when it's produced by a gay man and so many gay and bi actors are cast in the shows. It's also hard to be invested in Alex and Maggie when it's a writing device to play keep away with Alex and Kara time where she could use her support instead of relying on a tool.<br />
<br />
This has been my frustration with the show and why I've become apathetic and have even missed two episodes in a row and will probably skip the next one. This show has everything going for it except for the central love story and friend support group that the first season did better in spite of some inconsistent writing. Don't get me wrong. I liked that this show expanded the world, included more aliens, gave Kara a job promotion, gave Kara another friend in Lena when Lucy couldn't come back, gave us Clark for a few episodes, and then Monel had to wake up and ruin all goodwill.<br />
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I'm pissed at the sidelining of James as the love interest after I've waited two decades for DC to to do something with that squandered potential only for them to mess it up with a gross white boy privileged stereotype taking on the name Clark bequeathed to a superior character in the comics who came from an awful xenophobic society and still with Clark's example of brotherhood, not forced through a one-sided toxic romance, became a better person.<br />
<br />
I think it's a poor choice that the writer's decided Alex is going to ditch Kara's birthday to date Maggie instead of bringing her girlfriend along to her sister's birthday party and then take her out on more intimate dates later. This is supposed to be a move in maturity for Kara to realize her sister's not going to always be there, but they could have illustrated that lesson for something less than a birthday. I've noticed the shows gradual crumbling on the sister dynamic to make room for romantic relationship as if they can't coexist. In what world? Basically Maggie ends up being a means to an end to keep Alex away from Kara and that becomes transparent. Alex benefits here because she's not the one dating an asshole, but Kara's saddled with the inevitable foregone conclusion that she'll have to uphold the straight patriarchy. Why? It becomes a problem that they're using a sweet gay couple to distract us from a potential toxic straight couple and it's not working.<br />
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They also conveniently uses Alex as an impediment on Jimmy and Winn being upfront with Kara about their activities so that we the viewers can be blindsighted and then the topic of telling Kara can quietly be dropped. This is the writer's solution to have Kara's stuck babysitting an asshole, because where's Alex or Winn to talk sense into her? Insulting.</div>
JimmyTheJiverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18326518202165095790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4145873884279772765.post-30516600425094215852017-01-23T21:42:00.000-08:002017-02-07T06:46:07.199-08:00Tonight's Supergirl Was Great<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Tonight's Supergirl was great. It reminded me of Star Trek and Stargate before Wynn referenced them. If CW can make desert sets and rubber masks and Legends can make the Waverider I don’t see why mainstream TV can't stretch further to make a main network Star Trek show.<br />
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Monel was alright this episode and best yet they didn’t do any obvious romantic stuff with him and Supergirl. My prediction that he's the Prince of Daxam is confirmed with the Dominator and other alien bowing to him.<br />
<br />
Speaking of Romantic, Alex and Maggie get all kissy and happy until Alex blames her happiness for interfering with her work and Maggie gives her the ultimatum that this is her last chance at making it work. They have a beautiful hug at the end.<br />
<br />
Harley-Quinn Smith appears and she and Supergirl get to hug. How many people get to hug their heroes like that?<br />
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Wynn has a crisis of conscious after getting beat up by thieves and then realizes that he got to go on another planet and survive to tell the tale. He’s living the dream Jimmy Olsen probably lived back in the day with Superman.<br />
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Snapper Carr's coming around to Kara.<br />
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Roulette was wasted in screen time that was taken up by her alien thugs, but she really proves to be wicked scum that will sell out humans to aliens who don’t seem concerned with how they sell each other out working for her.<br />
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I love Joe the alien who speaks in third person and got to go back to Earth with Supergirl and crew.</div>
JimmyTheJiverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18326518202165095790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4145873884279772765.post-61711242769069091112016-11-14T19:30:00.000-08:002016-11-14T19:30:13.830-08:00Review Supergirl Season 2 Episode 6 Changing<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
First of all Parasite kind of sucked and was wasted just like Metallo. I'm also shocked they actually addressed though wordlessly that Supergirl kills him. I feel like the global warming angle didn't earn itself as the topical cause of the episode, though. There's better villains that would have served that purpose while Parasite is wasted as a knock off Yeerk turned purple, hulking Red Skull. I feel like Flash's episode about Everyman does this concept more justice. Than again I feel Metallo was wasted too. A pattern perhaps.<br /><br />They're getting Alex's development down and done better than last episode. This could be the first dreaded friend zone trope to apply to two gay characters on tv. Alex's rejection felt real, I can relate to the forget I ever said it should of kept my mouth shut sentiment. That her memories are filling in childhood moments of identity that were buried is also a common experience and it needed to be addressed. After many misdirects they actually have Kara supportive. There's never too many shows that have believable sisters that hits you. She also has time to work, and convince M'gann and Mon El to rise above themselves.<br /><br />Maggie's presumptions and brush off aren't wrong, but condescending in trying to be a friend to a child kind of way. This Maggie while irritating in some ways is what I wish we would have gotten for a liveaction Renee Montoya than that plot device on that Fox show. While she has comic Maggie's confidence, she doesn't have her comic book backstory baggage. She does like comic Renee have an implied blink and you'll miss it drinks alone mention that could lead somewhere, or go nowhere as the writers choose. It didn't go so well for Laurel Lance so I don't think it will work here. Alcoholics rarelhy make compelling characters, especially on CW.<br /><br />I'm sort of interested in how they resolve Mon El's kidnapping and his job as n enforcer. I was not expecting the enforcer angle, I thought they were going to go with not stripper, but maybe male model. I like to see him interact with James and more Winn. I'm glad Alex inspired him to be a hero, but maybe James and Winn got to show him how to be a proper human being since Kara's doing a fine job at it and Alex has her own problems besides the obligatory rescue that she and Supergirl will come up with.<br /><br />I'm not sure what to think about James's vigilantism. I'd have rather they'd done a wacky gains superpowers for an episode to revert back to normal but most of those stories reek of a stay in your place mentality. If his should be a stepping stone for Winn's turn as the new Toyman than that'd suck.<br /><br />I'm liking the slowburning development of J'onn and M'ann's friendship that could rip apart any second. One nitpick I have is that I like the actress who plays M'gann, but basically the symbolically oppressive white martian is doing the shapeshifter equivalent of blackface. I mean so is J'onn, but M'gann's race is explicitly genocidal and conquering (they're not only white, but they're coded white). It only works because of the initial misdirect and the actors are just that good. While I'm used to Miss Martian being a bright, sunny teenager with a shameful secret in need of a father figure, this Miss Martian whose distrustful, remorseful and older with a shameful secret in need of a friend, or something more works for me in a CW drama. I can see the Young Justice cartoon fans pissed as I was when they dumped Tim, Bart and Cassie, replaced it with Teen Titan characters and screwed up Kon, so fairs fair.</div>
JimmyTheJiverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18326518202165095790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4145873884279772765.post-82186667812171882042016-11-10T00:46:00.000-08:002016-11-12T00:48:03.763-08:00Review Flash #10Up at 6 in the morning reading yesterdays comics to cheer me up. Reading Flash #10. The Shade returns and they introduced what I'm sure will be a one issue wonder villain in Papercut.<br /><br />I'd like to comment that the art was good this issue. It's the first issue of The Flash in a long time where the anatomy isn't wonky, people have distinct faces, the line work is clean.<br /><br />The Shade has come back, gone from dapper and good to appearing creepy grotesque and has lost hope, which is what turned him into a bad gut and gaining hope and friends turned him good. Not a lot more has been revealed yet as it ends on a cliffhanger, but the shadow effects look great. If I had to guess, the stealing of years has either reset Shade back to square one without his connections and without them he's lost, or he has enough awareness to know that a higher power can rip your life away and despairs because of it.<br /><br />Now on to Papercut. Other than the unfortunate villainous albino aspect, he has potential. To be honest I'm not sure if he's a white albino with dreads and that would be unfortunate, or if he's intended to be black albino. He does have a cool costume and a cool power. In fact the m.o. sounds like something I would have created. He makes origami paper weapons because he can control wood. I'd like to see this rogue go up against Alan Scott, if his old powers/weaknesses were restored by Rebirth.<br /><br />Flash Facts are back! At least in dialogue. Between this and Psylocke's mention of Psychic Totality this is a good week for old acknowledged catchphrases.<br /><br />The little shit who must not be named better stay out my comic. Don't care if Kid Flash is on his team.<br /><br />Meena might be alive, but I'm not digging the explanation for her staying away. There's got to be more to it. It'd suck if she only came back once Barry and Iris take the next step. Wish they'd resolve things before that happens. I actually like Meena as brief lover interest unlike Patty in the books and show even though both Patty's seem like different people to me.<br /><br />While I find some of young Wally's impulsive actions annoying, I got to keep in mind that he's a teenager and they rationalize things weird, or maybe that's off writing either way I can overlook it, because other times he gives me the feels whether it's his joy of his powers and helping people (even when he doesn't always think of that when he's showboating a villain), distrusting Flash, not wanting to disappoint Iris,being withdrawn, trying to prove himself (though looking for trouble seems iffy to me). I also want more development on his friendship with Chunk.<br /><br />Even though I think Barry keeping his identity from Iris is stupid, I suppose in this lost time of his life he can justify it. I dig the fact that Iris protects him when they're in danger. It sort of reminds me of Diana in Steve over in Wonder Woman.JimmyTheJiverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18326518202165095790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4145873884279772765.post-80812490702993584152016-10-29T00:42:00.000-07:002016-11-12T00:45:54.984-08:00Missed The Record Swap So I Went Shopping At The MallAfter the write in, I went shopping and got two cool things that sort of makes up for missing the last record swap meet.