YOU CAN'T TRIPLE-STAMP A DOUBLE STAMP!

my primary take away from The Avengers is being impressed. Impressed at the quickness and cleverness of the extremely efficient script: Avengers would not have been the a hardest movie of the last year to write, but it would have been one of the hardest to write well, and it is written very well. Star Trek, the other recent ensemble-of-icons adaptation/reborquel, did a great job introducing characters with flair and giving everyone a hell yeah moment, with humour. Avengers does all this, but think of everything else it has to manage. It needs to generate equalities and equivalencies in status and power between 4 superheroes, some of whose set-up films were seen less than others, some of whom have less obvious roles and purposes in the oncoming conflict than others. It needs to (did it? I don't know Hawkeye and Black Widow from Adam but I assume they're important to the comics) incorporate two lesser, more human powers, who had seconds of honestly forgettable screentime in previous films, as major characters who can carry arcs. It needs to locate a strong organisational pivot around a character, Nick Fury, has the built-in coll of an eyepatched SLJ, but who was really just previously just some guy that you saw if you were also interested in reading copyright and humane society disclaimers. The only place it really struggled structurally I'll put under the spoiler cut along with more general discussion.

Joss threw in a couple of neat camera tricks, mostly playing with reflections, which is not really thematically relevant but oh well, but mostly kept things pretty neutral, generally avoiding the standard chaos of present-day blockbuster action. Certainly other action directors could learn from the gorgeous Serenityesque floating shot that tracked the action of the major players in the climactic confrontation. Beautiful clarity!

I loved the way it moved the pieces around on the board, often delaying maximum superhero deployment. Robert Downey Jr was always genius casting for Iron Man, but imagine how distracting, how completely beamed-in-from-another-movie, that scenery-chewing, dominating, obnoxious charisma could have been. Instead they turned it into a plot point! In fact, a character arc! Instead of trying to force these characters together they split them off into interesting pairs, giving just about everyone at least two major relationships.

( slightly spoilery for characterisation, minor plot points )

Mostly though, very impressed, with its visual and verbal wit, its care and efficiency, its devotion to examining interpersonal and group relationships, and its cameo appearance of Enver Gjokaj. Never change Joss.

I'm kind of freaking out about how awesome the Watchmen movie is shaping up to be. Snyder's blog has a couple of great, detailed videos dealing with set and costume design and everything just looks so awesome. Okay, I was a little concerned about casting (although Jeffrey Dean Morgan is going to be an fabulous Comedian) cause I love me some Patrick Wilson and Matthew Goode but tall and built/run to seed they are not. And the superhero costumes are kind of....Schumacherish. But we shall see.

The thing I wonder most is how they're going to treat the ending, cause shit is dark. Shit is most emphatically not a Hollywood movie ending.

I tell you what, I am really, really loving PJ Harvey's latest, White Chalk. It's just ethereal and gorgeous and surprisingly catchy. I can't believe this is the same woman who released Rid of Me! ETA: Yes I can actually, there is a thread of the same desperation and menace in songs like The Devil and The Piano. But I just love the whole Victorian performance aspect of it, and the way it seems antiquated and avante garde and melodic and feminine and yearning.

Also, I saw Children of Men, finally, last night, and bawled my eyes out, even though Clive Owen's wooden acting. It's excellent, nice and tense with a few good surprises and dystopian to the max. It also boasts a completely unrecognisable, bedreadlocked Charlie Hunnam.

OH MY GOD I CANNOT WAIT TO SEE IT.

Man, it has been a while since I have been as excited about a movie as this.

satrun92103 has some interesting thoughts on OOTP (movie) and, in particular, about the character of Snape.

( spoilers for the movie )

Don't get me wrong, I am firmly of the opinion that books and movies are their own beasts and need to be judged by their own merits and failings within the constraints of the medium. I really liked OOtP, it has some lovely moments. It just sucks that some of my favourite stuff has to be cut out.

ETA: pir8fancier makes some pertinent and insightful points here re: Snape.

So am I the last person in Australia to know that Graham Kennedy was gay? *cough* I do pride myself for staying on top of things.

If you get the chance, watch The King, a tv movie that's recently been aired on Foxtel. It's dlable on bittorrent, although the quality isn't brilliant. However Stephen Curry (Dale Kerrigan!!!!!!!!!!!) is brilliant, it's a breathtaking performance at times, like when he gets his heart broken (not a spoiler! Everyone gets their heart broken). Interestingly, the guy who plays the guy who breaks his heart is is brother IRL.

