Last night’s Oscars ceremony was on the brink of teetering off the edge and into the dustbin of history when suddenly, after a long string of tired and predictable winners took the stage to repeat virtually the same speeches they had been using all throughout awards season, the event righted itself and took a wild turn: with the shocking upset victory of Parasite in both the Best Director and Best Picture categories, the 92nd Academy Awards were able to make a groundbreaking advancement in movie history.
As we knew going into the ceremony (which got off to a bad start, with the frigid temperature and heavy rain-showers forcing the celebrities into the building at breakneck speed), the field of candidates was dominated by white men – though the long list of snubbed women directors still managed to attend the ceremony, as names embroidered on Natalie Portman’s dress. But in some categories, the few diverse nominees were able to sneak in some surprising wins: Matthew Cherry took home a long-awaited Oscar for the adorable animated short Hair Love, which celebrates natural black hair; and Taika Waititi became the first indigenous filmmaker to win an Oscar, claiming the award for Best Adapted Screenplay for his anti-fascist satire, JoJo Rabbit. Bong Joon-ho and the crew of Parasite also won Best Original Screenplay and Best International Film, giving the South Korean drama a total of four wins: the most of any film last night.
Joker, the dark and dour supervillain story that danced into the ceremony with a whopping eleven nominations, only walked out with two wins, both in categories where it was expected to win: Best Lead Actor went to Joaquin Phoenix, thus making him the second actor to win an Academy Award for his portrayal of the Clown Prince of Crime; and Best Original Score was presented to Hildur Guðnadòttir.
Elton John and Bernie Taupin’s joint work on “I’m Gonna Love Me Again” from the Elton John biopic Rocketman made them clear winners in the Best Original Song category, but the other contenders put on a good show: Idina Menzel, AURORA, and several Frozen II voice actresses from around the world sang “Into The Unknown”, while Cynthia Erivo and a chorus of back-up singers delivered a rousing rendition of “Stand Up” from Harriet. Then there was Randy Newman, with whatever the song was from Toy Story 4 (which somehow won Best Animated Feature in a year when Netflix’s Klaus was showing off the simple beauty of 2D animation). Three other musical numbers, unaffiliated with any film, were sprinkled throughout the ceremony: Janelle Monae and Billy Porter opened the night’s proceedings with a rousing, sparkly cover of “It’s A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood”, which also featured dancers dressed as characters from some of the past year’s snubbed films, including Us and Midsommar; Eminem made a surprise appearance to perform “Lose Yourself” to an audience who clearly had no idea how to react – and those that did, namely Idina Menzel and Martin Scorsese, soon found themselves trending for their shocked and disturbed expressions; and finally, young Grammy-winner Billie Eilish performed a moving cover of “Yesterday” while the In Memoriam tribute video played – a video which, as expected, left out a couple of notable deceased celebrities.
Politics were briefly addressed, with Brad Pitt throwing jabs at the U.S. Senate in his acceptance speech for Best Supporting Actor in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (one of only two awards the critical darling picked up, the other being Best Production Design), and Joaquin Phoenix making time for a warning about the dangers of climate change, and the importance of environmentalism. But many of the winners and presenters were more concerned with poking fun at their own business – there was no more scathing example of this than when James Corden and Rebel Wilson, two prominent members of the cast of the box-office flop and movie monstrosity Cats, ironically had to present the award for Best Visual Effects to 1917 while wearing cat-suits and making sarcastic puns.
The major categories were looking like a straight-up copy-and-paste of the Golden Globes winners (to nobody’s surprise, Renée Zellweger won Best Leading Actress for her transformative role as Judy Garland in Judy, while Laura Dern closed out her award-season romp with a Best Supporting Actress award for her fan-favorite role as a divorce lawyer in Marriage Story: Netflix’s only consolation prize for being snubbed and soundly defeated in every other category), right up until Best Director. The award had been expected to basically throw itself into the arms of Sam Mendes, whose continuous-take gimmick for 1917 has been a subject of much debate this awards season (and had, just moments before, won Roger Deakins a Best Cinematography Oscar), but there was also room for Quentin Tarantino to eke out a surprise victory: but it was Bong Joon-ho who claimed this award, and then led South Korea to its first ever Best Picture win – Parasite, a drama about class divides and economic crisis, also made history as the first non-English feature film to win the highest honor at the ceremony. Bong Joon-ho’s fanbase, who call themselves the “BongHive” on social media, celebrated the film’s success around the world, while Joon-ho himself finally got to have the drink that he kept asking for throughout the night.