<br /><br />My first purchase was at the Sleeping Tiger import store where I got a print of Mick Jagger talking to Ed Sullivan while Keith Richards looks on, arms crossed looking reserved and rather cute. He's also wearing pinstripes and I'm mad gangster for those. It cost $3.99, so no big loss. I figure I mine as well make it official since my sister won't stop pestering me about our secret relationship. I mean if I'm all defensive about him, but all shy, embarrassed and in denial about it, it must be true, right? Anyway I found that this same print sold on ebay for $14.99 + $4.99 shipping so I made out.<br /><br />At all the previous record shows I was already scraping the bottom of barrel of availability and budget. Needless to say I was never going to find any Small Faces/Faces LP's not credited to Rod Stewart only. I have many of those, but today that all changed when I went to FYE where they always have overpriced vinyl reissues. My sister found me First Step discounted from $24.99 to $19.99. I ended up buying it making it the most expensive record I've ever bought, beating out Truth, Rough And Ready, and Beck, Bogert & Appice at $5 each. Yikes. Well anyway the record itself is orange color, which is tacky, but alright whatever and long as it plays.<br /><br />An older guy notices I'm holding it and he tries to step to me with his old man hipster act. "Oh The Small faces with Rod Stewart, well that's a good album, but I liked them with that other guy." You know trying to slyly call me a poser without coming out and saying it.<br /><br />"You mean Steve Marriott," I said. "I like him and Rod."<br /><br />Then the conversation goes on where he talks about Steve's stage presence and the scarcity of their live shows and I'm all, well it's not a concert, but I have a burnt copy of their BBC selections from Ogden's Nut Gone Flake performance on dvd, you can find some of those clips on youtube if you do a search. Well by the end of it he told me to take care having finally been convinced of my Small Faces fan credentials in spite the fact that I appear to be a short, greasy, ugly, androgynous female sixteen year old. In fact I'm all those things, but sixteen and female. So anyone who tells you Comic Book fans will quiz ya for being born with the wrong genitalia, well Rock fans are exactly the same.JimmyTheJiverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18326518202165095790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4145873884279772765.post-50285899551338267382016-10-26T00:33:00.000-07:002016-11-12T00:39:26.397-08:00Review For Flash #9 And Flash Episode 4 The New RoguesThis was a great week for me in The Flash department. A great Flash episode with a competent Barry outsmarting the Mirror Master who've I've been wanting on the show since day one, forever annoyed the first series done it and the new series was dragging it's feet. I not a fan of Top being Mirror Masters girlfriend since I'll always associate Top with Golden Glider, but since they already botched that and had Glider be interested in Cisco, whatever. This Top also reminds me more of Golden Glider than the Golden Glider they cast as well. She just has that fun, gleeful vibe to her. Maybe that's just me. I'm not keen with either being metas, but that complaint left the station when they did it to Weather Wizard first season. I also thought it weird that this Mirror Master had an accent (which I don't think resembles a real world one) even though he was Scudder and not McCulloch who I could understand having an actor do a botch Scottish accent, but no excuses for Scudder whose traditionally States. There was a blink you'll miss it mention of Earth-2 McCulloch who gets mirror gun, but I'd have preffered main Earth Mirror Master had one.<br /><br />Most importantly this week was the comic. In Flash #9, the two Wally's meet, we get the confirmation that young Wally's father is in fact Daniel West/Reverse Flash who've I've suspected for awhile. I don't know if this is new information since Barry knew as I didn't read most of the crappy previous run.<br /><br />There's so much to unpack with this issue. I can't get into all of it, but each scene and dialogue was smartly paced and written.<br /><br />I'm not going to go detail by detail, but Iris gets flowers from a secret admirer who unlike Barry knows they're her favorite flowers. The two Wally's meet. A possessed Barry reveals that Daniel West is young Wally's father. Chunk cameos. Older Wally reveals to Barry that Abracadabra's behind his disappearance. Older Wally is the one who's been sending the flowers as gratitude and knowing he can't reveal himself to her yet. Barry suspects there's more at work and that the culprit is bound to return to the scene of the crime. Barry sees one vision he wasn't supposed to see while he was possessed. Jay Garrick's helmet, y'all!!! And that vision filled Barry with hope!<br /><br />I'll admit the issue made me emotional and not just because there's the hope that we'll get a proper reunion between Jay and the Flash family and perhaps more Justice Society members in other books. Please let Alan meet Simon and Jessica. Please. If not reunite with Hal and Kyle.<br /><br />Quotes:<br /><br />"You would never understand! My parents were taken from me…But you two…Both of you were abandoned by your parents. They left you." - possessed Barry<br /><br />(I promise Barry's not all angsty except here.)<br /><br />"Iris didn't just introduce me to you, Barry…She got me out of that house…Iris saved my life. The least I can do is give her flowers." -WallyJimmyTheJiverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18326518202165095790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4145873884279772765.post-52280314795957841042016-06-06T16:15:00.001-07:002016-06-06T16:15:59.775-07:00My Favorite Brother Published A Book And I Helped!<br />
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<a href="http://i66.tinypic.com/29c9v07.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i66.tinypic.com/29c9v07.jpg" height="320" width="234" /></a></div>
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My favorite brother wrote a book and got it published! He drew this
cover, front to back, as well as the map and postcard. We collaborated
