A decade in review

Everyone's doing 'decade in review' statistics or lists or overviews or what have you. I thought I'd join in the fun and tell you about my favorite movies that I watched in theater each year. This is, markedly, no quality assessment, so there's no need to tell me that the movies I picked aren't the best movies of their respective years by far. This is based solely on my own enjoyment.

Unfortunately, there is no way for me to track novels or shows, so sadly there will be none of that.

But movies. Let's do this!

2010: Megamind

Honorable mention to Buried, which is an intense thriller featuring Ryan Reynolds and only Ryan Reynolds. 

2011: X-Men: First Class

This year was a hard one, but considering how much I love this movie, there's really no contest.  

2012: Django Unchained

The other contenders this year are Cloud Atlas and Rise of the Guardians, both of which I like very much. Django won out because it's my favorite Tarantino in the end.

2013: Pacific Rim

There was no contest for this year. 

2014: Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Honorable mention to Big Hero 6 and Gone Girl. 

2015: Mad Max Fury Road

Honorable mention to The Martian and The Force Awakens.

2016: Rogue One

This year also had Star Trek Beyond and Deadpool but since I didn't pick the Star Wars movie last year, I picked it now.

2017: The Shape of Water

Honorable mention to Wonder Woman and Thor: Ragnarok.

2018: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Honorable mention to Black Panther, Love, Simon, and Bohemian Rhapsody. 

2019: Captain Marvel

I realized while going through the movies that I've not been to the theater that much this year.


In review, I see it's very heavy on the superhero front and very few of these movies aren't action movies. What can I say, I know what I like. Although that might change in the future.

Happy new year to everyone! May the change you crave come to you!

Thoughts about things I saw: Deception

Sometimes something about the media i consume just gets me real good or stays with me for a bit but it’s not enough to write a whole essay about it or it doesn’t connect to a larger issue I can talk about. Sometimes I don’t even really want to recommend the movie or show or novel in general and it’s just that one thing that I have thoughts and emotions about.

This is what this series of posts is for. Enjoy short thoughts about things I saw.

(This is also probably gonna be more rambly than my other parts, just a warning.) 

First up: Deception

Deception is a fun, breezy crime procedural about a successful stage magician that helps the FBI solve (often magic related) crimes. It reminded me of The Mentalist sometimes in that Cameron, the protagonist, is lovably full-of-himself and mostly puts on a sort of stage persona when interacting with people. It’s generally a good time, if wildly improbable. 

What gets me, however, is Cameron’s backstory. The reason he helps out the FBI in the first place is so that he can help get his innocent brother Jonathan out of prison. His identical twin brother, who no one knew about until he got arrested. No one knew about him because their father raised them like that, so that he could do the most amazing disappearing children magic tricks. That’s so messed up. From the first episode on, I was blown away by how messed up that was and how little the show acknowledged that. 

Their father only proves more messed up, the more we learn about him, training his sons, one of which he takes great pains to hide from the public, to be the perfect stage magicians from a very early age on. He, for example, locked child Cameron into a tiny box and just left him, so that he would learn escape tricks. Oh, and additionally he was an accomplished thief, who once took Cameron to a bank that he knew would be subject to a bank robbery, effectively traumatizing him. What joy.

The show’s primary antagonist, a mysterious woman with a grudge and an obsession, in the end manages to convince Cameron that he is ultimately to blame both for Jonathan’s imprisonment as well as his less than ideal existence in the shadows, which ignores that Cameron suffered under their father as well, even if his suffering was different. 

The whole concept of their upbringing and the nature of their relationship resulting from that, is just something that is really interesting to me and that I’d love to see explored more deeply. The show’s mostly too light for that and, anyway, won’t ever get a second season, so I’m alone with my thoughts and feelings, which is precisely why I made this blog.

Satori over and out

Trauma and other things love can't fix

Yes, this is a seemingly negative title, but I promise, this discussion is going to be mostly positive. Although:

Warning! Mentions of forced prostitution

Spoilers for the novels.

The duology Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo is about to get its own part in a TV show, which I am very excited about because I greatly enjoyed the novels. For everybody who has no idea what I’m talking about, the novels take place in a fantasy world where Bardugo’s other series take place as well. Instead of focusing on the power struggle and war in Ravka, fantasy-Russia, however, these novels follow young street gang members in Ketterdam, fantasy-Amsterdam, as they commit a near-impossible heist in fantasy-Finland (Six of Crows) and deal with the resulting consequences (Crooked Kingdom).

The leader of the operation, Kaz Brekker, is a ruthless criminal, cruel and seemingly without mercy. He is respected and feared and appears to care about nothing except money. His right-hand woman, Inej Ghafa, is an acrobat and spy, who joined the gang to pay off her debts after they freed her from forced prostitution.

Despite his cold and callous exterior (the most positive thing anyone might hear from him is that they’re useful), Inej (along with the group’s sharpshooter Jesper) is in love with him. That Kaz cares more than he lets on - and more about her in specific - becomes obvious when Inej gets wounded early on.

The novels are fast-paced, action-heavy and dense in plot. Character development, nevertheless, is communicated very well through the changing point-of-view with every chapter. Thus, the reader is privy to every character’s thought processes and emotions which provides ample opportunity to get to know the characters, their relationships towards each other, and their growth and change.

By the end of Crooked Kingdom, it is clear that Inej’s love for Kaz isn’t and has never been unrequited*. Due to Kaz’ role, circumstances and character, however, he didn’t acknowledge these feelings even to himself. But it’s all good now, right? We did some growing and some changing and things happened that prompted us to confront our feelings for each other, so we can be together now, right?

