Pretty fun movie. I was impressed by its comic-bookiness. The ending devolved into a rather generic comic-book-action-movie overblown chaos, but most of it before that was interesting visual ideas and strange, charming characters. I liked Bradley Cooper's voice acting for Rocket because it didn't sound like Bradley Cooper; he's actually a good cartoon voice actor who inhabits a character. The main character wasn't terribly interesting, but he was amusing and muscular enough to hold down the fort while the other weirdos circled around him. My favorite character was Drax. His mixture of intelligence, honesty, stupidity, and violence was compelling and hilarious.
What do I actually want to say about this movie? It was inventive and funny and the characters were good, and the graphics were good too. I read an article saying the success of this movie has established Marvel as a brand now, like Pixar. Now it's not Captain America who brings the audience in, it's Marvel, and they can do almost anything they want now. Sounds good to me. I think Disney's acquisition of Marvel is the best thing that ever happened to Marvel. More money is flowing though the Marvel brand than ever before. The warehouses of paper content that have been made at Marvel can now be turned into gigantic, popular spectacles, which is all they creators ever wanted, of course.
Monday, August 11, 2014
Friday, August 8, 2014
Game of Thrones (spoilers)
I watched a couple episodes of the fourth season of Game of Thrones this week. Here are the circumstances. I saw some stupid ad on the sidebar of a site, and it had a picture of Peter Dinklage with the caption "The 10 Most Shocking TV Deaths". I was pissed and figured the death of Tyrion had been spoiled. My friend told me something really shocking happened at the end of the fourth season that had people really upset, so I assumed it was that. I decided that I'd waited long enough, if I care about not getting spoiled I should watch the show now.
So, I streamed it, which is really easy. I watched the first episode and was reminded why I don't like Game of Thrones. It's corny and pornographic. The violence is fascinating in its explicitness, and of course grotesque. But what strikes me the most is the emotional remove the show has from its events. The environment is mythical, but it doesn't have the weight of myth. It's escapist. It has a kind of cynical sentimentality that turns the whole thing into a spectacle. Everything is sex or violence, and occasionally tragic violence.
I didn't care enough to sit through all the season's plot mechanics, so I skipped to the second to last episode (because cable shows always put the climax in the penultimate episode of the season) and lo and behold, it was like I hadn't missed anything. They set up the battle between the wildlings and the Nightwatch in the first episode, and then paid it off at the end, yet I could tell everything in between was vamping. So, that episode was all big action, and it was good as a big action scene. Then the tragic death of Ygritte. It is impressive the cynical tragedies that are set up. Then the next episode was all blah blah, and it end up Tyrion didn't die. I wasn't spoiled after all. The thing about the show is that it's not that good. It's all spectacle and tragedy and that's it. It's not funny, it's crude. It's not touching, it's sentimental. The most it succeeds at (exceedingly though) is to create protagonists and kill them, and leave you in the void for a while while the narrative finds another anchor. That contingent storytelling is impressive because you truly don't know what's going to happen, when anyone could die at any moment. It's an interesting narrative effect. For me it's nothing more than that.
So, I streamed it, which is really easy. I watched the first episode and was reminded why I don't like Game of Thrones. It's corny and pornographic. The violence is fascinating in its explicitness, and of course grotesque. But what strikes me the most is the emotional remove the show has from its events. The environment is mythical, but it doesn't have the weight of myth. It's escapist. It has a kind of cynical sentimentality that turns the whole thing into a spectacle. Everything is sex or violence, and occasionally tragic violence.
I didn't care enough to sit through all the season's plot mechanics, so I skipped to the second to last episode (because cable shows always put the climax in the penultimate episode of the season) and lo and behold, it was like I hadn't missed anything. They set up the battle between the wildlings and the Nightwatch in the first episode, and then paid it off at the end, yet I could tell everything in between was vamping. So, that episode was all big action, and it was good as a big action scene. Then the tragic death of Ygritte. It is impressive the cynical tragedies that are set up. Then the next episode was all blah blah, and it end up Tyrion didn't die. I wasn't spoiled after all. The thing about the show is that it's not that good. It's all spectacle and tragedy and that's it. It's not funny, it's crude. It's not touching, it's sentimental. The most it succeeds at (exceedingly though) is to create protagonists and kill them, and leave you in the void for a while while the narrative finds another anchor. That contingent storytelling is impressive because you truly don't know what's going to happen, when anyone could die at any moment. It's an interesting narrative effect. For me it's nothing more than that.
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