Intro to Comics: Scarlet Witch (Upgrade)

(This first appeared on my notes section of Facebook, pics are of course copyright to Marvel comics).

            You all have never heard of Wanda Maximoff.  One of the oldest X-Men villains she carries the moniker Scarlet Witch, and is the daughter of Eric "Magneto" Lehnsherr the super terrorist that was the staring villain of all three X-Men movies.  Why they chose to cut her is unclear to me, she has been around forever, she has a simple costume that would have translated alright, and she has a twin brother Peatro "Quicksilver" Maximoff who has super speed and is a dick to everyone.

Seriously, there is no reason why this costume should not have been put on Mila Kunis

            Wanda is, I guess a strange character, her powers started off vague only allowing her to influence luck to a mild degree causing equipment to fail at just the right time, causing spontaneous explosions, or occasionally teleporting other heroes/villains into battle to help out.  She later learned that her mutant powers actually controlled magic, chaos magic more precisely, and allowed her to do pretty much whatever she wanted, allowing her to spiral out of control story-wise as the Deus Ex when the plot needed it.

Quicksilver, he also has stupid hair.

            Wanda actually has a really bad history at the moment, her mother was killed by her father, she became a superhero mostly to show that not all mutants were murderous sociopaths (and it is a heavy burden to bear representing your whole community while battling gods of death and time traveling tyrants), her boyfriend Simon "Wonderman" Williams died (he got better much later), and she fell in love with the superhero Vision (an android who couldn't give her children, then he later lost his memories of loving her, then he got better), she used her powers to cause immaculate conception... which were still born, and after that she went on being a hero.  Then her egg cracked.

Vision, he has nearly every super power and is sort of like "Star Trek's" Data, though I believe Vision came first.

            See even though Wanda had ostensibly gotten over loosing her children and leaving the Vision she grew increasingly crazy and one day decided to go full blown super villain on everyone.  She had Tony "Iron Man" Stark (who was the secretary of defense at the time) appear in front of the United Nations magically drunk and trying to provoke a war with every country that looked at him queer.  Wanda then brought back the dead Superhero Jack of Hearts as a zombie and had him kill the current Ant Man (Scott Lang, a reformed master thief who thought of himself as Hank Pym's successor in the role).  After that she killed Vision by having him transform into a dozen Ultrons (Ultron the ultimate killer robot), who then attacked the Avengers... CHAOS MAGIC.  They beat the Ultrons but then she caused Jennifer "She-Hulk" Walters to go crazy and start tearing through everyone until subdued.  Then she summons an alien spaceship that starts attacking, Clint "Hawkeye" Barton sacrifices his life trying to stop that.  At the end she had killed more heroes than any villain had previously and was talked down from blowing up the world by Magneto who took her to Prof X for psychiatric help.

Oops, there goes the universe.

            Months later the Avengers and X Men were told that Wanda was going to eventually lose control again and unmake reality, the question comes down to: Do we kill her?  The answer is no, but before they can think of a solution Wanda unmakes reality and puts it back wrong... Making Magneto king of the Earth, Doctor Doom in control of Eastern Europe, Apocalypse ruling Northern Africa, Black Panther and Storm taking Africa south of the Sahara, Namor still controls Atlantis, and most of the other Heroes living happy lives.  Wolverine manages to see through the illusion (because of mental blocks... It really didn't make much sense at the time still doesn't... CHAOS MAGIC).  After every hero basically has to tear down a dimension where they have been given their hearts desire, with Spiderman a successful inventor and family man, and Captain America a contently retired old man who was never frozen.  At the end Wanda unmakes her new perfect world and in doing so leaves Earth with only a handful of X-Men having turned most of the mutants human.

Magneto, running a utopia, except for that part controlled by Apocalypse, which is hell on Earth, but what are you gonna do?  Just for information, this whole event was called "House of M".

            Wanda then returned to her roots, living the life of a lunatic in Eastern Europe, having erased her own memories and seemingly abolishing her own powers, Hawkeye having been returned to life following the reality re-write finds her, and rather than jar her awake and forcing her to take responsibility for her actions, including the murder of at least 2 super heroes... well, instead Hawkeye bones her, and then leaves in a huff to rejoin the Avengers... Weird cliff hanger that has yet to be resolved in like 5 years.

Hawkeye, his powers consist of archery, ass kicking, and boning.

            So yeah, Wanda Maximoff, she is a MacGuffin, an all powerful MacGuffin...  Oh, yeah, she also re-wrote reality so that her children had never been stillborn, and they are now teen superheroes on "The Young Avengers", Speed who has her brother's powers, and Wiccan, who has her powers, though toned down and seemingly less narrative breaking...  Very odd.

The comic we star in is critically acclaimed, loved by fans, and strangely not getting milked to death by Marvel.

I review "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows part 1" pt4 Finally

            While we are in the dungeon waiting for the worst characters in the movie series to come in and save the day I'll continue the review.

