Categories
Genre Criticism

December 8, 2023

EVS on Marvel settling its copyright lawsuit with the Steve Ditko estate:

IT’S OVER! (Sorry Miles Morales fans) – ComicArtistPro Secrets

Categories
Genre Criticism Satire and Humor

December 4, 2023

Ace’s classic review of Disney’s Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens:

Liveblogging the Horrific Star Wars Movie – Ace of Spades HQ

And why are the good guys the “Resistance”? DID THEY NOT WIN THE WAR IN THE LAST TRILOGY? What are they resisting? Succumbing to the blandishments of power?

[…]

I can’t believe this movie is almost over. I felt nothing. About anything. Except contempt and hatred for my fellow man.

Really hard to find this on the search engines.

Categories
Genre Criticism

November 30, 2023

Napoleon – Not What I’d Hoped For | The Critical Drinker

Categories
Genre Criticism

November 27, 2023

Akira Kurosawa – Composing Movement | Every Frame A Painting

Categories
Genre Criticism

November 20, 2023

Bishop Robert Barron outlines three basic temptations (the desire for sensual pleasure, the desire for glory, and the desire for power) via various characters in HBO’s Rome:

Bishop Barron on the HBO Series “Rome” – Bishop Robert Barron

Categories
Genre Criticism Quotes

November 19, 2029

As Tolkien, Lovecraft wrote to satisfy his own aesthetic standards. In his estimation, few people possessed the intellectual and imaginative facilities to appreciate what he tried to achieve in his writing:

“The opinions of the masses are of no interest to me, for praise can truly gratify only when it comes from a mind sharing the author’s perspective. There are probably seven persons, in all, who really like my work; and they are enough. I should write even if I were the only patient reader, for my aim is merely self-expression. I could not write about ‘ordinary people’ because I am not in the least interested in them. Without interest there can be no art. Man’s relations to man do not captivate my fancy. It is man’s relation to the cosmos—to the unknown—which alone arouses in me the spark of creative imagination. The humanocentric pose is impossible to me, for I cannot acquire the primitive myopia which magnifies the earth and ignores the background. Pleasure to me is wonder—the unexplored, the unexpected, the thing that is hidden and the changeless thing that lurks behind superficial mutability. To trace the remote in the immediate; the eternal in the ephemeral; the past in the present; the infinite in the finite; these are to me the springs of delight and beauty. Like the late Mr. [Oscar] Wilde, ‘I live in terror of not being misunderstood’” (3).
Categories
Genre Criticism

November 16, 2023

The Marvels Was Doomed From The Start – The Critical Drinker

Categories
Genre Criticism

November 13, 2023

As Expected, The Marvels Bombs at the Box Office, with the Worst Opening Yet of Any Marvel Movie – Ace of Spades HQ

I think Hallmark Christmas romance movies are pretty silly, but I understand why they are so appealing to women, and I would never demand that Hallmark put in guns and karate to appeal to the male audience. And maybe instead of finding true love, maybe the male lead finds a really great Christmas Three-Way.

Now that would be stupid. That is destroying any entertainment value of the movie to its actual audience — women — in order to appeal to a very tiny segment of a possible audience, men.

And yet Hollywood will not stop making this insane trade-off in men’s entertainment properties.

James Bond movies used to insert fourth-wall self-parodying non-jokes all the time, and insert “We know this is stupid” self-parody moments. I always hated that. I wanted to take the Bond movies at least somewhat seriously — well, as seriously as an Indiana Jones movie, for example — but when James Bond gives a Tarzan yell as he swings on a vine, or when a pigeon double-takes at his hovercraft gondola, that is taking me out of the movie to tell me “This is stupid and you’re stupid for enjoying this and this is so stupid that we’re not going to let you forget this is stupid.”

And if that’s how you feel about this material — why the hell are you making it? Let someone who is more invested in the material make it.
Categories
Genre Criticism

November 13, 2023

Why Aragorn is the Epitome of Masculinity – Pilgrims Pass

Categories
Genre Criticism

November 9, 2023

WRONG Kind of Strong: Female Characters – Pilgrims Pass