Rss

Archives for : Book & Movie Reviews

The 2021 Self-Published Science Fiction Competition

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : August 8, 2021
0

Category: Author Events, Book & Movie Reviews

Tags:, , , , , , , ,

Good news, everyone! I submitted Of Cinder and Bone to Hugh Howey’s inaugural Self-Published Science Fiction Competition and made it through the very first round of selected novels! Yay!

Cover art by Marginean Anca of BRoze Designs

Here’s where you can learn more about it. In short, the contest is Top 300 -> Top 100 -> Top 30 -> Top 10 -> Top 3 -> 1 winner. Fingers crossed that the editors like it and it makes it to the next round. If not, it’s still an honor to have been chosen for this awesome competition. I still get to use it as bragging rights, after all. Stay tuned for more (hopefully)!

Update 12/11/2021: Well, the good news is Of Cinder and Bone made it through another round of cuts. It made it from the Top 300 to the Top 100. I also received a glowing full review as a result. Thanks for rooting for me, guys!

Update 12/14/2021: I also got another excellent full review from another one of the judges on the Red Star Reviews team. Check it out!

Update 1/28/2022: Amazingly, impossibly, Of Cinder and Bone was chosen for the Top 30 picks from the Top 100 list for the contest. Check out the graphic below of all the semi-finalists!

Update: 5/4/22: Well, it’s all over but the crying. The score for the semi-finalist round is so low I won’t dignify it by posting it here, but it’s been a privilege to even be chosen to participate in this competition. I met some lovely people and got some good blurbs from Team RedStarReviews. Congratulations to those who will be continuing on. Best of luck and I hope the judges read your books more fairly moving forward.

But I do get to use this for bragging rights from now on.

Cautionary Tale: Loki (2021)

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : July 7, 2021
0

Category: Book & Movie Reviews

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , ,

Glorious purpose indeed.

Well, it’s happened again. A work of fiction had a strong start and then devolved into lousy material.

First off, obviously, spoilers for the Loki 2021 series as well as the general MCU films and shows up to now. You’ve been warned.

To give you some background, I actually wasn’t a Loki fan until far later in the game. I paid him no mind in the first Thor, enjoyed him in Avengers, and then slowly over the time between Thor: The Dark World and Ragnarok, Loki slithered his way into my heart. It’s not as if I think he’s the best character in the MCU or anything, but I adore him. He’s a shitlord. He’s so extra. He’s the embodiment of chaos. He managed to charm me and make me care about him, even becoming a sort of anchor character for me in my fanfiction writing sessions. Naturally, I was quite excited when they announced he’d been given a spinoff series after the events of Avengers: Endgame. I wanted to see Tom Hiddleston continue to shine in the role, even if it was just going to be for a brief extra story for us to enjoy.

And that’s how it started off.

Episodes 1 & 2 of Loki (2021) contain the content that I’d hoped for. We got to see Loki at the end of his rope, but in a different sense than his fate in Infinity War. He was thrown into an organization he knew nothing about and without his powers. He had to figure out how to survive without any hope of outside help, which we know he’s done before. It gave us some nice introspective moments, showed us he was human, showed us vulnerable bits to his character. We also got to see plenty of his faults and shortcomings, all of which was fun and interesting.

And then Sylvie showed up.

And as soon as she did, my enjoyment of the show pretty much evaporated.

ICYMI, Sylvie is a Loki variant who was caught by the Time Variance Authority at a young age, but she managed to (easily, so easily it was insulting) escape and hide in apocalypses her entire life plotting how to destroy the TVA for kidnapping her and removing her from her own timeline. Now, granted, on paper, that backstory is okay-ish, but Sylvie is my newest entry on the exhaustingly long list of fictional characters who suffer from what I call White Bitch Syndrome.

Now, I still plan to write a full essay on White Bitch Syndrome, but let me do a short definition here. White Bitch Syndrome is when a female character—and most of the time, she is white and blonde—in a work of fiction is given undeserved credit and disrupts the dynamic of whatever work of fiction she is in, causing negative consequences for those around her but never having to suffer those same consequences herself. To me, she is almost a subversion of a Mary Sue. She takes valuable screentime away from other far more interesting and well-written characters and does all of it with a sense of entitlement that makes me want to pull my hair out.

And that’s exactly what Sylvie is.

I cannot fathom what made the writing team for Loki decide that they should give 60% of Loki’s screentime to this snotty, entitled, obnoxious Loki variant. As soon as episode three hits, she completely co-ops Loki’s show to make it all about her.

And here’s the kicker: she’s not even interesting.

It’s a bait-and-switch. I came here for Loki (or Tom Hiddleston, depends on who you ask) and what did you do? You found the world’s most irritating white woman and gave her his show. This isn’t why I came here. At all. So not only did you give me something I don’t want, you didn’t bother to make her likable or even just interesting in general. The rules of writing, at least in my mind, are to make main protagonists in a work either likable or interesting. Sylvie is neither. She is such a borderline Mary Sue. She’s stronger, smarter, more powerful than everyone around her, she constantly shoots her mouth off to disparage Loki and the other characters, she thinks she’s better than everyone and the writing of the show seems to agree, and she makes EVERYTHING about her every second she’s on screen. It’s insufferable.

But that’s not the worst part.

What truly broke me was episode 4. I had to put up with this snotty character, fine, okay, as long as maybe I get some good Loki content with what little screentime he has left after she’s sucked it all up. No. It had to get worse. The show then states—after only one and a half episodes of interactions—that Loki has a crush on Sylvie/is attached to her.

Seriously?

He’s known her for like five minutes.

What the hell do you mean he likes her?

This element of Loki (2021) is what switched me from disliking it to outright hating it. Anyone who knows me knows that I hate it when fiction generates attachment between two characters without doing the leg work first. There are few things I hate as much as when characters barely interact and then the fiction states that now they’re in love or best friends or care about each other when there is little evidence in the work itself. Loki and Sylvie spent the entire third episode hating one another. The dynamic comes across like a brother and sister who can’t stand each other being stuck in the same place, having to make nice. Then the show just decides Loki is into her, despite no evidence, despite limited screen time, despite Sylvie showing no regard or concern for him at all. It comes across as the show telling us “this is a thing because I said so.”

And that’s not good enough.

Look, I know I’m biased. I’m attached to Loki and I don’t like blonde white women in fiction because of repeated instances of White Bitch Syndrome. But this isn’t jealousy. This is lousy writing. It is lousy of them to stuff this character into the narrative to take the focus away from Loki and it’s lousy of them to have Loki inexplicably have some sort of attachment to her when the evidence points to the opposite. He should simply be using her to get what he wants, but instead they have him following after her like a helpless puppy because her Super Special Awesome Powers are so much better than his and he can’t do anything on his own. They took a show with a unique premise and made a hard left, instead making it a platform for “ooh, look at this cool white girl” instead of keeping the focus on Loki trying to survive the TVA and destroy it. Loki honestly had more chemistry and attachment to Valkyrie–who soundly beat his ass and later begrudgingly tolerated him because they needed to stop Hela–than with Sylvie. I would believe he was into Valkyrie before I’d ever believe he was into Sylvie.

For me in particular, this is unacceptable because it just feels like Sylvie is nothing more than a vehicle for the white fangirls to imagine themselves into Loki’s story. It’s no secret that Loki’s fandom is majority female and I imagine it’s largely white women. Sylvie is a transparent Audience Surrogate Mary Sue-adjacent character designed to make said fangirls feel like they have a personal connection to Loki. They can easily see themselves as Sylvie and it seems to be the only real reason she was written into the story. If she had been properly written, she would have just remained a tangential antagonist either getting in Loki’s way or preventing him from reaching whatever goal he has for himself. There was no reason to write a forced wannabe romance into the story. It’s so unearned and unnecessary.

Alright, so I’ve made my case for why Sylvie sucks. Let’s pretend for a moment that I didn’t hate her with the fire of a thousand suns. That’s not the show’s only problem. Another reason why Loki (2021) began to tank for me is that Loki has almost no agency after the end of the second episode. The second he starts following Sylvie around, the show seems to forget this is a thousand-year-old demigod with magical powers and a wealth of schemes and plans. Everything from episode 3 onward has Loki little more than a doofus who likes to run his mouth. We don’t get to see any of that calculating intelligence that made us love Loki in his previous films and appearances. He’s not doing anything. He’s just stumbling from one place to the next utterly failing and not affecting change nor the plot itself. I fear part of the problem is that the writing staff took too much from Thor: Ragnarok without understanding that the film, while a comedy, also knew how to write a balanced Loki. We know Loki is capable of making mistakes, but the ones he commits in this show are egregious. It’s not organic to the character. It feels as if they are trying to emulate Ragnarok without allowing Loki the same agency and behaviors that made him so lovable in the first place. Think about it. Loki tricked Thor into thinking he was dead and impersonated Odin convincingly (or so we’re assuming, since we don’t catch up to him until 2017, which is 4 years after Thor: The Dark World) for entire years without anyone catching him. He then lands on Sakaar after Hela attacks and manages to worm his way into the Grandmaster’s good graces in only a matter of weeks. Loki has been an effective antagonist and part time protagonist for several films, which is why he’s been so popular. I don’t understand why they have written him completely bumbling and ineffective in this series after the halfway point in the story. In Fish Out of Water stories, you still need to have the protagonist affecting change and making important decisions that affect the plot and develop them as characters. He’s not learning anything, he’s not changing, he’s not growing. He’s stuck in the passenger’s seat while Sylvie drives the car off the cliff.

Speaking of unearned nonsense, this whole “friendship” between Mobius and Loki also annoys me. It’s like I’m not watching the same show. When did they become “friends”? Do they not know what that means? Presumably, Mobius and Loki spent several hours together investigating the Loki variant and while I actually quite like their banter, they too were not with each other long enough to consider each other friends. I don’t like it when fiction drops the F-word (friend, of course) unwarranted and this is another example. Mobius and Loki were at most colleagues. They were only together for two and a half episodes and then for a short bit in episode 4. The show yet again did not do the leg work but then handed us this forced claim of friendship when they’ve really just been enemies temporarily on the same side. I do think aspects of the relationship work, just not enough for the show to claim that now they are magically friends. It’s less of an eyesore than the claim that Loki likes Sylvie, but it’s still poorly written and has little evidence to back it up.

Another aspect of the show that bothers the hell out of me is they introduce Hunter B-15 and Judge Renslayer as powerful, competent women…and then sideline them. Hunter B-15 becomes Sylvie’s lackey after Sylvie’s enchantment caused her to remember her life before the TVA erased her memory. Hunter B-15 was introduced to us in a spectacular fashion, bitchslapping Loki and being an incredible force to be reckoned with. I remember being so excited to see a dark-skinned black woman on the Loki posters, hoping for more representation, and yet they’ve done what too many shows and movies have done with black women—forced them to be in the shadow of their white counterparts. Judge Renslayer is even more of a letdown that B-15. She is introduced as smart and coldly calculating, but then Mary Sue Sylvie EASILY beats her in combat and she’s turned into a mugging, desperate mess instead of someone who was ruling an entire organization with an iron fist for God-knows how long. It was fine for Renslayer to be off-balance finding out the Timekeepers weren’t real. What wasn’t fine was a white blonde woman domineering over a black woman who previously held authority. Renslayer presided over the TVA…and that’s the best she can do? Stall, lie, and babble in front of Sylvie? It’s so painfully obvious that the show wants to keep kissing Sylvie’s ass and insisting she’s the most powerful Loki of all and they sacrificed any potential greatness for Renslayer as a result. I don’t mind Renslayer turning out to be bad; she wasn’t giving off any other impression in the first place. What I do mind is having this white woman just sling her around like it’s nothing when Renslayer should be far more effective than that considering she’s been the boss for presumably years and years. Why the hell was she leading the TVA if she can’t even handle this one variant?

This issue in particular burns me up because while Marvel has been doing a really good job introducing people of color into the lineup and giving them agency, there has also been this trend of what I like to call checkmark diversity. This is when shows or movies include POC in a work as supporting characters in order to check off the diversity box, but they’re not actually giving these POC much to do. They are constantly overshadowed by the white characters instead. The show gets to claim they’re progressive and diverse, but when you look at the POC’s storylines and interactions, you actually don’t end up with anything other than window dressing. I can tell you several different ideas I had for what would become of Hunter B-15 and Renslayer, but none of those came to fruition. The focus remained on the three central white characters: Loki, Sylvie, and Mobius. We know for a fact that the MCU can write excellent black characters like Sam Wilson, Monica Rambeau, and Luke Cage. It’s a damn shame to have two enjoyable black women on this show and they’re just there to fill in a checkbox. It’s especially sad since I’ve seen some behind the scenes bits with the actresses and Tom Hiddleston and they get along wonderfully. It’s truly adorable seeing some of their interactions, so for the show to have them both end up doormats to the white leads is an utter disappointment for me personally as a black fangirl.

At the time of this post, there is still the Loki finale to be watched. Honestly, though, I have no hopes for it any longer. I had hoped that with the plot of episode 5 being Loki in what is basically Purgatory with other versions of himself that we’d get the focus back on him and his desires, but no. Sylvie finds him in like 10 minutes of screentime and goes right to making everything about her, fulfilling her White Bitch Syndrome duties and securing herself as a Mary Sue-adjacent character. I’m tired. I will watch the finale, but I’m expecting it to be just as disappointing as it’s been since the halfway point in the series.

It hurts me to say these things. I’ve written a metric ton of Loki/MCU fanfiction. I truly enjoy his character. I cried like a baby when he died in Infinity War. I really like him, but this show stupidly managed to take from him rather than give him more things, ironically enough. It’s not yet to a point where I declare it Discontinuity, but I am unfortunately not going to be really be taking anything away from this series. I’m probably going to ignore it and go back to my Denial Land of fanfiction instead.

My final point is that Loki (2021) is a cautionary tale because of its utterly squandered potential. The show’s trailers promised lots of things that looked amazing, but then once you pull off the cloak, all you get is a snotty OC and a very diminished, borderline derivative version of Loki. I am far more satisfied with the canon timeline Loki than with this Loki variant, which is a shame. I’m not to a point that I wouldn’t recommend the show, but of the MCU shows, Loki is certainly the weakest. It doesn’t live up to what it promised because of the writers’ inexplicable decision to give away his screentime to an entitled bratty character with, and this is just personal taste, a substandard actress with a grating performance. The lesson to be learned from this is that you have to know what you’re going after when you set off on a side story. The overall consequences of Loki have yet to be seen, but the implication is that the timeline is going to be destabilized and will then set off the Multiverse of Madness that will be addressed in Spider-Man 3: No Way Home and in Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness. That being said, I don’t think this show is strong enough to warrant anyone other than die-hard Loki fans a watch. I am open to the thought that maybe the finale will redeem the show, but it’s doubtful based on the evidence I currently have. More than likely, it’s going to go out on a whimper and not a bang and the romantic red string the writers forced around Loki’s neck is going to strangle him same as Thanos did.

I hope I’m wrong.

But I’m probably not.

Here’s to the multiverse. At least it has a version of Loki that’s not a disappointment.

The Dresden Files Reread and Review: Dead Beat

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : April 14, 2020
0

Category: Book & Movie Reviews

Tags:, , , , , , , , , ,

Well.

Look at that.

I almost took as long a hiatus as Jim Butcher did completing Peace Talks.

*rimshot*

Get used to that joke, folks, I’m a bitter old crone.

In light of being stuck indoors for a while due to COVID 19, and in light of the recent explosion of news now that Jim Butcher finally completed Peace Talks and it’s being released July 2020 with Book 17 Battle Ground releasing in September 2020, I’ve decided to pick back up on my R & R. We left off a few years ago on Book Seven, Dead Beat. As always, spoilers for both this book and future books abound. You have been warned.

Just as an aside before we start, I have a bone to pick with Jim Butcher, his camp, and the fandom over Dead Beat. Some years ago, someone started saying that any new readers interested in the Dresden Files should start at Dead Beat and skip the first six books.

That’s the dumbest, wrongest, most irresponsible “advice” I’ve ever heard.

If you’ve read my recaps, you’ve seen the utter bombs that have dropped in the series prior to this book. I violently disagree with anyone who has ever told new readers to start at Dead Beat. I will fight Jim Butcher himself over it. Don’t you dare tell someone new to franchise to skip the first six books.

Wanna know why? Let me give you just a taste of the incredibly important things/people that happen either for character reasons or for plot reasons that have consequences or payoff that continues through the rest of the season:

  • Harry’s mother, Margaret
  • Harry’s father, Malcolm
  • Murphy’s father, Colin
  • Ebenezar McCoy
  • The White Court
  • The White Council and the Senior Council
  • Thomas’ connection to Harry
  • The Denarians
  • The Summer and Winter Courts
  • The Summer and Winter Mothers
  • Lea, Harry’s godmother
  • Jared Kincaid
  • The Archive
  • Susan Rodriguez and the Red Court war
  • Mortimer Lindquist
  • He Who Walks Behind
  • Mac and his bar
  • The Knights of the Cross
  • The archangels
  • Waldo Butters

And that’s just a fraction.

A literal fraction.

So I just want to put my two cents in here and say that while Dead Beat is considered a game changer for the books and one of the first big turning points, do not ever tell someone to start in the middle of the goddamn Dresden Files. It’s reckless and it’s going to make them miss out on so much rich story and so many vital character interactions as well as just some plain great novels. Stop it. Stop it now.

Anyway.

I’m a little funny about Dead Beat, personally. To tell you the truth, I don’t remember it very much because I am shipper trash and this is the book with no Murphy in it. I tend not to pay as much attention to the Murphy-less Dresden Files novels because that’s my favorite dynamic. But to be fair, this is still a good novel and the next one coming up, Proven Guilty, is chockful of awesome Harry/Murphy content, so let me get over myself and dive into the madness once again.

We open Dead Beat with a case of sibling rivalry. In case you’ve forgotten by now, Thomas, Harry’s older brother, has basically been cut off and booted out of the White Court mansion—now headed by his older sister, Lara Raith, who is behind the scenes controlling their father, Lord Raith—and is broke due to spending the last of his fortune to pay off Jared Kincaid for the job Harry hired him for in Blood Rites. Thus, the two Le Fey boys are living together in Harry’s tiny basement apartment and it’s not exactly the easiest thing to deal with. Aside from Susan, Harry’s only ever lived alone with a cat, and later, his dog, Mouse, whom he decided to keep. They’ve been living together close to a year, and Thomas is an incubus sex vampire, so poor Harry is having to deal with beautiful women randomly appearing at his place and wrecking it up on a regular basis since that’s how Thomas feeds himself. You can understand that it makes him exasperated.

Plus, there’s the bonus of these women mistaking Harry for gay.

Which…I’m so sorry, that’s one of the funniest damn things in this whole book.

The problem is that Harry and Thomas don’t actually look alike and they can’t tell people they’re related because it’s very dangerous for their enemies to know that, so the two of them hanging out constantly makes people jump to the wrong conclusion.

This will be important later.

Also, hilarious.

Which brings me to my next excellent bit.

After Thomas returns from the shower once the girl leaves, he reveals that he absolutely ships the hell out of Harry and Murphy.

This is also important.

Harry: [Murphy] said she’d be dropping by.

Thomas: Oh, yeah? No offense, Harry, but I’m doubting it was a booty call.

Harry: Would you stop it with that already?

Thomas: I’m telling you, you should just ask her out and get it over with. She’d say yes.

Harry: It isn’t like that.

Thomas: Yeah, okay.

Harry: It isn’t. We work together. We’re friends. That’s all.

Thomas: Right.

Harry: I am not interested in dating Murphy. And she’s not interested in me.

Thomas: Sure, sure. I hear you. *rolls eyes* Which is why you want the place looking nice. So your business friend won’t mind staying around for a little bit.

Thomas gets it.

Seriously, Harry, you had an entire epiphany in Mavra’s lair that you were jealous of Kincaid taking off Murphy’s pants, and yet you’re going to pretend she’s still just your friend? Thomas smelled that lie almost immediately and I love it.

However, while this is quite amusing, Thomas is having a rough time because incubi can’t exactly hold down regular jobs. Thomas is constantly being jumped by other employees and passerby’s, so he’s frustrated and angry once Harry starts to needle him about his control and bails. It is tough to think about what he’s going through, honestly, and it’s part of why I like Thomas so much as a character. White Court vampires typically don’t do what he does. Thomas only feeds on willing partners and only just enough to stay alive. Other vampires take who they want, when they want, and take until they kill their victims or enslave them to the pleasure. It’s got to be hell to fight those impulses when it’s literally what keeps Thomas alive and sane. But we’ll dive into that more later on.

Harry cleans up and takes Mouse for a walk and Murphy is waiting for him when he gets back.

And then Murphy drops a freaking atom bomb on us.

She’s going to Hawaii.

With freaking Jared Kincaid.

You know. The assassin.

The very not human assassin.

Jim Butcher:

Harry is very understandably angry, confused, worried, and jealous as hell. Murphy came over to leave her location and info to reach her hotel in an emergency as well as the key to her place to “water her plants” while she’s gone.

And here’s where things get interesting.

Murphy is asking Harry a question that unfortunately, poor stupid Harry isn’t aware of yet.

Murphy doesn’t need someone to water her damned plants. Does she need to drop off her location in case Kincaid does something shifty? Probably, yes, but she came over for two real reasons: (1) to have an excuse to ditch the trip if Harry was in the middle of a case that required her help (2) to see if Harry finally realized the romantic and sexual tension between them and would stop her from going by sharing his feelings with her.

This scene is infamous. It really grinds my gears, but in a good way. This is great writing because Harry is tragically a couple steps behind Murphy in this case. I love him to death, but Harry is VERY slow on the uptake emotionally speaking and he’s too far into his own denial and self-doubt to respond to Murphy’s unsaid question. However, the interesting part is that Harry senses something is off but he just CAN’T put his finger on it. He can feel her hesitance, but because he’s overly cautious, Murphy still leaves for the trip.

It’s so goddamn frustrating.

But it’s still good writing.

I really would have loved for Harry and Murphy to have had a conversation about their relationship at this point, but he’s not ready yet and the first time they talk about it in the next book is very interesting, so congrats to Butcher on being patient and pacing it out. It’s a really good internal conflict for Harry during this book because he’s out facing all kinds of dangers but he’s also thinking about how much he wants Murphy not to be with Kincaid because he’s jealous and worried because he cares about her a lot.

Mind you, the entire interaction ends with this bit from Harry’s inner monologue: I watched her go, feeling worried. And jealous. Really, really jealous. Holy crap. Was Thomas right after all?

Harry, you’re a fucking moron.

When Harry checks his mail, he gets a nasty surprise: a threatening letter from Mavra with photos of Murphy killing Renfields during the Black Court vampire raid from the previous year as well as a lock of Murphy’s hair. He’s to meet her that night at his grave in Graceland cemetery or she’ll release the photos, ruining Murphy’s career forever and most definitely landing her in jail.

He meets Mavra and is told to find the Word of Kemmler or she’ll have all the photos sent to the authorities, which means both the regular cops and the White Council. She gives him three days to get it, which coincidentally means his deadline lands on Halloween, his birthday. Ah, just another day in the life of Harry Dresden.

Harry heads home to get the skinny on the Word of Kemmler from Bob the Skull, an air spirit of knowledge he keeps in his basement. We find out Kemmler was a necromancer responsible for World War I and II, for crying out loud, so the guy was major bad news in his day. Bob has been owned by a number of people and things in the past and it so happens he was owned by Kemmler before Justin, Harry’s former master and abuser, owned him as well. Bob has purposely forgotten much of what happened with Kemmler since the guy was a walking nightmare. In order to get more knowledge, Harry taps into Bob’s memories but it goes very sideways as Bob becomes rather demonic when they talk, so Harry switches him back to normal.

The Word of Kemmler is his most awful, evil spells and if anyone gets their hands on it, then havoc and death will be everywhere, especially since some of his followers may still be alive. The magic needed to do a big bad thing would require sacrifices in advance, so Harry heads to see Waldo Butters at the morgue.

And here is one of the aforementioned turning points.

Butters gets one hell of a character upgrade in this book.

And it’s one of the most well-done, surprising aspects of the series.

Our delightful dork Butters is in the morgue practicing polka for Oktoberfest when Harry arrives. This will be important later. Don’t look at me like that, I mean it.

Butters has been studying Harry’s X-rays and recovery progress—if you recall, his left hand is burnt to hell—and lets Harry know his theory, which is that his body literally heals itself until an injury is gone, not just to the best it can do for functionality, which is why he thinks wizards live five or six times longer than the average person, which means there’s a good chance Harry will get the functionality back in his hand. This is a very cool, very heartfelt moment when Butters tells him. I love it. Their friendship is gold.

Butters notices something odd about a body and is about to look into it when a necromancer attacks the lab, using the poor dead security guard as a zombie enforcer. The lead Mook is named Grevane and he’s after Butters. They manage to escape and Butters insists that Harry tell him The Truth, to which Harry reluctantly agrees, since Harry learned his lesson from the last few times he didn’t want to tell someone The Truth and they got killed.

Harry gives Butters the abridged version of The Truth and explains that necromancers have to have a “beat” in order to control zombies, so any sound they can generate that’s repetitive keeps their will over the zombie. If it stops, the zombie just does whatever the hell it wants, so they have to formulate a plan to stop Grevane from getting to Butters as well as find the book. Harry got a look at the book Grevane had with him, so he takes Butters back to the apartment and leaves him with Mouse to investigate.

He stops at a bookstore and grabs a copy of the book that Grevane has and meets one of the bookstore’s employees, Sheila. This will be important later.

On his way out, he’s confronted by two previously unknown entities: Cowl and Kumori. They want the book as well, as Chicago only has two copies. Harry realizes he’s seen them in passing before at Bianca the Red Court Vampire’s place. They actually try to parlay with him to just destroy the book if he doesn’t want to hand it over, but Harry is the stubborn sort and doesn’t play ball. Cowl attacks and Harry just barely manages to survive it and Billy the werewolf and his pack show up to back Harry up. Cowl and Kumori retreat and Harry leaves with the pack as the cops approach.

They take him to Georgia’s parents’ place and Harry overhears Georgia and Billy having a very interesting conversation about him. In particular, about his burnt hand and some of his behavior, how he’s angrier than he has been before, and that when he flipped the car on top of Cowl, Billy smelled sulfur. I really like the tension in the scene as Harry has HUGE blindspots about himself—again, this will be VERY important later—and we as the readers forget that because we’re inside his head, we know his motivations, but others don’t. Georgia is asking Billy to consider stepping back if Harry asks them to because she knows Cowl is big bad business that they’re not ready for and she’s also asking him to consider if something is wrong with Harry since he’s also been very distant lately.

Harry tells them about the demon Lasciel and the coin. It’s a tough conversation considering that Harry has tried every spell he can find to try to separate himself from the demon and nothing has worked. Worse still, he’s doubting himself since he picked up the coin instead of Harry the second when Nicodemus tossed it, so he’s concerned about his subconscious desires as well. What’s really important here is the friendship between them as Harry tells them what’s going on and they agree to do what they can and that he thanks them graciously. It’s really such a grounded scene and it’s why I love Harry so much as a character. I especially love that Georgia points out that Harry is basically the supernatural dad of Chicago; he immediately takes anyone who needs help under his wing and puts their needs before his own, protecting them before protecting himself, which is why she was asking Billy to be willing to hang back. She didn’t want them to distract him considering the level of danger that he’s in, which is a great show of what good friends they are to him. It’s very touching.

Once the heat dies down, Billy and Georgia take Harry back for his car only to find it’s been bashed up with a baseball bat by someone clearly trying to send him a message. Billy and Georgia very kindly offer to get the Beetle towed and lend him their SUV so he can continue investigating since he’s on a deadline. Again, this is a really heartwarming moment, showing how much they care for him and trust him and I like it a lot.

Harry goes to see Mortimer Lindquist, a fake psychic but someone who does happen to have enough supernatural talent to be helpful sometimes. Harry wants Mort to ask the dead if they can help him locate the necromancers. He refuses at first, but then Harry tells him Murphy’s in trouble and Mort knew Murphy’s father, so he agrees to help. The ghosts are able to confirm there are six necromancers currently in Chicago.

Harry returns home and Thomas is home and Butters is asleep. Harry starts to read the book he acquired, but he falls asleep and is visited his father, Malcolm Dresden. It’s probably one of the best scenes in the book, if I’m being honest, as the affection and reverence that Harry has for his late father and vice versa is so palpable. I’ve said a million times that one of the reasons Jim Butcher is my favorite author is that he doesn’t skimp on the powerful emotional scenes with Harry and his loved ones, as well as just other characters in general. A lot of the times male authors want to make their hero really cool and don’t want to focus on things that matter to him on a personal level. Harry is and always has been someone who is deeply impacted by everything around him and he’s not afraid to show his emotions, good or bad. The whole interaction is just simple encouragement from his dad and it’s wonderful.

The next morning Harry and Thomas go for a run and Harry gives him an update on what’s going on as well as telling him about Murphy running off with Kincaid. I want to mention that Thomas is in mid-run when he finds out about Murphy and Kincaid and he full-on stops running for a few seconds.

Thomas @ Jim Butcher:

Thomas is all of us.

It is notable that by now, Harry has realized that Murphy wanted him to tell her not to go. However, he’s trying to rationalize it and say that he’s being reasonable by not going after her due to their friendship and professional relationship. Thomas takes a very good shot at him for it and it’s really good and tense because Thomas is frustrated that Harry doesn’t see that the two of them could have the real deal. Thomas is in love with Justine and he knows how good it can be, but he’s been denied that due to being a vampire. It’s comforting to see that Thomas isn’t pushing Harry to go after Murphy just to be a needling older brother or because he wants him to get laid. Thomas cares because he knows they can go the distance and be happy, which is more than he would ever be able to do being who he is.

This segways into Harry confronting Thomas about his hunger and what he’s dealing with. Thomas comes up with a clever way to make him understand: he challenges Harry to race him down the beach back to the car. Naturally, Thomas is a freaking vampire with vampire speed, so Harry has to use basically every last drop of his strength and agility to “win” the race, and is exhausted and is about to gulp down a whole bottle of cold water when Thomas knocks it out of his hand. And then Thomas quietly tells him that’s what it’s like for him every waking moment of his life. Harry finally understands why he’s been tense and frustrated lately and it’s a great bonding moment for the brothers.

Harry drops Thomas back off at the apartment and heads for the nearest use of dark magic on the map, which is at the Field Museum. The museum currently has the infamous Sue on display at the time, aka Sue the T-Rex skeleton. This will be important later. Turns out there’s been a murder, so Harry sneaks into the crime scene to snoop. He of course forgets that he’s like seven-feet-tall, so one of the S.I. cops who is on the scene, Rawlins, spots him mid-snoop. Rawlins is another character whom I have affection for in terms of being a reasonable authority figure and an ally to both Harry and Murphy. It amuses me greatly that he’s been busted down from detective on account of having a smart mouth and an attitude, since it explains a lot of why Murphy trusts him. His intuition and his knowledge that Harry works with Murphy and she trusts him allows Rawlins to feel comfortable enough to let Harry in on some details of the murder victim, Charles Bartleby. It also helps that Murphy’s father, Colin, saved Rawlin’s life a long time ago so he’s always had Murphy’s back.

On a hunch, Harry asks if Rawlins knows what happened at the morgue and he doesn’t, which means Grevane cleaned up the mess and no one knows Butters is missing nor that the security guard is dead. Harry decides to take Butters along to the morgue to see if what the necromancers want is still in the building. They head inside and take a look at the body Butters had been about to examine and it’s mutilated very badly.

While Harry waits for Butters to help with the autopsy, he overhears the two assistants to Bartlesby come in to ask about the body and his personal items. Harry recognizes that the male, Li, is a ghoul. He hustles to get Butters gone before they get in trouble, but the other corpse that got hit by a car Harry recognizes is a smuggler who works for John Marcone. Cue eyeroll.

In case you forgot—and it’s easy to because this character is so dull—John Marcone is Chicago’s mob boss. He has his fingers in pretty much every pie of organized crime and he’s very aware of the supernatural underbelly as well. He and Harry hate each other’s guts, but both are too dangerous to get the other one killed so they mostly just try to stay out of each other’s way.

They go back to Billy and Georgia’s to try to see what’s on the jump drive, but it’s just an empty file with a number that has sixteen digits. Harry checks his voicemails and he’s got a painfully frustrating check-in call from Murphy and then a call from Sheila, the cute bookstore girl, that something’s up. Harry has Billy take Butters back to the apartment while he continues snooping.

Harry heads to the bookstore and is hurt to learn that its owner, Bock, doesn’t want him around anymore since he’s pretty much got trouble on his heels at all times. Harry agrees and talks to Sheila, even landing himself a date with her later, but shortly after he runs into Li and Alicia, trying to find who bought the Erl King book. Alicia demonstrates some very scary dark mental magic and unfortunately the only way for Harry to break loose is to tap into some of the demonic power in his head. He tries to make a break for it, but gets injured and they take the book. He lucks out that Marcone’s bodyguard, Gard, saves him before Li can finish him off. He gets pulled into a car with Gard, Marcone, and Marcone’s other bodyguard Hendricks. Marcone cooperates, giving him a tip since it’s in his best interest that Chicago isn’t overrun by the undead and in retribution for one of his men being murdered.

Harry gets his injured leg fixed and talks to the tip Marcone gave him, which is an EMT who saw Kumori revive a dead guy the previous night.

After that, Harry heads home and Thomas warns him about Butters being too scared to be any use if they get cornered. It’s a really good conversation as Thomas isn’t saying it to be mean, he’s saying it out of concern for Harry dragging Butters around as literal deadweight. Harry sticks up for him in a unique way, which is telling Thomas that they won’t do him any favors if they tell him to run and keep running, as the fear will control him for good. He and Thomas talk through what he’s learned and Harry recounts what he read in Erlking, so to dig for more info, he decides to call up Lea, his absolutely batshit insane, dangerous, hyperviolent “godmother.” Lord help us all.

