So next week we'll be watching the last episode of What If...?, and
you know I've got a helluva lot to say about that show. But that raises
the question of why I never reviewed Loki. Well, I tried to. I just found
that I didn't have much to say about it. Although, I enjoyed all of the
fan service in the latter episodes (who the hell would've thought we'd
EVER see a live action version of Throg?), I found myself bored to tears
during the middle episodes. The first two episodes were some much
needed contextual world building. But after that, everything kind of
flat-lined and got boring. And the pace didn't pick back up until the
second to last episode. But honestly that was less because of the story
and more because every frame was chock-full of easter eggs. And seeing
other versions of Loki (and witnessing them betray each other) was a fun
experience. It felt like things had flown off the rails and we were
watching a completely different show.
And of
course we were introduced to Kang (he was more of a benevolent Immortus, to be
technical).
And my greatest fear in them adapting Kang to the big screen
was that his convoluted, almost nonsensical history would be impossible
to translate properly.
He has the only wiki page I've ever seen that starts with a disclaimer
on how confusing it is.
But they did it perfectly. And I'm not going to sit
here and explain the history of Kang; men with more time than me
have tried and failed (see above). I've been reading comics since I could read, I
consider myself a Marvel historian, and my best summary of Kang is
"Imagine what would happen if Elon Musk was ten times smarter, but was also a violent ego-maniac with a god-complex. And then he discovered how to time travel." And there's like five different versions of him running around at any time,
and the most evil one is basically unkillable. The rich guy at the head
of the government? He's actually Kang. Who built the pyramids? Kang.
That superhero who just appeared out of nowhere and is insanely
powerful? Kang. If you travel to the end of time and space who will you
see? Kang. When he's written well, he's one of the scariest villains,
because he's almost omnipresent. You may kill this version of Kang, but
surprise! Another Kang just came back from killing the dinosaurs. And
another version of him is ten centuries into the future conquering all
of space. And both of them may be ten times smarter, meaner, and more
powerful than the one you just killed.
Yet just in forty minutes (and arguably one scene) they
completely communicated how menacing, and dangerous of a character Kang
the Conqueror is.
This ending felt like it was ripped straight out of a Black Mirror episode...
I think this is perfect casting. Jonathan Majors perfectly captures the subdued menace and morbid curiosity of a random Joe Sixpack who gets the power of god and goes mad.
So my Loki review would've just been me complaining about being bored and then ranting about how awesome Kang is.
So this place has evolved over the past couple of years. I don't collect my journal entries here, anymore. In fact, anything posted here pre-2022 is probably embarrassing and silly, but I keep things online for archival purposes. I mainly write reviews for movies and television. I've got one long ongoing review series of my massive music collection that's been on hiatus for a year, because of All That Remains. I also promote any kind of creative projects that I'm doing at the moment here.
Edit - The original publishing site I was using tried to copyright the story without my consent, so I had to do remove it and find somewhere else to host it. My work, no matter how silly or erroneous it may be, will not be claimed by another man. I respect myself as a writer and I respect my work as my own. Even if that work is an extended shit-post about a pillow eating ass. And as a result of the change of platform and the pressure of fulfilling all of the promotion I've already done, I did some unholy things to it. I've had to release it all at once (which is not how it was supposed to be read) and I couldn't attach the cover. But until I find a better way of hosting it, this is how the story will exist. I've been back-stabbed, but nonetheless the release will go on.
Y'all may have been wondering where I've been for the past week or so. And I've been working on penning my first fiction story. I've been calling myself a writer for years so it's about fucking time. The book is called The Pillow That Ate Ass.
And it's a serialized horror story about, you guessed it. A pillow that eats ass. Amongst other things. This is my first go at fiction, so it's admittedly a little rough around the edges. But y'all know that I'm very strict about making sure to promote the things that I create. The second chapter is coming out today and it's already got almost 400 readers, so I'm excited. Anyways here's the link.
