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rcavanah

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Posts posted by rcavanah

  1. Posted

    So my wife started watching this show, and it started as the absolute definition of a guilty pleasure---something I once would've said I didn't believe in, because even if I'm watching something for how bad it is, it's still done with joy and not guilt. But this show actually fit the bill; the acting and effects are laughable, the dialogue is hilariously bad, but there was actually something satisfying to seeing the sometimes-nuanced ways they'd work fairy tale lore into the show. You'd see a character and wonder what fairy tale character it was going to turn out to be.

     

    ...smash-cut to three seasons later, and the characters from Frozen---not just the original Hans Christian Andersen characters, but the SAME EXACT CHARACTERS, IN THE EXACT COSTUMES, FROM THE 2013 FEATURE-LENGTH FILM FROZEN---step through a portal into the show. And they're in the show now. And this is a show. That exists. And that is all I could do while watching it: Pull on my hair and shout, "THIS IS A SHOW THAT EXISTS?!"

     

    It's definitely worth doing. I know TV shows are somewhat rare for HDTGM, but this one legitimately deserves it.

  4. Posted

    This is on Netflix now, so the HDTGM crosshairs should be somewhat closer to the mark on this one...

     

    Seriously, this one needs to be considered. It's one of those cases where everyone involved actually deserves what's coming to them; it's not a sincere effort by a mentally-challenged person, it's not some big studio flop... it's four people of varying levels of integrity all stooping to be in a movie made by a salesman who beat up a hooker.

  5. Posted

    I like Von Trier. His films aren't always good, but when they are they're great. I also enjoyed My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? quite a bit, but then again I am kinda gay for Herzog.

     

    I just have to come back to this and say:

     

    - I think Von Trier's slower films are alright, and it seems his misogyny is waning slightly with that last one.

     

    - My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? is SO GOOD, and at times, legitimately hilarious.

  7. Posted

    Hearing "nerds" go on about how X is getting "dumbed down for the masses" is like listening to a fundamental Christian talk about the "war on Christmas" and how Christians are prosecuted in the United States. In both instances, both groups lack a perspective to see that they are the majority, have ever shifting standards of what define a "true" member, and feel that they should be allowed to dictate how others digest a popular aspect of culture.

     

    Yeah, it really does go to show that core human behavior remains the same whether you're religious or political or anything. Everybody has their religion, and whether that's nerd culture or politics or actual religion, it falls upon the individual to have the proper perspective.

     

    This might sound strange, but what the hell: I'd consider myself a fundamentalist AND a person with perspective. I don't see any point in remaining religious without being a fundamentalist... but it matters what you perceive the proper fundamentals to be, and it just so happens that my religious fundamentals don't involve dogma or bending people to my will through legislation (and it's silly that anyone does, because what does God care if somebody only does what he wants them to do under threat of prosecution? But I digress...). Of course, I don't feel like a part of any wider fundamentalist community, so if you take somebody from a similar background as myself and remove just an ounce of perspective, that's where it gets wonky. Suddenly you've got droves of people who feel like they're alone, and that's dangerous.

     

    But the thing that really baffles me is how that entitlement AND the niche-complex can both exist at once. Because if you're a die-hard Trek fan, you should probably realize that you're going to be harder to please; as your tastes become more refined, you enter into a contract with the media that says you're just not going to get as much of what you love, because you've already found what you really love. That came out of a particular time and place and set of expectations, and it's yours now... but it also means you can't keep going back to that same source and expecting it to happen again. On the other hand, if you're still on-board and you've accepted what it's gonna take to get some more content (in this case, something set in the same universe but with a wider appeal), then you have every right to feel entitled to an enjoyable experience. But that's where perspective comes in.

    • Like 2

  8. Posted

    Yunno something, I've been thinking a lot about my post above, and I think I've realized that the thing that modern audiences have lost is "tonal literacy."

     

    When people are disappointed by a latecoming sequel or reboot, they fail to see the big picture: that it's a new year, with new technology, and people speaking in a different manner than they did when the last film was made. That all adds up to create a different tone, but instead of taking it as a whole, most tend to zero in on plotholes which may or may not have been equally present in prior movies in a series.

     

    Take Indiana Jones 4. I actually loved the middle of that movie, pre-paternal reveal, with Indy and Shia LaBeouf running around finding clues. The rest was just off, and I could put it down to monkeys and waterfalls and soft focus on Karen Allen, but the fact is, there was equally-silly stuff in prior movies. The problem was that lots of little things added up to create a certain tone that was unfamiliar; it never got dark toward the end, the way earlier Indy films did.

  11. Posted

    P.S. Movies need to make sense. Just because it's Sci-Fi doesn't excuse plot holes, poorly constructed plans, or malformed motivations.

     

    I don't even...

     

    This is a problem. No offense, but with the amount of people saying stuff like this, it sounds like the viewing audience is a little kid who just now learned the meaning of "plot hole" and are waaaaay overflexing that muscle.

