Things I’ve Been Watching (October 2017)

Here are some of the shows I’ve been looking at this month. There’s a lot of releases, and I can’t keep up with a lot of them, but I’ll watch what I can and get back to you on what I thought about them.

The Gifted Season Premiere

I’m simply not in the mood for this show, and I’m fed up with this type of plot, now. It’s loosely based on some of the X-Men and New Mutants comic books, in that it has some Sentinel plotline, and some of the characters from those groups. Stephen Moyer stars as a lawyer who used to prosecute mutant criminals, and  the father of two young mutants, now on the run from the government, which is rounding up mutants and imprisoning them in scientific camps.

I tried watching the first episodes, and while I like a couple of the characters, the show is simply not compelling enough to keep me watching it every week. The characters have the usual teenage angst, with superpowers, that made me dislike the First X-Men movie. Blink is a teenager who can teleport by creating portals, and Thunderbird, who is Native American, is a kind of tracker of people and things. I’m dismayed that the show used the Native American tracker stereotype, as that’s nothing like Thunderbird’s actual powers in the books, which consists of speed and strength.

And I’m just not here for yet another plotline of people with superpowers being rounded up and used by the government. This seems to be the only plotline they can come up with for superpowered characters, especially on TV, and once again, there is only the focus on how this affects White, suburban, middle-class families.

Just like with the show Heroes, there is no focus on how the discovery of superpowers would affect any marginalized communities, something I would consider much more entertaining, and which the show Cleverman handled with a certain amount of depth. As I complained about before, we keep getting stories about middle-class White characters being subjected to the same oppressions that have been visited on marginalized communities. This show would have had far more depth and been much more interesting if it had been set in the G/L community,  or the Black and Latinx communities, in which this type of interment is already occurring.

In the forties, the Japanese were rounded up in internment camps because they were considered a danger to the US, and later, authorities used to raid the gay and lesbian communities and lock them in jails with the full force of legal authority behind them. Today, its immigration officials grabbing random Brown people out of their homes, and locking them up on suspicion of being illegal immigrants. What do you want to bet that none of these things will be addressed in yet another show where we see average White people being treated in the same manner?

 

Legends of Tomorrow

I’m looking forward to this new season. I really enjoyed the season premiere, which was a lot of fun and addressed a couple of cliffhangers from last season. This season will also introduce one of my favorite characters. Constantine.

Constantine’s show was something of a bust, but I think he’ll fit right in on this ensemble show, because he just works better when interacting with other super powered, snarky,  characters, and yes, the writers have promised to keep his canonical bi-sexuality intact, something which was never addressed in his own show.

Also, returning this season is Captain Cold, played by the very candilicious, Wentworth Miller.I always loved his dynamic with Heatwave (yeah, I totally ship those two) and I’m looking forward to the two of them meeting again, especially after Cold sacrificed his life to save the team, in a previous season.

I generally like all the characters on this show. My top favorite is Firestorm. I remember reading those comics as a kid, and briefly again in the 90s. He’s an interesting binary character of an older White man named Stein, and a Black teenager named Jackson, and I love the friendship that has developed between the two of them. The show has managed to carefully avoid the stereotype of the Black brute, who is nothing but the muscle in their relationship, by making Jackson an engineering genius, with Stein as his mentor. so naturally, Stein will be leaving the show later this season. I wonder who Jackson’s new partner will be.

I least like Black Canary, but I think that has more to do with the actress, because I like the version from the comic books just fine.

In the last season, the Legends broke the world by causing a set of time anomalies, which caused them to get kicked out of their spaceship. We open the episode with them leading normal lives on Earth. Black Canary is working, unhappily, in a department store, and Jackson is attending college. Stein appears to be the only happy one, spending time with the daughter he never knew he had, from another timeline. Heatwave, played by Dominic Purcell, is also having the time of his life, vacationing on the beaches of Aruba, before he is attacked by Julius Caesar, another time anomaly.

The team gets called back together to fix the problems they caused with all their time travelling last season. This show airs after The Flash, which is absolutely perfect, since I’m really starting to like The Flash a lot more, and have started regularly watching that.

 

 

Brooklyn 99

When we last left The 99 last season, Jake and Rosa were sent to prison, for a crime they didn’t commit, by a corrupt cop. When we meet up with them at the beginning of the new season, the two of them are not adjusting well to their situation. Jake’s roommate is a cannibal, played by Tim Meadows, (he is extremely funny), but we don’t get much insight into Rosa’s situation. We spend most of our time with Jake, as he tries not to get outed as a cop by the Warden, who is trying to capture a drug smuggling ring, run by Lou Diamond-Phillips. I liked the guest stars more than I liked Jake in these episodes, and I hope to see more of Lou Diamond’s character in the future. He so rarely gets to do comedies, and I think he’s hilarious here.

Amy and Charles are working hard to find proof that Jake and Rosa were set up and come up with zany schemes to do this, even though Charles thinks his podcast about Jake should be enough to free him. One of the funnier running gags is that he invited Terry on the podcast, but the interview wasn’t successful, and Terry is confused about why.

By the end of the second episode, all is well in the Kingdom of 99, Jake and Amy have been reunited, Charles can give up his podcast, and well, Rosa remains very much Rosa. I normally do not watch shows about cops, (as I consider all of them to be thinly veiled propaganda about the inherent goodness of law enforcement), but I will make an exception for a really great, or funny show, and Brooklyn 99, along with the very politically incorrect Reno 911, are worth the watch.

 

The Exorcist Season Two

Well, I think its too much to say this is an enjoyable show, because its supposed to be scary, but it does star John Cho as one of the shows leads. The show does have some issues though. I’m not at all interested in the storyline of the two priests who have made off with the possession victim from last season, and the gruff speaking victim gets on my nerves after about thirty seconds, but fortunately her onscreen time can be easily ignored. I just pretend I’m really engrossed in my knitting when she’s on the screen.

John Cho’s storyline is far more interesting, as he stars as the father figure for a home of orphans with severe trauma issues. The home is being visited and assessed for its level of care by an old flame of John’s, so the show is killing it in the Asian representation column, as this role is being played by an actress named Li Jun Li, and I’ve become very invested in their relationship, although I do fear for the life of the young lady, because TV loves to kill off  Asian characters, and that actress isn’t especially well known. The last time we saw Jun Li, she was the coroner from the show Minority Report, and was dressed like a Rave victim.

Well, inconveniently there’s some spooky happenings at the house and the kids are acting up and misbehaving in ways they didn’t before she came there, which increases the tension between her and John’s character as he wonders if she can be fair to him, especially taking into account their dramatic past together.

I’m looking forward to the rest of this season because its so rare to see Asian Americans as stars in a horror show. Actually, this show is pretty good about diversity, and a sensitive portrayal of children with various disabilities. The disabilities are not the source of any of the horror (some outside force is) so that’s another stereotype that’s been upended.  Its not as hysterically over the top as American Horror Story, so I’m able to get caught up in the mystery without getting a headache, and the characters are all mostly likable.

 

The Flash

I’m just really starting to get into this show. I watched most of last season and understood maybe half of what was happening, but I did like the characters, which is what mostly draws me into a show. My favorite characters are Iris, and Cisco, and I got to see a lot of both of them in the season premiere, although I like all of the characters on the show except Caitlin Snow. That actress acts like she’s in a different show altogether, but she has good chemistry with the other characters, so I can tolerate her.

Can I just say how much I genuinely love Iris. She is by every definition of the term, a  rare flower. She’s gorgeous, graceful, intelligent, and heavily reminds me of Nichelle Nichols version of Uhura, an example of the kind of woman I wanted to be as a child. I hate to say this, because I really like Barry, but she is waaaay too good for him. I also love that Iris is a Black woman, because it’s so rare that Black women get to be loved, sacrificed for, or  damseled in mainstream media, and I am here for it. She also gets some really nice speeches during the episode.

Last season, Barry sacrificed himself to save the love of his every existence, and entered what is known as The Speed Force. I think its the source of his powers or something. I’m not too clear on that. Anyway Cisco comes up with a way to save him, but the Barry that comes back to Earth is deeply confused and unintelligible. The entire situation is complicated by a supposed new enemy, come to challenge Barry, a Samurai with a sword that causes earthquakes. The entire crew needs to save Barry, so he can save the city.

I’m looking forward to this new season as I’ve heard that Ralph Dibney’s Elongated Man will be featured on the show. I used to read  his comics as a kid.  Harrison Wells will be making another appearance, too, along with a character played by Danny Trejo. Katee Sackoff is also supposed to show up as a supervillain, I think. Killer Frost has already put in an appearance in this first episode, and this season is supposed to have a lighter tone than the last, which I think all superhero shows could use a dose of.

So, I’m in, I guess.

 

The Orville

I’ve been watching this off and on.. Its still rather uneven n tone, but hopefully it will settle down into what it wants to be by the end of the season. Its not a bad show but it wavers between wanting to be a comedy, with some rather juvenile humor, a drama relationship, and a space opera, and these three things while done effectively, are not meshing well with each other. The switches between styles can be jarring and obvious.

Seth McFarlane’s presence does bring in the guest stars, though. We got a Charlize Theron guest shot, and a cameo from Liam Neeson, which was pretty cool. I kinda like most of the characters, but the surprise for me was the ex-wife and  First Officer, played by Adrianne Palicki. Her, and most of the other women, are the  smartest people on the show. Most of the guys are well… kinda weird, and not too bright, but I like them anyway. There’s a metal robot, and an alien with a same sex husband, and so far the show has been very respectful of the two of them, treating them just like any other couple on the ship. I’m not sure this counts as gay representation though, since they’re both aliens from a mono-gendered  planet.

Its not a bad show. Or rather, not as bad as I thought it was going to be because I was a little dubious about McFarlane being on the show and he and I don’t share the same humor. We still don’t, but so far he hasn’t done anything to actually upset me, so I’m inclined to keep watching.

 

American Horror Story

I’ve pretty much stopped watching this. I’m just not in the frame of mind to consider it entertaining right now, even though it may well be for some people.

 

Outlander

I’m a lot less interested in Claire’s life in the fifties and sixties then I am in her life in the past, which is how this season has begun. In order to raise their chid in safety Claire has gone back to her own time period to raise her little girl. Her current husband has issues with this of course but is willing to wrap his head around the fact that his wife has two very different lives, and that her child is not his. That’s a lot to ask of a man, but he seems to be down for all this.

There’s slightly less Jaime in the opening episodes of this season, so I’m not really as invested as I normally would be. I generally do not like romances, and I haven’t read any of the books this show is based on, but I actually like the show for the romance between Claire and Jaime. Go figure! I guess I’m just a sucker for a period romance, I guess.

 

Forthcoming

This weekend is the debut of the show Mindhunter by David Fincher on Netflix. I’ll definitely be watching it, as its based on one of John Douglas’ non-fiction books on serial killer profiling. I’ve read all of his books as he makes the topic very accessible. Also I like David Fincher. The Atlantic review is here:

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/10/mindhunter-review-netflix/542781/

 

My review for the first few episodes will be next week along with my long form review of Bladerunner 2049.

I was supposed to see The Mountain Between Us with Mum, but she changed her mind, the night before, and kicked me out of the house to go see what I wanted, all by myself. I really enjoyed Bladerunner, and have a lot of feelings, and thinky-thoughts about it. My review is in two parts, covering the plot and characters, in comparison to the first film and the book, and then, in part two, some of the technical stuff, like the cinematography, music, and themes.

 

Amended to add: The Supernatural Fox Sisters have a thread up on Twitter listing 31 Horror movies that feature Black women, and rather than review The Thing vs The Thing, I think I’m going to review a few of these movies instead, as some of them are my favorites exactly because there are Black women in them as the main characters.

http://www.graveyardshiftsisters.com/2017/09/watch-31-horror-movies-starring-black.html

I chose five of these movies from the list to review. I’ll surprise you with which ones.

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Last Week Tonite On Tumblr

Generally happy stuff to start off your week, especially if you haven’t heard some things yet:

Movie News

The first official trailer for Pacific Rim is LIT!!! Hollywood is killing it with the music for these trailers, but I do have to remind them that just because a movie has Black people in it doesn’t mean you need to put rap music in the trailer. Some of us recognize different musical styles, although I realize that the soundtrack can go a long way towards getting a certain type of Black guy into the theater, (namely that no account Pooky from down the street.)

I love that we get to hear Boyega’s natural accent again in an action film. I’m definitely taking my niece to see this because she loved Mako Mori in the first movie, and John Boyega was her first movie boyfriend. This movie also heavily reminds me of The Power Rangers, only for grownups, because its more violent. (I’m pretty sure there’s also lots more of the cussing.)

Boyega stars as Jake Pentacost, the son of the late Stacker, who gets called into Jaeger service, from his underworld criminal lifestyle ,by his adopted sister, Mako.

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I’m really looking forward to the reboot of The Predator franchise because it has a long history of racial progressiveness. The first movie featured the first time team up of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Carl Weathers, and I guess the makes realized they had a good thing going, because the second film starred Danny Glover ,as the hero of the movie, and Maria Conchita Alonso, who gets to live to the end of the movie. The third movie, Alien Vs Predator starred Sanaa Lathan, a Black woman as the hero of that movie and it’s one of my favorite Predator films, naturally. 

It’s interesting that as many tropes about race have been created in the horror genre, it’s also been a genre that’s been very progressive in its treatment of women, and characters of color, allowing them to be heroes and heroines, allowing them to be the stars, and sometime save the day, or the Earth. But this version of Predator appears to be more mainstream and there’s always tropes in mainstream movies.

Its as if mainstream movies know no other language beyond the visual shorthand of stereotypes (or maybe mainstream writers are just a bunch of lazy fucks who are unwilling to think outside the box). Namely The Black Guy Dies First Trope, and The Smurfette Syndrome.

Mainstream movies simply don’t have  track record for subverting tropes that the Horror genre does, and I’ve noticed, the more mainstream a horror movie  franchise becomes, the less likely it is to star a PoC, or have the woman be the primary character. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, just a trend I noticed.

I do blame the original Nights of the Living Dead for this. Something of George Romero’s liberal sensibilities in the making of that movie (and casting a Black man as the lead), has made its way into the genre.

Also, I just love Keegan Michael Key and want to see him defeat a Predator.

Keegan-Michael Key Joining Shane Black’s ‘The Predator’ (Exclusive)

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/predator-keegan-michael-key-joins-shane-blacks-reboot-961207

 

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I thought this was a really interesting article about casting more than one Black person per movie. Now if we can get to the point where we can cast more than one gay person per film, or one woman per action  movie, or hey! let’s get all wild and shit and put two, count ’em! TWO, women of color in one mainstream movie, and let them interact with each other. 

I know, it’s crazy right?!!!

 

Chadwick Boseman And Sterling K. Brown Remember When There Could Only Be One Black Actor In A Movie

“The opportunities are not so scarce. And that’s an important moment to note.”

https://www.buzzfeed.com/jarettwieselman/chadwick-boseman-and-sterling-k-brown-remember-when-there?utm_term=.jfaWKG0qQ#.wavvWkD5R

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Here is the official trailer for the live action version of Tokyo Ghoul. I’ve heard that Hollywood is planning an all out assault on Manga with live action movies of some very famous books. My stomach dropped as soon as I heard that because nobody, and I mean NOBODY, is asking for Americanized versions of Full Metal Alchemist and Akira. ( I swear to Gob, if Akira does not star Osric Chau, I’m gonna personally send J J Abrams a strongly worded letter suggesting that he go fuck himself!) Now these movies have not been cast yet, but hopefully, they learned their fucking lesson from the handful of whitewashed flops in the past few years. 

Yes, it looks almost as terrifying as the anime!

Note to Hollywood:

Please, stop removing Asian people from the stories they created, and cast them as the main protagonists!!!!!

People who are fans of these stories are well used to seeing Asian faces, and some of us have a pretty large pantheon of Asian, and Asian American actors they enjoy watching. We do not read anime, or read Manga, so that we can see White people. If we wanted to see White people in Asian influenced media, we’d just watch your whitewashed dreck!

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This is why Osric Chau needs to be in any live action version of Akira. Here he is  in a (kind of) fan made trailer of The Akira Project. This is AWESOME!!!!

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The Twitter and Tumblr response to this article had me cackling the whole week. I mean, how do you reach a point in your emotional development, where you have had your ass beat by this person 18 times, and you still out here signing checks your ass can’t cash, even when you cheat.

