One thing I hate about the recent batman movies

I don't really have much rights, so-to-speak, to talk about batman or superman. DC superheroes were never really my thing. I've watched some cartoons and enjoyed the few I watched, but it never pushed me further. I did however, watch all the batman movies. Partially because batman is like the big boy's man toy type of a thing where grown men can feel mature enough at the same time as replay their child-like heroism play in their mind. So my boy friend (and my ex for the older ones) basically dragged me into all the batman movies. And mind you I loved the reaally old batman movies as well.

So here's the batman I liked. Not the old-old 1960s ones haha, I'm not that young, but the 1990s ones with Michael Keaton! The movies were so well made. I know it sounds cheesy (because in reality they weren't well made) but they were well made for a very specific audience and that's why it worked so well. They were made for children (not toddlers), but children. It was glorious. It wasn't too violent to frighten our young minds that were still innocent enough to be scared by the odd darkness and actual realistic death with blood depicted in movies, but it was vibrant enough to show a 'scary' monster! Think of penguin, one of batman's main enemy. He had a ridiculous feature. Big, round body, pointy, crooked nose, dark, narrow scheming eyes with his totally mental pajama outfit. He even had green blood for god sakes!! It was a children's nightmare, but an adults laugh. So obviously, as a child, I found the movie absolutely entertaining and lovable. "Batman saves the day!" was the focus and there wasn't anything deeply serious. Joker was equally eccentric. He played a crazed man very well that scared our little minds. Oh and don't forget the over-the-top, cool new kid, Robin and the hilarious backstory Catwoman. Just to reinforce, I liked the old batman series. I grew up with it and as a child, it really was memorable and enjoyable.

Now we get to the... hmm... not new, since a 'newer' batman came out, but 2000 batman so to say. let's call it the Christian Bale Era (I'll just say Christian). Now, old people are bad at judging new ideas and concepts coated on an old character. Just look at my reviews for spiderman. I didn't like the new spiderman for silly reasons like his outfit. Dealing with nostalgia is always going to be hard because old people always hold on to a feeling rather than the actual content so even when the remake is good, which seems to be rarely the case (now even young people seem to think this way which is interesting), most people who grew up with the older version will criticize the new one for not being like the original. I built this little rant up to this point to point out one thing. I actually liked the Christian batman, because again, it did the same thing as the old batman which is target a very specific audience. This time, it was for adults. It did a perfect job of getting the attention of those millennial (hahah I hate saying that word, but it is true) that were children when they saw Keaton's batman who grew up now to be adults. This new batman had adult problems and actually delved more into the psychology of batman like an adult. It was the end of silly enemies. Joker, even grew up (metaphorically). Who knew!!! That a silly, insane clown, can actually be portrayed as batman's equal! Where batman was order, joker was chaos! No wonder why Heath Ledger who basically came up with this persona is praised as the best joker. This joker wasn't just insane like the old joker, he demonstrated how he can actually manipulate batman on a psychological level. Just to be clear, I'm going to be hated for this, but I put both Heath Ledger and Jack Nicholson both on the same level. For me, it felt like they were just for different audience and just portrayed the character in a different light. But enough about joker. As I was saying, this Christian batman faced... a tad more serious trials. He had mental breakdowns and ranted in a party, 'the dark knight' even starts the movie off with batman having trouble with people imitating him and fighting crime, putting themselves in danger, all because batman became a symbol. His mental struggle seems real and relatable when he cannot save both Dent and Rachael, resulting in Dent becoming the Two-Face. Conflicts were played very well, there was grief, corruption, jealousy and most importantly, internal turmoils which made the batman movies more mature and enjoyable as an adult. 

