double whammy: the boys and invincible

Now that most of you have finally come to the realisation that Super hero movies aren't all that, you look to fill the void left by not watching the next Marvel movie. And this is where The Boys and Invincible fit in, as they are super hero movies but they subvert expectation - except I don't feel like this solves the problem.

 

 

 

The main problem with both of these TV Series is that they end up asking the exact same question:  

 

What if you had Superman - but he was bad? 

 

Now, this conundrum is all well and good to mull over for a few minutes but when it comes time to draw out a multi-hour, multi-season runtime, I'm not sure we really care about the answer. In both series we ramp up the gore and show the results from unbridled super powers. That may be fun for a moment but then we need filler to pad out the runtime until the next sadistic expression of bad taste is realised. 

 

I would say that both TV series are best watched solely for the first season. Whereas The Boys focuses their time on following a rebellion against 'Supes', Invincible focuses on what possible reason 'Superman' would kill all the other super heroes in the first episode. Both make for compelling watching, as we know that the rebellion will need to use their wits to get through their battles whereas Invincible focuses on the lengths Omni-man (AKA Superman) will take to avoid being discovered.

And then, due to the success, Season 2 (etc.) was made

This is when both series fall down. You cannot continue a story once the novelty of the question has worn off. This is when they are inevitably forced to start padding out the story with more characters, more less-compelling questions and *snore* relationships and double-crosses. I would argue that both stories would be significantly better if they had concluded by the end of the first season, although, I would say that The Boys fared slightly better than Invincible, as they did have better writing and performances. I'm pretty sure JK Simmons read his lines while driving to the supermarket whereas Karl Urban maintained his intensity - but both subsequent seasons were incredibly pointless.

The Boys just leans into shock value with puerile examples like:

• Mini dude kills his boyfriend by sneezing on cocaine while inside his colon
• Mini chick needs to puke (i.e. bulimia) to get small and then plays with her boyfriends' (now) giant dong
• Superman has a mommy fetish
• Some bad dude has a tentacle porn extendo dick

Invincible just bores you to death with stupid conundrums like:

• Can't maintain superhero persona and school life (snoooorrrre)
• Can't maintain superhero persona and girlfriend (uggggghhhh)
• Invincible kills a bad dude who was trying to kill his family - and then feels really bad
  (move over, mini chick) 
• 90% of the season does not actually progress the plot
  

The Boys does at least have an underlying plot for each season but still has plenty of padding - especially with can't-be-killed Kimiko and pansy-ass French dude - but at least they curtail their padding to a mere 70% of the runtime.

 

In conclusion, I don't have a satisfactory conclusion which doesn't end up leaving a bitter taste in my mouth. Both series would have been better as a one-page answer to the initial question than something which should be scrutinised over multiple seasons. The one thing I can say is that we perhaps need to move back to a world where story is front-and-center. We have exhausted all things super at this point - subversion or naught - we cannot continue forwards with this futile effort just because in prior years we had found success. Spectacle means nothing if we all know that it's not real. Jackie Chan falling off a building has far more gravitas than knocking a superhero through a planet. We have all become desensitised when it comes to the fantastical whereas good storytelling remains as compelling as the day it was first invented.

the state of cinema

So, I watched Lightyear recently and, sweet Jesus, did it miss the point by a light-year. Not only was the film boring, the whole impetus of the film was on the edge of pointless. Worst of all, we didn't even care if Buzz succeeded in the end.

This film is the epitome of the Disney formula: bland protagonist,  entertaining sidekicks, bland message about facing your fears and, apparently, the main message was that you should be content with residing in an alien hellscape? Okay ...

 

I don't think I'm spoiling anything when I state that the Zerg are created by a time traveling future version of Buzz ... and he kills future Buzz. Way to keep it upbeat, there, Disney. So, not only is the story not worth watching, nor the hero worth supporting, you also get to watch him kill himself to 'save' the world. That'll keep the kiddos entertained, eh? How on earth did this plot get greenlit?

