Which is like being sick, but not knowing what hurts

Recently, Lily was flipping through a book someone had given her. Like me, she has a million books, so it's not that unusual to have a book of unknown provenance. She was saying that it all seemed so sad, and that if it didn't have one picture of a cat that looked like our cat lifting weights, she would want to throw the book away. Then she read one of the sad things as an example,

which struck me as just about the best way possible to articulate Depression to children.

I've been pretty down in my personal life lately, as my increasingly frequent word salads of nerd rage show, but I'm going to try to turn this around by writing a series of posts about things I enjoy.

But, first, a kitten lifting weights!

Guardians of the Galaxy review, part II: He'll have fun, fun, fun til Ronan takes the Soul Gem away

The second part of my review of Guardians of the Galaxy. The first part can be found here, and focuses on how the characters differ from their counterparts in the comic books.
 
I'll sometimes review the trailers I see as part of a movie review, because, hey, trailers are fun. I wasn't the only person to express the opinion that the Guardians of the Galaxy trailer was extremely well put-together.

Here's my capsule review of the trailer that aired with X-Men: DoFP

Guardians of the Galaxy: I worked three years in a poorly trafficked comic store, and mostly just read comics for eight hours a day. Never once did I read a copy of Guardians of the Galaxy. Ah, this is Firefly done right. This trailer, and presumably, the movie that goes with it, remember that movies should be fun.

I'm not going to rehash my dislike for Firefly as part of this review. It's a fun Traveller campaign, marred by an excessively literal interpretation of the Western tropes, coupled with the whole "You can't tell me what to do!" Libertarian jerk-off fantasy. Guardians of the Galaxy keeps the good parts.

I've enjoyed Jame's Gunn's superhero movies since The Specials, which has a scene that cracks me up every time. Two super-heroes are watching the news together.

The word that gets tossed about the most in reference to Guardians of the Galaxy seems to be "fun".

What makes something "fun" is, of course, extremely subjective.  We can both look at the exact same thing at the exact same time, but come away with very different impressions of it.

I'm reminded of the Village Voice "Harlot" review.   A female writer wrote a negative piece on Guardians, the usual suspects break out their usual misogynistic language in the comments (I know, "Never read the Comments") , but then the paper takes the unusual step of addressing this in a separate piece.

However, and the awkward thing is, it's a terrible review. It's glib, smug, condescending, frequently wrong on points of fact (Groot's catch phrase is "I'm Groot!" -  Really?! Come on, that's just inexcusably sloppy), and every paragraph seems to be a variation of her thesis statement, which was "This movie wasn't amusing in a way I personally find entertaining, therefore it is objectively bad."

However, it's still not cool to call someone a harlot. I can't imagine that the word itself has a lot of sting, by itself, it's too ridiculously strange and antiquated to take seriously, but the intent is there. Meaning, that even though Falstaff, sorcerer of Light chose a ridiculous and inadequate tool,  he was still trying to silence a woman by projecting a certain sexual identity on to her, and that should always be called out.

And there is no contradiction between defending the reviewer and trashing the review. She wrote a terrible review, but this doesn't make her a terrible person, and even if it did, it wouldn't excuse someone calling her a harlot.

Oops, that was a larger digression than I was expecting.

 We open with Peter Quill's mom dying of cancer in a hospital death. She tells him to take her hand, but he bolts away and is promptly picked up by a team of passing space pirates. Presumably, his space dad is Ford Prefect.

We pick up twenty-six years later, where Peter, now calling himself Star Lord, is stealing this metal sphere. He's confronted by bad guys as he succeeds, and anyone reading this has already seen this part in the trailers.

He goes to sell it on Xandar, but his buyer get cold feet when Quill mentions Ronan. Quill exits, is ambushed by Gamora, and she takes the orb. Nearby Rocket and Groot join in the fight, and everyone is arrested. I thought this was a decent scene, though I think Gamora  "The deadliest woman in the whole galaxy" should have had a better showing against Quill. Not that she should have double-tapped him in the face or anything, but simply taken some kind of precaution to ensure that he didn't get right back up and steal the orb back.

