Book & Movie Reviews | She Who Writes Monsters

Archives for : Book & Movie Reviews

A Love Letter to the Avengers

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

Category: Book & Movie Reviews, Inspiration

Tags:avengers endgame, avengers infinity war, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel Studios, The Avengers

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

How do you say goodbye to 1/3^rd 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

Category: Book & Movie Reviews

Tags:fahrenheit 451, film review, hbo, michael b jordan, michael shannon, movie review, ray bradbury, spoiler alert, spoilers

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

Category: Book & Movie Reviews

Tags:a bug's life, aladdin, beauty and the beast, disney, disney pixar, emperor's new groove, Halloween, hercules, my favorite disney villains, rescuers down under, Tangled, the great mouse detective, the lion king, the little mermaid, the princess and the frog

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

Category: Book & Movie Reviews

Tags:birdemic, disaster movies, Halloween, horror films, horror movies, movie list, the core, the day after tomorrow, the happening, volcano

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

Category: Book & Movie Reviews

Tags:anaconda, bad movies, deep blue sea, deep rising, godzilla 1998, Halloween, horror movies, lady in the water, lake placid, monster movies, movie list, movie recommendations, october, scary movies

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

Category: Book & Movie Reviews

Tags:cautionary tale, danny rand, finn jones, iron fist, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, mcu, netflix, writing advice

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

Category: Book & Movie Reviews

Tags:cautionary tale, fx, fx original programming, fx's taboo, james delaney, taboo, tom hardy, tv show, writing, writing advice

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…

Kyoko’s Favorite Movies of 2016

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : December 10, 2016

Category: Book & Movie Reviews

Tags:best of 2016 movies, Captain America, civil war, deadpool, disney, film review, kubo and the two strings, Marvel, mcu, moana, movie list, movie review, storks, the legend of tarzan, zootopia

So. This year has been an enormous, raging, uncontrollable garbage fire, but at least it gave us some good movies. Here’s my shortlist of the best movies for 2016 that have been released.

Captain America: Civil War: I don’t think anyone’s shocked at this being one of my first picks for the best of 2016. Like the Avengers, this movie gives me a massive rush of fangasm to see so many of our Marvel heroes in one story, and it’s great because not only do we know the core team, but we also get introduced to some new faces. Everyone went into this movie expecting to love the fight scenes—which were incredible—and yet we all came out with the same consensus: bump the main team, we need 1000000% more Black Panther and Spider-Man. I am truly blown away how much I liked those two. They were by far the biggest standout characters introduced into the MCU and I cannot wait for both of their solo films, because they have proven to be incredibly interesting. Still, I of course give the movie credit for being the most heart-wrenching film in the MCU canon. We were hit hard and often in the feels, from losing Peggy Carter to seeing Tony and Steve’s friendship fall apart to seeing poor Bucky being used against his will to murder the innocent. It’s a phenomenal film with all the right elements and it has a massive rewatch quality for that same reason.

Moana: Again, this is no surprise. I am a huge Disney fan, and I am especially a fan of Disney princess films and how they have evolved over the decades. Moana is exactly that: the natural progression of a Disney princess with modern day writing. Honestly, it’s like the movie had a checklist of “impossibly awesome things” and it just checked them off one by one. Likable, realistic protagonist? Check. Creative, visually-stunning environment? Check. Bechdel Test pass? Check. Hilarious lines? Check. Catchy-as-hell musical numbers? Check. Gripping story with plenty of action and adventure? Check. Open exploration of people of color, also portrayed by people of color? Check, check, check. This film is a dream. It’s just so exciting and wonderful and powerful that I’ve already seen it twice and I’m trying my hardest not to see it a third time before it leaves theaters. So few films understand that there is a difference between seeing a movie and experiencing a movie. Moana is an experience. I found myself tearing up at the oddest moments, at moments that weren’t even sad, because I was just so wrapped up in the adventure and how it made me feel like anything was possible and that I got to be on this journey with these wonderful characters. Call me petty, but I am so damned glad that Moana was the one to take the crown away from Frozen in terms of opening weekend. Every bit of praise this film has gotten is more than well-earned. It’s practically demanded.

Storks: This one sort of slipped by a lot of people due to when it was released, but Storks was just the quirky kids’ film that I was looking for and I really enjoyed it. Even though I want to say they marketed it as the makers of the Lego Movie, this film smacks a lot of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, in terms of 70% of the jokes being Lampshade Hanging. It could really be argued that it’s more for teens and adults than it is for kids’, and I think the box office and its critical reception reflect that. It’s certainly not a bad thing, either. I was howling. It’s extremely creative, the performances are hilarious, and the humor is spot on. I told my parents to rent it one day so they can crack up at all the great parenting jokes. I consider it a hidden gem among the 2016 films and it’s worth a watch if you haven’t seen it.

Zootopia: Before Moana blew my mind, Zootopia was the other Disney film that completely made me fall head-over-heels in love with it, and I still am to this day. The last time I’ve watched a Disney film this many times, it was Tangled all the way back in 2010. I love Zootopia so much that I own two versions of it: the DVD and the Amazon streaming digital video, though to be fair, I didn’t know Netflix would add it to their library this fall. Zootopia is life. It’s such a well told story with an amazing examination of all kinds of prejudice, from basic sexism to complicated accidental reinforced stereotypes to obvious bigotry. I haven’t seen an animated film handle these concepts this well since Cats Don’t Dance. It’s so relevant now considering what’s been going on the past several years and yet even without the strongly worded, mature message, it’s just an enjoyable film with delightful characters.

The Legend of Tarzan: Oh, quit gaping at me. This movie was also pretty much panned by most people, but no one really disliked it moreso than they were just indifferent to it. Of the movies on my list, this is definitely at the bottom, but regardless, I actually really enjoyed this movie. To be clear, I didn’t expect to. The trailers were pretty generic and I really adore Disney’s take on Tarzan, so I wasn’t really in the market for a new interpretation, but once I saw that it wasn’t Disney remaking itself like it’s been doing in recent years, I decided to give it a try. (And half naked Alexander Skarsgaard is hard to say no to.) I discovered a surprisingly thoughtful film that paid respect to both sides of the fence in terms of nature and man. It doesn’t browbeat and it doesn’t have the same white savior problem that a lot of films similar to it tend to have. I really loved the flashback scenes of Tarzan’s early life. They were gripping and deeply emotional, and the performances were excellent, as was the cinematography and the soundtrack. I would argue it’s worth a watch or a rental for that same reason. I do admit that Margot Robbie is extremely damsel-y and useless, and Christoph Waltz is completely wasted on this script, but everything else about the film was good.

Deadpool: This needs no explanation. It was perfection. You know and I know it. Boom.

