Bleeding Fool |
- Current Captain Marvel Writers Insult Carol Danvers’ Famous Older Costumes
- Mutual Appreciation: Spielberg & James Gunn Trade Praises
- DCEU Films Ranked: #3 ‘Man of Steel’ (2013)
- Comic Conversations: 5 Things You May Not Know About Comic-Con
- Hollywood’s Problem is That It Has Lost Its Sense of Fear
- What to Expect in Final 2 Episodes of The Falcon & the Winter Soldier
| Current Captain Marvel Writers Insult Carol Danvers’ Famous Older Costumes Posted: 13 Apr 2021 06:15 AM PDT
Leave it to the awful Screen Rant to lend their support to disparaging a very decent costume design from a better era by the late Dave Cockrum, in the 27th issue of the current Captain Marvel series, where Kelly Thompson and David Lopez continue to put down the past for the sake of their pathetic political correctness:
So we know where SR stands on Wonder Woman’s superheroine swimsuit, of course. They make it sound as though swimsuit design and baring legs is the worst thing that could possibly happen, and effectively disrespect every artist who ever came up with such a thing, ditto the writers.
So, everything about those past eras is “oversexualized”? The writer of this is a disgrace. If that’s all they can see, and not a character depicted as a successful USAF officer and a magazine writer, they clearly are missing the boat. Even if the 2nd costume design was better, the first one still was far from the abomination they make it sound out to be. Obviously, the columnist is somebody who saw nothing wrong with the Comics Code Authority stamp, not to mention Fredric Wertham’s hysterical viewpoints. And I notice they didn’t get into how, over the past decade, Carol was made to look horrifically masculine, while sales figures declined, yet they insisted on keeping it going with consecutive volumes leading nowhere. It all gets worse:
Obviously written by somebody with no comprehension of women and their love of fashion, no respect for Cockrum, and no respect for George Perez, if we were to cite another artist who’d drawn designs like that. This is truly disgusting, and ignores Invisible Girl’s blue outfit, which was far from revealing in its original design, Spider-Woman’s red outfit, Black Widow’s, and even Monica Rambeau’s Capt. Marvel outfit in the 80s. But no matter how revealing or not the outfits are, the insults spewed by such hack writers at SR extend even to the women who wrote for these publishers at the time, like Louise Simonson and Ann Nocenti, who clearly didn’t have an issue with such costumes. I guess the SR writer doesn’t think they should’ve appealed to lesbians with revealing outfits either, right? He seems to think appealing to men is a bad thing, and must really despise Stan Lee for marketing his productions to men as well. I won’t be shocked if the SR columnist will next say it’s wrong for Japanese mangakas to have a shonen (boys) market, no matter how many shojo (girls) stories they have on the market as well.
It’s also disgraceful how they claim the designs with bare midriffs are “too revealing” by the “standards” of this era, even though tank tops are a fashion many women like. By that logic, even WW’s outfit, again, would be too much, and no doubt, that’s what the SR writer thinks of Starfire’s costume from New Teen Titans as well. At the end, SR laughably says:
I’m sorry, but all Disney and Marvel’s film division did was succumb to political correctness, and if Warner Brothers didn’t have a problem with Wonder Woman’s bustier, which is skimpier than the Ms. Marvel outfit, then it’s laughable other studios should have a problem with the same. Why, if I’m correct, the CM film wasn’t even produced under the Disney label proper, so what’s their point? Besides, if they don’t think outfits like Carol’s original ones – and Wonder Woman’s are suitable for films, then obviously, they don’t think they’re suited for comics either. They don’t even have what it takes to support a rating system that could describe the content to determine if something is suitable for children, family, or adult audience, even though for years before, there was a rating system in video games, where a product could be rated T for teen, or M for mature, and comics were using this for a time as well. Now, with these kind of censorious standards we’re now faced with, the whole rating system has become a joke.
In the comments section from original article, 2 people took issue with this reprehensible approach, with one saying:
Indeed, and even that’s not a bad thing in itself. Another said:
I think the whole puff piece goes to show the writers for SR don’t understand anything about women and their love of fashion. That’s why it comes off as lecturing at worst, while making corporate owned products the biggest victims of the PC anti-sex mentality.