Wrong. Because mutual feelings and mutual acknowledgement of those feelings does not erase years of trauma.

As the reader finds out, Kaz’ stoicism and style - he wears clothes that cover all parts of his body except his head - isn’t just carefully curated to evoke fear and respect, it is also necessary for him to cope with the world. When he was a child, he and his brother were tricked out of their money by con-artists and forced to live on the street. Consequently, they were vulnerable to an illness sweeping the city at that time. His brother died and he was presumed dead and thrown in with the rest of the corpses on islands. To survive he had to use his dead brother’s corpse as a float to get back to the city. This experience, naturally, left him with deep psychological scars and as a result he isn’t able to touch another human’s skin without it triggering a paralyzing flashback.

Inej lived a happy life with her parents’ traveling circus until she was kidnapped by slavers and forced into prostitution. In addition the owner of the establishment was cruel and regularly beat her for perceived misdeeds. And while Inej is more free with the gang than she was before, the gang leader technically still owns her, a fact that doesn’t change until the end of Crooked Kingdom.

They try to touch and kiss, but their respective traumas prevent them from even enjoying it. They recognize that while their bond is strong and their love for each other deep that they both need to heal and recover some more before anything resembling a romantic relationship is possible and healthy for either of them.

And that’s. That’s just so good and important. Because often in media love is presented as this cure-all which overcomes all obstacles. And sure that is a romantic staple and a beautiful thought but in real life the fact that you love each other sometimes isn’t enough for a romantic relationship to be healthy and good. As someone who lives with mental illness this is especially poignant. Sometimes a romantic relationship isn’t what you need, even if you might want it, and might even be counter-productive to your recovery process, which, nevertheless, does not diminish the love you feel.

Satori over and out




*Jesper, in the meantime, found a new love in merchant’s son and explosion expert Wylan Van Eck. They end up happy and living together in the mansion that they threw Wylan’s asshole father out of and help each other through their difficulties, which is also very good.

“This ends when I grant them my forgiveness, not the other way around.” - how a character’s backstory can improve a show

So. I’ve just finished Black Sails. I know, I know, the show’s been over for a while now, but only now did I watch the last season. When I started watching Black Sails back in 2015, I was mostly put off by the violence and the characters whose actions seemingly didn’t make any sense (I actually mentioned it in a post on my other blog once). But fans of the show generally agree that the first season is the weakest and you just have to get through it to get to a truly brilliant show. And what do you know? They are completely and utterly correct.

Spoilers, of course, for all of Black Sails!

The last two seasons in particular have such brilliant writing, acting, and cinematography. And I could probably go on and on about the fascinating parallels, themes, character constellations/developments and much more, but what I’m here to talk about today is how the backstory they gave Captain Flint (Toby Stephens) made his actions and words so much more meaningful and intense and emotional and the show as a whole so much better.

Captain Flint is known for being the pirate who buried the treasure chest of riches hidden on an island that sparks the whole of the novel Treasure Island. (Several other characters from the book appear as well, such as Long John Silver, Isaak Hands, and Billy Bones, as well as historical figures like Jack Rackham and Anne Bonny.) There isn’t much known about Captain Flint in the novel. He was a ruthless pirate, he accumulated a great deal of wealth, he did not trust anyone, one day he died.

Black Sails fills that gap with a rich backstory that makes Flint a complex and tragic character. Because before he was Captain Flint, ruthless pirate, he was James McGraw, an officer of the royal navy. He fell in love with Thomas Hamilton, the son of a prestigious English family, and was happy for a short while until his love was taken away from him. This experience led him to turn against England as a whole, a nation that not only robbed him of his love but also declared his love to be monstrous and vile.

“They took everything from us. And then they called me a monster. The moment I sign that pardon, the moment I ask for one, I proclaim to the world that they were right. This ends when I grant them my forgiveness, not the other way around.”

Instead of accepting this designation, Flint becomes a pirate intend on avenging what he believes to be his lover’s death and punishing England for calling him a monster for loving someone. His ruthlessness in his fight against the crown, consequently, is much more relatable and understandable. It is informed not by greed, but by pain.

When he talks about being painted as an evil villain, it is obvious that it does not only refer to his actions as a pirate but also to his sexual orientation. His words, therefore, hold more weight since his actions could certainly be seen as villainous, his loving a man, however, is definitely not. Not only does this make his character much more sympathetic - as he was driven into piracy by bigoted and hateful people - and complex - because we as an audience can understand where his violence comes from - but also gives the narrative as a whole a consistent theme.

“They paint the world full of shadows and then tell their children to stay close to the light. Their light. Their reasons, their judgements. Because in the darkness, there be dragons. But it isn’t true. We can prove that it isn’t true. In the dark, there is discovery, there is possibility, there is freedom in the dark once someone has illuminated it. And who has been so close to doing it as we are right now?... All this will be for nothing. We will have been for nothing. Defined by their histories, distorted to fit into their narrative until all that is left of us are the monsters in the stories they tell their children.”

In the last two seasons the pirates ally themselves with a slave revolt. The struggle for Nassau has moved from being solely about the pirates’ self-interest to an almost revolutionary effort against the English oppressors. The treasure chest is no longer simply wealth, it is intimately connected with freedom. Literal freedom for the former slaves, freedom to live on one’s own terms and not on terms defined by a government that despises you for others.

What Flint refers to in his speech quoted above is so much more meaningful and emotional because it comes from a gay character. Him condemning the English’s judgements of the world would ring hollow if it only referred to his piracy and related activities, but because it also refers to his experiences as a gay man, the possibility that lies in the darkness, is the possibility of a new way to live life free from persecution.

