Category: Reviews

It Came from the Bargain Bin: Tadpole

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Before I dig into this retro (!) review, let me first explain something. See, back when I was in my early 20s in New York City, I had a day job where I entered DVD and VHS release information into a database that then got sold to companies who needed databases of information like this, like Tower Records. You remember record stores… right?

Anyway, naturally, this meant that the company I was working for had a pretty close relationship with both the major and the minor video distributors and studios. This also means that from time to time, they would send us screener copies of movies that are about to come out on DVD and/or VHS. These copies got passed around the office and housed somewhere until the day someone got sick of seeing them in their cubicle and put them in the breakroom for anyone to take. That’s how I got a hold of a review copy of Tadpole and that’s when I decided to write a DVD review. I’ve cleaned it up since then, but for the most part, I have not looked at this since I first wrote it in 2004.

© Miramax Films

Tadpole
Directed by Gary Winick
Starring: Aaron Stanford, Bebe Neuwirth, Sigourney Weaver, John Ritter
Rating: PG-13 for sexual content, mature thematic elements and language

For my review, I first went through the previews on the Tadpole DVD. As this movie was released by Miramax, I was expecting to see trailers for movies I’d never seen before and will not likely ever see again, and I was right. First up was a trailer for Ordinary Decent Criminal, which I can best describe as “Keyser Soze Meets Lester Burnham in Ireland”. Except, I couldn’t tell that it was set in Ireland until I went to the IMDB to get the link for it.

Next up was Tangled, which sounds like something I might actually see on a Dumb Movie Night because it features a slashtastic, creepy threesome of alluring late-twenty-somethings playing younger and “how their friendship went wrong”. The best part is that one of the actors looks very much like Shawn Ashmore of X-Men fame, which makes imagining him in a torrid threesome that much more possible.

The last trailer was for a multiple film festival award winner and nominee, by a director I’d never heard of named Time Out. That is, I think that this link goes to the right movie, because there are no lines from the movie at all in the trailer, just music. I kinda miss the days when trailers were made like this.

The credits roll, and it’s an honest to goodness actual “credit roll” instead of the brief opening titles and rush into action that we get from so many movies and TV series these days. Damn you, Jerry Seinfeld! We open on a scene of young “teens” on a train from upstate New York heading into the City for Thanksgiving break. The star of our picture is Aaron Stanford, who I just learned is also Pyro from the second X-Men movie. But his character’s name is Oscar—an obvious nod to that faboo wit Oscar Wilde. Which makes Oscar’s constant quoting and adoration of Jean Voltaire all the more weird. One thing that’s weird about this movie is that scenes are opened and closed with relevant quotes from Voltaire. I got all of them written down, but I’ll only include them in the review if I think they’re funny—which many of them were not.

Oscar and his sidekick Charlie are talking about a girl in their class named Miranda, more specifically her hands. Oscar believes that Miranda’s are too young, that they haven’t seen enough life. Charlie thinks he’s insane, as one is when you’re a 15-year old boy and obsessing about old women’s hands. The aforementioned teen hottie passes the duo going down the aisle and talks to Oscar, which makes Charlie comment behind her back that she’s hot for Oscar’s bod. Oscar replies that he’s in love with someone else, and hopes to tell her so over Thanksgiving break.

We montage from Grand Central Terminal to outside Oscar’s apartment building, which is patrolled by the surliest white doorman ever, Jimmy. He says something surly and Oscar asks if Eve is home. Jimmy replies that she’s not, and that she said she’ll be back later. Wow, that was extremely helpful and kinda creepy. I now know that all I need to get pertinent information about the comings and goings of rich Manhattanites is to find the surliest doorman standing outside their buildings. I won’t even need to bribe them!

We go upstairs to Oscar’s apartment, where there’s a party going on, hosted by his dad, John Ritter. Let me just say right now that I really miss John Ritter and he was totally underused here. I mean, he’s the king of physical comedy and big reactions, and what does he do here? Play an absent-minded, fuzzy, sweater-wearing, fully-bearded Columbia University (I think) historian. He only gets to do one spit take in this movie! That is such a crime.

There’s lots of witty, urbane banter between fellow professors and one in particular who has a teenage daughter who also seems to be hot for Oscar’s bod. But since her hands are fresh and dewy rather than toughened, wrinkled, and well-worn, he gives her a pass. There’s more banter, there’s more shots of Oscar roaming the party aimlessly, looking for the woman he loves, when lo! the romantic strains of a love theme fill the room and we spy Sigourney Weaver taking off her coat in the foyer. Hearts, puppies, flowers—it’s all there and that’s when we also find out that Sigourney Weaver is Eve and that she’s Oscar’s stepmother! Dammit! Just when I was getting ready to indulge in some glorious Oedipal action. I guess even director Gary “13 Going on 30” Winick wasn’t willing to go that far.

There’s another scene in the kitchen that introduces Bebe Neuwirth as Diane, Eve’s best friend who also happens to be a chiropractor. I’ve always loved Bebe Neuwirth ever since her days with Cheers, and when I learned that she also did musical comedy theater, I fell more deeply in love. Hence, when I tell you that Bebe Neuwirth speaking French (in a scene that’s obviously designed to show the audience that both she and Oscar know how to speak it) is the sexiest thing ever filmed, you’ll understand exactly what I mean. Oh, and I’m not sure where and when we find out that Oscar’s part-French, but I’m going to put this info in this paragraph because it kinda fits.

We skip right over the dinner itself and right to John Ritter trying to fix his son up with the other professor’s daughter by asking Oscar to walk her home to her apartment, a little over six blocks away. This scene was a bit of a gem because Oscar begins a little rant about how he’s tired, he’s been traveling all day, hasn’t unpacked and “I’m not going to stand around and argue about this.” Which of course leads to the next scene being him and the daughter outside at night.

(As a former New York City-resident let me just say that even if they were going across the island rather than up and down, six blocks really isn’t all that far to walk. Plus, I think that they’re definitely the shorter blocks rather than the longer ones.)

He sidesteps her attempts at conversation and pulls a classic manuever that I didn’t think a 15-year old kid knew about by calling a cab, shoving some money through the partition and giving the cabbie directions to her place. His next stop is a bar, where he and another barfly share some bitter words about women over whiskey. This is where my suspension of disbelief flew right out the window. If I’m supposed to believe that Aaron Stanhope is a 15-year old boy and react accordingly throughout the entire movie, then you’re not supposed to sidetrack me by also making me believe that he looks old enough not to get carded in a bar. If there’s supposed to be some big taboo about him being so young in the movie, don’t ruin it by making him do stuff like drink whiskey in a bar! You’ve got some directorial balls, right Mr. Winick? Use them!

Oscar’s hand fetish kicks into overdrive when he spies The Incredible Hot Tattooed Lady at the bar and attempts to pick her up by saying, “You have the most loveliest hands.” There’s even a close-up of them. This is starting to make me feel creepy because I am suddenly reminded of a guy I knew in high school who professed to have an elbow fetish. He was on the trivia team and in my French class, too. Of course, my nerdy young self was hot for him. I do not need to start feeling hot for Pyro (no pun intended).

Alas, we don’t see what happened next because the next shot is Oscar wandering down the street drunk, looking in shop windows. He encounters Diane, and the following conversation takes place:

Oscar: My wallet was stolen.
Diane: You were mugged?
Oscar: Well, sort of.
Diane: What do you mean, ‘sort of’?
Oscar: She was very pleasant about it.

Diane takes pity on Oscar and takes him back to her place where she of course has a massage table set up because she’s a chiropractor, you know. I want to know exactly where in Manhattan she lives where she’s able to fit a massage table in her living room. He notices that Diane’s wearing Eve’s scarf, then flops down on the table—as one does when they’re drunk. She takes that to mean that he wants a back massage—as one does—and starts working on him. Diane also manages to get him to take his shirt off because it’s allegedly easier for her to work on his back if he’s topless. Whatever. I’ve used that line—and have been given that line—several times before.

She must be a pretty good chiropractor, because instead of hearing the sound of cracking and creaking bones, we hear Oscar’s moans. Winick even helpfully includes a few reaction shots from beneath the table looking up at Oscar’s face through the hole in the head pillow. My notes are calling this Stanhope’s “toilet bowl orgasm face”. Of course he sees the long end of her scarf hanging down and I’m screaming inside because didn’t Isadora Duncan die because of a long scarf hanging down? But this isn’t a horror flick, it’s a slice-of-life-while-coming-of-age-and-having-teen-angst flick, so Oscar sits up abruptly buries his face in her neck. They embrace and kiss and then… fade to black.