Maria Sharapova’s Rivalry With Serena Williams Is In Her Head

Sharapova’s new memoir suggests that she still can’t seem to accept the reality that her whiteness is not enough to compensate for her own failings.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/bimadewunmi/maria-sharapovas-rivalry-with-serena-williams-is-in-her-head?utm_term=.jpMJEzJvw#.mjQPrOPmB

sekushionyanko-blog

She’s not good enough at tennis to have a rivalry with Serena. You have to be able to sometimes be able to beat someone for it to be a rivalry as opposed to a regularly scheduled ass whoopin’.

sauvamente

It’s never a rivalry if you’ve only beaten someone two times and they’ve beaten you 18 times in a row and badly Serena has decimated this woman for a decade-plus there is no rivalry it’s only Domination by Serena, Maria knows that but pride mixed with delusion is a motherfucker

jamaicanblackcastoroil

that’s like me having a rivalry with bill gates lmao

 

ithotyouknew2

I have a rivalry with Beyoncé

 

creativerule34hentai

It’s like I had a rivalry with god by throwing rocks at the sky.

 sauvamente

Sharap it’s over needs to put the meth pipe down and face reality. She’s shit and a cheat. Retire.

 pinkcheesegreenghost

Even illegal, performance enhancing drugs wasn’t enough to keep her from losing 18 times

 stayingwoke

18-2. That’s 90%. I don’t even have a 90% win rate in closing a car door all the way.

 

my-friends-call-me-lol

I have a rivalry with the sky, nothing can be higher than me.

 btheadventurer

Serena don’t give a fuck bout her. She’s literally has beef with her imagination.

 

 

 

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*Okay , here’s some commentary on why dystopian apocalypse wardrobes always seem to consist of bondage and fetish gear. Personally I blame Mad Max for starting that trend, but this person has another theory on this very important issue:

snakegay

why does so much post apocalypse media have people wearing straight up bdsm/fetish gear like. do the kinksters watch the world ending and think “oh boy i can wear my bondage gear in public now”

 

broliloquy

What I wanna know is why the spiky kink warriors are always the bad evil marauders. They might be into some weird shit and unafraid to show it but that doesn’t mean they want to go around killing dudes. They’re a tight-knit bunch. A lot of them are queer. They understand the importance of community.

If the government collapses and all laws come to an end, the people rampaging around killing and looting are gonna be like, frat boys and 4chan rejects. You can mistrust the bondage raiders all you like but they’re definitely the ones you’re going to run to for help when the neoliberal blood cultists and Nazi meme demons lay siege to your survivor enclave. There’s gonna be gayboy berserkers busting up slaver gangs and burning down warboy frat houses. The assless-chaps leather daddies and weird petplay people are gonna be the accidental peacekeepers of the post-apocalyptic world just because they’re the only motherfuckers who understand the importance of consent anymore.

Listen. Don’t come to me asking how to get the secret cadre of bisexual death commandos to protect your wretched tent village if you’re scared that we might call in the kinksters for backup. I don’t give a shit if they dress up like dogs and spend all day writing poems about butt plugs. There’s assholes out there acting like Vlad the Impaler on a meth bender and you’re afraid of seeing a nipple. Fuck you. If you really want to get rid of the MRA death gangs you’re going to have to accept that a lesbian chainsaw dominatrix or two might be involved. It’s the fucking post-apocalypse my guy we gotta weigh our priorities here

 

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I love these Gothic Fables :

Black Diaspora Gothic

your mother tells you to go find something for her. it’s not there. when she goes looking for it, it reappears, just where she said it was.

this woman is your auntie. that man is your uncle. you have too many aunties and uncles to remember. you haven’t seen them, but they all have seen you. you know, when you were no bigger than THIS?

 

fishnbanjos

You start to notice that your mom actually does look like one of your little friends. Too much. More and more each day.

You do have ____ money, but you don’t know where it is coming from. It’s just that every time you put your hand in your pocket you have just the right money you need.

 

You buy a tin of brand new cookies. When you open it there are only sewing supplies. Tin after tin there are only sewing supplies. You continuously have cookie money, but there are no more cookies.

 

otahkoapisiakii

you are walking down the street. you spot your favorite cousin and wave in greeting. but wait – she has a friend with her. the friend is also your cousin. he smiles. you have never seen this man in your life. it’s fine. family is family.he waves at someone behind you. it’s your cousin. your cousin waves. the legion of cousins waves

as a child, the sizzle of a hot comb or the burn of a relaxer has desensitized yet traumatized you. you tell yourself there’s food at the house just when you think about heading down to wendy’s. there’s always food at the house

1. nightshadepaladin the-afro-argonaut

   you take the chicken out of the freezer.your mother calls. did you take the chicken out of the freezer? of course you did – but the counter is bare. you take the chicken out of the freezer.did you take the chicken out of the freezer? of course you did. you do a double-take. there is no chicken. there is no freezer.<i>did you take the chicken out of the freezer?
   whatevercomesupcomesout 

   You think you might be suffering from amnesia … You could have sworn you just took the chicken out of the freezer but each time you go back to check on it thawing you find it right back in the ice box. Maybe you just imagined taking it out. But this feels like the third or fourth time.. Also, hasn’t the clock read 4:15 each time you remember coming in to take it out? Just 45 minutes before mom is due home. Theres nooo way it’s going to thaw in that amount of time…

   butpersephoneitsspring

   you open a tub of ice cream and find rice. you open another, and find chicken; you open yet a third, and find stew. was there ever ice cream in the house? does ice cream exist at all? you don’t know.

   aphonicgod

   that girl? she your 5th cousin twice removed. both your parents got 5+ siblings and those siblings each have 3-5 kids. your great grandparents had 15+ kids and 10+ siblings. that random guy who says hi to you is actually your 3rd cousin his name is Jackson. say hi.

   meanmisscharles 

    

   Your mom’s always asking you if you think she looks like Booboo The Fool. You’ve never met this person, but you instinctively know that the answer should be no. One day your mom looks a little different. Is it her, or is it Booboo?
    proto-homo

   Your mother tells you not to play in your nice clothes. After school you come home and take off your nice clothes and replace them with your play clothes.While out playing with some friends you fall into some mud. You look down and you’re still in your nice clothes. Not the other ones your switched into.In the distance you hear the distinct snap of a switch being made.

    

   lkeke35 

   You remember there’s food at the house just before you decide to go to Wendy’s. There’s always food at the house. The food is always freshly made and hot, and although there’s a huge variety to choose from, it’s always the same dishes. Cornbread, yams, potatoes, fried chicken, biscuits, green beans, a variety of side dishes but only ever one kind of meat: chicken.You’ve never seen anyone cooking in this house. You know the people in it have full time jobs, but the food is always ready no matter the time of day…or night.
   augustdementhe 

   You are not The One. Your mother is not The One.No one knows The One.But everyone knows The One is somewhere.Everyone knows The One is waiting. And if someone finds The One…Pray no one ever does.

   isisnicole 

   You are told to fix your face or it will be fixed for you. My face is a part of your face so are you fixing your face also? You fix your face does my face get fixed at the same time?

   stsathyre intheindigo

   There’s just a little clap of thunder, not even full applause. Turn off the TV. Turn off the lights. Don’t touch the phone. Stay out of the tub. Whatever you were watching will never be seen or heard from again.

   You go outside to play, but you can’t come back in, because you smell like outside. You smell like an abandoned baby bird. Not her baby bird. How does one smell like inside again? Somehow you get dinner.

   Your mother had a dream. She calls every family member living or dead.

   fantasticallyvicious sauvamente

   grandma says “stop runnin in and out of my house.” grandma says “close the door you lettin all the cool air out.”every time you open one door, a different but similar grandma waits, demanding that you close the next portal to their worlds.

   spookiest-star iridessence

   You hear your mom call your name from another room. You respond only to be met with silence. You immediately get up and start running to find your mom, knowing she expects you in front of her ASAP. The silence is deafening. You hear your name called again, this time with a sharper tone. You’re not sure where the voice is coming from but you run around, only finding empty rooms. Again, your name is called with the ferocity of nails on a chalkboard and you panic. Your mother’s voice carries…
    stonecoldfemme

   You open the Danish cookie tin and find sewing supplies. Your trust has been broken. You have never seen the tins in the store, and when you finally do, you are afraid to look inside. Who are these people that create sewing tins with cookies on them?

   karnythia cypheroftyr

   There was a party. You made yourself a plate to take home. It was not enough food. It is never enough food. Even though you cooked too, the ribs made by someone you don’t know are the best you have ever had.

    karnythia

   the women have been doing your hair since you could sit up. the hands in your head are both familiar and new at the same time. each touch is a memory handed down from women for generations. out of the corner of your eye you see your mother’s mother’s mother’s behind you. stay still. don’t cry. tenderheadedness is a fault. you must suffer to be respectable, black girl child, the hot comb smells of seared ear skin.

    

    angelsscream

   Your fave Auntie makes the best potato salad. She is designated potato salad maker by the family. You get to the cookout, your fave Auntie couldn’t come and your not fave auntie made the potato salad.

    boolyphyll

   Your mother tells you to take the chicken out of the freezer before she gets home. You take out the chicken. You take out more chicken. The chicken never ends, the freezer is full of chicken, and only chicken. She gets home, everything you brought up and put on the counter is not the chicken. She is furious.

   psammoma 

   Your mother tells you to do the dishes. The sink is empty, the dishwasher is empty. You search the house for dishes. You own no dishes. You don’t remember owning any dishes. What are dishes? Who are they? Your mother screams at you to do the dishes. “What dishes?” You cry. “ALL THESE RIGHT HERE!” She screams, pointing at the sink. The dishwasher. The counters. There are no dishes. But you do the dishes.
    

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The X-Men

I’ve been reading the X-Men comics since the 80s and I can fully attest that this is generally true. This really is what most of the plots were in the 80s and 90s. I stopped reading the books in the late 90s, but I imagine this is still true:

A Complete Listing of All The Plots of the X-Men Comic Books

cykelops

– vampires vs xmen
– god damn it where is [insert xmen]
– youre a better leader. no youre a better leader. no youre a better leader. no youre a b…
– someone dies
– someone comes back to life
– THE XMEN GO TO SPACE
– magneto is in the yard and wont leave

 

dryadgurrl

– Time for the annual kidnapping (either Mags and Charlie or Sabretooth and Logan, occasionally others)
– House blowing up builds character
– Put that thing back where it came from or so help me

 

orchidbreezefc

-i came back from the future because you need to stop

-your best friend turns out to be mystique

-hey look some new x kids, time to ignore the ones we already had for the rest of *checks watch* forever

-the x men are DISBANDED!!!!!

-alternate universe babies

-your best friend turns out to be a clone/xorn/psychic projection

 

postcardsfromspace

-well i guess it was Mr. Sinister all along

-fuck the Summers family

-no seriously fuck the Summers family

-i quit the x-men but normal life sucks

-just like the last time but i guess kind of grittier

-fuck the Summers family… IN SPACE

-wellp i guess Charles faked his own death again

-goddamnit Hank don’t put that there

 

shobogan

– who the fuck is possessed this time

– the villain is in love with storm but who can blame them

– goddammit give me my body back you’re using it WRONG

– somehow we’ve ended up in a fetish club, let’s just go with it

– we’re revamping the uniforms again! deal with it logan

– our powers are gone! now they’re back! now i’ve got someone else’s!

– who wants more trauma? too late, you’re getting it

– the phoenix force is tired

 

@@

Introverts

Seriously, this speaks to me for some reason:

@@

Disability

*As a person with one of those unpredictable disabilities, where I have good days and bad days, I just found this post hilarious. Yes, I have wanted to say these things to able-bodied people:

crpl-pnk

you ever realize how able bodied people just are not expected to do things that cause them excruciating physical pain? like they’re just. not

if i shouldn’t use my cane because i can sometimes technically walk without it, it would just hurt like a motherfucker then abled people should no longer be allowed to use potholders to take things out of the oven because i mean

well they could technically pick up a hot pan with their bare hands. it would just hurt like a motherfucker

 

crpl-pnk

*sees an abled person using potholders*

i just think it’s really sad that you’re giving up on yourself like that

 

adventures-in-asexuality

*abled person rests the day after they sprained an ankle*

‘oh come on you can’t just lie in bed. it won’t get better if you don’t run around! get up and help me!’

*abled person uses protective eyewear when handling dangerous chemicals*

‘sweetie why would you limit yourself like that.’

*abled person wears shoes*

‘some people are MUCH WORSE OFF THAN YOU and they don’t wear stupid things like shoes! stop pretending that it hurts to tread on broken glass’

 

@@

*The Defenders

Really, I actually liked The Defenders, but this post is an incredibly accurate description of each of these character’s approaches to problems:

The Defenders: How Shall We Get to the Boardroom?

Danny “White Privilege” Rand: Shows up in a suit, gets escorted in by security.

Luke “Harlem’s Hero” Cage: Busting in like the Kool-Aid Man

Matthew “Vigilantism as an addiction metaphor” Murdock:unnecessary staircase parkour with a scarf on his face

*Jessica Goddamn Jones: Takes the fucking elevator like a normal-ass person, what is wrong with you people.

Star Trek Discovery S01E03 Review: Context Is for Kings — The Supernatural Fox Sisters

In “Context Is For Kings,” we finally get to meet the namesake of Star Trek: Discovery. The U.S.S. Discovery is a brand new ship on a mysterious mission. It’s a scientific vessel, but with locked lab doors and black alerts. And it may hold the secret to winning the war against the Klingons.

via Star Trek Discovery S01E03 Review: Context Is for Kings — The Supernatural Fox Sisters

 

I did not watch this particular episode except in a couple of snippets online. It was very uncomfortable viewing, but I guess that was meant to be like that. I didn’t expect Michael to receive warm welcomes on the Discovery, but I was dismayed at the shitty behavior displayed by the rest of the crew towards her and wanted to “Force Choke” every single one of them, including her roommate. I understand their feelings about her, but it still felt and looked bad, and I’m not used to that level of sneering contempt from a Star Trek crew, (although the STNG crew was occasionally pretty snobbish.)

On the other hand, it does make for great drama, so I guess that was the point. I liked this review though, which gives a great overview of the episode, without any spoilers, which is totally unlike my overly-detailed ramblings. I can’t watch the show, but I ‘ll watch the snippets, and forward these lovely reviews from the Supernatural Fox Sisters.

Star Trek Discovery

So I did watch the first and second episodes of this show, but I won’t be watching any more of them, I guess, because the show sits behind a paywall. In order to watch Discovery in the US you have to subscribe to a streaming channel called CBS All Access, the first week of which is free. Also, I can’t watch this on my TV, because I can’t add any channels to it.  The streaming channels are preset on my DVD player too, so I can only watch it on my Ipad, or at my computer, which is inconvenient for me.

Now, I generally don’t watch network television anyway, that is the top four networks of  Fox, CBS, ABC, and NBC. I don’t watch them because their programming isn’t particularly interesting to me, and I’m extremely wary of liking a show, only to see it get canceled after one season. I’ve been burned waay too many times by  network TV.

I subscribed to CBS All Access, but after scrolling through the shows available on the streaming network, I figured out that I was really just paying for each episode of Star Trek, (like about 2 or 3 bucks an episode, which isn’t bad, but still) and decided to unsubscribe. It’s not a bad price per episode, as the six dollar fee is only once a month, and there are three or four episodes per month, but there is literally nothing else I watch on that network. Maybe later I’ll change my mind, so I can binge watch all eight of them during the hiatus in December.

Star Trek Discovery is a very different show for CBS. They have no track record for diversity, either. In fact most of their lineup seems to consist of  mediocre detective style shows, of which the only interesting one is Elementary (Lucy Liu is a goddess!), which I can watch reruns of anywhere else, including at my library. So basically, Discovery is like nothing else on that network.

After watching the first two episodes, I decided that I did indeed like the show, but I’m going to have to forgo this  pleasure until later. I’m also to understand that the rest of the season will be a whole new animal from the pilot, although from the trailers it still looks  pretty good.

 

 

 

What I Liked:

Soniqua Martin-Green (Michael Rainsford) naturally  gets a lot of screen time, as the show’s lead. A lot of the episode rests on her shoulders and I feel confident that she is  up to the job. She turned in a very strong performance. I had a few quibbles about some of her character’s decisions during the episode, but the show was suspenseful and compelling, only requiring a little tweaking, for consistency.

I loved everything about Michael and it was a real joy watching her and the captain banter with each other. We don’t get to meet any of the rest of the crew really, and there’s a reason for that. We won’t be seeing any more of them beyond Saru (the alien scientist played by Doug Jones.) Another thing I like is that there is quite a contingent of White women who seem to really like Michael too, and are coming to bat for her.