Disclaimer: I watched this movie the day it was released and was so underwhelmed that I refused to review it. Obviously I changed my mind.
BlackWidow was basically mandatory viewing since I've watched
everything MCU except the Netflix shows and Agents of Shield. And that's exactly what it felt like. It wasn't bad. But it wasn't good. It was just another average MCU movie. And I'm not a 12-year old boy anymore, so they can't just put Scarlett Johansson in spandex on-screen and make me immediately fall in love.
I'll start by admitting that David Harbour as Red
Guardian was hilarious and surprisingly relatable. He easily carried this entire film. But that's the extent of good things I have to say about this movie.
My biggest complaint is to be a Black Widow movie, this film seriously lacks balls. There were moments in this movie where it feels like its going to take a mean-spirited turn, but everything just goes back to hunky-dory, cheesy superhero times. I legit thought Rachel Weisz was about to blow herself up at the end, but at the last moment she grapples out of danger like she's Batman. In fact every side character in this movie has a scene where it seems they logically and realistically should die. And this is the one Marvel movie that has some impressively fleshed out side characters that it would actually hurt to see die. And all three of them make it out of the movie unscathed. And it makes the film lack any kind of emotional impact. And it's sad because all the movie had to do to raise the stakes was kill off Yelena, Rachel Weisz, and David Harbour. It would actually add some emotional context as to why Natasha was so desperate to find Clint in Endgame.
This movie takes place during the second half of Civil War,
which means that no one's favorite secondary antagonist Thunderbolt Ross
shows up throughout the film. And I'm no continuity stickler but William Hurt looks drastically different for this movie to supposed to be lining up that one.
Apparently he needed to dye his hair and shave before arresting Natasha.
But I will give the movie this. He actually
feels like a genuine threat for the first time since The Incredible Hulk.
Just gonna leave that there.
But
all in all, this movie is underwhelming. It should've been released
years ago. Or maybe not all, since in the larger scale of the MCU,
absolutely nothing significant happens. (I guess they do kind of set up Hawkeye. Which
I completely forgot was even coming out.) They show us
Budapest. And I speak for everyone when I say we'd much rather had
watched a movie about that than this one. The way Natasha talks about her past in the early MCU movies makes it
seem like her origin would be some bloody, heartless shit. She talks like she was some cold-hearted evil person that begrudgingly
became a hero. And in this movie, the worse she does is accidentally explode a kid. Reluctantly. Captain
America and his Howling Commandos probably did
worse shit than that on the regular.
Oh yeah, I
almost forgot, because I'd been trying to erase it out of my mind. They fucked up
Taskmaster. Now, I'm pretty sure the character will probably make a
proper appearance whenever Deadpool actually shows up. But this movie makes
Taskmaster an android instead of a guy with "photographic reflexes."
Which is stupid and not threatening at all when you think about it.
Because literally any robot should be able to do that. And for some dumbass reason, they kept Taskmaster's signature hood. It
couldn't look more ridiculous for this robot in a motorcycle helmet to
be walking around in a goddamn hoodie. What is the purpose of it? You're in a
motorcycle helmet already, what the fuck? It's like the filmmakers said
"Were gonna make this character 100% different, but make sure to keep
the hood so the nerds don't get mad!"
Pictured: Faithful Adaptation.
If
anything this movie is a reminder that in the post-Endgame MCU, if you
want to enjoy yourself, you have to lower your expectations. Which
unfortunately means that yes, we should probably not be banking on
Multiverse of Madness, or No Way Home being anything spectacular.
Yes, I'm back. At least for the foreseeable future.
And now for the annual "Why I Haven't Written Anything In Forever" spiel.
This is something I enjoy doing. I've
been doing this since I was a senior in High-school, and I have no intentions of
slowing down going into my senior year of college. That's because I enjoy it. And I'd
like to keep it that way. That's why I take breaks sometimes. Honestly, I'd like to think I never left. I haven't even taken a break this time, I've just been writing shit and not
posting it. On my other blog, I wrote an inappropriately funny piece about Drake Bell's charges, but I wound up axing it. It definitely would not have aged well if I had actually published it. This was before the whole situation was cut and dry, so the whole
joke was that I didn't get what the charge meant.
