A Good Mine

Last night's Bad Batch was really satisfying. It was solidly written by Brooke Roberts, a woman with a long career in television writing including Boston Legal, Family Guy, and The Flash. Before that, she was a linguist for the US Army specialising in Arabic. So she would seem eminently qualified to write for a show about a former military squad.

The episode was also notably better looking than other episodes. The Batch land on a planet that looks like Monument Valley in order to extract some valuable ore from a mine Cid purchased. They find the mine with less ore then expected and, meanwhile, their ship gets stolen. And that's just the start of their problems.

I loved how logical everything felt. Every problem felt credible and the steps the Batch take to deal with each obstacle felt plausible, good ideas or bad. The fact that Wrecker didn't think to keep the ship in sight when he was on watch seemed like a plausible mistake for him to make, especially considering he couldn't keep the mine and the ship in sight at the same time. Simply put, the episode wasn't stupid, which made me happy.

Also good was the ongoing tension between Omega and Tech. I've known plenty of people like Tech who can't understand why a logical explanation doesn't "fix" the emotional reaction someone else is having.

The only part I didn't like was when Tech told Omega at the end that his way of dealing with things doesn't mean he feels them less than she does. The show should have simply acknowledged that some people have stronger emotional reactions than others. It bothered me because that's a big problem in modern culture--people who simply can't believe that other people have different internal emotional landscapes to themselves.

But, on the whole, this was a great episode, certainly one of the best in the series.

The Bad Batch is available on Disney+.

To His Lady's Bower

For Valentine's Night, I chose something a little more tried and true and watched 1938's The Adventures of Robin Hood again. Now that's a romantic film, in the classical sense, and Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland certainly had chemistry.

How lovely is that scene where he visits her chambers? She's so innocent but clearly smart enough we know she knows what she's getting into. And somehow subsequent iterations have never managed anything like Flynn's blend of sauciness and gentleness.

I love de Havilland's shiny costumes and how every set was cavernous, as though it were a requirement in the '30s for every Hollywood set to be capable of supporting a massive dance number, should inspirations strike. I'd love to have a massive stone room with a fireplace big enough to be another room.

Being the king's ward certainly has its perks. Maid Marian does represent a fantasy of cultivation. Now the standard impression is that being raised in privilege inevitably corrupts a person but at one time people thought prudent, expensive upbringing could produce refinement. That's a lovely dream. No, it's not fair. But when has life ever been?

Some Enchanted Week

For Harrison Ford, 1998's Six Days, Seven Nights was just another in a string of lukewarm, forgettable films. For Anne Heche, who suffered a painful death after a horrific car accident last year, it was the biggest role of her career. It was directed by Ivan Reitman, who also died last year. Happy Valentine's Day, everyone.

Ford and Heche both give good performances that don't quite line up with their characters. Ford's famous for playing scoundrels but here he plays a horny scoundrel, something that tends to make a romantic lead much less attractive. It worked for Bill Murray in Ghostbusters but with Ford it's hard to shake the feeling he's Deckard play-acting to get into the Zhora's dressing room.

He and Anne Heche have no chemistry. Neither seems really into the other. I believe Heche as a high powered magazine editor. But there's something cold about her in the film and I can't imagine her being attracted to anyone. It doesn't help that not one single joke lands in this purported comedy. I never laughed. Some of the action adventure stuff, though, is pretty good and I wonder if this film would have done better if it'd given up on any idea of being a comedy.

I like how much practical effects were used and the location shooting. Ford, as a scoundrel pilot taking advantage of tourists, is arguably even closer to Charleton Heston's character in Secret of the Incas than he was in the Indiana Jones movies. He and Heche run afoul of pirates played by Temuera Morrison and Danny Trejo.

Impeccable casting there. I wish the film had focused more on fights with pirates.

Six Days, Seven Nights is available on Disney+ outside the US.

