Reasons Why I Love Marvel Films

(an open letter of appreciation to everyone involved with the MCU that will never get read but that I want to write anyway)

I've been on a major Marvel movie kick lately, and I've been thinking about why they are so enjoyable.  Here's what I've come up with so far.

1)  A legitimate effort at fun has been made - Every day, it seems like the news is full of new horrors. People are killing each other for no legitimate reason.  Things are disappearing or being used up. Both America and the world seem to be increasingly divided.  People are just plain hateful to each other based on differences which make no difference.  Our political landscape is filled with a wide array of non-choices we'll have to pick from in a few month.

One of the greatest uses of entertainment is being able to escape all that, even for 120 minutes, and Marvel films do that so well.  The interplay between the characters is always a delight.  The snark between Hawkeye and Quicksilver in Age of Ultron. Tony Stark bating...pick a character.  Anyone.  Everyone, really.  Ant Man in Iron Man's wiring or in Sam's Falcon suit. Ant Man getting punched in the face by Hope.  Happy getting taken down by the Widow.  Spiderman and Bucky.  (Spiderman and everybody.) The entire Bucky/Sam dynamic.  One of my favorite scenes of all time was in Civil War when all those huge, ridiculously powerful guys are crammed into that old Volkswagen and Bucky asks Falcon to move his seat but Sam refuses.  It was short, little compared to the huge drama going on, but it was perfect.  My immediate thought was, "Actual Crap Guys Do."  I still snicker thinking about it.

And don't even get me started on Deadpool.  That entire film is just a gift.

2)  A legitimate effort at more than just escapism has also been made - Because they're not just fluff.  Even when we laugh at the one-liners, we can come away from the films thinking seriously about important concepts.  Loyalty (and who deserves it), purpose, self-definition, coping with situations that we can't control, the need for second chances, who gets to write history and tell stories, the effects of conflict and violence on the macro and micro level, it's all in there.  If you don't believe me, go to Tumblr for about five minutes and look at the way that talking about Marvel films is allowing people to talk about the very same real-world issues they help people escape for a minute, too.

It's a little like Shakespeare to me.  (I'm going somewhere with this.  I promise.  Don't throw things or pass out.)  He used these fabulous characters and riveting stories to present important ideas.  Mercutio is fabulous, so sparkly he almost steals the entire play from that other moody teen, but what we need to learn from him is that his excess destroys him and that friends can get caught up in our drama whether we intend them to or not.  Hamlet, with all his intelligence and sublime skill with language, teaches us it is possible to wait too long and that everybody suffers from it.  Macbeth shows us what happens when ambition subsumes loyalty and character.  And on and on.  This is a whole separate blog post from me, so I'll stop here.  What I'm saying is that the MCU films do a lot of this same kind of thing.  There's something deeper at the core of them that makes them more than blockbuster entertainment.

3) Even though it can't be easy to be an actor for these films, they always look like they like each other and like what they do - I know that being a part of something like the MCU has got to be a big choice for an actor for a lot of reasons.  I assume they are physically rigorous films, especially since many of the actors seem to be doing as many of their own stunts as they can.  They also seem to require long commitments to the franchise.  I don't know if that's a bad thing or not, but I'm assuming it limits what actors are allowed to do otherwise even though most of the MCU films do well at the box office.

I also figure that being a part of something like MCU denies those actors a great deal of the pleasure of being an anonymous person.  I'm just a lowly school teacher, nothing so public and glorified as a film actor, but I actually love to go hang out with my friends who live in other cities just for the sheer pleasure of not having to worry about who I'm going to see that might know me. I'll never forget the time I got one of my ear piercings redone and came to school the next day to be told, "We saw you getting your ears done."  I hadn't seen them, and the entire thing was paranoia-inducing.  Where were they?  Why did they care?  Was I floating around out there in a Snapchat getting my ears repierced?  Jesus....  If it's like that for me as a public school teacher, can you even imagine what it is like to be one of the actors in these films?  Is there anywhere they can enjoy being just them and not Cap or Nat, Bucky or Tony Stark?  I hope so.  Everybody deserves a place to be simply themselves.

The biggest thing I guess I'm talking about is the apparently endless parade of interviews and convention panels.  Because I have a board on Pinterest called Geekery that I add stuff to from Doctor Who, Star Wars, MCU films, etc., I see a bajillion interview pins (again, probably mostly assembled from things from Tumblr, that frothing bastion of fandom, God bless it).  It has to get old.  I wonder how many thousand times they get asked the same questions.  Some of the things I see they've been asked are things I wouldn't be able to respond to well, but they always seem to stay classy (reasons they're actors and I'm not, probably).

In spite of all these things that would be drawbacks to me, they also always look like they like each other and are having a lot of fun. They support each other, defend each other from the really brainless, tactless, and crass questions.  I really hope that's true.  I hope that they look forward to making these movies and mess around on set and during those ridiculous interviews and are basically just happy.  Maybe they don't all hang out at one of the hundred-and-eighty-seven-guys-named-Chris's houses on the weekend, but while they're there, it seems like they're having a blast. It increases the enjoyment of the films to me to think that it's in some way an effort of friends.

4) The female characters kick ass - The women are as interesting and strong as the men and nobody acts like that's anything other than the way it should be.  I have loved Wonder Woman since I was a little girl small enough to fit into Underoos, and I have always, always wanted to see a film in which she was not a cameo or just done wrong.  Marvel doesn't seem to have that issue. They aren't afraid of women who can hold their own. I can't wait to see Hope Pym as the Wasp.  When the Scarlet Witch blasted Vision through the floor in Civil War, I (silently) cheered.  Kick that ass, girl.  I'm still catching up on the Daredevil series, but Electra is so very well done, deadly and complicated.  And yes.  Like the rest of America, I do want an entire Black Widow movie.  She deserves it. (And throw some Red Room Bucky up in that, too.)

5) They are not afraid of brokenness - All of the MCU heroes have big, huge faultlines running right up the middle of them.  Serious things have happened to them, things they couldn't control.  They've made choices the best they could or had all their choices taken from them.  Accidents have happened.  They lost things.  They lost people they loved.  They've lost part or all of themselves.

