Category: Movies

[Movie Review] Crimson Peak

Stitch3 Comments

This rambling review contains minor to major spoilers for the film as well as some mentions of incest, ableism, abusive relationships, and violent women. And of course paraphrasing. Lots of paraphrasing.

crimson peak poster Crimson Peak is a beautiful movie about extremely messed up people.

I loved the movie for the way that it definitely shone as an example of the Gothic Romance genre (while subverting several of its tropes!), for feisty heroine Edith Cushing, and the tensely spiraling relationship between her and the Sharpe siblings.

All that love aside though, it’s one of those movies where I can’t help but nitpick at it because while it was a gloriously eye-catching movie with unbelievable scenery and a messed up plot, it had issues on top of the good stuff.

The film managed to both exceed and kind of reaffirm my expectations for the film.Read More »

Crimson Peak’s pretty but it sure doesn’t look diverse!

Stitch7 Comments

crimson peak1 bloody disgusting

No matter what, I am going to see Crimson Peak next month.

I decided this back when the cast was first announced and then when we got those set photos of what looked like a funeral. I love Tom Hiddleston. Love him like I love naps, it’s that intense. And I of course enjoy Guillermo del Toro’s work. He’s a freaking master of horror and tension and his movies always leave me feeling kind of uncomfortable but in a good way.

But here’s the thing about my intense love of del Toro and Hiddleston coming together to put on the Gothic nightmare of my heart: it’s so not diverse in terms of race and I’m not okay with that.Read More »

Bond Girl: GoldenEye

Stitch

never had me

This week’s Bond Girl post is about my favorite Bond film in Pierce Brosnan’s run: GoldenEye.

Here’s an excerpt:

Alec Trevelyan betrays Bond (and MI6) while his own feelings of betrayal drive him. Of course. He has the requisite tragic backstory (the death of his parents at his father’s hand in what Trevelyan sees is a direct relation to British betrayal of the Lienz Cossacks to the Russians after World War II.)

Following the dramatic reveal that Trevelyan is in fact alive and well, James Bond feels betrayed because his close friend not only faked his death, but also has decided to betray the country that they grew up in. It’s such a mess.

Add to that how Trevelyan is certainly dealing with jealousy of Bond and you’ve got this tangled web of emotions and everyone’s inability to communicate before going off to enact their massive plans for revenge.

Seriously, there’s a point where Trevelyan sneers at Bond about finding forgiveness in the arms of willing women “for all the ones you’ve failed to protect.” I feel like it’s an especially cutting dig because Trevelyan most certainly would’ve known about Bond’s wife so this perhaps is a way that we’re getting an oblique reference to James Bond’s dead wife Tracy.

Either way, Trevelyan isn’t playing fair.

If you liked this and want to read more about what I liked and disliked about the film, check out Bond Girl: Re-Watching and Re-Evaluating GoldenEye on The Mary Sue site! And comment (if you want) or feel free to chat me up on Twitter about everyone’s slightly sleazy favorite man of international espionage!

A few of my favorite Bonds

Stitch3 Comments

favorite-thingsTrying to choose your favorite James Bond actor is like trying to pick your favorite child or your favorite book.

Too many options.

Too many chances to get the whole thing wrong.

It’s not as if the fate of the world hinges on that decision or as if there’s any way to be wrong, but still, when it comes time to pick that one top Bond, I stall.Read More »

Is a James Bond Musical really in the works?

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"Dr No trailer" by Danjaq and United Artists - Dr. No trailer. Licensed under PD-Pre1978 via Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dr_No_trailer.jpg#/media/File:Dr_No_trailer.jpg
“Dr No trailer” by Danjaq and United Artists – Dr. No trailer. Licensed under PD-Pre1978 via Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dr_No_trailer.jpg#/media/File:Dr_No_trailer.jpg

Um yeah?

I hope you’re prepared for me to squee about this for as long as it takes for it to come out. I literally didn’t know I needed this sort of musical until the Independent announced it. Now it’s all I can think of.

