entry #9 across the spider-verse + more (be wary of spoilers)

 i don't know how i forgot to mention the fact that i watched spider-man: across the spider-verse. cause, i did! and it was VERY GOOD. almost better and just as brilliant as the first spider-man into the spider-verse movie. i am baffled by the fact that they spent three years figuring out how to animate one character and he ended up being such a big fan favorite. totally worth it, in my opinion! anyways, onto the spoilers... 

stunned by the beauty of the animation, and absolutely floored by the story! it manages to build up something incredibly interesting from the previous film. everything makes sense, everything fits into place, and they managed to make a joke villain like the spot into something much more sinister. he's both lovable, and fearsome. i love how despite the clumsiness and the goofiness to him the rush of power gets to his head and you can see it in his personality. i'm also very fond of how they handled gwen and her relationship with her dad and the others in this. you get to learn a lot more about how gwen thinks and what goes on in her life beyond miles and that's amazing. i also really like how she manages to heal her relationship with her dad. just incredible and so very touching. her world has such a unique touch to it as well. miles will always be my favorite character and spiderverse does him so incredibly well that he's almost the perfect protagonist. when all other spider-men failed to have the determination that makes spider-man who he is, miles persists. i hope that ends up inspiring all the other spider-men in the end too. and prowler miles? all that foreshadowing from the first movie? SIIIIIIICK. soo sick. also a big fan of donald glover's appearance as a real life prowler. the only thing that really fucks me over about this film is the "to be continued" ending. such a marvelous experience that i'm gonna have to wait a whole year to re-experience. it's a pain in the ass but i have VERY high hopes that it will be worth the wait. oh MAN! i forgot all about how they fixed peter and mary jane's relationship and it makes me so happy. i am so sick and tired of the spider-man comics fucking it up and making peter a miserable piece of shit when they could've easily done this. they nailed mary jane's character down to a t perfect and just how it should be. she understands peter and she's good for him like she SHOULD be. always cheers me up to see good peter/mj rep. i could talk about so many of the other characters in the movie. they're all fantastic. miguel is also equally as funny as he is horrifying and badass. he has personality, he has motivation, and he looks fucking sick. 

this movie inspired dave and i to create our own spider-men. i kind of want to redraw them so i'll post them here afterwards. mine is way cooler just saying.

moving on from that, i think i mentioned reading superman: up in the sky yesterday. i commented on how hard to read it was and that i was beginning to feel disinterested in the comic. i'm very glad i didn't just stop reading because the ending was incredibly moving. when superman finally found alice, the conversation that ensues and the persistence to find her made me emotional. it made me remember exactly why i love superman. cause superman is pure good. he tries to be hope and that's so admirable. one child gets hurt because he wants to impersonate him and he thinks he has to quit in order to save that one child. then he realizes, the only way he's going to save these children is to be superman. and i also love batman's dialogue at the end where they ask how clark did it and he goes "cause he's superman". i actually grinned ear to ear when reading it. i'm so happy i picked up this comic. i'll continue to read more superman comics. 

last night i also watched the first guardians of the galaxy movie with my friend cooper, but i won't say much about it until we get to the third movie. i'm planning on watching all three in a row so i keep up with the story. all i gotta say for now is... I LOVE GOTG! and i'm so happy the reviews of the third movie are so positive! we have gotten two great movies this summer and i hope we keep getting good movies like this. 

 more about my life, i recently attended a convention. i think i forgot to mention that? i had a very good time! i bought jewelry for the first time. a triforce necklace and a necklace of an atom. they both look cool. i like wearing bracelets and necklaces sometimes but only the thick kinds. i also like watches but i haven't owned a watch in a while. it'd be a cool birthday gift, but i'm in favor of getting a gaming computer first. i actually bought a few stickers to put on the computer i eventually get around to buying. fingers crossed! i also got this depressing spider-man card holder cause i was in need of some kind of wallet. i'd much rather own an actual leather wallet but this'll do for now so i don't have to take out my deadpool purse every time i want to purchase something. it's not a purse but it sure looks like one. i have also been getting prepared to go to my schools ball! it's like american prom but we call it ball over here for some god forsaken reason. i haven't gone out suit shopping yet but i hope i can get around to doing that eventually. 

that's all from me for today.

-eb

(b.t.w, to the person copying my blog format for some reason... stop doing that you nerd.)

entry #8 hereditary and midsommar (spoilers ahead. be wary!)

