Justice League (2017)… any good?

After what seems far too long a time for opinions both negative and positive to percolate -and the back and forth has been at times intense!- the Justice League movie is officially being released and the reviews are… not terribly good.

While these reviews are better overall than the reviews of Batman v Superman and several high profile critics have offered very high praise, the fact of the matter is that once again a DC universe film is being released to generally negative reviews.

Predictably, there’s been screaming from some parts -the fanboys most certainly!- about bias and, perhaps, they have a point.  The question arises: Has the negativity associated with Batman v Superman permeated this new product to the point where a cold, neutral look at it is impossible?  There are those, after all, who seem sold on the idea that anything director Zach Snyder touches will instantly turn to crap, so perhaps they go into the film thinking this is inevitable in Justice League’s case?

Biases most certainly can exist.

Way back in the year 2000, Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, and Lucy Liu starred in the film Charlie’s Angels, a theatrical remake of the cheesy -but somewhat beloved- TV show involving a trio of very pretty female detectives who, along with their assistant Bosley, worked for the mysterious “Charlie” solving crimes each week.

The show made a mega-star of the late Farrah Fawcett but I doubt even the most ardent fans of the show consider it a “classic”.  Thus, when word came that a movie version was about to be released, many didn’t think it could possibly be any good.

I know this because I found it curious, at the time, how professional review after review I read had variations of “I can’t believe it… they made a good movie out of this!” in their positive reviews.

It was clear many critics went into the film (here comes the bias thing) thinking it would be absolutely terrible and were surprised when they found it to be good.  In their opinion, of course.

So I, who shared very similar negative thoughts –no way they could make a good film out of Charlie’s Angels, could they!?- read those reviews and, based on them, softened my negative (biased?!) opinion.  I figured that perhaps against all odds, the people behind this film made something good.

So off I trot to the theaters and see the film, now thinking I’m about to have a good time (another bias!).

I didn’t.

Charlie’s Angels, to me, wasn’t a horrible film, but the reviews elevated my hopes  to the point that when I saw the film and it didn’t deliver as I felt it would, I was very disappointed.

So, think about it: Many critics went in to see the film with very LOW expectations and figured the film would be awful (negative bias).  They were pleasantly surprised when they found it wasn’t.

I, on the other hand, expected the film would be awful but, after reading several positive reviews, changed my mind (positive bias).  I go into the film with high expectations based on the words of so many critics.  I wind up being disappointed.

Getting back to Justice League, clearly there are many, many people out there who really like characters like Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman.  They want any film featuring these beloved characters to succeed just as there are many, many people who feel so negative toward director Zach Snyder and his work thus far with the DC Superheroes (he directed Man of Steel and Batman v Superman) that they feel Justice League will be another bomb, no doubt about it.

Positive and negative biases formed even before seeing the actual film.

I’ve noted -far too many times!- that I enjoyed Batman v Superman and am unapologetic in that opinion.  In fact, I feel that in time and when emotions cool people may give the film a second chance and find it far better than the overall negativity it currently elicits.

Having said that, I’m also one who feels that people’s opinions are just that: Opinions.  Your opinion about movie/song/book X is YOUR OPINION and therefore cannot be wrong… to you, just as my opinion of movie/song/book X is MY OPINION and, therefore, cannot be wrong to me.

I haven’t seen Justice League yet, though I must admit I too have some pre-conceived notions about what it will be.

I’ve heard the film had about 1 hour of material cut from it before reaching theaters.  Given how much better Batman v Superman was in its “Ultimate Edition” versus the cut down theatrical version, I worry that Justice League, which runs a pretty tight 2 hours, may wind up being more disjointed than it should be and that when the inevitable “Director’s Cut” shows up, it will prove a better overall product.

As with so many other things, we’ll see.

For what it’s worth…

With all the current news regarding sexual harassment, I was reminded of the first time an incident which could be defined as such was brought to my attention… and how shocked I was to find out about it.

It was the mid-1990’s, so I can claim some excuse in being younger/more naive/stupider then.  It was a Comic Book Convention I attended, among the first where I attended as a “Pro” guest.

Being a “Pro” guest meant you interacted more with other “Pros”.  In that particular convention, I had the unique privilege and thrill to meet up with several people who, to me, were incredibly gifted and whose works entertained the hell out of me over the years before.

In this particular convention there was a very, very legendary comic book figure, one who was in the business for many years and was behind and/or responsible for many very memorable events during practically her entire history.

Frankly, I was gobsmacked that I could actually meet and interact with this legend and mentioned it to the two people I was with at that moment.

One of the pros I was with, a woman who made a name for herself over the previous years with various successful projects, reacted in a most negative way to my comment.