The only people who seemingly hate the show, and nitpick every single tiny detail, so as to do so, appear to be White men, and I expected as much from the ones online, because they stay disappointing me on the regular. (Its funny! The real life White guys are know are some of the nicest, most considerate people. Are they even the same species  as the ones online?)

The plot of the first two episodes is basically background stuff for Michael’s character for the rest of the season. We’re introduced to the person she was so we can get to know and understand the person she will be. Michael is orphaned during a Klingon attack on an outpost and is adopted by James Frain’s Sarek. (You may remember Frain as the vampire who was obsessed Tara Thornton in the show True Blood.) I like Frain’s version of Sarek. I liked the other versions too, but Frain’s version seems less stiff and formal. He seems like the type of man who is just very used to being comfortable around humans, while still remaining uncompromisingly Vulcan. My favorite moment is him whispering “Behave!” to his young charge just before he leaves her alone with Gheorghiu, because that’s such a ‘parent- type’ thing to do, (This is the kind of behavior he might well have learned from raising his spirited, half human son.)

I liked that the show isn’t filmed in quite the same way as other Trek shows. For one thing, we get flashbacks to Michael’s upbringing on Vulcan, and I wish we’d had more of those, rather than showcasing the Klingons. In one of the first flashbacks we see her as a child having a moment of PTSD in one of the learning pods, and witness Sarek’s reaction to her.

I have to admit I have never been a fan of the Klingons. I’m simply not now, nor ever have been, impressed by their existence, language, culture, any of it. So I didn’t particularly enjoy having to look at the Klingons for half the episode. What made them even more annoying was that their makeup was hard to look at, and they were difficult to understand, and not just because they were speaking their native tongue. They sounded like  people speaking through masks, and quite frankly,  a Klingon with a lisp is not scary. (Plus, they all spoke very slowly, as if they had all suffered  recent head injuries.)

Klingons have always been “coded”as Black people and I don’t really have a problem with that. My problem is with their depiction as one of the more violent races on Star Trek. On the other hand, the show does have a very good track record for giving them depth and making them likable, and sympathetic characters, the most notable one being Worf from STNG. Now there is an element of colorism involved in their depiction, as there is a Klingon with albinism, who seems to have to prove himself to be more Klingon then all the others, after being kicked out of his family. I’m reminded of the discrimination of albinos in certain parts of Africa, but I don’t know that this calls back to that or not.

I liked the Klingon  costumes, though. The costumes had this beautiful Elizabethan look that just kinda suited them. I liked all the costumes in the show really, and I liked all the tech stuff that Trek is famous for. This is an extremely pretty show, that’s just nice to look at. The color scheme and design reminds me of DS9, and the Federation outfits seem almost Bajoran. Well, Bajoran with lots of bling, and I like bling, so that didn’t bother me. That’s probably  due to Fuller’s influence since DS9 was the last Trek show he worked on.

Michael joins the crew of the Shenzhou with Michelle Yeoh’s  Captain Phillipa Gheorghiu. I loved the relationship between these two women and hope to see that replicated in later episodes, because showing that type of rapport and mentorship between women is important. After Michael encounters and kills a Klingon (a race of people that the federation had not had contact with in some 100 years), on Sarek’s advice, she argues that the Shenzhou should fire on the Klingon ship, to show greater strength, hence the name of the episode, The Vulcan Hello. Gheorghiu disagrees with her and Michael gives her the Vulcan Sleeper Pinch, and takes over the bridge.

When Gheorghiu gets back on the bridge, her Federation backup has arrived, but because she still refuses to fire on the Klingons, even though their backup arrived first, this starts a skirmish in which the Federation loses. Michael, who has been stashed in the brig during this fight, manages to escape just before her imminent death, by logicking at the computer. She goes back to the bridge and proposes the idea of capturing the Klingon leader, so as not to make him a martyr. Michael and Gheorghiu board the Klingon ship,  but their attempt to capture the Klingon leader (T’Kuvma) is unsuccessful, and Gheorghiu is killed.

At the end of episode two, Michael is convicted of assaulting her captain, mutiny,  (and exacerbating an already tense  situation). The rest of the season is her (and Jason Isaac’s Captain Lorca) dealing with the aftermath of her conviction.

During the standoff between the two women, Michael makes a bunch of emotional decisions, but she’s been raised on Vulcan and has never dealt with the PTSD of what happened to her as a child, so she has not learned how to handle her emotions in an environment with a lot of other emotional issues. Well, she doesnt seem to have learned, and this incident is a direct callback to a highly personal event that she’s never had to think about while safe on Vulcan.

She seems to be having difficulty telling the difference between decisions she makes through logic, and ones made through emotions, which makes her a wonderfully complex character. I’m interested to see how she grows and changes throughout the season, and I hope the writers don’t pull a Sleepy Hollow, and sideline her in favor of Captain Lorca. This first season should be all about Michael and her journey. Later, we can get more  into the stories of the other characters.

I loved the special effects, even if I didn’t like the makeup on the Klingons. The transporter effect looks a little different and Gheorghiu explains that it’s because the Shenzhou is using older technology.

Doug Jones (you may remember him as Hellboy’s Abe Sapien) has great makeup, but those stilt things he has to walk around on look deeply uncomfortable, and I worried that his feet hurt, even though surely, he must be used to that sort of thing. I liked the character too and enjoyed the rapport between him and Michael. It reminded me of the threesome from the original show.

 

Things I Could’ve Done Without

As I said, I hated the Klingon makeup, not because I thought it was especially bad, but because they all look like they’re trying to talk through Kabuki masks. I’m used to Klingons looking expressive, and their faces (the makeup) makes that impossible. Another thing I don’t particularly care for with Klingons is all the group yelling. I’ve always found that annoying.

I wish they would’ve shown more of Michael’s background, as I could’ve used a lot less of the Klingons, and I also get the impression that the people who wrote this show don’t understand Klingons very well. I understood their reasons for attacking the federation but those reasons still were not well articulated for me.

I think they could have ditched the ten minute prologue  of Michael and Gheorghiu on the desert planet. It was a cute scene, that introduces the two characters and the nature of their relationship, but ultimately it was unnecessary. That was made clear when the two of them first met, and I would’ve liked to have seen more of that first meeting. Or they could have done away with the first two episodes altogether and just jumped right into Michael’s new life, and new captain, for the rest of the season. The plot feels like a bait and switch and I didn’t like that, although I understand that Gheorghiu will be making plenty of cameos in the form of flashbacks, so the show began as it means to go on. Its flashbacks all the way in.

There wasn’t a lot I disliked  about the show itself, and I think the show is really worth watching. Part of me hopes it succeeds but as I said i’m probably not going to be watching it because I don’t want to pay for it. Apparently a lot of other people feel the same way because I heard it’s one of the most pirated shows online. I’m not going to pirate the show, but maybe I’ll sign up later.

You’re probably going to see a lot of comparisons between this show, and another one called The Orville, led by Seth MCFarlane from Family Guy. If you’re lookng for something like Star Trek, but a little lighter, than the Orville is your show. In the last episode I saw, things got just a bit heavy, dealing with the issue of gender change, in an interesting way, and I think it was handled well, (but it would be up to transgender people to say whether or not it was actually handled well).

The first couple of episodes are an odd blend of seriousness and humor. Now, I don’t watch Family Guy, because I don’t find the  show not particularly funny. McFarlane’s dudebro humor doesn’t mesh well with mine, but The Orville is a different side of McFarlane. He wants to be taken seriously as both a comedian and a showrunner and it shows. The show still doesn’t know whether it wants to be a comedy or a drama, but once it figures that out, it can be a really good show, and I actually enjoyed watching it. The humor is scattered all over the place, but its not raunchy or especially offensive, if that’s your worry.

The closest comparison would be Galaxy Quest, (although it’s less funny), as the show is very obviously a love letter to Star Trek, if a somewhat irreverant one. The show still needs some  degree of tweaking, but it’s not a bad show. And I hate to say it, but it’s a lot more fun than Discovery. Discovery is a heavy show with very little humor, and although I enjoyed it, it’s a very different type of show than The Orville. The two don’t really compare, inasmuch as they are both offshoots of Star Trek.

So for those of you who can’t get your Trek fix, I think The Orville is a good enough substitute, and this is coming from an OG Trekkie, who also loves Galaxy Quest.

Bladerunner Blackout 2022

The third prequel  short based on the movie Bladerunner 2049 has just been released. It’s my understanding that it’s not necessary to have watched these shorts to understand the movie. They’re more along the lines of extras on a DVD, but just like with The Animatrix, I hope they make more of them and collect them all into an anthology.

Here, in chronological order, are :

Bladerunner 2022: Blackout

 

Bladerunner 2036: Nexus Dawn

 

 

Bladerunner 2048: Nowhere to Run

 

And for those of your still interested in the world of Bladerunner, the writer K.W.Jeter, wrote a trilogy based on the original film back in the  nineties, which I enjoyed.

Blade Runner Sequels

• Blade Runner 2: The Edge of Human (1995)
• Blade Runner 3: Replicant Night (1996)
• Blade Runner 4: Eye and Talon (2000

 

 

And finally the Philip K Dick book at the foundation of all this wonderful eye candy:

 

 

 

 

 

Weekend Linkspam: Television

Here, have some more interesting article links.

On Hannibal: The Series

 

I loved this mashup video of all the different iterations of this specific scene in Hannibal.

 

 

http://www.vulture.com/2013/06/seitz-on-hannibal-its-a-dream-and-it-hurts.html

https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2015/10/the-moral-universe-of-hannibal

http://www.vulture.com/2015/08/hannibal-redefined-how-we-tell-stories-on-tv.html

http://hythlodays.tumblr.com/post/52981828578/a-curiosity-for-chaos

http://balphesian.tumblr.com/post/47241177811

 

 

On Whitewashing and Other Concerns

The Seven Strategies for Defending Your Problematic TV Show or Movie—and Why They Don’t Work

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2017/03/24/filmmakers_and_actors_keep_defending_casting_controversies_but_here_s_why.html

 

On American Gods:

 

https://blackgirlnerds.com/american-gods-realities-race/

 

On Popular Media and Racism Vs. Historical Accuracy

https://eidolon.pub/how-to-be-a-good-classicist-under-a-bad-emperor-6b848df6e54a

https://sarahemilybond.com/2017/09/10/hold-my-mead-a-bibliography-for-historians-hitting-back-at-white-supremacy/amp/

https://www.publicmedievalist.com/race-racism-middle-ages-toc/

 

On The White Savior Trope

Oh Come All Ye White Saviors

http://www.salon.com/2013/02/21/oscar_loves_a_white_savior/

 

 On Daredevil and the Yellow Peril Trope

Black Mask, Yellow Peril: Anti-Asianism in Netflix’s Otherwise Brilliant <i>Daredevil</i>

https://io9.gizmodo.com/marvel-s-got-an-asian-problem-and-it-s-not-getting-any-1781448797

 

On Furiosa and  Disability in Film

https://catapult.co/stories/love-disability-and-movies

http://www.popmatters.com/feature/194573-power-and-disability-in-mad-max-fury-road1/

https://serfbazaar.wordpress.com/2015/05/22/furiosa-disability-representation-and-empowerment/

https://www.inverse.com/article/15806-one-year-later-fury-road-resonates-on-disability-sexuality-and-the-end-of-days

https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/more-our-machines/aesthetics-and-prosthetics-science-fiction

Watchin’ Movies: I’ve Got Mini Reviews

Now see, if I was as mean as everyone says, I would insist that you watch these movies because my eyeballs looked at them, but I’m not like that. I’m doin’ this for y’all, so you can go about your lives unhindered by whether or not you’re missing out on greater things.

Actually these movies weren’t really  bad. A couple of them had pretty good reviews, and I actually liked  all them just okay.  I had the opportunity to watch Ghost in the Shell, but the reviews for it were so awful, and the premise left such a bad taste in my mouth, that I know I can’t watch it with any degree of “fairness”. So, I opted out. I know my limitations and sitting through that movie is one of them.

XXX: The Return of Xander Cage:

I watched this movie one idle weekend, and yeah, its ridiculous. The stunts are so over the top they’re laughable, and the dialogue isn’t worth remembering, but nevertheless I kinda enjoyed it. It stars one of my favorite action stars, Donnie Yen, who you might remember from Star Wars Rogue One ,as Chirrut Imwe.

Normally, I like Vin Diesel, but I feel like he was just phoning most of this in, except for the stunt scenes, in which he seemed to be having too much fun. I didn’t care too much for the ass shots of various women, at least not without some compensating shots of Vin Diesels’ or Donnie Yen’s asses,  and the plot made no sense at all, but who the hell is paying attention to the plot in a movie like this. B

Basically, Xander Cage is after some type of McGuffin,that was stolen by Yen’s team of rogue operatives, or something, and he has to infiltrate their little gang, learn the objects whereabouts, and retrieve it. There’s some double crossing that requires that he come clean to the rogue team, and then they all have to work together to save the world, or maybe just America, since that’s who they all nominally work for. I was mostly here to watch Donnie kick some ass though.

There’s a “blink and you’ll miss it” cameo from Samuel L. Jackson, yelling at some guy in a diner, before he is unceremoniously blown up by a rogue satellite. There’s also a cameo from Ice Cube, which I didn’t pay much attention to because it was also  so short. This really should’ve been a team-up movie between the two triple Xs, or Hell, three triple Xs, Vin, Ice Cube, and Donnie Yen. That nobody in Hollywood put this idea into the atmosphere speaks to the thorough lack of imagination going on there.

Life:

I saw nothing but bad reviews of this movie, but I didn’t  dislike it. It’s been unfairly compared to Alien, and that’s just not right, as this movie, while suffering from much the same Ten Little Indians plot, is a different animal. I actually thought the monster was kind of laughable at first, because at first it looks like one of those giant underwater ribbon snakes, and then later like animated white plastic sheeting, but the movie actually turned out to be pretty suspenseful. I mean I knew everybody was gonna die and I stil l was on the edge of my seat wondering how, so that’s something I guess.

While conducting some experiments in space, a crew of scientists discover an alien lifeform, which gets loose in their ship, and proceeds to eat/kill them. Their job is to keep it from reaching Earth. The creature is sort of like The Blob, as it grows exponentially as it eats, which makes more sense than the creatures from Alien, which gain their size and weight from nothing but air.

I can’t remember any of the actors from this movie beyond Ryan Reynolds ,and I think I saw Morgan from, The Walking Dead. I don’t think it’s spoilery to say that everybody dies! Is it worth viewing? Its okay, but if you don’t see it, your LIFE will not have been upheaved.

Saban’s Power Rangers

I heard so much on Tumblr about how great this movie was, and how it was a big win for diversity, that I had to check it out. It does in fact do diversity very well, but I wouldn’t say it was a great movie. Its too frenetic for that.It stars a poor Asian kid who is not great at school. His mother is dying in their trailer home and he’s worried aobut his future, and what wlll happen when she’s gone. There’s a couple of young WoC, who form a romantic relationship, I think, and a young Black man who has one of the Spectrum disorders. He was my favorite character. Naturally, the fine, upstanding, White boy is the leader, and of course his name is Zach. Why White boys in movies can’t have regular names, like William or Thomas, I don’t know.

I did watch the original television shows with my sisters as they were growing up. They were terribly addicted to the show, and because they loved it I ended up watching a lot of it too, even though I mostly found the show deeply funny. So, I’m familiar enough with the original to be able to understand what’s going on in this one, which feels like it was written for fans, rather than to bring in new viewers.

There’s a lot of exposition that if you don’t pay close attention, you will not understand, (and probably wont understand if you do). The names and some of the action is just as ridiculously over the top and laughable as the original show, too. So if you can get past names like  Goldar, or Rita Repulsa, you’re all set.

Lights Out

I love a good horror movie, but I was too scared to finish watching this beyond the short film it was based on, and its first twenty minutes. I told myself if I just watched it during the daytime, I’d be okay, but that didn’t work, because I went to bed with the lights on,  and then I was afraid because the lights were on, and they might go out, and IT might get me, whatever IT might be. This movie  creeped me out, in a skin crawling type of way, that’s usually only reserved for sentient slime creatures.

The people who made this movie also made another short, called Closet Space, that was both scary and funny.

Don’t Breathe

Apparently, I didn’t learn my lesson from trying to watch Lights Out, because I watched this one sunny Saturday afternoon, when there was nothing else on the TV. I think I liked it, although calling it a good movie would be excessive. Its a complicated movie because the good guys aren’t particularity good, and the bad guys are the ones in danger, so its hard to know who to root for, or even how to feel about what you’re looking at.