Kubo and the Two Strings: Like Storks, Kubo was sort of a niche marketed film, really only made for those who are really passionate about animated fairytales. Well, I am one of those people. I adore Laika productions, and Kubo is no exception. It’s a masterfully told, utterly moving, impressively beautiful film. It’s mature, but it still is palatable for children and young adults. If nothing else, Kubo needs to be seen for how rich and vibrant and detailed its cinematography is, and considering everything is stop-motion, it demands to be appreciated. The only downside is that unfortunately, the cast is not as diverse as it should have been. Don’t get me wrong: the voices chosen totally fit the characters and each actor did one hell of a job, but I still find myself disappointed that a movie set in feudal Japan has so few Japanese actors in it. The biggest casualty is George Takei, who had about three lines as a minor character. What the hell, Hollywood. It’s friggin’ George Takei and you didn’t give him a main role? Shame on you! Despite that shortcoming, Kubo is phenomenal and should not be missed.

I’ve got two more films on the docket for 2016: Rogue One and Passengers, so stay tuned for a possible update to this list in a couple of weeks. Have a happy!

The Dresden Files Reread and Review: Blood Rites

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : September 23, 2015

Category: Book & Movie Reviews

Tags:blood rites, book review, demons, ebenezar mccoy, harry blackstone copperfield dresden, harry dresden, jared kincaid, jim butcher, karrin murphy, lara raith, the dresden files, the dresden files reread and review, thomas raith, vampires

Welcome back to the Dresden Files Reread and Review! We’re back for another adventure with our gangly smartass Chicago wizard Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. This time we’re tackling Book Six, Blood Rites. Naturally, spoilers for this book and minor spoilers for other events in the series.

Disclaimer: this novel is absolutely RIFE with Harry Dresden/Karrin Murphy moments. I apologize in advance, because I am going to be an insufferable shipper the whole time and there is nothing you can do about it and I am so sorry. This is also my longest review to date, so basically strap yourself down and prepare for the following:

The first thing to note about Blood Rites is that it actually has a reputation for one of the best opening and closing lines in the entire Dresden Files series. Look upon this opening line and enjoy:

“The building was on fire, and it wasn’t my fault.”

Yep. Are you ready for this book? I am so ready for this book. Let’s dive in.

Our wonderful hero, Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden (conjure at your own risk), Chicago wizard and private investigator, is currently fleeing—I shit you not—three demonic monkeys throwing supernatural flaming poo at him. Pun very intended. Read that sentence again and question the sanity of Jim Butcher.

It turns out he’s actually on a rescue mission, retrieving a litter of Foo puppies that were stolen by said beasties. Foo dogs are incredibly intelligent, borderline supernaturally strong and fast warrior dogs, and Harry’s been hired to get them back. He manages to escape the building he rescued them from and climbs into his ride with the one and only Thomas Raith, White Court vampire and occasional ally. And also my third favorite character in the series.

The demon monkeys form Monkey Voltron—and I’m not making this shit up, it says that in Harry’s narration—and continue chasing the boys, but they manage to kill it and head onward towards Brother Wang and the monks who hired him. In the meantime, it turns out Thomas tracked Harry down to ask him a favor, which is unusual since technically the wizards and vampires are still at war. Granted, Thomas is a White Court vampire, and they don’t have much of a beef with Harry, but the Red Court vampires still want Harry’s head on a plate cooked medium, and so Harry is understandably a bit tense about whatever made Thomas come looking for him.

Thomas wants Harry to help his friend, Arturo Genosa, who might be the subject of an entropy curse. Those are nasty long-distances curses that are committed by powerful, usually hateful individuals, and so Harry makes a deal that he’ll help as long as he gets paid his investigator’s fee and if Thomas will finally come clean about why he’s helped Harry several times with no real explanation.

Harry drops the puppies off and then he and Thomas head to go see Genosa, but just when they arrive, a Black Court vampire attacks the car. Luckily, it turns out one of the Foo puppies stowed away under the seat and it barks right before the vamp attacks, and Harry and Thomas manage to fight it off. They go see Genosa and Harry learns that he has three ex-wives as his starting list for potential killers. Thomas collects his girlfriend Justine and departs, while Harry is set to pretend to be Genosa’s production assistant on set so he can try to catch the killer and prevent the curse from killing anyone else.

Afterward, Harry and the puppy head home and he asks Bob, the air spirit of knowledge, to go out to search for the lair of Mavra, the head of the Black Court vampires who have him on their hit list. He intends to find where they are holed up and strike first rather than waiting for them to up the ante. It’s at this point that Harry finds out Genosa isn’t a regular movie producer.

He’s a porn movie producer.

Cue hysterical laughter.

Harry heads to the gym to see our residential Queen of Awesomeness, Lt. Karrin Murphy, head of the Special Investigations department of the Chicago Police. In between positively adorable dialogue, short jokes, and low-level flirting, Harry asks her to help him find Mavra’s lair and take the bitch out, since Murphy’s sharpshooting and incredible instincts have saved Harry’s life dozens of times.

Side note: if you’re not into audiobooks, I would urge you to reconsider. The Dresden Files entire series is narrated by the one and only James Marsters, who most recognize as Spike from Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, and his voice-work is nothing short of phenomenal. I actually did read Blood Rites first, but my friend lent me the audiobook for a long road trip and the audiobook might be yet another reason Blood Rites is one of my favorite books in the series. Marsters just nails Harry’s inflections and changes in mood, and one of the things I love most is how he reads lines about Karrin Murphy.

You see, up until this point in the series, Harry sees Murphy as a dear friend and ally. But that’s consciously. I honestly think he doesn’t notice that he has a crush on her until later on in this novel, which I will discuss when we get there, but Marsters does this amazing thing when he reads Harry’s narration and description of Murphy that just seals how he feels about her even though he doesn’t know he feels that way yet. There’s so much affection in his voice, as well as respect, and even a little bit of longing, and it adds to the experience of the novel tenfold. Even if you don’t purchase it, find some excerpts and listen. I guarantee you’ll love it that much more.

We also learn that Murphy’s family reunion is on Saturday and she’s dying for a reason to ditch it, so she agrees to help Harry out, and takes care of the puppy while he heads to the set of Genosa’s skin flick.

Not long after Harry arrives, he starts to meet new people, and we get this little gem of a scene:

Guy: Who the hell are you?

Harry: I the hell am Harry.

Guy: You always a wiseass?

Harry: No. Sometimes I’m asleep.

Marry me, Harry, you sarcastic little shit, you.

He meets the producer, Joan, and helps her get set up, but not long after that someone is attacked again by the entropy curse. One of the actresses is hit by the curse, but Harry manages to resuscitate her and then hand her over to the paramedics.

We also get a little more insight into one of Harry’s flaws, which is his chivalric streak. I’ve seen disgruntled fans complain about it before, and it still pisses me off to this very day because it’s an intentional personality defect. Harry doesn’t dote on women and he doesn’t treat them like they’re incompetent, or weak, or beneath him. He admits that his chivalry is just an old habit and a bad habit, and I think that’s why I can accept it. He doesn’t assert that he’s right or anything. He can be honest and just say that violence against women pisses him off, and I don’t see that as something profoundly sexist and insulting, especially when you consider how many amazing female characters surround him, good and bad. It might also be a personal bias. I am 5’8’’, which is three inches taller than the average height for women, and for some irrational reason, I feel intensely protective of all women shorter than me. Even perfect strangers. If I see a guy messing with a girl, my first instinct is to do something about it, even if it would just end with me getting my ass kicked. I can’t explain it, and I know it makes no sense, but it’s how I feel, and some of my actions are dictated by this weird personality quirk. Same with Harry.

