Reflections on the Age of Ultron Teaser Trailer

So, who else has watched the trailer five times today and freeze-framed it, looking for clues?  

Yeah - no, of course I haven't, either.

What we know:

• We'll be flashing back at some point to Romanoff's ballerina past.
• Andy Serkis is playing an actual character, not just doing mo-cap for Ultron.
• Ultron looks badass and James Spader is a perfect piece of voice-casting.
• We've got a (budding?) romance between Romanoff and Banner (poor Hawkeye).
• Cap cannot open doors like a normal person.
• We may see the un-worthy-ing of Thor (who needs a hair trim).
• The Hulkbuster-armour fight is going to be epic.
• There's a mysterious new woman in town, probably played by Kim Soo-hyun, but Pepper and Jane appear to be no-shows (boo).

Here it is, for the three fans out there who haven't yet seen it:

"To read makes our speaking English good."

To commemorate the start of my third year as a mature student at university, here's a summary of what I have learned so far:

1. You're completely out of touch when you're the only person in the room who's never heard of Angela Carter.
   
   
2. Nobody under the age of 21 knows how to spell or put a grammatically correct sentence together. A lot of people over the age of 21 don't know, either - especially lecturers.
   
   
3. You're really old if you DON'T think Jane Eyre caved in to patriarchal norms and abandoned her 'goal' of attaining some version of feminist independence when she married Rochester.
   
   
4. There's a hell of a lot more sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll in C18th-19th poetry than high school English lessons led me to believe.
   
   
5. Advertising is pretty cool.
   
   
6. Advertising is the spawn of Satan.
   
   
7. Sorry, somebody has already written about that.
   
   
8. Some people actually think that Roger Moore is the best Bond.
   

In the immortal words of Xander Harris, 'Guess I'm done with the book learning!'

Gamers, Feminists, Misogynists...oh, my!

I've said it before:  there are certain feminist issues and viewpoints that I support, but nobody who knows me would label me a feminist.  Anyway, these days, the term brings with it a truckload of cultural baggage that means different things to people.  I am a woman with some very traditional views on things and some very radical ones.  (Many would call me 'right wing', but I have an intense hatred for that sort of boxing in.  There are things I both agree with and disagree with on the right and on the left.)  However, I am a woman who loves traditionally 'boyish' things.  I am a woman who loves traditionally 'geekish' things.  Comic book movies.  Star Wars.  Spock.  Die Hard.  Jim Cameron sequels.  I know well that special look people get on their faces when they find out these things about me.  I don't believe that a love for these things, any more than for gaming, should belong to one or the other sex.

This week's...I'm not sure what to call it.  War?  Brouhaha? Eruption? Scandal?  Let's go with brouhaha...in the gaming world has had plenty of coverage, so I won't set it all out again here, but I will say that it has affected me, and not in a way you might think from the above paragraph. 

I cannot and will not deny that sexism has been rife in the gaming world.  I cannot and will not deny that certain women misuse women's rights issues as a platform to further their careers.  Women in the industry have done stupid and horrible things, and have been the victims of stupid and horrible things.  Men in the industry have done stupid and horrible things, and have been the victims of stupid and horrible things.  For me, the real horror in all this is not corruption or misogyny.  The real horror is the way that people - people, not men or women - treat each other.  My horror is at the language and the abuse people throw at each other online.  

'Welcome to the internet,' I hear you say.  'Where have you been the last 30 years, you naive ****?'  But that's exactly my point.  Being online seems to give people a licence to say things they would never say to someone face to face.  Or would they?  I don't know anymore.  In the name of free speech and moral crusading, people lower their own moral standing (completely collapse it, in my opinion) by resorting to this kind of abusive and, frankly, downright disgusting behaviour.

If you dislike someone's actions or opinions, how about not supporting or buying their next product?  And yes, you do have the right to say why you are not supporting them.  BUT you can do that without using the names I've seen spat out in the last couple of days and in other, similar situations in the past.  You can pull your support from someone without putting their personal information online - which is illegal, I needlessly add.  'Oh, but it's about getting the truth out there about what they've done.  They deserve it.'  How about what you've just done?  How about taking care of your own immoral or hurtful behaviour first and foremost?  How about being kind to one another, no matter who the other person is or what they've done, as we can never know everything about them and their situation?  How about not lowering yourself to 'their level', whatever that may be?

It's a very, very old-fashioned notion (thanks, Nick Fury), but if we all took ten seconds to monitor our actions by thinking 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you' or, if you prefer, Wil Wheaton's modern translation: 'Don't be a dick', the world would be a completely different place for men, for women, for gamers, for people.  And that would be the kind of revolution I could truly support.

END RANT

The Importance of a Good Movie Villain, or, What Marvel Has Done Right and Sony Keeps Forgetting

I've had over a week now to process The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and my initial thoughts have stuck with me. Admittedly, they're not very deep thoughts - it is exam time, so you'll have to excuse me.  

Firstly, the CGI was a hell of a lot better in this one.  There were no clunky lizards this time, thank goodness.  The first one left me wondering, if guys like Neill Blomkamp can make convincing-looking Prawns on his home computer with a budget of bugger-all, why can't Sony with all its millions do at least as well?

