The Cutprice Guignol

Always look on the bright side: Henry Cavill could have been the leading man.

I don’t know what I fucking expected.

I’ve been dining out on my unadulterated hatred for Man of Steel for almost three years now. And I really thought a superhero movie couldn’t dip any lower than that- an uninspiring leading man, a fatally poor script, and generally joyless execution. After all, they were following it up with a Batman versus Superman movie- no matter how awful Henry Cavill was in Man of Steel, and no matter how much I detest Zack Snyder as a director, it would be next to impossible to suck all the fun and entertainment value from a battle that’s been pitched by every comic book lover at some time in their lives. Batman. Versus. Superman. You stick to this premise, and there is no room to fuck up. There is no room at all.

Out of the way Cavill, you’re standing in front of better actors.

But Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice, which came out yesterday, failed to construct something even passably entertaining out of it’s iron-clad premise. Perhaps “fails” is too kind a word; that suggests that there was something to succeed at in the first place. Let me be clear: as soon as Snyder picked up that finished script, nothing good was possibly going to come out of it. From the opening moments, as a young Batman dreams himself floating amongst a bunch of bats (one of five-count ‘em, five- dream sequences the movie generously bestowed on us) while “DIRECTED BY ZACK SNYDER” appears on screen, I knew we were in trouble. This wasn’t any fun. This wasn’t any fun at all. This was pious, po-faced, pretentious pish, and I already hated it.

This was roughly my expression at the end of the movie.

And it continued in that vein for the rest of the movie. Batman vs Superman was cursed, in some respects, with the fact that it had to set up basically the entire DC cinematic universe in one movie, as well as trying to tell a coherent plot of it’s own. The movie would leap into some dark, fascistic terrorist element, and then have to jump straight back out again so Wonder Woman could be mysterious in a slinky dress. The action would finally pick up, and the film would grind to a painful halt as Wonder Woman watches three teaser trailers for upcoming DC superheroes on her computer. It leaves this two-and-a-half hour movie feeling, somehow, overstuffed. Every time the movie looked like it might be going somewhere, it suddenly remembered it had to work Doomsday into the script, somehow, and Lex Luthor had to get his head shaved, and Wonder Woman had to fight, and-

Lex Luthor: There, I guess

Let me be clear: I’m not saying that any of the rest of what we’re shown is much better. The scriptwriters, Chris Terrio and David S Goyer, seem to have mistaken “dark and edgy” for “turning both your leading men into complete fucking sociopaths”, as Batman kills people willy-nilly and Superman strops around like a whiny prick most of the time while the movie depicts him as an unsettling God figure the rest of it (one of the few aspects of the trailer the film really delivered on).

Henry Cavill is just as embarrassingly awful as he was in Man of Steel, maybe more so, as this film asks more of him while he delivers less. Ben Affleck- and I’m sure, by now, we’ve all seen the “Sadfleck” meme, which is both tragic and slightly funny in equal measure- is clearly trying very hard, but, between the ridiculous Batman suit that squishes all his jowls up till he looks like a frog, his poorly-articulated backstory, and the cartoonish rubbish fight scenes, there’s only so much he can do. He’s also quite catastrophically miscast as Bruce Wayne, dashingly sexy playboy, and every time hecomes near Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman, I want to drape a napkin over her shoulder to stop him dribbing all over it. Jesse Eisenberg escapes relatively unscathed as Lex Luthor-despite the dire script, he brings an energy and sense of fun that the rest of the film is sorely lacking. Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman is perhaps the only actor who staggers free of this mess with some genuine accolades to her name, but with only a handful of minutes on-screen, she simply can’t do much to help by the time she turns up.

And it seems as if the writers and director assumed that the inclusion of Wonder Woman gave them free rein to treat the rest of their women with eye-rolling laziness- Amy Adams had to get saved by Superman no less than three times, while an early scene had her coyly playing the nipple dance in the bath for no apparent reason. Diane Lane didn’t fare much better. To be fair, though, this movie didn’t exactly do much to make it’s straight, white, male protagonists look any good, with both Supes and Batman making some staggeringly, mind-bogglingly stupid decisions that defied belief- both within the movie, and with the idea that someone thought this was a cogent plot point.

I found myself reaching for the controller during the fight scenes, as so many of them felt like video game cuts that would any second fade back into gameplay. The final hour of the movie is a poorly-defined collection of fights, all of which seem to take place against the backdrop of…. Is grey-screen a thing? If it is, then that’s what they shot most of the movie on. Every shot was dark and drab and visually uninteresting, despite Snyder’s usual flair for ripping off better director’s ideas.