It’s like the universe remembered how much I love musicals for things that really shouldn’t be musicals (Bring It On, Legally Blonde, and The Vampire Lestat to name a few recent book/film franchises that got the musical treatment).

I can’t figure out how I feel about this aside from the ear-piercing squee from two of my major interests colliding. I love musicals no matter what they’re about and um, hello, I can’t get enough of the Bond franchise. Even though nothing will ever be better than the original Legally Blonde show, I’m so excited to see where this goes.

What’s cool about this development (aside from how it probably pisses off everyone that hates musicals but loves James Bond), is that it could possibly count as an official entry into the official James Bond canon because the daughter of Eon Productions’ original producer Harry Saltzman is working on it. Sure, it’s a stretch, but okay it’s my kind of stretch.

How do y’all feel about our international ham-fisted man of mystery taking it to the stage and singing his heart out?

Selma

Stitch

My face is still wet with tears from watching Selma.

I rented it to watch with my mother and I wound up watching it because Ave DuVernay had me hooked from the opening with the bombing of that church. I have been crying for the past two hours,  through most of this entire movie, and despite the fact that I’m a snotty mess right now,  I wouldn’t change it for the world.

I needed to see Selma. I needed the reminder that the world was this way and in some cases, it’s not changing fast enough. I needed to see how horrible people that look like me and people that are allies to me and mine were treated.  I’ve seen archive footage and listened to my mother talk about the discrimination she faced growing up as a teenager /young woman in 1960s NYC.  The stories and the footage moved me,  but this movie –

This was something else.

Selma needs to be required viewing (in schools and in life) because people need to look and see that we’ve come far but in some ways,  we haven’t come far enough.

Another day, another bland MCU casting

Stitch

SpidermanI’m sure that Tom Holland will do an admirable job as Spider-Man in the MCU.

What I’m also sure of is that we really didn’t need another white teenage version of Peter Parker.  This is our third live action Spider-Man and it’s not like they’re going to do anything different about this film to warrant this casting decision.

Peter Parker’s backstory is set in stone.

You do the character as a teenager just starting out and you have to do it all over again: the deaths of his parents,  the loss of Uncle Ben,  betrayal at the hands of his friend Harry, and him coming to terms with his new powers.  I’m all for superhero origin stories but not when we’ve gotten five Spider-Man films in the past twelve years with two of those films revolving around the same main plots of Peter’s life.

At this point, Peter Parker as a teenager just isn’t interesting.Read More »

On Christopher Lee

Stitch

scaramanga

The thing about Christopher Lee’s death that gets me good is when I think about how much a staple he’s been in my life as a history nerd and a film buff. He’s been in a huge chunk of films that I’ve watched, loved, and analyzed the hell out of. Hell, I’ve watched movies just because he was in them and I wound up loving them. (And some of those movies were truly terrible besides…)

It’s so weird but I keep saying that I’m going to miss him. I’ve been talking about him like I knew him beyond what I’ve seen of him in his movies and I know it’s super weird but I can’t stop because he was in so much of the things I watched. He was pretty much in everything.  He was the scariest dude on screen more often than not and his Dracula was the best I’ve ever seen.

I mean… it was just last week that I was watching him as Scaramanga in The Man With The Golden Gun. When I saw the first tweets about it from Tor yesterday morning and then clicked through to the webpage, I was crushed. I’m still crushed.

But I keep reminding myself Christopher Lee lived a long life. More than that, he lived an amazing life that was rich and fill of adventure in its entirety. He’s what action heroes could’ve and probably should’ve been like. Geez. I can’t think about him without wanting to marvel at the life he lived. He’s a history major’s dream figure because he did so much, lived so much, was so much.

The world will truly be a truly poorer place without him.

James Bond – A History Of Violence Against Women

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Content Warning for mentions of domestic violence, abuse, sexual assault as “seduction”, and general violence against women

blogpost

One of the recurring themes in the James Bond franchise is that even when a woman is strong and powerful, all James Bond has to do is overpower her — maybe smack or shake her around a few times before seducing her to the side of the angels – and she’s his for the taking. While the Bond series is itself a violent one with Bond and the bad guys getting their fair share of lumps in, the series has this intense focus on women being hurt.