I think we ALL know EXACTLYwhat it means now...
Hell, the whole reason I started another blog was because I'd written a bunch of posts only to scrap them because the subject matter wasn't appropriate. I used to just publish anything but y'know reasons...
"Yeah, if you could just keep talking about music and stuff, that would be great."
But fuck all that.
The point here is that I'm back, right now, writing stuff. And I can say that with confidence, because like a good content creator, I've actually finished a good bit of stuff that just needs to be published. I'm finally finishing that All That Remains Review Series that burnt me out last year. I've just had to take a drastically different approach, so I don't die of boredom while writing.So stay tuned.
Or don't. I think at this point we've firmly established that I don't really care...
Goddamn, this was a good show. I enjoyed every single episode waaay more than I enjoyed WandaVision as a whole. Boy. Where do I start? Do I go episode by episode? Do I talk the characters? Do I just rant and rave?
Why not all three?
Firstly, this show was pure fanservice for a guy like me. The fact that we saw Madripoor, onscreen, in the MCU had me rolling in my seat. Also the John Wick-vibes in that Madripoor episode were superb. I loved the scene where all of the bounty hunters get a text message that the club-owner is dead and then everything turns into a nonstop shoot-em-up. All of the hinting at future things to come were amazing. Hell, the simple fact that we got Madripoor seems like a scruffy, eye-patched present from the show runners.
If you know what I'm talking about...
The action scenes were on-point. You always had a sense of where
everyone was. You had a feel of the environment and the stakes. Turning
off this show and watching Mortal Kombat had me really appreciating the
coherency of each fight. Perfect blocking and choreography all around.
Especially the fight between Sam, Bucky and John Walker.
And speaking of John Walker. I fucking loved every single scene he was in. Every single one. I went back and read the comics where John goes from the
Super-Patriot to Captain America, to U.S. Agent and goddamn they ripped
him straight from the page and put him on the screen. The bit where John frequently asks himself what Captain America would do, and somehow decides to do the exact opposite of what Cap would do is ripped straight from the comics.
You get a sense of just how unhinged he is, and how much insane will-power he has bottled up inside. And every time he introduced himself as "Captain America" I couldn't help but crack up. You don't get a sense that he's bad guy so much as he's a top-notch soldier conflicted about what's actually right and wrong. If Captain America were created in the 1980s this would be what he represented. And that's such a perfect characterization of U.S. Agent. I loved Zemo for exactly the same reason. They took the heartbroken antagonist from Civil War and transformed him into the cynical, affluent, supervillain from the comics. You never knew what the hell Zemo was up to, and he was one of the best things about this show. Zemo always maintaining leverage, and scheming behind the scenes is the heart of that character.
The Dora Milaje were insanely cool. That fight with John where they pinned his shield to a table was hilarious. And watching Ayo deprogram Bucky was genuinely heart-warming. I really didn't understand them just taking Zemo back to the Raft instead of punishing him.
Falcon's Captain America suit is ripped straight from the comics. And I loved all the hinting that Torres would eventually become the Falcon like he does in the comics.
On the negative side, I didn't really like the way the side-characters were portrayed. The frequent attempts to paint the Flag-Smashers in a sympathetic light felt a bit forced. And the sad music that played when Karli died really felt out of place. Do her motivations make sense? Yes. Does she feel like an accurate representation of what would happen if the Blip happened in real-life? Yes. Yet, she's violent, misguided, and kills innocent people. A lot like a lot of terrorist group leaders in real life. She feels way more like an Isis expy than anyone to feel sorry for. You don't change laws by blowing people up, and robbing things. And if she hadn't killed people to get her way, maybe I'd feel more sympathetic. But a murderer is a murderer. And she wasn't killing in self-defense. I just can't feel sympathy for terrorists, no matter how attractive they are.
