The Rabbit Hole

( The Dark Crystal: quoi? )
The saving grace of those movies, of course, is that someone tried something other than a reboot and did it with a metric ton of puppets. Which is good. I just wish these supposedly seminal movies were actually important after the fact. I realize that I have this problem a lot. Some movies remain important long after they have been made irrelevant--tonally, visually, etc.--by films that owe them a lot of credit. I'm told that The Godfather is one of those movies; I hated it, but supposedly it is the basis on which gangster movies ever after were fashioned, and the good ones (yeah, right, what were those again?) all are due to it. I wonder, though, whether that's fair. There are plenty of movies that pioneer effects, tones, etc. that go on to be used in better movies and we don't hold them up as all that extraordinary. I mean, The Matrix borrowed its signature effect from technology last seen in a GAP commercial and a wardrobe stolen from Wesley Snipes' Blade. Oh lord, I'm gonna hear about that from the Blade-lovers out there.

But I think Blade is a perfect example. It is decidedly not a great film. It's passable enough--like tougher version of Underworld, minus the werewolves (although not necessary without them, as some deleted scenes from Blade 3 would suggest)--and undoubtedly stylish. Otherwise, it's a fairly hollow narrative, based on a caricature better represented in several other characters. The stoic, violent anti-hero who struggles to resist becoming his enemy? Been there. It's still the reason we got X-Men made, and, subsequently, the renaissance of the comic book movie. That doesn't make it great or even necessarily worth watching. (The parts with the fat vampire being baked and Tracy Lords, just in general, make my case for me.) I think there are probably many movies that fit that profile and that people don't generally admit to not liking.

Or maybe it's just me.

A link on linaerys 's journal has proved most interesting. I do not necessarily agree that X-Men: First Class plays up the X-Men as the Jewish other, but that's an experience-dictates-impression sort of deal, I suspect. This is the part that I liked the most:

Rather, what troubles me about the film is that it feels like yet another expression of an attitude that I've been noticing more and more often in Western, and particularly American, popular culture as it struggles with the topic of genocide and national trauma--a crucial failure of empathy, imagination, and, finally, perspective, that leads to a blanket condemnation of anger.  I saw this in Battlestar Galactica when human characters who refused to make peace with the Cylons--the people who had destroyed their civilization--were made into villains.  I noticed it a few weeks ago when I watched an old Star Trek: Voyager episode, "Jetrel," in which Neelix is urged, and eventually agrees, to forgive the person who designed the weapon that depopulated Neelix's home colony and killed his entire family.   And I see it in the increasing prevalence of vengeful victim characters, who are condemned not for the choices they make in pursuit of revenge, but simply for feeling anger.  There is in stories like this a small-mindedness that prioritizes the almighty psychiatric holy grail of "healing"--letting go of one's anger for the sake of inner peace--over justified, even necessary moral outrage.  First Class condemns Erik not for targeting innocents and embracing the same prejudiced mentality as his Nazi tormentors, but for wanting to kill Shaw.  It places two choices before him: either he takes the life of the person who killed his family and tortured him, in which case he's a villain, or he relinquishes not only his quest for revenge but the anger driving it

I love this. I absolutely agree. As we have started to rebound from stories where it is perfectly acceptable to have the successful prosecution of revenge be the climax of the story, we may have gone too far the other way. Anyone who has the desire to kill somebody, even in perfectly justifiable rage, is the bad guy. Obviously, this does not apply to the odd revenge-fantasy movie that still gets made. But if you want to have "nuance," people are not allowed to be angry, much less be allowed to kill, without becoming the bad guy.

And that is horse shit. It's a problem especially for heroes who never kill, like Batman. After a while, all sensible people would think, "Gee, it's nice that you see murder as the defining line that separates all good people from bad, but the Joker has just killed hundreds of thousands of people and I think it's time to stop playing nice." I don't advocate murder or summary execution of villains, but the self-righteousness of the psychology against ever killing is, well, self-righteous.

