avrelia

I like Natasha Romanoff as played by Scarlett Johanson in several MCU movies. She smart, capable, good with people, a good friend, can be both a loyal comrade and a leader in emergency, and, of course can kick asses and take names at the same time. I have never read any comics with her, so I have no idea about how true she is to her comics counterpart or anything.
But I do have several problems with her portrayal and her story in MCU and I am not really looking forward to her upcoming movie. I have a feeling that the writers and directors didn’t quite know what to do with her character, and only did some cool things by accident.
1) Romance is horrible. I have no idea who and how came up with the idea of Natasha/Bruce romance, but for me it’s one of the worst parts of MCU, and I blame Joss Whedon, because as a self-proclaimed feminist he should have known better.
Natasha and Bruce have no chemistry and no pull of any kind. I mean, Bruce, as palyed by Mark Ruffalo has great chemistry with Tony, with Thor and Valkyrie (both as Bruce and Hulk with those two). Natasha is great with Pepper, Hawkeye and his wife, Steve…. Even Okoye, for two minutes they share the screen. I wouldn’t mind seeing her having a polyamory family with the Bartons. But then again, she didn’t need any romance at all, she is fine just wielding a power of friendship. I mean, my favorite Natasha scenes are her with Steve in Winter Soldier.
With Bruce she is suddenly boring and sad that she cannot have children. And the whole power of lullaby and the rest.. bleargh
2) Her history. Maybe because she didn’t have an origin movie and the definite origin story in the MCU, or because her comic origin are so weird and hard to update, but I am close to tearing my hair out every time Natasha says anything about begin Russian or have that part of her family addressed. I want to like having a great Russian character in MCU, but the fact is, there is nothing Russian in Natasha that we saw.
“Regimes fall every day. I tend not to weep over that, I'm Russian. Or I used to be.”
That phrase makes no sense whatsoever. It would be the contrary, I think. Regimes don’t fall that often in Russia for her to be so blasé about it. I mean, she might be blasé about it, but not because she is Russian (ethnically or culturally), but because due to her previous line of work she helped to fall some of them. That I could buy, but it’s not what she said. I mean, Joss Whedon is famous for his dialogues, but half of stuff Natasha says in Avengers directed by him, makes little sense.
And her name is weird for Russian eye and ear. Natasha, Natalia is great, it’s one of my grandmothers’ name. But “otchestvo”, name formed out of her fathers’ one? Makes no sense. Again, sometimes Russian names look weird transcribed in other languages’s alphabets, sure. Some people have rare and unusual names, sure. But it still looks more like a random selection of letters than actual names. Unless it the Black Widow movie it starts to make perfect sense. Her last name… Romanoff. I get it, it’s a comic convention. But it suggest immigration that happened in 18-early 20th centuries, not now. Now it would be Romanova or Romanov. And it was still fine, until the Black Widow movie that has Elena Belova as a character. Then it becomes really jarring.
Basically, all that Russian part of MCU makes no sense (Agent Carter has it really bad, BTW), and I suspect it will have even less sense after the Black Widow movie.
3) Her end in the “Endgame”. Ok, it might have made sense from Natasha’s POV to try and die for her friend – because Natasha is the best friend anyone can have, but from the story perspective – it was wrong to kill of Natasha instead of Clint and even worse not to acknowledge it properly. And Yes, people die all the time for many reasons, way before we are ready to let them go, but it was not what the story was about. It was such a waste, I am still sad about stupidity of it.

That I remember right now

1) Pepper and Phil Coulson get things done

2) Captain America Peggy Carter moments

3) Thor: all Darcy moments; Warriors Three and lady Sif find Thor in New Mexico; Thor explains the Universe

4) Iron Man 2: Pepper and Natasha working together

5) Avengers: Hulk beats up Loki

6) Dr. Strange: Wong in the library moments

7) Winter Soldier: Steve and Natasha friendship moments

8) Civil War: Tony Stark and Aunt May

9) Ant-man: Cassie and Scott moments

10) Spider-man: homecoming all of it?

11) Thor: Ragnarok: can’t possibly choose.

12) Black Panther: Nakia moments

13) infinity war: Thor+Rocket+Groot trip

14) Ant-man and Wasp: Ghost & Morpheus (sorry) hug

15) Captain Marvel: Carol & Nick Fury talking

prompted by this
https://www.tor.com/2019/04/25/the-most-marvelous-moments-in-the-mcu/

Infinity War is over. All my thoughts about the death count proved wrong, and... whatever. It was powerful. But now I read the speculations are now about who will survive the next one… And I keep asking myself – why shouldn’t everyone?

spoilers for A:IW ( Read more... )

and the Tor article on topic:

https://www.tor.com/2018/04/25/why-i-dont-care-if-anyone-dies-in-avengers-infinity-war/

Not Pixar fandom, we are. In the great debate between Pixar and Dreamworks, we choose Dreamworks, because we have more fun watching them. Still, each of us has a much-loved Pixar movie. P. loves Incredibles, D. loves Toy Story, all three of them, of course, and mine was Monsters, Inc, but now I think Brave is it.

