Ranking the Marvel cinematic movieverse

For shits and giggles, I'm sending my movie rankings out into the world. This is just the movies and not the tv series like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D because I haven't seen most of them.
I've got spoilers in the below, so if you haven't seen all the movies, you really should anyway.



So, ranking from the worst to the best...

Pacific Rim 2 - get out of production hell

Guillermo Del Toro is not on board for Pacific Rim 2 anymore?

Why? What happened? Only acceptable answer is:
He went to make Justice League Dark—which is a movie THAT SHOULD EXIST.

Hopefully with the change in directors we won't get a revert back to type where suddenly Mako Mori loses her independence and drive and becomes just a romantic interest—look it happens all the time, it's a worthy fear.

*sigh*

Anyway, I guess back to waiting.

As Guillermo says, Dream of Kaijus and Mecha!!

Fifty Shades of Lady Porn - pt 2!

Time to party with non bland characters in a really engaging and thoughtful story!


Just kidding - it's back to throwing shade at Shades.

Fifty Shades of Lady Porn

Ok. So there has been a lot of discussion about Fifty Shades of Grey recently, obviously, cause the movie just opened. People are giving it devious motivations such as normalising abusive relationships - I think it's lady porn so I give it a pass because in my opinion, no one should be modelling life long relationships on porn. Porn is a fantasy you visit, and then leave. I assumed this was a power/control fantasy that people could slip in and out of.

However I never read it, so felt a little out of place arguing on it. Now I didn't read it, because I thought it would be boring.

See, I LOVE SEX. I love sex, I'm not ashamed about it. I love my body, I love being naked, I love watching sex and porn, reading sex and porn, writing sex and porn. I especially like having sex, and trying new things wherever I happen to be.

So I avoided Fifty Shades because, well, I assume it is for people who aren't me.  I think female characters who are excessively innocent are indeed boring.  They're just not for me. They don't have to be.

BUT, I wanted to see if this book was touting itself as more than just lady porn (lady porn to me is romance to the reader whether it be good or bad romance + sex scenes + certain mary sue-ish qualities to the female character. If you're interested, I think male porn gets to the point quicker and is super graphic) and if people had a reason to think that this book could be taken seriously enough for fully grown, able minded women to misconstrue the relationship depicted for a "normal" relationship.

I thought while I read it, I might as well recap it, because... well I thought it might be funny.

So here we go, stream of conscious Fifty Shades of Grey...

 

A wedding. Your big day. And, uh, why are you doing this?

A lacy white dress. Walking down the isle with perfectly perfect bouquet in hands. A soon-to-be husband, watching your approach. Family crying crystalline tears of happiness.
The big day.
YOUR big day. The day you are a bride.
Reaching the point where you settle down, where you take the next step... It's every woman's dream, right?

Have you ever considered why?

No, really, I'm asking you. Why do you want to get married? Why do you want to have a wedding?

So many people I've asked cannot easily answer this simple question. I mean, I think if you're spending tens of THOUSANDS of dollars on something, you should be able to answer why. Especially if you aren't in that elusive stratum of society that can just blindly piss away money (and let's face it, most of us are NOT in that layer)

But more often than not, my question is rewarded with strange stares, as though I've asked something odd, and my favourite - and most common - answer:

"Because that's what you do. It's tradition."
I love that answer. Tradition. Really, that means you just don't know, do you? You just know you have to get married, because... well... that's what everyone does. People get engaged, and then they get married, and then they have children.

It's a formula that often works, I can't deny it.

But I have this pesky need to question things. It's really a curse. Especially when someone says it's traditional. So let's look at some elements of a marriage/wedding that we all tend to blindly accept without thinking about it.

Diamond engagement rings: made popular by a 1920's DeBeers advertising campaign. A brilliant advertising campaign that has changed the entire way we progress as monogamous couples in our culture.