The production is shut down for a few hours while they clean up the mess the curse left the studio in, so Harry heads to his office, only to find an assassin waiting for him. Whoopee.

The good news is this assassin is Jared Kincaid, whom Harry actually called in to help him take on Mavra and the Black Court. Kincaid is suspicious by nature, so he makes Harry sit in a circle that binds his magic and holds him at gunpoint, since he knows Harry’s reputation for being dangerous. That, and to be sure that no one is posing as Harry to lure Kincaid into a trap of some sort. Unfortunately, Kincaid’s fee is insanely huge and so Harry now has the added stress of finding a way to pay it or Kincaid’s going to blow his head off after they take care of the vampires. Harry also suspects Kincaid isn’t 100% human, and that’s even scarier.

Harry goes to see Murphy at her office in the police department. Again, we get a moment so funny that I simply have to share it with you.

Murphy: I’ve been fighting this computer all day long. I swear, if you blow out my hard drive again, I’m taking it out of your ass.

Harry: Why would your hard drive be in my ass?

Hilarious quote aside, Murphy is actually upset and stressed out, which Harry notices due to the death glare and lack of jokes (read: flirting) and so he gets her to talk it out with him. Turns out there is tension between her and her mother, and she doesn’t know how to resolve it, especially with the family reunion right around the corner. Like the scene I mentioned in my review of Summer Knight, it’s downright heartfelt and adorable to see Murphy opening up to Harry, and Harry just being there for her even though he doesn’t have a family and can’t quite understand her hesitation. Their friendship is pretty much forged by fire and is tougher than steel, so it’s really great to read moments like this where they can share and grow.

~~Shipping? What shipping? I’m not shipping anything. Shut up.~~

Harry returns to the movie set and meets Inari, another gopher assistant like him, then goes to see Arturo. While there he meets the resident brat of the film feature, Trixie Vixen, and Lara Raith. Trixie is ex-wife number three of Arturo’s, and Lara is a beautiful former actress Arturo asked to step in since one of the other leading ladies was hurt by the curse. I have to admit I love reading Harry’s reaction to Lara, if only because it’s comforting to read about a hero whose love life is about as barren as my own.

However, because of his strong reaction to Lara, Harry figures out she’s a White Court vampire, which complicates things a ton. He calls Murphy to figure out what she’s found, and we’re treated to more adorable flirting (“You’re cute when you’re embarrassed.”) but then Harry senses something going wrong and narrowly avoids an assassination attempt via a poisoned dart.

The movie continues shooting and nothing happens until Harry sees a dark figure skulking around, so he pursues him only to find out it’s Thomas. Harry confronts him, suspicious that he’s up to something, but Lara interrupts him at gun point, revealing that she’s Thomas’ older half-sister, and Inari’s as well. Lara and Thomas argue about Thomas’ plan to overthrow their father, Lord Raith, the King of the White Court, and Lara determines that he cannot win, so she plans to mercy-kill him, and Harry, instead.

She shoots Thomas twice, but Harry makes her back off before she can kill him, and they bump into Inari, who panics, thinking Harry shot Thomas. She hits Harry on the head and Lara convinces her to run off and call the police. Just before she can finish them, three Black Court vampires show up and Harry feels the entropy curse winding up yet again. Oh joy!

They take out the Black Court vampires, but everyone’s hurt so they retreat to one of the White Court’s safe houses. Lara gives Harry and Thomas a 24-hour truce, which he cautiously accepts, but just as they arrive, they bump into Lord Raith. It’s tense, but Lara convinces Lord Raith to let Harry stay and they bring Thomas to Justine. Unfortunately, Thomas is so near death that to feed on Justine would mean killing her, and while Harry tries to convince her not to do it, she still agrees to let him feed because she loves him.

That sound you’re hearing is me gross sobbing. Get used to it.

Harry wakes the next morning and Thomas has come around, but is naturally devastated that he was forced to feed on Justine. Harry storms out, but realizes he needs to stay until sunrise so that Mavra’s goons can’t come after him. After he cleans up, Inari comes to him to thank him, only she tries to feed on him. However, since Harry is still in love with Susan, he can’t be fed on by White Court vampires, so it burns her and knocks her out of the trance. Thomas intervenes and Harry apologizes for his harsh anger about Justine’s fate, mostly because he realizes the situation is similar to what happened between him and Susan. Thomas also tells him Lord Raith juiced Inari up and sent him to Harry’s room to kill him, since it could be blamed on her for losing control.

And then Thomas drops a f**king atom bomb.

It turns out he’s Harry’s older brother.

Sometime prior, Thomas discovered Lord Raith had portraits made of all of the women who bore his children, and he leads Harry to the portrait of Margaret Dresden, his mother. He also has the same silver pentacle that she left Harry. It’s the reason why he’s been helping Harry the last few years. Harry of course goes straight into angry denial, assuming that it’s another con, but concedes that they’ll look at each other with The Soulgaze to determine the truth. The Soulgaze is basically when a wizard meets eyes with anyone or anything for more than a few seconds, and so they are locked into a trance where they see the true makeup of the person’s soul. It’s permanently imprinted into a wizard’s memory, and he sees every detail that is the core of said person.

And when he gazes at Thomas, Harry is able to see an imprint of his mother, Margaret Dresden.

That sound you’re hearing is me gross sobbing even louder. Get used to it.

His mother’s imprint leaves him with a small token of knowledge, and the Soulgaze ends. Now Harry knows the truth, that he’s not totally without family and has an older brother. It’s by far one of the most beautiful scenes in the series, honestly, and it can get you choked up if you’re not careful.

Harry returns home only to find Bob’s useless self spent the night visiting strip clubs instead of finding Mavra, so he sends him back out again to do it right this time. He heads over to see Murphy and pick her up to meet with Kincaid about the raid on Mavra’s lair.

Naturally, since Kincaid is an ass, he picks a fight with Murphy in order to vet her skills. It’s another one of those scenes that’s so brilliantly written that I always read it twice or thrice because the second Kincaid starts insulting her, Harry just takes one step back and watches Murphy kick his ass. I LOVE that Harry knew better than to stand up for her, and just quietly watches her put Kincaid in his place. I like to imagine him like this watching his not-girlfriend bring the smackdown, personally:

Kincaid is rightfully impressed after Murphy feeds him his own dick (metaphorically speaking) and they get down to discussing business. They set a time to go after her once Harry’s got a location and then Harry figures out that the entropy curse is actually set to a timer, meaning he might be able to stop the next time it strikes.

He and Jake draw chalk lines all around the building and then centered around a mirror that hopefully would bounce the curse back on whoever cast it. He finds out Genosa is in love yet again but just as he and Murphy are on the phone discussing it, he gets jumped by Trixie Vixen. She’s on the phone with one of the perpetrators and has been instructed to stall Harry so that he can’t prevent the curse. However, Trixie is both inexperienced and not very bright, so Harry manages to keep from getting killed, but the gun goes off and the curse manipulates it into killing Emma, one of the women working on the set. Naturally, Trixie starts screaming that Harry did it and he’s forced to go on the run.