Secondly, the main cast is top-notch.  Andrew Garfield really does do beautifully that mix of gangling teenager and graceful superhero, and his interactions with Emma Stone and Sally Field continue to sparkle.

This is, without question, a better movie than the last. There are two main problems, though, and they are big enough to damage the fabric of the whole thing.

The story itself is a mess.  I mean, it's like someone took a fruit crumble and put it in the washing machine.  No - that's a bad analogy, but I'm pleading temporary insanity due to assessment-time brain failure.  Now I'm craving fruit crumble....  You catch my drift.  It's all over the place.  No real through-line.  Deep revelations and bits of dramatic and action-packed things happening here, there and everywhere but by the end you've still no idea what Electro was actually trying to do.  Something about taking back a power grid. Does he want to destroy it?  Live in it?  Keep all the power for himself?  Hold a rock concert?

That leads me to the other problem, which you've already guessed if you've read the title of this post.  Star Wars has Darth Vader and the Emperor.  Star Trek has Khan and the Klingons and the Romulans and Q and the Borg.  The Avengers have Loki.  Batman has The Joker.  Spidey has...um....  In theory, the Green Goblin should be a great villain.  He's Spidey's former best friend, after all.  The character of Harry here is good, but the Green Goblin still just doesn't cut it, and Electro is very forgettable.  I can't put my finger on why. It's a problem I'd like to explore in detail sometime:  what makes a good movie villain?

If you've got any theories, put them in the comments.

We didn't have to wait long - Star Wars VII cast announced

I must have had some kind of premonition when I wrote the previous post this morning, but we didn't have to wait until Sunday.  

The official announcement of the Episode VII cast was made during the day over at www.StarWars.com.  There are some familiar names in there (I have to wonder just how many characters Andy Serkis will be playing) and some new ones (I hope you're prepared for this, Daisy Ridley).

No Zac Efron, but definitely Oscar Isaac; also Domhnall Gleeson, whom I really like (that's Bill Weasley, to Potter fans), so I'm pleased about him.

The other newbies are John Boyega (from Attack the Block), Adam Driver (from Girls) and Max Von Sydow (from...well, pretty much everything).

Mind you, they still haven't told us much, but I suppose that's not likely to change.  So we wait, anticipating 18 December 2015....

Right about now, in a city not too far away…

It’s that time of year when every Star Wars fan gets little butterflies of nostalgic excitement in his or her stomach and cracks out the original trilogy discs (theatrical versions only, of course) in preparation for May the Fourth.  But we fans have a greater reason to be excited this year, because we’re all half-expecting some long-awaited announcements from Disney.

Details.  We want details.

J.J. Abrams, the master of keeping secrets every man and his tribble already knows (“Khan?  Who’s Khan?”), has actually managed to keep us in the dark this time.  The might of the Mouse.

So what do we know?  We know the new trilogy won’t follow the Thrawn/Heir to the Empire/Timothy Zahn novels.  That really was a given, although I’m certain that many a fanboy/girl has mournfully stopped and thought, every once in a while, how cool it would have been to see Mara Jade Skywalker on screen.  Can everyone who lives/works near Pinewood please keep an eye out for beautiful 40-to-50-something actresses with red hair?  Maybe she’ll pop up with Luke anyway.

We know that Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher (and presumably Peter Mayhew) are currently up in London, Hamill looking rather dashing in a mighty fine beard.  I’ve been trying not to get my hopes up, positive that they’ll all just have short cameos, but the latest rumour is that Han may have quite a chunk of screen time.  I wouldn’t complain – any additional Harrison Ford is a bonus, in my opinion, so long as there are no dodgy-looking fridges or monkeys involved.  (Aliens, in this case, are perfectly acceptable.)

We know that Zac Efron may or may not have been cast.  I’m thinking there’s got to be a role for a singing Jedi with great abs.

We know that Oscar Isaac has probably definitely maybe been cast.  He can grow a good Jedi beard.  He sings, too – I’m sensing a theme here.

Will the kidlets – Anakin, Ben and the twins – turn up?  NOBODY KNOWS.  We keep hearing that these films won’t be following the existing canon, but one assumes they’d still want to appease the loyal fans.

We know that J.J. has promised less CGI and more real sets.  Couldn’t be happier about that.  If the sets are as gorgeous as the Enterprise bridge, even better.  How cool would it be to see the Falcon again?  Well, she has been spotted in concept art on a wall at the back of a production meeting photo, so I’m crossing my fingers.

I’ve got to go and wash my Han Shot First t-shirt now.  See you all again on Sunday.

Cap is Back

I've just been to see Captain America: The Winter Solider (again) and (again) I loved it, but please, please, directors, can we quit with the tight 'n' shaky action sequences? When I come to watch Cap knocking bad guys' heads together, I want to be able to see Cap knocking bad guys' heads together. 

It's a dance; let us see the choreography.  Take Fred Astaire's tried and tested advice that dances should be shot full-bodied (especially when it's a certain superhero's full body - wink, wink, nudge, nudge).  If you hide all the stunts, it makes me think that you don't know what you're doing and so you need to do it off-screen or blurry.  As lovely as Chris Evans' kneecaps and elbows are, I'd like to see a little more than that when he's fighting...um...let's just call him The Winter Soldier.

That said, go see it.  It's good.  And stay for (at least) the mid-credits stinger, which is a nice little lead-in to Age of Ultron.