The next morning finds Oscar in Diane’s bed, a position I would heartily give my eyeteeth to be in, if I still had them. Or I’d steal someone else’s eyeteeth and use those. I’m flexible. He tries to sneak out and gets caught by Diane’s Hick Boyfriend (played by Hey! It’s That Guy Adam LeFevre–a “Mr. Cellophane”-kind of actor if there ever was one). He surprises him with this line of dialogue, “She’s fantastic, isn’t she?” And they say guys never talk shop about sex. But no, this is a standard movie cliche where one character’s dialogue makes another character think that he has discovered an awful secret when really the first character is really talking about something innocuous, like his chiropractor girlfriend having scheduled a guy for back massage therapy on the day after Thanksgiving. I don’t know about you, but I don’t ever recall any of my doctors having any kind of office hours the day after Thanksgiving, not even the pediatric urologist. And besides, what the hell is a glamorous gal like Diane doing with a guy like him? He must be rich or something. We know it’s not the size of his penis, because when Diane finally wakes up and walks Oscar to the door, and he’s frantically telling her not to say anything about what happened to the HB because, “[Hick Boyfriend]’s bigger”, Diane gets a delicious look on his face and says, “Actually he’s not.” Oh, Diane. I think I fell in love with you a little bit more.Oscar goes home and tries to bluff his way out of talking to John Ritter, who’s been waiting for him. Oscar wants nothing more than to go to his room and jerk off to the smell of his stepmom’s scarf jerk off to the smell of his stepmom’s scarf, but John Ritter displays a bit of fatherly non-absentmindedness and drags his son off to the supermarket for some manly conversation.I squealed with delight when I saw the next shot because they showed them walking out of a Fairway, one of Manhattan’s many gourmet supermarkets. I totally love that store because it lets me indulge in my inner food snob and the inner wine geek who cries every time I mix vodka with other various liquids and call it a lovely drink. I’d like to think it’s their Broadway location because it’s in the 70s and the other professor’s daughter was going to a place in the 60s. Besides, I’ve been there and I can now say that not only have I gotten to interview John Ritter (as part of a press junket-y thing when “8 Simple Rules” was in its first season), but I sat one row over from him at a live show and walked in a location he made a movie in. You only wish you had as much John Ritter-karma.John Ritter manages to get Oscar to confess that he spent the night at a female friend’s house and when pressed for a name, blurts out, “Miranda Whatsherface.” John’s pleased, but Oscar just says that she’s not really the kind of a gal he goes for. I gotta hand it to John in this scene, because he’s at his fuzzy-headed best. There’s this great part where Oscar is maintaining that the girls he knows at school aren’t up to his intellect, and John replies like he’s offended, “Girls have things to say.”They go home, and Oscar gets the bright idea to go bring a picnic lunch to Eve at her office at work. Before that, though, he spies on her and stalks her at Central Park before following her to her office. What follows is the most cliched romantic montage ever. They’re flying a kite in the park, and then they’re riding one of those hansom cabs that patrol the Park perimiter, and then they’re riding the carousel. It’s enough to make your stomach spin.So he goes to her lab, and Eve’s pleasantly surprised. He brings out the little brown bag with a sandwich in it and a soda and she’s all like, “Oh, how nice of you to bring me lunch, OH STEPSON OF MINE IN WHOM I HAVE NO SEXUAL INTEREST AT ALL.” That’s okay, because I’m busy yelling at the screen, “Don’t eat in the lab! It’s so unsanitary!” What kind of medical scientist is she, anyway? They talk for a bit, and then Oscar reveals that he wants to go pre-med to become a doctor like her, and she’s all, “Why would you do that when you’re such a creative person? It’s not like YOU’RE ONLY DOING THIS TO GET CLOSER TO ME AND HAVE SOMETHING IN COMMON WITH ME.” They banter for a bit and she talks about the poetry of the heart (literally), but it becomes one of those scenes where the words take on a different meaning. Medical talk as foreplay, so to speak. That was kinda hot.

When he gets home, John Ritter mentions that they’re having dinner that evening (at a French restaurant, natch) and that Diane’s coming along. Panicked at the thought of his current love and his one-night stand in the same room together, Oscar first tries to get John to uninvite her, then tracks Diane down to the spot where she usually has lunch with her female friends and is greeted by a gaggle of fiendish female grins. He’s a bit put off at first, but they encourage him to sit down and talk for a while. One Voltaire title card later, he’s talking to them like they’ve been friends for years, and totally charming all the women. Their meal finished, the rest of the women get up to leave, and one of them gives him her phone number. Suspicious, Oscar asks Diane if she told her friends and she says yes. I don’t blame her one bit. He told her not to tell Eve or her Hick Boyfriend, but didn’t say anything about not telling anyone else. Tsk, should’ve closed that loophole, boy. He asks her not to say anything at dinner, and definitely not to get tipsy or anything like that and she agrees.

They banter about Eve for a bit and Diane reveals that Eve told her once that she’s not happy. She also reveals that when Eve was younger, she totally went for guys who had sideburns. This distresses and distracts Oscar so much that when he later goes over to Charlie’s place to make a set of fake sideburns, he cops to not just the fact that he’s in love with his stepmother, but that he had sex with an older woman. Charlie proves that he’s the goofy sidekick, not the jerk, by not asking how good Diane is in bed but instead freaking out about Charlie’s lust for Eve. The expression on his face is just perfect. He does get off one crack about Oscar being French and how the French have a different idea about family relations. I have no idea where that came from. I know I never learned that in all my four years of high school French class. It might have made class more interesting, though.

Oscar puts on the fake sideburns in the bathroom and there’s this awkward moment where Eve opens the door to the bathroom and sees him with his shirt off and a towel around his waist. But then she goes away, and then Oscar finishes jerking off to a fantasy of him and his stepmother getting it on in the bathroom getting ready. With his sideburns in place, they all walk to the restaurant for dinner with the guys walking behind the women and Oscar straining to hear their conversation, to see if Diane will keep up her end of the bargain. At the restaurant, more complications come up as Miranda Whatsherface and her family bump into John Ritter and Oscar at the coat check. Fuzzy John tries to talk to her father, but Oscar practically manhandles him away. He takes charge the instant they get to the table, ordering food for everyone in French, and trying to dissuade his father and Eve from getting wine with their meal.

His take-charge attitude totally gets on Diane’s nerves, because she instantly starts provoking Oscar by drinking wine. Ooh! Diane versus Oscar, round one… fight! Oscar’s toast. I’m proven right later on because If I’d been watching this on DVD with French subtitles turned on, I could have also learned a useful phrase when Oscar tells Diane in French, “Get your foot out of my crotch, please.” John tries to tell Eve and Diane about Miranda, and Oscar gets more weird. Diane drinks more and most likely starts doing more stuff with Oscar’s crotch.

It’s a wonderful tableau of comic uneasiness, and then Diane gets up to go to the bathroom. Oscar follows her to confront her on her behavior and Diane’s all, “Whatever,” and plants a long, deep kiss on his mouth. Which is seen by John because there’s this weird mirror near the hallway to the bathroom and he sees them in the reflection. Oscar gets back to the table first and then Diane gets back, and there on her cheek is one of Oscar’s fake sideburns. He leans over and rips it off of her face, prompting Eve to ask what’s going on, or what’s wrong, or something like that. John Ritter lets it drop that he saw them kissing and asks what’s going on. Oscar tries to lie about it, but Diane says it outright that they’re lovers. There’s an outraged silence from Eve, embarrassment from Oscar, some sort of satisfaction from Diane, and another John Ritter moment where he mentions that in Rome, there were some 50-year old women who had affairs with younger men. Eve says, “This isn’t Rome!” Diane says, “I am nowhere near 50!”

Eve and Diane walk in the park the next day to talk about it, and Diane says stuff about how sometimes you just gotta take happiness in the hands, or by the cock, or something like that. It must not have been that important, because I didn’t take any notes on that part other than the fact that when she takes the subway to the club where she’s supposed to meet up with Oscar for a tennis match, she’s waiting at the 79th St. station on the 1/9 line. I am totally obsessed with figuring out where in Manhattan they live.

What follows next is one of the best sequences ever. Oscar’s monologuing to the camera, like he’s practicing a speech, trying to explain what’s going on and tell her he loves her. This is intercut with scenes of Eve and Oscar playing tennis, and she’s being pretty vicious in her attacks. Finally, she smacks him a good one with the tennis ball, and he pitches over backwards. Cut back to Oscar, who now revealed to have a bump on his head, and Eve comes in with ice for it. I totally loved how that played out. It’s the best scene/sequence in the movie. They don’t talk much at all, just revel in the delicious strained silence.

Then, it’s back to Charlie’s place, where Oscar angsts some more about what to do. This scene really isn’t that important, but it does end on a great note when towards the end, Charlie’s mom comes in with a plate of cookies and milk. Charlie thanks his mom, and then notices a look on Oscar’s face, and says, “Stick to your own mom, will ya?”

Oscar goes home and finds Eve alone. The tension rises, and some other things possibly rise, too. She fixes him a plate for dinner and they talk. It’s when Oscar reveals that the only reason he turned to Diane was because she was wearing Eve’s scarf and it smelled like her that she finally gets it. Sigourney Weaver really sells this reveal. How else are you supposed to react when you find out your stepson only slept with your middle-aged best friend because then he could imagine he was sleeping with you? Eve says she loves Oscar’s dad, Oscar counters that Diane said she wasn’t happy. What kind of argument for incest is that? He finishes his food, and she goes into the kitchen to wash the plate, and he kisses her. On the mouth. I’m not sure if there was tongue, but I’m going to go ahead and imagine that there was. Her reaction? Put the plate down and walk away. I guess this means that even if you’re more endowed than a Manhattan hick, you still might not get the girl.

Cut to the next day, and John Ritter and Eve are seeing Oscar off at the train station. They talk about the next vacation plans, and John Ritter reveals that they’re shipping Oscar off to France to be with his biological mother while he and Eve go to the Carribbean for a vacation. I sense an inappropriate sequel idea and try to scrub it from my mind. I think the Carribbean thing might have to do with some innocuous conversation they had near the beginning of the movie, but I really couldn’t be arsed with going back to find out. He gets on the train and sees Miranda Whatsherface trying to put her bag on the overhead rack. He helps her with it and goes back to sit down next to Charlie, who has just arrived. They talk a bit about what happened, and then Oscar says that Miranda smells nice. A new fetish has been born!

LESSONS LEARNED
So what have we learned about life from watching Tadpole? I think it’s obvious:

1. Sideburns stick on better with spirit gum.
2. If you ever marry a person with kids, make sure they’re of the same gender and aren’t likely to be homosexual.
3. The French are into incest.