But to his surprise, when he tries to summon Lea, Mab, Queen of Air and Darkness as well as the Winter Court, also pants-shittingly terrifying, shows up instead, saying that Lea is imprisoned for challenging her authority. However, Mab is still bound by her loyalty to answer Harry’s questions, so Harry instead asks her about the Erlking. Mab tells him that the Erlking is basically the king of goblins and has control over dead hunters’ spirits, which is linked to why the necromancers want to get his attention, so to speak. Harry tries to dig for more but Mab won’t cough it up unless he becomes the Winter Knight. As right now, Mab has her current Knight, Lloyd Slate, imprisoned and tortured for “disappointing” her. Harry theorizes the necromancers want to raise the ancient spirits all at once and absorb their power, which would make them too powerful for pretty much anyone to stop.

And as Harry gets back to his apartment, he gets jumped by zombies.

Harry Dresden, you are bad for my heart, sir.

The wards that protect Harry’s apartment are meant to stop magical beings from entering, but it has a limit to just how much it can take. Once the bad guys throw enough zombies at it, the wards will fail and then it’s just getting through the steel door to bust inside. Butters understandably gets hysterical because the only plan they’ve got is to try to break for the car and leave.

What follows is one of the most notoriously awesome, heartwarming things in this series.

Harry: We’re not going to die!

Butters: We’re not?

Harry: No. And do you know why?

Butters: *shakes his head*

Harry: Because Thomas is too pretty to die. And because I’m too stubborn to die. And most of all because tomorrow is Oktoberfest, Butters, and polka will never die. Polka will never die! Say it!

Butters: Polka will never die?

Harry: Again!

Butters: P-p-polka will never die.

Harry: Louder!

Butters: Polka will never die!

Harry: We’re going to make it!

Butters: Polka will never die!

Thomas: I can’t believe I’m hearing this.

You’re fucking welcome. Everyone’s life has been enriched by witnessing this scene. Legit, if you shout this at a comic book convention or somewhere that a large number of geeks enter, someone will probably shout it back to you. It’s that famous a scene. For good damn reason.

Harry manages to negotiate with Grevane to get everyone out in exchange for the numbers they found on the flash drive. Corpsetaker crashes the party and Team Dresden manages to bail from the ensuing battle. They all head to Murphy’s place to get stitched up and rest.

Which leads to one of the other funniest goddamn jokes in the whole series.

Poor Butters thinks Harry is gay.

The best part? Thomas thinks it’s fucking hilarious. He then proceeds to enable Butters by being fake-nice to Harry while Butters is stitching him up and I can’t even start to tell you what a belly-laugh it gets out of me that Thomas not only thinks it’s funny, but he just makes it even worse for shits and giggles. It’s EXACTLY what an older brother would do and that’s why I crack up every time I read it. Harry and Thomas are arguably my favorite fictional siblings for this exact reason. Their relationship is so realistic.

Thomas pulls a fast one and gives Harry painkillers instead of antibiotics, which make our giant idiot sleepy and Thomas tucks him in. And Harry proceeds to stab us with more feels when Thomas puts him in Murphy’s bed: The last thing I thought, before I dropped off to sleep, was that the cover smelled faintly of soap and sunlight and strawberries. They smelled like Murphy.

Harry, you dope. You’ve got it so bad for Murphy it’s not even funny.   

When Harry sleeps, the demon in his head, Lasciel, finally manifests herself. Since Harry had no choice but to use the Hellfire to get out of a jam earlier, she now has permission to be in his head. She’s not the true demon, but an imprint of her, basically, since the real coin is under Harry’s basement under a lot of powerful magical wards. They have a brief conversation in which Lasciel offers Harry her almost endless knowledge and power and Harry tells her to shove it.

When he wakes, he gives Thomas and Butters the low down on his terrible plan, which is basically to call the White Council and get Wardens dispatched to Chicago to fight and then he’ll try to summon the Erlking at the same time as the necromancers, which means if he pulls it off first, then the necromancers can’t steal the Erlking’s power for their evil plan meanwhile Bob, Thomas, and Butters try to decode the numbers to figure out where the Word of Kemmler is so he can give it to Mavra to save Murphy’s life. The entire thing is basically suicide. Because of course it is.

Billy stops by Harry’s office to make sure he’s alright after hearing what happened at the shop and to warn him that people are very worried about his erratic behavior lately, which Harry brushes off due to all the shit he’s dealing with. This will be VERY important later.

Harry stops by Sheila’s apartment and has her recount the poems in the Erlking’s book so he can summon him because she has a photographic memory. Kumori stops by, but reveals that she just wants to talk, so they enact a ceasefire. She wants him to back off and he wants her to back off, but understandably, neither of them can do so. She does reveal that she and Cowl’s mission is to harness death magic to literally end death in general, making everyone immortal. Yeesh.

Harry heads to Mac’s bar to meet with the Wardens, which consist of Donald Morgan, Carlos Ramirez, Anastasia Luccio, and two newbies. Then Luccio goes and offers Harry his own grey cloak, to Harry’s shock. Then Harry finds out that the war with the Red Court has taken out twenty percent of the Wardens forces so far. It got worse as the Red Court chased them through Nevernever, the land of demons and other creatures, and then called to the Outsiders, which are malevolent beings that live outside of Harry’s resident dimension, reality, and universe. Still, knowing how the Wardens and the White Council operate, Harry wants no part of their ranks. For damn good reason, I might add. Morgan is a dickhead bully who followed Harry around for his entire probation period just waiting for a chance to cut his head off and even tried goading him into attacking him so he’d have an excuse to kill him once. Luccio manages to persuade him that they’ll support him and that she at the very least trusts him and it will shift the tide of opinions in the White Council away from him since he technically started the war (but to be fair, the Red Court just needed an excuse, they were planning it already). She makes him regional commander and reassigns Morgan so he won’t be hovering over Harry’s shoulder looking for a place to stick a knife and they start strategizing what to do.

After the meeting, Harry heads back to Murphy’s place. Thomas called his sister, Lara Raith, and implied that Harry—who knows that she is running the White Court and not her puppet father Lord Raith—might spill the beans unless he receives some sort of assistance. She got them some info about where they think the ceremony will take place. Harry sends Thomas out to drop off a message to the Wardens and preps to go trap the Erlking in a circle so the necromancers can’t summon him.

Harry calls up the Erlking and actually manages to hold him, but Cowl jumps him and the Erlking as well as the Wild Hunt are unleashed on Chicago. He and Kumori leave Harry alive out of respect, and out of the knowledge that the Erlking is just gonna come back later and off Harry. Butters and Mouse are thankfully safe inside the house, and it’s now that Harry realizes that Mouse is scary smart and in no way a regular dog, which is adorable. Unfortunately, though, Kumori stole Bob since Kemmler used to own Bob and Bob would probably know how to give them the instructions they need for the Darkhallow spell. Let the good times roll.

Harry and Butters leave, still trying to figure out the combination, and then we get possibly one of the biggest, nastiest bombs in the whole book dropped on us.

Sheila isn’t real.

She’s Lasciel projecting herself through Harry’s five senses to appear real to him, but she’s not physically there or anywhere but in his head.

Feel free to shit an absolute brick and then throw that brick at this bitch’s head.

I’ve not talked about this bit because I wanted to get to it in sequence with the book. This is one of the most intensely fucked up things that’s happened to Harry so far in the series. I mean, the level of cruelty and manipulation by Lasciel is staggering. She outright lied to his face to get him to comply with her “help” and then tries to pass it off as not that bad to him when he finally puts it together that it’s all in his head and that’s why his friends and Bock the bookstore owner have been worried he’s going nuts. He’s been talking to thin air, for God’s sake. Lasciel insists that she actually enjoyed playing the role since Harry didn’t know it was her, and Harry is a very sweet, charming man all on his own, for no reason other than that’s just how he is, even when he’s in danger. She hasn’t interacted with any people in probably a very long stretch of years, so in a way, she’s not all the way lying about enjoy Harry’s company when he didn’t know it was her the whole time.

But it’s so fucked up.

Lasciel is directly preying on Harry’s weaknesses. She knows he’s soft on women. She knows Murphy left him and he’s hurting and jealous and longing for her this whole time, worried about protecting her from Mavra, and feeling bad that he couldn’t act on his feelings before she left. Deep down, of course Harry wanted a friend and ally during this tough fight, and she’s the only girl around who is smart and pretty and interested in him for who he is, seemingly. What a bitch move. It’s a ‘cut out your heart with a spoon’ moment for me. I am so offended on Harry’s behalf that it’s not even funny. She played him like a fiddle and it’s so depressing and messed up that it’s tough to reread the scenes before Harry finds out Sheila’s not real.

The other piece that’s important as well is that Lasciel is self-serving. If Harry dies, she dies as well. She is still a real entity even if she’s just a copy of the real Lasciel that lives inside the coin in Harry’s basement. She really is trying to help him survive the ordeal so that she can survive as well.

However, Harry recognizes the slippery slope he’s on and asserts his will power until she’s out of his head temporarily and reassures Butters that now he’s aware that he’s been played with so badly. Poor guy. It’s also tough as hell on his friends to have faith in him when he’s literally been hallucinating without knowing it for the past couple of days, but it’s a testament to what good people Harry knows that they keep giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Harry and Butters manage to throw together a tracking spell and find the Word of Kemmler hidden in the skull of Sue the T-Rex at the museum. Grevane confronts Harry and we find out that his buddy that’s been with him the whole time is Cassius, a former Denarian who Harry went to fucking town on in Death Masks, and for good goddamn reason. Grevane leaves with the book and Cassius starts trying to get Harry to tell him where his Denarian coin is. With torture. It is very, very rough and I do not like it and I want to sue Jim Butcher for $300 million in emotional damages.

But luckily, just before Cassius is going to kill him, Butters and Mouse crash the party.

Butters does an admirable job of kicking ass Butters’ style and Mouse makes the final kill, but unfortunately, Cassius gets out his death curse before Mouse kills him. A Death Curse is something a wizard or sorcerer can use right before their final moment. It’s one of the strongest kinds of magic ever, since it’s involved with death, and you can’t avoid it or reverse it usually.

And Cassius’ death curse is “die alone.”

…yeah, I’m suing Jim Butcher for $500 million emotional damages now. Jerk.

Both fortunately and unfortunately, Cassius’ death curse is not immediate. It doesn’t kill Harry on the spot. Harry passes out and sees Id Harry and Lasciel in his subconscious, who have a coming to Jesus talk with the fact that he’s basically heading down an assisted suicide path with his solutions. He finally has no choice but to allow Lasciel to help since there’s not much he by himself and with his few allies can do to survive the night.

It is now, my friends, that we reach the most infamous scene in the entire Dresden Files series.

Harry fucking Dresden riding a zombie dinosaur down Michigan Avenue.

Mm-hmm.

Read that again. Drink it in, people.

My idiot wizard boyfriend has outdone himself.

Since he’s read the Word of Kemmler, he reanimates Sue and has Butters use his polka suit to provide the beat as they haul ass to the site where the necromancers are trying to summon all the spirits.

And it turns out Sue’s pretty handy against an army of zombies. She eats Li. Good girl.

Harry takes Sue and Butters over to the Wardens and gets them caught up and ready for the final assault just as the spell starts to rev up. Corpsetaker attacks Luccio, switching their bodies and minds in the attack and Harry just barely manages to realize it in time. He shoots Luccio’s body and kills Corpsetaker.

And of course, Donald fuckin’ Morgan sees this, thinks Harry’s a traitor, and tries to execute him.

Harry is already too shaken by what he did and is about to let it happen, but Luccio revives in Corpsetaker’s switched body and makes him stand down. I know that Donald Morgan has reasons and motivations and a backstory that we will find out later in the series, but honestly, from the bottom of my black heart, fuck Donald Morgan. I hate him so much. He is everything wrong with the White Council and everything wrong with soldiers in general all rolled into one despicable man. I loathe him even though I’ve read the books and I understand that he is a three-dimensional character. Still. Fuck him.

The Wardens except for Harry and Ramirez are too injured to help, so they press on, leaving Butters to be safe with them, and take Sue out towards the Darkhallow. Ramirez turns out to be an absolute hoot and gets along with Harry, trusting his instincts and the actual good things people have had to say about Harry for once, and it’s a relief.

Ramirez kills Grevane, but Cowl and Kumori get the jump on him and knock him out, capturing Harry. Bob is facilitating the spell and Harry manages to get through to the real Bob, releasing him from the skull. Bob flies into the now loose Sue and comes to Harry’s rescue, and Harry is able to stop Cowl from absorbing the souls and completing the Darkhallow.

Go Team Dresden.

Harry wakes to get a nod of respect (and a warning) from the Erlking. He and the Wardens all get cleaned up and he gives Mavra the book, though not without threatening the shit out of her over Murphy and it makes me shipper heart sing. Nothing says, “I love you” like “if you touch her, I’m declaring war on you.” Oh, Harry. You’re such a romantic.

There’s also a lovely scene of Harry standing over his grave and his father visits again, giving him reassurance that while the death curse will indeed hit someday and while Harry had to do really fucked up things to survive this time around, it’s still his choice to be who he is in spite of the dark things surrounding him.

Things wrap up pretty good. Luccio is on leave to heal, so Morgan takes over for her in the meantime and actually admits that he was wrong about Harry for once (and I still don’t care and hate his guts) and Murphy comes home with her arm in a sling, implying that Hawaii had its own adventure for her (that I will never ever read even if Butcher does write it) and Butter gives Harry a guitar so he can start to rehabilitate his hand, ending the book on a sweet note.

So that was Dead Beat. Woof.

Dead Beat is definitely a rollercoaster ride. It’s one of the books that has very few downtime moments and it has momentum like a freight train. Harry is thoroughly trampled both physically and emotionally and so was I rereading the sheer amount of trauma he went through. For that reason, I have to say Dead Beat is kind of tough on the senses. I do admit that I miss some of the brighter spots and the downtime that Blood Rites or Summer Knight had in them. Overall, while it’s certainly not the darkest book, it is one with some of the darkest consequences and where Harry feels so overwhelmed and hopeless, which is a common theme since Butcher is a sadist. It’s a fantastic book, though, and I get why it gets a lot of buzz in the reading community.

Overall Grade: 4 out of 5 stars

Join me next time for another personal favorite of mine in the series, Proven Guilty.

Kyo out.

A Love Letter to the Avengers

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : April 26, 2019
0

Category: Book & Movie Reviews, Inspiration

Tags:, , , ,

The end of an era is here.

“It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine…”

How do you say goodbye to 1/3rd of your life?

Really. I’ve been asking myself that in the weeks leading up to Avengers: Endgame.

And honestly, I don’t have an answer to that question, because it’s kind of impossible.

So here’s the thing: I read comic books as a kid when I had access to them, but I was never someone who had a massive collection of Marvel comics. I had some of them, so growing up I knew who the Avengers were, but not to any significant degree other than names, powers, and aliases. Like a lot of people, Iron Man was the first time I took notice of Marvel heroes who weren’t Spider-Man or the X-Men, and that movie opened an entire avenue that I don’t think any of us thought would be possible someday.

I had already been fully on board when the announcement that the incredible Robert Downey Jr. would be starring as Tony Stark, and to this day, that is still one of the all-time most perfect casting choices. Fans were dancing in the streets when we heard it, because we all knew if nothing else, Tony Stark would get a first-rate performance. RDJ had gotten himself back on track after his troubled past, and we were so ready to see him return to his former glory.

And he did just that.

To date, I still rank Iron Man in my personal top 10 MCU films, for so many reasons, but for the sake of this retrospective post, let me sum it up by saying it is so fitting that we began this 11-year journey with RDJ and with Tony Stark. Iron Man is about heart. Literally and figuratively. By being put in the danger he found himself in, Tony inadvertently grew a heart and became the man who so many of us will Stan until the end of time. He had nothing but his wits and a faithful friend at his side, and when he was told to bow to his enemies, he instead defied them and saved himself. In doing so, it kicked off the first domino for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and even though it had a steady stream of interest, everything changed when at long last our beloved heroes teamed up for The Avengers.

The Avengers, whether you like it or not, changed history.

There had never been an attempt to combine solo stories of heroes on this kind of scale before, and that was when people realized that this wasn’t just a passing fancy. The Avengers broke box office records for a few reasons, but one that I am quite fond of is the fact that word of mouth was so powerful. All the hardcore fans saw it and sang its praises, but the great thing about the Avengers is it was written in such a way that even if you had missed the previous films, you could still enjoy it, and people did. The non-fans took notice of that killer opening weekend and heard the rave reviews, got curious, and saw it. And then they went home and told everyone how phenomenal it was, and then the process repeated itself. What I have always loved about the Avengers, and what it began when it came out, was its inclusiveness. It had something for everyone in it. And not only was it taken seriously, it was given an excellent script, fantastic visuals, and a kick ass soundtrack that still gets us hype as hell even 7 years later. Most of us fans used to fantasize about a team up movie, never thinking it would be possible considering all the legal and copyright hoops studios had to jump through, but then the day arrived and it was every single thing we dreamt it would be.

What made the Avengers so prolific was the ability to take that many characters and tie them to each other, giving each one time to shine in an extremely well-paced story. Ensemble films are everywhere, but this was the first time that a major film studio took individual heroes from their films and had them interact, and then sent them back out on their own, with the promise of calling them back again. What continues to impress me with the Avengers is that everyone had a stake in the game, and everyone contributed something. (Note: people shit on Hawkeye constantly as the “useless” team member, but I invite you to remember that Hawkeye nearly killed the entire team when he attacked the heli-carrier, so honestly, the haters can shut the hell up.) Too often movies have a group of characters who are supposed to have specific skillsets or traits useful to either the plot or the story, but really, there’s no reason for them to be there. (*cough* Fast and the Furious *cough* *coughs harder* the Justice League movie *coughs harder*) Here, you understood everything, and it all had its own harmony to it. A great story is one in which everyone has both inner and outer conflict, and while they butt heads, they’re together to reach a collective goal, no matter what the cost.

And frankly, The Avengers is when shit got real for everyone.

In my lifetime, I’ve only seen a handful of films more than twice in theaters. I saw The Avengers in theaters four times. The only other viewing at the time that came close was the Dark Knight, which I also saw four times. That is just an idea of how damn much I enjoyed that film, and what a legacy I think it left in its wake. Even back with 2012 ticket prices, I had such a great time that I happily bought multiple showings just to see it again.

So after 2012 when we all found out it was possible for something this awesome to exist, Marvel figured out that the winning formula was not in some of the paltry tricks that Hollywood likes to sell us, but in having a strong story with its roots in the proper place—the comics—and in trusting the vision of their actors and directors. In 2014, we were blessed with Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which is arguably the best Marvel movie period, to say nothing of one of the best comic book movies of all time. Winter Soldier is one of the highest praised MCU films for a tight spy-espionage story, interesting characters, a razor-sharp script, and some of the most stunning fight choreography in film history. It blew our minds that anything could be as good, or maybe even better than The Avengers, and it didn’t rely on simply having an orgy of superheroes. It was just a damn good experience in every aspect.

Then, after the MCU films had a few unsteady steps like Age of Ultron (which I still think is great, but is a troubled film) and Doctor Strange, they surprised us by going all in with two films that arguably innovated their franchise yet again: Black Panther and Thor: Ragnarok.

Black Panther told the world what us nerds already knew: that black people are just as interested in science-fiction and comic books as other people, and they came out in force. It was the most liberating experience to see a mature, well-written, well-acted, flat-out gorgeous big budget film that was 90% black both in front of and behind the camera. Ryan Coogler went out of his way to create an unforgettable experience that delighted and amazed everyone in a way most people had never considered. Black creatives have been here forever, but this was one of the first times we were able to see it on a massive scale and for a massive audience. Finally, we were given a voice and got to tell an excellent story that wasn’t watered down or apologetic or riddled with stereotypes. And with it breaking box office records, it became indisputable proof that diversity does not lose money and it is not only welcomed, but encouraged by the world, and I cannot thank the MCU enough for that fact alone.

Thor: Ragnarok is living proof that you can dust off something that was fairly good, but just needed a new angle and make something absolutely outstanding. Remember how I said I saw The Avengers in theaters four times? Yep. Did the same for Thor: Ragnarok. And don’t ask me how many times I have watched it since I got it for home release. It’s got to be 50 times by now, honestly.

Ragnarok showed that sometimes a great, radical idea is exactly what you need, and that if you put your trust in the right creative mind, you can take a middle-grade character and elevate him to a level no one thought possible. Truth be told, I liked both of the previous Thor movies (and again, the haters can just exit stage left, because The Dark World is nowhere near as bad as people keep saying it is) but this pumped entirely new blood into Thor’s veins as well as our own. One of my favorite things about Ragnarok is that it shows the trust between the director, the cast, and Marvel Studios. It took serious balls to pitch some of the things that went down in Ragnarok, but thanks to the miles and miles of talent from the movie’s cast and crew, it became a top tier MCU film, and can easily stand next to not only some of the best comic book movies, but some of the best comedies.

And then, while we were still reeling from the amazing combination of Ragnarok and Black Panther…along came Infinity War.

Infinity War once again broke the mold.

I’m fairly certain almost none of you read my college essay-length review of Infinity War, but the main gist of it is that there is no other film like Infinity War. Period. And I don’t mean that in some kiss-ass way because I happen to be a fan of the MCU. No, really, I mean it as a writer and as a creator and as a moviegoer in general. I’ve watched hundreds of films in my 30 years of living, and I cannot name another movie that had an impact on me the way that Infinity War did, and what’s more is that I am not alone.

Infinity War, for me, stands on its own category simply for the emotional depth that it was able to achieve. It’s not just the suckerpunch ending—it’s that the film is not only funny and action packed, but it’s a story where it took one of the largest cast of characters in film history and still managed to make a story for each of them, and gave each of them stakes and a role to serve. Think about that. I mean, do you understand how much talent it took in order for the sheer number of characters to not only interact, but contribute to the overall plot and story in a manner that was personal to them? In case you forgot, count them up: the five of the six original Avengers (Steve, Tony, Bruce, Nat, Thor), the expanded team (Sam, Rhodey, Vision, Wanda, T’Challa, Okoye, Shuri, Bucky, Parker), and then the Guardians (Peter, Gamora, Rocket, Drax, Groot, Nebula, Mantis), and then the villain Thanos, not to mention introducing a few new characters like the Nidavellir Dwarf or the Children of Thanos. Yet they were able to combine these 22 people into one story that actually made sense and was excellently paced as it rotated between the POVs of what each of them were doing as the events of Thanos’ terrible mission unfolded. I just don’t think people sit down and take the time to appreciate that sort of coordination. Not only did you have 22 people being relevant and involved with a story, but you pulled former motivations and personal relationships into it all to a point where there was not a dry eye in the house at the end.

What I remember so clearly about the premiere of Infinity War was the universal reactions from the audience, both hardcore fans and regular viewers alike. Sometimes in movies, you get annoyances like people or kids talking, people checking their cell phones, etc.

Not so with Infinity War.

Everyone was absolutely enraptured.

As far as I can recall, that’s only ever happened three other times at a movie premiere for me: The Dark Knight and Interstellar (Note: that makes total sense to me, because Christopher Nolan is an absolute master of storytelling and his suspenseful scenes leave you clutching your arm rests), and I Am Legend.

And that ending to Infinity War?

Jesus Christ.

The absolute stunned silence when those credits rolled after our heroes lost the war was devastating.

All I could hear was the sound of people everywhere crying, myself included.

It’s not about movies that make you cry. Plenty of movies have the ability to do that.

It’s about the fact that this same phenomenon happened in damn near every theater in every state and every country during their premieres.

We’re talking a universal experience.

How fucking cool is that?

Am I alone in thinking that it’s so amazing that they could dig so deep into our hearts that all of us from all walks of life sat there with tears streaming down our faces, feeling like Thanos personally walked up and walloped us in the gut with that gauntlet? No matter who you are, you probably have at least one favorite MCU character, and what’s so prolific about Infinity War is that in the end, it’s about every character’s nightmare coming true.

Think about it.

Steve’s fear was of losing his friends, especially his best friends Bucky and Sam.

Peter’s fear was of losing Gamora.

Tony’s fear was of losing the war and being a survivor of the devastation.

Gamora’s fear was of being helpless in Thanos’ control again.

Rocket’s fear was of losing his family.

Wanda’s fear was of having to kill the love of her life in order to save everyone.

Vision’s fear was of his possession of the Mind Stone allowing Thanos’ mission to be completed.

Thor’s fear was of being unable to avenge his brother, his best friend, and all of Asgard.

I could go on and on like that, but the sheer weight of this disaster brought all of us to our knees at once, and as much as it hurts me (ask my friends; I was sobbing so hard I had to put my hand over my mouth to keep from disturbing everyone else) I have to commend them for being able to make us feel something so powerful for what are fictional characters. It’s an amazing achievement that it felt as if we were the ones losing loved ones when we watched Infinity War. It’s one of the reasons we go to the movies in the first place—to feel something and experience something we never have before, and I really think that is what Infinity War delivered. It was an entirely unique movie-going experience that still reverberates with us a year later.

And it’s why Avengers: Endgame might be yet another first for us.

Many of us have experienced something similar with the end of a long running TV show. I personally am old enough to have seen the live endings to Will & Grace, Castle, Friends, Frasier, 30 Rock, The Sopranos, and various cartoons. I believe the closest equivalent in the film world might be the Star Trek movies, but even then, it’s different because they have always been an ensemble cast and don’t have individual-centric stories. It’s going to be the ending of an 11 year journey, and even though we know several heroes are going to survive and continue on with solo sequels (Black Panther, Spider-Man, Captain Marvel, Doctor Strange, Ant Man, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Black Widow are confirmed) or with the upcoming mini-series on the Disney Plus channel (Falcon and Winter Soldier, Loki, and Vision & Wanda are confirmed), this is still possibly the ending of the original Avengers lineup. All we know for sure is that Endgame is Robert Downey Jr and Chris Evans’ final solo performances of Tony Stark and Steve Rogers. If we’re really fortunate, their stories end in such a way that we could see future cameos from them (ex. Steve Rogers in the Spider-Man: Homecoming end credits) but for all we know, it’s the end for them and we have to say goodbye.

And I’m not sure that I know how.

The closest equivalent for me is Logan (2017). Goodness gracious. Talk about gross sobbing. I was an absolute wreck saying goodbye to Hugh Jackman in his final scene of Logan. However, now that it’s been two years, and Hugh Jackman is running around still being utterly adorable and fun in every way, I have been able to come to grips without my grumpy Canadian badass. Still, though, Endgame is going to be rough for me because while I adore Logan to no end, I wasn’t a fan to the degree that I would actively participate in fandom things related to him, like say fanfiction or Tumblr.

And that’s not the case with the Avengers.

I’m a straight up MCU fangirl. I reblog photosets and engage in silly theories and headcanons and read and write fics on a weekly basis. The Avengers are an active part of my life because watching the MCU films is a full blown hobby of mine. I have never been asked to let go of something that is a part of my daily life, not since Castle at least, and even then Castle ended so badly that I had let go of the show two whole seasons before it actually ended.

So that’s the hardest part of all with Endgame on its way.

How do you say goodbye?

I don’t know. I just don’t bloody know.

No matter what ending they choose for my Avengers, I’m going to be in tears, but I hope and pray that the Russos continue with their trend of being excellent storytellers and that they give us a worthy ending for those of the Avengers who will not continue past Endgame. I cannot control what happens and I will either make peace with it or reject it for a headcanon so that I can get to sleep at night (here’s looking at you, Loki; you’re still alive in my mind, you beautiful trashlord). However, I do feel encouraged to believe they will give them the endings they deserved based on what Chris Evans has been allowed to say about his final day of filming. Chris Evans basically is Captain America. He is Steve Rogers. And if he felt that Steve was given a great finish to his run in the MCU, then it’s possible I will be able to let him go to a certain degree and appreciate the time and care the character has been given since his introduction.

It’s such a bittersweet place to be, isn’t it?

If nothing else, I just want to thank the original Avengers actors for portraying such vibrant, fun, deep, relatable characters for a whole decade. I mean, that’s so much dedication, and all of them went above and beyond trying to do the characters justice. People can debate left and right about the accuracy or the mythos, but in the end, what I love about the MCU is that for the most part, every last one of them gives a shit. It should be a no brainer, but it isn’t in Hollywood. I can name so many movies or franchises that shit something out just to make money and have no passion or interest in the product. The people who work on these films have given them their all and they have left behind something no one can touch for as long as time exists.

In the end, I suppose that old saying is the best way to try and prepare for the end: “Don’t cry because it’s over; smile because it happened.”

You’re damn right I’m gonna cry, but my hope for Endgame is that I’ll be smiling through my tears.

See you guys on the other side.

Love always,

Kyoko

Fahrenheit 451 Review

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : June 2, 2018
0

Category: Book & Movie Reviews

Tags:, , , , , , , ,

Directed by Ramin Bahrani

IIRC, before I found out HBO was making an adaptation of Fahrenheit 451, I had said that we don’t need one because we are bloody living it already in Trump’s puss-filled Darkest Timeline America right now. Anyone who knows me knows I’m also extremely wary of not only novel adaptations but remaking American staples in fiction. Most of the time, it’s done for either banking on nostalgia or as a weak attempt to “update” something to make it more palatable to today’s audience. Well, as you’ll see in my review, Fahrenheit 451 sort of straddles the fence in those aspects as well as those of its overall quality.

To tell you the truth, I hadn’t planned on watching this movie. I didn’t even know it was premiering. I happened to subscribe to HBONow because the second season of Westworld recently began (and to my utter exasperation, God, until we hit Maeve’s storyline again, it’s been boring as hell with nothing to say) and I had a Saturday to myself on the couch, so I decided to give it a shot.

And here’s where the fence-straddling starts.

Naturally, spoiler alert for this particular adaptation.

The first half of Fahrenheit 451 is amazingly strong. Good visuals, great music, and the performances we get out of Michael B. Jordan and Michael Shannon are jaw-droppingly emotional in spots. In the first half, there are still noticeable changes that I assume were added for the whole “update” thing that Hollywood is obsessed with as of the last two decades. Some of them work well, like the social media component that wasn’t around when Bradbury wrote the novel, but others fall rather flat like having a black actor portray Montag without once (at least not that I noticed) bringing up any sort of possible conflict that could have been explored by this change. The social media component is very heavy-handed, but it’s still at least relevant and the film does a good job discussing how many people would much rather just be happy than be informed. Social media is excellent for that argument. We’ve molded ourselves into an unhealthy obsession with being heard and loved, myself included, and it’s a conversation worth having, so much so that before we hit the halfway point, I had recommended this movie to my mother.

The other reason the first half of the film is so strong is Jordan and Shannon’s performances. These two feed off of each other extremely well. The partnership and parenthood aspects shine like a diamond here. I joked with my brother that Michael Shannon has thus far played the same character in everything he’s in, but he’s so damned good at it that no one cares. He is excellent at being a closed off, intimidating, seemingly cold antagonist, but here he actually is split between the antagonist and a supporting protagonist. I admit I adore the fact that the bonding moments between Montag and Beatty were so powerfully acted. Nothing is more boring than a one dimensional evil character. Beatty has depth, and his depth lends depth to Montag. I found myself getting upset since I knew what would be in store for their relationship later on, and that’s a good thing. They both don’t have anyone else and it genuinely tears at the heartstrings once things start to fall apart.

There are smaller positive things of note, like the cinematography. I actually had to pause the film a couple times because I had such an emotional reaction to seeing books being burned. I’m not nearly as much of an avid reader as I was in the past, but I still love literature. I have two bookshelves overflowing with books. I love having them around me. I love just flipping open something and just flying off into another world for a little while. Seeing those stories burned and supposedly being lost forever did a damn good job of unsettling me, and I think any intelligent person would squirm as well. For the most part, the film has a great atmosphere. It’s harrowing and eerie throughout.

The first major change to note is they removed Montag’s wife Millie. I greatly disliked this change. As soon as I saw Clarisse, I knew why—they aged her up to be a (soft) love interest for Montag during his awakening point in the story. Even with folding Clarisse into that role, it’s a bad idea. First off, Clarisse’s character is never really that explored so she still ends up much like how she was in the novel: just a person-plotpoint for Montag to start to awaken and realize his natural instincts to resist. Second off, Millie also gave weight to what Montag had to lose and was an example of how much of the ignorance that destroys the mind can come from your very own home. Millie was completely uninterested in any of the things he cared about and eventually ended up leaving him once their home was burned to the ground. We don’t see anything of material value for Montag in the film, so when he’s forced to burn his own home down, it makes us ask “who cares?” The disgrace he suffered was more potent, being shamed in front of the whole country, but the actual house going up in flames did nothing for his character nor his character development. In the novel, he had something to lose, and here all he loses is his status.

The second major change is the real reason I ended up incredibly disappointed in the film: they changed the ending. I know, right? What kind of screenwriter thinks they know better than Ray freaking Bradbury? This is not to say Bradbury is untouchable, but there is a reason we’re still talking about and adapting a novel that came out in 1953. There are so many reasons why the ending of this film doesn’t work and broke my heart after the second half started.

To start, Montag dying rather than Captain Beatty. What makes the least sense about this change is that the film, for the most part, adapts the novel rather faithfully up until the second half. We see Captain Beatty at home writing small quotes from books and struggling with his growing suspicions about Montag. It strikes me as if they were going to go with the original ending but then some smart guy decided it wasn’t good enough and changed their mind. It’s set up with no payoff with Montag sacrificing himself and Beatty killing him. In the novel, Beatty goading Montag into killing him makes sense. He can’t reconcile what he knows to be true and what he’s supposed to do in life and it’s time for it all to end. It also robbed us of what could have been a devastating blow on an emotional level to see Montag kill Beatty.

