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Kali
_thirty2flavors
05 May 2012 @ 08:12 pm
avengers and stuff  
In news unrelated to puppies, I keep meaning to do a big round-up post with my thoughts on TV lately (GOT, Community, The Office, P&R...) and being too lazy to do so. I may never get to it, so if you want to know my thoughts on any of those for whatever reason go ahead and ask.

I did see The Avengers last night in an attempt to stay hip and with it, so



I saw almost all of the lead-up movies (except Captain America) though I have fuzzy-at-best memories of most of them, since in most cases it was years ago, when they first came out. So I had my friend give me the run-down on him while we waited in line. TBH I don't feel I lost anything for not having seen his movie so lol w/e.

I thought the first ...half hour? 45 minutes? not sure... was pretty slow. I was sitting there kind of waiting for things to get started and grumpily thinking THIS ISN'T SO GREAT WHAT IS EVERYONE TALKING ABOUT UGH DID EVERYONE RUIN IT WITH THEIR RIDICULOUSLY POSITIVE REVIEWS? But eventually things got more interesting, I guess once the team had ~assembled on the Valiant and started picking fights with each other. And then ofc there was the patented Hollywood 2-hour climax.

In the end I did really like the film, or at least the second half of it, which let me leave the theatre thinking GOSH THAT WAS GREAT. I'm a bit of a Joss Whedon hipster in that the less I hear people sing his praises from the mountaintops the better for everyone, but to his credit I guess I did enjoy most of this film. The lines were funny without, for the most part, feeling over-stylized (which is one of my main beefs with Whedon).

I thought the plot was kind of dumb, and having never (to my knowledge) seen/interacted with/etc the Tesseract before it was like "...okay..." but it's a superhero movie so dumb plots go without saying. I am also unclear as to where Loki made all his crazy alien friends, but LBR no one really cares, do they? THEY JUST WANT SUPERPOWERS AND SHIT EXPLODING.

I don't have a stand-out favourite of the movies I saw leading up to this, but in this movie at least Tony Stark was definitely the stand-out favourite, followed probably by Thor because Thor is hilarious.

Black Widow... I feel obligated to like Black Widow because she fulfills the Smurfette Principle and is the only major woman in the damn movie, but I was sort of lukewarm on her. I don't dislike her really, I'm just lukewarm on ScarJo like ... 90% of the time... so that didn't help. I wish she had a talent that made her more distinctive as well, it feels like all the guys do (if you count IS PATRIOTIC I GUESS? as Captain America's, anyway). The other woman is Robin Scherbatsky, and I am unclear what her character's name was but the fact that it was Cobie Smulders imbued her with some sympathy and interest from me.

Hawkeye lol I literally could not care less. Katniss w/e

The Hulk, I spent the entire movie thinking "I wish you were Edward Norton" because I really like Edward Norton and I would've been at least five times more interested in Hulk's Hulking if it was actually him. I'm out of the comic world loop though so at least this movie answered my question of "how is the Hulk even a superhero I mean really". Mark Ruffalo did fine I guess but I would've much rather had Edward Norton. (Or David Tennant?? LOLLLLLLL. Citation needed badly but LOLLLLLLLL.) Either way Hulk did get one of the best scenes, which is where Loki starts to dramatic speech about how he is a DEMIGOD!! and then Hulk just grabs him and flails him around like a rag doll. My audience applauded.

I think Tay would kill me if I went a whole post without mentioning Pepper Potts so I will add that it was nice to see Tony/Pepper being fun and snarky. The scene where he tries to call her before his probable death reminded me of like 3 different fics I've written, lol.

THIS POST IS NOT VERY INTERESTING OR WELL THOUGHT OUT. Cut me some slack okay I woke up at 5 this morning after 3 hours of sleep and spent like nine hours in a car today. I am writing this post largely to keep myself occupied before it becomes a semi-respectable time to go to bed.
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fauxkarenfauxkaren on May 6th, 2012 01:37 am (UTC)
The movie was pretty slow until Thor showed up and the big Iron Man vs Thor fight happened. But after that I really enjoyed it because I thought that the highlight of the movie was the character interaction. Like my favorite section of the movie was the middle when everyone was on the airship.

