Movie reviews, not too out of date, one of them extensive:
“The Meddler” is a pretty good Susan Sarnadon movie that was deliberately mis-marketed as a comedy. It has some funny bits, but it is really a slice of life about dealing with grief. The writing and perfomances are good, the mis-marketing was irritating as always.
“Captain America: Civil War” is difficult. There is a LOT of good dialog, and a lot of good character work, and a lot of GREAT special effects, and the major villain sub-plot is really well done, but the over-arching plot line of the title is just painfully stupid and wrong. They tried to write believable motivation for Iron Man coming down on the wrong side of issue, but it didn’t (and couldn’t, really) work. The idea of super heroes needing government approval before they can act is absurd, and when the government in question is the United Nations the absurdity is magnified. (The US takes DAYS to respond to emergencies; the UN takes WEEKS.) I understand that much of this is lifted whole from the comics, but it was stupid then, and nothing has changed. It is interesting that much of this material was played out much more intelligently back in the late 60s and early 70s with the X-Men, when it was a bi-monthly fringe book; Lee and Kirby acknowledged that governments and free range superheroes would have a hard time co-existing, and the X-Men went underground. This is logical, and right, but it didn’t sell books then, and it probably wouldn’t sell movies today.
Uncle Hyena
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