Finishing Up the Summer Blockbuster Series

This post is the last in my summer blockbuster series. I tagged the whole thing as 2013 blockbusters.

Y'all. I see a lot of movies. A LOT of movies. Call it research for my film making husband or call it a natural love of the cinema. Both are true. But the fact remains that despite writing about tons of movies this summer, there were are even a few more that I skipped over (and several independent flicks that don't necessarily meet "blockbuster" criteria.) Here's a quick run through of the films that I didn't write about because there wasn't much for me to say.

Kick Ass 2 (EWW)

This post is a part of my summer blockbuster series. I'll be tagging the whole thing as 2013 blockbusters.

[Content note: rape, victim blaming]

I had heard that Kick Ass 2 kinda sucked, but I still gave it a shot. And by "gave it a shot" I mean that Ronald wanted to see it, so I went because we see a bazillion movies. That reminds me. I've seen 3 movies I never wrote about that contained nothing remarkable...so I'm going to just write a paragraph about them each and conclude this series soon. Summer IS almost over.

Anyhoo, back to Kick Ass 2. Thing is, I really liked the original. I know it wasn't perfect and there were problematic elements, but Hit Girl was just so damn endearing to me. A foul mouthed 12 year old girl beating up evil grown men? Yes please!

Unfortunately Kick Ass 2 has too much awfulness to ignore.

The Ladies of the Wolverine

This post is a part of my summer blockbuster series. I'll be tagging the whole thing as 2013 blockbusters.

Somehow the new X-Men movie, The Wolverine, totally slipped under the radar for me. I didn't even know it was coming out this summer until Ronald got passes to a free screening last Tuesday (and we were turned away because it was too popular.) So we waited for it to come out this weekend and I was pleasantly surprised, especially after crapfest that was X-Men Origins: Wolverine. As Ronald wrote on his Facebook, "The Wolverine is the kind of movie the character deserves. Apology accepted, 20th Century Fox."

Aside from being a generally enjoyable X-Men film, the movie actually contained interesting, important women! Who interacted with each other! And had a friendship not related to any of the men involved!

Of course, the main story line and plot center around Wolverine (Hugh Jackman). That isn't surprising; it's his movie. But the interesting fact is that he is surrounded by women who fight along side him, threaten him as a villain, or plague his mind. Let's take a closer look at each of them. As always, this may get a little spoiler-y. I'm only going to focus on the female characters but some of the plot may be revealed in doing that.

[Image text: the four women of The Wolverine: Yukio, Viper, Mariko, and Jean Gray]

The Conjuring and Motherhood

This post is a part of my summer blockbuster series. I'll be tagging the whole thing as 2013 blockbusters.

Hmm...

Ya know, I wasn't sure what to make of The Conjuring at first. I mean--it's was horrifying to me, which means as a horror movie, it accomplished its goal. But from a gender perspective, I didn't initially know what to make of it or think I'd have much of anything to analyze. At first blush, you could write this film off as just portraying stereotypical gender roles (mom runs the home, dad works) and leave it at that. But the more I contemplated it, the more I realized there was actually interesting stuff going on. Spoilers after the cut.

Pacific WIN

This post is a part of my summer blockbuster series. I'll be tagging the whole thing as 2013 blockbusters.

Ahhh! I really liked Pacific Rim! I just thought it was fun, and action packed, and original! I'm kind of on a fangirl high! I could go on and on about how much fun I had on this cinematic adventure, but instead, I'll focus on gender side of things, which I was actually really pleased with.

As a warning, I don't really think I can cover all of this without getting spoilery, so there's that. In fact, I know I'll get spoilery.

The Heat: Almost a Home Run

[Image text: McCarthy and Bullock]

This post is a part of my summer blockbuster series. I'll be tagging the whole thing as 2013 blockbusters.

So I finally saw The Heat...and by finally I mean it just came out this past weekend, but my husband and I kept getting free passes to advanced screenings all summer that we could never use.

Anyhoo, it's a comedy starring Melissa McCarthy as Officer Mullins and Sandra Bullock as Special Agent Ashburn. It was written by Katie Dippold (writer for Parks and Rec) and directed by Paul Feig (director of Bridesmaids.)

Let's cut to the chase...I really liked this movie. It was funny and entertaining. The main action of the story revolves around Mullins and Ashburn, who are very different and yet very similar oddballs, working a joint case together. At first Ashburn is off put by Mullins' unorthodox style (aggressive, trusting her gut, and throwing the rule book out of the window) while Mullins views Ashburn as too straight laced and unpersonable. Through the course of their misadventures, they learn to play to their strengths and work together. (Kind of the grown up, lady version of the same lesson in Monsters University.)

Monster's University...Just OK

[Image text: Excited, young monster, Mike Wazowski, with his
bags arriving at Monster's University.]

This post is a part of my summer blockbuster series. I'll be tagging the whole thing as 2013 blockbusters.

I've been so wrapped up in the local political climate, that all of my other blogging has come to a grinding halt. I'm sure this will be an on-going problem, given the fact that the second special session starts Monday. (Thanks, Perry!) Not only will my mind be consumed, but also I'll have limited free time, which I'm sure will be devoted to sleeping.

Last week, however, I was free on Friday night to catch Pixar's Monsters University. MU has a special place in my heart. When I first saw Monsters Inc. in '01, I officially met Mr. Nerdy Feminist. (We happened to see the film w/ common friends in a large group.) MU is a prequel to that original film and follows Mike and Sully as the meet each other in university for the first time.

This Is The End, Dudebro Fest 2013

This post is a part of my summer blockbuster series. I'll be tagging the whole thing as 2013 blockbusters.

[Content note: rape culture, rape "jokes"]

Oi. I have been putting this one off because it poses some complications for me...and invokes the whole, "yes, I'm a feminist, but I like some really problematic shit" issue.

Man of Steel and Healthy Masculinity

This post is a part of my summer blockbuster series. I'll be tagging the whole thing as 2013 blockbusters. 

Between a nasty stomach virus and a really busy work week, I'm afraid that I've fallen behind on blogging...particularly on my summer blockbuster series. I've seen both Man of Steel and This is the End, so I figure while I have a moment, I should at least catch up on one.

I'll start with Man of Steel. I'm still trying to decide if I'll write about This is the End, but I'll figure that out another day.

Let me preface this with a number of disclaimers. Firstly, for the purposes of this series I simply analyze the movies through my personal interpretations. That is to say that I do not take anything from the source material into account (in this case, decades of comic books, cartoons, and other films) partly because I haven't read or seen most of it.  Secondly, I do try to remain relatively spoiler free in this, but there's no guarantees.

[Image text: Henry Cavill as Superman]

The Purge...More like The Blergh

This post is a part of my summer blockbuster series. I'll be tagging the whole thing as 2013 blockbusters. 

So I saw The Pruge last Friday and I have avoided writing about it for this series mostly because I just don't feel like it. Not only was there really nothing of note to mention on the gender side, but it was also kind of a sucky film. But here goes...no promise that I won't write spoilers.

The Hangover Part III...What Do You Expect?

This post is a part of my summer blockbuster series. I'll be tagging the whole thing as 2013 blockbusters. And if you want to check out last year's series, it's 2012 blockbusters. 

[Image text: The Hangover Part III poster with Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis, and Ed Helms]

Sigh. Why bother with this, right? As I've written before (I promise that post was from me!) I have a secret love for really awful, raunchy comedies. So when the first Hangover film came out...despite myself, I liked it. And I've stuck with the series, despite the fact that the payoff has declined. The second one was bleh, and the this one is meh. I mean, I laughed a little but if I'm going to put up with every horrible -ism ever, there should at least be some more laughs along the way. And I'm not kidding...every -ism and offense you could possibly list, is present in this film. 

But since the goal of this series is to blog about the gender situation of each blockbuster, I guess I should at least mention something about it. The only two women of any note (as in they have more than 2 lines) are cameos by...

1) Heather Graham--reprising her role as Ed Helm's character's ex-wife who was a sex worker and left her baby with them in movie 1. She's now married rich and is happily pregnant again, and...

2) Melissa McCarthy as the owner of a pawn shop who has sexual chemistry with Zach Galifianakis's character. She's funny, but that's because she's Melissa McCarthy. There's nothing actually clever or redeeming about her character. 

Listen. There's just nothing more I can say. The movie is just a walk through every racist, sexist, homophobic, fatphobic, transphobic, etc. trope and insensitive joke ever. I would just be remiss to not cover this film as a part of the series. So yeah. That's it.

Sigh again.


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Star Trek: Into Status Quo

This post is a part of my summer blockbuster series. I'll be tagging the whole thing as 2013 blockbusters. And if you want to check out last year's series, it's 2012 blockbusters. (BTW, I take a pretty loose interpretation of "blockbuster.")

So. Star Trek into Darkness. Let's talk about it. I'll try to keep this spoiler free as possible.

[Image text Spock and Kirk Start Trek into Darkness poster]

I'm not a Trekker. I don't think I've seen many of the previous movies and I've probably only seen a handful of episodes of any incarnation of the TV shows. But when the franchise was rebooted in 2009 (how was it that long ago?!?!?) I really enjoyed it. Unfortunately the second installment didn't hold up the same. Not only was the gender situation disappointing (as I will detail below) but I also from a "was this a good movie?" perspective. I just found it to be overall kind of meh. There wasn't much that pulled me in and I felt the story and action were a bit sloppy.

But enough of that, let's get to the meat of what this summer blockbuster series is about: the gender messages of the film.

Take Aways from The Great Gatsby

This post is a part of my summer blockbuster series. I'll be tagging the whole thing as 2013 blockbusters. And if you want to check out last year's series, it's 2012 blockbusters. (BTW, I take a pretty loose interpretation of "blockbuster.")

Carey Mulligan and Leonardo
DiCaprio in the new film

Confession time. I'm one of those rare birds that made it through a K-12 education in the United States and never read The Great Gatsby. As such, watching Baz Luhrmann's new adaptated film was my first real exposure to the story. I think that a story which is 88 years old shouldn't require a spoiler alert, but just in case, consider it alerted. 

Iron Man 3: A Mixed Bag

It's that time of year again! I'm kicking off another series analyzing the gender portrayed in the summer's blockbusters. I'll be tagging the whole thing as 2013 blockbusters. And if you want to check out last year's series, it's 2012 blockbusters. (BTW, I take a pretty loose interpretation of "blockbuster.")

So let's jump into Iron Man 3. Mild spoilers to follow.

The Place Beyond the Pines and Male Emotions

This post is part of my 2013 blockbusters series. 

This weekend, I saw The Place Beyond the Pines, a drama starring Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, and Eva Mendez. I will try to make my point without spoiling anything.

I'll be honest, I went for the Gos, but I was pulled in by the story. A movie really has to be compelling to make 2.5 hours fly by, and fortunately it was. The trailer billed the film as "An exhilarating epic of fathers, sons, and consequences." It's very male-centric (which is fine for some movies to be, I just wish that MOST of them weren't...) but nevertheless, it got me thinking about how sexism in our culture routinely hurts men and boys.