Fish and Cherries Productions

Title: Gotham City Sirens
Authors: Paul Dini (issues 1-11); Tony Bedard (issues 12-15); Peter Calloway (issues 16-26)
Artists: Guillem March; Andres Guinaldo; Jeremy Haun; Ramon F. Bachs
Type: Comic book
Genre: Superhero

Catwoman. Harley Quinn. Poison Ivy. Three of Gotham City’s deadliest ladies find themselves living together under one roof in the wake of a new Batman and other insanity. From alien plant people forming a bond with Poison Ivy to Joker wannabes trying to kill Harley to Catwoman dealing with her insane sister, the girls deal with the madness that only Gotham can bring. The real question is what will kill them first: the city or each other?

It may not seem like it from the morose description, but this series is actually a lot of fun and a lot of this comes from our three leading ladies. The three are such potent characters that all you have to do is put them in a room together and the scene just becomes electric. They can’t really be called heroes, but they’re still likable enough to keep following. That said, toward the end of the run when Peter Calloway took over, it felt like they were bickering because the script required them to, so that was disappointing.

For the first half, at least, there’s also a huge sense of fun to it, helped in no small part by the vibrant art of Guillem March. Apart from fighting wannabe superpowers in Gotham, we get to see how they spend their holiday seasons or searching for lost dogs, a plotline that has a darkly comedic payoff, which is well worth the detour. Things can get intense, for sure, but there’s still a sense of levity through it all. When Paul Dini was replaced with Tony Bedard halfway through the run, things took a darker turn with stories involving Catwoman’s sister going on a religious rampage to free her soul from “the cat demon” by killing her and Poison Ivy being seduced/taken over by a plant alien to prepare a landing zone for his people’s upcoming invasion. That’s fine, stories can go dark and the characters are still likeable enough.

When Calloway takes over, though, the art subsequently takes a nosedive and the girls’ bickering becomes more bitter and less fun. The stories get a lot less pleasant too. We have some dire stuff about people trying to extract Batman’s secret identity from Catwoman’s mind and Harley finally making off to kill the Joker, but it’s punctuated with some unnecessary stuff about someone’s murdered infant and it draws the comic into a very bittersweet ending. It’s still good in places, but it’s like following up a juicy t-bone steak with a dessert of plain water crackers. …

So why am I bringing up a five year old comic rather than a recent Saga book or something like that? Well, this comic, like many others, was canceled in DC’s massive reboot to make way for the New 52 and I wanted to highlight something we lost then. Most of the books now are overly dark and grim and severely lacking in anything fun. Before that, you could have a wannabe Joker midget that used to run with him kidnap Harley only for her to give him a verbal dressing down. But now we have bad futures that completely invalidate everything the heroes are fighting for, comedic characters and kids killed off with abandon, limbs are mauled and removed willy-nilly, and the subjects of consent and sexual orientation are handled with as much grace as a monster truck attempting to perform Swan Lake. In short, everything feels unnaturally miserable.

Even our mighty sirens don’t get off unscathed. Harley Quinn got a revamped origin that is a carbon copy of the Joker’s and a rather atrocious redesign, along with becoming the subject of an art contest where she was depicted in a “glamorous” suicide attempt. Catwoman lost all her memories of Batman’s secret and ended her first new issue having sex with him that was initially nonconsensual. Poison Ivy… okay, she didn’t get too much of a bad rap. And yet, despite their initial rocky start, there’s a bit of the old magic shining through. Poison Ivy and Harley connected and became more anti-heroes than villains. Same with Catwoman, who joined the Justice League of America for a spell before the Trinity War story. Harley even began forming her own female crime fighting team, which seems like it could be an attempt to reboot the old team. Hopefully that will be the case in the future. I’m not positive that they will keep the light tone, but I can certainly hope. Everyone deserves a chance for a new beginning, something I learned from a little series called Gotham City Sirens.

Mad Max: Fury Road is simply phenomenal. Never let it be said that I have a hate on for the grim and gritty because this movie was chock full of it. But while most gritty films tend to shoot everything in a gray or brown filter, this film has a whole pastiche of warm colors. Your eyes are bombarded with browns, silvers, reds, yellows, occasional blues, and more that lend themselves to the visual wonder that is this film. Even more than the color scheme, the designs are really what sell the visuals, which have a heavy metal aesthetic. This is a world that you can really believe is after the collapse of civilization with machinery cobbled together into ingenious designs and nothing is superfluous or without function.