Everybody's sentenced to the Kyln, a super prison. (A lot of science fiction names are bad, but, ugh, the Kyln is a terrible name, even by these standards.) They team up with Drax and break out. Scenes in Guardians of the Galaxy never go on too long. My last thought before they abruptly ramped things up and escaped was, "That was fun, but I'm getting bored now."

They escape, and go to Knowhere.The Collector makes them wait, and Gamora and Quill have a chat. Seeing a clip of this scene is what convinced Jen to come and see the movie.  If I recall correctly, the act on Nowhere had two of my favorite nonverbal bits in the movie. One on them is how Rocket's having his meltdown, and it looks like he's going to shoot the other members of the group, Quill interposes himself between the gun and the other people. It's a symbolic act; he's pretty squishy as outer space superheroes go, but it's an understandable, human, act, too.

The Collector calls the group in to finish the transaction. He opens the orb informs them that it's the container for one of the Infinity Gems. Just as they're about to sell the orb to the Collector, his assistant (who has the same name, Carina, as the Collector's daughter from the comics) picks it, in an attempt to free herself from her servitude, but she's unable to contain the power it holds, and she blows up. (This was the other scene I liked a lot. I love Groot's body language when he picks up Rocket to escape the explosion. He did it instantly, and the way he cradled Rocket was so protective.)

Drax had previously drunk dialed Ronan to come on down for an ass-whupping, and Ronan arrives now.  His forces kick the crap out of everybody, and he personally manhandles Drax. Ronan get what he came for, so he leaves. Star-Lord and Gamora are picked up by Yondu and his band of space pirates, Rocket, Groot and Drax hatch a plan to rescue them. Star-Lord fast talks his way out the situation by convincing Yondu that they can still retrieve the orb, then they ally with Nova corps on Xandar to stop Ronan from blowing the place up. (Also, the Nova Corps uniforms looks much better on screen than I ever could have expected.

This was another well assembled action scene. I've read criticisms that the tactics employed by both sides are kind of silly, but I think that's true of almost any sci-fi movie. Modern warfare just doesn't happen on a human scale anymore, to say nothing of what we could expect in the future. This is something I'm willing to accept for the sake of the movie. (Iain Banks showed you could tell a "realistic" outer space battle with the Culture stories, but they feature space combat between AIs that is over in seconds, and first strikes from outside solar systems, which really wouldn't fit with what's been established in GotG.)

Another thing I really liked was that everybody worked together and did the best than could do. Nobody sells out/panics/drops the ball. They stick together until Ronan overwhelms them. There is some back and forth, and Rocket hits Ronan with his ship, making people who have never seen a movie before believe that Ronan is dead. As the damaged ship is hurtling towards the surface, Groot sacrifices himself to protect the rest of the team. I liked this scene, it was moving and all, but I don't think enough had been done to set it up, so it felt really forced.

They land, Ronan pops out of the wreckage, and is going to destroy Xandar, and he says something like "Behold! Your 'Guardians of the Galaxy'!" Ugh, that was so forced and unnatural and unentertaining.  It sucks that the two worst moments come so close to the end. But then we get Star-Lord challenging Ronan to a dance-off as a distraction, and Josh is right back to loving this movie. The good guys kill Ronan, they're given a pardon for their crimes, and they fly away off to new adventures.

Even Groot is back. Yay!

Most of the stuff I've complained about was "Stuff I would have done slightly differently" rather than "Stuff I thought was bad". I am very satisfied with the movie.

Guardians of the Galaxy review, part 1: Character is what you are in the dark...of space

For the first part of my review, I'm going to look at the characters, with an emphasis on how they differ from their comics counterparts.

In fact, this is barely a review of the movie at all, but, if you want a look at the characters and some comics nerdery, read on!

