Someone Is Wrong on the Internet

5 posts

The BFS Recommends From Scratch (Limited Series)

Rom-coms have a clear formula: the potential love interests meet early on in the story, the potential love interests face obstacles in getting together, the love interests then finally get together (potentially facing more obstacles before they are for real together together). Simple.

Why the rehash of a well-known genre, you ask? Because reviewers and whoever does the posters and promos at Netflix seem to think the limited series From Scratch is a rom-com. Some critics compared it to typical (if “elevated”) fare from Hallmark and Lifetime during the holiday season, and Netflix itself recommends viewers of the limited series to check out Love & Gelato (very much a rom-com) and Emily in Paris, which… I guess they’re related, if you want to watch something where an American goes to live in Europe for awhile?

It’s a frustrating diminishment of a moving drama based on Tembi Locke’s memoir of the same name. Created and partially written by Locke and her sister, Attica, the series follows Zoë Saldaña’s Amy, who meets future husband, Lino (played by Eugenio Mastrandrea) while studying abroad in Florence. The closest the series gets to the rom-com formula is its first episode, but even here one can see the deeper dramatic themes the series exemplifies: beginnings (and endings), beginning after an ending, and the emotions that so often characterize beginnings and endings—grief, love, hope, and regret. The stakes are also much more real than in a rom-com, with their often disposable significant others who are clearly not meant for one of the story’s potential love interests. This difference is made very clear in the first episode when Lino confronts Amy about doing something that has clearly hurt him to the core. Amy, who has mostly been treating her relationship with Lino (and others) like a short-term, just for fun, compartmentalized study-abroad experience, is forced to realize what she’s doing matters to him, and her.

The first episode also sets up another major factor the series will deal with, which are the realities romance must deal with in the real world: towards the end of her time in Florence, Amy is visited by her father (played by the inimitably voiced Keith David) and step-mother. Amy’s father is keen to get her back in law school and away from this art business she’s been studying in Florence. Her step-mother, played with a lovely warmth by Judith Scott, is equally keen to keep the peace.

It’s an experience many can relate to from their teens and twenties (or maybe even later), where conflicts flourish between the generations as the grown-up child begins to conform less and less with what their parents thought they were going to be. But what makes the series particularly lovely is how many years it traces (well over a decade): we see Amy’s relationships with her father, step-mother, and mother all develop, shift, and grow as she and Lino eventually marry, then adopt a child of their own some years later. And we get to see this happen with Lino’s family as well. Cultural misunderstandings abound, but are also worked through in ways that are not quick, easy, or melodramatic—the result feels much more real than the vast majority of dramas out there.

This is all assisted by there being no weak characters in the supporting cast of family and friends, as well as how excellent Saldaña and Mastrandrea are as the series’ leads. Even so, the standout in the familial relationships is Amy’s sister, Zora, played by Danielle Deadwyler. As Amy’s older sister, she clearly carried some of the weight for Amy as they both navigated their parents’ divorce, who separated while they were children. Rather than being a one-note supporting role, we see Zora as a fully rounded person. She is sometimes frustrated and annoyed with both Amy and Lino (particularly when they are forced to live with her for an extended period), but when it comes down to it, she is always there for them, no matter what heartbreak may come their way. Seeing such a fierce, loving, and caring person played with such depth is far too rare in storytelling, and Deadwyler’s sheer power and presence in the role makes it clear how important having such a person in your life can be.

It’s rare for stories to take the time to grapple with life so wholly as From Scratch does, and it being a limited series means it won’t be back for more, trying to scrounge up additional drama or character failings like some series have to do when they’re extended. It told the story it wanted to tell, and it actually left me emotionally rocked and in tears more than once—no mean feat, and certainly not something a rom-com is generally able to do (no matter how much I enjoy that genre). From Scratch is a family drama about love, life, and death, and it is not to be missed.

On “Rey Cries All the Time” and the Emotionally Stunted Stupidity of the Star Wars Fandom

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Rey, supposedly played with too much emotion by Daisy Ridley

This post has been a long time coming. I know it’s late to the party, but I’ve hit my breaking point.

