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minaminokyoko · 5 years

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Captain Marvel: A Spoilertastic Review

Well, here we are. Our first female-led Marvel movie (unless you count Ant Man and the Wasp, which I kind of do because Scott was basically useless and Hope ran the whole movie like a boss, but too bad she ran the show on a dull, rushed movie). How does it measure up?

It's fine.

I'd coin Captain Marvel as good, not great. It's definitely a popcorn flick, in the same vein of Ant Man for sure in terms of where it fits in our giant pantheon of MCU movies. I'd rank it dead center, so slightly underneath Cap 1 and Thor 2, but above Doctor Strange. I think Ant Man is a good comparison for the tone and the enjoyment of this movie, although it does do more to characterize the main lead than Ant Man did for Scott Lang. To be fair, though, somehow they end up in the same spot for my personal rankings.

So let's dive in and see why.

Overall Grade: B-

Pros:

-Plenty of action. No shortage on that whatsoever.

-Lots of off-world adventures, for those fans who sometimes are annoyed that too many MCU movies are earth-based. We don't hit earth until about the halfway point and there are still some shenanigans then.

-The dynamic between Carol and Fury is a lot of fun. Larson and Jackson work off each other's energy very well and the banter feels fun and familiar without ever veering into any weird territory. Fury is just as effective as ever at her side, and it's before he becomes full on grumpy Dad Fury, so he's a lot less cold and it's fun to see.

-It was also delightful getting to see Coulson one more time, although it's a cameo, not a whole role as some of the trailers sort of imply.

-The female relationships are probably the strongest in the Marvel lineup, aside from Black Panther. Particularly Carol, her best friend Maria, and Maria's daughter. We don't see a ton of it, but it's just enough to put a huge grin on your face. It's very warm and endearing. I also like that Maria was not only a supportive best friend struggling to get over her loss, but she got to join the action as well, and it was badass. I really am happy with Marvel pushing forward to give black women more representation in the superhero genre. Too many folks think black women in film are only sassy best friends or baby mamas or Tyler Perry stereotypes. We love sci-fi/fantasy just as much as everyone else, and so I loved seeing two beautiful black actresses shining next to Brie Larson and Samuel L. Jackson. It lends the film a lot of heart.

-Brie Larson is relatively decent in the role. She has some moments better than others, but overall, she did a good job. It never felt like she couldn't handle the work of beating some ass, and she sold me far more than Gal Gadot did as Wonder Woman. Which, yes, I know, it's unfair and kind of tasteless to compare them, but I have to note it since I didn't care for the WW movie that this is what I was talking about with film presence. Gal Gadot, to me, looks like a supermodel wearing a Wonder Woman costume. To me, she never embodied the poise, agility, and strength that Diana has in the comics or in the animated series. I believed Gadot more during the softer parts of the WW movie, but she couldn't pull off the action because she just doesn't have the presence. Larson does, imo. She carries herself in a manner that makes me feel like she can kick your ass. She has a stance and a stature that allows me to feel her strength, and it's in line with other Marvel women like Widow, Okoye, or Scarlet Witch.

-My favorite part of the movie is hands down the "I'm Just a Girl" by No Doubt scene. Oh my God. I was internally squeeing and singing along with the lyrics while she kicked ass. I was so delighted to see them perfectly use that song that I already liked in high school anyway, and it just worked so well.

-I also liked the montages of Carol getting back up. That is a really, really important image for the girls growing up to see. It's not about how many times you fall. It's about how many times you still get back up. That's great. We fall and get dirty and scuffed and mocked and hated. But we still get up and try again every time. Love it. It's very empowering.

-The de-aging looked pretty good. Jackson is tougher since he's gained weight since the size he was back in the 90's but they filled in his wrinkles well enough. Coulson's looked better, although I did notice just it a tad bit during the stairwell scene, but overall, I thought it was well done.

-Gosh, her costume looks amazing. I want it. I want to wear it for Halloween. It's gorgeous.

-The sequence of the Skrulls acquiring her memories was very neat and uniquely done. Kudos.