A group of desperate teens break into the house of a man they think is totally helpless, because he’s blind, but the tables are turned on them when they have to try to escape, because he turns out to be a serial killer, or something. They discover a young lady being held prisoner in the house, and attempt to rescue her, but she gets killed, after which he decides to kill the guys, and imprison the female member of the group, and forcibly impregnate her, as revenge for the loss of the other woman and her baby. So really, everyone in the movie is kind of repulsive.

I do remember thinking the movie went on for far too long after it should’ve ended. Its not a bad movie but it is one of those movies where the message is so muddled you have no idea what the filmmakers are trying to say, if anything, and you don’t know what to feel about it. If you haven’t seen this movie, and you’re a fan of ambiguity, then give it a try. If you like your movies with a more concrete moral code, then I suggest you give this one a pass.

Favorite Movies of My Life Pt. 5 (2011 – 2017)

Here it is! This is the final part of the movies of my life series, where I list my favorite movies for each year I’ve been on Earth. This has been an eye opener for me too, as some of these I hadn’t really thought of in quite this way before, and the realization that so much of my earliest movie watching experiences are the product of Mom, and nostalgia.

My tastes really started to branch away from hers in my teens, which I suppose is normal. I’m still a lot more adventurous than her, when it comes to choosing movies. I’ll go anywhere I think is interesting, while she likes to stay in her comfort zone, although I can occasionally talk her into watching new things.

 

2011: Attack The Block 

I did a review of this movie here:

 https://tvgeekingout.wordpress.com/2015/12/17/why-we-love-attack-the-block-2011/

This movie is mostly notable for starring my precious cinnamon bun, John Boyega, in one of his first movie roles.

I had two other movies to choose from,The Tree of Life, and The Road. I would have chosen one of these but The Tree is such a complicated film to describe, it would take an entire post just to parse its meaning. The movie has no straight plot, and is really nothing more than a series of images and vignettes with voiceovers loosely strung together with a theme. I love it, not  for its philosophy, but for its mood. The imagery, and music are beautiful, and it has a lot of quiet moments where scenes simply play out to their conclusion, with no explanation.

http://www.scholardarity.com/?p=1361

I love The Road but I was never going to chose it as my top film for this year becasue while it has a hopeful ending, it’s really just  too bleak and depressing a movie to ever be considered enjoyable. I really like Viggo Mortensen though, and think this is very possibly one of his best films.

https://reelrundown.com/movies/The-Road-Movie

 

2012: SkyFall

This year saw the release of The Avengers movie, which was a lot of fun for me; the movie Chronicle, with Michael B Jordan, which I’ll be discussing in another post; The Amazing Spiderman, which I absolutely did not hate, but didn’t love enough to make it my choice for my best movie this year, and finally Django Unchained, which I defended in an earlier post.

https://tvgeekingout.wordpress.com/2016/01/15/in-defense-of-django-unchained/

But my choice for this year is Skyfall. I wasn’t a big fan of the first two Bond movies but I like this one. I think it perfectly captures Bond’s  washed up nature, fighting for a corrupt  political system,  that sees him as expendable. I think David Craig does some of his best acting here. For me, the film was most enjoyable for the introduction of Ms. Moneypenny, played by one of my favorite actresses, Naomie Harris, and its development of M’s character, who does not come off looking too good.

 

 

2013: Snowpiercer/Afflicted

This movie was a tie between SnowPiercer and the movie Afflicted. I reviewed Afflicted here. I think it’s one of the best vampire movies I’d seen in a long time.

https://tvgeekingout.wordpress.com/2015/08/21/geeking-out-about-afflicted-2013/

As for Snowpiercer, what can I say about this movie that hasn’t already been said by better writers than me.:

https://no-award.net/2014/08/01/snowpiercer-the-revolution-cannot-be-trusted-if-its-white/

https://alanw2000.wordpress.com/2014/11/29/snowpiercer-analysis-bong-joon-hos-sci-fi-masterpiece-by-alan/

http://aldianews.com/articles/culture/film-television/snowpiercer-and-one-white-dude-rule-them-all/34908

 

 

2014: Captain America The Winter Soldier

I had a really hard time choosing between Captain America: The Winter Soldier, It Follows, and What We Do in the Shadows. Ultimately, I chose Captain America because  I really enjoyed all three movies in the franchise, and What We Do in the Shadows is such a lightweight, silly thing next to these other two movies. There’s nothing wrong with lightweight, but it just didn’t win out against these two heavyweight message movies.

I’ve done two reviews of It Follows, that’s how intrigued I was by this movie:

https://tvgeekingout.wordpress.com/2017/04/19/it-follows-2014-more-thoughts/

https://tvgeekingout.wordpress.com/2016/06/16/the-monster-it-follows-2014/

I’ve also done a review of What We Do in the Shadows, which cemented Taika Waititi as one of my favorite film directors, forever, and one of the main reasons why Thor: Ragnarok might make my favorites list for this year:

https://tvgeekingout.wordpress.com/2015/11/20/geeking-out-about-what-we-do-in-the-shadows-2014/

I am working on yet another post about Captain America right now, but I have done an entire series of posts on its characters, Sam Wilson, Steve Rogers, and Black Widow. i love it for its message,its characters,  the action scenes are top of the line, and its sentimental moments, which callback to the first movie.

https://tvgeekingout.wordpress.com/2016/07/19/on-the-right-captain-america-and-iron-man/

https://tvgeekingout.wordpress.com/2015/06/15/black-widow-lying-liar-who-lies/

https://tvgeekingout.wordpress.com/2017/01/20/sam-wilson-to-be-rescued/

 

 

2015: Mad Max Fury Road

Most people think I would have chosen Star Wars Force Awakens because of my love for John Boyega/Finn, but really the characters were my only real reason to love it, and I’m also mad because Han Solo was killed, and I haven’t gotten over that yet.

No, the movie that did it for me, this year, was Mad Max Fury Road. I’m a total George Miller stan. His Mad Max movies were so influential,during the 80s, that every post-apocalypse movie since, has tried to ape his style…and failed! They simply could not capture the essential something in his movies, which were  combinations of intelligent writing and ferocious action, and Fury Road is no different. An action movie with a message that every post-apoc movie will try to ape in the future…and fail! For me, Fury Road was my Wonder Woman, (which is another reason why I wasn’t too impressed with that film.) One of the few woman-led actioners against which all others will be compared.

 

2016: Train to Busan

This was one of the best zombie movies in the past few years in my opinion. This is me, squeeing about this movie:

https://tvgeekingout.wordpress.com/2016/10/22/train-to-busan-2016-2/

I have another post on its comparison to World War Z later this year.

 

 

2017: Logan, Get Out, Spiderman Homecoming, and ?

I haven’t yet chosen a film for this year yet, but the three films in the running for my favorite so far, are: Logan, Spiderman Homecoming, and Get Out. I’m also greatly looking forward to the yet to be released films, Thor Ragnarok,  Justice League, and Bladerunner 2049. I might choose one of them. We don’t know! What do you think, I’ll choose?

 

Unbreakable, Sleight, Spiderman, Chronicle: Shout Out to the Lowkey Superhero

 

In 1981, I watched the pilot for a show, starring William Katt (from  the 1976 movie, Carrie). In it, a Special Education teacher receives a Supersuit from some aliens and decides he wants to fight crime, even though he hates wearing the suit, and has lost the instruction manual. (Why won’t someone remake this show?) Aided by Special FBI Agent Bill Maxwell, played by Robert Culp, he spends most of his time trying to figure out what his superpowers are, and how to use them, with comical results.

In 1976, Carrie White discovers she had the power to move objects with her mind. Bullied and humiliated at her high school, she unleashes all of her rage on her classmates at the Senior Prom.

In 2000, Bruce Willis portrays David Dunn, a man who discovers that his body is essentially unbreakable, (just like Luke Cage), and has to figure out who and what he is, and what he wants to do with this power, aided by Samuel L Jackson, who also plays the movie’s  archvillain, Mr. Glass.

In 2012’s  Chronicle, Dane DeHaan plays Andrew Detmar who, along with his cousin Matt, and his friend Steve,  stumble across a strange rock in a cave, and receive the power to move objects with their thoughts. After bearing the brunt of schoolyard bullying, physical and emotional abuse from his father, and the death of his mother, Andrew nearly kills his father, and destroys a good portion of Seattle, before being killed by Matt.

In 2017’s Sleight, a young Black genius named Bo, creates the the ability to move metallic objects with his mind, while he clashes with the local drug dealer, Angelo.

In Spiderman Homecoming, Peter Parker is a newbie Super, dealing with such mundane things as schoolwork, bicycle thieves, and helping out the local Churro  Lady. He longs to save the world, while using nothing more than some superstrength, a fast wit, and some silkwebbing. He doesn’t have the social cache of Captain America, nor does he have Batman’s budget.

Jessica Jones, Daredevil, Luke Cage, Iron Fist. They’ve got one major power each, the ability to punch things really hard, lift a car, skin that won’t break, and the ability to see sounds. These are not gods. They can’t destroy a city block with the touch of a finger. They don’t own supersuits. They can’t even fly.  Even all-together they ain’t ever gonna be on the level of the Justice League.

http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/superhero-movies/39560/real-life-superhero-movies-a-closer-look

None of these characters are villains, but many of them are too beset by the weaknesses of their character, or the challenges of their environment, to ever do the world any  real good. They live in the real world of car payments, drug dealers, homework, high school bullies, and 9 to 5 jobs they don’t like, dealing with people who seriously test their ability not to abuse whatever powers they possess, and sometimes that can’t even avoid doing that.

They’re not goddesses created by Zeus. They’re not millionaires who never have to worry about paying for anything. They’re not exiled  aliens. These are not the types of heroes you call to go into outer space to destroy the intergalactic menace. They’re just trying to survive their tiny part of the universe.

And sometimes they don’t manage to do that either.

 

In Chronicle, Andrew wants to be special and important to the rest of the world, but that’s not gonna happen. Andrew could have been a true benefit to the world,  but he is bullied at school, abused by his father at home, his mother is dying, and they’re running out of money to pay for her medicine.  Andrew uses his abilities to rob a local drug dealer for the money, but how are his powers going to save his mother? How are those powers going to stop making him the brunt of his father’s anger at his wife’s death? Or make him charming, witty, or popular at school?

Sadly, Andrew gets a brief taste of these things, fending off his father’s abuse in one scene, participating in a talent show where he can secretly show off his abilities (and getting the accolades that he not only feels he richly deserves, but desperately needs), and losing it all when one of his friends, Steve, (who shared the same abilities as he did), dies , possibly as a result of Andrew’s actions.

Eventually, Andrew loses everything, including his mother,  and then eventually his life, at the hands of his cousin, Matt,  (who also shared the same superpowers), as he spirals down into a vortex of shame, hatred, grief, and anger. His powers couldn’t save him from himself.

None of these superpowers help Matt save his best friend Steve, or solve his cousin’s extreme trauma, or even alleviate his own  emotional trauma, at having to take his cousin’s life, when Andrew goes on an anger fueled rampage. We witness how useless Matt’s abilities are, during his fight with his cousin, when he can’t talk him down, can’t convince him that he is loved, and can only mitigate the damage he causes, with his only option being to kill him.

This is the horrific outcome of actual superpowers in a real world setting that is full of horribly damaged people, and people happy to inflict pain on others for fun. This is something not shown in the Avengers, and Iron Man movies. The villains in those always have lofty goals, and self-serving excuses for why they’re bad. They hate the hero, or want to control the world, or both. Andrew, and his counterpart, Carrie, (whose narrative closely parallels this one), sometimes don’t know what they are, are sometimes just  in pain, and cause an incalculable amount of damage and death, all because they  weren’t loved enough.

This is the opposite story of Unbreakable, where David Dunn, a depressed stadium security guard, begins to realize his true potential, while mentored by a  man who thinks he knows who and what David is capable of. When he and his  wife, Audrey, were involved in a car crash, David used that as an excuse to quit football, because Audrey was opposed to the sport. He spent the next ten years of his life wondering what could have been, and the life they could have had.

Not realizing that he is an  Unbreakable man, he  is approached by  Elijah Price, who tells him that he is special, that he can regain the glory he knew as high school football star. By using his strength to save lives, David discovers a new sense of purpose. Taking on the name Savior, his activities regain the  respect of his son, the love of the wife, who was planning to divorce him, and lifts his spirits, as he realizes what kind of man he is. David wasn’t trying to save the world. He was just trying to save himself.

http://reallifesuperheroes.com/

In Sleight,  Bo has the ability to move metal, due to a magnetic device he’s implanted in his arm. He gets involved with the local drug dealer, while trying to make a better life for him and his little sister, after their mother dies. Bo isn’t the next Tony Stark, but he would’ve been, were it not for the circumstances of his birth.

Here’s what the director had to say about the stereotypical setting of the movie, which also tackles issues of race and class, which most superhero movies don’t mention:

<Making Bo a role model and a drug-dealer seems potentially controversial, but it also speaks to his lack of options as a teenager trying to support his sister, and living without a safety net. But you don’t foreground the social issues of his choices. You don’t make it political. Was it important to you to not spell anything out too much?

Obviously, it’s a trope that’s unfortunately very recognizable for black characters in movies, in having something to do with street-level drugs and committing crimes. Part of the goal in centering ourselves in that world was to find a different, empathetic way into a trope that’s maybe a little too familiar. By centering it on this kid who is brilliant and artistic and has a scholarship going for him, we’re showing that a fall into this world really could happen to anyone. If everything you hold dear slowly started unraveling and you had massive responsibility, and part of that responsibility is shielding someone you care about from even knowing that this is going on… There are certain sacrifices we make to take care of the people around us. We don’t just want to paint that familiar iconography. We wanted to find a different way into it, then [go] past it.

And if you read between the lines in Sleight, there’s enough evidence that we’re not fully falling into the trope, I would hope. Bo’s neighborhood is actually not bad. He’s not in a crime-infested, impoverished area. He’s trying to keep his sister in the environment she’s comfortable in. But also, what he does is a very different brand of drug-dealing, one less associated with the urban crime story. When you look at a show like High Maintenance — if we had another act to talk about Bo’s clientele, these are the kinds of stories we would see. Which hints why Bo would consider selling drugs in the first place. He’s savvy enough to not end up on the corner selling dope. And his boss, Angelo, at first glance, isn’t a gun-toting gang-banger. Bo is making an educated compromise, something he thinks he can keep at arm’s distance.>

 

Bo isn’t  heroic because he’s trying to save the entire world. Bo is a hero because he’s working against long odds to save just one small world, his little sister’s.

Contrast Spiderman Homecoming with The Avengers. The Avengers are so far removed from everyday life that they seem almost like myths to the working man. Nowhere is this contrast more obvious than in the movie Spiderman Homecoming, about the activities of a low-level superhero who wants to make it to the big time. Peter Parker comes from a world of school, homework, and junior proms. His mentor is a multi-billionaire, whose every minor decision can affect entire lives, as Tony Stark’s decision to take over the salvage operations in New York, creates The Vulture, the villain who eventually becomes one of Spiderman’s Rogue’s Gallery.

Spiderman’s inability to run with the Big Boys, like Thor and The Hulk,  is the subject of a  great deal of humor, as seen in Captain America: Civil War, but it can also result in great tragedy, as his lack of discipline nearly causes a massive loss of  life, when he accidentally breaks the Staten Island Ferry.

 

In The Incredibles, the superheroes of yesteryear get a taste of what the mundane life is like when superheroing is outlawed by a fed up public. Now all they have are their real jobs, house payments, and watching their weight.  Mr Incredible chafes at these restrictions, living vicariously through his son’s grade school exploits, secretly crime fighting behind his wife’s back, and yearning for the days when he could channel all his restless ingenuity into bringing down super criminals. Like Peter Parker, the mundane life just isn’t challenging enough for him, or his little boy, Dash, There’s also the not so lowkey message in the film that when everyone is considered special, its really just another version of mundanity.

I suppose this essay would not be complete without mentioning the  ultimate street level superhero, Kick Ass, who is the very definition of a superhero nobody. David is a superhero only because he believes it. He has no superpowers to speak of, no martial skills, not even a sharp tongue. Armed with nothing more than a green bodysuit, and some Escrima sticks, he takes out muggers and drug dealers on the streets of New York City, in the hopes of  impressing that one girl in school he has a crush on. He inadvertently falls into deeper water than he can handle, when he encounters a vigilante father/ daughter duo, who are fighting an organized crime family.