Was it a perfect ceremony? No. The event was downright predictable for most of its extremely long runtime, and there was a tired aura in the air: perhaps brought on by the bad weather, or an unmemorable red carpet walk. But did it also break new ground and pave the way for a greater acceptance of international filmmaking in Hollywood? Let’s hope so.
Ah, the drama. Earlier this morning, Marvel Cinematic Universe star Sebastian Stan made headlines by seemingly expressing his disappointment with the ending of his Marvel character’s story arc in Avengers: Endgame (and was welcomed by Star Wars star John Boyega into the small but steadily growing community of actors unhappy with how they were treated in the final installment of their respective franchises). I say “seemingly” because it’s kind of unclear whether or not Stan’s vague, single-emoji response to an angry fan’s social media post was an expression of sympathy or not. But since Stan hasn’t clarified his position, and the internet is having a field-day with this story, let’s assume for a moment that Stan really doesn’t like the conclusion to the long and tumultuous history of Bucky Barnes, a.k.a. The Winter Soldier, in the MCU.
popsugar.com
First of all, we have to take a look at the post which stirred up all this controversy and drama. The tweet, itself a response to an official Marvel post about Bucky’s relationship with Steve Rogers, a.k.a. Captain America, read: “Together until the end of the line. Or until bad, inconsistent, out-of-character writing turns Steve Rogers into his own anti-thesis. Shouldn’t it be “together until the end of the lie” now?” The author’s harsh condemnation of certain Avengers: Endgame plotlines would have been controversial regardless of whether it was spotted by a certain Marvel actor (who doesn’t even have Twitter, which makes the whole situation even weirder), but the fact that Stan posted a single wide-eyed emoji (which, according to the internet, could mean anything from shock to embarrassment), is what’s got everyone talking. Why is he angry about this whole “end of the line” business anyway, and what would he have preferred to the ending we got?
together until the end of the line. Or until bad, inconsistent, out-of character writing turns Steve Rogers into his own anti-thesis. Shouldn't it be "together until the end of the lie" now?
Before we go any further, let me make it clear that I don’t necessarily disagree with either Stan or the fan, but that doesn’t mean this post is going to devolve into an embittered, anti-Endgame tirade. I like Endgame: I like it less now than I did upon first viewing, because I’ve identified many of the film’s flaws, and I’m not entirely satisfied with the many of the film’s decision, especially with regards to the final choices of characters like Tony Stark, Natasha Romanoff, and, yes, Steve Rogers, but I still really like it. I don’t think the Russo Brothers are bad directors, or that Disney/Marvel are evil for not creating the perfect movie, or that anybody has to be “cancelled” by the MCU fandom. I’m not the type to start unnecessary drama (though, if you’d like me to, I could start by saying that Avengers: Infinity War is a complete and utter mess: but I won’t). No, I just want to discuss what I feel is one of the most uninspired and uncomfortable decisions made by the Avengers: Endgame writing team.
Which just so happens to be the conclusion to Steve Rogers’ and Bucky Barnes’ relationship.
In the MCU, these two characters, more than probably any other duo (with the exception of Thor and his brother Loki), have constantly been paired up in increasingly dramatic and thrilling situations that have tested their loyalty to each other time and time again: and yet, despite everything, they’ve always found a way back to each other’s side. Steve gets frozen in the Arctic Ocean for seventy years? No biggie. Bucky is horribly maimed in a wartime accident and becomes the brainwashed servant of a malicious organization operating deep within the most secure counter-intelligence group in the world? Not a problem. Their relationship was important to the plot of Captain America: The First Avenger, crucial (obviously) to Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and pivotal to Captain America: Civil War, in which it was a dispute over Bucky’s safety that led Steve to disobey the Sokovia Accords and start a conflict with Tony Stark that led to the titular civil war which broke up the Avengers, which in turn led to Steve and Bucky going on the run, which in part contributed to Thanos’ victory in Avengers: Infinity War, which set in motion all the events of Avengers: Endgame and thus everything that will happen in the MCU for decades to come. It’s not like Bucky is some side-character: he’s a really big deal.
And then, suddenly, he wasn’t.