 

yesterday i got super bored cause my best friend dave took a nap. to avoid having to write a biology report, i decided to watch both of the acclaimed ari aster horror films, hereditary and misommar. i watched midsommar first cause i had heard a lot more about it. first it was all those tik tok edits and i was just confused as to why they were all wearing flower crowns and such. what i gathered from what i saw was that this girl was heavily drugged and in some kind of weird cult. kind of like nine perfect strangers. that's a miniseries i saw with melissa mcarthy in it. i didn't go out of my way to watch it, my aunt and uncle had it on and at dinner time so it piqued my curiosity. it wasn't all that good in my opinion. i still felt that there was a lot of similarity between them. anyways, midsommar was a LOT more exciting. not in the good way! the gore was horrendous! that scene where they bludgeoned that old dude's head is gonna scar me for good! i have had my fair share of seeing terrible gore in shows like hannibal, which is what the barn scene reminded me of with the spread out lungs. kind of like angel wings. reminds me of the only hannibal murder that stuck with me, the one where he sat these two people at the foot of a bed in a prayer pose while he hung the skin off their backs on hooks. messed up. anyways, as chilling as the movie was... with the will poulter flesh suit and what-not, i felt a bit lost. especially with dani and chris. it wasn't the fault of the plot more or less the actual characters and their relationships with each other. it just felt oddly blank. like, there wasn't much to it. i guess dani was meant to kind of lose her sanity. i don't know. by the way, i really thought that was chris pratt. it made me question if i was actually seeing will poulter and william jackson harper too or if they were also lookalikes. i really liked the foreshadowing in the film though. especially with the bear and all the artistry. in both films, ari aster always places down clues as to what the ending is going to be like and i really like it. it's the little things that count! i loved seeing this in heredity. after i saw the movie i was inclined to rewatch it with the knowledge i had gained beforehand. it was kind of like a shutter island situation where you are absolutely dumbfounded at the end so you need to go back and see how obvious it was just to make yourself feel stupider. heredity is a brilliant movie with brilliant acting. the horror in the film only gets better as the movie progresses. i really like how real peter felt as a teenager. the scene where he just goes upstairs and lies down in bed until they find charlies dead body is such a realistic portrayal of trying to act like something didn't happen out of shock. too late to do anything so all you can do is wait till someone else finds out. i think it was really sad how annie made peter feel like he had to carry all that guilt of being partially responsible for charlie's death. their relationship felt so flimsy and distance, like they both didn't want to be around one another which is a crazy thing to see in a mother and child relationship in movies without seeing them have any big fights or anything. annie always felt distant to peter. so much so that it took me until the scene where she admitted he was a failed miscarriage to figure out that peter was her biological son. this brings me to my favorite and the most chilling scene in the movie. the scene where peter is being chased by annie and he escapes up to the attic, pleading for her to stop and the banging is so fast it kind of sounds like annie is knocking with her fists. no, dude. she's upside down spider-manning it on the ceiling and BASHING her head into the attic door so fast it sounds like knocking. nothing in a horror movie has chilled me more than seeing that. the switch to complete demonic possession from trying to get rid of the demonic presence in annie was so unexpected. i wasn't a big fan of it but it certainly creeps you out a lot more. also, there's just something about naked smiling people that freak me out. oh man, and charlie's head on that creepy mannequin with the praying cult members. it was freakishly artistic, in a way? i think the ending was meant to mock the miniature houses annie would make. i really liked the lore behind both movies, but there were so many hints as to what would happen in heredity. once you know, it all makes sense. the photographs, the way joanne (?) was acting... super phenomenal. i'm actually really fond of the demon reveal at the end. i know it's pretty generic but it was done in a really cool way. it wasn't just like... ohh yeahh... their family was tied back to a cult this whole time!! you never knew! and all these weird things can just be explained away... because we're lazy writers. no, it was hinted at at the start and it's an interesting concept. this isn't like a countdown situation. the reveal that it was a demon king all along was creepy and badass. i found myself going back and piecing the story together properly afterwards. like, ohhhh charlie was possessed by paimon from the start. ohhh that's why there's weird herbs in the tea and charlie's drink. that's why ellen was so weird ooohh. the movie manages to explain away everything it set up from the start and that's always nice to see. i'm a big fan of my questions being answered. anyways, watch hereditary (definitely) and if you wanna creep yourself out even more watch midsommar. phenomenal acting from toni collette, by the way. she captured the grieving mother role so well. a fantastic performance countered with really good writing. i was not having a fun time after watching the movie because nightfall is at 5pm in the winters of new zealand, and i had to go outside for a brief period of time. thankfully dave was awake and i was able to pester him into staying in call with me as i ran out of the house in the freezing cold and the dead of night to deliver a heater to my aunt's house. 

update on my drawing situation: cooper's pen arrived alongside an ultimate spider-man comic which just so happened to be the comic i left off at! how convenient? it's the first time i've witnessed one of my fictional heroes utter a slur besides captain kirk from star trek. i think it meant a different thing at the time back then but peter parker was not afraid to hit flash thompson with some unlike-peter-parker language. i'm not complaining. i love a swearing spider-man. just didn't expect the one time i saw him swear to be him calling a kid retarded. that's crazy! 

i have been reading immortal hulk and i will continue to do so. it's very well written and interesting. i tried to read superman: up in the sky (i think?) but i'm just not following all that well. probably cause i don't touch superman comics a lot. anyways, bye.

-eb