There have been a spate of these movies in the past ten years, (Super, Defendor, Special) about the the low level exploits of gifted, and non-gifted heroes, yearning for the  Big Time, something to give their life meaning, a way to work out their psychological trauma, or just wanting to be special and/or loved. For some of them, these are weaknesses of character that will never allow them to rise to the level of an Avenger, or an X-Man, and other s are so grounded, they will never  get to be heroic, no matter how much they want it.

Even the move Suicide Squad dabbles in these ideas, with characters like Captain Boomerang, and Slipknot, or a character with no superpowers at all, beyond a taste for chaos, and an ability to wield a baseball bat. The’yre little more than small-time villains who get called on to save the world.

On the other hand, it makes them more relatable, and sympathetic,than the Tony Starks, and Supermen, of the world. Watching them rise to new levels of superheroics, as when Spiderman has no one to save him but himself in Spiderman: Homecoming, or when Bo defeats the neighborhood villains to successfully raise his little sister, gives us the  confidence to survive, especially when we’re beset by our own physical, and mental issues. When they overcome, they are the best of ourselves. And when they fall to the depths of despair, like Andrew and Carrie, they are reflections of our worst, and can spur us to examine and conquer our own weaknesses.

Forthcoming Fall Books 2017

Well, I made a list of TV shows, so here’s a list of books I’m looking forward to attempting to read this Fall, or maybe they just look interesting right now. I pretty much have to wait for some of these to be in my hand, before I decide if I’m going to finish, or not.

August

Hex Rated – Jason Ridler

From the description this seems like a retro 70s X-Files type of plot. I keep picturing an  Asian cop from Starsky & Hutch, wearing a giant mustache. I still don’t know why I find various combinations of paranormal activity and the Federal government fascinating. probably because government organizations represent Order on a large scale, while  anything having to do with the paranormal represents the complete opposite.

 

Son of the Night – Mark Alder

I got halfway through the first book, Son of the Morning, before having to cart it back to the library, from whence I had procured it! And I do mean cart, because it was a massive book. It was also pretty good, up until I had to put it down. Its an Historical Paranormal Thriller, where actual Angels have gotten involved in Europe’s various wars.

 

Resurrection Game – Michelle Bellanger

Apparently, this is  the third book in a series. I haven’t read any of the others but this one sounds intriguing, and I’ve read Ms. Bellanger’s work before, The Dictionary of Demons, and The Vampire Codex.

 

September

1 – Sea of Rust – Robert Cargill

This one is about sentient robots, wandering an apocalyptic landscape, while trying to find their own humanity.

 

Iron Angels – Eric Flint

Eric Flint has written lots of Historical Urban Fantasy/SciFi, but this one is  interesting to me. It seems  a little more traditional, with a primary protagonist fighting against some paranormal creatures, in  Chi-Town. It too, has an X-Files type of vibe, with government agents getting involved with the Occult.

 

The Salt Line – Holly Goddard Jones

This is set in an apocalyptic landscape, where half the US is cut off from the other half, because one side has been invaded by disease carrying ticks, and involves a group of action junkies, who like to play with fate, by jumping The Salt Line.

 

7 – I Am Behind You – Lindqvist

I don’t have a date for this book, but it sounds creepy enough. About a boy and his Mom, who wake up in some kind of twilight zone, with lots of other strange people, and something terrible is coming to get them.

 

14 – Peace Talks – Jim Butcher

I loved the ending of the last book, so I’m eagerly looking forward to this. There’s still no listing on Amazon for this, or I’d have pre-ordered it already.

 

26 – Unkindness of Magicians – Kat Howard

This sounds not unlike a book I’m reading now about magic in New York City,  called The Last Magician, only this one sounds a lot grittier, and a little less traditional.

 

Sleeping Beauties – Stephen King

I’m looking forward to King’s collaboration with his son Owen King. I’ve not been much of a fan of Owen’s work, but the plot sounds intriguing. The women of the world fall into a deep sleep inside cocoons, and it’s dangerous to wake them up. Now you know men can be fairly bull-headed creatures, who would of course wake all of them up,  thereby destroying the human race, so I’m interested to see how these two will write around that.

 

October

3 – Scandal in Battersea – Mercedes Lackey

I’m enjoying these Sherlockian Magic mashups by Lackey.

 

Akata Witch/Warrior – Nnedi Okorafor

I’m only just now getting into this author through her SciFi book, the Binti series. This sounds like a neat Urban Fantasy set in Nigeria. It’s being billed as an African version of the Harry Potter-verse.

 

What the Hell did I Just Read – David Wong

I’ve liked every one of Wong’s books, so far. They’re terrifying and hilarious, so I don’t want to miss this one, featuring the three main characters from the previous two books, Dave, John (who isn’t actually dead), and Amy, trying to stop some kind of biblical cataclysm.

 

Anno Dracula: 1000 Monsters – Kim Newman

This is set in the Anno Dracula Universe, starring The Diogenes Club, and the Vampiress Genevieve. I’ve tried to read all of the series, and this one is set in japan, which doesn’t have vampires, but has an entire menagerie of its own monsters to deal with. If you like Japanese folklore and mythology then check it out.

 

10 – Stone in the Skull – Elizabeth Bear

I wasn’t going to read this one, but I know some of you guys must like this series, and I’m a fan of Bear’s other work. This is set in the Eternal Sky series, and is about The Lotus Kingdom. I couldn’t get into the other series, but I’ll try this one.

 

17 – Under the Pendulum Sun

I’ve already borrowed my copy of this from Netgalley and am working on it now. It’s about a Victorian expedition to the lands of the Fae. A Missionary goes missing and his sister arrives to search for him. I like it so far, but I’m still chafing at all the religious stuff.

 

24 – Strange Weather – Joe Hill

This is another Joe Hill anthology. I’m looking forward to this book, which features four stories featuring horror, and the paranormal, and sometimes, just the normal made horrible.

 

 

November

All Those Explosions Were Someone Else’s Fault –  James Alan Gardner

This sounds like a parody of the superhero genre, with vampires, capes, ghosts and various weirdnesses. I’ve like Gardner’s books in the past and I like the plot of this one.

 

14th – Into the Drowning Deep – Mira Grant

I read this first novella about an attack by carnivorous mermaids, on the crew of a Reality TV series, and loved it. This is the sequel.

The Fall TV Season (2017)

Here’s a list of shows I’m interested in watching for August, and the new Fall Season. I also included shows I’m not particularly interested in, but some of you might enjoy viewing. i didn’t list some of the returning shows I will be watching though. (The numbers preceding the titles, are the dates of the shows, not a rating of some kind.)

August

4 – Comrade Detective  (Amazon)

I know nothing about this show, except it appears to be set in the mid-80s, and involves a Russian detective who comes to America to solve crimes. From what I saw of the trailer it looked like a parody of 80s cop shows. Its available on Amazon Prime.

 

9 – Mr. Mercedes   (Audience Network/DirecTV)

I read the books for this series, and it’s Stephen King, so I’ll watch this. It should be a good substitute for The Mist, which turned out to be disappointingly boring. The show airs this Wednesday. Just to warn you though, the show does contain some graphic, and possibly triggering imagery:

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/confidential/mr-mercedes-creators-expect-blow-back-opening-scene-article-1.3384814

 

18 – The Defenders  (Netflix)

I still have mixed feelings about this, but I will watch it. I hate Jessica Jones, and Danny Rand, but I love Luke Cage, Daredevil and Sigourney Weaver, so I actually hope the show looks, and does well, despite my misgivings.

 

25 – The Tick (Amazon)

I was never a big fan of this character but I have seen some episodes here and there over the years, and I know some people are huge fans of both the comics and the short lived cartoon, so I’m putting this on the list. I may or may not watch it. I will add that the lead actor is absolutely perfect for the role, though.

 

September

5 – American Horror Story: Cult (FX)

I’m gearing up for the final season of this show. Its got a brand new cast, along with three, or four, old cast members. I think this season is supposed to touch on some of the themes of the previous seasons. Here! Have a creepy trailer! Hope you’re not scared of clowns.

 

10 – The Orville (Fox)

I’m not sure I want to watch this because of the lead actor, (we do not share the same type of humor, really), but the special effects look like fun, and I’m always up for a Star Trek parody, which is what this appears to be. Trailers are sometimes misleading though.

 

10 – Outlander (Starz)

I kinda like this show, and not just because Jaime is a hottie. I’ve never read any of the books, beyond the Lord Grey series, because I thought they were Romances, and that’s just not my bag. But I like the show. I’m a sucker for a good costume drama, I guess.

 

10 – Fear The Walking Dead (AMC)

I don’t watch this show because one show about The Walking Dead is harrowing enough,  but I know some people love this one, too.

 

24 – Star Trek Discovery (CBS Access)

I’m eagerly looking forward to watching this. I’ll have to subscribe to the network to watch it though. CBS All Access is a subscription cable service like Netflix. It costs 5.99 a month. The show will air the first episode on network television, after which all the episodes will be available on Access, with a  hiatus after about six episodes, and the rest of the new episodes airing  in January.

 

26 – Brooklyn 99 (Fox)

The show’s last season ended on a cliffhanger with Rosa and Jake possibly going to prison on corruption charges. It sounds like a pretty heavy plot, but this show has a way of getting you to laugh at such things, without feeling guilty about it. I’m looking forward to the new season. I love these characters and don’t like to see bad things happen to them.

 

27 – SEAL Team (CBS)

I keep saying I’m going to watch these military type shows, because I find all this Spec Ops stuff fascinating, but I keep skipping them. There’s an unspoken American jingoism in a lot of them, that just doesn’t sit well with me, and I end up just not liking the shows. Also, David Boreanaz is in this one, and I don’t like him very much.

 

28 – Gotham (Fox)

Apparently, The Scarecrow makes his debut this season. I like Killer Croc and hope he’s on the show, or planning to be. I’ve been skipping this show, because it hasn’t been holding my attention, and because some of the acting was a bit dodgy. I hated most of the female characters because their acting was terrible. I hated this show’s version of The Joker. Penguin, however, continued to be a favorite. but I’ll watch the season premiere, and see what’s what.

 

29 – Marvel’s Inhumans (ABC)

This show just looks bad. But bad with the potential to be good. I’m still mad at the show runner, Scott Buck, for inflicting the mess that was Iron Fist on us earlier this year. I swear to gob the next person who mentions the words affirmative action, and undeserving Black hires, in the same sentence is gonna catch some hands. Mediocre stains like Scott Buck are allowed to fuck up multiple times and still manage to have careers. This show could have gone to some deserving PoC instead of this guy. Okay let me stop here, because this rant can, and will, go  for several pages.

     

 

 The Exorcist (Fox)

I stopped watching this about halfway through the first season, but I know some of you out there are still really into it. (It does look kinda scary from the trailers.) Let me now how its going, and I’ll check out a few episodes ,on your rec.

 

October

1 – Ghosted (Fox)

I’ve loved Craig Robinson, ever since Hot Tub Time Machine, a movie I profoundly hated. I also remember him from Reno 911, as the commercial conman who was always singing using the same five notes on his synthesizer. He also did some hilarious cameos on Brooklyn 99. I was wondering when he’d get his own show and I’m set to watch this one, where he plays some regular yahoo, who gets involved in some afterlife type of shenanigans, although it mostly just looks like a buddy-cop show, with ghosts.

 

2 – Lucifer (Fox)

I’m not a fan of this but I heard the show has greatly improved since season one. I’m still not inclined to watch any of it, because I object to the woobification of evil characters. That whole “I’m not really bad. I just like a little drinkin’ and whorin’,” shtick gets real old with me, real fast. If a character is gonna be evil don’t make excuses for them. Just let them be evil.

 

   The Gifted (Fox)

This show isn’t filling me with a great deal of confidence that it will be interesting. Right now it looks like Riverdale with superpowers, and I hate Riverdale so…nah! Also I’m kinda getting tired of the whole’ government is after superpowered people” plot. I find it difficult to believe that anything formed by the US government would have their shit together enough to be that organized. Private companies could pull it off, but not the government.

 

10 – The Flash (CW)

I watched the last season, and still have no idea what the hell is happening on this show. I’ll probably watch this just to figure out what’s going on.

     

 

Legends of Tomorrow (CW)

I’m really looking forward to this. The show is adding some  new characters, and Damien Darhk is rumored to be back on the show this season. Also I’m a huge Firestorm fan and never get tired of looking at Jax. Vixen is also a favorite who clearly needs her own damn show.

Black Lightning doesn’t air until 2018, but I’m going to check it out, as CW becomes the Official DCEU network.

12 – Supernatural (CW)

Yep! Gonna watch!

       Arrow (CW)

Nope. I always fall asleep on this show. I don’t know why!

 

22 – The Walking Dead (AMC)

Yep! Gonna watch!

 

27 – Stranger Things (Netflix)

I think I’ll watch the second season of this, which looks more interesting than the first.  I watched a few episodes, and wasn’t greatly impressed, but it also wasn’t bad either, in that I didn’t fall asleep. It does have kids in it, and I’m allergic to watching those sometimes. At any rate, it looks like a good tide-over until the release of Stephen King’s IT, in theaters next year.

 

November

2 – SWAT (CBS)

Another military themed show I’m planning to look at, and then don’t.

 

14 – Future Man (Syfy)

I got nothing. I know nothing beyond the fact that Seth Rogen is involved, and I sorta, kinda like him and this title. I know Josh Hutcherson is in it too, and I have no idea who the hell he is, nor do I care to Google him. I will, however, give the show a looky-loo,  see what’s up, and let you know what I think. The Trailer doesn’t tell you much either.

 

21 – The Runaways (Hulu)

This looks like a better match for me than The Gifted. The trailer for he Gifted just looks really bad, I think. But I like the idea behind this show, and I’ve read a few of the comic books its based on, about the sons and daughters of some kind of Superteam, (like the JLA) battling with their superparents. The showrunners say they’re not going to do the usual racist stereotype stuff, so I’m holding them to that promise. this is another one with no trailer.

 

29 – Vikings (History)

Hell if I know. I watched all the other seasons without understanding why I love this show. I might as well finish it up.

 

Midnight Texas, Charlaine Harris’ new show has already begun and is approaching its third/fourth episode. Teen Wolf is finishing its last season, and I’ve pretty much skipped it, for reasons, although I will watch the finale. The show has moved to Sunday nights at 8PM without telling anybody, though.

The most recent show to air is The Sinner, starring Jessica Biel, which I wasn’t particularly interested in, although some of you might be interested, because there may be some supernatural element involved in its plot.

Preacher is nearing its end, and I’m a little behind in my episodes because I’ve been watching movie re-runs (like The Thing and Robocop), and I need to stop it. Game of Thrones is also in its final season, but I’m not much of a fan and I’ve been skipping the episodes. I will watch the Finale though.

I will try to watch Ash Vs. The Evil Dead Season 3, even though I missed the last season. The Punisher is set to be released in November on Netflix. I really liked this character in Daredevil, and I’m looking forward to the show.

 

Coming in 2018:

We’ll be seeing the second seasons of Legion, Luke Cage and Jessica Jones, this year. Cloak and Dagger, and The New Warriors is set to be released. I’m looking forward to the New Warriors because Squirrel Girl will be prominently featured.

This isn’t a complete list. For that, visit:

https://www.newsarama.com/30432-the-full-comic-book-television-release-schedule.html

 

And we promise to keep an eye on this show, since the showrunners already feel a need to get out ahead and defend it.

‘Kevin (Probably) Saves The World’ Creators Promise To Sidestep Clichéd People Of Color Trope – TCA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tumblr Weekend Reading #210

I spend waaay too much time scrolling through Tumblr, but I just can’t help it. The things that come across my dash are a reflection of America in microcosm. Some of the most virulently anti-logic, and vapidly ignorant human beings, clashing with some of the smartest, articulate, and astute people on the internet. (There are people on the internet who are so dumb, it makes me wonder how they found the internet, and why whoever told them about it, didn’t receive a knock to the head, with a Lego block.)

But I digress. Some of the more recent interesting discussions are from Mikki Kendall, whose rebuke, to the Fireside Fiction Publishers and Readers, is about the lack of PoC being published in the Speculative Fiction Genre. This is her response to their response:

http://firesidefiction.com/a-note-from-the-editor-of-the-blackspecfic-responses

**

Okay, I still don’t think people are realizing just how incredibly groundbreaking this is, not just for television, but for SciFi, in general. You have two…count ’em two, WoC, who are headlining a Science Fiction show, with one of them as the Captain of a Starship (White women had Janeway), and the other is the show’s lead character. The last time a Woc played a prominent character on a Star Trek show, (Voyager), was  B’elanna Torres, played by Roxanne Dawson who is Hispanic. The last time a Black woman played a prominent Star Trek character was Nichelle Nichols. (I don’t count Whoopi Goldberg because she was only a (semi)-recurring character, not a regular.)

