I've heard a lot about how Clinton won the primary so Sanders supporters should fall in line. I've heard a lot over the last 9 months about anybody being against Clinton being a sexist and an enemy of women. I've heard, more than a few times, that we (Democrats/liberals) should be in favor of Clinton because she's the most qualified and/or because she's a woman.
Let's start with the last and go backwards.
I don't believe in voting for someone because of their sex. I'm blessed to have my mother for my mom and, at different periods of my life, my school committee member, my state representative, and my state senator. I am extremely happy to have Senator Warren representing me in D.C. And by the way, I'm explaining these two because I feel that if I don't, I'll be attacked for being anti-women in office... and even after saying these, I feel I still will. I would have loved for Barbara Boxer to have run for President, or Elizabeth Warren for that matter. But they didn't. Clinton is by far the most experienced candidate this year. She has her years in the White House as First Lady (which counts for something when you're an activist as she was), her years as US Senator in New York, and her years as Secretary of State. She's held a variety of positions, giving her a wide variety of experiences, all helping her become extremely qualified from a background position. But you don't hire someone just based on their previous jobs, you look further at them to determine whether they're a good fit for the position you're offering. You ask whether they are as liberal as you'd like. You ask if they're as much in favor of peace and as disinterested in war as you'd like. And Clinton isn't either of these for me. I said in 2008 when I said that she and Obama were far to centrist for me and I've said it again for the last year. She's a centrist and she's a war-hawk. That isn't to say she's not better than the centrist-but-racist-lunatic that the Republicans have nominated. I dare say she's much better, but I pray that she doesn't embroil us in further wars, either fighting Russia in Eastern Europe or fighting terrorists in the Middle East... or some other force. There's more to my decision than my sexism, which you've determined I have just because I wanted Sanders. There's more to my decision than my male-privilege that allows me to say that I'm just as not interested in a female centrist war-hawk as I was the male centrist war-hawk that ran as the Republican Presidential nominee in 2008. When you tell me I'm sexist and privileged, it doesn't make me more interested in our candidate. In fact it makes me less enthused. And when you ignore the reasons I'm not in favor of her and tell me that I have other reasons, that doesn't make me listen to you and think about your statements any further, it makes me angry with you and makes me feel that you have no idea what you're talking about.
You know what else makes me less enthused? When people tell me to get over it or that "Elections have consequences." Of course "elections have consequences," but let's just take a moment to remember that we don't always know the consequences of elections immediately. Take this Presidential election, for instance. Yes, I believe Clinton will be the Democratic Nominee. Yes, I will be voting for her in November. But we don't know a few things:
1) Who will be elected President.
2) How the utter dismissal of Sanders supporters' feelings and arguments will affect the young left-leaning members of our society and their future voting patterns.
Let me address the first unknown first, because it's a little quicker to get to the point. A recent poll has Trump ahead of Clinton. Say what you want, but that is a very scary thing to me... even more scary than Trump's speech last Thursday. What's even more scary to me is that Clinton supporters have been ignoring that Trump has been gaining on her for the last 6 months.
And then there's the second point. Yes, elections have consequences and Clinton won the Democratic nomination (o.k., I'm assuming a bit but it's not a hard assumption to make), but that doesn't mean you should dismiss the hearts and minds of those you need in your camp, just because you don't see another option for them to choose. We should be coming together now, not hurting each other. Choose your words carefully, especially in public, especially to reporters, for your words will be heard and not just by those that agree with you. My words, I feel extremely confident, will be heard by those that do not agree with me.... and to those who disagree with me on this, I ask you to consider whether you really want to come at me and draw me toward that dark side that anger leads to or if you would rather follow the words of Clinton and work with love and compassion and work together to defeat Trump. Yes, I am angry at the DNC, yes, I understand you don't care, and yes, you should let me have my feelings and understand that they are not your own and that I will do the right thing in the end.
