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Author: stevenattewell
are children of men and y tu mama bien deserving of a reappraisal – in light of current political upheaval?
Well, Children of Men is amazing and has only been getting more appreciated.
But I don’t really see much in the way of political connotations for T Tu Mama Tambien.
Any particular thoughts on the John Wick film, other than it being awesome of course?
John Wick is a really weird film, isn’t it?
Like… I really love it. It’s the best thing Reeves has made since The Devil’s Advocate. (I’m an aficionado of devil movies and Devil’s Advocate is criminally underrated. It somehow manages to be a southern gothic film that’s almost entirely set in NYC. I digress tho.)
But I can’t quite ever explain to people why I love John Wick. Because every time I try I get three sentences in and realize “I’m basically describing every single other revenge film starring a white dude with a dead wife ever made, even if this one doesn’t involve revenge BECAUSE of the dead wife.” I mean, it’s beautifully shot, and wonderfully acted, but aside from that it doesn’t sound like anything special. And I can’t articulate why I think it’s a very good movie. I just know that I think it is one.
I’m not sure it needed a sequel, tho. And the way the sequel is being marketed really gives me pause. The first one was… very restrained in many ways, it used a light touch. I’m very worried that they’ll think they needed to go bigger.
Eh. A great action movie doesn’t have to have a good story. The Raid: Redemption’s story is paper-thin, but the setting is so clearly established and the action is so amazingly done that it’s great anyway.
Indeed, I would argue there’s a lot of great action movies which are great because the story is so simple: the Seven Samurai/the Magnificent Seven, Die Hard, Mad Max: Fury Road, etc.
And I probably should have said that John Wick is great because the combat choreography is really well done in a very uncommon super-stripped down fashion.
Indeed, I would argue there’s a lot of great action movies which are
great because the story is so simple: the Seven Samurai/the Magnificent
Seven, Die Hard, Mad Max: Fury Road, etc.There’s a difference between simple and hackneyed, tho. I wouldn’t call Wick hackneyed; indeed, the movie goes to a lot of trouble to do a small but interesting bit of subversion in Act I, because John Wick is actually coping with the death of his wife in a semi-healthy way; she doesn’t exist as a prop to justify a high body count.
But it’s hard to explain that to people, or at least I’ve found it to be.
Pay attention to the Greek mythology references.
And I probably should have said that John Wick is great because the
combat choreography is really well done in a very uncommon
super-stripped down fashion.That’s a large part of what drew me to it, yeah. I also like the lighting, which manages to be very subdued without being massively washed out like every other movie that wants to go for a subdued look ends up looking like these days.
They also do a lot of little touches, small moments of humor or absurdity that just work and help mix up the tension a little bit without undercutting the tone. Dean Winters trying to shoot at Reeves and doing his Dennis-from-30-Rock laugh of sheer, childlike joy because shooting a gun is awesome cracks me up every time.
Good point about simple and hackneyed, although, man, it’s hard to figure out what’s one and what’s the other. Is it about how often it’s been done, or is it about simplicity vs. over-egging the pudding, or is it skill of execution?
Any particular thoughts on the John Wick film, other than it being awesome of course?
Pay attention to the Greek mythology references.
John Wick is a really weird film, isn’t it?
Like… I really love it. It’s the best thing Reeves has made since The Devil’s Advocate. (I’m an aficionado of devil movies and Devil’s Advocate is criminally underrated. It somehow manages to be a southern gothic film that’s almost entirely set in NYC. I digress tho.)
But I can’t quite ever explain to people why I love John Wick. Because every time I try I get three sentences in and realize “I’m basically describing every single other revenge film starring a white dude with a dead wife ever made, even if this one doesn’t involve revenge BECAUSE of the dead wife.” I mean, it’s beautifully shot, and wonderfully acted, but aside from that it doesn’t sound like anything special. And I can’t articulate why I think it’s a very good movie. I just know that I think it is one.
I’m not sure it needed a sequel, tho. And the way the sequel is being marketed really gives me pause. The first one was… very restrained in many ways, it used a light touch. I’m very worried that they’ll think they needed to go bigger.
Eh. A great action movie doesn’t have to have a good story. The Raid: Redemption’s story is paper-thin, but the setting is so clearly established and the action is so amazingly done that it’s great anyway.
