It’s the first day of the rest of your life

Hey, sorry – nothing profound here. I just love this song, which I somehow missed when it came out.

Godzilla vs Kong is an OK movie

I watched it with my son last night and it is a fun movie. Not great and it has a plot that goes exactly as expected, barring one thing – Milly Bobby’s Brown’s character and that arc of the plot is quite unnecessary. She plays a generic teenage sleuth much like a character from Stranger Things, with some cheesy contrived camaraderie between her and a conspiracy theorist and podcaster who turns out to be correct about the bad guys being up to something. Tagging along is a cardboard cutout teenage computer geek. I don’t remember any characters’ name. The movie is what it is for a monster movie and you can throw in all the usual and expected critiques about the motivations of the monsters and the humans too. I’ll leave those out except for the unnecessary subplot.

What I will comment on, is I think it is funny that other people are taking this movie so seriously. There are so many plot holes and bits that don’t make sense, why bother to get into them? (For example… Hollow Earth? How does the magic power source work? You can copy an infinite power source by downloading it? How come our trusty sleuths were essentially invisible until they needed to be caught to be in the right place?) I could go on but what for? When I say that it’s an OK movie I mean it isn’t absolute shit.

Big monster fight other big monster. Big monster look, big monster see – big monster attack! Man want to be biggest, makes bigger monster. Man bad. Other man good. Help good big monsters fight bad big monster. The end.

That’s it. That’s the whole movie. No need to look more deeply into it.

Edit… That other review ain’t so bad. I do think people take this kind of movie too seriously though. It’s a movie about monsters fighting, and while the original Godzilla might have been a metaphor for nuclear war or whatever, don’t look for deeper meaning here. You could just as well look for literary excellence in porn intros.

Let’s treat reports of review-bombs with a pinch of skeptic salt, shall we?

I just saw this…

I confess – I have not read the linked article because I don’t read that clickbait any more, but feel free. The image links to it, minus the Facebook tracking query string.

I am amused, because up until now, every article about the Snyder cut has been positive, every review positive, and the clickbait writers have been mostly marketing it positively. But today that changed. Suddenly today they are calling Snyder fans toxic, this being the second such article trending with the assertion, the other of which did not specify the actual claim. This is after them gushing about the success of the social media campaign and the praising of the fans and social movements in general for months.

So what changed? Godzilla vs Kong was released, that’s what. Sorry, I’m not linking to anything of it because I don’t watch movies featuring implausibly giant monsters. And yes, I’m biased. Obviously superhero movies are equally implausible, but I can at least suspend my disbelief watching them, having grown up reading comics.

But you know where I struggle to suspend my disbelief? Review-bombs, that’s where… The first couple of review bombings were legit, but sites quickly came up with tactics to detect and correct the skewed ratings they caused. Review bombings now are a sign of something more… they’ve become a trope, a convenient excuse used to defend bad movies, a scapegoat to blame instead of the movies themselves. Blame the fans!

Seriously… If you know where to look, there are many examples of filmmakers blaming fans or viewers for their films performing poorly. Early reports of reviews bombings are a sure sign they’re going with this tactic and their claims should be taken with a generous pinch of salt.

For example:

I’m not saying this is the same as the example given above… there the filmmakers blamed their own fans, which is really dumb when you think about it. Here, they are blaming Snyder fans, that is, fans of a different movie. It’s a much safer tactic and therefore, one that we will see more often.

By the way, I highly recommend that video and their channel. I’m in no way affiliated with them. (So I guess I’m a fan?) Their content is good, most of their presenters are great and the one shown is one of their best. I use them to help find movies worth watching and I trust their commentary, which is mostly spot on and helpful – unlike most other list videos from many content creators.

A lazy post for a lazy day

I spent much of today sleeping – and will probably do the same tomorrow. It’s my idea of a good weekend.

But… since I can’t share my unpopular but correct opinions on Facebook for a bit, I’ll post some here… Not really one of my usual posts – just 3 random things that I might flesh out in other posts, but probably won’t.

1. Memes like this don’t show what some might think they do…

I’ve seen a couple now, with ridiculous over the top video sequences that people seem to think makes Indian movies cool. So let’s clear this up, shall we? Other movies are stupid. Indian movies are stupider. It’s like they take the most stupid parts of the movies they watch and then ramp up the stupid to new levels of… stupid.

2. The Snyder cut of Justice League is fucking awesome

Four hours is a little excessive though. But it’s worth the watch. Maybe not in one sitting.

3. The Suicide Squad is gonna suck starro ass

Starro? Really?

My son and I watched the trailer earlier, and I’m sorry but what? His first reaction: “Is that the main characters?”. DC got a lot wrong before, but one thing they did right was to go dark insted of light. It was the only thing they really did well. I shall refrain from writing more.

I can’t be the only one sick of all the superhero shows?

I stopped watching The Flash midway into season 3, after giving up on Arrow after season 1, and I might still watch the last season of Supergirl. I might. But Superman and Lois? Fuck that. Enough is enough.