He returns to his apartment and by then Bob has found Mavra’s lair along with an estimation of how many bad guys are inside. His wheelman and mentor Ebenezar McCoy shows up and drives Harry to Murphy’s family reunion picnic.

It’s here that we get one of the Mack Daddy of all the Harry/Murphy shippy moments, which is Harry seeing Murphy in the dress for the first time ever. It’s. So. Freaking. Cute.

Harry: [Murphy] dressed functionally—never scruffy, mind you, but almost always very subdued and practical—and never ever wore a dress. This one was long, full, and yellow. And it had flowers. It looked quite lovely and utterly…wrong. Just wrong. Murphy in a dress. My world felt askew.

I consider this scene to be remarkably similar to the end of Inside Out where that pre-teen boy bumps into Riley and his emotions all freak out screaming, “GIRL!” Anyway, Murphy introduces Harry to Marion, aka Mama Murphy, and her baby sister Lisa. And it turns out Lisa got engaged…to Murphy’s second ex-husband Rich.

Without telling her.

Understandably, Murphy goes nuclear at this news and the girls have to be separated before a fight breaks out. Harry actually gets a moment alone with Marion Murphy and finds out a little bit about the tension between her and her daughter. Murphy’s father died when she was eleven and he’d been a cop as well, but he killed himself and Murphy never got over it. Harry makes a case to her that she’s shutting Murphy out by being so judgmental about her lifestyle, but Mama Murphy asserts that there are things Murphy simply can’t tell her out of protection and that she knows Murphy is too much like her father. It’s actually a really touching scene. Harry doesn’t have any family and so it’s important to him that Murphy straightens things out, and it’s really sweet to see him stand up for her here.

What really seals the deal is the way the chapter ends, if you’ll pardon me for quoting one more time.

Marion: Will you take care of my daughter?

Harry: Yes ma’am. Of course I will.

Cue gross sobbing.

They drive to the site where Mavra and her clan are holed up, and Ebenezar hangs back while they go find Kincaid. Murphy is still upset they can’t call in the police, and worried that they’re in over their heads, but Harry reassures her in probably the sweetest little oblique moment by saying, “You look good in the dress.” I’m not crying, there’s just an OTP in my eye…

However, when Ebenezar shows up, he and Kincaid pull a gun on each other. It turns out they have a history, and it’s the seriously bad kind. Harry has to talk them both down from shooting each other, and he realizes that there is something Ebenezar hasn’t told him based on Kincaid’s reaction.

They enter the lair and are quickly attacked. I’d like to mention here that Harry was using The Sight on one of the potential threats and it attacks him, but then he sees Murphy as a literal guardian angel coming to defend him. MORE OTP IN MY EYE HOLD ON A SECOND.

They move down to the basement to try and find the hostages, and discover that they aren’t just hostages—they’re child hostages. And they’re in a closet wired to a mine that will go off if anyone else enters the room.

Fortunately, Murphy is small enough to fit inside and disarm the bomb. Delightfully, though, Murphy’s bulky pants get in the way and so Kincaid has to take them off before she can get to work.

And the darling precious cinnamon bun Harry Dresden finally realizes something very significant.

Harry: Get a grip, Harry. It isn’t like you and Murphy are an item. She isn’t something you own. She’s her own person. She does what she wants with who she wants. You’re not even involved with her. You’ve got no say in it. I ran through those thoughts a couple of times, found them impeccably logical, morally unassailable, and still wanted to slug Kincaid. Which implied all kinds of things I didn’t have time to think about.

Oh, Harry. You delicate flower of a man. Six books and you just now realized that consciously.

Naturally, that’s when the next waves of baddies attacks, this time darkhounds followed by Mavra. Oh, and two vampires with frickin’ flamethrowers. Harry manages to get his shield up, but the shield is built for kinetic energy, not heat, and so it literally cooks his entire hand. I wish I could describe how traumatizing it is to read about my favorite character in pure agony sacrificing literally life and limb to save innocent lives. There is a reason I call Jim Butcher ‘Satan’ on a regular basis.

Through sheer perseverance, they beat Mavra’s goons back and roast the lot of them with the bomb she had intended for them. Just as they gather the kids together, Mavra gets her second wind and jumps them, but Harry lays the smackdown on her with a specially prepared vampire paintball gun and Kincaid lops the bitch’s head off. Go Team Dresden.

They return home and Harry starts to form a theory about Genosa’s gaggle of murderers invoking the entropy curse and that it’s being spearheaded by Lord Raith as a power struggle and show of force, since he can’t control Genosa since the man is in love yet again. He also tells her about Thomas being his half-brother. While they’re feeling honest, Murphy admits that Kincaid taking her pants off kind of rustled her jimmies while Harry quietly thinks about how she’s seeing straight through him while talking about her lack of love life and it basically just feels like this:

But I digress. Murphy heads out to gear up for their next move, and in the meantime Harry forces Ebenezar to tell him the truth.

I’ve been thinking of a list of things that are less painful to experience than the contents of Harry’s conversation with his mentor. I came up with:

-burning hot needles jammed under your fingernails

-waterboarding

-stepping on a Lego

-perforated ear drums

-paper cuts

-getting sawdust in your eye

-watching the second season of Sleepy Hollow

We learn that Ebenezar is “Blackstaff” McCoy, the unofficial hitman for the White Council. We also find out Kincaid is a changeling who used to work for Vlad Tepes. Yes, Kincaid used to work for freaking Dracula. No wonder he’s so cutthroat.

Worse still, Ebenezar reveals he wasn’t just supposed to be Harry’s guardian when he adopted him as a teenager. He was also supposed to kill him if Harry showed signs of turning to black magic after he escaped Justin DuMorne’s custody. That feeling in your chest of being impaled? Yeah, that’s about right. Straight through the freaking heart, man.

It doesn’t stop there. Ebenezar apprenticed Harry’s mother, Margaret, and he knew that Lord Raith used an entropy curse to kill her for abandoning him and his allies. She even used her death curse on him, but it didn’t stick because he is protecting by some kind of old power that the wizards have yet to identify.

Rightfully so, Harry is angry and Ebenezar leaves. Once he calms down a bit, he calls for Thomas but finds out Thomas is M.I.A. Harry talks Lara into helping him in exchange for defeating Lord Raith so that she can assume command of the White Court. She agrees. Murphy comes to pick Harry up on her motorcycle and takes him back to Castle Raith.

Lara meets up with them along with Inari, and then another bomb is dropped.

Justine is still alive.

Granted, she’s almost completely without any mental faculties and her hair is all grey, but she is alive enough to help them find him thanks to their psychic bond. Just after they do, someone from the manor opens fire on them but Murphy takes him out. Lara attends to the wounded party while Harry and Murphy go after Thomas in a cave called the Deeps.

The baddies come after them and they play chicken, which Harry and Murphy win. Unfortunately, not long after they come to a stop, Lord Raith has Murphy at knifepoint. Harry works out that his mother’s death curse wasn’t to kill Raith; she made it so that he can never feed again. Raith reveals that he thinks a ceremony sacrificing the two remaining sons of Margaret LeFay might end her curse so he drags them down with him into the Deeps.

