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#that said i understand it’s because we had 3 films to focus on Tony’s friendships where Sam only had a little time in tws
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if you hate tony stark but like steve rogers i don’t think we can be friends
#i hate some of tony’s ACTIONS but I don’t hate him as a person#i feel like the IM solo films did a good job of establishing his motivations#they established that while many of his actions caused harm down the road they were initially borne of good intentions#i can sympathize with a flawed character like that#steve rogers is written like American war propaganda#everything he does is painted as morally correct just because he’s steve rogers#i may be taking things too personally and projecting#but in CA films the supporting characters including men of color like Sam wilson and women like natasha are just there to build up steve#in IM i feel like tony gives equal importance to rhodey and even pepper#they’re given the status of an equal#but CA supporting characters are just following steve#if they happen to do anything good or cool steve rogers gets credit for it 🙄#anthony mackie really made sam wilson his own person#all credit to him#because the way sam is written has never given him any space to differ from steve rogers#he does what steve does and steve’s enemies are his enemies in the films#that said i understand it’s because we had 3 films to focus on Tony’s friendships where Sam only had a little time in tws#bc civil war was a large ensemble cast#but still I’m allowed to have preferences#i like that tony is flawed & he is seen as flawed and he personally acknowledges his flaws#but he continues to try to do good#even when characters like steve constantly bring him down and bully him for “morally not being on their level#it’s very holier than thou#steve rogers is flawed but everyone around him is made to attest to his perfection#I loved peggy and agent carter was my favorite show#but I hated how she would relate all her good qualities to emulating the great man steve rogers#even when Natasha sides with tony in civil war she tells HIM to let go of HIS ego#I don’t even disagree but I hate how Steve is never seen as the one in the wrong#when are we gonna call Steve Rogers out on the bullshit that is bullying tony into leaving his family and dying in a suicide mission#then going back in time to hang out with his lady friend
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My Top 20 Films of 2019 - Part Two
I don’t think I’ve had a year where my top ten jostled and shifted as much as this one did - these really are the best of the best and my personal favourites of 2019.
10. Toy Story 4
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I think we can all agree that Toy Story 3 was a pretty much perfect conclusion to a perfect trilogy right? About as close as is likely to get, I’m sure. I shared the same trepidation when part four was announced, especially after some underwhelming sequels like Finding Dory and Cars 3 (though I do have a lot of time for Monsters University and Incredibles 2). So maybe it’s because the odds were so stacked against this being good but I thought it was wonderful. A truly existential nightmare of an epilogue that does away with Andy (and mostly kids altogether) to focus on the dreams and desires of the toys themselves - separate from their ‘duties’ as playthings to biological Gods. What is their purpose in life without an owner? Can they be their own person and carve their own path? In the case of breakout new character Forky (Tony Hale), what IS life? Big big questions for a cash grab kids films huh?
The animation is somehow yet another huge leap forward (that opening rainstorm!), Bo Peep’s return is excellently pitched and the series tradition of being unnervingly horrifying is back as well thanks to those creepy ventriloquist dolls! Keanu Reeves continues his ‘Keanuassaince‘ as the hilarious Duke Caboom and this time, hopefully, the ending at least feels finite. This series means so much to me: I think the first movie is possibly the tightest, most perfect script ever written, the third is one of my favourites of the decade and growing up with the franchise (I was 9 when the first came out, 13 for part two, 24 for part three and now 32 for this one), these characters are like old friends so of course it was great to see them again. All this film had to do was be good enough to justify its existence and while there are certainly those out there that don’t believe this one managed it, I think the fact that it went as far as it did showed that Pixar are still capable of pushing boundaries and exploring infinity and beyond when they really put their minds to it.
9. The Nightingale
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Hoo boy. Already controversial with talk of mass walkouts (I witnessed a few when this screened at Sundance London), it’s not hard to see why but easy to understand. Jennifer Kent (The Babadook) is a truly fearless filmmaker following up her acclaimed suburban horror movie come grief allegory with a period revenge tale set in the Tasmanian wilderness during British colonial rule in the early 1800s. It’s rare to see the British depicted with the monstrous brutality for which they were known in the distant colonies and this unflinching drama sorely needed an Australian voice behind the camera to do it justice.