As mentioned above, Michael B. Jordan and Michael Shannon play off each other ridiculously well. It would have hurt so much to see Montag kill him, and yet we’re given this Stupid Sacrifice moment, capped off with the fact that Beatty had a flamethrower and could have roasted that stupid bird no problem before it got away. (Side note: Have you ever seen how fast feathers burn in heat? The fire wouldn’t have even needed to touch the freaking thing—the convection alone would have roasted it like KFC. And don’t get me started on the continued Hollywood fable of being able to run into a wooden barn that is 90% on fire and you can not only see perfectly, but you don’t even cough. It is the worst kind of myth. Talk to a firefighter for five minutes before y’all keep writing these stupid scenes. Fire is no joke, and smoke kills a lot of people long before the fire does.) Montag shouldn’t have become some kind of Messiah figure. It wasn’t needed. It’s just someone’s bizarre artistic choice. Montag is supposed to represent a lot of things in the book, but a sacrificial figure is not one of them. It doesn’t add anything to the film but a sad ending. We didn’t need it. Montag’s character development has lasted through the ages for a reason. He’s a small beacon of hope that it is possible for someone who was ignorant to see the light and give up his earthly possessions and his false happiness and open his eyes to the world falling apart around and have the desire to stop it even at great cost. This adaptation completely misses the point by turning him into a sacrificial lamb.

Secondly, the entire DNA info bird thing just sounded nonsensical as hell. I hated it. It didn’t make any sense and it sounded like it was just an excuse for them to rattle off book quotes and make the rebels seem grander. It was overcomplicated and it hinged on some amazingly ridiculous things for this plan to work at all.

Thirdly, Montag burning the jealous coworker rather than Beatty also left a bad taste in my mouth, because we had already established that he was disgraced and there was zero weight to that one douchebag tattletale burning to death instead of Beatty. We didn’t’ know him, we didn’t like him, and Montag had zero relationship with him, so it wasn’t shocking or poetic or anything. It’s just a body count. It made Montag a killer, but it didn’t reveal anything about him that we didn’t already know from better elements in the story. It’s just for shock value, and it wasn’t even shocking.

Fourthly, Clarisse’s awkward and sudden departure from the film at the end. Just…why? Why build up the relationship between the two of them and then just drop it cold? She just brushes him off and disappears. Well, what is she going to do? Why did they act like she was central to the story when it completely ignores focusing on her? It honestly would have made more sense to keep it the way it happened in the book with her dying off-screen. Unlike Rando Salamander’s death, it would have greatly affected Montag. Hell, I’ll give you another change if you insist on being so artistic, movie: why not have Beatty force Montag to burn Clarisse? That’s harsh, but it’s another instance that would have left a powerful impact on the viewers and the character. Let’s have Beatty make it ‘either she burns or you burn’ and Montag can’t pull the trigger, so Beatty burns her anyway to teach him a lesson. That still would have given her more agency and a better finish than her just waltzing away from him as if he meant nothing to her.

Lastly, Montag hoarding books but the film doesn’t really get into why. This sounds like the creator’s vision and the book bumping heads once more. Montag appears to hoard them…just to hoard them. The film never explores why. We understand he’s having doubts and we understand his own father was disgraced for hoarding and reading them as well, but the film puts too much distance between the audience and what Montag is thinking. We don’t see into his thoughts and so it just comes off as tossed in there to hint at a deeper meaning that never fully gets addressed. There are other ways Montag shows us that he’s not a mindless robot like the rest of society. The film should have taken time to discuss what these books he kept meant to him and why he risked keeping them.

All in all, it’s not as if the film isn’t trying. The problem is that it’s a Frankenstein’s monster of concepts, cobbled together from Bradbury’s work and the writers/director’s vision. The two don’t perfectly come together as they should, so the message is bungled even though there are superior performances. I don’t know that it’s possible to recommend only half of a movie. I suppose weirder things have happened. It’s mostly worth the botched ending to see Michael B. Jordan act his ass off alongside Michael Shannon, but if you’re a book nerd, the ending will likely drive you crazy. Keep that in mind should you decide to feel the heat.

My Favorite Disney Villains

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : October 15, 2017
0

Category: Book & Movie Reviews

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

A couple years ago, I listed some of those villains that get underneath my skin, the most insidious, hateable ones in the last 20 years. Now let’s take a trip down Memory Lane of everyone’s favorite distributor of those evil bastards, Disney. Because if they’re good at one thing, it’s making you love to hate these jerks. Buckle up and get ready to throw popcorn at your screen. These are my favorite Disney villains.

Jafar (Aladdin)

I have to admit the nefarious Jafar was a villain I needed to mature in order to truly appreciate. When I was a kid, I knew I hated the smug S.O.B but a couple years ago, Aladdin was running on cable and I actually sat down and watched the film instead of just singing the songs.

Guys.

Jafar was awful.

But in a good way.

As in, “wow, I am really impressed at what a horrible human being you are,” not in a gross “I dig this guy” kind of way. Think about it. Not only does Jafar have a very vibrant, memorable personality, but he has a highly specific skillset and a master plan to get what he wants, and he’s not afraid to manipulate every single main character in order to obtain his goal. I also like that weirdly enough, his relationship with Iago is not only hilarious, but perplexing in a way. They argue non-stop, but then you can kind of tell he enjoys having him around as a henchman and so they can both bond over being unapologetically evil. I especially love little bits of dialogue like “So…how did it go?” or when they’re musing about beheadings (“Ewwwww!”) or after they’re discovered and Iago’s trying to pack up his stuff but stops to go, “And what do you think about this picture? I don’t know. I think I’m making a weird face in it.” Stuff like that you miss as a kid and then you get older and find it much funnier that Jafar and Iago actually have a rapport going the entire time and it’s hilarious.

What I also noticed upon my adult viewing was that his voice actor, Jonathan Freeman, truly did a phenomenal job. Jafar’s voice is just…epic. I’m in awe of how Freeman managed to make slime and venom just drip from every word out of his mouth. Special mention goes to the perverted moment at the end where Jafar wishes for Jasmine—who, mind you, is sixteen—to fall desperately in love with him out of sheer spite that she refused to comply. I mean, it’s liable to give you some kind of venereal disease when those words come out of his mouth. I always shudder in disgust when he goes, “Now, pussycat, tell me more about…myself.” Brr, now that’s good evil. Hell, his voice acting is so badass that even though the second Aladdin straight-to-DVD sequel Return of Jafar is complete garbage, his musical number in it is outstanding and I still listen to it to this very day.

Plus, Jafar is one of those villains who wasn’t afraid to have some flair about him. He did everything in style, down to taunting Aladdin in the final fight with a hurricane of puns while attempting to kill the poor kid. Say what you will about plotholes (seriously, yes, I can admit that Jafar obviously should have just killed the royal family and taken over instead of trying to do it the hard way; I mean, he had mind control powers, for goodness sake), but Jafar ages like a fine, evil wine, if you ask me. If you haven’t taken a gander at him in recent times, please do. I think you’ll find yourself pleasantly surprised at what a colorful character he is.

Hades (Hercules)

Have I mentioned that I have a thing for snarky villains? Because I have a thing for snarky villains and for that reason, Hades is easily in my Top 10 favorite Disney villains list, even though these are in no particular order.

Like Jafar, Hades in my opinion gets better with age. And since James Woods is apparently a large garbage fire in real life (*rimshot*), it’s all the more important that I love this character while violently ignoring who voiced him, much like John Smith from Pocahontas (side note: please tell me I’m not alone in my massive crush on John Smith, mm, he’s exquisite).

Hades is a riot. Not only is he funny as hell (*second rimshot*), but his hatred for Zeus and the other gods is pretty legitimate, as they live in a shiny utopia and he’s stuck downstairs with the dead. Now, keep in mind, I have a Bachelor of Arts in English Lit, and so yes, I am very aware that this harmless little Disney movie in no way is accurately portraying Greek mythology. I’m one of those people who can honestly roll with the punches, and Hercules is one of my favorite Disney films, so I can forgive that they weren’t trying to adapt the myths as they appear in real life.

I like that Hades has a good reason for hating Zeus, and that he wants to screw him over any way possible and take the throne, and that he is actually a flawed villain. Sometimes you get villains who get away with everything all the time and it can be kind of tedious, but Hades was the right balance of conniving and evil, but he still screwed up on a regular basis. Plus, like Jafar, I love that Hades has minions that he bounces amazing dialogue off of, particularly my girl Meg. (I love her, in case you can’t tell.) I really love the relationship they have, where she unwillingly serves him and sasses him outright to his face pretty much 24/7. She even stands up to him in spite of having zero power when he asks her to turn on poor sweet Hercules. Even after everything goes tits up, Hades was still trying to bring home the win when Hercules bargained for Meg’s soul, and you’ve got to admire the guy for trying.

Besides, out of all the Disney villains, he’s probably got the best inventory of reaction .gifs. You just can’t resist using them. All hail Hades.

 

Mother Gothel (Tangled)

You have to admit that it takes one cold, empty, vain bitch to kidnap someone’s child and raise them as your own and pretend to love them just for eternal youth.

And that’s why Mother Gothel rocks my socks.

I mean, wow. The level of cold-blooded could qualify her to be Mr. Freeze’s wife, for heaven’s sake. We’ve seen plenty of villains do unbelievable things in the name of vanity and greed, but raising a daughter just so you can siphon off her energy for beauty? That’s the lowest of the low. If you recall, Mother Gothel was on my Most Hateable Villain list as well because of how sociopathic she was, but that’s why I find myself loving her too. She does all the classic awful things that bad mothers do, like manipulating Rapunzel by lying to her about the real world, picking at her self-esteem, and then just isolating the poor child for her entire life for her own gain.

I also think that her voice actor, Donna Murphy, got robbed in the Oscar season because while “I See the Light” was adorable and lovely, her vocals for “Mother Knows Best (Reprise)” sends chills down my spine. ICYMI, Donna Murphy is actually a trained Tony Award winning actress and that’s pretty obvious from her stellar performance. I love that Mother Gothel is so delightfully over the top and yet she can switch to bone-chillingly threatening in a heartbeat. It’s not often that Disney has the villain outright stab the hero in the gut on screen and watch him die with a sick satisfaction. She’s definitely an underrated lady and not to be trifled with in the least, and I have to respect her for that.

Dr. Facilier (The Princess and the Frog)

First of all, can I get a round of applause for whatever brilliant casting director hired the amazing Keith David for the part of Dr. Facilier? I mean, bravo. Both for his acting and that killer singing voice.

I adored The Princess and the Frog for so many reasons, and Dr. Facilier is definitely one of a kind and helped make the film what it was. Much like Hades, I liked that he carried a grudge for a good reason. He couldn’t use the voodoo on himself, and being a supposedly impoverished black man during that time period gave him a serious ax to grind against the upper class, both black and white. He was a slippery, cunning bastard who knew just what thing to whisper in your ear to get you to fall for his scheme. I loved that what he offered Tiana in the end wasn’t some awful, evil deal, but something she truly wanted with all her heart and so she wavered for just a second thinking about it. Some of the best villains ensnare the heroes that way, after all, playing on their aspirations.

The magical aspects surrounding him were also interesting, as we don’t see enough of the kind of male witch-doctor angle from villains in children’s movies. He had a particular kind of charming threat to him, and it was believable that so many people in New Orleans got caught in his traps. I truly enjoyed how unnerving his shadow minions were and the stunning visuals in his amazing villain song “Friends on the Other Side” that a lot of people cited as the best song in the movie’s soundtrack (I can argue for and against it, as almost all the songs hit me right where I live).

And I can’t leave without mentioning how freaking terrifying the way he meets his end was. I’m an adult and I still find it chilling. Kudos, Disney.

Ursula (The Little Mermaid)

I have a slight confession to make here: I don’t care for The Little Mermaid, and I didn’t even when I was a kid. I think even as a little six or seven year old kid, I thought it was stupid that Ariel ditched her entire family and life for a hot guy. Now, as I got older I can also apply the reasoning that she also wanted to explore the human world, which is better, but I still never bonded with Ariel.

But Ursula?

Yeah, we can hang.

Ursula’s complete over-the-topness is probably what I remember most fondly about The Little Mermaid, aside from the absurd “Les Poissons” Big Lipped Alligator Moment song. She’s so delightful because she’s petty, vindictive, and manipulative. Most of the time when you see the Top 10 Disney Villain Songs lists, Ursula’s “Poor Unfortunate Souls” is near the top. It’s not only an incredible song but an incredible performance. Like Jafar, the voice actress Pat Carroll sold that performance to the umpteenth degree. She makes your skin crawl, but at the same time, she’s so damned entertaining that you can’t help but smile a little. One of my favorite lines is when she called Ariel a “trollop” because she actually was getting Eric to fall in love with her even though she couldn’t talk (side note: hmm, that might be another reason I subconsciously didn’t care for this movie; granted, Ariel’s adorable behavior was what Eric was falling in love with, but you can probably still make the case that this is pretty shallow) I mean, wow, that’s pretty salty to call the little dear a “trollop” and I found it endlessly hilarious as an adult.

Plus, Ursula’s transformation at the end was beyond epic. She was legitimately terrifying and there wasn’t any manipulation to be had—she straight up tried to murder everyone involved and rule over the ocean as a titan. You gotta respect the lady’s goals. She does nothing half-assed. She even meets her end in a spectacular fashion. I tip my hat to you, Ursula, as one of the baddest girls of them all.

Scar (The Lion King)

By now, we’ve all pretty much cited that The Lion King is Hamlet But with Lions, and in spite of that, it’s still just a well told, well executed Disney film. We come back to it all the time for its powerful relationships and beautiful score and stunning visuals.

Then, on top of that, we get Scar.

Oh, Scar. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

Scar is such a phenomenal villain that aside from Simon Gruber, Jeremy Irons never found another role as good as that one. He’s another that usually tops the Disney Villains lists for just being so terribly entertaining and maniacal. One of the things I find compelling about Scar is that he has more than just one of the seven deadly sins as a hubris, he has quite a few: envy, pride, wrath, and gluttony, most prominently. He’s envious of Mufasa, he’s so prideful that he thinks he can lead the pride (*rimshot*) even though he has no leadership skills, he murdered his own brother in cold blood and then tried to murder his nephew as well, and he let the hyenas literally eat the entire pridelands into famine. Wow. Aside from Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame, he might be one of the only villains to check off so many sins all at once.

Scar’s personality on top of all that evil is also why he usually tops lists. He openly snarks at everything, friend or foe, and he’s not afraid to drop the pretense of being Amicably Evil and just be flat out evil. Even after Simba finally catches up to him, he tries to manipulate him and the pride. He’s cruel, but he makes you laugh. He’s evil, but he does it with flair. He’s ineffectual in a fight, but he knows how to turn the tide in his favor when it comes down to it. He even meets his end trying to manipulate the hyenas once again. Scar is unforgettable and fascinating and we need more villains like him in future flicks.

Gaston (The Beauty and the Beast)

If there’s one villain on this list that I love to hate, it’s Gaston.

At first, I wasn’t going to add him, but then I took a deeper look at my opinion of the man, and that’s what changed my mind. Anyone who knows me knows I am a feminist—a real feminist, not the kind who are just man-hating SJWs—as in I want men and women to have the same amount of rights and treatment and live in harmony without either side dealing with unfair bullshit.

Gaston is the ultimate sexist, misogynistic pig. He’s my worst nightmare. Just looking at him makes me want to put my fist through the screen.

And that’s why he sticks with us.

For example, I have recently likened the character Grant Ward from Agents of SHIELD to Gaston, simply because a portion of the AoS fandom has become those three little blonde girls you see in the background of Gaston’s incredible musical number. Unfortunately, in real life and in other forms of fiction, Gaston exists. There is always a handsome guy whose actions are utterly reprehensible, but he’s charming and good-looking, so people are willing to overlook his monstrous actions. Ward’s fangirls have locked themselves in the Denial closet because they find him attractive, so he gets a pass even though he is literally a Neo-Nazi murdering psychopath. But I digress.

Gaston fascinates me, in a way, because of his vanity and his ego, and how far he is willing to go just to satisfy them both. It would be different if he had just been manipulating Belle to get in her pants, but as the movie continues and he later uses her father to get her to cooperate, it becomes more than that. Then, it’s about Gaston trying control Belle. She told him no. He doesn’t want to hear no. It’s no longer about sex at that point. It’s about a woman with her own mind and her own desires and they don’t line up with a typical “man’s man” alpha male and it drives him crazy, since he thinks a woman is just a thing to own. It escalates brilliantly once he finds out about the Beast and he incites a full on lynch mob before proceeding to straight up murder the Beast over the woman who 100% rejected him multiple times. Honestly, you could write an essay unpacking the layers to Gaston and Belle’s antagonistic relationship. It’s pretty incredible to examine.