Gulp.

They arrive to the cave where they’re holding Thomas and we see the ladies who helped Raith with the curse, Trixie and Madge, but Lucille had been sacrificed for the last curse because she made a decision on her own that backfired. However, Trixie has finally outlived her usefulness too so Madge and Raith kill her as well.

However, the bad guys hear sirens and Lord Raith goes to see if they took Inari with them. Harry uses this time to distract the bodyguard holding a gun on him and Murphy takes her out with extreme prejudice, and I love that they two of them have such perfect chemistry that she caught onto his plan without him saying a word to her about it. Plus, there’s this:

Harry: Took you long enough. I was going to run out of actual sentences and just start screaming incoherently.

Murphy: That’s what happens when your vocabulary count is lower than your bowling average.

Harry: Me not like woman with smart mouth. Woman shut smart mouth and get me free or no wild monkey love for you.

I can’t. Just…get married. Right this second. You stupid perfect babies.

Raith returns and Harry and Murphy jump him. They manage to wound him, but he blows out the lights, and then Harry hears that Madge is going to sacrifice Thomas to summon He Who Walks Behind, who is the Mack Daddy of all the demons and monsters and it almost punched Harry’s ticket not long after he broke ties with Justin DuMorne. Murphy and Harry intervene enough to stop the ritual and the power kills Madge.

Harry and Raith have a showdown, and just before Raith can take Harry out, Lara appears, having watched most of the fight and decided who she’s going to back up in the end. She chooses Harry. Phew.

We have a bit of a long denoument where everything is wrapped up. Harry and Lara agree to a truce, and in exchange for saving his life, Thomas pays off the debt to Kincaid and decides to stay with Harry since House Raith can’t keep him around since Lara took over and basically turned Lord Raith into a puppet with her vampire powers. Harry decides to keep the puppy and names him Mouse because he’s small, quiet, and grey.

And then we get the ending line that is just golden as Thomas returns from the grocery store:

“Hey. Why did you get large breed Puppy Chow?”

Blood Rites is the ultimate experience in a Dresden Files novel, if you ask me. Everything great about this series and this character is represented in full. It’s got the action, the sexy intrigue, the gumshoe detective work, the brutal noir-style murders, and of course relentless punches to the feels over and over again. This is by far the biggest emotional rollercoaster of the first six books because it’s not about Harry’s love life, but rather his character as a man. He is put through trials that echo throughout the rest of the books in this particular story. Important decisions that affect his future are made here, and it’s so wonderful to be right with him in the muck, watching him go through it all and praying that our beloved wizard can come out the other side alive and well. That’s why I love him. Harry is a survivor, and what’s more is that even though he struggles and makes mistakes, it’s so clear that he is a good man through all of it. He’s the permanent underdog trying to find a little slice of happiness in the shit-storm that is his life.

Overall Grade: 5 out of 5 stars

I can’t give this book enough stars, honestly. A million. A billion. It’s easily one of my favorites, if not my all-time favorite book of The Dresden Files. Do yourself a favor and get reading.

Join me next time for Dead Beat, which, like Blood Rites, has a reputation in the fandom for ridiculous amounts of awesomeness. Don’t miss it.

The Dresden Files Reread and Review: Death Masks

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : August 5, 2015

Category: Book & Movie Reviews

Tags:book review, death masks, denarians, harry blackstone copperfield dresden, harry dresden, jim butcher, karrin murphy, michael carpenter, nicodemus, susan rodriguez, the dresden files, the dresden files reread, urban fantasy

Conjure at your own risk.

Welcome back to the Dresden Files Reread and Review! This time we’re taking a crack at Book Five, Death Masks with everyone’s favorite gangly smartass wizard Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. As always, major spoilers for this book, and minor spoilers for other parts of the series.

When we last left off, I was a bit annoyed about having to read another book with Harry Dresden’s lover, Susan Rodriguez, in it. However, keep in mind that I read these books incredibly fast the first time around, and so all I remembered was that she was in it and that was enough to make me grouchy. I’m actually happy to say that you won’t see me constantly complaining like I did in my review of Grave Peril, mostly because Susan is actually only in about 1/3^rd of the story rather than the whole novel. Score one for me.

We begin Death Masks with another delightfully weird opening scene where poor Harry has been roped into appearing on the Larry Fowler show, which is a spoof of the Jerry Springer show. Yes, you read that right. Fowler asked Harry and Mortimer Linquist, whom you might remember from Grave Peril as the fake psychic, and the only reason our dear wizard has showed up is for the paycheck he rather desperately needs. It’s been mentioned before but wizards and technology do NOT go together. Harry can actually only be around things powered mechanically or by steam. Any items powered by electricity tend to explode in his presence, so he’s got a suppressing spell running while the cameras are rolling. To quote Harry, “I’ve been in house fires I liked better than this.” Gotta love ‘im.

Shortly after the segment starts, it turns out Fowler invited two surprise guests: Father Vincent and Dr. Paolo Ortega. Important thing of note? Ortega is a Red Court vampire, as in the vampires whom all want Harry dead as a doornail for allegedly starting a war between them and the White Council.

Understandably, Harry is freaked the hell out and Ortega tells him he’s in town to challenge Harry to a duel. The duel is actually to serve as a small scale ceasefire between the wizards and the Red Court vampires. Regardless of Harry winning or losing, the duel will mean that both sides stop killing each other. The only downside is that it’s a freaking duel and Ortega is a Duke of the Red Court, meaning he is no one to be trifled with. What’s worse is that Ortega insists that if Harry doesn’t agree to the duel, he’ll have his minions hunt down and murder all of Harry’s friends. Harry doesn’t take kindly to threats, so he demands that the duel’s rules be put in writing and agrees.

Father Vincent, the other guest of honor, is also interested in Harry in order to hire him for a job, but they are attacked in the parking lot by professional hitters. Harry manages to drive them off and takes Father Vincent to his hotel. Vincent explains that the Shroud of Turin—yes, that shroud—has been stolen and the Church wants Harry to track it down. The suspects in question are called the Churchmice, a few very elusive thieves who have taken the Shroud to Chicago to auction it off to the supernatural community there.

Harry returns home to his apartment only to find Susan waiting for him. (Cue eyeroll.) I’ve had a continuing personal investigation as to why I dislike Susan so much, and I’ve uncovered yet another clue. Every time Susan is in the vicinity, physically or if Harry is thinking about her, my lovely wizard’s brain turns off and his dick starts talking. I highly dislike it. Sure, it’s accurate because I’m sure that some men really do get this way around women they are in love (or lust, but that’s a long discussion for another day) with, but it’s a really jarring feeling for him to ditch all sense of himself whenever Susan’s around. Harry’s boner starts calling the shots when Susan is in the picture, and it’s not a side of him that I enjoy reading. Not his sexuality in general, but just how he can’t think about anything else when she’s around and he gets so jealous and bitter with her rather than with how he is with other women later in the series. This is probably a good example of how hard it is to be objective during a reread, though, so keep that in mind. I guess the bottom line is I don’t like how Harry’s behavior changes in the presence of Susan. I don’t think she’s good for him. I don’t think she makes him a better man, and to me, that’s what love should do to both parties involved: make them better, not worse.