The film is front loaded with some genuinely upsetting, nasty scenes of cruel violence but its uncensored brutality and the almost casual nature of its depiction is entirely the point - this was normalised behaviour over there and by treating it so matter of factly, it doesn’t slip into gratuitous ‘movie violence’. It is what it is. And what it is is hard to watch. If anything, as Kent has often stated, it’s still toned down from the actual atrocities that occurred so it’s a delicate balance that I think Kent more than understands. Quoting from an excellent Vanity Fair interview she did about how she directs, Kent said “I think audiences have become very anaesthetised to violence on screen and it’s something I find disturbing... People say ‘these scenes are so shocking and disturbing’. Of course they are. We need to feel that. When we become so removed from violence on screen, this is a very irresponsible thing. So I wanted to put us right within the frame with that person experiencing the loss of everything they hold dear”. 
Aisling Franciosi is next level here as a woman who has her whole life torn from her, leaving her as nothing but a raging husk out for vengeance. It would be so easy to fall into odd couple tropes once she teams up with reluctant native tracker Billy (an equally impressive newcomer, Baykali Ganambarr) but the film continues to stay true to the harsh racism of the era, unafraid to depict our heroine - our point of sympathy - as horrendously racist towards her own ally. Their partnership is not easily solidified but that makes it all the stronger when they star to trust each other. Sam Claflin is also career best here, weaponizing his usual charm into dangerous menace and even after cementing himself as the year’s most evil villain, he can still draw out the humanity in such a broken and corrupt man.
Gorgeously shot in the Academy ratio, the forest landscape here is oppressive and claustrophobic. Kent also steps back into her horror roots with some mesmerising, skin crawling dream scenes that amplify the woozy nightmarish tone and overbearing sense of dread. Once seen, never forgotten, this is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea (and that’s fine) but when cinema can affect you on such a visceral level and be this powerful, reflective and honest about our own past, it’s hard to ignore. Stunning.
8. The Irishman
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Aka Martin Scorsese’s magnum opus, I did manage to see this one in a cinema before the Netflix drop and absolutely loved it. I’ve watched 85 minute long movies that felt longer than this - Marty’s mastery of pace, energy and knowing when to let things play out in agonising detail is second to none. This epic tale of  the life of Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) really is the cinematic equivalent of having your cake and eating it too, allowing Scorsese to run through a greatest hits victory lap of mobster set pieces, alpha male arguments, a decades spanning life story and one (last?) truly great Joe Pesci performance before simply letting the story... continue... to a natural, depressing and tragic ending, reflecting the emptiness of a life built on violence and crime.
For a film this long, it’s impressive how much the smallest details make the biggest impacts. A stammering phone call from a man emotionally incapable of offering any sort of condolence. The cold refusal of forgiveness from a once loving daughter. A simple mirroring of a bowl of cereal or a door left slightly ajar. These are the parts of life that haunt us all and it’s what we notice the most in a deliberately lengthy biopic that shows how much these things matter when everything else is said and done. The violence explodes in sudden, sharp bursts, often capping off unbearably tense sequences filled with the everyday (a car ride, a conversation about fish, ice cream...) and this contrast between the whizz bang of classic Scorsese and the contemplative nature of Silence era Scorsese is what makes this film feel like such an accomplishment. De Niro is FINALLY back but it’s the memorably against type role for Pesci and an invigorated Al Pacino who steals this one, along with a roll call of fantastic cameos, with perhaps the most screentime given to the wonderfully petty Stephen Graham as Tony Pro, not to mention Anna Paquin’s near silent performance which says more than possibly anyone else. 
Yes, the CG de-aging is misguided at best, distracting at worst (I never really knew how old anyone was meant to be at any given time... which is kinda a problem) but like how you get used to it really quickly when it’s used well, here I kinda got past it being bad in an equally fast amount of time and just went with it. Would it have been a different beast had they cast younger actors to play them in the past? Undoubtedly. But if this gives us over three hours of Hollywood’s finest giving it their all for the last real time together, then that’s a compromise I can live with.