            Okay, can someone explain to me what is up with the wands?  They imply that there is some sort of magical connection between a wand and its user.  Since Lord V is imprinted on Harry they have twin wands, they each connect to that design and combination of magical ju-ju.  So how are they able to use other people's wands?  What is the advantage of using your own wand?

            Now let me bring this all the way back to my first complaint of Bellatrix.  Again, good actress, and the the problem isn't so much the character but how the character is used.  And the perfect example is at the 'heroes' lowest point in the movie.  They are captured and are being imprisoned and interrogated by Bellatrix, which is like a bull dog interrogating a canary, she doesn't ask questions, she just chews trying to get it to sing.  Bellatrix is stone stupid.  Harry has the most pathetic disguise they could throw over him, his face is puffy, and Bellatrix can't tell it's him.  He has the same scar, the same glasses, same voice, same height and coloring... Oh, and he is traveling with his two best friends, that like finding Batman with Superman and Wonder Woman, but he's wearing a red cape so the Joker can't tell it's him.  Bellatrix then commences to get her ass wrecked by an elf and some teenagers, getting a killing blow against the worst character in the franchise (Dobby, read "part 1", complaint two), and earning my love and respect.  Feelings you shouldn't have for the psycho antagonist.

And there is the pitch!  Oh!  She hit the batter square up in the face and he's down, yep... She killed him.  Today is a great day in baseball.

            Speaking of psycho antagonists.  How has no one tried to kill Lord V in his sleep?  The man is a monster.  A literal and figurative monster.  He supports ethnic superiority, rule through violence and bloodshed, and has no real management strategy beyond blaming minorities for problems.  Why are people following Lord V at all?  In fact, what is his ultimate goal?  He seems to want to kill Harry Potter, but why?  because Harry, having survived inexplicably in his youth is a symbol of hope to those he suppresses?  So what?  He's a teenage orphan that sheds supporting cast members like a leper sheds fingers.  Harry is lucky, but far from competent, yet he is orbited like he has value.  Why?

I'm not the first person to say that the Wands might just be a penis metaphor right?  Okay, then I won't go on a long pick it apart rant about how that makes perfect sense in a coming of age story, though the Sword makes that metaphor twice over.

            And another thing, nobody thought to go check the Malfoy residence, nobody thought that might be the headquarters of the bad guys?  Snape killed the headmaster of a prestigious private school, less than a year later he is the headmaster of that school, is this "The Highlander" franchise where killing someone gets you their power?  Why aren't the parents complaining about his?  Why isn't he wanted for murder?  Seriously, explain to me why Malfoy is walking free?  And that no one of authority bothered to look for him, at his fucking house.  Is this a British thing?  "Hey, um."  "Yes officer, did you want to search the grounds?"  "Well, yes as a matter of fact."  "Well, we're a bit busy could you stop by some other time?"  "Well, I suppose if you are busy.  What time would you like us to come by on our man hunt?"  "I don't know, my schedule is all over the place right now.  Could I just give you a call when you could come over and conduct your search for the man wanted for conspiracy to commit murder and treason?"  "Yeah just drop us a line when you aren't busy, no need to rush."  Who is running this place?

Yeah, nobody saw this sniveling little shit turning into a sniveling little shit villain in the future.  Christ he can't even kill a helpless old man with dignity.  Hey, if you disagree with Voldemort: defect.  Lord V is just going to fuck you and your whole social order over in the end anyway, he is a nihilistic sociopath and you sided with him... because?

            And a complaint that everyone has touched on, what was the deal with Hermione erasing her parents' memories?  As soon as I saw this happen I said to myself, "Aren't they going to wonder about all the empty frames around the house, not to mention the empty bedroom that they never filled with crap?  What about their neighbors?  "Didn't you have a daughter?  She went to boarding school, you brag about her being top of her class all the time?  What do you mean you don't know what I'm talking about?"  Why wasn't Harry's step parents given the same treatment?  Hell, why weren't they given the same treatment in the first movie?  They are abusive shits and Harry should have been allowed to live and work at Hogwarts during the summer, learning to train animals with Hagrid and getting some sort of internship as a page at the Ministry or something.  Instead the school sends Harry back to the people who had him living under the stairs since he was a baby, and for whatever reason hate him but don't want him to go to boarding school.  They make no sense as characters and should have been dismissed as quickly as possible but are kept around for bland manufactured drama.

You just know the neighbors are going to end up calling the cops because they'll assume that these people killed their daughter and just want to cover it up and go on with their lives like psychos would hope to do.  It'd be like the ending to "Shutter Island" without all the competent acting.

            Well, That's all I could think of, but considering I saw it opening week, 5 and a half months ago, and not since... Well, the negative made an impression.  I guess that is part of the issue, The best character of the whole series has been Hogwarts and it wasn't in this movie.  A lot of the peripheral magical world was in "Deathly Hollows", but it was the extreme periphery, the wilderness and the muggle world.  The whole thing just came off as very dull and full of the bullshit angst that "Twilight" has forced into the genre of modern fantasy.  This series lost its spark, and much like I saw "The Revenge of the Sith" out of obligation to the "Star Wars" franchise, I'll see "Part II" out of obligation to this series though I only really liked two of the movies.  It is sad really, they had a built in audience so they took for granted the millions they would make and the hoard of apologists they would have fighting for them, so they made a mediocre film just to cash in an additional time when they could have wrapped this whole thing up by cutting out a lot of the nonsense.