Though it happened many years ago and I don’t recall the exact words, she essentially told me this individual -this comic book legend!- was a creep, a man who was, as defined by today’s headlines, a sexual harasser.  One who had, to my horror, harassed her.

I came away from this conversation with the realization of something I’ve come to know all too well since that time: Sometimes the art is very different from the artist.

Now, I could name names and tell you who this legendary figure is and who the woman accusing him of harassment was but I feel its best I don’t.  Understand, I’m not trying to be coy or engage in some childish “I’ve got a secret” type thing.

The fact of the matter is that this happened a very long time ago and, as I mentioned above, I can only go by my impressions rather than specific words told to me by the lady in question. Still, my impression hasn’t changed that this woman genuinely felt the man was a creep.

Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, though this woman was clearly seething and willing to tell a stranger (who I was to her at that moment!) her very negative impressions of that man, I don’t know what happened afterwards and, for all I know, things might well have changed.

While perhaps unlikely, this woman might have had more interactions with this comic book legend and maybe her opinion of him changed.  It is possible the man acted bad on the day(s) she formed her negative impressions of him and maybe he eventually realized the error of his ways and apologized to her.

These are things I don’t know!

The woman in question is still around while that legendary comic book figure has since passed.

Perhaps in this day and age, this woman might come forward to offer her opinions of this man or any other(s) who have shown such creepy behavior toward her.

I hope she -and anyone else who was mistreated by those in power- do so.

In all fields, including the comic book field, it is high time bad behavior –especially bad behavior which crosses the line into outright criminal behavior- was treated for what it is and for those who have engaged in it be called out for what they are.

Creeps.

Corrosive Knights, a 11/14/17 update

We’re nearing the middle of November so why not give an update on Book #7 of my Corrosive Knights series?  And, while I’m at it, let me again post this nifty graphic showing the entirety of the series and the two books to come…

Alright, so here goes:

I’m still hard at work on revising the first full draft of the book.  The book has three parts which are roughly the same length:

  1. An intro which offers us a “the story until now” in as interesting/new a way as I can fashion it which leads to…
  2. The bulk of the story which leads to…
  3. Conclusion

I’ve finished going over that first part and I have to say, I really think it worked well.  There are parts presented which offer scenes found in earlier books but offered from different perspectives and, IMHO, it works so damn well!

I wish I could get into more details but to do so would be silly.  Today I embark on the second part of the story and, hopefully, soon enough I’ll have made my way through the entire book…

…at which time I begin all over again but with a hopefully far stronger overall work.

Exciting, exciting stuff!

Angry about Keurig…

Big time politics here, so look away if you’re not interested in reading my opinion of these issues…

The other day Sean Hannity, right wing apologist and another of the too many right wing machine over at Fox “News”, had controversial Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore on his show.

For those who don’t know, Roy Moore is controversial for a number of things, from going against Supreme Court rulings to  -this is the latest controversy- having sex with teenage women/girls as young as 14 years of age when he was in his (gulp) thirties.

He’s being accused by women who are willing to put their name to the accusations of engaging in pedophilia.

So of course, when Mr. Moore shows up on Sean Hannity’s show, the questions are softballs and the purpose of the episode is to give Mr. Moore a platform to prove he’s a good guy and the accusations aren’t true.

He didn’t quite do that…  From vox.com, Jen Kirby writes about that interview, and the one startling thing he had to say when asked if he dated teenagers at that time:

Roy Moore on whether he dated teenage girls: “Not generally, no”.

Way to issue a strong denial there, Mr. Moore!

As a result of that interview, and the way it was performed by Mr. Hannity, people started flooded some of his sponsors with letters/tweets/etc. asking them how they can continue to sponsor a show where its host seeks to show someone like Mr. Moore in a positive light.

Among the companies that were contacted was Keurig, coffee machine makers.  In a tweet regarding whether they would continue to support Mr. Hannity’s show after that interview, Keurig stated:

Thank you for your concern and for bringing this to our attention. We worked with our media partner and FOX news to stop our ad from airing during the Sean Hannity Show.

As with any action, there is a reaction, and one of the big reactions from fans of Hannity’s show is to slam Keurig and, idiotically, decide to destroy their Keurig coffee making machines.  Tom McKay over at gizmodo.com writes about this:

Angry Sean Hannity fans are smashing Keurigs on Twitter because 2017 is dumb as heck

But you know what?  Dumb as it is to decide to protest Keurig (and liberals, I suppose) by destroying your Keurig machine is just another iteration of dumb protesting.

Way, way back in 1976 and when Blue Oyster Cult first released their song “Don’t Fear The Reaper” (you know, the cowbell song!)…

…there was a great deal of controversy amongst the very religious/right wingers out there about it.

