Let's roll some dice, watch some movies, or generally just geek out. New posts at 6:30 pm ET but only if I have something to say. Menu at the top. gsllc@chirp.enworld.org on Mastodon and @gsllc on Twitter.
Will be proudly sworn-in to Congress on the U.S. Constitution. Underneath the Constitution will be 3 items that mean a lot to me personally. A photo of my parents who I lost to covid, my citizenship certificate & an original Superman #1 from the @librarycongress. 🇺🇸😊 pic.twitter.com/YGW43OLsIp
By the time this post is published, this should already have happened.
He’ll swear in over the Constitution, but he’ll have that comic (and two other items important to him) underneath it. This isn’t unprecedented, but it does go to show that nerds are taking over. It’s almost wrong to call us nerds anymore. We should be called the cool kids.
No, not really. We’re still nerds, and you know it.
Sundays are now lazy days for me. Going forward, I’m just going to re-post other people’s work or just do something silly. Today, I’m going to answer a controversial question among nerds: Who is the best Superman?
Answer: Henry Cavill.
Why? Because I said so.
FYI, I saw this a couple days after writing this post.
Way back in the 80s, my cousin (Tom) and I started awarding a “Superman IV Award” to the most disappointing film of the year. It’s not enough that it was bad; it had to be disappointing. The origin of the award makes sense. Superman III was mediocre at best, and we were promised a return to something like Superman II, which was a great film for its time. Instead we got a steaming pile of hot kryptonite.
Highlander II: The Quickening (1991) was an award winner. We loved Highlander for reasons I doubt I need to justify to my fellow nerds, but Highlander II turned out to be the single worst movie ever. (Full disclosure: I’ve never seen the Room.) To go from such a high to such a low is the very definition of disappointment.
Then there was Showgirls (1995). There we were, two straight guys in their mid-20s watching a movie that was specifically about women getting naked. What could possibly go wrong? Well, everything. It was horrible, and our lives are worth just a little bit less having been stained by the memory of that film.
I don’t remember all the movies that received the award. We didn’t have a ceremony on cable access for the thing. It was just something we decided in person once a year. When considering nominees, you have to remember that it must be disappointing. Batman and Robin was pretty bad, but that entire series was going downhill after the first entry. By the time B&R came around, I expected nothing of it, so it couldn’t disappoint me.
With all the movie watching I’m doing, I may just start doing this again once the theaters open up.
I liked Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, but because it currently has a 62% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes, I can’t say it’s a Guilty Pleasure. I do hear a lot of hate from my social media connections, though, and many of them have told me that they actually liked the Ultimate Edition because of the additional information it provides. (One suggested that the same thing could be said about the Watchman Extended Cut.) I agree that the additional scenes improve BvS, but that raised a question for me: Why not keep them in the cinematic release?
The Ultimate Edition is 3 hours and 3 minutes long (including credits). I’ve seen 3-hour movies in the theater, so if the scenes are already filmed and modified in post production (i.e., paid for), why waste them? Give people their money’s worth, improve the movie, and your reviews will be better. I can think of three responses to my question.
Response 1: You want some deleted scenes to make the home release more enticing. Counterpoint: If people don’t like your movie, nothing will entice them to buy your home releases.
Response 2: I’m operating from hindsight. There was no way to know that the deleted scenes would have improved the movie. Counterpoint: Does anyone really think that the test audiences didn’t like the deleted scenes? They made the movie much better. Aren’t filmmakers professionals? Why can’t they figure out how to use test audiences to get the right result, especially for movies with such huge budgets?
Response 3: Three hour (or more) movies are too long. Counterpoint: Bring back the intermission so that people with short attention spans and weak bladders can handle it. Oh, snap!
Who’s got a response #4? I’ll defeat that one too.
I can’t believe they cut Jon Stewart. At this point, I suspect that cutting scenes is simply a strange sort of tradition among filmmakers.
I really liked the DCEU, so I’ve decided to rewatch all of the DCEU movies in chronological order as I once did with the MCU. Doing so isn’t as important because the DCEU movies aren’t nearly as dependent on each other, but it’s something to do. 🙂 The order of the movies is Wonder Woman, Man of Steel, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad, Birds of Prey, Justice League, Aquaman, and Shazam!
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Like everyone else, I was happy we didn’t get yet another Batman origin story. Handling through the credits was a great idea. I loved the music as well.
Around the time this movie was released. there was a video showing the fight scenes between Superman and Zod in both Man of Steel and Dawn of Justice. It showed that both of those scenes were synchronized precisely. I can’t find the video anywhere. All I could find was a 2-second clip. I love that attention to detail.