Twitter Sonnet #1669

With masks and masks we met the op'ra ghost.
Revolving canes precede the sausage joke.
Divergent routes commend our loopy host.
No wonder that the squeaky ride was broke.
Confections filled the box with testy frogs.
Advancing eyes were curled beyond a hope.
Euphoric futures pass behind the fogs.
Another night the Phantom ties a rope.
Rotund with hope, the plane began to climb.
Resurging sea would scrape the flyer down.
Emerging beasts resist the parent slime.
Ahead awaits the unsuspecting town.
Below the choppy plane the waves await.
Behind the slender years they offer bait.

Back Under the Opera House

After more than a decade of delays, Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera finally hit the big screen in 2004. Directed by Joel Schumacher, it's generally considered a disappointment, which perhaps should not be surprising given the fact that Schumacher directed two of the worst Batman movies of all time. Yet it was on the strength of Lost Boys, a decent film, that Lloyd Webber originally hired Schumacher and, while certainly a flawed, inferior work, Schumacher's Phantom isn't all bad.

Gerard Butler in the role of Phantom is certainly miscast. He's charismatic and his muscular frame is attractive. I can even believe the Phantom would strive to keep himself in peak physical condition. However, Butler's singing voice lacks skill and sensitivity, which is, I think, the main reason that Raoul (Patrick Wilson) actually comes off as more appealing in the film.

Emmy Rossum can sing, though notably not as well as Sarah Brightman, but she lets her beauty do a lot of the work in her performance. I do appreciate her beauty but, having seen the role performed by actresses who were both beautiful and capable of emotional complexity, she is also somewhat of a disappointment.

Minnie Driver stands out as Carlotta because she's Minnie Driver and seems odd in the role. Maybe more perplexing is Ciaran Hinds in the role of one of the theatre managers--Hinds can't sing at all.

However, Miranda Richardson is fine in the role of Madame Giry and Jennifer Ellison is cute as Meg. I also liked the production design which keeps the wonderfully lewd opera house statuary.

If this musical is ever adapted again, I would urge a director to consider how much heavy lifting the music does and refrain from too many close-ups. Also, the Phantom ought to look worse than someone having an allergic reaction to a bee sting when his mask's removed.

The Phantom of the Opera (2004) is available on Netflix in Japan.

The End of the Sausage

I finally did it, I finally finished reading The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, originally published in segments from 1759 to 1767. I started reading this book back in 2019. I brought it on the plane with me to Japan. But, while I think it's undeniably brilliant, I found only sporadic pleasure in reading it.

It's not even especially long and in the three years since I started it I put it down to read much longer works many times. I read The Faerie Queene again, Paradise Lost twice, three Horatio Hornblower novels, two Robert Louis Stevenson novels, Moby Dick again, various Lovecraft and MR James stories, Interview with the Vampire, and I don't even remember what. 18th century English novels are known for their ridiculously excessive verbosity but I managed Swift, Smollett, Fielding, DaFoe, and even Richardson without too much trouble. But God. The jokes. Tristram Shandy does not let up with the goddamn jokes.

The novel is deliberately anti-narrative. The author, Tristram himself, proposes to write his autobiography but is continually prevented by his own lengthy digressions. Author Laurence Sterne sought continually to undermine any sense of awe or any impression of one person or situation deserving more attention than another. I think this is perhaps why Karl Marx was such a fan of the book. But it mostly made me think what valuable a thing stories are in giving us narrative respite from the impossible complexity of real life.

