Tag: commentary

The Man in the High Castle Season 3: New Teaser Trailer

~ Metacrone

 

Resistance Rises!

Close to two years after season two was released, Amazon appears to be making moves toward releasing season 3 of its alternate universe show The Man in the High Castle. The show, and Amazon Prime Video, have had various issues that slowed down the production of season 3. Amazon cancelled many of their shows during the same period, including their prestige, flagship shows, like Mozart in the Jungle.

Amazon released a short teaser video today, announcing that season three will be available this fall. Watch the video after the cut.

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How Star Wars Invites Trolls Who Are Toxic to Diversity

~ Metacrone

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Last week, Kelly Marie Tran, the Asian-American actor who played Rose Tico in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, shut down her Instagram account after being bombarded with racist and misogynist insults for months. Daisy Ridley (Rey) was harassed into leaving Instagram in 2016. John Boyega (Finn) has received similar negative attention for his Star Wars appearances.

There were many things wrong with The Last Jedi, but Kelly Marie Tran, Daisy Ridley and John Boyega were among the bright spots in a badly conceived story. Rian Johnson wrote and directed a film with a diverse cast that put the women and some of the people of color in prominent positions. Then he tore them down.

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Samantha Bee Calls Ivanka Trump Sexist Profanity, Spends the Next Day Dealing with the Repercussions

~ Metacrone
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On her Wednesday, 5/30/18 episode of the TBS show Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, Ms. Bee aired a story about the recent immigration issues concerning the separation of children from their parents. During the story, she showed a tweet from Ivanka Trump that included a photo of Trump with her son and called Trump “a feckless c**t”.
The segment was quickly met with harsh criticism from many sources, with some, including Donald Trump, calling for her show’s cancellation. Samantha Bee and TBS apologized for her choice of language. She spent the next day dealing with the fallout from the incident. But by last night, she was complaining that she’d had to waste time on sexism instead of focusing on immigration.
Samantha Bee, maybe next time don’t use vile, misogynist language to make your point, if you want to keep the focus on the issue you intended. I don’t care who the woman or man in question is, that word should never be used because of its implication that female body parts, and women themselves, equal something disgusting. And your implication that the abuse of women isn’t as important as racism is revolting.

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Oscars 2018 Official Ballot- Keep Score at Home– Updating Live with the Winners

~ Metacrone

 

Oscar

5:57 PM MST Here we go! I’ll highlight the winner in each category after they’re announced!

Oscar night is here! In the US the awards are being broadcast at 8:00 EST, 5:00 PST, on ABC, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel. HULU is also showing the awards live.

Indiewire and iTunes have teamed up to provide a 2018 Oscars ballot that you can use for your Oscars pool, to keep score during the ceremony, or to make your predictions before things get started.

Download a copy of the ballot, or just look over a copy, after the jump.

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Travelers Season 2: Review, Analysis and Speculation

~ Metacrone ~ 14 Comments

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Updated 7/18/18- What/Who Is the Director, Really?

We made it through another season! Season 2 of Travelers had its ups and downs. Whereas I would have given season 1 an A+, I’d only give this season a B+. There were improvements in some areas. The female characters weren’t treated with as much misogyny, and the show had some stellar cinematography. The cast continued to be amazing, and the new additions kept up the quality. The production values of the show look and sound great, especially considering the size of their budget. It’s the writing that needs to be given more attention next season.

We learned intriguing new aspects of the mythology, but we also went around in circles, repeating the same kernels of information over and over, rather than continuing to reveal more about life in the future and how time travel works. The showrunners say that they don’t intend to have the series physically go to the future because the travelers are trapped in the 21st, but that’s a cop out.

They can still give us a clear picture of the environment and culture that the characters are coming from, explain the Director clearly, and give sensible explanations for their theories of time travel and consciousness transfer, then stick to those rules. Otherwise, the show runs the risk of retconning and contradicting itself every time they think up a new storyline, which is death to serious science fiction.

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Marvel’s Runaways Season 1 Episode 7: Refraction Recap

~ Metacrone

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In this week’s episode, Refraction, the characters spend most of their time dealing with the fall out from last week’s episode, Metamorphosis. Refraction, in its various definitions, refers to a bending or changing of light to alter the way things are seen. In this episode, various agents, including the Jonah juice cure-all, Jonah himself, Leslie, and Molly, alter the perceptions and dynamic of Pride and the kids. But change is not necessarily good, and the metamorphosis that was referred to in the last episode is going to be complex and difficult for the characters, at the very least.