The main thought which kept running through my head is, who is this for? This is not for children, and it's certainly not for lovers of Toy Story. The story is meant to be an origin story for the Buzz action figure ... except it's set in the future ... and the origin of The Zerg is destroyed ... and the heroism of Buzz is destroyed ... and, somehow, the story serves only to deliver a message of acceptance and making the most of their bleak situation (yes, really).

Earlier in my life I dreamt of setting up a home theater in a spare room. Now, I'm not sure there's any point. Outside of films like Top Gun Maverick, there's little reason to sit down and watch a movie anymore - not when you could be doing your taxes, pulling molars out with your bare hands or watching necrosis set in from a flesh-eating bacteria. All of those options are better than watching Lightyear ... and that's a problem

How to be trendy

Oh, technology, you malcontented minx. You push me towards the new but without thinking through the consequences. It has taken you many moons to reach parity with the superiority of CRT's just to pull the rug out once more with the introduction of 'transparent' OLED. Even the Emperor's new clothes had better fidelity, compared to what this provides. Case in point:

You can get an infinitely better image at many magnitudes less money so outside of the party trick of resurrecting dead rappers, this serves no purpose. And, to add salt to the wound, it costs far more? Colour me unimpressed.

Which brings me to my latest discovery: if you remember, I had a small diatribe about my audio lagging due to the absence of a dedicated audio jack on my phone. Well, I fixed that. All it took was a USB-C to 3.5mm headphone jack converter. This allows me to avoid the annoyances surrounding charging, lag and the 'bluetooth tax' related to getting a wireless set of headphones. Overall, I am very happy, but still annoyed, that I need to thwart their attempts to push technology which is objectively inferior to that which its attempting to replace. It always helps to take a step back before you blindly follow the next trend. Your sanity and wallet will thank you.

The war on humanity has begun

Oh Google, you impertinent minx. All your once aspirational vestiges of 'Don't be evil' have now been tossed aside to make place for 'Let's milk humanity.' For those of you not in the know, Google has slowly been putting steps in place to stop all possibilities of the internet being free from adverts because, you know, Google's main/only notable revenue stream is from serving ads to the general public.

The first step was introducing a feature set into all chrome/chromium (AKA open source chrome) versions under the mantle of Manifest V3. This would limit the abilities of adblocking extensions to work effectively while browsing the internet. Perhaps this is not the most egregious of examples but I know this is just the beginning.

It seems that google wants me to buy some shoes

They have also turned their attention to services like youtube, where the war on adblockers is nearing its end game. From merely slowing the load time of pages, to outright failing to load if you have adblocker enabled, it's clear that I will need to find a source other than youtube to entertain me in the very near future.

Welcome to the void

In reality, I kind of foretold of this war when it came to free apps and services like facebook, instagram, google, youtube, chrome. It was not enough for them to merely ransack our internet habits for uncanny conclusions on our personal interests, sexual preferences, or buying habits; they wanted more. More than merely affixing a price upon our heads for our data - they wanted our money as well - or for us to dang well just watch ALL TEH ADS.

Even though I can quite comfortably cover the cost of $13.99, I feel like this cost is merely a stepping stone to $15.99, $18.99, $30.99 etc. We, as a society, are quickly moving towards a subscription-based system for everything. Now, I know that a single subscription is not going to break the bank but when you factor in the cost of multiple streaming subscriptions, electricity, food, petrol, internet, faster acceleration in your mercedes, heated seats in your BMW and so on, very few people can comfortably juggle that burgeoning expense. Heck, if you squint hard enough, even things like a 24-month contract on your smart phone or a car lease could technically be boiled down as a subscription. In comparison, I keep my outgoings to perhaps $100 a month when it comes to most consumables - but that's only with consciously avoiding a lot of the pitfalls of modern society.

