Arrow "This is Your Sword" Review

Before we begin, i'm just going to point out all of my nitpicks with this episode beforehand, one: No one raids the pharmacy!? Everyone comes down with a terminal illness and no one thought to check the pharmacy!? Two: Felicity Signs A Document Without Reading It!? I mean I know one of her quirks is that she can be oblivious sometimes, but even she was read an official document before signing anything. And Three: "Fast forward through the cynicism" you keep saying that yet that is always exactly what you do, c'mon guys, it's one thing to admit your flaws, it's another to adapt from them. The reason why i'm getting the nitpicks out of the way is because what I have to say about this episode is mostly positive stuff (I know, it's been a while).

It's revealed that Oliver is actually under cover with Ra's and has done everything he has in order to gain his trust, he then tells Malcolm of Ra's plan to release the alpha & omega in Starling City, what remains of Team Arrow, along with Tatsu as Katana (Finally) try to eliminate the threat. But it's revealed that what they destroyed was a decoy and this was a trap meant for them, they are captured and as a final jump to prove his loyalty, Oliver allows Ra's to poison to team, seemingly killing them, as he is married off to Ra's daughter Nissa. Meanwhile, Akio dies in the flashbacks (finally!) and Thea goes to visit Roy.

So i think it's pretty obvious that Oliver didn't actually just let his friends die because this isn't Game of Thrones, they're not gonna kill off 5 main characters at once. But i think this episode would have benefited if they didn't tell us that Ollie was only pretending to be loyal to Ra's; I mean how impactful would that have been if we had seen Oliver willingly let his friends be murdered? That would have created tension, it would have really let it sink in how far down he's gone, and while I still wouldn't have believed the characters were dead, i would still believe that he had the intention to leave them for dead, and that can make all the difference.

What did keep the emotions high during this story was how Team Arrow treats Oliver; even if he is undercover, that doesn't change how much he's done, and when Diggle berates him for kidnapping his wife, I not only believe it, but i sympathise. I don't agree with how they handle Oliver's emotional state, but i do agree with everyone else. Even if Ollie is just putting on an act, that doesn't make his crimes go away, after everything that has happened, not just recently, but this entire season, it seems as though Ollie doesn't really trust the Team enough to keep them in the loop or even listen to their ideas, they don't trust him because he hasn't earned it, and it finally comes out here.

Then there's the climax of Maseo and Tatsu's story. The flashbacks for me have felt like a giant overstuffed piece of filler, all i could think was "good god, just kill this kid already!" We all know it's going to happen and the repeating patterns as well as the dragged out storytelling made me go from nervously anticipating it, to praying it happens soon. Here we get both the opening chapter and closing chapter to this families story, the death of Akio, breaking apart the family and Tatsu and Maseo fighting for their own separate causes, both fighting with everything they've got, yet also slightly hoping the other one wins so they can be with their son. While i still don't like how far out this story was dragged, I do think this was a very clever way to end it, by showing us the beginning and ending at the same time and creating contrast.

Then finally there is the story with Thea and Roy, throughout the whole season it feels like Roy has always been Thea's shoulder to cry on and give advice, and this is a time when she really needs it the most, so of course he helps her, but he also sets her on her own path. Thea has become too reliant on other people, and here we have Roy, the person who she puts the most trust into, tell her that it's time she stood up for herself and stopped relying on other people, capping it off by giving her the Arsenal suit, though I assume she's probably going to take the mantle of Speedy instead. I'm hoping this leads to bigger and better things for Thea next season, most of all, stop having her be constantly out of the loop and always needing someone there by her side. This season has planted the seeds for that to happen, gave her training, made her a semi-member of Team Arrow. Hopefully in season 4 is when she goes "no, i'm not going to be the little sister anymore, i can take care of myself and I am here to help". Also i'm just going to assume Roy's alias was a reference to Jason Todd.

It's quite relieving to talk about this show in a positive light again, there was no plotline or character that i didn't dislike or find annoying, i of course still have issues with this episode but they are all minor, and for the first time in a long time i feel like this show is actually putting effort into it's writing again, creating emotional conflict, difficult scenarios and satisfying conclusions. I'm giving this episode an 8/10.

-Danny

The Flash "Grodd Lives" Review

I'm starting to think that even the writers of Flash don't want us to like Iris because i'm pretty sure this is the most obnoxious that she's ever been. This is Grodd Lives, where Iris finds out that Barry is the Flash and is pissed at everyone for not telling her, meanwhile Grodd, a psychic gorilla has been causing havoc and even kidnapping Joe, all for the sake of distracting them while Wells finishes up on his masterplan, to go home.