It Came from the Bargain Bin is a review series which takes lovely and loving potshots at movies which may not have been good enough to warrant worldwide acclaim, but hold a soft spot in the reviewer’s heart.

Trisha Lynn was also a precocious teenager in her day, but at least she never had sex with any of her parents’ friends…… ew!

Trisha’s Take: The Loading Ready Run Pre-Pre-Releases

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Loading Ready Run co-founder Graham Stark sets sail for the shores of Ixalan. ©  Bionic Trousers Media/Wizards of the Coast

I’ve been watching the Rivals of Ixalan Pre-Pre-Release replay first on Twitch and later on YouTube over and over and I think that this is the best kind of marketing event for Magic: the Gathering that Wizards of the Coast ever fell backwards into. Why?

1. The people at Loading Ready Run who are hosting and producing these events have at least a decade of experience in being funny and entertaining while being professional. (Special kudos to James Turner, whose idea this all was, I think.)

2. Their online chat mods do not tolerate trolls. At all.

3. Their online chat community also does not tolerate trolls. At all.

4. The focus on the event is having fun and learning what the cards do, as all non-moneyed competitive events should do. (Note: Winning packs as prizes doesn’t count as money. No matter how much you try, you cannot buy groceries with packs of Magic cards.)

5. The guests they invite can be a diverse bunch of folks who are also entertaining, engaging, and friendly. Two of my favorites have been former Magic pro and current Wizards employee Melissa DeTora and Jimmy Wong from the Command Zone podcast. (Special hat-tip to Reuben Bresler of the Magic Mics podcast, whose Facebook post recap inspired this post.)

It’s these last two parts that are perhaps the most important key to drawing new players into the game or convincing lapsed players that they should head back into their Local Gaming Store to attend the set’s actual pre-release and perhaps start playing Magic again. I know that’s how I felt back when LRR debuted this show starting with the Shadows of Innistrad Pre-Pre-Release. I went to my LGS the following Saturday and went 0-4 in back-to-back events. By watching the show, I could not only see some of the cards that were released in the visual spoiler, but I could get a sense of how to actually play with them in a live situation.

You have no idea how hard it was for me not to quip about “throwing away my shot” during my matches. © Geeking Out About

Perhaps the biggest barrier for someone who’s on the fence on whether or not they’ll want to spend their money on a new game they haven’t seen is wanting to actually see what it’s like; the PPRs are perfect for that kind of demonstration, more so than Wizards‘ own Magic tournament streams. Because it’s partially produced by the company, there’s some sort of quality control. However, because LRR was first and foremost a sketch comedy troupe, it’s going to be entertaining. Best of all, because they actually play the game themselves, the way they speak and interact with the game is completely natural and not something that you’d get from any mainstream video content producer or marketing company.

It’s a bit too late for me now to attend the Rivals prerelease because it’s happening this weekend. However, with the return to the game’s initial starting plane Dominaria this April, I may decide to dust off my card sleeves and see if I can actually win a round this time.

After all, practice does make perfect.

Trisha’s Take: Marvel’s Luke Cage

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(c) Marvel Television/Netflix
(c) Marvel Television/Netflix


Created by Cheo Hodari Coker
Directed by Paul McGuigan (Eps. 1 & 2), Guillermo Navarro (Ep. 3)
Written by Cheo Hodari Coker (Eps. 1 & 2), Matt Owens (Ep. 3)
Starring Mike Colter, Simone Missick, Mahershala Ali, Alfre Woodard
Also Starring and/or Featuring Theo Rossi, Frank Whaley, Jade Wu, Frankie Faison

If there’s something I know about myself it’s that if I am really hooked into a show, I am not going to let anything silly like self-imposed deadlines and restraints keep me from watching as much or as little of it as I like. This explains why I watched all of the excellent and riveting first season of Jessica Jones series almost straight through and then took forever to finish the second season of Daredevil, finally throwing in the towel 26 minutes into the last episode because the story and all the characters annoyed me so much.

My friend Kara Dennison likes to give everything she watches three episodes to capture her eye. I decided to do the same with the latest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel’s Luke Cage; judging from my reaction to the last bit of “Who’s Going to Take the Weight?”, I think I’m going to have to plow right through the rest of the episodes today and tomorrow. Note: Oh yes, there will be spoilers for these first three episodes.

Introduced as private investigator Jessica Jones’ stalkee-fixation, then revealed to be a nigh-invulnerable powerhouse of his own as well as a tragic figure, creator Cheo Hodari Coker has moved Luke Cage from midtown Manhattan to black (and gentrifying) Harlem, and populated it with a host of characters who rarely get screen time in such a mainstream production. I lived in Harlem for about six months back when I was an assistant to a luxury real estate broker and seeing its streets and its people engendered both a feeling of nostalgia as well as a feeling that I had never really been part of Harlem.

But Hodari Coker (who also co-wrote the 2009 biopic Notorious about the life and death of rapper Notorious B.I.G.) is familiar with these streets, these people, its struggles, and its dichotomies. This is most evident in the writing of cousins Councilwoman Mariah Dillard and nightclub owner/gangster Cornell “Cottonmouth” Stokes, played by Alfre Woodard and Mahershala Ali respectively. The former is a person who believes that Harlem can begin a new Renaissance and return to its glory, the latter is one who believes that Harlem should retain its status quo where people like him run the show. And yet, both of them are tied to each other, connected by both family and a money laundering scheme because they know and recognize that both of their goals are nigh-impossible to achieve without a little cheating of the system.

In these first three episodes, Luke Cage (Mike Colter) stands outside of that system. After his destructive rampage in the latter episodes of Jones, he’s become a fugitive, working under the table as a dishwasher at Cottonmouth’s club and in a barbershop run by a former hoodlum named Pop who claims that his barbershop is “Switzerland” for the feuding gang and street elements of Harlem. Of course, one can’t make a claim like that in a hero’s journey story and so Pop gets gunned down by accident in Episode 2, prompting Cage to re-enter the world and to embody perhaps a third point of view when it comes to Harlem’s destiny.

I find that I like all of these characters and I want to find out more about how they will fit into the new landscape which Luke Cage is creating for the MCU Harlem. I like how Detective Misty Knight (Simone Messick) has a Sherlock-ian kind of “mind palace” where she can visualize how a crime scene actually happened just by having been there and viewing the photographs. I like how Cage’s Chinese landlord Connie (Jade Wu) speaks almost perfect English because her husband’s family (and she) have been Harlem residents for years and are also part of its community. This wouldn’t be the case if the wrong actors had been cast, and everyone in this series (so far) seems to be perfect for their parts.

This is a story that I’m really excited to continue watching despite some rather stupid blunders in the second episode (secrets shouldn’t be shouted about in the middle of your shop in the daytime, Pop!). I hope that I don’t get disappointed.

You Had to be There: CONvergence 2016 – Day 1

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As a geek, fewer things make my heart sing more than going to a convention. Ever since my very first San Diego Comic Con back in 1996 where we got up at the crack of dawn to drive down from Orange County to San Diego just to be there for one day, I’ve always loved the feeling I get from being around my fellow geeks and nerds, talking about and enjoying a thing we all love together. I’ve covered them for amateur publications, been paid staff for some of the Wizard World conventions, worked my way towards being a senior staff member at a convention, and just plain been an attendee at a convention. I’ve seen them from all sides, and the charged up feeling of preparing for my very first day at this year’s science fiction/fantasy convention known as CONvergence here in Bloomington, Minn. is no different.

6:42 am: The first year I attended, I worked as a volunteer on the Bridge, which is the center of Operations. It didn’t take very long for me to learn the knack of their incident logging report system and my years of customer service experience helped me become pretty adept. This year, I’ve decided to work on the Bridge again, taking a four-hour shift starting at 8 am for the first three days. I’m not staying at any of the area hotels this year, but since my husband now knows how to drive a car, this means that we can attend the con independently of each other and meet up whenever we know we have panel interests that collide. I’m also getting over a cold, so I’ll be packing a lot of cough drops and refusing to shake peoples’ hands all weekend long.

I’m also going to be a panelist for two panels and moderating three more. But more on those when I come to them in my liveblog. It’s now time for me to finish up this part of my post so that I can continue getting read to drive on over and hopefully find parking.

3:45 pm: Wow, this is the first chance I’ve been able to sit down and do some proper blogging since I got here. My Bridge shift was mostly uneventful, except for the part where I took down a report related to an Emergency. I will forever bless the fact that I am a fairly quick typist, even if I’m not used to full-sized keyboards anymore. I only briefly annoyed Dispatch, which is also a good thing and I will now endeavor to remember to close my Events when they’ve been handled appropriately.

The Geeky Destinations panel at 12:30 pm was fairly cool. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but what I did come away with was a huge list of places that are cool to visit and are connected to geeky franchises and properties. There was a lot of time spent on North America and the UK, which meant that almost everywhere else got some very short shrift. One thing that I found odd about the panel is that it felt like it was heavily weighted towards the more extroverted speakers and the panelist in the middle didn’t say a lot. One of the panelists mentioned that he was very interested in going to Japan, so after the panel was over, I told him about the Japan travel blogs that Graham Stark and Kathleen De Vere are posting on the Loading Ready Run channel; not only was he already familiar with LRR through their Magic content, but he was surprised that they were doing the travelogues.

My husband brought me a burger and tater tots from Sonic, but I didn’t even have a chance to eat them because I got to my panel room early. The first panel I’m moderating for this convention was “Kids These Days,” and I think it went very, very well. Of all the panels I’m on this year, this was the one where we had the most to say in our private email thread before the panel, and I was able to use all that information in crafting our topics of discussion and figuring out what questions to ask and how to steer the conversation. We even were able to touch on a huge topic that got contentious regarding how some folks have felt that “fandom has gone too far” and I was able to give that topic the amount of space that I knew the other panelists wanted to have for it. We went a little bit over time, but I don’t think it was too bad.