As becomes abundantly clear to anyone that reads my blog, tweets, and other writings (or interacts with me for any length of time), I’m a massive fan of genre stories: I even spoke about them for my lecture on writing craft during my MFA in Fiction program. While realism certainly has its moments, genre has a scope all of its own–a way of expanding and commenting on reality.

Which is why I have found the Star Wars fandom increasingly tedious and angering since the Disney sequels began to arrive. Prior to this, disagreements in its community were often nerdily contentious, but mostly understandable. Are the Ewoks fun and cute or a despicable pandering to kiddies? How much and how badly did the prequels actually stink?

Now cue a female main hero and a more inclusive cast, and all Dark Side breaks loose. At the tamer end are cries of “Disney is ruining Star Wars,” while at the dangerous, toxic end are fan cuts that remove all female characters from The Last Jedi and chase actors from social media (or possibly from the acting profession itself, so maybe the prequel era was worse than nerdily contentious?). I play Star Wars games, and it’s ridiculously common for forum posts to casually toss out that Rian Johnson (the director of The Last Jedi) is a hack, and that Daisy Ridley’s Rey is a Mary Sue that can do anything without even trying. But then you also get posts that really lay it all out there and state that “Kylo is better because Rey cries all the time.”

Here’s some simple words for such fans, in the tough-guy speak they seem to adore: fuck you and your emotionally stunted stupidity.

First is the irony of “Crying all the time.” Oh, Rey gets upset about her parents leaving her as a child on a desert planet, where she has to eke out a barren and miserable existence (where she can all too easily envision herself turning into one of the old, shriveled, and dejected women around her)? I hope you also complain about Luke’s abject dismay and horror at learning his father is Darth Vader, you worthless excuse for a person with the emotional capacity of a croquet mallet.

God, look at the completely understandable emotions on that dude’s face. How emo.

And why are you so upset about women in the sequels, you misogynistic excuse for a wart? In the original trilogy, Leia outranked Han (and held her own against his attempts at verbal wit), while blasting up the Death Star, Cloud City, and Endor like the boys. Mon Mothma was the freaking leader of the Rebellion, not Han or Luke. This stuff ain’t new, and I question your ability to know, comprehend, or understand the movies you supposedly are a fan of. Not that I’m surprised, given your ability to hold less sentiment than a teaspoon.

Do we need to expand the discussion on the the diversity side of things, given the racism John Boyega and Kelly Marie Tran have encountered? Yes, we do. The Empire was designed by the original filmmakers to be Space Nazis. Space Nazis, not “good people on both sides” occupying some justifiable gray middle space–even if you can maybe question whether the films held the Empire accountable enough, and you can definitely question how it looks when George Lucas and now Disney profit from making their evil empire into playful toy lines and theme parks,

Business ethics aside, did you even notice how the Empire is made up of all white men, while the Rebellion has women, people of color, and different alien species? Or did the super obvious visual difference escape you? You know, the thing that just about everyone praises every Star Wars movie for? No, you were probably too busy imagining you were your Luke Skywalker action figure, slicing things up with your laser sword, rather than opening your calloused heart to the ideals he represented.

Yes, I mentioned your heart, and those annoying things called feelings. I know it’s terrible when we have to deal with them, but you know what happens when you don’t? When you avoid them at all costs? You go and slaughter an entire village of Sand People and eventually a temple filled with children. You go from being the hero with no fear to being the villain that inspires fear. Does any character ever look forward to Darth Vader’s presence, even once? Even Director Krennic, the scrabbling bureaucrat that would sell out his own mother for a promotion, looks on his approach with dread. People will use Darth Vader, but they don’t want him around.

I know, I know, the Dark Side seems cool, given all those movies and toy lines and video games. We all get angry, and it’s all too common for some of us to wish we could reach out mentally and choke someone we find annoying, saying “I find your lack of faith disturbing.” The Dark Side appeals to the side of us that hates being small and hates being hurt.