Sam's sister and most of the boat scenes were just annoying. I get that the point was to humanize Falcon, but there had to be a less contrived to do it. GSP will never be able to portray a menacing villain. I don't care how much he scowls, speaks angry French, and shoots at people, all I see is GSP in a bodysuit trying and failing to be intimidating. The fact that I've seen him beat the hell out of other trained fighters
and I'm not shit-scared of him should give you an idea of how
not-intimidating he is. In a company chock-full of happy-go-lucky foreigners, GSP was always the most happy-go-lucky of them all.
He's too adorable to be scary.
I didn't like The Truth: Red, White and Black at all. And if you've read it yourself, you know why they removed it from canon.
It was the shitty, surrealistic art...
But I get that Marvel is setting up the Young Avengers in the MCU, and how else would we get Elijah Bradley without introducing his grandfather?
Most of the plot-points in the show were predictable. It didn't really affect the story much, but I often found myself accurately guessing what was going to happen next. Maybe there was just ample foreshadowing. Maybe I've ruined my enjoyment by having read too many comics. I think we all saw Sharon being the Power Broker from the moment she was introduced. I knew that John Walker would go crazy and paint his suit black from the moment he showed up on screen. I knew Lamar was going to somehow get killed as soon as he was introduced. However, I never would've thought John would react the way he did to it. That shot where John is standing in the middle of a city, twitching, with blood all over the shield was beautiful. Probably one of my favorite moments from this show. Julie Louis-Dreyfus is always fun to watch and she seems like she's getting more attractive as she ages.
Sometimes, it felt like the show was trying to beat you over the head with the message that black people have it hard. It's true and it's a good message, but the MCU has never tried to impart any heavy-handed social commentary, before. And I gotta admit, I don't really like it. Captain America comics have been chock-full of social commentary for decades but none of his movies have been this explicitly drenched in subtext. The most we got was Winter Soldier hinting to always question authority.
I feel like I'm making it seem like I didn't enjoy the show, which I assure you I did. The show leaves a lot of loose ends, and I can't wait to see how they're all tied together. I hope that Wyatt Russel's U.S. Agent comes back in a large capacity (and given that Russel's first audition ever was for Captain America, I think he will). Sharon Carter is the Power Broker and she's infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. Zemo seems like he's planning something, and all of the earlier MCU villains that didn't die have been explicitly stated as being in the Raft, also. (Fingers crossed for Abomination to come back.) And all of the Young Avengers are officially in the MCU. I like that they avoided revealing what happened to Steve.
It would've been awesome to see Garry Shandling's Senator Stern as part of the group of senators that got held hostage, but alas that couldn't happen. And honestly the fact that I'm thinking about characters that aren't even mentioned on-screen is a testament to how expansive the MCU feels nowadays. And the best thing I can say about this show is that it expanded the already massive MCU even further. This series felt way more impactful than WandaVision, and it changed a lot more for the MCU going forward than that show did.
I just found out that my favorite comedian, Erik Myers, passed away.
I don't need to go into the nitty-gritty but he lost his fight with addiction and wound up not making the trip back down.
When I tell you that this was one of the funniest motherfuckers in the world, I mean it. Back when I worked at the zoo, I would listen to Erik all day. On those sleepless nights when I was withdrawing from some unknown substance that I'd put into my body, I listened exclusively to Erik. I distinctively remember staring up at the ceiling in my dark room, listening to Erik. And the motherfucker was so funny, I didn't even care if I didn't get to sleep those nights.
He's got some funny ass bits. I admit to repeating his bit about Uber to anyone that's talked to me more than 3 times. I'm listening to his Laugh Factory Special as I type this and he's still hilarious. But it hurts to know that he was struggling with some really bad demons. And that he'll never see the success that he was so goddamn deserving of.