10:12 pm: So much has happened since I last sat down to blog! The first thing I did was to stop back off at the Bridge to get my Volunteer card signed so that I could get credited for all the time I spent in the morning, then to the Programming room to get my one panel hour credit as well. If all goes well and I continue to be at all of my shifts and all of my panels, I will have accrued at least 17 volunteer hours by the end of the convention. It’s not the most amount of time I’ve volunteered at a convention, but it’s definitely more than I’ve done in recent memory. It feels good to help out a geek-themed event again.

After that, I dipped into a panel on crowdfunding which I found very helpful and useful. My only experiences thus far on the production end of a Kickstarter was when I helped produce backer rewards for the first “new” Smut Peddler graphic novel (in which I also contributed a story). The panelists (whose names I didn’t immediately get because I was late to the panel) had a lot of great words of wisdom and between them had successfully (and unsuccessfully) used platforms like Kickstarter, Patreon, IndieGogo and more to fund their creative endeavors. The most important piece of advice I think I learned is that specific platforms are designed for very specific types of things, but the most important question you’ve got to ask yourself is: Do I have an audience for this at all? After the panel, I went up to speak to panelist and author Chrysoula Tzavelas about my plans to create a book of my own work first and then use the funds I get from that to help launch my publishing imprint, and she sounded very encouraging. I’m going to talk at her so much after this convention is over.

After that panel was over, I found my husband standing near a gentleman who looked familiar and it turned out that it was one of my co-panelists from last year, at the “Surviving Minnesota Nice” panel. The reason why my husband recognized him was that he was one of his mother’s students when she taught instrument at Carleton College. We caught up briefly, and then we started to have a wide-ranging conversation about mashup and pastiche culture and how (to him at least) there didn’t seem to be anything new to be super-excited about. We got a lot of nuggets of conversation out of that, and in the end I think we all agreed that whether or not someone could find something new and interesting depended on a lot of things, the least of them including whether or not the person had the time to go out and seek new things. Also, not having the inclination and not being open to new things is actually two very different things. While my husband went off to attend a panel, I waited in line for the Opening Ceremonies seating and started up a conversation with my co-panelist’s friends about how hard it is as a non-Minnesotan to deal with “Minnesota Nice” in your everyday life. Before we knew it, it was time to find our seats for the show.

The Opening Ceremony at CONvergence is definitely a hit-and-miss type of show. The “miss” part comes from me being a newer attendee to this convention and even after three years, I still haven’t cottoned on to all the convention’s memes and in-jokes. There were also the regular bits of technical difficulties that can screw up a show, like accidentally showing the same pre-recorded bit twice with “friend of the show” Robert Cargill as a “Wacky Races”-style announcer. The parts which were a hit with me and the audience was the Cabin in the Woods parody for the opening skit, the pre-show announcements, and most of Paul Cornell’s emcee bit, which included a lot of Brexit jokes. I really have no idea how a British sci-fi and comics author became so beloved at a Minneapolis convention, but I’m sure there’s a pretty good story in that. As an additional bit of excellence, there was closed captioning showing on the video screens, which I think is a new thing for them this year.

Shortly after was the Fancy Bastard Pie Competition, which was Fan Guest of Honor Greg Weisman’s idea and basically an excuse for him to sample all sorts of wonderful, homemade pies and share the rest with the audience. The winner of the competition was a woman who had baked a berry-something pie and her prize was for her to get to ask him about a spoiler for any series in which he’s had a hand in creating, but if she ever told anyone else what the spoiler was, he’d not do the competition anymore. After he finished telling her the spoiler far away from where the pie was being dished out, I got a chance to speak to him about the panel I’ll be moderating tomorrow (“Why Diversity Needs to be Deeper Than Marketing,” 8:30 pm in Doubletree Edina, be there!). But what I really wanted to talk to him about was how he agreed to be the “test pilot” for the new program this year where the funds to pay for his attendance at the convention were crowdfunded by the convention attendees. Weisman stated several times that if almost any other convention had asked him to be a part of this test program, he probably would have turned them down. For him, a lot of it had to do with the fact that he has attended CONvergence before and he knows what to expect of both the fans and the con staff and how they will treat him. To further emphasize this point, he stated that because he knows he will be well-cared for at CONvergence, it is also one of the few conventions where he will not ask for a per diem. He also doesn’t know if a program like this would work at any other convention, largely due to the this very specific convention space and the crowd it tends to attract. Based on the enthusiastic crowd response during his bit at Opening Ceremony, I think I’m definitely more excited to see whom they’ll attempt this with next.

Anyhow, unless something truly amazing happens at the live music circle that’s going to start in about a half an hour, I think I’m going to close this live-blog for today. See y’all on Day 2!

You Had to Be There: “Welcome to Night Vale – Ghost Stories” (spoiler-free!)

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Night Vale Presents: “Welcome to Night Vale – Ghost Stories”
WTNV Ghost Stories
Review DotReview DotReview DotReview DotReview Dot

Performance Date: April 16, 2016
Location: State Theater in Minneapolis, MN
Created By: Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor
Starring: Cecil Baldwin and Meg Bashwinner
Music: Disparition
Guest Starring: Symphony Sanders and Molly Quinn
Musical Guest Starring: Danny Schmidt and Carrie Elkin

Coming as late as I did to the “Welcome to Night Vale” party train, a solid year or so of binge-listening has made me a fervent fan. Described by many as “The Prairie Home Companion” crossed with “The Twilight Zone,” the twice-monthly podcast added a live show element a year after its debut. I had never had the chance to see one of the live shows before, but even without that extra preparation I was super-excited to see the show last night at the State Theater in Minneapolis, Minn.

This doesn’t mean that someone who has never heard any episode of “Welcome to Night Vale” before won’t enjoy the live show. Writers Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor’s script for the “Ghost Stories” tour is light on the in-jokes while still being true to the characters who appear. But first, let’s talk about “the weather.”

Opening the show and playing a musical interlude right at the climax of the show, Austin, Texas-based singer-songwriters Danny Schmidt and Carrie Elkin played three or four songs which showcased their talents very well. Of the duo, I was more impressed with Elkin’s voice than with Schmidt’s; however, the two complemented each other greatly as they took turns leading their songs. Schmidt’s “Standard Deviation” earned the most enthusiastic crowd response, but because I had difficulty hearing the lyrics, the cleverness of the song was lost on me. They were selling a small EP of the songs they played for the tour which cost $5 with the purchase of one of their CDs, free if you bought more than one. I chose Elkin’s Call it My Garden CD and was surprised and pleased to learn that it was produced by Red House Records from St. Paul, Minn. Schmidt’s work has been featured on “Night Vale” before (in the eighth episode called “The Lights in Radon Canyon”), and I thought the duo’s acoustic guitars and dreamy vocals really helped prime the audience for the mood of the show.

The premise of the episode for this tour is that the Night Vale City Council is holding a regular contest where every citizen tells a ghost story and the winner gets to be turned into a ghost. We got to hear ghost stories from teen anarchist and bibliophile Tamika Flynn (Symphony Sanders), a sentient patch of haze named Deb (Meg Bashwinner, whose Minnesota-tinged accent was just perfect in this audience, donchaknow?) and a computer programmer named Melony Pennington (Molly Quinn). Of the guest appearances, I loved Quinn’s performance the most because she filled her character with the right combination of cynicism and pragmatism which I’ve come to find is a hallmark of every person who works extensively with computers. Each of the little stories pulled you in and then pulled you back out again with the characteristic “Night Vale”-ish twist that even a casual listener of the show can understand.

It was radio host Cecil Palmer’s ghost story offering which drove most of the show, though. Told brilliantly by actor Cecil Baldwin, it was frequently interrupted by the other segments of the show right at climactic moments in the way that all the best radio shows used to do. There’s a quality to Baldwin’s voice which makes it hard not to listen to him and be drawn into everything that he’s saying. And as for the Night Vale-ish twist…? Well, suffice to say that it not only deepened the Cecil character more but it also transcended the story to become a universal truth for everyone who has ever encountered a ghost in their past or present.

The other regular parts of the show such as the “Community Calendar” section or the horoscopes were fine and garnered the right amounts of laughter and whooping (especially when audience members responded to Palmer calling out their horoscope sign), but in contrast to the main story and especially after the ending they seem unimportant. Half a day after show, I distinctly remember what Palmer’s voice sounded like when he got to the denouement of his ghost story more than when he announced what was in store for all the Virgos like me.

All in all, I’m very glad that I got to see this production and I hope that as the tour makes its way along the East Coast, to the West Coast and through Europe you get a chance to see it too.

13 Days of Daredevil: “New York’s Finest” (spoilers!)

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Please tell me I'm not the only one who was glad to see her again. © Marvel Studios/Netflix
Please tell me I’m not the only one who was glad to see her again. © Marvel Studios/Netflix

After a bit of a real life invasion and the fourth episode of “Jessica Jones” as an appetizer, I’m ready to settle in for my next episode of “Daredevil,” and judging from the preview image of Punisher chatting with a bound Daredevil alone, I hope I’m in for a real treat.

