Review: Aquaman

CAUTION: Minor spoilers ahead:

I swear my tendency to review Warner Bros movies on this blog is purely coincidental, it's just that these have more of a habit of being notable in my opinion, whether they're good or bad.

I guess it's also because, as an unapologetic nerd for the superhero...would you even say "genre" anymore? DC Comics movies are more of a curiosity these days than Marvel ones, don't get me wrong, I love me some Marvel movies, but you can be pretty sure they're gonna be good to serviceable, it doesn't seem to need saying. I still endeavour to review them, I have started drafts of Black Panther, Ant-Man and the Wasp and Thor: Ragnarok reviews on this blog which will probably never be finished, because I just never got around to it when they were relevant, (I'll incorporate them into an updated ranking listicle after Endgame to finish that particular business) and I'm not sure why that is exactly.

I guess the process of pinpointing where the creative decisions of the DCEU fall apart, or in the case of Wonder Woman why it's so refreshing is a more engaging and cathartic exercise than saying a film I was sure was going to be at least pretty good, ended up being pretty good. or it might just be that I find it easier to stave off procrastination when I'm angry or surprised, at this point who the hell knows? Anyway, Aquaman.

So right off the bat this looks a lot more lighthearted than most DC fare, which suits me right down to the ground, Temuera Morrison falls in love with the queen of Atlantis, who, upon stumbling, injured into his lighthouse, immediately impales his TV with a trident, and you know he likes her, because, after seeing that, and her eating his pet goldfish, the words "what the fuck!?" are not even implied,

Anyway, they have a kid, and she's ambushed by Atlanteans, and decides it's for the best that she leave to keep her lover and son safe. Said son grows up to be Jason Momoa, and, through flashbacks, it is revealed, received training from Willem Dafoe (I don't remember the character names, I'm sorry)

So he's already saved the world once, and we see that he means business when he lifts a submarine out of the water in the setup for the secondary antagonist, After a trip to a bar with his dad, he's visited by Amber Heard who tells him that Atlantis is on the brink of war with the surface and only he, as a child of both worlds, and son of the queen, can claim the throne and prevent global catastrophe.


All in all, this is a pretty standard superhero plot, complete with the premature boss-fight, humiliation, and McGuffin-hunt and personal epiphany before round two. all wrapped up in one prolonged King Arthur reference. That said, I'd be lying if I didn't say that what this film does, it does well.

The visuals are worth the ticket price on their own, Atlantis is a visually stunning creation full of inventive designs for technology and striking backdrops for action setpieces. There's plenty of lore to satisfy those that go for that woven into the film without feeling too cumbersome, even if it is frontloaded a little at times. The soundtrack is...basically fine, with the notable exception of the single worst use of Toto's Africa that has ever happened in any medium, and the whole thing carries itself with an air of humour that lets it ride the goofiness of the setting without being overpowered by it.

The Characters, underdeveloped though some may be, are likeable enough, the main villain is pretty generic and the secondary antagonist, while slightly more interesting, just ended up making me laugh at the fact that his costume makes him look more like a villain from Power Rangers than any Superhero movie I've ever seen. The plot is boilerplate and you'll figure out where it's going more or less immediately, but the execution is solid enough that predictability is fine.

All in all, Aquaman is a perfectly watchable Superhero film, it's not quite on the level of Wonder Woman but it's leaps and bounds ahead of Man of Steel it is, if you'll pardon the incredibly cheesy analogy, a respectable fish, in an adittedly understocked, but still noteworthy pond. I would definitely recommend giving this one a watch.

Review: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

Okay so I don't imagine I'm doing anything but treading well-worn ground by this point, this film is pretty well covered already, but I haven't put out a blog post in a while, so why not?

Okay, so, I'll begin by saying that I actually really enjoyed Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. I was always of the opinion that the world of Harry Potter was far more interesting than anyone in it, or any of their struggles, so essentially, the first Fantastic Beasts film was exactly what I wanted in a spin-off. It gave an expansion of that world, a look at different parts of wizarding society, and some really inventive creature designs, all wrapped up in a nice package of special effects and Eddie Redmayne doing his best Matt Smith impression. I've heard that film described as "Doctor Who: Pokemon Trainer" before, and it was said in a derogatory manner, but what can I say? I thought that was a good mix. I never expected it to win any awards or blow anyone away but it was a perfectly pleasant way to kill a couple of hours.