But here’s the thing. If a story is actually worthwhile, if it’s more than just space ships blasting and lasers pew-pewing (the all too common criticism of anything “genre,” given by the serious “academy” of filmmakers, storymakers, and awards-givers), then what the story says has to actually matter. You shouldn’t want to be Darth Vader–only full of anger or hatred. You shouldn’t find Kylo more interesting than Rey because she has the audacity to show ranges of emotion.

Kelly Marie Tran’s Rose has every right to despise arms dealers and those who profit from war. She’s lived her entire life in a war-torn galaxy: a galaxy torn apart because a bunch of emotionally stunted force users didn’t learn to grapple with their very real trauma. What do the prequels look like if the Jedi hadn’t just preached peace (and lack of emotion), but helped Anakin to save his mother (or at the very least deal with her passing)? Traditions and the continual progress from one supposedly greater need to another allowed a very real cancer to spread.

And of course it’s frustrating that Luke Skywalker lost hope and hid on an island (on a remote planet in space). I wish he hadn’t as well, but it’s a tradition of sorts, in these movies: don’t deal with your feelings, and you get the Dark Side–either through your actions or the lack of them.

Emotions are the reason Star Wars amounts to more than lasers pew-pewing and an epic soundtrack. When you say “Rey cries all the time,” you’re making light of the very thing that gives a soul to what you love.

Someone Is Wrong on the Internet: Songs of Experience is the Best U2 Album Since All That You Can’t Leave Behind

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Music Reviews Someone Is Wrong on the Internet

In non-BFS fashion, I’m going out on a limb and making a big statement I haven’t mulled over ad nauseum. In my cautious, middle child way, I like to settle into what I’m thinking and saying, but I felt compelled to make this leap after reading Jon Pareles’s review of U2’s most recent album release, Songs of Experience. Now, this is an article from The New York Times, so I know that the headline may not have been Mr. Pareles’s choice to go with his review. But the commentary in the title, “Cynicism Not Included,” just irks me. It sells this album short.

Does that mean I think the album is cynical? No, it’s more nuanced than that. The best characterization is given by the album’s title itself: it’s experienced. It’s seen how the world works, isn’t entirely happy about it, but has also seen and known hope.

Another limiting statement from the review: “The word ‘love,’ unironic and high-minded, recurs all over [the album].” I actually read this review before listening to the album, and this line made me fear that Bono had gone over the top (and even most fans of U2 can admit he has the tendency). But again, the album digs deeper than this superficial gloss of some of the song titles. Yes, the album opens with “Love Is All We Have Left,” but the tone and music used to go with those words is quiet, even tenuous. Nothing is certain about that statement in this context.

The album accelerates from there to “Lights of Home” (a delightfully bombastic follow-up) to the large, worn on your sleeve emotion of “You’re the Best Thing About Me.” Love is very much at the forefront of this song, but there are so many layers. There’s a bittersweetness to saying, “When the world is ours but the world is not your kind of thing, Full of shooting stars, brighter as they’re vanishing.” And my goodness, for a song so shouted, so anthemic to proclaim “You’re the best thing about me,” in its chorus, the closing lines of “Why am I walking away,” should make anyone pause and wonder. Looked at carefully, these lyrics could embrace love between spouses, friends, parents and children—not to mention much of the world’s response to the recent refugee crisis.

And if it isn’t clear from my description of the first three songs, this album’s music is excellent, U2 doing it right more than I have seen them do in years (and they haven’t been slouching in this department). This is why another part of the review by Pareles gives me pause. “It’s not an album that courts new fans by radically changing U2’s style; instead, it reaffirms the sound that has been filling arenas and stadiums for decades.”

There is some fairness to this, but again, it’s limiting. There are some purposeful callouts to earlier songs (Pareles notes one), but they’re at play with those older, familiar sounds. “Blackout,” the song Pareles notes has an echo of “Mysterious Ways,” promptly goes in a different direction after giving the listener that brief cue, as if a brief nod to long time fans. And the album’s final track, “13 (There Is a Light)” is in clear dialogue with and repeats some lyrics from “Song For Someone,” from their previous release, Songs of Innocence. In other words, it’s not just the band riffing on their greatest hits because they can’t do anything else.