I haven’t even talked about Anne Bonny and Max and how their relationship made me cry more than once and how women actually get to do things and have agency and be people. It’s a good show, is what I’m saying, and their decision to include lgbt themes is a decisive factor in that.

Satori over and out

Corporate greed and fan apathy

aka why I couldn't care less about things I used to love

Despite the general title, this is going to be a rather personal examination of my feelings towards big franchises I used to love. It is, however, still a more general condemnation of the detrimental effects capitalism has on the industry.

Look, I'm not going to pretend I'm not a sucker for these big franchises. I watched Game of Thrones as soon as it came out, buying two months of a streaming service I didn’t need just so I’d be able to see it immediately, I go to the midnight screenings of new Star Wars movies and I have watched a lot of MCU movies twice (or more) in the theater. I spend money on merchandise, go to exhibits and conventions. I loved everything to do with them. Note the tense.

Now, I don’t have to tell you that people are disappointed with GoT’s season 8 (it went so far that over one and a half million people signed a petition to remake it and most comments underneath a teaser for new GoT content were ‘I don’t even want this anymore’). And the opinions on The Last Jedi diverged drastically, so it’s probably no surprise that I’m on the fence with that (and didn’t even watch Solo yet). I might, however, do have to tell you that I heavily disliked both Infinity War and Endgame (Endgame even more than the other) and that their implications actually taint the whole of the MCU’s future for me. Personally I was never what one could call a Harry Potter fan, so I can’t really speak to that, but what I gather from friends who very much are Harry Potter fans and from youtubers I regularly watch, they feel similar about the newest Fantastic Beasts movie.

I know I’m not alone with my opinion and talking to people who feel the same way, I tried to examine where exactly my frustration comes from and what fosters this almost-resentment with franchises that used to be so dear to me.

The very simple and obvious reason would be that they are just not very good anymore. And while that is definitely true for the last GoT seasons as enough people have already elaborated on much more comprehensively than I ever could (see e.g. Lindsay Ellis' wonderful part one and part two examination), and I personally believe this to be the case for both Infinity War and Endgame, many people did credibly praise The Last Jedi (people also did praise Endgame but you know, that’s just not understandable for me). More importantly, however, a lack of quality hasn’t stopped me from enjoying the movies before. Some of the more mediocre Marvel movies are some of my favorites and I really do like the Star Wars prequel trilogy very much. Some of the bad writing that would be GoT’s downfall already plagued season six and season six is one of my favorites.

Flaws that didn’t bother me before, now made movies unwatchable. I didn’t even enjoy Spiderman: Far From Home very much and I was looking forward to it. It’s not very bad, it really isn’t and I was still unhappy with it. And I came out of Thor: the Dark World loving it, mind you. What is different now?

Well, for one thing, Disney owns Star Wars as well as Marvel and Disney does everything in its power to make as much money as possible while exploiting everyone they can. Disneyland entry is 149 $ now. That’s horrendous. They force movie theaters to pay more money for the privilege to show their movies. They put Endgame back in the theater with one (1) new scene just so they could break the previous record (held by the way by another of their properties). When I heard that news, I was so angry that I wished there was some way to get the money back I already payed to watch Endgame in theater. Not to mention the stuff that lead to Spiderman almost leaving the MCU. And I’m singling out Disney here, because they are such a vast and powerful company with ever decreasing competition and an ever increasing monopoly, but almost all of these companies producing movies and shows put their priorities in making as much money as possible.

Yes, I do realize that companies wanting to make money is an understandable standard that is utterly naturalized. What bothers me, however, is how obvious it has become that creativity and the passion for movie-making are only afterthoughts if that. They didn’t put Endgame back in theaters because the deleted scene changes the whole movie, they literally said it was to make more money. The ‘live-action’ Lion King has no new and interesting elements that would justify a remake, hell, the cgi doesn’t even look all that good. It did make good money, though, so there’s your justification.

People will watch these movies/shows despite vocally complaining about it, the companies know that. I am not exempt from this, not at all. Like I said, I saw Endgame twice, even though I already disliked Infinity War and knew I wouldn’t like whatever they come up with. These companies know how to hook their audiences. With nostalgia, as is the case with Disney’s live-action remakes and Harry Potter, with the promise of a satisfying end, as was the case with GoT and is currently the case with Star Wars, or with fanservice banking on fan devotion, what comic book movies and SW anthology movies rely on.

They do just enough to keep audiences voluntarily paying for more but not an iota beyond that.

When I can almost feel the studio’s desire to make as much money as possible dominating everything surrounding the production while I watch their end-product, this is where they lose me.

Sure, this feeling is less than concrete but it does have tangible symptoms that can be found in popular complaints about big franchises. Movies tend to follow a “winning formula” which makes them appear very similar in structure, character dynamics and optics. Studios play it safe which is the reason that most movies nowadays are prequels, sequels, remakes or adaptations as those are already proven to be successful. Shock moments and plot twists work to keep audiences engaged, so producers put as many of them as they can fit into a story if it makes sense or not and spoilers are treated as vicious crimes and movie-ruining in each and every case (hate to break it to you, but if a spoiler utterly ruins a story, it’s not a very good story). Studios produce so much content of a franchise that is proven to bring in money that audiences can feel overwhelmed or lose interest. Producers put in as much fanservice as possible where it makes sense and where it doesn't.

These are strategies that help the studios make the maximum amount of money, sure, as was yet again proven with Endgame, but all these strategies are also to the detriment of creativity in the industry in general and to the detriment of the quality of the specific products in particular, which in turn leads to people who were loyal fans previously descending into a sort of apathy or resignation concerning new releases.