Indeed, I would argue there’s a lot of great action movies which are great because the story is so simple: the Seven Samurai/the Magnificent Seven, Die Hard, Mad Max: Fury Road, etc.
And I probably should have said that John Wick is great because the combat choreography is really well done in a very uncommon super-stripped down fashion.
Any particular thoughts on the John Wick film, other than it being awesome of course?
Pay attention to the Greek mythology references.
Thoughts on Cable
I’ve never been a huge fan of Cable for the same reasons that a lot of people aren’t – Rob Liefield over-design, ridiculously complicated retconned backstory, liberally “borrowing” from the Terminator 1 and 2′s aesthetic and tropes – but I was reading a bunch of articles on Cable that various sites are putitng out b/c of Deadpool 2 and I’d listened to the X-Plain episode on Cable’s intro, and I realized that there was something else that kind of bugs me about Cable.
He’s too many things: he’s both a powerful psychic (hence the glowy eye and whatnot) and he’s a military badass (hence the hardware that outdoes the Punisher for sheer tonnage). And often the comics haven’t really figured how to do both at once – hence the techno-organic virus, which is most often used as an explanation for why Cable doesn’t use his psychic powers, so that the creative team can focus on Cable doing one thing at a time. Which is both a bit of a waste and contributes to the argument that Cable is a juvenile Cartmanesque overstuffed grab-bag rather than a unified concept.
But you know what would be interesting to see: rather than Cable just being a military badass in a universe that’s hardly lacking for them, what if Cable was a psychic who’d been trained to harness his powers for military purposes and nothing else?
After all, 616 psychic mutants are normally trained in more defensive and quasi-spiritual methods that make them the wizards and clerics of their D&D parties: whether it’s Jean Grey or pre-transformation Psylocke or Emma Frost or Charles Xavier, psychics generaly specialize in communications and coordination, protecting their allies via some form of shield, going to the Astral Plane so that they can fight the other psychics while the normies engage in fisticuffs, and they often get hit with various feedback effects or whammies just long enough to keep them away from the combat, once again separating them from the brawlers and bruisers.
But in a future apocalyptic war against Apocalypse, I would imagine that the grizzled leaders of the Resistance would insist on a more applied approach to psychic powers, and thus you’d get a Cable who did things very differently: it’s a complete waste of his abilities for Cable to actually fire a gun by hand no matter how long and hard and thick it is (wouldnt be a post about Cable without some Freudian subtext) when he could use his telekenesis to remotely control entire platoons’ worth of firepower. Likewise, Cable’s ability to telepathically surveil and then disrupt enemy command hierarchies is far more useful militarily than punching people with his metal arms.
So I guess what I’m interested in is a Cable who’s less 80s Arnie and more late-career Liam Neeson, Tom Hardy Mad Max, or Keanu as John Wick.
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Hey folks! So Jaime II is done, Tyrion II and History of the Reach are up next but are basically only at the outline stage. In the meantime, I’m going through some medical stuff that may well slow down writing speed; I’ll have to wait to see how it affects me to find out how much. That being said, I’m not going anywhere, it’s just going to be a bit slower than normal. That aside, there’s quite a…
Thanks for doing what you do. The stuff that you write is awesome.
You’re welcome!
Given that a noticeable portion of the Citadel’s budget comes from Oldtown taxes, how do you envision the relationship between the Maesters and the Hightowers? Do the latter get to use maesters-in-training as city administrators as you’ve suggested? Might there be a quid pro quo where the Archmaesters send Lord Leyton word if they get wind of conspiracies against him? Or is it more of a business promotion situation where just having the Citadel around generates positive economic externalities?
No, I think the Maesters’ neutrality is too important to the system for anything quite as blatant as that. More subtle forms of information-sharing, perhaps.
But yes, I think the Maesters in the Citadel are obliged to provide administrative and other services on demand for the Hightower.
How did House Velaryon go from having a massive fleet and supplying 1/4 of Rhaenyra’s army to supplying a total of four ships to Stannis’ forces?
A combination of the Dance of the Dragons, which permanently lost them Spicetown, and backing the Targs in Robert’s Rebellion, which cost them what they had left.
Also, while Oakenfist was hugely successful, that’s a lot of blood and treasure being expended for royal gain.
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