So, a few years, and what seems like an eternity of headlines and furious fan-debates later, and so arrives Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald which...completely pushes everything I liked about the first one into the background while devoting all the attention to the rise of not-Voldemort and the troubles of characters that haven't really been developed enough for me to care about and completely mishandling one of the few I liked...oh dear.


The entire plot is essentially a bunch of contrivances loosely strung together around the rise of the titular baddie, Ezra Miller's character Credence is still alive (it's never explained how) and is now suddenly obsessed with the secret of his identity, which he never cared about before, and the audience has no reason to care about now. Nagini's there too...she's a woman now, because this is Warner Brothers, and for some reason they like turning previously established monsters into human women *coughshelobcough.* J.K Rowling, as usual, pretends to have always had that in mind, but much like Dumbledore being gay, there is no implication of that anywhere in the source material before she wanted credit for having written it. Speaking of, Dumbledore is in this, Jude Law's pretty good as a young Dumbledore, and for those wondering, yes, they do acknowledge his sexuality...well...it's pretty heavily implied at the very least, he never outright says it, but then this is set in 1927, so I imagine he wouldn't have been that forthcoming with it, perhaps even wizards weren't accepting of homosexuality back then, who knows?

The Dumbledore scenes honestly feel like they come out of a different, better film, any Potterheads reading this should just look those up on YouTube and you'll have seen the best parts this film has to offer.  you'll notice I haven't mentioned much of the story yet and that's because there isn't much of one. No! shut up! No there isn't! Exposition and worldbuilding is not a story, it's supposed to come with one! Nagini got a lot of media attention for the aforementioned being a human woman. Not in the style of an unregistered animagus, she apparently carries a blood curse, which means she can transform into a snake, and does so in her sleep, but before long she'll be stuck as one forever. This would be tragic, but it's treated as a footnote, she's barely even in the film, she's there so that Credence has someone to escape with from the freakshow he works for, and he's only there so that Nagini can be there. After the escape she just sort of, stands around, saying and doing nothing.

Jacob and Queenie are back, I liked them in the first one, but their characters are completely butchered, also, Jacob has his memories back...somehow, apparently memory charms only effect bad memories...even though we've seen them work to the contrary SEVERAL times, wow, Hermione's parents must've REALLY hated her. So he remembers things, basically because the plot needs comic relief, and Queenie is trying to magic-roofie him into marrying her in England which is all kinds of wrong, I mean, at least Newt made her lift the enchantment but still, the fact that she did it at all...
also, not to spoil, but there's a decision she makes at the end of the movie that goes against everything she wants, for no reason but so that there can be dramatic stakes. In fact she abandons her sole reason for doing the thing in order to do the thing because...reasons I suppose? Yeah the writing isn't great.

Also, the Credence's identity thing contains two plot-twists, I'm going to reveal what they are in a few lines so if you haven't seen the film, stop reading at the upcoming space between lines, I'll leave a wide enough gap, but suffice it, for now to say that neither twist makes sense, and the second one actively flies in the face of continuity. if this is where you stop reading, then TL:DR: Crimes of Grindlewald is a bit shit really, the writers seem to think worldbuilding counts as it's own story, it's franchise management disguised as filmmaking, what story is there is contrived as all hell, if I may borrow a line from BoJack Horseman "it has nothing to say, and it says that nothing badly" if you're still going to see it, just manage your expectations.










Okay, so the Credence twists. There's a lead-up to a big reveal, which, we're led to believe is going to be that he is the thought-to-be-lost Corvus Lestrange, but, it turns out he's not, Corvus Lestrange's older sister switches him for another baby in a sinking ship because he's crying, y'know...as one does...you know, just because it's a fantasy story doesn't mean it doesn't have to be believable, there's such a thing as internal logic. Anyway, so it turns out Credence is actually just some guy...But wait!

Once he goes to Grindelwald...for answers...even though, as far as he knows he knows he already has them, it turns out no! he's not just some guy, he's actually a Dumbledore!