What I’m trying to say is, capitalism is ruining the movie industry like it ruins everything. Thanks for coming to my TEDtalk.

Satori over and out

 

P.S. Literally me:

 

Who is responsible for the apocalypse?

In post-apocalyptic fiction there’s always a reason for how the wastelands came to be. These reasons aren’t always obvious for the characters and maybe even the audience won’t know for sure what actually happened. Sometimes it might even make the scenario more threatening when the audience doesn’t know what exactly caused the apocalypse. The creators of these stories, however, have to know who or what is responsible, otherwise their vision might be inconsistent.

In the following I will present 5 theories about who or what caused the apocalypse, complete with the associated characteristics (it is important to keep in mind that this ‘apocalypse’ I will be talking about, is always a human apocalypse, the definition of ‘post-apocalyptic’ here means ‘after the destruction of human civilization’):

Source: imdb

1. a virus

- examples: most of the zombie apocalypses, 28 Days Later, Planet of the Apes, Maze Runner, Oryx and Crake

- characteristics: The apocalypse didn’t come suddenly and instead was accompanied by a continuous demise of civilization that the characters suffered through. There were and still are efforts to find a cure. Remnants of the civilization breakdown are everywhere as well as the infected. The infected typically are a grave danger and represent some form of corrupted humanity.

Source: filmstarts.de

2. nature

- examples: Hell, 2012

- characteristics: This genre could also be called ‘nature strikes back’. Movies like this often - though not always - have ecological backgrounds. Fact is, a natural disaster destroyed the world as we know it, be it solar flares (like in Hell), or the turning of poles (like in 2012 - even though this is an apocalyptic movie and does not deal with the ‘post’). The world has now become hostile to humans but not to nature per se. In fact, the longer this ‘post’ continues, the more nature can be seen thriving. This is, often, to show - drastically - humanity’s influence on the planet.

Source: filmstarts.de

3. humans/war

- examples: The 100, Fallout, Mad Max

- characteristics: Humans are a very popular trigger of the apocalypse due to the genre’s preoccupation with criticizing current societal developments. Technically ‘a virus’ as well as ‘machines’ are often subclasses of ‘humans’ since humans often were the ones to design the virus and machines in question (technically even nature-apocalypses are sometimes facilitated by human negligence and/or direct influence like in Snowpiercer). What I mean here, however, is the destruction of the world through human war, often nuclear war. Nature is either dead, dying or hostile. There are bunkers and similar where people survived. Everybody not lucky enough to be in a bunker either evolved to live with the aftermath of the destruction or mutated.

Source: imdb

4. machines

- examples: Terminator, Matrix

- characteristics: In contrast to other post-apocalyptic wastelands that mostly lack electricity and anything that would need electricity due to the lack of power plants and the like, the wasteland of the machine-apocalypse is littered with active and working technology. Machines here are the enemy. There is a strict distinction between organic and artificial with organic being linked with good. Nature, here, is generally dead or dying as well. The possible thematic undercurrent is a criticism of humanity’s overreliance on technology.

Source: amazon

5. aliens

- examples: Falling Skies, The 5th Wave, A Quiet Place

- characteristics: Humans never had a chance. The extraterrestrials were more advanced and stronger and they won. Somehow, however, humans managed to survive like the cockroaches we are. For the future there are two options: either the humans succeed in their desperate attempt to turn this lost fight around or the earth is destroyed once and for all. This apocalypse, too, features more technology than others, brought by the alien invaders. Basically the only sub-genre of the post-apocalyptic movie where humans are completely free of blame.

I’m posting this now since it has been in my draft for so long that I don’t quite remember where I was going with this. So, now it is simply an enumeration of possible causes of apocalypses in media. If you have any additions, write me a message.

Satori over and out

Female Villain Archive 5: Dr. Olivia Octavius

(Source: https://marvel-movies.fandom.com/wiki/Olivia_Octavius)

Before I get into it, I have to say how incredible Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is in general. The story is great and uplifiting, the characters - especially Miles - are beautifully executed, the soundtrack is wonderful and the animation is outstanding. So it's not surprising that Into the Spider-Verse would have a fun female villain. 

Dr. Olivia Octavius (Kathryn Hahn) is the type of mad scientist that women rarely get to be. She's brilliant, she's ruthless, she's unapologetic and nevertheless maintains an affable facade. The fun thing about her is that we're introduced to her in a science video Miles watches in school, so she's obviously got some legitimate credibility in the science community she's in. When we first meet her in person, we already know that she works for Fisk but the degree to which she isn't only involved but spearheads his efforts becomes clear after a great reveal. Another fun thing about her is that she clearly does not care for Fisk's goals but only his money. She knows that people grabbed from another reality will always disintegrate painfully, but she doesn't tell him, accepting that Fisk's family will die before his eyes - again and again possibly - so that she can have her scientific advancements. What a deliciously dreadful person.

The Evil You Know

Warning! Mention of rape and child abuse

I recently listened to a horror podcast called The Magnus Archives (more on that in a different post) and its writing is brilliant, its narrative compelling and the way it builds horror and unease is amazing. But no matter how many upsetting eldritch creatures it introduces, how many creepy, disturbing and deeply unsettling stories it tells, nothing fucks me up like that one character's completely mundane backstory.

Part of the reason for my intense emotions, surely, is the fascinating way the podcast developed its characters, so that the backstory could take its full devastating effect, but another part of it is the phenomenon I want to talk about now: the evil we know is more terrifying.

