2019 Movie Time - #1 Into The Spider-Verse / #2 Bumblebee

So my lovely readers - welcome to a brand new feature.

I'm going to make a concerted effort to watch more movies, this year. So you're gonna get movie reviews - maybe in ADDITION to your weekly dose of whatever you read this blog for.

This being the first of the new feature, I'm going to dedicate the weekly blog to it, as it is the coolest thing that has happened to me this year so far, in its infancy.

I'll make sure these are labelled well and tagged so, frankly, if you don't want to read my opinion on movies both new and old - feel free to avoid them. Otherwise, welcome!

Also I will endeavour to avoid actual spoilers, and if you want to talk to me about spoilery things you probably know where you can find me, but be warned - I may infer things in the review which you may prefer to not know when you walk into the movie. Reader, beware.

So without further ado.

#1 Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse (2018)

I have been hype for this since the first trailer.

Why, you ask? Well, because we've had - in the past 20 years - seven movies featuring three different Peter Parkers, and if we're fair, only half of them have been good Spider-Man movies. Spidey is great, and I love him, but - it wasn't until Homecoming that he actually changed up, stepped into the modern age.

So imagine my joy when I see that this one? This one is about Miles Morales - whose existence is hinted at in Homecoming. It's just a throwaway line, but a fan-pleaser.

Miles is a teenager from Brooklyn. He's from an intersection of multiple worlds. He's witty. He's funny. He's awkward, but not in a truly cringeworthy way until, well, certain things happen.

He, of course, ends up in the same shoes as Spider-Man. But he isn't the only one.

I'm not going to go into specific plot details - it's a good plot, and there's a lot of neat twists. The characters that you think you know really well, turn out to be a little different, and... I can't think of any way in which that turns out to be a bad thing. It's a very aware movie, too. Lots of injokes, lots of easter eggs. Love letters to various bits of Spider-Man's history. Yes. Including the Japanese show.

Why is it such a good movie?

For one thing - I laughed. I laughed a lot. I laughed myself into a coughing fit, with tears in my eyes. It is genuinely very funny, visually and verbally witty. If you don't come away from the movie loving Miles, then part of you is dead. If you don't laugh, then MOST of you is dead. The comic timing of the movie is superb, too - edited together in a way that modern comedy movies can't really hope for.

The action choreography, too, is fantastic. The agility and motion is just absolutely pitch perfect. Spidey moves and jumps and swings and twists and turns with the best of them - and the brilliant kinetic motion of the entire thing isn't just reserved for when he has his mask on. The bad guys he ends up facing off against (I am not telling you who they are) make a great counterpoint - for the most part, serious and solid sluggers, who provoke the Spiderpersons to acts of acrobatic mayhem just to stay ahead of the game.

Which in a movie animated like this, looks absolutely spectacular. It's 3D animated - and yes, people will hate it immediately for that. You will probably forget that partway through. The texturing, the mix of different animation styles for the individual characters, the way everything looks and feels on screen - the only complaint I have is that there's a lot of flashing interspersed throughout the movie, so it's really not great for those who are photosensitive.

I really liked the soundtrack. Loved it. The score and the soundtrack alike, in fairness. There's a few standouts, but the songs themselves - while great - are that much better in the context of the scene that they're used in. There's some neat surprises in there, too.

Fine details - there's things they didn't need to get right, that they did. The texturing on the characters, on the suits. Little background bits that you don't really think about. Phrases that characters use. How seamlessly Miles slips into Spanish when spoken to in it. The things in Miles' room, in his possession. The fact that Steve Ditko gets literally name-dropped in the movie in a salute to the creation of Spider-Man as a whole, as does Brian Michael Bendis, the creator of Miles Morales himself. The fact that Brooklyn LOOKS like Brooklyn. It FEELS like Brooklyn. It's enough to make you believe that they cared about this when they made it, not just to entertain kids.

The thing that Spider-Verse does so well is that it draws you into believing.

