Movie Month: Marvel Marathon May *also June

Hey y’all.

I haven’t felt much like blogging lately but I decided tonight would be a good night to finally talk about the movie marathon I forced myself to do for the past two months. I watched every Marvel live action movie.

I don’t feel like going into a lot of detail on each individual movie so I’m just going to give general impressions.

• I think my favourite of all the Marvel movies, is a tie between Iron Man and Guardians of the Galaxy. Both movies are really strong with tone, characters, action, soundtrack, and well almost everything. I also really liked X-Men: Days of Future Past, Captain America: Winter Soldier, Blade II, the first Tobey Maguire Spider-man, and Deadpool was better than I expected.
• My least favourites would have to be Elektra, Fantastic Four 2, Ang Lee’s Hulk, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, Spider-man 3, X-men Last Stand, Iron Man 2, Howard the Duck, the 1990 Captain America, and the 2015 Fantastic Four. Some of those movies legit broke my brain while I was watching them. They are just horrible.
• There are some movies that I didn’t like when I first saw them, but liked them a lot on second viewing. I’m talking mostly about the first two Blade movies and the Avengers. I think the writing in the Avengers really bugged me the first time because it’s just sooo Joss Whedon-y, but rewatching it, I really enjoyed it.
• Some movies I used to love but kinda didn’t like on second viewing are Spider-man 2, Thor: The Dark World, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Daredevil, and Captain America: The First Avenger. Spider-man 2 is way cheesier than I remembered and the others annoyed me in other ways.

In general, I noticed some trends.

• Almost all Marvel movies struggled with making an interesting villain. They rarely have motivation. They are all kind of the same personality. When they do try something unique, they often don’t give the villain enough screen time to develop it further.
• Almost all of the movies have romance aspects and it is always the weakest subplot. Bruce and Natasha’s little romance in Age of ultron might be the best they have, and that’s only because they made both of them into real characters instead of one being a hero and one just being a girl. Ooh I also really liked Ant-Man’s romance because their kiss at the end seems like they had a secret relationship going on for a while.
• I hate “the army” or “the government” plotlines in these movies. The SHIELD and the Hydra stuff is okay (or NOVA in Guardians) but like the generic army general who shows up and threatens to kill them or tries to weaponize the whatever. It is so lazy and so many of these movies have that stupid moment of the government trying really half-heartedly to thwart the hero from being a hero.

My thoughts for the future of Marvel:

• They need to start trying new things. As the movies go on, they become more and more a formula. Every story they do follows the same beats. The same rhythm. I can pretty much call what’s going to happen exactly half-way through any of the more recent Marvel movies. Ant-Man tries to be a little different but ultimately it was not enough. Guardians succeeded in being different because it was a space adventure movie and not a superhero movie, but all of the rest of them are superhero movies that follow the same basic plot and it’s getting boring.
• I really want to see more of the X-men universe. I haven’t been really crazy about most of the X-men movies, but that world with the mutants and the school and the humans hating the mutants, is sooo good and interesting. And there are so many good villains beside Magneto, they really gotta try to expand that universe a little bit. Make a New Mutants movie. Make a real Age of Apocalypse movie. Make a movie at the school that focuses on the human/mutant conflicts.
• Make Spider-man villains right. Spider-man has some of the coolest villains and they always miss the point of them and instead focus on some big grand scheme by the Osborns. Nooo do Mysterio, or Kraven the Hunter, or the Shocker, or the Black Cat! I would love a Spider-man movie that properly did Felicia Hardy.

Well, I’m getting sleepy and I’m running out of Marvel steam. I think for my nerdier friends this is a fun little marathon to try. It changed my perspective on the Marvel movies in general and also opened up my eyes and a few of the great ones that I kinda ignored or forgot about! Peace out!

The Big Update

Hey everyone! I haven’t written anything on here in almost a month but I’m finally back and thought I would do a life update for anyone who cares.

• First off, I found a new apartment! I was living with some friends, it was a great arrangement while I was in school, but they are having a baby and needed my room for the nursery (also I definitely did not want to live with a crying baby). So it was time for me to find something new.
• The process of finding a new place was horrible. I’ve apartment hunted before, and it has never been as bad as it was this year. Places were disappearing so quick. I was viewing at least one place a week for several months and trying to set up more viewings, but the places were going so incredibly fast. My income was low (because of school) and was working on a limited budget and any decent place at a lower price was gone like minutes after ads were posted. Seriously, a lot of people weren’t believing me when I was saying it was bad as bad as it was. But I’ve moved 9 times in the past 7 years and this time was way more competitive than ever before. I also had a lot of different possible places lined up that ended up falling through for one reason or another (not bashing any friends that tried to help me out, I definitely appreciated it even if it didn’t work out).
• My new place is rather small and in a not great area of town and a little higher than I wanted to pay. But I am so happy to be here. I love living on my own and in an area of town that is more centralized so it is quicker to drive places.
• I’ve been reading lots lately! I read Hemingway’s “A Farewell to Arms” and Paulo Coelho’s “The Alchemist”. I loved Farewell to Arms thoroughly. And for the Alchemist, I loved the first half, but was disappointed with the ending. Currently I’ve started reading “Sense and Sensibility” and just borrowed “Memoirs of a Geisha” so I know what is next.
• I’ve watched almost all of the live action Marvel movies ever made in the past couple of months (pre-Marvel studios as well as current Disney Marvel stuff). All I have left to finish is Thor 2, Winter Soldier, Age of Ultron, and Ant-Man. But holy crap I need a break. My brain is just turning into comic book mush.
• Things with my health have been going well lately. I’ve been trying to be a little healthier lately. I will occasionally eat poorly if I don’t have time to cook something, but mostly I’m eating lots of protein and raw fruits and veggies. Drinking so much water too.
• I’ve also been doing really good socially too. I’m rocking a pretty strong crush these days, but also like meeting a lot of nice girls who seem to be feeling my vibe. I’ve been crushing it lately in social settings at work and in the community. Random strangers being friendly with me. Meeting new people all the time who want to sit down and tell me their life stories. I went to a first aid class on the weekend and had numerous people ask for my number so they could text me to hang out sometime (platonically). Then I hit that sweet spot where I could walk down a hallway at work and have everybody I run into say hi and laugh at my dumb jokes and stuff. I don’t know what’s going on but I haven’t felt this good in like… 8 years.
• Part of this might be from a decision I made a couple of weeks ago. For a while not finding an apartment as well as financial and other stuff in my life had been making me feel depressed and anxious and then I got into a cycle of complaining and constantly feeling bad about everything. So I decided I wanted to start actively trying to be more positive. Actually my only rule was that I wouldn’t complain about anything unless it was bugging me for longer than a day. I don’t think it is healthy to keep things bottled up, so if I can’t let it go after 24 hours, then I’ll vent to someone I trust. But all of those little things, I just don’t vocalize them, and sure enough I start to feel less complain-y. And now I’m feeling happier.

Well folks. I feel like I started to ramble a little bit towards the end. I would love to go back and edit this down but it’s late and my bed is calling me. Peace out friends!