            You all get that don't you?  That this movie was created specifically to make more money, not to give the prose room to breath on film.  That they realized this gravy train won't be ripe for remake for at least 10 years and that they needed to draw it out a little longer to savor the money flow.  This is a scam.  Whatever.

They don't look sad, he looks bored and she looks pensive.  I would say they are going to go on to very little acting wise, but with my luck this guy will be the next incarnation of "Doctor Who" and I'll grow to like him and be brainwashed into apologizing for this series of blogs

            Fuck me, are they camping again?!

Comic Review "Young Avengers: The Children's Crusade (One Shot)"

            I read a short time ago a one shot comic which was not only disappointing, but kind of offended me.  The comic was "Young Avengers: The Children's Crusade (One Shot)".  It was a single issue tie in book to serve as a sort of jumping on point for the Young Avengers series, which is published sporadically regardless of its good sales and critical acclaim, its almost like Marvel doesn't want to run the new IP into the ground for the sake of a few bucks.  But this is Marvel, so that can't be true, so I don't know what is going on with its publishing.

Seriously, why isn't this already a hugely popular cartoon show like its counterpart "Young Justice"?

            All that being said about the series I'll tell you about the characters.  There is Patriot, who is the grandson of the original Captain America, a black guy who was experimented on prior to Steve Rodgers becoming the official Captain America (this is all explained in a mini-series called "Red, White, and Black" which is sort of a big middle finger to racist policies of the 1940's, which probably would have been poignant in the 40's).  There is also Iron Lad, who is dead, but his brainwaves were imprinted on the android Vision, Iron Lad was the teenage version of the time traveling criminal called Kang, who didn't want to grow up to be a bad guy and instead wanted to be a hero.  There is also Hulkling, who is the son of Captain Marvel (an alien cop/spy who died of cancer) and the empress of the alien race Skrulls, so Hulkling has an impossible legacy to live up to on both sides of his family, and he can shapeshift.  There is also Wiccan and Speed, twin brothers who were created by magic by their mom, the Scarlet Witch, Wiccan is a spell caster and Speed has... Super speed, I'm not a big fan of these really minimalist names.  The girls of the team are Hawkeye and Stature, Hawkeye is literally a random teenage girl that helped them save the day so they recruited her, and Stature is the daughter of the now dead Ant-Man, Scott Lang, and just from being around his size changing gear constantly gained the ability to change size at will.

This series does a good job of making you feel like you are watching an adventure, rather than making you feel like you are reading a comic.  I wish it was as good as it was 5 years ago.  Guest stars in this book have had successful character arcs and growth that out paces by miles these criminally underused characters.

            Now why did the "(One Shot)" bother me so much about these characters?  Here is why, it is really homophobic, and it comes off as a writer who couldn't get over the characters.  See, Wiccan and Hulkling are boyfriends, in the original run of the comic the mention of this being the case was so subtle I didn't even realize it had happened, they were going to tell their parents they were teen super heroes but before they could say 'Superhero" the parents interrupted and said that they already knew that Hulkling and Wiccan were gay and that they were accepting it and were proud that the two were willing to share that with them.  I thought that they just decided to use this as a cover, as they didn't bother to tell them the "Young Avengers" part of their lives.  They kept their hero identities secret.  And it's never really brought up again, it is part of who they are, but the comic is about super heroes first, and it went on to be one of the best written comics of 2005-2006.

I seriously did not get, or really care whether or not those two were gay.

            The "(One Shot)", whenever the two of them are in the panel together, makes a crack about them being gay, and it gets a little distracting.  I can understand the occasional joke, I joke when straight friends I know are dating, mostly bagging on one or the other, then the joke ends.  There are like 10 pages all of which have a gay joke on them.  Which is really stupid.  Now that isn't the whole book, there is a cool time travel story that they practically plagiarized from DC comics' teen heroes comic "Teen Titans", so it is interesting, but not original, and seems to have no bearing on the greater "Children's Crusade" ongoing mini-series, so it all amounts to a pile of beans.

This is the comic in question.  Don't buy it.  It is pretty shitty.

            So yeah, I guess if you don't mind the author practically yelling, "They're totally gay.  Totally banging.  They both take it in the ass and mouth!" then feel free to read this pointless comic, otherwise, pass on it.

I review "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows part 1" pt3

            Hey they just broke camp... but they still have no plan aside from bitching at each other... I guess I'll continue this blog while little else is happening.  Idiots.