This is very possibly one of the most diverse Star Trek casts ever assembled! And we just learned that the Medical Officer, for the ship Discovery, is Wilson Cruz who is from Puerto Rico. (I totally stan for Latinoooos in Spaaaaace!)

I’m also gratified to see Asians included in the cast, because outside of Sulu,  that’s also rare, although DS9 was very inclusive, too. Shazad Latif is from London and is English and Pakistani. Michelle Yeoh is of Malaysian descent. (Wooo! I’m excited for you guys, too!)

And let’s not forget:

Star Trek: Discovery’ Will Actually Have an Openly Gay Character

https://www.inverse.com/article/34758-star-trek-discovery-gay-beyond-anthony-rapp-stamets

 

**

**

And all these images tie back to the idea of representation, most especially for little girls, as stated by abigailmills :

You know what? I really wish people were as hyped about Sonequa Martin-Green being the first Black woman to lead in a Star Trek series as they are about the D*ctor Wh* casting. But then again, most feminists don’t care about non-White women so it’s to be expected that most of you guys don’t care about the fact that she’s making history too. And when you factor in Michelle Yeoh, you get it doubly so. Last time I checked, this is a pretty big deal for the sci-fi genre too.

What’s strange, to me, is people thinking that the D*ctor Wh* casting gives hope to all little girls when we know that’s not true. This issue is just so very layered and complex, but there is something particularly troubling about the fact that people think a White woman should be the symbol all little girls should look up to, regardless of their race. It’s so very arrogant to believe that little non-White girls will be represented by this woman that looks nothing like them. It’s very arrogant to think that little non-White girls should look up to the new Doctor as their new hero, especially knowing this casting is only a win for White women and White women only.

*Don’t get me wrong, Woc aren’t unhappy about Wonder Woman, or the new Doctor Who, but White women need to recognize that they are not universal. They don’t represent us or our view of hte world, and need to quit acting like they are. One ofhte biggest divides between White women, and Woc, is their complete disregard for the things that affect WoC.

Little girls of color may like and admire these characters, but they’re not going to look to them as role models. I know I didn’t when I was little. There were White actresses and characters I cared about and admired, like Linda Carter, and Ellen Ripley, but I didnt look to be like them. I did not use them as examples for how to live in the world as a woman, and certainly wasn’t looking to those women to teach me how to be a Black woman, even if I did like them. My role models were the handful of Black women, (and non-Black WoC), who made it into TV shows and movies, like Nichelle Nichols, Diane Carrol, Pam Grier, and yes, even Michelle Yeoh.

I plan on watching the new Doctor because I’m curious, I like the actress, (who  starred in Attack the Block, with John Boyega), and I liked Missy on the show this season. I’m not enthused about  the Wonder Woman movie, but I plan to watch it, at some point, and I’m looking forawrd to watching the Justice League.

Bt I’m a Black woman, and I wish White women would keep in mind that those women are not our idols, nor are they idols for other WoC. Even if we really like, and admire them, they don’t do anything to further our representation, but Sonequa, Michelle, Danai, and others  do. 

 

**

In the new Star trek show we’ve heard that Sonequa’s character, Michael Burnham is Spock’s adopted sister. Now the timeline, assuming she and Spock are near the same age at ten years before the Enterprise, would mean that the two of them grew up together, and she lived with his family. She could also be a relative of Amanda’s as well, which is how she came to live with Sarek’s family.

 Now this has messed with a lot of people’s heads, because they claim that it messes with canon, which I can understand why someone would say that, but there’s a very good rebuttal I’ve seen to that argument, and that rebuttal is Spock himself, who was prone to dropping bombshells about his family’s  status, when given half an opportunity::

Adding to canon is not the same thing as

destroying canon

From the mind of : tomfooleryprime

At San Diego Comic Con, we learned that Sonequa Martin-Green’s character, Michael Burnham, is Sarek’s adoptive daughter. The second I heard the news, all I could think was, “Let the hate begin.” And boy, did it ever.

I understand the disappointment, particularly with fan fic writers who invested a lot of time and effort into crafting stories that fit neatly into canon. Amazing how one sound bite can bulldoze right through decades of widely accepted fanon, huh?

Let’s be real, those little behind the scenes moments are almost the entire point of fan fiction: some of us like something so much, we like to imagine all the things the writers didn’t tell us, but now Michael Burnham has come along like a square peg in a round hole, rendering countless stories AU that previously adhered perfectly to canon. Some of mine included.

But fanon isn’t canon. One might say, “How come we’re just hearing about this now?” Surely Spock would have mentioned having an adoptive sister? But would he? Would he though?

No one had any idea he was engaged to T’Pring until the Enterprise showed up to Vulcan on Spock’s impromptu wedding day in the TOS episode, “Amok Time.” What was it he said when Lieutenant Uhura asked who the lovely woman on the viewscreen was?

If you watch closely enough and get creative with your interpretation, I swear Christine Chapel mouths the word, “bullshit.”

And no one knew that Spock had a strained relationship with his father until that time dear old Sarek hopped on Enterprise for the Coridan admission debate in the TOS episode, “Journey to Babel.” Kirk urged Spock to go down to the planet and visit his family before they left orbit, and what was Spock’s reply?

I can’t think of a better example of where Spock made Kirk look like a total asshole.

And then there’s the fact that Kirk had known Spock for decadesbefore finding out he had a half-brother named Sybok in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.

You would think Kirk would be used to Spock family bombshells by now.

So if anything, the idea that Spock had a secret adoptive sister actually feels more in keeping with canon than going against it. Given the weight of the evidence, I wouldn’t be all that shocked to discover he had three step mothers and a whole nest of secret love children drifting around out there.

The other thing is, as viewers, we tend to get into the habit of thinking that if a character doesn’t specifically address something on screen in front of other characters, other characters are in the dark along with the viewers. Like if a character didn’t explicitly announce some detail about their personal life to the world, not only did it never happen, it never could have happened. And that’s just silly. Think about this: Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the crew spent five years together on that mission, and we only got to view a little less than 66 hours of it. So imagine all the conversations in the mess hall we as viewers missed out on. Not only that, many of those details would be fairly trivial anyway.

Going back and adding to canon is not the same thing as destroying canon. Star Trek, particularly The Original Series, was always more focused on exploring the galaxy and meeting new civilizations – its primary purpose wasn’t to flesh out complicated life stories for each of the main characters. When you think about it, there’s so much we don’t know about Sarek, Amanda, or Spock’s upbringing. Almost everything we do know about this family comes from two episodes – “Journey to Babel” in The Original Series and “Yesteryear” in The Animated Series.

I think because we spent more than five decades without any concrete ideas of how Sarek and Amanda met, what Spock’s formative years were really like, or how their family dynamics worked, we just filled in the blanks for ourselves. But fifty years is a long time for the lines between canon and fanon to start getting blurred.

So I’m actually tickled pink at the thought that Spock had an adoptive sister, not furious that they’re corrupting more than fifty years of canon. It would be tampering with canon to claim that Starship Troopers is actually some kind of prequel to Kirk and the starship Enterprise. That would be destroying canon, but writing in a sister for Spock where one previously didn’t exist isn’t quite the same thing.

Would you like to know more?

The writers of the show are just doing what we as fan fic writers do all the time – filling in the gaps. You’re definitely allowed to feel however you want to feel about it. And I do understand a lot of the dismay and shock. It really sucks to pour your heart and soul into something, polishing it for months or even years until it’s perfect, and then have Michael Burnham thrown into the mix and it almost feels like a bad Photoshop job over your favorite family portrait, ruining your origins fics for Sarek/Amanda or Spuhura or Spirk or Spones or Spotty? (Is that actually what the Spock/Scotty ship is called?). It’s perfectly acceptable to say that Michael Burnham’s existence has ruined your perception of canon, but I don’t think it should be confused with ruining actual canon.

During the Comic Con panel, producer Alex Kurtzman insisted they have a good canon explanation for why Spock never mentions Michael. He was quoted as saying, “We’re aware [of the situation]. You’ll see where it’s going, but we are staying consistent with canon.” So I’m inclined to keep an open mind and see where they take it before dismissing it outright for being “too ludicrous.” Weirder things have actually happened within the Trek universe, so try not to let this revelation get you down.

 

And from  alightinside

Considering the fact that Spock’s family has to be literally in the same room as him before he even mentions they existent, having adopted sibs he just never talked about is the most canon compliant thing they could have possibly added.

 

*I might also add that Buffy the Vampire Slayer managed to throw in a sister for Buffy, that destroyed four years of watching the show, until it was carefully explained to the viewers why she was there. We haven’t seen Discovery yet, so we don’t have any explanation for why Michael is Spock’s adopted sister, but the creators say there’s a perfectly good explanation for it, and one of those creators is Bryan Fuller, who never puts anything that big into any of his shows by accident. 

 

**

 

And While we’re here,  there’s been some discussion of the marked lack of excitement towards the new Star Trek, from  White feminists, who claim to be progressive, and want diversity. There’s been more excitement from them about the new Dr. Who , then there has been about the groundbreaking diversity on Discovery, with a Black female lead, and an Asian Captain. 

As I said before, I don’t have a problem with White women being excited about stuff that affects them. I’m happy they’re happy. I don’t even have a problem with them being more excited about Dr. Who then about Star Trek, but what  I do object to, is their insistence that white female characters, in leading science fiction roles, are somehow groundbreaking, and role models for little girls all over the world. 

I need them to keep some perspective, in their excitement,  and that perspective is that white women’s stories are not universal, and they are not often role models for little girls of color.

From the mind of  abigailmills: 

You know what? I really wish people were as hyped about Sonequa Martin-Green being the first Black woman to lead in a Star Trek series as they are about the D*ctor Wh* casting. But then again, most feminists don’t care about non-White women so it’s to be expected that most of you guys don’t care about the fact that she’s making history too. And when you factor in Michelle Yeoh, you get it doubly so. Last time I checked, this is a pretty big deal for the sci-fi genre too.

What’s strange, to me, is people thinking that the D*ctor Wh* casting gives hope to all little girls when we know that’s not true. This issue is just so very layered and complex, but there is something particularly troubling about the fact that people think a White woman should be the symbol all little girls should look up to, regardless of their race. It’s so very arrogant to believe that little non-White girls will be represented by this woman that looks nothing like them. It’s very arrogant to think that little non-White girls should look up to the new Doctor as their new hero, especially knowing this casting is only a win for White women and White women only.

 

And my response: lkeke35

I have noticed the chirping silence coming from that particular contingent!

I think that’s one of the biggest divides between White feminists and women of color, is White women’s complete and utter disregard for the fact that WoC  see the world differently than them. They really do think we’re supposed to look up to them as role models. That they are universal.

When I was a little girl, there was precous little diversity on TV, but what diversity there was, I gravitated to. As a young Black woman I never chose White women as my role models, even if I admired a few of them , like Linda Carter as Wonder Woman, or Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley.

I modeled who I wanted to be after women like Eartha Kiit,  Nichelle Nichols, Diane Carroll, and Pam Grier. They were smart, tough, beautiful, graceful women. And yes, I was a Michelle Yeoh fan, and I loved her because she was all those things I just listed (and she still is).

Its not that I didn’t like and admire White actresses. I did. But I also knew, on some level, that no matter how admirably I (or they) behaved,  that as a Black woman, I wasn’t ever going to be accorded the status of a White woman, so I did not use them as  my role models. I didn’t try to be like any of them, and didn’t want to be like them. (This was a lesson I learned very, very early.)

I think its an incredible era we are living in, that my 12 year old niece is growing up with so many role models to choose from, in Pop Culture. I’m going to watch Star Trek Discovery with her and explain the significance to her. I’m going to watch The Walking Dead, and talk about how important Michonne is, and I’m going to take her to see The Black Panther with its gorgeous, and badass women, and yeah, I’m going to go see Proud Mary with her (and my Mom), and we’re all gonna geek out about it afterwards.

I wish White women cared enough to care about, and talk about, WoC in Pop culture, (and think of us as women too) but I don’t need White women’s validation to find and love those characters.

 

And from diversehighfantasy

Nicely said.

I’m also really bothered by the relatively subdued positive reaction to Sonequa leading the new Trek vs Doctor Who. I realized how little it mattered even to white women who are into sci-fi and fantasy when that gifset was going around celebrating all these recent genre leading women (The Doctor, Wonder Woman, Rey etc) all white or perceived as white, and when people started asking where were the Black women/WOC, they added May from Agents of Shield. That’s how off the radar Sonequa leading the new Star Trek (STAR TREK!!) is even for a lot of fandom people.

Now I’m wondering if people on Tumblr even talked about it much outside the Walking Dead fandom. (I know a bunch of people on Twitter acted like ass about “forced diversity,” I mean Tumblr fandom people).

Anyway. Yeah, the difference is very noticeable. I mean, I get the big deal about Jodie, The Doctor has specifically always been a man while Sonequa is playing a new character, and, I guess, to white feminists the barrier was already broken by Janeway. Still, I can’t shake the feeling that if a white woman was leading ST Discovery, we’d be seeing Star Trek/Doctor Who edits everywhere.

 

**

Interlude:

 Just like you shouldn’t drive while angry, you should never knit while you’re mad! That’s just wrong.

**

 

Okay Here’s something I’d never given any thought to, as an able -minded Black woman. I don’t suffer from mental illness (now), although I’ve had bouts of it in the past, and I’ve never been on Schizoid-Spectrum. But what do you do when you are Black and suffer from many of the symptoms of schizophrenia, and some of the things you actually believe are true, but will forever be invalidated by the White people around you. The very White people who refuse to acknowledge the existence of the racism that makes some of your beliefs true.

I’m still going to urge any of my PoC readers to look for therapists who are also PoC, if at all possible,  as there are some  unique issues, when you are a person of color on the spectrum, or suffering from mental illness. This is not because White people are incompetent but because they are not aware of the many issues surrounding your circumstances, if you’re a PoC.

Their reluctance to address the existence of racism, in the day to day lives of their patients, and to accommodate for the stress of that, as well as the stress of mental illness, and the different dynamics that exist in communities of color regarding such illnesses, will end up ultimately being of no help to you.

 

From Tumblr User Questingqueer:

questingqueer

I was sitting in the group room at my intensive outpatient program. I had just finished recounting an incident where I believed a security officer had been following me, but the person with me at the time had disagreed and said we weren’t being followed.

The head psychologist said “Your goal this week should be letting in alternative theories to your paranoia. It isn’t likely anyone is following you.” I said “What do you mean? How can I trust someone else’s perspective over my own, especially when that someone is white?” Another person spoke up, suggested increasing my anti-psychotics.

I looked around the room at the other patients and the professionals in group with me. I was the only Black person there.

I’m mentally ill, and sometimes I’m paranoid, and sometimes I’m delusional.

I’m Black, and I’m more likely to be followed around by security, or have negative interactions with the police. The racism in this world is real, and it can affect me.

I’m mentally ill, and sometimes I have persecutory delusions, and there wasn’t any drugs in my orange juice or bugs living in my arms even though I was convinced there were.

I’m Black, and I’m mentally ill. And that intersection has never been acknowledged online or in therapy. That intersection makes us more vulnerable to abuse, domestic violence, and police brutality. 

Black schizo-spec people face challenges that others don’t. We are more likely to be be labeled as dangerous and violent and be disbelieved when we share about how racism has impacted our lives, among many other things. That makes it harder for me to trust others- not to mention that difficulty trusting others is a symptom.

Was I being followed that day? I wish I had an answer, but I don’t know. Maybe I was, maybe I wasn’t. But that isn’t the point.

A simple search will tell you that schizophrenia is more readily diagnosed in Black patients than in white (source), and some say it is overdiagnosed.

But where are the positivity posts for Black people with stigmatizing disorders?

Where is the positivity for the Black schizo-spec people trying to figure out what level of fear and suspicion towards the police is reasonable and what is a symptom? Where is the positivity for Black schizo-spec people who have everything blamed on their diagnosis while their other mental health problems get ignored? Where’s the positivity for Black schizo-spec people who distrust the medical professionals they deal with, who have ugly symptoms, who are pigeonholed as dangerous?

We have died because we are Black and schizo-spec. Remember those of us who have been murdered or attacked.

• Keith Vidal
• Dontre Hamilton
• Khaleel Thompson
• Darren Rainey
• Jason Harrison
• Deborah Danner

And? Don’t forget to include us in your activism while we are living. 

**

 

In Canada, Target seems to have the same rep as Walmart does in America.

