Review: American Carnage

Directed by Diego Hallivis and written by Diego and Jorge Hallivis, American Carnage(2022) is a horror movie starring Jenna Ortega (Camila) from Wednesday and Scream 5, Jorge Lenedeborg Jr. (JP), and Allen Maldonado (Big Mac) as the children of undocumented immigrants who find themselves arrested after their governor signs an executive order cracking down on illegal immigration.

The movie focuses on JP trying to find his sister Lily (Yumarie Morales) after they are arrested and sent to separate holding facilities. While awaiting trial, JP’s court-appointed lawyer tells him about an elder care program, EATU, which if he completes, ICE will drop all charges against him. JP agrees and soon discovers all is not as it seems, and he must escape before being killed.

While the premise seemed interesting, it lacked in executions. JP and the other characters were flat, and the movie was predictable to the point of being boring. I saw all the twists coming and even the gore was underwhelming.

I will say it was nice seeing a horror movie through the lens of the undocumented immigrant experience. But I felt the antagonists came off as cartoonishly evil and the movie felt preachy at times. Overall, it was forgettable, mid, and left me saying, “Meh,” once the credits rolled.

I give American Carnage (022) 3 out of five stars. Only check this out if there’s nothing better on or you need to kill some time, otherwise skip it.   

Superman is the Costume: What Tarantino Got Wrong In his Superman Speech

image by Rudy Ao via scop.io

Introduction

Welcome readers!

Today’s post will cover Bill’s superman monologue from Kill Bill Vol. 2, and what Tarantino got wrong about Superman and Batman.

For those who’ve never seen the movie or its prequel, briefly the series follows Beatrix Kiddo aka The Bride, aka Black Mamba, one of the eponymous Bill’s female assassins, who finding herself pregnant with Bill’s child, changes her identity and goes in hiding.

That is until Bill finds and executes her and everyone at her wedding rehearsal.

Beatrix survives being shot in the head and falling into a years-long coma, then goes on a “rip roaring rampage of revenge” on Bill and the other female assassins.

Bill’s Superman Speech

Towards the end of vol. 2 Beatrix finds Bill, and he shoots her with a potent truth serum and asks her why she left him and gives his Superman monologue, which I’ll now quote here, formatted for better readability:

“As you may know, I’m quite keen on comic books. Especially ones about superheroes. I find the whole mythology surrounding superheroes fascinating. Take my favorite superhero, Superman. Not a great comic book, not particularly well-drawn, but the mythology. The mythology is not only great, it’s unique…

“Now a staple of the superhero mythology is, there’s the superhero and there’s the alter ego. Batman is actually Bruce Wayne, Spider-Man is actually Peter Parker. When the character wakes up in the morning, he’s Peter Parker. He has to put on a costume to become Spider-Man. And it is in that characteristics Superman stands alone.

“Superman didn’t become Superman. Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he’s Superman.

“His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red “S”, that’s the blanket he was wrapped in when the Kents found him.

“Those are his clothes.

“What Kent wears—the glasses, the business suit—that’s the costume. That’s the costume Superman wears to blend in with us. Clark Kent is how Superman views us.

“And what are the characteristics of Clark Kent? He’s weak, he’s unsure of himself, he’s a coward. Clark Kent is Superman’s critique on the whole human race.”

The problem with Bill’s monologue is it fundamentally gets both Superman and Batman wrong, which I’ll now show in the following paragraphs, beginning with Superman.

The Four Faces of Superman

 As Much as I love the Superman monologue, it’s not just wrong, but incomplete. Superman has three alter egos and one core personality that informs those personas. I’ll discuss each in turn.

Smallville

First, there is Superman’s core identity, the simple farm boy from Smallville; he is the earnest, loyal, fair, and kind boy the Kents raised him to be. He is the boy scout, as Batman calls him, who does what is right without regard for harm to himself and what others may think of his actions.

In fights with Darkside and Doomsday we see Superman endure horrific trauma to protect the earth, precisely because of the values the Kents instilled with him in Smallville.  And where he raised anywhere else by anyone else, he wouldn’t be the same person.

 This is evidenced by Superman: Red Son, the what if comic miniseries in which his spaceship landed in the Ukraine, and he became a tool of the Soviet Union. And in a parallel universe where he lands in Sudetenland instead of Kansas, he becomes a tool of the Third Reich, allowing Hitler to conquer the world.

Moreover, in every storyline where he hangs up the cape, he always goes back to Smallville to help the Kents and live a quiet life.

