The Moon, Her Magic Be

I guess last night's Moon Knight finale wasn't bad but I'm a little confused by the ecstatic reviews I've been reading for it. It felt oddly rushed to me, like a trailer for an episode rather than an actual episode. There were big chunks of character development still missing and necessary to support what happens and some dialogue just didn't make any sense. It had some nice spectacle, though.

The giant Khonshu versus Ammit fight was some groovy kaiju action. Too bad we couldn't get the starfish from The Suicide Squad involved. Eternals needed a scene like this. It wouldn't have saved it but it would have been a good start.

In terms of the human characters, Harrow is really the only one the feels like he was fully realised. It was interesting when Ammit remarked that Harrow's own scales weren't in balance. Harrow's humility and Ammit's decision to use him were just as interesting and made both characters come off as intelligent.

I was disappointed to see Steven rescued, especially since it didn't make a lot of sense. It reminded me a lot of the end of Frozen when Elsa saves Anna. It made a bit more sense in Frozen, though, and that was one of the weak points in that movie.

The weakest part of the episode was definitely Layla. She rescued Khonshu seemingly only to tell him that she didn't trust him and didn't want to work with him. And then later she agreed to become Taweret's avatar with no explanation as to why she trusted Taweret when she was so set against it with Khonshu. This, combined with her uneven or just plain absent development in previous episodes, culminated in the pathetic moment when a kid says, "Are you an Egyptian superhero?" and she just says, "I am." I haven't seen pandering this shallow since that phoney little video showing an Asian kid disappointed by the lack of representation in the Ghost in the Shell live action movie. But Layla's costume is kind of nice.

When Marc refrained form killing Harrow/Ammit, Khonshu said vengeance was necessary when he should have taken a cue from Palpatine or Mace Windu and said, "He's too dangerous to be left alive!" Then what would you say, Marc the Merc?

But it did lead us to the end credits scene in which we finally meet Jake Lockley, the third personality inhabiting Marc's body. That could pay off in good stuff when this show gets its second season.

Twitter Sonnet #1577

The pressure ball corrupts the billiard game.
To wander films, return the doors and books.
A wadded note imprisoned someone's name.
A passing car awakens sleeping crooks.
A dental thought denies the floss its stripe.
Contain the falling brain to start the lake.
A winding path reports the mild hype.
A single finger pushed the special cake.
A floating bullet cured a magic ham.
Across a sea of coffee lies a heart.
An hour's walk supports a lovely gam.
A glowing liquid filled a special dart.
A sudden flood of shirts surpassed the boot.
To-day, the castle's moat is truly moot.

On a Clear Night

Last night's Moon Knight was better than I expected, even better than last week's. The teleplay by Rebecca Kirsch and Matthew Orton had things I even loved though it also had the kinds of problems I would expect from something rushed.

I loved the dynamic between Steven and Marc (Oscar Isaac) in this episode. I loved how you could read everything Steven says as something Marc says to himself or as an something a separate and independent character would say. It makes sense of the resentment Steven has for Marc and for any kind of violence. Steven is a mechanism to avoid confronting the reality of their abusive mother but he's also an internalisating of her implacable morality. Marc is forced to live in a world of greys while Steven has the freedom to see things in more black and white terms.

I loved how Dr. Harrow (Ethan Hawke) actually gave him useful advice about opening up to himself. I wonder if there's anything actually of Harrow in him or if Marc's mind is just using his face.

I wish a little more time could've been spent on the dynamics of Marc/Steven's family. I like the idea of him having an abusive mother but the way she's portrayed feels too much like an After School Special. I'd have liked some clues about how his father was handling the situation. Did he ever confront her?

I wish Kirsch and/or Orton had not written Taweret, the hippo goddess, as incompetent. That felt a bit hackneyed. She's been doing this for thousands of years, there's no reason she should need cue cards.

But in the main, I really liked this episode. I liked the bird skeleton Steven sees when chasing the kids into the cave, a little omen of Konshu or another thing to make the boundary between dream and reality less certain. I hope Steven is actually dead. As much as I like him, I want him to have the dignity of the episode's nicely tragic ending.

Moon Knight is available on Disney+.

Twitter Sonnet #1575

The time it ticks to crack a clock is one.
The weak it breaks could foster depths of foam.
To seek a debt in purses cut is done.
The stranger's eye is sculpted straight from home.
A rainy heat abused the drop of names.
To walk in wind invites the mad to dunk.
The man to think of crowns in hock remains.
A metal gripper brained the heartless lunk.
Decisive sand was changed for sugar dust.
But grains of stone were never solid ground.
A second colour claimed the name of rust.
A Spanish song arranged the morning sound.
A tiny bird could make you think of caves.
But never blink to raid Egyptian graves.

Moon Mind

Last night's new Moon Knight was my favourite episode so far. The Indiana Jones vibe swerved into a Hellboy vibe for an episode that's finally delivering on the promise for the MCU to lean more into horror.