TARGET STORE GOTHIC:

strongermonster

it’s so weird hearing americans talk about Target© as some kind of semi-religious holy space of reasonably priced goods and services, bc in it’s short, fever-dream existence up here in the frozen north it was… Not Good.

in my experience with the three (3) i went to in the surrounding area it was. uh. you know when you step into a place and there’s nothing immediately noticeably wrong but you can just Feel that this is a Bad Space? like the kind of space where if you catch a glimpse of your mother walking down an aisle and turning a corner you know it’s a demonic trick and if you follow her it’ll lead you down a path to a dark space you can’t return from?

or you go in with your friend who’s right next to you but you get a text from them saying “hey i’m in the shoe aisle, you should come here” and you know it’s a trap from the devil? like other things:

• only half of the dim, washed out, often flickering fluorescent lights were lit at any given time, usually only every-other set, leaving these valleys of darkness that made entire aisles inaccessible for fear of shadow people latching on to your soul like a dark passenger.
• entire sections were just Empty. empty shelves with no product, never any employees filling them up, no boxes waiting to be unpacked, no signs saying what should be there.
• no employees at all actually? wandering around the store even though the parking lots were full and you walked in with a group of 20 or so felt so lonely. you could walk the whole place and it was dead silent and the only other “people” around always were several aisles away with their back turned, unmoving. there was always only one cashier and there was never anyone in her line.
• there was never any music on or announcements played? another place that does this are all the dollar trees in my area and it gives me anxiety. i feel like i’m being hunted, like i have to hold my breath and listen for the footsteps of beasts in other aisles.
• the fitting rooms had a strange, dark energy to them. it felt like if you ever used them, whatever universe you closed the door on would not be the same one you stepped out into when you were done. the washrooms also contained this same dark energy.
• passing the employees-only doors felt like wandering too close to a bears den. the glass windows never showed anything going on back there, no racks of product, no employees milling around. it was just pitch black, complete darkness. a hungry void.
• leaving a target was the same disorienting feeling as leaving a dark theatre and exiting into the light. sound and colour and feeling rush back in. you feel like you can breathe again. a weight is lifted from your shoulders. you can’t remember any of the time you spent inside the target.

it is my sincere belief that the targets in canada never existed. the storefronts were put up, yes, but the stores themselves were vast empty caverns filled with dark dreams and sinister interlopers. passing through the automatic doors was meant to teleport us to the nearest american location, but something went wrong and we entered an unnatural zone halfway between the upside down and whatever it was that happened in the langoliers.

i believe the balls outside target are carefully crafted and powerfully attuned magical artifacts that keep up the illusion known as Target©, but were incorrectly spaced in canada due to a mixup between the metric and imperial systems of measurement, and that is why the brief twilight zone episode that was canadian target collapsed virtually overnight.

 

Source: strongermonster

**

From the Tumblr:  writingwithcolor

This is a nice, long essay on the trope of the color black representing evil, and the color white representing goodness:

Black and White Symbolism: A Look into the Trope

We’ve noticed a volume of questions on the topic of Black and White symbolism in works. Light and white symbolizes good and pure. Dark and black is bad and evil. It’s an age-old trope deeply engraved throughout Western society, language, and cultures.

She’s having a “black day.”  He’s the “Black sheep” in the family. The evils of “Black magic.”  They’re “Black as one is painted.”

On the other hand…

They told an innocent “white lie.” He’s “whiter than white.” Good ole “White-collar” jobs.

These were just a few phrases found in the dictionary. The most frequently used dictionaries were written by racist old white men, so most of the language has been shaped by them.

If you flip further back you find entries like these:

Now, this guide comes from a western particularly American lens of the view of Black and White and its connotations. We recognize that B&W color symbolism and meaning varies across cultures.

However, western society imports its racist views across the globe, strengthening the Black as Evil and Good as White association within its “conquest” of mass media.

The Trope Incorporated into our Media

This trope is so normalized in Western culture that it is often unconsciously used and incorporated throughout many aspects of culture. It can easily be found in media, such as our TV-series, movies and literature:

• The black, darkly-dressed or featured characters are often the villains or antagonists,
• The white or light-featured characters are often the heroes, dispelling the world of the dark Others.

Also note that usually when good guys wear black, they’re more anti-heroes than full-heroes.

Tolkien really let himself go with this trope in Lord of the Rings and has the pure white race of elves be ethereal, wise, super good and natural *angelic singing*. Then there’s the orcs on the other side who are barbaric, unintelligent, violent and disgustingly ugly. Their language is black speech by the way.

“The Black Speech, also known as the Dark Tongue of Mordor, was the official language of Mordor. Sauron created the Black Speech to be the unifying language of all the servants of Mordor, used along with different varieties of Orkish and other languages used by his servants.”

“It is notable that the letter “e” is totally absent from the Black Speech. It was omitted on purpose for being a favourite letter of the Elves, and for forming a smile when uttering it.”

“In real life, J. R. R. Tolkien created this language with the intention of making it harsh and ugly…” then later on in the same piece is written: “…the forces of good refuse to utter it.” and “Tolkien designed it to be unpleasant in his own mind…”

With these quotes you can see the link between calling it “Black speech” and the unpleasant, evil and anti-social aspects of the named. Quotes are taken from here.

Many epic fantasy writers mimic Tolkien in his use of fantasy races and themes and such, so they unconsciously also mimic this trope.

Game of Thrones also plays with the good vs evil but switches up the color code with the Kingsguard wearing white and the Night’s Watch wearing black. This posts speaks of the symbolism pertaining to the white cloaks of the Kingsguard.

Attracted to gray characters instead of orcs and angels, Martin regards the hero as the villain on the other side. The Wall’s Night’s Watch, whom Martin described as “criminal scum [who] are also heroes and they wear black”, was a deliberate twist on fantasy stereotypes. Furthermore, the use of black as the identifying colour for the essentially good Night’s Watch and the use of white for the much corrupted Kingsguard is another example of Martin subverting traditional fantasy which tends to link light colours with good and darker ones with evil. From here.

Then there’s Disney that’s notorious for their ingrained racism

This is easily seen in their visuals when portraying villains. When you look at the heroes vs villains, the villains are often portrayed as darker, more “ethnic” (see: Mother Gothel, Jafar) and sometimes queer-coded (like Ratcliff and Dr. Facilier).

Another example: the shadowy,dark huns in Disney’s Mulan. They have greyish, dark skin with strange eye coloring, and they all look the same.

On the left: a hun as portrayed by Disney in Mulan. 

Furthermore, Disney typically depicts baddies as “less beautiful” with some exceptions of very beautiful and vain evil ladies (they have a trope with two types of beauty where one is pure and wholesome while the other is vain and egocentric. The second is also usually an older individual).

The Oz film was pretty visual, colorful, and magical until the evil witch and her black monkey minions come and then everything is dark suddenly. Oh, but there’s the “good” monkey, depicted in bright and lighter coloring.

Angels and Demons

There is also the trend where angels are always white and demons black/dark in fantasy. This doesn’t have to be and is a biased way to depict them, at least from a non-religious point of view, and as far as I know I never found a mention of white wings if wings at all when angels were mentioned. Exceptions go to the angels in higher orders, but still no white mentioned. Fallen angels suddenly have black wings, when they still have them.

The Harms of the Trope

Why is the B/W – Good vs Evil- trope harmful? Well, look at how the colors are associated. Dark as bad, evil. White as good, pure. But then you group a whole people as Dark + “Black” and the other as Light and “White” and you’ve set these people in opposition of each other.

There are Black people in the world. There are white people in the world. “Black” as a word is literally viewed as synonymous with darkness and evil. “White” is literally viewed as synonymous with goodness and purity. There’s an intentional pattern here.

Malcolm X’s discussion regarding how Black is used to describe a people adds clarify to this.

Read about it here.

Martin Luther King Jr. also discussed the association of Black to Evil and White to Good.

Somebody told a lie one day. They couched it in language. They made everything Black ugly and evil. Look in your dictionaries and see the synonyms of the word Black. It’s always something degrading and low and sinister. Look at the word White, it’s always something pure, high and clean. Well I want to get the language right tonight.

I want to get the language so right that everyone here will cry out: ‘Yes, I’m Black, I’m proud of it. I’m Black and I’m beautiful!

Check out the clip from this speechhere.

Another notable example of the result of these engraved associations and aversion to Blackness is how racist fans reacted to the Rue character from the Hunger Games being (rightfully) portrayed as a Black girl in the movies.

A lot of these reactions can be found online. Like this one.

The trope is deeply ingrained into people’s minds and reinforced by the media that combined with systematic racism Black people and even Black children cannot be seen as pure and innocent. These traits incorporated in the Black and White Symbolism is enforced on Black people (and white people to some extent). The symbolism has been influenced further with racism and that is why it can be harmful.

What to do with the trope

Now, we don’t believe people should stop using Black and white in relation to people; running away from the word, even given its history, would only reinforce Black as a badge of shame when that’s simply a lie. We think the better solution is to built up a new dictionary. To stop using black to mean all things sinister and evil and white as all things blameless and good.

Black & White in our Writing

While it’d be difficult to deconstruct these associations overnight, it’s definitely not impossible to be more conscious of how one might be perpetuating the B&W trope within their works.

Pay attention to your writing and the color symbolism there.

1. Where do you find Black & White imagery? How is it being used?
2. Are you using shadows and night skies to foreshadow bad things to come?
3. Morning light and white gowns to symbolize purity and hopefulness?

Now even these aren’t inherent pitfalls.

The following are some ways to make sure of that:

Defy the Trope

I was watching the first season of Sleepy Hollow, when there was an episode with a playful little girl running in the forest in a white dress. A little Black girl. While I don’t recall if she were meant to symbolize good or evil so neatly, but simply featuring this young child in white, both common emblems of “innocence” felt like a deviation from the typical white or pale girl to play such a part.

Even when using typically good and white symbolism, including Black and brown people to take part in these roles is a better option that shunning them out of such roles and thus the associated symbolism. How many dark-skinned angels do you see in media? How often are characters of color associated with beings that typically represent purity and goodness?

It’s like with heroes and villains. It’s more preferable to have a diverse mix of characters who play positive roles as opposed to making all your Characters of Color villains or antagonists.

Another example of deviating from the trope can be found with George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones series as mentioned further up this post.

Subvert the Trope

Suppose Black represented good. Suppose Black represented life, innocence, and good things to come.

Now suppose White symbolized evil. Suppose White represented death, immorality and ominous things on the horizon.

Subverting the B&W trope is another way to handle it in your writing. If your story is one based on a non-western or even fantasy culture, it’d be easier to sell the idea that this is simply a world that doesn’t treat Black as evil but of neutral or good (and here’s how & why). Attempting to pass this off in a more westernized culture might get confusion or skepticism from readers, though.

One idea is to subtly apply the symbolism. Death always or often occurs under bright, white lighting or sky. The dark, black forest protects the character who is being pursued by evil. A Black cat brings hope and good news.

And before you say this is enforcing “reverse racism!” Nah. Just like if you felt like having all white villains, there is no engraved association with whiteness that exists today that could actually reverse society’s overarching association of white to good and black to bad.

Not All Evil

Say you do have some negative imagery in connection to darkness. First, evaluate how heavily you’re enforcing Black as bad and consider if a change would be good.

You could also avoid reinforcing the message of dark as only/always evil if you were to balance out your associations of darkness by also including positive or neutral connections to darkness.

New B&W Meanings

Black & White don’t have to mean good or evil at all, as in not the case in every society anyhow. There are other associations with the colors you could emphasize in your writing. Take some of these examples below:

Black Associated Meanings:

• Beautiful
• Bold
• Calmness/Comfort
• Elegant
• Health/Fertility
• Heat/Warmth
• Hidden
• Life
• Magical*
• Mysterious
• Protection
• Seduction
• Strength/Power*
• Wealth
• Wholeness

*Additional Notes:

• Avoid strong = Black people tropes
• The term “Black magic” is rooted in racism. Read about this and for alternatives to “Black magic” here.
• See here for more associations with Black

White Associated Meanings:

• Cold
• Confusion
• Death
• Distance/aloofness
• Emptiness/Absence
• Fairness/Balance
• Isolation
• Opportunity
• Order
• Organized
• Peace/Calm
• Plain
• Protection
• Sterile

Additional Notes:

• The point with the White list is to provide more symbolism besides the typical good – pure – innocent therefore some of the images are less neutral and positive than that of the Black list.
• See here for more associations with white.

Construct New Images

• Black & White aren’t the only colors that can oppose each other.
• What about contrasting colors? Primary colors, secondary colors, tertiary colors? Earthy colors/oceanic colors?
• You could even use bright and dimness as a means of symbolism, as discussed in this post.

There’s so much more you can do with the Black vs. White trope. Getting away from the Black/Evil – White/Good overarching symbolism can add something fresh to your writing.

We hope this inspires you to at least be more conscious of the color symbolism in your writing. More discussion on Black & White can be found in our color symbolism tag!

–Mods Colette and Alice

New TV Trailers (Fall 2017)

So Pilot reviewing season is here in a month, and its time for me to nimble up my fingers, as I type furiously to keep up with all the new genre shows coming this Fall. Some of them will not be watched, some of them won’t even get reviews. As we get closer to September, I’ll eventually whittle it down to the handful of pilots I’ll be reviewing, along with my regular reviews of returning shows, like Supernatural. 

 

 

 

Midnight Texas

Tonight on July 24th Midnight Texas will be airing on NBC. It’s a show based on the Charlaine Harris trilogy of the same name and involves Supernatural creatures all living in some podunk town in the middle of nowhere Texas, who need to protect themselves from outside discovery. I’m looking forward to watching this.

 

 

Mr. Mercedes

This is coming to the DirecTV Network, called Audience, this fall. Some of you may not have access to this network, so I’ll watch the pilot and review the first episode, for when it eventually makes it to DVD. This is based on a Mystery trilogy by Stephen King, about a former detective who gets called back into action after a serial killer starts sending him taunting letters.  I don’t normally watch cop shows, but this is Stephen King. Yes, it does look a lot like the show Bates Motel, which I only partially watched, but I like Brendan Gleason, and feel like he’s a good choice for this character. In the novel, he has a Black teenage neighbor who helps him navigate technological stuff , and a neurodivergent  female assistant, that I hope gets cast for true. You do not need to have read the books to follow the show, but they are very good books, with a minimum of gore, and only the slightest touch of the supernatural, if that has you worried.

 

 

Star Trek Discovery

Okay here’s, the extended trailer for the new Star Trek Discovery. Remember guys this is, a Bryan Fuller Joint, the same showrunner who worked on Hannibal, and who just finished, the critically acclaimed, first season of American Gods. Fuller also has some Star Trek experience, as he used to be one of the writers on  Deep Space Nine. The show follows lead character Michael Burnham, played by Sonequa Martin-Green, who grew up on Vulcan, and was raised by Sarek, Spock’s father.

 

 

Teen Wolf

The final season of Teen Wolf will be airing this weekend, and I’m not real crazy about it, although I may watch it in support of Scott McCall. Over the years, the show has engaged in a great deal of whitewashing ,as it started out with a good amount of diversity, but has slowly been replacing all of the PoC each season, with new White characters, something which has dulled my enthusiasm for the show. The word “final” is in the title though, so I feel compelled to at least look at the pilot. I hope for a happy end to the series.

 

 

The Incredible Jessica James

If you liked Jessica James when she was snarking at the public on  The Colbert Show than check out her new show on Netflix, coming this Friday.  Remember, she was offered the job as the new host, and famously, turned it down, because she was looking at other plans. I will definitely check it out. I loved her comedy on the show, and I’m looking forward to see what she’s gotten up to here.

 

Bright

Here’s an extended trailer for Netflix’s new show starring Will Smith. I’m a big Will Smith fan, and I’ll be on vacation then, so yeah, BingeWatch! It doesnt look as funny as I’d expect from Smith, but its got some great imagery. We get to see Will Smith wielding a sword, and snarking at some Orcs. This wil lbe released on Dec. 22nd.

 

 

The Walking Dead

Yeah, this looks as harrowing and intense as the last season…so no change then? I’m already tired of Negan, and will be glad when he’s locked up, or whatever they’re gonna do to him, but at least things  look a little more energetic than the last season, which wasn’t one of my favorites, except in those few moments when it was.  I see that Carol “Terminator” Danvers is back with the gang, and Morgan and Jesus get to have a smackdown. Also there’s a lot more Ezekiel, which is okay for me.

 

 

Westworld Season 2

I really enjoyed the first season of this show, so I’m definitely here to watch the fallout of the robot’s rise to sentience, and how that affects things in the park.