And it’s because of the Kents he became Superman.

Superman

Superman is the distillation of everything good the Kents taught him as a child. He is humble, brave, kind, and selfless. While his costume may be his clothes, the man inside them is 100% human.

 For Superman is Clark’s critique on humanity.

 He could have used his powers for selfish reasons and become the greatest supervillain ever as he does in another what if comic where a villain kills Lois Lane, and he becomes an authoritarian despot. But he doesn’t because that’s not who he is at his core.

He may have been born a Kryptonian, but the Kents raised him to be human. Which leads me to my next point.

Kal-El

Kal-El, Superman’s Kryptonian name, is also his second persona.

Never knowing his bio parents exact from the recordings, Superman only acts as Kal-El when he’s at the Fortress of Solitude, doing experiments and reviewing the recordings Jor-El and Lara-El left him. Kal-El represents the part of Superman that longs for a life that might have been if Krypton had not exploded. It is his attempt to reconcile himself as a stranger in a strange land and the last of his kind.

As mentioned above, even the name of his headquarters evokes a melancholy.

But though he may be a lone Krypton among billion of humans, he is not alone.

Metropolis

 Superman’s final persona is that of Metropolis, the bumbling, milquetoast coward who works as a reporter at The Daily Planet. Like Superman is the costume he wears to be the best version of his Smallville persona, Metropolis is the costume he wears to be Superman, as Tarantino said.

However, it isn’t a comment on humanity in the way he thinks. Metropolis is the way Superman understands how humanity views weakness, while Superman is how he understands humanity to view power.

And it’s this dichotomy of power versus weakness that is informed by his core personality, Smallville.

Superman and the Ubermensch

Superman is all the best things about humanity condensed into one being. Where he to have been born on Earth, he would have been a but another simple man from middle America, but because of his powers and upbringing, Superman is the apotheosis of what humanity should strive for: humanity devoid of its weaknesses, physical and psychological.

He is hope: The Ubermensch.

It’s no surprise Superman has many messianic qualities, as two Jewish teenagers, Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel, in 1934, created him. The “S” he wears means hope, and Bryan Singer explored this connection between Superman and the Messhiah extensively in Superman: Man of Steel, in which we see a young Clark Kent struggle to control his powers but come out the other side the hero we know so well.

Superman than is a projection of the human psyche, representing not who we are but who we could be if we were to evolve past our baser instincts and prejudices. Thus, he is a critique not of humanity’s shortcomings, but its aspirations and potential.

As Clark goes from his metropolis persona to his superman person, so too can humanity transform into something greater than itself it listens its better angels.

Now that I’ve made my case for how Tarantino got Superman wrong, I’ll move on to how he also got batman wrong.

The Man Behind the Mask

For those unaware, Batman’s origin is he witnessed criminals gun down his parents outside a movie theater when he was a child, and this trauma drove him to travel the world, learning marital arts and how to solve crimes, as famously depicted in Christer Nolan’s Batman Begins.

 During Bill’s monologue, he says Bruce Wayne must put on a costume to become Batman, but this is false for two reasons.

First, there are two Bruce Waynes, the playboy billionaire (Bruce 2) and the psychologically damaged boy (Bruce Prime). The latter died the night his parents died, and his mind created Batman as a defense mechanism.

He may have not known who it was or what to call this new persona yet, but the child that was Bruce Wayne ceased to exist, and in his place was an angry, wounded animal poised to lash out at the world. To aide him, he created Bruce 2.

And it’s this second Bruce Wayne that is a costume, so that he can be himself: Batman.

Second, with or without the cape and cowl, he is Batman 24/7. Even when wearing the mask of Bruce 2, he still thinks, acts, and conducts himself like Batman, because that’s who he is at his core.

Moreover, even in timelines where he gives up the hood, he still acts as Batman by training the next generation of caped crusaders, because that’s who he is. To do otherwise would mean confronting the childhood trauma that spawned the birth of Batman. But as brave as Batman is, that would be a bridge too far for him to cross. Whatever persona he inhibits, he’s still a deeply damaged person with tons of issues.

Consequently, that’s one reason I prefer him over Superman.

Conclusion

Image by Aliekber Ozturk via scop.io

Let me close by saying I’m not hating on either Tarantino or Superman. I’ve enjoyed the former’s movies for years and will continue to watch them, so no: I’m not a hater. Second, while I prefer Batman to Superman, I’m not blind to the appeal of Superman. As I said above, he is the best of humanity and we should all try to be more like him, now more than ever.