I love Edward Norton, but.... having watched The Incredible Hulk recently, I found Mark Ruffalo's Bruce Banner WAY more enjoyable than Edward Norton's.

I didn't really buy Tony Stark in the previous movies, like all the writing for him felt really forced and "LOOK AT WHAT A CHARMING AND SNARKY PLAYBOY BILLIONAIRE I AM!". But for some reason, he just felt a lot more natural to me in this movie. (lol Also, I have a deep and abiding irrational dislike of Gwenyth Paltrow, so... sorry Tay, but I will never be able to like Pepper Potts and thus was unmoved by Tony's attempt to call her.)

Captain America is my faaaavorite of the lead-up movies, but lol. I understand that is an unpopular opinion. IT'S JUST PERFECTLY HOKEY. IT'S LIKE INDIANA JONES. IDEC. I LOVED IT. (Plus, Peggy is the only one of the love interests that I really liked and the only romance I found believable.) And I really enjoyed him in this movie too. I laughed so hard when he was all "I get that reference!" when someone make a joke about flying monkeys.
fauxkarenfauxkaren on May 6th, 2012 01:50 am (UTC)
In NON Avenger news, I was talking with my friend today and he and I agreed that this season of Community has been great. Like, it's taken a LOT of risks and most of them have paid off. The whole season has also felt a lot more cohesive instead of just individual stories, and the genre spoof episodes have been really enjoyable for the most part.

P&R, on the other hand, just isn't ~doing it~ for me recently. I can't explain it at all. But, I just haven't really been feeling it in the past few episodes. But at least it's better than the Office which continues to be a horrific trainwreck.

Game of Thrones has been good though! I'm kinda pressed about the way Cat's been adapted since I think they're oversimplifying her. But. it's still been enjoyable to watch every week. I think the show is doing a really good job adapting Theon's story and Arya's story is being done justice too. I think they could do better with all the King's Landing stuff though. I can't believe the season is halfway over!
Kali: p&r :: swansong how u livin_thirty2flavors on May 6th, 2012 02:34 am (UTC)
I think Community has done pretty well too. It's had some weaker episodes definitely, but also had a LOT of brilliant ones -- I think I may have enjoyed it more than s2 pretty handily but I'd have to actually look at episode breakdowns to say for certain. It's definitely had a lot more instant classics I think.

OMG I KNOWWWWWW RE: P&R, which is part of why I kept wanting to make a post. I think I just am really over this election campaign plotline? Just, I haven't found it very funny, it makes a departure from the format of the first three seasons, honestly it's so frustrating to watch. If I wanted electoral fuckery I could just turn on the news. I think what makes it more annoying on P&R than other comedies (AD for instance was basically "series of unfortunate events"-type comedy and I LOVED it) is that P&R is populated by good people, so just watching them fail at everyhting consistently is... IDK I don't find it fun to watch, I find it annoying. PLUS TOM/ANN, WHO THE FUCK CARES? WHO CARES ABOUT CHRIS TRAEGER'S MAN PAIN BECAUSE ONE WOMAN DUMPED HIM AND TWO OTHERS DON'T WANT TO BONE HIM? WHY ISN'T THERE MORE DONNA? etc.

lol The Office. How the fuck did we end up doing the Michael Scott Andy Bernard Paper Company plotline AGAIN? Also I'm not unbiased but all these episodes have done is made me actively root against Andy lolllll.