Tristram begins with the intention of describing his birth but he cannot justify focusing on it without thoroughly describing his father and Uncle Toby and the conversation they had that night. If the novel truly has a main character, it's Uncle Toby, whose genitals are continually hinted at as having been terribly wounded in battle. Of course, when Tristram sets out directly to discuss his uncle, he's immediately sidetracked by describing his own journeys through France. He even illustrates his tendency:

I am now beginning to get fairly into my work; and by the help of a vegetable diet, with a few of the cold seeds, I make no doubt but I shall be able to go on with my uncle Toby’s story, and my own, in a tolerable straight line. Now,

These were the four lines I moved in through my first, second, third, and fourth volumes——In the fifth volume I have been very good,——the precise line I have described in it being this:

By which it appears, that except at the curve, marked A. where I took a trip to Navarre,—and the indented curve B. which is the short airing when I was there with the Lady Baussiere and her page,—I have not taken the least frisk of a digression, till John de la Casse’s devils led me the round you see marked D.—for as for c c c c c they are nothing but parentheses, and the common ins and outs incident to the lives of the greatest ministers of state; and when compared with what men have done,—or with my own transgressions at the letters A B D—they vanish into nothing.

As I said, the jokes are non-stop. Some of them are funny, but most of them left me feeling exhausted quickly. The double entendre is constant. See this portion of a story told by a character called Trim:

As Tom perceived, an’ please your honour, that he gained ground, and that all he had said upon the subject of sausages was kindly taken, he went on to help her a little in making them.——First, by taking hold of the ring of the sausage whilst she stroked the forced meat down with her hand——then by cutting the strings into proper lengths, and holding them in his hand, whilst she took them out one by one——then, by putting them across her mouth, that she might take them out as she wanted them——and so on from little to more, till at last he adventured to tie the sausage himself, whilst she held the snout.——

——Now a widow, an’ please your honour, always chuses a second husband as unlike the first as she can: so the affair was more than half settled in her mind before Tom mentioned it.

She made a feint however of defending herself, by snatching up a sausage:——Tom instantly laid hold of another——

But seeing Tom’s had more gristle in it——

She signed the capitulation——and Tom sealed it; and there was an end of the matter.

Maybe I'd have enjoyed the book more as it was originally published, in short volumes. In any case, I'm glad I can finally move on.

Twitter Sonnet #1668

For half a minute games can play themselves.
In trouble's eyes, the ship's a bottle first.
With crowded thoughts we filled organic shelves.
Another crash occurs to prompt a thirst.
Absorbent table cloths could answer stains.
Resourceful spoons could serve a crimson punch.
Resentful ladles shake with metal pains.
Revolving legs convene to carry lunch.
Bananas range about the seventh yard.
Resulting heavy pictures build a thirst.
Concise as armies steal a science card.
Replies reveal a single talking burst.
With final pastes imposing pages sleep.
Ingenious jokes compel the board to keep.

The Subtle Difference Between Stupid and Smart

What will it be, a world ruled by science or a world ruled by tyrants? Such is the too simplistic question posed by 1936's Things to Come, a visually splendid but philosophically daft science fiction film conceived by HG Wells and produced by Alexander Korda.

We begin with "Everytown", a place presumably meant to be a generic stand-in for any city in the world but is pretty obviously an English one. It's 1940, four years in the future from the film's release, and John Cabal (Raymond Massey) is worried about reports of impending war, despite recent assurances from authorities there will be none. To a British audience in 1936, that would've sounded awfully familiar.

And of course there is war. In one of the film's best scenes, a pilot from Everytown is shot down. Dying from his wounds, he sees a little girl approach as his allies above deploy gas. He gives his gas mask to the child, marvelling that he did so after he probably killed her parents, deliberately. It's a nice moment to show the senselessness of war.

The decades pass and endless war reduces Everytown to rubble and its people to a primitive tribe. A ruler emerges played by Ralph Richardson, who hams it up admirably. He lords it over the town in a furry vest and helmet, angrily demanding the deployment of aircraft despite the total absence of petrol to fuel them.

Now John Cabal returns, wearing futuristic tights and a calm demeanour. He talks about a new society of scientists ruled by reason. He's not worried when Richardson takes him hostage. Some time later, his allies arrive in force--a fleet of massive black bombers dropping "peace gas"--a gas that puts everyone to sleep instead of death.