I loved that reanimated mummy Layla fought. He was right out of a Hellboy comic or movie. The whole sequence in the tomb really captured the adventure serial tone it was going for. All it lacks is a character to anchor it as strongly as Indiana Jones, Lara Croft, or Hellboy. Neither Marc/Steven nor Layla has a good enough costume in this episode to rival the iconic looks of those characters. Layla's character has been too hazily designed, kind of a classic example of a female lead being written entirely based on her reactions to the male characters--her career is motivated by her father, her revenge is motivated by her father, her affections are torn between Marc and Steven. So far we haven't gotten a good impression of Layla's own core personality.

Marc/Steven is much better and it's becoming more and more entertaining to see their exasperation with each other. And even more rewarding when they actually start to show each other respect and even affection, as when they run into each other in the mental institution.

I don't know if people have competing theories on what's going on but I'm pretty firmly in the belief that this is all occurring in Marc/Steven's head, or in some special psychic space built from his mind that other entities can enter. Which makes it a pretty well-worn plot type. I found myself thinking of the sixth season Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Normal Again". Which is fine but the tomb stuff was so much better. Hopefully they'll move on quickly, maybe this'll just turn into a gateway into the realm of the Egyptian gods so Marc and Steven can rescue Konshu.

Moon Knight is available on Disney+.

Twitter Sonnet #1574

Distracted muppets ride the acting suits.
A face and face compete for feet and fists.
The clunky box was stood on ugly boots.
A six again's revealed in yellow mist.
Transported blinks were notches short of eyes.
If letter one or two would care to snap.
The rented sheets became a special prize.
And here we think it's surely time to nap.
With desert ghosts the tourist took the sea.
Sufficient grains could build a healthy beach.
You'll find the captain makes the fo'c'sle tea.
A solid park returned the empty peach.
The ruddy doctor fought a walking tan.
Beneath the crescent sleeps a desert man.

Moon Jones

Last night's Moon Knight had a good, old fashioned adventure serial vibe. Writers Beau DeMayo, Peter Cameron, and Sabir Pirzada took the show into a slightly different tone but director Mohamed Diab returned to give us quality action sequences again as he did in the first episode. Though again with strangely unfinished looking effects.

I've seen other critics compare this episode to Indiana Jones and I can certainly see it. Layla (May Calamawy) is kind of a more battle-ready version of Marian Ravenwood. Also like Raiders of the Lost Ark, we're jumping into the story between her and the male lead in the middle, rather than starting with their first meeting. Considering how much Raya and the Last Dragon seemed influenced by Indiana Jones, I wonder if Disney is doing this to subliminally seed promotion for Indiana Jones 5

The Marc/Steven (Oscar Isaac) relationship feels more straightforward, more conducive to a pulp story. In the previous episode, Steven mysteriously had aspects of Layla's personality, as though he may have been constructed from Marc's impressions of her. Now he simply seems to be an entirely different person with a complete and plot-useful expertise in ancient Egypt rather than an amateur fondness. The previous episode seemed to imply Layla had equivocal expertise to Steven but that no longer seems to be the case.

I really like the scene where Khonshu (F. Murray Abraham/Karim El Hakim) changes the night's sky though it seems like they could've found a way to calculate the stars' positions. Or maybe Khonshu could've simply conjured a picture of the night sky. But it was a cool effect.

Moon Knight is available on Disney+.

What to Do About Destiny

A solid new Moon Knight last night. This second episode wasn't quite as extravagant as the first but I felt like I was settling into a decent serialised adventure. It felt a bit like classic Doctor Who.

My favourite characters so far are Khonshu and Arthur Harrow. Arthur's kind of like Thanos, I guess, in that he's operating from a rationale based on helping the world with very tough love. It is nice when villains actually have an intelligible motive. Ethan Hawke is doing a good job in the role, too. It is kind of a drag they're using Bob Dylan's "Every Grain of Sand" ironically, though. It's not like Dylan ever advocated killing babies.

Arthur's argument is basically based on a belief in predestination, like a Calvinist or other hardcore Protestant, i.e. a Puritan. Except he feels he has a direct line with a deity in the know. Steven's (Oscar Isaac) counterargument is basically that you shouldn't kill babies or other innocent people but he doesn't say whether this because he doesn't believe Arthur can see the future or if it's because that doesn't matter or if, like Yoda, he thinks, "Always in motion is the future." Which is fine, Steven is operating on instinct, not philosophy. I would expect Marc or Khonshu to have more of a counterargument, though, and maybe they will at some point.

I don't mind Steven but I'm kind of glad Marc takes over at the end of the episode. I hope we get a chance to know him better next week. The same goes for Layla, who's pretty and May Calamawy gives a decent performance, but she still needs some fleshing out. I would like to see some of her adventures with Marc.

But my favourite thing so far is Khonshu. I love that big bird skull with F. Murray Abraham's voice.

He's a nice blend of comedy and horror.

Moon Knight is available on Disney+.

The Moon's Associates

Last night saw the premiere of Moon Knight, the latest MCU series to premiere on Disney+. It's not a bad first episode, not quite as good as Hawkeye or Loki's first episode but a bit better than Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Writing and direction were decent but most of the credit belongs to Oscar Isaac and Ethan Hawke, both of whom deliver excellent performances, particularly Isaac.