on the non-animal interior illustrations throughout the book. Basically
I’d draw the crappy outline, he’d redraw or improve it, then digitally
line and shade it. A friend of ours drew all the interior animals
illustrations and they’re amazing. I took the author photo as well. <br />
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Here's the link to purchase, if you're interested.<br />
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If you want to give the author more of the profits, use this:<br />
<a href="http://bit.ly/bitterluck">Create Space</a><br />
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If you just want the convenience, though we lose a little money, use Amazon which will take more of the cut. We honestly don't blame you, so don't feel ashamed. We just want it read (and hopefully reviewed).<br />
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Starting-Over-Bitter-Jay-Wood-ebook/dp/B01GF2JT6W?ie=UTF8&keywords=starting%20over%20bitter%20luck&qid=1465253419&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1">Amazon</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15180292.Jay_Wood">Goodreads Author Page</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://kittysoup.tumblr.com/">Link To Jay’s Tumblr Page</a><br />
I apologize for the lack of posts there. It’s a working progress.JimmyTheJiverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18326518202165095790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4145873884279772765.post-24865422702842921562016-05-28T14:09:00.002-07:002016-06-06T16:20:38.226-07:00I'm Not Dead Yet, Perhaps UndeadThough I sure feel like it with this unbearable heat and working on the house repairs.<br />
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I watched The Flash season finale. Honestly as much as it pisses people off I'm glad Flash saved his mom. I expect torches and pitchforks now. With how low the last episodes were, it felt like my birthday all over again getting the ending I wanted in the first season all along. I'll get to my Season 3 theories and observations in another post.<br />
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After all was said and done, I finally bought my months worth of comics on my pull list and I finally read DC Universe Rebirth #1 beyond all the spoilers and I busted out my neglected Legend Of Wonder Woman run and marathoned it before bed. Tonight I'll read the last three issues of Justice League 3001. I'll admit I've not kept on top of of these two series because of their finite nature and I haven't read any of Waid and Samnee's Black Widow because I never found a first issue in any of my local comic shops so next time I do Amazon (because Ebay failed me hear too) I'll buy it with shipping because nothing else on my wishlist free shipping fulfilled through Amazon matches the lowest price with shipping through individual seller. The perils of liking vintage and out of print books, cd's, records, dvd's and vhs's records like the loser I am.<br />
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Quick Reviews<br />
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DC Universe Rebirth #1<br />
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I'll just say now, that Rebirth exceeded my expectations and it made both of my brother and I cry, especially Wally's arc and the lost love between Ollie and Dinah. Sorry Babs/Dinah shippers. I like where they're going with younger Wally's turn to Kidflash especially in light of him being an actual new character instead of being a repeat of old Wally with a personality change. That bothered me. I loved the Atom and Blue Beetle subplots and yay for Dr. Fate and Johnny Thunder showing up. Even Jay Garrick gets a small blink and you'll miss it cameo where Wally talks about first taking The Flash mantle after Crisis. Even Saturn Girl is showing up in the present. I know Geoff Johns won't be writing a comic for awhile, but I feel optimistic that when he does it will be Society or Legion since no other writer employed by DC apparently cares about them or is trusted to do anything with them.<br />
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The three things I don't like, Baby Darkseid and Grail (an unoriginal repeat of Zeus/Zeke raised by Athena/Zola), WWINO's twin and the reinforcement of Azzarello's canon and Little Shit Who Must Not Be Named's decision to form the new Teen Titans.<br />
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I don't have problem with either Watchmen or the Three Joker's. I know it's perverse, but come on, a Night Owl/Blue Beetle or Silk Spectre/Black Canary team up are the dreams fanfanfiction are made of. Also if this means we can have one Joker that's classic and didn't either shoot Barbara or skin his face off, I'm happy. Those other Joker's suck and they seem to still exist too, but oh well, you win some you lose some.<br />
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Legend Of Wonder Woman # 3-6<br />
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Finally we get to have nice things. I've heard the criticisms that Diana doesn't smile. Perhaps that would bother me if I was reading this serialized weekly and I kept it in mind while reading the collected floppies. Honestly it makes sense for a someone who left her island while a political upheaval's going on, is traveling to an unknown land on journey wrought with peril and comes to America thinking her passenger died and is culture shocked, thinks her mom is in danger because a guy with illusion powers has her mom's stuff and then finally enlists into the nurses ward to see the horrors of war to not smile. It makes the first smile earned because of Steve no less.<br />
<br />
I love this series. All the little retcons and bigger deviations from Marston are simple and not overly complicated or unnecessary like the Perex reboot, all the expansions included work towards her journey. I love Etta, a loyal true friend with personality and her own dreams and problems modern Wonder Woman is doomed to never have. I love Steve and his comment that he loves to fly, but admits he's not as good on ground when it comes to fighting is adorable. He really is cut from the same cloth as Steve Rogers (without the Hydra shit though, grr...) with a dash of Hal Jordan (not the sexist pig version, writers like to default to). I'm also glad to see Duke Of Deception again even if he looks like a Final Fantasy character (Reno, Axel, any Nobody really, take your pic) combined with Constantine. It's growing on me. Knowing I get to see Priscilla Rich Cheetah in the future has me excited. <br />
<br />
Etta mentioning that her little brother's in the Justice Society Fanclub. I doubt that little mention will payoff with how little time's left in the mini-series, but maybe it will play a part in the second series. Just knowing they exist at all in the same universe makes me happy. I want Diana to meet, Jay, Alan and Carter again soon. Those were her real buddies before she was forced to play Robin for Superman and Batman Post-Crisis.<br />
<br />
Why can't we have this Wonder Woman as canon and in the shared Universe?JimmyTheJiverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18326518202165095790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4145873884279772765.post-32951718503784430092016-04-18T02:56:00.000-07:002016-04-18T02:59:48.481-07:00Finally Watched TrumboIf this is the role Bryan Cranston got instead of Lex Luthor in Batman Vs. Superman: Dawn Of Justice than that's okay with me. I love period piece movies based in old time Hollywood, but as with all biopics and most blacklisting subjects I have to watch it with a grain of salt.<br />
<br />
The moment I saw Edward G. Robinson (Michael Stuhlbarg) I let out a groan, because someone always has to be the traitor to the cause in dramatizations. What makes it worse is how they frame it in a deceptive way. Of the four times Edward G. Robinson was called to testify in front of HUAC, it was his fourth time by 1952 that he gave in and named the ten who were already blacklisted so he could clear the air of being a Communist himself. Trumbo had already done his eleven month sentence in 1950. He was only
confirming what was already known, not giving new information to light. He wasn't a Communist just because he fundraised with people who were against Fascism. Just as with Humphrey Bogart and John Garfield, Robinson had to clear the air and prove he wasn't in league with anti-American organizations. It's up to you to decide how dirty was Robinson here.<br />
<br />
As for the movie itself, forget the complexities. Shit they'll show you how feeble it is if you refuse to martyr and snitch instead. This leads me to the point of how much was Eddy G. a snitch? The transcripts that were reenacted verbatim in the movie are sure framed in a way to set him up as one to the audiences eyes and any made up personal conversation written between him and Dalton Trumbo (Bryan Cranston) there after has to be framed to make you root for Trumbo and pity or have contempt for Robinson. A shameful, missed opportunity there. All so Trumbo can be the bigger man in the end when he makes his last speech in front of The Writer's Guild, while Robinson is oddly enough in the audience. Does that imply the two made up in the end. Why else would Eddy be there than for dramatic license?<br />
<br />
It does look bad on Edward G. that he just confirmed names already known
and then denounced his former ties to organizations that supposedly
supported a totalitarian regime. The true definition of a snitch is
someone whose implicit in crimes and dealings with whoever they rat out
vs. what John Wayne does and that's target employers and colleagues he
wouldn't have hung out with or do fundraising with anyway. When you're
Eddy G. and you see the reality of all your colleagues going to jail,
jobs drying up, dying, families disintegrating, other friends turning on
them, demonized, hounded, and some that comes your way, you might just
decide you don't have it in you to be Trumbo and martyr or take the high
horse. Not to save your ass or your collections of paintings, but
perhaps to protect your family and ability to work, which is more important than your job or
public persona in the end. Nope that can't be it can it? Be sure you
got a loyal family to risk it all like Trumbo.<br />
<br />
I suppose it could be worse, you could be director Buddy Ross (Roger Bart) who disavows Trumbo then comes crawling back to him to fix his screenplay anonymously because his last pictures were crap.<br />
<br />
In contrast, John Wayne (David James Elliott) doesn't seem so bad for wanting lenience with denouncers of Communism, while the villainous Hedda Hopper (Helen Mirren) is hellbent on destroying lives with her power of the press whether the the target's remorseful or not. Then of course you got your Otto Preminger's (Christian Berkel) and Kirk Douglas's (Dean O'Gorman) who risk there career for the greater good of giving Trumbo his due.<br />
<br />
There's of course some dissent among the family, but they stick it out and from Trumbo's friend and fellow blacklisted screenwriter Arlen Hird (Louis C.K.) a composite character who wants to sue the House of American Activities and dies for his bad habits, while Trumbo would rather win through perseverance and prove to them that they need his services when they vilify them.<br />
<br />
Ultimately Frank King (John Goodman) proves to be the neutral party in all this as the foul mouth boss of King Brothers Productions who hires Trumbo and Hird for doctoring and writing screenplays for gaudy B movies. It's pretty cool that he sticks to his convictions of being in it for the money and pussy and refuses to be pushed around by investigators. Louis B. Mayer (Richard Portnow) surprisingly isn't thrown under the bus as much as I thought he would be, casting couch assertions or no, they're said from a power hungry gossip columnist who calls him an antisemitic slur. Here is the closest we get to complexity even though you end up hating Hopper for her blatant racism than you do Mayer for his alleged sleaziness against women.<br />
<br />
