WHERE THE F*#K DID THE TIME GO!?

So, I just looked up and realized that I haven't written a single entry on this blog for almost 2 years. Somebody's gonna have to fix that...

I guess you think that means me, huh? Fine...

This calls for a bit of an update to get anyone reading this back up to speed. Unfortunately for me, that's a LOT of ground to cover that doesn't have nearly as many pictures as most of the people I know would've hoped. Sorry...

This looks way more condescending than I hoped...

First off, hello from behind The Great Firewall!! As I type these words, I'm sitting in a teacher's office for an ESL center. That's what I'm doing these days: Teaching absurdly energetic kids how to gradually speak English. The work is as rewarding as it is exhausting, but I'm really not here to talk about my job. Boring people do that.

My job is mostly making this face at whatever a kid just did.

A lot of things in the world at large have changed since the last time I made a post here. One of them was fairly recent as we saw the last of the 20th Century Fox X-Men movies hit the box office. And while the critical ratings ain't fresh, it's pretty refreshing for me to know that more people are realizing what I knew back in 2000: The X-Men movies mostly suck.

At least ONE of 'em got the idea...

While I'm prepared to defend this position to the death, I really don't want that to be the focus of this entry. I've got something radically different in mind...

At some point in everyone's life, there comes that moment when you know you won't like a movie. For most people, it comes along after that first experience of realizing that movies can be bad. For me, that first experience was after watching Kickboxer (1989) for a 3rd time when I was 9.

I was and still am a fan of martial arts movies, and everybody was a sucker for Jean Claude Van-Damme movies in the late 80's/early 90's if you were in the 3rd or 4th grade. Don't @ me.

Plus, he's the best thing about The Expendables 2. Fight me.

However, I also have a tendency to think about things...a lot. So, when I took a minute to really process the plot of the movie...it didn't pass the smell test.

"Wait. This guy only trained for about a month to fight a national champ who's been training his entire life, and he won!?"

Guess this is ruined now too...*

And just like that, I learned that movies aren't always flawless. So from then on, I was prepared for the possibility that something I hadn't even seen yet could be absolute trash. Turns out, my Spider-Sense on these things has been pretty accurate over the years and I'll prove it with this list** of my Top 5 Predictions that "This is gonna suck." Starting with...

#5 - Spider-Man 3 (2007)

If nothing else, the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies were a vital step in the right direction for comic book superhero adaptations. Until 2002, it was unthinkable that characters might even keep their original color scheme. But Raimi made it happen while delivering a mostly-faithful take on the wall-crawler. So, it was definitely a bad sign when I first saw this...

It's just the same suit with a new paint job...

I realize that my expectations were likely too high, but that looked and felt phoned in. Little did I know just how phoned in the entire movie would be...

I know what you're thinking, but...

The issues with Spider-Man 3 are much bigger than a dance sequence or an embarrassing strut. It's how dumb and misguided the whole thing is that stood out to me. Even before seeing the movie, elements like Venom, introducing the symbiote, and Sandman's new backstory seemed out of place and atonal. Changing Uncle Ben's killer to a desperate Flint Marko (with a sick child!) did nothing to help land the important initial message from Uncle Ben's death. Instead, it just shined a spotlight on the fact that the movie was simultaneously doing too much while having nowhere to go. And if things weren't bad enough already...

*sigh*

#4 - Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009)

As a fan of the Street Fighter games since pre-adolescence, the fact that this movie wasn't focusing on Ryu and Ken (main protagonists and rivals of the franchise) was the first misstep. Chun-Li is a supporting cast character with a really unsophisticated revenge story. That doesn't leave a lot of room for expanding into a bigger narrative involving multiple characters in a fighting tournament.

A tournament she didn't even win...***

But then two things happened. First, images from the movie surfaced and it looked like a Michelle Yeoh movie time deliberately forgot. Then the reviews *didn't* come in. For those who don't know, movies are usually pre-screened by critics shortly before the official release date. If not, that's a sign that the studio has a lot less confidence in the movie than a press junket might imply. Almost like they knew something we didn't...

Well, execs were right to think people would hate this movie. Why? Because the movie is so trash-tier that it would take at least 20 minutes to cover half of its problems.

#3 - Dragonball Evolution (2009)

This looks like the worst Nu-Metal album cover you've ever seen.

Released in the same year as the previous entry (AND X-Men Origins: Wolverine, so 2009 was a terrible year for adaptations), this too didn't get the critics' screening before release. But there was a less-obvious red flag for this movie...

The Writers Guild of America went on a widely-publicized strike in 2007, a mere 5 years after 20th Century Fox acquired the film rights to the Dragon Ball franchise. Once the production for Dragonball Evolution actually started, that strike was well underway. That meant writer Ben Ramsey (whose catalog is less than stellar) was both breaking ranks with fellow writers, but simultaneously tasked with writing multiple drafts before filming even started. But even before that was made public knowledge, there was always this...

Listen, there will always be that contingent of Eurocentric anime fans that assumes the characters they like must be "white" based only on the size of their eyes. Aside from your latent racism showing, there's just one small problem...

 Anime...

 ...don't...