Surely I’m not the only one to notice that Arrow, The Flash, and Supergirl are all basically the same show? You have the hero, with a plug-in origin story, and a team of helpers. All the characters are generic and all the shows are formulaic. You could even swap characters out from one show and move them to another. Swap the tech geek from Flash and Arrow or Supergirl around, and it’s just a matter of unplugging them from the one show and plugging them into another. Even the dialog is so generic, it doesn’t matter and the characters will fit like pieces of a puzzle. Throw in a couple of romances, and if you’re team Supergirl, some plotlines related to the current political climate where Trumpertoodles/racists are the bad guys, and maybe throw in some LGBTQ characters and you’re good to go. (Make no mistake, I love Nicole Maines and I’ve read her whole history after seeing her character on Supergirl, but I do think the various topics are handled rather superficially on there.) However, it’s the one thing that keeps me watching that show – they do take on real subjects and that makes it better than the other shows. Even if they gloss over some stuff, they take on real subjects and infuse them all with this message of hope, and I like that.

But for the most part, those shows are all exactly the same. I gather Superman and Lois is different, but really, I’m not interested in yet another Superman Soap Opera like Smallville. I keep seeing the so-called “geeky” articles that mention Tom Welling’s character in Smallville, and I’m like… Did people really like that shit? That one was basically the same episode over and over again, taking predictability, repeatability, and pure cheese to a new level of boredom. For fuck’s sake, can’t we have some original TV?

Edit… I have to add this, I’m so sorry, but ever since I watched Flash season 2 one day and my mother pointed it out while walking by, that was it for me… The guy who plays Flash in the show, Grant Gustin, plays it like a whining, crying spoiled little boy, an annoying brat, a man-child. I could never unsee that. I could never take even a minute of that show seriously after that. And there are fans who love him. I don’t get it. He really is bad in the role. (Yet people dislike Ezra Miller who is perfect in the movie role. Why?)

Cancelling Pepe Le Pew is just silly

Yeah, I know I’ve claimed cancel culture isn’t a thing in the past, but this is getting ridiculous so I can change my mind a little. I still think cancel culture isn’t a thing… mostly – we have the free speech to say and write what we want where we want it, and if we do so on platforms owned by others, they have the right to ban us. (I have 4 days left of a Facebook ban.) That’s the way it works. Free speech doesn’t mean there are no consequences, and that’s the way it should be. Likewise, if you say stupid shit that denigrates millions of people based on their religion (anti-Semitism seems to be a favourite of the right wing here), and you compare yourself to victims of the Holocaust (for example), you totally deserve to be fired from your high profile acting gig.

But… cancelling fictional characters because the fiction decades ago didn’t age well… might be a good idea. Overt racism for example… Enid Blyton’s “gollywogs” had to go. But not all inappropriate content is equal. Which brings me to Pepe Le Pew…

As pointed out eloquently by his creator’s daughter, Pepe Le Pew is a clever parody of men. It’s not about a character that rapes, although his actions can indeed be considered “rapey” by today’s standards. But that’s kind of the point. He doesn’t understand consent because he doesn’t even know such a thing exists, much like the men he parodies. In his mind, he is the greatest lover, irresistible to the opposite sex, a seducer of note. He is brimming with overconfidence and audacity, a near perfect parody of a certain kind of man, the self proclaimed alpha male and all his ignorance and audacity on full display. It’s no accident that the object of his desire is a feline while he is a skunk, and he must bring her down to his level, while he remains forever oblivious that she doesn’t want him. He never gets to rape her though, and the joke is always on him.

In the end, cancelling this character achieves the opposite of its intention as it asks us to forget that rape culture and the audacity of men has been around for a while, and that this decades old cartoon drew attention to it. You aren’t being clever to point out his “problematic bahaviour” in the same way as it isn’t clever to explain the joke to someone who just told you a joke.

The new Iron Spider movie name probably has ‘home’ in it and who gives a shit?

I’m seeing this trending all over social media…

Am I the only one who thinks the new Spider-man sucks iron donkey balls? He’s supposed to be a loner, for fuck’s sake. Spider-man is a tragic and reluctant hero, who initially uses his power to get some money so he can impress a girl, who then doesn’t stop a robber who happens to go on and kill his uncle. So he’s consumed by guilt, punishing himself for being selfish when in reality he did nothing wrong. And to top that, he is manipulated by a narcissistic, overbearing self pitying whining old aunt who is annoying as fuck and expects him to do everything for her, but who will never be happy with what he does, no matter how much. When he isn’t saving somebody or unfairly being called a menace or trying to be there for his aunt, he’s brooding on top of a gargoyle somewhere as he bawls his eyes out. We relate to him because he’s every one of us, thrust into a situation where he gains incredible powers, and despite his best intentions, he gets nothing but grief for using them. But he’s a fighter. He never gives up – he throws out the sharpest and most effective sarcasm kind of defense anyone has ever heard, and he comes out on top, somehow. So we relate to him again because he doesn’t let the haters win.

At least… that’s the Spider-man I know, after growing up reading a lot of comics mostly from the 1970’s and the 80’s. Nobody has ever really captured that in a movie, but the previous efforts at least included some parts of the character I love.

But no… this Spider-man with a magic costume from Iron Man… he’s something else. Not a bad character although not much of an actor to be honest – I’d rather see Zendaya as some kind of super hero because she’s way more talented. But he’s not and never will be much of a Spider-man to write home about, and I don’t care what version of the title they use.