  • As a further bit of an appetizer, the thought that Marvel Studios is co-opting the “superhero team-up” name which is normally reserved for times when Batman meets Superman (and some of these are also available on Netflix) fills me with a bit of glee. I can only hope that this is as well scripted as the DCU animated adventures were.
  • Interesting insight as to what Daredevil dreams about and his super-hearing is on the fritz, where someone pouring water out of a thermos is likened to nuns wringing out a towel.
  • Also, yay for Claire! Dare I hope for a Claire/Foggy team-up?
  • Also, yay for Matt using his brain and not his fists!
  • What’s this new thing that Claire helped with? I’m assuming it’s something in a Jessica Jones episode, but I’m afraid to spoil myself and check. <checks anyway> Okay, nine episodes until I get to see her in JJ. I can wait.
  • You’d think I’d have more to say about Daredevil and Frank’s conversation, but I’m feeling very underwhelmed by it.
  • Daaaaang. That nameless poor D.A. is good. But nameless. Blake Tower (and your actor, Stephen Rider) you deserve better than that. (And I think I inadvertently spoiled myself on your story arc, too.)
  • I kinda want a Foggy spin-off now where he gets to be all awesome and lay the verbal smackdowns. But I think that this spin-off would only be for people like me who enjoy it when lawyers kick verbal ass.
  • Also, Karen? One moment of horror, and then she gets to work? Yeah, all the non-powered folks are really hitting my competency porn buttons.
  • Okay, so this hallway/stairwell fight is hitting my competency porn buttons, too.

Big talking heads scenes aside, I really don’t think that a lot changed for Matt in this episode. It doesn’t feel like he’s any closer to clarifying his stances as a hero and/or how that’s going to define his life and his friendships. Also, whatever inheritance he got from his father isn’t going to last forever, so he does need to get back to being an attorney and rustle up some real paying clients.

Sometimes I feel like there are two shows in this one, the superhero beat-em up that one half of my brain likes and the really intelligent law procedural that I enjoy as well. Let’s hope that my entire brain will be happy once I’m done watching this series.

13 Days of Daredevil: “Dogs to a Gunfight” (spoilers!)

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If anything had happened to this dog, the Internet would have fallen on their heads. © Marvel Studios/Netflix
If anything bad had happened to this dog, the Internet would have fallen on their heads. © Marvel Studios/Netflix

I know I skipped a day yesterday, but after the long day at the office, the last thing I wanted to do was to turn on a computer so that I could blog about a Netflix show. Perhaps this could be the only downside to not binge-watching a series, but hey! some of us nerds and geeks have day jobs now…

  • Of course, they’re not going to kill off the main character in first episode of a new season. But damn if this pre-credits scene where Foggy finds Matt trembling and injured on a rooftop makes you feel as if he’s really not going to make it.
  • “…and trust me to do mine, okay!” Yes, Foggy. I trust you implicitly. Too bad your buddy doesn’t.
  • For her first appearance as a no-nonsense D.A., Michelle Hurd is doing a very good job. Really, Foggy is the unsung hero of this show, and I’m glad we’re getting to see more of that this season. Oh, and I get to see this character again in “Jessica Jones”? Awesome. And of course, she’s got a Law & Order credit. What actor in New York City doesn’t, these days?
  • Yeah, that pawn shop dude really doesn’t know how to read a customer, does he?
  • Aw, dangit, I guess I can understand that being shot at would make Karen revert into her behavior after she killed Wesley. And in a similar way, it also makes sense that she’s a bit hyperfocused on the fact that he could be coming for her, because that’s pretty true to her character.
  • I also wonder what Karen thinks Matt’s problem is, like if maybe she thinks he’s an alcoholic or something like that. That would be another nice bit of irony.
  • More nitpicking: If it’s been a whole day since the Irish were gunned down, wouldn’t the blood on the teeth embedded in the bar have dried by now?
  • Even more nitpicking: Why wouldn’t the SWAT team have also scouted out the really high sniper perches? Best way to take out a guy whom you know is a) tactically aware and b) mostly known to be ground-based.

This is perhaps the first time I’m kicking myself in the shins for not watching these all at once because that preview image of Punisher and Daredevil getting a chance to talk to each other is great. Can’t wait to see how they pull it off.

13 Days of Daredevil: “Bang” (spoilers!)

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The irony being that this line could apply to either character in this scene. © Marvel Studios/Netflix
The irony being that this line could apply to either character in this scene. © Marvel Studios/Netflix

As every Marvel Cinematic Universe fan knows, the second season of Daredevil hit Netflix on Friday, driving many superhero fans indoors over the weekend. I really enjoyed watching the first season at a clip of one episode a day, so rather than binge-watching like many of my friends have decided to do, I’m going to go through these episodes one at a time and let you know my thoughts. And yes, there will definitely be spoilers, but there will also be some caveats as well.

Given that I still haven’t seen “Marvel’s Jessica Jones,” Season 3 of “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D” or either season of “Marvel’s Agent Carter,” I’d appreciate it if any responses to rhetorical questions I have that can be answered by those shows be limited to a simple, “That’s answered elsewhere.” I am caught up on all the Marvel movies, but I haven’t read any of the corresponding comic books; same deal applies.

Enough with the blather, on with the show!

  • I appreciate the little recap before the episode started because it does hit all the high points from the season as well as reminding me of the awesome corridor fight from “Cut Man” which I am likely to go back and watch again. Also, I’m also very glad to know what “moodak” means in Russian.
  • I am not in love with the vocal song at the end of the recap, however. I hope it doesn’t stick around.
  • I like a good foot chase and establishing action scene as much as the next gal, but why didn’t these mooks have a getaway driver?
  • “That’s the tragedy of you being blind; you haven’t seen me dance.” I really hope that they pick this up somewhere in the season. Is there a TV Tropes listing for Chekov’s Artistic Ability yet?
  • Karen’s pause after the bar fight client calls her a badass? Nice bit of subtle acting there.
  • I’m so very glad that the curse word “shite” is finding its way into American vernacular through this scene. It definitely establishes the scene well. I’m wondering, however, if the plates of ham, potatoes, and cabbages I saw on the table were perhaps just a bit too stereotypical. Also, wasn’t it the Italian mafia who ran Hell’s Kitchen back in what Nesbitt’s day was, leading up to the rise of Wilson Fisk?
  • Karen is such a badass right now, spinning up that cover story like fine yarn. Evidently, whatever amount of time passed between the “Daredevil” episode and now was enough for her to come to grips with what she did to save herself in “The Path of the Righteous.”
  • And while we’re on the subject, I am metaphorically pouring one out for Toby Leonard Moore’s James Wesley. I hope there’s a new character this season who has a similar kind of rational evil.
  • Okay, so I’m not sure yet what Foggy’s got planned going into the Dogs of Hell’s club, but I love how this scene showcases that Foggy is just as much of a badass as Matt Murdock because he’s willing to go into dangerous situations without super powers because he knows it’s the right thing to do and he wants to protect someone he loves.
  • Maybe I have my critic’s brain screwed in a bit too tightly, but the dude who crossed the alley just before Karen and “Steve” burst out of the fire escape stairwell? The fact that he didn’t react to either the alarm or them bolting across the street is very shoddy extra directing.

So thanks to media, advertising, and the episode recaps on Netflix being what they are, I know that the mystery man who’s shooting up all the bad guys is none other than Frank Castle, aka the Punisher. And yet, this episode did an absolutely fabulous job of keeping it a bit of a mystery throughout this first episode. Also, I know that a confrontation with Elektra is in the future as well; I’m hoping that they treat that character’s arrival with as much delicacy.

Road to the Hugo Awards: Fight the Future for Best Fancast

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Fight the Future
Hosted by: Dan Saunders and Paul Saunders
First Published: March 30, 2015
Rating: For teens, with light swearing; one episode has a trigger warning
Update Schedule: Fortnightly
Current Status: Final episode airs March 29, 2016 [Updated with new details]

Spout-Approved Hugo Noms_Fight the Future
Canadian brothers Dan Saunders and Paul Saunders read books and watch movies so you don’t have to! © Loading Ready Run

Not long after I published my list of what kinds of works should receive the Geeking Out About… seal of approval for celebrating inclusivity and diversity, I read a notice on the message board for this podcast that it was going to be going to be ending this year. This prompted me to fire off an email to Paul Saunders asking him if I could include the podcast as one of my platform planks because even though I was an infrequent listener (due to my not having read or seen all of the works they were reviewing), I really enjoyed the premise of the podcast and what it was attempting to achieve. His response was to be flattered but wonder if they were even eligible, something about which I was quick to reassure them. And yet, I am totally not surprised to know that was the first reaction from him, seeing as he is a member of my favorite Internet sketch comedy troupe Loading Ready Run.

The Five-Sentence Synopsis

Canadian brothers Dan Saunders and Paul Saunders (and their guests) first introduce, then recap the entire plot of a young adult dystopian science fiction movie or book as objectively as they can, perhaps with some comedic asides. Next, they discuss the plausibility of the worldbuilding as well as how scary the world is for its fictional characters. There’s a section where they talk about what kind of characters they would be in the fictional world, and then using either clues left by the creators or information from official sequels, they talk about what hope there is for the characters in the fictional world beyond the end of the book or movie. Finally, there’s either a snippet of a scene from the movie or a song which they feel illustrates the work the best, and a final summary from the hosts before the sign-off.

What Works

There are many podcasts out there which are dedicated to reviewing books and movies from a critics’ perspective. However, I believe this is one of the first podcasts I’ve heard of which reviews the actual worlds in which the books or movies take place. Of all the episodes I’ve heard, there are very few instances in which I feel that either Dan or Paul or their guests know or care too much about the current science fiction/fantasy literary blogosphere’s opinions of the works, its creators, its production team, or the actors portraying the characters. They are just there to discuss the work and only the work. When they do bring in references to other works or the greater outside world, they do it either near the beginning or near the end so that the discussion of most of the episode is focused on just the world inside the movie or book. It’s both fan discussion and literary criticism in its purest form, where the only clues you have are the work itself, the world you currently inhabit, your personal experiences, and that’s it. From the very first episode, I loved this premise and found myself wanting to join in on the discussion in either the forum threads or the comments on the YouTube version of the podcasts. (It’s also available on iTunes and well as having its own RSS feed as well.) They are never mean or cruel when they point out major flaws, which is very much in keeping with the whole Loading Ready Run ethos which I love. They’re also not slavish in their approval or disapproval, which I really appreciate. I even love the original theme song, composed by Bradley Rains.

