Doctor Strange

I had been avoiding this movie because of the whitewashing of the Asian characters, and because I just didn't see how magic would work in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but as I'm catching up on S4 of Agents of SHIELD, I'm seeing a more super-natural bent (Ghostrider, mostly). 
As I began watching it, I rolled my eyes and said, "Oh, another white asshole that must learn empathy or compassion or sacrifice or something to truly become powerful.  Great.  It's not like I haven't seen this a couple of times already (Tony Stark, Thor, etc.)." 
I did like that there was some racial diversity, although not enough Asians for a movie set mostly in Hong Kong.  It was a little awkward, though, that Chiwetel Ejiofor's character was very, very similar to his character in Serenity. 
It totally didn't pass the Bechdel Test, of course.  At least the love interest had skills! 

Basically, if this wasn't a Marvel movie, I wouldn't have watched it.  I'm totally not a Cumberbatch fan, either.  I mean, I was mostly "meh" until Star Trek: Into Darkness.  Then I HATED him. 

Deadpool

For all of it's R-rated fanfare, Deadpool was pretty much any action movie from a couple decades ago.  It was a bit more raunchy than Kill Bill (either volume), and just as violent.  What makes it even less watchable is that the one woman character was so stereotypical. 

I don't even remember her name.

But she started out a badass, protecting herself at a rough bar.  But she immediately refers to herself as "merchandise," objectifying herself.  And the love story that we see?  Is them having sex.  She was a badass for, like, a minute, and then just a willing sex toy.  The movie is just all male fantasy all the time. 

And during the sex montage?  Why is International Women's Day celebrated by painful anal intercourse?  What are you saying about women if you celebrate us that way?!  

When we finally get back to her, she's a dancer or waitress or something in a strip club.  WTF was she doing in a mercenary bar, and protecting herself well, if she's merely a waitress?!  It all makes no sense. 

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Possible (probable) SPOILERS ahead!

I've seen Star Wars: The Force Awakens (TFA) twice in theaters now.  I may watch it again, or just wait until I can get it on DVD to continue to watch it.  I loaned my set of the first 6 to a student, and she hasn't given them back, so I might have to buy them all over again!

Anyway, it's safe to say that I love TFA, even though I do see some places where there's a little too much missing information, or improbable coincidences.

There are several reasons why I love it.  It's action-packed and funny.
But more importantly, it's a Star Wars film.  The universe is the Star Wars galaxy, unlike the prequels.  Those were so CGI'd and glossy that none of it felt like Star Wars.  This one does.  The gadgets are similar, the machines are worn, it's just Star Wars.
It's also a pretty similar story to the original (A New Hope); there's a hero(ine) who lost their parents who is stuck on a desert planet and is untrained and mostly unknowledgeable about The Force, who goes on an adventure with the resistance to save the galaxy.  There's a villain who's taking orders from a more evil villain.  There's an unnecessary cantina scene.  There's a feisty woman who saves herself.  There's a crazy scary monster scene.

But I do have some problems, or questions.  Here they are:

1. Why does Finn's conditioning not work?  Does this happen often?  Is he special in some way?
2. How convenient was it for Han to find the Millenium Falcon at just that moment?  
3. Why didn't R2-D2 wake up when BB-8 first came to him with part of the map?  Why did it only happen after the Starkiller was destroyed? 
4. Is Rey just a random girl who is strong with The Force?  Is she an Organa-Solo?  Is she Luke's daughter?!  
5. Why can Rey speak every language?!
6. Did someone take care of Rey when she was first abandoned?  Who?  Was it that old guy with the map (Lor San Tekka is his name; I looked it up)?
7. How convenient was it that Han took Rey to the place where Luke's lightsaber was?

After watching the movie, I have read some things about it.  People have interesting theories about Rey!  I hope that Disney figures out that people (adults, boys, girls) want Rey merchandise!

I can't wait for Episode VIII!!!

Black Widow & Avengers: Age of Ultron

Ultron "spoiler":

I still can't get over that Black Widow's biggest emotional struggle is not being able to have children.  How stereotypic is that?!  I was happy as can be to have my uterus ripped out so that I never had to worry about the possibility again!  Her memories showed her shooting an unarmed man in the head.  How is that not worse than no birthing of your own?!  And what about all of that red in her ledger?

I also hate how Natasha basically threw herself at Bruce.  For frax sake, that is so not her style.  It's not Joss's style, either.  From my experience of his writing (which is somewhat extensive), he hints at least 3-5 "episodes" ahead about anything like that.  But I don't remember ANYTHING in Avenger's that would support her desiring Bruce.  And even if it was there, she wouldn't be so obvious and assertive about it.  Not that she's not assertive, but she's a spy, for goodness sakes, she would be much more subtle.