Okay, a fair enough argument for science triumphing over infantile tribalism. Except as decades advance, Wells' vision of a society ruled by reason grows less acute. We see a marvellous future city sadly designed with ugly, featureless walls and balconies. We meet a sculptor, chipping away at a vaguely Native American figure, who complains of this new world where humans are trying to do things they weren't meant to, like going to space. Based on this vague argument, he somehow rouses millions of people to try to tear it all down. Meanwhile, on the other side, an old man tells his granddaughter how humans used to have foolish things called "windows" because they hadn't invented artificial sunlight yet. Mind you, that's not presented ironically. Wells evidently longed for a future in which fresh air and sunlight were not such disgusting necessities.

In obviously being inspired by the emerging tyrants of the 1930s, Wells fails to address the issues that actually made them popular. That they presented a vision of glory in contrast to a reality of poverty, something, ironically, Things to Come also does. So when the film concludes with Raymond Massey, playing the noble grandson of John Cabal, waxing triumphant on the glories of "progress" and "conquest" as the mob is massacred offscreen by concussion from the launching spacecraft, one is more astonished by the extremity of the film's tone deafness than by any of its astonishing special effects.

Things to Come is available on The Criterion Channel.

AKA Number Three

I loved the first season (2015) of Jessica Jones but found the second (2018) to be uneven. I'm four episodes into season three (2019) now and so far I'm really liking it.

Like the other Netflix Marvel series, this season of Jessica Jones spends a lot of time contemplating what it means to be a hero. Jessica's friend, Trish (Rachael Taylor), having recently acquired superpowers, desperately wants to be the ardent do-gooder Jessica (Krysten Ritter) is too cynical to be.

The second episode of the season, "You're Welcome", directed by series star Krysten Ritter, is surprisingly amusing as we follow Trish through basic superhero training only to find it's actually kind of difficult to come across crimes being committed. After she finally stops a mugging, the need for a secret identity becomes clear when the mugger sues her and she neglected to get information from the victim. It's stuff like this that's sorely missing from The Boys. I only wish the Marvel Netflix shows weren't so allergic to superhero costumes.

Jessica herself has a couple interesting plot threads. Her new love interest is a shady character called Erik (Benjamin Walker), based on the Marvel Comics character Mind Wave. Walker is an actor with a lot of natural warmth who serves as a good foil for the caustic performance from Ritter. Mind you, I still like Ritter in this role. She's really good in the third episode after she's lost her spleen following a stabbing in the first episode. It works as a source of tension not unlike Jack Nicholson's injured nose in Chinatown.

But, once again, the character of Jeri Hogarth played by Carrie-Anne Moss threatens to upstage everyone. The ruthless, high powered lawyer happens to be dying and is trying to reconnect with an old lover. With her time running out, and her history of playing hardball, there's a lot of tension around how far she'll go to get someone to love her before she dies, if she'll do something really repulsively manipulative. I kind of feel like I know where the show's going with this, and with the other subplots, but I'm still enjoying it.

Jessica Jones is available on Disney+.

Think of the Clones

We were treated to a double dose of The Bad Batch last night. Two episodes of political intrigue premiered. I enjoyed both episodes but found the first, written by Manifest writer Ezra Nachman, much better than the second, written by Star Trek: Picard writer Damani Johnson.

The first episode, "The Clone Conspiracy", seems like it may have been influenced by Andor though it reminded me more of the arc on Clone Wars when someone was assassinating senators. I kind of wish there'd been some kind of visual distinction between the senate chambers between then and now, though obviously the U.S. senate hasn't changed that much in the past hundred years.

Beginning with a nice hook in which one clone trooper (Dee Bradley Baker) is shot for daring to question the massacre on Kamino, the episode shifts to following Senator Chuchi (Jennifer Hale), another returning character from Clone Wars. Now she's the lone voice supporting clone rights. One wonders where Mon Mothma is in all this.

