Cinema Issues: Harry Potter And The Ridiculous Backlash

In this edition of Cinema Issues we are talking about the backlash from parts of the LGBTQ community to the new Harry Potter tv series trailer.

Did your protests make book shops stop selling Harry Potter? No.

Did your protests kill Hogwarts Legacy? No.

Is J.K Rowling personally killing trans people? No.

Is J.K Rowling creating laws you don’t like? No.

Will your protest stop this show from being popular? No.

So before we get into it, we just wanted to say that we didn’t want to watch this Harry Potter show because of the modern audience slop it’s doing with Snape, but we have now been put in a weird catch 22. We can not watch it and let the militant trans people sending death threats to Rowling win, or we can watch it and deal with the modern dayisms. It’s a rock and a hard place.

In the online conversation around the new Harry Potter trailer amongst people saying there is no need for this or that visually it didn’t look as good, both valid points. There were people sending death threats to J.K Rowling calling her names saying she had blood on her hands, and trying to spoil the book for new audiences. This doesn’t make your cause, the trans movement, look good nor does it make you look like people who people want to protect or side with. When you behave in such a manner it actively helps people who don’t like you as they can point to your behaviour of sending death threats of proof of what they say about you. That’s not winning hearts and minds.

On top of that you have the fact they think they can shame people into doing what they want attacking people who mention Harry Potter as bigots or as being transphobes. Again you cannot shame people into doing what you want them to do it doesn’t work and makes them go the other way. The fact that the trailer has been massively viewed isn’t surprising considering there is a group of people out there demanding others don’t watch it. It very much is like when you’re a kid and your parents may say don’t do something it often makes you want to do it more.

Ultimately there is a crisis of entitlement going on across the world, wherein these small pressure groups think they can dictate how the rest of the world behaves. You need to understand you’re a tiny group and that most people don’t care, and with your behaviour you’re turning people from don’t care into active dislike. You don’t have a right to not be offended or to be catered to, as you would like to say to people you disagree with if you don’t like it don’t watch it and be quiet. You are making things worse for yourself not better.

The Magic Faraway Tree: The Most Unlikable Character Ever Put To Film

So when they announced an adaptation of The Magic Far Away Tree, the hunt began to search for the modern audience slop. You knew it would be there, and whilst there is some race swapping for the most part you’d argue it is mostly free of it. That’s a win.

The film for the most part is fun and family friendly, they waste Rebecca Ferguson as the villain but other than that the film is escapist family fun.

However, there is one person who ruins the film and every scene she is in, and that is the eldest daughter who is just horrible. The way she speaks to people and her entitled attitude are often so bad that you think the film is trying to show her off as the villain, she also causes two of the major negative events in the film out of her own selfishness. She is the proto typical, I am offended type and feels like she would be out marching on a weekend. Even at the end of the film when she has supposedly learnt her lesson she hasn’t really she’s still similar.

Overall, a fun film that could have been better if they had not written the eldest child to be a terrible human being.

3/5

Pros

It’s fun

It’s well paced

It manages whimsy well

Cons.

The eldest child is awful

They waste Rebecca Ferguson

Splitizville: Hollywood Needs More Church

A woman leaves a man because he won’t have sex with her whilst driving, he then has sex with his best friends wife, she then gets into another guy, and it all ends with the the original woman getting back with the man whilst carrying someone else’s baby.

Catch all that, yes that’s the plot of “comedy film” splitizville, where being in an open relationship means no one understanding commitment and having sex with anyone and anything around them is seen as acceptable and just normal. You prude. Marriage vows just don’t matter.

It is the most nihilistic film to come out this year in many ways and shows why romance truly is dead and why Hollywood is failing, everyone is so deeply unlikeable that you hate them all and just want the film to end.

This isn’t the sort of film Dakota Johnson should be making.

Overall, garbage.

0.5/5

Dakota Johnson tries

Cons.

It’s awful

It’s badly paced

All the characters are awful Hollywood cliches

It makes you feel depressed

It’s just needless

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Nintendo Nostalgia List: Super Mario Galaxy Movie.

This piece will be a little different from some of our other fare, it will be a list in essence of the various other Nintendo franchises referenced in Super Mario Galaxy Movie. So that we can discuss where Nintendo might go with it’s shared universe next.

The most prominent one and the one that they announced before the film was even out was Fox from Star Fox, unlike a lot of the others he plays a role in the third act of the film and could be viewed as a supporting character. It seems a little odd for them to feature Fox so prominently despite the fact they haven’t made a Star Fox game since the Wii U era, but who knows rumour has it, this might be setting up a new game announcement and or a spin off film. This would jive also with the fact that they introduced the rest of team Star Fox as well.

The Pikmin also appear during the same hub based sequence that gives us Fox, however they have far less to do and are more or a background cameo you can see them spill out of a craft of their own. These creatures from Nintendo’s series of puzzle/real time strategy games could see a film of their own down the line or perhaps an animated TV show.