The handling of Black Widow's character was so bad in this movie that I won't own the movie.  I'd like a Captain America set, but it won't include this one.
Which isn't so bad, because Captain America's character didn't really do anything, either.  You can't see any change or growth from his dismantling of SHIELD and Hydra in his last movie.  He's just a stock character.

The whole movie was really a let-down.  Marvel had been doing such a great job of building the movies, the universe, and then this movie lost all of the characters and their arcs, and was just a mess to show them all together.

McFarland, U.S.A.

I just watched McFarland last night (trailer).  I left the theater feeling so proud of my students, the same kind of students whom Coach White helped.  It was a great movie to show how engagement with school activities or staff can turn a child's life around.

Then today, I realized that it was another White Savior movie.  :(  The white guy comes in, and changes the lives of all of those poor people of color. 
I also realized that the movie probably failed the Bechdel Test.  There were several women and girl characters, but they mostly were background for Coach White (his family or colleagues).  I guess this is not unexpected for a movie about a (men's) running team. 

Still, I really liked the movie.  I loved the representation of Hispanic culture.  Although the movie definitely exaggerated the friendliness and inclusiveness of small towns or Hispanic families, the "fish out of water" experience of the White family going to a small, Hispanic town in the central valley of California in 1987 was pretty funny. 

I look forward to hearing the responses of Hispanic people, especially migrant workers and their kids.  So much of the movie seems realistic to me, but that's no my background.  I've lived near migrant communities for much of my life, but "near" and "in" is a vast difference. 

Into The Woods

I watched the 2014/2015 released movie Into the Woods this past weekend.  I've seen the live version a couple of times, but was really impressed with the singers.  Especially the kids.  And Meryl Streep!!!  I did not know that she could sing like that!  [I hope that it was really her singing, and not dubbed.  I'd feel pretty let down if that were the case...]

But the reason that this movie, out of the many that I watch, gets review is not just the great singing by all of the actors.  It's because the movie was surprisingly sexist for modern standards.  I get that it's supposed to be in medieval times or whatever, but so was Frozen and that movie didn't kill off many of the women characters.  One even died after kissing someone who wasn't her husband in Into the Woods!  Talk about traditional violence against women who like sexuality!  From my memory, only one man died.  And he wasn't a main character.  But two women who were main characters died, and one important-but-not-main character who was a woman also died.

I just don't understand why Hollywood can't see by some of the big money-making movies of the past few years that the public WANTS female characters, and not ones that die easily and quickly.  Especially after kissing someone!

I guess it's good that the story shows after "happily ever after," and how what you wish for may not be what you really want.  That's an important message, especially for so many Disney movies in which the one woman character only wants to marry a man (whom she probably just met, or hasn't met yet!).

Also, everyone was white.  :(

So, I guess this is one of those movies in which there are a lot of strong female characters, but they still are treated more harshly than the male characters.

Snow White and the Huntsman

I gave Kristen Stewart the benefit of the doubt, and went to see this movie.  The people that I saw it with really liked it.  I was all "meh."  Here are the problems that I have with it (there might be SPOILERS in here...):

• Someone who was locked in a tower her 10+ years would not have the stamina of a huntsman.  Or any stamina at all.
• Who gets to decide who's the fairest of them all?  What if I only like red-heads?  Or chubby women? What if my type is mixed-race gothic punk?  It's just sorta simplistic for today.
• The camera spent an inordinate amount of time on Bella... uh, Snow White when she wasn't really doing anything or expressing anything.  She was mostly just breathing (and then that whole scene where she wasn't breathing..."
• We also were looking at her back a lot.  I guess to show what she was seeing, what was in front of her.  But it was more breathing, really.
• The last scene was ridiculously uninteresting.  Again, she really just breathes.  And almost smiles.  
• Kristen Stewart doesn't close her mouth much.  She's a mouth-breather.  
• The rallying speech was uninspiring.  I don't blame that all on Kristen Stewart, though.  The writing does have to take some blame.  And really, in the context of the story, she wouldn't have had to rally too much.  Everyone was on her side, she just had to mention the little fact that she had the power to kill the queen.
• I'd like to have seen more between William and the Huntsman, to know what each of them were thinking of the other one.  I liked that bit in the third Hunger Games book where Peeta and Gale talk about their predicament with Katniss.
• The huntsman mostly just glowered for the first half of the movie.  The acting during that first half was really lackluster.  Director:  "Kristen- look scared.  Chris- glower.  Good!"