It's also not even close to what the X-Men are about. One of the things I love best about the team is that it routinely recruits thieves and murderers. And those people are recruited on purpose, not just to reform them but because they are, to paraphrase Wolverine, the best at doing things that aren't very nice. Storm once ripped the heart out of an enemy rather than let her destroy people with a bomb. STORM did this, Ms. Serenity Now Weather Goddess. One of the best X-Men stories I read in the past ten years was one in which a kid's power vaporized people around him. He ran off, after realizing what he had done, to hide in the mountains, when Wolverine caught up with him to calm him down. They share a beer, relate to each other, commiserate. The last panels show Wolverine emerging from the cave and walking off. He is very much alone. Do you think Wolverine took it upon himself to be that kid's mercy angel? No. He was sent. You better believe he was. It's kind of sad that that history is not embraced in cinema. The movie would be better for it.

Thor was better, by far, than I could have imagined. I was completely taken aback at how it managed to balance being so funny with being so completely serious, and captivatingly so. I hope Kenneth Branaugh is proud of himself. He did actually manage to meld an almost assuredly mindless action film with something possessing more gravitas in order to generate a popcorn flick that still made you feel ways about stuff.

A lot of credit must be given to the leads, Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston. "What is my motivation?" may be a cliche, but cliches are cliches for a reason, and it seems like both men took the time to really probe at the corners of their characters. This may have been especially hard to do for Thor, who starts off as something akin to a high school football hero making the most of his big fish, small pond status (right before being slapped with the reality of the real world that doesn't give a shit that he can throw a ball however many feet). There's almost no "there" there, and while that's sort of the point--Thor has a lot of growing up to do--Hemsworth still managed to find shades of uncertainty, even self-doubt in his character. In particular, ( minor spoiler ) One criticism I've heard is that Thor's maturity comes too fast. Indeed, it may--especially as regards the obligatory romantic subplot--but there's very little unnatural to it because you can pick up the threads that were woven, quite deftly and subtly, earlier in the movie. You have to be paying attention. For all that I admit to drooling over the man's body (oh how I drooled), I found myself most excited by his eyes. Hemsworth does a lot of emoting through significant gazes, and they are often just as sexy as the rest of him. (Oh so sexy. Holy God.)

Tom Hiddleston has a much richer part as Loki, and, as the antagonist, he should, really. Loki is a difficult character because, unlike some trickster archetypes, he doesn't really stand a chance of being misunderstood in a brainless bit of fiction. Loki is always the one you're going to suspect, and you'd be right to because he's probably doing something very naughty. Which is funny because most of what would have been Loki's mischievous ways starts off being only the hearsay of other characters. He's accused of having a "silver tongue" even though the worst you could say of him for most of the movie is that he has a politician's gift for extraditing himself--and others--from situations that might reflect poorly on him. For the most part, too, Hiddleston plays Loki as a straight-shooter with a sense of playfulness. An occasionally dangerous sense of playfulness, but not an unsympathetic one. He may even have been right to pull the prank he does at the beginning, ( minor spoiler )

Loki is incredibly savvy, very observant, and very atypical in his antagonism. He is not malicious, not needlessly so, but he knows where to stick which pokers to stir the pot the best effect. All of the credit can be given to Hiddleston for that, as far as I'm concerned. Looking at trivia about the film on the IMDB, I read that Hiddleston put himself on a very strict diet so that he would physically have a very hungry, sharpish aspect. And, now I think of it, he absolutely did. So you have this aura of starving, ravenous ambition at the edges of a performance where Hiddleston is otherwise very open--his face seems completely honest (the better to fool you with, my dear). You can believe his every emotion to be sincere even as his actions scream of duplicity. It's really a nuanced bit of character writing enhanced by a phenomenally minimalist performance.

That there is even this much to say about performances is a testament to the effort to make something more of Thor than just about anyone could have expected. There's more X-Men 2 to this than there is, say, Iron Man, despite my liking both. Iron Man is a tad skimpy on the thoughtfulness at times in favor of action and humor. I think Thor manages to combine that with the consideration of causes and effects, especially as regards statecraft, and it comes out the better for it. In the end, will I want to rewatch Iron Man more often? Oh, probably, but that doesn't take away the fact that Thor achieved something here. Captain America, the bar has been raised.