7. The Last Black Man in San Francisco
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Wow. I was in love with this film from the moving first trailer but then the film itself surpassed all expectations. This is a true indie film success story, with lead actor Jimmie Fails developing the idea with director Joe Talbot for years before Kickstarting a proof of concept and eventually getting into Sundance with short film American Paradise, which led to the backing of this debut feature through Plan B and A24. The deeply personal and poetic drama follows a fictionalised version of Jimmie, trying to buy back an old Victorian town house he claims was built by his grandfather, in an act of rebellion against the increasingly gentrified San Francisco that both he and director Talbot call home.
The film is many things - a story of male friendship, of solidarity within our community, of how our cities can change right from underneath us - it moves to the beat of it’s own drum, with painterly cinematography full of gorgeous autumnal colours and my favourite score of the year from Emile Mosseri. The performances, mostly by newcomers or locals outside of brilliant turns from Jonathan Majors, Danny Glover and Thora Birch, are wonderful and the whole thing is such a beautiful love letter to the city that it makes you ache for a strong sense of place in your own home, even if your relationship with it is fractured or strained. As Jimmie says, “you’re not allowed to hate it unless you love it”.
For me, last year’s Blindspotting (my favourite film of the year) tackled gentrification within California more succinctly but this much more lyrical piece of work ebbs and flows through a number of themes like identity, family, memory and time. It’s a big film living inside a small, personal one and it is not to be overlooked.
6. Little Women
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I had neither read the book nor seen any prior adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s 1868 novel so to me, this is by default the definitive telling of this story. If from what I hear, the non linear structure is Greta Gerwig’s addition, then it’s a total slam dunk. It works so well in breaking up the narrative and by jumping from past to present, her screenplay highlights certain moments and decisions with a palpable sense of irony, emotional weight or knowing wink. Getting to see a statement made with sincere conviction and then paid off within seconds, can be both a joy and a surefire recipe for tears. Whether it’s the devastating contrast between scenes centred around Beth’s illness or the juxtaposition of character’s attitudes to one another, it’s a massive triumph. Watching Amy angrily tell Laurie how she’s been in love with him all her life and then cutting back to her childishly making a plaster cast of her foot for him (’to remind him how small her feet are’) is so funny. 
Gerwig and her impeccable cast bring an electric energy to the period setting, capturing the big, messy realities of family life with a mix of overwhelming cross-chatter and the smallest of intimate gestures. It’s a testament to the film that every sister feels fully serviced and represented, from Beth’s quiet strength to Amy’s unforgivable sibling rivalry. Chris Cooper’s turn as a stoic man suffering almost imperceptible grief is a personal heartbreaking favourite. 
The book’s (I’m assuming) most sweeping romantic statements are wonderfully delivered, full of urgent passion and relatable heartache, from Marmie’s (Laura Dern) “I’m angry nearly every day of my life” moment to Jo’s (Saoirse Ronan) painful defiance of feminine attributes not being enough to cure her loneliness. The sheer amount of heart and warmth in this is just remarkable and I can easily see it being a film I return to again and again.
5. Booksmart
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2019 has been a banner year for female directors, making their exclusion from some of the early awards conversations all the more damning. From this list alone, we have Lulu Wang, Jennifer Kent and Greta Gerwig. Not to mention Lorene Scafaria (Hustlers), Melina Matsoukas (Queen & Slim), Jocelyn DeBoer & Dawn Luebbe (Greener Grass), Sophie Hyde (Animals) and Rose Glass (Saint Maud - watch out for THIS one in 2020, it’s brilliant). Perhaps the most natural transition from in front of to behind the camera has been made by Olivia Wilde, who has created a borderline perfect teen comedy that can make you laugh till you cry, cry till you laugh and everything in-between.
Subverting the (usually male focused) ‘one last party before college’ tropes that fuel the likes of Superbad and it’s many inferior imitators, Booksmart follows two overachievers who, rather than go on a coming of age journey to get some booze or get laid, simply want to indulge in an insane night of teenage freedom after realising that all of the ‘cool kids’ who they assumed were dropouts, also managed to get a place in all of the big universities. It’s a subtly clever remix of an old favourite from the get go but the committed performances from Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein put you firmly in their shoes for the whole ride. 