Not going to go into this too much, as this "tradition" was called into question by a recent College Humour skit that is gaining attention.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5kWu1ifBGU

 

White dresses: they mean purity right? Nope. Mary Queen of Scots has been held up as the first famous woman to wear a white wedding dress (back when white was the French colour for mourning) but no one really knows why she wore it - in a time when other colours for wedding dresses were more popular.

But it was truly our media-obsessed culture that fucked us in this regard. Through much of the twentieth century, wedding outfits were just fancier versions of current trends. But from the 1950's white wedding dresses that were only worn once grew in popularity. Why? Because we started watching movies! Movies with weddings in them! And we accepted that a "white wedding" was normal.

 

The garter: Have you ever wondered why brides wear a garter? Have I made you wonder? Well, I'll tell you. This is actually IS an old tradition, unlike the white dress and the diamond ring.

Women and men had to consummate the marriage after the vow, so members of the reception would witness the consummation and take the garter as proof they were there.

So romantic!

I'm not even going to go into the sexist events like a partner asking your father if you can get married, or your father giving you to another family (Why do women agree to this? It's 2014, I shouldn't have to point out that your father doesn't own you and thus cannot GIVE YOU AWAY like a old sweater).
That's a whole other post.

You don't own me...

So instead of digressing into things that infuriate me, let's delve more into answers that confuse me. 

Some other answers I get to the question "Why do you want to get married?":

"Because you want to make a commitment, and I want them to make a commitment to me." - I understand commitment. Commitment is important. But what I question is: why do you need a marriage to make a commitment? What about the marriage is going to enforce commitment? The sacred vow isn't so sacred anymore.
What is it that marriage gives you that you can't do by yourself? A marriage doesn't automatically mean that your partner won't cheat on you, or that you won't get bored of each other's bits.
Also, in this day when most couples live with each other before marriage, I think... isn't living together a commitment by itself?

"Because it's romantic!" - Well I don't see it. Honestly, the most romantic I am is when I'm alone with my partner, not sweating in a big frothy dress in front of my uncles and cousins and rushing off my feet so I can get photos in the perfect light of me and my partner almost - but not - kissing. That's not romance. That's pantomime.

"Because it's a big party!" - Again, another thing that could be done without a wedding or a marriage. With much less expense.

"Because I want everyone to know I love my partner" - uh, why? Why isn't your love enough by itself? Why do you need Great Aunt Beattie and your third cousin to witness it?  Is love not real until your entire circle of friends and family sit around at alternate plates of chicken and fish? I weep for love.

"Because I want my day of being a princess" - I've never actually heard this outside television and I hope I never do. Cause seriously, play Mario Kart and stop wasting everyone's air. (bit judgmental. It's just I get annoyed when women want to be princesses but never queens)

So some of you might be thinking I'm nitpicking. Some of you might be asking "Well, why DON'T you want to get married?"
And my answer is: I don't see the point. Marriage seems like a whole big bit of nothing. Such pressure on women to get married when in the end, it doesn't change you. You remain the same person, your partner remains the same. Signing a piece of paper doesn't change the way you feel either. It's a lot of expense, months of planning, wasted hours trying to pick what colour my friends should wear ...and for what? What is the gain? What do I get?
Love? No I already had that.
Commitment? No, I had that too.

Photos of me dolled up ... ah, I see now! You want the photos! The whole wedding, all the money and all the effort, and all the time all come down to that because that's the only thing you get from it all!
The photos are definitely something you walk away with. I can't deny it. Wedding photos will look amazing.
But they will be completely staged.
Your hair may be fancy, your makeup flawless and your eyebrow game beyond compare... but you will be wearing a variation of a white dress that everyone wears in a pose that the photographer has photographed with tens of other couples.
Why is that special?

My advice?
Buy a camera. Go to photography lessons with your partner. Take your own photos. They'll mean more in the end and cost you a lot less.

Censorship for games in Australia?