Why?

Because the song’s lyrics refer to death in many incarnations and states “don’t fear the reaper” when referring to, among others, “Romeo and Juliet.”  To many, the implication was clear: The song promoted death and suicide and, therefore, it was a sinful song. (Didn’t help that Blue Oyster Cult cultivated a dark image)

So controversial amongst the religious/right wingers was the song and album in which it came on that one day this group has a big BOC bonfire, wherein people brought the vinyl albums and burned them.

To which one of the members of BOC (I forget which) was quoted as saying something along the lines of: “I don’t care what they do to our albums… as long as they buy them first!”

I suspect Keurig is feeling the same.

Rand Paul and that neighbor of his…

If you’ve been reading/watching the news lately, between stories involving Russians, Trump’s latest stupidity, Sexual Assault, and as much depressing shit as you can handle, came the news that Libertarian Senator Rand Paul was tackled by his next door neighbor while cutting his lawn and suffered several broken ribs.

The cause of the attack remains a head-scratching puzzle.  Early word came out that this involved -of all things- landscaping issues.  Mr. Paul was mowing his lawn, after all, when he was attacked.

This was quickly disputed, but no reason was given for why the attack took place, either by the attacker or the victim.

Over at theslot.com, author Ellie Shechet offers a quick recap of the whole weird affair and wonders…

What the Frick Is Going On With Rand Paul and His Neighbor, Someone Tell Me Right Now

I was very amused by the comments after the article.  Several people have noted they think the source of the animosity between Paul and his neighbor is something more deeply personal… perhaps even sexual.

That perhaps Mr. Paul overstepped his boundaries and/or has had trysts with his neighbor’s wife or daughter or what-have-you.

This is clearly nothing more than the rankest of rank speculation, yet one can’t help but wonder why both the neighbor and Mr. Paul are so very reluctant to get into the details of why they had this confrontation.

A weird story that, by virtue of its timing, is essentially being buried under an avalanche of other stories.

God only knows what its doing to our children’s brains…

Rather scary article written by Rob Price and found on businessinsider.com regarding ex-Facebook president Sean Parker and some rather scary things he has to say about our social media platforms like the one that he was president of:

Billionaire ex-Facebook President Sean Parker Unloads on Mark Zuckerberg and Admits He Helped Build a Monster

The “money” quote from the article is posted on the headline above, that Mr. Parker notes that these platforms were developed with the express idea of becoming addictive to its users.  This from Mr. Parker:

The thought process that went into building these applications, Facebook being the first of them … was all about: ‘How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?

Not all that long ago I recall watching a TV program (60 Minutes?  I’m not certain) about cellphones and social media and it was noted by the person who was being interviewed that there is a science behind many of the programs, like Facebook, that draw masses of people to them, and that the model for drawing people to them is very similar to that of…

…wait for it…

Gambling.

Mr. Parker further states:

And that means that we need to sort of give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while, because someone liked or commented on a photo or a post or whatever.  And that’s going to get you to contribute more content, and that’s going to get you … more likes and comments.

It’s a social-validation feedback loop … exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with, because you’re exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology.

In other words, these platforms are built to not only get you on them with their various bells and whistles, but keep you on them once you’ve tasted their wares.

I have to say, like Mr. Parker I do wonder what effect this will have on people growing up with these services.

As someone who didn’t grow up with them, there have been plenty of times I’ve forgotten to take my cellphone with me to places and the biggest inconvenience, to me, is the fact that I subsequently couldn’t make a call from my car.

My daughters, on the other hand, have their cellphones essentially attached to them.  One day, one of them forgot to take it with her to a store.  It was, to her, an incredible, mind-blowing thing to have forgotten!

Here’s the thing, though: As the science of getting people essentially “addicted” to these various platforms becomes sharper and more effective, is it possible people will no longer be able to function, at all, without their cell phones and the social platform programs?

One wonders.

Been a while….

A while since I’ve talked about one of my favorite real-world subjects: autonomous vehicles.

The following article, written by Madison Park and appearing on CNN, is one of those stories that seem to be delivered by the Gods above…

Self-Driving Bus Involved in Accident on its First Day

The bus in question, which is running in Las Vegas, looks like this:

Las Vegas self-driving shuttle

So, based on the story title, one could be forgiven for thinking that the cause of the accident was -slap your forehead- the self-driving bus and its software.

Nope.

What happened, and sorry for giving it all away, was that the driver of a truck who was backing up didn’t see the bus, which had properly stopped, and wound up scrapping its front side.  No one was hurt, the damage was minor, and the driver of the truck was ticketed for failure to notice the car while backing up.

