X-Men: Days of Future Past

I just watched X-Men: Days of Future Past!  Read on for some spoiler-filled reaction gifs:

First, I had to watch X-Men: First Class to catch up on my X-Men movie continuity.

Nooooot my favorite X-Men movie.  I didn't even feel like making reaction comics for it.  I guess some of the 60s outfits were cool, when people weren't in lingerie. 

BUT, I did really enjoy this new film.  It started off with a lot of fan service / nostalgia--seeing some familiar actors/characters and trying to guess who was who ("OMG is that Blink??!").  You guys, seeing Colossus and Kitty Pride together...Astonishing feels. :,)

Quicksilver stole the show.  He was the most fun character by far, and his slow-motion scene to Jim Croce's Time In A Bottle was the highlight of the movie.  That was the beginning of my giggles and they were pretty constant for the rest of the movie.

Of course I also loved Jenniver Lawrence's Mystique, and how much of a part she played in the plot.  I really liked the moment where Charles realizes he has to trust her and let her make her own decisions.

It was really funny watching ANOTHER Marvel movie in Paris this year and seeing a French element in the film.  Very meta.

And of course Fassbender is super fun as Magneto.  His shrug take-off cracked me up and I had to clamp both hands over my mouth in the theater.  And when he touches down in the stadium and just turns and walks away from the groundskeeper?!?  I died.  In the good way.

The best and worst thing about the X-Men universe is the chaos of the timeline and its many revisions.  It can get confusing, and too many versions makes it hard to care about any one version.  BUT I loved how we got to basically write over X-Men: Last Stand and see the happy, shiny version of the future where all our favorite characters are together and happy.  It makes me more excited about the upcoming movie X-Men: Apocalypse.  Although, frankly, I would be happy with things ending the way they did in this movie.

Dredd (2012)

I watched Dredd yesterday for another Kickstarter backer -- fellow comic artist Ainsley Y.! :D I heard good things about this movie, and was especially excited it was on my queue after seeing it listed at #1 on this list of feminist-friendly blockbusters, so thanks to Ainsley for the selection! :)

Read on for some spoiler-filled reaction comics!

 Psychic indeed!  She explained almost in tandem with me wondering aloud why she didn't have a helmet.

It was so cool, though.

Aren't sidekicks handy?  Sherlock's great, but we need John asking questions to understand what's he's thinking.  Dredd is great, but I can tell you right now I would have had ZERO interest in a movie about a hardened cop silently shooting up an apartment building.  With a rookie engaging him in conversation, we open up Dredd a bit and see into his philosophies as well as learn the rules of the world the story takes place in.
But then, "sidekick" doesn't do her justice; Anderson's more than a foil to Dredd.  She has a real purpose in the story.  She makes a difference in the outcome and experiences growth over the course of the film.  She has a special skill.  She has an origin story / motive.  She moves the plot forward in scenes where our male lead is absent.  She has a functional suit and she's good with her weapon.  She's a rookie but she's good at her job.  What a great treatment of a female character!
I felt that Kay's imagined sex scene was gratuitous and unnecessary, but I'm willing to accept it when there's so much else GOOD subversive stuff happening in the movie.  Dredd and Anderson both have wound-dressing scenes, and they're given a fairly similar treatment (although Dredd dresses himself and Anderson needs him to do it for her).  The scene where Anderson is taken hostage is overseen by a woman and it's also much less sexualized than in other films I've seen.  Let's not forget that while Anderson looks like a damsel in distress for about 10 minutes, she ends up freeing herself, and reversing the trope by coming to save Dredd AND freeing the clan's hostage techie (who had been tormented and controlled by a woman--another great, subtle reversal).
Oh, and OH MY GOD, no romance, not even a hinted romance, between her and anyone?  What?  It's like she has a life outside of that or something??

However--I liked the use of the "slo mo" drug to give a reason for lavished shots and slow motion.  The effect was actually really cool!

So, Dredd was pretty great.  It was one of those movies where I realized I was an hour in and only had one comic so far.  I was absorbed!  It was amazing to me that the movie pulled off the start-to-finish "nonstop action" plot so many movies try for and fail.  Somehow I didn't get bored by the action or forget what the stakes were; things kept changing and evolving in ways I could follow and stay engaged with.  There was a lot of tension in scenes where Dredd and Anderson showed off against sympathetic characters, like the kids with guns.  The movie attempted more antagonist complexity than most do, and I really liked the characterizations we got of the apartment tenants.  I appreciated the quiet moments woven in so well, like the pause on the outdoor skate park and talking with Cathy in her apartment.

THANKS, AINSLEY!  I want to watch this one again! :D

Flash Gordon

I watched the 1980 Flash Gordon film for the first time yesterday and wow, I may never be the same.  Read on for some spoiler-filled reaction comics!  

These are brought to you courtesy of Aaron Duran (of Geek In The City!), who pledged in my studio's Kickstarter to raise money for a series of art books!  THANK YOU, Aaron!!  This was a really fun movie for me! :D

 

All joking aside, how gorgeous is Sam J. Jones?!  Daym!

 

It took me a while to put my finger on what they reminded me of...

 

So, as far as I can tell, Flash Gordon's heroic traits are...
1) Football
2) Is a human being

 

 

 

 These first dates are always so awkward.

 And finally, how it should have ended:

Man of Steel

I got to hang out with Madeleine Flores this weekend (eeee!), and we had a doodling party after the movie. :DDD She’s pretty much the best <3 Check out our reaction comics (spoilers!):

The Dark Knight Rises

Review comics for The Dark Knight Rises! As always, SPOILERS.

I had the Holy Musical B@man soundtrack stuck in my head ALL DAY Thursday before watching the movie.  It was hilarious how many of the jokes and themes from the play made appearances in the movie.  Most relevant:


Anyway, on to the comics!

It reminded me of Goldmember's ridiculous flexibility.  Was that really Anne kicking that high, or was there a prop leg?! xD

There was a 2-ish-minute stretch while Batman was chasing down Talia al Ghul where I completely spaced out and couldn't tell you what I'd just seen.  Bleh.  A bit is good but more than 30 seconds of people punching each other or shooting or whatever without breaks and my brain shuts off.

I didn't actually cry, but a lot of people in my theater did. I didn't believe for a second that he was really dead (I called 'everyone thinks he's dead but he's really alive and training the next generation like in The Dark Knight Returns' while my brothers and I were placing bets in line), but it was still a moving scene.

I looooved the movie.  From the complaints I've heard from friends, it sounds like the main difference between us is that I WANT neat, happy endings.  That's exactly what I like (Dickens fan!).  The darker and more pessimistic the story, the more satisfying it is when I actually get a happy ending.  And this was the neatest, happiest possible ending for the DARK GRITTY trilogy, so I was extremely satisfied.

Last, here are my notes from the premiere if you are interested.  A lot of these got cut or altered on their way to the comics: