Spider-Man Homecoming: Movie Review

First of all, before I begin this review, there is just something that I need to get off my chest regarding Marvel's decision to reboot the Spider-man saga just TWO years after the second Andrew Garfield Spider-man movie: STOP IT!

Look, I get it. The Amazing Spider-man 2 was a disaster. Probably because of the weird rap music in the background during some of the scenes with Electro. And maybe because Rhino, instead of teaming up with the Green Goblin and Electro, doesn't come in until the very end of the movie. So what? You couldn't have Andrew Garfield redeem himself in Civil War? You couldn't have Garfield and Downey Jr. shoot their witticism at each other in the scene where Stark recruits Parker? You couldn't have Andrew Garfield make a crack about Captain America's physique in the airport scene?

Come on guys.

So, yeah, my viewing of this movie was somewhat tainted by bitterness over Garfield getting the boot. That being said, this was a fun movie. Tom Holland is an adorable Spider-man. Lacking both Tobey Maguire's wimpiness and Garfield's emo-ness, Holland is both the nervous, outsider kid Peter Parker and the cocky, somewhat goofy crime-fighter Spider-man. Michael Keaton brings a mix of grim, witty charisma and caring loyalty to his villain character. Zendaya's Michelle is interesting and funny. The action is good and the dialogue is great. DEFINITELY better than Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.

That's the non-spoiler review. Here's the spoiler review, where I go into my beefs with the film.

Okay, so the Zendaya character turns out to be MJ. I haven't read any Marvel or DC comics, but I know enough about them to know that MJ's defining traits as a comic book character are her red hair and her warm personality. When you think MJ, you think a red-haired white girl who says "Hey, tiger" with a smile. Casting Zendaya as a sullen, semi-Goth MJ would be like casting a blonde guy to play a goofy Bruce Wayne. Some people may gush about how Zendaya playing MJ brings more diversity to the film, but changing character essentials so that a non-white actor can play that character is silly. I will admit that I do look forward to Zendaya's MJ being Spider-man's love interest, though.

Another one of my beefs with the film is its light tone, which is typical of Marvel movies today. One thing that I appreciated about the Spider-man films was that they brought a dark tone to cinematic universe that usually consists of movies trying to outdo each other in laughs and self-parody. This movie is an exception. There are intense moments, but no real TRAAAGIC ones. I'm not asking for The Dark Knight. Just maybe bring in more of Uncle Ben and what he meant to Peter and Aunt May. And how guilt-stricken Peter is about his role in Uncle Ben's death.

Guillotine by Yadi

I thought this was a pretty interesting song.

                                                                  
                                                                         GUILLOTINE

                                         Lay down your swords, lay down your pistols.
                                         Call off your dogs, show no resistance.
                                        
                                         You'll fall like a guillotine and kneel before the queen!
                                         You'll fall like a guillotine and I will rise!
                                          
                                         Raise up your walls, tighten your blindfolds.
                                         Paces at dawn, hide in a foxhole.
                                     
                                        You'll fall like a guillotine and kneel before the queen!
                                        You'll fall like a guillotine and I will rise!

                                        I don't need blue blood running through my veins, because
                                        Like a queen, like a queen, I can make you say you love me.
                                        I don't need blue blood running through my veins, because
                                        Like a queen, like a queen, I can make you love me.

                                        Lay down your swords, lay down your pistols.
                                        I'll hit your heart from any distance.

                                        You'll fall like a guillotine 
                                                                              (Don't try to deny me!) 
                                                                                                                  and kneel before the queen!
                                         You'll fall like a guillotine
                                                                               (Don't try to deny me!) 
                                                                                                                   and I will rise!

                                         I don't need blue blood running through my veins, because
                                         Like a queen, like a queen, I can make you say you love me.
                                         I don't need blue blood running through my veins, because
                                         Like a queen, like a queen, I can make you love me.

                                         Envy and I, darkness and light,
                                         Gods can have it all, so why can't I?
                                         Love and desire, life after life,
                                         The gods can keep it all if you'll be mine!

