Actually watched something in the cinema this month: Joker. I wasn’t originally sure if I wanted to see it, I wasn’t hyped for it at all in the months prior. But as the showing date came nearer, there was a lot of buzz around it so I decided to go anyway. I don’t feel like it lived up to the hype and the warnings about promoting incel stuff, but at least it’s one of the higher-grossing DC movies, so maybe we’ll have more to come in that vein. MCU movies all have kind of same-y tone and feel, so probably DC can differentiate itself by doing these heavier movies with a different kind of style. My spoiler-free review of this movie is here.
After watching Joker and also reading Scorsese recent comments about MCU movies not really being cinema, I decided to watch one of his movies and decided on Goodfellas. (The only other one I had seen prior to this was Shutter Island, which for a long while I thought was a Nolan flick.) Goodfellas was pretty good, definitely nothing like an MCU movie. They are obviously different kinds of “cinema” altogether, with the MCU movies leaning more towards the “popcorn” side of the spectrum. I did find it a bit hard to take Joe Pesci seriously here since I only really knew him from Home Alone. I believe this is also the first time I’ve ever seen Ray Liotta in a film, so now I know who he is. I definitely enjoyed the “slice-of-life” look into the old-school gangster lifestyle.
I also watched Stuber, mostly because this movie kept being advertised when I was in the US and it reminded me of Deadpool and that taxi driver friend of his. I was only expecting Batista, but Karen Gillan is also here (briefly!), so there’s a tiny GotG reunion there. Indian taxi driver dude was cool, the movie was ok, moderately funny, nothing too genre-busting. More popcorn movies for scorsese to snub his nose at, etc.
Catching up on my backlog of DC animated films, I decided to watch Wonder Woman: Bloodlines. Plot spoilers, it’s basically a gaggle of WW villains (Silver Swan, Doctor Poison, Doctor Cyber, Cheetah, Giganta) plotting to invade Themyscira, I suspect to make them more well-known among the DC animated viewers. Coincidentally, I had also recently read the WW Rebirth story arc where a gaggle of WW villains tried to trick her into revealing the location of Themyscira, so I had a fresh point of comparison. In the comic book arc, everything was masterminded by Veronica Cale, a pharmaceutical CEO who had been created in the early 2000s with the intent of being the Lex Luthor to WW’s Superman. In the movie Cale works with WW for a while, and along I was waiting for the reveal that she was behind everything, but that never came. I would guess they have some bigger plans for Veronica Cale down the line in the DC animared film-universe. Otherwise, the movie was ok. Nothing too spectacular, missable, but also good enough to watch. EDIT: I found out after I wrote this that Bloodlines had a mid-credits scene where WW figures out Cale was behind everything all along!
TV-wise, not much to say right now. The fall shows are back, that means the Arrowverse is in full swing again (except for Legends, they’ll be back in January). The “science” on Flash is still ridiculous. The flash forwards on Arrow are still boring (I don’t understand why they want to make a spinoff for Mia Smoak!), Supergirl is also a bit meh. I’m really only looking forward to the Crisis crossover this season (and of course, Legends of Tomorrow.) Haven’t watched Batwoman yet, maybe I should since she has one of the five Crisis episodes. Also been following some of the regular stuff: The Good Place, Modern Family, etc. There’s also a lot of superhero shows still on the backlog, some of which I may never get to watch: Runaways, Cloak and Dagger (cancelled!), Krypton (cancelled!), Legion (finished!), Doom Patrol, Titans S2, etc. Maybe there’s a point where there’s too much content for comic book fans? Lol.
Netflix: I saw that Jenny Slate has a standup special out and I tried watching it, but eh, not for me, found it very boring and stopped about a third of the way through. I also found myself re-watching the end of Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood, mostly because I was envious of a friend who was watching it for the first time. Was surprised to learn the anime is 10 years old as of this year! Still held up well, possibly my favorite anime of all time. The final confrontation and fight scenes were great, although the epilogue episode was a bit anticlimactic and awkward.
That’s it for this month. Maybe next month we manage to dent the ever-growing backlog? Maybe?
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