Deadpooooooool!

From http://weminoredinfilm.com/2016/02/15/deadpools-box-office-records/

Yesterday, as a wholly appropriate Valentine’s Day (or the other way that the holiday is celebrated, Violent Times Day) activity, we went to go see Deadpool! In many ways, I’m not quite sure what to say about it, because it was just fun. It was irreverent, violent, funny, meta, while having a solid relationship, good action, and so much more.

More than anything, I have to say they caught the feel of Deadpool from the comics. The Merc with a Mouth: self-awaredly crazy (but is he?), needlessly reckless (but he heals), 4th-Wall-breaking, pop-culture-referencing, sword-and-gun wielding…

Some of the best moments are when multiple of these aspects come together at once, and in the movie, maybe best of all when they’re taking potshots at Ryan Reynolds, the previous incarnation of Deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and things like that. So good – though some of those scenes unfortunately made it into the trailers.

Honestly, I couldn’t tell you what the most violent scene was. What the most ridiculous string of curse words was. What the best joke. What the best or worst things were in general. It came together as a pretty great whole, though I agree with We Minored in Film that it was generally a better movie whenever Deadpool was in the scene, rather than Wade Wilson.

I can’t even really do a LitFlix much justice, since I don’t imagine this movie was based directly on any comic source. However, there are two main comic series I have read with Deadpool. One was the short (and ultra-violent) Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe. In it, we see his murderous creativity, certainly displayed in the movie. Second, as one of the team members in Uncanny X-Force. And that makes me think that the rumored X-Force movie could certainly include Deadpool as a character and not have him completely overshadow the whole thing. Still, he would be a disruptive force whenever he came onscreen so you would have to handle it carefully.

So since I don’t know what to say, I’ll leave that to you – open discussion in the comments below about the movie! And if you haven’t seen it, and are okay with stylized violence on screen and continuous cursing, then go see it and as everyone has recommended – leave the kids at home.

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Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Early on I read and fell in love with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. The opening lines so perfectly took the words of Jane Austen and added zombies it was just perfect ridiculousness. Reading the book I was so excited to see how they brought together the story of the Bennet sister’s and added their prowess for fighting zombies. It was amazing to think about the fact that it was not about the guys fighting, but making part of being a refined woman not only about sewing, drawing, music, but also about the deadly arts. Now recently the movie came out and I was super excited to see it because I hoped that they could capture some of the same essence that the book had. Now this is not a direct comparison because it has been so long since I read the book. At the same time there were definitely some things about each that I liked.

No LitFlix 2016… Sort Of

Basically with Geek Baby here the likelihood of actually making it to the movies as much as we would need to to be able to do LitFlix as we have been doing them is just not going to happen. The other issue is that when we do the LitFlix it ends up being almost all we read for the year, which is getting a little bit old. So instead we are going to change up how we might still do LitFlix, but not as a regularly scheduled program. We have really enjoyed doing LitFlix and want to continue it some way we just recognize that it cannot continue in its current form. Here are some ideas of what we might do with it.

LitFlix of Older Movies

One thought that David and I have had is that we could go back and do LitFlix for some older movies. By doing older movies we would not be tied to a specific movie release schedule and it would just be based on what movies we could find. If we did this we would probably not do as many as we have done in years past, but we could probably still do a few. Especially if we look at watching some movies of books we have already read.

Already Read the Book – Watch the Movie!

Now this would be a super easy thing that we could explore doing because if we have already read the book then all we would need to do is watch the movie. Now there are a couple of movies that are coming out that this might happen. One of these examples is Pride and Prejudice and Zombies which I am personally super excited about, because the book is absolutely fantastic. If you have not read it yet, I highly recommend it.

Book Club

Another thing that we have considered exploring is actually doing the LitFlix as part of some sort of book club. Now this option is one that probably would not look at until we had our own hosted site where we could do something like a forum for the book club, but seems like a viable option. It would be one where we could introduce a book that has a corresponding movie that is already out and then plan a time to start a discussion around it. We would have to really see how it works, but it would be great to have more of a place to have a discussion instead of necessarily just have our opinion on it available.

We Will See

The big thing is that the LitFlix as we have done them is going away. We are probably going to try some different options to see what works. There are options that would work better when we are hosting our blog ourselves, but again we will just have to wait and see. What would you like to see or be interested in? Let us know in the comments below!

Litflix Delayed: MockingJay Part II

So life has been crazy and I have been dealing with some other things lately, which I am planning to talk about in more detail tomorrow. Suffice it to say I have not been writing as much as I want or should be, thus no Litflix for Mockingjay Part 2 until now.

It is really interesting try to compare one whole movie to half a book. Honestly part of the problem I had with Mockingjay Part 1 is that it is not the whole story. The first part is all about Katniss coming to grips with being the symbol of the revolution and what that means. Dealing with the after effects of watching people dying around her when she thinks she is the one who really should be dead. The second part is about a plan of action. It is the culmination of all the turmoil that has been happening leading to the final confrontation. It means that in this movie we get a lot more of the action happening. Now this does follow along with the book, but the pacing between a movie and book function very differently.

Fantastic Four – Kind of a LitFlix

So, I wasn’t really planning on seeing Fantastic Four in theaters. We talked last week about how we got the chance to go see it – and I started furiously reading the comics I planned to read. That is, Jonathan Hickman’s Fantastic Four and FF.

Of course, it seems that the movie Fantastic Four was based on Ultimate Fantastic Four. Whoops.

In other words, this just isn’t going to be a normal LitFlix. I didn’t read enough or the right things – but there are a couple of things I have picked up from reading some Fantastic Four. About the characters, more than anything. To be fair, I’m not sure whether I’m really critiquing the movie or Ultimate Fantastic Four with this. What I know of Ultimate Fantastic Four is this:

Ultimate Reed Richards ends up a supervillain.