Little Talks

When I say "just," I am speaking in regards to when I saw the episode, and not when it was released. Season 3 of Daredevil  came out last October, but I only caught up to that point in the Marvel Netflix series last week. But there was a particular moment in episode 11, "Reunion," that I couldn't help but gawk at: Wilson Fisk's press conference. For anyone who needs context (and yes, this will be a spoiler if you haven't seen it), Fisk, the ultimate baddie in the Daredevil  series, is freed from his imprisonment when his conviction is overturned, and his first big move is to hold a press conference. It may be worth noting here that he is only perceived to be innocent because he was able to blackmail the jury. Anyways, he gathers the press outside of the hotel in which the FBI have been keeping him under close watch, and he tells everyone that he is truly innocent, and that Daredevil is the real criminal. I do wonder, sometimes, how he expects people to...

[Warning: this post contains spoilers] I made a rather sad discovery while reading Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde  (a title which, by the way, tends to get shortened, but that is what the book is actually called). I realized that some of these classic horror stories have become so ingrained in our culture that we already know them too well to get the full effect of the story. Take the case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, for instance. We've all come across it in numerous forms. The double itself is a very common trope, true. But I can think of at least three cartoons that I watched as a child that adapted this story. Most of you would likely be more familiar with the Looney Tunes  episodes (and, yes, there are a couple), but Arthur  and Veggie Tales  have also done their own takes on this story. The names of the character and his alter ego have even become so commonly associated with the idea of a split personality that it...

After reading Watchmen  by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons in my pop lit class, I understood why this comic series, though I had never heard of it, was a total classic. It has so much substance to it. And the visual medium was entirely necessary to make the points that this graphic novel makes. Without the illustrations, the story could never have this kind of depth to it. The novel poses this most interesting question: what if superheroes really did exist in our world? But what if most of them were more like Batman: ordinary people who use their talents to go about in disguise and help the helpless? Yet, in some sense, they admit that this could never happen in our own world, and so there are subtle changes (which become more obvious as the story progresses) which prove that these events are happening in an alternate timeline. The addition of overly vibrant and somewhat unusual colours plays into the fictional atmosphere of the whole thing. At the same time, they use the para...

[This is a piece I wrote at work, but as these events are no longer current and I doubt that this post will get through the publishing process anytime soon, I've decided to share it here.] No pun intended. On October 7, journalist Jamal Khashoggi went missing after going to the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. On October 9, President (can’t believe that’s his title) Trump responded to allegations that the Saudi Arabian government is responsible. Here is his statement to the Associated Press : “I think we have to find out what happened first. Here we go again with, you know, you’re guilty until proven innocent. I don’t like that. We just went through that with Justice Kavanaugh and he was innocent all the way as far as I’m concerned.” And I think, in part, he’s right! It’s not that straightforward For starters, I think the Kavanaugh comment was intentionally inflammatory and totally out of line. Knowing the cultural temperature at the moment with the #MeToo movement, a...

[Warning: spoilers ahead...although, frankly, you might read this and realize that this film is not what you would have expected. As always, read at your own risk.] The Witch  is not exactly a horror movie in the classic sense. It is, however, a great example of Gothic horror, which is why I was assigned this film for a class on--you guessed it--Gothic horror. Why is not traditional? Well, there aren't a lot of jump scares or gory moments (although it does have a few moments that come close). There also really isn't a whole lot that happens throughout the span of the movie, other than the slow unraveling of a family in crisis. Unlike Final Destination  or The Shining , our characters don't spend a lot of time investigating or running from the supernatural things that plague them. Also, they speak as one would expect early Puritan settlers to speak. Side note: I love Ralph Ineson, but between his deep voice and the Old English dialect (much of which is taken directly...

[Warning: spoiler alert. If you have not seen Gifted , read at your own risk.] That's right, internet, it's me! I have returned! Now that I write blogs for my job, I've had far less time and motivation to do it for myself. But I think it will be good for me to pick up where I left off and try to keep updating my content. So here we go! When my family suggested watching Gifted  for our movie night, I knew very little aside from the fact that it was a custody battle over a genius child happening between her grandmother and her uncle (played by Chris Evans!). It had potential, and we couldn't agree on much else, so I agreed. Interestingly, this movie touched on a topic that I have long been grappling with: how to deal with differences. Young Mary is a child prodigy who is being raised by her uncle after her mother's death. Problems quickly arise when Frank decides to send Mary to a public school instead of continuing her education at home. She doesn't like the ...

Walter Mosley's Devil in a Blue Dress is a classic noir detective story set in 1940s LA (the height of the genre)...but there's a twist: the amateur detective is a black man. You might not have ever thought about the fact that detective stories of this type tend to have few characters of colour, if any, and they certainly don't tend to fill the role of detective. For the classic novels, which were actually written in the '40s, this is not surprising as racism was still quite strong in America (and other places) at that time. This is a really smart move on Mosley's part because it works well with certain elements of the genre, while creating a poignant commentary on both the genre and the era when things don't match, and even when they do. Easy Rawlins, our detective, like so many of the others is a World War II veteran struggling to find work. This is a common theme in works of fiction written after each of the World Wars because women were having to fill jo...