I suppose you could also say there’s the continued, recognizable presence of Bono’s voice and The Edge’s guitar style. Still, criticism on that level can easily get silly, almost seeming to suggest that a band should find a new lead singer, get rid of its iconic guitarist, etc. At some level, a band is going to sound something like its constituent parts.

I’d say the review’s musical criticism is much more fair of U2’s previous release, Songs of Innocence. While I enjoy it and the clear experimentation it often shows (I don’t think Songs of Experience would have been possible without it), there are a few too many clear, in your face “U2 moments.” I love the aforementioned “Song for Someone,” but at the 2:15 mark, we get some crescendoing guitar that is a hallmark of U2’s style and it leaves me disappointed every time: we’ve been there before often enough.

While it’s certainly a U2 album, Songs of Experience simultaneously sounds different from anything else they have done before. The Edge lets his guitar work go places it hasn’t gone before, sometimes becoming more crunchy and rough, and generally avoiding his characteristic “U2 anthem,” approach. Adam Clayton’s always solid bass line often comes to the fore, which makes the mid-album “Summer of Love” an entirely different and memorable experience.

All of these elements, the layered lyrics and music, ebb and flow, carrying through from the start to the end of the album, making me put it among U2’s best. Does it feel a risk for this cautious Swede to say it, after only a few listens through? Yes, it does. But I also can’t escape how each of those listens have left me more excited than I have been by any of their albums since the 2000 release of All That You Can’t Leave Behind.

Suffice to say, it’s a risk I’m willing to take.

Someone Is Wrong on the Internet: Civil War is a Bad Captain America Movie

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Movie Reviews Someone Is Wrong on the Internet

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” you might be thinking. “Mr. BFS, you think Captain America: Civil War, is a bad movie? The movie that has better critic and user reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB than the Captain America movies that came before it? Is the air a little too thin where a tall person like you walks?”

No, it’s not too thin, I get plenty of oxygen, and I’d especially like you to note the title. Civil War is a bad Captain America movie. It loses track of the person it’s supposedly about (even the movie poster does it: “Civil War” is larger than “Captain America,” you have to squint to see his name in red over there), and it’s more overstuffed than me trying to fit into the jeans I could wear in college.

So let’s do this someone is wrong on the internet thing. Now, don’t get me wrong, there are good things about Civil War. It has some powerful themes and ideas it’s working with, like revenge, individuality, morality, heroism, and what all those look like when society and politics have their say. Especially notable are the villain (if there is only one), who is not your typical, mustache-twirling type, and the Black Panther’s personal story arc, which moves palpably from grief to anger to vengeance to acceptance, no matter how familiar that arc might be.

If the movie focused on the problems and ideas it brings up, I would be more in agreement with the critics that have it hovering at 90% on Rotten Tomatoes. Because genre and comic books aren’t just for kids, nor are they only capable of being shallow, momentary bits of fun: they have the capability to deal with tough issues in an intriguing, memorable way that is different than stories that hew more closely to the realism of our everyday world.

The problem is that Civil War doesn’t have focus. Can you follow its plot from A to B without confusion? Sure. But there are so many unnecessary detours and characters along the way. The most noticeable culprit is the inclusion of Spider-man, who’s basically there to help get people to attend Civil War (thanks to his appearing in the trailer) and to drum up interest in his own movie which has just hit theaters now, a year later.

Even if this were an Avengers movie (which I’m going to note again that it’s not), Peter Parker’s presence does nothing for this movie’s storyline. We have an extended detour to introduce him (5-10 minutes or so? longer? quite a bit in movie terms) and then he gets to hang out in a huge fight scene before departing, doing nothing to further the movie’s plot or themes. I love Spider-man, he’s a favorite of mine since I was young (and I loved the first two Tobey Maguire movies), but his inclusion here is badly handled and not needed.

If you still need convincing, contrast Spider-man’s role in the movie with Black Panther’s. You can’t take out the latter’s character without the movie weakening substantially, both in its plot and emotional resonance. Spidey can be taken out with nary a hiccup, and his hijinks in the airport fight could be easily accomplished by one of the MANY other characters there (and let’s face it, giant Ant-Man stole the show on that one).

