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Summer Season: Week 1
If a tag sits in a word document for a week without ever being posted, was it ever truly written at all? Ugh, having a bitch of a time getting going again on the RP front. Part of it is still being real busy with moving (though we finally got our foreclosure notice, so we finally have a date we gotta have all our shit out by, it's sometime next month), but I think the rest is just inertia, bleh.
Whatever, no excuses! Moving on!
Have finally figured out a way to jam a facecloth into the overflow drain to get a proper depth out of my new tub and boy is it luxurious. 8D Next up: candles so I don't have to take baths in the dark (my bathroom's fan is linked to the lights which is mad annoying, but I'm guessing it's because of the jetted tub).
Also, I slashed my hand open on a Saw DVD, which would have been pretty funny if it hadn't hurt/bled so much. I DO NOT WANT TO PLAY A GAME.
...I gotta figure out how to pay condo fees.
Movies! I grabbed the free two-week Criterion Channel trial, so it's been a lot of old shit lately, but I also saw Dark Phoenix! Maybe that should get its own post? Eh, whatever.
L'Avventura (1960): I don't want to talk about how long it took me to get from 'this guy's got a real Marc-Ange Draco vibe' to 'oh that is actually Gabriele Ferzetti, I've just never heard his real voice before', DUH DOY. And now Tracy's dad is real hot to me, even if his character is the absolute worst, god damn it. Anyway, I LIKED THE MOVIE. The total lack of resolution in the end was a little annoying, but 'what the fuck actually happened' was clearly beside the point in a movie where even the character motivations are fairly nebulous throughout. Sure was pretty, though.
The Spirit of the Beehive (1973): This one didn't do it for me. Apparently it's one of Del Toro's favourites, and its influence on his work is SUPER clear and obvious, but holy god was it boring beyond that. Compared to something like Where is the Friend's Home?, which also revolved around long lingering shots of a small child doing slow and methodical things, I was just completely unengaged with everything that was happening. At least it gave us Pan's Labyrinth, kinda.
In a Lonely Place (1950): SO GOOD. A fuckin' tour de force from Bogart, here, I think it's probably my favourite performance of his, what a creep. Gloria Grahame looks weirdly like this one Winnipeg-based comic publisher I know? DAT ENDING, OOF.
Baby Face (1933): A short and sweet one! Well, not that sweet. Kinda mercenary, actually. But still real fun! All I really knew going in was that this was one of those '2 spicy even 4 pre-code' movies, AND BOY DOES IT LIVE UP TO THAT REPUTATION. Lily's a rad as fuck protagonist, though, just fucks and lies and cheats her way to the top, straight up ruining mens' lives, and is never even really punished for any of it? THAT'S JUST WHAT THEY GET FOR BEING HORNY SUCKERS. Good shit. Also, young John Wayne looks like a weird Marvel CGI de-aging of himself.
The Virgin Suicides (1999): I actually watched this last night, but I'm saving Dark Phoenix for last. Just a beautiful, depressing little poem of a movie, determined to do its own thing. Five out of five dead sisters.
Dark Phoenix (2019): Sigh. It was never gonna be good, we all knew that going in, right? Still, it wasn't the worst X-Men movie (RT score aside), or even the worst Phoenix Saga adaptation, so that's something. Mostly just one last expensive monument to wasted potential from Fox, but I'm nevertheless feeling a lot of feelings about it, so I'll ramble. First up: the bitching.
Hey, remember how Jessica Chastain's character was kept as this big mystery going in? Turns out it's because she's some total fuckin' rando, who even cares, nobody. And apparently Magneto's psychic backup was supposed to be Selene? lol okay if you say so, credits. Those yellow uniforms remain boring as fuck, REMEMBER AT THE END OF APOCALYPSE WHEN THEY ALL HAD RAD INDIVIDUAL COLOURFUL COSTUMES AND IT WAS THE BEST PART OF THE MOVIE?? HEAVEN FORBID WE GIVE THESE CHARACTERS WE JUST MET A MOVIE AGO SOME FUCKING INDIVIDUALITY BEFORE LETTING THEM ANCHOR A WHOLE FILM. Also, holy fuck does Tye Sheridan just have the grossest face. OG Cyclops may have been a boring pud, but at least Marsden was hot, ugh. Sophie Turner deserved better in so many ways. Guess it just wouldn't be Scott and Jean if they didn't have zero onscreen chemistry, though. Nightcrawler was boring, Storm was kind of a bitch for no reason (but that just might be me remembering comic Jean and Storm's wonderful vital friendship and noting its total absence here), and Quicksilver said about five lines before being written out entirely because this was a movie wholly uninterested in ANY sort of levity or comic relief and that's all he's good for. Holy hell, what a dour, humourless slog. Mystique dying in the first act seemed as much about putting Jennifer Lawrence out of her misery as the rest of us, WOW was she checked out. And did I miss an explanation for why she was suddenly all about being blonde and unblued in private? An in-universe one, I mean, it was... real weird when she would just randomly change back upon returning home. Also, Beast suddenly being all about straight up murdering a woman he's known since she was 8 felt pretty off, even if his scene telling off Xavier was great.