Now... comes the new batman movie... oh.... Ben Afflick... Now.. you know how I was going on and on about what audience the past two movies were for and how that made the movie successful?? Well... This is the main thing I wanted to point about the new batman and superman series. The confusion whether it's going to for adults or children. At a glimpse, the new batman seems like it'll be for adults, just like the Christian Bale one. Batman is brooding, setting is dark and enemies are... ok well badly designed enemies are one of the parts it really falls short. Lex Luthor is a joke, and not the good one. I feel like the director saw batman dark knight and thought, "oh yes. I really liked joker. I'm going to make Lex Luthor another joker", not realizing that they're 2 completely different villains with different motives. This Lex Luthor mindlessly jokes around and tries to kill superman with his terrible and childish plans. Then he starts making quotes like his some smart philosopher. It was just cringy to watch. You know how you get those teens who think their so cool and smart that they just say the darnedest things, making you slap your face in embarrassment for them? Well that's what he was like. The worst part was that he seemed to be totally unaware of how embarrassing his character is and continues to prance around the whole movie. So he's definitely not a villain like the old batman. He doesn't have depth, although he tries to be, and he lacks mature motive. The final enemy, the giant monster at the end was just a joke. An absolute waste of time. Now if this movie was designed to be a children's movie, this monster would make sense. The monster's design would've been something more for children and the fight would've been choreographed more to be somewhat interesting. But no... it was... not... They forced in a random character, wonder woman, to foreshadow the next up coming movie which was a terrible move because fighting the monster should've been built up to be a moment of reconcile and understanding like the good ol' batman and robin, but to be overshadowed by another superhero who just had a successful movie of her own?? I'm not even going to go on about the Martha scene because everyone know's it was the worst scene in the whole movie, but I will say one thing. Martha scene made it clear that the director misunderstood the true power of batman. Batman is not strong because he's physically strong or because he's rich with gadgets (well the gadget's help haha). Growing up watching justice league, we all know that. He knows that. In fact, he is painfully aware that a few kryptonite cannot stop superman, which was the initial reason why he decided to take on superman. Batman is badass, because he is the smartest guy in the whole justice league. He is aware of his strength and flaws AND the strength and flaws of his enemies. For this previous 'badass' character to fall so short like this, battling an enemy with pure strength and not his knowledge and wit, was disheartening to watch in the least. The batman we knew of would've done his research and rather than just battling head on with this demi-god, he would've had plans set. He would've done his research and it's actually not hard to find superman's identity, his personality, relationships, where he lives and what he does. Batman just freaking out like a teenage girl who found out she just stepped on her neighbours dog just made this batman really weak and almost pathetic compared to the other batman. Oh and speaking of not knowing characters... he really down played superman as well. That's actually not hard to understand why. Superman is a hard character to pull off. As you may all know, superman that we know of came out near the end of WW2. When things looked bleak and many adult and children alike did not feel safe in their own homes. Then an author came with this amazing comic book to put hope into the hearts of young minds. A superhero with incredible powers. He had a normal childhood and a normal adult setting where he works at a normal job. But when disaster strikes, he's the first one there to save the day! Most of the first couple of cartoons I've watched focused on just that. Him saving the day, over and over again with his incredible power. This gets old very quickly in the modern age where we're not constantly living in fear anymore. So for a superman movie to be successful, it requires a couple of things. A damn good storyline, great motives, a damn good villain and a damn good win. Like a soccer playing making the last minute goal that changed the winning team, an epic win that makes a kids heart pound, see and understand that he's a symbol of hope and a savior of humanity. Well there was none of that. So when something bad happened to superman (no spoilers) no one... felt any loss... Most of us were like "oh he's in trouble? Yeah na, we had wonderwoman barging in to promote the next movie, he'll be fine." or "I didn't even know people liked him that much." You know what, I'm gonna spoil it. Most people have watched the movie anyway. Kind of wish batman died instead. Because we know batman is mortal, it really would've had more impact. Of course, that's not possible because he's like the base of the justice league franchise, but you know... I can dream.

Aquaman movie review

With all the failures that the DC universe has had lately with their crappy director directing crappy Marvel-wannabe rip off movies like Batman vs Superman and Justice League, it was good to see a lighthearted and actually good DC movie for once.