But I keep coming back to the title of this review/post. This movie is an outright disservice to Captain America, one of the most interesting characters of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. From the moment I saw the trailer for Cap’s first movie and watched Steve Rogers fall on a grenade to save his fellow soldiers, I couldn’t help but love him. His first two movies really embrace who he is as a character and let him shine, whether he’s hucking his shield at Nazis, trying to engage Peggy Carter’s interest, or dealing with a whole host of personal, emotional, or moral issues.

We lose track of him in this movie. He’s so often an outside player whose motives we can’t completely grasp, from a shoehorned romantic moment to what had to have been some agonizing quandaries over the things his best friend, Bucky, has done in his brainwashed past. Compare that to his first movie, which is reviewed significantly lower than Civil War, but let’s us get to know the guy and what he’s thinking. We know why he turned out so differently from Red Skull after receiving the Super Soldier serum. We know why he’s frustrated when he isn’t allowed on the front lines, and we want him to make a difference just as much as he does. When he’s finally allowed to do his thing, there’s an emotional tension valve released for him and the audience. It’s a movie I want to watch more than once, and have.

Civil War? Saw it the once and don’t care to see it again. Even if I think about it more like an Avengers movie (which I definitely have tried to), I keep coming back to what a big, chaotic mess it is. No matter how interesting its themes and ideas are, it tried to do too much. As more than one good critic and artist has noted, just because you can do more (more CGI, more characters, more action, etc.) doesn’t mean you should.

Someone Is Wrong on the Internet: Guardians 2 Is As Good As GOTG 1 and Wonder Woman

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Movie Reviews Recommended Views Someone Is Wrong on the Internet

Certainly the oldest reason for communication was, well, to communicate. But the second oldest reason for communicating was undoubtedly to tell that first communicator they were wrong (possibly connected to the birth of the first critic).

And in that honored tradition of contradicting someone else, I’m introducing another form of debate hereabouts: Someone Is Wrong on the Internet. Why? Because I’m an egotistical human that has to be right? Because I love tilting against windmills? Because I’m a fan of the XKCD comic where I am, umm, borrowing this line from?

Sure, throw them all my way. But more than that, I’m going to argue for things that are actually pretty good, but people seem to be missing the boat on (critics, the internet-water-cooler zeitgeist, what have you). As a creator who is trying to get my foot in the door (and boy, does that door not like to open), this is another way for me to throw some encouragement to people out there who are creating. We need all the cheerleading we can get.

So here we go with “Someone Is Wrong on the Internet: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is as good as the first GotG and Wonder Woman.”

Somehow, via the Rotten Tomatoes aggregator, Guardians 2 is at 81% (71% for the so-called top critics), versus 91% for the other two. When you dig in more between the first and the second Guardians movies, reviewers are finding the second almost as fun but not as “fresh” as the first.

This is boggling to me. The second movie takes what worked in the first movie and does it even better, fixing some flaws along the way. The first movie is great fun, but it has the blandest of bland villains that hardly gets any setup or explanation: me angry alien terrorist! me no like peace treaties! smash! Whereas the villains of Guardians 2 are given such crazy things as depth, setup, and motivation, not to mention a real connection to the Guardians and their own issues.

The first movie also had problems with what I like to call “planet subtitle hopscotch” (not unlike the otherwise great Rogue One from this winter). Throw all the digs you want against George Lucas, but even with the prequels, the guy knew how to integrate a new location into the storyline seamlessly (and for it to stand out visually from the rest). There’s a bit of this problem earlier on in Guardians 2, but then it gets its act together.

And then there’s the soundtrack. I love the opening of the first movie, with Peter Quill dancing through a ruined city (and kicking space rats) to the head-bopping rhythm of “Come Get Your Love.” But the second movie easily tops that with its opening “Mr. Blue Sky” and baby Groot dancing sequence. From there, the rest of the songs work better as a unit, somehow even serving as a fun commentary or contrast to the action at the time. That is not an easy thing to do, but the movie does it. Can you picture a better song than “My Sweet Lord” to introduce a god-planet and its potential issues? Or a song better than “Father and Son” for the movie’s final scenes?