Okay, that's a good cue to balance all that out with some stuff I liked, now. This was a GREAT movie for Xavier being portrayed as 'still that guy, but also That Fucking Guy' the way the comics have been doing for ages now, with characters calling him out on all his dodgy shit when it goes horribly awry and him being a stubborn, unintrospective asshole about it all. If this stuff had been in a better movie, it'd be top tier shit. Magneto's li'l mutant commune! Such a better way of showing off his growth and arc in this universe than the last movie randomly giving him a family just to kill them off, seriously what the fuck was that. He didn't really have any reason to BE in this movie beyond 'Fassbender's one of the leads', but with the other characters being so underwhelming (mainly because they were only brought in to bridge more of the gap between the Vaughn and Singer 'verses which was 100% the opposite of anything I wanted), for once I really don't mind the old white guys being given centre stage again, some more, forever.
lol 'old' though, THEY JUST HAVE NO INTEREST WHATSOEVER IN MAKING THESE CHARACTERS REMOTELY RESEMBLE THEIR AGES AND I HONESTLY KIND OF LOVE THAT. HE'S A HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR IN THE EARLY 90s AND AT WORST HE LOOKS LIKE A TIRED 40-YEAR-OLD. I genuinely respect that particular lack of 'give a fuck' more than I respect anything else that was ever been done with this entire franchise.
It was nice that it was at least a LITTLE more faithful to the original Phoenix Saga, with it being about an actual cosmic energy being instead of just Jean's powers going haywire for no reason, and Jean taking herself out of the game at the end sure as fuck beats yet another 'Wolverine has to tragically stab the woman he loves uwu' ending. The villains were a total fucking waste of screentime, JUST USE THE HELLFIRE CLUB, JESUS CHRIST, but at least an ATTEMPT was made, and it IS better than Last Stand as a result. Still, that was a pretty low bar to clear. But hey, at least Dazzler finally got a cameo, even if she was played entirely classic despite it being the 90s WHAT A FUCKING WASTE AND A HALF.
The fights had some of the most fun uses of mutant powers we've ever seen in these movies, with lots of rapid fire, creative ways to fuck up some aliens (NOTHING HOLDS A CANDLE TO BLINK, THOUGH), it's a shame they all just felt so... small. Like, c'mon. A bush party? A traffic jam? THE PHOENIX SAGA DESERVES MORE THAN A FINAL SHOWDOWN ON A FUCKING TRAIN.
...okay, I just got home from work to realize I wrote almost 1000 words about Dark fucking Phoenix, so I'm gonna leave it at that unless someone else sees it too and wants to take it up in the comments, lol. I DIDN'T EVEN GET TO THE SERIES RETROSPECTIVE, GOD.
Whatever, no excuses! Moving on!
Have finally figured out a way to jam a facecloth into the overflow drain to get a proper depth out of my new tub and boy is it luxurious. 8D Next up: candles so I don't have to take baths in the dark (my bathroom's fan is linked to the lights which is mad annoying, but I'm guessing it's because of the jetted tub).
Also, I slashed my hand open on a Saw DVD, which would have been pretty funny if it hadn't hurt/bled so much. I DO NOT WANT TO PLAY A GAME.
...I gotta figure out how to pay condo fees.
Movies! I grabbed the free two-week Criterion Channel trial, so it's been a lot of old shit lately, but I also saw Dark Phoenix! Maybe that should get its own post? Eh, whatever.
L'Avventura (1960): I don't want to talk about how long it took me to get from 'this guy's got a real Marc-Ange Draco vibe' to 'oh that is actually Gabriele Ferzetti, I've just never heard his real voice before', DUH DOY. And now Tracy's dad is real hot to me, even if his character is the absolute worst, god damn it. Anyway, I LIKED THE MOVIE. The total lack of resolution in the end was a little annoying, but 'what the fuck actually happened' was clearly beside the point in a movie where even the character motivations are fairly nebulous throughout. Sure was pretty, though.
The Spirit of the Beehive (1973): This one didn't do it for me. Apparently it's one of Del Toro's favourites, and its influence on his work is SUPER clear and obvious, but holy god was it boring beyond that. Compared to something like Where is the Friend's Home?, which also revolved around long lingering shots of a small child doing slow and methodical things, I was just completely unengaged with everything that was happening. At least it gave us Pan's Labyrinth, kinda.
In a Lonely Place (1950): SO GOOD. A fuckin' tour de force from Bogart, here, I think it's probably my favourite performance of his, what a creep. Gloria Grahame looks weirdly like this one Winnipeg-based comic publisher I know? DAT ENDING, OOF.
Baby Face (1933): A short and sweet one! Well, not that sweet. Kinda mercenary, actually. But still real fun! All I really knew going in was that this was one of those '2 spicy even 4 pre-code' movies, AND BOY DOES IT LIVE UP TO THAT REPUTATION. Lily's a rad as fuck protagonist, though, just fucks and lies and cheats her way to the top, straight up ruining mens' lives, and is never even really punished for any of it? THAT'S JUST WHAT THEY GET FOR BEING HORNY SUCKERS. Good shit. Also, young John Wayne looks like a weird Marvel CGI de-aging of himself.