WHAT!?

that's even less believable than the whole Lestrange thing! I think we're supposed to believe the Lestranges are bad people, because Bellatrix, but even then, they would at least care about their own family, given the obsession with bloodlines (especially with the villains) in this universe. But, not only does the only other Lestrange we see, not actually seem like a bad person, that is. until she arbitrarily switches her baby brother with another one because the plot demanded it. But now we're expected to believe a Dumbledore was just abandoned as a baby on a sinking ship? I know Albus didn't end up being the best person despite appearances, and we don't know much else about the family, but it's enough of a name that there must be some sort of dynasty to it, because in this world if there wasn't, people wouldn't know the name. Yet we're supposed to believe one was just left there to die, just because? Didn't anyone proof-read this fucking script?

I'm gonna get flak for expecting "a kids film" to make sense, but the target audience has never been an excuse, especially since that isn't actually the target audience, Harry Potter has always gone for broad appeal, and even if it hadn't the fans of the original books and movies, which you must assume are part of the target demographic here, are all adults now. Even if they weren't, even if there were "for the kids" that's not an excuse to slack off, that's accepting a responsibility to try harder, kids deserve good stories to grow up with.

Anyway that's another rant for another post, I guess the point I took so long to arrive at is, I didn't care for Fantastic Beasts: the Crimes of Grindelwald. Which is a shame, because I really enjoyed the last one, oh well.

Fandom identities: Do they need to go?

Disclaimer: This post has been incomplete and on the back-burner for quite a long time, as such, I apologise if it doesn't flow as well as it otherwise could, or if any observations are outdated, I will guard against this as best I can.

Hi all, harkening back to the first post I made on this blog, wherein I pointed out the arbitrary nature of the "nerd" identity, my stance on such things has not changed much, but I do find myself wondering if the world (or at least, the internet) might be an altogether more pleasant place to exist if we all stopped referring to ourselves by our hobbies.

Let me make my stance very clear, I am not saying people can't be fans of things, that would be ridiculous, but I don't understand why the thing you like has to be a part of your identity. For example. A while ago, one of my Facebook friends posted a particularly frustrated status on the subject of Doctor Who, or, more accurately, a facet of the Doctor Who fandom. In a nutshell, this person was annoyed at the newer members of the fandom for referring to themselves as "Dweeks" as opposed to "Whovians."

Essentially this equated to taking issue with a group of people for affixing a name to a fandom, (which they were as much a part of as the person in question) that wasn't the one they were used to. I'm not judging, people can be passionate about whatever they like, with that said I do have to say one thing.

As grievances go, "your arbitrary designation is not as good as mine" seems a little on the petty side, but that's not the entirety of what I'm taking issue with here. The real problem here is that people have an unfortunate tendency to affix self-worth to their status as a member of their chosen fandom. Whether you think identifying by a fandom label is a big deal or not, I would say that this attitude above all else needs to go.

Gatekeepers, that's what these aspects of fandom are called, not by themselves, of course, they prefer to refer to themselves as "hardcore" or perhaps more arrogantly, "real" fans "oh you like Batman? Who was the first person to play him on-screen? Adam West? LOL WRONG!! NOT A REAL FAN!" (it was Lewis Wilson in the 40s by the way, and yes, I did have to look that one up.)

More than anything else, this attitude that one has to commit a large enough portion of their time to amass an arbitrary amount of trivia in order to somehow earn the right to call themselves a fan, is what needs to go in my opinion. Despite what some will say, you are allowed to declare yourself a fan of something without dedicating large portions of your time to it.

If you choose to dedicate that time to it, that's fine too. A problem arises, however when you take the fact that you have invested that time, attach a sense of status to it, and wield your imagined seniority like a club, enacting a smug sense of superiority. In the worst cases, this can not only make a fandom seem hostile and unwelcoming to newcomers, (which directly harms the subject of the fandom by intimidating away new audiences.) But it can also give the entire fandom identity a bad name to outside observers.

It is here I come back to my original point, I, of course, take no issue whatsoever with people enjoying things or the level of time sunk into it, whatever it is, you do you. I do, however, think affixing an identity to the practice of being a fan of something has a less than positive knock-on effect. See, once you assign a name to a group, be it Whovian, Trekkie, or especially the most general ones like Gamer or Otaku, that creates a subcultural label, which in turn, intentionally or not, creates an image, and eventually a stereotype.