Mr Game and Watch is a call back to the 80s era for Nintendo and could be called the deepest cut of the film. He is created by Luigi during the third act of the film using Bowser Jr’s magic paintbrush and defends the Mario Brothers and Yoshi.

R.O.B is again a call back to an accessory from back in the day and is probably the most obscure reference over all.

A final point we wanted to touch on, but this might be slightly off base as we aren’t seeing other people talk about it. The magical paintbrush that Bowser Jr has and how it uses paint as a weapon, which looks very similar to the video game Splatoon in which paint is used in various ways. This could be a reference to Splatoon existing within the Nintendo verse as there is no clear indication as to where Bowser Jr got it from.

There is the list, we tried to do something a bit different and focus it only on other Nintendo properties, rather than listing the various Mario characters cameos. Let us know if we missed anyone out.

The Drama: A Film That Shouldn’t Have Been Made

Summary, a couples wedding plans are thrown into disaary after a horrific secret from the bride’s past comes out.

So we are going to spoil this as it is important to talk about the twist and how it ruins the film massively, if you don’t want it spoiled then stop here and come back.

So when asked what the worst thing that Zendaya’s character had even done was, she replies she once planned a school shooting. Why did anyone think this was a good idea, this isn’t a drama film it’s being portrayed as a quirky rom-com, this was such a tasteless decision.

When the trailers came out we thought it was just going to be more modern Hollywood slop, as noted by the fact that almost all character are in an interracial relationship, however the reality is all together darker.

What’s more it feels like it was done to be shocking rather than for a good reason, and with the fact it seems like school shootings are happening more and more in the real world this seems incredibly in poor taste.

The film almost makes light of it at times.

Zendaya when asked directly about the tastelessness of the twist tried to play it off as comedy, it’s not comedy to make light of dead kids it’s just a bad look.

If Zendaya was a better actress maybe they could have done something to make the performance more rounded rather than just feeling like Zendaya playing herself as she always does.

If this is a foray into dark humour then it is one that goes too far.

Overall, a horrible film that never should have been made.

0/5

Pros.

None

Cons.

The twist

It makes light of real tragedies

It uses the subject matter for shock value

It’s depressing

It’s vapid

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Super Mario Galaxy Movie: Nostalgia Missing A Soul

Summary, the Mario Brothers are threatened by the arrival of Bowser Jr who has set out to find his father after the events of the first film.

So on the press tour for this film Charlie Day was asked who his Luigi from recent American History was and said the murder who shot the CEO in an act of left wing defiance. This was pretty breaking at the time of writing this review, and sadly it does impact enjoyment of the film, as Luigi was a highlight before this incredibly poorly thought through statement.

The film itself is good and perfectly serviceable, and more of the same if you or your kids liked the first film you will like this, however, where this film is let down from the first is that it doesn’t have the same emotional core. The first film had Mario’s feelings of insecurity, Bowser’s love of Peach and even the depressed Luma to give the film stakes this one really doesn’t have that. You have the father son stuff with Bowser and his son, and the sisterhood storyline between Peach and Rosalita, but neither of these hit the same depth of feeling as the stuff from the first film. It was nice to see Mario and Peach as a couple get teased out more, this is an important part of the games that the first film did not spend enough time with. One assumed that that Mario asking Peach out would be one of the post credits scenes of the film but it wasn’t.

The adventure is interesting you see a lot of the galaxy and a lot of new things, this is mainly a chance to set up new films or to promote different IPs, obviously a film cannot spend the same amount of time with a universe as a game, but it does feel like in each of these cases it is just window dressing it is like look its Star Fox, or oh look its Daisy rather than having the world’s feel lived in or the characters seem like they matter. For example if they had replaced Star Fox with a different Nintendo character would it really have mattered at all, not really. That’s the problem in a nutshell. Nowhere is this truer than with Yoshi, not only do they have Yoshi be out and about in the over world without anyone thinking it was weird, but also all the character’s function is to follow Mario around and act like one of the minions characters. The fact is if you were to play one of the Yoshi games you would see the character has a lot more personality than he was given in the film.

The music was a lot better this time around, it was more classic game music rather than horribly forced in pop music, and the end credits that showed scenes from the film in puppet form was a lot of fun so it gets bonus points for those things.

Overall, it is serviceable and fun to a degree but there is a hollowness to it.

3/5

Pros.

Mario and Peach

The Music and Puppet Show

The scope of the film

Cons.

It has a lot of new characters but they don’t need to be there and it just feels like a shop window

The emotional core of the film is not enough

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Cinema Issues: James Gunn The Man Who Should Have Stayed Cancelled

In this edition of Cinema Issues we are talking about James Gunn, why he’s a truly awful studio head and why God willing he’ll be fired soon.

Where to start, perhaps with the fact that he was too afraid to use the phrase truth, justice and the American way on the Superman poster but will use truth, justice, whatever, on the Supergirl poster.