It’s a genuine blast, with big laughs and a bigger heart, portraying a supportive female friendship that doesn’t rely on hokey contrivances to tear them apart, meaning that when certain repressed feelings do come to the surface, the fallout is heartbreaking. As I stated in a twitter rave after first seeing it back in May, every single character, no matter how much they might appear to be simply representing a stock role or genre trope, gets their moment to be humanised. This is an impeccably cast ensemble of young unknowns who constantly surprise and the script is a marvel - a watertight structure without a beat out of place, callbacks and payoffs to throwaway gags circle back to be hugely important and most of all, the approach taken to sexuality and representation feels so natural. I really think it is destined to be looked back on and represent 2019 the way Heathers does ‘88, Clueless ‘95 or Easy A 2010. A new high benchmark for crowd pleasing, indie comedy - teen or otherwise.
4. Ad Astra
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Brad Pitt is one of my favourite actors and one who, despite still being a huge A-lister even after 30 years in the game, never seems to get enough credit for the choices he makes, the movies he stars in and also the range of stories he helps produce through his company, Plan B. 2019 was something of a comeback year for Pitt as an actor with the insanely measured and controlled lead performance seen here in Ad Astra and the more charismatic and chaotic supporting role in Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood.
I love space movies, especially those that are more about broken people blasting themselves into the unknown to search for answers within themselves... which manages to sum up a lot of recent output in this weirdly specific sub-genre. First Man was a devastating look at grief characterised by a man who would rather go to a desolate rock than have to confront what he lost, all while being packaged as a heroic biopic with a stunning score. Gravity and The Martian both find their protagonists forced to rely on their own cunning and ingenuity to survive and Interstellar looked at the lengths we go to for those we love left behind. Smaller, arty character studies like High Life or Moon are also astounding. All of this is to say that Ad Astra takes these concepts and runs with them, challenging Pitt to cross the solar system to talk some sense into his long thought dead father (Tommy Lee Jones). But within all the ‘sad dad’ stuff, there’s another film in here just daring you to try and second guess it - one that kicks things off with a terrifying free fall from space, gives us a Mad Max style buggy chase on the moon and sidesteps into horror for one particular set-piece involving a rabid baboon in zero G! It manages to feel so completely nuts, so episodic in structure, that I understand why a lot of people were turned off - feeling that the overall film was too scattershot to land the drama or too pondering to have any fun with. I get the criticisms but for me, both elements worked in tandem, propelling Pitt on this (assumed) one way journey at a crazy pace whilst sitting back and languishing in the ‘bigger themes’ more associated with a Malik or Kubrick film. Something that Pitt can sell me on in his sleep by this point.
I loved the visuals from cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema (Interstellar), loved the imagination and flair of the script from director James Gray and Ethan Gross and loved the score by Max Richter (with Lorne Balfe and Nils Frahm) but most of all, loved Pitt, proving that sometimes a lot less, is a lot more. The sting of hearing the one thing he surely knew (but hoped he wouldn’t) be destined to hear from his absent father, acted almost entirely in his eyes during a third act confrontation, summed up the movie’s brilliance for me - so much so that I can forgive some of the more outlandish ‘Mr Hyde’ moments of this thing’s alter ego... like, say, riding a piece of damaged hull like a surfboard through a meteor debris field! 
3. Avengers: Endgame
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It’s no secret that I think Marvel, the MCU in particular, have been going from strength to strength in recent years, slowly but surely taking bigger risks with filmmakers (the bonkers Taika Waititi, the indie darlings of Ryan Coogler, Cate Shortland and Chloe Zhao) whilst also carefully crafting an entertaining, interconnected universe of characters and stories. But what is the point of building up any movie ‘universe’ if you’re not going to pay it off and Endgame is perhaps the strongest conclusion to eleven years of movie sequels that fans could have possibly hoped for.