     

    I just don't get all the complaining about Star Trek, and I think I blame the internet. It's changed the way we view things. It's like something can't just be good, but people have to show how they're smarter than something that's perfectly fine. Think about it: Decades ago, people walked out of the theater after seeing a movie like, oh, I dunno... something good, like Mad Max 2, but not of legendary Spielbergian quality. Back then, lots of people walked out of that kind of movie saying "THAT WAS AWESOME!" and now for some reason we're calling foul on a massively enjoyable film with far fewer flaws.

     

    Something's just off here. It's not about entitlement to opinions, but just plain ol' entitlement... and it's not actually about plot issues, because people have dealt with those for ages. it's about some weird hive-mind perspective shift in the audience. I'd say it's a sign of increased intellect, but I think it's more accurately a sign of decreased perspective.

    • Like 3

  16. Posted

    All good points. I dunno, I mean, I'm just a bigtime nerd about canon; it's why I still hang onto the Star Wars franchise (for me, the prequels are just the Star Wars equivalent of an appendix, like a vague, badly-acted History Channel reenactment). So for me, this is more actual hope than an attempt at cleverness.

  17. Posted

     

    I think Whedon directly said Pym would not be involved in Ultron's creation. I'll have to look up the quote. But I still think they'll make Ultron connected to Tony, because that would give it more personal stakes than assigning it to a random character we've never seen or heard before.

     

    I'm just sayin... Christopher Nolan also said outright that Marion Cotillard wasn't Talia al Ghul.

     

    Also just sayin, there's more possibilities for an origin story than just, "This one guy made a thing and it came alive." This is a dumb version of what I'm saying, but: Tony Stark could be rebuilding his lab, somehow making a new Jarvis, and has to go to a third party for, say, some crucial component of the AI system. Something goes wrong, you go through the movie with nobody knowing why this robot guy happened, and then, boop... you find out who made the piece that made it happen, and it's Pym. It still means Pym didn't build Ultron, but it's the kind of middle-ground decision that they've made before.

  18. Posted

    The Ultron thing should be interesting because they are apparently ditching the Pym origins of the character all together. The going idea was it was going to be a corrupted JARVIS, but now that Spader has been cast I don't think anyone knows what's going on.

     

    I think that's the story they're giving now, but think about it: Ant-Man's been in development this whole time, and it'll be one of the next films in the franchise after Avengers 2. They're already in the groove of tying their films together, so there would be no reason to completely eliminate Pym from the Ultron story... especially since it's a prime opportunity to cross-promote a not-so-well-known character whom they're about to dedicate a whole film to.

     

    So what I'm essentially saying is, sure, maybe Pym doesn't directly create Ultron... but I have a pretty strong feeling that Ultron's origins will be played somewhat mysterious through the course of the film, and by the end, it'll turn out that Pym had some crucial hand in it (possibly revealed in the post-credits sequence). Even if he's not cast yet, the character could still be mentioned by name. Hell, they revealed Thanos without explaining to the general audience who the hell he was, and now everybody knows. The same could very well be true of Pym.

  19. Posted

     

    Well I think at this point any character they do now is going to be kinda risky because pretty much all of the superheroes that are household names to general audiences have already been exhausted. But I feel like after all the success they've had it might not matter if the characters themselves are a draw or not, because people are now going to go see a Marvel movie the same way they go to see a Pixar movie, all they have to do is make sure they make a movie that doesn't disappoint. It also helps that these movies all occupy the same universe so you're going to have those people who have enjoyed the films up to this point and don't want to miss a piece of the puzzle.

     

    On the Ant-Man front, since Ultron is in Avengers 2, I have a feeling that we're at least gonna be introduced to the name of Hank Pym as a way of beefing up interest, probably in a post-credits sequence. Guardians, on the other hand, might just look cool enough to stand on its own.

  20. Posted

    I kinda already love both those movies on principle alone. With Edgar Wright in particular, you never have to worry about anything being truly cringeworthy. Worst case scenario, the biggest failure I could possibly imagine for Edgar Wright is that he might make a slightly boring movie at some point, since he uses pretty traditional structure. But, like, even the folks who weren't into Scott Pilgrim acknowledge that it's just about the content, and I doubt anyone would call his skills as a filmmaker into question.

     

    Come to think of it, it seems that Edgar Wright and James Gunn are two sides of the same coin: Edgar Wright is always refining traditional styles to a fine point, and James Gunn is always questioning tradition and defying expectations, but the essences of both are compatible.

    • Like 1

  21. Posted

    It's particularly strange to think about Richard Pryor's complicity in the thing at all. I feel like he went in with some sort of underlying scheme, as if to say, "If I don't go ahead and make this movie, it won't get made, and in twenty years nobody will be able to look back at these crackers and see how ridiculous they are and finally take responsibility for some shit!"

     

    I mean, I'm actually disappointed by his lack of almost-looking-at-the-camera "will you look at these crazy white people?" faces in this movie...

    • Like 1
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