                                         And I will rise
                                                               (Don't try to deny me!),
                                                                                                    And I will rise.
                                        And I will rise
                                                              (Don't try to deny me!),
                                                                                                   And I will rise.
                                                                                                                          (rise)
                                                                                                                                   (rise)

                                      I don't need blue blood running through my veins, because
                                      Like a queen, like a queen, I can make you say you love me.
                                      I don't need blue blood running through my veins, because
                                      Like a queen, like a queen, I can make you love me.
                                        

The Red Tablet: The First Recobius & Zakton Mystery Ch. 1

                                                                 The Red Tablet:
                                                          The First Recobius & Zakton Mystery
                                                           by M. E. Shivers

                                                          Chapter One: Professor Quintus Ierrius Recobius
     

         (Click)...This is Madeline Zakton speaking, Madeline Zakton, insurance investigator for Cuts & Spades Insurance Co. Let the record show, by the way, that I did not invent the name for this company. I have been given the assignment to recount, on record, the events of a recent case...well, I guess you could call it "The Case of the Red Tablet", if you want to be theatrical, as well as the events leading up to the recruitment of...Quintus Ierrius Recobius...a Latin professor at...well, the only Latin professor at Springs High School in Springs, Maine. For the sake of common sense and avoiding eccentricity - (yes, eccentricity, Quint, don't look so shocked) - excuse me, I will use the name he is forced to use while signing documents - Professor Quint Jerry Recob. By the way, "Ierrius" is spelled with an "i" at the beginning, not a "y". I'll explain later.
        As I was saying, I have been given the assignment to basically explain how Professor Quint has come to be working for this company and how he has come to be my first and, for the record, my strangest partner, honestly. We've been assigned to fill in the events in shifts, so he's sitting next to me right now. If any...um...digressions are heard on this recording, just assume we're...trying to make certain events clear. Alright (now Quint, please behave; that means don't interrupt), here's the case of the red tablet.
                                                                           *****
      It was...well, compared to what was to happen in a few hours, it seems to me to have been a normal day at first. I mean, I'm an insurance investigator, so I dare say that my life's more exciting than that of most civilians. Normal women have to spend their days getting stuff they need: food for dinner, papers to file, a chance to run for the marathon race. Me? I spend my days looking for stuff that's missing...or most likely, stolen.In my case, historical artifacts - old stuff.
     Now let me set the record straight: in my career as an insurance investigator, while looking for historical artifacts I have more than once - dozens of times, actually - gotten into rather...sticky situations. Getting shot in the shoulder by an insane elderly patriarch and being almost decapitated by a butcher, to name a few examples. But, ooooh, how I would gladly have turned aside and dodged bullets, blocked a knife, or run from a bomb if I had known what was coming to me in Professor Recob!
    Anyway, as I was saying, it was pretty much a routine day for me. I was stuck with enough paperwork to fill a house. Most of it involved calculating damage costs from my last case, which got pretty high considering the case ended with a...well, I'll talk about that some other time. It was a little bit after lunch time when I heard a knock! knock! on my glass office door. "Enter," I mumbled.    
        
    
                                                                       

The Travels of Korran

   Once upon a time, in ancient China, there lived two siblings, brother and sister, dwelling in a small hut which was situated in a valley rimmed by outstretching forests. The brother was the younger of the two by six years and his name was Korran. His sister's name was Chai. They lived alone, for their woodsman father had been killed fighting for the most local samurai lord against the samurai lord's rivals when Korran was eight years old, and their mother soon followed their father to the grave from sickness. Their well-to-do, far off relatives refused to take them in, claiming that the orphans of a commoner, considering their ragged lifestyle, were not in much worse circumstances and should be able to take care of themselves. Thus, Korran and Chai lived alone, and saw very little of the outside world except for what could be seen on their weekly trips to a nearby village. 

   So the years passed as Korran and Chai went about their daily lives gathering wood and herbs, selling and buying goods at the village marketplace, and listening to the local gossip, without much adventure or danger. These circumstances affected the siblings in very different ways. For Chai longed to leave their home and go out into the unknown world, where she might have to escape from bandits or break the spell on an enchanted prince- or, in any case, at least do something that was more exciting that carrying a small basket of berries to the village. Korran grew to fear going into the woods, traveling down the road to market, or doing any sort of activity that drew him more than a mile from the hut. As a result, he became very attached to home and felt safest when inside the hut. Thus at night, while Chai stared out of a window next to her bed and desperately tried to imagine all the possible things, people, and places in the woods or even beyond, Korran lay in his bed covering his head with a blanket and desperately tried not to imagine all the possible things, people, and places beyond or even in the woods themselves.