The main characters themselves are completely believable, if not always making the smartest decisions. Given that they live in a harsh, unforgiving wasteland where only the fittest survive, though, it makes sense that they would make more pragmatic decisions and less compassionate ones. The portrayal of Max in particular is rather intriguing, playing off as a rather disturbed individual complete with visually interesting flashbacks of people that he “let die.” I’ll admit that I haven’t seen the previous Mad Max films so I don’t know how close it is to the original, but it worked for me. Charlize Theron plays a truly awesome character with a cool mechanical arm to boot, though her American accent makes her stand out when surrounded by Brits and Australians. The huge standouts for me were the villains from the minions and vagabonds to the overlords who all have deformities that lend themselves to a distinct and memorable design. They’re like classic James Bond villains on steroids.

And of course, let me address the big selling point of this movie: the women. Despite the fact that the plot revolves around getting a warlord’s concubines to safety, they are far from damsels in distress. Not only do they have their own agency, but they all have enough sense to fight back and come up with clever ideas when it’s smart for them to do so. Admittedly, they aren’t the best actors, but it didn’t bother me next to everything else. While we don’t see any female minions in the enemy convoys, I give that a pass as the warlords are shown to treat their women like dirt, so it makes sense in the context of the film. Plus, there are other capable women gangs in the movie that are no slouches in combat. This, to me, is what true progressivism looks like in an action movie.

Everything about the plot is tightly woven and creates a huge emotional rollercoaster. The first ten to twenty minutes had my blood pumping as hard as the heavy drums in the score — so much so that when the movie finally got to a quiet moment, I realized how out of breath I was and could appreciate the calm before the next storm. I honestly feel like Mad Max: Fury Road could be this generation’s Die Hard. Gone are the boring invincible hero and helpless damsels that plague many of today’s action movies, to be replaced by capable and very mortal protagonists trying to outrun true monsters. Also, I would be remise if I didn’t mention the vehicle with minions banging war drums on its back and a man dressed in a red gimp’s outfit playing an electric guitar that shoots fire. That part alone alone is enough to immortalize this movie in the halls of Valhal-ywood. Also, I have to give this movie a lot of props for working said gimp’s diegetic shredding (meaning the music he played was actually in the movie’s reality) into the score itself. That type of ingenuity sums up the film entirely: a compelling story with a lot of creativity and ambition. Yes, it’s violent. Yes, it’s graphic. But yes, it deserves to be seen.

Originally recorded on November 22, 2014

Our players tonight:
Colin Eldred-Cohen
Tahsina Haq
Tim Lindvall
Bradley Monajjemi
Andy Reyes

Topics Covered:
– American vs. Japanese Movies (Attack on Titan Live Action)
– Downloadable Content in Video Games
— Examples of Bad DLC
— Mass Effect 3, Mario Kart, Hyrule Warriors
— Defense of DLC
— Tales of Symphonia
— Borderlands 2, Red Dead Redemption, Sleeping Dogs
— On-Disc DLC
— Can DLC Be Good?
– Super Smash Bros. Wii U First Impressions

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Music:
“Airport Lounge” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

“Carefree” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Ex Machina is a movie that just can’t be summed up into one word or genre. It’s science fiction. It’s a thriller. It’s a romance. It’s suspense. It’s a mystery. It’s a coming-of-age story. It’s uplifting. It’s horrifying. Mostly, though, it’s amazing.

In a way, I’ve always wanted to make a movie like this: a science fiction or fantasy that wasn’t bound by the hero’s journey. It’s somewhat the Blade Runner of our time, exploring the different themes of life and the rights of artificial intelligence. This movie takes place in our own time, though, growing off the technological advancements that we have already made and as such, the story seems much more imminent and possible. It’s also not afraid to ask the hard questions and show some rather graphic and necessary imagery. It wants the audience to think and ask questions and I don’t think any two people will come away from it with the same thoughts. The ending in particular will leave people confused as to whether it could be considered happy or not or even if anyone chose the correct path.

This is to movies what Bayonetta is to video games, combining elements from all across the board to make something beautiful. I haven’t seen a movie this smart since Inception and I’m honestly surprised that it was allowed a big screen release, given all it contained. I’m happy it did, though, and even happier that it’s doing so well at the box office. I can safely say that I don’t want to live in a universe where Ex Machina doesn’t succeed.

