Review: Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi

Why are you even reading this

We here at Nerds of a Feather are apparently not cool enough to be invited to The Last Jedi premier, so you get this review now. I'll try to avoid spoilers here, in case you are yet to see it. Ready? Here it is:

IT'S STAR WARS.

I mean, seriously, has there been anything worse than all the reviews over the last week? What is the point of them? There are three categories of people in the world right now:

1. People who have seen The Last Jedi
2. People who are going to see The Last Jedi
3. People who don't watch Star Wars and make sure everyone knows it, like the movie equivalent of a crossfitter.

Nothing I can say here, or anyone else over the last week, would change anyone's mind or course of action one iota. I could tell you, right now, that Rian Johnson is a brilliant filmmaker and The Last Jedi will be held up forever as the apex of human achievement, and GUESS WHAT, you either already saw it or are going to. I could, conversely, tell you that The Last Jedi makes The Phantom Menace look like The Godfather and Leia is a hideous mashup of puppetry and CGI for the entire third act and will retroactively make you hate Star Wars, movies and your parents, and you're still gonna watch it.

I could say literally anything - glorbleflath sploothnoorp - and yeah, it's still Star Wars. And the things people are saying about it! "It wasn't what I expected:, "I didn't like it, but I can see how others might", "it was amazing!", "it doesn't live up the the hype" (<--- why is CNN even reviewing movies?). YOU'RE NOT EVEN TRYING. If you are going to review it, actually review it. Don't just throw some word salad out there because your editor told you "We need Last Jedi content!" Or, if you do, at least make it funny, like I'm trying to. 

I mean, I get it, writing a review of a brand-new Star Wars movie is hard. If I was to score The Last Jedi right now, on our scale on 1-10, I would give it eleventy bajillion. But you can't trust me right after I walk out of the the theater. It's Star Wars. I can't be trusted with such things. When I saw The Phantom Menace, I though I was looking into heaven, seeing the face of God and all his angelic beauty.

Time has given some perspective to this. So, The Last Jedi is out. You already have tickets. You probably already saw it. So don't listen to me, because it doesn't matter what I say.

(it was really good)

-DESR 

Review: Suicide Squad

Bad heroes, or just bad?

For all my cynicism around movies, blockbusters and shared universes, to say nothing about outright negativity when it comes to Zack Snyder directing anything beyond a hair spray commercial, I have been stupidly excited for Suicide Squad. The tale of a group of bad guys pressed into service by an even worse person, to do... something. It doesn't really matter, because we're here to see the WORST. HEROES. EVER.

And boy oh boy, do they deliver. Really, it starts and ends with Jared Leto's Joker. His antics are far and away the highlight. His antics included sending gifts to other Squad ('SKWAD') members, including, but not limited to:

• Live rats
• Dead pigs
• Bullets
• Sex toys
• Pornography

Classic Joker! This lead Viola Davis to threaten to pepper spray him if he came near her, which doesn't seem like the kind of thing the Clown Prince of Crime would take kindly to, but maybe it earned her some grudging respect.

You have to admire the Squad's ('SKWADZ') commitment to who they are- bad, hard criminals. You have Harley able to hold her breath for five full minutes, or Killer Crock listening to recordings of other cannibals in order to preserve his craving for human flesh. It's truly unsettling to see, and one of the many ways Suicide Squad stands out.

The villain, in a story about villains really stands out: Rarely will you find one more menacing or twisted than David Ayer. Keeping the Squad ('SKWAD') imprisoned for months, and conducting twisted experiments on them is truly grotesque. It started as soon as they were in his thrall- forced into a 'therapy' session, where they where tricked into revealing childhood trauma, phobias and their deepest insecurities. These were then used against them as 'motivation' later. Truly devious.

He pulled some very standard villain stuff, as well- forcing the Squad ('SKWAD') to fight each other, even inflicting a weird Stockholm syndrome on them, to where that whole SKWAD thing got tattooed on each other, probably because they had all bonded over surviving such trauma. Everyone, except Deadshot, anyway, but he barely appears at all except to comment on how he doesn't hate the Joker (he does) and to comment on how horny the rest of the Squad ('SKWAD') is (this is probably true). Deadshot is pretty lame, is what I am saying.

In his greatest act of villainy, though, Ayer made a whole movie using the members of the suicide squad, and it was basically on par with the other current DC movies. For as fascinating as the Suicide Squad is, and what a great villain Ayer is, you would have thought they'd make a better movie.

The Math:

Baseline: 5/10

Bonuses:
+5 for having some of the best stories around the making of a movie ever

Penalties:
-5 for those stories being way better than the actual movie

Conclusion: 5/10 problematic, but has redeeming qualities

AiIP Microreview: The Glass Falcon, by E. Catherine Tobler

The Meat: I love adventures. Mary Shelley, Robert Lewis Stevenson, Mark Twain, so many others- I love stories that simply carry you away. So it is probably little surprise that I am quite fond of this story, but there are far more reasons than the fact that it is simply an adventure story, through and through.

Tobler has what I would term a gift for words. The Glass Falcon is a novella- fairly short, a mere 89 pages. But her vocabulary, and use of ornate, precise and detailed language makes it seem much longer, or rather, deeper. In a world of epic fantasies that drag on forever (lookin' at you, George R.R.), I really appreciate a story - author - who knows what details to include, which ones to omit, and how to express them in a rich way.

I also enjoy the way very diverse elements blend together - on one hand, it is a steampunk adventure, a sort of love letter to Paris that doesn't precisely exist - But also deals with shapeshifters, Egyptian gods and ancient history, and the mystery which lies at the heart of this story. It's a lot to pack into 89 pages, and it is done without moving too swiftly or getting bogged down in clunky exposition.

Potential spoiler alert here, but I have to comment on it, because it was masterfully handled, and central to the story and its ending: the perspective of the gods. Every bloody YA/NA (which this is not), paranormal, etc book out there right now has gods and immortals by the bucketload, and they are all perfectly relatable to humans. This is catastrophically stupid. These infinite beings fall in love with normal humans, schoolgirls, etc, with no problem at all. Instead, Tobler gives us a treat with how it really would be- these beings of extreme power and wisdom don't actually relate to our world very well at all. Not in how they talk, not in how they act, or even how they think.

My only complaint has to do with the characters. While this story stands alone, reading its predecessor (Rings of Anubis) is helpful. I like Folley quite a lot- she is a well-developed, strong character, but I didn't feel she progressed much though the story. She enters the story, reeling one might say, from the events and revelations of Rings, rightly so, but for a character of her strength and depth, by the end of Falcon, I really think she would/could/should be much more in control of things - in fact, there is one scene where she is quite in control (not like that, you perverts). More of that, please. Likewise, Mallory acts more as a sounding board than he did in the Rings, where we saw him much more strong-willed and determined.

The Math:

Baseline Assessment: 8/10

Bonuses:
+1 for being a well-balanced, complex story that is not over-long
+1 for the spoiler alert thing above

Penalties:
-1 for having the human characters remain stagnant

Conclusion: 9: very high quality/standout in its category

Grab it here, and pick up Rings of Anubis while you're at it.