Picoreview: Falcon & Winter Soldier: I liked this show a lot the first time I watched it, and I think I like it more the second time. The storyline I’m more invested in is Bucky’s, because I am a SUCKER for a good redemption story, but Sam’s arc is a really good one, and the eventual payoff of the title changing to Captain America and the Winter Soldier was emotionally really satisfying. I now recall how much I despised the extreme closeups on Bucky & the shrink in his sessions…
Picoreview: Infinity War: I still love this movie, but for my reCap purposes, it turns out Cap is actually barely in this one until the end. We get the amazing arrival with a beard scene, and a good fight there, and then basically there’s very little with his storyline until the end, where he faces Thanos (and Groot, with that amazing “I am Steve Rogers” line, which honestly is also still just so in keeping with the character.) But by this point he’s fully transformed from Righteous Soldier into Righteous…
Picoreview: Civil War: This is probably my second favorite MCU film*, in part because Evans & RDJ do SUCH A DAMN GOOD JOB in their roles. The scene where Tony brings those pens to the table is SO GOOD. They’re really powerful performances from both actors, and without their convictions being so believable, the story wouldn’t work at all. And it not only builds on Steve’s isolation and his desperation for a connection (connections; there’s the whole Peggy thread of these two movies, too) to the world as he knew…
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…
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…