Insert Witty Mashup Title Here
I've seen two movies recently with Chris Heimdall in them, but neither of them had any shirtless shots of him to make up for their other errors. I'm trying to dial down the disappointment, but it's a little difficult.
First of all, there was "The Cabin in the Woods": As I mentioned before, my trigger threshold was sorely tested by the presence of zombies, and torturing zombies at that. But I did not panic, and while I missed some of the more gruesome scenes, I was able to enjoy the rest of the movie, which really picked up at the moment when the two survivors managed to get into the underground HQ of the mechanism behind the whole twisted setup. The scene where all of the monsters in their boxes were revealed reminded me of the episodes of Buffy where we first see that the Initiative is housing a collection of vampires and demons from Sunnydale for study/nefarious purposes, and realize that their motives are horribly, stupidly suspect. The unnamed organization responsible for the death and gore in "Cabin" had a lot more to answer for, though, and answer they did. Bloodily and crazily. I never did quite figure out what the singing girl clad in white's capacity for murder was, but seeing her slowly make her way through the puddles of blood on the floor, and hearing her incoherent tune was chilling. (Also: death by unicorn! Entirely unexpected!)
A lot of people have been comparing this to "Scream" and while both movies are an exploration of what it means to be genre-savvy, at least CitW actually gave a damn about its characters. The Scream franchise people knew a lot about what was happening to them, but it didn't help them one bit. CitW's characters, once they realized what was truly at stake, were allowed to make a choice--a real choice--and to see what happened next. Most horror movies don't stick with me because of the choices the characters made, and CitW has been a pleasant exception in this way. I've thought about it in the days since in weird, little ways: when I see a collection of boxes that are too neatly stacked, or when there's some show on TV like "Antiques Roadshow" and I wonder what monster those items are the key to. Better than the slow burn that most horror movies usually give me where I'm super careful about locking the doors and/or avoiding particular items for weeks afterwards.
And then there was "The Avengers." Yeah, yeah, after all my grumbling about how I wasn't going to see this newfangled nonsense, you young people get off my lawn, etc. etc.,
yebsiu9 pulled out his most-excited voice and shiniest eyes and the reviews were decent enough that I didn't feel like I could refuse.
My favorite scene was the one at the very, very end, after the credits rolled. Without giving it away, I can safely say it's the sort of thing I normally have to go to fanfic for, and to have it as part of canon narrative... well, it's nice to know that other writers want to have the same sort of scenes I want to. :)
In short form:
* I was surprised to find myself liking Bruce Banner so much. The Hulk is not really on my list of favorite characters at all, but this script gave Banner a real personality, real talk with other characters, and a really good motivation, not just the usual "WOE" that he gets stuck with. Hell, Hulk even got onto my good side by smashing Loki around.
* Yay for interesting and strong characters like Maria Hill and Natasha/Black Widow! Now, couldn't they have had just one scene where they talked to each other about... something? What it's like to be a SHIELD agent? How the food is? Why they are both awesome?! ... Anything?
* Some of the fight scenes were so fast and poorly edited that I couldn't figure out what was going on at all. Bummer, especially considering the expensive and fairly good fight choreographer who'd evidently been hired.
* I would like to read a lot of well written, plotty H/C fanfic where Natasha and Clint both help each other deal with their respective mental issues and have some hot NC-17 times. Hell, I would also love to read more fanfic that was just like the last scene that I mentioned above.
* Yay for Pepper Potts cameo! I love the dynamic she has with Tony, and it was great to see that at least a few of the characters had lives outside of the action.
* Where the hell was the other space, and why was it so dark? I told Yebisu that I thought it was Lumpy Space (Adventure Time joke), just to see him roll his eyes in annoyance.
* I guess what I really wanted from this movie was a serious blown away feeling--the kind of experience where it doesn't matter that I was sitting in a seat that was a little broken, that I didn't really have too much investment in any of the characters before I went in, that everything just won me over and made me forget where I was. And I didn't feel like that. It was exciting and fun, a good summertime movie, with lots of little details, but I don't feel the overwhelming urge to go see it again or rush out and buy it on DVD. It could be that I was in the wrong frame of mind when I went, a fairly reasonable guess given that I've been feeling rather stressed and tired lately. But there have been other movies that succeeded in the face of my outside feelings, and I'm disappointed that this wasn't one of them.
This is a lot of Joss Whedon for a few weeks. In fact, not since Buffy/Angel/Firefly were on TV have I had so much JW storytelling in such a short amount of time. And it's funny because it reminds me in short order what I love (banter, and not as an afterthought, or intended to further a franchise) and hate (kickass female characters with infinite possibility for power and agency... until they don't) about his writing all at once. CitW and Avengers are some of his better work, but neither one is perfect.