And then, of course, there were the endless endings- I heard a handful of audience members laughing aloud at what was meant to be the film’s climactic emotional moment, and the rest of them sighing as we realized that this shit wasn’t over yet.

Honestly, I could write ten thousand words on everything wrong with this movie- every line that didn’t make sense, every poorly-defined motivation, every terrible piece of acting, every boring fight. But all you need to know is this: don’t see it. Don’t waste your fucking time. Take your money, and go see a better movie (Might I suggest the excellent 10 Cloverfield Place?). Because if we keep giving money to the superhero movie industry to see appalling tripe like this, this is what they will keep giving us. And by God, we deserve better. We surely don’t deserve this.

I am perhaps the hardest-core Will Arnett fangirl in the country. When I went to Google for images for this article, the first suggested result was “Will Arnett Smile” because I was drunk and had to show pictures of his lovely, lovely face to everyone in the room. Bojack Horseman, the brilliant animated comedy in which he stars, is pretty much the best thing I’ve seen in years. Gob Bluth is without a doubt my favourite thing about the near-flawless Arrested Development. I will fight you on this. I will fight you on this.

He’s…super tan in this series, I’m just now realizing.

So, when I heard that he was co-writing and starring in a new Netflix dramedy, Flaked, I was pretty pumped. And sure, maybe Love didn’t live up to my expectations, but this was Will Arnett, matched up with Mitch Hurwitz (of Arrested Develoment fame) as executive producer. This would be a terrible distraction from the last few weeks at uni and I was going to adore it.

The show revolves around Chip, played by Arnett, an apparently sober alcoholic who killed someone drunk-driving ten years previously. Surrounded by friends and lovers in the sun-soaked backdrop of Venice Beach, he’s become hooked on platitudes and mantras to try and prove to himself that he’s still a worthwhile person, able to help the people around him, particularly those in his Alcoholics Anonymous group. And yes, if you’ve seen Bojack Horseman, you’re all too aware that Arnett has already done a nigh-on perfect midlife crisis show that successfully subverts scores of tropes that genre suffers from. All the tropes, in fact, that Flaked wheezingly plods through over it’s excruciating eight-episode run.

Will Arnett’s face is the only thing I consistently enjoyed about the show.

When you’re treading territory as old as this- a middle-aged white guy has problems, let’s make a show/movie/book about it!- it’s inevitable that you’re going to hit some issues, but come on. Arnett bangs a series of hot young women, as do his equally middle-aged cohorts, even as almost every woman in the show proceed to reveal themselves as liars, emotionally abusive crazies, or vindictive bitches, several of whom are treated like utter crap by the male cast only to come sweetly, passively back. And then there’s Arnett’s on-screen ex-wife, played by Heather Graham- a blond, successful TV actress who apparently always “makes him feel small”. I’m not saying Arnett intended to take a swipe at his real-life blond, successful TV actress ex-wife Amy Poehler with this character, I’m just saying that one could pretty easily read it that way.

When you write a show which also stars you and features certain aspects that could be construed as reflecting your own life, you run the risk of falling into fantasy territory. Arnett is a folk hero for the local community, a stud with decades-younger women, beloved by all- and yes, I understand that a lot of it is meant to be a façade, but it all swings uncomfortably close to cheap wish-fulfilment, and that’s never interesting to watch. Again, I’m not saying it actually Flaked actually is the fantasy of the people behind it, but it certainly reads like that way too often for my liking.

Don’t get me wrong- I still think this is a pelter of a performance from Arnett (and, indeed, the rest of the oft-underserved cast), I’m just not sure the show has any clue what to do with it. Chip is so full of shit that it’s frequently impossible to figure out when he’s being sincere and when he’s just trying to snake his way into the pants of some inevitably-younger woman. Moral ambiguity- hell, having an outright bad guy as your leading character- has been done so well over the last few years (yo, Breaking Bad, haven’t thought about you in a while), Flaked really has no excuse for how ill-defined they make Chip’s motivations. He’s a tantalising, so-close-to-brilliant character that falls painfully short at every turn. As he spouts the story about his drunk-driving to his AA group in the opening seconds on the show, is he doing it to change lives or to garner sympathy? Hnadfuls of these moments are sprinkled throughout the show, scenes and conversations and lines that could have been so impactful is the show actually made a decision about his character. Is he an ultimately good guy using glossy lies and platitudes as a way to cover up his personal failings? Or is he a manipulative douchewad who doesn’t care about the people around him but still wants to feel needed?  It’s not ambiguity if it’s just straight-up confusion. If Flaked had made a decision one way or the other, it could have been brilliant.