Or perhaps we should think about how edgy he is, and how he needed to have Superman cancelled in his film, just like James was, or have him called a bitch by his cousin or have a photo of him pissed on by his dog. Just to remind you that no one cares about Superman least of all James Gunn. As why respect one of DC’s oldest and most beloved heroes?

Why not have Kal-El suggest Superman take a harem, why not force in the Justice Gang as it has then invokes his initials. It’s bad decision after bad decision.

In that same vein why not allow a guy who thinks the word Green in Green Lanterns is lame to make a Green Lanterns show in a true detective style. Or shoot a Clayface film without a Batman.

How about his new feminist side of showing how women can be just as messy as men, and how women aren’t perfect by having them be damaged drunk party girls who don’t grow. The same person who thinks telling little girls it’s okay to be a mess is a positive message.

Maybe we can get back to the fact that he likes to get into spats online, or the fact he revealed a whole slate of projects most of which haven’t been seen or heard from again. Remember the Authority?

All of this comes without all the creepy jokes he made about kids or SA and thing of that nature that got him canned from Marvel.

Honestly his tenure as studio head, opening with a cartoon no one watched, following it with a Superman film that was a financial disappointment and then following that with a Supergirl film with zero hype, suggests that he really was the wrong man for the job.

It’s time for WBD or Paramount to just fire him.

Lily’s Ritual: Seedy and Creepy

One of us was able to see this at a film festival in Spain last year, and after things stopped getting in the way they were able to write up a review.

Below is that review.

A young woman is inducted into what she thinks is a wiccan sisterhood but it turns out to be something more sinister.

This film was enough to make you uncomfortable, not in the ways the film wants you to be uncomfortable but because it felt like a creepy old man directing and recording a group of young women in various states of undress and wetness, in terms of their clothing.

Moreover after the twist happens, the demon is interesting and the blood effects work. However the end wherein it is dancing around is just a little too pretentious, it is as though this film thinks it’s art.

Overall the film couldn’t decide if it wanted to be soft core or an art film.

0.5/5

Pros.

It’s short

Cons.

It’s creepy

It’s pretentious

It’s poorly acted

It’s dull

The twist is fairly obvious

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Cinema Issues: Putting Star Trek Out To Pasture

What show has a large woman who eats her own comms badge, a black guy who has two dads that left him, and also a ship captain who seems unable to sit in a chair. That’s right it’s Starfleet Academy.

One’s mind may go back to the instantly memeable moment from the Simpsons wherein the kid goes stop it it’s already dead. The numbers have been bad for a lot of Kurtzman Trek over time but this one just couldn’t seem to connect with much of anyone as such it was cancelled before it’s second season even airs. This is due to the fact that the second season is already paid for and shot so it will be released likely all at once and then the show will be canned.

The reason why the show has been cancelled is because no one was watching it and the ratings were bad. It is that simple. However if you wanted to talk about why the ratings were bad then let’s go, they chased away the male audience calling them bad and toxic, and aimed primarily at women and the LGBTQ+ crowd, this is not enough to hold up a majority male brand who knew. Whilst other shows had the bare amount of testosterone needed to get men to watch it, Academy seemed to be against that from the beginning deciding to lean even harder into it’s small Blue Sky niche audience. Spitting on your fans also doesn’t help with this.

Before we hear the trite Star Trek has always been woke reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee comments, there is a difference between a show exploring political ideas of both the left and the right and having a nuanced debate and letting you make up your own mind, as the Original Series and The Next Generation did. As opposed to telling you what to think and saying if you don’t think this your a Nazi as modern trek loves to do.

The narratives online is already that this is because the family that runs Paramount are Trump supporters, if this was the case why wasn’t it cancelled earlier why now, and is based out of the fact that these people cannot understand that they are the minority and that no one watched. It’s sad.

Saturday Live UK: The American Take Over Of The UK

Our reviewer for this doesn’t live in the UK anymore and so had to use a VPN in order to watch it, and boy did they regret it.

One has to ask why to several key factors, firstly why did they feel that the UK needed Saturday Night Live a show that is dying in the States.

Why did they feel the need to open with an American hostess rather than you know a well known British comedian.

Why did they fill out the cast list with a group of nobodies from British comedy rather than even mid range panel show comedians that many people already know. One has to also assume there was something of a diversity quota when filling out the cast for this show as it is in no way reflective of the UK’s actual population.

To shift gears, who is this for? The kids don’t watch live TV and certainly don’t care about Saturday Night Live, and then older people will resent how this is such obvious cultural imperialism. Maybe this is for the sort of bored lonely middle age people who sit and watch Love Island every night or maybe it’s for the American ex-pats who moved to the UK to run away from Trump.

Upon watching the first episode it became clear this was a mess that should have been aborted long ago, it wasn’t funny, it didn’t have anything to say and it felt like the most corpo thing ever put on British TV.

This is the sort of show that makes you turn off midway through.

Overall, just awful.

0.5/5

Pros

Tina Fey

Cons.

It’s not funny

It’s irritating

It’s corporate

It’s too long

It’s incredibly safe

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