A big thematic of Spider-Man's is that, when the rubber hits the road, he finds what he needs inside himself to keep going and to get back up. Tenacity. Digging deep. Being on the lowest ebb, grabbing a double fist full of whatever it is that drives him, and carrying on. You've seen it in the setpieces of the movies - stopping the train, holding together two pieces of a broken ferry, trapped under the rubble. You are taken on that journey with Miles, and when he falls, and when he digs deep, you dig deep with him. You believe in him, with all your heart.

If that's not worth price of admission, I don't know what is.

#2 Bumblebee (2018)

So you would know if I hated this one because you'd get another blog like these two - the one shouting about how terrible Age Of Extinction was, and the follow-up about how awful The Last Knight was.

This isn't one of those.

I've said a similar thing to this about several movies and games in the past, but it bears repeating: I get the impression that the people that put Bumblebee together took a list of the things wrong with the other movies and then set out to fix them one at a time.

What problems, you might ask? Especially if you're unaware of my absolute venom toward the Bayformers movies.

Well, for one thing: this one acknowledges that the Transformers themselves are actual characters.

They have personalities. They aren't just two-bit throwaways. They aren't just there to spit out a couple of lines and then, poof, gone. Like - okay, I want to avoid spoilers, but the Decepticons actually have a personality in this one. They aren't just hurhur evil. Well. Okay. Dropkick kind of is. But the fact that he forms a contrast with Shatter? The fact that they are different, but work together, and communicate, and have plans? That their plan is a deception?

Bumblebee himself goes through an actual character arc. As does Charlie, the human that finds him. They find each other, and they develop in two similar directions. Not the same, though. Not the same at all, even if a key part of what they do is to find out who they actually are, underneath the battle scars.

You learn more about the war between the Autobots and the Decepticons, and what is going on IN that war, in the first ten minutes of the movie than the five that preceded it. How is it even possible? How can you go through five movies, and not detail the thing that brings the Cybertronians to Earth in the first place? ...unless you don't care for beginnings or origins, and you just want to show Shia or Mark reacting to them being here. Which was always the problem. Framing Transformers as a disaster movie.

A focus on the Transformers being actual characters in the movie means that thought is given to how they approach things, and how we see them do things. Which means that the fight and action scenes get blocked out better. They're not just a blurry mess - and fully two thirds of the other movie fight scenes were blurry messes. You have these primary coloured characters with distinctive personalities and combative styles, and you can make out what they are doing. You can SEE what they are doing. You aren't left wondering what the hell just happened.

Optimus Prime - yes, he's in this movie - goes HAM, at one point. Just full-blown 1986 movie You Got The Touch Megatron Must Be Stopped HAM. ...does he talk about ripping anyone's face off? Does he tear anyone in half? No. No, he fights. No brutal merciless slaughter. He's fighting against big odds. He's throwing himself into the thick of it to save his people, because that is what Optimus Prime DOES.

It's the first live-action Transformers movie about the Transformers, that seems to remember who they are.

It has a contiguous plot. A plot that makes sense. A plot that has a beginning, a middle and an end, and I would hesitate to identify any single scene that you could cut out and not change the film. And while you get the same "oh god I have to hide these giant robots oh god they are acting out" scenes as from the FIRST Bay movie? We've already established who Bumblebee is. We have already established his character. We CARE about him, and so we care about him not being discovered. And it's... charming. It isn't just tasteless jokes about how clumsy these warrior robots are, or how Ironhide (an Autobot) wants to kill, like, everything.. It's legitimately funny. It provokes laughter.

Because it isn't tacky, which is the word I would stick (harhar) on the others.

There's no jokes about dicks, balls, arses or anything similar. You don't get a long shot of a pair of wrecking balls, and then - just in case you missed the subtext - have a highly annoying and sleazy character that you objectively hate explain the joke to you. I'd struggle to spot random racist bullshit, which is pretty prevalent throughout the rest of the series. Similar on sexist bullshit. Less jokes that middle-school me would have laughed at but that high-school me rolls their eyes at in sheer embarrassment. Ironically for a movie set literally twenty years before the first one in the series, it is far more progressive.