And while we’re on the topic, here’s a Newsarama interview with Thompson, discussing her run on Black Widow, where the art looks even duller, and it also references 2 other not very admirable writers:
I’m not sure who’s worse: Ellis or deConnick, the latter under whom Carol Danvers really suffered. For now, here’s something really laughable:
Not sure why they think that black outfit is “new”, when it looks more or less like the black outfits she wore in decades past. What matters is that the artwork looks lethargic. It’s only in that sense the costume changed, for the worse.
It’s also a city that, for the past decade, has become full of cases where trash and excrement have been left around, a considerable rise in drug addicts, sending the city into serious decay. What’s so “fantastic” when you have that kind of sad situation prevailing? But if she thinks SF is great, why not Dallas, Sacramento, Cleveland or Miami? What’s wrong with those burgs? SF sounds like an awfully easy choice to me. Better yet, why not a fictionalized city? They really have taken all this “realism” so far, they don’t have what it takes to try the challenge of a fictional town or neighborhood anymore.
So again, Thompson really thinks writers that awful make the best inspiration, huh? Even when one of them has such an awful track record with women? I guess that says all you need to know about whom she thinks are worth the nod. It’s clear Chuck Dixon wouldn’t be cited by these SJWs as inspiration today by contrast.
Once again, Thompson’s demonstrated why she’s one of the worst modern writers in the medium today, obviously not chosen for talent, and if memory serves, she penned the story where Carol turned evil. She certainly hasn’t done anything to restore Carol’s earthly origins, rather than the forced retcon where she’s half-alien instead, seeing how there’s still a half-sister of Kree background involved here. And if there’s more company wide crossovers in store at Marvel and the editors want Carol to be part of the “festivity”, it’s highly likely they’ll do just that, since such desperate sales gimmicks take precedence even over the weakest of storytelling.
Originally published here. The post Current Captain Marvel Writers Insult Carol Danvers’ Famous Older Costumes appeared first on Bleeding Fool.  |
| Mutual Appreciation: Spielberg & James Gunn Trade Praises Posted: 13 Apr 2021 04:45 AM PDT There is a list going around the internet that is supposed to be Steven Spielberg's favorite films or something like that. While it's not clear if the list is legit, Spielberg has talked highly about one of the films on the list before, Guardians of the Galaxy. The man known for directing Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Jurassic Park said back in 2016 to the foreign press:
On Thursday James Gunn, director of Guardians of the Galaxy, was asked on Twitter what he thought of the list that was floating around, Gunn responded by saying:
"I don't know if that list going around is real. I do know that Spielberg has said his favorite superhero movie is Guardians. I was in the editing room with Fred Raskin when I heard & I maybe kinda cried a little. I'm making movies because of Jaws & Raiders." Gunn is putting the finishing touches on The Suicide Squad and working on the Peacemaker series for HBO Max and is expected to start work on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 soon as Gunn posted on April 5th that "Our designers and visual development geniuses are currently creating new, fantastic designs of other worlds & alien beings. I'm not sure the galaxy is big enough for all this magic. This. One. Is. Huge." The post Mutual Appreciation: Spielberg & James Gunn Trade Praises appeared first on Bleeding Fool.  |
| DCEU Films Ranked: #3 ‘Man of Steel’ (2013) Posted: 12 Apr 2021 05:00 PM PDT
#3 in my ranking of the DCEU franchise.
There's something big and ambitious and earnest about Zack Snyder's take on Superman that I find really admirable. Not everything in this movie works, but the mythic scope and embrace of the idea of gods coming to fight it out on Earth is handled with such weight and energy that I get swept up in the spectacle every time.
Snyder took the well-worn story of Superman's origins and recast it rather dramatically in a couple of different directions. The first is aesthetics. Krypton looks browner and weirder than we'd seen it in film before. There are giant monsters and an embrace of weird science fiction visuals in how Krypton's technology works. There's also an embrace of a handheld camera that evokes independent filmmaking, especially in smaller moments. I remember when the first trailer dropped and people were saying that it almost looked like a Terrence Malick movie. Sort of (there's too much of an embrace of lens flares), but it certainly provides an interesting contrast with the epic visuals, giving it an inherently grounded feel while dealing with a rather zany story of supermen and terraforming machines.