Bucky is the poster boy for this and one of my very favorite characters in the entire MCU. Each time we see him in the films, he is picking the pieces of his life up and sorting through them. Even though he has been as destroyed as a person can be, with the help of his friends, he is trying to put those pieces back in place. Sebastian Stan does an amazing job showing this process.  Bucky can't be easy to play.

This is what real life does.  All that ugliness I mentioned at the top that surrounds us every day is doing this stuff to us, and we have to pick ourselves up and deal with whatever remains.  I think the MCU heroes do an excellent job of giving hope that it is possible to stand up and keep trying.  Sure, we're never going to be kidnapped by HYDRA, twisted by the Red Room, recreated by the mind stone, but we are going to get knocked down, hurt in hearts, minds, and bodies, and there's a lot to be said for seeing survival of the worst in fiction.  It's important to have stories that show us people can overcome.

6) The villains are complicated - As a million little Loki fangirls will attest, even Marvel's bad guys aren't simple.  Maybe it's the richness of the decades of source material and all the incarnations they've gone through as different writers shaped the characters, but instead of just big powerful evil, there's always a reason. There's always a backstory.  They aren't Iagos; they're Claudiuses. (And I promise, that's my last Shakey reference.) The Marvel villains are the flip side of the hero's brokenness.  They show us what happens when you choose NOT to get up.  When you choose to hold on the the darkness instead of finding some way to purge it or leave it behind.  They are as important in that dynamic as the heroes are.

My favorite of them is almost inevitably Wilson Fisk.  D'Onofrio always amazes me with the depth he brings to anything he plays, and his portrayal of the many, many layers behind Kingpin is one of the main reasons I like Daredevil so much.  The character is absolutely terrifying, utterly ruthless, but as the details of his becoming are revealed, it becomes possible to have compassion for him.  Then he decapitates somebody with a car door, and you are not quite sure how to feel.  That's the way a good villain is supposed to function.

7)  The characters grow and change - Captain America has undergone this beautiful and complex transformation, but all of them evolve.  The Tony Stark we saw in Civil War wasn't the same guy from Iron Man.  All the characters in Daredevil are shifting, and it's impressive to watch.  Even fairly newly-introduced characters like the Scarlet Witch and the Black Panther have changed dramatically from who they were when we first met them.  Others are poised on the edges of that kind of change, especially Bucky, and I hope we get to see it happen. Real life leaves marks.  When characters don't change due to what they encounter, they're allegories, and while allegories are interesting, I don't think we learn as much about survival from them as we do from more dynamic characters.

And I could probably go on, but I'll stop here.  It may seem kind of an odd thing for me to write about, but it's what was on my mind today.  Gotta go watch a movie.

Spectre

I saw Spectre last night, and I'm still processing it. Here are my thoughts after only one viewing.

 (spoilers follow, so consider yourself warned)

Bond movies have been a favorite of mine since childhood.  I remember watching marathons of them on early satellite TV with my cousins.  Even the campiest ones, Moonraker and Diamonds are Forever, are highly entertaining in their own way.

Somewhere along the way, though, the people in charge decided to sacrifice the humanity of the character for eye-catching spectacle.  The person of Bond was obscured by sharp suits, fast cars, faster women with lurid names, and semi-witty banter filled with double entendre.  During the films just prior to the Sony reboot, only Timothy Dalton had a few moments where the man who was pulling the trigger was allowed to show at all.  Of course, even those glimmers were then hastily covered up by Wayne Newton and ninjas....

I love the Daniel Craig Bond films.  Especially after I went on a kick and read several of the original Ian Fleming novels last year, I think Craig's Bond is closer to the original feeling of the works than almost any of the others since the first two Connery films.  In Casino Royale, we see the beginning of the transformation that is going to create him, and it is brutal in every possible way.  The scene where Bond has to kill a man to earn his 00 status is harsh, and I think it was the right way to start the series because we see the price of it graphically. Sure, he looks damn fine in a suit and is still suave with the ladies, but for the first time in any of the movies, we see the private moments and understand what is being laid down and given up for him to become 007.

The other films in the series have been a slow build, bringing in characters we know in a way that contextualizes them to a degree missing in the older films.  M (both of them) have flaws and personal agendas, backgrounds that reappear.  Moneypenny is fiesty, and we can finally understand why she feels the way she does about Bond; she's taken out of the 1950s adoring secretary mold.  The new Q is more than a deus-ex-machina, and his personal skills are on display more than an endless supply of improbable gadgets.  Even the villains have been getting more personal and complicated.  Thus, after the end of Skyfall, all of the players are on stage and we were finally ready for Spectre.

I have heard a lot of criticism for Spectre, and I guess I understand some of it after Skyfall, which as far as I am concerned stands as one of the top Bond films ever made, but I think people are missing the point.  Bond evolved during the run of the reboot films.  He suffered and matured.  Increasingly, even though he continued to be flawless in the performance of his duties, he was growing hollow inside.  That's where we meet him in Spectre, the cynical mask over something almost completely dead inside him, the man who is ready to take out one last enemy and die in the process.

Enter Blofeld, one of the archetypal Bond superfiends.  It isn't easy to do him well because he is utterly evil, mostly insane, filled with hatred, and backed by an army loyal to the point of fanaticism.  There's a reason why he's the model for Doctor Evil from Austin Powers.  With a poor portrayal, he's camp, and there are certainly examples of that in the earlier films.

Christopher Walk does one of the best supervillains I've ever seen.  He really sells the broken mind of Blofeld, the fact that everything he is doing seems utterly reasonable and important to him.  There is no camp in this Blofeld.  The scene in which Bond is put into the chair toward the end to be tortured is spare, and unlike so many of the Bond villain traps, it is not overly elaborate or too far beyond the range of what is possible in the real world.  The fact that Bond has past experience with him, that Blofeld has been destroying things in Bond's world for almost all his life, was a perfect touch to me.  It was something Bond knew subconsciously and was chasing, but the perfect symmetry of it, and the childish hate of Blofeld for the "cuckoo" who he perceives as having taken his father's affection made sense.