I highly recommend it, even if you're not a GK fan. There's a bit of fuss about how he wouldn't want a biopic made of him, and that's probably true, but this is still an excellent film.

Lauren has just brought to my attention the most holy and righteous website on the internet, the homepage for the Landover Baptist Church, where the unsaved are NOT welcome!

I think the lessons of the Landover Baptist Church are ones we should all take to heart. For instance, did you know that Hollywood is full of politically correct homo Jews? Beware the movies! The members of LBC have thoughtfully reviewed some of the most Satan-influenced films of our time; the Blair Witch Project is one of the worst:

This awful film was full of obscenities, including the most foul of foul words, and taking The Lord's Name in vain. I had my hands over my ears about half the time and prayed against Satan at the top of my lungs every time a foul word was spoken onscreen. Then many of the liberal, pagan heathens in the audience started yelling at ME, telling me to "shush." I stood up and read my bible out loud to those heathens, and Satan commanded them to throw popcorn and fountain Co-Colas at me.

I also suggest you read the Two Towers and Green Mile ones. Did you know that these movies are about penises???????

Lauren and I watched Jesus Camp last night. It's a fairly well-made documentary about fundamentalist Evangelical Christians trying to create a generation of kids who will change the US according to God's law. This process includes giant, intense revivalist churches, bible study, denouncing Harry Potter, homeschooling, and "Jesus Camp," a week-long summer camp for kids between about five and thirteen.

Apparently most people involved, including the leading pastor Becky Fischer,* feel that they were portrayed fairly, but it creeped me out down to my soul. There were tons of images of kids en masse weeping, screaming, speaking in tongues, prostrate on the ground sobbing or spasming, reaching out their hands to touch a preacher or beg forgiveness or bless a cardboard cut-out of George Bush.

The makers did a good job of showing the interesting intersection between politics and these churches and kids, using the nomination and confirmation of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court to show the passage of time. Despite Fischer saying that she had no political agenda--and she probably doesn't have an explicit one--the current government is held up as a giant step forward for Christianity, the children are actively involved in anti-abortion campaigns (their mouths are taped up, and "life" is written on the tape--super creepy!), and creationism in schools is discussed several times. Most significantly, these kids are purposefully being trained to be the generation that leads America to Jesus.

Equally absorbing was one of the three kids focussed on, a boy of ten called Levi, who wants to become a preacher. He's the spitting image of a young River Pheonix (albeit with a world-beating mullet) and just as articulate, self-possessed, and intelligent as you might expect, quite an extraordinary kid. There was also a blond boy who talked about his difficulty believing in God (the only real hint of trouble we see the kids have with the whole thing, which is a pity) and who threw himself down in repentance, and you just know he's going to be a fucked-up closeted teen. I would really like to see a 7-up version of this, to see what happens with these kids as they grow older.

EDIT: c+p from my response to electromoon below, because I forgot to include this aspect of the movie.

I suppose one of the things that really struck me in the film was the emphasis on Americanism, being an American; how complexly intertwined identities of being a Christian and being an American were. Arguments about the fundamental principle of separation of church and state could be forgotten in favour of trying to get Those Damn Liberals out of power, because they threaten everything we believe in--as if the founding fathers weren't liberals! Fischer would go, I love America, I love being an American, and in the same breath talk about how screwed up society was, as if the "True (Christian) Americans," once they'd dominated the false Americans, would save the world. Crazy.

I think that Australian identity isn't as rigid and pervasive as all that; but if Australia fundamentalist/megachurches are explicitly taking their cues from American ones, I can see how things would definitely start to head in that direction. And I guess the other thing is is that we don't have the culture of summer camps here, but you're right in that that could be easily imported!

-----

* who comes out with stuff like:
- It's no wonder, with that kind of intense training and discipling, that those young people are ready to kill themselves for the cause of Islam. I wanna see young people who are as committed to the cause of Jesus Christ as the young people are to the cause of Islam. I wanna see them as radically laying down their lives for the Gospel as they are over in Pakistan and Israel and Palestine and all those different places, you know, because we have... excuse me, but we have the truth!
and:
- I can go into a playground of kids that don't know anything about Christianity, lead them to the Lord in a matter of, just no time at all, and just moments later they can be seeing visions and hearing the voice of God, because they're so open. They are so usable in Christianity.

Snakes on a Plane is fucking HILARIOUS. Samuel L Jackson is the biggest motherfucking BADASS around.

It would have been awesome if the rest of the audience was as into it as we were. lainy122 and I cacked ourselves. SHE IS MY BROTHER FROM ANOTHER MOTHER.

More thoughts on Rogue in X-3

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