This is a problem that makes the aforementioned Gatekeepers exacerbating agents for another problem entirely. That problem is one of cultural perception. I've long disapproved of sorting people into collectives. just for one of my most personal pet-peeves, there is no such thing as "the disabled community" and the fact that people seem to think that I should automatically be inspired by anything noteworthy another disabled person does, is indicative of a larger problem. But anyway, that's a rant for another time.

Going back to fandoms I understand that "Gamer" "Trekkie" "Otaku" and words like that, when they first came into being, were words that helped people find like-minded individuals to discuss their interests with. Even now at the height of the internet age, when everything is more-or-less equally accessible, (provided you know where to look) at the best of times are just harmless shorthand to use in conversation, to give (hopefully) reasonable people a vague idea of your interests without having to talk their ears off, unfortunately it's not always seen that way.

First let's look at it from the point of view of an outside observer, what do you think the uninitiated average Joe thinks of when the word "Gamer" is uttered? I highly doubt it's just an average person who happens to like playing games a lot.

South Park may be able to provide a possible answer to that, with one of my personal favourite episodes, Make Love, Not Warcraft. which features a broad parody of a gamer in the form of a character known as "Jenkins The Griefer" here's a picture of him.

(for those unfamiliar, a "griefer" is a player of online multiplayer games who derives enjoyment from deliberately hampering, harassing or simply annoying other players.)

Within the episode, the Griefer has played World of Warcraft "almost every hour of every day for the past year and a half"

South Park as a show deals in broad parody and satire, so I am of course, well aware that this is not a reflection of Trey Parker and Matt Stone's opinion of people who play games,  However, the caricature exists, and resonates comedically precisely because a distressing amount of people do have that opinion. To many people outside the game-playing community, this is what a "Gamer" is, well, either that or a child/teenager with a headset screaming racism-laden obscenities to an unseen person as if they were just behind his TV set.

Is that fair? No, of course not, but fair or not, there are many who would take this caricature at face value. Granted, these are not people that the more reasonable of us should concern ourselves with, but they do exist.

This is barely a relevant problem though, in fact, I find myself wondering, even as I type this why I devoted so much time to explain the fact that a fandom identity may lead to a stereotype that people who have nothing to do with it might judge harshly. It's bullshit, and it's frustrating but I think it's definitely a more of a symptom than a cause.

A possible cause of this symptom is, in my opinion, a much more serious problem. I'm talking of course about fandom toxicity.

I've touched on this earlier to inform the previous point, but, allow me to be blunt, generally speaking, fandoms are fucking shit, the gatekeepers, the "real" fans, and those that attach a sense of ownership to the thing they claim to love, serve only to hurt the thing they profess to support by making any community of fans it might have inhospitable to newcomers. That's if they don't outright harass new people (and sometimes long-established contributors to the product) away from it because it was taken in a direction they didn't agree with. A lot has happened to showcase this breed of "fan" since I started writing this post all that time ago, among the most notable, the Rick & Morty Schezuan sauce fiasco, proof if further proof be needed that Rick & Morty fans do not understand Rick & Morty. (a fact which has caused me to go from an enthusiastic blabbermouth about the show to the point of being almost embarrassed to be known to like it for fear of association.)  and the less said about Star Wars fans lately, the better. A casual observer could be forgiven for thinking that Star Wars fans don't actually like Star Wars, but for some reason, like to pretend they do or once did. An even more casual observer could be forgiven for thinking that anything that could be so loved by a certain type of Star Wars fan couldn't possibly be worth bothering with.

The inevitable cause of this problem is, to a degree, popularity, and I'm not talking about things being better before they went "all mainstream" but in the words of Terry Pratchett "the intelligence of the creature known as the crowd is the square root of the number of people in it."

The point here is, anything with sufficient exposure and popularity will have a toxic element to the fandom, just by law of percentages, unfortunately, there's not much we can do about that. It also means that as long as fandom identities exist, there will always be toxic shitweasels to taint the image.

Even in spite of that though, since starting to write this all that time ago, I've come across groups of really nice people that were brought together by the very thing I've spent this post decrying, and who, there's a good chance would share my opinion on this stuff on the whole.  The difference is these people never took their status as fans as an indicator of...well, status. so who am I to tell them they can't casually refer to each other by a collective name?