And I wish we had seen more of the backstory.  I keep feeling like lots of this movie wound up on a cutting room floor somewhere since it clocks in at 2.5 hrs anyway.  I wonder if they will release an extended version of some kind.  I kind of hope they do.  Parts of the film felt like we were only seeing moments that had to be kept.  Lots of the stuff with Blofeld felt that way.

Then there is Madeleine.  She's a little bit young, to be sure, but she's a good match.  I like that she outright rejects Bond at first, reminding him that there are some women who won't just leap into his bed because he's tasty.  I like that she shows him up with the gun on the train, forcing him to revisit his assumptions about what she is capable of.  I like that she is willing to walk away from him because she just can't watch him continue to do something that is destroying him.  She makes him think about what it is he's doing in a way he hadn't allowed himself to do since Casino Royale.  She's a little like what Vesper might have been for him if she hadn't been on Spectre's leash, only even more because of what she saw and experienced with her own father.

To me, then, in Spectre, all the pieces snapped into place.  When the film began, we saw the Bond car as a single piece of chassis up on blocks, destroyed almost beyond the point of reclamation.  It's a not-too-subtle metaphor for Bond himself.  Q has it in restoration, though, and when we end, through all the revelations and the confrontation with Blofeld and he relationship he builds with Madeleine, both Bond and the Aston-Martin have been made whole.

I am sure there will be more Bond films.  It's too profitable a franchise for the modern studios not to try to milk, but I would really be okay if there weren't any more for a long time, or if, Doctor-Who-like, the "Bond" who was in those films was not supposed to be the same man anymore.  I think Craig's Bond has earned his happiness the hard way, and I'd like to think that he gets to enjoy it indefinitely.

Through Linoleum

"They used to photograph Shirley Temple through gauze.  They should photograph me through linoleum." ~ Tallulah Bankhead

Exactly.

One of the Freakiest Things I've Ever Seen

I'm watching the 2010 Macbeth with Patrick Stewart.  It's good, for Macbeth (I'm a Hamlet-ite).  I guess it would have been hard for it to be bad with Patrick Stewart in it.  There is, however, something in it that has scarred me for life:  the Witches.  They're terrifying.

Part of it is the way they move.  It's that slippery, fast-slow thing you often see ghosts do in horror films.  There's something about it that is deeply disturbing and that somehow impresses itself on the mind.  I really hate that.

Then there's the fact that they are, as you can clearly see here, dressed as old-fashioned nurses.  Why that adds to the creep-out factor I can't really say, but it does.  It truly, truly does.  Even the glasses on the one chick add to the overall "run-away" feeling.

 Watch them in action in the famous "Double-Double-Toil-and-Trouble" scene for yourself.  just don't expect to sleep afterward.

Hunger Games

As usual, I am more than a little behind on my viewing.  Tonight, I clicked onto my Amazon Prime Streaming account and saw The Hunger Games had been added to Prime Videos (i.e. - Free Stuff).  Even though it was going to keep me up "past my bedtime" (oh God.  how sad.), I decided I wanted to see it.

I've been putting off watching it for more reasons than the financial.  I really like the Hunger Games series.  I was afraid that they'd screw the movie up.  I hate it when movies take a perfectly good book and turn it into something else.  I could tell very early in the film that while a lot of it was going to be impossible to film because it happens in Katniss's head, the film makers had tried very hard to keep the feel and the spirit of the  books.

As disturbing as the books were, though, somehow the movie is even more.  I know I will have nightmares about it tonight.  And maybe, really, that's not the wrong reaction to have.  It SHOULD terrify.  It SHOULD cause grief, even if it's only a fiction.  When it stops moving us is when I think the problem has overtaken us.

My students asked me yesterday if they thought we were headed for a dystopia.  I told them it was entirely possible.  After NYC Mayor Bloomberg tells the citizens of his city that increased surveillance up to and including remote controlled drones will be a reality in their immediate future, I don't see how anyone could argue otherwise.  Maybe we won't be sitting around drinking Victory Gin or watching children kill in a Hunger Games, but the things these works warn us about are starting the seep in the cracks.

Of course, I could just be paranoid.  I could just have taught too many dystopian works too many times.  If it's all the same to you, though, I think I'll keep looking over my shoulder....

Cool Hand Luke (revisited)

"Cool Hand Luke, hell.  He's a natural-born worldshaker."  ~ Dragline, Cool Hand Luke

I just watched Cool Hand Luke again, and a couple of scenes really struck me this time.

The first was when Luke is out in the yard fighting Dragline.  He keeps getting knocked down, is broken and bloody, but he continues to stand up even though he knows Dragline is not going to stop hitting him, isn't going to be allowed to stop hitting him.  Everybody including Dragline keeps telling him to stay down, but he refuses.

The second scene happens just before they bring Luke back the second time and force him to dig and refill a ditch until he breaks.  He stumbles in to eat, and the dog guy who hates him because of what happened to one of the bloodhounds starts giving him problems in the form of a huge plate of rice which Luke must eat or go back to "the box" again.  Luke starts trying to eat it, and finally, he just puts his spoon down and stares at it dully.  You can see it on every line of his face that he knows he's headed back to what is becoming his own personal hell.  Everyone is quiet, and then suddenly, one of the men gets up, puts away his own empty plate, and as he heads for the door, he takes a huge spoonful of rice off Luke's plate and eats it.  No comment.  Just scoop, chew, swallow, and gone.  Then another does the same.  And another.  And another.  The scene fades out with more than half of the rice already gone and other spoons dipping in, with everybody helping to take some of his burden on themselves.

The last was near the end, after Luke runs for the last time and winds up in the church.  The expression on his face as he's put into the car is the final image we see of him.  (Deliberately vague to avoid spoilers.)  That same small smile has been on his lips so many times during the key events of the story.

Luke, the purposeless, the drifter, the lost, the broken, became something so much larger than just himself.  He becomes a legend, a hero, a source of hope for the men of the chain gang.  He was deeply uncomfortable with the role he found closing in on him, even tried to escape.  When he ran from the prison, he was running from these expectations as much as he was running from the physical walls and chains.  He could feel the need those men had for a rebel, someone stronger than the brutal men who were in charge of their lives.  They needed someone who could show in his every action and word that freedom was something one carried inside them, not something that was dependent on location and situation.  Ultimately, he accepts this, and he is redeemed by redeeming them.

