In the name of culture :) I have a post at my blog about a movie I've rented, Logan. It's the latest in the X-Men series (I've been a Marvel comics fan since I was a kid) and it is the last X-Men film for Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart, who've played their characters of Logan/Wolverine and Charles/Professor X for 17 years. The movie, rated R for violence, has gathered great reviews ... Wired: Logan Review: This Is How Wolverine Was Supposed to End ... The Verge: Logan review: not just the bloodiest X-Men movie, but also the saddest ... Forbes: Review: 'Logan' Could Be First Superhero Movie To Get Best Picture Nomination ... Wall Street Journal: ‘Logan’ Review: Violence and Drama That Cut Deep It may only be of interest to those who are fans of science fiction or fans of the series, but what makes it worth a watch is deeper than format or genre ... relationships, those between Logan and Charles and the little girl they decide to save, though ultimately it costs them both their lives. There's no overt mention of religion in the film but ethical questions abound, especially "what do we owe to others"? Here's a trailer ...Trail blazing reviews for #Logan pic.twitter.com/tFttRT5qwO
— Richard E. Grant (@RichardEGrant) March 2, 2017
Sunday, June 25, 2017
Logan
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I'm sure my sons will have to see it, they were Marvel all the way. And they're getting my o!dest granddaughter into Marvel stuff too.
ReplyDeleteIt was funny, yesterday the girls were doing a puppet show with the little puppet theater Emma got for her birthday. I suggested she might enjoy seeing the original Sound of Music. I was remembering the goatherd puppet show in it. My son, the girls' dad, said, "I don't know if that's too intense for her, Mom. You know, Nazis and stuff." This is the girl who has been binge-watching Star Wars series, and who loved Wonder Woman. I'm thinking those were a little intense too.
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ReplyDeleteYeah, I think we forget how violent some of the stuff we were exposed to as kids was, even the cartoons. I'm looking forward to seeing Wonder Woman. I wasn't a fan of DC comics as a kid but the movie sounds very good ... and it has Nazis :)
ReplyDeletewhen I went from grade schopl to high school, I threw out my comic books (Superman, Batman, Strange Tales, etc.) I thought I was too grown up for comic books. If I still had them, I probably could have made a few thousand from their sale.
ReplyDeleteIf they were mint condition; but what would be the point of that? You got to enjoy them at the time. One of our childhood friends had a footlocker full of DC comics. My brother and I would spend hours over there reading them.
DeleteI had saved most of the Conan comics that were out when I was in college and sold them later for a couple of hundred dollars. I really liked the artist who did most of the stories - Barry Windsor-Smith
ReplyDeleteI was not allowed to have comic books when I was a kid. The reason was that my mother was a big reader, and she thought all of us kids should read real books. I doubt that comic books (which I devoured at other people's houses) would have distracted me significantly from more serious reading. I have thoroughly enjoyed all of the Marvel television adaptations I have watched—Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, etc. There has been one major exception. I hated Deadpool more than just about any movie I have ever seen. I don't even know why I watched past the first ten minutes or so.
ReplyDeleteI especially like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Haven't seen Deadpool but I'm no great fan of Ryan Reynolds.
DeleteI had comic books when I was in grade school, too. I can't remember much about them, except where they were stored. And they were in mint condition, I am sure.
ReplyDeleteI gave up all that childhood fantasy stuff when I went to high school; there I became interested in the serious things of life, science and math. I had a high school English teacher who said his favorite pastime was listening to classical music, reading Shakespeare while drinking a glass of WARM milk. I hate milk unless it is very, very, very cold. It took me to college to get over my prejudice against literature and classical music.
My mother did away with the comic books and most everything to do with my childhood after I went to Jesuit novitiate. She took over my room, and completely remodeled it for herself. She couldn't stand to go in there after I was gone; it was if I had died.
But it all turned out well. They remodeled the two rooms upstairs as my apartment when the Jesuits didn't work out.
Heh - I had a Jesuit spiritual director who said the way he spent time with Jesus was for them both to lie around reading comic books :)
DeleteThere are a lot of pop culture scholars out there who would argue that comic books are also serious things in life. I spent a year researching pre-1962 pulp domestic thrillers written by women. Some very elegant stylists in that lot, Patricia Highsmith and Vera Caspary to name two! Warm milk and classical music. Sounds like a Waldo Lydecker to me.
DeleteWe were allowed to read MAD when it was 30 cents (cheap!). The neighbors had an array of super hero and Archie's that we got bored with pretty quickly. We did like Tales from the Crypt!
ReplyDeleteI remember Archie and Veronica and MAD too. I think comics are part of the reason I became interested in art.
DeleteWe were pretty permissive about what we allowed our sons to read and watch. We found out later some of their friends weren't supposed to watch tv at our place: I guess we were those "bad" parents!
ReplyDeleteMy mom was an example of the bad parent. She would leave me and my sister every Saturday at the movies, no mater what was playing. I'm still traumatized by having watched all those 50s monster films :)
DeleteI guess they call them graphic novels now and 30+yo's are not to old to love them. But, old me doesn't get it.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's the artwork that makes them popular. I was an art major in college so I paid attention to stuff like that. Now I'd rather read a book or watch a movie.
ReplyDeleteMy younger son was a graphic design major. He likes to do the graphic novel and comic book type of art, manga and anime, that kind of stuff.
DeleteStanley, I didn't get it either until I got the Rex Libris series. A wisecracking noir librarian with plot lines and characters drawn from mythology and classic literature with super powers who use them to collect book fines from around the universe. There are some great little musings about the importance of libraries and what poor funding they get.
DeleteAnd,of course, there's "Maus."
I also liked "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," mostly for the pictures.
Jean, If politicians want to communicate with millenials, they might try expressing themselves something like graphic novels. Journalist Greg Palast has published an exposition of Repub suppression of voters in cartoon form. Climatologist Michael Mann collaborated with a cartoonist in a book on denialism.
DeleteIt's interesting what my students get plugged into. In my lit class, we used to talk about archetypes and imagery. Boy, do they ever get that. We have a lot of fun with medieval art and literature, which they seem to understand--a medieval painting or mosaic is not all that different from a graphic novel. They also like allegory. I think this is why they have so much fun with Trump, who seems.to be an allegory for so many things, nine of them good.
DeleteThere's no doubt that the art has improved by an order of magnitude. The stories seem more complex and darker. But sometimes I think that darkness is mistaken for profundity and has become almost a cliché. I watched the graphic novel inspired "Walking Dead" for a while but have given it up as an exercise in psychological masochism.
ReplyDeleteI think Seasons 1-6 of The Walking Dead were great television, but I will agree they went too far in Season 7, and I could not bring myself to keep watching. To me, the series was always about people (a group of diverse and interesting characters) surviving and keeping hope alive under something very close to the worst possible circumstances. But in Season 7 they got too close. And they dwelt on brutality and humiliation to the extent that it came across as glorifying it. "Walkers" (zombies) in the show are about the least interesting characters possible (if they even can be considered characters at all). They are incredibly stupid and slow. Human beings are the most dangerous enemies of each other on the show.
ReplyDeleteDavid, agree completely. The walkers have become almost irrelevant. I think that show is played out.
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