Besides all the deep stuff, Gaston is wonderfully over-the-top. You can’t take your eyes off the man. He’s such a relentlessly awful douche, down to being presumptuous and assembling a wedding reception before proposing to Belle, as he’s just that sure she was going to say yes. Wow. Just wow.

There isn’t a day that can come around when I’m not willing to totally belt out the lyrics to “Gaston” because it’s one of Disney’s most singable songs. Complete with ridiculous flourishing and strutting about like the man himself. Because, really, Gaston is the best and the rest is all drips.

Hopper (A Bug’s Life)

Funnily enough, when I went through both the Disney Animated Canon and Disney/Pixar lists, I didn’t find myself really thinking any of the Disney/Pixar villains were the kind I loved. For example, I put Lotso from Toy Story 3 on my Most Hateable List (the damned bear made me curse in a theater full of children, for God’s sake!) but I had to really think about if any of the Pixar villains left an impression on me this way. Well, a couple years ago, they were running A Bug’s Life on the Disney channel, and I thought about the fact that I hadn’t seen it as an adult, so I gave it a shot.

Dude.

Hopper is an incredible villain.

Granted, I shouldn’t be surprised, as it’s Kevin freaking Spacey doing the voice, and even when Spacey’s at his most over-the-top, he’s phenomenal. However, Hopper is one of a kind and deserves more attention, but most of the time he gets overlooked since A Bug’s Life is a slightly underwhelming film overall. It’s a case of an outstanding villain inside of a mediocre film.

Hopper figured out that all he really needed to do was devalue the ants and make it seem like they didn’t have a choice in the matter. His tall stature and intimidating voice did half the work for him, and it was all downhill from there once the ants were afraid to stand up for themselves. What I found most interesting was after the grasshoppers were back at their place and saying they didn’t need to go back for food, as we’re shown they had plenty, and Hopper kills the two who spoke up, because it’s not about the food. It was never about the food. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Hopper wanted the ants to stay subservient and it didn’t matter how he accomplished that goal, down to killing the queen and her poor little granddaughter if necessary. The level of cruelty Hopper displays as a dictator is pretty chilling, even in a movie that’s plenty bright and colorful. What I found most chilling was when Flik finally stood up to him and he gets slapped around for his trouble before Hopper seriously is about to crush Flik’s skull in front of the entire ant colony. Wow. Public execution in a kids’ movie. Who knew Pixar had it in them?

Basically, I’m pretty happy Hopper was tiny and fictional, because that kind of person can destroy entire nations with that mentality and personality and the will to get it done. He was easily able to fool the ants into being afraid because he knew the right pressure points. I think it was an important lesson for kids to take away from the film, even if it probably went over their heads and stuck more with the adults. It’s a good reflection of how men like that rise to power, by making the masses believe that they don’t have a choice, and that their voices don’t count. (*side-eyes America*)

So kudos to you, Hopper. You made a pretty damned legitimate threat in a movie about circus bugs.

Ratigan (The Great Mouse Detective)

The Great Mouse Detective deserves a thousand times more love than it gets. However, this tends to happen a lot with the films before the Disney Renaissance. A lot of them weren’t heavily circulated on TV or DVD, and so people tend to forget they’re there. This is an example of a film that didn’t talk down to children. It gave them a challenging, scary caper to follow and provided us with a wild ride that is honestly pretty damn great, all things considered.

In case you missed out on it, The Great Mouse Detective is exactly what it says on the tin: a mouse version of Sherlock Holmes. We follow along as Detective Basil of Baker Street is given the task of finding a kidnapped scientist, as the scientist’s little daughter has hired him and his right hand man Dawson to find her father. Like in Sherlock Holmes, Basil has an archnemesis: Ratigan. Literally a huge rat who is just as brilliant as Basil, but he hates being called a rat.

Oh, did I mention Ratigan is voiced by the late great Vincent Price?

Are you ordering the DVD on Amazon yet? You are? Great. You’re welcome. Please enjoy.

I mean, you had me at hello right there. Vincent Price is the master of the macabre, and it’s nowhere better seen than in his performance of Ratigan. He’s your classic villain, where he constantly leaves little messages to Basil and thwarts the detective’s attempts to stop him, taunting him constantly, nearly breaking his spirit in one instance.

Ratigan is one of my favorites for being so very, very devious. I mean, for the crime of one drunk mouse calling him a rat (seriously, the mouse is blatantly drunk, and there’s also a freaking strip tease routine later, so how can you not appreciate this movie?) he feeds said drunk mouse to his enormous fat cat that he somehow owns. A rat that has the balls to own his own natural enemy. That’s Ratigan.

What truly seals things is that Ratigan gets angry if anyone calls him a rat because he considers himself to be a criminal genius and has enormous social stature, but then when his plan is foiled, he literally goes completely feral and attacks Basil in one of the scariest final sequences in Disney history. I’m not kidding. It’s downright unnerving. Even if you don’t see the film after my recommendation, do me a favor and look at this fight sequence. If a little chill doesn’t go down your spine, you’re crazy or in denial.

Percival C. McLeach (Rescuers Down Under)

Like some of the other Disney films on this list, Rescuers Down Under is one of the Disney films that gets overlooked a lot simply for being earlier era Disney, but it’s actually one of those rare sequels that is largely hailed as better than the original. Not only is the animation absolutely gorgeous, it’s a thrilling ride with lots of humor and colorful characters that will capture your heart pretty much instantaneously. Rescuers Down Under is also one of the movies that I decided to rewatch as an adult since I didn’t recall much from my childhood other than really liking John Candy’s role as the goofy seagull.

Well, one thing that also left a lasting impression on my rewatch is Mr. Percival C. McLeach.

Now, a lot of you are probably squinting right now going, “Wow, that was really the bad guy’s full name in this movie?” I’m with you on that one. I actually forgot his name too until I Googled it. However, look at his picture and I’m sure it’ll immediately snap into your mind what a greasy, insidious piece of evil crap this guy was.

For those who might have missed the movie, Rescuers Down Under is about a sweet little Australian boy named Cody who stumbles across an incredibly rare, beautiful, huge golden eagle and befriends it, but there’s a poacher on the loose who is dead set on catching the eagle and he doesn’t care who or what gets in his way. The Rescuers are sent in to help the lost boy find his way home and protect him and the eagle from McLeach.

Oh, did I mention McLeach is voiced by the late great George C. Scott?

You’re buying the DVD on Amazon right now, aren’t you?

Once again, the reference will probably go over the kids’ heads, but anyone my age and older knows that you can’t resist that smoke-and-venom laced voice of George C. Scott, and his talents are on full display in this movie. McLeach is exactly like his namesake—a bloodthirsty parasite. You’d think that as a full grown man, he’d just let the kid go and take the eagle, but no. McLeach considers the kid to be a threat because the kid knows that poaching is illegal and could rat him out, so not only does he kidnap the kid, he uses the kid as bait for crocodiles. Yes. This man used a small child as live crocodile bait. I mean…no wonder this movie is better than the original. Who has the balls to be that damned evil?

Plus, like Jafar and Iago, McLeach’s relationship with his creepy little lizard Joanna is hysterical. The lizard has a lust for eggs and so a couple hilarious segments devoted to the lizard getting at them like any annoying pet would. I highly recommend the sequence of the lizard getting the dozen eggs McLeach was trying to eat for lunch out of his lunchbox. It is Tom and Jerry levels of hilarious shenanigans. I know Disney overuses animal sidekicks, but that scene truly deserves a lot of credit for comedic timing and visuals.

Give this film a try. I think you’ll honestly find yourself impressed with how well it stands up, and how truly beautiful the animation style is. You get an excellent feel for the outback and a great story with vibrant characters to boot.

Yzma (The Emperor’s New Groove)

Man, sometimes Disney just knocks it out of the park with casting, and the Emperor’s New Groove is no exception. It’s one of those Disney movies that is irresistible from start to finish. No matter when it’s on and no matter what platform, I will watch this movie and laugh myself silly every time.

Once again, we have a villainess who is just so over-the-top phenomenal that I can’t help but sing the casting director’s praises. We are treated to none other than the glorious late Eartha Kitt as Yzma, the emperor’s evil advisor who is responsible for the plot to kill him, which thankfully went awry. Eartha Kitt is a legend for a reason. Yzma is just as funny and snarky as Hades, and I honestly think it would have been amazing for these two villains to meet and have a Snark Off.

I love Yzma’s constant cantankerous nature on top of her clear vanity and ego. It’s one of the personality types that often is given to male characters, and so it’s all the more interesting and fun to see it portrayed via Eartha Kitt’s amazing voice acting. She’s wonderful because she feels like the kind of person who would be in power over Kuzco’s empire while he’s running around being a selfish brat. I love how fashionable she is and how she just rolls with the ridiculous things she’s forced to endure while trying to catch Kuzco. Her deadpan alone will bring tears to your eyes. “Are you talking to that squirrel?”

Plus, Yzma and Kronk might be my all-time favorite Disney villain duo if only because they’re relationship is pure genius. Despite how the partnership ends up, it’s pretty funny that they both seem to know each other well and get along on some superficial level. Pretty much everything Kronk does is amazing and I want to put him in my pocket, so it’s easy to see that Yzma hadn’t gotten rid of him yet even though he was driving her crazy. Special mention goes to the jump rope moment where she is discussing her evil plan while actually jumping rope and playing patty-cake with Kronk. It’s priceless. You can’t not love this duo. Even after Yzma loses, she and Kronk are still hanging out and it’s brilliant.

If there’s one company that knows how good it feels to be evil this October Halloween season, it’s Disney.

My Favorite Awesomely Bad Disaster Movies

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : October 8, 2017
1

Category: Book & Movie Reviews

Tags:, , , , , , , , ,

Let’s keep the month of October going with my favorite disaster movies! Disaster movies usually get their own category since they are so prevalent and pop up every handful of years using the same tropes, but I still think people tend to forget that they are technically horror films, even if they can lean more towards the action-adventure side than the scary side. I still think they’re worth taking a look at as we count down the days to Halloween, so let’s go.

Volcano (1997)

First off, are you noticing the trend yet? The 1990’s were just offering up terrible monster and disaster movies left and right, and I can’t thank them enough for it. Volcano is slightly more obscure than your average blockbuster movie like Twister or Armageddon, and for good reason. Like Anaconda on my movie monster list, it had the fatal flaw of taking itself completely seriously, and thus failed on every single level imaginable. It’s probably possible to make a horror movie about a volcano—not probable, but possible—but this is the exact way not to do it. But that also leads to big unintentional laughs for a sensible person like you and me.

Volcano is about an earthquake that basically awakens a volcano that was somehow lurking underneath the streets of Los Angeles.

I’ve already lost you, haven’t I?

Wait, come back. Just go with me on this one for a minute.

Tommy Lee Jones plays a city official trying to help with the disaster relief and Anne Heche plays a scientist (Sit down! Stop trying to leave while I’m talking to you!) advising him on what to do. And yes, it is a ludicrous as you think it is.

For me, the faulty science is what makes this movie noteworthy. I mean, wow. It gets so many things wrong and the fact that they’re trying to make a true blue disaster film out of incredibly slow moving lava is just comical. As I mentioned above, there might be a way to make this a horror film, but not in these circumstances. What you’d want to do is write about an island where a volcano erupts and let’s say the eruption takes out all the boats, so your survivors have to carefully navigate the island and get to a safe zone as they wait for help to arrive, and even then, you still can’t make the volcano the main villain. You’d probably need a secondary antagonist, like a selfish, cowardly member of the group who lets people die or tries to sabotage the survivors to ensure that he gets out alive.

Volcano fails on a stunning level to deliver thrills and chills because it’s just so stupid, but at the same time, it’s pretty spectacular in its failings. Tommy Lee looks generally annoyed by everything he sees and it’s enjoyable as hell. There’s stupid subplot about race relations that has one of the corniest pay offs I have ever seen. There is a scene where they knock over a bus to help “direct” the lava down another part of the street, and if you can’t find that funny, you need your head examined. It may kill a few of your brain cells, but I still think Volcano is worth a watch.

The Core (2003)

Speaking of awkwardly cast movies with terrible science and woefully miscast actors, The Core!

Let me tell you the ways of this facepalm-inducing attempt at a disaster movie.

As a result of unusual sun activity, the earth’s core stops spinning. Apparently, this causes catastrophic side effects, like a literal hole opening up in the ozone layer that proceeds to melt the Golden Gate Bridge. Instead of opening some tequila and drinking to the end of the world, a group of scientists and the government decide that rather than accepting our inevitable demise, they should drill to the center of the earth and drop nukes in order to get the planet’s core spinning again.

You can’t make this shit up, man.

To be frank, The Core is a pretty blatant rip off of Armageddon. It’s incredibly obvious not only by concept alone, but by the hodge-podge “misfit team” the movie cobbles together. The strangest part is that the movie casts some damned great actors even though overall it’s a colossal failure at using them, including Aaron Eckhart, Hilary Swank, Bruce Greenwood, Stanley Tucci, Alfre Woodard, and Delroy Lindo. I am convinced that the writers’ room and director just hyped this movie (and its imaginary box office dollars) up so much that all these credible actors decided to say yes to such a rancid script. The dialogue is atrocious. Almost no one fits in their roles properly. Most of these actors are character actors who deliver excellent performances in dramas or sharp-witted comedies, and here they are generic rogue scientists trying to save the world.

As a whole, the movie is awkward, uninspired, and relies heavily on clichés. However, it’s another one where it’s so unbelievable that it has to be witnessed. It seems to misunderstand the movie it’s trying to emulate on its most basic level. Say what you want about Armageddon (I personally argue it is the only “good” film I’ve seen in Michael Bay’s inventory; I like Bad Boys and the first Transformers as well, but neither movie is “good,” merely entertaining), but it knew what it was going for: a misfit team of roughnecks saving the world from a terrifying threat. The actors in Armageddon were cast well and each of them fit in their roles and you genuinely cared about them. This group can be killed off or interchanged without consequence, but to be fair, the only person who seems to actually be trying is Stanley Tucci. Tucci’s snarky comments and uptight pretentiousness is by far the most entertaining thing aside from all the laughable science. He is 2000% done with everyone and everything in the movie and it actually brightens the film quite a bit.

The Core is a masterful train wreck of ineptitude, but I think it’s worth a watch if only because it just botches everything it attempts and is a lesson on what not to do in a disaster movie.

The Day After Tomorrow (2004)

The Day After Tomorrow puts the ‘disaster’ in ‘disaster movie.’

To be completely honest, I almost left it off the list because it greatly annoys me—now, granted, not as much as Emmerich’s other failure 2012, but TDAT has a reputation for its awfulness that cannot be ignored. For example, most of the time when movies do big budget blockbusters of this caliber, they ask for help. Michael Bay consulted with actual NASA for Armageddon, even though his premise was forced and not the correct way it would have been handled. It had enough basis in reality that NASA happily agreed.

The Day After Tomorrow is so scientifically false that NASA refused to consult with the film.

Yeah. It’s that bad.

The Day After Tomorrow is about the earth reaching its breaking point because of climate change and basically a chain reaction of cataclysmic events begin happening as a result, from hail the size of basketballs to tidal waves that put New York underwater. Dennis Quaid is a scientist trying to insist to the government that they need to take action to protect people, but he is summarily ignored as a crackpot until it starts happening. He finds out his son is trapped at the New York Library and sets out in the killer cold to rescue him and whoever else he can find that survived the tidal wave and ensuing blizzard.

To be frank, you’ll probably go comatose from all your brain cells exploding at once if you try to watch the movie without the help of Rifftrax. That’s the only way I can stomach it. The movie beats you over the head with its environmental message, even to the point of inserting a Dick Cheney look alike to scoff about climate change while the brave and noble Dennis Quaid proves him wrong. The sanctimonious tone of it all is insufferable, and then adding the bad science on top just makes it an exercise in going crazy.

However, there’s plenty to laugh at, from the miscast Jake Gyllenhaal (who is supposed to be a high school kid, but looks like a thirty year old with 90’s scruffy hair) to the hilarious scene of them literally out-running freezing cold air. Yes. Cold. Air. Is. The. Villain.

It’s almost hard to look away from this movie because it’s so staggeringly ignorant and it relies on some of Emmerich’s most tiring clichés, from the absentee father to the dumb self sacrifice to the cheesy redemption arc for the main lead. Everyone is sleep-walking through their performances and every weather-related catastrophe is done wrong. Even the title clues you in to how uninspired it is. Hell, there’s really not that much action when you put it together as a whole. They even had to shove in an improbable chase scenes with CGI wolves aboard an abandoned ship. Yes, you read that correctly. The movie is just spinning its wheels mostly, but at the same time, it makes it a lot of fun to riff and takes shots for. Just make sure you’re drinking the good stuff, or you’re liable to fall asleep.

The Happening (2008)

Remember when we talked about Lady in the Water being absolutely phenomenal because it’s the most bullshit horror story ever played completely straight?

Meet yet another one of M. Night Shyamalan’s mesmerizing pieces of crap that is played totally straight as a horror film and yet is the furthest thing from it.