The cost, of course, is proportionate to the gain....

It's not a film I watch often, but sometimes I just need to see it.  It reminds me of several things.  First, maybe the best thing, the most important thing, we can do is give somebody else hope.  Second, even if one ultimately loses, there is a kind of victory in refusing to give in.  Third, and honestly, not as happily, everybody has a breaking point.  No matter how strong their conviction, at some point and under the right stress, everybody will snap.  Fourth, breaking doesn't have to be the end of the story.  There can be something after the shattering of the soul if you're strong enough to scrape together all the shards and reassemble them into something like the original.

Maybe this was the best of all possible films for me to see right now.  I think I needed to remember some of these things.

And It Still Gets Me....

I just finished a two-day rewatch of the Lord of the Rings films, and I think as the last credits are rolling, I might be able to stop crying now.

Every time.  Every. Time.

Some of the tears are happy; some are not.  However, as Gandalf says at the end of Return of the King, "I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil."

So many different parts of these call out the strong emotion.  There are the tremendous acts in battle, the moments when the great leaders take their forces out against overwhelming odds and the best of courage can be seen.  There are the small moments, too, when an individual makes a choice, makes a difference.  There are victories over self and others; there are deaths and returns.  There are reunions and partings.  It would be almost impossible for me to make a list of every scene that moves me.

Each of the major characters is something we all wish we had.  Aragorn is the strong and trustworthy leader.  He is reluctant at first, but once he becomes committed, he refuses all obstacles.  Legolas and Gimli are true friends, loyal no matter what comes. Merry and Pippin show that everybody has the ability to grow up and put away silliness in order to "make good" of himself.   Frodo is the one who will sacrifice himself for a great cause even though he sees no special ability in himself.  Sam is the one who helps the one who is heavy-burdened when that one cannot help himself.  Gandalf is the source of wisdom who is wise enough to know that all too often the path has to be discovered step-by-stumbling-in-the-darkness-step by those who are walking it.

I think every person has a character with whom they identify.  Mine has always been Eowyn.  She always wants to do more than has been "ordained" for her.  She feels that she should be choosing her own path, defining herself and following the actions that she understands to be necessary instead of conforming to something that does not fit her, even if that conformity would give something like safety.  It is all summed up nicely in this exchange between Aragorn and her, which made it into the film pretty much unchanged:


ARAGORN: What do you fear, lady?

EOWYN: A cage. To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.

I am mostly afraid of the same thing.  There is so much, so very much to see, to do.  It is hard, though, to get out of the cage.  It is hard for me, like it was for her, to know where sane balance ends and the bars begin.

Look what happens, though, because she does leave the cage! I will always love Tolkien for stealing that bit from myth, that the Witch King falls only because she dares to follow her own ideas about how her life should be lived.  Sure, she winds up in love with Aragorn and that does not work out for her (yes.  I am aware that this pattern of useless dreams of guys who are already in love with the "elf chick" is also me.  so you can just shut up.), but she is a heroine in her own right.

I don't watch the LotR movies often, but I wanted to see them all back-to-back (or as reasonably close together as that can be done and a person get some sleep) because I realized that it had been a long, long time since I'd seen more than five minutes of them as I was flipping past a marathon on cable TV.  The beauty, the grandeur, the wonder of the whole story and the whole world Tolkien created still gets to me.  From the Ents to the Nazgul, from Moria to Gondor, from the beginning to the end, I don't think there could ever be a time when it was stale or "old-hat."  There is always some encouragement to be found, some new lesson to take away, some new facet of its loveliness to enjoy.  How marvelous.  How reassuring.

Le Voyage dans la lune

Even if you've never seen the whole thing or  weren't really aware of it at all, the still I have here of the big, cheesy moon with a rocket stuck in its eye is probably still familiar to you.  This film, 110 years old this year, has several iconic images in it that have been sampled by others for a long time.

Voyage to the Moon is worth your time for several reasons, actually.  First, that anything as delicate as film survived 110 years should demand your respect and at least one viewing.  However, a "pity view" isn't really what will go on.  You'll very quickly be pulled in to the fantastic strangeness of it all.  It seems as though we're only getting a piece of a larger story.  It would be interesting, in fact, for some good writer to take it and expand it.

Another reason is the beauty of it.  In some ways, it feels very old.  In others, though, it feels quite timeless.  The hand-colored version has gorgeous hues.  The costumes the characters wear and the sets in which they perform are incredibly elaborate given the brevity of the film (only about 15 min credits to ending titles).

Finally, there is the sheer whimsy of it.  It is very much a forerunner to all our modern "space sagas."  There are fanciful moon soldiers, astronomers who look more like magicians, highly theoretical and innovative (for the time) tech, pitched battles, last-minute escapes.  It's quite fun.

Therefore, if you haven't seen it, I encourage you to take a few minutes to watch it here.  I'd love to know what you thought of it when you're done.  You may have to click through to YouTube proper, but this is the only version of the whole thing I could find.....

Immortals (or, What the Cornbread HELL Were They Thinking?)

I am teaching a course in mythology at long last, and so I've sort of gotten interested in filmed versions of the Greek tales.  Tonight, I was flipping through my Netflix queue, and I noticed that I had, at some point, dumped Immortals in.  I'd had a good supper of breakfast (work that out....I'll wait...), and so I was ready to brave it.  After all, one of the world's most gorgeous men is in it, Henry Cavill.  (Don't believe me on that?  Okay.  Here...  Also, you have made him angry.)

I mean.  Really.  Shouldn't this alone make for a good movie?  The whole concept for awhile there seemed to be mostly unclothed Henry.  Any film with this as its main premise should be good.  Right?

Oh, hell-to-the-no.  Tarsim Singh's yellow filter and slow motion shot privileges need to be revoked immediately.  I don't know exactly whom to call about this, but I'm looking into it.  Not everything needs to look like saffron rice.  Not every kill (and my GOD but there were a lot of them)  needed to flip over in the air and spray a fountain of blood that fell drop by drop with a big "bawwwww" noise in the background when it happened.