The second different direction largely focuses on John Kent, Superman's adoptive father from Kansas. The movie decides that it wants to explain Clark Kent's hiding of his power out of fear and a question of trust. The closest this movie comes to a strong theme is this idea of building trust in the face of something new. It pops up from time to time and gets mildly explored, but the film is much more of a character driven exercise in its first half and a plot driven one in its second. The first half is about Clark Kent's lifelong quest to find a way to belong while having incredible powers no one else has and protecting himself from what he imagines to be a paranoid and violent reaction to his presence should it become widely known. Still, he can't help but try and make the world better around him, so he saves kids from a bus crash despite his father's insistence that it might have been better to let them die rather than risk revealing himself, and he rescues some oil rig workers despite coming away with nothing and needing to move on to another life again.
The irony is, of course, that he's so strong that mankind could probably never hurt him, so the fear is less about his personal safety and more about the unpredictable results of his reveal. What happens after he finally figures out who he is and where he's from when he finds a long lost Kryptonian ship? It's his announcement to the universe that he is there, and Zod shows up. Zod, Krypton's general who tried to lead a coup in the planet's final decadent and collapsing moments and was punished in the Phantom Zone, comes back with the objective of rebuilding Krypton. Superman's actions on Earth bring Zod there. Driven to insanity, he wants to terraform Earth into a new Krypton, no matter the living denizens, and exact his revenge on Superman's father at the same time (with some extra stuff about a genetic codex imbued in Superman's genetics put there by his father). This plot doesn't really develop until the second half of the film, which I have no problem with.
The problem is really with Zod himself. I like the idea of Zod more than the execution. Michael Shannon is stilted as the dedicated antagonist, and his dialogue is often the most unnatural sounding of any of the principals. This is probably be design, giving him a different cadence from the rest of the characters to imply a different culture, but it comes off as stilted rather than elegantly natural. Part of that is the dialogue as written, and part of that is Shannon himself who haltingly moves through every line. Still, I love his plan and the epic fight that breaks out.
The terraforming of Earth as a threat provides room for some incredible destruction. I know some people have problems with the scale of destruction throughout the movie, but I love it. This is a fight between gods. On the one side are a group of malevolent warriors who think of nothing of the lives they endanger. On the other is a greenhorn hero who is suddenly faced with a fight he can't handle on his own.
The fight that erupts in Smallville is a favorite. It starts with Superman attacking Zod directly after they threaten his mother in order to find the craft that Superman came to Earth in. It turns into a two on one beat down as Superman tries to fight off two Kryptonians. The US military gets involved and starts firing at both sides, and Superman ends up gaining the first trust from the official governing bodies on the planet through his actions. It's the fight over the terraforming machines that really stands out, though. The leveling of Metropolis has a scale and terrifying feel to it that I love. The gravity field that pushes down on the buildings, leveling them to dust, while Zod crashes the Kryptonian ship into buildings, toppling them over, is quite a sight. The fist fight that breaks out between Zod and Superman in the sky is less impressive, and the final moment where Zod is going to kill a random little family is poorly set up, though the idea of Superman having to take the solution to an extreme to ensure Earth's safety is an interesting one in general.
I love the ambition of the film. It's desire to reach beyond mere spectacle and enter into something of mythic scale is quite well handled. I also like Superman's challenge in finding how to make himself known to the world, and it ultimately comes out of necessity and to make up for his own contribution to the violence being visited upon Earth. It's rough, though. Zod is poorly written and delivered. I think the stuff from Clark Kent's childhood in Smallville might have worked better as a sustained sequence instead of snippets going back and forth. Overall, the movie feels like the product from a promising first draft screenplay that needed another couple of passes, but I still really like what I got.
Rating: 3/4
Originally published here. The post DCEU Films Ranked: #3 'Man of Steel' (2013) appeared first on Bleeding Fool.  |
| Comic Conversations: 5 Things You May Not Know About Comic-Con Posted: 12 Apr 2021 03:00 PM PDT
With the world slowly returning back to normal, many events are going back to being held in person and thankfully, Comic-Con is one of them. New York, Los Angeles, and San Diego have all announced various dates for their Comic-Cons, all of which will be held in person. The return of in-person Comic-Cons has made all of us appreciate how much these events really do mean to comic fandom, making it a good time to reflect on past years' Comic-Cons and highlight some interesting Comic-Cons factoids that are often forgotten.