 

 

The Defenders

I’m cautiously excited about this because Iron Fist  is in here,  and watching his show was traumatic. On the other hand, I like everyone else in the show and there’s this lady in here that’s uhm…C’MON, ITS FREAKIN’ SIGOURNEY WEAVER, PEOPLE!!!

Oh okay, I’m sorry for yelling but, yeah, I did mean to do that. Uhm, there’s some fightin’, explosions, and Luke Cage, and stuff, too.

 

 

Vikings

This is another one of those shows that I dont know why I watch it. It’s not a bad show, although its gone off the rails a bit since its beginning. I just like the characters, the accents are fascinating, and there’s some gore and swordfights. Its not as complicated as Game of Thrones because the characters seem to have much more prosaic concerns. This is the final season. Apparently, I can’t resist the word “final”, in any description of a show.

 

 

Marvel’s Inhumans

This trailer looks waay better than that first one which seemed created to make you mock the show before its airing. Yeah, Medusa’s hair still looks cheap, but at least they remembered PoC exist in that world.  I’ve always been a huge Black Bolt fan, but I don’t know how to feel about the actor playing him. Hopefully, he will change facial expressions, during one of the episodes. So far, none of these trailers for the show,  are garnering the enthusiasm that I feel The Inhumans deserve.

 

Krypton

Nope. I have no plans to watch this beyond the Pilot because, from the description, it sounds like Riverdale in Space, and I won’t watch that either.

 

 

The Crossing

I think this sounds intriguing. I dont know if I’ll watch it beyond the first episode, (probably not), but it looks like an interesting premise.

 

 

The Alienist

I’m far more likely to keep watching this, because I like period shows, and I have a soft spot for this particular actress, ever since she starred in Man on Fire, with Denzel Washington. The book, by Caleb Carr, was pretty good too,  and I’m interested to see what the creators do with it.

 

 

The Orville

Not sure I want t owatch a Star Trek parody, and I’m uncertain of the lead actors humor, but I did laugh a few times during this trailer, so I’ll at least give it a try.

 

 

Stranger Things Season 2

I didn’t see the first season of Stranger Things but I heard a lot about it. i thought maybe it was an “It” ripoff, but it turned out to be a little bit more than that. This trailer goes a long way towards making me want to see the second season, which is a feat, considering I found the first season not particularly interesting.

 

 

Next up :Part Two of the New Fall Releases, and Returning Shows

Aaaah!!! New Movie Trailers (2017)

San Diego Comic-Con has just begun, which means that  every day will bring new trailer releases to the internet. So, all week long, I’m going to try to collect the ones I’m most interested in and post them here. Not only does the SDCC release new trailers every day, for TV shows and movies, but other avenues often release trailers for their movies in a  competition for Nerd attention spans. I will try to capture a few of those too. (Some of these trailers have been seen before, but sometimes extended trailers, or extra trailers get released, as well.)

Here’s a list of movies I’m very excited about, mildly excited about, and some I don’t care that much about. We’ll start with the ones I’m most enthusiastic about, and descend in order of importance. But only to me though. There are plenty of movies I’m not interested in, but you might find them very intriguing. 

*We will start with my personal favorite, The Dark Tower. I am total trash for these books, and I’m so excited that Idris Elba is playing Roland Deschain, that I can hardly contain myself. I hope I don’t pop before Aug. 4th. It turns out that Mum is also a fan of Idris, and is interested in going to the theater with me to see this. All I had to do was mention Idris, monsters, guns, and Stephen King, in the same sentence, and she was onboard. Now let’s see if I can make it a date with my niece, The Potato!

 

*I think this movie stars some guy named Ryan Gosling. You may have heard of him. Or not. I don’t object to the man but I don’t actually see why everyone’s so gaga over him. Maybe I’ll see it during this movie. He looks really cool in this trailer though, (in my head, everyone in this movie is a Replicant.) Jared Leto is also being weird and creepy in this movie. I’m one of the few people who  still likes Jared, (probably because I don’t personally know him.) But I’m here for Harrison Ford. I’ve been gaga over Harrison since his bit part in Apocalypse Now. I just want to see him reprise his role as Deckard, since I loved the first Bladerunner movie.

 

 

Black women finally get our own version of John Wick/Wonder Woman. I know I can talk my Mum into seeing this because she loves Foxy Brown type movies. I’m a big John Wick fan, and I’d love to see how Taraji handles this role. I feel confident she can pull it off because of her work in Person of Interest. Next year is gonna be the shit as far as diversity in movies. At least for Black people. Now can we get some Latinx, and Indigenous Supers, up in here? I just like seeing different ways of handling the same stories, and a Native American Superhero movie would be awesome! (Yep! I know about Cleverman.)

 

 

I have one word for this trailer: Aaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!!! Let me reiterate that the single word I’m using here is A-a-a-a, followed by h-h-h-h, and then some exclamation points. I think that says it all!

 

I love when Guillermo Del Toro puts his hand to something. I will see anything he comes up with, even if the idea is ultimately unsuccessful, like Crimson Peak, it’s still a movie worth looking at. This really does look like Abe Sapien gets a girlfriend in 1950s America, though. I am here for this.

 

 

I had a really hard time choosing my favorite movie for the year The Incredibles was released. It’s just one of my all-time favorites. I just know the sight of a grown woman, bouncing around the house in her bunny (actually cow) slippers, over the release of a sequel to The Incredibles, is sure to bring a smile to y’all’s faces, too. The actual family isn’t even in this trailer. This is a tribute to the real star of the movie, Edna Mode, someone I aspire to be when I grow up one day.

 

Okay, I like this trailer a lot more than the first one. This one actually makes me want to see the movie, which is great considering my theories about trailers being designed to make a person hate a movie before it opens. It looks funny, and action packed, the Incredible Hulk is talking, and Cate Blanchett looks awesome as Hel, just like in the comic books. Tessa Thompson looks like she’s having waaaay too much fun. Oh, did you catch Mark Ruffalo’s Commemorative Duran Duran Rio Album T-shirt? Everything about this trailer screams 1980s aesthetic, right down to the music and the Heavy Metal logo, and I am here for it, because that shit is hilarious to me, having actually lived through that era.

 

*Now this is how a trailer is supposed to be. Exciting! Fun! Great lines! Lots of action scenes! Good music! This is the trailer that makes me enthusiastic to see this movie, because that other trailer was kinda, meh!

I like the modern day WW more than I like WW2 version, for some reason.  I read most of the comic book versions of The Justice League, but I was mostly indifferent to The Flash, Cyborg, and Aquaman as individual books. I like the actors they chose, though, especially Ezra Miller, and Jason Momoa. They look they’re having fun, which means I’ll have fun, too. I don’t actually object to Ben Affleck as Batman, except when I do, apparently. (Maybe it has something to do with my mood. Who the heck knows?) I hope Cyborg changes expression at some point.

 

 

 

*Okay, this movie looked creepy enough, even though I don’t normally watch serial killer films. I come from America’s Northeast, (Ohio), so movies  with lots of snow are always attractive to me. I can’t imagine why! Also, movies with snow, and Michael Fassbender, are always going to be intriguing. Did I tell you I was a fan of Michael Fassbender, who in real life is probably a complete asshole, but I don’t want y’all spoiling my daydreams of marriage (and eventual divorce,) in some alternate world’s future? Oh, I haven’t told y’all that!

Never mind.

 

 

I’m feeling just meh! about these:

*I  was not a huge fan of the original movie becasue I hated all the characters,  including Eggsy (or whatever) and there’s one scene, in particular, that was extremely violent, and  sort of harrowing to sit through, and I didn’t like it, even if it was very well choreographed. On the other hand, this one has cowboys and Channing Tatum, which might be a win for me.

 

 

*I think this might have been released already. I’m not sure, but it looks suitably weird and frightening, so I’m not sure I want to sit in a movie theater, and see something like this, although I would definitely watch it on Cable or Netflix. I always have a odd mix of yes/no feelings regarding alien invasion movies, (although I loved last year’s Arrival.)

 

 

*I have no intention of seeing this in a theater, but I love the idea. It looks scary and funny which is exactly my style. Some of you might really like this one. I would definitely watch it on TV.

 

 

 

*I like Noomi Rapace, and this movie sounds intriguing, but I would never watch this in a theater, because it looks deeply depressing, and kind of horrifying. I think I’ll wait for the DVD, on this. But I know some of you will like this, especially if you liked Children of Men.

 

*I love Dwayne Johnson but I’m not going to see this. I even like Kevin Hart’s brand of comedy, and the two of them have such great chemistry together. I won’t go see this unless my sister pays for it, though. I liked the book, and the original movie, too. The idea of upgrading to make it a cliched videogame is also pretty cute, but I won’t be seeing this one until it, inevitably, shows up on cable.

 

 

Okay, these movies are a straight up Nope!, for me, but might be intriguing to some of you guys:

*Why does there even need to be a live-action version of a nearly perfect animated movie? Who did this, and can we find them, and waterdrop them, until they stop doing whatever they think they’re doing?

 

*Nope. I already saw this movie. It was called Wanted, or American Ultra, or something, and I don’t want to pay money to see it again. I’ll wait for it on Amazon.

 

 

 

*Nope. Already saw this movie, too. It was called 10,000 BC, I think. I was disappointed then, and I’m sure I’ll be disappointed here.

 

Next up: New TV show trailers!

Summer of 2017 TBR Pile

Currently Reading

This basically means I am well into the book (at least 20%) and dedicated to finishing it. I often have multiple books going at once, and switch out according to mood and whether or not the book needs to be returned to the library soon.

Kill Society – Richard Kadrey

I love this entire series, which really needs to be made into a movie starring Vin Diesel, because that’s who I picture, and whose voice I hear, as Sandman Slim. The plot, for this newest book, is a total ripoff of Fury Road, but I’m here for it.

 

Rupert Wong: Cannibal Chef – Kassandra Khaw

 

These books are really gory, but also unexpectedly funny. I wasn’t sure what I expected when I picked these up, but the title is basically what the book is about. Rupert Wong is paying off some kind of debt  by acting as a chef in demonic restaurants. Yes, they eat people. This is a distinctly Asian setting, and it’s also funny as, well..Hell. It’s on sale at Amazon for less than four bucks.

 

Phantom Pains – Mishell Baker

 

The first book in this series titled Borderline, is very probably the best fantasy novel written last year. That book made my top ten list, and this sequel is looking to make it on there for this year. Its also on sale at Amazon for 2 bucks. Grab it!

 

Aliens: Bug Hunt Anthology

I haven’t got very far into this book beyond the first story, which was all kinds of fun, so  I’m looking forward to reading the other stories. This book is on sale at Amazon for 2 dollars, but I don’t know how long that’s going to last, so  grab it up,now.

 

To Be Read

Which basically means I’ve gotten about 10% of the way into these books before continuing with the books I’m already in the middle of reading. I often read multiple books at once, switching to a different book according to my mood, or  whatever is near to hand. This means that finishing a book can take a while, as I make incremental progress across several books.

The Change (1-3) Guy Adams

I’ve read the first book in this short series, and its genuinely scary. Its about an alien invasion of Earth that killed off most of the human race outright when it occurred, but for the survivors, the world has gone hideously, horribly, wrong. I think these are based on his first book, The Change Orbital, which is also pretty terrifying.

 

The Witch Who Came in From the Cold – Malcolm Gladstone

 

I like the ideas of spies who do magic, and I like some of Gladstone’s writing, so I wanted to try this one. The opening chapter is very exciting. The book consists of a bunch of nested, shared-world stories, by different authors, sort of like G.R.R.M.’s Wild Cards Series.

 

Strange Practice – Vivian Shaw

I haven’t read much of this one but the description is adorable. A woman physician in Victorian London, who is related to Van Helsing,  gets caught up in taking care of the illnesses of various supernatural creatures like werewolves, vampires, and mummies, and has to save their existences from some murderous monks.

 

Urban Enemies Anthology

Famous Urban Fantasy authors put the spotlight on some of their more villainous characters from their popular series.

 

Magicians Impossible – Brad Abraham

I have no idea what this is about as I’ve only read the first chapter. What I did read was very exciting , and I’m eager to keep going.

 

Graveyard Shift – Michael Haspil

 

I was really looking forward to this book, the moment I read the first blurb. This is an interesting story, that’s not unlike the Rivers of London series by Aaronovitch. The lead character is an ancient Egyptian demi-god, working as a kind of supernatural cop, in a world of vampires, and werewolves, who have just come out of the closet. I’m working on it.

 

Books To Recommend 

I have so many recommendations to give you, but I’m going to stop at these few.Most of these are Dark Fantasy and Horror. There are no monster romances in any of these books, nobody talking about their favorite pair of boots, or what clothes the hot guy is wearing, because that kind of stuff just puts me right to sleep. The darker and more unusual the Fantasy, the more I’ll like it, especially if it takes place in the modern world.

The  Barker & Lewelyn Series by Will Thomas

This is the only mystery on the list. I’ve become obsessed with Hard Victorian mysteries, and Will Thomas has one of the best. The lead character is totally a Sherlock Holmes clone, but I don’t care. I will read about Holme’s clones, all day, every day. There’s a difference between a hard mystery, vs a soft mystery. A hard mystery is more a police procedural. Its darker and grittier,  and I especially like mysteries that take place before modern forensics.

 

The Rivers of London Series

 

I’ve written about this series before. Its hella fun. I like to think of it as a calmer, British version of the Harry Dresden series. Peter grant is a Black cop who gets involved in magical events in London.

 

King Rat – China Mieville

 

This was the very first book I ever read by this author. I didn’t know what to expect but the description sounded vaguely intriguing. I was very pleasantly surprised to find that it was unlike any Fantasy I’d eve read. I’ve read nearly every one of Mieville’s books since then, and have never been disappointed.

 

The Iskryne Series – Elizabeth Bear

 

I love it when writers take fantasy tropes and  turn them upside down. Bear takes the concept of bonded animal companions all the way to its limit, and that includes how sexuality is handled. Bear’s writing partner for the series is Sarah Monette. There’s not a lot of human women in the books but it more than makes up for that with the ideas that are introduced, and the setting.

 

Wormwood: Gentlemen Corpse Series – Ben Templesmith

 

This is the funniest comic book zombie series ever written. At least part of the reason for that are Ben Templesmith’s ridiculous illustrations. Wormwood is not the name of the zombie, mind you, but the name of the tiny, snarky, worm that’s possessing the corpse, who fights various lovecraftian horrors from outer space.

 

The Works of Brom

Just about any one of Brom’s books is a gem. They’re not comic books but they do contain some beautifully dark illustrations, and cover such topics as: damnation, Peter Pan, toys, and a motorcycling demon. His latest book is called Lost Gods and is about a young man trying to find his way through Hell, to save his endangered wife back on Earth. If you have a taste for weird, then Brom is the writer for you.

 

God’s Demon – Wayne Barlowe

This is the only prose book written by Barlowe although he has written/illustrated other boos about fantasy figures, science fiction, and aliens. In this story, the war in Heaven continues into Hell, as one of the Fallen, Sargatanas, tries to redeem himself, and win back God’s favor. The novel is based on a series of illustrations Barlowe did for his book, Barlowe’s Inferno, which is a guided tour through Hell.

 

The Skyscraper Throne Series – Tom Pollock

I love fantasies based on cities, especially when the city is a real character in the book. Such s the case with The City’s Son series. If you liked China Mieville’s Un Lun Dun, then you’ll love this YA series.

 

The Matthew Swift Series – Kate Griffin aka Catherine Webb

Once again you have a fantasy series where the city is a separate character in the book. The city of London  holds all the magic, and people who are attuned  can access it. This series has a number of Asian and Black characters that I thought were interesting, including a Black female sorceress, who is an apprentice to the lead character, who isn’t, quite, human.

 

Bone Street Rumba Series – Daniel Jose Older

Daniel Older does for diversity in New York what Ben Aaronovitch does for the city of London. The main character is Carlos Delacruz, a half-ghost,dealing with supernatural events in his working class, Latinx/Hispanic, neighborhood. If you’re looking for diversity, and strong women characters, check it out.

The Eric Carter Series – Stephen Blackmoore

Much of this series is based on South American mythology. Eric Carter is a modern day necromancer, who gets involved with an Aztec goddess, after the death of his sister. Lots of action, but still less bombast, and more diversity than the Harry Dresden books.

 

The SNAFU Series

This is an entire series of military horror books, where human beings fight aliens, werewolves, vampires, and various monsters that defy description. If you like military horror then check these out, along with books like:

World War Cthulhu

 

Operation Arcana