So it appears, I've travelled a very long road to explain why fandoms can often be a bit shit, as well as just some of the negative impact being a "bad fan", can have. So don't be that, being a fan of something is supposed to be a good thing, let's not ruin it.

I don't know whether I pity or envy the people I've decried in this post, on the one hand, I despair at their conduct and think whatever they're a fan of deserves better fans. On the other, I wish I had so few problems that I could get that worked up over some of the things that they do.


TL:DR obsessive, or I suppose "competitive" fans can be the absolute worst, that thing you like is cool, stop being a dick to people who agree with you and maybe people outside will stop seeing you as Jenkins the Greifer.

Review: Avengers: Infinity War

Warning: this review was written largely by the seat of the authors pants with no plan to speak of, as such, there may be spoilers at some point, but I'll try to restrict them as much as possible

At the time of writing this review it is May 3rd 2018, the 10-year anniversary of the release of Iron Man, and by extension, the 10-year anniversary of the formation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I can't help but wonder why they didn't wait to release Infinity War today, it just seems like it would be more appropriate,, but oh well, a minor detail. I struggle to think how to open this review as this isn't just a regular summer blockbuster, this is the lead-in to the climax of what, for many, will be the entire story of the MCU, a project that has changed the landscape of big-budget film-marketing, probably forever, I say it will be the entire story for many because I honestly don't see many but the die-hards sticking around, at least consistently, after Avengers 4. I like these as much as anyone but a climax is a climax, and I doubt I'll clamor to see what happens after the end of a 10-year series, I'll keep up of course, but I don't think I'll scramble to see the new line of movies as soon as they're out the way I've been doing...unless of course it's part of my job to do so...

 *cough*someonehiremetoreviewstufforyou *cough* 

excuse me. Anyway, this is the conclusion to the story every film so far has been building up to. So, how does it handle?

The movie sets the tone right away with a real ball-breaker of a pre-title-card sequence, letting you feel the stakes for this one right off the bat. The movie wastes no time in establishing our villain as the biggest threat our heroes have ever faced. Thanos has been knocking around in the MCU turning up in the odd scene and teaser here and there for a while now, so I expected them to save the first time we see him actually do something for at least the mid-point. Nope....nope...he's right in there getting his hands dirty from the word "go".

another surprise involving Thanos is just how much care seems to have gone into his character, Marvel movies typically have a "forgettable villain" problem, and sometimes even the memorable ones can be pretty one-note, but Infinity War really is Thanos's movie, he's a fully realised and fleshed-out character who truly believes he's doing the right thing. I'd almost say it treats him as more of a protagonist than the heroes, but then with so many heroes, it can be difficult to zero in on a protagonist. 

That said the balancing act of utilizing so many characters and locations is pulled off very well, there's even some room for worldbuilding here and there. On the side of the heroes, the MVP status has to go to Robert Downey Jr in my opinion, Tony Stark/Iron Man is the original hero of the MCU and has gone through the most development as a character, and you see so much of it on display here, if there was one specific protagonist for the heroes in this one I'd say it would have to be him. 

That said, this is still very much an Avengers movie, and it knows what you came to see. There are fun cameos and unusual character interactions aplenty, Thor's interactions with the Guardians of the Galaxy, particularly Rocket and Groot got a fair few chuckles out of me. There isn't as much time for character interaction as I might have liked, as there is a lot that this movie has to get done, and even then it's definitely a "part 1" movie. For once I believe that the story they wanted to tell here actually needed two parts to tell it. But this part culminates in one of the most satisfying collections of cameo-spots in a battle scene I've ever witnessed, there are a couple of people who don't show up but apart from them, most everyone's there doing their thing.

Then there's the ending, which I'm sure you've at least heard by now, is really heavy for a Marvel movie, like I said, there are real stakes here, and they're more keenly felt than in any other entry in the series I think.

In summary, I don't think you can really appraise an Avengers film traditionally, particularly one as long into a series as this one, if you're not at least familiar with the lore you're going to be lost here, but with the amount of story that has happened I can't really name that as a criticism, you wouldn't start a TV show with the series finale and expect to understand it, you shouldn't do the same here.