We can easily see this phenomenon take shape in fandom spaces. While only very few people actually like Voldemort, for example, his evil is abstract in a grandiose genocidal way (though not without its clear real world counterpart). So while people generally don't like him, any dislike is (for the most part) impersonal in nature. Dolores Umbridge, on the other hand, is easily one of the most hated - if not THE most hated - characters in the Harry Potter franchise. And while misogyny might be, in this case, at least partially to blame, another reason is that the evil Umbridge represents is much more tangible for some people. A lot of people have had to deal with cruel and unfair teachers in their lives that made school a living hell. The emotions she invokes, therefore, are much closer to the audience' everyday lives.

A similar case can be found in Supernatural, where a large part of the fandom definitely likes some of the big bads the show has to offer. Lucifer, for example, who planned to kill all of humanity and hurt and murdered characters is actually pretty popular. What he does, is clearly fantastical in nature and, therefore, easy to ignore. The Winchesters' father, however, is markedly less popular, even though the show itself doesn't even position him as anything less than a tragic anti-hero. As a neglectful and at least emotionally abusive father, his misdeeds strike a chord with audience members, who might have their own difficult relationships with their fathers.

When Iwan Rheon (Ramsay Bolton's actor in Game of Thrones) wondered why people were more upset about season 5's rape scenes than they were about the horrific torture earlier, he missed the point. Torture as shown in the show is clearly medieval and so far removed from anything any of the audience is likely to experience that, while it is upsetting to watch, it is not the same as rape since rape is a very real danger that people face in their everyday lives. 

Coming back to what I started out with: The Magnus Archives is full of wonderfully disturbing horror stories, featuring nightmare scenarios like wandering an empty world until your body gives out, being buried alive and unable to die, falling through an empty sky forever, being overtaken by a hive of worms and many more. And still, the worst I've felt while listening, is that one backstory that doesn't have any supernatural elements at all. Instead it's a father leaving the family when the mother gets sick and a mother who from then on starts hating the son forced to take care of her.

I've wondered why this is so much worse for me even though it lacks the classic horror elements. 

And now I think it's - at least partially - BECAUSE it lacks those elements. Its horror is real.

Satori over and out

Recommendation: 4 short stories of The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017

Last year I bought the book The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017 edited by Charles Yu. I have never read many short stories before and almost never for fun. That changed with my discovery of this book in one of our local stores. I enjoyed it immensely, not only because science fiction and fantasy are two of my favorite genres but also - and more importantly - because the stories collected where so varied and different from each other. It is still the case, that most novels that land on store shelves are written by white men. This is not to say that novels by white men aren't worthwhile or shouldn't be read or bought, far from it. It's just to say that reading stories from a variety of perspectives is good and fun since it not only broadens your horizon but also introduces you to ideas and themes and writing styles that you might not have read about before.

Anyway. Because this is my blog and I'd like to pretend that my opinion on things matters, I will recommend to you four of my favorite stories from the 2017 collection (I'm currently reading the 2016 collection and might do a recommendation for that as well). The recommendation is not based on any objective standard but rather on my own feelings and impressions. And anyway, I'd actually recommend reading the whole book because even though not every story resonated with me, they are all worthwhile.

1) My absolute favorite story of that collection is N.K. Jemisin's The City Born Great. It is high-key poetic and just made me feel very emotional. A homeless teenager living on the streets of New York meets a mysterious stranger who talks a lot of apparent nonsense about living cities and the role the teen still has to play. Its a both melancholic and passionate meditation on what makes a city, but at the same time it's a very human look into the everyday life of a teenager that has been cast out and away. All of this meshed with just a bit of cosmic horror to set the stage.

2) Catherynne M. Valente's The Future is Blue probably appeals to me because it's set in a bleak post-apocalyptic world whose protagonist goes about her day in a relentlessly optimistic way. In the future when the whole of earth is one big ocean a pocket of society lives on and in and with a swimming mountain of trash. The story is told piece by piece in flashback subchapters titled with insults people call the outcast protagonist who takes it all in stride because she knows that even the possiblity of hope is what keeps her society alive. Not only is the construction of the post-apocalyptic society wonderfully unique and imaginative (and utterly believable), the main character's thought and decision-making processes are a joy to read.

3) I like Everyone From Themis Sends Letters Home by Genevieve Valentine because it sets up a mystery that even after its conclusion keeps the story rolling. There are scientists on a research station going about their days, recording notes and mission reports and writing to friends, family members or superiors that they left at home. However, something's not quite right with either the station or the people and whatever it is, it's definitely going to be a problem in the future. Apart from enjoying the beautifully executed plot twist (if you can even call it that since it develops so organically), I greatly enjoy the story's themes of responsibility and consequences.

4) Brian Evenson's Smear is a quiet horror story that pulled me in and didn't let me go. There's a man on a ship and there's something wrong with it, he just has to figure out what it is and he'll be fine. I can't really say much more or I'll ruin the story for you which would be a shame, since its ominous narrative that feels like danger building is just very good. The ending, however, is what really sells it for me.

As you can see, these stories can be accessed on the internet, so you have a chance to enjoy them even without buying the book. If you are able to, though, buy the book, because it was very hard for me to pick just these few stories since they're all so very different and valuable.

Satori over and out

Good Films Don't Have to Be Good

Look. Here’s the thing. In the world of instant information and information exchange, opinions can become collectivized in a way, that is to say that sites like Rotten Tomatoes, for example, collect reviews and in the end produce a seemingly correct score for a particular movie. Popular opinions are repeated because they find agreement and attention. 