And then there was what was so laughably called a plot.  I don't care where it came from.  If you're going to have a character named Theseus, he should do "Theseus-y" things.  Okay.  So there was sort of a labyrinth   There was sort of a Minotaur.  Sort of.

The thing that kills me is that the real story, the one you can find a summary of in your handy-dandy copy of Edith Hamilton is SO GOOD.  Why would you need to crap it up with a bunch of stuff that you STOLE...um...borrowed from other myths, other cultures, etc.  There's a reason we've been telling these stories for thousands of years folks....

It's not like there weren't some good actors in it, too.  The aforementioned Henry Cavill is good in everything I've seen him in.  He personally wasn't bad in this.  Since there were only about twenty lines of dialog total interspersed between all the slo-mo and yellowness, it's a bit hard to hold him responsible for this.  And he is so pretty...

Okay.  Okay.  I'll stop.

The highlight of the whole thing to me was Zeus.  The portrayal of the Olympian gods was actually fairly cool.  Their costumes were...interesting...but I liked the idea of them changing forms because they were perennially young and beautiful.  I mean you read it, but it doesn't sink in.  I had that moment when Athena was talking to Zeus at the beginning and told him now that she'd seen him in his "old man" disguise, he looked more like a father.  When he wasn't wearing the disguise, his behavior might have been paternal, but his appearance wasn't.  I never really considered that before.

I also would have loved to have known more about this "we're leaving mankind ALONE" mantra Zeus was singing.  The Greek gods I am familiar with could not be farther from this.  They hang out with, romance, support, hinder, kill off, and impregnate mortals like it's their full-time job.  Most especially, Zeus.  Hmm.....were we getting all philosopho-religious-new-agey there?

All in all, I think there should have been more Zeus.  His character felt like it had the potential to be fantastic, but instead, Singh wanted more scenes with oddly-painted, fantastically-costumed (what WAS that on the Oracle and her Sisters' heads?  Lampshades?  Am I wrong?), and dismembered people.  Oh, and more streams of blood.  I bet there was a "blood boy" on hand to splash it about upon demand.  I didn't stop to look that up in the credits, but I bet it's there.  Maybe two, even.

Sigh.  Yeah.  I'll stop.  I've made Zeus cry.  I'm a bad, bad person.

So.  It wasn't the worst movie I've ever seen, but I definitely think it's not a "do-over."  Maybe if I hadn't gone into it expecting a movie about Theseus to be....well...about Theseus, I would have liked it better.  I know.  The ultimate social movie gaffe.  Consider my face red.

Two Movies

Tonight, I actually watched two films.  I saw both Abraham Lincoln:  Vampire Hunter and Avengers Assemble.  I had wanted to watch both for ages.  How different was my reaction to the two.

Abraham Lincoln was in so many ways a disappointment.  I was surprised to learn that the author of the book was actually in charge of the screen play.  It was so completely unrecognizable as the same work that I just assumed somebody else was in control of it.  I wonder why they went away from the very engaging text.  I cannot say that everything they changed was to make it "easier to film" or something like that, changes that sometimes have to occur because of the limits of the technical aspect of film.  These changes were just....bad changes.  It lessened the power of the story to me.  If the change you make makes it worse, don't change it.

The second movie, Avengers Assemble, was actually much better than I had hoped for.  Again, Joss Whedon turns out an amazing work.  To have that many strong personalities in one picture was a gamble.  But the dynamic on the screen was so close to what they are in the comics, not necessarily close, but working together and forming bonds - against their own will and better judgment - in the process.

It has to be said, too, that at times, I could feel the spirit of Firefly in the movie.  Mal would have been right at home with them, although let's face it, he and Tony Stark would have issues, problems, and miscommunications applenty.  Everything I've ever seen Whedon turn out has that same beautiful strength to it, that same feeling that no matter what our differences are, no matter what our individual quirks, it is always better if we come together.

I really hope they will continue to make more of these films.  They are well-written and great good fun.  Two of my favorite scenes were when Captain America was handing out assignments and he told the Hulk, "You...SMASH."  It was perfect.  Also perfect was the scene in which Loki is running his mouth off and is then picked up by the feet and thrashed back and forth against the floor until he cannot move or speak by the Hulk.  He says something to the effect of, "I am a GOD..." and then he gets his butt handed to him on a platter.  Nice.  A quick extra favorite came when Thor and the Hulk were in a lull in the battle and the Hulk side-punched Thor through a building.  It was snarky, sneaky, and in perfect keeping with everything that had gone on with them previously.  Nice continuity.  Nice characterization.

I will watch Avengers again.  It is pleasant and well done.  As for Abraham Lincoln, if I never see it again, that will be okay.  I am going to go back and reread the book to get that good storyline back in my head.  It's so clouded with crap right now from the movie that I am losing my liking for it.  It was too good a book to let the movie version be the last encounter I have with it.  What a shame when bad films happen to good books.

Captain America

(in which I watched a movie)

I seem to remember a TV show for Captain America when I was little.  It was of that Wonder Woman variety, super cheesy I'm sure, but I have always remembered the shield.  I don't remember anything else but that.  Therefore, unlike most superhero films of recent years, I really didn't know what to expect.

I was charmed.

I shouldn't be surprised by that.  Right now, whoever is controlling those Marvel films is turning out some very engaging stuff.  I really and truly love the Iron Man films.  Part of that, granted, is because of Robert Downey Jr., an actor whom I find charming, intelligent, and humorous, but the writing is fun, the plot is fast-paced, and the characters have a depth that I respect.

There was something more with Captain America, though.  Maybe it's that they focused so much on him as a developing individual rather than just, "Oh, hey.  Lookit.  I can has powers now."  The powers were important, but the film was much more about just how far he would go, just how much he was willing to give up to do the thing he believed was right.

I can hear you muttering "Boy Scout" behind your hands, and you're right.  He was one.  But, as I tell my seniors every year, our epic heroes/comic book superheroes tell us a lot about what we value, what we as a culture think is most important.  He had strength without arrogance, a willingness (even a drive) to help his fellow man, badassedness and total fearlessness on the field of battle, a background rich in technology and gadgets, a history of overcoming and rising from humble origins, and (and here I feel a blush stain my maidenly cheeks) physical beauty.  I think that's pretty much the catalog of virtues from America.  The only bell he didn't ring was super intelligent, but I think Iron Man does that about eight times anyway, so Captain America doesn't have to worry about it so much.