Iris got a lot of focus in this episode and i swear, every conversation, every line of dialogue just makes me hate her more and more; "You save people everyday, and you can't think of a way to save my dad!?" WELL WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING TO HELP!? She's mad at Barry for not telling her that he's The Flash, here's a newsflash for ya honey, everyone has secrets! Even from their best friends, especially superheroes! and Barry doesn't have to tell you a goddamn thing, so stop acting like a self-entitled brat. Of course Joe tries to reason with her by telling her that it's dangerous to get her involved (And they're not wrong, just look at Eddie) and she responds by "if you told me then i could have helped, i could have prepared!" bitch, what the fuck can you do to help? Barry has superspeed, Caitlin and Cisco are scientists, Joe is high up in the police force, they all have ways to add to the team, you're a blogger playing news reporter. And yes, she does actually end up helping in the end through the power of bullshit, she gives him a pep talk...yeah, really unique addition to the team there Iris.

People say that she's the Laurel of this show, but that is doing a disservice to Laurel. Laurel doesn't complain nearly half as much as Iris, and being the Black Canary and a Lawyer makes her useful, Iris has no skills to add, no entertaining personality. I'm not being mean to her for the sake of being mean, but please tell me one thing that she adds to the show that no one else can fill, just one thing! Even down to her relationship with Eddie is fucked up now, she practically says that she's only with Eddie now because he's kidnapped "I can't be with you, Barry! The man I love is kidnapped!" "What about after I save him?" "Yeah sure." God fucking dammit Iris! This is the problem with having your worst character be the focus of an episode, it really hurts the episode a lot, hard to believe this woman ends up giving birth to my favourite incarnation of The Flash.

How about Grodd? Well, the CGI was butt-ugly, but hey, it's a TV budget, i can accept that, so what about the actual character? I liked him. The Grodd I know has always been a super genius who quotes Shakespeare and comes up with clever plans, but I guess this Grodd isn't there yet, nevertheless he was still a legitimate threat to Barry and they planted the seeds of what will go on to be one of his greatest villains of all time, I look forward to seeing Grodd again once he becomes more than a telepathic Caeser.

Also just a quick note: they really overdid Cisco with the movie references this episode, yes, he watches a lot of movies, but he's not Abed, stop trying to make him Abed. Another quick note: It was nice seeing a new side of Joe who was terryfied for his life, it would have been better if this were pre-established, but nevertheless I enjoyed it.

Like I said, having an episode focusing on your worst character is already going to be a risk, but having her do nothing but be spiteful, self-entitled, arrogant and overall pathetic does not help. Grodd was cool and Joe had a nice role to play in it, but Iris really needs an attitude check. 5/10.

-Danny

Black Widow Controversy

Joss Whedon has left Twitter due to the backlash he received for his portrayal of Natasha Romanoff A.K.A. Black Widow in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Apparently people are not happy that the first lady of the Avengers plotline involved a romance between her and Bruce Banner, a revelation made in her backstory and that she is captured by Ultron and saved by Banner. From a quick glance, that sounds rather stereotypical, but what these people seem to be missing is a thing called context. So let's talk about that. *Spoilers Ahead*

Let's start off with the Natasha/Bruce romantic sub-plot; I personally wasn't a fan of this plotline, but not because of anything on Natasha's part, in fact, that was the part that made the most sense to me. She's always surrounded herself with fighters and Bruce is the most powerful weapon in their arsenal who is a pacifist, of course that would draw her attention, it's something that she's never experienced before and someone who connects to her more emotionally than physically. I just didn't like it because they gave no reason for Bruce to be in love with her except for the fact it's Scarlett Johannson. Then there is the reveal that she can't actually have children because they sterilized her in training and refers to herself as a monster. Now some people take offense to her referring to herself as a monster because she's sterile, fair enough but i think it's been misinterpreted. She's an assassin who can't have kids, she's can only take life from this world and not give it, that's why she sees herself as a monster. But there are even some people who think this actually makes her character one dimensional because she's in love with Banner and cries about not having a family...so let me get this straight: Learning more about a characters backstory and putting them in a situation that they've never been in emotionally before and having a usually calm character get so invested in something that they actually cry about it...takes away from a character's development?

Finally the whole Natasha getting captured and held prisoner part of the film, again, context means a lot here, so why was Natasha captured in the first place? Because she was busy making sure the mission was a success, if she didn't put herself out into the firing line then the Avengers would have failed and her capture is the result of her own heroic actions. And yes then she get's captured even though that doesn't make sense, why doesn't Ultron just kill her? But regardless, once she's broken out by Banner, what does she do after that? Kick the crap out of like 200 of Ultron's minions, you know, because she's a badass.

But all of this is subjective reasoning to a subjective argument, if you disagreed with how Black Widow was characterised in this film, perfectly understandable. What isn't and what is completely unacceptable is all of the hate and insult that Joss has been recieving because of this CLICK HERE.