I've been enjoying GOT mostly, though it depends on the week for me because if it's an episode like last week that's heavy on Arya/Lannisters/Dany/Cat+Brienne then that's great but when it's like... Stannis, Theon and Jon Stand Around And Look Grumpy, no thanks. The Stannis camp in general is like mega boring to me lol which is unfortunate because I sense that they are going to be raound for ages.
fauxkarenfauxkaren on May 6th, 2012 02:47 am (UTC)
Yeah, I think that there have been a lot of classics in season 3, but even the more normal episodes were a lot stronger than last year's normal episodes. Like I love the episode where the study group helps Annie move (lol except for Jeff who ends up karaoke-ing with the Dean) and I think the show is doing better at balancing character stuff with the genre spoofing stuff. Like the civil war episode was rooted in Abed vs Troy conflict and the Dreamatorium episode did a lot to explore Annie and Abed as characters.

TOM/ANN IS THE WORST THING TO EVER HAPPEN TO P&R. Ugh. I don't normally hate Tom, but he needs to get away from my beautiful tropical fish Ann Perkins. I think part of the reason that I'm not feeling P&R lately is that the election stuff and the Ben/Leslie and Tom/Ann stuff has meant that there is less Leslie/Ann and they are my BROTP 5EVER.

And OMG YES. Your thoughts re: The Office are my thoughts. WHY ARE WE RECYCLING A PLOT LINE FROM LIKE... TWO SEASON AGO? WTFFFFFF?

Jon's storyline in ACOK is so boooooring... and the show is doing nothing to change my opinion about that. I wish the show would spend more time in King's Landing though. Like I feel like Sansa has gotten barely any screen time. On the other hand, less Sansa screen time means less potential Sansa/Sandor screen time, so...
Kali: dw :: ten :: swirly tie of death_thirty2flavors on May 6th, 2012 03:00 am (UTC)
Yeah they've had some great episodes in s3. KEEP ON KEEPIN' ON COMMUNITY. I hope.

Tom/Ann is so awful ofmg stop make it stop. And it didn't HAVE to be awful but they've chosen to write it in a truly awful way. And yeah IDK I just haven't been digging this season that much which is a real shame given how enthusiastic I was about the show a year ago. I mean I don't hate it but I don't love every episode anymore either.

RIGHT? WE LITERALLY JUST DID THIS OMG. And then we're going to get Boss Andy even though he is a crazy person who literally steals large clients for imaginary companies and punches holes in walls at the workplace. Also I don't get why they're bothering to make Nellie sympathetic (or try to, anyway) if they're just going to write her out in an episode? IDEK. SHOW. WHAT, WHAT, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

Yeah we've barely seen Sansa! And OMG Jon Snow the level of Do Not Curr I have for his plotline grows exponentially by the episode.
sherrilina: Arthur/Chicken (Merlin)sherrilina on May 6th, 2012 01:51 am (UTC)
Lol @ your grumpily thinking THIS ISN'T SO GREAT WHAT IS EVERYONE TALKING ABOUT UGH DID EVERYONE RUIN IT WITH THEIR RIDICULOUSLY POSITIVE REVIEWS?, I just hope that is not me if I ever get around to seeing it (that's how I felt about Iron Man, since I am a huge anomaly apparently in that franchise, liking the second movie better). And wait, Jennifer Lawrence was in this? :s

I'm a bit of a Joss Whedon hipster in that the less I hear people sing his praises from the mountaintops the better for everyone, but to his credit I guess I did enjoy most of this film.

Ugh, same here, though for me the most annoying thing is his undeserved reputation of being ~such a feminist omg~. Not only when his writing tells a different story, but also when he's pulled shit like firing an actress because he was pissed that she got pregnant and ~messed up his ~plans. So feminist of him, glad he is looking out for women kind and their fair treatment. /rant

EDIT: Oh and I am interested in your GoT/Community thoughts! What did you think of this week's epp of Community in particular?

Edited at 2012-05-06 01:52 am (UTC)
Kali: sd :: the big doe eyes_thirty2flavors on May 6th, 2012 01:54 am (UTC)
Well if it helps mediate your expectations, I did find the first bit dull and while I liked it overall I liked it the way I always like superhero movies, which is STUFF EXPLODED! SOMETIMES THERE WERE FUNNY LINES! MORE STUFF EXPLODED!

lmao yeah I just -- I don't know what it is about Whedon because he's never actally written anything I hate, but something about his body of work or at least the way the internet reacts to his body of work rubs me the wrong way. I think it's partly like some kind of crazy club I never got an invite to so now I resent it out of spite, but I HAVE grown so weary of his trademark stylistic dialogue and bleh.