Comic-Con is not One OrganizationWhen was the first Comic-Con and how did this popular event take off? Clayburn Griffin and Nikhil Kasbekar of the nerd-adjacent superhero-focused podcast, We Understood That Reference, dive into all of this and more in their Comic Conversations episode. Clayburn highlights the fact that many comic fans are unaware that Comic-Cons in various cities are actually different organizations. More specifically, San Diego, LA, and New York Comic-Cons are all different organizations that put the event on themselves. In fact, the San Diego comic con is actually a nonprofit organization while the New York Comic-Con is a for-profit organization that started back in 2006.
The First Comic-Con was Held on the Streets of NYC in 1964In Comic Conversations, Clayburn explains the first official Comic-Con was in New York in 1964. Comic fans had been gathering in the city long before, but this was considered the first official Comic-Con and over 100 people attended. It was held on 14th street and Broadway and was the basis for two influential ideas in the comic world. Bernie Bubnis, who had the idea of holding a convention, had invited Tom Gill, the Lone Ranger artist for a "chalk talk." This conversation ended up being the groundwork for the notion of fans and creators being able to discuss their love of comics in a panel format. Additionally, Phil Sueling, a comic collector, provided refreshments for this event and realized this was the perfect setting for distributors to sell to collectors, particularly their older issues to complete the buyers' collections. Prior to this make-shift Comic-Con, there was no easy way for collectors to seek out comics they had missed buying when they came out.
Comic-Con is One of the Most Profitable Events for Its Host CitiesWhat started as a gathering on 14th and Broadway has grown to be an event that is held nationally, although by different organizations. The San Diego Comic-Con is one of the city's most profitable events. Over half of the event's attendees arrive from different cities and countries and over the course of four days, the event makes approximately $170 million. Thus, the event makes $42.5 million a day, making it one of the profitable events the city has ever seen.
Fans Single-Handedly Saved the San Diego Comic-ConFans are the lifeblood of any event and this is particularly true with Comic-Con. In 1979, the San Diego Comic-Con treasurer's home was broken into and $12,000 of receipts were stolen. Compared to the $170 million Comic-Con brings in now, this does not seem like a lot, but back then this was enough to cripple the convention. In this time of financial crisis, organizers worked with fans to pay off the debt allowing for the success of the convention to continue. In this case, the fans were the heroes at the convention.
Comic-Con Has Never Been Just About the ComicsDespite its name, Comic-Con has always been about more than comics. Comic-Con was founded with the idea of encapsulating all aspects of pop culture, valuing books and movies equally, and allowing a safe and fun space for fans to be themselves and enjoy what they love. However, it did take movie panels to gain momentum with the first Star-Wars panel only being spectated by a handful of fans. The X-men films are what really changed the conversation of movies at Comic-Con as fans were beyond eager to attend.
Comic-Con has always been a highlight in the cultural conversation around comic books and films as it adds a new dimension to the conversation.
If you would like to learn more about Comic-Cons history as well as hear Clayburn and Nikhil discuss their personal experiences at the convention, check out the We Understood That Reference podcast. They also cover superhero movies and comic book stuff in general. You can find them on their website, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or Google Podcasts. They’re all over the place!
The post Comic Conversations: 5 Things You May Not Know About Comic-Con appeared first on Bleeding Fool.  |
| Hollywood’s Problem is That It Has Lost Its Sense of Fear Posted: 12 Apr 2021 01:15 PM PDT Some years ago, I met a man whose leg had been horribly wounded while he was serving in Afghanistan. He was part of an advanced team that took real-time weather observations so the main body of troops could make their air assault safely.
After touching down, his unit was detected and took mortar fire. A shell fragment went through one leg and into the other, which it all but destroyed. Somehow the doctors had put it back together and it was sitting in a cylindrical cage, braced in his wheelchair, and held together with wires and stitches.
I ran into him more than two years later and didn't recognize him since he was in uniform and standing upright. He'd made a full recovery and re-enlisted.