This isn't people expressing their dislike of the character's subplot, this is bullying, and even worse, this is people behaving like children, calling him names, threatening him and demanding things been done your way. If this is how you fight for change, then you don't deserve change because you are a horrible human being. Let's say Joss Whedon was sexist, racist, transphobic or any of the things people called him in these tweets (Which he's not) responding immaturely and resulting to name calling doesn't make you any better than him, this is kind of the key element that most humanitarians have been trying to teach for decades now, don't stoop to their level because it doesn't make you right, it makes you just as bad.

But no, Joss is not any of those things, i don't see how people can call him a sexist when he created one of the most empowering women on television Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and it's not just that one character, Willow, Faith, Anya, Zoe, River, Inara, he's written quite a few strong female characters in his time. And as for the transphobic remark, it's because he made a joke in an interview...someone needs to buy these people a dictionary and look up the word 'Joke'. And I have no idea where this racist thing came from, I guess when people like to exaggerate, they really like to exaggerate.

My point is, if you didn't like Black Widow's character, that's fine, although if you really think this film was entirely in his control then you don't know the first thing about filmmaking and no matter what, responding with this much hate and immature behaviour does not make you an activist or a SJW, it makes you a bully.

-Danny

Suicide Squad, First Cast Photo Released

Suicide Squad is easily the most intriguing film for DC to make a movie about, mostly because they've only just started their movie universe and the third film in the franchise is Suicide Squad, a film about criminals performing black ops style tasks for the government, a very risky product to do this early on, I mean Marvel waited until the end of phase 2 before they did their big risk, because of that, it shows DC has a lot of faith in the project and even though I'm more excited for Batman V Superman (Because duh) this is the one i'm most interested in just after that. And now, David Ayer, the director has posted the first official imagine of the Suicide Squad line-up, and here's who we've got (From left to right) Adam Beach as Slipknot, Jai Courtney as Captain Boomerang, Karen Fukuhara as Katana, Cara Delevinge as Enchantress, Joel Kinneman as Rick Flagg, Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, Will Smith as Deadshot, Adewale Akinnuoye Agbaje as Killer Croc and...I'll be honest I have no idea who the guy on the end is.

Now I think it's fair to point out that there are plenty of actors and characters that look ridiculous in the initial photo releases, but actually look a lot better in motion (Quicksilver anyone?), and I think this is one of those cases, because a lot of these guys look ridiculous. Someone on twitter said it best, they don't look like the Suicide Squad, they look like a cosplay of the Suicide Squad, the worst ones being Katana and Killer Croc. Katana looks like her mask is made of cardboard and Killer Croc just looks...bad. And what the hell is with Captain Boomerang's (Still ridiculous character) oversized coat? Jai Courtney looks like he didn't even realise they were taking the photo! And Harley Quinn looks so...minimal, which is depressing because this was their chance to go really fun on with a character who has so many opportunities! But I will say, something perfect with Harley Quinn here is that smile, as soon as i saw that, I thought "Harley Quinn". And Will Smith looks like his hair was photoshopped out and Slipknot is...well he's Slipknot, he's a dumb character to begin with, they did the best they could. Now that's not to say they all look bad, Enchantress i think looks fucking awesome there and Joel Kinneman looks...great!? Who would have thought the 3rd most generic actor ended up looking pretty cool in this picture. And guy on the end looks cool...except for the stupid jacket, but they can get rid of that.

And something else this picture does well is they are all actually in the same room! You'd be surprised how many photoshoots, posters and press released images are the characters separate and then photoshopped in together later, here, they are all clearly in the same room when they took this photo, and that just adds so much to camaraderie of the group, because The Suicide Squad is basically a group of people who don't trust each other, but are forced too.

Nevertheless, while this first image has less than impressed me, I am still very much looking forward to seeing this film and I believe that the characters will look much better in the actual film, not that any of this matters because every comic book fan is opinionated and everything has to be either the greatest thing ever or is instantly the worst thing ever.

-Danny

Referencing Is The Devil

Doing assignments for university is already kind of a bummer because...well, work. But for the most part I think i'm pretty good at it, i think this because well...my lecturers tell me the ideas and detail that i discuss for my assignments are pretty good. But what holds back my grades are two major things, one is that i'm too informal in my assignments, which i totally get, it's just that that's how i want to write, it's how i like to write so sometimes I will write like that without even realising, even when double-checking i somehow miss a bunch of phrases and words that are informal, understandable, but what I hate above everything else is referencing. Back at 6th form college, using proper terminology and theories was enough, but now at university you have to give the specific text book and author and page and as much detail in your resources as humanly possible. The problem is, I really don't do a whole ton of research before writing up some of these assignments, I will use my own notes, but I don't think that counts as referencing. Here's an example, i wrote up a 2,500 word essay discussing the film Bambi (Even I was amazed at how much i could think up to talk about) and within this essay i only have two resources to reference, the film Bambi and Kristin Thompson's four act structure as discussed in Film Art: An Introduction. Now the fact that that's my only real reference probably doesn't look too good on me, but thing is, why should it matter if I reference it!? Surely the important part is me knowing what the four act structure is and how it applies to what i'm talking about, i don't think which specific text book i got it from should matter!