Aquaman is a great movie. Aquaman (and probably Wonder Woman) is one of those DC superheroes that can pull off a Marvel like concept because the character itself is meant to be a bit more lighthearted. It doesn't deal with identity issues and PTSD or the concept of psychology like Batman does. Christian Bale Batman really pulled this off well versing Joker and Bane. The recent movies didn't really shine well on Superman either and poorly depicted his super...ness (?? haha) and equally poorly depicted his struggles. But Aquaman was built to be a character with little inner conflict and that's what makes him suitable to be a Marvel-like superhero, where he just goes on an adventure, fights some evil guys, have a bit of slapstick jokes flying about and just over power his enemies with little challenge.
I mean if you want to point out the conflicts, well here they are. Major conflicts that he had was that he was a half-breed, a fact he ignored most of the time by just ignoring the Atlanteans (... is that what you call it?), he felt a bit guilty being the cause of his mother's death, another fact he mostly ignored and the very, VERY small regret that he didn't save a pirate causing his son to be revenge-ridden. Most of those conflicts were either resolved or ignored mostly throughout the movie.
In any case, so Aquaman went on a journey, did some cool superhero stuff, got a girl in the end. Happy ending.

I'm just going to point out the two small things I didn't like about the movie and it's very minor.
*Warning spoiler alert*
After Aquaman got the trident, he went into... battle... with the Atlanteans... before the movie, it seemed obvious that most of the water tribes didn't actually want to go to battle with humans. Xebel (the kingdom with the redhead) had a king that stated that he was basically going with the flow, Fishermen (people that look like a giant version of sea monkeys) had their king actually killed because he didn't want to join, Kingdom of Trench (the crab people) actually raged war because they didn't want to side and lastly/mainly the Atlantis people were mainly following their ruler, Orm.
The thing is, Aquaman could've came into the battle between crab people and everyone else by... oh I don't know... doing a big shout and showing off his new trident? If people can't hear him, maybe get the giant talking kraken to say it for him? or just simple demobilize them by using their marine creatures... I don't know, there could've been hundreds of creative ways to just stop the fight. But nooooo the director HAD to showoff how powerful and cool Aquaman was. He went in there and started, basically what I saw was a massacre. They never showed the full violence, since the movie was intended for children as well, but I saw sharks about to bite someone, kraken stepping on crab people and smashing ships with tentacles... I mean... If no one died in there, it would've been a miracle... He's the king for godsakes. Good kings don't make sacrifices of his own people just for a cool comeback. The war was unnecessary in the first place and as a king, he should've stopped it as soon as possible. And you know what else?? After Mera said "there's too much casualty. We have to stop the war" or something like that... THEY KISS!??!? WHILST PEOPLE ARE DYING IN THE BACKGROUND!!!! jesus... Like yeah, they should've kissed at some stage in the movie, but really guys?? This is the right time??? People are dying ffs! And what did she mean by 'casualty'??? Casualty is when innocents are hurt as a byproduct of war. Everyone was in the war first of all, but more importantly, people were dying because Aquaman, you weren't stopping the war, you were making it worse by sending out a bunch of sea creatures to massacre a bunch of random Atlanteans!!! grr... Anyway, that was the main thing I didn't like about the movie.

The next annoyance was that... Atlanteans spoke English. I know... I know... it's a fantasy story and how can we have a bunch of people not being able to communicate with each other... but still... Atlantis... is a part of Greek mythology. They went underwater thousands and thousands of years ago. If not Greek or Latin, they'd have some new broken old English... Like you know how with new technology and media, language changes? Most people will have trouble reading at least a few lines of Shakespeare, not only because the culture was completely different, but mainly because English has changed so much throughout the centuries. Grammar, the way people talk, words they use and the way they use it were all different. Even if Aquaman learnt Greek and Latin from early childhood, they will be totally different from the Atlantean version of it. Not to mention how his mom, queen Atlanna, came straight out of the water and started speaking English.

