On Black Widow and Marvel’s Gaps (or, Why We Need a Black Widow Movie)
On the recent Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) episode of The Skiffy and Fanty Show, I argued that part of what bothered me about the Black Widow scene wherein she reveals having been sterilized in the Red Room is that it clarified what was an obvious gap in Marvel’s Cinematic Universe. We need a Black […]
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 […]
Movie Review Rant: Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)
I’ve only recently decided to watch the new iterations of the (in)famous web-crawler. Originally, I had no intention of ever doing so, in part because of a misplaced loyalty to the Raimi renditions (2002, 2004, and 2007). The real kicker, for me, was the fact that these films came hot off the heels of a […]
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 […]
Movie Review Rant : Catching Fire (2013)
As I write this sentence, Catching Fire (2013), the sequel to The Hunger Games (2012), is encroaching upon the $700mil box office mark. It’s a huge film, and there are a lot of things to love about it. Before I get to my rant/review, here are a couple quick notes: I hadn’t read the book when I […]