The Happening is about a “mysterious” event occurring all over the United States where people start randomly killing themselves en masse, which is preceded by talking strangely and walking backwards. The whole country starts freaking out, and one of the people in the middle of the fray is Mark Wahlberg, who for some reason is playing a school teacher. He and his girlfriend Alma, played abysmally by the walking zombie cupie doll Zooey Deschanel, try to escape the path of the event and survive.

Oh, and the thing that’s killing everyone?

It’s plants.

Yes.

Freaking. Plants.

Congratulations. That is the lamest villain of all time.

However, The Happening is overstuffed with bizarre things, much like Lady in the Water, so much so that it’s become a cult classic over the years because it does everything so wrong. Mark Wahlberg seems to have been given zero direction, so he’s basically mouth-breathing and panicked and clueless the entire time, whereas Zooey just stares blankly ahead like a bushbaby and emotes about as well as a sock puppet without a hand in it. The deaths are over the top and come across as silly rather than scary, and like most of his bad films, the side characters all consist of people with weirdly alien quirks that make no sense and don’t endear you to them. It’s like someone asked a Martian to write a script for a disaster movie. No one acts like a normal person would in the middle of a disaster. There are entire conversations that happen for no reason and characters come to idiotic conclusions with almost no evidence or prompting. For God’s sake, there is a scene where Mark Wahlberg tries to reason with a house plant that turns out to be made of plastic. This movie should be framed in the Smithsonian for a crowning achievement in failure to be a disaster movie, in that it is a complete disaster from start to finish.

But I guess that means it lived up to its genre, if only in the literal sense.

Birdemic (2010)

If you’re a nerd and you’ve already seen Birdemic, you’re probably giggling madly right now, and you’re not the only one, trust me.

For the non-nerds out there, let me introduce you to a movie that is so poorly done that most people don’t think it’s actually a real movie.

On the sunny non-descript streets of California, a software salesman falls in love with a newly hired Victoria’s Secret supermodel and then the city gets attacked by birds.

Again, I would like to repeat that I am not joking and I did not make this up.

I wish I could help you understand how incredible Birdemic is without visuals, but it’s hardly possible. By now, you might have heard of the infamous movie The Room by Tommy Wiseau, which is often hailed as one of the worst movies ever made.

Well, take The Room and multiply it by five, and you get Birdemic.

Birdemic was shot on a handheld camera, but not in the way that found-footage movies are shot. I mean the budget for this film is so nonexistent that filming was done by hand or on a tripod. The film also doesn’t have a sound editor, as there are huge audio spikes heard throughout the film as well as background wind noise that are inconsistent. The titular birds are not real birds, nor are they props.

They are literally graphic sprite .gifs of eagles flapping their wings.

And the eagles make seagull noises.

Oh, it gets better, friends.

The eagles dive bomb buildings and explode like kamikaze pilots. With plane sounds.

Think I’m done? No, friends.

The main actor in the movie is so bad that a case can be made that he is the first lobotomized actor.

The actor is so bad that he can’t even walk in a straight line like a human.

I’m not joking.

He literally even walks wrong.

Then add in the fact that lines are misread, repeated, or accidentally cut short due to the film’s lack of a professional editor, so you even get to enjoy movie mistakes as they happen in the film that were left in due to overall incompetence.

I know you’re thinking I’m crazy and I made this up, but look! Look! It’s real! It’s a real thing that exists!

Birdemic is beyond definition. Most people at first glance think it’s a parody, but I assure you, the “director” was dead serious and thought he made a real movie, much like Tommy Wiseau. The worst part is he was apparently “inspired” by Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, even to the point of trying to get Tippi Hedren to cameo, but she understandably refused to accept the invitation.

And if you want to get your money’s worth, once more, I highly recommend the Rifftrax for it. It’s simply amazing. Either way, you need to witness the Birdemic. You will find yourself forever changed.

My Favorite Awesomely Bad Monster Movies

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : October 1, 2017
1

Category: Book & Movie Reviews

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Guys! It’s October! Yay! Time to break out the pumpkin-flavored everything, sweater dresses, leggings, boots, and of course, horror movies of every size and kind!

Now, to be perfectly honest with you, I am a chicken. I can’t watch horror movies because I have an overactive imagination that manifests itself into vivid nightmares or insomnia if I watch them. However, I do admit that I like monster movies quite a lot. In celebration of the month of October, as we creep towards Halloween, I’ve decided to make a list of not just monsters movies that I like–terrible monster movies that I happen to like. Because, hey, it’s more fun that way. So kick back and enjoy!

Lake Placid (1999)

Don’t talk to me if you don’t like Lake Placid. It is by far one of the greatest blends of horror-comedies to ever exist and no one can ever convince me otherwise. I have to say I really appreciate movies that understand the tropes they’re using and not only use them well, but have fun along the way. Self-awareness, when done properly on film, can result in some of the most priceless moments possible, and Lake Placid is an excellent example.

In case you missed it, Lake Placid is about an insanely huge crocodile that is discovered in the titular lake. A team is sent out to confirm the sighting after someone was killed by it and after it’s discovered, the race is on to capture it before it munches everyone and everything on that lake.

Lake Placid could have been some dry attempt at making crocodiles scary, and to be fair they already are and don’t need any help from horror movies, but instead they decided to adopt a tongue-in-cheek tone that just sells the movie so much better than a straight horror film ever could. Easily, the movie’s best characters are Oliver Platt and Brendan Gleeson, who both enter into a gut-busting snark off contest for the entirety of the movie. Brendan Gleeson plays the straight-laced, grumpy, Harvey Bullock-style cop and Oliver Platt is a rich, crazy crocodile expert called in to consult. The two immediately hate each other and it’s comedy gold listening to them insult each other at every available moment in spite of the fact that they are hunting a literal killer croc. Plus, the movie is actually pretty creative and engrossing with its action sequences of hunting the crocodile, and there are not one but two genuinely awesome twists before it’s over. The fact that the characters are so aware of how ridiculous everything around them is makes it an absolute joy to watch. Special mention goes to Betty White, who knocks it out of the park in her small bit part of the foul-mouthed granny whose fault this pretty much all is.

Lake Placid is always in rotation on cable channels, and if you haven’t seen it, please do yourself a favor and enjoy it this Halloween season. Ignore the sequels, though. Those aren’t awesomely bad, those are just bad bad.

Deep Blue Sea (1999)

Deep Blue Sea is an unforgettable experience, as it is somehow a mashup of like twelve different kinds of horror melded into one brainless mess of pure brilliance.

Deep Blue Sea tells the tale of a scientist who has been trying to cure Alzheimer’s disease using a protein that grows in the brain stem of the Mako shark. Her project hasn’t turned in results and is about to get axed, so she convinces the benefactor to visit the facility and see that she can produce the protein. She can’t grow enough protein by the 48-hour deadline, so she illegally tampers with the sharks and grows their brains twice the size to produce more, which makes the sharks smarter, and so the super smart sharks decide to kill everybody and destroy the compound so they can get out into the open water.

If you’re not laughing by the end of my description, there is something wrong with you.

Deep Blue Sea, like Lake Placid, is mostly a precious jewel of a movie because of the fact that the characters are aware of how ridiculous the premise is and so they make the experience unforgettable. The main credit goes to LL Cool J, who is the Lampshade Hanger of the movie, and snarks it up being one of the only two black men in a sinking compound overrun with super smart killer sharks. He delivers lines that will have you howling the entire time. The movie also has the audacity to give you some truly comical moments of failed science. Everything from sharks swimming backwards, which is physically impossible, to sharks figuring out what cameras are enough to take them out like they’re in a slasher movie, as well as appliances that shouldn’t be functioning in five feet of standing water and lighters being conjured out of literal nothingness to deliver improbable deaths to said super smart killer sharks.

While some of you might know the film for the infamous Samuel L. Jackson moment, the rest of the film really does warrant a watch. It’s mostly self aware, but there are other things to giggle at where the movie tried to Do a Thing and failed miserably, like trying to make Thomas Jane seem like a stoic badass except they didn’t write him any badass lines, nor did they have him do anything badass, nor did the director direct the poor actor to do anything other than “stare blankly ahead and say everything in monotone.” Plus, once you’re done, look up the unbelievable trivia about the movie’s re-written ending. I won’t spoil it for you, but it is quite satisfying, trust me.

Deep Rising (1998)

Several months ago, I was at my parents’ house hanging out for the day, and my clever thumbs scrolled past Deep Rising. I frowned as I saw the title, as it sounded vaguely familiar, and so I turned it on.

It was the best decision I made that weekend.

When I was a kid, I recall that there was some kind of awful D-list movie about a ship with people trapped inside being attacked by disgusting tentacles. At the time, I was repulsed by gore, and so decades went by before I ever recalled the movie again.

In short, Deep Rising is a movie about a luxury ship that gets attacked by a mutant octopus with sentient tentacles.

I am dead serious.

Complete with cheesy effects for when you finally see said mutant octopus in the flesh altogether.

Where do I even start?

First of all, it bears mentioning that this is a Stephen Sommers film, and so there is a certain amount of self aware campiness to the film, much like his far superior Mummy films (excluding the non-existent third one). However, for the most part, you’re actually supposed to be afraid of the somehow-sentient tentacles that illogically creep around the ship eating passengers and “mercenaries” (I say that because they are some of the stupidest people ever conceived on the silver screen.)

Second of all, the casting is dreadful. There’s just a random assortment of actors miscast in these roles, like Famke Janssen and Djimon Hounsou. My parents and I were sitting on the couch choking on our salad with laughter at the utterly moronic scenarios played completely straight, like a mercenary shooting up an empty room and then turning his back so that the tentacle gobbles him up when he turns around even though he had fair warning as the other people ran away from it. My personal favorite moment where I erupted into peals of laughter was part of the finale with the “hero” and Famke riding a wave runner through the ship running away from the tentacles while firing Endless Magazines at it and executing perfect hairpin turns through the ship’s hallways at about eighty miles per hour. Or the guy that gets shot out of one of the tentacles somehow standing up and trying to talk despite most of his body being digested already.

Deep Rising is often cited as a poorly executed Alien ripoff, and that’s probably true, but it’s so absurd that it begs to be watched. Your jaw will hang open in disbelief the entire time and there is no way you don’t end up with stomach cramps laughing at the cheesy late 90’s effects, the awful gore, and the corny dialogue.

Anaconda (1997)

Back when I was a youngster, I was one of those freaky kids who actually liked snakes and thought they were absurdly cool animals. I still do, actually. At the time it came out, I was pretty young and so Anaconda seemed a little scary to me even though I liked snakes.

Then I became an adult and the wonderful fellas at Rifftrax decided to do a live riff of Anaconda. I attended. And I have never been happier that I did.

Unlike the other films on my list, Anaconda is a poor, blessed little movie that actually takes itself seriously somehow. I mean, where do I even start describing where things go wrong? It was pretty much doomed from the very start trying to turn an animal like an anaconda into a giant killer monster that is so sadistic that it vomits up prey it just killed in order to try and eat more prey. The movie is even stupid enough to put that as a prelude at the beginning of the movie. Who is dumb enough to put a completely false fact in front of their horror movie? These folks, apparently.

Anaconda tells the baffling tale of a photographer and crew going on an expedition to film on a river. They are joined by a completely psychotic “snake expert” who derails the entire trip and essentially takes the crew hostage to go hunt a monster anaconda so he can capture it alive (somehow he thought he could fit that 40 foot snake on that tiny boat, but it is never directly discussed) and presumably sell it for a lot of money. This Card Carrying Villain is played unapologetically by Jon Voight, who for some reason puts on the worst “South African” accent to ever be committed to film. He’s so obviously evil that he just mugs the camera with an evil sneer and does things to this crew of morons that should have clued them in to the fact that he was a remorseless murdering fiend the second they laid eyes on him.

But Voight’s awful performance is pretty much the only other thing that sells this stupid movie.

Voight is just hamming it up to the point of absurdity, but the crew he’s terrorizing is so lacking in brain cells that you’re kind of fine with him sacrificing them to lure the anaconda into his clutches. There is even a scene where his big, fat, old butt gets into a fight with then-young Ice Cube (who is so woefully miscast I cannot to this day figure out who said yes to him and why unless he just donated a whole bunch of cash for production contingent on starring in the film, because the man can’t act his way out of a wet paper bag filled with live snakes) and Voight somehow wins. Yes. Jon Voight out-fights Ice Cube. Oh Lord. It’s just the most idiotic thing ever, but you can’t look away because it’s like a train wreck.

Voight aside, the other reason you need to witness Anaconda is the laugh-worthy anaconda itself. First of all, the CG will send you into hysterics. It hasn’t aged well, and even the practical effects can make you burst into giggles, particularly with two scenes: the “fight” between the anaconda and a jaguar, where the jaguar is so obviously a stuffed prop that it might as well have been a kid holding one of those rubber snakes and wrapping it around a Beanie Baby, and the scene where the anaconda literally breaks through the wooden hull of the boat’s main deck like the freaking Kool-Aid Man. Oh, and did I mention that the snake screams? Not hissing. Screaming. Like, shrieking screaming, when it attacks. I have no words for how hysterical it is, because snakes can’t make noises other than hissing, so the dummies in the editing room made it shriek and it’s so funny I can’t do it justice. Plus, the snake does other things that snakes can’t do like climbing up ladders at the speed of sound, busting through planks of wood, surviving being exploded and lit on fire, and even gunshots. The snake’s behavior is even more absurd, as they assert that this particular anaconda is some kind of reptilian serial killer that murders for the fun of it, and anyone who knows anything about reptiles can already tell you that’s a load of crock. (*rimshot*)

It’s an awful, awful movie that can provide you with an insane amount of entertainment because of its lack of self-awareness. It’s one of those times where they were trying so hard to make a horror flick that they ended up making a comedy instead.

Godzilla (1998)

Let me start by disclaiming something—I don’t like Roland Emmerich. In my entire life, I have liked exactly two of his movies: Independence Day and this. ID4 is pretty much self-explanatory, but I know I’m definitely one of the only people in the world who likes Godzilla ‘98. It’s partially because of my nostalgia goggles, as this was one of the big action films that my family and I really bonded with. I personally think this movie is hilarious. Whether it’s unintentional humor or pretty much all of Hank Azaria and Jean Reno’s lines, I have such a great time watching this idiotic and yet fascinating film.

Godzilla ’98 doesn’t appear to really be trying to remake or adapt any of Godzilla’s direct canon films in Japan, at least as far as I know. It’s sort of just cobbling together enough story for why the big thing is on our side of the pond. Blah blah blah, government experimentation with nuclear power created basically an iguana that walks on its hind legs and is the size of the Chrysler building. Matthew Broderick is a scientist advising the government because he’s an expert in genetic mutation, or some kind of science gobbledy-gook. Hank Azaria and White Bitch (I refuse to use her name, because she was a conniving, useless trifling bitch) are trying to report on the story and get caught in the crossfire, while Jean Reno is leading a covert team trying to wrap everything up and prevent people from learning the truth about who is responsible for Godzilla’s creation.

Godzilla’s mixture of humor interspersed with, come on, be honest, some pretty excellent chase and destruction sequences, are why I always have to recommend it for your monster movie viewings. It’s more action-adventure than horror, but they do add some horror moments in there towards the end. It blatantly rips off Jurassic Park in the final act—down to stealing actual iconic shots, for heaven’s sake—but the movie is another where it is clearly intended as tongue-in-cheek and can be enjoyed as a brainless popcorn flick because of it. The movie doesn’t take itself seriously, aside from maybe slipping in an environmentalist line here or there and then the “man is the real monster” moment in the last scene.

I know it’s a crime against humanity in some circles, but I liked the design of the Godzilla creature. I thought it was very interesting and it had such a massive scope because of the cinematography. He felt huge and dangerous and scary. And yes, I did see the 2014 Godzilla remake that was so dreadfully boring and only had a total of 11 minutes of Godzilla in it, and frankly, you can eat my shorts. I thought the 2014 Godzilla movie was a huge flop, with nothing but a boring, blank-faced Aaron Johnson and I’d take my cheesy ’98 Godzilla over it every single time. If nothing else, it had the balls to destroy Manhattan and show the big reptile the entire movie through, not for 11 freaking minutes. Say what you will, but if you came for a monster, you got a monster from start to finish. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: a gritty, “realistic” tone doesn’t immediately make your remake better than its counterpart. Write that down, Hollywood.

I say grab some popcorn and enjoy the cornball idiocy of ’98 Godzilla.

Lady in the Water (2006)

Wait, wait, don’t get up and leave! I promise I will justify the inclusion of one of M. Night Shyamalan’s many bombs as an awesomely bad monster movie.

Many people were fortunate enough to have skipped M. Night’s misguided, kooky, bizarre foray into the rare horror-fantasy genre, and the fact that it was universally panned by critics didn’t help matters. I mean, you have to have a pretty massive ego to take a “bedtime story” you allegedly told your children and turn it into a feature length film, but keep in mind that by this point critics had been telling M. Night he was the next Spielberg, so his ego was at maximum inflation at the time, despite the fact that his previous film The Village flopped. Well, it went about as good as you thought it would as a feature length movie about a stupid “fairytale” with made up names and badly told, nonsensical mythos.