It's not until the second episode, "Truth and Consequences", that the Batch themselves finally show up. I didn't get caught up in their effort to steal footage of the Kamino massacre and I thought it was silly for Omega (Michelle Ang) to tag along with the senator. It felt kind of like Ezra witnessing the duel between Obi-Wan and Maul on Rebels--there was no reason for her to be there other than some vague worry that children wouldn't be interested unless there were a point of view character closer to their own age.

Phil LaMarr returns to voice Bail Organa. Normally I like LaMarr but for some reason he gives the character a thick Spanish accent which Jimmy Smits doesn't have.

But it was all worth it to get an appearance by the Emperor voiced by Ian McDiarmid. It was satisfying that he'd twisted our heroes actions to suit his own ends. McDiarmid's voice made it all seem twenty times cleverer than it was. It's nice he seems willing to play the character so often. I hope he shows up on Andor next season, I really want a scene between him and Mon Mothma.

The Bad Batch is available on Disney+.

A Short One on Short Ones

A couple weeks ago, I asked third year students at the school I work at (students about 15 years old) to write short stories. Yesterday I started reading them and I've been surprised and pleased by the results. Some of them obviously copied off each other, a couple I suspect just put their favourite stories through google translate, and one student just copied Snow White verbatim. But several students made some really fascinating things that made me feel like I'm just getting to know some of them for the first time.

Several of the stories feel like dreams or nightmares. One girl, who I know spends a lot of time watching American YouTubers, wrote about the frustration of being lost in a forest where everything's fake. One boy wrote about a guy getting revenge on the owner of an orange tree by giving him a mysterious black orange.

Of course, several boys wrote about fighting while the girls wrote about princesses in distress. A few girls wrote about meeting idols or becoming idols. Mostly I'm just happy these kids seem to be having genuine fun with English.

Twitter Sonnet #1667

Across the sparkling surface ladies danced.
Resplendent rocks adorn the diamond moon.
Refined for purpose jewels were sure enhanced.
Her dazzled future filled a pewter spoon.
As sleep arose it buffed the blushing sprite.
Aboard the floating garden witches rest.
Against the beating waves a heart doth fight.
And little blinking tears inscribe a test.
Returning words approved a worthless dish.
Reversing food condemned the pipe to flames.
Quartets of chickens cheered the dogless wish.
Beyond the feather trail's a list of names.
Across a bridge of papers pencils crowd.
Released to-day, the felon band was loud.

Such Stuff as Soothing Shadows

Shakespeare's The Tempest becomes a luxurious daydream of ruin in Derek Jarman's 1979 film adaptation. The dark halls of an 18th century manor strewn with roses serve as the setting for characters lost in contemplative ennui in this captivating if somewhat sleepy take on the tale.

Heathcote Williams as Prospero looks slightly like the Fourth Doctor as he seems to embody the famous final soliloquy throughout the film, bemusedly regarding events as a dream state. Toyah Willcox is a daffy, mischievous Miranda while David Meyer is a guileless Ferdinand who falls under her spell. This is a reversal on the traditional interpretation of the two characters that fits the dialogue surprisingly well.

Karl Johnson plays a strangely sadistic Ariel while Jack Birkett is a refreshingly pervy and predatory Caliban. He and Miranda become sparring partners in carnal humour when he intrudes on her bath. She covers her breasts but can't hold back a wicked laugh when she shoves him out of the room.

I wouldn't call this the definitive Miranda but it's an interesting spin. Being trapped on the island would seem as likely to foster perversity as innocence, or an innocent perversity, if you like.

Derek Jarman's The Tempest is available on The Criterion Channel as part of a Derek Jarman collection this month.

Love Among the Canal Kittens

On a barge in France, crowded with cats, a marriage is in jeopardy. 1934's L'Atalante may be the most adorable movie ever made.

We meet the crew of L'Atalante, an old man named Pere Jules (Michel Simon) and a boy (Louis Lefebvre), as they prepare for the return of their captain, Jean (Jean Daste) and his new bride, Juliette (Dita Parlo). Cleaning up the deck, Pere finds some of the omnipresent cats and kittens. He absently puts a kitten on his shoulder where it remains throughout the ensuing scenes.