Selected Highlights

Episode 8 – A Boy and His Dog: Dan reads out the email Paul sent to him with his concerns about how they’ll cover the movie. (“It ends with the hero KILLING HIS LOVE INTEREST AND FEEDING HER TO HIS DOG!”)

Episode 15 – Battle Royale: Dan and Paul pick out which of their former 15-year old classmates would they kill or be killed by. (“I see all these cute faces and I see them all as potential killers.”)

Episode 23 – The Knife of Never Letting Go: Guest host Emily explains why this dystopic world is particularly horrific to her. (“It’s pretty much my world anyway.” “It’s called ‘The Internet.'”)

What Doesn’t

As I begin to evaluate works for my platform, I’m starting to realize that just like the Bechdel or the Mako Mori test, just because a work can stand on my platform on a superficial level, it doesn’t mean that the work is a perfect example of a truly diverse work. In my email correspondence with him, Paul Saunders admitted that the podcast isn’t very diverse. “We have tried to get as many different special guests with different points of view as possible,” he wrote in an email, “but obviously the pool of people in our social circles that are available and have an interest in the topic is not that big.” My reaction to that is a hope that for any future podcast they do, he and/or Dan are able to reach out to members of the YA dystopia fiction community at large who can recommend more works by non-Caucasian, cisgendered Canadian authors and/or filmmakers or more guests who aren’t from just North America.

Final Thoughts

At last year’s CONvergence, the theme was all about dystopian futures. While at a MetaFilter meetup, I mentioned Fight the Future to a person I was meeting in person for the first time and extolled its virtues. Months later, she asked me about the podcast because clearly the idea of it was something that had stuck in her mind after all that time. Fight the Future is a podcast which was sadly limited in its length and lasted for only a year, but should be pointed out as one of the best productions of 2015. That’s why I’m nominating it for a Hugo Award this year and next year, and I hope that many of you agree.

Road to the Hugo Awards: Selected Fancasts, part 1

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Road to Hugo Award Header_Part 1Finding the time to listen to hour-long episodes of podcasts which are eligible for the 2016 Hugo Awards wasn’t easy for me, but that’s what today’s article is about. The eligibility requirements state that the podcast must be a “non-professional” production—that is, no other company paid the podcaster(s) to make it—and at least one episode has to have been produced during the calendar year in question.

As such, then, I decided to pick one episode from a currently eligible podcast whose description interested me the most and I’ll be basing my recommendations on just the one episode. Unlike the “three episode rule” which I’m borrowing from former GOA contributor Kara Dennison, I think that I’d be able to tell what’s going to be on my nomination and/or platform lists before March 31 from just one episode.

Once again, in no particular order, here are my impressions of podcasts which are currently eligible for the 2016 Hugo Award for Best Fancast:

Hugo Fancasts-BGNBlack Girl Nerds
Episode 43: Brotriarchy, The State of Sci-Fi, and NekoCon 2015
Hosted by Jamie Broadnax
Date Published: November 11, 2015

First Impression: This episode was a mixed bag for me, mostly because of the expectations which were raised due to a titling error. For an episode whose title claimed that it would talk about the state of the sci-fi genre, there was only a somewhat cursory examination of it. The episode began with a lively discussion between Black Girl Nerd website creator and podcast host Broadnax and contributor Lauren Warren, whose think piece for the website about how to fix Project Greenlight after Matt Damon’s “white mansplaining” gaffe to African-American producer Effie Brown caused a bit of a sensation. I appreciate how Broadnax and Warren talked about how the piece was written and that it went beyond hollering what was wrong about the gaffe but moved past and talked about how to fix the problem, something with which I’m very familiar. I loved the lengthy interplay between these two colleagues whose discussion ranged far and wide across the pop culture and media landscape, which was why I was surprised with Broadnax’s more laid-back approach to her interview with “Out of Time” webseries creator Steve Kasan. I appreciate that she allowed him the space to talk about how he felt about diversity in genre media, but to go from such a light-hearted and engaging conversation between equals to a more stilted and less conversational interview was jarring to me. It also doesn’t help that it doesn’t sound like Broadnax even watched an episode of the series at all. Why didn’t she ask more about the thought behind the diversity of the characters? Or how Kasan and co-creator Rodney V. Smith’s take on time-travel in sci-fi works and how it’s different than other people’s take? Those are the kinds of questions I would have asked myself as an occasional podcaster, and I’m disappointed that they weren’t asked. The final segment on NekoCon was another bit of a letdown for me because while her conversations with attendees were interesting for getting a perspective on diversity at anime conventions from the average fan, she never had her interviewee’s give their names or handles. And that’s a big no-no from a journalism perspective because as Sir Terry Pratchett commented in The Truth, getting the names of the people you interview helps you “sell” your work more.

Is this a Hugo Award-worthy work?: No, but I’m sure this would win several other awards in general geekery and lifestyle podcasts categories.

Hugo Fancasts-IDEOATVI Don’t Even Own a Television
Episode 44: Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon
Hosted by J.W. Friedman and Chris Collision
Date Published: December 9, 2015

First Impression: Instantly my back was up despite the excellently-produced original theme song because as the description states and as they say in the intro, this podcast is dedicated to talking about bad books. And even though I’ve read other Spider Robinson books and I don’t recall if I’ve read this specific one, I don’t think that Robinson is the kind of person you’d call a “bad” author. This meant that I was instantly inclined to think that this podcast was not for someone like me. And yet, I was completely surprised how fair they were with the material. Friedman and Collision gleefully point out the problems with tone and the problems with misogynistic and/or sexist attitudes towards women; listening to them talk about it in a completely fair and open way made me think about how I might be perceiving the book and its author through rose and nostalgia-tinted glasses. Another thing that I appreciated about this podcast was how both Friedman and Collision were unafraid to state that they thought a part of the book was bad, but then they thought a bit longer about it and changed their mind. The last 15 minutes of the podcast is dedicated to answering listener email, which shows that this show has definitely reached a critical-growth stage to where they actually have long-time listeners and fans. After finishing up this episode, my instant reaction was to wonder if they would ever read Lady Slings the Booze, just so I could see what they think of the characters in that Spider Robinson book.

Is this a Hugo Award-worthy work?: Yes, despite the fact that they denigrated the pun wars in the book.

Hugo Fancasts-SkiffyFantyThe Skiffy and Fanty Show
Episode 250: Emily Jiang, John Chu, and E. Lily Yu at ICFA
Hosted by Shaun Duke and Julia Rios
Date Published: February 4, 2015

First Impression: Unlike the co-hosts in this episode, I’ll put my disclaimer before the review: One of the contributors to this podcast is Mike R. Underwood, and he and I were on “The Smurfette Principle in Marketing” panel at CONvergence 2015; since then, we’ve followed and ReTweeted each other a lot. I deliberately chose to listen to this particular episode because I know that my reading shelf is very sparse when it comes to works by Asian and Asian-American authors. One of the things I immediately liked about this episode was how much it was like a casual, free-flowing conversation. Each of the guests were engaged on their own, but also allowed to chime in and comment on what the other guests were saying. Also, like the best in talk radio, there were several times where I wanted to join in the conversation as well; I credit this to co-hosts Duke and Rios’ skills as interviewers who except for two awkward bits (one with Yu and one with Chu) were able to manage this five-way conversation with ease. Based solely on her appearance in this episode, I got the impression that Yu’s author persona is gruff and prickly; both Duke and Rios were able to work with it and get her to open up when they asked her what her reaction was to getting the call that she was nominated for a short story Nebula in 2012. From a hindsight perspective, it was also very fun to hear Chu talk about his experiences as a beta-translator for Ken Liu, whose translation work for The Three Body Problem helped that book win a Hugo in 2015.

Is this a Hugo Award-worthy work?: Yes, despite the low fidelity of their recording. But if more people subscribe to their Patreon, I’m sure they could fix that.

Around the Water Cooler: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – “T.R.A.C.K.S.” (spoilers!)