At the end of Civil War, Bucky was sent to the African nation of Wakanda to recuperate from his injuries, and since then has shown up a handful of times onscreen, spoken a couple lines of dialogue, and has acted as little more than an extra in fight-scenes. In the post-credits scene of Black Panther, he’s not even that – he wakes up in Wakanda and gets the title of “White Wolf”, which seems to forebode big developments down the line. In Infinity War, he is gifted a seriously cool new vibranium arm that seems designed to wreak havoc on the battlefield but…doesn’t; and then, after being dusted by Thanos, he disappears for five years until the Endgame finale, where he has little more than a cameo as the guy standing silently but supportively behind Steve as he, Steve, makes some of the stupidest decisions of his unnaturally long life. And yes, he’s now getting his own Disney+ series (in which he will co-star alongside Anthony Mackie’s Falcon), but that can’t erase the fact that the conclusion of his relationship with the most important person in his life amounted to a brief exchange using dialogue recycled from their first movie. Meanwhile, Steve gets to enjoy a fairytale ending while everyone else in the MCU suffers irreversible pain and hardship; he goes back in time and unabashedly robs a strong, independent woman of her own agency and story arc, just so he can make good on a promise he made twenty-something movies ago. Was it so absolutely necessary that he have his dance with Peggy Carter, thereby creating his own alternate universe in which she never remarried after his disappearance, or had her own family, or moved on with her life?
No. It was, in my opinion, blatant fan-service that makes little to no sense given everything that has happened to Steve over the years. His entire arc has been one of trying to survive in the modern world, to find purpose and meaning in an era that no longer requires his antiquated morals and services, trying to adapt to society. At first, he fought with tooth and nail and Frisbee-shield: he pined after Peggy and he clung to Bucky, and he shook his head at newfangled customs. But he was beginning to change, to evolve, when Endgame happened – in Winter Soldier, he was forced to take a good long look at the government he had blindly followed into battle for decades, and in Civil War he actually fought back against all forms of government, becoming a rogue anarchist. He even had a new love-interest (albeit one who was related to his former love-interest, which made the whole situation highly disturbing and awkward). And then, after all that development, what does he do, first chance he gets? Hops in a time-machine and fills out an entire lifespan with Peggy Carter, thereby shattering any hope that he would move on with his own life, and stealing Peggy’s own opportunity to do so. And for Sebastian Stan and many other outraged viewers, the worst part of this was that it prevented Steve from having any time to interact with Bucky, a friend he had actually known for some time in both the past and present, and with whom he had a complex, meaningful relationship – for whom he had fought the entire world, for whom he had risked his own life countless times: a friend he had believed in when no one else would.
Steve’s ending is uninspired because it does nothing new with the character, but instead harps back on what made him interesting ten years ago: it reverses years of development in an attempt to make his story come full-circle. And unfortunately, this is similar to what happens to many other Avengers in the same movie: Tony Stark, who spent much of his life wondering how he would die and how many people he could save while doing it, died saving the entire world; Natasha Romanoff, whose every waking moment was spent giving thanks to her family and wondering when she would have to sacrifice everything for them, sacrificed everything, including her life, for them; Clint Barton, who just wanted a boring, middle-American family and a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, got all that after briefly turning into a bloodthirsty ninja and exacting vengeance on all the Asian crime-lords who had absolutely nothing to do with his family getting dusted by Thanos. Each of those endings tries to employ the full-circle trick, but they almost all fail because the full-circle trick doesn’t always work, and isn’t always that interesting, for the same reason why most people like the concept of free will more than fate – the idea that your destiny is predetermined is, honestly, kind of boring. There’s no surprise, no tension.
I can’t claim to understand what went into the making of Avengers: Endgame, or why the screenwriters and directors chose to do what they did with the story: but one thing that most Marvel fans have noticed (and have already speculated could explain the sudden disappearance of Bucky Barnes) is that soon after The Winter Soldier‘s release, a vocal division of the fandom rose up to demand that Steve and Bucky’s relationship go an extra step further and develop into a romantic dynamic. While both actors, Chris Evans and Sebastian Stan, were very supportive of the idea, it seems that higher-ups at Marvel were nervous even to acknowledge the idea of a Steve/Bucky love story, and tried to backpedal: they gave Steve a new, temporary female love interest, and even wrote in a conversation between the two where they talk about the extremely-straight-and-not-at-all-gay relationships that they had back in the 1940’s. And it didn’t take long before Bucky suddenly started vanishing from the movies and getting less and less screen-time. Maybe this is because of cowardice, or maybe it’s simply because the Russo Brothers didn’t want another gay character distracting from that crucial five-second cameo from the Unnamed Gay Man in Avengers: Endgame, but either way it does seem to have had a negative impact on how Marvel treated Bucky Barnes.
