So, as has been pointed out elsewhere, Avengers Assemble is quite good. So quite good is it, in fact, that my wife and various members of her/our family have gone to see it maybe one or two more times since. However, just for laughs, we’ve gone to see it in a different format each time.
So the first time we went we saw it in 2D. Then we saw it in 3D. Then we saw it in IMAX 3D. Handily, this gives us a quick, empirical chance to rate these formats in terms of quality since we can control for other variables such as post-production process, etc, thus settling an age-old* debate.
So, as we all know, not a lot of women read comics (honourable exception: me). Or at least superhero comics (another honourable exception: me).
There have been lots of theories as to why this should be, largely put out by men. However, at least one of these theories is that there aren’t any good representations of women in comics – that the female characters that there are are secondary, aren’t well characterised and are usually sexualised for the benefit of younger male readers, making female readers not seem very welcome.
Now DC hasn’t been doing particularly well here, with only about 7% of its readers female. But at least it has a few titles with female leads: Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Voodoo, Batgirl, Batwoman, Birds of Prey, and Catwoman, for starters, although some treat their female characters better than others. Over at Marvel, the situation is far worse, with the last female-led title, X-23, following hot on the heels of Ms. Marvel and Black Widow in getting cancelled.
That’s right – there’s not a single superhero title with a female lead at Marvel.
Now you’d have thought that with the largest opening movie of all time, The Avengers/Avengers Assemble, at the box office right now, it would be a golden opportunity for Marvel to capitalise on the fact that there’s a superheroine in the line up – Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow – who, thanks to the mighty word processing powers of Joss Whedon, gets to kick arse a lot, isn’t second-fiddle to the men, and isn’t there to be someone’s girlfriend.
In fact, you’d be right. Look! It’s Marvel’s The Avengers: Black Widow Strikes, a prequel to the movie available in comic stores now.
Brilliant. All those women going into movies, seeing a decent superheroine character. They’ll pick up Black Widow Strikes, see there’s nothing to fear from the medium and hey presto, loads of new female comics readers, right?
It’s “What did you watch last week?”, my chance to tell you what I watched last week that I haven’t already reviewed and your chance to recommend things to everyone else (and me) in case I’ve missed them.
The usual recommendations from the first-run shows are: The Almighty Johnsons, The Apprentice, Awake, BeTipul, The Bridge, Community, Cougar Town, The Daily Show,House, Mad Men, Modern Family, and 30 Rock. Hunt them down.
I’ve still got last night’s Mad Men to get through as well as episode four of The Bridge.
First, though, a look at some shows I’ve tried this week:
Girls: I really tried to watch the second episode of this but it just bored me silly. It’s clearly intelligently written but it doesn’t feel like it’s saying anything new that anyone remotely clued up wouldn’t know already – or that’s actually worth saying. It’s also not as clever as it thinks it is. My recommendation: don’t watch.
NYC 22: Episode two was so massively conventional, stupid and uninteresting, I gave up on it. My recommendation: don’t watch.
Divine Women: Bettany Hughes on how women have been cut out of religion over the years. Characteristically, I got bored during episodes one and two when it moved away from Ancient Greece, but I actually found her (and Edith Hall’s) arguments about Gaia, Gaia-worship being supplanted by Zeus-worship somewhat unsupported by facts and dangerously close to goddess mythology, which, of course, has been largely discredited.
Veep – I really want to love this and I do like some of the characters, particularly Anna Chlumsky’s (yes, her from My Girl). Yet, it’s just a bit luke-warm compared to The Thick of It, without any of the real bite. It really needs a Macolm and quickly. How quickly? Well, five minutes into episode one, lovely wife said “No”, by which she meant she bored and wanted to watch something else. And I do sympathise with her on that score. Anyway, I’m watching episode two right now and still not loving it unfortunately.
And a few thoughts on the regulars:
The Almighty Johnsons – Playing catch-up here, so I watched three weeks in one go. Very much back to season 1 form, happy to see the back of Loki, and good to see the goddesses getting a chance to have plots that focus on them. And it’s so good to have Anders back again. And the last episode was so packed of revelations, it makes you think that maybe they’ve been planning this all along. Recommended.
Awake – Tedious, unfortunately – far too focused on the police cases.
Community – A spot-on spoof of Law & Order with a very surprising ending.
Cougar Town – Some actual plot and character developments, but still not riotous stuff.
House – Dark, but frustrating, particularly with the open-ended “maybe it was all a ghost” bit, which kind of goes against the whole point of the show. And again, a surprising ending.
Missing – I’m almost ready to give up on this, since it has some of the worst cg of the decade and is full of cloying parent stuff. You know, you’d think that with Ashley Judd on board, her entire character wouldn’t essentially revolve around being a mother and might have some other facets, but apparently not.
30 Rock – I pity anyone who doesn’t have an encyclopaedic knowledge not just of NBC history but also Saturday Night Live, since that would have made no sense to anyone otherwise. But great to finally see Donald Glover’s impression of Tracy Morgan, as well as cameos from Jon Hamm and Jimmy Fallon (who of course couldn’t keep a straight face). And when Fred Armisen turned up, it took me a few moments to realise this wasn’t a Portlandia crossover episode.
The Bridge – Episode three is more a study in Asperger’s than anything else, but I’m still loving it.
Touch – Less heart-warming that normal and the whole thing could do with some revelations of interest now. No, old offices do not count.
And in movies
Avengers Assemble: Awesome. Not not just awesome – Thorsome. Seen it twice already and probably seeing it a third time this week. Joss Whedon has miraculously managed to create an ensemble superhero movie from four separate franchises and given every character decent amounts to do and say, while also giving other characters – Black Widow most noticeably – plenty of screentime and characterisation. Funny, intelligent yet fun and full of wonderful moments. My only caveat about the whole thing – apart from the slightly rubbish CGI when Loki’s ‘flying’ – is that while it’s great collectively, it’s a different beast from each of those preceding franchises, lacking the energy, vitality (and horniness) of Iron Man; the romance, beauty and joy of Thor; or the innocence and nostalgia of Captain America. But it finally gets Hulk right and you really want them to go back and CGI Mark Ruffalo over Eric Bana and Ed Norton in the previous movies, since he’s pretty much perfect.
“What did you watch this week?” is your chance to recommend to friends and fellow blog readers the TV and films that they might be missing or should avoid – and for me to do mini-reviews of everything I’ve watched. Since we live in the fabulous world of Internet catch-up services like the iPlayer and Hulu, why not tell your fellow readers what you’ve seen so they can see the good stuff they might have missed?
Well, we’ve already answered the question of what The Avengers trailer would have looked like if it had been done in the style of the 1960s cartoon series. Now let’s answer the equally burning question of what the movie would look like if it had been made in 1978.
This particular mash-up features footage not just from the 1970s Captain America TV movie,but also of Thor and the Incredible Hulk from the 1988 TV movie The Incredible Hulk Returns, as well as many other shows of the period – see if you can spot them all. At the very least, Galactica 80, MASH and Airwolf are in there, but I’m not sure how Jason King ended up doubling for Tony Stark, though.