(Also: ZOMG CHRIS HEMSWORTH IS SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HOT. I cannot overstate how entirely distracting that man is. All weekend, if I would let my mind drift it drifted to this. And I really like what's going on around them hips in this shot. Goddamn, boy. I maintain that if you are female and claim to be heterosexual and you don't think he's hot, you are lying. All the ladies were aflutter after the MAY MOVIE, and with good reason. Personally, much as I want to lick that rise of muscle just over his pants in that one shot, I was as much in love with the bee-ee-ee-youuu-tiful eyes he has. Because they are very pretty. Very, very, verily.)

Oh my. Oh, oh, oh, this made me splutter at work. Um, it's probably not safe for anyone's work but mine, where, because I laughed out loud, I then got to show it around to my other coworkers. Who laughed, probably mostly at me for finding this so funny. But it was.

Ooh, look what's coming to Netflix! I was kindly given the X-Men cartoon on DVD at Christmas, but I'd be so interested to watch the old Spider-Man cartoon (from the 1990s, not the old-old one from the 1960s). I bet it is even worse than I remember it.

In a stunning bit of thinking, a judge rules that people are not their IP addresses. Or vice-versa, whichever. This is still of the good. I'm all for stopping the kiddie porn watchers, but I still believe you should have to do a liiiiittle more actual investigation than assuming that because something was downloaded to a given IP address that it must be the person residing at that address' fault. People are far too lazy about securing their wireless or patrolling their friends'/roommates' habits. Use the IP link to start a proper investigation, fine. Use it to smear someone FOREVER with a link to kiddie porn? Not so much.

I won't even bother to pretend I can do justice to just how bad the latest promo stills of X-Men: First Class are. So go read glvalentine 's vastly superior take.

I disagree with her on only one point, and that is that I think the promo photo of Kevin Bacon and January Jones looks amazing. Sure, it may be ill-advised in the sense that I don't really get "mutant freedom fighters struggling to out themselves to a cold and lonely world" from that shot. But Their costumes are faaaaaabulous. January Jones is so blandly pretty but well shaped, she's like a drag queen's wet dream. (Aside from Lady GaGa.) The catsuit suits her better than the Wonderbra (now with cape!) she was wearing in the last shot.

And Kevin Bacon with some sideburns and an ascot? If that's wrong, I don't ever want to be right. In fact, I would like to live in this world, where PVC clothing and antiquated notions of masculinity go hand-in-hand beside each other on a couch in the round. Let's go there and never go back to Stately McAvoy Manor. Please?

Happy Birthday to my best friend, feiran ! Truly, this has been a momentous year, filled with lots of life changes. In your case, all for the better. In mine, less so, 'cause, you know, maybe I, like, miss you a little (sometimes).

This is also a milestone year for she and I as we will have known each other for TEN YEARS at this point. For those of you not in the know, we met our freshman year at the Columbia University Science Fiction Society. I exposed my general ignorance of literature and declared the literary heroine I most admired/wanted to be like was the Dark Phoenix. feiran  came up to me and was all "YOU LIKE X-MEN COMICS?! I LIKE THEM. LET US BE FRIENDS." Why she'd want to be friends with someone who just declared that a genocidal super-being was her favorite person is still somewhat beyond me. But it worked out okay in the end. Much abuse, and many, many years of cohabitation later--TEN YEARS TO BE PRECISE--and we're still going, even in separate cities. Let's hope that continues for another decade.

A decade. Holy God, am I old. Lucky for me, feiran  is older (for the next 3.5 months)!

Happy Birthday wishes to my friend and co-Twilight Scene It-winning teammate kent_allard_jr  as well! You, sir, are a gentleman and scholar and an extremely good sport about all the dolphin-rape-related teasing we heap on your just about every time we all hang out. We kid because we love!

Have a great one, solstice babies!

I was thinking about my earlier post (in which I objectified at least two men and hinted at a history of doing so to many, many others) and the oncoming onslaught of superhero movies (our taste for which is surprisingly still rapacious). Marvel has no less than a dozen movies already assumed: Iron Man 2 and, very probably, 3; Thor (with Thor 2 less likely but not impossible); Captain America (its sequel potential somewhere between that of Iron Man 3 and Thor 2); The Avengers; Wolverine 2; Deadpool; and some variety of X-Men-related films--the long idle Magneto movie and the more active X-Men: First Class.