But does it even matter what the majority thinks? Does it matter what well-respected movie critics think?

I’d argue that no, it does not. Because popular or ‘objective’ quality assessments don’t dictate how much enjoyment or pleasure you derive from watching a movie or how much it moves you or sticks with you. Of course, taste has always been subjective. Different people like different things and are attracted to different narratives and aesthetics. Still, there’s a subtle expectation that you have to respond positively to high quality movies and ‘low quality’ movies are deemed ‘guilty pleasures’ as if you have to feel bad for liking them. 

I’m not saying there isn’t a way to determine a movie’s quality that’s a bit more objective. You can judge narrative structure and integrity, character building and development, cinematography, scoring, costuming, acting, cutting and post-production according to somewhat objective standards. Naturally, film studies isn’t an exact science and for nearly every assessment there could be a counter argument. But nobody’s disputing that some movies are just qualitatively better than others. However, the point I’m trying to make is that quality alone doesn’t determine a movie’s merit for you personally. 

I’ll illustrate it with a few examples. Interstellar is a movie of high quality. Critics agree, Nolan fans obviously agree and yes, I, too, agree. Nevertheless, I have absolutely zero desire to see it again. I probably wouldn’t even watch it if someone asked me to. It was fine, it was good, but there’s no reason to watch it once more. Now, Jumper on the other hand, a movie of questionable quality, is something I like to watch again and again from time to time. I enjoy the teleportation and the resulting action sequences, the banter and Jaimie Bell’s character in particular. Its ‘objective’ quality is much lower than Interstellar’s but I like it a lot more. 

Another example, this time two movies that are from the same genre: I like Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy just fine. I recognize that The Dark Knight is a high quality movie and that Heath Ledger’s performance is iconic. There’s a DVD boxset sitting on my shelves. Nevertheless, I love Thor, one of the more mediocre Marvel movies, a lot more. It’s such an enjoyable movie to me that I always think fondly of it and rewatch it for the purpose of cheering myself up. 

Often you can’t even articulate why you like some movies more than others. Sometimes it’s just how it is and that’s okay. There’s no need to conform your tastes to an objective standard that doesn’t even exist (not to mention that this ‘objective’ standard tends to be biased in favor of white male creators and stories). Just like what you like. There’s no need to feel guilty for liking silly romance movies, for example. If it makes you happy and harms no one, it’s all good. Liking high quality things and hating on popular blockbusters doesn’t make anyone smarter or better. You can enjoy one or the other or both or neither, because the enjoyment derived from consuming media is why we are all doing this.

Satori over and out

The case of Cersei Lannister or why being a bad woman is unforgivable

Warning! Mentions of rape and abuse

In honor of the new (and last!) season of Game of Thrones, I’ll talk about something that bothers me a lot about the show and the books as well. Almost everyone in the A Song of Ice and Fire novels exists in a sometimes lighter sometimes darker shade of grey morality. The show cleaned that up a bit and made certain characters more likable and heroic. Usually, however, characters are given a justification or at the very least an explanation for how they act. They are given redeemable traits and made more or less sympathetic, or at the very least partially relatable, especially if they happen to get a viewpoint. Cersei is not awarded that luxury.

Don’t get me wrong, her chapters are fun to read since she sees everything in the most negative light possible, but what started to bother me the more I read her chapters, is that GRR Martin grants her zero redeemable traits. Not even the fact that she loves her children is presented as a positive quality. To me that is absolutely maddening since even the violent rapists and killers from the iron islands are granted positive qualities.

(source: https://www.n-tv.de/leute/Nackte-Cersei-geht-ins-Geld-article13727041.html)

Most obvious is the difference in how the characters are treated in the comparison between Cersei and Jaimie. When we first read chapters from Jaimie’s viewpoint, he is still 100% obsessed with Cersei. Almost everything he has done in his life up until that point, has been out of a fixation on her. A fixation, that is btw, not healthy for either of them. Cersei is less fixated on him, or shows it differently. In these first few chapters, it becomes clear, that if he could, Jaimie would kill each and every person standing in the way of his ‘happy end’ with Cersei. In the novels Jaimie doesn’t really care about his children, only insofar as they make Cersei happy. The show toned his obsession way down (and also had him be caring at least towards Myrcella), possibly to make his development more believable since they didn’t have this much time (on the other hand, they had Jaimie practically rape Cersei next to their dead son and threaten Edmund with killing his newborn baby to get back to Cersei much later in his story, so maybe the showrunners just didn’t give much thought to that). Nevertheless, Jaimie commits atrocities in the name of love, like he says, or in the name of his fixation, which is more accurate.

Despite all of this, Jaimie is a popular character in fandom and allowed a redemption arc that turns him into a hero in the source material. Have we collectively forgotten that he threw a young child out of a window with a smile on his face????

This is not to disparage Jaimie’s character or everyone who likes him. I like his character development and am looking forward to see where it will still lead. This is to make a point about the disparity about how he and his twin sister are treated by the author/showrunners and the fandom (hah, just like how they are treated differently in-universe).

And it’s not like Cersei’s backstory and the things that happen to her don’t provide ample material for justification. From the day she is born, Cersei is told she was lesser and less important than her twin brother who she regards as being otherwise utterly similar to her. She grows up with her father’s ambitions with the ingrained knowledge that this ambition can’t go anywhere due to the accident of her gender. When she is still young, she is sold to a stranger to be his wife. This stranger hates her from day one, because she isn’t who he wants. Over time he only resents her more and more and rapes and abuses her (why don’t we ever acknowledge that this abhorrent behavior is part of Robert? why do we see him as a silly drunkard but largely good?). Additionally, he openly disgraces her by sleeping with a plethora of other women. Her only solace is her brother and later the children she has with him. No matter how much solace they bring, a sword of Damocles hangs over her. She lives in fear of being discovered, a discovery which would entail imprisonment and death not only for her but also for her brother and children. If that isn’t a backstory that lends itself to justification then I don’t know what is.