Now, we don’t know if this is why Stan doesn’t like the ending to Steve and Bucky’s relationship (technically, we don’t even know if he doesn’t like their ending). A single emoji can say a lot, but in this case it’s vague enough that I’m basing most of my assumptions off the original tweet, which said the Endgame plotline was “bad” (which is entirely subjective), “inconsistent” (which I’ve argued is an accurate assertion), and “out-of-character” (there’s no good answer to this one: after all, Steve is the character who rebelled against the very political structure that created him, but he’s also the same character who couldn’t even find a prospective date outside of his 1945 girlfriend’s immediate family). Now I leave it up to you, my dear jury, to decide for yourselves who’s right and who’s wrong in this debate. In my personal opinion, I have to agree with many of the claims made in the original tweet, but I’m also not going to sit here and say that Avengers: Endgame is poorly-written, as if it didn’t masterfully handle the extraordinarily large cast of characters across several timelines and in multiple parallel realities, right up until that iffy ending.
So what do you think? Is Sebastian Stan well within his rights to raise his voice, despite still being employed by Marvel (even John Boyega waited until after he was done with Star Wars to give them a piece of his mind), or does he come off as merely disgruntled? What do you, personally, think of the ending to Steve and Bucky’s story, and if you could rewrite it, would you? Share your thoughts, theories and opinions in the comments below!
While the Marvel Cinematic Universe has had an often uncomfortable relationship with the LGBTQ+ community (and recently, specifically the transgender community), things are looking up for the future, as new reports suggest that the upcoming Loki Disney+ series could feature not only a gender-fluid star, but a transgender supporting character. This would be a groundbreaking step forward if either rumor is accurate, and could pave the way for more diversity in future Marvel films and TV properties.
express.co.uk
The Loki series recently began production, with star Tom Hiddleston (who, of course, plays the traditionally male trickster god and sorcerer, Loki) sharing a brief video of himself performing some high-flying stunts for an action sequence. In the MCU, Loki has only ever been a male, but while you may think that Loki’s comics-canon gender-fluidity is something that would have come up in the movies already if it were also film-canon, there have been multiple rumors that suggest Loki could shift back and forth between genders throughout the duration of the show, with Hiddleston portraying their male side, and an actress (possibly Yesterday‘s Sophia Di Martino) taking on the role of Lady Loki. It’s worth noting that the Loki we’ll see in this show is the Loki who escaped into an alternate universe during the events of Avengers: Endgame, armed with the Space Stone and possibly a method of time-travel – this isn’t the same Loki we’ve grown accustomed to in the years since 2012’s The Avengers: this is an almost completely different iteration of the character, one who might be more comfortable with their gender-fluidity, and/or more likely to come out. The show, which is also rumored to include magical Marvel villains like Amora the Enchantress, could pose a problem that requires Loki to switch between genders in order to get out of harm’s way. Who knows? There’s any number of reasons why this crucial aspect of Loki’s character is only just being seen onscreen now (and there’s still no official confirmation that it is), and we’ll just have to wait and see which one Marvel decides upon.
As for the other rumor, that a transgender actress will play an openly transgender character in the series, this is one that has been tossed around for a while: the character in question, a transwoman named Sera, was initially rumored to make her MCU debut in Thor: Love And Thunder, but new updates suggest that she will, instead, have a major supporting role in Loki – Sera is one of only a handful of transgender characters in Marvel comics, and her story is one that’s always been linked to Marvel’s Norse pantheon: born a male angel in the kingdom of Heven, Sera transitioned at a young age and was rescued from her dismal life by Thor’s long-lost sister Angela, who soon became Sera’s girlfriend. Considering that we’ve already had one of Thor’s long-lost sisters show up in the MCU, it seems a bit of a stretch to assume that we’re now going to introduce another one, which leads me to believe that either (a) Angela will not appear, and Sera’s storyline will be very different from the comics, or (b) Marvel will replace Angela with Hela, and have the popular villain return, only to find true love. That might sound absurd, but Sera does have a connection to Hela in the comics that, with a lot of just a little tampering could be the base for a solid love-story, I guess? I mean, it’s not like Hela tortured and imprisoned Sera or anything, right?
*she totally did, by the way*
Sera’s inclusion in the series is said to be the stepping stone towards a role in future MCU movies, which probably includes Thor: Love And Thunder, where, completely coincidentally, she’d likely cross paths with the bisexual Queen of Asgard, Valkyrie (who, completely coincidentally, is said to be looking for a partner in the film). So maybe instead of falling for any of Thor’s sisters, heroic, villainous or otherwise, Sera will end up with a very different but no less iconic member of the Thor mythos.