And there’s the sad part about Flaked. Much like Love, it could have been something absoloutely great. Yeah, the genre’s been done to death, but Arnett and the rest of the cast put in solid performances and there’s flashes of something nuanced and insightful under the tropey bullshit and the refusal to flesh out characters and the central indecision about Chip’s character. With another season already commissioned, I can only hope that Flaked gets in bearings and leaves it’s weird, confusing first season behind it.

Have YOU always wanted to see a Judd Apatow movie, but have it dragged out over the course of five hours? Boy howdy, have I got the show for you!

So, it’s International Women’s Day; a day to celebrate all the wonderful women in your life, whether they’ve inspired you from afar or helped you move out of your flat after a very stressful week. In day to celebrate amazing women capable of anything and everything the world has to offer, I’m going to do something apocalyptically girly; something so feminine that my ovaries will swell to three times their size and my period will last for a month while I birth a litter of children that follow me around like the graceful earth-goddess I am. While Alanis Morisette and Sleater-Kinney play in the background.

I’ve decided to indulge the media’s proscribed fantasy for twenty-something women, of which I am one, the most stereotypically womanly thing I can think of: paint my nails, drink an entire bottle of Rose wine, and watch an episode of the most definitively girly show I’ve ever seen, Sex and the City, to see what fulfilling the stereotypes of ladydom is actually like. Won’t you join me on this, most womby of adventures (if you want something a little more serious, please check out the blog directory feminism section)?

0:00: Right, the wine is poured, I’ve acquired nail polish, the cat has been firmly warned that if she comes near my hands for the next twenty minutes we get stuck together. Let’s get this show on the road!

0:12: NUH-NAH-NE-NE, NUH-NAH-NE-NE- fuck, I love this theme song, just give me a minute to get up and dance to it.

0:24: My wine is going everywhere. Right, I should sit down.

1:31: Blah, blah, blah, the hot uptight one has a bad kiss on a date and the girls are chatting up over brunch. I hate all of this, till Kim Catrall delivers some filthy pun in a drawl reminiscent of a thousand post-coital cigarettes and I can’t. I might crack out a face mask, really get this party going.

2:31: Kristin Davis is a terrible fucking actress. Sometimes I forget. It looks like she’s about to giggle or cry at any given moment, except when the script calls for her to do either of these things.

4:00 I picked the episode called “No If Ands or Butts”, because it was the first pun that jumped out to me. Better be some anal in this.

5:31: Oh, this is the one where she meets Aiden, the man a thousand times too good for her! The face mask is on, and it feels nice, except the knowledge that I will have to go and remove it in three-five minutes time which means standing up and potentially tripping over my cat. God, they should make a sitcom about me- not a good one, mind, just one where most of the characters turn to camera every five minutes and shake their heads at my fucking ineptitude.

6:22: Sarah Jessica Parker and John Corbett have no chemistry. I don’t remember it being so egregious before.

7:00 Wine, wine, lovely wine. Ugh, I already have nail varnish on my knuckle, somehow.

8:41: Ah, lovely Steve. If it weren’t for his initial ability to fucking take no as answer, he’s really sweet! Some face mask has gotten in my ear, and it feels funny. It’s not that I don’t enjoy the odd pampering session with junky TV, it’s just that when I’m making a pointed effort to do all the girly things at once, it all just feels a bit…stern?

9:15: Miranda has “Ralph Lauren Paint”. Please tell me-What the fucking fucking-

10:00: I’m already a glass in. I quite want to turn this off and clean the house, but I will indulge my feminine side, god-darnit.

10:54: Oh, it’s also the one where Samantha dates a black guy and the show attempts some racial commentary. It’s…questionable. I’ve absent-mindedly run my wet nails through my hair and now I have to start over.

13:54: Aiden won’t kiss Carrie because she smokes, which seems kind of an overreaction. I have smudged blue nail varnish on to my sofa.

15:31: Bad kisser guy is turning into a subplot. It’s ten times less interesting than the crazy gay dude obsessed with dolls subplot, which I reckon should crop up in every show in the world. I’d love to see The Walking Dead work that in. I’m taking the face mask off, because it’s burning a little bit. I don’t even know why I keep face masks in the house as they always make my skin break out.

20:23: Samantha is informed she may not date a black guy because his sister doesn’t approve. Ah, great for this show to finally acknowledge the fact that there are fucking black people in New York after about eighty seasons!

20:41: Everyone tells Carrie to quit cigarettes for Aiden. Not because they’re murderous sticks of death or anything.

21:21: I would turn down sex with Kim Catrall for a cigarette right now. Damn you wine!

