For the last decade, Marvel has basically owned the cinema landscape. Since the release of Iron Man, they have never left the top 10 highest grossing films list of each year, the only exception being in 2009 when they didn’t release a film (remember when there was a year that didn’t have a Marvel film? Memories). In all that time they have proven to dominate the cultural conversation around movies, and recently they even added an Oscar to the collection of things they pulled off. But there is one thing that they didn’t pull off yet, that their competitor DC just pulled off with Shazam! and I’m in the mood to talk about that. The catch is, in order to talk about it I have to spoil a few things so if you haven’t seen Shazam! then be warned, I’m spoiling a lot of major moments that you’re going to want to see so this is where you abandon this editorial discussion and go see the film, then come back because I require validation.
Captain Marvel (2019) – Marvelous
Released: 7th March
Seen: 6th March (Advance Screening)
Have you ever been looking forward to a movie, one you’re sure is going to be a lot of fun with some cool characters and funny lines but then you go online and learn that it’s an evil piece of feminist propaganda meant to cuck all the men and turn them into soy boys, or whatever the hell idiots online think feminism will do to them? Yeah, that’s basically how it’s been building up to this movie, The internet has turned into a constant barrage of idiots taking the lead actresses quotes out of context and pretending they’re anti-men or being giant raging turd monsters telling a woman to smile because they looked at 4 pictures where she isn’t and that means she never does. Oh, oh and then there’s the other thing where people who haven’t seen any movie ever said that instead they’re going to go see Alita instead of Captain Marvel because Alita isn’t at all a feminist movie and is totally apolitical, even though it’s literally a movie about a lower class being lied too and oppressed by the one percent and the only hope for anyone is a woman who is surrounded by flaming garbage dumpsters in the shape of men. Basically, I have hated every single discussion building up to the release of this movie because it has slowly sapped me of my hopes for humanity and now that I have seen it… this is what you were scared of? This? THIS IS WHAT FRIGHTENED SO MANY MEN ONLINE, PEOPLE!
Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse (2018) – Does Whatever A Spider Can
Released: 13th December
Seen: 2nd December (Advanced Screening)
This year has been particularly good for superhero movies, possibly the best that we’ve had since Marvel decided they wanted to take over the cinematic landscape. From truly important cultural milestones like Black Panther, to displays of just what the genre is capable of like The Avengers, to silly little parody films that I still can’t even begin to get enough of like Teen Titan’s Go To The Movies, it’s safe to say this year has been an absolute boon time for the Superhero movie… and now we get to throw Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse into that pantheon of truly great superhero movies.
Continue reading “Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse (2018) – Does Whatever A Spider Can”
Venom (2018) – Like A Film, In The Wind
Released: 4th October
Seen: 13th November
So today we lost one of the greatest creators who ever lived. The incomparable Stan Lee passed away, leaving behind him a universe of characters that have spent the last decade changing the film landscape. If you’ve been to a cinema to see a film in the last 10 years, chances are that Marvel’s logo popped up and so did Stan in one of his iconic cameo’s. The most recent in the tidal wave of films to come out is Venom, the last theatrically released Marvel film during Stan’s lifetime and it seemed appropriate for me to see it the day the news broke… for the record, he has a cameo in this one, and I won’t pretend I didn’t tear up a little. While I was doing that though, I was also thinking “Damn… I wish this was a better film right now”
Black Panther
Released: 15th February 2018 (Australia)
Seen: 19th February 2018
Before I begin I must state this explicitly as I can. I cannot begin to express what this film must mean to the black community, I wouldn’t even dare try. I implore you to go out and find black voices who are talking about this film and what it means to them because this film is proudly of that community and I, a white gay male, have no way of truly understanding the importance of this film in that context. I can only give my feelings on this as a film and not a cultural milestone to a community of people (Even though it absolutely is, let’s all just admit that now because it’s a literal fact). So, what follows is the opinion of one white man about the movie Black Panther. If you don’t want to hear some white boys opinions on the film, I completely understand that because this film should be talked about by people other than me… but I have a review blog and saw a movie, so this is where we are. Just wanted to state that up front and get it out of the way, let’s do this
Editorial: What Can DC Learn From Marvel
With the recent release of Justice League, DC has proven what a lot of film fans have known for a long time… they aren’t that good at this cinematic universe thing. They’re actually pretty bad at it, they’re not quite at Dark Universe levels but they’re certainly not the gold standard that they want to be. They want to be Marvel, they want to be able to throw out Movie after Movie after Movie and get critical praise out the wazoo for every single one but they can’t, and they won’t until they learn the lessons that Marvel got right from the start. Lesson’s I’ll now just state explicitly so DC can copy my notes and pass this cinematic class.
NOTE: I’m spoiling stuff for Justice League, Batman V Superman, Civil War, The Avengers 1&2, Agents of Shield and Buffy the Vampire Slayer… it’ll make sense soon.
Also, tiny bit rusty at these so apologies if it’s not good.
Spider-man: Homecoming
Seen 6th July
First we had Tobey Maguire donning the infamous red suit for three movies in the early 2000’s. When he became unavailable the franchise rebooted and the suit went over to Andrew Garfield for the 2012 reboot The Amazing Spider-Man. Then this time, I’m guessing because having a guy pushing 30 playing a high schooler is creepy, they grabbed Tom Holland to try on the tights. Can we keep him? I like this one.
Movie Meister Reviews 