Starting now, with this first day of the Democratic Convention, we're supposed to come together as a party. But instead of the "let's get this done together" that should be filling my Facebook feed and that I should be hearing from my Clinton supporting friends, all I'm hearing are things like "suck it up", "your candidate lost so you should be excited for Clinton now," and "you're a sexist, privileged, white man." The Republicans just displayed their discord... I guess it's our turn now. Thanks for making it easy to feel good about getting behind our candidate.
Dark Wind Rising
Monday, July 25, 2016
Sunday, July 3, 2016
X-Men: Apocalypse (spoilers... duh)
First off... spoilers... duh
So, let's start with the really quite desperately low hanging fruit. There was a lot of concern about Olivia Munn's acting chops when it was announced that she would be playing Psylocke. Sadly, or fortunately, depending on whether she's a good actress. She had all of about 3 lines. Those lines were rather blandly delivered, but they were pretty blandly written too, so is it her fault or the writer's? We may never know. What I do know is that Olivia (and the PR machine for the movie) made a huge deal about her enjoying fighting with swords. I know that Psylocke is a badass fighter and has psychokinetic powers. I also know that Psylocke in this movie spends all of like 2 minutes fighting, and most of that is just posed stuff and not actually combat. Drawing your sword and putting it to someone's throat or cutting a car in half and then posing with lots of CGI do not count as combat. So, yeah, as you may have figured out, I'm severely disappointed in the movie because of that.
Slightly less low, but still low hanging fruit. Why... why... WHY are we still having Mystique appearing "naked"? Admittedly, they finally put some clothes on her that was somewhat almost reminiscent of her comic costume, but it took the entirety of 2, count them TWO trilogies to get us there. They had the opportunity with the semi-reboot to fix it, but no.
Next topic. Can we, for the love of comic book movies, not force every movie to act as 10 different entities? This one was not just completing the set of 3 movies and therefore rounding out the story arcs of several characters, most notably Magneto, Mystique, and Professor X. But my biggest annoyance with the multiple-functions would have to be the attempt to promote the next Wolverine standalone, otherwise why divert to Stryker's facility at all. Seriously, the action at Stryker's facility did not promote anything other than to remind us that Wolverine was there which then supports the post-credit sequence... which was also lame. This movie is 2 hours 27 minutes, and how much could that have been reduced by using another, less time consuming plot device to get the 6 heroes away from the rest of the youth at the school? Because this movie was trying to be too much, the story telling suffered. This is just sad since this movie deserved better.
Back to sexism. There's this great opportunity with the X-Men with such powerful women characters. They, in fact, tend to be the most powerful of the X-Men. Yes, Cyclops has his beam, Wolverine is near invincible, and Xavier, well, let's just put him aside for a bit. Then you have the likes of Storm, Jean Grey and Rogue. Talk about power houses. Rogue was introduced in the original trilogy but never came to the fruition that would see her character truly showcase herself. Storm was there too, and while she showcased her abilities, they were never quite awe-inspiringly, jaw-droppingly demonstrated as they really should be. In this movie, we have the promise that we'll see more, since she's a horseman of Apocalypse... but no, we still barely see anything... just a bit of lightning in the final fight, not much more than that. Jean Grey seems to be the only one we really get to see show off in a semi-constant manner. O.k., and Mystique... she's also shown with her powers and her badass fighting (as poorly choreographed as it is in the original movie. But I maintain that the women of the X-Men remain under-represented in terms of just how magnificently powerful they are, both in terms of their abilities and in terms of their characters.
There's one last thing that I'm going to complain about, at least in this post. The villains. And this topic has a few sub-topics.
First of all.. Magneto. I get it, we need to have Magneto in every movie because he's a draw... but, no, seriously, please don't. Have him show up briefly or something but don't have him be a lackey of the big-bad. He's a big-bad on his own. He doesn't need Apocalypse to empower him. I must accept that this was a trilogy and therefore they're rounding out his arc, but perhaps in the next X-Men movie he can either play a much smaller role or not be there? Perhaps he shows up to recruit for the Brotherhood but doesn't actually do anything else? Or maybe it's just mentioned that he's off recruiting or hasn't been heard from?
