Tag: Captain America

Avenge Winterfell! Conjuring Analogues (and Making Bets) Amongst the Thrones/MCU Survivors

Posted on by Eric
Avenge Winterfell
GoT Cast Photo Property of Entertainment Weekly

NOTE: Let it here be affirmed on this date of publication – 4/24/2019 – that all predictions made as part of the folly below were offered with absolutely no advance notice of how the respective battles in “Game of Thrones” and “Avengers: Endgame” might or did play out this weekend, and are the intellectual property of the author insofar as they might, with the full benefit of hindsight, be worthy of nonstop ridicule, or, assuming pigs fly, reluctant praise from the smarter marks among ye. Enjoy the shows, all. ‘Tis a heady time to be a geek.

Dear occasional reader/confused tourist,

In case the rock you’ve been hiding under is wired for neither cable nor internet, the (as of press time) upcoming final weekend of April marks the happy, if terrifying, convergence of the two arguably most popular ongoing properties in all modern pop culture, HBO’s armies + dragons + zombies medieval fantasy phenomenon Game of Thrones and the 21-blockbuster (and counting) Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) of quirky, quippy, cooperative superheroes. The following mash-up post operates under the questionable assumption that, in spite of, ahem, Stark surface differences, there is considerable common ground between not just the franchises’ respective fan bases but the two creative behemoths themselves, in terms of characters, motivations, and high, high stakes, and seeks to explore and exploit them for the amusement of its author and entertainment of its readers. Mostly the former. Continue reading “Avenge Winterfell! Conjuring Analogues (and Making Bets) Amongst the Thrones/MCU Survivors” →

Movie review: “Captain Marvel” (2019)

Posted on by Eric

captain-marvel

“What is this?”

“It’s a S.H.I.E.L.D. logo.”

“Does announcing your identity, with branded clothing, help with the covert part of the job?”

“…Said the space soldier who’s wearing a rubber suit.”

Captain Marvel, the latest but hardly last in the current glut of attempts to shoehorn yet another theoretically resonant new standalone superhero into our already righteously taxed moviegoing consciousness – bookended at the box office by DC’s Aquaman and, gulp, Shazam! – arrives at a precarious moment for the formerly sturdy Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), whose equally hyped and hype-worthy Infinity War event saw an unprecedented, slightly ridiculous number of Avengers assemble across multiple worlds in a last ditch effort to beat back the intergalactic threat posed by jewelry enthusiast/genocidal sociologist/city planner run amok Thanos. Sorry, but I think we’ve evolved well past spoiler territory here. Continue reading “Movie review: “Captain Marvel” (2019)” →

Movie review: “Avengers: Infinity War” (2018)

Posted on by Eric

avenger-infinity-war-spidey-iron-man-mantis

“All that for a single drop of blood…”

None of the a**holes showed up at my class reunion. Foiled yet again. Thus, my idle, childish daydreams of summarily nuking the place and spiriting off for reflective meditation to some scenic hillside with a four-pack of CBC Creeper Triple IPA and a phone full of Miles Davis, Rivers of Nihil, and Frightened Rabbit became, instantly, far more problematic. Thanos, dread purple bogeyman of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), suffers no such compunctions about ending life on an impossibly large or even planetary scale – it is both his modus operandi and, to hear him tell, destiny – and must therefore be stopped at every cost imaginable. Though it doesn’t come right out and state the obvious, Avengers: Infinity War is but the first of two chapters detailing that herculean struggle, and that’s a damned good thing for the hopeful. Continue reading “Movie review: “Avengers: Infinity War” (2018)” →

Movie review: “Captain America: Civil War” (2016)

Posted on by Eric

capn

“Okay, anybody on our side hiding any shocking and fantastic abilities they’d like to disclose? I’m open to suggestions!”

Well, well, well…isn’t this conspicuous timing. Not even two months after DC Comics attempted to kickstart/defibrillate its own nascent cinematic universe with a wholly fabricated, varicose, mercenary, oft nonsensical apocalyptic grudge match between its two biggest stars, Superman and Batman – who, despite over a century of unparalleled name recognition, had a combined one film of sanctioned warm-up (2013’s grim, pulverizing Man of Steel) between them before the opening bell rang – Captain America: Civil War, the latest – which is to say the thirteenth – entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) lands with all the requisite bad blood and fists a-flyin’ one could possibly want, except, you know, also sane, and coherent, and almost singularly exciting. This, of course, assumes audiences are interested in those sorts of things. Continue reading “Movie review: “Captain America: Civil War” (2016)” →

Movie review: “Avengers: Age of Ultron” (2015)

Posted on by Eric

age of ultron

“Does anybody remember when I put a missile through a portal, in New York City? We were standing right under it. We’re the Avengers. We can bust weapons dealers the whole doo-da-day, but how do we cope with something like that?”

“Together.”

“We’ll lose.”

“We’ll do that together too.”

Whereas comic book superheroes and heroines have a long-standing, time-tested, free-swinging tradition of either brokering guest appearances in one another’s pages or, occasionally, full-on intramural team collaborations against a common enemy and/or towards a common goal, superhero movies have generally operated in hermetically sealed bubbles all their own, using house money and fighting the simplest, most obvious threats. Marvel’s decision, circa 2006, to revamp its existing film studio into something more robust and thus shepherd its own projects, independent of the sort of uninformed, high level meddling that helped turn promising sequels like Spider-Man 3 and X-Men: The Last Stand into underwhelming, overstuffed disappointments, or worse, didn’t immediately signal a seismic shift in the superhero game, though it did strike most observers as a pretty good idea. Little could anyone then have truly realized the scope of Marvel’s master plan Continue reading “Movie review: “Avengers: Age of Ultron” (2015)” →