Back in my day, both major comics publishers had ongoing series set in the 31st Century. DC published the Legion of Super-Heroes, and Marvel had the Guardians of the Galaxy, led by Vance Astrovik, an astronaut from 20th Century Earth. I don't think I ever read any GotG prior to working at the comic book store. I remember Vance, though, from my Gamer's Guide to the Marvel Universe, because he seemed like the most unplayable hero imaginable.

He was a thousand years old, and only alive because of his spacesuit. If he took more than 30 points of damage in one attack, or 30 cumulative points of damage from bladed weapons, his containment suit would rupture, and he would age to death in moments.

...

No amount of Pelvic Sorcery can make me cool again after writing that.

Fortunately, Vance Astrovik has nothing to do with this movie. He was a member of the old Guardians of the Galaxy. This is a movie about the NEW Guardians of the Galaxy, the 2008 comics series.  I'm pretty sure I never knew about this until every website online referenced the movie with a variation of the phrase "based on Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning's critically acclaimed 2008 series."

Star-Lord: If you had asked me about Star-Lord, I would have made a bunch of tortured faces, trying to remember something, ("Starfox and Firelord used to be buddies...maybe he has something to do with them?") before I'd finally just say "Who?!" just like the guy in the trailer. On paper, Star-Lord looks awful. He's a combination of traits that are either boring (the normal human point of view on a team of super-powered weirdos) or easy to screw up (the lovable rogue).

However, Chris Pratt and James Gunn pull it off perfectly. I said of him in my review of the Lego Movie "Chris Pratt is about three picoseconds from superstardom, between this and Guardians of the Galaxy. I met him once, briefly, about ten years ago for a promotional event for Everwood. I understand that he's an actor and everything, but he really seemed like a genuinely nice guy who really was legitimately happy to be at the event."

Gamora: When I first heard that that Drax and Gamora were going to be in the Guardians of the Galaxy movie, I was pretty excited. I didn't know of the new comics series, so I assumed they'd be borrowing from the Infinity Watch, which included Drax and Gamora amongst its members. (The Infinity Watch was so neat, because each member of the team had a relic of almost unimaginable power that he or she was unwilling to use.)

I was living in the past, though, because it turned out that the pair were members of the second incarnation of the Guardians of the Galaxy.

Zoe Saldana does a fine job. My biggest complaint is that between this, and Star Trek, and Avatar, she should leave some action sci-fi roles for the other actresses out there!

Gamora has a cool look. I liked her fishnet patterned bodysuit in the comics, though that neckline is pretty ridiculous. It makes Power Girl's boob window look positively puritanical. It's a memorable costume that could have been vastly improved by closing it up. That exposed flesh should be black or gold material up to her neck, and then it would be just about perfect.

My initial post on Facebook about the movie was: I wanted to enjoy Guardians of the Galaxy, but I was just *acutely* disappointed by the changes to Gamora's backstory...oh, who am I kidding? Best Marvel movie I've seen since Spider-Man 2!

And I was mostly kidding, but I do prefer Gamora's original backstory. Thanos didn't kill her parents; she was orphaned by an unrelated attack. He wanted an assassin who would serve him of her own volition.  There are some very nice scans of one of my favorite stories at this link. I can understand why they would change it to what they had in the movie, it streamlines the plot rather than introducing another complication, it gives the audience another reason to hate Thanos, and it gives Gamora a reason to rebel. But, still, I feel like the story loses something without that element.

Drax the Destroyer: Comic book Drax has one of those convoluted 1970's Marvel Comics backstories that would just make no sense outside of that context. So they reimagined him as an alien whose family was fridged by Ronan. That's fine, I suppose. A little bit generic, but I like the dynamic of the excessively literal alien that Batista brings to the group.

Groot: I'm not that familiar with comic book Groot. Vin Diesel earned about fifteen years of good will for his performance in the Iron Giant, and he's been squandering that one Riddick sequel/xXx/Pacifier at a time. Just when it seemed like I could write him off forever, he comes back with Groot's voice, and is awesome. I just hope this doesn't mean another decade and a half of shitty movies.