As a new tide of fascism and war rises, remember that inside us all is the ember of a hero waiting to rise from the ashes of our fears. If only we have the courage to stand against the darkness and shine. 

Call to Action

What do you think?

Let me know in the comments. And if you liked this post, please share it with your friends and sign up for my newsletter.

Review: Dead Pool

deadpoolIntroduction Wade Wilson was your average mercenary with a heart of gold until he meets Vanessa, the girl of his dreams. Just when thins are going great he discovers he has terminal cancer and his whole world comes tumbling done.

Just when he thinks there is no hope Wade is visited by a man who tells him he can help him. With nothing else to lose he agrees to undergo a series of treatments to unlock his mutant abilities.

After a series of failures his mutant abilities kick in and he is now near impossible to kill due to his healing factor. Unfortunately for Wade his face becomes horribly disfigured ruining any chance for a reconciliation with Vanessa.

The Good I really loved the fight scenes in this movie. They were well choreographed, stylish without being over the top or cartoonish.

Not being familiar with the comics I went in blind and was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed Dead Pool’s one liners and breaking the fourth wall. I was also glad this was an R rated movie and not the same old lame ass PG-13 super hero movies that have been pumped out over the years.

Maybe now that this movie has been a success we’ll see more adult comic book films in the same vein.

The Bad Overall the story was the trite hero, well antihero’s origin mixed with the damsel in distress trope. Granted this movie wont be winning any Oscars.

It doesn’t try to be anything but a good action flick and that’s what I like most about it. Nor does it bore you with pretentious subtext like some movies (cough The Dark Knight trilogy cough).

My biggest complaint about the movie is that given his supercharged healing factor there was no oh shit moment where you think Dead Pool won’t make it. It robs the movie of any dramatic tension.

The Verdict If you’re looking for a deep engrossing movie take a pass on Dead Pool, but if you’re looking for a good action flick to pass two hours then check this movie out today.

 

Review : X-men Days of Future Past

Xmen
Fifty years into the future mutants are hunted to the point of extinction by sentinels. As a last resort the remnants of the X-men and the brotherhood of mutants join together to hatch a plan to time travel to the past to stop the assassination of Trask and the creation of the sentinel program.

Initially Professor Xavier is chosen to go to the past but it is revealed the only one who could survive the trip is none other than Wolverine. Using her powers Kitty Pride sends Wolverine’s consciousness to the past while his body remains in the future.

The Good
Honestly the best part of the movie was Quicksilver and the slow motion fight scene other wise I have nothing to say about this horrible film.

The Bad

To begin the entire premise of the movie was flawed from the beginning. Time travel is difficult to do right because of all the inherent problems with paradoxes and logical inconsistencies associated with it.

For starters if you travel back in time and change the past then there would be no reason for you to travel to the past and it’d be as you never went to the past at all.

Furthermore even if you could change the past it wouldn’t have any effects on the future because you would in effect create two parallel time lines. One in which the future is unchanged and one in which it is changed, unlike in this movie where the parent time line is altered by changing the past.

the other issues I have with this movie is that it’s supposed to be set in the 70s yet we’re supposed to believe that computers of that age and genetics where so far along that Trask could build the prototypes of the sentinel program. It was completely unbelievable.

Moreover, when Mystique shots magneto in the neck he doesn’t even so much as says ouch, let alone react like a man who was just shoot by his close associate.

The Verdict

Pass on this boring tripe and see Dead Pool instead.

Review: Ted 2

image by Dan O/' Connell via sxc.hu
image by Dan O/’ Connell via sxc.hu

Introduction
Seth MacFarlane is back again as the foul mouthed, stoner teddy bear with a heart of gold. This time around after Ted and Tami-Lynn’s marriage hits a rough patch they decide to have a baby and hilarity ensues.

However as a result of this the question of whether Ted is a person entitled to all the rights there of, is brought before the court. As a result Ted is deemed property and his marriage to Tami-Lynn is annulled.

Not willing to take this set back lightly Johnny and Ted enlist the help of Sam Jackson, a fresh faced lawyer who is clueless about Ted and Johnny’s pop culture references, but is a major stoner. While all this is going on Ted tries to hook Johnny up with Sam.

After a long and winding trip to New York they enlist the help of Patrick Meighan, who initially declines to help Ted but comes around in the end and helps him prove he is a person.

The Good

Overall I liked this movie. Sure the jokes were sophomoric, but they hit and I laughed my ass off at them no matter how dumb they were. My favorite part hard to be when they broke into Tom Brady’s house to try and steal his semen and they got caught.

