It goes without saying that there are going to be spoilers galore here. Short of saying it was a fun movie and I enjoyed it a lot, it’s going to be difficult to really talk about the film without there being any spoilers.
So, it was a fun movie, and I did enjoy it a lot. This was the first film that I saw in a movie theater in over two years, and I couldn’t have picked a better film to go out and feel like a human being, albeit masked one, for an evening again.
It’s really no surprise though, considering how often chicken shit is spun into palatable, digestible chicken salad in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but I started watching Hawkeye recently, and three episodes in, I have to say that it’s not the worst property ever turned into a show or movie.
Let’s be real here, it’s not uncommon knowledge that Hawkeye is one of the lamest Avengers in the history of the Avengers, and by himself among the lamest IPs of the Marvel universe. When it became apparent that just about everyone in the phase one of the MCU was going to get some degree of spotlight, one of the most common queries was probably, “even Hawkeye?”
And most likely in the spirit of equitability, we have a Hawkeye series, which is kind of ironic seeing as how the longform storytelling of a television series seems far preferable to a standalone film, and it’s hard to believe that of all the guys to get a prominent spotlight, Hawkeye would be among them.
But if there’s anyone who is aware of the stigma of the lameness that is Hawkeye, it’s the show itself, all the way from the writers, show runners and characters themselves. As a whole, everyone seems very aware that Hawkeye is lame, to where it’s so far been kind of a theme of the show itself, and by doing so, actually earns a little bit of credit and endearment from watchers like me just waiting for the show to even sniff jumping the shark or wrestling with DJ Tanner, to get ready to point the finger and say I told you so.
By doing such, the show seems to earn a little bit of bullet protection from harsher criticisms, and it doesn’t hurt that the show really isn’t that so much about Hawkeye as much as it’s about Clint Barton the man, and his former alter-ego in Ronin, as well as sharing the spotlight with Kate Bishop, who serves to be the personality sidekick that Barton need to not give into the lameness so often.
I’m only three episodes in, but it hasn’t been all that bad. The show moves at a steady pace and doesn’t feel too drug out, and regardless of what the title of the show is, all MCU television series are all concurrently working towards larger storylines, so it’s only a matter of time before some hard hints, or a cameo or appearance from another property crops up to make viewers react like they’re NBA players watching a dunk contest when it becomes apparent of what is in the works.
As I’ve said before (I think), in MCU we trust, because if this is any indication, those writers and show runners really know how to make even the lamest properties tolerable. The Netflix crew demonstrated it by making Iron Fist watchable, and now the Disney+ squad has made even Hawkeye tolerable. That, is pretty impressive, and makes me not feel pessimistic about the remainder of the series.
Funny how things work out: segment of internet looking-for-things-to-get-mad-about-people decide to get mad over Awkwafina’s “blaccent,” citing cultural appropriation, racism, hypocrisy or all of the above; and declare a boycott to Marvel Studios’ Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.
I’ve actually never heard of the property Shang-Chi ever, until news of an actual Marvel film featuring Asian people began to emerge. I have zero clue to the property, whether it features mutants, or supers based on myth, magic or cosmic, or if Shang-Chi ever crossed paths with any X-property, the Avengers, or even had a run-in with Juggernaut since it seems like at some point, everyone has a run in with Juggernaut.
That being said, I kind of wasn’t really that interested in seeing it, because in spite of the equity that the Marvel Studio sand the MCU had built, it was beginning to feel a little bit like a checkbox situation where kind of like how Black Panther lit a fire under the black community, and based on how Crazy Rich Asians performed at the box office, Disney and Marvel decided to take a stab at tapping into the Asian community with a Marvel film, with an Asian-based story.
I wasn’t interested in seeing what I thought was going to be the affirmative action of the MCU, even if it had the legendary Tony Leung in it, making me wonder just how many times if at all, showed up in American film.
But as is often the case, when news like this hits, and I see people on the internet acting like buffoons, all it really serves is to make me want to defy them and see their stupid efforts fail, and therefore go see Shang-Chi. Not quite to the point where I want to risk my health and go out into a theater, but I definitely have some intention to watch this now, for sure.
I mean seriously, people getting upset over the way Awkwafina speaks? Because she occasionally uses a black affect when speaking, as if the terms wiggers and chiggers haven’t been a thing for the last 25 years, but is only taboo when a celebrity does it?