-THE MOTHERFUCKING FIRST END CREDITS SCENE. Y'ALL. I SCREAMED. I SCREAMED AND CLAPPED MY HANDS SO HARD I HURT THEM. OH MY GOD. SHE'S ON EARTH. THE QUEEN IS ON EARTH AND WE SHALL ALL BE SAVED. SHE IS GOING TO TURN FUCKING THANOS INTO FUCKING PURPLE CLAM CHOWDER WITH HER BARE HANDS FOR KILLING FURY AWWWWWW YEEEEEEEEEEAH BOIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII. Ahem. Sorry. I am really goddamn excited about that tiny piece of Avengers: Endgame because Marvel and the Russos have been so fucking stingy with details. We still don't know the plot. We only have that 30-second Superbowl spot and the Sad Stark trailer. I was livid they didn't give us a final trailer in front of this movie, but I guess with it a month and change away, they're just banking on us frothing at the mouth wanting more. Jerks. But anyway, yes, this fucking scene is mint and I wish I could rewind it.

-Nick naming the Avenger Initiative after her was a great cherry on top moment.

-I fucking lost it when Nick started singing “Mr. Postman.” Deadass, I just started listening to that song about a month ago thanks to that one famous Vine where those dudes sung it acapella. I was dying. You go, Nick.

Cons:

-This movie overall has a bit of a bland taste to it. It's most revolving around Carol. The problem is that I think they were too chicken to dive deeply into who she is and her personality and her desires because they were afraid the feminists would complain that they made her too soft, so they replaced it all with action. Which is fine, some people just want a girl kicking ass, but I think it did Carol and Larson a disservice by rushing everything and doing drive-by characterization. The dialogue doesn't stick as well due to the bland flavoring, for example. If you ask me who Carol Danvers is, I can't really tell you. I can tell you what she does, but not who she is. I regret that probably the most out of everything. This movie is a bit of a vehicle than a movie where we discover who she is. We discover what she is, but not who she is. She's kind of just every tough, stubborn, smartass female lead you could see in maybe an Avengers OC fic on AO3. She really needed more distinct quirks and likes and dislikes, and I really fault them for cutting out her life on the Kree planet. It would have shown us so much more about her if we knew what her Kree life was like juxtaposed against her original human life, and it could up the stakes and help them sink it, and give more immediacy and concern to the dangers she faced.

-The villains were telegraphed. Again, people ding Marvel for this all the time. It's because they seem to struggle with balance. Often, the villains are thin to cut down the running time by not developing them at all. It's a shame. I've always found Jude Law very entertaining and I think they should have given him something to work with other than Obvious Bad Guy Pretending To Be Good. It was so transparent, much like the bitchy sister villain from Incredibles II. He might as well have been twirling a mustache. I mean, any dude who tells you your emotions are bad is probably not on the up-and-up. And it would have been better to see him and Carol square off at the end in an emotional battle than for it to just be a cheap shot and a joke. But I digress.

-While there was a lot of action, aside from the "Just a Girl" sequence, I will forget it all by morning. I think they wanted the movie to have mass appeal, so a lot of it comes across as generic. The stuff that stands out more are bits like finally seeing what alien Goose actually was or some of Fury's quips and the bits with Maria's daughter and Carol. The action itself is serviceable, but I'd have liked it to have more flavor if possible.

-Not outlining the limit to Carol's powers. This is going to be tough lining up with Endgame because she's so god-like we're gonna wonder if she just bitchslaps Thanos and that's the end. She feels overpowered without the chip limiting her, so I would have liked them to give us some kind of idea as to how she won't just wipe the floor with him in retribution in Endgame.

-Nitpick: Nick losing his eye to Goose annoyed me. People called it. I didn't want them to be right, but ugh, they were. It was a bit too silly for me.

-Nitpick: They really didn't need to waste our time with the second end credits being Goose puking up the Tesseract. We knew he did. You didn't have to show it, dummies.

-Nitpick: Was hoping for some 90's era cameos from at least one other Avenger, but no such luck. Damn. What a letdown.

I had fun, and I am eager to see her fit into the rest of the MCU. And I am also selfishly even more interested in Kamala Khan someday popping in as the new generation of heroes. Please, God, give me Kamala Khan. I want her and my son Peter Parker to team up and be the cutest superhero dorks ever. But until then...God help us all. Endgame is coming.

Enjoy the sunlight coming off of Ms. Danvers.

Because it's finna get dark up in here, my children.

See you in Endgame.

Kyo out.

#captain marvel #captain marvel (2019)#marvel cinematic universe #mcu #movie review #film review #carol danvers

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theravenouswriter514 · 3 years

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Day Eighteen of the 30 Day Writing Challenge

The prompt today is actually a more difficult one for me, because I don’t think a lot about myself. The prompt today is, “Write 30 facts about yourself.”