Lady in the Water is about a water nymph called…are you ready for this…a narf (*cue 10,000 The Pinky and the Brain jokes*) that stumbles her way onto land via a pool in an apartment complex that is run by Paul “what in God’s name did they pay him to star in this farce” Giamatti. He finds her and takes her in and shortly after he is going to take her somewhere to get help, a grass-monster that looks like a wolf called a Scrunt (*barely suppressed laughter*) attacks them, so he takes her back to his place and starts to try to figure out how to get her back to her people. One of the tenants apparently knows the “story” of the nymph’s origin and tells him he basically has to identify a bunch of people with foretold roles that will help get her home.

Are you laughing yet? You should be laughing by now.

But let me get to the point. Lady in the Water technically counts as a monster movie because the Scrunt is in fact stalking the nymph the entire time and terrorizing the people in the apartment complex, even killing one of them by the end of the film. All of it is filmed completely seriously as a horror film, and so we’re going to treat it as such.

Why is it worth watching?

Because it is certifiably insane.

Not only do you have to listen to the word “narf” a bunch of times, you are expected to do so with a straight face. There are just so many things in this movie that make no sense and will have you rolling around on your couch with laughter because the entire thing from start to finish is played completely straight as if it’s some kind of amazing horror-fairytale fusion. I hate to break it to you, movie. You ain’t that. I’m not going to spoil all the truly insane moments in the film, but let me at least say this: there is a real, actual scene in this movie where a small child predicts the future…by reading cereal box labels.

I am dead serious.

It’s that kind of movie.

Plus, you need to witness the incredible pretentious metaphorical-handjob M. Night gives himself as he writes himself into the movie as a writer who is prophesized to write a book that will help elect a man president and said president ends up basically saving the world, but the writer’s “radical ideas” get him killed before that happens, so he is presented with the choice of not writing the book and living, or writing the book and sacrificing himself to save the world. Yes. I am not exaggerating any of that. It happens in the damn movie, and M. Night plays that character.

But let me add one drawback: most of it is long, boring talking with almost no musical score. If you have a short attention span, instead direct yourself to the Nostalgia Critic’s review of the film and he’ll give you all the gut-busting highlights of the movie in less than half the time. Hell, even if you do watch the movie, I still recommend that review because it is spot on describing what an unforgettable mess the film is. You’ve got to give it a go this October. You deserve it.

And what’s next week’s October list? Why, it’s my favorite awesomely bad disaster movies!

Cautionary Tale: Netflix’s Iron Fist

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : March 22, 2017
0

Category: Book & Movie Reviews

Tags:, , , , , , , ,

Man, it’s rough when an entertainment company you love breaks their winning streak.

Marvel’s been cranking out consistently good material both in the cinematic universe and in the television universe for years now, and I think maybe we all got so used to it that we forgot it’s possible to completely miss the mark. To me, that’s what their latest venture, Iron Fist, is in essence: a swing and a miss.

To be frank, I rage quit the pilot to Iron Fist twice. Keep in mind, I wasn’t one of the naysayers who hated it before it came out and I actually didn’t listen to the early negative reviews because I knew there were people who wanted to hate it right out of the gate and nothing was going to change their minds. I saw the trailer and felt underwhelmed, but with Marvel’s excellent track record, I was willing to give it a try. This is not to say that I haven’t had problems with a few Marvel properties before. For instance, I didn’t finish Jessica Jones—not because it wasn’t good, but rather because I was not the key demographic for that show. Being an urban fantasy author, I have seen the exact same archetype that Jessica Jones is about a million times and so I was already burned out on the “inexplicably attractive but perpetually rude and standoffish private detective with super special powers” trope long before the show came around. Plus, the pacing was too slow and I wasn’t a fan of the gratuitous sex scenes with the far superior character of Luke Cage.

So why did I rage quit Iron Fist?

In order to understand why I’ve included Iron Fist in the cautionary tales catalog on my blog, let’s take a look at just what made me quit watching the pilot twice in the same day. Let’s do a comparison between the first fifteen minutes of Daredevil, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist, and see if you can understand my utter frustration with this new show.

In the first fifteen minutes of Daredevil, here is what is established:

-How Matt Murdock lost his eyesight as a child and gained his powers saving an old man’s life

-Matt’s devout Catholicism and conflicted conscious because of how he misses his father and realizes how much they are alike in having “the devil” in them

-Matt goes down to the docks and stops a bunch a human traffickers from kidnapping innocent women

-Gives us that unforgettable opening sequence of blood over the city

-Introduces the unbelievably perfect Foggy Nelson and what he does for a living with Matt as well as the friend they have on the police force

-Introduces Karen Page and her predicament

-Introduces the dynamic between Karen, Matt, and Foggy

In the first fifteen minutes of Luke Cage, here is what is established:

-That funky, colorful opening sequence

-Introduces Pops and his shop members as well as Luke’s overall cool-as-a-cucumber-but-don’t-push-your-luck-fool attitude

-Introduces a minor character and her son who will impact the plot later on

-Establishes the relationship between Luke and Pops and hints at Luke’s powers

-Hints at Luke’s backstory and shows us his daily struggles to find rent money and his desire to stay under the radar even though he could do more if he wanted to

-Introduces Harlem’s Paradise as well as the first two main villains, Cottonmouth and Mariah

And in the first fifteen minutes of Iron Fist, here is what is established:

-A bland, forgettable afterthought of an opening sequence

-Danny thinks he owns a building

-Danny thinks people he knew over a decade ago still work at his father’s company

-Danny thinks he can talk to the CEO of a company with no appointment and zero proof that he is the founder’s son who was believed to have died in a plane crash a decade ago

-Danny thinks that two people he knew when he was a kid would recognize him as an adult and after he was presumed dead as a child

-Danny presumably has no money and no shoes and just sleeps in the park after meeting a bum who ends up not contributing to the narrative whatsoever

-Danny, still looking homeless, starts speaking Mandarin to the Asian girl hanging up dojo fliers

-Danny breaks into his old house and walks around like it’s not big deal

-Danny’s relationship with Ward is revealed as abusive

Do you see the stark difference between these shows? How is it that Daredevil and Luke Cage can establish that much story in a quarter of the runtime and yet Iron Fist establishes almost nothing in the same amount of time? This is exactly why I couldn’t get through Iron Fist’s pilot in one sitting. First of all, Danny is characterized like an entitled douchebag. We don’t know anything about him other than he’s woefully naïve and just assumes that everything will fall into place for him without concrete evidence towards his claims. We don’t know why he came back to the city or what his mission is, whereas with both of our other examples, we are quickly shown the character’s personalities and what they are working towards. All we know is that Danny thinks he owns the company, but yet we see no skillset that suggests he even could run it when he doesn’t even have the good sense to wear shoes while walking through New York or to find some kind of proof that he is in fact Danny Rand.

I’ve been describing Iron Fist’s script as “something that was written the night before it was due and was never revised.” Now that the whole show is up on Netflix, we’re starting to get stories that fill in why this show is falling flat on its face, such as the fact that Finn Jones, the titular Danny, only trained three weeks before shooting a show about martial arts. That’s unheard of. If you check the backgrounds of most actors who are cast as superheroes, they train for literal months at a time—not only so that they are physically intimidating, but so that the fight choreography is nuanced, believable, and a joy to watch. For example, one of my favorite modern fight scenes is Captain America (Chris Evans) versus Batroc (Georges St. Pierre) because Chris Evans trained for months to be able to do a majority of the shots in that amazing fight scene since he is in fact opposite a real UFC fighter. It is painfully obvious when Danny Rand fights that he isn’t a martial artist, and it would be different if it were like Daredevil when you have the complicated routines performed by an amazing stunt double. I didn’t make it past the pilot, but I’ve heard that Iron Fist’s fight choreography centered around Finn Jones is underwhelming at best, and it’s impossible not to make a comparison to either Daredevil or Luke Cage, which had intense fight scenes that were both unique and engrossing.

Furthermore, even if you forget the sloppy fighting, the dialogue is wooden and poorly done. Dialogue is about moving the plot forward, making complications between characters, or solving a problem, and none of that is included in the pilot episode of Iron Fist. It is so obvious that they are dumping exposition on your head. They don’t even try to hide it. Hell, the two main villains basically have a meeting where absolutely nothing gets done. They just meet to show the audience that they’re evil and in cahootz with each other. They don’t solve the problem at hand; they instead regurgitate rancid dialogue to establish their relationship.

Lastly, it also doesn’t help that Danny comes across as a pretentious college kid who spent one summer abroad and thinks he’s a dyed-in-the-wool Buddhist martial artist. He once again finds the Asian girl and starts condescendingly telling her that she should teach kung fu if she wants more students, mansplains that he’s supposed to “fight the master of the dojo” now that he has entered their city, and asserts that she should just give him a job even though he still looks like a crazy hobo. Understandably, she tells him to get lost, but it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth that he’s so arrogant. The troublesome part is that arrogance is a normal thing in certain heroes like Tony Stark or Thor, but even in those movies, we are immediately shown that both of them have a heart and are just spoiled rather than truly being douchebags. Danny doesn’t give us a moment of humanity in the pilot. He doesn’t give us a reason to care about him, and at the end of the day, if you don’t do that in the first episode of your show, odds are that you are doomed to fail.

In the end, even though I can’t fully judge the show since I won’t be finishing it, I think this is a product of Marvel rushing to put something out so that they have time to work on the Defenders instead. Danny Rand is an afterthought. This whole show feels like an afterthought. It doesn’t have a flavor. It doesn’t have the careful writing or beautiful cinematography of any of its siblings. If nothing else, then Iron Fist teaches us caution—that even when you’re on a winning streak you can still bomb out if you don’t take your time and tell a story worth telling. Even the mighty Marvel can trip and fall. No one is above that.

Let’s just hope they try harder with the upcoming Defenders show.

Cautionary Tale: FX’s Taboo

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : March 1, 2017
0

Category: Book & Movie Reviews

Tags:, , , , , , , , ,

In my experience, writing a good story is like baking a cake.

You have to measure each ingredient carefully. You have to know what things taste good together and what to leave out. Put too much liquid and it won’t firm up. Don’t put enough, the cake is dry. Add too much sugar and it’s inedible. Don’t add enough and it’s bland and tasteless.

Finally, after you have a good story, you add your icing. For novels, icing can be the worldbuilding aspects, extra juicy scenes to pander to the fans, or any manner of things. In television, however, I would equate the icing to the acting and atmosphere of a story.

FX’s mini-series Taboo is like a dry cake with excellent frosting.

Naturally, spoilers ahead. 

Unfortunately, what I believe happens in instances like Taboo is that the writers got so wrapped up in the “mystery” of the show that they just flat-out refused to tell a story the way that people have been doing it for thousands of years, because for some reason, they thought they knew better. We’ve all seen shows, movies, or books of the like, where it’s so clear that the author wants to lead you around by the nose and never see a twist coming that they actually fail storytelling in general.

You see, Taboo has a terribly interesting premise, and it has strong dialogue delivered by an incredibly talented cast. I fully admit that I am a Tom Hardy fangirl, but it’s true that I gave this show a chance because it had the potential to be unlike anything else on network television these days. Hell, FX is one of my favorite channels for that reason. They like to take risks and explore the worlds outside of the boring lineup of every other channel with its shows only about doctors, lawyers, or cops. Furthermore, the cinematography is Emmy-worthy, and that’s saying something considering the show is set in Crapsack World 1800’s where everything is dirty, cold, wet, and diseased.

Still, this is what happens sometimes when you get big name directors like Ridley Scott who are so concerned with making something unsolvable that they lose the entire reason why we sat down to watch Taboo in the first place.

Let’s start with the big man himself, James Keziah Delaney. Is his part well-acted? Absolutely. Tom’s using his A-game and he’s given us a heavy, disturbing, intriguing performance as Delaney, who is just as batshit insane as a man can possibly get, and is so far into the antagonist role that you could easily argue he is a villain protagonist. Over the course of the show, we really are not given much in the way of redeeming qualities. At the most, we see he has a slight fondness for the madam’s daughter Winter and he has a slight attachment for his father’s servant Brace, but he is portrayed as basically a step below full on evil. He takes Anti-Hero to a whole new level, and it’s the first mistake that the show made: you cannot root for a man who is almost completely aligned with the villain, and so you never grow attached to him, therefore meaning that his fate is ultimately pointless.

As I mentioned before, basic storytelling means that you introduce a character, introduce their motivations, glance over their background in order to help the audience understand them, and then you put them on a journey.

Well, what the hell is James’ motivation? They never give us a full picture of who he is as a man, despite how much time we’ve spent with him. The writers threw us a few crumbs, but there is no payoff for who James Delaney is and why he does what he does. For example, most storytellers would make this a revenge story based around how the East India Company killed James’ father. We would assume as much, but we’re shown that James doesn’t have that much loyalty to his father and isn’t broken up at finding out he was killed for the Nootka land.

Well, maybe it’s about James’ mother, who was clearly a Native of some sort. Maybe she’s the reason he’s fighting the company to go to Nootka and maybe rediscover his roots. Nope. They never go into who his mother was, what she did, why she did it, how it affected him, or if he actually has any supernatural powers. They tease at it constantly and never address it, and it’s worse because it could have been one of the most interesting concepts of the entire show. Once more, it’s because the writers think it’s cool to keep the audience guessing and keep them in the dark, but all it does is make you impatient and frustrated that they’re jerking you around for the sake of jerking you around. James’ mother should have a larger impact on understanding who he is and where he came from, but ultimately she matters about as much as James’ father, which is not at all.

Over and over again, James makes decisions that can’t be predicted or absorbed by the audience because the show constantly holds us at arms’ length in order to deliver “ooh, aah, what a twist!” moments. I don’t know why they seem to think this is enough to keep our butts in the chairs. Without a reason to care or understand or sympathize with James, why should we stick around for a few cheap, paltry writing tricks?

Let’s say for argument’s sake that maybe it’s not about understanding James Delaney. Fine. What about Zilpha or Lorna? Nope. We’re not given any motivations for either of them. Zilpha is living under the greasy boot of her stupid abusive husband until the last two or three episodes. We don’t know how she ended up with him. We don’t know why she puts up with his abuse when she clearly has some kind of self-esteem and thoughts independent of him. Was her husband always an abusive creep or did James’ reappearance change him? Sure, it’s satisfying when she stabs his bitch ass and he dies knowing that she sent his sorry butt to the afterlife, but then the show immediately ruins it by letting her story unceremoniously end with suicide. What? Are you kidding me? Why did James doggedly pursue her, to the point where he was giving her wet dreams, and then just randomly drop her on her ass? They never explain why he just cut her off and then she just dies for no reason. What was the point of telling that story in the first place if there is no pay off?

Alright, then let’s focus on Lorna. Maybe she was meant to be the focus. Nope. No dice. Lorna shows up all proud and arrogant like she’s hot shit in a champagne glass, but she then proceeds to just take up space as the Token Vagina of the group. She contributes absolutely nothing to the story until the season finale when she exonerates James from the murder of Winter—which, by the way, no one was investigating and he was just stomping around London free as a bird in spite of this—but even then that became a moot point because James was escaping London altogether and Winter’s mother dies in the finale. Again, what was the point of this character? They never show us anything about her marriage to James’ father, if it was even legit, or if she knew all along that attaching herself to him would give her Nootka, or why she wanted Nootka to begin with considering she was just an actress. How could she sail to America and expect not to be instantly killed upon arriving? Or was she just going to sell Nootka to the highest bidder? We, as the audience, cannot answer any of these questions, and that is a huge sign that this story is sour.

There are so many points in this show where there is no pay off. It’s just sloppy. For example, we later see that James and Goddard did file the account of the Influence’s sinking and gave it to Chichester, but then James just murders Stuart Strange, who is the reason why Chichester wanted justice in the first place. Stuart is dead and therefore cannot pay for his crime in the justice system. Perhaps it means the destruction or at least the seizure of the East India Trading Company, but those two actions are at odds with each other in terms of the story. You could argue that it shows that James has at least some common decency, but since we still don’t know what’s going on inside his head, it’s not satisfying.

To me, Taboo could have been a delicious cake with delicious frosting, and instead, it is a dry cake with fantastic frosting. Most of the time, you want it to be bad frosting on a good cake because you can simply scrape the frosting off and eat the cake, but Taboo is at its core an unstable story wobbling because the cook was so busy trying to be Avant Garde that he just forgot the right ingredients and the right measurements.

I must admit that I’m not entirely sure if I’ll be back if FX orders another season. It’s extremely clear that the people in that writers’ room just want to dick around instead of doing their job and telling a story so that we care about the characters we’ve spent so much time with. I suppose I’ll have to mull it over and decide if it’s worth it for another go at an extremely overcooked cake with poor flavoring, but excellent frosting.

Maybe if Tom Hardy shares it with me…