PLUS THAT WHOLE PREGNANCY WANK WHICH ????? I didn't watch the show so I don't know much about it or what's rumour and what's not but it sounds like a HOT MESS for sure.
sherrilina: Doomsday Ten/Rosesherrilina on May 6th, 2012 02:11 am (UTC)
Yeah, Angel was always my favorite Jossverse show, and it's the one that he was LEAST involved in, and then got to be at its worst when Joss finally was involved in it (i.e. after Buffy ended), sooo....;) (Though the fandom is also ridic, with all that "Joss is my God" crap).

And yep, basically Joss had these ~plans for Cordelia in season 4 that as I hear involved her ACTUALLY going evil (just randomly, IDK a la Morgana perhaps), and then Charisma got pregnant, HDU MARRIED WOMAN INTERESTED PERHAPS IN STARTING A FAMILY, YOUR WOMB HAS NO PLACE INTERFERING WITH JOSS' ~ART! So Joss changed his plans to make her possessed by an evil something that gets birthed through the baby (thank god, in terms of avoiding actual character assassination). But he was pissed--he basically fired her after season 4 without even having the decency to TELL HER. She was waiting for the call to return to filming, and it never came, and eventually it was explained to her. His lame excuse was that her storyline was done and he couldn't think of anything for her to do, which of course is the biggest bullshit ever considering that season 4 ends with her stuck in a coma, having been possessed for a year and raped (since the entity had sex while in her body) and aware as the entity killed people and stuff, with all that potential emotional fallout, not to mention she had been about to start a romance with Angel when outside forces tore them apart abruptly at the end of season 3...i.e. there was a lot of potential material to resolve for her storyline, whereas what the fuck did Xander have for instance, when he got to be there all through season 7? So obviously not a legit excuse.

And then, to make matters worse, when the 100th episode came around, who is the person Joss thinks of to guest star at first? The woman who was a regular on the show from the beginning for 4 years, the heart of the show, for whom so much is unresolved? No, of course not, he wanted to bring Buffy on, who has appeared twice on the show in season 1 and is totally irrelevant at this point. Obviously! *facepalm* THANK GOD SMG turned it down because she had other obligations, so he was ~forced to ask the person who should have been his first choice and made the most sense for a special episode. Though Charisma only agreed on condition that he wouldn't kill her off, and he promised, and then did it anyway. Classy. /rant

(Sorry, lol, but this all makes me very angry. Aside from all this (and season 5), "Angel" was actually a pretty good show, much more morally grey and complex than Buffy ever was, and IMO with more chemistry and tightness/family-feeling among the characters in the cast.)
Kali: misfits :: think i fucking love you_thirty2flavors on May 6th, 2012 04:01 pm (UTC)
lol wow that does all sound quite terrible. I never watched Angel, but yikes.
fauxkarenfauxkaren on May 6th, 2012 02:10 am (UTC)
Like, I enjoy just about every one of Whedon's projects (and he has written some truly stunning individual episodes like "Restless" and "The Body"), but I cannot with people who set him up as this Great Feminist Hero because... no.
Kali: comm :: inspector! blorgons!_thirty2flavors on May 6th, 2012 02:15 am (UTC)
I LOVED the Law & Order Community ep so much, it was another fabulous genre episode that used convention flawlessly and was really well executed. This past week's was okay -- I appreciate the way they set up the 5 stages of grief and had the "Greendale 7" (LOLLL) go through them, but some parts were sort of ho-hum to me, like Chang trying to take control of the school (or did he actually? I think he did I guess). I loved the end scene in the Trobed+Annie apartment, wiht all the nods to Remedial Chaos Theory but the happy ending. AND TROY CALLED BRITTA "THE BEST"! Shipping it so hard tbqh. I am curious where the show goes from here, since... obviously they wind up back at Greendale. I assume Dean Pelton will have to regain power from Chang and will want to reinstate them.