I told him of my tremendous respect for his courage, but he just laughed. "My job is to hide out and report the weather. When the enemy shows up, I try to get the hell away. The guys with real courage are the ones who kick in doors knowing there's someone ready to kill them on other side." He shook his head. "I don't think I could ever do that."
The lesson here is that even this incredibly brave man knows fear. His courage is beyond the reach of normal men, but it has its limits. We admire him precisely because he knows fear and has mastered it.
This distinction has been completely lost in Hollywood and as a result we have an array of unsympathetic and uninteresting movies, particularly those with female characters.
The Fear Is RealFear is something that all people have and with good reason. Fear can cloud our judgement, but it also teaches us caution. Someone without fear might appear brave, but they can also be dangerously reckless or even psychotic.
The greatest stories are ones where the heroes have fear – a fear the audience shares – and overcome it. It isn’t just good storytelling, it speaks about the human condition, which is the point of all good art. The original Star Wars was intended to be nothing more than an above-average popcorn flick but because it spoke to human condition, it became a timeless classic.
One of the reasons why The Empire Strikes Back in particular remains highly regarded is because it is permeated with fear, and we get to see the characters face it and overcome it. In the process, they become much more real to us, earning our lasting affection.
Han Solo is haunted by the price on his head. He’s on the run and in Empire this vague fear of being captured by a bounty hunter comes to pass. He’s tortured and then sealed in carbonite. The shock value of this sequence when the film originally came out is hard to describe – did a main character just get whacked? Surely there will be a last-minute escape! Not in this film.
Han’s fate mirrors the fear in Luke’s storyline. Luke fears ‘the cave’ on Dagobah but goes in anyway and the payoff (which could have been a monster) is to discover the enemy within himself. Not at all expected and very creepy.
When Luke faces Darth Vader, everyone thinks this is his big moment – the hero meets the villain in a boss fight! Finally, this movie will get turned around for the good guys, right?
Wrong. Luke gets trounced. It is one of the most one-sided hero beat-downs ever put on film. Vader toys with him. Luke never has a chance. He gets one lick in and Darth stops playing around and cuts off his weapon hand. All Luke can do now is try to get away.
His rescue isn’t a triumph, either. Lando has to be bullied into pulling it off, and finally the good guys catch a break when R2D2 fixes the hyperdrive. Their victory is successfully running away.
From reel to reel the fears of the Star Wars characters come true. The cocky arrogance of the first movie has evaporated and the audience now has 100 percent buy-in because they’ve seen these people fight and lose and keep on fighting – and do it while half-mad with fear. When we see them again in Return of the Jedi they have lost much of that bravado and have replaced it with grim determination. Jedi shows how they have conquered their fear, which is why it remains the best movie in the series.
Sigourney Weaver’s Face on a Milk CartonI’ve pounded this topic for a while, but it’s only because young folks today seem to have a sense of film history that starts the first Marvel film. Decades ago, before either Daisey Ridley or Brie Larson were born, Sigourney Weaver played one of the most complex and strong characters ever recorded on film – Ellen Ripley.
In Alien, she plays the classic horror film survivor. The film is well done, but follows a predictable course as one by one the cast are eaten by the scary thing. Where the character of Ellen Ripley comes into her own is the sequel, Aliens.
The key difference is that in the first film, no one in the crew knows what’s going on. Events just happen. It’s a classic Unluckiest Ship in the Universe trope (see also Pitch Black, etc.).
In Aliens, they are going back to the scene of the crime. Weaver plays Ripley perfectly – the nightmares, the anger – the pure loathing of having to go back again. (I love the way she deliberately leaves the cat – the only other survivor of the first movie – behind.) As the Colonial Marines are cut down around her, she’s not confident, but horrified, but her rising panic is overcome by something stronger – her desire to save an orphan girl from a hideous fate.
This isn’t just a standard Reluctant Hero trope, either – Ripley has been wracked with grief over the death of her daughter, whom she never saw grow to adulthood. In the person of Newt, she sees a chance at redemption and so feels an overpowering need to save this child.