            This falls under the 'atmosphere that makes no sense' and the 'pointless scene' headers.  Why hasn't the town council had the half demolished house of Harry's dead parents torn down and a memorial put in?  The damn thing is gloomy and unseemly.  No one living in that neighborhood would want the grim reminder the night a white supremacist fire bombed their neighbor's house.  Yet there it stands along with all the snow and darkness and zero color.  Isn't this supposed to be a fun and magical coming of age story?

You mean to tell me that in the last 6 years since he was made aware of this magical world he never visited his parents grave?  No one, not even his dick headed mortal family thought that might be a good part of the grieving process?

            Okay, another MacGuffin, the book Dumbledore leaves Heromione, you know the bard book.  This collection of fables gives clues that lead to a creepy old woman that turns out to be a giant snake, and another book for them to read and find clues in.  Why did that old lady just turn into a snake?  Why did they leave the giant murderous reptile alive?  Cut its fucking head off.  It is a monster that eats people, no sane culture on this planet suffers man eating animals to live.  They're fucking dangerous.  And why is there a second book?  Just have all the clues in the first book, and cut this whole scene with the snake-woman out.  Oh, I forgot, we have to give the fans of the book their nerd boners.

If it is all the same to you, I've got productive things to do instead of watching a snake eat a woman while we circle jerk to the thought of how evil we all are.

            Speaking of crap that Dumbledore left in his will.  That golden snitch that Harry first grabbed at Hogwarts.  Apparently since he caught it the thing is keyed to his flesh memory, because for some reason no one else had handled it prior to Harry.  Why is flesh memory only being explained now? Cause it is being pulled out of the air.  Why is it so inconsistent?  Why is the skin of Harry's mouth different than the skin on his hands?  Does he have Chimera syndrome when different tissues of the body have different DNA?  This is stupid, and why does it reveal only writing when he first touches it to his mouth?  Its pretty clear another MacGuffin is in there, just crack the damn thing open.

Why the riddle?  If Harry is the only one who could get the message having a riddle only makes it harder on the good guys.  Literally at no point do the villains make any attempt to locate this object, they don't know what it is, or even that it exists or is of any importance.  So why the riddle?

            Speaking of throwbacks to older books, instead of a golden snitch and the absolutely ludicrous sport of quidditch we have the shape shifting potion.  How do you sneak into a government facility with a substance so common it has been a prominent plot point in at least three of these movies?  Shouldn't there be a level of security specifically for that?  A 'true form' field or something?  How is visual confirmation of a person's identity enough in a world of shape shifters?  Why is no one thinking to ask these questions?

How about we give Harry a potion so he looks like someone else?  That way instead of having eight decoys we instead just have one guy in disguise.  Or you know, just put everyone in mortal danger for the sake of a kid who's greatest quality is that he happened to not die as a baby.

            Speaking of breaking into a government facility, when they do break into the Ministry of Magic (a place which was just overthrown in a bloody coup mind you) there is a giant statue.  Where did they get that giant statue of muggles getting crushed by a big block?  Why did they install that on the first day of the new regime?  Why is it a corrupt government being so up front about how evil it is?  Why make a statue that shows living beings crushed under the weight of another society?  Did the wizard community not exist during World War II?  This is all part of a grander strategy of looking evil, because I guess murdering someone who is begging for their life isn't enough to establish the snake monster and his lackeys are evil, they need a statue to take pictures in front of.  This is again why I think Umbridge has been the best overall villain in this movie because her personality of thinly veiled menace and superiority is juxtaposed with her pink and inviting demeanor.  All the more that she looks out of place in front of the giant monument that might as well have white supremacy written on the side.

I used this picture once already, but it illustrates my point rather well.

            I guess we are done with camping, instead we are being locked in a dungeon.  Some heroes we have here... Idiots.

I review "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows part 1" pt2

            Alright on the move again, maybe we're done with the camping long enough for something poignant to happen.

            Another nitpick there are a lot of wasted scenes in this movie.  Like the train scene.  A guy who looks like General Zod is standing on the tracks and stops the express to Hogwarts to inspect the train... Why is Neville on that train?  He is a known associate and collaborator who participated in Dumbledore's Army, shouldn't he have been on some sort of hit list?  You know, a list you hand to Bellatrix so she can entertain herself playing with entrails and not kill minions for shits and giggles.  What is more, why are they stopping the train at all?  Can't they just wait at Hogwarts?  The place is run by Snape now, you could hang out, have some tea, rather than flying to the middle of the countryside to stop a train that only has two stops.  Both of which you know and can be at.

KNEEL!  Before ZOD!

Also, not to harp too much on this, but this is the original image, dark and colorless and nearly imperceptible as anything other than a mess of shadows.

            Or here is another wasted scene, when Harry, Ron, and Hermione enter that hidden apartment that unfolds from the surrounding structure, its very dusty and unused, even though they were there like two movies ago and it seems like an obvious headquarters for the good guys to use.  When they enter that apartment a wisp of dust takes the form of a wrathful ghost of Dumbledore and charges the three and then vanishes... In the theater I said loud enough to be shushed, "The fuck was that?", and then Ron immediately says, "What was that all about?" and I laughed my ass off.  When the characters don't know why a random, never to be mentioned again scene is there, time to cut some fluff.