I JUST WANT S4 RENEWAL NEWS. NBC is getting rid of 3 Community eps in one evening, which is rarely a good sign for a show. PLZ RENEW? PLZ?

Game of Thrones continues to be one of those shows where my enjoyment depends on who is the focus of the episode. So with last week's focus on Arya, the Lannisters, Cat + Brienne, and Dany, I was pretty delighted. But when there's more stuff about... Stannis and Theon and Jon, I don't care much. So it's hit and miss with me, I remember a couple weeks ago being pretty bored because all the storylines they focused on were the ones I don't care about.

I liked the last episode a lot because Aryaaaa my princess! Her scene with Tywin was EXCELLENT. I also find myself a lot more interested in Cersei than I was when I watched s1.
Having not read the books I can't comment on anyhting I think they should've added or w/e, but I've been following it for the most part easy enough so they've done their job in that respect at least.
fauxkarenfauxkaren on May 6th, 2012 02:21 am (UTC)
I felt like this weeks episode was decent, but it was mostly setting up future episodes, so I feel like I have to with hold final judgement until everything plays out.
sherrilina: Arya Stark (Game of Thrones)sherrilina on May 6th, 2012 02:33 am (UTC)
Yeah, definitely the LO one was one of the best, this past one not as much...Jeff's line to Britta about "you seemed so much smarter when I met you" hurts because it's true, and a reminder of how the writers have failed her, but oh well. I loved Troy making that $7 call to China to make sure his friend wasn't one of the 8 who had just died that second...

Wait, so the last 3 episodes will air together?! O_o. When is that? Ugh, seriously NBC, why must you fail so hard...I hope that the "Save One Show" thing will help even a little.

And ITA, with GoT it does depend on the PoVs--I was getting bored of the minimal Dany earlier, and every time Jon appears it usually is so boring to me, but last week's was awesome. Tywin and Arya's scenes were priceless indeed, love that kind of tension.

Kali: misfits :: alisha :: do i suck or blow?_thirty2flavors on May 6th, 2012 04:10 pm (UTC)
My thoughts on Britta are complicated I guess. In some respects I do think the writers dumb her down occasionally for humour. But on the other hand I think the internet had developed a very skewed perception of who/what Britta was. Britta was always a satire of a certain type of person, and I think... some people started identifying with Britta without really realizing that. So as the satire/parody became more pronounced people started to freak out without realizing that's always been there. It has been a while since we had a great Britta ep though where she does get to be right about stuff/succeed at stuff, so I do hope we get another one before the season is out.

They're airing the final 3 eps of the season all in one. I'm not sure if that's this Thursday or the Thursday after, but ugh.

OMFG JON IS SO DAMN BORING. GET OUT, JON. I'm also deeply bored by Stannis and Theon, Stannis because I don't have any reason to care about him right now and Theon because I neither like nor trust him. But at least Theon's sister is a badass.
Kellysweetcherrytree on May 6th, 2012 01:59 am (UTC)
lmao i love that you saw it in an attempt to stay hip

YES KALI BECAUSE YOU ARE SUCH A GEEZER IN FANDOM

i really enjoyed the film, my audience was great and there were some fantastic one-liners in there.
Kali: sd :: very expensive_thirty2flavors on May 6th, 2012 02:17 am (UTC)
it's a good thing you got me into GOT because it's one of the few things keeping me hip and cool

Yeah my audience was great too, loud laughs at lots of parts but I think the only round of applause (aside form at the credits) was Hulk smashing the fuck out of Loki lol god it was hilarious.
Kellysweetcherrytree on May 6th, 2012 02:58 am (UTC)
IKR my theatre applauded that one too. i can't even remember all of the hilarious moments though, omg the one SHIELD worker playing galaga, 'he's adopted' etc etc. apparently in the US version after all of the credits there was a scene of all of the avengers sitting and eating shawarmas in complete silence LOL
Kali_thirty2flavors on May 6th, 2012 03:01 am (UTC)
LOL OMG

I had heard after the fact that there were 2 end credits scenes and I'm pressed I missed that one because that's funny and I don't curr about Hellboy.
Hannah: tony & pepper; it's always been youfirstofoct on May 6th, 2012 02:24 am (UTC)
OH MY GOD KALI FINALLY

2 thoughts:

1) totally the Valiant. Not even up for debate.