I was surprised how much I enjoyed Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor.
A real Superman would exacerbate the already massive polarization in America on both political and religious grounds. Considering it was a side story, the movie did a good job of capturing that tension.
Superman isn’t the only one that kills. Batman kills people. A lot of people. That pisses off people. A lot of people. (Not I. It’s an action movie.)
Did Soledad O’Brien die in the explosion? She must have. Pat Lahey definitely did.
“It did on my world. My world doesn’t exist anymore.” Foreshadowing for a moment I love in this movie when Superman realizes something important.
Okay, I agree. Martha?
How exactly would Lex Luthor be able to control Doomsday if it had killed Superman? The first thing it tried to do was punch Luthor. It failed but would have destroyed the entire world after defeating Superman.
Doomsday at the top of LexCorp tower facing off with Apache choppers reminded me of the finale of King Kong (1976).
“This is my world. You are my world.” This is where Superman realizes something important. The musical piece, This Is My World, captures the scene perfectly.
Lex Luthor isn’t really bald if they simply shaved his head.
Suicide Squad
Solid star power.
In creating the team, they created the threat. That’s a bit odd.
I’m a fan of Adam Beach and was pissed he got only a few words of dialogue and not much of a role. But hey; no small parts, right? At least he served a purpose.
Like several movies in the MCU, I always find myself asking, “What are all the other heroes doing while the world is being threatened?” Then I stop overthinking it.
I hate to be an asshole, but Cara Delevingne really sucks.
I really liked the DCEU, so I’ve decided to rewatch all of the DCEU movies in chronological order as I once did with the MCU. Doing so isn’t as important because the DCEU movies aren’t nearly as dependent on each other, but it’s something to do. 🙂 The order of the movies is Wonder Woman, Man of Steel, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad, Birds of Prey, Justice League, Aquaman, and Shazam!
Wonder Woman
This was a fun movie. Huge stakes, lots of action, and just the right amount of humor strike a proper balance between serious and campy. I liked the way they presented the effects of the Lasso of Hestia on Steve Trevor. Its effect on Aquaman was funnier, of course, but as he wasn’t resisting it, his experience wasn’t strictly inconsistent with Steve Trevor’s.
The premise of the Amazons is flawed. They make a huge deal out of the fact that once Ares is killed, everyone will go back to loving each other. If they only knew that World War II was on the horizon, not to mention everything else that happened after that. Things actually got worse. I wonder (pun intended) whether that will be addressed in the sequel.
I love David Thewlis, but he was miscast here. He’s too old even in the flashback scenes where they use CGI to de-age him. I would have preferred a younger actor.
I like that Diana starts as hopelessly naive. It gives her room to grow, but because of her superpowers, she can sometimes get away with it (e.g., crossing “No man’s land,” which was my favorite scene and music in the movie).
So much for Steve Trevor not wanting to sleep with a woman before marriage.
Diana uses a lot of Capoeira.
For a second, I thought Sameer was going to suggest. “Get help.” 🙂
As to my point above, Steve Trevor and Ares both try to explain away Ares’ responsibility for human evil, but then SPOILER ALERT Diana kills Ares. Was Trevor mistaken? Was Ares lying? Nope. Things continued to get worse after World War I.
All of the telekinesis in the first part of the fight against Ares reminds me of Luke’s first battle against Vader in the Empire Strikes Back. Ares’ creation of swords on the fly reminds me of Hela in Thor: Ragnarok.
I hope they come up with a really good explanation for Steve Trevor’s return in Wonder Woman 1984. Otherwise, it’ll cheapen his moving death scene in this movie. I know that characters always come back to life in comics, but this is a different medium. Death should be final. Otherwise, there are no stakes, and thus no drama.
Wonder Woman 1984
Dammit! I wish I could watch this now.
Man of Steel
I’m a HUGE fan of this soundtrack.
At times, the opening sequence reminds me of the Matrix, Avatar, and Apocalypse Now.
Heresy noun
Belief or opinion contrary to orthodox religious (especially Christian) doctrine.
It’s heresy to have babies naturally?
Henry Cavill is my favorite Superman. Deal with it. And Diane Lane is my favorite Martha Kent.
I always found weird the theory that Aquaman saved Superman after the oil rig explosion. A natural, terrestrial threat could kill Superman? I have enough trouble accepting that he was knocked unconscious by it, but okay. Drama.
The most heroic thing about Clark Kent that’s obtainable by all of us is a complete lack of pride.
Everyone argues. It doesn’t mean you don’t love each other. If the last thing you say to someone you love is harsh, don’t beat yourself up over it. They understood. Wouldn’t you?
Play What You Want 