The Virgin Suicides (1999): I actually watched this last night, but I'm saving Dark Phoenix for last. Just a beautiful, depressing little poem of a movie, determined to do its own thing. Five out of five dead sisters.
Dark Phoenix (2019): Sigh. It was never gonna be good, we all knew that going in, right? Still, it wasn't the worst X-Men movie (RT score aside), or even the worst Phoenix Saga adaptation, so that's something. Mostly just one last expensive monument to wasted potential from Fox, but I'm nevertheless feeling a lot of feelings about it, so I'll ramble. First up: the bitching.
Hey, remember how Jessica Chastain's character was kept as this big mystery going in? Turns out it's because she's some total fuckin' rando, who even cares, nobody. And apparently Magneto's psychic backup was supposed to be Selene? lol okay if you say so, credits. Those yellow uniforms remain boring as fuck, REMEMBER AT THE END OF APOCALYPSE WHEN THEY ALL HAD RAD INDIVIDUAL COLOURFUL COSTUMES AND IT WAS THE BEST PART OF THE MOVIE?? HEAVEN FORBID WE GIVE THESE CHARACTERS WE JUST MET A MOVIE AGO SOME FUCKING INDIVIDUALITY BEFORE LETTING THEM ANCHOR A WHOLE FILM. Also, holy fuck does Tye Sheridan just have the grossest face. OG Cyclops may have been a boring pud, but at least Marsden was hot, ugh. Sophie Turner deserved better in so many ways. Guess it just wouldn't be Scott and Jean if they didn't have zero onscreen chemistry, though. Nightcrawler was boring, Storm was kind of a bitch for no reason (but that just might be me remembering comic Jean and Storm's wonderful vital friendship and noting its total absence here), and Quicksilver said about five lines before being written out entirely because this was a movie wholly uninterested in ANY sort of levity or comic relief and that's all he's good for. Holy hell, what a dour, humourless slog. Mystique dying in the first act seemed as much about putting Jennifer Lawrence out of her misery as the rest of us, WOW was she checked out. And did I miss an explanation for why she was suddenly all about being blonde and unblued in private? An in-universe one, I mean, it was... real weird when she would just randomly change back upon returning home. Also, Beast suddenly being all about straight up murdering a woman he's known since she was 8 felt pretty off, even if his scene telling off Xavier was great.
Okay, that's a good cue to balance all that out with some stuff I liked, now. This was a GREAT movie for Xavier being portrayed as 'still that guy, but also That Fucking Guy' the way the comics have been doing for ages now, with characters calling him out on all his dodgy shit when it goes horribly awry and him being a stubborn, unintrospective asshole about it all. If this stuff had been in a better movie, it'd be top tier shit. Magneto's li'l mutant commune! Such a better way of showing off his growth and arc in this universe than the last movie randomly giving him a family just to kill them off, seriously what the fuck was that. He didn't really have any reason to BE in this movie beyond 'Fassbender's one of the leads', but with the other characters being so underwhelming (mainly because they were only brought in to bridge more of the gap between the Vaughn and Singer 'verses which was 100% the opposite of anything I wanted), for once I really don't mind the old white guys being given centre stage again, some more, forever.
lol 'old' though, THEY JUST HAVE NO INTEREST WHATSOEVER IN MAKING THESE CHARACTERS REMOTELY RESEMBLE THEIR AGES AND I HONESTLY KIND OF LOVE THAT. HE'S A HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR IN THE EARLY 90s AND AT WORST HE LOOKS LIKE A TIRED 40-YEAR-OLD. I genuinely respect that particular lack of 'give a fuck' more than I respect anything else that was ever been done with this entire franchise.
It was nice that it was at least a LITTLE more faithful to the original Phoenix Saga, with it being about an actual cosmic energy being instead of just Jean's powers going haywire for no reason, and Jean taking herself out of the game at the end sure as fuck beats yet another 'Wolverine has to tragically stab the woman he loves uwu' ending. The villains were a total fucking waste of screentime, JUST USE THE HELLFIRE CLUB, JESUS CHRIST, but at least an ATTEMPT was made, and it IS better than Last Stand as a result. Still, that was a pretty low bar to clear. But hey, at least Dazzler finally got a cameo, even if she was played entirely classic despite it being the 90s WHAT A FUCKING WASTE AND A HALF.
The fights had some of the most fun uses of mutant powers we've ever seen in these movies, with lots of rapid fire, creative ways to fuck up some aliens (NOTHING HOLDS A CANDLE TO BLINK, THOUGH), it's a shame they all just felt so... small. Like, c'mon. A bush party? A traffic jam? THE PHOENIX SAGA DESERVES MORE THAN A FINAL SHOWDOWN ON A FUCKING TRAIN.
...okay, I just got home from work to realize I wrote almost 1000 words about Dark fucking Phoenix, so I'm gonna leave it at that unless someone else sees it too and wants to take it up in the comments, lol. I DIDN'T EVEN GET TO THE SERIES RETROSPECTIVE, GOD.