22:12: Steve gets uncomfortably angry that Miranda won’t support some dumb-luck basketball thing the plot didn’t bother to get us invested in. Yeah, this plus future cheating with the nanny put Steve down a notch. I jerked my hand up with surprise when he started yelling and very nearly smeared nail varnish on the cat, who did not heed my warnings.

24:50: Carrie gives up cigarettes for Aiden, and they kiss, and John Corbett stands about two feet away from her as he does it, somehow. This subplot feels chemically castrated.

26:17: Kim Catrall is actually a seriously decent actress, and she’s deserves more credit. She even manages to instill some grace into this weird racial supblot.

28:23: Carrie runs out on her date to smoke a cigarette, which is certainly not what I’m fighting the urge to do right n-

28:24: Let’s pretend that five-minute break and the fact I’m now stinking of fags didn’t happen, right? Right. The nail polish is fucked; I’m horrifically bad at this. The wine drinking I am handling, that said.

29:54: This show would be twenty times as palatable without Carrie’s voiceover. Half the bottle of wine is gone, and I have no doubt that it’s because of her.I just glanced in the mirror in the way back from the bathroom and I have wierd clumps of face mask in my eyebrows.

30:21: ROLL CREDITS! Wait, was there anal in this? I’ve asked that question more than I should have in the last couple of months.

So, I’ve enjoyed/endured my stereotypically girly evening, and now I’m off to watch some wonderful women-centric TV (check out my last Women’s Day post if you want some suggestions!), flick through my copy of Vindication of the Rights of Women, and finish this bottle of wine. Happy International Women’s Day, everybody!

Is…is John Travolta wearing a wax John Travolta mask? Otherwise, this is awesome!

So, after a the disappointment of Deadpool in terms of it’s female characters, I’m looking forward to anything that gives us a bit more vag action in the cinema in the upcoming blockbuster season. And this year’s Ghostbusters reboot promises just that, so let’s take a look at the trailer!

So, after a the disappointment of Deadpool in terms of it’s female characters, I’m looking forward to anything that promises a bit more vag action in the cinema. And this year’s Ghostbusters reboot promises just that, so let’s take a look at the trailer!

0:10: Right, okay, even just the reminder of the unbelievably brilliant Ghostbusters theme song is enough to have me pre-booking tickets.

0:14: DID YOU KNOW that this theme song didn’t get an Oscar? An international outrage and definitive proof, if anyone needed it, that the film industry hates anything even tangentially related to horror.

0:25: WOMEN GHOSTBUSTERS WELL ALLOW ME TO TAKE OFF MY FEDORA IN DISGUST AT THIS DISGRACEFUL DISPLAY OF MISANDR-

0:28: Sorry, I was possessed by the soul of a shitlord for a moment, carry on.

0:32: Man, I fucking love Kristen Wiig. I also crave this skirt-suit she’s wearing.

0:42: Pleased to note that this ghost would have given me the appropriate amount of heebie-jeebies when I was a kid, as tradition dictates.

0:52: Is this…a dubstep remix of the Ghostbusters theme song?

0:54: I love how old-school and goofy all the equipment looks-it would feel dirty and wrong for Ghostbusters to have anything slick or modern or even remotely difficult to fumble up a last-minute Halloween costume out of in it’s arsenal.

1:00: Shit, I already have an enormous crush on Kate McKinnon based only on that wink/those goggles.

1:12: I’ve seen a lot of people declaring this movie’s plot (based on this trailer) the same as the original, which…well, no, not really. Move along, move along.

1:27: If there’s anyone on Earth who doesn’t secretly want to own one of those uniforms, they’re lying to themselves and are not to be trusted.

1:32: Ha, Kristin Wiig and Melissa McCarthy are just a pleasure together.

1:37: This is definetly a dubstep remix of the Ghostbusters theme song. I don’t know how to feel about this. Actually, I do, and I hate it.

1:45: This plot reminds me vaguely of Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, which is a GREAT thing.

1:52: Whatever that thing that just walked by was, I’m pretty sure it’s my fashion inspiration for the next six months.

1:57: Oh hai Chris Hemsworth! I like you better with Thor-hair.

2:12: I’ve never seen Leslie Jones in anything else that I can think of, but I like the idea of someone on the team because of their practical knowledge, not their ghosty stuff.

2:22: I do enjoy the fact she has a necklace with her name on it also. The blindingly obvious Exorcist joke? Not so much.

2:28: Overall, a tickets-on-a-weekday-night n a scale of prebook to boycott.

Historical Scottish romance makes it to the small screen in style.