My theory on Bambi and how it does or does not apply the four act structure should be what you judge my work on, besides you're the lecturer, you know who came up with that structure, you know what it is. If anything shouldn't it be better to not have references? I thought university was about independent learning (which also doesn't make sense seeing as i'm paying for it) so why am i being judged on citing other people's work rather than my own ideas or interpretations of these films?

I mean before it didn't bother me that much because this was at most 15% of my grade assignment, but the course that i'm writing up this Bambi essay for gave me a 39% on my previous assignment (which is a fail). Despite the fact that they made the same complaints that my lecturers talked about in my other assignments except i still got between 60-70% on those. Now you may be saying I should be aiming hire than those type of grades, and i am, except i don't understand why i'm being judged by how much of my work i'm basing off of other people's work, they spent the first 18 years of my education to not copy other people!

-Danny

The Visit - Trailer Review

There are a few things i should point out before reviewing this trailer. One: I believe M Night Shyamalan has not made a good movie since Unbreakable, everything after that just got progressively worse. Two: I only watched half the trailer. Why would I only watch half the trailer? Because I didn't need to see any more to be convinced i should give this film a chance.

M Night has made some of the worst films in existence with The Happening and The Last Airbender, even his good films I don't love yet I am still always cautiously optimistic because I still have faith that he can do a good film again at some point, and this seems like it might be it. The Visit is a low budget horror/found footage film about two children who visit their grandparents where they have just three rules 1. Have a great time 2. Eat as much as you want and 3. Don't ever leave your room after 9:30pm. From what I saw with the trailer, it's because grandma does some shit after 9:30pm, whether she's possessed or a monster or what, i don't know, but something clearly isn't right.

Even with only one minute of the trailer, i have so much to say about this film, first of all i'll talk about what makes me interested. When I hear "low budget found footage horror film" I groan, but thing is, M Night started his career doing low budget horror films, he's going back to his roots, his ego is deflated and going low budget means there has to be more focus on the characters rather than the spectacle and visuals. Then there is the idea of it being found footage, with anyone else I would despise this, and to an extent i still do, but thing is, M Night has some of the most obnoxious and pretentious cinematography i've ever seen, so here he is, trying something new, limiting his abilities and forcing him to be creative and put thought into every shot rather than just do something artsy and hope it means something. Also the fact that his film is set around real people in a real environment means that he can't use any of his pretentious dialogue tropes such as an avid hatred of conjoined words. Also the acting doesn't come across as wooden in what I saw, it seemed more natural than most of the characters in his films. But really the film sells me with the tagline alone, those three rules, that makes me curious, that makes me want to know what happens after 9:30pm.

However, I do have one issue with this plot, nothing major, but did this trailer remind anyone else of Goosebumps? Specifically How to Kill A Monster, because that is exactly what I got. Two kids visiting their grandparents in the middle of nowhere when supernatural stuff happens, because that's all I could think of.

Apart from that, I have to say I'm curious on seeing this film, I wouldn't say excited because it doesn't look like anything amazing and M Night hasn't made a good film in 15 years, but it doesn't look awful and he's trying something new. At this point, M Night doesn't have to make a great film, just good, that's all he needs, even just an okay movie would be enough for people to scream to the mountain tops going "IT DIDN'T SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!!".

-Danny

Silent Hills Is Cancelled...

I don't i've been more excited for a survival horror game in my life. Silent Hills was to be produced by Guillermo Del Toro, Hideo Kojima and star Norman Reedus, basically put, the coolest guys in movies, videogames and television were teaming up. The playable demo P.T. was a genius form of marketing and a very good game in it's own right that this looked like it could be one of my most anticipated games ever...and now the project has been cancelled. For a while now there have been conflicting reports of Kojima leaving Konami (The developers), all of his branding was removed from their website yet they stated that he hadn't left while others say he did, it was all confusing and left a lot of people wondering what this meant for the fate of Silent Hills. Well Guillermo and Norman came out and said that the project has officially been cancelled and that absolutely sucks.

As of right now it is still unknown why the project is cancelled, many believe it is because of Kojima leaving Konami, but even that story is still sketchy on the details. Fact is, when this game was first announced, everyone said it was too good to be true, turns out that it was. There really isn't that much to say because very little is known right now, but what could have been one of the greatest videogames of all time has been cancelled and we may never know why. As a gamer who loves games that are intelligent and innovative, as well as seeing how strong of a crew this game had for a franchise that has lost its way, it breaks my heart to see this project never see the light of day.

-Danny