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What I'm Watching: Stupid Superheroes Edition

I really shouldn't watch superheroes. Well, Amazon supposedly has Garth Ennis' The Boys in production, and The Boys cured me of reading superhero comics forever, it's the best but last superhero story you'll ever need to read. And I'm expecting Deadpool 2 to be the best sequel to the best romantic comedy superhero movie ever. I don't really count the Marvel space fantasy comics or movies as "superheroes".

But otherwise, it's a disappointing genre. No, I haven't seen Black Panther, not a fan of tyrants worshipped as demigods holding bloodsports in their isolated resource-extraction-economy kingdoms. I wouldn't want a movie aggrandizing Dr Doom any more than I want a T'Challa movie. I loved the Joker in The Dark Knight because he's an anarchist and having so much fun at it, but the real villain is WayneCorp's stranglehold on the world economy, run by a crazy billionaire with military hardware beating up poor people "to stop crime" instead of, say, funding schools and jobs programs, and paying and screening cops to end police corruption. Gotham can only be a shithole if the Batman wants it that way.

Man, I miss the two Richard Donner/Chris Reeve Superman movies, and the two Tim Burton/Michael Keaton Batman movies.

So anyway.

  • The Tick: The Amazon series is weird. S1 was confused, almost grimdark '90s foil-cover "Superman Is Beaten to Death Like Jesus and We Mourn for 24 Issues" shit, nothing like the surreal parody comics or the insane Warner Brothers-level zany animated series, or even the half-assed but occasionally funny Warburton live series. S2 is less confused, but still not good. Most of the show balances right on the edge of too serious to enjoy, with moments of ludicrousness.
    The Tick and Arthur have a good dynamic, but the Tick comes off strange, not wacky. I like his journey of discovery of self, but it's in the wrong show. Arthur's inadequacy and neuroses are semi-crippling until the plot demands him to act, and then he just does HEROISM while whining a bit. Any chance for humor is stepped over.
    Overkill's a parody of Frank Castle, sure, but he's not any funnier than the real one; in fact, I think Frank in all grimdark Netflix Daredevil and Punisher is funnier. Miss Lint is consistently smirk-worthy but not fully sexy, terrifying, or funny at any time. At one point some marketing people pitch an ad deck to archvillain The Terror, and commit violence at minimal provocation, which gets a "menacing chuckle" from Terror. Which is how I respond to this. Dangerboat's behavior with Arthur plays out creepy and rapey rather than funny HAL-9000 with a cyber-boner parody which maybe they intended. Superion's a smarmy bastard, but then lets his guard down to show… basic decency? He's just not funny. The mad scientist has a funny physical condition, which gives sight gags but no jokes, probably just as well since they'd be offensive.
    Played completely straight, which this almost is, this could be just another shitty Marvel or DC series. Played for humor, this could be a great adaptation of the comics, they have the budget, CGI, and actors. But Amazon just dumped it down the middle.
    ★★☆☆☆
  • Jessica Jones: Started to watch S2E1, but it's even more grimdark and seething anger, without any attempt at humor or irony. I got up to a douchebro asshole picking a fight with Alias and she gets arrested, bailed, and charged in the same day (man, the justice system in Marvel is fast, in my reality it'd take weeks to get on a court docket after an arrest). Nothing fun here, can't take this bullshit right now.

Antisocial Media

Even as people catch up with me and deletefacebook; and the ongoing dumpster–nay, all of New Jersey—on fire of Twitter; there are still quislings or dupes of the ad companies who think centralized "social media" was a good idea.

  • They want all their interactions mediated by one authority. Petty convenience beats security and self-determination.
  • They never understood RSS and didn't take the 15 minutes to read about it and get an RSS reader, preferring instead to spend that time looking at cat pictures and arguing about blue/gold dresses.
  • They don't want or understand having control of a domain and their own identity, so whoever squatted on @xxx first gets that name forever. Unless the platform owner steals it for someone more profitable.
  • They don't have/express opinions other than Party Orthodoxy, so have no reason to fear the Special Ban Police showing up in the night to take away their posts and social connections. And they haven't yet realized that the Party and Orthodoxy changes, but the police never do.
  • They want to make sure people they don't like, can't read the content they put in a public place to be indexed by Google, Facebook, and other ad companies. Unless the thought-criminal signs out or makes a bullshit account, circumventing their block.
  • Is this about you?

Electronic Idol Friday Night Music

Annoying, Apple Music has quit showing me a Favorites and Chill playlist. I don't know if they just quit doing it, or if my old iTunes version (I can still manage apps) isn't showing it. This is how all Apple stuff decays as they quit maintaining it under Timmy Cook. Will the last person to board the Apple Panopticon Spaceship for Comet Hale-Bopp please turn out the lights?

What I'm Watching: Film Noir Edition

Went for some rewatching of good films instead of trying to dig up a new Netflix binge. Spoilers spoilers everywhere. I'm sure nobody needs another commentary on either of these, but it's my blog and I like writing these, so fuck it.

