you named a pig after me?
my sister and i saw black widow today - in an actual movie theater! - and i liked it! it has a bunch of ridiculous fight scenes, making it fit in neatly with the rest of the mcu. in the very beginning before natasha and yelena embark on their quest to get the band back together reunite the fam and kill dreykov, natasha's wearing the arrow necklace from catws. and we finally find out what happened in budapest, altho i'm curious what she and clint remember differently. (does he remember winning all those games of tic-tac-toe when they were hiding in the air vents? because i somehow doubt he really did win them all.) and when melina asks nat how she kept her heart, all the years she was an assassin, i thought "she met clint". there were a comparative lot of references to him - ok, like three, but still, it felt like a lot - which set up for the very last scene and i'm guessing the hawkeye tv series. as an aside i like clint but i'm not sure he needs a series, altho i'm excited to see more of yelena, because i really liked her. the running gag about natasha's superhero pose - "such a poseur" - and the thing with the vest - it's the first item of clothing yelena has ever bought for herself, and it has pockets! so many useful pockets, you don't even know - were both adorable. i thought scarjo and florence pugh had some nice prickly sister chemistry. and they're both consistently wearing practical combat-y boots with sturdy soles and flat heels, rather than wedge heel boots. and neither of them is dressed especially sexy. like, natasha's "we're going to kill dreykov" bodysuit is pretty form-fitting but it's not second-skin tight, it's not unzipped halfway to her navel, and her tits aren't pushed up and out. ditto for yelena and melina. and alexei is, uh, well, he got fat. but the red guardian suit still fits! and he can still kick ass, kind of. (none of this is disparaging! i liked him a lot.)
i also liked that even tho there were several general references to cacw - which seemed to be there mostly to place black widow on the mcu timeline - none of the other avengers showed up. the only character from a previous movie was general ross, and only briefly at the beginning and end. altho at the end when mason gets nat a quinjet, my sister and i both half expected steve to be inside it. but i'm glad he wasn't. this wasn't an origin story - another thing i really appreciated about it - it was like an extended missing scene, and it wouldn't have made any sense for anyone else to appear.
millions and millions of years ago (like, mid 1980s) there was a british tv show called robin of sherwood - ray winstone played will scarlet. and everything i've seen him in since, i think of that. (i haven't had a working vcr in years, but somewhere in a box in my house is a vhs tape with the series finale on it.)
basically i enjoyed it a lot, ridiculousness notwithstanding. the plot even mostly made sense, allowing for, you know, movie science. we didn't see any good previews except for jungle cruise, with the rock and emily blunt, which looks dumb but fun. it's based on the disney ride, and you can argue whether or not that makes it a good preview. :D
after the movie my sister and i went to eat at a greek place around the corner from the theater, and even tho we sat outside like we've been doing for months, it still felt very normal. very before times. (the theater wasn't full but there were enough people for some good audience participation.)
also today was artbeat! surprise! they had maybe a third of the normal number of tables and there was no restaurant representation! usually several restaurants have tents. but no! which was very disappointing. i got some earrings (not pottery tho) and a cactus pin and got to pet some very cute and well behaved dogs. i saw a guy walk by with a dog in a backpack, and a little girl stood on her chair (she was sitting outside an actual restaurant with i assume her parents) and watched them walk by with literal heart eyes. she actually squeed. like, out loud. it was intensely cute. the dog looked like it would've been waving to the crowd if it had hands, which was also intensely cute.
i was going to move some shit around and unpack some boxes today but i had to do that instead. i think it was a fair use of my time. and there's always tomorrow.
the new leverage is here! i've seen the first episode and it feels very much like the old leverage, so i really liked it. there's little enough boston in it that i didn't feel a need to yell "boston does not look like that!" at the tv, altho to be fair leverage was never egregiously awful in its locationing. except for the one episode where eliot was supposed to be in the north end and there were TREES EVERYWHERE. LIKE HE WAS IN THE WOODS. (note for the non-bostonians and people who've never been to visit - the north end is the traditionally italian part of boston, and it's literally part of boston, by which i mean within city limits, by which i mean it's crowded, it's not in the woods, and it doesn't look like a suburban office park.) anyway. i probably found a nit to pick but the thing that made the bad guy a bad guy was very familiar and kinda local, and overall it was a very enjoyable hour.
i also liked that even tho there were several general references to cacw - which seemed to be there mostly to place black widow on the mcu timeline - none of the other avengers showed up. the only character from a previous movie was general ross, and only briefly at the beginning and end. altho at the end when mason gets nat a quinjet, my sister and i both half expected steve to be inside it. but i'm glad he wasn't. this wasn't an origin story - another thing i really appreciated about it - it was like an extended missing scene, and it wouldn't have made any sense for anyone else to appear.
millions and millions of years ago (like, mid 1980s) there was a british tv show called robin of sherwood - ray winstone played will scarlet. and everything i've seen him in since, i think of that. (i haven't had a working vcr in years, but somewhere in a box in my house is a vhs tape with the series finale on it.)
basically i enjoyed it a lot, ridiculousness notwithstanding. the plot even mostly made sense, allowing for, you know, movie science. we didn't see any good previews except for jungle cruise, with the rock and emily blunt, which looks dumb but fun. it's based on the disney ride, and you can argue whether or not that makes it a good preview. :D
after the movie my sister and i went to eat at a greek place around the corner from the theater, and even tho we sat outside like we've been doing for months, it still felt very normal. very before times. (the theater wasn't full but there were enough people for some good audience participation.)
also today was artbeat! surprise! they had maybe a third of the normal number of tables and there was no restaurant representation! usually several restaurants have tents. but no! which was very disappointing. i got some earrings (not pottery tho) and a cactus pin and got to pet some very cute and well behaved dogs. i saw a guy walk by with a dog in a backpack, and a little girl stood on her chair (she was sitting outside an actual restaurant with i assume her parents) and watched them walk by with literal heart eyes. she actually squeed. like, out loud. it was intensely cute. the dog looked like it would've been waving to the crowd if it had hands, which was also intensely cute.
i was going to move some shit around and unpack some boxes today but i had to do that instead. i think it was a fair use of my time. and there's always tomorrow.
the new leverage is here! i've seen the first episode and it feels very much like the old leverage, so i really liked it. there's little enough boston in it that i didn't feel a need to yell "boston does not look like that!" at the tv, altho to be fair leverage was never egregiously awful in its locationing. except for the one episode where eliot was supposed to be in the north end and there were TREES EVERYWHERE. LIKE HE WAS IN THE WOODS. (note for the non-bostonians and people who've never been to visit - the north end is the traditionally italian part of boston, and it's literally part of boston, by which i mean within city limits, by which i mean it's crowded, it's not in the woods, and it doesn't look like a suburban office park.) anyway. i probably found a nit to pick but the thing that made the bad guy a bad guy was very familiar and kinda local, and overall it was a very enjoyable hour.