As far as the superhero movies go, I will have to watch it again.  That is high praise for any film, really, since I don't even half-watch most of them the first time.  It was nice to have the mythos of that character re-examined and to refresh hazy memories.  Maybe someday they will reboot Wonder Woman in the same way.

Coriolanus

I just saw the new version of Coriolanus with Ralph Fiennes and Gerard Butler.  I've never studied Coriolanus before, so every bit of this was new to me.  It was brutal from beginning to ending, well-adapted to a modern urban warfare setting.  I wonder what Shakespeare in his day intended us to take from it.

Coriolanus did indeed have flaws, but I am almost positive that his audience and a modern one won't necessarily read this play in the same way.  To me, there seems to be so much more fault in the people of Rome than in the tragic hero.  He dedicates his life to them, and yes, he is proud, hubris creeping its destructive tendrils in very early on.  However, in many ways, he seems not to be too proud.  Instead, he seems virtuous for refusing to "play the game" at the cost of his own integrity.  He is doomed from the moment he leaves the battlefield.  He is placed in a world of lies and manipulation, and even though according to him the world does not work this way, it grinds over him just the same.

If you haven't seen this new version, it is well worth your time.  Coriolanus doesn't get a lot of performances, and when you watch it, I think you will see why it is less frequently staged.  This version, though, gives a lot to think about after the final credits roll.  That's more than I can say for a lot of the movies I've seen....

The Wizard of Oz

Cowardly Lion: Courage! What makes a king out of a slave? Courage! What makes the flag on the mast to wave? Courage! What makes the elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist, or the dusky dusk? What makes the muskrat guard his musk? Courage! What makes the sphinx the seventh wonder? Courage! What makes the dawn come up like thunder? Courage! What makes the Hottentot so hot? What puts the "ape" in apricot? What have they got that I ain't got?
Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin Woodsman: Courage!
Cowardly Lion: You can say that again! Huh?
~The Wizard of Oz, 1939 film
________________________________________________

This came today from Out of Print Clothing.  I've been waiting almost a month for it since I pre-ordered it when they first announced they were going to make it.  When they first brought out the design, it was only in their children's tees, and needless to say, I could not quite see myself fitting into one of those.

I love the design of the shirt.  It has everything I admire, vintage charm, my beloved books, famous art, archetypal characters, nifty colors.  More than this, though, while I've never been a hardcore WoO fan, I realized lately this work has started to sneak into the corners of my life while I haven't been paying attention in unexpected ways.  I reflected on how pervasive it is today as I unfolded my shirt.

Dorothy's Shoes
National History Museum

First and foremost is the famous pair of red sparkly shoes.  Dorothy's shoes have become an item of fascination for me.  I finally got to see the real thing (or one incarnation of them, anyway, since multiple pairs from the film exist) in the National History Museum when I was in DC.  To me, they represent the idea that we have the power to make the changes that we need for ourselves, power that we don't even know we have, magic if we would only recognize it and employ it properly.

When we were in London, we saw The Wizard of Oz musical, and something else about the shoes struck me for the first time.  Dorothy sees the shoes as a burden while the Witch is trying to get them.  The thing she is trying to get rid of, the thing she hates about herself, actually turns out to have been the solution to her problem all along.  She couldn't understand what was important or enviable about the gift she'd been given.  I wonder how often the rest of us are in that same situation about the gifts that we have.

The other thing I seem to be surrounded by without it being intentional is character references.  They keep coming up in odd places.  One of my best friends and I have long said, "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!" as one of our little in-jokes for when something stupid has occurred and we need everybody to look away.  I have an intermittent conversation/joke with somebody about the Tin Man.  The bit of song concerning the Scarecrow, "If I only had a brain," has been used as a codephrase more than once with my friends and family for acts of great "brilliance," personal or otherwise.  I have thought several times about getting one of the signs about the flying monkeys to put in my classroom.

Palladium Theater, London

Everybody has a favorite character, I guess.  I'm not much on Dorothy despite the shoes.  I enjoyed it in Wicked when she gets turned into the enemy, in fact.  It satisfied something I'd felt since I was a child; all that wide-eyed innocence and checked gingham just can't be trusted....  I love the trio of guys.  I go back and forth between the Scarecrow with his wonderful loyalty, humor, and secret cleverness and the Tin Man with his backstory and his brave actions motivated by feeling he doesn't even know he has as my favorites.

Just as everyone has a favorite, I think everybody probably recognizes themselves in one of the characters to some degree or another, too.  I personally am not a singing-ingenue Dorothy or a head-scratching Scarecrow.  I can't say I'm a hollow-chested Tin Man, either.  I see myself in the Cowardly Lion.  When they sing their songs, his is the one that resonates with me.  I have "the heart" and the "brain."  Too often what I think I need to grasp what I want in life is "the nerve."  I think too much (like my beloved Hamlet) about the consequences, the what-comes-next, and I do not take the opportunities that are put in front of me.  Not in everything, in so many things I have no fear at all, but in the really serious things, the issues of the heart, I am just like the Lion, looking for a hiding place, quaking in fear.

Maybe someday, I'll have his epiphany, realize that the courage I need is inside me all the time, "be a lion, not a mowess."  That is, after all, the overarching message of the entire work, that everything you need has always been there waiting for you the whole time to discover:  your true home, your true inner strength, your intelligence, your courage, your love.  That thing you think you never had or had lost was actually just waiting with love and patience for you to wrap your hands around it and take it up again.  It was never lost at all.

Perhaps that is what makes all incarnations of The Wizard of Oz intriguing and delightful whether it's Syfy's Tin Man, that musical in the West End, the 1939 film, or the original book.  This is what makes it such a rich source for reinterpretation and myth of its own.  It's so strong that it can even be deconstructed, rebuilt through a different lens and survive.  Take a look at Wicked (both the book and the musical, two very different creatures) for proof of that.  (I find it interesting that even though the focus character changes completely with Wicked, so much of the message stays remarkably the same....)