All in all a decent film, but I'm not happy with how they handled Edward G. Robinson. I guess he had to be the much needed traitor to liberals because Elia Kazan doesn't work thematically and has been played out. Eddy's story is much more complex than Trumbo's assertions that he just wanted to continue to be Beverly Hills bourgeois collecting painting from dead guys or Robinson's point about him being a public face while Trumbo can hide under screen writing. Disappointing and simplistic when you consider the actors who got hounded to death like John Garfield or were never allowed to work again like Lee Grant. The film does try to address that point at the end, but it really doesn't get into the meat of the whole controversy than vague allusions and speeches.<br />
<br />
As much as I'm on Trumbo's side for free speech and freedom of affiliation and I hate snitches, as I've said, I don't care for how they frame Robinson as a turncoat who lost his way doing things he wouldn't normally do. It's not really snitching if the crime is on public record and had been dealt with. Political ideals only get you so far until your personal and working life is fucked beyond repair than to play the friendly witness. How many readers out there have to eat shit everyday from a boss who abuses power, but talks a big game of worker's rights? I'm not saying that Robinson is theoretically in the right, nor do I condemn him.*<br />
<br />
Notes:<br />
<br />
* Maybe I'm biased because I own more Robinson films than any other actor
besides James Cagney and Fred Astaire, but John Garfield's my number
three favorite actor after James Cagney and George Raft so you know I take the
HUAC blacklisting personally as an great injustice. On another note: I also have to point out that while I can't stand John Wayne and Ronald Reagan anyway, that doesn't stop me
from enjoying a Walt Disney production or a Robert Taylor movie who are
also in league with HUAC or named names
because they believed in what they thought was the patriotic thing to
do.<br />
<br />
This movie was a must for my dad who loved (maybe that's the wrong word, impressed?) by Bryan Cranston's turn on Breaking Bad.<br />
<br />
Dalton Trumbo writes in the bath as do I. He had a better system, a board propped on both sides of the tub to place his typewriter on. I used to prop my mini laptop on a food tray on my dry belly, didn't want to press my luck so I've taken to typing on my notes feature on my 1st gen. Kindle. Much like a typewriter, it's not good for going back and fixing mistakes. I'd say they need to make a handheld word processor, but that's what stupid touch screen smart phones and tablets are for and I say bah.<br />
<br />
The movie Dalton Trumbo gets his first credit on since the blacklist is Otto Preminger's Exodus. My mother saw it when she was young and talked about a lot and she finally begged my brother to buy it for her for Christmas last year and he did. It's one of the last films she got to see before passing away this year.JimmyTheJiverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18326518202165095790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4145873884279772765.post-73874619109839238782016-03-27T22:06:00.000-07:002016-03-27T22:06:25.991-07:00Maybe I'm Just In A Mean, Petty MoodMaybe I’m just in a mean, petty mood, but with all the disappointment
in Rebirth it does my heart good that the artist at the little anime
convention who boycotted Keith Giffen and JL3001 over an assumption, who
was excited for the new Blue Beetle book will in sticking with her
social justice principles have to now boycott Blue Beetle because
Giffen’s on it baby!!! Almost makes me want to pick it up in support if
not for it being ersatz New52 versions of Jaime and Ted.<br />
<br />
Since no
one has taken my challenge to come up with actual evidence that Keith
Giffen is transphobic, I went back and reread the Giffen interviews
myself. He states that the Guy in a girl body plot was not meant to be a
trans story. I believe him. Re-reading the comics themselves I’ve
concluded that Guy before the reveal was portrayed as a man who doesn’t
understand what is to be a woman and is misguided with well-intentions
to jump on the strong woman, feminist bandwagon. Wouldn’t you if you
woke up one day and lost your male privilege and your body is smaller
and weaker? Yes estrogen weakens your muscles and ability to lift. I
hang out with trans-women who attest to this. When I transition my
strength will increase with testosterone. This is why transpeople are
banned from the Olympics. Hormone replacement therapy is legally
considered the equivalent of taking steroids, fair or not. So Guy not
understanding all the bodily and hormonal changes going on with him will
naturally act moody, claim sisterhood then realize he said something he
has no business saying as a man and try to pass it off as the hormones.
No that’s not how hormones work, but he’s set in his ways enough to
think that he ought to identify with his physical body even if he knows
he has no right because he’s Guy inside and is still a chauvinist and
people expect him to be like that. There. That’s the psychology of a
stupid body switch plot. I get it. Some don’t because they want to read
whats on paper literally without context and wonder why it doesn’t line
up to their trans experience, which is valid, I get uncomfortable with
plenty of things that were not meant to be geared towards my experiences
and I can explain why it bothers me. It’s not the trans journalists and
fans that I have an ax to grind with. It’s the allies with their
pretend trans friends. No I’m not saying all allies rallying against
this story don’t have trans friends, but sometimes I wonder. Sometimes I
wonder if certain allies are jumping on the behalf of trans bloggers
and activists they read and then try to speak for trans people like me
or my associates in the community because they just assume I’m ignorant
of my own rights or feelings without ever realizing they’re like Guy
Gardner or maybe Keith Giffen and are ignorant of their own intentions
and feelings on the situation. I mean I can’t tell people how they
should feel about a story, but it offends me when someone assumes
Giffen’s intentions because they met him once and he was a jerk so a
jerk must be hateful to all outsiders because... because this story is
problematic to her social justice sensitivity. Talking about grasping at
straws to build a strawman out of Keith.<br />
<br />
I had to lose my