And you know the very, very best thing about this movie? Better than even the soundtrack (which is excellent and ALSO dropped a very special thing in there JUST FOR ME which actually brought TEARS to my eyes)? Better than even the fact that the bot designs don't look like absolute shit any more? Better than even the cinematography, which in various places is gorgeous? Better than how this movie brings the late eighties LITERALLY to life, with a bunch of technology that I remember being around when I was a little kid?

It's the fact that by the time it is over - without a doubt, those first five aren't the canon any more. This is a new, fresh beginning. This is a nod to the past that steps into the future. The future in which Optimus Prime rips off people's faces and demands that people know what his name is, is gone. The hand of fate smoothing the sand of time clean.

Not only did I love Bumblebee - I am excited for the next movie in this franchise. And I know there will be one, even if Travis Knight doesn't direct it.

There you have it.

First two movies I got to see this year at the cinema, and they were both bangers for different reasons. I was more invested in Bumblebee, but I was more surprised by Spider-Man. Both of them are going to end up on my shelf.

Who knows where our journey takes us next, dear reader? Who knows. We'll see.

If you'd care to share my blog with your friends, I'd appreciate that! If you'd like to thank me in a fiscal form for entertaining you a little bit, I do have a Patreon right here, but please - no pressure. Thank you for reading, and check my social media to the right to keep in touch.

The Strangling Fruit

I had no idea who Jeff Vandermeer was when I first saw the Annihilation trailer.

It had been suggested to me because, hey, I like my sf and my weirdness. I might see some value in it. So I watch the very first trailer that came out, then I googled the name, and then I immediately bought and devoured the book - first in the Southern Reach trilogy.

Then I had to wait the interminable gap between that point and payday to get the next TWO books, because not reading them at this point wasn't an option. They thoroughly grasped me - the writing style, the flow of the story, the mythology spun out of it, everything formed an experience that I didn't even realise I had been waiting for.

Getting to the end of that third book left me so hungry for the movie that the wait for it reminded me of when I was seven and Christmas was still two weeks ago.

And now it's here, and I have to report that the movie - which is on Netflix right now for a lot of folks but got a cinematic release in the US - is excellent.

The acting is understated, the performances all very believable - which, given the content of the movie, only adds to the feel of it - and the casting is exceptional. The five women fronting the movie all put in excellent work, including Natalie Portman, who I am not terribly fond of usually. They all have depth - they feel like real people. How they deal with each other feels real, too - and how they change, as the situation around them falls apart.

And it does fall apart. Unlike every other horror movie, though - this one isn't their fault.

That's a very common trope, amongst horror movies - in movies in general, in fact. That the thing that goes wrong, the bad situation that has to be resolved by the characters in the piece, happens because someone fucked up. Either it is incompetence, or a literal flaw in character. Slasher flicks often happen because the victims dare to exhibit lust. The xenomorph wouldn't have ever become an issue for humanity were it not for pride and greed, in that order.

None of that happens, in Annihilation - because we don't know why this happened. The setup is very similar to The Thing. The why is so much less important than the result. It's also not very important that we understand every part of it, because - oh hey, get this - the problem isn't a human one. It's very much a black swan.

What follows is a journey into a part of the world in which everything is going wrong. Actually, not wrong - just different - but to us...very wrong. It's rare that I see cinematography, prop work, sound engineering, all come together to achieve this in such a complete way. Passing into Area X, it is incontrovertible that the five women of the expedition have entered a place that is unnatural and irregular. There's some very obvious visual cues but some not-so-obvious ones too. Little things, subtle things that play on your mind after the fact.

Portman's character is a biologist, so she can explain why some of the flora and fauna they find is wrong as hell - but you feel it, just looking at this stuff. Plants that have multiple different flowers, different types of flowers, different styles of growth. It should leave you with a degree of unease - and you may not even know why. Just that what you are looking at isn't right, isn't the way it should work.

And that's before you ever meet the deer, or the bear.

I'm not going into why they are wrong. You'll find out.

I like unanswered questions. I like open endings. I like not necessarily knowing why a thing has just happened, just that this is how the characters in the movie are dealing with it. I like gorgeous shots that show you things that upset you but you don't quite know why. I like diegetic and non-diegetic sound engineering that leaves you thinking.