So this is here to scare off the local riff-raff who might break into the apartment?  The magically concealed apartment.

            Why is there a wedding in this movie?  The plot isn't crowded enough that we have to throw this random set piece in from the book?  If you want to show the growing strain between trying to live a happy life while in a shadow war there are ways to do it, like in the last movie when they burned down the Weasly's home, which was awesome... Funny how that house looks right as rain without mention of how they repaired it.  In fact that would have been a better illustration of the tension, trying to rebuild a home, which had been burned down by lunatics.  Really the wedding isn't the only unnecessary part, but showing Ron's eldest brother and his wife was pointless, they disappear quickly, existing solely to have a wedding, solely to set up the plot.  Why couldn't they have been married off screen?

Because if there is one thing that says, "sure to be exciting" is being a guest at your friend's brother's wedding.  Also, this image has been color enriched so it isn't a blob of darkness.

            Hey, why is the Prime Minister talking to three high schoolers about a high school principle's will?  Couldn't this part of the plot been handed off to Lupin or better yet Luna's father, giving him an actual reason to be there in the first act instead of just dropping him in cryptically, practically with a sign around his neck that says, 'Foreshadowing' (actually he was wearing his Deathly Hollows medallion if I remember correctly, so he was literally wearing a sign that said foreshadowing around his neck).

I'm so glad we got to spend 30 seconds with this guy so we could really feel for him when his betrayal came, as opposed to it feeling like a rushed and anti-climactic sub-plot swept aside for more camping scenes.

            Speaking of the Deathly Hollows, this series doesn't have enough MacGuffins and Dues Ex Machina flying around that we had to throw in 2 more (I say two because the cloak was in an earlier film and is thus an established device).  Isn't it funny how a stone that brings back the dead wasn't mentioned when Dumbledore died, or how no one mentioned or thought twice about burying Dumbledore with the most powerful magical item on the planet?  Little irresponsible to leave that WMD sitting in an unguarded crypt when a terrorist is running around looking for weapons he can easily get his hands on.  Its like storing a nuke at the Gettysburg memorial with no guard.

"Hey, you think we should even bother to put one of those Dumbledore ghosts that are made out of dust so as to scare off grave robbers?"  "No, you kidding.  Let's use the same security my paper boy uses: put a big rock on top of the thing."

            So Lord V has taken over the ministry in a bloody coup... Nobody going to say or do anything about that?  Just gonna go on about your business?  People have to know what is going on, they create a secret police for dragging people off to mock trials and they change who is in charge of Hogwarts... To the guy who murdered the last headmaster.  Nobody has any objection to what is happening, which I could buy if Lord V wasn't a literal monster and instead a nice guy who had a point, but he has no point.  Lord V wants to cleanse the wizard community of those who had muggle parents, I was under the impression that he had a muggle parent?  So, why isn't anyone confronting him about this?  How is he able to just take control without other groups opposing him?  Where are all the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff members of this society who think it might be a good idea to keep their own liberty?  Where are the Slytherin members who don't want Lord V in control, are Snape and Black the only two?  Bleh...

            MacGuffin, MacGuffin, who's got the MacGuffin?  Sword?  Anybody got the magical sword?  How about the medallion that drives you paranoid?  I dislike immensely that much of what needs to happen falls on items that have not been identified or explained until this late in the game, it screams of being out of ideas and pulling stuff out an orifice.  Why did Ron have a vision of Harry and Hermione fucking when he opened the Horcrux?  If Harry knew he could open the locket by speaking in snake tongue why did they pointlessly blast the thing with their wands when they first got it... HOW DID THEY HAPPEN TO FIND THAT SWORD?  Bad, bad plotting.

This happens.  It isn't subtle.  And it makes no sense. Because if you are trying to get somebody not to destroy you, showing them a picture of a guy doing his girlfriend is only gonna piss him off.

See?  And he's got the MacGuffin Sword cocked any ready to rock.

            And... They're camping again.  Urgh.... Fine, while they have a random dancing scene I'll contemplate what my next blog will consist of.

Make me a sandwich.

I review "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows part 1" pt1

            Last fall the 7th movie in the highest grossing film franchise of all time came out, that movie was "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part 1".  I didn't like the movie.  So I figured I would give a list of reasons why I dislike it, and maybe give a big reason why I dislike the Harry Potter universe as a whole.  But first, the good parts.

            I like the magical junk that pops up from time to time, like the fancy flashlight, and the tent and bag that are tesseracts, and maybe best of all... Wait, that was all the new gadgets.  Huh, bit of a let down.  I mean we've had plants that allow you to breath underwater and a map that shows where everyone in the building is all at once, and a mirror that shows your hearts desire.  But for the first half of the last installment we get two things (I'm counting the bag and tent together)?  That is kinda weak... Stay positive this is the good list.