Tomorrow, I'll wear my new shirt happily.  Maybe it will give me some additional fortitude to face whatever challenges the day might bring me.  There's no way that could possibly be a bad thing.  I'll take any help I can get.

Midnight in Paris

Oh, it's lovely.  Lovely, funny, smart, and wonderful.  It's what movies so rarely are.  I laughed.  I clapped my hands in delight.  I loved it thoroughly.  In one viewing, and not even all the way through that first viewing, Midnight in Paris made it onto the list of my favorite films.

I already know that I will be getting the DVD version from amazon next month as a part of my birthday indulgences.  I might watch it again while I've still got it as a 24-hr. streaming rental.  I'm sure I missed things while I watched it that first time.

I loved the way they drew the characterizations of the famous artists and writers.  Some of it was caricature.   Hemingway talked exactly the way he wrote.  I freaking loved that, though.  I wanted to hug him for being wonderful.  Some of it was sort of dead on.  I loved the whole thing with Scott and Zelda, Hemingway and the bullfighter whose name I can never remember.  All I could think about was THE SUN ALSO RISES!!!

I also loved that they kept bringing people in.  I felt like Gil did when he saw Josephine Baker, sort of gobsmacked and then sort of giddy and willing to go with it.  It was glorious.

I wasn't quite sure where they were going to go with it, and I won't spoil that here, but I thought it was perfect. The bit with the detective was one of my favorite parts.  If you watch it, let me know what you think about that.

All in all, it made a couple of very good points, but not necessarily the points I've heard other people say about it.  This isn't a movie condemning dreamers at all.  It's a movie that shows that there is magic in the world after all, but that one needs to be cautious about where one's eyes are focused.  That is something I can totally agree with.

The Warrior's Way

I just watched this tonight.  I remember seeing the commercials for it when it was coming out and thinking, "Hmm..." but I am always about four or five years behind the new releases.  Oh boy, did I miss it with this one. It sort of had it all...

• Awesome freaky circusness  - Check.  In the middle of the desert no less.  You can't beat that with a stick. I don't know what it is about a creepy circus that turns up the booyah (my favorite word right now if you haven't noticed) on a setting, but for some reason, it just does.  Works here, too.  Is it logical that there's circus with a half-built Ferris wheel hell-and-gone from everywhere else?  No.  But, then again, neither are the...
• Ninjas - And you have an assortment to choose from.  You have your bamboo ninjas, your boat ninjas, your snow ninjas, your super-bad in-town cowboy-killer ninjas, and what I like to think of as your cannon-fodder ninjas.  
• Cowboys - Creepy disfigured evil ones.  (Getting killed by the evil ninjas.  You're going to be happy when it happens.  Trust me.)
• An absolutely splendid formerly-ninja hero (who is now more or less samurai even if this isn't from Japan) - And here we pause while I have a fit of the vapours over the pretty man with the blade.  (Lawsy.)  
• A baby - Who is cute.  And who gets carried by the lovely sword-swinging stoic samurai man.
• A sword-toting chick with an axe to grind - You know I am a fan of girls getting revenge.
• Geoffrey Rush - Need I say more?
• Magic swords, subdued romance (because it's from Asia ((sigh))), and Matrix-like fight scenes

Are you not watching this movie yet?  What is wrong with you?  Go.  GO.  I'm not going to tell you it's high theater, but it's great good fun.

Stuff that Made Me Feel Good Today

Another List (to balance out the one filled with poo from yesterday because I think I owe it to you, myself, and the universe):

• I got to see one of my sweet former students today, and she's doing wonderfully well in her university life.  That always makes me feel so happy.  I love it when they're out there heading toward that great thing they want for themselves, whatever that happens to be.
• There were NO SONGS regarding my "mighty-mightiness."
• I wore one of my roses today (a blue rose pin made from reclaimed wool -- something I got at Chimneyville last year).  Instant boost.  Roses make me happy.  So I'm a cliche.  Shoot me.
• I thought I lost or had "misplaced with the help of others" my favorite fountain pen today at one point.  Then I found it.  Finding the pen was fantastic.  Confirming what I have always believed, that other people wouldn't really do that to me over a pen, was ten times better.
• Two words:  puppy kisses.  Love from Chewie and Roux when I got home.  Dogs are grand.
• Hammock. This is perfect hammock weather.  I plan to spend most of tomorrow in it if I don't go out shooting.  (With the camera, of course.)
• Reading the acceptance letter for TGC more carefully and realizing that I was one of 65 teachers selected from about 300 applicants nationally.
• Massaman curry for dinner.  Never fails.  Even when I don't want any other food, I always want massaman.  It may be the perfect food.  Except for cheese....
• Shaun of the Dead came today from amazon.  Tomorrow, I'm having my very own showing since I missed last week's drive-in presentation due to rain, tiredness/sickness, and Prairie Arts.
• Beowulf's Boasts were today.  We all wore crowns (mine is cuter; I work hard for that plastic tiara, baby), they brandished foam sabers, and a good time was had by all.
• I'm rereading Gatsby.  A craving got flung on me by a friend of mine (guilty party, you know who you are), and so ONCE AGAIN, I'm at Gatsby's watching the pretty people dance with Nick.  Not a bad way to spend a Friday night.  After all, tomorrow will be all about the zombies... Oh, wait.  I see a literary travesty in the making....
• I'm getting comments on my blog.  Even little ones where people can click anonymously at the bottom.  It's nice.  I like it.  I won't cliffhang you until you respond (some of you will get that, and yeah, I know, I know....), but a little interaction is unexpected and, I think, good.

That's enough to balance out the scales.  After yesterday's focus on the negative, I just felt like I should adjust my lens, so to speak.  Don't worry.  I'm sure that if doom is your thing, if you hang around here long enough, it will come rushing back.....

Silent Films

This is an intertitle from a silent film taken from the Tumblr Silent Films. What an amazing quote.  The whole Tumblr is amazing.  Silent movies are wonderful, and part of what I enjoy about them is this combination of text and image.  If you also enjoy silent films, or really, even if you've never seen them, check this site out.  It's a great archive showing some of the more interesting quotes and some of the fancier backgrounds from this now lost art form.