Read More »

Ranking Bond: Sean Connery

Stitch

Content Warnings For: racism, sexism, sexual assault as “seduction”, implied violence against women

Sean Connery was in six of twenty three official James Bond films and originated the role. Charming and often brutish, he exemplified Fleming’s superspy and made it hard for any other Bond actor to measure up. Over the past two months, I’ve had a lot of time to get reacquainted with Sean Connery’s Bond. There’ve been movies that I loved and movies that I hated and what better way to get the point across is there than to use a list.

This was super hard because there weren’t any of his movies that I outright hated. Most of his movies were good aside from a few things that pissed me off and so I’ve had one hell of a hard time putting them in order.

So here’s my ranking for Sean Connery’s Bond movies with a focus on the good, the bad, and the moments that made me go “what the heck is going on here”.

Read More »

Pending Posts: James Bond

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"Dr No trailer" by Danjaq and United Artists - Dr. No trailer. Licensed under PD-Pre1978 via Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dr_No_trailer.jpg#/media/File:Dr_No_trailer.jpg
“Dr No trailer” by Danjaq and United Artists – Dr. No trailer. Licensed under PD-Pre1978 via Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dr_No_trailer.jpg#/media/File:Dr_No_trailer.jpg

I’m not the most organized person on the planet, not even close. I’ve been having a hard time settling my posts on this blog (or even remembering to update the blog, to be honest) but I’ve got some things in the works for posts.

So for my few but awesome readers out there, there are several things that you all get to look forward to if you like James Bond and if you like my writing.

I’m so excited! I have a schedule and everything!Read More »

Age of Ultron – Spoiler Free Review

Stitch

Nothing in this review should spoil the film. I talk about stuff made explicit (or implied) in the films many trailers, tv spots, and press releases/interviews.

Avengers_Age_of_UltronAt the end of the credits, there’s the tagline “A Joss Whedon Film”.

I rolled my eyes so hard that they just about fell out of my head.

The thing about Joss Whedon is that when he’s directed anything, you know it. You fucking know it. We make fun of directors like Michael Bay for his use of lens flare and the Coppola’s for their allergy to casting people of color as main characters, but okay can we at least agree that Joss Whedon movies are so imbued by Whedonisms that you couldn’t possibly mistake his work for anyone else’s.

AOU feels like Whedon.

Read More »

Look Ma: I’m on the Front Page of TheMarySue

Stitch

tms front page

Holy crap!!

I’m on the front page of TheMarySue! Ah! I feel like I’m moving up in the world! Wow!

If you like super critical reviews of stuff coupled with that crisis when something you love turns out to be ridiculously problematic, you should keep an eye out for the further adventures of Bond Girl. After all, there are twenty-three official Bond films out so far and a handful of unofficial ones. It’s going to be a wild ride on our way to Spectre!

You can read Bond Girl: Re-Watching and Re-Evaluating Dr. No HERE

Happy reading!

[Film Review] Fast & Furious 7

Stitch

While short, this review does contain spoilers for Fast & Furious 7 both in the text and in the video accompanying it. If you haven’t seen it yet, this isn’t the review for you.

I loved the original premise for the F&F franchise. Dom, Lettie, and Brian up against the world was my thing. I liked the idea that the characters existed in this morally gray area where they were on the run from the government as well as the actual bad guy in the films.

The shift from car thieve/drag racer centered franchise was a bit unexpected but okay, it works. It really works. And in Furious 7, there’s a really good blend of the dynamics where you have the whole “these guys are doing illegal shit” but they’re also the good guys. I loved how we did get some racing scenes in (the beginning with Lettie was fabulous both because she was back behind the wheel and because we saw her dealing with the trauma caused by her injuries and having flashbacks). I also loved how this starts setting up the stage for the crew to do bigger things and to interact with crime/criminals on this larger scale.

Ugh it’s so good!Read More »