    And so their lives continued, until Korran's eleventh birthday.On the afternoon of that day, Korran returned from the village with herbs and a few sweet cakes to eat for dinner: that was how he and Chai celebrated special events such as birthdays. As the hut came within his sight, he spotted a tall, black horse grazing outside it. The horse was beautiful with muscular legs, a graceful neck, and a long mane and tail. On the horse's back was strapped the most elegant saddle Korran had ever seen: the saddle was made of fresh, supple leather, but with pieces of ivory and polished black stone interwoven in it. Korran paused, puzzled. They never had visitors even from the village, much less from the nobility (for whoever was riding such a horse with such furnishings had to be of noble birth). He scurried to the door of the hut and opened it. "Hello?" he called, peeking in.
   In the hut, there was only one other room beside the bedrooms which served as kitchen, living room, and play-room. In the middle of this room, there was only one table. At this table sat Chai with a young man: the most handsome man Korran had ever seen. He had an elegant, fine-featured face, long, black hair,and sinewy, well-knit limbs; his clothes, though dusty from traveling, seemed dazzling on him.When he turned to look at Korran, there was a mischievous smile on his face and one of his eyebrows slanted down teasingly. But there was something wrong in his eyes...a sort of cold, calculating contempt. An ache of uneasiness started to grow in Korran's stomach.
   "Hello, Korran," snapped Chai, "finally got back from dawdling on the road, eh? Taizo, meet my child brother." Korran stared at Chai. She had never spoken to him like that before. And she was looking at him the same way she looked at strangers in the marketplace who interrupted while she was bargaining - like she wanted to drive them off with a stick.

R. I. P.: A Christmas Story of Peace and Goodwill Among Men

                                              R. I. P.: A Christmas Story of Peace and Good Will Among Men,

                                             Mary Beth Shivers,                                                                

                                             Creative Writing,

                                             November 30, 2012

  “Where is he? Dumb kid!” spat Corny. “I swear, Dirkall, them illegal immigrants sure take their time; I guess the holiday spirit gets to them around this time of year. Well, you make sure to cut the holiday spirit out with that butter knife of yours. When you gonna get a proper knife, huh? That old woman's thing ain't gonna be much use if somebody tries to rob us.” A fourth waterfall of saliva hit the floor.

Dirkall, a lean African-American man with long dread-locks that stuck to his head, lifted his eyes to the face of a burly white man with blonde hair clipped like grass and muscles the size of apples. “Don't bug me about “proper” knives, Corny,” his voice greased out, “since you lost mine, remember? Anyhow, old woman's thing or not, it does the job fine: it draws the little pig's blood out a-plenty when you dig it in enough. And if you ask me, you can do what you need to do well enough without “proper” weapons. Remember the purse we got from that man's wife a week ago? Had to do the wife in and we didn't even have a bat; turns out though, we didn't need one. Just needed her own book to put a dent in her skull. So there's no point in crying about “proper” weapons: guns, knives, whatever. We'll do fine without them. What we need to worry about is where Amigot has got to with our money.”

Corny glared at the entrance to their dark, grit-covered basement that had only a plastic curtain for a door. “The cops shouldn't have gotten him; nobody checks a red stocking. If he's gonna take this long, there better be a lot of money in it. We had to grab those watches from three stores! If there ain't, well, after you draw some pictures on his back, I'll break his nose to help him remember.” A second after he said this, the curtain lifted and in came the topic of their discussion: Amigot. A short, skinny Mexican twelve-year old boy. His real name neither Corny nor Dirkall had ever cared to find out. They simply called him by the conjunction of the two words that most often came to their mind when they looked at him: “amigo” and “maggot”. There he stood in the doorway, red stocking over his shoulder. The stocking bulged a little at the bottom, but it didn't look like a huge profit. “Bring it here!” Dirkall and Corny growled at the same time. Their eyes glued to the stocking as Amigot shuffled forward. They did not notice the whiteness that fought with the tan on his face. Nor the gleam that lurked beneath his brown irises. None of this did they notice.

Dirkall snatched the stocking and dug his hand into it. He frowned. His fingers weren't touching the smooth surfaces of dollars. No, they were deep in – with a motion so foreign to his placid, festering disposition, so unlike Dirkall, he tipped the stocking over and dumped its contents onto the table. Dust poured out; a fingertip-deep layer of sandy dust. And a scrap of paper. Corny turned the paper over. Both he and Dirkall leaned in. There were these words on the paper: “R. I. P. Tidings of comfort and joy to you both, amigos.”

Both men raised ashen faces towards each other. Then they turned to Amigot – but Amigot wasn't there. He wasn't in the basement at all. But someone else was there with them. A white man in a navy blue hoody stood in their doorway. His hands pointed a gun at them. The hood was drawn over his head, but by bending a little and peering under it, they were just able to recognize – the face of the man whose wife they had killed a week ago. There was death in his eyes.

The man took a step back. He aimed his gun at Corny. Before the flash that lit up the room, before the bang that roared through Dirkall's ears, before the red hole that appeared in Corny's chest, Dirkall caught a look in Corny's wide eyes. A look that said, “What was that you were saying about not needing “proper” weapons, again?” Three seconds later, there was another flash, another deafening bang, and a red hole in his chest too.

Movie Review: The Bourne Legacy

                                                                   Movie Review: The Bourne Legacy
    (As usual, there's spoiler alerts for those who haven't seen the movie yet.)