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This is the face of someone who is going to eviscerate you via your nostrils. © ABC/Marvel Studios
This is the face of someone who is going to eviscerate you via your nostrils. © ABC/Marvel Studios

It’s less than a week until Christmas, so let’s dive into another episode of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., fresh off of my Netflix streaming queue:

  • And now, we’re kicking it “mystery on a train”-style. Because it wasn’t enough for Joss Whedon to have one episode of a tight-knit ensemble TV series set on a train, right?
  • I love the way May casually reveals to Ward that she told Coulson about their affair, especially when how she revealed it in the previous episode wasn’t so casual. And from his reaction, it’s almost like he wanted to either be found out a different way or that he was upset that she told Coulson first without consulting him.
  • Gyah, I love Fitz’ fake American accent. Knowing how the entertainment industry works, I’m not surprised that a Scottish actor like Iain De Caestecker would have an American accent in his back pocket. And it makes sense from a character perspective that Skye would not have a similar Scottish accent in her arsenal; here’s hoping the same isn’t for Chloe Bennet.
  • I had to turn the subtitles on for the beginning of the next scene because I wasn’t sure at first what Fitz was upset about. But then I realized that he was upset that he couldn’t “show off” in front of his crush and that Skye’s getting more Operations-savvy rather than Tech-savvy. Her comment about him building things with his hands isn’t the soother that she thinks it is. I gather that his outing with Ward gave him a real confidence boost in his abilities as an Agent, but to be busted back down to being the “gadget guy” in her eyes could be seen as being real condescending.
  • Yeah… love that Stan Lee cameo. But you have to admit that it was very jarring (no pun intended) to have it happen, and then the diversion. It’s almost as if they were diverting us from the diversion.
  • I think I rather like how they played a little bit with time to show how things happened from Coulson’s perspective, then from Ward’s. Also, I wonder if May’s the one who hot-wired the truck, maybe. But I don’t know why she would have left it there.
  • Oh, Ward… this is why Ops and Tech need to be better friends and learn how to do things that the other divisions know how to do.
  • “If it’s really just sex, Ward, you should really get comfortable using the word.” Aw, yeah, Papa Coulson.
  • I’m not sure if I’ve said this before, but I think I love how in their “no benefits” relationship, Ward is really not getting any benefits at all. I believe that Coulson’s comment about combat ops was meant to reassure May that he didn’t mean for them to get involved in this kind of sticky situation, the kind that earned her the nickname “the Cavalry.” It was a great moment between two veterans, and then Ward came into the infirmary and made it seem like less than that. He’s being pouty and sulky, and it makes him just a little more likable.
  • I rewound the fight scene in the baggage car three or four times and I still can’t figure out if the assailant grabbed Simmons or if she grabbed him to try and shield her team from the grenade. If the latter, my respect for her has gone up trillions.
  • My heart was pounding really loudly while Skye was going down the stairs. Great job of establishing that atmosphere. However, she split the party and didn’t wait for backup, so that’s negative points for her.
  • And now I’m wondering if Quinn’s got an eye-cam as well. That would kind of make some sort of sense. But what I don’t understand is why the whole deal went south.
  • Ah, I see the stinger is for hardcore comics fans and people like me who like looking stuff up after the show’s over. Nice.

Unlike last week, I really want to know what happens next, especially given that we know that Coulson was brought back to life by S.H.I.E.L.D.’s technologies.

Around the Water Cooler: Doctor Who – “The Time of the Doctor” (spoilers!)

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Because who wouldn't want a naked Doctor for Christmas? © BBC
Because who wouldn’t want a naked Doctor for Christmas? © BBC

With Boxing Day having come to a close, it’s time to sit down and have a spoiler-filled discussion about the Christmas special episode of “Doctor Who”, now available to purchase on iTunes.

  • Are those Peter Capaldi’s eyes in one of the background images that flash during the opening sequence? Or am I just too eager to see him?
  • What kind of church is the Doctor going to in that it doesn’t require clothes?
  • “You can’t keep using the TARDIS like this. Missed birthdays, restaurant bookings and please, just learn how to use iPlayer…” Heh, I see what they did there.
  • That’s Gallifrey? Well, that was awfully quick.
  • Oh, I get it now. If you’re naked, you can barely conceal any weaponry; thus, you’re putting your trust into the Church’s hands whenever you come aboard the ship. Very clever.
  • The Silence and the Weeping Angels are back? How interesting.
  • Another of the more interesting things we’ve just learned: the TARDIS has a silent mode.
  • “I’m an English teacher from earth and I’ve run off with a man from space because I really fancy—” Oh, LORD! Can we please have another “associate” who doesn’t fancy the Doctor? Donna Noble, I miss you so much.
  • “If I give my name, they’ll know they’ve found the right place and that it’s safe to come through.” That’s pretty clever plotting, to create the idea of a Truth Filter to force the Doctor to answer the question truthfully. Here’s a world-building question: Why would a colony want to have a Truth Filter in the first place? What secrets did the people who originally founded this settlement no longer wish to hide?
  • The decision that the Doctor faces now is just as fraught as the decision the War Doctor faced not too long ago: Do I save my people or do I doom the rest of the galaxy to an endless war? We know what the Doctor—all of the Doctors, really—answered last time; why would someone expect the answer to change now?
  • “Silence will fall.” About time this phrase got some more traction. Makes sense, too.
  • I am starting to understand more and more what the Eleventh’s plan is, perhaps. He aims to outlast all of his enemies. But just as each successive invader is getting more cunning and agile in getting around him, they are also breeding new generations of fighters ready to do battle with him. And he is only just one man, in a town full of people who don’t want to enhance their technology. I’m starting to think that he is doomed, the matter of the regeneration we know about and the fact that the planet’s named “Trenzalore” non-withstanding.
  • Another thing about showing the Eleventh as a much older man is that they’re finally tapping into the “Matt Smith has an old soul” idea that’s been floating around about him ever since his first episode aired. Unpopular Opinion Time: I’ve never really seen it or agreed with it.
  • “Comfort is irrelevant.” “Is that better?” “Affirmative.” Oh, this exchange was so cute, and ultimately so sad.
  • Here’s a flaw in the Doctor’s plan as I understand it: Once he dies, what happens to the Time Lords and the inhabitants of Christmas then? This is the action of a delaying coward who is hoping that someone who is not him will come and make the right decision.
  • “Number Ten once regenerated and kept the same face. I had vanity issues at the time.” OUCH.
  • Originally, I misunderstood how they scripted this section and I never understood that the Eleventh was saying that he was really the last Doctor. It made me really angry about this plan of his, because I thought that he was leaving this entire mess to be sorted out by his next regeneration. Now that I understand what he’s saying, I still think it’s a stupid plan.
  • Tasha is pretty freaking amazing. Although I wish that she’d have punched him after the kiss rather than that rather weak slap. I also wish that they’d brought her onto the series sooner.
  • This scene with the Oswald family… can we also please have an associate whose has a family member who isn’t rubbish? Okay, okay, it then begs the question of what the motivation is for people wanting to leave their ordinary lives to go traveling with the Doctor if not for a terrible family life, but still…!
  • Just had a funny thought: What if the when the Thirteenth comes along, he immediately shouts his name so that the Time Lords can come through?
  • Clara’s hand on the Eleventh’s, supporting him in pulling the cracker apart? Brilliant.
  • When the crack closed, I’ll admit that I jumped thanks to the sound effect. And then I remembered: Doesn’t anyone who comes near one of the cracks in the universe get sucked up into it? If not so, how did Rory get erased from the timestream in “Cold Blood”? (Or does that only happen when people die near the crack?) And it never occurred to him to tell the Time Lords what was going on or to ask them to help, not once in the many centuries?
  • It’s a little amazing how much he resembles William Hartnell’s Doctor in this makeup. I wonder if they did that on purpose.
  • As much as it makes sense that he regained a bit of his youthful voice during this last bit, it looks odd to hearing the younger Eleventh Doctor’s voice coming out of this older one. I think they should have kept the old man voice. It would have been a more powerful moment.
  • “I will always remember when the Doctor was me.” An interesting line considering that he was the Doctor Who Forgot in “The Day of the Doctor.”
  • Once again, Wikipedia came to the rescue and clarified that by giving him some of their regeneration energy, the Doctor can live on for twelve more lifetimes. Clever way to keep the series going. But I think that perhaps it might have been braver for them to perhaps have a different Gallifreyan become inspired by the Doctor’s adventures and mission and take on adventuring in his name, sort of like the Dread Pirate Roberts. Then, maybe, there could be a female Doctor or a Doctor of Color in our lifetime.
  • Also, do we still call him the Twelfth? Or is he the Second First now?

As an ending for Matt Smith’s Doctor, it was a very riveting and heart-rending finale piece. I am still so very eager to watch Peter Capaldi in action, though. Late fall can’t come fast enough. Your thoughts?

Pop-Culture Catch-Up: Doctor Who — “The Day of the Doctor” (spoilers!)

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Want to get excited about a new thing, but aren’t completely up to date on the fandom and don’t mind spoilers? We here at Geeking Out About are happy to help provide you with everything you need in order to stay current with your geeky passions in our new column, “Pop Culture Catch-Up.”

“The Day of the Doctor”
Directed by Nick Hurran
Written by Steven Moffat
Starring Matt Smith, Jenna Coleman
Guest Stars: David Tennant, John Hurt, Billie Piper, Jemma Redgrave, Joanna Page, Colin Baker, and more
Rating: TV-PG

Three Doctors, all alike in dignity. © BBC
Three Doctors, all alike in dignity. © BBC

Like many people, my first Doctor was Christopher Eccleston, aka the Ninth Doctor. His single season in 2005 as the eponymous character of the long-running BBC series Doctor Who introduced me to everything Whovian and I came to have a layperson’s understanding of the show and how it worked. I watched some episodes featuring Tenth Doctor David Tennant, including the special movies, and part of the first season with Eleventh Doctor Matt Smith; however, once I fell behind I lost interest.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the first episode’s airing and Doctor Who fans both old and new were a-buzz when news came forward that there would be a special episode celebrating this anniversary. Rumors and speculation flew around the world. Would it reunite several of the previous actors who have played the Doctor in a large over-arching plot as the 20th anniversary special “The Five Doctors” did? How much interaction would the upcoming Twelfth Doctor Peter Capaldi have in this special? Or would the inclusion of any former Doctors be more poignant and heartfelt as was the meeting between the Tenth Doctor and the Sixth Doctor (Peter Davison) in the Children in Need short “Time Crash”?

Simulcast around the world on November 12, 2013, “The Day of the Doctor” proved to include all of these things—and none of them at the same time.

The Five-Sentence Synopsis

During the height of the war between the Time Lords of Gallifrey and the Dalek race, the Doctor has been forced to make a terrible decision that will destroy the armies of both participants and eradicate the people on the entire planet of Gallifrey from the timestream. However, the sentient weapon known as The Moment refuses to benignly comply and brings him forward in time to meet two of the Doctors he would become as a result of his decision. With his Tenth and Eleventh incarnations, together all three Doctors puzzle out the meaning of their meeting and conclude that while the total destruction of the Daleks was the right decision, the complete annihilation of Gallifrey was not. However, only the Eleventh Doctor will remember this new version of events going forward.

Is that Really My Doctor?

When the first “nuWho” stories were aired, there were some noticeable changes. The Ninth Doctor was described and depicted as “angry,” “edgy,” “stripped down,” and full of “survivor’s guilt” over his participation in ending the off-screen Time War. With very few details forthcoming, fans were wild with speculation about what he did to make him feel so much guilt and anger. When it was revealed that he killed everyone on Gallifrey and all of the Daleks, it was a shock to fans who had grown up with the Doctor. How could someone who had made it a point to save not just humanity but aliens of all races and solar systems time and time again make a decision to kill everyone—even if it was for a greater good?

With this special, writer and executive producer Steven Moffat attempted to answer this question by first re-visiting the Eighth Doctor (Paul McGann) in the prequel short “The Night of the Doctor” and showcasing his decision to voluntarily die and be reborn as a warrior. (It also officially welcomed the Eighth Doctor’s companions from the Big Finish audio adventures into official canon, pleasing many Whovians.) Introduced as the War Doctor and played brilliantly by John Hurt (Alien, The Elephant Man), between the prequel and “The Day of the Doctor,” this “new” Doctor is a man who watched himself first try everything he could to save people from the war’s effects and then do everything he could to end it—all to no avail. By the time of his opening scenes of “Day” against the backdrop of a war-torn and besieged Gallifrey, this Doctor had seen and done so much that he believed that there were no other options but to end the War by killing everyone.

However, the main premise of “Day” seems to be that even if you are at the end of your rope, there might be a new piece of rope that you can tie to your end. With this new extension, you can move forward into the future. “You would have hope,” the Eleventh Doctor says, pointing straight at the Gallifreyan high command and by extension, the viewers. It hearkens back to even though how the Ninth Doctor had witnessed the death of all of his people, he still cared enough about the world to help it continue running smoothly.

That, if anything, is the true gift that the Eleventh Doctor’s retrospective insight into his actions over 400 years granted to the War Doctor: guidance. By having the Eleventh Doctor first return with the War Doctor to his defining Moment (oh, I see what they did there now) to aid him and then later help persuade his former self that there was still yet another option, Moffat impresses upon his audience the importance of reaching out to others—for they may have a solution to your problem that you never considered.

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Around the Water Cooler: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – “Repairs” (spoilers!)

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I would be smirking, too, if this were a part of my morning routine. © ABC/Marvel Studios
I would be smirking, too, if this were a part of my morning routine. © ABC/Marvel Studios

After a hell of a morning, I definitely needed to relax with this commentary on the latest episode of “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”, now available to watch on the official website.

  • This may be a bit rude of me, but I totally love how Ward’s complicated plan to hide his “no-strings attached” relationship with May is circumvented by her just leaving the hotel room—thus, subverting the regular gender norms regarding casual sex. I do have to wonder, however, why she didn’t wear a bra. Even smaller breasted women need support.
  • I love how this entire ensemble worked together in this episode. The way Ward almost instantly picked up on Fitz and Simmons’ prank on Skye regarding May’s reputation was perfect and did much to make him that much more likable.
  • Tangential to this, I think I wouldn’t mind if they did a small web series during the hiatus about Skye attending S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy training.
  • The Monster of the Week was a bit weak—more of a MacGuffin, really—for the great character moments between the core cast. I haven’t read other reviews or reactions yet, but I think I’m totally okay with this.
  • I’m also totally okay with the “explanation” of the “Cavalry” nickname, even if I’m not sure I understood its import and how the situation was more dramatic with her going in with no weapons and a facing a cult with hostages inside rather than the outlandish stories that Ward, Fitz, and Simmons spun.
  • Perhaps the weakest bits were when Skye and Hannah were talking about God. I cringe whenever mainstream shows touch upon religion when it’s not normally a part of its makeup; this was no exception.
  • Of course, I love the post-credits scene here. It’s a nice, natural progression and I can’t wait to see May open up a bit more.

What were your favorite bits?

Pop Culture Catch-Up: X-Men: First Class (spoilers)

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Want to get excited about a new thing, but aren’t completely up to date on the fandom and don’t mind spoilers? We here at Geeking Out About are happy to help provide you with everything you need in order to stay current with your geeky passions in our new column, “Pop Culture Catch-Up.”

X-Men: First Class
Directed by Matthew Vaughn
Starring James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Kevin Bacon, Jennifer Lawrence, and more
Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of action and violence, some sexual content including brief partial nudity and language

Two men fight for truth, justice, and genetic equality in X-Men: First Class. © 20th Century Fox/Marvel Studios
Two men fight for truth, justice, and genetic equality in X-Men: First Class. © 20th Century Fox/Marvel Studios

When I first saw the X-Men: Days of Future Past trailer, I expressed a ton of confusion about it, and was told that I needed to see X-Men: First Class to really understand what’s going on. I was a little reluctant at first, but upon remembering that my local library has DVDs you can rent, I immediately requested it.

See, while I saw and loved X-Men when it came out in 2000, the two subsequent sequels left me with a bitter taste in my mouth. However, with the help of some friends who were kind enough to let me know that First Class was a much better movie than X-Men: The Last Stand I dove into this viewing of the DVD with much pleasure.

The Five-Sentence Synopsis

Traumatized by the horrors of the Holocaust, Erik Lensherr vows to enact revenge upon the man who wanted to turn his mutant gift into a terrible weapon. At the same time, doctoral candidate Charles Xavier wishes to help troubled mutants like Erik discover the full extent of their abilities to usher society into a new age of evolution. When the engineer of Lensherr’s despair schemes to throw the whole of humanity into the chaos of a nuclear war during the turmoil of the Cuban Missile Crisis, it’s up to Charles and Erik to guide a team of unproven students to defend the world. Ultimately, however, the two men are too different to be able to work together as the battle lines between them and the world around them are drawn.

‘Ships to Enjoy

As mentioned in the DVD extras, core of this movie is the relationship and friendship between Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and Erik Lensherr (Michael Fassbender): how it began and how it ended. You can’t imagine a more imperfect pair than these two, especially the way they’re portrayed here. This Charles Xavier is a bit of a flirt, one of the idle (but brilliantly intelligent) rich like Bertie Wooster for whom everything seems to have fallen into place. At the beginning of the movie, he’s rakishly charming and has his own pet/virtual companion in Raven, an orphan who has grown up doting on him. The only dark blot in his past is the fact that his mother has never seen him grow up in his ancestral home; this is something that young Charles Xavier doesn’t dwell upon at all.

In contrast, you have the emotionally and psychologically tortured Erik Lensherr whose entire world was ripped from him when his mother was killed before his eyes. Exactly what Klaus Schmidt/Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon) did after Erik’s full mutant potential was unleashed is never really specified, Judging from the fact that over a decade later, Erik is still out for vengeance, it must have been pretty horrific.

Where the two shine together is when they start working with the students in response to Sebastian Shaw’s gambits. You start to see Charles really settle down into becoming not just an academic professor but a real teacher, working within each person’s personal limits to make them feel more at ease. You also see Erik push them beyond their limits as he was once pushed. In the little family they built upon the Xavier estate grounds, then, Charles takes on a more nurturing parental role and Erik is the stern taskmaster whom everyone wants to please. The two men balance each other, like a ying and yang symbol and when their ideas become conflicted, to watch the balance and accord break is heart-rending.

‘Ships to Avoid

What I appreciate the most about First Class is that unlike the first X-Men movie and comics, there is no overwrought love triangle to complicate the more serious “racial prejudice” themes that have been at the core of the X-Men since they were first created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee in 1963. Raven (Jennifer Lawrence) shares an almost-kiss with Hank McCoy (Nicholas Hoult) and a kiss with Erik, but a budding romance are not the point of those scenes. In the former, the scene introduces the concept of negative body image and the latter is the climax to that entire sub-plot. The scene after between Charles and Raven also serves to reveal to the audience that his approach to Raven’s upbringing was an utter mistake and ultimately, it was Charles’ youthful arrogance that made joining up with Erik the better option for her.

This is what it looks like when all your illusions about yourself are stripped away. © 20th Century Fox/Marvel Studios
This is what it looks like when all your illusions about yourself are stripped away. © 20th Century Fox/Marvel Studios

Best. Scene. Ever.
For me, it has to be the scene between Hank and Raven when he comes to tell her that he has perfected the serum that will remove their appearance of their physical mutations. Already, the movie had established that Raven feels a strong emotional and possibly sexual connection with the men who have been able to see her in her “true” form and not been judgmental about it first in the scenes where Raven is talking to Charles about how he picks up English co-eds and later in the scene where Hank comes to her with the idea of the serum in the first place. Now, we see her realize that her self-image issues are a form of self-hatred, something that Hank just isn’t able to understand because he’s filled with so much of it. Hank’s intellectual brilliance is masking a deep, deep self-loathing and just as he tells her that she is hiding her true self away from even the people who have been able to accept her, I think she also realizes that poor Hank has way more emotional issues about his mutation than she does.

Final Thoughts

X-Men: First Class was the right movie, with the right actors and the right crew, at the right time. Director Matthew Vaughn was wise to hold off on making an X-Men film until this project came along; at the same time, I wonder if there’s a way he could have avoided all of the problems of The Last Stand. Perhaps he did need a bit more seasoning before he was ready for the franchise. Alas, with Bryan Singer at the helm of Days of Future Past, we will never know.