Over the course of the show she loses that bit of solace, her children die, Jaimie is absent for longer parts and then leaves her. The Walk of Shame is such a traumatic experience that it would’ve been a perfect springboard to give her some character development and maybe give her some redeemable - or, you know, relatable - qualities. I’m not saying that Cersei should have a redemption arc, having a complex female villain is good and interesting, nor am I saying that her actions are excusable. She does some atrocious things fully aware of how atrocious they are. Again, my intention is to make a point about how her suffering is dismissed and her actions are portrayed and interpreted as inexcusably terrible, even though men’s horrific actions are ignored (Jaimie attempting to murder a child, Robert repeatedly raping Cersei, Stannis killing his little brother and having people - including his daughter in the show - burned alive, basically anything Khal Drogo does, and don’t get me started on how - at least in the novels - Tyrion murdering Shae is terrible*).

So what is it that makes her less deserving of sympathy in the eyes of the author/showrunners and fandom? First of all, we need to detangle the different perspectives that I have thrown together until now. On the one hand we have the creators, GRR Martin and the showrunners, who have influence over how to construct and portray a certain character. On the other hand we have the fandom who interprets a character and shares this interpretation until a somewhat collective opinion is formed. Fandom often isn’t kind to women. Women are sexualized or seen as disposable; their actions are scrutinized and the worst thing they can be is annoying. Compare the hate Lori and Andrea from The Walking Dead accumulate to the favorable view of objectively terrible people like Merle and Negan. Or, to use another example from GoT: the way the fandom hates Sansa for … being naive in the beginning?????
But it’s not like the fandom is fully to blame for their harsh treatment and unforgiveness of women. A lot of times a distaste with female characters stems from the simple fact that they’re just not written well. They’re too often flat characters that only exist to facilitate a man’s storyline as mother, daughter, sister or lover. It’s no wonder that the audience does not respond favorably to characters like this.
The case with GoT is a bit different, because I don’t accuse GRR Martin of being unable to write three dimensional women. The show’s somewhat worse in that regard but still nowhere near as bad as TWD for example. Nevertheless, GRR Martin had been fully capable of granting Cersei some positive - or relatable - qualities or moments even and decided not to. He decided to write her the way he did, and therefore influenced the fandom’s perception of her.

(source: https://www.concierto.cl/2019/02/actriz-game-of-thrones-troll/)

But we still haven’t answered why her crimes are seen as so much worse? It’s not the murder, because that doesn’t distinguish her from her male villainous or even heroic counterparts. Is it the way she kills? Through scheming and intrigue? What I gathered is that some people blame her for not controlling Joffrey and excusing his actions and for not loving Jaimie as much as he loves her and for “cheating” on him (which are both ridiculous - and ridiculously gendered - explanations). But mostly, I think, it’s because she’s a bad woman. And by that I don’t mean that she’s villainous. Bond’s lady villains for example are largely accepted. It’s more to do with “unlikability”. Not being perceived as likeable is such a grievous crime for fictional women (and to a degree for real life women, too) that everything they do is interpreted much worse.

Before anyone misinterprets what I’m saying: I don’t want there to be no "unlikable" women in media. Women are people and are therefore able to be unlikable and audiences need to get used to seeing women they deem unlikable (that are often simply women with attributes they don’t like). There is, however, a difference between writing an authentic woman that is deemed unlikable by fans for whatever reason, and writing a woman that has zero relatable character traits whatsoever especially when you grant a comparable male character a redemption arc.

In conclusion, while I think Cersei’s actions are largely abhorrent, I always feel kind of protective about her as a character because of my frustration with how she is presented in canon and fandom. I honestly believe there is such a promising basis for her and am so disappointed that no one decided to do anything with it,

Satori over and out


*You know what, I’m gonna say it anyway. It makes me so mad that Shae’s “betrayal” of Tyrion is portrayed and interpreted as much more horrible than Tyrion murdering her. In the novel, Shae is a teenager and it’s clear that while she does like Tyrion, she is mainly here because she’s a prostitute. It's heavily implied that her testimony at Tyrion’s trial was coerced out of her with threats and violence. Like. I know the show made her older and somewhat changed their relationship, but still.

A different kind of zombie movie - The Girl with All the Gifts and what does a happy ending even mean?

Look, I’ve wanted to read the book for quite a while. I’ve had it in my hands a few times while browsing at my local bookstore and actually read the first 10 or so pages. I was in a dystopia/apocalypse mood (as if I have ever not been in a dystopia/apocalypse mood) and the book seemed interesting. I never actually did get around to buying it, though, which is how I saw the movie before I read the book. So, this review/analysis-thing concentrates on the movie.

If you watch The Girl with All the Gifts without knowing anything of the story beforehand, the first few minutes you could easily assume that it was about children with superpowers being locked up by people afraid of them (like my dad did). In these first few minutes the movie made me cry twice. First at the sad life these innocent, friendly children lead and then at Melanie (Sennia Nanua), the protagonist, reading out a story she wrote, where a girl - it’s her obviously - saves a beautiful woman - the teacher (Gemma Arterton) - from a monster. It was so beautiful and sad and both the teacher and I cried.