My personal feelings aside, Susan is back in town in order to quit her job at the Arcane, to officially break up with Harry, and to warn him about Ortega’s duel. They are interrupted a bit later by a vampire named Martin, who is apparently Susan’s escort. The above comments I had about Harry’s jealousy comes into effect here. It really cheeses me how he gets when he sees this little creep, and while it’s totally naturally for people to get jealous if their former lover shows up with someone else, it bugs me that Harry gets so petty and irrational over some guy he knows nothing about. Take a chill pill, dude. Seriously.

Mercifully, my queen, Karrin Murphy, head of the Special Investigations police department, calls and asks Harry to come in and look at a corpse. It’s here that the introductions to series-long characters begins, and delightfully so with Waldo Butters, MD. Butters is an M.E. at the Cook County morgue, and while his part here is small, it still makes me smile anyway knowing the person he becomes later on in the series. Like Thomas, Butters caught me off-guard with how much I came to like him, but since his role is pretty small here, I’ll press on.

Butters shows Harry a corpse that has two highly unusual factors to it: (1) it’s been decapitated and has been shredded from neck to toe with deep horizontal lines that look to be inflicted by some kind of razor, and (2) its insides show signs of almost every single kind of disease known to man manifested at once. (It bears noting that after Harry sees the body, his first comment is, “Gee. Wonder what killed him.” I was at work when I read this line and just about fell over laughing. Goddammit, Harry.) Harry finds a tattoo that might help him identify the victim, and then promises Murphy to find out more information.

As he leaves, Harry is attacked by a freakish monster resembling a bear and flees, but he doesn’t get far, and what’s worse is he accidentally gets into a Soul Gaze with it. A Soul Gaze is something that happens if a wizard meets eyes with someone or something for too long, giving him a permanent picture of the makeup of a person’s soul and personality. Sometimes it’s a good thing, like when he saw Murphy’s soul as a beautiful powerful guardian angel. This thing, however, is a monster with a former human soul trapped inside, now laughing mad from sin and evil. Sounds fun, right?

Just before it can squish him, a Japanese man and a black Russian guy spring into action and drive the bear-demon Ursiel off of Harry, revealing that they are Knights of the Cross, just like Harry’s friend Michael Carpenter. The Japanese man, Shiro, and the Russian, Sanya, get it to back off and Michael shows up to deliver the final blow. They explain that Ursiel was one of the Fallen, as in a fallen angel from heaven that manifested in one of the thirty silver coins paid to Judas. (Sound familiar? Heh.) They take Harry to the St. Mary of the Angels Cathedral to rest and heal, and Michael asks Harry to leave town or quit his search for the Shroud because the Denarians, those who are possessed by the demonic coins, want to recruit Harry as one of them.

Harry heads home to read the written rules of his duel with Ortega and orders Bob the air spirit to go find information about Ortega so he can prepare accordingly. He then summons Ulsharavas, a spirit of knowledge, who tells him that the Shroud is on a small boat at the harbor. She also warns him that there is a prophecy if he seeks the Shroud, he will die. Well, that’s nothing new. It’s Harry, after all.

Harry’s mentor, Ebenezar McCoy, also calls and offers Harry a chance to hide out on his farm instead of participating in the duel, but Harry declines because he knows that while it sounds like a nice idea, the Red Court would find him and make hell for Ebenezar in the meantime. Bob returns badly worn out from wards around where he was investigating, and then Harry’s alarm spell goes off as something incredibly powerful approaches.

Turns out to be a little girl.

Yeah, I know.

The Archive shows up as the emissary for the duel, and we discover that she is the living embodiment of knowledge. The Archive is also escorted by a mercenary-for-hire named Jared Kincaid. She comes to explain the terms and asks him to choose which methods to fight during the duel: will power, skill, energy, or flesh. Harry chooses energy. A smaller note is that Harry also gives The Archive her own name, Ivy (tee hee), and it’s kind of really adorable and endearing.

Harry updates Father Vincent about the case and finds out he has one of the threads from the Shroud to help him locate it. Harry also leaves a message with Charity Carpenter to have Michael contact him. Charity, who absolutely loathes Harry to the umpteenth degree. This will be important later.

Harry heads to the harbor and locates two thieves who have the Shroud: Anna Valmont and Francisca Garcia, who trick him with the old ‘naked lady about to take a shower’ ruse (*rolls eyes at Harry*) and handcuff him to a pipe. They’re about to either kill him or leave him in the lurch when a nightmarish Denarian crashes through the window. Instead of a freakish bear-demon, this one is a killer Medusa with razor-strips for hair who murders Francisca, but Harry manages to blast her out of the boat before she can kill him and Anna and get the Shroud.

Anna whacks Harry on the head and takes the Shroud, and Harry’s magic-protected coat, and bails. I fully admit that I screeched “BITCH!” at this scene, but to her credit, at least she regrets her decision and goes back to drag him out so he won’t drown.

Harry updates Father Vincent again and stumbles home. Not long afterward, Susan drops by (*groans*) but to her credit, while I absolutely hate the conversation they have about her not being involved with Martin, I do like that Susan reveals she’s been working to stop rogue vampires from wiping out villages in Central America ever since she left. That’s good. That gives Susan agency, which she has been missing since her introduction. It’s the first thing I’ve ever liked about her, to be honest. Believe me, it’s been much needed after all this time of her being basically nothing but a sexpot.

Harry drops by the Carpenter’s house to see if Michael is around and bumps into Molly, the eldest daughter, who is fourteen. Molly is another character who we see in cameo form this time who becomes important later, and I like her a lot, but I’m not quite in love with her. Yet, anyway. She has a long way to go as a character, and I’m quite interested to see how things end up for her. However, while I only like Molly, I LOVE Molly and Harry’s relationship. By our calculations, Harry is somewhere in his 30’s, and she’s 14, and so of course he feels like an old man around this rebellious teenager with piercings and ripped up clothing who is scarily aware of things like sex and rough roleplay and it’s quite the amusing scene of them in the treehouse waiting for the Carpenters to come home.

Charity and the Carpenter babies arrive, and Harry tries to explain what he’s doing there, but Charity ignores him and puts him to work bringing the groceries inside. Shiro and Sanya are with them this time as well. However, the important part is that there is a scene that honest to God made my heart feel like someone put a hot-water-bottle on it. Charity is clearly upset that Harry needs Michael’s help because hanging around Harry tends to get Michael in trouble, and she is fiercely protective of him. She’s in the kitchen chopping vegetables, and Harry notices how angry she is, and so he gets up and starts helping her and actually manages to get her to open up about it. That is so unbearably sweet, to me. Charity hates Harry with the fire of a thousand suns and she has been pretty much nothing but nasty to him since Day One, but he cares enough about her and her family to try and make her feel better. This is what makes Harry such a likable character. He gives a shit. He always gives a shit, even to his own detriment or even when it’s about someone who has no regard for him at all. Scenes like this are why I fell in love with Harry as a character so quickly.