The fairest criticism I can see of Guardians 2 is that it hits on its themes of family a little strenuously, which I can understand to a point, as there are some moments that are a little in your face with it. But even then, there are issues with this critique. Christopher Orr over at The Atlantic claimed the movie “pedantically” explains how the song “Brandy” ties in with the movie’s themes, but wow, is that ever a misread. One, not everyone may be aware of the lyrics to “Brandy” (I wasn’t really before hearing it in this movie), and two, Ego is using the lyrics to explain and justify his actions. He co-opts the song (anyone notice the song’s title is “Brandy,” not “The Sailor?”) for his own purposes! Rather than being detrimental, it’s an excellent scene, and reveals quite a bit about Ego’s character—much less pedantically than his name does!

Guardians 2 is every bit as good as its predecessor, if not better (hold me to the first part, of you don’t agree with the latter). Both have reasons they’re just shy of perfect, but they’re still quite good and a needed breath of fresh air in the crowded comic book movie/action movie sphere.

As for Wonder Woman, it’s high praise to say Guardians 2 is its equal. I’ve never really had a big connection to the character, with her sometimes feeling like a female Superman: really strong but kind of blandly good, etc. That’s partially my lack of interaction with her comics, but also a shortcoming of the classic TV show and her presentation on the DC cartoons I’ve seen. We’ve at least had some good Superman movies to give depth to Clark Kent.

Wonder Woman certainly takes care of that issue—Gal Godot is sublime as Diana. I loved her enthusiasm, I loved her “I’m going to do what I’m told not to” approach to just about everything, and I loved how genuinely, warmly kind she was. At one point in the film she smiles and asks a character what they would do without his singing (if he left), and I have to say that was one of the most beautiful, caring, and honest smiles I have ever seen. It is good for the soul to see someone smile like that and mean it that much. People talk about how hard it supposedly is to write and act good people (which I quibble with), but I would say Godot’s Diana is up there with Chris Evans’s Steve Rogers, if not beyond, and that’s saying something.

I’d also say the first 80-90% of the movie works extremely well (though I could do without the preface and epilogue—we know it relates to the rest of the DC universe without these). Sure, some things randomly happen, with Diana and Steve Trevor somehow sailing from what seems to be the eastern Mediterranean to London overnight, etc., but they’re small problems.

The real issue is with the generic, climactic confrontation at the end, which somehow just doesn’t work. It should, with how interesting the rest of the action in the movie is (particularly the WWI trench sequence), but the movie doesn’t know if it wants another big fight or to explore the themes and ideas it’s set up so well. I think they had the right casting choice for the big bad if they had focused on the latter and wrote the big bad’s actions and dialogue accordingly, but they didn’t.

What Wonder Woman needed was something similar to the ending of The Dark Knight. There’s good action in that movie’s ending, but what’s really at stake is Batman’s view of mankind versus the Joker’s, with both sides memorably and clearly delineated. Something similar could have been done with Wonder Woman, as the first 3/4 of the movie puts the right ideas on board to accomplish this, but then the movie rather haphazardly follows through on them, squashing them in around a forgettable CG fest with ponderous dialogue.

So where does that leave us? On the one hand, we’re seeing yet again how Guardians 2 is at least on par with a movie that’s been reviewed well ahead of it. I could also argue that Guardians 2 doesn’t have any major issues like Wonder Woman’s finale, which makes it objectively better as a movie, But on the other hand, I am willing to concede that Wonder Woman may be a more important movie, given how reluctant Marvel and other studios have been to focus solely on a female character/superhero. It’s asinine that this is still an issue somehow, but let’s face it, it is. We had men up in arms at a women’s only screening of Wonder Woman, like they couldn’t just go to some other showtime or there haven’t been men’s only clubs and governments for centuries.

It’s not for the first time, certainly, but Wonder Woman reminds us that female characters and female superheroes can and should carry their own weight, and for that, I’m willing for it to defeat the contention of my first Someone Is Wrong on the Internet. Somehow, it only seems right.