Michel Simon's performance is nothing short of astounding. I was convinced he was a real old man whom director Jean Vigo found lounging on a wharf one day. It turns out he was only 39, four years younger than I am, and is the same actor I remember fondly from Boudu Saved from Drowning.

A scene where he shows Juliette his esoteric collection of knickknacks, tattoos, and porn from his world travels is absolutely captivating. From the shaggy marionette to the naked woman scrawled on his back, each item is captivating in its own way.

So often in films set aboard ships, the cabins are improbably large in order to accommodate filming. Here's one film that keeps in mind just how cramped it is. Vigo must have made sets that disassembled easily in order to accomodate a variety of angles with his bulky 1930s camera and equipment.

It pays off and there are fresh inventions in virtually every shot.

As Juliette, Dita Parlo is adorable as any of the kittens. Most people watching the movie probably root for her to leave Jean for Pere but the film blessedly presents a more complex, and simpler, situation. I loved this movie.

L'Atalante is available on The Criterion Channel.

The Music of Another Night

Last night I watched the 25th Anniversary Royal Albert Hall production of The Phantom of the Opera, recorded in 2011. I watched part of it in 2012 and stopped because I thought Ramin Karimloo wasn't as good as Michael Crawford. I stuck it out this time and Karimloo grew on me. His Phantom seems a bit more unstable than Crawford, he seems more often on the verge of mental and emotional collapse, which I sometimes really liked. Though I still feel Crawford's singing was more complex. Sierra Boggess as Christine wisely holds nothing back in the graveyard scene and gives the character's psychological issues a great deal of weight. She helps prevent the character from feeling like a blank romance novel protagonist, like the girl in Twilight.

The suitor selection, Raoul and the Phantom, makes this a good fantasy for heterosexual women to enjoy. And I think the influences of postmodernist literature that recontextualises villains, like Grendel and Interview with the Vampire, lead it down a path to the Byronic hero and Milton's Satan. The writers must have been thinking of Milton when the Phantom finally refers to himself as an angel of Hell.

The costumes in the 25th anniversary edition are great. I particularly love Christine's costume during the Don Juan Triumphant scene (an obvious nod to Lord Byron).

It occurs to me that Frozen is the Phantom of the 2010s.

A friend from work let me borrow a DVD of the 25th anniversary production. There's currently a production going on here in Japan. It makes sense that the musical is popular here given the fact that it deals with a contrast between public and private life, between the glory of creating beautiful artifice and the bitterness of reality's limitations.

It's a lovely show in any country, though.

Twitter Sonnet #1666

A barrel bod rebuffed the spinning rag.
A waxy car ignites the candle heart.
With turtle tools we took the easy bag.
But now the mountain melts beneath the cart.
A song of trains rejected sense for thought.
Demurring lemurs love the best of times.
So cram the leafy spinach down the pot.
A normal rocket charts as Buster climbs.
The racing forties finished many days.
Again, the rodent climbed prediction's tree.
A shadow cast results in sleepy ways.
The queen demands a lighter, faster bee.
Disaster minds the stage for ghosts at night.
A grinning skull arose above the quiet fight.

The Uninvited Wookiee

Normally I like episodes of The Bad Batch written by Matt Michnovetz. But while elements of Wednesday's episode, "Tribe", felt like a classic Clone Wars episode, I was mostly underwhelmed.

The episode was directed by Steward Lee, who also teamed with Michnovetz for the "riot racing" episode, "Faster", so I am a little surprised to find myself disappointed by this one.

I do like how things start out with a deal going sour when the Batch meet with a group of droid smugglers. It's a little moment that expands the world a little more, but I wish the smugglers hadn't been droids. It's the kind of thing that feels like it was necessitated by budget or moral codes. It turns out the droids are taking in a young Jedi for a bounty, the wookiee Gungi, who was among the young Jedi in the fifth season Clone Wars story arc starting with "The Gathering". Ahsoka chaperoned Gungi and the other younglings in their quest to build lightsabres.