            I also really like the animated portion of the movie, done in what looks to be stop motion it is a really cool looking part of the movie, and shows that perhaps this series should have just been animated to begin with rather than relying on child actors whose acting varies wildly in quality sometimes.  Thing is, the story made no sense, why was death offended by the wizards using magic to cross a river?  If a muggle mason had built a bridge would death have given him a cloak of invisibility?  I doubt it... Positive.  POSITIVE!

Anybody else frustrated that the most visually stimulating part of the film has none of the cast in it, and does not in any way advance the plot?

            The best thing in the movie I would wager is this: reverse witch trials.  The idea of taking people away and giving them a show trial before... Ethnically cleansing them?  What does happen to them?  Whatever, the idea is very cool and calls back to the Salem witch trials, HUAC, and most important modern anti-terrorism trials.  It is more clever, insightful, and apt than all the other movies put together.  It's in screen about 5 minutes, is poorly explained, poorly showcased, and is almost ignored compared to them hunting the fucking MacGuffin hanging around the neck of the judge (a character that is practically a fucking cameo)... You know what?  That is all the positive I had, so let me just hunker down and start conjuring up from the back of my phlegm choked sinuses some yellow-green goo to spit at this let down of a movie... And I can already tell this is going to be a multi part rant as this list I've got is freaking huge.

Umbridge, and excellent villains who has more personality than the rest of the bad guys put together.  What is more?  She actually doing evil things while wearing bright pink.  Her five minutes are better than all of Malfoy's scenes.

            Let's start off with something big that will get me some hate from fans of this mess: Bellatrix.  I have no real problem with the actress, Helena Bonham Carter, I have a little bit of a problem with the character, and a lot of problem with how she is used.  Here is a question, how does 'raging psychopath' translate into 'Slytherin'?  As far as I can tell, Slytherin is about having ambition, cunning, a streak of ruthlessness, and maybe an air of superiority dependent on how hard you lean on the 'pureblood' part of the equation.  How does Bellatrix embody any of this?  Moving past that, why does Malfoy let her in his house?  Lord V, sure, he's a snake-lich monster, but he is also the wizard equivalent of Magneto, you let him in cause he is the boss.  But Bellatrix seems like the type to get blood on the carpets.  She is a loose canon, I imagine that half her kills stem from boredom and a good number are friendly fire casualties, so why in the world is she sitting in on the planning meetings?  Just cut her loose.  Don't give her authority, just point her at your foe, and hope she kills a lot of them before one of them has the good sense to knock her dead.  You don't want her around in the peace time, rebellions will incite just to get rid of her.

Also, she is stone stupid.  Like, really, really stupid.

            Dobby.  Or as I like to call him, "The Jar Jar Binks of Harry Potter".  The single most annoying and dumb... and I mean dumb with a capital backwards 'B' character in the entire franchise.  His entire presence could have been cut with a handful of lines and the movie would have been faster and smarter for the effort.  And the thing that really irks me: he gets a mournful on camera funeral.  FUCK'N 'A' MAN!  Mad Eye Moody didn't get an on screen death!  Which is my next point.

There is not one moment this character exists in which I am not annoyed by his presence.  He is also stupid.  And worst of all, is given way too much heroic stunts in the last 5% of the movie, making the central cast look even more inept.

            Mad Eye, Snape, Luna, Lupin, Neville, and the rest of the great characters who are little more than cameos.  I know that there is a limit on how many characters you can have on screen, how much time can be spent with each, and that not everyone has a great deal of importance at this point in the story, but here is the thing, if a character is there just so fans of the book can get a nerd boner by remembering how that character happened to be in the same scene in the book, then that is a bad scene and a disservice to the character, especially when there are lots of crappy minor characters that could get cut to make room for these established and interesting entities.  Who the hell was that thief guy who hasn't been in any previous movie and was in a total of two scenes in this movie, who could have easily been subbed out with a more likable supporting role?  You know what?  Don't answer, I don't care, because you are already gearing up to tell me, "You should read the books, they are soooooo awesome in the books."  I don't want to read the books, I want to watch a good movie, and if a character can't be fully developed in a movie, then cut them and give more time and responsibility to another character.  The "Lord of the Rings" movies cut characters by the bus load for the sake of time and pacing, and those movies kick ass.  Which brings me to another point.

I am choosing not to put up a picture of Mad Eye, if the producers of the movie don't respect the character enough to, then I won't bother either.  Instead here is my favorite character from the movies, Luna, who gets even less time than Mad Eye in this movie.

            Pacing is totally fucked in this movie.  " Oh, this looks like a good spot to camp and be morose while plotting our next move."  Here is an idea: Get on WITH IT!  I know, and yet still do not care about the internal struggle that the stupid horcrux is causing Ron.  The actors aren't good enough to handle a subtle progression of mood and tension, and their collective inability to execute a plan of action when faced with a ticking clock that is driving them insane shows them to be very inept heroes.  What happened to the characters who played murderous chess to find a damn mirror in the first one?  Or who faced off against giant spiders and snakes?  Why are they just sitting around?  DO SOMETHING!