I like that Psylocke walks away having witnessed Apocalypse being betrayed by both Magneto and Storm. I love that both Magneto and Storm betray Apocalypse with good reason... but Apocalypse dies (or so it seems). I'm tired of the arch-enemy dying at the end of the movie. If Apocalypse hadn't just woken up during the movie, I would have been more accepting as he could have created other villains over the years that would come up later. The original X-Men trilogy had a common enemy, even if Phoenix stole the show in the final part of the final episode. I want a bit more of that. And the enemy doesn't have to be on the forefront... you could have had Apocalypse show up, create 4 horsemen for the X-Men to fight, or create another super-villain, and stay in the background and come back in the second and third episodes of the trilogy. Magneto, it can be said, is that common villain I'm looking for... and I agree that he could have been, but I would say he hasn't been in this trilogy. In fact, he's played roughly the same role in each of the first two movies: reluctant hero -> villain. And then he transitions in this movie to the pattern of villain -> hero. But he's never the big-bad. He's always reacting to others. This is fine, but I want something a bit more. I want the leader of the Brotherhood of Mutants. I want a series of movies based on the sentinels. I want Apocalypse empowering mutants and sending them to battle the X-Men on his behalf. In short, I want a big-bad with staying power that doesn't just do a quick one-off thing in each movie (such as sending the missiles back at the ships that fired them or parking a stadium around the White House and taking over a few sentinels for around 30 minutes).
And lastly, Apocalypse deserved better story telling. He's a big-bad and you saw that he needed an introduction. Do that introduction well and don't rush the rest of the story. You could easily have made this movie a two-parter. Introduce Apocalypse, let him start recruiting, have the X-Men tangle with a couple recruits... maybe even kidnap Xavier in the first movie and blow up the estate and leave that as the cliff hanger. That way you spend an entire movie just on the recruiting and don't rush through it. The first movie becomes more a story about the formation of the 4 Horsemen and the second movie becomes a much better movie about the X-Men coming together and finding their ability to work together.
Alright, that's it for the moment. Hope you enjoyed this rant. Have other aspects of the movie you didn't like? Do you feel I've judged the movie too harshly? Let me know.
So, let's start with the really quite desperately low hanging fruit. There was a lot of concern about Olivia Munn's acting chops when it was announced that she would be playing Psylocke. Sadly, or fortunately, depending on whether she's a good actress. She had all of about 3 lines. Those lines were rather blandly delivered, but they were pretty blandly written too, so is it her fault or the writer's? We may never know. What I do know is that Olivia (and the PR machine for the movie) made a huge deal about her enjoying fighting with swords. I know that Psylocke is a badass fighter and has psychokinetic powers. I also know that Psylocke in this movie spends all of like 2 minutes fighting, and most of that is just posed stuff and not actually combat. Drawing your sword and putting it to someone's throat or cutting a car in half and then posing with lots of CGI do not count as combat. So, yeah, as you may have figured out, I'm severely disappointed in the movie because of that.
Slightly less low, but still low hanging fruit. Why... why... WHY are we still having Mystique appearing "naked"? Admittedly, they finally put some clothes on her that was somewhat almost reminiscent of her comic costume, but it took the entirety of 2, count them TWO trilogies to get us there. They had the opportunity with the semi-reboot to fix it, but no.
Next topic. Can we, for the love of comic book movies, not force every movie to act as 10 different entities? This one was not just completing the set of 3 movies and therefore rounding out the story arcs of several characters, most notably Magneto, Mystique, and Professor X. But my biggest annoyance with the multiple-functions would have to be the attempt to promote the next Wolverine standalone, otherwise why divert to Stryker's facility at all. Seriously, the action at Stryker's facility did not promote anything other than to remind us that Wolverine was there which then supports the post-credit sequence... which was also lame. This movie is 2 hours 27 minutes, and how much could that have been reduced by using another, less time consuming plot device to get the 6 heroes away from the rest of the youth at the school? Because this movie was trying to be too much, the story telling suffered. This is just sad since this movie deserved better.