But it wasn't all bad.  Here is what I liked:

• Snow White was very persistent.  Against odds, she just kept running, kept trying.
• A Snow White story finally gave some background as to why a grown woman would care if she's the prettiest, why she would care so much that she'd destroy for it.
• I liked how they made Snow White peaceful and loving, a friend of animals.  
• Yay, the apple's back in the story!
• I liked that Snow White was unsuccessful in defeating the queen when she was basing it out of anger, but was successful when it was more like protecting herself.  That keeps with the theme of the character. 

What about diversity?  I care about that in a movie, too!

• Well, the whole cast was white, except may be for one evil guard.  Fail.  
• There were, obviously, two female main characters.  They did talk, to each other, about something other than men, so it passes the Bechdel Test.  And they both were strong characters, in their different ways.  
• There were little people; is that a disability?  
• Presumably everyone was straight.  Wouldn't it have been awesome if Snow White was a dyke?!

Green Lantern

GL was a typical hero story.  Some white guy gets amazing powers, but must learn to be responsible and, well, heroic.  Most notable similar movies would be The Matrix, Thor, Spiderman.  The description of the Green Lantern Core also had my inner droid screaming, "They're Jedis!"

Story Critique:
The story okay but, like I said, pretty traditional.

Plot Problems:
The Immortals were pretty easy to convince to create a yellow ring, even after having seen the destruction that using the yellow energy had wreaked on their fellow Immortal. 
GL was chosen because he was the most fearless person (man?) on all of Earth.  But if you listened to his backstory, especially with Blake Lively's character, you'd see that he was actually one of the most fearful men on the planet.  He was so afraid of his feelings, of losing something that he loved (again), that he just ran away.  That's not being fearless.  It's certainly not overcoming your fear and being courageous.  It's letting your fear control you.
I'm still a little confused why he needed to make a race car track and fighter jets with his ring.  Why couldn't he just imagine controlling the broken helicopter and landing it safely?  He created a shield over his lady love, why couldn't he do something similar with the helicopter?  May be I'm missing something because I don't know the comics, but I'm confused why he couldn't use the ring to make him telekinetic or have powers like the Force (but, obviously, with the ability to press buttons instead of having to mentally throw rocks at buttons).

Feminist Critique:
There was one major woman character.  She was White and very skinny, but brunette, at least (and that was a dye job!).  I really didn't like when she was used as bait for GL, but she actually gave the speech that helped GL feel his fear and do it anyway.  She also was quite courageous herself, showing pilot skills at the beginning, business skills throughout, and computer skills (under intense pressure) towards the end.  So I guess I can forgive using her as bait, since she was pretty kick-ass otherwise. 
There was one other woman character, a scientist.  She didn't do too much, but it was nice to have a smart, strong woman character in there.

Ethnic Critique:
This movie was incredibly white.  Whitey white WHITE.  GL got even whiter (his eyes went to pale blue) when he used his powers.  There was pretty much only one character of color, the aforementioned scientist.  I'm not even sure if this is a SPOILER, but the one Black character died.
GL's best friend was ethnically ambiguous to me.  He could've been Middle Eastern, Indian, or Jewish.  He was light-skinned and geeky.
There did not, at least, seem to be any actual stereotypic characters that I can recall.

Summary:
The movie was okay.  It wasn't epic, or even great, but it wasn't horrible, either.  The CG was a bit over-kill, but the glowing suits were cool.  It's a basic superhero movie.  It has little ethnic diversity, although no stereotyping, and at least one strong woman character.

Blazing Saddles

I've heard about Blazing Saddles for a couple years now, since I've been hanging out with self-identified geeks.  Before that, I just thought that it was a regular John Wayne-esqe Western like the Dirty Dozen or something.  I finally watched it last night.


It's hard for me to like crazy cinematic moves like destroying the fourth wall.  It's just not my style.  I'm still not sure what I think about the Scott Pilgrim movie.  In Blazing Saddles, I was sitting there confused; why are they acting like their characters but on different sets? 

Then there was the obvious racial issues.  I get that it was critiquing racism, using stereotypes to make fun of the stereotypes.  The problem is that White people probably think that it's funny because it's exaggerating stereotypes and the true nature of Black people, while Blacks are probably thinking that it's making fun of Whites and the inaccurate and ridiculous stereotypes that they hold.  So the racial satire could still be confirming the stereotypes for Whites.  Not cool.

And the social issue that wasn't mentioned at all was sexism.  There were two women in this film: a school marm and a prostitute.  Not exactly a great diversity of characters.  At least neither of them were really stereotypical. 

I'm glad that I watched it, but I don't think that I liked it.  I was told to watch it again, that I would find it more amusing.  Um, not so sure that I'm up for that in the near, you know, ever.  But you never know!