On Agency: Strong Female Characters, the Myth of Non-Action, and Jupiter Ascending
By now you’ll have heard the “Jupiter Jones doesn’t have agency” criticism of Jupiter Ascending (dirs. the Wachowskis; 2015).[1] The gist of the argument, as far as I can tell, is that Jupiter doesn’t have agency (or enough agency) because she does not become a “strong female character” until the last possible second. Andrew O’Hehir, […]
On Ridley Scott’s Exodus and Bannings
The Washington Post reports that Egypt has banned Ridley Scott’s controversial Bible film, Exodus (starring Christian Bale, Joel Edgerton, and Ben Kingsley), due to “alleged historical inaccuracies and a ‘Zionist’ agenda.” You can read the article for more detail, though I would suggest extra care here given the region under discussion and the inevitable spin that will […]
Film Remakes and the Necessity for Critical Distance
Hollywood is hopelessly obsessed with remakes. We all know this. And if we don’t, it’s really not that difficult to figure out how obsessed Hollywood really is. But I’ll make it easy for you here: here’s a list of 57 remakes which were marked as “in development“ as of July 2013. Some of those may have […]
Month of Joy: “The Joy of City Stomping” by David Annandale
Though their heyday was undoubtedly the 1950s and 60s, giant monsters have rampaged through the movies long before and long after the era that saw the arrival of the Big Bugs, Godzilla and friends, and Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion marvels. Obviously, King Kong casts his long shadow from 1933, but before him were the dinosaurs of […]
A Justice League Movie? (or, Hopefully This Won’t Be a Missed Opportunity)
Since Man of Steel hit theaters, there’s been a lot of talk about a potential Justice League movie. We even mentioned this topic in the latest Shoot the WISB episode on the new Superman film. Much of the discussion is based on rumors, no doubt supported by this oddly blank IMDB page, which suggests that […]
Why I Hated Superman Returns
Honestly, I hated Superman Returns because it established Superman as virtually (though not actually) limitless, at which point he becomes uninteresting to me as a hero. Clearly Kryptonite doesn’t really matter. He can lift entire islands of the stuff into the sky, so all this talk about it being his bad news bears is really […]