1. I’ll start with physical features. I have blue eyes.

2. My natural hair color is sandy blonde, but I dye it to a brown-red color.

3. I wear glasses because my left eye is significantly weaker than my right eye, making it difficult to see things far away. It also screws with my depth perception.

4. This one is kind of funny, my nose is slightly crooked. When I was born my mom told me I looked like I had been into a fist fight. It straightened over time, but it still is slightly crooked. No one can tell unless I come out and tell them.

5. I have two tattoos. The one on my left forearm is an opening set of quotation marks. My best friend has the closing set on her right arm. We got them when we turned eighteen. Then I have a sail boat on my right wrist. My two best friends and I went on a girls’ trip in 2019, during which we all got tattoos pertaining to the ocean. One friend got an anchor, one got waves under the sun, and I got a sailboat. Corny right?

6. This one is known already by my previous posts, but it is a fact that I am proud of. I have a two-year-old Corgi named Sirius. He is tri-colored, meaning he is black, white, and tan. I’ll put a picture to show him off.

7. I have two favorite authors. One classic and one modern. They are Ernest Hemingway and Rainbow Rowell.

8. My favorite flower is a Tiger Lily. They grow outside my old house every summer.

9. I live in a rural town in Tennessee. It’s home and I’m a proud Tennessean.

10. My favorite super hero has always been Iron Man, even before I knew about the movies. It’s actually for a funny reason. Tony Stark is known to have that great facial hair, in the comics as well as in the movies. Growing up, and even now, my dad always kept a beard and mustache. I associated facial hair with trustworthiness, because I was a kid and I didn’t know any better. I saw that Iron Man had facial hair, and he just became my favorite. I could trust him.

10. I used to collect snow globes as a kid. My collection wasn’t very big, but I was proud of it.

11. I’m not a musical fanatic, but my favorite is “Oklahoma”.

12. I played the marimba in high school marching and concert band. Our percussion section won first place state championship in competition my junior year.

13. The farthest I’ve ever been from home is when I went on a band trip to Chicago.

14. I got my first college degree in August of 2020. I have an A.A. in English.

15. My writing pseudonym is J.H.Hope. Hope is actually my middle name.

16. I had braces for almost two years when I was 12 and 13. My mouth was too small for all the teeth in my head. I had to have seven pulled out all at once before I could get braces put in.

17. I was in my friend’s wedding as a bride’s maid in 2019. I’m also going to be a bride’s maid in another friend’s wedding later this year.

18. My favorite color is olive green. That’s also what color my car is.

19. My sense of style can be described as casual t-shirt and jeans mixed with 80s. I’ll let my readers imagination try and figure out what I mean by that.

20. When I last got my hair cut, I showed my hair dresser pictures of Brooke Shields from the 80s, so now I have feathered bangs that resemble young Brooke.

21. My friends sometimes think I’m crazy because I give myself essay assignments. I’m not in any classes right now, but I genuinely enjoy writing research and persuasive essays. I’ve written a few essays just for my own pleasure.

22. I have not fallen victim to the plague on Earth that is Tik Tok. You can disagree with me, that’s fine, but Tik Tok (along with other forms of social media) has turned people into mindless, thoughtless, conforming, zombies. Social media has caused so many people to just stop thinking for themselves. If they see that one train of thought is popular in the media, then they adopt that thought as their own, even if they don’t understand it. We have become the generation of reading headlines and taking them for truth. Do your own research! Stop mindlessly jumping on bandwagons! Another thing is that we now have a whole generation of “celebrities” who are famous for no reason. I’m sorry, but showing your ass on the internet and calling it talent is not a reason to be famous. I have an ass too, but you won’t catch me flaunting it on the internet and begging for people to make me viral. It used to be just the Kardashians who were famous for absolutely no reason, but now that has grown into a whole generation! Lets go back to making people with real talent famous, shall we?

23. My friend and I have a blog where we post writing advice and feature writers and their stories to help them gain reads. We haven’t been as active lately because we have both been busy with other things, but we will hopefully update it soon. You can find it here: https://writingandtips.com/#site-header

24. One of my all time favorite Disney movies, if not my top favorite, is “Oliver and Company.” Mostly because Billy Joel voices Dodger the dog, and he is my favorite singer.