Isaac has already played one major Marvel character, Apocalypse in the Brian Singer-verse X-Men films, another character involved in Egyptian mythology. Isaac does kind of look Egyptian though he's actually an American who was born in Guatemala to a Guatemalan mother and a Cuban father. Moon Knight's principle alter-ego is the Jewish American Marc Spector, though supposedly his religion is never mentioned on the show, something that has led some to speculate that it's been removed. Apparently it's been enough cause for concern that Isaac has publicly addressed it and confirmed that his version of the character is Jewish. Isaac himself is Christian, another twist in the endlessly convoluted current political neuroses about actors having to play characters who represent them ethnically, religiously, and anatomically. It's a particular issue here because the series' primary director, Mohamad Diab, has criticised DC films for their representation of Egyptians.

Marc Spector has dissociative identity disorder and for 95% of the first episode we actually see Isaac playing Steven Grant, an English identity who lives in London and works at a museum gift shop. I wonder if anyone has complained about someone without DID playing something with DID. In any case, Steven is really sweet and charming with Isaac in the role and you feel for the poor guy who constantly finds himself in strange places and situations with no idea how he got there, particularly because he's such a meek and polite fellow.

I'd seen Isaac in movies before The Force Awakens but he never made an impression on me, nor has he been particularly interesting since then. Moon Knight is the first I've seen him capture some of that regular guy charm that was so effective in Force Awakens.

It's interesting seeing Ethan Hawke in a Marvel project after he famously criticised superhero movies a few years ago. Though, to be fair, he only said that Logan was only great for a comic book movie, not on the same metric as great cinema. I wonder if he's seen anything that's changed his mind or maybe all he saw was a dollar sign. In any case, though he hasn't had much screentime yet, I like the nuance he's bringing to the villain role, making the zealous man seem genuinely compassionate.

When Hawke's character, Arthur, tells Steven he has "chaos" in him, it made me wonder if the writers are consciously aiming for an order versus chaos theme, perhaps a counterargument to Jordan Peterson. The fact that the protagonist's superpower is apparently related to his mental illness, it certainly seems like the show could be taking a pro-Foucault stance. Foucault's History of Madness presents the idea of mental illness being a subjective and political construct and Jordan Peterson has routinely pointed to Derrida and Foucault as being responsible for introducing disastrous ideas into popular ideology. Peterson has also talked extensively about how he feels he's been vilified in recent Captain America comics by H.Y.D.R.A.'s reference to "order and chaos" and "rules for life", these things bearing resemblance to titles of Peterson's books. Although I like some of Peterson's lectures on YouTube, I thought he was imagining things with respect to the order and chaos rhetoric since it had also appeared in Winter Soldier, a movie that came out years before Peterson was a prominent figure. But now I'm starting to wonder if it is intentional.

I think there are a lot of potential problems in portraying a mental illness as a superpower but I did enjoy this first episode. Most of it was action and comedy and Diab does a good job with the action sequences. Despite the cgi being oddly mediocre, I did enjoy the car chase in which Steven steals a cupcake truck.

Recently, the old Netflix Marvel series have been put on Disney+ and I've picked up watching Daredevil where I left off years ago. I'd stopped after the first episode of the second season and over the past couple weeks I've finished watching the second season. I also saw the first season of Jessica Jones and the first half of the second season years ago and I'll probably pick that up again too. I haven't seen any of Iron First, Luke Cage, The Defenders, or Punisher. I'd stopped watching the Netflix series because I was getting kind of tired of superheroes at that point and some of the writing was starting to diminish in quality. I loved the first season of Jessica Jones but was finding the second unbearable. Picking up Daredevil again felt like a breath of fresh air, though, and the discussions in the second season about the differences between Daredevil's and the Punisher's brands of vigilantism were genuinely provoking and intelligent in ways the similar discussion in the recent Batman movie wasn't.

People talked a lot more on those old Netflix Marvel shows because there were more episodes per season with smaller effects budgets. This fostered some good old fashioned good writing, it seems. It also led to some drawbacks and finishing the second season of Daredevil this week I was reminded of why I tired of it. I'd gotten sick of the supporting characters constantly complaining to Matt about the fact that he's Daredevil and there are also many really dumb, contrived plot points, like when Karen decides to break up with Matt when she sees an old man in his apartment and an injured woman in his bed. It seems like a situation in which she ought to have at least been willing to hear him offer an explanation. But I do really like Deborah Ann Woll and I'm surprised to see the action sequences on Daredevil hold up against anything in the MCU to-day, including Shang-Chi. So I guess I will keep watching it.

Twitter Sonnet #1567

Guitars appeared to cook potato strings.
Affronts to falcons fell to pinion nubs.
Assorted stripes were bent to feature rings.
Refraction lights the little candle stubs.
Re-opened cases clutter wooden planes.
But time's a heavy bowl for spoons to fill.
Rejecting flakes, your post some milk regains.
Approach the duck; some sugar iced the bill.
Her thoughts were drawn to globes in outer space.
Acceptance shaved the tops of needle trees.
Revolving slow, the world revealed its face.
Bereft of honey, ships return to seas.
Approaching birds are flying fast in shade.
Declining flocks were fiefs too rashly made.