I like all of those things, and that's why I liked Annihilation, an awful lot.

You might, too.

Readers Request - Fandoms, Self Care, Reviewers, and Gods of Egypt, Apparently

Well it's about that time again, folks. Every now and then I do like doing this reader-contribution blog, because you lot are funnier than I am, frankly.

But this time we've had a couple topics that demand a lot more attention, homework and space than others, so if it is an unbalanced read... hey, democracy at work.

Names removed to protect the innocent. Some suggestions trimmed down for sake of brevity.

*coughObligatoryboobiescough* - Thank you. I almost thought we'd have another Readers Request without boobies. You have put a smile on my face, mystery reply-merchant.

Which fandoms have you come across over the years that have left the best/worst impressions? - Problem is that every fandom has good people and bad people, and volume and metrics are fluid. But one of the fandoms I have been simultaneously disgusted and overjoyed with recently is Star Wars. So much of the fandom has showed such grace and welcome for changes and respected the spoiler warnings. And a small amount of it has turned into such loud and obnoxious man-babies... so I guess it is much like the human race.

If you could have have any animal adaptation like melded onto you what would you have? - Axolotl health regeneration. And maybe their little feeler things. They're awesome.

If you watched the trump state of the union address (really don't blame you if you didn't), how much of a train wreck did you find it to be? - I didn't, because the entire administration is a train wreck. And it just keeps ploughing on. Through the hospital. Through the nunnery. Through the school. It just isn't stopping, not for anything. It makes me sad, and angry, and tired, but the only way it all stops is if he ends up out, and if the people running him end up out. I saw a few highlights. You know the thing that really struck me? Him, applauding himself. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why even the Zodiac Killer was a better repub candidate.

New A.I sex dolls...So when it's a doll or toy it's not cheating but when you factor in AI and that they can have personalities this will make things tricky. - Oooh so this is kinda one of the topics I love - not the sex doll part specifically but what makes sentience, what divides entities between thinking and simulation of thought, what makes one have a self. To get down to the brass tacks of it, and this is probably a good rule for life - ask your partner/s about it. Talk to them about it. Whatever it is. If you DEFINITELY know that they will try and knock you out for even thinking it? Yeah, put that back in the box, sentient doll or not. The problem comes from attitude. If Person A thinks something is okay and Person B doesn't - and it isn't obviously TOTALLY NOT OKAY, like moralistically - that is something for them to solve. Whether or not we should be programming sex toys that can think and feel, well that is a different matter; but I would say that if a personality has sentience and can think, that it gets the option of if it goes into the DildoMatic 19000 sexdroid or into the observation module of the next ISS shipment. Consent is important. If we're not okay with our sex toy deciding it doesn't want to be a sex toy, we probably shouldn't give it any AI whatsoever.

All the reasons why the Magicians is the best tv show - So I watched the trailer... and... I... am... going to watch a couple of episodes... and withhold judgement until then. The trailer doesn't impress me but I am wary of trailers, they're not made for me. Requesting Reader should be aware, I'm only doing this cos she was insistent and I trust 98% of her judgement.

I put one on your page! - Yes you did! That page of course is https://www.facebook.com/cultureshockwritersblock/ << My Facebook page!

how full of shit people are when they say "oh you just need to do some self care" - People are often full of shit when they lack knowledge on a topic but wade into it anyway. I've been told that my depression / rheumatoid / pulmonary fibrosis would be a lot better if I just did these simple things, all of which are straight out of a BuzzFeed headline. I think the people giving the advice think these things will genuinely help, which is sad, because of course they won't.

As 'the better half' has just been in hospital, how about an 'oldie but goody' and give us your take on what can do to stave off the privatization of the NHS... - What WE can do as people? We protest, we push, we write letters, we protest some more, but ultimately - those responsible and those who will profit from its sell-off can push it through without our say-so, and are even doing so already. What WE need to do is get the bastards out of the halls of power, before they can hand over the keys.

Favourite cake of: You / Your favourite hero / Your favourite villain / Random character of yours - Red velvet cake / Probably coffee & walnut / I can't PICK a favourite villain / Crowbar's favourite cake is plum wine served in a glass and without cake.

