Category: Pop Culture

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Comic Film Universe

Next stop in the «Infinity War» week:

My completely redesigned interactive visualization of more than 333 comic book movies and TV-series containing thousands of characters and performers. Check it out on www.blick.ch/8227617 or directly via https://storytelling.blick.ch/infografik/2018/comicnet.

This year, Marvel Studios celebrate the tenth anniversary of their cinematic universe, which began in 2008 with «Iron Man» and now culminates in the spectacular «Avengers: Infinity War».

The perfect time to analyze the properties of Marvel, DC and everything in between.

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Jessica Jones Season 2

Rating: 3

After the disappointing «Defenders» and «Iron Fist», «Jessica Jones» remains one of the stronger Marvel Netflix series thanks to Krysten Ritter who really made the character her own.

I’m all in for female-driven storytelling and I guess it worked just fine. But I’m wondering if the best central conflict the creators could choose for our heroine this season really was the fear of turning into her mother? It’s quite the leap from codependency, rape and trauma in the first season to this.

I’m not sure why a similar thing worked much better and more effective with Tony Stark’s Daddy issues. I guess it has to do with the fact that writing a strong female superhero character is still a relatively new, even unexplored field. (Or maybe it’s just ’cause I’m a bloke).

Let’s give Jessica and the audience some credit and let her do some superhero things, shall we? There must be some middleground to this. And there might be: Though it didn’t really lead anywhere (besides avoiding the issue what might happen when the Hulk and Black Widow would «get it on»), Marvel tried it in «Avengers: Age of Ultron» when Natasha Romanoff had to deal with her inability to bear children. And she did it while saving the world.

If not, I fear that «Defenders» Season 2 will revolve around Jessica Jones’ struggle to buy a pair of new jeans that doesn’t make her look fat while Iron Fist tries to become a social media influencer.

Post Scriptum:

I hate to say that I probably didn’t give enough credit for the fact(?) that Jessica Jones Season 2 might be less about her fear of turning into her mother than about coming to terms with a loved one losing the battle against mental illness…

Mea culpa… oh, look: Isn’t that Thanos over there annihilating half of the universe just cause he’s in love with a chick who happens to be frakking death itself? Men are simple…

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Ready Player One

Rating: 3

Didn’t hate it. Didn’t love it. But I might look into Ernest Cline’s book. The premise sounds interesting, after all, even if this movie adaptation didn’t really work for me.

At least it’s nowhere near the eerie awfulness that was «Artificial Intelligence». Even the fact that «Ready Player One» made me think of «A.I.» should be a warning sign if the reason for it wasn’t the part I liked most about «Ready Player One».

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Dunkirk

Rating: 3

Christopher Nolan is a very cool director. He makes very cool movies. That’s great for fantasy or science fiction but for a war-themed movie like «Dunkirk» his modus operandi is an unusual approach. The movie is gorgeous to look at, but if it wasn’t for Hans Zimmer’s excellent soundtrack, I wouldn’t have felt much watching it.

Depicting war as a force of nature without any real antagonist doesn’t help either. But that’s not really a problem because «Dunkirk» was not made to be a war movie.

The funny thing is that while the movie might lack emotions by identification, it is still better described as a feeling than as a movie. A thing to be experienced, not watched as a traditional hero’s journey motion picture (Terrence Malick comes to mind). And it does a very good  job at it.

All in all, watching «Dunkirk» and «Darkest Hour» back-to-back was a lucky happenstance, making one damn fine double feature movie night with two sides of the same precious coin.

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Darkest Hour

Rating: 3.5

What easily could have been a dry, boring history lesson turns out to be a surprisingly light-footed, perfectly paced and beautifully shot drama set around Gary Oldman’s outstanding performance. (And the Oscar for best makeup should be a done deal, too).

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Lady Bird

Rating: 2.5

Bittersweet coming-of-age movie with a phenomenal cast. «Lady Bird» definitely got the Oscar vibe going on but in my humble opinion takes itself a tad too seriously. (Though we would have a completely different, probably worse movie if it was anyway else).

After all, I guess it’s been too long since my high school years as a teenage girl to really appreciate this contestant.

My personal silly highlights in the movie were those tiny little moments when Saoirse Ronan stumbles over her accent. (Full disclosure:  I might have fallen in love with her voice while researching on YouTube how the hell her name is pronounced).

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Get Out

Rating: 3.5

Very noicce try. Jordan Peele does a wonderful job in building an interesting world, setting up solid characters and introducing us to a fantastic concept of a story that, not accidentally, reminds us of a different movie set in a similar universe which name I won’t mention because of spoilers.

And there’s the Problem:  Unlike the not to be named modern classic, «Get Out» promises a little too much for its own good. It can’t quite deliver the payoff it deserves when the movie seems to lose interest in its own story and falls flat in the last act. There might be a masterpiece in there but it just barely couldn’t get out. (Yes, I just wrote that).