But taken as the climax to a long-running series, or at least the first part of it Infinity War is a definite must-see for Marvel fans, even if you leave the theatre going "ow" 

Why I don't write about disability

Okay so, it's been a few months since my last update, so I figured something was overdue, I had given thought to packing the whole blog thing in, and talking to a camera on YouTube instead for the sake of more easily consumable content, but frankly, my words come far more easily when written, I still might make a video component to the content here, using the blogs as a kind of prototype script or something, but a few attempts at vlogging have taught me that talking to a camera causes my mind to go blank, so I'd rather type things up for the sake of  coherence. 

As for subject matter, I couldn't really think of a way to approach this organically, but it might strike some that know me better as odd, that I don't tend to mention disability an awful lot, I mean, you'd think that I would, right?

Full disclosure, this isn't just talking about writing, this extends to the videos I put out, the performance work I've done for my uni courses, everything really. Unless unavoidable, which, when being anecdotal it sometimes is, I've made a point of avoiding the subject of disability altogether when possible. The only notable exception to this is when I do stand-up, people see a disabled guy on stage they expect jokes about it, far be it from me to deny them. Nobody has really asked why I don't write about it despite being more than qualified to do so, but I have mentioned my situation on this blog so it does feel like something of an elephant in the room that I should at some point address. 

There are a few reasons, most of which boil down to my personal wants, foibles, and hang-ups, but broadly speaking, I never wanted to be thought of as a disability figure, not even succeeding "in spite of" disability. The basic reason for this is, frankly, I don't see it as important. It's not relevant to a lot of the stuff I do, my disability doesn't affect my ability to form sentences, therefore it shouldn't come into the equation in my writing. I originally wanted to put content out there and build an audience that would not even know I was disabled so that if someone was surprised to find I was, I could just be like "oh did I not mention that?" (hey, you never know, if I build an audience on YouTube that doesn't read this blog it might still happen) 

Another reason for this is probably something to do with my anxiety, and my borderline obsessive need to be as self-aware as possible. I always felt like if I let my disability influence what I do in any way, then on some level, I was still allowing it to control my life or the content I produce. (Yes, I am aware of the fact that utterly rejecting it to this extent is every bit as "influenced" by it as writing about it would be, but if I can write without mentioning it, then it didn't affect my writing did it?) I get no enjoyment out of writing about it save the occasional bit of catharsis if I'm complaining about the way the world or people in it treats me and those in similar positions. 

But that's the thing, I never want to become the person who shouts and complains about the things he doesn't like, popular though such content proves to be from other figures. (unless I'm talking about writing or entertainment, of course, I'll bitch about that 'till the cows come home.) This, coupled with my obsessive self-awareness and anxiety-driven perpetual guilt, renders me unable, in most cases, to voice my displeasure about anything related to my disability, without feeling like I'm just whingeing.

Again, this is very much my hang-up, but the fact remains that I am subconsciously unable to separate legitimate complaint from whining like a spoiled child. Rationally, I know the difference, but my brain (which you should get used to my reference to as a separate, almost hostile entity) makes me feel like those are the same thing. I've so long since internalized the idea that I should "stop whining and get on with it" that I now can't have a problem, no matter how well-founded, without that message overpowering my thought-process. 

This would be fine, after all, it has allowed me to develop pretty decent coping skills, except for the fact that I feel exactly as whiny and petulant for complaining when I have every reason to do so, as I do when I'm just in a bad mood and fancy a moan. I can no longer separate writing about disability from complaining about it, which I can't separate from whining about it, which I don't like to do, so I don't do it. 

There's also the fact that there's generally stuff I'd just rather write about, I also quietly resent the assumption that I would want to write about disability in the first place. Again, my hang-up, but if someone asks me why I don't write about disability, or suggests that I do, I can't help but feel like the implication there is that I can't have something to say about anything else. I know that's not what (most) people meant, but that's what it feels like. All told I absolutely despise the thought of identifying by my status as a disabled person. Despite what some others may tell you it is not in fact "who I am" or "part of my identity" it is a single facet of my existence that should not be fucking relevant to any other part thereof, no matter how many times I am shown that we, as a species are simply "not there yet."