Going into this thing, the hype was off the charts (and for good reason, with it now being the highest grossing film of all time) but I remember souring on the first entry of this two-parter, Infinity War, during the time between initial release and Endgame’s premiere. That film had a game-changing climax, killing off half the heroes (and indeed the universe’s population) and letting the credits role on the villain having achieved his ultimate goal. It was daring, especially for a mammoth summer blockbuster but obviously, we all knew the deaths would never be permanent, especially with so many already-announced sequels for now ‘dusted’ characters. However, it wasn’t just the feeling that everything would inevitably be alright in the end. For me, the characters themselves felt hugely under-serviced, with arguably the franchise’s main goody two shoes Captain America being little more than a beardy bloke who showed up to fight a little bit. Basically what I’m getting at is that I felt Endgame, perhaps emboldened by the giant runtime, managed to not only address these character slights but ALSO managed to deliver the most action packed, comic booky, ‘bashing your toys together’ final fight as well.
It’s a film of three parts, each pretty much broken up into one hour sections. There’s the genuinely new and interesting initial section following our heroes dealing with the fact that they lost... and it stuck. Thor angrily kills Thanos within the first fifteen minutes but it’s a meaningless action by this point - empty revenge. Cutting to five years later, we get to see how defeat has affected them, for better or worse, trying to come to terms with grief and acceptance. Cap tries to help the everyman, Black Widow is out leading an intergalactic mop up squad and Thor is wallowing in a depressive black hole. It’s a shocking and vibrantly compelling deconstruction of the whole superhero thing and it gives the actors some real meat to chew on, especially Robert Downy Jr here who goes from being utterly broken to fighting within himself to do the right thing despite now having a daughter he doesn’t want to lose too. Part two is the trip down memory lane, fan service-y time heist which is possibly the most fun section of any of these movies, paying tribute to the franchise’s past whilst teetering on a knife’s edge trying to pull off a genuine ‘mission impossible’. And then it explodes into the extended finale which pays everyone off, demonstrates some brilliantly imaginative action and sticks the landing better than it had any right to. In a year which saw the ending of a handful of massive geek properties, from Game of Thrones to Star Wars, it’s a miracle even one of them got it right at all. That Endgame managed to get it SO right is an extraordinary accomplishment and if anything, I think Marvel may have shot themselves in the foot as it’s hard to imagine anything they can give us in the future having the intense emotional weight and momentum of this huge finale.
2. Knives Out
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Rian Johnson has been having a ball leaping into genre sandpits and stirring shit up, from his teen spin on noir in Brick to his quirky con man caper with The Brothers Bloom, his time travel thriller Looper and even his approach to the Star Wars mythos in The Last Jedi. Turning his attention to the relatively dead ‘whodunnit’ genre, Knives Out is a perfect example of how to celebrate everything that excites you about a genre whilst weaponizing it’s tropes against your audience’s baggage and preconceptions.
An impeccable cast have the time of their lives here, revelling in playing self obsessed narcissists who scramble to punt the blame around when the family’s patriarch, a successful crime novelist (Christopher Plummer), winds up dead. Of course there’s something fishy going on so Daniel Craig’s brilliantly dry southern detective Benoit Blanc is called in to investigate.There are plenty of standouts here, from Don Johnson’s ignorant alpha wannabe Richard to Michael Shannon’s ferocious eldest son Walt to Chris Evan’s sweater wearing jock Ransom, full of unchecked, white privilege swagger. But the surprise was the wholly sympathetic, meek, vomit prone Marta, played brilliantly by Ana de Armas, cast against her usual type of sultry bombshell (Knock Knock, Blade Runner 2049), to spearhead the biggest shake up of the genre conventions. To go into more detail would begin to tread into spoiler territory but by flipping the audience’s engagement with the detective, we’re suddenly on the receiving end of the scrutiny and the tension derived from this switcheroo is genius and opens up the second act of the story immensely.
The whole thing is so lovingly crafted and the script is one of the tightest I’ve seen in years. The amount of setup and payoff here is staggering and never not hugely satisfying, especially as it heads into it’s final stretch. It really gives you some hope that you could have such a dense, plotty, character driven idea for a story and that it could survive the transition from page to screen intact and for the finished product to work as well as it does. I really hope Johnson returns to tell another Benoit Blanc mystery and judging by the roaring box office success (currently over $200 million worldwide for a non IP original), I certainly believe he will.