The commissioner of the NHL has had his position for 25 years. - Wow. That's either a good or a bad thing. Having done a little research, Gary Bettman looks like the kind of guy who is a semi-villain in a kid's movie about a local ice rink that is being bought up to be turned into a SUPER ARENA that won't have any room for kids to just skate around in. You know? Increased turnover is great, but labour problems and kinda forgetting where the sport came from - hard sell. But hey. It's not like he's the only rich man interfering with sports.

Gin! The cultural re-branding - It's super-popular now, even I've noticed this, and I don't really go out a whole lot. Used to be the thing you drank when you wanted to be super-sad, everyone knew it as Mother's Ruin. Now I see a lot of similarities with the way a proportion of the beer market has changed. Market on its differences, the craft that goes into making it, small makers, different varieties and flavours. It's like a hipster miracle but for a thing that I don't innately hate. (I mean I don't LIKE gin, but that's a taste thing. I don't hate the IDEA of gin.)

The recent super blue blood moon. - It was fucking cool, wasn't it? Looked absolutely great. And yet it was in the few days after that everything seemed stressy and tense. Full Moon Fever and all.

Who are some critics/reviewers whose work you like (and optional why or particular links) - For cinema and film, I am very fond of Every Frame A Painting, Movies With Mikey, Lessons From The Screenplay and Belated Media - mostly because they all speak thoughtful sense, without being weirdly judgemental, which I know sounds weird from a bunch of reviewers and critics. The other reviews I tend to pay attention to are GunPla - which my man at Shoky Reviews covers really tidily - and Transformers, which are very aptly and entertainingly brought into my life by the very metal Thew and the eternally chipper Emgo. You can get a lot worse video game yak than Dunkey, too.

Spice Girls. In general or a thought on their cultural significance - A lot of people liked them a lot. I wasn't one of those people. Ferociously successful, even for a pop group in a time when pop groups were expected to be. Crossed the Atlantic with relative ease. Unabashedly positive pro-girl message, Inspirational for a swathe of society. The upsides certainly overshadow the downside. Which is. Um. Basically the songwriting equivalent of mad libs.

Your take on hunting in a modern day society, considering all forms of hunting. - Practicality. You hunting an animal that is already profligate to survive and resource-gather? For yourself? Sure. You hunting a dangerous creature that needs to be put down for a larger good than its own existence? Sure. You hunting for a trophy? Go eat yourself. You going to kill a fox because you feel like it? Choke on yourself. I'm not against the concept of hunting, but like in every arena, wastefulness and pointlessness for ego stroking and other bullshit irks me. And hunting shit that simply won't recover? Putting animal civilisations to the sword, knowing that they are going extinct? Worst kind of fucking scum.

In light of what happened to me last year, and what [redacted] has been going through last 2 days, crowd funding at it's best. - While I am desperately sad that the world is in a state wherein to support ourselves and achieve things we need to rely on the kindness of others, my heart swells to see that those others step up to the plate. None of us have much, but when we have enough, we share what we have. We want to see people - people like us, who are struggling - do better. We want people to be okay. And if we could actually make society work that way, rather than just us; well, we'd be in a better situation.

Penis envy.. - I don't think penis envy exists. I think a keen awareness of injustice does. And if that injustice was classically associated with those on top having dicks, well, it's obviously the thing those with dicks would think. "Those womenfolk can't possibly just want to be treated as our equals," they would say, waving their glasses of brandy about and gesturing with cigars. "They must be jealous over this naked mole rat looking thing that is attached to our groins. And why WOULDN'T they be? Our penises are so glorious that, in an age wherein we will own hand-held objects that can transmit messages and even - AND EVEN - our likenesses across great distance, we should endeavour to show as MANY women as possible our particular assemblage of flesh! Yes, even the detestable little scrotal blob beneath! All of it! And they shall be SO jealous!"