I also loved the gay couple at comic con who were bullying all the “nerds” while dressed up as Worf from Star Trek: The Next Generation and the Tick.

The Bad
While I did enjoy this movie I felt it was a bit predictable and meandered in the middle before chugging along to a lackluster ending. I also thought the relationship between Johnny and Sam was shoe horned in there without any real depth or reason to care if they got together or not.

The Verdict
If you liked the first Ted or are just a Seth MacFarlane fan then be sure to check out this movie today.

Review: Breakfast with Scot

Introduction
Breakfast with Scot stars Thomas Cavanagh as Eric, a former Canadian hockey player turned sports reporter, and Ben Shenkman as his lover Sam. When Scot’s(Noah Barnett) mother dies of an overdose he comes to live with Sam and Eric and turns their lives upside down. As Eric is in the closet at work he worries about Scot’s effeminate behavior outing him.

In time Eric and Sam grow attached to Scot and form a family with him until Eric’s brother Billy comes to take Scot back with him to Brazil.

The Good
It was nice to see a story that wasn’t all about coming out or finding love. I also found the backdrop of Canada to be a nice change of pace from the usual locals of New York, LA, and San Francisco.

I also liked how Sam and Eric were already an established couple. So there was none of that will they or won’t they bs.

I also thought Scot was absolutely adorable and was glad to see Eric and Sam learn to accept his Christmas Carols in October singing, make up wearing, alphabet pancake making self after trying to snuff out his free spirit

The Bad

I was rather disappointed by how much internalized homophobia Eric had. Yeah I get he was a hockey star and fears how the sports world would react to him coming out, but I disliked how he projected on to Scot all his insecurities and tried to change the boy’s behavior to suit his closeted self.

I also disliked how rater than confronting the kids at school who were making fun of Scot, Eric thought it was a good idea to teach him how to fight.

The Verdict

Overall I found this movie to be enjoyable and would recommend it to anyone who is looking for a heartfelt tale that isn’t your typical gay movie.

 

Review Justice League Vs Teen Titans

Justice-League-vs.-Teen-Titans-charactersWarning: spoilers ahead

Introduction

Justice League Vs Teen Titans is the latest feature length movie released from DC Comics and centers around Damien Wayne being shipped off to the Teen Titans to learn how to work in a team. At first he treats the titans with disdain and picks a fight with Blue Beetle resulting in him almost dying. He recovers thanks to Raven’s healing abilities and learns to get along with them.

As this is going on Superman and the other members of the Justice League become possessed by emissaries of Trigon and seek to bring him to Earth using Raven as the key to an ancient satanic temple. Seeing no other alternative Raven gives herself up to the Justice League and brings Trigon to Earth.

With team work Raven is able to re-imprison Trigon in a shard of crystal, which she keeps with her as a bindi and the movie ends with her rejoining the titans on Earth.

The Good
I really like the character design of the titans and would so totally watch a reboot of Teen Titans or Young Justice staring them. I especially like Starfire and Raven’s design as it suited them well.

Over all the movie was enjoyable and kept me invested in the characters through out and I especially liked the montage where Down to Nothing plays. It really made that scene and was a catchy tune.

I have to say I loved Damien Wayne in this. Yeah he starts off as a huge ass in this, but grows softer over the course of the movie. I find him to be a more interesting Robin then either Tim Drake , Jason Todd or Dick Grayson.

The Bad

The biggest sin this movie commits is being too predictable. Within thirty seconds of seeing people get possessed I called it that the movie would about Trigon trying to come to earth and Raven trying to stop him. And sure enough that’s exactly what happened.

I also had issues with the Superman/Robin fight. Let me preface this by saying in no way am I a Superman fanboy, but even with Kryptonite Damien took down him way too easily.

Another issue I had was with Blue Beetle. His character came off as too much of a wannabe Cyborg for my taste. Sure his powers were nice to look at but I couldn’t stop thinking he was just a rip off of Cyborg the whole time he was on screen.

Another issue I had was when the titans went to Trigon’s home dimension and Beast Boy transforms into a demon. It came out of nowhere, was never explained and no one brought it up after it happened. It was a total big lipped alligator moment for sure.

The Verdict

If you’re looking for something to kill 80 minutes and aren’t too pressed for good story telling give this movie a watch. It’s not the best but if enough people buy it maybe we’ll get another movie starring these titans. Even with its flaws this was an enjoyable watch and you should totally check it out.