Since Michael is unavailable, Shiro agrees to meet with him and Ortega instead later that night. Harry returns home to find Murphy waiting for him with more bad news. Someone reported seeing him leave the harbor and the police found the body of Francisca Garcia, meaning he’s their prime suspect. She’s also been booted off the case thanks to a snooty higher up and she warns him to keep out of the public light until they find the real killer.

We also get this tidbit: “I spent a moment indulging myself in a pleasant fantasy in which Murphy pounded Rudy’s head against the door of her office at SI’s home building until the cheap wood had a Ruldolph-shaped dent in it. I enjoyed the thought way too much.”

Nothing says OTP like picturing your S.O. bashing someone’s head into a door. Marry her, Dresden. Do it now.

Susan calls and finally has something useful to say: she’s located the auction where they suspect the Shroud will be sold. She invites herself along, again, but don’t worry, at least this time she’s a ridiculously strong vampire so it’s not half as annoying.

Harry takes the Shroud thread that Father Vincent sent him out for a spin and goes to pick up Shiro to head to McAnnally’s for a formal meeting with Ortega and his second before the duel. It turns out that Ortega’s second is in fact Thomas Raith, the White Court vampire, and my aforementioned third favorite character in the series. Kincaid, Thomas, and Shiro get the details down on paper while Ortega and Harry sit at the bar. Ortega actually offers to forgo the duel if Harry surrenders and agrees to let the Red Court turn him into a vampire. Harry takes a moment to think about it, considering the fact that he doesn’t want to get murdered in the duel, but then discovers that the Red Court feeds on children and shoots the offer down with extreme prejudice.

Thomas comes by to chat and reveals he was forced into becoming Ortega’s second because his father, the King of the White Court, finds him to be a dangerous annoyance and this duel would be a good excuse for him to get bumped off. He also implies that Ortega is going to cheat by either having Harry killed before the duel or doing something illegal during the duel before leaving.

Susan shows to pick Harry up and once again Harry’s boner starts narrating the story, to my epic annoyance. He changes into a tux in the limo and they head to the shindig where the Shroud is to be auctioned off.

To Harry’s horror, “Gentleman” Johnny Marcone, the premiere Chicago crime boss, makes an appearance, which leads Harry to believe he’s gunning for the Shroud since he is not only aware of the supernatural but often involved with it during his criminal activity. Harry accuses Marcone of hiring the goon who tried to kill him at the Larry Fowler show, but Marcone is surprised, meaning Harry’s theory is wrong. Harry’s presence motivates Marcone to try and get him booted out of the party so he can’t interfere with the auction, so Harry and Susan use the thread to locate it. Harry finds Anna Valmont in a room with the Shroud, but they are interrupted by the Medusa Denarian and her even scarier partner, Nicodemus.

Boy, how do I even begin to talk about Nicodemus?

First of all, of all the baddies and villains Harry has faced before, Nicodemus is pretty damn singular. He’s just…evil. Pure, unadulterated, unapologetic, nasty, shudder-inducing evil. He’s not just an adversary. He’s a force of nature. He’s by far one of the most disturbing villains I’ve seen in fiction, so kudos to Jim Butcher for thinking this sick bastard up.

Nicodemus demands the Shroud, and since he and the Snake Bitch are responsible for killing Anna’s friend Francisca, she unloads her entire pistol into his chest. Unfortunately, Nicodemus carries around the rope that hanged Judas Iscariot, and he’s a Denarian, so he’s 100% immortal.

Well, shit.

Harry manages to blast the them aside with a fire spell and he and Anna haul ass back down through a vent to the laundry level of the hotel, but Snake Bitch—her name is actually Deidre, if that helps—pursues. It is then that Susan Rodriguez finally, finally, FINALLY pulls her goddamn weight in this series and does something relevant.

She kicks Deidre’s ass.

Oh, yes.

Now that’s what I’m talking about. Grudge match between a Red Court vampire and a Denarian? Sign me the hell up for that. A++

However, a second snake Denarian attacks Susan with literal snakes that bite her, and she’s all but phobic of them, and Harry manages to knock them free and Martin takes the girls away in the limo before Nicodemus and Deidre catch up to Harry and knock him out.

And now, for another scene in this series that makes me want to curl up underneath a comforter and pray that the monsters won’t get me.

Harry wakes up tied upright under freezing cold running water in a basement somewhere. This is because wizards, or most supernatural folk, can’t conjure magic under running water because the element naturally cancels magic energy. Nicodemus enters and, I’m not kidding, sits down and eats a full course breakfast in front of Harry while explaining why he is interested in him. He offers him one of the coins in exchange for not killing him, because he knows of Harry’s reputation for destroying his opponents, and Nicodemus knows that somewhere down the line, they will have to face off, so he’d rather nip it in the bud. Harry, of course, says no (To quote my beloved soulmate, “Fuck off, Nick.” Why can’t I propose to a fictional character, that line was amazing.) and Nicodemus goes to slit his throat. Even though I’ve read all the books and stories, the scene where he comes at Harry with that knife STILL makes me squirm every time. It’s just horrifying.

And then Shiro shows up and kicks the living shit out of everyone.

While the delirious Harry sings the lyrics to the cartoon “Underdog” in celebration.

No, I am not kidding. Yes, you read that right.

Again, I freely admit that I bowled over laughing during this scene. Howling, in fact. My soulmate, ladies and gentlemen.

However, the laughter is short-lived because the only reason Shiro showed up is to trade himself for Harry for 24 hours. It is as heartbreaking as it sounds.

Nicodemus cuts Harry down and takes Shiro into custody, but of course orders Deidre to kill Harry before he can escape the basement. Harry hauls ass and meets Susan halfway out before eventually escaping back to his apartment. He sets up an emergency spell to keep the entropy curse Nicodemus sends after them at bay, but there’s a catch: it seals them inside his apartment for around eight hours, and Susan just so happens to need to feed.

If you have any sense, you know where this is going.

Have you ever liked someone but they have a boyfriend/girlfriend and you see them kiss and you’re just not having ANY of it? Yeah, that’s me reading the sex scene between Harry and Susan.

HOWEVER.

This one is different from the other scenes of Harry and Susan, because up until this point, they’ve only made luuuuuuuuuurve to each other. That has emotions and whatnot. This was pure sex.

It’s 100% certain that I don’t like Susan and I don’t like Harry with Susan.

That being said…the sex scene is pretty f@#king hot.

I hate to say it, but yeah. It rustled my jimmies a bit. I’m not proud of it, but damn it all, the set up was smoking hot and while I burned with envy, I begrudgingly admit it was well done. Let us never speak of this moment again.

So after bangin’, the spell lifts and Harry and Susan go to meet with Father Forthill to discuss the Denarians. They also visit the Carpenters, which is where they sent Anna Valmont to recover from her last fight. She agrees to help, after she’s had a shower, and of course she gives them the slip, while stealing Harry’s car in the meantime. Do you see what I meant about Harry’s boner? This is why he’s only allowed to have eyes for Murphy. It doesn’t screw him over half as much.