The importance of nuance and context? - Absolutely critical. Every situation must be viewed in the context it exists, for clarity, for a full understanding of why it happens and what can be done about it. After all, we all exist in the context of the human race. That's something that needs to be considered whenever we make a decision. Another thing to consider is one of my favourite lines from Star Trek Discovery, which neatly covers something I often point out regarding morality and legality not being the same thing. "Universal law is for lackeys - context is for kings."

I would like to see your thoughtful and critical review of Gods of Egypt. (Tell you what, you write it and I’ll write one about everything I would do to fix it and make it better.) - ...I will begin this with a Fuck You for making me do this. That said. What follows is my thoughtful and critical review of Gods of Egypt.

Let it be known for the record that during the watching of this movie I didn't look anything up whatsoever. I think that to do some actual research into the aforementioned Gods of aforementioned Egypt would actually ruin the experience, as it is clearly not meant for anyone with even an amateur beginner's level grasp of Egypt as a historical and mythological entity. 

Right. So. 

Going into this film I expected very little, and yet, was disappointed by how precious little I was actually given. 

To address the very obvious elephant in the room, precisely two non-background people in this film actually looked like they could have been from Egypt. Neither of them were mortal. If we handwave the gods as getting a magic pass and being (mostly) white folks, then surely the mortals should reflect the actual ethnicity of the region, historically. Luckily, nobody who worked on this film has ever read a book, so we didn't have to see any of THAT awful forced diversity. 

On the topic of character, this film has no protagonist. We spend the entire movie hating everyone we are meant to like, or even the people we're meant to be indifferent to. The only person in this film I didn't want to see dead was Anubis. He was just doing his damn job, and kept getting interrupted by these gods who don't know how to behave. They keep talking about the rules of the Underworld, but those rules keep changing, for no apparent reason. Like Superman's strength, they change to suit the plot, moment to moment. 

The plot is as poorly written tripe as you can imagine. I'm fairly sure I read more complicated stories in primary school. Stories with character development. Characters that learn things, and learn not to do things. And if the overarching plot is bad, the actual script is lamentable. Even when delivered competently - which Gerard Butler seems to manage, no real competition mind - it is a sludge of cliche and bungled bullshit. When in the verbal grasp of the film's apparent mortal protagonist? Bek, I think his name was? Awful. Viscerally awful. It made me flinch, let alone cringe. 

But it's a fantasy action film, yes? So it's not meant to have a great story, or even a good script. It's meant to look great, exciting. It's meant to have feats of exceptional bravery and skill. It's meant to have stunning vistas and impressive backdrops with life-or-death struggle in centre stage. 

Whatever world this was set on, it was very, very varied. Full mangrove swamps. A city swathed in a fecundity of trees. A large grassy plain. A mountain with a forty-foot tall rock ring on top of it. An inky darkness with hard-to-see geographic features. Another inky darkness. Another inky darkness. And through it all, stunts and combat that seem to lack the basic understanding of how physics and motion works. 

The gimmick - each of the gods apparently being some kind of transformer that can turn into their classically-envisaged beast-head form - is...wasted. The design of each of them is competent, looking visceral, powerful. So when they go into battle with each other, we get some combat choreography and camera work that actually makes my head hurt. One cut per hit. Snapping from shot to shot, blink and you'll miss it. No sense of impact. No sense of harm done. No sense that this fight means anything at all. 

The message of the movie is that love is super important, and so is not killing your brother and trying to eat the entire world. 

This doesn't answer questions like - why is Set's slavery in making a huge monolith bad, while the slavery needed to build an ENTIRE METROPOLIS with RAISED STREETS FIFTY FEET ACROSS is okay? Why are the women in this film apparently just there to die or suffer for the benefit of the men or the plot? Why is the only black main character a literal Mystical Negro? Why was everyone in this movie aside from Anubis and Bek's poor girlfriend an irredeemable asshole? Why is Set a less believable bad guy than Don John from Much Ado? How do any of the cinematographers sleep at night knowing that at least a dozen shots in this film are basically travesties against the art? Why is Geoffrey Rush Ra? Why is any of this happening? HOW is any of this happening? 

We will never know. 

It still broke even at the box office.

That's it for this time, folks. Thank you for your input. Thank you for reading. And remember:

Don't watch Gods of Egypt.