It was stunningly gorgeous, a real pleasure to watch for every tree, stone, waterfall and mist in it, but even better than that, it was a mother-and-daughter story, where both of them had failings and flaws and very human feelings, and then through the movie learned to listen to each other and find in each other something new and worthwhile. I loved Queen Elinor both when she quieted the rowdy clans just by walking through, and when she was mauling the demon bear, and when she was helping Merida to pacify the clans... I loved Merida, too - but I know that as much fun running wild is, one cannot do it all one's life. But it's always nice to do from time to time. :)

1)I had a dream. Probably because I was on painkillers – ear stuff, very annoying. But. The dream was amazing: I was reading the most gorgeous, smart and witty graphic novel based on Wilkie Collins' novel Moonstone. With some science fiction/steampunk elements in it. And now I really want to read it in real life. And the adventures of Marian Halcombe (from Collins' Woman in White). Why didn't anyone written them?

2)I and P. finally watched Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, both parts. I liked the first part better than the book (nicely suspenseful), and the second part less than the book (the awe and the heartbreak in the book were more immediate, and there was more of Harry-unrelated Hogwarts Resistance). Now I feel the need to re-read the book immediately, and P. went and bought all eight movies (we didn't have them before).

3)I started to watch second season of the Lost Girl, and I am enjoying it very much. Now I finished episode 2.04, and... I am happy. I didn't know I needed it that much – weird Russian stuff that is not Random Weird Evil Russian Stuff, but character-related Weird Russian Stuff. Kenzi summons Baba Yaga – because she used to be terrified of her, and because she knows how (and because she is drunk and angry at Dyson, for Bo's sake). Of course, she ends up in Baba Yaga's hut, and has to defeat her herself, even though Bo and Dyson both are trying to help. We heard Kenzi speaking perfect Russian in the first episode, but while she doesn't hide it particularly, she doesn't advertize it, either. It's not a big deal. We can assume that she was born and learned to talk outside Canada, somewhere in former USSR – hence the normal Russian, but attended school in Canada – hence the perfect English. She grew up with Russian fairytales and silly kids' games. Summoning Baba Yaga this way was invented for the show, but we, at school at about 10-12 years did like to summon some scary stuff. Like the Queen of Spades and such. Using mirrors is also a good traditional way to stir some mystical shit. It is recommended to do only in twelve days after Christmas, though. But if you look in the mirror in the candlelight long enough, you could see your future husband or the devil (or your husband, the devil). So the fantasy stuff, while invented, felt organic to me. It also was genuinely creepy. But Kenzi dealt with it the best way possible.

4)Finished N.K. Jemisin's The Kingdom of Gods, the last book of the Inheritance trilogy. Liked it a lot, but I still think the second one, The Broken Kingdoms is my favorite of the three. I need to do a proper review, but when did I manage it the last time? If any of my friends want it, btw, it can be arranged. ;)

5)Watched Captain America. Was underwhelmed. I liked it – Steve, Old New York, Tommy Lee Jones, Fantastic Low-Tech, Peggy Carter... Except Peggy Carter was there just to be Steve's love interest, the only woman with more that one line of text. Other women were nurses or dancers. No female soldiers? Pilots? Whomever? Besides, I do always get a weird feeling watching movies about WWII where it seems that the war was fought by USA with their little helpers. I don't really expect anything from Captain America movie, of course, but it still feels weird – given the world domination plans of Agent Smith, to completely disregard the existence of the Eastern front. But the main underwhelming moment for me was that in the second half of the movie all the action became boring and perfunctory. It's like all the cool stuff was done, and they just had to fill up the time.

6)Looking forward to the new Sherlock Holmes movie. I don't care whether it's going to be good or just silly, I want to see Robert Downy Jr. And Jude Law enjoying themselves as Holmes and Watson.

(re-posted from LJ)

One of the pleasures not available to Canada is Netflix. There are lost of things that more than make up for its absence, of course, so it’s that we were lacking entertainment because of it, but now - since we can have it - we amuse ourselves by looking for things to watch there, we wouldn’t watch otherwise.

One of those finds is TiMER. I learned about its existence from here: http://io9.com/5642348/timer-and-the-trope-of-destructive-prescience, and immediately wanted to see it - as it is available on Netflix steaming video. ( Read more... )

If you still amused or confused.