There was one other thing and this is also minor, because I know this is a universe that has no laws of the universe we live in and it's a fantasy story that doesn't follow science. There was a very poor explanation of how Atlanteans began breathing under water. Get a bunch of rabbits. Like millions if you want. Now put all those rabbits in the bottom of the ocean. Do you know how many of them will magically survive, start breathing under water and start being able to swim very well? NONE. THEY'LL ALL DIE. It's just not how evolution works!! Evolution works with 2 big factors in play, having children WITH mutation. Just because I throw myself into a pit of lava, it doesn't mean I'm randomly going to grow super skin and be able to breathe super hot air. If people living in Atlantis already had some mutations of being able to breathe under water, well those people would survive, reproduce with more children being able to breathe under water. I just didn't like the premise that, "oh the city sank... and people began breathing under water! Tada!!"

Actually, I'm going to rant about just one more thing. Pollution. I liked how the movie started by pointing out human faults. How we were trashing the ocean, over fishing and catching endangered species. I even liked how the rubbish were sent back to the beach. But you know what I didn't like? Aquaman... didn't really care... I mean... he might have?? But he doesn't do anything about it... He just mostly goes around saving fisherman or innocent marines in submarines that got hijacked. All he says is "don't judge a book by it's cover" or something like that and shows Mera how beautiful one city is and proceeds to continue not caring. Pollution is a big deal. Most fish that we eat are now known to carry some form of micro plastic. Coral reef are dying and fish are getting smaller due to size constraint and over fishing. You... You're not gonna do anything about it??

sigh... in any case. I'm done ranting. It's a lighthearted fiction that, as usual, I take too far anyway. It was a good movie and I did like it. I probably will see it again in the future.

SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE review

As usual, the movie was alright. I liked it. It was easy to watch, heart warming at times and had lots of fun adventures. This is going to be the most petty 'review' ever. I'm only going to review one thing as well, which makes this not really a 'review' of the movie either. Just of the wardrobe.

The biggest thing I didn't like was the outfit.
.... I know... That's why I said it was petty. Ok so Gwen wearing a white outfit was already bad enough, but really, in most Spiderman universe, comic, movie or whatever it is, she's not a main character. She'll be like a main character for like a few cartoon/comic series and that's about it. Same thing with the Japanese spider'girl', Penny Parker (which... doesn't even have any remotely Japanese name) who rides a mechanical spider robot with some red and blue features. They're not going to be the new face of spiderman. Buf Mile Morales is. That's where the problem in his outfit lies.
I get that the new gen spiderman had to be a black cool kid who does cool things like vandalizing with his uncle, goes to a preppy school but is so cool and weird that he doesn't fit in and he can't relate to his uncool parents who has normal jobs like being a police and a doctor or what not and spiderman has to hate his life in general to be relatable. I get that. The new spiderman comic or movie has to gain new audience; young, cool and some teen that identify with the whole, 'not fitting in' (not realizing every single one of their generation says the same thing) audience at that. He even has new cool, awesome superpowers, like becoming invisible and being able to use venom. I told myself, "Well, this is the new spiderman". But I still couldn't get over this one fact.

Gwen's a girl. She gets a white and red (mixed to be pink I guess) spider suit. Miles's a black. He gets a black spider suit. Are you kidding me?? I didn't know I was watching Spider-rangers?? Oh I wonder why Penny Parker, the asian spiderman wasn't wearing a bright yellow suit??? Is it cause you have a poorly explained mechatronic spider thing?? Red and blue is an icon. If I wanted black suits, I would've watched black panther. But not only is this kid nothing like the previous spiderman who represented a lot of geeks and struggling early 20s in a different light, he didn't even care about the previous spiderman's life. If I really wanted some cool, uncaring, non-geek or nerd individual, I really just would've watched deadpool or one of those poorly made DC movies these day.











Sigh... In any case, as I've stated, the movie itself is alright. I just didn't like some very few facts.

Deer plush fail

Sigh... I am not good at sewing.
So I got a bunch of random fabric in the end of the year throw away at my work. Some people were throwing away fabric and it looked good so I thought 'why not' and went dumpster diving. Now I have more fabric than I know what to do. They're probably too small to sell, but enough to make things like pillows cases (which I've made 2 of).
I also wanted some christmas stuff to put on the tree. So I looked up a pattern for deer... and well... here's the creation.