little niche book outside the new52 so tptb can cater
to haters who can’t stand or have any business reading genetic overwrite
plots because they insist it has to be an accurate, sensitive trans
plot and it better be done with 20th century science because the 30th
century fictional science used is too creepy and improbable to relate
to. It’s comics guys. Are sci-fi/fantasy writers barred from exploring
body switching and genetic overwrite if it’s between a man and woman
from here on out until trans-representation is perfected? Or do we ban
all portrayals and explorations because it can be problematic with any
kind of body shaming or racelifting? If you’re overwritten with the
genetics of someone whose basically the same race, gender, height,
weight, etc. you’d still complain because it’s personality raping and
that’s triggering and insulting to real rape. Alright I agree, but
banning story elements is a slippery slope and for twenty shitty
portrayals of this theoretical topic their yields a thought provoking
one. Just saying. Cloning is offensive to individuality, cell
regeneration is offensive to disabled people, so is cyborg stories, so
is robots offensive to humankind. Where do we draw the line in what we
can and cannot speculate and how we tell it? Okay I’m getting away from the topic.<br />
<br />
One
things for certain though, whether presumptuous, artist alley girl
doesn’t support her favorite character because of Giffen or breaks her
pact and picks it up, it’s a victory. A petty, spiteful one. The book
will succeed or crash and burn without her support or it will prove her a
hypocrite if she picks it up after all.JimmyTheJiverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18326518202165095790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4145873884279772765.post-67424162254265064702016-03-24T20:54:00.002-07:002016-03-24T20:56:56.684-07:00Zeus Is Why I'm Boycotting Batman Vs. Superman Dawn Of JusticeReasons I Was On The Fence About This Movie:<br />
<br />
1. It comes off the heals of Man Of Steel by the same director<br />
<br />
2. It’s inspired by Dark Knight Returns<br />
<br />
3. Rumors about Wonder Woman’s parentage<br />
<br />
4. Jesse Eisenberg Lex Luthor<br />
<br />
5. Doomsday<br />
<br />
Things That Made Me Slightly Optimistic About This Movie:<br />
<br />
1. They’ll address the moral issues and fallout from the destruction of Man Of Steel<br />
<br />
2. The conflict between Batman and Superman would have merit unlike DKR, this time around Batman is law and order, Superman is the misfit.<br />
<br />
3. Lex Luthor’s parentage, makes the casting sting less irritating, suddenly it makes sense that he’s a spoiled brat<br />
<br />
4. I wasn’t pissed about the casting of Ben Affleck or Gal Gadot, I support world weary Batman and Immortal Wonder Woman<br />
<br />
5. Batgirl, maybe<br />
<br />
What I’ll never support is a WWINO. Wonder Woman In Name Only. Forget you Snyder, you do one good thing by not making Diana’s arc another naive 19-23 year old, new to man’s world story, but you fucked up when you not only decided to put your stamp of approval on a plot element only 4 years old for newbie theater goers to absorb as the DC mythology, damn 70 years of comics, TV Shows and cartoons, but that this early in the game it is now going to be her defining summary. That’s bullshit. We don’t need a Wonder Woman screaming barefoot that she’s the “Daughter of Zeus!!!” at the top of her lungs as that’s her defining point. Thanks Cliff Chiang for that garbage image. I loved your art until you put it to Azzarello’s script and now I can’t stand to look at it. I bet to really bring it home for the WWINO wankers you’ll have Wondy solve every problem by screaming “I Love Everybody!!!” and nothing real ever gets resolved and nothing ever rings true and morally sound, just like the end of Azzarello’s arc. Just like the end of Man Of Steel.<br />
<br />
After reading the reviews, I’ve made my choice. Not going to buy a ticket. Maybe some day when it’s on cable I’ll catch it, but I’m not spending money on a movie that caters to Azzarello and WWINO fans. Same as to this day I won’t watch Antman for catering to alternate universe daughter fans (or fan as there’s only Edgar Wright) at the expense of a founding Avenger literally being put in limbo to be a damsel for alt-daughter to rescue next movie. I probably won’t watch Justice League either for axing Hal Jordan or any Green Lantern as well as using WWINO “Daughter Of Zeus!!!”. Who the hell is Barry going to be besties with, Cyborg so he can pretend to be Wally? Fuck that. As with Marvel catering to Edgar Wright, the DC Movieverse is already off to a bad start, catering to Snyder. Now Jenkins has to clean up his mess. An uphill battle.<br />
<br />
For anyone reading this and shaking their heads at what you consider a minor origin change, remember this. Tone. Believe it or not it dictates how her story is told and what their themes are. When she was made of clay and raised by mother who couldn’t conceived and a sisterhood of Amazons, it informed her character. Now her character is defined by who her father is and who her brothers are, and what a liar and conspirator her mother is and how her sisters are two-faced backstabbers or weak willed and jealous or barbaric black widows.<br />
<br />
Now that Wonder Woman is daughter of Zeus it suddenly is important to make that be known in her first movie. It’s all that matters and defines her world. Zeus gives her powers. Zeus gives her bad guys. Zeus drives her plots. Suddenly her Amazon training is done through her brother (Ares) whose her grandfather by the way (Hyppolyta’s dad, but Azzarello don’t want you to know that). Her godly gifts weren’t earned they were spermed.<br />
<br />
Once it became clear that Wonder Woman’s powers come from daddy Zeus, suddenly that defines her at all times as much as being raised by a bunch of barbaric Amazons that she is somehow born morally superior to. Yes born superior, in spite of being raised by barbarians who hate her, a mother who’s deceitful and for some reason is truly in love with a philandering manipulator because Azzarello just won’t admit that no actually she just wanted to fuck him out of lust becuase he wanted to make clear to critics it wasn’t rape. Just be honest Brian, she was just horny for the most majestic sleaze and didn’t give a fuck about her duties as a Queen of manhating murderers. Dumb hypocrite.<br />