There are far too many Jedi shown having survived Order 66 at this point. Let's see, there's Ahsoka (yeah, she left the Order, but let's not split hairs), Kanan, Yoda, Obi-Wan, Grogu. Whoever's in the video games. Now they've brought back another one and it's this annoying wookiee kid. What a waste. The episode felt uncomfortably close to the Star Wars: Holiday Special. Lumpy would not have seemed out of place.

The Bad Batch is available on Disney+.

Put Your Cat Clothes On

You never can tell when a secret undersea empire will show itself. Africa's most powerful secret utopia contends with such a problem in 2022's Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. The most solidly written MCU movie of 2022, it's blessedly free of the drunken silliness increasingly turning the franchise into an embarrassing bore. It's better than the first Black Panther as well.

Actor Chadwick Boseman passed away in real life so the movie begins with the Black Panther himself passing away off screen. This means the standout character from the first film, Letitia Wright's Princess Shuri, takes centre stage.

I never would have wished for Boseman's death but, as I said in my review for the first film, I thought his performance was the weakest part of it. Without him, the incredible supporting cast can take the spotlight. In addition to Wright, Angela Bassett, Danai Gurira, and Lupita Nyong'o are all given space to shine.

Once again, Disney didn't have the guts to shoot in Africa and the cgi Wakanda still looks like a computer simulation of Dubai mixed with Coruscant. At least the stars and director went to Lagos for a premiere this time. Even so, this is definitely an American fantasy of Africa.

The best parts of the film have to do with the villain, for once, one of Marvel's oldest characters, Namor (Tenoch Huerta Mejía). While the first film mostly repeated the plot from the first Thor film, this one feels less plot driven and the best parts are when it focuses on just how creepy and ruthless Namor and his people are.

I thought Dominique Thorne as Riri Williams, Iron Man: The Next Generation, was charming, as much as I don't like the general idea of everyone being slowly replaced by spunky young folks.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is available on Disney+.

Way of the Gunn

Happy Groundhog Day, everyone.

Yesterday, James Gunn announced many details about the DC cinematic universe under his stewardship. I hope what he plans makes Warner Brothers a lot of money because I like what he's pitching. He talks about an interconnected set of stories in which the priority will be placed on writing and creative vision. It sounds a lot like the MCU but just a guy like Gunn being in charge of it makes me think it could actually be interesting.

I watched Gunn's The Suicide Squad again recently. I think it's the most rewatchable of any superhero movie of the past few years and Peacemaker was absolutely fantastic. I'm surprised he's taken on the writing of the new Superman movie since, tonally, I'd have to think it'd be very different from what he does best. But I think we can at least trust him to steer it away from irony and rote grimness.

There has to be some lightness and romance in Superman. That's what people keep coming back for, even when it's not especially good. I'd also like to see a cockier Superman, a guy who's just a little bit of a smug asshole, as he often seemed in the '40s and '50s. I'd like to see someone like Seth MacFarlane in the role. I suppose The Boys is kind of mining this territory already but considering how popular the Homelander character has become, for reasons less ironic than intended, this could be the moment of a super bastard.

Whatever happens, I just hope they make Poison Ivy a bombshell again.

Twitter Sonnet #1665

Repentant tourists tip the idol's weight.
Reviews revealed the rapid welts were gold.
Consumer teeth deserved a second fate.
Condemned to breathe an airless story's told.
As colours take their places pictures move.
Depression names the dust a money woe.
Approaching oceans, wrath begins to groove.
Resplendent archer draws her golden bow.
Redemptive spider butts were round as pie.
Substantial soil clutched the marble eve.
Possessive roofs exude a mortal sigh.
Beneath the fluffy cloud, the waters grieve.
Electric screens dispatched the flying dream.
Consistent waves deliver writhing bream.