25. I love the “X-Files” tv series from the 90s. I rewatch it from the beginning all the time. I even picked up chewing on sunflower seeds like Mulder does while I’m writing.

26. I have a collectible action figure of Jareth, David Bowie’s character in the film “Labyrinth,” hanging on my wall. I also have a retro poster of Harrison Ford, a picture of River Phoenix printed on a page from a dictionary, a picture of “Joe Cool” Snoopy also printed on a page from a dictionary, and an antique tin advertisement poster of James Dean advertising “Kist Kola” for five cents all hanging on the walls of my room.

27. I love Red Pandas. They are the cutest animals on the planet, aside from dogs of course.

28. My sister and I love watching paranormal and ghost hunting shows. We sort of believe in ghosts, but we love to watch them mostly to laugh at and make fun of them. Our favorite is Ghost Adventures.

29. This one seems like self promotion, but it’s an important fact about me. I am not a huge fan of the Wattpad platform anymore, because the community has turned into only promoting super popular authors or fanfiction. It has gotten increasingly difficult to get any reads on your stories if you don’t write popular fanfiction or your story isn’t already popular. But since it is the only platform with any sort of following, I post there in hopes that my stories will get read. So far I haven’t had much luck. But I post my stories over there, if you like my writing here and want to read what I am actually super passionate about. You can find me at the username J_H_Hope. my pride and joy story is called “Grim’s Cliff” and I would appreciate anyone who reads it or any of my works. https://www.wattpad.com/user/J_H_Hope

30. I love writing, even if no one reads what I’ve written. I write and write in hopes that at least one person finds it and enjoys it. This one is obvious, but a fact none-the-less. Writing makes up an important part of my life. It is the reason I work so hard in other aspects of my life.

There you have thirty facts about me. I was really struggling all the way through this one. I wanted to make them interesting, but I’m just not all that interesting of a person. I also don’t enjoy writing so much about specific things pertaining to me. Some of these, especially number 22, make me sound like an old lady. Am I turning 21 or 61 soon? Either way maybe this list was informative and at the least entertaining. Happy reading!

#writing #My writing #my thoughts #writing challenge #30 day writing challenge #facts about me #stories #reading

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resmarted · 4 years

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i am golden embers from the oldest burnt out flame that somehow manages to stay alive well past the party. i don’t know how we got here, but i’m drawing little cartoon skulls on the back of your hand and ruminating on death culture and our historical fascination with it, not to mention this modern day obsession. wake up, i’m worrying at you. i know, it’s been a long time since we’ve talked like this, in this house with all the windows open for anyone to be able to look in and see. me, a shameless blubbering idiot and you, an omnipresent interdimensional being that changes names and faces depending on what time of day it is. i wish we could be friends like normal and not these shapeshifting spaces that descend and disappear before they can even get a chance to form. i’m out of practice, but shall we? i am the cutest boy in school, (get over it, i just am.) and you are my closest friend. at least you were when we were kids, before puberty made things weird and gender norms influenced the politics of our relationship. back when life was endless summers in a treehouse and i was the only dude in your life besides your dad, and then even more significantly when he left. we were such pure vessels of innocence, or at least i was, you were more of a terrorist in an young girl’s body. we spend our days playing with your barbies, one of many secrets we take to our graves, and we have intricate plot lines for each of their relationships. i make scenery for them out of legos, a lawn to lounge on and a clunky castle to sleep, they even had a hot tub. we have an entire world that nobody knows about and eleven thousand inside jokes based within it, this galactic sandbox that goes on for miles where nobody can hurt us. in seventh grade two boys from our school come over and spot the dolls laying in the corner of the treehouse and they give me hell for it, and i mean it gets really bad. they carelessly pull apart their tiny clothes, some of them handmade by your aunt, and hold them up like torches made of naked plastic flesh. it is startling and i know fighting them will only make it worse, will only turn them into even bigger deviants, so i don’t provoke them any further and take all necessary precaution to keep it from happening again. admittedly, this is where shit starts to hit the fan with us. i tell you the next day you can’t bring them in here anymore, and that this is not a storage facility for your girl stuff, to which you respond with a look only the demon possessed child that you are could invoke. we don’t talk for what turns out to be the longest week of my life, and i try to compromise because i miss you terribly and all of our stories, how are all of our characters (ripped directly from episodes of 90210) even doing right now? i ask what if we just, yknow, not use the dolls anymore, but still play the game. we finally come to an agreement and spend the rest of the year lounging around telling stories in the air, playing without the physical evidence, just these long sagas that never get written down or repeated or acted out with dolls of any kind.

