Picoreview: Afternoon of Ultron: Doing these picoreviews has had me reading the original ones I did when some of these movies came out, and I was kinder to Age of Ultron when it came out than I was in memory and am on rewatching. I mean, I’ve seen it at least three times post-theatre, and it was apparently satisfying at the time, but ultimately remains a pretty bad movie, tbh. It has a number of good PARTS, which I think is what made me like it oriignally, but from more…
I went for a haircut this weekend, my second haircut with this woman, whom I found by accosting some other random woman on the street and asking who did her hair because she had a great pixie cut and I was desperate. (The accosted woman was bewildered by the whole situation, but gave me the info.) Anyway, Sylvia, she’s Eastern European and very good and isn’t afraid to cut short hair. I mentioned this at the beginning of the appointment – that the really good short haircuts I’d gotten in…
This morning I saw an indie pub cover that’s so bad it makes me want to cry (no, I’m not going to tell you what it is). Everything about is bad. There are at least 4 focal point elements, meaning there are none. The colors are garish. The text treatment is illegible. The background is too busy. There’s so much decent pre-made cover art (ie, art that indie cover artist/designers have done for the fun of it/to sell on spec rather than because they’re making it specifically for a hired…
Picoreview: Winter Soldier: Still the best movie in the MCU for my money. So, like, I’m watching these in order, right? And after First Avenger, Disney+ spins up Winter Solider and I was 15 minutes into it, dangit, before I realized Avengers came between them. So I had to stop and go back to watch Avengers, which is honestly tonally a bit of a shock in the midst of the Winter Soldier setup. But anyway, yeah, it certainly played up how completely unexpected Winter Soldier was after Avengers and then…
Picoreview: Avengers: This remains a pretty solid film, although wow his costume was awful in this one. Well, the cowl is awful. The body of it is fine. But wow. I thought at the time that its strength was that for once, Joss Whedon hadn’t made it sound exactly like Joss Whedon, and all else aside, that remains true. In retrospect there are a few really Whedony things that make my teeth clench – although it could have been in Ultron, I think this is the one where somebody falls…