Here are two infographics: the pretty one and the table one

molly_may gave me those names as a part of these meme:

Comment and I will give you ten actors and ten actresses. Then post in your Livejournal with your favorite films of theirs.

The thing is, my movie watching is weird. During my University years I watched whatever happen on TV, but it was in Russia, so the selection of what was on TV was pretty random. And here and now I hardly ever watch serious dramas. So my movie choices tend to lean toward cheesy. Enjoy!


( 10 actors )

( 10 actresses )

my mother visited us a month ago, so we used the opportunity to go see movies. Unfortunately at the time there were no movies we both really wanted to see, so we went to something we both didn't mind. Just imagine - a year and a half without going to a movie theater!

Taken. We actually ended up liking it quite a lot - as an action movie. Action is unstoppable, every second something happens, and Liam Neeson beats up everyone quite nicely. One thing why this movie worked for me was that I could relate to the notion "Most bad things that you fear can actually happen" so the premise wasn't an outlandish nonsense as usual, but rang true. Besides, I could identify - in my memory - with the young girls that get into trouble, because they think nothing can happen to them. I was seventeen, and I thought myself pretty smart and intelligent, and I've done some things that look awfully stupid from half of the life later. I was lucky - or maybe not that stupid. The girls in the movie were just enough stupid to get into trouble, but one of them was lucky to have Jedi Liam Neeson for a father. Liam Neeson plays a former secret agent type guy who also knows for a fact that "Most bad things that you fear can actually happen" and acts sufficiently paranoid, then immediately goes to Paris and turns everything upside down in a very satisfying manner.

on a bigger scale, there are some troubling considerations. The girls went to Paris, then got to Albanian villains, and it sets fine with me. If they went, say, to Russia, I would be more uncomfortable with an American turning everything upside down for his very own purposes. Of course, no sane parent would a teenage child go to Russia unsupervised, whereas Paris seems so familiar and safe. On the other hand if they were in trouble because of Russian criminals I would have been annoyed. My personal cockroaches aside, it's the men's world and girls can only get in trouble there and be saved - or not saved. Or wait at home, waving hands helplessly, like the mother of a girl. But yes, this is world, and the movie reflects it as is. Some might be bothered by an American going everywhere without any regard to the local authorities. But then, it was less strange than a secret U.S. military base in Siberia in Fantastic Four... Anyway. this is our world. Overall, the movie proved to be strangely satisfying and I think we will watch it again some day.

The second movie we watched was International. P. was underwhelmed - it was certainly not what we expected based on the trailers. I was nicely entertained by watching Clive Owen running around desperately. I kind of like him, so the meaning of running around was less important. I liked Naomi Watts's character as well - ans I liked that they worked as colleges, without a hint of a romance. Nice change from ... almost everything else.

The trailers were insane, and not in a good way. Except for Crank 2. which was insane in good way and very gleeful about it.

TV stuff: as usual. hardly existing. I watched Dollhouse, and was so utterly bored by the first episode, that I couldn't bring myself to watch the following ones until #6. Ep. 6 was rather interesting, and now I am looking forward to watch the next one, but still don't feel like watching episodes 2-5. Maybe later. Not sure.

Instead I occasionally watch some Buffy episodes and call it a rewatch. It's not a true rewatch, since I pick up episodes very randomly (though in general order) and let them play as a background, but I don't have time for any other type of rewatch, anyway.

A nice surprise: I've got $2 from Live Journal (in gift certificate, not cash) for being a Cyrillic user. Hmm. Has it happened to anyone else here? As you probably noticed I don't use Cyrillic that much in my posts, but those sneaky folk had me all figured out.

Thanks, anyway. :)
Now I need to decide how to spend such a windfall.

I saw some movies over the last month, and I didn't tell anything about them here. I find it very strange myself that I had so much to say about Shrek, but nothing about all others.

Here is the short rundown

( Pirates of the C. )

Ocean's Thirteen and Fantastic Four - again, I liked them for the entertainment value. And I have no deep thoughts on them whatsoever. Ocean's 13 is good clean overblown fun, and I like the family dynamic in FF - more so than in the first part, and the only question that I ask myself - why exactly is there a US military base in Russia in FF? or - Why it seems perfectly natural to Hollywood that there is a US military base everywhere?
oh, well...

Finally, the TV in Canada started showing Doctor Who (3rd season), and I started watching it. So far I like it, an will continue to watch it. I just hope they finish it by the end of summer - or I'll never know how it ends. ;) I am not yet sufficiently motivated to look in other places - but who knows?