It's very poorly built with seems actually showing quite vividly and I haven't made enough seem allowance in some places.
Oh well. That's one plush down the drain. I got the pattern from Nuno dolls and I guess it's no wonder why I failed since the plush was for a felt fabric which I have done in the past with better results... but I was hoping it'll still be something... alright? Now, it's just a pug deer.

Annihilation movie review

By the way this has spoilers.

I liked Annihilation.
It was a good movie. Good plot development with diverse characters that are intriguing, interesting and likable in their own way. The graphics were great and the ideas behind the movie was great as well.
Quick synopsis is that a biologist/ex-soldier travels to an unknown, alien 'shimmer' zone to find out what it's all about, to find a cure for her husband. Her husband is a soldier who traveled into the shimmer before her as a consequence of... something I can't say because it'll be a spoiler.

I just quickly wanted to write this review because, as usual, I just couldn't shake off the small annoyance I had of the movie in the back of my mind.

Annoyance 1: I hated how they just didn't get out after getting a good sample of the materials in there or the idea of what was happening in there. This part just leaves a whole tonne of questions of what the former troopers did when they went into the shimmer. Maybe in the book they've explained it further, maybe in the arc, they've done everything I would've thought of, but didn't portray it in the movie, because it'll make the movie too long. But really, if there's an entity that engorged everything that entered it, then one of the things I'd do, (or any sensible scientist) is to send someone in just to get out immediately, just to give a sense of what it's like. The only basis that we have, of a reason why they can't escape, is that as soon as they enter (or not? since we're not told when they lose their memory??) they lose their memory and end up in a semi-random location. But this seems weird, because they seem to have a sense of direction towards the lighthouse and a sense of where they are looking at the sun or even the base that was abandoned... so my question is, what happens when they try to go back? If other groups have tried and not succeeded, that's fine, but can we at least have some hints that they've done it because without that, it just seems like either bad exploration practice, or a tremendously bad decision from everyone who've entered this place.

Annoyance 2: bad team choice. I mean, the main leader was someone who hand picked the previous teams, apparently being very cautious through psychological screening and testing... but let's look at the current group. No one, (except Lena who only volunteered AFTER the current team was built) had combat experience. It's like no one cared about the guesses on why the previous teams failed. They theorized that the team got attacked or the team went crazy and killed each other. Well ok, if that's the case, then have you tried just sending one person in? If you have to send them in as a team, then... like the groups before, shouldn't you send in people who can handle stress and pressure? Josie is already shown to cut herself for unknown reason, Anya is a paramedic who seems to be hot tempered, and clueless about the expedition from the beginning. The notion that the only groups sent in before were armed forces is also questionable. No scientist before this expedition? Are you kidding me?? What were the actual missions of the previous armed forces? "Get in there. Go randomly to the lighthouse. Collect what you think is 'data' and maybe come back out"?? I'm pretty sure they had scientists in there, but I don't know... The whole explanation was poor. In any case, the current team's failure was a bit imminent, just because of the composition.

Annoyance 3: She had a grenade. She didn't use it wisely. When she did, the doppelganger who was previously mimicking all her moves... decided not to follow that one move of her running away frantically. Also this weird alien species who seemed to be immune to gun shots and is incredibly strange to the extent that it has no conceivable form except some weird shape shifting Mendelbulb or whatever it is, is... weak against fire?? wow... just wow... I mean, everything indestructible needs a Achilles heel right? Like superman with kryptonite... but my annoyance is that why did no one find out about it until now?? So what did the previous expedition guys do?? Go to the light house, poke it with a stick and run?? I mean, you seriously can't tell me that this expedition people were the first ones to actually stay sane until they got to the lighthouse. sigh... in any case.

I don't know. Overall, as I said, the movie is good. Just... had some annoying moments. I'm guessing the book was better?