Would Eminem have a career at all, if he showed up in this generation? He’s white and therefore should not be rapping, because that might be considered cultural appropriation since apparently only black people are allowed to rap and speak in a certain manner.
Anyway, my favorite part of the article was when they cited that this isn’t the first time people had wanted to boycott Awkwafina:
It is worth noting that similar accusations of culture appropriate were lobbied against the Asian American actress when she voiced the dragon Raya in Raya and the Last Dragon, currently available on Disney+ and made 122.7 million USD at the Box Office
So the SJWs didn’t learn their lesson from Raya and they think they’ll fare much better with Shang-Chi? Yeah, I look forward to seeing just how much money Shang-Chi is going to bulldoze in when it drops, and see just how effective these so called boycotts are actually going to be.
Let’s not even discuss the thousands of people out in the world that aren’t Asian, but have some sort of Asian text tattooed onto themselves. I’d wager there’s a substantial overlap of non-Asians with Asian characters tattooed on themselves with those who are pretending to be outraged and claim they’re going to boycott.
It’s okay though. The internet doesn’t need to find out when these peoples’ friends talk about how decent of a film it might actually be, and whether it’s peer pressure, hypocrisy, or just being full of shit, they’ll still watch it anyway, all the same.
Let’s just get this out of the way: Black Widow is probably the worst film in the entire MCU. Down there with the various Hulk films, but at least still better than other non-MCU turds like Ghost Rider and all attempts at The Fantastic Four. But that’s not saying that much.
The point is, Black Widow was not that great of a film, and probably should not have been made. Its existence serves no benefit to the equity that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has built, and has in fact added unnecessary weight to the cash-printing spaceship the MCU franchise has been throughout the last decade, having produced and actually released such a turd.
Needless to say, before I proceed with this post, in the event that any of my zero readers have not been privy to the happenings of the MCU, I will put the rest of this behind the cut, because that’s just the kind of guy I am, act as if the whole world is reading, even if I know that nobody is.
Continue reading “Black Widow: Just because it could be made, doesn’t mean it should be made”
Over the last two weeks or so, my daily routine has gotten to the point where I can afford to watch a little television every night, and chip away at the queue of shows and programs that I’ve wanted to watch over the last year. Obviously, this will come back to a screeching halt once #2 comes into the picture, but for the time being, I’m trying to enjoy the feeling of a little bit of expendable downtime again, and soaking in all the stories that I’m hearing good about, and getting to experience them myself.
Among the things recently watched would be Amazon’s Invincible; I’m so long out of comics, I had no idea what this property even was, but from what I can tell it’s by Robert Kirkman, the guy who made The Walking Dead, and it seems to be something of a lampooning of lots of popular superhero comic stories, while having its own cohesive storyline.
As a whole, I found season 1 to be pretty enjoyable. It’s fairly obvious what properties are being emulated in some characters, and there’s something about the general goriness of the series that kind of takes the veil of the sidelines off of traditional superhero stories, because obviously there is such a thing as collateral damage, and whenever any invasion or attack occurs, there are going to be people negatively affected.
But a comprehensive review isn’t the point of this whole post; it’s the answer to the question in the headline of this post, because I think it’s pretty obvious where Invincible’s overall superhuman aspects originate from, and it’s most definitely not because he’s a half-Viltrumite.
Like I said, I went into this as blind as Ray Charles’s long-decomposed remains, so I had no idea that Mark Grayson’s mom was Korean, therefore making Invincible half-Korean in addition to being a Viltrumite. That said, it becomes clearer than crystal to why Invincible is basically invincible, warranting being a mega super hero worthy of his own comic and television series.
Frankly, the only thing that gives it away is this little piece of framed artwork in the background of the Grayson’s household. And then I notice the way Debbie Grayson is drawn, and then the black hair on mother and son makes some sense. Also, the fact that both characters are voiced by Stephen Yeun and Sandra Oh, actual Koreans, and the animation credits are basically a rollcall of a Shinsaegae employee roster, and it all makes perfect sense to just how inherently of a Korean operation this whole thing is.
Either way, Korean or not, I enjoyed Invincible. The fact that it’s so very Korean in the roots only makes it that much more enjoyable for me, and I look forward to seeing how the story unfolds in future seasons.