DC has, to its credit, tried to step up production of the next Christopher Nolan Batman film and is making noise about another Superman film (though they won't film anything until the lawsuits are settled, I'm sure). And, while they do that, Green Lantern is already filming. (Seriously, someone took a shitty quality photo of Ryan Reynolds on set with what looked like a smudge on one of his fingers and the Lantern fans exploded with paroxysms of glee that he was wearing the ring.) The Flash may be getting another script treatment. Don't ask about Wonder Woman, though.

But, no, wait, let's ask about Wonder Woman for a second. Or, rather, since I don't want to hear the bullshit about how they can't figure out how to make Wonder Woman interesting enough to justify a movie, let's focus on what really bugged me as I looked at the Marvel line-up. Forget DC for a moment. I need comics fans to answer (riddle) me this: Who is Marvel's Wonder Woman?

I'm not trying to pick at wounds here, though it is a sore subject for me, personally. I really just could not think of any grand dame of the Marvel universe who stands on the sort of equal footing with her male colleagues that Wonder Woman does in the DC universe. The best I could come up with were the obviously-derivative-versions-of-male-characters, sometimes-members of the Avengers, like Spider-Woman or She-Hulk. Thinking about female Marvel characters, I immediately thought of X-Men, but they're hardly any of them anything like Wonder Woman. You can think of the iconic Marvel characters without ever touching on any X-Man or X-Woman. So the X-Women cannot be said to be iconic enough to Wonder Woman, for all that they are, by far, the most interesting women in the Marvel universe.

So, comics nerds better versed than I: am I wrong? Is there an iconic Marvel character who is on par with DC's Wonder Woman and I'm just not thinking of her?

Breakdown of the X-Men Origins: Wolverine trailer. It looks like I was right: blondie is probably Diamond Emma Frost. There are only about thirty other dudes I didn't recognize, including Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool. (That took some rewatching and pausing to find, as he's in it for less time than the close-up of Wolverine's dogtags.) I feel miffed that Diamond Emma would be featured so prominently, but given how stupid looking telepaths look in the movies, I'm happy to take that. As long as she's the bitch we all know and love, Diamond Emma is fine. (I really just think the telepath thing would detour the story too much. They're already juggling SO MANY THINGS.)

*****

JESUS H. CHRIST, I HOPE THIS PERSON IS KIDDING. REMAKE FARSCAPE!?! You know this article is a TRAIN WRECK from the first paragraph when you get to this:

There are a lot of cool ways this underrated show could return to TV as something darker, less campy, and more socially relevant, just like Battlestar Galactica did. And with all the good alien ensemble dramas evaporating from TV (later days, Star Trek: Enterprise and Stargate), now is the time to strike.

Gee, when I think of Farscape the first word that comes to mind is definitely "campy." And MAKE IT DARKER!?! They didn't even get out of the first season without torturing (literally!) the hero. After they first mind-fucked him, stuck him full of parasites, had his only friends in the far universe ditch him, throw him into mortal combat with a guy who hated him, and had him be possessed by a creature that forced him to kill. Yeah, that show is totally for lightweights.

Don't get me wrong--the show veered into crack territory and never left, but I'd be hard pressed to hold the faults of seasons 3-4 against the show when seasons 1-2-3 basically involved the main character (and others) being raped every other episode. Crack is different than camp, though. Crack is...well, what Farscape was. It's not even able to be camp because it's just not. It's in a class by itself.

Everything this person suggests makes me want to vomit. Let's make Scorpius look like a normal dude! Rygel needs to be ambiguously benevolent as a ruler. (Um, wasn't he?) Crichton and Aeryn need to have suffered some mutually tragic loss to justify their being together! Seriously, this person must never have watched this show. Because this:

And by focusing on the brain chip technology, instead of the wormhole technology, we open up space for genuinely scary episodes with a texture of conspiracy (who is controlling who? are our minds our own?).

Was pretty much the point of the Nebari. ("A Clockwork Nebari" anyone?) WTF?

The first drabbles are ready for anomilygrace! She requested the following:

Five Times Starbuck Prayed to the Gods
( spoilers for mid-season one (for events that took place before the miniseries) )
Five Conversations Scott and Jean Never Had
( Spoilers through X-Men: the Last Stand (god help me that that movie exists) )
Five Ways Willow Wouldn't Admit Breaking the Law
( Spoilers for all of BTVS! (which everyone should have seen by now) )