  • A History of Violence: Quiet (too quiet and long) start, then we see small-town diner jerk Tom Stall exhibit skills no small-town diner jerk should have, and all the shit in the world comes back on him.
    The stairway sex scene is the canonical "is that sex or rape?" borderline: It sure starts rapey, but takes a turn, and is the opposite of the earlier cheerleader outfit scene, because the wife has to learn who her husband really is; Cronenberg's sex scenes are the most important character tests in his films, Crash most obviously but just as much here or in Videodrome.
    The boy's inherited talents/same fight choreographer as his dad are impressive, but I don't think he'd have that vocabulary. The ending moves in like an oncoming train. Just a malevolent noir flick. I'm glad Cronenberg didn't fully adapt the very cartoony ending (chainsaws and 20-year tortures!) of the John Wagner & Vince Locke graphic novel, even if in other of his films that'd be a relatively mild scene. ★★★★★
  • Pulp Fiction: "None of you fucking pigs move, or I'll execute every motherfucking last one of ya!"
    "Say what again! I dare you!"
    "Why do we feel it's necessary to yack about bullshit in order to be comfortable?" "Do not be bringing some fucked-up puba to my house!" I don't really like the Mia Wallace date. She's a little too in control to be a cokehead, Vincent's too alert to be a junkie on new good shit. Disco dancing is still and always dead, but hey, Tarantino wanted to make one scene of a film he loved (speaking of films full of indifference to rape, don't ever watch Saturday Night Fever). Even back in the day, a lot of people didn't understand why snorting heroin like coke was a bad idea, but that baggie instead of balloon setup was like a ticking time bomb. Amusing set decoration: Operation and Life games in the dealer's house in that scene.
    "Five long years he bore this watch up his ass, then he died of dysentery." The book Vincent was reading is Modesty Blaise, so it's a hardcover comic collection? Just a prop making a cool reference? I dunno, I read Modesty when it was in the paper in my youth, and some collections more recently. Sex and quick bursts of violence were her MO, but not otherwise thematically connected to the film.
    "Bring out the gimp." Eeeny-meeney is a bad way to go. What's the gimp's story, anyway? This whole segment is just a lesson of why you don't ever go in a building with Confederate flags up, even to save your life, because Southern Confederate traitors are all same-sex rapists, as also seen in Deliverance. "You lost all your LA privileges, hear?"
    "You read the Bible, Brett?" This part of Ezekiel "25:17" being faux-quoted was recently covered by The Bible Reloaded — possibly this episode or one very recent to it. I have a problem with Vincent's shitty firearm safety, nobody carries a gun with their finger on the trigger. "You know what's on my mind right now? It's not the coffee in my kitchen." Jimmy's coffee and The Wolf are fucking amazing.
    "Then I'm gonna walk the Earth. You know, like Caine in Kung Fu. Walk from place to place, meet people, get in adventures.": Why didn't someone made this TV show, Jules in a modern Kung Fu?! Yeah, Sam Jackson was too expensive even then, but he's gotta have an understudy who could do the actual series, like Eric Pierpont played Mandy Patinkin's part in the Alien Nation series, or Michael Shanks played James Spader's part in SG-1. Did you even notice or care it wasn't the original dude? Nope.
    I don't even need to give stars to my 4th favorite movie of all time.

What I'm Watching: SpaceX, Collateral, Borderliner, Death in Paradise

  • SpaceX Falcon Heavy, Starman video: A private rocket put an electric car in solar orbit on its way to Mars, with Bowie songs as accompaniment. Heinlein's Delos Harriman from "The Man Who Sold the Moon" and "Requiem" would be proud but very confused at it taking until 2018. ★★★★★
  • Collateral: Pizza boy is killed, and then an endlessly dull police procedural rarely looks at the procedure, instead a bunch of associated characters stop and stare in silence, with occasional whinging, which is to say they're English. The immigration story about the victim's family could be interesting, but it's told very slowly and haltingly. Billie Piper is awful and petulant, which is to say she's Billie Piper. Labour MP is a whiner, which is to say he's a Labour MP. A whiny lesbian COE priest shacked up with a cute Vietnamese girl can't be happy despite living in the first decade in history she wouldn't be burned at the stake. The killer's story isn't well-told, but there's a story there. For who the killer is, their operational security skills are amateurish and just plain stupid.
    Cinematography is annoying, often massively desaturated, out-of-focus "artsy" shots that just look like nothing, then conversations are very hot, flipping camera between people. I hate this soap opera shit, I prefer a cooler, movie-like style. It's not all teal/orange, but it's not natural lighting, either.
    Gave up on this after E2. I have got to stop watching English crime dramas, because my usual mild Anglophobia at these physically and mentally ugly people is turning into full-on "reenact the Revolutionary War". Back to French, Dutch, and Scandinavian stuff, and I think there's some Korean shows I haven't seen.
    ★☆☆☆☆
  • Borderliner: Norwegian cop Niko goes home to his small-town family of cops and then gets tangled up in a murder his brother is involved in, and partnered with a very pretty blonde. Procedure isn't bad, doesn't jump around between characters too much. Norwegians seem to just say what they mean (or speak a lie straight up) and get on with the plot, which is so refreshing after a buncha whinging English. They are professional brooders, grim figures casting grim shadows even when young and nominally happy, but it comes off stoic and not whiny.
    Their reluctance to throw the obvious psychopath in the group to the wolves makes this take longer than needed. Niko's prior case is hanging like Chekov's gun for a long time until it goes off.
    The War on Some Drugs that drives the plot is stupid, and these stoic, quiet Norwegians and Swedes don't really have the cutthroat mentality and heavy firearms to do serious drug business.
    Anyway, eight eps in, it's done and ends on a dark, quiet brood. ★★★★☆
  • Death in Paradise: Still going at S4. Stupid fun, tho Humphrey is the most pathetic detective ever.

Village Murder Mysteries

Yes, gen-most-important-ever

Yes, gen-most-important-ever, you invented protests and they change the world, which is why the '60s flower power protests ended all war, and '80s protests ended Apartheid (not the sanctions and Nelson Mandela's followers), and '90s-'00s protests ended global trade. ?