I saw an ad on theFacebook for a second Venom movie, and my first thought was, surprisingly, whyyyyyyy? I never saw the first one because I thought it couldn’t possibly be anything but suck, and although from what I read, lots of critics seemed to agree with that assessment, the almighty financial results seemed to prove contrary to that notion, grossing $856 million during its run.
So regardless of if the movie’s story, plot, acting or production sucked, it’s still a success if it rakes in money, and if it rakes in money, a sequel is all but inevitable. So here we are, on the doorstep of a Venom 2, the sequel to a movie that has everything to do about Spider-Man but somehow doesn’t have a single thing to do with Spider-Man.
Frankly, I could save all zero of my readers the trouble and just say to go back and read the post about the first Venom (above) and just swap out “Tom Hardy” with “Woody Harrelson,” because the sentiment is exactly the same for Woody as I felt for Tom Hardy. In spite of the star power a guy like Woody can bring to the table, and in spite of all the positive credibility he’s built up over the last decade with stuff like True Detective and getting into the Star Wars universe, he’s pissed his chance to get implemented into Marvel, by tying himself up to a Sony Pictures Marvel film and not a Marvel Studios Marvel film.
By doing so, not only does he follow in the footsteps of a guy like Tom Hardy who blew his shot at getting onto the money printer bus of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, he’s also going to be mentioned in the same breath as the walking STD Jared Leto whom last I heard, was going to be in a Morbius film, which is another Spider-Man sub-property that will try to have a film that has nothing to do with Spider-Man.
Frankly, I’m lukewarm on Tom Hardy, and I couldn’t think any less of Jared Leto, but I actually like Woody Harrelson. I’m sad for him that his people have steered him into such a stinky detour into the Marvel family, and I figure he could’ve been so much better as a lesser character in the MCU than a pretty high-tier villain in the Sony…verse, because at least he’d have an actual adversary to go up against.
I don’t have any doubts that Woody will probably be able to squeeze a good bit of watchability portraying Cletus Kassady who eventually becomes Carnage, but when the day is over, it’ll be like polishing a turd. With no fucking SPIDER-MAN to ultimately oppose him, there’s only so much road for he and Venom to actually be able to go down before they run into a brick wall of failure because you can’t really have a bunch of villains going at each other without their origin being seemingly legally forbidden from interacting with them.
Either way, much like the first Venom, I have zero intention of watching the second. I wouldn’t watch either of them short of being paid to do so, and even then I’d probably demand my professional freelance hourly rate in order to do so, and I’d probably still bitch about wanting my money back afterward. I shed exactly one tear for Woody’s involvement in this film, and wish that he could’ve been some rando third-tier property in the MCU than to be a first-tier villain under Sony.
I think? Who really knows when this show was actually filmed, and whether or not it happened before my wedding.
Anyway, just finished watching The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. At first, I thought it was just okay, and that it felt more like a transitional Marvel property show, that helped tie up a lot of loose ends throughout Phase One, as opposed to something that was sowing seeds for future potential phases. Like WandaVision laid down a lot of groundwork for future plots, and I had expected similarly from the adventures of Sam and Bucky, and what I would expect from most other future Marvel television shows on Disney+.
But then the fifth episode happens, and shit suddenly gets very real, the plots get very deep very quickly, and by the time I finished the sixth and final episode of the series, I’m thinking, damn, this show was really god damn good.
Anyway, if I keep trying to write about the show, I’ll inevitably end up spoiling something, so I’ll refrain from going on about the show, except for the fact that it was really good, I enjoyed it, and it was yet another outstanding edition to Marvel’s screen adaptation equity.
I don’t think it’s a spoiler, but the above image is a scene from one of the episodes, that looked just a teensy-bit familiar to me. Had to rewind, pause, and summon mythical wife to come take a look too.
But adding to the list of Georgia locations that are filmed and delivered as somewhere else, the Historic DeKalb Courthouse where I got married, was used as, well, a courthouse of some sorts, for a government hearing in the Falcon and the Winter Soldier. At least it was actually used as its historic roots once were. But it tickled me all the same, to see a place I’m quite familiar with, being used in an outstanding piece of television. Multiple times.