2) OHHHH MY GOD THE SCENE WHEN HE CALLED HER WHEN HE THOUGHT HE WAS GOING TO DIE. THAT SCENE WILL MAKE ME HAPPY FOR THE NEXT YEAR. W/e my taste is consistent.
Kali_thirty2flavors on May 6th, 2012 02:38 am (UTC)
lol "finally"

it's been out for 48 hours
Hannah: tony & pepper; it's always been youfirstofoct on May 6th, 2012 03:24 am (UTC)
AND I HAVE BEEN WANTING TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT SINCE THE MOMENT THAT CALL OF TONY'S TO PEPPER FAILED.

SO LIKE 46 HOURS OR WHATEVER.
captaintish: PotC -- Jack -- Made of Awesomecaptaintish on May 6th, 2012 06:34 am (UTC)
Glad to hear there is some Tony/Pepper.

Was Edward Norton the guy who played the Hulk in the last Hulk movie? I actually kinda liked that one. I haven't seen Thor or Captain America. And the Black Widow didn't have a movie of her own, did she?
Kali: sd :: like a bullet to the brain_thirty2flavors on May 6th, 2012 03:50 pm (UTC)
There wasn't a LOT of Pepper, but Tony/Pepper was the only of the ships they brought in.

He was yeah. You might also know him from Fight Club. I am very fond of him. I remember thinking the last Hulk movie was alright, but I suspect much of that was because of Edward Norton, so IDK but I wish he'd been in Avengers instead of the new guy. And Black Widow doesn't have a movie of her own, she was in IM2 but that's it I think?
captaintish: Wacky Funcaptaintish on May 6th, 2012 06:13 pm (UTC)
Oh, that's right, she was in Iron Man 2, wasn't she. I forgot about that.
Nichothodes Koryfoidesplacebetween on May 7th, 2012 03:35 am (UTC)
LOL @ that link. I can't imagine how terrible John Krasinski would be as a superhero, he's too much *head scratch who me* to ever be able to pull that off.

I don't think I've seen any of the lead-in movies (not even Iron Man, wtf) and I don't care about The Avengers so I'm just glad that you gave me that link. Ho hum
Kali_thirty2flavors on May 7th, 2012 04:30 am (UTC)
ARE YOU GOING TO INTERVIEW KSTEW THOUGH?!
Nichothodes Koryfoides: gossip girl | boredplacebetween on May 8th, 2012 09:16 pm (UTC)
Kali: misfits :: alisha :: do i suck or blow?_thirty2flavors on May 8th, 2012 09:23 pm (UTC)
what good are you to me if I can't say I have a friend who interviewed Kstew?
obstinate, headstrong girl!: film | avengers → tony + stevezombie_boogie on May 8th, 2012 11:34 pm (UTC)
I agree that the first part of the movie was pretty uninspired and slow. If the entire movie had been like that it would have been a HUGE disappointment. But then the film started to sprinkle in some really nice character moments, and the final bajillion hours long action sequence was fucking sweet. I could have watched a bajillion hours more of it.

The script was very Whedon-y in parts, which was both good and bad. Some of the dialogue was great and, like I said, there were some really great character moments (OH MY GOD I HAVE HULK FEELINGS NOW?). But think sometimes the dialogue was too quippy, and lol Joss I see you continuing to conflate tragedy with character death. And making the only woman on the team being the one who was chased by the monster in the dark. I SEE YOU.
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