Though one does wonder: If the bus was responsible, who would be ticketed then?!

I kid, I kid.

Still, one can’t help but shake one’s head at stories like this.  The roll out of self-driving vehicles has begun and, naturally, one the first day of use of this particular new service, of course there would be a crash.

He who will not be mentioned again…

With the revelations of sexual harassment and far, far worse by far, far too many people in power within the Hollywood movie establishment, two names in particular are especially loathsome.

There is Harvey Weinstein, of course, the man who is alleged to have sexually harassed and raped many women.

Then there’s Kevin Spacey, the up until now very respected actor who, if the allegations are to be believed, has engaged in behavior which can only be described as being… well, let’s put it this way, beyond sexual harassment and, allegedly, drifting into one of the darkest corners of sexual assault, that of a possible pedophila.

So alarming are the accusations against him -and one must emphasize that up to this moment they are just that, accusations and allegations- it appears Mr. Spacey is nonetheless rapidly becoming a persona non grata within the industry that, up to the time of these allegations, was more than happy to have him involved in their projects.

Case in point, Ridley Scott’s next film, All The Money In The World, is due to be released in six weeks.  Starring Mark Wahlberg and Michelle Williams, the movie also featured Kevin Spacey.

But no longer.

According to this article by Hannah Gold and found on jezebel.com…

Ridley Scott Kicked Kevin Spacey Out of His Movie

Let me emphasize this: With only six weeks to go before the movie is released, Mr. Scott and company have decided Mr. Spacey is so toxic that he’s been taken out of the film completely and all his scenes will be (hastily, I imagine), re-filmed with Christopher Plummer, who was apparently Mr. Scott’s original choice, in the role vacated by Kevin Spacey.  According to the article, the movie’s other stars are making time to rework these scenes as well.

The fact that the film is a mere six weeks from being released means it was pretty much done and I suspect whatever new scenes are filmed with Mr. Plummer will mimic almost exactly what the Kevin Spacey scenes were, so there shouldn’t be all that much work to be done, though this is complete speculation on my part.  I don’t know if any scenes require specific backgrounds or perhaps effects (the film takes place in the 1970’s).

Regardless, the movie’s listing over at IMDB still has Kevin Spacey in one of the principle roles but who knows how much screen time he occupied in the completed work, all of which will now be redone with Mr. Plummer in that role.

An incredible story, IMHO, and it goes to show just how far Mr. Spacey has fallen in recent days.

News of the not too surprising…

As tempting as it is to again dip my toe into politics (yesterday, IMHO, was a good slap against Trumpism… I hope the energy carries over for more than this election), I’ll instead focus on something that seemed a given.

Over at i09 comes this article by Charles Pulliam-Moore which states:

Universal’s Shared Monster Universe Has Been Put On Hold

As I said above, this was an announcement I expected given the first film in this series, the Tom Cruise starring The Mummy, had a relatively weak box office take.

That movie, which I will note I have yet to see, received middling at best reviews and, even more importantly, audiences weren’t thrilled enough to make it a bigger blockbuster. Had the movie received superb reviews yet still failed to make the type of money Universal wanted, they likely would have put the brakes on anyway.

Perhaps Universal put the cart before the horse by announcing a “universe” of films before the first one proved successful, but had The Mummy been a bigger hit, even if it had the same reviews/quality, there’s no doubt the studio would proceed with their next monster universe movie.

Ah well!

Dracula and that strange light dimmer….

We’ve been through too much negative stuff of late and it’s time to look at something light and… funny?

From Cinemassacre, here is an examination of a curious piece of cardboard attached to a night light in the famous Bela Lugosi film Dracula

Now, I will critique the video a tiny little bit here and say that while the video is a blast for someone who is as into cinema as I am to watch…

…the conclusion, well:

SPOILERS FOLLOW!

The video starts out by presenting this cardboard piece and its inclusion in several scenes within Dracula as being a source of controversy and/or mystery.  In other words, that people out there aren’t certain why its there and wonder whether it is a flub/mistake or if its inclusion is purposeful within the film itself.

By the end of the clip, however, one comes away with the clear idea that this (admittedly cheesy) cardboard piece was indeed a part of the story -a silly, unnecessary part, I grant you- and that its inclusion is even hinted in the screenplay.

Still, this one minor quibble doesn’t take away from the fact that its a fascinating subject matter.  Further, I was just as surprised as the narrator when I saw this video: I’ve seen Dracula many, many times before and for the life of me never noted that silly piece of cardboard attached to the lamp.

Kudos also to the realization that the first encounter with Dracula is actually a scene which likely was meant to fall later in the film.

Love, love, love this type of stuff!