1. Eighth Grade
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My film of the year is another example of the power of cinema to put us in other people’s shoes and to discover the traits, fears, joys and insecurities that we all share irregardless. It may shock you to learn this but I have never been a 13 year old teenage girl trying to get by in the modern world of social media peer pressure and ‘influencer’ culture whilst crippled with personal anxiety. My school days almost literally could not have looked more different than this (less Instagram, more POGs) and yet, this is a film about struggling with oneself, with loneliness, with wanting more but not knowing how to get it without changing yourself and the careless way we treat those with our best interests at heart in our selfish attempt to impress peers and fit in. That is understandable. That is universal. And as I’m sure I’ve said a bunch of times in this list, movies that present the most specific worldview whilst tapping into universal themes are the ones that inevitably resonate the most.
Youtuber and comedian Bo Burnham has crafted an impeccable debut feature, somehow portraying a generation of teens at least a couple of generations below his own, with such laser focused insight and intimate detail. It’s no accident that this film has often been called a sort of social-horror, with cringe levels off the charts and recognisable trappings of anxiety and depression in every frame. The film’s style services this feeling at every turn, from it’s long takes and nauseous handheld camerawork to the sensory overload in it’s score (take a bow Anna Meredith) and the naturalistic performances from all involved. Burnham struck gold when he found Elsie Fisher, delivering the most painful and effortlessly real portrayal of a tweenager in crisis as Kayla. The way she glances around skittishly, the way she is completely lost in her phone, the way she talks, even the way she breathes all feeds into the illusion - the film is oftentimes less a studio style teen comedy and more a fly on the wall documentary. 
This is a film that could have coasted on being a distant, social media based cousin to more standard fare like Sex Drive or Superbad or even Easy A but it goes much deeper, unafraid to let you lower your guard and suddenly hit you with the most terrifying scene of casually attempted sexual aggression or let you watch this pure, kindhearted girl falter and question herself in ways she shouldn’t even have to worry about. And at it’s core, there is another beautiful father/daughter relationship, with Josh Hamilton stuck on the outside looking in, desperate to help Kayla with every fibre of his being but knowing there are certain things she has to figure out for herself. It absolutely had me and their scene around a backyard campfire is one of the year’s most touching.
This is a truly remarkable film that I think everyone should seek out but I’m especially excited for all the actual teenage girls who will get to watch this and feel seen. This isn’t about the popular kid, it isn’t about the dork who hangs out with his or her own band of misfits. This is about the true loner, that person trying everything to get noticed and still ending up invisible, that person trying to connect through the most disconnected means there is - the internet - and everything that comes with it. Learning that the version of yourself you ‘portray’ on a Youtube channel may act like they have all the answers but if you’re kidding yourself then how do you grow? 
When I saw this in the cinema, I watched a mother take her seat with her two daughters, aged probably at around nine and twelve. Possibly a touch young for this, I thought, and I admit I cringed a bit on their behalf during some very adult trailers but in the end, I’m glad their mum decided they were mature enough to see this because a) they had a total blast and b) life simply IS R rated for the most part, especially during our school years, and those girls being able to see someone like Kayla have her story told on the big screen felt like a huge win. I honestly can’t wait to see what Burnham or Fisher decide to do next. 2019 has absolutely been their year... and it’s been a hell of a year.
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anneapocalypse · 5 years
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Anne watches MCU: Captain America through Age of Ultron
My trek through the Marvel Cinematic Universe has continued but I really slacked off on making posts about it after the first, uh, three, so here's a catch-up post!
And as a note, I am watching the films in release order, but for simplicity's sake I'm grouping some origins and sequels together here.
Spoilers for everything through Ultron, as well as some mentions of Civil War and Captain Marvel.
Crossposted from dreamwidth.
Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) & The Winter Soldier (2014)
Captain America to me marks a turning point in the MCU, the moment when these films reach a level of sincerity and groundedness that will become a standard in superhero films. And as such, the Captain America series is one of my favorites within the Marvel universe. World War II has also long been an interest of mine, so it's no surprise that I enjoyed the first film so much.
And when Steve reawakens in the modern day and becomes one of the Avengers, carrying on the ideals that made him who he is, I love that too. I would say Winter Soldier is as much an Avengers movie as it is a Captain America movie (the same has been said of Civil War) because once Cap enters the present day, you can't really have Cap without the Avengers.
