1) I liked this article: “Opinion: Franchises are taking over Hollywood. If only they could all be ‘F9: The Fast Saga.’”
Specifically on the subject of sex, it bothers me more and more that the Marvel movies are so sexless. Not that movies have to actually show sex, but it’s weird to have a huge cinematic universe were nobody ever seems to think about or want sex. Movies from the 1940s, for example, never actually showed sexual activity, but some of them were drenched in sexual thoughts and feelings and desires.
And this is specific to Marvel movies (there is sex in DC movies, for example), and it’s specific to the Marvel movies which were made after Marvel was bought by Disney. Tony Stark and Pepper Potts, introduced in the first Iron Man movie, which was pre-Disney, are clearly living and sleeping together.
Maybe this was part of what Scorsese was talking about.
2) I have the Washington Post app on my tablet, and they have a section called “Good News.” Most of the articles on the app change frequently, because the world is like that, but the few “Good News” articles are mostly the same, day after day after day, so it’s basically a reminder that there’s not a lot of good news these days.
But this is a different kind of good news, and I admit I got a kick out of it: “Dave Grohl and former enemy/child drummer Nandi Bushell finally perform live together.
Or you could skip the article and just watch the video (which is much more fun):
That has never failed to put a smile on my face, and I usually watch it once a day. I get particular pleasure from the fact that Dave Grohl sets the tempo at the beginning on the guitar, and Nandi follows it on the high-hat. But when she starts on the snare drum, she pushes the beat a little faster, which is absolutely her job at that moment.
I’ve embedded this clip before, and I’ve watched it many times, and I’ve watched reaction videos to it, but I just noticed something about it that I never saw before, and which nobody in any of the reaction videos has noticed either (though I’m sure somebody somewhere on the internet has noticed it before me).
Sansa Stark and her sister Arya are pretending that Arya is on trial, to catch Lord Petyr Baelish (“Littlefinger”) off guard as Sansa starts listing his crimes against the Stark family (and the realm as a whole). This obviously works — Baelish is fumbling, trying to assess his danger moment by moment, nowhere near as smooth as he usually is.
But there was a big fat clue right in front of him which he didn’t see. And which I didn’t see either, until now.
Arya is the one on trial, theoretically, but nobody takes away her weapons. Her sword (Needle) and her Valyrian steel dagger are still on her belt.
Arya is a Faceless Man, a master assassin, and she has killed a lot of people. Some online sources credit her with more kills than any other human character on the show. And Sansa knows this — she’s seen her sister in action.
If Arya had really been on trial, they would have tried to disarm her.
But, as I say, it slips right by. Until you see it, of course, and then it becomes “obvious.”
I do wonder if the writers thought it through like this, or if they just got lucky. I’ve had that happen — I read one of my old stories and I see something that I never thought about before and it happens to fit exactly correctly anyway.
Sometimes, of course, not so much.