In the opening flashback we watch Victor and Janet Stein meet for the first time. He uses a pick up line that compares light refraction to time travel, then insults her intelligence when she doesn’t fall for it. She takes the bait. The scene changes to Victor holding newborn Chase as Janet watches. He’s in awe of his child, declaring that Chase is the only thing that matters.

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Riverdale Season 2 Episode 9: Chapter Twenty-Two- Silent Night, Deadly Night Recap

~ Metacrone

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Welcome to Riverdale’s nightmare before Christmas! Santa brought us what I suspect is a fake Black Hood, two kisses with two different girls for Archie, leadership of the Junior Serpents for Jughead, vanquishing to Greendale for Penny, either a new career for Penelope or a new stepdad for Cheryl, and a partridge in a pear tree and an actual Christmas nightmare for Betty.

No, I don’t mean her kiss with Archie.

Plus, Santa brought us the brief return of Nana Rose Blossom and a flat-stomached Polly Cooper. Stay safe, ladies!!

It’s very early Christmas morning when Polly, who’s not pregnant, wakes Betty up to come downstairs to see Santa. Betty follows her, only to find that Santa is the Black Hood in a Santa Hood. He’s coming for her, but she backs away from him, and wakes up from her nightmare.

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Marvel’s Runaways Season 1 Episode 6: Metamorphosis Recap

~ Metacrone

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This week we get more background on the early days of the Pride, the kids pull off a complicated plan, and the parents interact with the mysterious Jonah. Everyone’s personal lives, youth and adult, begins to get in the way of the goals of the group. The kids’ romantic entanglements and personal dilemmas are charming to keep up with, since they are mixed up with the discovery of their powers. The parents aren’t as much fun, but Julian McMahon might just be playing the devil this time around, instead of just a character who’s devilish. He certainly gives Lucifer a run for his money.

We learn over the course of the episode that Jonah had gifted the parents with many of their hearts’ desires over the years, with the understanding that eventually he’d need something in return. Apparently none of them had ever read fairytales or seen movies about the mob, because they all agreed, thus getting themselves involved in an evil bargain that they couldn’t escape.

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The Gifted Season 1 Episode 10: eXploited Recap

~ Metacrone

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We lose some familiar faces on The Gifted this week, and gain some familiar faces as well. eXploited would have been the season finale under the original 10 episode order, and it feels very much like one. The stakes are high, loyalties are in question, and the game changes in the final act.

We start with a flashback to two months ago, when Esme was posing as a campaign aide to an antimutant senator, using the name Stacy. Or Stephanie, depending on who you ask. She’s just talked herself into a meeting between the senator and Trask Industries when she gets a telepathic distress call.

Her family has been discovered and captured. Sentinel Services knows where she is, and are on their way. Esme/Stacy scurries away from the Senator’s location as quickly as she can, while telepathic voices urge her to hurry and to find a way to rescue them.

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Movie Review: Wind River

~ Metacrone ~ 2 Comments

 

WRposter

Wind River * 2017 * Rated R * 1 Hour 47 Minutes

😸😸😸😸🌑 Rated 4/5 Happy lap cats, with some reservations

I have very mixed feelings about Wind River. On the one hand, it’s beautifully made, starring a talented group of some of my favorite actors, and tells a compelling story. On the other hand, the story is about the epidemic of sexual assault and violence against Native American women, yet the voices of these women are hardly heard. The story is told from an overwhelmingly male point of view, and the two main characters are white.

Wind River takes place on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming. Jeremy Renner plays Cory Lambert, a US Fish and Wildlife Service hunter and tracker who works on the reservation. His ex-wife, with whom he has a son, is a Native American from the reservation. They also had a teenage daughter who died mysteriously three years prior to the movie.

As he’s hunting a mountain lion that’s teaching her cubs to hunt livestock, Cory tracks bloody human footprints in the snow to the body of 18 year old Native American woman Natalie Hanson. Natalie was the best friend of Cory’s daughter Emily, so he recognizes the body, and reports her death to the tribal police, headed by Graham Greene as Ben.

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