<br />
Basically once you change WW’s origin to daughter of Zeus, raised by barbaric Amazons all her stories shift in tone and none of her old classics fit into that world nor will any new classics be made from her old setup unless it’s a digital out of continuity comic, because suddenly all the movies and all the TV shows will want to pretend the WW made of clay, raised by philosophers, artisans, and warriors (not just stone age barbarians), etc. never existed even though there’s tons of old media that contradict it. This isn’t like Batman where you can compromise campy with gritty. He still had parents that were shot dead in the alleyway by a mugger and he still grew up to adopt orphans and fight crime. Flash still had a mother, but now it’s a plot point that his arch-nemesis went back in time and killed her, his adventures as a altruistic crime fighter with two alive parents happened. Not Wonder Woman. The clay’s a lie!!! Her Amazon sisters were always mean and jealous her, but Wondy put blinders on and held an idiot ball, conveniently and willfully ignorant. Never caring or wondering why her Amazons came back pregnant so she can’t find about their murderous deeds and segregation policy. Hyppolyta apparently okaying this and letting it go on yet keeping her own daughter in the dark because she’s apparently the only Amazon who realizes that what she lets her people get away with is wrong when the other Amazons are to far gone to know better. Is it really a wonder the the Amazon sisters killed their sons when Diana brought them back. What did the idiot think would happen? What did Azzarello think would happen when he left this to less competent writers? A better writer would have had Wonder Woman enact brainwashing regimen like the Allies did to Germany. It’s not moral or ideal, but how else are you going to reason with stone age barbarian misandrists who only know that way. Why would the Amazons not murder? Because Wondy as Queen says so? Bullshit. No amount of “I Love Everyone!!!” will break that spell, Wondy. Try again. Try loving submission or put them on a reform, work island. Don’t just lead your Amazonian brothers to the slaughter, dumbass. This is my point. Azzarello left DC Entertainment a crappy Wonder Woman. A Wonder Woman with a legacy of a false victory, reuniting sons with their two-faced mothers who murder their fathers and she lets her own dumbass, selfish father get away with everything. He gets reborn a baby so he never has to face punishment and is put back on the throne. Fuck Zeus! Fuck Black Widow Amazons! Fuck WWINO! Fuck Batman Vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice!<br />
<br />
Even if Geoff Johns fixed this crap in Rebirth, returning the real Wonder Woman, he still let this get green-lighted on the screen.JimmyTheJiverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18326518202165095790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4145873884279772765.post-53545186488117643832016-03-06T18:00:00.003-08:002016-03-06T18:03:17.873-08:00Comics: Two Late Reviews And One Non-ReviewHonestly who's reading this blog anyhow? I have five followers on
tumblr most. I for a brief second had eight because of my one post about
The Flash and Green Lantern, but after they saw all the Led Zeppelin
gay I think I scared them off and they unfollowed.<br />
<br />
Anyone
who notices these things will know I haven't updated for awhile. Part
of it is that I'm living in a state of zombified sleeplessness that some
how makes me less motivated to throw myself out there in the ether.<br />
<br />
Quick Rundown of Comic Book Reviews<br />
<br />
Justice League 3001 #9<br />
<br />
I
admit it took awhile to pick this one up. It's cancellation status has
made me less driven to get it right away, but I still want to know how
it's going to tie up in a clumsy fashion by the end. So I will continue
buying it, but I won't be timely about reviewing it anymore.<br />
<br />
I
don't have a lot of thoughts about this one. In spite of my
ambivalence, I'm actually curious about the Legion Of Death. It reminds
me how we'll never see the 3001 version of the New Gods promised issues
ago. Ariel and Lois are finally in their right bodies. The question I
have though, is if Ariel was housed in Lois's body as stated, shouldn't
she have been able to use the body or is there something else I'm
missing. Did they drug her to keep her unconscious. I vividly remember
Bane carrying her body carelessly and admitting he uses the body like a
mannequin to keep him company for tea parties. Unless that was a joke to
piss of Lois, but he seemed earnest about it. If that's the case would
Ariel have been unconscious.<br />
<br />
Legend Of Wonder Woman #2<br />
<br />
Finally
a Wonder Woman comic in the last four years that I can stand reading.
I'm glad to find that Alcippe is indeed Phillipus. As my headcanon is
her and Hyppolyta are in love, but torn apart by duty, the exchanges
between them has more meaning. I'm impressed by the real resentment
Alcippe/Phillipus has for Diana. Now it makes sense story wise to do the writing choice of higher ranking Amazons as immortal.<br />
<br />
It's
impressive that for the most part they manage to write a story of
intrigue centered on an isolated island, so far. There's a faction of
Amazons who are in league with Ares and want to overthrow Hyppolyta, one
of them is her own sister. I think they're establishing Ares as their grandfather. Thank you.<br />
<br />
Also Steve!<br />
<br />
Black Widow #1<br />
<br />
And I couldn't get a ride into town on Wednesday, but it's on my pull list, so I'll get to it eventually.<br />
<br />
How
the hell did my pull list get so female heavy. Never in a million years
when I was first reading comics did I ever think I'd put down the men
and actually have a variety of women-led books that weren't softcore.
Different times.JimmyTheJiverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18326518202165095790noreply@blogger.com0