Avengers: Age of Ultron is a remarkably fun film. It’s not as good as the first, but that’s hardly surprising; the first Avengers broke new ground by proving that a shared cinematic universe could work and now that we know it does work, the same thing doesn’t feel as fresh. But same isn’t always bad and this movie definitely had a lot to offer.

The movie’s biggest strength is the titular villain through and through. I don’t know if he’s as good as Loki. I mean, he doesn’t have anything nearly as quotable as, “I am Loki of Asgard and I am burdened with glorious purpose.” Still, he balances pure terror with a comedic edge that I found refreshing and certainly gives him his own identity. James Spader of Blacklist fame provides a great menacing voice that gives Ultron the right amount of gravitas that we love to see from any good super villain. I love everything about this guy right down to his animation where I was absolutely enthralled by the fact that he was allowed some form of facial expression.

The returning cast is in top form and there are some unexpected cameos from other movies that make the world feel fuller. However, it’s the newcomers, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch (a.k.a. The Twins), who are held under a lot of scrutiny because of the rather unique dual ownership rights case concerning their characters. Quicksilver in particular has a tough act to follow after his namesake stole the show in X-Men: Days of Future Past and while he isn’t as awesome here, he feels a lot more real than his twin at Fox and I can certainly appreciate that. Scarlet Witch is certainly good too, though her powers may confuse a lot of people when they’re explained. There was a scene in the beginning when she was sneaking up on Iron Man and she moved in a disjointed, disturbing way like something out of The Ring or The Grudge; I thought that was really creative and I was disappointed that they didn’t go anywhere with it. I also like the fact that they were given accents, as they were raised in Europe in the comics and I always find it odd when adaptations make them speak like Americans.

The film isn’t without its faults, though. I personally thought the scene during the credits was particularly weak, just telling us stuff that we already learned from the end of Avengers: Thanos exists and he plans to wreck your s***. The score is also weaker in this installment. Gone is Alan Silvestri in favor of Danny Elfman and wishing no offense to the man, he doesn’t capture the heroic and victorious qualities that the music needs. I also felt that the HYDRA villains in the beginning were a weak link, like some of them were trying to deliver funny quips and whether by awkward delivery or subpar acting, it kind of fell flat.

But a little bit of bad doesn’t erase all the good. For every one thing the movie gets wrong, it gets about fifteen to twenty things right. There’s a nice callback to the Agent Carter miniseries and a bit of groundwork laid for the upcoming Black Panther movie, but also some much needed development for Hawkeye, who seems to have gone from being a second stringer with a bow to a bit of a fan favorite. The debut of Iron Man’s Hulkbuster armor and the fight against the Hulk that ensues from it is one of the standout scenes, as it shows a lot more creativity than just two giants slugging each other. Also, I can’t help but impress on the fact that the movie actually allowed the heroes to balance a battle of epic destruction with them actually diverting their attention to saving people from the destruction they caused. It felt like the most subtle jab at Man of Steel ever and I loved it. While not the masterpiece that its predecessor or Winter Soldier was, it still was some quality storytelling with some great humor and acting and altogether an excellent piece of filmmaking.

The Age of Adaline left absolutely no impression on me once I left the theater. Even as I write this, I’m having trouble conjuring thoughts about what was an utterly bland and simpering experience. The film feels like it’s trying to be Forrest Gump mixed with a Nicholas Sparks novel and not doing very well at either of those. Another comparison to this film is the television series Forever, which has a shockingly similar premise. But while Ioan Grufford is charming and charismatic in that series, Blake Lively is bland and carries the same monotone in her voice whether she’s happy, upset, or fearing for her life.

I could go through a laundry list of the movie’s problems, but I’m going to focus on the fact that, through completely unnecessary narration, a pseudo-science explanation is offered for Adaline’s immortality and it just kills the whole thing for me. No explanation was needed; you could have let yourself run on fairy tale logic and I would have been far more forgiving. After all, Harrison Ford reads his lines like a wistful old grandfather reading to young’uns, so it wouldn’t have been too far of a mood stretch. Speaking of, Harrison’s scenes are positively magnetic, owing much to his acting talent and his years of experience. Those are where the movie was the most interesting and tolerable. The rest just left me cold. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button had me far better sold on a romance with unusual age circumstances than this did and if it weren’t part of my job to watch the whole thing, I would have walked out of the movie before the halfway mark.