 ...do...

....SUBTLE!!! Or did you miss that somehow? Maybe check behind the giant football, boxer-cowboy robot from America!! If Goku was meant to be a white guy, his hair would already be blonde without a Super Saiyan transformation. Why? Because that would be a distinct contrast highlighting what makes him different as a character. Important international lesson for all Americans: White men with brown hair are NOT the default for every culture. The sooner you see that, the better. Because then we'll a LOT less shit like...

#2 - The Last Airbender (2010)

Me too, kid. Me too...

*Sighs*

I hate this movie so much I don't even like talking about how much I hate it. But I started this, so...The Last Airbender...

Look, I wasn't going for a theme in these last two entries but there is once again an undeniable elephant-in-the-room that everybody knows about. So, let's just get to it because it was the first sign that this was destined to be a wall-splattering shit-show.

What you're looking here is the original casting call sheet for The Last Airbender. To those unfamiliar in any way with casting calls, this character description is very telling on the outset however brief. Obviously, the search for the role of Aang would begin with looking for boys in the 12-15 age range. It's the next bit that immediately stirred controversy.

As I hopefully illustrated well enough already that lighter skin tones and wider eyes does not automatically equate to "whiteness," it shouldn't be much of a surprise that this alone split the fandom. Some were motivated to draw attention to the issue, and that led to months-long debates about the ethnic backgrounds of the characters of Avatar The Last Airbender. As a fan, I can assure anyone that I went through that storm in the lead-up to the movie's release long enough to not feel obligated to go through that in detail again. So we're clear: There's no real indication that ANY of the characters from Avatar:The Last Airbender are Caucasian as even their names are in no way Western. But we know that doesn't make a difference, don't we?

And you couldn't even keep your foot outta your mouth long enough for me to finish this...

It was already bad enough to have to argue with people that looking primarily for white actors to play the lead roles was a textbook example of whitewashed casting. Matters were not helped at all when cast members were announced, and the visual was one of good white people fighting evil brown people.

And Jon, someone thought this casting choice was a good idea...

By the time the movie was released, I had such a sour taste in my mouth from the discourse that I knew this was gonna be the worst movie imaginable. Then everyone saw the movie, and it was one of the most vindicating moments of my life!

 #1 - Avatar (2009)

This one's gonna take a LOT of explanation because it wasn't movie news or the marketing that gave me a sinking feeling. It was actually word of mouth from people that loved this movie at the time, but it was also the director's last major effort: Titanic (1997).

"Is he talking about us?" Yep...

I was in my early teens when Titanic was coming out, so I fully admit that I was not in the mature and accepting head-space needed for a boy to like anything "for girls." But I didn't know that was the case when I saw the trailer for the first time. I just knew it was a new movie about that boat everyone knows sank, but somehow knowing that "Jack" was gonna die just from the trailer set my adolescent brain into "f**k off" mode. Like being predictable made the movie bad when most movies are predictable. That's not a valid complaint. Having a framing device that has an elderly woman telling a crew of strangers on an excavation trip about that time she lost her virginity to a grifter in the back of a jalopy on a boat that sank is the real reason Titanic doesn't do it for me.

So romantic...unless that guy is the man she went on to start a family with...or...

But Titanic had a different public response than Avatar in my experience. Everywhere I turned, I heard about the acting, the story, the effects (which haven't aged well, but it was '97. There's worse).  I expected the same reaction to Avatar once it turned out to be a massive hit. Instead, I kept hearing...

"The 3D is so good!"

"Yeah? What's it about?"

"Have you ever seen effects that impressive?"

"No idea. What's it about"

"The world and the 3D are so immersive!"

"As immersive as a story, maybe?"

"The world-building is so--"

"Look, that's' just a horse with extra legs and no hair! None of these so-called 'imaginative' designs have fur! And they all look and move like something we know exists!! Now, I'm officially unimpressed by this!!!"

And that was week 4 of Avatar's theatrical run for me. A very lengthy theatrical run, as you may remember. What you probably don't remember is the movie itself due to how largely unremarkable the substance of the film really is. By the time I started hearing about the world-building, a plot synopsis had a chance to underwhelm me. You're likely expecting a Dances With Wolves (1990) or Ferngully (1992) jab here, but that Avatar is lazily formulaic is a surface problem. The real problem Avatar has is its White Savior Narrative (which, for the record, is totally cliche).

Silly indigenous aliens. Of COURSE you need a human (who always happens to be a white man) to lead you.

I could detail exactly how this movie fits that trope, but that requires going over the story you don't care enough to remember as well as fully explaining what the trope is. And that could take another 40 minutes that I don't have the energy to invest.

Besides, I'm more interested in what movies set off your "f*ck that" alarms. Leave a comment wherever you like or if you feel up to it...write your own list and tell your stories!! I'll definitely read it! Til next, here's Jean Claude Van Damme punching a snake.

This still speaks to the 10 yr old me. And you. Admit it...

*--Kobra Kai is still fine. Don't get upset.
**--Not exactly **SPOILERS** to follow.
***--Yeah, I'm that kinda Street Fighter nerd. I know "the lore."