 How do you describe The Bourne Legacy? My mom called it a "good movie"; but what are the traits of a "good movie"?
 Well, first a movie has to have a likeable (and of course, good-looking) protagonist. Aaron Cross: a lethal assassin with Matt Damon's kick-butt moves and super-spy abilities; however, thankfully, instead of repeating Matt Damon's 98%-of-the-time brooding gravity, Jeremy Renner brings a sarcastic, smart-alec sense of humor to Aaron.
  Second, a movie has to have an engaging, substantial plot. (There will be more later.) Just like in the previous three movies, Aaron Cross has to spend most of the time in the film trying to avoid getting killed by hist former bosses: Operation Outcome, a group of secret government bad guys whose assassins, unlike those of the Bourne films, use pills to make them as good as they are. And of course, Aaron often has to kill guys sent by the government to kill him. Along the way, the audience learns a fact about Aaron Cross unusual in thriller heroes: he has below average intelligence; so apparently, he needs a pill in order to pull off the all the tense, cool, super-spy stunts (by the way, I didn't get this from watching the film, I had to look this up on wikipedia). Rather odd that the Treadstone assassins in the previous three films either didn't need or just didn't use pills. He also has to protect this beautiful female former medical examiner. Romance is in the air! I wouldn't give the plot a high score for originality, but there's danger, tension, a few moments that actually make you jump, and moderate exploration into character relationships; all in all, it keeps me awake.
  Third, there to have be magnetic characters in a movie. The primary characters are pretty good: Aaron Cross, a kick-butt assassin, who's likable because he's funny, and is also sympathetically vulnerable, as he has a conscience and is, in his normal state, dumb. Dr. Marta Shearing, a good-looking, scared, innocent bystander, like the other two females in the previous Bourne films, but unlike the other females most of the time, is actually useful. Eric Byer, the ruthless government boss who treats his operatives as expendable, but apparently, has the persuasive power to keep Aaron Cross in the operation, similar to how the Albert Finney character had a hold on Matt Damon. Then there's the main hitman antagonist to Aaron Cross: Larx 03, a silent Chinese assassin. These characters were fun and played well, but I think it's really the smaller characters that uphold the film: the mysterious Outcome 3, a fellow assassin to Aaron Cross, who was kicked out because (it is implied) "he fell in love", and sadly, gets killed off pretty early. And Dr. Donald Foite, who seems to be the nice nerd, but ends up slaughtering his co-workers in a psychotic episode; it's hinted he may have had a crush on Dr. Shearing. These characters, who don't stay in the story for very long, who are never explored very far, these are the ones that bring meat to the story.
  (To be continued). Then of course, an action movie has to have thrilling action! An exciting chase through the snow (which also involves a humorous incident with a wolf), a shootout in a mansion, running from the government throughout the film (of course), and finally, a rooftop-to-motorcycle chase to finish with. When it comes to the action, the film doesn't score many points for originality. The snow-chase was a first, but the shootout in the house - done in the first Bourne film; and rooftop-motorcycle chase - done in the third Bourne film. So this movie did its own thing in the first half, but it then pretty much cut-and-pasted the action sequences from the previous films. Still fun to watch, though.
   All in all, The Bourne Legacy is a good movie: good enough to be a box office hit. But the previous films (or at least the first film) had enough of their own stuff to be potential classics; I don't think the Bourne Legacy is going to join its predecessors there.

Ideas for Potential Video Games

                                                            Ideas for Potential Video Games
                  1. Star Wars: Imperial Officer: A young officer in the Imperial Army struggles to perform his duty and aid the Empire in defeating the Rebels. But, as he witnesses more and more of the Empire's atrocities and the Emperor's cruelty, horror at the evils of his side and growing sympathy for the Rebels creates conflict inside him. Soon, he must decide whether the Empire is worth dying for....
                 2. Dirty Badge: Alfred Danill, a member of a drug-dealing gang, comes home not only to find his entire gang, but also his two teenage sisters, dead. Soon, there's cops on the scene. A murderer is on the loose. There's only one way for Alfred to stay free and catch the killer: don a suit that's not his and uphold an oath he never took. Become a cop.
                3. Dance, Muse, Dance!: A teenage punk figures out he can make people swoon with his dance moves. A teenage socialite discovers she can enchant people with the instrument playing in her hands. They both find out these are the gifts of the Muses. Gifts which people have used for four thousand years. United, these two can rock the house with soaring melody and lively movement! But learning how to work together won't be easy. And they've got a few unknown enemies lurking near them....   
(I've experienced a moment of being "brought down to earth" with this post. I didn't mean to parody video game summaries..but that's what my mom thought I was doing. So gratifying to my ego:).)