you’re growing up faster than i am, your body is developing first and you got a nice set of big naturals before we even get to high school. and what am i supposed to do, not notice? i try not to. i try to act like it’s totally not making me feel any type of way when you start to experiment with makeup and of course i’m not jealous of the boy band members you secretly fawn over when no one from school is around to make fun of you. what do all these meatheads got that i don’t got? besides muscles and money and matching wardrobes with dope harmony skills. i magically take up guitar the next summer and whenever you start to talk about another hollywood hunk i am just like so anyway, here’s wonderwall. you never seem to catch on, never showing to have the slightest clue, and over time our stories become fewer and farther between because you’ve got new daydreams now. you’ve grown tired of the dramatics in our pretend romances and you want a real one. you want jake who has a mustache and works at gadzooks in the mall or bryan who is always hogging the pinball machine at skate country. i call him a dweebmunch and you just drift further away from me. by high school we barely know each other, you can hardly even remember i exist as you join all these teams and squads and athletic girl gangs, and i still haven’t lost my baby fat. you’re dating marcus who plays defense on our school’s football team and at some point the new normal becomes this sort of familiar strangers vibe where we barely acknowledge each other when passing in the halls but wave to each other’s families when passing them in real life. we don’t actually talk again until prom night when you show up drunkenly to my backyard like the last four years never even happened. your mascara is running and your dress is torn, your pretty hairdo that took hours at the salon that day is all disheveled, and you hold a bottle of wine to your lips like it’s water. you are barely able to steady yourself long enough to climb up into the treehouse where you find me choking on a hit of weed with a look of terror like i’ve just seen a ghost. technically i have. you slur your words and ask me for a hit and i’m terrified of you, just take whatever you want, you monstrous beauty queen. you tell me that you hate your boyfriend but don’t go into detail, that prom sucks and your friends suck and everyone is fake and nobody will even be able to outgrow this version of themselves because their parents never did, and at one point you’re holding up the bottle yelling with burgundy stained teeth that nobody in this town cares about anything other than football. which is true, it’s just one of those towns where our whole identity is based on touchdowns and score boards because that’s all anybody’s got to live for. you curl up in a corner, finding a couple of your old dolls safe and secure and you smile at me, saying you thought they weren’t allowed up here anymore. i don’t even look back at you when stating that obviously abby and olivia don’t count since they are notorious rule breakers. you hold one up to sit atop my shoulder and talk in one of your stupid voices, requesting a live rendition of wonderwall. don’t be silly, i’m eighteen now, i’m too cool for oasis and have upgraded to strictly radiohead, the bends album specifically. we start to argue like we are ten all over again when you insist i am just being pretentious because i can’t acknowledge the obvious golden child that is karma police, and without thinking i retort that i’d rather be pretentious than pretend i’m dumb just to fit in with those who are. you knock me square in the jaw with your trusty right hook and i land harder than you expected. you’re not even concerned, and why would you be? you’re three sheets to the wind and screaming things like you think i wanted things to end up this way? you gave up first, if you would have just been a real friend to me none of this ever would have happened. you’re crying hysterically now like all good prom nights end, and i am rubbing the sore spot on my face.

i don’t fight you though, i know better. instead i just bundle you up and put you to bed like the little trainwreck that you are, and in the morning when the birds chirp and the sun fills this tiny space, you can’t remember how you got here or why your head is pounding so hard now. i am sitting up reading a burroughs novel because i’m cultured and mysterious now, with a thermos of coffee already waiting for you. you lean over to puke outside and it lands twenty feet below, and you hate when i tell everyone this story because i always say that’s the part where i knew i loved you. but it’s true, i had never been more certain of anything in my life than when i saw you hurling out this red river across the yard and thought how nice it was to have you back around, if even for a very delirious moment in a state of great confusion. we get breakfast at a diner we used to fantasize about being old enough to go to without our parents someday, and somehow that manages to be the beginning of the first of many best summers of our lives. now we’re old enough to go all kinds of places without our parents, and it’s still very novel for us to hold hands in public and be out past curfew. somehow we manage to stay these wild eyed teenagers no matter how old we get, and i wouldn’t want to grow young with anyone else.

#long reads

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