Back to sexism. There's this great opportunity with the X-Men with such powerful women characters. They, in fact, tend to be the most powerful of the X-Men. Yes, Cyclops has his beam, Wolverine is near invincible, and Xavier, well, let's just put him aside for a bit. Then you have the likes of Storm, Jean Grey and Rogue. Talk about power houses. Rogue was introduced in the original trilogy but never came to the fruition that would see her character truly showcase herself. Storm was there too, and while she showcased her abilities, they were never quite awe-inspiringly, jaw-droppingly demonstrated as they really should be. In this movie, we have the promise that we'll see more, since she's a horseman of Apocalypse... but no, we still barely see anything... just a bit of lightning in the final fight, not much more than that. Jean Grey seems to be the only one we really get to see show off in a semi-constant manner. O.k., and Mystique... she's also shown with her powers and her badass fighting (as poorly choreographed as it is in the original movie. But I maintain that the women of the X-Men remain under-represented in terms of just how magnificently powerful they are, both in terms of their abilities and in terms of their characters.
There's one last thing that I'm going to complain about, at least in this post. The villains. And this topic has a few sub-topics.
First of all.. Magneto. I get it, we need to have Magneto in every movie because he's a draw... but, no, seriously, please don't. Have him show up briefly or something but don't have him be a lackey of the big-bad. He's a big-bad on his own. He doesn't need Apocalypse to empower him. I must accept that this was a trilogy and therefore they're rounding out his arc, but perhaps in the next X-Men movie he can either play a much smaller role or not be there? Perhaps he shows up to recruit for the Brotherhood but doesn't actually do anything else? Or maybe it's just mentioned that he's off recruiting or hasn't been heard from?
I like that Psylocke walks away having witnessed Apocalypse being betrayed by both Magneto and Storm. I love that both Magneto and Storm betray Apocalypse with good reason... but Apocalypse dies (or so it seems). I'm tired of the arch-enemy dying at the end of the movie. If Apocalypse hadn't just woken up during the movie, I would have been more accepting as he could have created other villains over the years that would come up later. The original X-Men trilogy had a common enemy, even if Phoenix stole the show in the final part of the final episode. I want a bit more of that. And the enemy doesn't have to be on the forefront... you could have had Apocalypse show up, create 4 horsemen for the X-Men to fight, or create another super-villain, and stay in the background and come back in the second and third episodes of the trilogy. Magneto, it can be said, is that common villain I'm looking for... and I agree that he could have been, but I would say he hasn't been in this trilogy. In fact, he's played roughly the same role in each of the first two movies: reluctant hero -> villain. And then he transitions in this movie to the pattern of villain -> hero. But he's never the big-bad. He's always reacting to others. This is fine, but I want something a bit more. I want the leader of the Brotherhood of Mutants. I want a series of movies based on the sentinels. I want Apocalypse empowering mutants and sending them to battle the X-Men on his behalf. In short, I want a big-bad with staying power that doesn't just do a quick one-off thing in each movie (such as sending the missiles back at the ships that fired them or parking a stadium around the White House and taking over a few sentinels for around 30 minutes).
And lastly, Apocalypse deserved better story telling. He's a big-bad and you saw that he needed an introduction. Do that introduction well and don't rush the rest of the story. You could easily have made this movie a two-parter. Introduce Apocalypse, let him start recruiting, have the X-Men tangle with a couple recruits... maybe even kidnap Xavier in the first movie and blow up the estate and leave that as the cliff hanger. That way you spend an entire movie just on the recruiting and don't rush through it. The first movie becomes more a story about the formation of the 4 Horsemen and the second movie becomes a much better movie about the X-Men coming together and finding their ability to work together.
Alright, that's it for the moment. Hope you enjoyed this rant. Have other aspects of the movie you didn't like? Do you feel I've judged the movie too harshly? Let me know.
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