Harry also figures out that Father Vincent isn’t Father Vincent at all: he’s a shapeshifting Denarian named Cassius who replaced him in order to manipulate Harry into finding the Shroud for Nicodemus. What follows is a massively satisfying, dark, complicated scene where Cassius fake-surrenders to Michael and Sanya and gives up his coin, meaning they cannot take violent action against him. Harry is infuriated by this, but realizes they are bound by their religion to follow certain rules, and that he is NOT bound by those rules.

So he gets a baseball bat and breaks the son of a bitch’s legs and ankles.

I. Love. This. Scene.

It’s such a fantastic example of the “He Who Fights Monsters” trope. Harry just goes off and whales on this evil, sick, demented freak and it’s an ugly thing to do, but sometimes smiting evil ain’t pretty. Sometimes good guys don’t do the right thing for the right reason. I love the grey area of it all, that Harry is torturing a bad guy for information in order to save Shiro and the rest of Chicago from whatever awful thing Nicodemus is about to do. It’s an amazing study of how Harry’s temper is a character flaw and how he is still a good man who can occasionally just snap when someone he cares about is threatened.

To seal the deal, Harry tosses the bleeding, barely conscious Denarian a quarter and says, “There’s a pay phone on the other side of the parking lot, past a patch of broken glass. You’d better get yourself an ambulance. If I ever see you again—ever—I’ll kill you.”

Also, Michael and Sanya later note that pay phones cost more than a quarter and Harry says, “I know” and they all crack up laughing because that was some cold blooded shit and it was really amazing to do to such an evil monster.

So Cassius spilled the beans that Nicodemus is going to use the Shroud to power a curse that will basically infect the entire city with terminal diseases as well as anyone coming to or leaving the city within the time frame of the curse, as it will be performed at the airport. It’s his version of the Great Flood, wiping out civilization to start anew. Harry tells Murph the news and then it’s time to head to the duel.

Ortega and Harry face off using will power to push a very scary little artifact called mordite, which immediately kills anything it touches, towards each other. It should be noted that Thomas shows up to the duel drunk off his ass and high as a cloud wearing a Buffy the Vampire Slayer t-shirt. Slow clap for Thomas, please. Thank you.

The duel begins and to Harry’s horror, it turns out Ortega does indeed cheat: he’s wearing a fake arm underneath his clothing to make it look like he’s still trying to will the mordite towards Harry, but instead pulls a gun on him. Just before he can kill Harry, Martin shoots the hell out of him from the stadium stands and all hell breaks loose. A bunch of Red Court vampires attack and the gang has to fight them all off. Susan is injured, but they all make it out alive, and Harry rushes off to the airport to help stop Nicodemus’ curse. He, Sanya, and Michael have Murphy call in a bomb threat to evacuate the innocent bystanders and then get to work. Unfortunately, they arrive too late. Shiro has been used as a sacrifice to power the curse.

Shiro’s death scene hits you like a ton of exploding bricks. It’s honestly hard to read in certain parts because of how guilty Harry feels at being unable to save him, and that the old man gladly gave his life for him without hesitation. The only thing I dislike about it is something we find out later about him, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

They chase after Nicodemus, who has boarded a train, with the help of Marcone and his helicopter. Harry tries to keep Marcone from coming with them, knowing he’ll find a way to betray them, but Marcone refuses to aid them unless he can assist, and Harry very amusingly says he “sucks diseased moose wang” and then they go after Nicodemus. They are fortunately able to thwart his plan and get the Shroud, but Harry passes out just as they get it and it’s nicked by Marcone in the end.

But it’s around here that we see one of the few things I actually dislike about this novel. After recovering, Harry gets a post-mortem letter from Shiro exposing that he has cancer. I really hate this trope, the trope where a secondary character we all like has to die for some reason, but they do it willingly since they have a terminal disease, so that makes it “okay.” It really is a last ditch effort to avail Harry of the guilt of being partially responsible for Shiro’s death, and I don’t like it at all. It’s surprising since Butcher sucker-punches our feels with no regard for how hard it makes us sob like infants. This feels borderline corny to me, considering how fresh and original his writing style is. Harry has a lot of bad choices to live with, and so it irks me that he felt the need to wipe the slate clean with this letter. Shiro’s sacrifice is weakened a lot by giving him cancer and making him a martyr. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth, personally.

On the upside, Harry also gets his trenchcoat back from Anna Valmont as well as his car. We also find out that Ortega survived, but he was badly hurt so they had to return him to his homeland to recover.

There is also a detail I actually forgot about during my first read-through. Harry trails Marcone in order to find the Shroud, and it turns out that he wanted to use it on someone who could quite possibly be either his daughter or a relative who was comatose. I mean…wow. Like, wow. That’s damn good writing. I don’t care for Marcone. I find him to be too much of a Lex Luthor type character, since too many stories have the stereotypical gentleman mob boss, but this is a great angle of vulnerability for an otherwise uninteresting character. It also makes Harry realize that while he still demands that Marcone returns the Shroud in three days to the proper authorities, he does admit that he’d have done something like that to save someone he loves as well.

In our final scene, Harry sees little two year old Harry (the baby who almost died in Grave Peril, so they named him after Harry, which is precious) outside looking at something shiny. It’s one of the Denarian coins, and big Harry manages to snatch it up before the toddler touches it. Nicodemus, the slime, is in a car on the street, having dropped it as a way to get them back for spoiling his plan. See? SEE? DO YOU SEE WHAT I MEAN WITH THIS GUY?

Since Harry touched it, he now carries a latent amount of the demon’s imprint, but he buries the coin underneath his basement to keep it from falling into the wrong hands, including his own. He also keeps Shiro’s sword above the mantle and takes down the photos of Susan, closing the book on their relationship now that it’s over.

Overall, I ended up liking Death Masks far more than I expected to, especially considering it’s a book with Susan in it. It has a lot of really fantastic introductions to characters we come to know better later on, it has some chilling elements, some amazing moral quandaries for our hero, and an engrossing plot that makes you keep turning those pages. It doesn’t drag the way that Grave Peril or Fool Moon did at times, and it hits all the right spaces between humor, drama, and action.

Overall Grade: 4 out of 5

Join me next time for one of my absolute favorite books in the series, Blood Rites. Aka the one where our precious flower Harry Dresden finally starts to realize he has feelings for a certain short, blond, incredibly awesome lady cop. See ya then.

Kyoko

Archives for : Book & Movie Reviews

A Love Letter to the Avengers

Fahrenheit 451 Review

My Favorite Disney Villains

My Favorite Awesomely Bad Disaster Movies

My Favorite Awesomely Bad Monster Movies

Cautionary Tale: Netflix’s Iron Fist

Cautionary Tale: FX’s Taboo

Kyoko’s Favorite Movies of 2016

The Dresden Files Reread and Review: Blood Rites

The Dresden Files Reread and Review: Death Masks

Support Kyoko M

Subscribe to our mailing list and get any one of Kyoko M.\'s novels for FREE!

Recent Posts

Archives

Categories

Meta