I bought my phone, I bought my car, I will (very soon) buy my house, and I will buy infrastructure to generate my own energy, food stuffs and clean water. I will be 90+% off most grids when it comes to my basic needs and that is only because I know what our future has in store for us. These are not the ramblings of a once-sane mind but merely forecasting the downfall for most of our society. Whether it's our spiraling destruction caused by global warming, the collapse of the underwater conveyor belt, or the hyperinflation being felt around the world, I'm through putting my future in the hands of people who clearly don't have my best interests at heart and I think it would be best if you did the same.

Satie is my homie

 The first time I heard this track was, unexpectedly, in Short Circuit 2. Upon hearing his composition, even the first time, I knew Erik Satie was my homie. It was a perfectly eloquent, delightful and tinged track which seems to capture both beauty, loss and the final realisation that, no matter how careful you are, you cannot control your fate.

Somehow Johnny Five was able to convey the sense of loss ... but somehow miss the point in the process. This is not a sonata which can merely be short-hand for sad. This is a track which starts out predictably with a basic chord progression; simple and predictable - and then the choral lead leads in with a childlike innocence. This is the common thread of the track while the backing plays a predictable and plodding chord progression.

At no point does this lead vary in its aim to be harmonious. And yet, the lead breaks harmony. It's surpising, and yet, it continues. Satie leans in and begins to completely break any sense of harmony. The choral line blindly continues forward against the backing's dissonance. This composition, to me, speaks of a desire to move towards normality while the starkness of reality says otherwise.

To me, Erik was never able to reconcile this desire for normality amongst the throes of a crumbling society. This composition is his acceptance that he will always be the outsider and that he has come to peace with, what I would humbly deem, his magnum opus.

It's what's on the inside that counts

So, I was recently trawling Netflix and noticed a show called Inside Man with pretty cool premise for a show: a death-row inmate who assists people on the outside in solving mysteries / murders - and it stars Stanley Tucci and, for the whovians out there, David Tennant. Well, colour me compelled. 

 

And so, I began the series and thought it would be an easy watch, considering it is a mini-series with only four episodes. The first episode began reasonably with the introduction of a syrupy-sweet mass-murderer with an infallible memory and a relatively dour single murderer played by Tucci. We're introduced to the first candidate for his assistance which he turns down almost immediately as he had solved the mystery but he wouldn't assist as he didn't satisfy Tucci's selection criteria. Over the course of the rest of the episode, the writers toy with us and, at the point the solution is revealed, a far too-long-a-bow needs to be drawn for the solution to even be viable for what is an incredibly contrived scenario.

 

 

 

And this was the first episode - the hook. Colour me mildy irritated.

 

Alongside this side story (at that point in time), we're also introduced to a scenario where Mr Tennant, a vicar, traps a woman in his basement due to another set of contrived circumstances which culminates in your brain needing to run in reverse for it to make even a modicum of sense. Even after all that, I forced myself to sit through the next two episodes - but had to give up prior to the conclusion because, Jesus Christ, the writers on this show are complete imbeciles. Over the course of three episodes I witness that:

• the writers don't understand how smart phones work
• the writers don't understand how computer file datestamps work
• the writers don't understand how human interaction works
• the writers grossly misunderstands how policework actually works
• the writers only create contrived scenarios that were solely written to make Tucci look smart 
• the writers keep creating additional contrived scenarios that were solely written to keep Tennant from digging his way out of the original horribly contrived scenario
  
• the writers feel that by including the message in their storyline that they get a free ride (they do not)

It turns out that the writers is actually just one: Steven Moffat. Looking over his history, he has a few accolades - including the maligned Doctor Who and Sherlock so, I guess, he writes what he knows; although, Holmes did become incredibly stupid by the last few episodes. Based upon recent writing credits, I can only assume his recent filmography is chronicling his accelerating decline into senility, as it's the only thing which makes any sense in the end. For some reason, I do not recommend this show.