Hope this picture looks entertaining, cause this is a good representation of 40% of the film.

            Let me take a left turn to focus on some more nit picky complaints.  Why are all the villains in black like it is a uniform?  There is very little variation between their looks, and it comes of as lazy costume design; if they were trying to make them easy to identify as bad guys, that is lazy too, have them act and do evil, dressing evil is not interesting, it just makes the movie's coloring bland, and once again, the bright and colorful world of Hogwarts is sorely missed in these instances.

Umbridge is the only bad guy not wearing black.  BOOOORIIIING.

            Okay, time for a break, I'll continue this tomorrow, which is fine cause I have to go set up camp and talk about nothing for way too long.  I'd tell you about it in excruciating detail but I understand how boring listening to someone brood in a tent can be, so I'll let you off the hook in this instance.

9 Worst Movies 2005

            Okay, Maybe 2005 wasn't that bad a year, most of the movies that I am putting in the bad category wouldn't make it on the list of some other years, and one of them I really should have known better than to try and digest it at all.  Regardless I got together 9 movies for 2005 because I couldn't totally parse it down to 5, and I didn't want to go hunting for a tenth to round it out.  Call me either diligent in finding this many, or lazy for not taking a step further, but here you go.

            #9 is a movie about which way too much has already been said, so with 2 out of 5 this is "Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith".  So many other internet reviewers have written diatribes about this one I have nothing else to contribute.  It is shit, don't watch it.  Here are some people who decided to go the extra mile and give 30+ minute reviews of the movie:

Plinkett (this is the last of a series and altogether is only 10 minutes shorter than the film itself)

Confused Matthew (whose is also in a series about 30 minutes each)

Was this a story that needed telling?

            #8 is a horror movie remake staring an actor whom I don't mind, Ryan Reynolds, who is doing his best not to be likable or funny and turns in an okay performance in "The Amityville Horror" which gets 2 out of 5.  The movie is mostly just boring, and when the super likable and funny Reynolds is being a jerk it takes away a lot of why anyone would want to watch the movie at all.  It is still better than similar modern movies like "The Haunting in Connecticut" which was my second worst movie of 09', but either way the movie itself is just very forgettable.  It is also a bit silly, for instance they flee a house in a speed boat... it is a chase scene in which the pursuer is a stationary object.

If you can't read that line at the top of the poster, I'll give you hint of what is says by saying, "Michael Bay is mentioned"

            #7 is one of two super hero movies on this years list, "Fantastic Four" with 2 out of 5.  This movie apparently did poorly in theaters, seeing as it was rushed out, poorly cast (mostly), and had a lot of clunky dialogue which fit in a lot of exposition that could have been done to much greater effect.  The movie only got a sequel because the DVD sales were beyond all expectation.  Unfortunately the second movie, while strictly better, was still not very good, so they will be rebooting this franchise shortly.  It is a shame because the Fantastic Four has one of the largest mythologies in comics being one of the first silver age comics and having a large amount of both Stan Lee and Jack Kirby input in its original run (as it held the world record for longest collaborative effort between an artist and writer for more than 40 years till Bendis and Bagley took the record with "Ultimate Spiderman").  Maybe the Skrulls, Kree, Annihilus, Blastar, the Wizard, or any number of other goofy bad guys will make an appearance in the reboot... Who am I kidding, they'll just go with more Doctor Doom.

How uneven was the casting for this?  Seriously.

            #6 is the first of three movies I consider to be in the growing genre of 'despicable people'.  "The Squid and the Whale" has 2 out of 5.  It has really good acting in it, sadly it is a plodding, unpleasant affair about characters that made me hate them.  A teenage plagiarist, a literature professor that is shockingly a prima donna about his 'talent' in spite of his lack of success, an adulteress, a troubled child who masturbates in public and drinks, and one of the lesser known Baldwin brothers (the sole likable member of the cast).

The worst part is, I think this was an intentionally bad movie.

            #5 is another 'despicable people' film with Nicolas Cage playing his most pathetic performance in years... well, maybe "Adaptation" has it beat, but I kind of put that movie out of my mind whenever I can, instead we have "The Weatherman" with 2 out of 5.  Slow, unfunny, and sad.  Does it have good parts and good acting?  Yes.  Do those things off set the grim unpleasantness of the whole thing?  Not really.  And the movie has a happy ending, it just comes at the end of such a bleak mess that I didn't care.

I can't actually remember the last time you were in a good movie Nic

            #4 is "Hard Candy" and I am being generous with 2 out of 5.  This film... I like it less every time I think about it.  A sociopathic (murderer?) teenager and a statutory (murderer?) rapist attack each other throughout the movie.  The acting is fine, but the subject matter, the pacing, the plot all of those things made me hate the movie.  Oh hey, here is a hypothetical, if the teenager is smart enough and of the social maturity to pull off this kidnapping and vigilantism, and you as the audience find her to be sympathetic and empowered, wouldn't she by definition by of a high enough maturity level to be able to consent to an adult relationship?  See, the movie is self defeating, either the heroin is smart enough to be an adult, in which case age is a number and the concept of statutory rape is undermined.  Or she isn't of a mature mindset, in which case the justice she seeks to dole out is immature and unjust.  You can't have justice delivered by a child, they lack the emotional depth to deliver, that is why we don't let them vote.