McLintock (Drive-In 2)

I went back to the drive-in tonight.  They were showing McLintock with John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara.  I had never seen it, but as my Nana was a huge John Wayne fan, and my dad has always loved his films, I wanted to see this one.  My interest increased when I heard it was based on Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew.

I gathered my provisions earlier and better this time and set off.  I had plenty of snacks, and I sprayed myself with OFF before the movie began, so except for the bug bites I'm still healing from Tuesday night's horse adventure, I am mosquito free.  That made a big difference.  So, too, did the cooler weather that's begun to return at last.  It was nice to be able to sit there and it not still be 90-something degrees.  Their next film is September, and it should be pleasantly cool then, possibly even requiring jeans.

I really loved McLintock. The whole movie is a joy.  I think if I can't get it streaming on the Roku, I'm pretty much going to have to own it.  It made me laugh too much not to.   It was very funny.  The fight scene in it might be one of my favorite fight scenes in any movie.  People keep falling down and it keeps being funny.  Even John Wayne, the great god of heroes, keeps falling down.  It's wonderful.  And I love Maureen O'Hara.  I want to be her when I grow up.  She's awesome.  She's right in the middle of it, stabbing people with this feather pin thing she takes off her hat.  Love, love, love it.

I will say that somebody somewhere will think that I probably should get all grumpy woman about him spanking her at the end, but...I feel about that like I feel about the stuff that happens in Atlas Shrugged and gets called sexist.  Would I tolerate it happening to me?  Oh HELLS NO.  He would die.  A LOT.  I'd break him into about forty-seven neat segments.  Did it work for them?  Apparently.  In that case, I don't really think it's anybody's business and we need to stay out of it.  The whole movie is incredibly violent.  She knocks him out with a bottle; people punch each other repeatedly in sort of casual, happy-go-lucky way.  I think getting wound up over the bit at the end without seeing it as a part of the larger whole would be a little of that camel/gnat syndrome that seems so prevalent in society.

Anyway, without delving more into philosophy of movies and relationships this late at night, I will just end this by saying that if you haven't seen it, you should.  For something that was as funny as it was, there were actually quite a few deep things going on in it, not the least of which was the treatment of social class and the issue of the Native American tribes being resettled.  For a western of its time, it caught me off guard with its tone there.  I think this is probably one of the reasons why it has lasted so long.  Treat yourself to it, and let me know what you think.  I'm curious to get your opinion.

Drive-In

I did something tonight that I haven't done since I was a child; I went to a drive-in movie.  The last drive-in movie I have any real memory of was one of the Star Wars movies.  I have a very clear memory of C-3PO's giant golden face filling the screen.  It sort of imprinted on me, I guess.   Maybe it is one of the key things that set me on my path of geekdom.  I don't know.  I just remember it being like a giant moon up there dominating my entire horizon, an awesome thing when I couldn't have been more than six, if I was even that old at the time.

Tonight's film was a much less grand affair.  A group of people who really love movies have been looking for a place to show them for awhile now.  They used to use the old movie palace in town, but for a variety of reasons, that stopped.  After exploring other options, they bought a giant screen and got permission from a guy who used to own a race track to use his facilities to make a drive in.  It's sort of awesome.

I had to drive quite awhile to get there tonight, but what else is new?  Very little worth doing is local for me, and besides, I enjoy driving, so I loaded up with the sky still brightly lit and headed out.  I stopped at the last town before the rural roads and got some Krystals, another thing Podunk no longer has, and a large Diet Mt. Dew to supplement the bottle of pink lemonade I had brought from home.

I got there early enough to watch them hang the screen, a rather perilous enterprise, and to listen to the sound test of the radio broadcasting equipment that turned all our car stereos into the sound system for the movie.  The better your car stereo, the better your movie soundtrack, basically.  I like that  SO much better than the whole concept of the little box that comes in through the window...  While everything was getting finalized and we were waiting for dark, I ate my sumptuous repast and read a Harry Potter novel.  It was very relaxing.

When it got dark enough, they started the movie and I kicked the seat back and put my feet up on the dash.  The PT Cruiser makes a remarkably comfortable lounge chair.  We watched Jurassic Park, and I am not sure I ever saw the film although I vividly remember reading the book.  I don't think those two things match up well.  I am almost positive the book was nowhere near that....nice....for one thing.  It was an entertaining bit of fluff, though.

If and when I go to the next one, I want to remember three things.  1)  Off Mosquito repellent (those little clip on things) -- there were field mosquitoes out there that looked Jurassic throwbacks all on their own.  2)  Bring more food -- because there are NO concessions and I wanted some chips or some popcorn or something and I didn't have any.  Boo.  I should have thought of that.  I remembered to bring something else to drink, but I didn't get my act sufficiently together on the food.  Maybe dill pickle chips would be a good thing.....   3)  Bring a flashlight to get out to the back forty where the restrooms are.  REALLY.  Because I am SO NOT hiking out there without one.

Also, next time, I really want somebody to go with me.  Not necessarily in a date type situation because those always go so damn badly for me, but just somebody who would like to see a movie and maybe MST3K it with me or something.  It would be fun to have the company.  I don't really care who, just somebody to share the trip with.  It's well worth enjoying.  I mean, you've got the stars (and a gorgeous sky full of them), the movie (and they always show good ones), and a road trip.  What else could you ask for?  (Well, that I can provide for you, anyway?)

Johnny and June

Just saw Walk the Line for about the 100th time.  God, I love this movie.  I will be on a Johnny Cash kick for days now.  The ending always makes the battered little romantic heart in me sigh.   My favorite part of his proposal is when he tells her that he's not going to make her be the little Dutch boy in with her finger in the dam anymore, that she's his best friend and that's why he wants her.  Their love was so full of impossible things, mountains most people would have looked at and simply walked away from without even trying to climb, addiction, exes, stardom, but look at how gorgeous it was.  It was the best friends part that made that possible.  That's what I want.  I want a best friend I can fall asleep with and get up with and face my own impossible mountains with.  I hope he's out there somewhere.