Rocket Racoon: I thought I'd hate Rocket. When I went in, I was expecting him just to be Pip the Troll, whom I've never found funny. I was expecting unfunny comic relief, probably based around fart jokes, and he wound up being outstanding! For a CG character, he was flawlessly inserted into a number of complex environments, he was legitimately funny, and he had a number of really poignant scenes as well.

Thanos: Man, I love Thanos. He started as Jim Starlin's ripoff of Darkseid, but grew into something absolutely mythic and entirely his own. This is the page I always think of when I'm imagining Thanos:

He's boring when he's written as a nothing more than a cosmic-scale Doctor Doom, but I love him when he's the self-destructive death-worshipping demigod. I loved him in the old comics, in the Thanos Quest prelude to the Infinity Guantlet and in his capacity as a frenemy to the Infinity Watch.

The Infinity Gauntlet has a great cover

And then, seeing that Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet were popular, Marvel told successively less interesting variations (Infinity War, Infinity Crusade, Annihilation , The Thanos Imperative) on the same story for the next twenty years, which required that they undo all the character development Thanos had experienced.  I saw this coming, and stopped reading, and thus, still have fond memories.

Bland

Nebula:  Nebula was awful in the comics. She was a blue space pirate who would show up every so often, and be boring before somebody kicked her ass and sent her on her way. She was always one of those characters that the company tried to promote as a bigger deal than she actually was.

She claimed to be Thanos' granddaughter, but I think that's been disproven or retconned. I liked her more in the movie. Karen Gillan did a nice job bringing the sibling rivalry to life.

Ronan the Accuser: I'm not sure what's more surprising. Ronan the Accuser in a major motion picture, or Lee Pace playing the role.

I've loved Lee Pace for a long time. I loved him in Wonderfalls,

I loved him in Pushing Daisies,

but, well, look at the dude. He would not be my pick for the supreme enforcer of justice for a warrior race. (Also, he's the Elf King in the Hobbit movies?! Dang! Who's his agent?!)

I never had a strong opinion on Ronan, probably because he never had a consistent characterization. Sometimes he was a shouty space asshole, sometimes he was a shouty space asshole, but with good reasons and sometimes he was a Hard Man making Hard Choices.

I like his look, and that counts for something in comic books. 

The Collector: I was really excited to see the Collector would be in the movie. I've always loved his design.

Behold: The Collector!

Except, when I checked,it turned out that I was thinking of the Possessor and not the Collector. (They're both members of the Elders of the Universe,  each of whom are the last survivors of their respective species, which is probably why I made the mistake.)

This guy is the Collector.

Behold: The Collector! For reals!

Ugh. The Collector. He's like Brainiac, if Brainiac looked like the creepy uncle to a child molester. He's not to be confused with the one Treehouse of Horror episode, where the Comic Book Guy played a character named the Collector. CBG had the same general schtick, but a much better design.

 

The Collector was best known for being repeatedly disintegrated and being brought back to life in the pages of the Avengers in the 1960s.

In case I haven't made it clear, I'm not a big fan.

I did kind of like him as a character in the movie, though. Benicio del Toro played him as an "outer space Liberace", which is actually kind of an interesting twist on a character that never really moved me. I enjoyed his brief appearance.

In the next part of the movie review...an actual movie review!!!

Tim Eats Paste

This is Tim

Tim loves paste

But when he tries to eat it, it makes his tum-tum hurt

"This paste tastes like burning!"

Then one day, Tim's prayers were answered, 

 and he could eat all the paste he wanted

The End!

Compassionate Conservatives

As readers of this blog will know, I'm pretty liberal.

On Monday, Rick Perry, the governor of Texas, announced that he was activating 1,000 members of the National Guard to prevent children seeking asylum from gaining entry to the country.

Today he posed for this picture.

I remember in the 2000 Presidential election, Ralph Nader kept saying that there is no difference between the two political parties.

The Democratic Party has its issues, certainly. However, as far as I know, none of us have implicitly advocated using a helicopter-mounted machine gun to murder children fleeing genocide.

A friend on Facebook made the Full Metal Jacket reference, so here's the appropriate caption to the picture.