IT'S A TRAP!

            #3 is "Elektra" with 1 out of 5.  Up till this point the rankings didn't mean much move one here or there whatever, but this movie was definitely worse than the others.  Poor characters, poor explanations for events, poorly adapted mythology, weird choice for focus concerning a character's actions.  This is one of the worst Super hero movies ever, and good god did it take a franchise ("Daredevil") and just blow its brains out (and that franchise wasn't doing that well already).  Honestly I hate it more because of how it chose to use the characters from the source material, one of the bad guy henchmen in the movie is a hero in the books, that like if they made a Batman movie with Nightwing as the villain.  I don't mind if that happened for a reason, but that is how he is introduced, it is a disservice to the character's creators to use property as such.

I can forgive changes to the character so long as the movie is good.

            #2 is "Are We There Yet".  Which I suppose fits really well into the 'despicable people' genre too.  Bratty kids, an oblivious mother, and an asshole played by Ice Cube.  Unfunny mean spirited attempts at jokes are just shoved onto the screen without rhythm.  Cube wants to fuck the oblivious mother, the mother has him take her kids on a road trip across country to meet her after a business trip (a set up so contrived it made me angry), the kids dislike the guy so they attempt to ditch him (cause who needs adult supervision or respect for authority am I right?) and then proceed to destroy his car through hijinks, and Cube is such an asshole to the kids and just in general that it is hard to identify with anyone.  It is just a bunch of awful people.  Another movie I hate the more I think about it.

Who thought this was a movie that should be made?

            #1 is something I did to myself, I said "Saw" had some stuff going for it, maybe they'll spend some more time thinking things thru on this one and it will have the grit and unpleasantness working with better dialogue and fewer plot holes, well I couldn't sit through "Saw II" so it gets .5 out of 5.  Everyone in this movie sucks, the traps are preposterous, and the bullshit that Jigsaw, who I guess is the film's protagonist now as they have dropped all pretense of having likable people suffering due to his actions like there was in the last film.  Jigsaw just sputters bullshit about appreciating life, you know what movie delivered that message in 2 minutes?  "Fight Club" did it in one scene with a gun and a guy who never became a Veterinarian, and in the context of "Fight Club" that message actually made sense, in "Saw II" it comes off as rambling nonsense.

A reenactment of the "Fight Club" Scene.

In "Saw II" a bunch of idiots are poisoned and left in a house full of death traps, one of them has the good sense to beat down a door only to discover metal shutters blocking the hole, so they give up on that idea; here is an idea, go through the wall, some dry wall, insulation and the plywood shutters of a condemned building will give way when you have a dozen people smashing through it with pieces of furniture, and that would help with the poison to as the adrenaline would act like an epinephrine shot.  Nothing causes adrenaline quite like escaping a death trap by beating down a wall with a piece of Swedish assembly furniture.

Whose fingers are those anyway?

Worst Actor/Actress: No competition here, Ice Cube for playing a douche milf chaser who treats children like an obstacle to getting laid.  And you might retort with, "it was written that way" and I will retort with "bullshit, he could have least tried not to act like an ass while delivering the dialogue".  If the character was an asshole he could at least pretend not to be.  You know, act like someone who occasionally gets women by making their kids like him, sly and charming rather than thuggish and bullying.

Worst Special Effects: Ooh, tough one.  "Elektra" might have had poorly explained special effects (I am a comic fan an I didn't know that Hand ninjas turn to smoke when they die, when that happened on screen I had no idea what was happening) but they looked alright.  "Fantastic Four" has some effects that are bad, but they don't over use those, and instead try to use some practical effects to at least offer some visual variety to the mix.  And then there is the extreme overuse of special effects in "Star Wars", and if you watched the Plinket review where he shows how characters have to stop and turn because they ran out of blue screen track to walk on you know how poorly they integrated their over the moon levels of CGI.  So, I guess I'll give it to "Revenge of the Sith" because there was just so much that by default it had the most to get wrong.

Biggest Waste of Talent: These movies are laundry lists of talented likable actors who are wasting their time.  There is no real wrong answer here.  Hell, Ice Cube is a rapper, why is he even in a movie when he could be doing a guest spot in someone's album?  But I'll go with the last winner of best actress, Natalie Portman.  She is probably the best actress of the last decade and she wasted the start of it with bad "Star Wars" movies.

When she could have been doing comedy raps:

Or masturbating (How awkward it must have been for all the teen girls in the audience interested in Ballet to watch this movie with their moms sitting next to them):

I love you Nat.

Worst Premise: "Are We There Yet", god the lazy nature of it.  'Hello guy who is trying to get into my pants, can you take care of my kids for a couple days?  That isn't weird right?"  None of the others had as big a problem in this regard just overall execution.