Paper Moon

Kathryn Hemmann writes about Bunny Drop, realism, "literature," and feminism. Great essay but I think that she gives waaaaaaaaay to much leeway to Bunny Drop's ending (which, BTW, is NOT spoiled in the essay, in case you're concerned about that sort of thing).

2011 comic book movies reviews vs. revenues. Lose your faith in humanity in one handy infographic.

I thoroughly enjoyed X-Men: First Class.

Having said that, though, this is an excellent dissection of how badly the film portrays all of its female characters. (The blogger somehow missed that "the nameless mutant woman with dragon fly wings" was Angel Salvadore, but that doesn't actually detract from any of her other arguments.) To say nothing of the racefail.

And no, the issue is not just that "women dressing sexy = bad." The issue is that out of all five major female characters, all of them were excessively sexed up. Even Moira was scantily-clad because she was undercover at the Hellfire club! Yes, Moira McTaggert! And the costumes are hardly the only thing sexist about the film, as Sherry astutely points out - even things like how the male characters were shown honing and developing their powers while the female characters just sort of had powers demonstrate how the female characters in the film were much more window-dressing and afterthoughts than the male characters. Sherry's blog post also doesn't bring up the (not gonna spoil it too much so let's be vague here!) thing about Xavier and Moira at the end of the film, but that was also super-creepy, sexist, and gross.

Also, why did the film make the only latina female character a stripper? Who turns evil. WHY. Angel was never a stripper in the comics. WTF, movie. WTF.

Speaking of X-things, I just spent the morning re-writing the opening to my now-long-overdue fic for help_japan AGAIN. Two months along now and the damn thing is still kicking my ass. (*headdesk*) NOTE TO SELF: Deus ex machina is bad. Bad Nena, bad! Fix that shit and re-work the ending and then maybe we can be happy with it?

If you want to see the first official photos from the upcoming X-Men: First Class film, here they are.

Really, though, there are only three things that you need to know about this film:

1. It is going to be 60'S FABULOUS.

2. The main villain will be Sebastian Shaw, who is played by The Goddamn Kevin Bacon.

3. Alex Summers is supposed to be one of the main characters.

There's already some headdesk-worthy crap coming out of the film - namely the producers repeatedly stating that they based Magneto's character arc on the beliefs of Malcom X (really? really?!) and January Jones kvetching to the LA Times that the initial costume designs for Emma Frost were ridiculously, stupidly sexist - but other than that, it looks like it's shaping up to be an awesome movie.

Speaking of comics stufff, here is a comics-themed Zodiac. I'm a Bulbasaur.

And finally, the world's first Sanskrit Book Fair was held in Bangalore last week. Well, that only took four millennium to get off the ground.

So I finally saw Enchanted this weekend.

James Marsden: Officially typecast.

But seriously, though, he was awesome in that movie. Even if he does play... well, not the same character, but definitely the same role in every movie that he's in. Er. If that makes any sense. I guess I should say, his characters always fulfill the same role: that of the third wheel.

Somebody, please cast this man as the lead in a movie ASAP! I think that he'd be awesome as the lead in a romantic comedy.

And I couldn't watch Edward onscreen without imagining that it was Cyclops wearing those poofy sleeves and singing those ridiculous love songs.