I just read an article that makes me very nervous.


http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/games/state-of-decay-refused-classification-in-australia-20130627-2ozku.html


An open-world zombie survival game, State of Decay launched globally earlier this month, but it missed its local release, as the Australian Classification Board had not reached a verdict on the game.
It was announced on Wednesday that the game had been refused classification.
“Today, State of Decay was given a Refused Classification (RC) rating by the Australian Classification Board, meaning that the game cannot be made available to Australian customers at this time,” reads a statement issued by Microsoft. “[We are] currently evaluating the options with regards to the title’s classification.”

Are you reading that?

Developer Volition is working on an edited version to secure an Australian release.

Are you alarmed? I am very alarmed. I might let my complaint letter to the Australian Classifications Board speak for itself here.


**

Enquiry Details
In what capacity are you making this enquiry?	(Choose one) Concerned citizen Student Parent Interest/morals group representative Media Industry (film) Industry (computer games) Industry (publications) Industry (cinema) Government Film festival Other
Other
Category of enquiry	(Choose one) Rating of film - too high Rating of film - too low RC/banned film Content of film Rating of computer game - too high Rating of computer game - too low RC/banned computer game Content of computer game Rating of DVD - too high Rating of DVD - too low RC/banned DVD Content of DVD Rating of publication - too high Rating of publication - too low Content of publication Applying for a classification Training enquiry Film festival Website enquiry Employment Media Online Content Other

To Whom it May Concern,

I recently read a disturbing article on SMH.com about a game - State of Decay - being refused classification and was being edited FOR release here, I wanted to check with the people that would know, whether this was true.

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/games/state-of-decay-refused-classification-in-australia-20130627-2ozku.html

If this article is false, please advise.

If this is true, I want to know how I can protest this.

I read that Australia wants to release an edited version of this game. I am not happy with this. I am a 27 yr old adult, and feel very alarmed when material that I purchase here has been censored in any way.

I value choice.

If the game is too violent, or there is drug use, or there are people exploding then I - as a 27 yr old adult - have the choice not to spend my money on it.

If the game developers want to access a larger market, they have the choice to remove certain elements from the game.

But removing elements from a game just because Australia refuses to allow the game into the country is not an acceptible choice.

Please write back.

Regards,

***


I'll post the reply here. I hope this isn't true, but if it is - this is no good.

What a fitting name...

A male character from borderlands had a boyfriend. And?

This isn't going to be a big post. It's just something I've wanted to say for a while, but it's such a small thing that I haven't said it.

Sir Hammerlock from Borderlands universe had some man love.

How do I know this? Because he makes an offhand comment about an ex-boyfriend in a mission he sends you one.

Why does it matter to the game? It doesn't.

That's why I wanted to say something.

So if he only makes a single offhand comment about an ex-boyfriend, and it doesn't matter at all to the game, why are you posting about it?

Simply because I found it really, really cool. There's no big reveal, there's no payoff to it or big storyline about his sexual preferences, he's not a romance option within the game. He's just a character in an FPS who happens to be gay or bi.

After sending you off to morph bugs into super bugs, and asking you to kill the ugly spider-octopus that chopped his hand off - this is just another mission. It's just something you do in the hopes Hammerlock will give you a badass sniper rifle.
"An old boyfriend of mine, name of Taggart, was hired to wipe out the Stalker population a while back. He also, adorably, tried to write a book about his adventures in the Highlands. You find the chapters of his book, and I'll plagiarize the living daylights out of them for mine. Win-win-win, as they say! Nobody says that. I say it." - Sir Hammerlock


This is business as usual stuff. It just happens.

And I love that.

It doesn't matter, in the end, Sir Hammerlock is just a cyborg dude giving you a quest. And we really need more of that sort of general, unphased representation. It's such a little thing, but it is important to gaming culture - to our culture at large.

You go, Gearbox.

Just chilling, being a role model for character creation.