The other notable thing about this is that Sera is said to be played by a transgender actress – meaning that all that controversy earlier this year about Marvel president Kevin Feige tip-toeing around the subject of transgender representation, confirming it and immediately walking it back, could have a happy ending. All that being said, none of this is yet confirmed by Marvel or Disney. So keep your expectations measured, at least for right now.
What do you think? Will Loki and Sera be gender-fluid and transgender, respectively, in the Loki series, and how do you think the Marvel fandom will take this news, if it turns out to be true? Share your own thoughts, theories and opinions in the comments below!
To nobody’s surprise, the wildly successful Captain Marvel, released last March, is getting a sequel: the cosmic superhero film, Marvel Studios’ first to be headlined by a female hero, crossed into the billion-dollar club within a couple weeks, and introduced audiences to star Brie Larson as the sassy, headstrong Carol Danvers a month before her small but pivotal role in the mega-hit Avengers: Endgame. And while a tiny, toxic group of angry moviegoers complained that Larson and Danvers were “ruining Marvel”, most people simply ignored the loud discourse that surrounded the film’s release, and found Danvers and her supporting cast to be perfectly likable and fun: her movie was enjoyable, the writing was average (with a couple outstanding exceptions that I will defend to the death), and the directing was fine. Turns out, Carol Danvers was absolutely no different from many of her male Marvel co-stars – in that her debut movie was a strong, if safe, jumping-off point into future installments of her solo saga.
But now, with a new setting, a new screenwriter, and new directors, the Space Stone-powered heroine’s sequel movie could be something truly extraordinary: something that could prove once and for all why Danvers is the perfect candidate to lead the Marvel Cinematic Universe into the new decade. So let’s discuss everything we now know about Captain Marvel 2.
reddit.com
It appears that Carol Danvers’ sequel will shake things up by giving us a change of scenery: while her origin movie was set in 1995, a couple years after the young fighter pilot was abducted by Kree aliens after absorbing the powers of an Infinity Stone, her second solo outing will take place in the present day (or, rather, the future day), after the events of Avengers: Endgame (which is set in the year 2023, in case you’ve forgotten). That means the Carol we see next will be an older, wiser Carol, a Carol who will have spent almost three decades traveling the stars, helping end wars across the galaxy. There’s no indication yet of who she’ll interact with in her sequel: will her best friend Maria Rambeau still be around to help her? Most importantly to comic-book fans, will Maria’s impressionable young daughter Monica have matured into the superhero known as Photon?
Considering who the sequel’s screenwriter is going to be, I’d guess the answer is “yes”. Megan McDonnell is supposedly set to write the scripts for Carol’s upcoming follow-up film, and her current credits include WandaVision, the hotly-anticipated Disney+ streaming series that will introduce a grown-up version of Monica Rambeau. Considering everything we now know about WandaVision, from the fact that it’s been fast-tracked for a late 2020 release, to the fact that its writers are now being moved into other key positions at Marvel, it looks like the series, which will star Elizabeth Olsen as a dangerously unbalanced Scarlet Witch, is going to be a big hit for the studio, and everybody involved with its production will probably leave with their heads held high.
Captain Marvel directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, on the other hand, may not be able to walk away from their tenure at Marvel with such honor – the directing duo are suspected to be moving on to other projects, and will not be helming Danvers’ sequel: Marvel is supposedly searching for a female director to take on the project, and guide it to its projected 2022 release date. Honestly, while I bear no ill will towards Boden and Fleck, I don’t think this is necessarily a bad idea: they didn’t do a bad job directing Captain Marvel, but they also didn’t do anything particularly new or invigorating – though, as I mentioned, I think the film does have some really good elements, including on-point humor, a subtly campy 90’s vibe, and strong performances. The sequel can do whatever it wants with that: it can go all Thor: The Dark World (a bad decision: don’t do that, Marvel) and double down on everything from the first film, or it can try for a more Thor: Ragnarok approach and branch out in a new direction, test the waters, give us a surprisingly fresh perspective on the character. Personally, I’d love to see Carol spend more time in space in her sequel, rather than moving about undercover on earth – that would also allow her to take on opponents her own size, and face some real challenges: since there’s probably very few villains on Earth who are going to stand a chance against her laser-punches and indestructible, fiery aura.
So what do you think? Carol’s story will have major changes both behind the scenes and in front of the camera, but will all turn out well? Where do you want to see her go next? Should she spend more time in space or on Earth? Share your thoughts, theories and opinions in the comments below!
