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Daniel Ortiz Rants on Glass

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“Security guard David Dunn uses his supernatural abilities to track Kevin Wendell Crumb, a disturbed man who has twenty-four personalities.”

I remember when Unbreakable came out in 2000, a year after The Sixth Sense. I was excited to see what M. Night Shyamalan‘s second installment was going to deliver. Unfortunately, I was underwhelmed by the revelation that this mysterious drama was merely about uninteresting comic book-like super humans. A lot of people I know loved this movie, and I even watched it again to see if it was just me…and nah. I still felt the same way almost 13 years later.

Fast forward 16 years and I go to see Split, another M. Night movie. Other than James McAvoy’s spectacular performance playing multiple personalities, I found it to be a very average film. It failed to make me care for the victims who were bland and unbelievable, and just like Unbreakable, it seemed like everyone else loved it. I don’t know why. The twist in this film was that it was connected to Unbreakable and all of a sudden, a franchise we weren’t expecting (or asked for) was about to unfold.

Now it’s 2019 and the 3rd installment of a trilogy we didn’t even know existed until the end of its 2nd second installment has hit theaters and well…expectations are not high. Honestly, I didn’t hate the first two movies, but I didn’t care for them enough to look forward to this one.

Once again, James McAvoy delivered a great performance carrying the weight of multiple personas in the mind of the character, Kevin Wendell Crumb. That’s about it. Bruce Willis feels like he’s given up on acting in his last few films, and Samuel L. Jackson spent most the movie just staring at the camera.

The story didn’t gain much momentum specifically because you know what to expect from these characters and nothing new was brought to the table. It’s evident that M. Night really believe’s that people would care about this world he developed like we care about the MCU, but the problem is that NO ONE ASKED FOR THIS.

The finale of the film was particularly embarrassing because he was trying to make it EPIC with horns blaring like the end of The Dark Knight, but it just ends with uncaring disappointment.

The movie couldn’t decide if it wanted to be a respectable character study drama or a superhero movie and M. Night decided to just mash them together into an unbalance mess of tones. It left me feeling like this was an egomaniacs attempt to say he can create a shared universe and shove it down our throats whether we liked it or not.

Overall Grade: C-

Listen, I don’t hate the movie. I’m not even disappointed in it. My expectations were low and it met those expectations. I think we just need to stop expecting great things from M. Night because when we do, it usually turns out crappy.

Bonus Material: I think we’ve come too far along in Hollywood for the prosthetics on Mr. Glass’s mom’s face to look so damn fake!

Glass (2019) 129min | Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller | 18 January 2019 (USA) Summary: Security guard David Dunn uses his supernatural abilities to track Kevin Wendell Crumb, a disturbed man who has twenty-four personalities.
Countries: USALanguages: Spanish, English

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Review: Godzilla vs. Kong

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Godzilla vs. Kong reminds me that I was an idiot as a child. I allowed the 4:30 Movie too significant a piece of my brain pie. I existed in a headspace where The Planet of the Apes and Gamera were more science than fiction. I was certain skyscraper-sized monsters lived in the woods a few blocks away, and that ghosts were under my bed. Somewhere in possibility-land, a black and white Lon Chaney slowly becomes a werewolf in a handful of dissolving frames.

Cut to my final form, and I can’t help but think these movies are just a total waste of time and resources. Sure, the effects can be impressive but often they have as much weight as a video game. Buildings smash into dust, an actor says a line against a green screen, then Kong sits on a throne like a stereotypical king. Ah doi!

Sure, the hollow Earth with upside-down mountains in the sky is cool – but where’s that sun coming from? The MechaGodzilla fight has some great effects, but you can watch those on Youtube without having to sit through a bunch of lines like “Kong bows to no one.”

Maybe I just can’t enjoy normal human things anymore.

 

Godzilla vs. Kong (2021) 113min | Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller | 31 March 2021 (USA) Summary: The epic next chapter in the cinematic Monsterverse pits two of the greatest icons in motion picture history against one another - the fearsome Godzilla and the mighty Kong - with humanity caught in the balance.
Countries: USA, Australia, Canada, IndiaLanguages: English, American Sign Language

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Now that Captain America is Black…

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Now that Captain America is Black

  1. Bucky Barnes will change his name to Summer Soldier Buckquan because “Nah son! we ain’t doing sh*t in the winter!”
  2. Fearing for their lives, Police officers will fire 751 shots at Cap in the 4th of many incidents to come.
  3. In a new altered timeline, Thanos will win due to Cap being detained by a routine traffic stop. “How can you afford Vibraniun on a government salary? Please step out of the vehicle sir.”
  4. Captain America will form a Rap group with Black Panther called “Black-America.” The group will not be received well but will eventually have all their intellectual property stolen for decades to come without any due repar… I mean royalties. #MESSAGE
  5. Racists will be utterly confused when they tell Captain America to “Go back to where you came from.” Equally confused, Cap will pack up all his belongings and stay put.
  6. Cap will be accused of stealing Thor’s hammer the next time he picks it up.
  7. Cap’s shield will be replaced with a Vibraniun PlayStation Controller since black men are more comfortable throwing that.
  8. The battle decree will officially be changed from “Avengers Assemble” to “Yerrrrr! It’s on sight!”
  9. After 40 years of service, Cap will travel back in time to 1998 to finally get that last dance with his true love, Laura Winslow. They will Cha Cha Slide to “Before I let Go” as the credits role.
  10. Upon retirement, those jaded with having an Af-Am do such an amazing job will appoint a failed real estate charlatan to take up the mantle. The New Cap will immediately try and grab Scarlet by her “Johansson” and declare himself the best Captain America that ever did it during his inauguration.

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Chadwick Boseman Forever!!

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It is clear that Chadwick Boseman chose iconic roles like Thurgood Marshall, James Brown, Jackie Robinson and Black Panther with deliberate intent and for a specific purpose. In an age where positive roles for Black actors is often sparse, Chadwick managed to land and portray historical figures that made most respect his talents if not revel in his ability to transition effortlessly for one character to another. Even I had to give his African accent a solid B+ (It’s the highest grade the Nigerian Standards Bureau can give for an African accent to a non African FYI.)

Holding out and preparing for these dynamic roles came with both great frustration and incredible resolve I’m certain. Not to mention the taxing ordeal of battling Colon Cancer as the grueling scheduling of filming and increasing responsibility for positive representation loomed. Even under extreme duress, Chadwick’s commitment to others appeared to outweigh his own tribulations, unbeknownst to us all.

Black Panther may have been just a movie to some and that may be because some can easily rattle off 10 movies with a king of non Af-Am origin. It represented a lot more to others. Albeit imagined, imagery on cinema often accomplishes more to augment the social narrative and society itself than actual reality. If negative stereotypes influence perception then positive ones absolutely have the same converse effect.

Even in jest, the cultural misappropriation of raisins in potato salad on SNL skits directly spoke to the tampering of black culture to which T’challa championed, represented and aptly responded “Oh hell Nah Karen!”

If you don’t understand the relevance of representation, it’s probably because you are thoroughly represented. After all, no one is ever grateful for every breath they take until they are gasping for air.

R.I.P Chadwick Boseman. Thank you for breathing life into the possibility of Black excellence.

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