Logan – Comparative Opinions Episode 39

Welcome to the Comparative Opinions podcast! This week, hosts David and Holly finally made it to see Logan! Spoilers abound as they gush about this excellent film. Let us know what you thought of Logan!

Comparative Opinions is a weekly half-hour-ish podcast hosted on ComparativeGeeks.com. Subscribe for new episodes every Sunday!

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Music is by Scott Gratton: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Scott_Gratton/Intros_and_Outros

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How Are They Going to Pull Off… Logan

Another in my ongoing series wondering on the question… how are they going to pull off this movie? This time it’s Logan, entering in as the 10th X-Men franchise movie, the third solo Wolverine movie, and as a theoretical adaptation from the comics – especially of the Old Man Logan story. That’s a lot of baggage to carry into a movie.

Meanwhile, the trailers have shown us a movie stripped down to simplicity, to emotions. And violence, something that follows Wolverine wherever he goes. It’s worth noting this is also going to be rated R so they’re doing a bit there which they haven’t before with him, but this definitely looks like a movie that serves more purpose than just an excuse to make an R-rated Wolverine movie.

To be honest, the movie just looks good and is also getting great feedback from folks who have seen it, from the people involved, or even just people seeing the trailers. This may be a movie that transcends its superhero-movie subgenre and becomes just a standalone classic. Unfortunately, that’s the hype and expectation level they’ve gotten me to, so it has a lot to live up to!

But to get to that point, well, how are they going to pull that off?

Comparative Opinions: Episode 2 – Ranking the X-Men Franchise

Welcome to the Comparative Opinions podcast! This week hosts Holly and David, and guest host Julia, tackle the X-Men movie franchise from Fox, and come up with a best to worst ranking. Spoilers for all 8 movies!

Comparative Opinions is a weekly half-hour-ish podcast hosted on ComparativeGeeks.com. Subscribe for new episodes every Sunday!

https://www.facebook.com/ComparativeGeeks/

https://twitter.com/comparativegeek

Music is by Scott Gratton: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Scott_Gratton/Intros_and_Outros

Did I Build This Ship to Wreck? Part 1

Source [Image of Oscar the Grouch holding a sign that says “I heart trash.”]

Or, “Why is Florence + the Machine’s How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful the soundtrack to my trash ship?” a guest post by fandom correspondent LM, author of The Lobster Dance, a blog about about geekery, Japan, and gender, and I’ll Make It Myself!, a blog with a lot of fandom cakes and gender analysis of food marketing. Find her work on Comparative Geeks here.

Spoilers for X-Men First Class (major), X-Men Days of Future Past (moderate), NBC Hannibal (mild), and Battlestar Galactica (mild). Contains gifs; discussions of music and films featuring abusive relationships, alcohol abuse, and moderate violence; links to music videos with disturbing imagery of the same nature. I’m sure that Florence Welch actually wrote her music about her experiences and not about fandom, but seriously, have you seen the X-Men prequels? Or NBC Hannibal? Do you see?

There appears to be no one definition of a trash ship*, so my definition is a ‘ship that you know is objectively bad, either because the characters bring out the worst in each other or because one of the characters is literally a cannibal serial killer (or somesuch). Cherik (Charles Xavier/Erik Lensherr)? Trash ship. Starbuck/Apollo? Trash Battlestar. Hannigram (Hannibal Lecter/Will Graham)? Trash spiral-galaxy.

And yet, they’re strangely compelling: in the case of both Cherik and Hannigram, you have two gifted but flawed (some more than others) people drawn together because of outsider statuses and who bounce between love and hate, collaboration and war, admiration and loathing. That kind of relationship is what How Big depicts: it’s a literary, intellectual break-up album about being in relationship where the narrator and the narrator’s partner both hurt and abuse each other–and sometimes kind of like it. These are songs of revenge, angst, lost chances, doomed love, blinding hatred, and obsession.

All the Mutants! – X-Men: Days of Future Past

After my LitFlix of Amazing Spider-Man 2 yesterday, I wanted a bit of time before writing my next one on X-Men: Days of Future Past. However, I have a lot to say about this movie (well, I had a lot to say about Amazing Spider-Man 2 as well…) and so I am breaking it up into three posts. So consider this my X-Men: Days of Future Past week! I have X-Men related posts queued up all week on our Tumblr as well, so check them out!

Despite having a lot of known characters used again, there were a lot of new characters in the film as well. While they weren’t exactly pivotal to the plot, they were phenomenal additions, given a chance to use their powers, to have great scenes, and made for a really fun summer blockbuster. 

So between these known characters and new ones, there were a number used really well – and a number that weren’t. Here are some of my thoughts on all the mutants! (Spoilers!)