ETA: Hemsworth, not Heimdall. :p I was so tired last night!
First of all, there was "The Cabin in the Woods": As I mentioned before, my trigger threshold was sorely tested by the presence of zombies, and torturing zombies at that. But I did not panic, and while I missed some of the more gruesome scenes, I was able to enjoy the rest of the movie, which really picked up at the moment when the two survivors managed to get into the underground HQ of the mechanism behind the whole twisted setup. The scene where all of the monsters in their boxes were revealed reminded me of the episodes of Buffy where we first see that the Initiative is housing a collection of vampires and demons from Sunnydale for study/nefarious purposes, and realize that their motives are horribly, stupidly suspect. The unnamed organization responsible for the death and gore in "Cabin" had a lot more to answer for, though, and answer they did. Bloodily and crazily. I never did quite figure out what the singing girl clad in white's capacity for murder was, but seeing her slowly make her way through the puddles of blood on the floor, and hearing her incoherent tune was chilling. (Also: death by unicorn! Entirely unexpected!)
A lot of people have been comparing this to "Scream" and while both movies are an exploration of what it means to be genre-savvy, at least CitW actually gave a damn about its characters. The Scream franchise people knew a lot about what was happening to them, but it didn't help them one bit. CitW's characters, once they realized what was truly at stake, were allowed to make a choice--a real choice--and to see what happened next. Most horror movies don't stick with me because of the choices the characters made, and CitW has been a pleasant exception in this way. I've thought about it in the days since in weird, little ways: when I see a collection of boxes that are too neatly stacked, or when there's some show on TV like "Antiques Roadshow" and I wonder what monster those items are the key to. Better than the slow burn that most horror movies usually give me where I'm super careful about locking the doors and/or avoiding particular items for weeks afterwards.
And then there was "The Avengers." Yeah, yeah, after all my grumbling about how I wasn't going to see this newfangled nonsense, you young people get off my lawn, etc. etc.,
yebsiu9 pulled out his most-excited voice and shiniest eyes and the reviews were decent enough that I didn't feel like I could refuse.
My favorite scene was the one at the very, very end, after the credits rolled. Without giving it away, I can safely say it's the sort of thing I normally have to go to fanfic for, and to have it as part of canon narrative... well, it's nice to know that other writers want to have the same sort of scenes I want to. :)
In short form:
* I was surprised to find myself liking Bruce Banner so much. The Hulk is not really on my list of favorite characters at all, but this script gave Banner a real personality, real talk with other characters, and a really good motivation, not just the usual "WOE" that he gets stuck with. Hell, Hulk even got onto my good side by smashing Loki around.
* Yay for interesting and strong characters like Maria Hill and Natasha/Black Widow! Now, couldn't they have had just one scene where they talked to each other about... something? What it's like to be a SHIELD agent? How the food is? Why they are both awesome?! ... Anything?
* Some of the fight scenes were so fast and poorly edited that I couldn't figure out what was going on at all. Bummer, especially considering the expensive and fairly good fight choreographer who'd evidently been hired.
* I would like to read a lot of well written, plotty H/C fanfic where Natasha and Clint both help each other deal with their respective mental issues and have some hot NC-17 times. Hell, I would also love to read more fanfic that was just like the last scene that I mentioned above.
* Yay for Pepper Potts cameo! I love the dynamic she has with Tony, and it was great to see that at least a few of the characters had lives outside of the action.
* Where the hell was the other space, and why was it so dark? I told Yebisu that I thought it was Lumpy Space (Adventure Time joke), just to see him roll his eyes in annoyance.
* I guess what I really wanted from this movie was a serious blown away feeling--the kind of experience where it doesn't matter that I was sitting in a seat that was a little broken, that I didn't really have too much investment in any of the characters before I went in, that everything just won me over and made me forget where I was. And I didn't feel like that. It was exciting and fun, a good summertime movie, with lots of little details, but I don't feel the overwhelming urge to go see it again or rush out and buy it on DVD. It could be that I was in the wrong frame of mind when I went, a fairly reasonable guess given that I've been feeling rather stressed and tired lately. But there have been other movies that succeeded in the face of my outside feelings, and I'm disappointed that this wasn't one of them.
This is a lot of Joss Whedon for a few weeks. In fact, not since Buffy/Angel/Firefly were on TV have I had so much JW storytelling in such a short amount of time. And it's funny because it reminds me in short order what I love (banter, and not as an afterthought, or intended to further a franchise) and hate (kickass female characters with infinite possibility for power and agency... until they don't) about his writing all at once. CitW and Avengers are some of his better work, but neither one is perfect.
ETA: Hemsworth, not Heimdall. :p I was so tired last night!