Just to make this absolutely clear – Ripley’s willingness to pick up guns and fight isn’t transposed masculine bravado but is entirely rooted in her maternal instincts. She’s not making a ‘girl power’ statement, because she fully expects to die in the attempt. She goes to get Newt because she could not live with herself if she didn’t. She is the mama bear waging a desperate fight for her cub.
Where’s the Adversity?Imagine for a moment if Ellen Ripley was played like Captain Marvel or Rey or any other of the current crop of Mary Sues. She’s full of confidence and certain of herself. In her first encounter with a face-hugger she rips it off and stomps on it because is a Strong Woman. What do you get? Zero tension. Zero interest. She would be a character noteworthy only because of how flat it is.
I don't agree with Mark Hammill on a lot of things, but he was dead right when he pointed out that Rey should have lost the lightsaber duel in The Force Awakens. After all, if you can win the boss fight in the first movie, what else is there left for you to learn? Why even bother to seek further training?
That’s another thing I noticed – heroes today come fully formed. They don’t have to train or practice, like Harry Potter they always had their power locked within them, they just needed to discover it.
How is that in any way relatable? It not only doesn’t inform of us of the human condition, it showers us with ignorance.
It’s also lazy writing, since it spares the creators the labor of building a convincing and interesting back story. We can just fast-forward to the boss fight. Bring out the lightsabers!
Surviving FailureFear of failure is a very real thing, and not long ago a lot of movies centered around characters struggling to recover from failure. One reason why Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan is so beloved (albeit completely inaccessible to non-Trek fans) is that like Empire Strikes Back, it also subjects its characters to setback after setback.
The original Blade Runner is packed with disappointment for the main character, who actually loses the boss fight at the end. Of course, it’s not really sci-fi film but a throwback to film noir and one of the major elements of that genre is the main character being tough but not infallible. It’s a pretty rigid requirement that the hero get badly beaten up at least once.
This isn’t just a trope, it adds tension and above all realism. No one wins every fight and how they deal with that loss tells a lot more about them than all of their victories put together.
Maybe this is a function of the current generation of writers being insulated from failure, or its consequences. Hollywood is famously nepotistic and it important to remember that noted serial creeper Joss Whedoon is a third-generation member of the entertainment industry.
Whatever the cause, the result is movies the look slick, star pretty faces and teach us nothing about courage, resilience or overcoming adversity.
As Yoda might say: that is why they fail.
The post Hollywood’s Problem is That It Has Lost Its Sense of Fear appeared first on Bleeding Fool.  |
| What to Expect in Final 2 Episodes of The Falcon & the Winter Soldier Posted: 12 Apr 2021 11:00 AM PDT With four episodes of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier in the can and two to go, attention turns to the fall out from the last episodes ending scene and what might be coming in episode five. The interesting thing here is that show creator/head writer Malcolm Spellman talked to Comicbook.com almost a month ago and gave us something to look forward to with the next episode. Spellman was asked which episode he was most excited for everyone to see, he responded by saying: "Hands down, five, it just gets real. And five, you're going to cry." So now we know it's going to be an emotional episode, but he also said: "There are characters in our series who I would love to see partnered with like – it's a very, very grounded character — partnered with one of the big world-shakers like Thor or someone like that… The personality is so strong, it’s the episode five character. I'd love to see that character with Thor."
Now, while it's normal for speculation to run wild from this, it's a good idea to try to keep that in check. Remember what happened with WandaVision. It seems SlashFilm, a usually reliable source, has gotten a bit more on the character Spellman was talking about. They say they "can confirm that this surprise character is not one that we've seen in the MCU before and not one who is primed to appear in an upcoming film. However, we have learned it is an existing Marvel Comics character who is played by a well-known performer. And this guest star must have knocked it out of the park for Spellman to hype up this upcoming episode so much." That really eliminates some characters but doesn't really nail it down. Also they avoid using an identifying pronouns and even refer to the person as a "performer" and not specifically an actor. Could this be the Powerbroker? Or maybe someone tied to Isaiah Bradley? It's a pretty safe bet that this is not a mutant or a member of the Fantastic Four. Could this be another character from Captain America's supporting cast or rogues gallery?
We will find out in four days. The post What to Expect in Final 2 Episodes of The Falcon & the Winter Soldier appeared first on Bleeding Fool.  |
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