Ace Watches Stranger Things Season 2

Happy Halloween, everybody! Sadly, this will be the last post of the year. I know, it’s awful, but we writers have been working hard, and we need a longer break than usual to recover.

I do hope you have all been enjoying yourself, because I have not. October has been a rough month for me, and my quest to find something to watch to fulfill my Halloween needs hasn’t helped much. Lord knows American Horror Story is, well… it’s something. And the original 1990 It didn’t do much for me either. It was halfway through It that I realized Stranger Things’s second season was out—excited, I forced my sister-in-law to quit It with me and watch it. And oh, thank God. Stranger Things was the pick-me-up I needed. It is so wonderful watching a story where the good outweighs the bad. I hope my love for this show hasn’t been influenced by the shit I watched before it, but Stranger Things’s second season was awesome.

(via DarkHorizons)

Spoilers ahead.

Throwback Thursdays: The Forbidden Kingdom

Way back in my senior year of high school, my friends and I took full advantage of our senior year freedom to go see The Forbidden Kingdom in theaters several times. As far as we were concerned, The Forbidden Kingdom was the long-awaited team-up of Asian action stars Jackie Chan and Jet Li—it didn’t matter to us that the plot included some white guy as the main protagonist. In fact, we were pretty happy about it—we thought the white protagonist would make the movie much more attractive to Americans and thus make more money at the box office, thereby proving that Asians could sell movies. And to be fair, The Forbidden Kingdom did rank #1 at the box office in its opening weekend. But nearly a full decade later, it’s pretty apparent that The Forbidden Kingdom‘s flaws in 2008 are the same flaws that Hollywood still has today.

Sure, stick a white guy in here, that’s what we need. (via lylesmoviefiles)

Dom Reviews: Cuphead

Just as the internet commotion covering Cuphead‘s huge success, intense fan community, and difficulty has finally seemed to die down, I’ve had a chance to complete it. Long story short, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and it checks many of the boxes that make it a great experience both in style and mechanical substance.

(all photos courtesy the author)

The game’s complete name, Cuphead: Don’t Deal With the Devil, handily explains what you’re getting into. Cuphead and his pal Mugman stumble upon a casino where they make a lot of money. However, they (more specifically Cuphead) fall into the trap of gambling against the Devil. Losing their bet, they beg for an alternative. In order to save their own souls, they must hunt down other debtor’s soul contracts, which comes down to getting in lots of fights.

Voltron: Legendary Defender Season 4: Well, It Was …Star Warsy?

It’s no secret that I wasn’t particularly wowed by the third season of Voltron: Legendary Defender. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t still binge the fourth season — all… six… episodes of it — as soon as they dropped last Friday. I went into this season hoping for a lot more meaty character development after the setup and plot heavy last season, but did I get it?

The short answer is: no. Season 4 continued to barrel along at a breakneck pace without ever giving us any meaty character background-support that would help justify or strengthen the sweeping actions the characters took.

(via netflix)

Or, well, it mostly failed to. Spoilers after the jump.

My Bad Luck with The Good Neighbors

(via tvtropes)

Happy Friday the 13th, all! I hope everyone is avoiding bad luck so far today. If you have, you’re luckier than me, because the most unfortunate thing happened when I sat down to read the graphic novel trilogy The Good Neighbors: I discovered a Holly Black series that I simply did not like.

So I Finally Watched American Horror Story: Murder House

I may not like horror for its gore and jump scares, but I do like it for its willingness to delve into dark plotlines and creative worldbuilding. Unfortunately for me, most horror stories are too scary for my taste, and as it’s the month of Halloween, I was lamenting that I wouldn’t find a creepy story that could fulfill my needs without giving me nightmares. Last week, though, I finally decided to suck it up and watch the first season of American Horror Story, entitled Murder House. All ready for the trauma I was about to subject myself to, I started off the first episode with my finger hovering over the mute button on my controller, my feet conveniently propped up in front of my face to block the screen from view should I need it, and my sister-in-law on the phone to talk me through the worst of it.

(via screenertv)

My preparations were for naught, however, as I found out, much to my own delight, that while American Horror Story is dark and creepy, it is not scary. Murder House left me with some mixed feelings—the story often falls victim to convoluted storytelling, sexist and ableist tropes, and a camera that jumps from scene to scene with very few transition shots. Nevertheless, I found the story enjoyable enough to blow through it in no time, but the more I thought about it, the less happy I was with the overall experience. Murder House suffered from some really bad storytelling decisions—it tries to talk about complex and serious issues, but fails to adequately explore those issues with the care they deserve. Murder House captivated me for the story it wanted to be, but the story that it actually is is a lot less compelling.

Trigger warning for sexual assault and ableism below.

Web Crush Wednesdays: The Cryptid Keeper

I’ve made no secret here that I love things of a cryptid-friendly nature, so when I stumbled across The Cryptid Keeper podcast — through no one’s recommendation except the iTunes search function — I was intrigued. I immediately downloaded an episode to check out, but worried before I had a chance to listen that the hosts would end up being Dean Winchester types to whom I was never the intended audience. Much to my surprise and joy, I soon discovered that the hosts were two millennial women #justlikeme. But really, just like me, down to their love of Lin-Manuel Miranda and tendency to quote Spongebob. Within an episode, I was hooked.

Star Trek: Discovery: Off to a Strong Start

(via Fortune)

If there was one show I had been looking forward to this year, it was Star Trek: Discovery. Sadly, I won’t be able to watch the rest of the season until it makes its way to Netflix or DVD, but I did catch the pilot, and I was extremely happy with what I saw. The Star Trek television shows have in the past proven themselves to be more than capable of giving us a diverse cast with thoughtful character development. As a new first for this universe, we’ve got a woman of color as a lead in our new series, and she’s kicking ass.

Waiting to Be Blown Away by Crosswind

(via CBR)

After reading comics for well on five years now, there are certain creators whose work I’ve come to trust implicitly. Whether or not the basic pitch feels like something I’d be into, I’m willing to give it a try on principle.

Gail Simone is one of those writers, so when I heard she’d be writing a new high-stakes thriller series about an assassin and a housewife who get body-switched, I knew I was going to buy the first issue no matter what. But now that I’m halfway into the series, I’m finding myself wondering how she is going to wrap it up in a satisfying way.

Spoilers after the jump!

Magical Mondays: Sovereign‘s Superheroes Inadvertently Uphold a Superhero Meritocracy

When I reviewed Dreadnought earlier last week, I wasn’t aware that it had a sequel — the book came out early this year, and sequels usually take a least a year to put together. But against all odds, Dreadnought‘s sequel Sovereign was published a mere six months after Dreadnought, and so I went on down to the library to pick it up. What I found was that while Dreadnought had a fairly clear-cut narrative as a coming-of-age story for its trans protagonist, Sovereign tried to tackle many different issues at once and had the very typical sequel problem of not getting deep enough into any of them. Still, amongst the issues with gender, race, the media, a TERF villain, and a quickly developing romantic relationship, Sovereign did succeed in raising some thought-provoking questions about superheroism as meritocracy.

Spoilers for Sovereign below the jump.

(via Tor)