 (Quelle: https://www.flipthetruck.com/2017/02/09/the-girl-with-wll-the-gifts/)

Pretty soon, it becomes clear that the children aren’t superpowered but some form of zombies. A military man purposefully triggers the zombie in them to show the teacher that they are inhuman. The struggle between the deliberate dehumanization from the military people and the intrinsic humanity the children feel and exude is a theme of the movie. What is perceived as humanity itself is subject to change.

The teacher sees and treats Melanie as human from the start, even when she exhibits monstrous characteristics, and protects her from those that would harm her, for example, putting herself between her and guns. But even the military personel begin to regard her as a living being - if not fully human. The more time they spend with her in a destroyed and zombie-ridden London, after their base has been overrun, the more they treat her like a child. In the end the commander (Paddy Considine) even attempts to save her from zombies, knowing full well that they won’t hurt her.

In London they find a gaggle of children like her. They have created a small society, are able to make and use tools and weapons and employ trickery in their hunting. And while they do not speak human language - nobody to teach them - they do communicate with sounds and words that they use like their own language. They are mostly feral, primed for survival, but clearly capable of emotions.

There’s a doctor with the group (Glenn Close) who insists that it would be possible for her to develop a vaccine that might cure the zombie-infection. To do this, however, she would have to kill Melanie. Back at the base, she had already experimented on the brains and spinal cords of the children which is presumably the purpose for which they kept them in the first place. The teacher is vehemently against the idea from the beginning, even threatening the doctor. The doctor sees her objection against killing the children as a failure on her part to internalize that the children aren’t human. Later, it becomes clear that the doctor does consider the children to be people, she just considers the possibility of a vaccination to be more important than the life of a single being. The commander on the other hand questions the procedure as soon as he begins to consider Melanie a person. To reach her goal anyway, the doctor drugs them and attempts to kill Melanie. When she wakes up early, however, the doctor tries to convince her that her sacrifice is necessary.

Melanie almost seems swayed. But she has a last question for the doctor. “Do you consider us to be people?” (Or something like that, I watched the movie in German.) The doctor confirms that, yes, she does think that the half-zombie children are people. Melanie has struggled with her own humanity the whole movie. She has moments where she sees herself as the monster from the story and denies herself the humanity that has been withheld from her all her life. The doctor’s confirmation that she is a person and the other children are too, triggers the end of the movie.

The end of the movie also being the end of the human race (at least in the greater London area). Melanie sets the plants, that spread the zombie-infection, on fire, causing the seeds to open and everyone who breathes the pollen in to turn into a zombie. It kills the commander who left the safety of the lab to save Melanie and the doctor who left the lab to stop her. The teacher survives in the lab and spends her days teaching the feral half-zombie children and the ones from the base that Melanie presumably rescued.

 (Quelle: https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-girl-with-all-the-gifts-racebending-means-so-much-m-1792786423)

Well, that’s unexpected.

Zombie movies (of the apocalyptic variety) tend to end on a more hopeful note, with some form of vaccine or cure or at the very least, the protagonists in a safe place. But is this ending really that hopeless? That depends if you consider the half-zombie children to be people or not. I’d argue that it is in fact a happy ending.

While the seeds of the plans that spanned some of London’s skyscrapers were robust, one day they would’ve opened anyway. Furthermore, the movie suggests that the zombies are in the process of overrunning the remaining military bases. Not only the one the protagonists came from but also the bigger one they thought would be their safe haven. Even if the doctor would have been able to make a vaccine - something which is put into question by the fact that apparently she has been saying that she’s just short of creating a vaccine for a while - there would have been no way to distribute it and the zombies still would have been around. In the ending Melanie creates, the half-zombie children get to learn and grow up and - as it is implied - built a new small society, sure in their inherent humanity.

Also, it’s a fun reversal that in the end the teacher is the one who’s locked up.

Now, it’s not a new idea to present zombies as something other than mindless eating-machines. Warm Bodies featured a zombie protagonist and eventually a zombie/human love story that ended with the cure to the zombie-virus being love. It sounds incredibly kitschy - and it is - but the movie has some original ideas and funny moments. Horror themed children’s cartoons regularly present zombies as just another form of supernatural creature. The Girl with All the Gifts, however, is different in the way it actively questions what it means to be human and if there is a line between human and ‘monster’ and how blurry that line can get.

The movie surprised me and I enjoyed it a lot. Maybe because its themes of otherness and discussions of humanity are some of my favorites.


Satori over and out


(Oh, by the way, not related at all to the discussion at all, but I’ll be damned if I don’t mention it: the sound design in this movie was atrocious to me. The discordant noises and background music were too loud and overpowering and instead of setting me on edge or providing an atmosphere, they just made me wish they would stop.)

(Also not really related to the discussion: I love that the zombies are in stand-by mode when they’re not actively hunting food. On the one hand it makes sense for them to conserve the little energy they have and not waste it on shambling around unnecessarily, on the other hand it’s also such a funny picture to see them just standing there softly swaying and not doing anything.)

(Explaining zombie-virus as a fungal infection is pretty cool as well.)

4) Green Room

(Quelle: http://www.filmstarts.de/kritiken/229182.html)

I only watched this, because Anton Yelchin was in it and I didn't have to pay. See, I don't like horror movies. For some reason I loved this one. It's tense, and gory, but it's not ridiculous like I feel most horror movies are. The escalation is believable and the villains aren't fantastical which makes them even scarier. A punk band has to fight for their lives against a gang of violent Neo-Nazis determined to keep their order. The protagonists aren't too stupid to live and the antagonists aren't inhuman monsters. The whole thing is just very unlucky, really.