In the hindsight of having recently seen Civil War, think this is partly because Steve, more than any other Avenger, is defined by his relationships to other people. His friendships, his rivalries, his loyalties—these are what make Steve Rogers who he is, both in the past and in the present. Steve's whole life is shaped by his friendship with Bucky Barnes. His first thought upon waking up in another time is not of the world he has lost but the people he has lost. And his new friendship with Sam Wilson is easily one of the most delightful moments in The Winter Soldier.
I will say that my primary disappointment with The Winter Soldier was that it wasn't really an origin story for Bucky Barnes. There is not a lot of character development for Bucky himself—it is still very much Steve's story. But the focus is again on Steve's relationship with his old friend, and his refusal to give up on Bucky ultimately saves them both.
And I think that focus on relationships is also what makes Captain America a favorite for me.
The Avengers (2012)
I really wish I had written about this movie when I first watched it, because my memory of it is now very much colored by having seen Age of Ultron and Civil War since. Attempting to set that aside, I did enjoy this movie when I watched it, though not quite as much as I enjoyed Captain America.
The Avengers is absolutely not a standalone film. This is definitely the point at which the MCU truly becomes a shared universe, and the origin stories we've had so far are really not optional for understanding these character dynamics.
The tension between Steve and Tony does make sense, both for the characters themselves and as a kind of meta commentary on the evolution of the Marvel universe: Tony Stark's layers of defensive irony set against Steve Rogers' straightforward sincerity.
There are other character beats that work for me in this movie as well. We get the best character development for Natasha, given that she doesn't get her own movie. (CRIMINAL.) That she successfully plays Loki, out-tricks the Trickster, is a truly beautiful moment. Ruffalo's Bruce Banner establishes pretty clearly that he is not Ed Norton's Bruce Banner. And Tony/Pepper manages to grow on me a little bit.
Loki as a villain is... okay. I think it's pretty clear by the end that his plan was never really about dominating Earth, but about causing chaos—which he does, pretty successfully, and in the hindsight of Civil War, said chaos has some far-reaching effects. That part works for me. On the flip side, I really hate mind-control MacGuffins; I think they're a lazy means of getting characters to do whatever the plot requires without having to justify the characterization in any way or deal with the aftereffects, and in my opinion Marvel overuses this trope to death.
Hawkeye as a character is absolutely wasted in this movie, as we have no idea who he is before he is controlled by space magic.
This ties into a larger issue with the Avengers series that, again, feels much more prominent after seeing Civil War: the Avengers aren't a team. Not really. They're a group of solo superheroes attempting to work together. This would be fine for a first Avengers film if the plot were about building them from a group of loners into a real team. But this film isn't about that. It's about dividing them before we've really seen them united. We are told, and not shown, that Natasha and Clint are close friends; beyond that, who on this supposed team actually have a reason to care about one another? And by the end, what has this film really accomplished in terms of building a rapport and making the Avengers feel like a team?
I think the fact that they end the film sitting around a table eating shawarma in stone cold silence says it all.
Iron Man 3 (2013)
The third Iron Man movie begins to bring Tony Stark a little more in line tonally with the other Avengers. Tony loses none of his distinctive character, but his experiences are treated more seriously in this film, with Tony suffering from PTSD. It also explores how the events of Thor and The Avengers have challenged Tony's arrogance as a former lone-wolf superhero driven by technology and his own extreme wealth.
By this movie I'm pretty well over Tony/Pepper. Pepper loves Tony, she cares about him—but she never seems happy with him, only constantly stressed, and as a viewer who loves Pepper, it's honestly not fun to watch. This is something I think Nolan's Batman series better understood; there's a reason Rachel doesn't wait for Bruce. The genius billionaire superhero is a terrible boyfriend. Marvel, unfortunately, doesn't really want to acknowledge that. For Pepper to be happy with Tony, Tony needs to change, and Marvel doesn't really want to change Tony. For Pepper to leave Tony means the hero doesn't get the girl, and Marvel doesn't want that either. So we're left with this tiring, unsatisfying relationship, and I'm super over it.
To add insult to injury, Pepper gets superpowers and doesn't even get to keep them.
The MCU has a Women Problem, and it's really, really obvious in this film. I do like parts of it very much; it's undeniably enjoyable to watch, and I like a lot of what it does with Tony. But it's also representative of some of the cracks in the Marvel fresco as a whole.
Thor: The Dark World (2013)
Darcy is the most fun character in the Thor movies at this point, and to be honest I kinda like her more than Jane.
The Dark World is another fish-out-of-water story, only this time it's Jane that's the fish. I didn't hate this movie, but it didn't make a huge impression on me, as evidenced by the fact that I can't find any notes for it. :P I enjoyed the stinger of Loki being alive at the end (I knew he was going to be, but it was still fun to watch), and I was pissed they killed Frigga (one of my favorite characters in the Odin family).
And once again, we have a female character infused with a force of tremendous power and she isn't even allowed to keep it. Are we noticing a pattern here, whereby with men, superpowers are celebrated no matter what kind of horror they went through to get them or even how much they hate themselves for having them (hello, Bruce Banner), but for women, superpowers are a horrible curse they need to be rescued from?
Yeah, Marvel has a women problem. NEXT!
Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) & Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (2017)
Along with Captain America, Guardians is tied for my favorite series within the MCU. It is unapologetically fun, yet still sincere in its own way, striking a fresh and unique tone for the MCU.
These two movies are excellent and in my opinion, do a much better job of showing a band of loners becoming a team and building a rapport and learning to trust one another than Avengers did.
There is no character among the Guardians I don't love, and the restraint with which Quill and Gamora's relationship is handled (in that they build a friendship, rather than making Gamora Peter's prize for becoming the hero) is damn refreshing. Drax is simultaneously hilarious and sincere—in fact his humor comes from his innate sincerity. Rocket Raccoon exemplifies the kind of insecurities all the characters must overcome to work together. And both Gamora and Peter show self-reflection and growth in the second film, Peter by facing down his own ego, Gamora by acknowledging what her sister Nebula went through without denying her own suffering.
These films, especially 2, are all about relationships, including complicated and troubled relationships, and that's probably why I love them.
Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
Age of Ultron was a weird watch for me.
There were things I liked about it a lot, Natasha's relationship with the Hulk and Clint finally getting some long-overdue character development especially. And yet I came away from this movie feeling more tired than anything else. There were some good character moments, but the story did nothing for me.
Most of all, though, I think my exhaustion stems from how deeply formulaic the Marvel films have become at this point. They're just really, really predictable. I'm already tired of AI-centric plots not thinking of anything more creative to do with their premise than "It tries to wipe out humanity/take over the world I guess." This story feels utterly phoned in.
And even in terms of relationships, this film doesn't really hold up. For one thing, the whole setup of the film is the continued tension between the Avengers, most prominently Steve and Tony, which has never really been resolved. Tony going rogue and activating Ultron isn't so much a betrayal of an established trust as it is simply highlighting the fact that there isn't any.
Meanwhile, Natasha and Bruce are bungled... badly. Much has been said about the conversation in which Natasha seems to be saying that being infertile makes her a monster. A generous reading can attribute this to bad dialogue, appearing to frame the "monster" remark around Natasha's infertility when she is meant to be remarking on the fact that her greatest strength is as a highly efficient killer. But in light of Marvel's Women Problem, that reading really isn't any better. In some ways it's just as bad or worse, as it once again frames power in a woman as a curse rather than a gift. Either way, it's not really a valid comparison to Bruce's specific angst, which is unique to him: he is possessed by a power he not only never wanted, but cannot control.
(No wonder people are confused when Carol Danvers doesn't have to be brutalized to become powerful, or hate herself for being so. It breaks the rules. And thank the gods for it.)
One bright spot in this film is the introduction of Wanda Maximoff, the most powerful heroine we've yet seen in the MCU. Vision, by contrast, feels like a fairly pointless character to me. I feel like everything he did could've been done by someone else, and he's only here because he's in the comics.
I’ve also watched both Ant-Man and Civil War this week, and took copious notes this time, so expect posts for those films soon.
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