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Faves from a List of Upcoming Female-Lead Action Movies

July 18, 2018June 24, 2018Eppu2 Comments

Jordan Crucchiola at Vulture listed and tracked every upcoming female-lead Hollywood action movie. It’s divided into sections so that it’s easy to see what’s in development, in production, and postproduction (or coming soon).

It’s an impressive list. (I wish its scope were wider, though—gimme other genre subtypes, too, and productions from around the world, please?)

Below are a few of the ones that most tickle my fancy, with first a short description by Crucchiola and then my impressions.

The Aeronauts (preproduction)

“Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones star as a researcher and pilot team that goes on a science mission in a hot-air balloon. They ascend higher than anyone ever has, and have to fight for survival in the thinning atmosphere.”
Apparently set in the mid-1800s, this sounds like a non-mystery precursor to Murdoch Mysteries. I like Felicity Jones a lot, but am dubious of Amazon productions (mostly since I haven’t seen any so far, so take this with a bucket of salt).

A Black Widow stand-alone movie (screenwriter attached)

“It was announced earlier this year [2018] that Kevin Feige and Marvel had hired a writer for a Black Widow stand-alone screenplay.”
High time!

Captain Marvel (postproduction; U.S. release March 08, 2019)

“Marvel’s first female-lead superhero movie stars Brie Larson as Carol Danvers, a.k.a. Captain Marvel, an extremely powerful figure in the comics canon. We don’t know much—except that it’s set in the 1990s […].”
Again, high time! (According to Wikipedia, Captain Marvel has been in development since 2013.) I know extremely little of the character, but liked Brie Larson in Kong: Skull Island and Community.

Cleopatra Jones (in development)

“Details about the new film are not yet known, but in the 1973 original, Cleopatra Jones was a James Bond-type who worked as a special agent for the U.S. government and dealt with drug-related crimes.”
A reboot, although nothing I’ve heard of before. Hm. Maybe?

Enola Holmes (just announced at the start of the year)

“[A]daptation of Nancy Springer’s Enola Holmes Mysteries novel series. Enola is the baby sister of Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes, and wouldn’t you know it, a crack sleuth in her own right.”
Yes, please! Even more so, since Millie Bobby Brown (who outshone everyone else in Stranger Things) is set to star in and produce.

The Killer (in development)

“An assassin with a strict moral code can no longer abide the amoral ways of her employer, and so seeks to get out of the game.”
This might be amazing: John Woo is set to direct a reboot with Lupita Nyong’o in the head role.

Star Wars Episode IX (preproduction but definitely happening; U.S. release December 20, 2019)

“Star Wars remains an ensemble-powered saga, but this trilogy has always been about Rey’s journey.”
Yay! I’m just so sad we can’t have Carrie Fisher in it!

Widows (postproduction; U.S. release November 16, 2018)

“Brace yourself for this screen adaptation of a British mini-series from 1983, in which four widowed women plan to finish a heist job their dead husbands failed to complete.”
Ocean’s 8 was a great heist movie with a fantastic spread of women of all sorts (except the law-abiding type, heh heh) so this might be good, too.
Of the female cast, I recognize only Viola Davis (who’s awesome!); of the male, Collin Farrell (a meh performance in the 2012 Total Recall reboot and a suitably psycho Bullseye in the 2003 Daredevil), Daniel Kaluuya (W’Kabi in Black Panther), and Liam Neeson (who’s a turnoff for me, but perhaps he’s only got a small supporting role).

Wonder Woman 2 (in development)

“The timeline will reportedly move into the ’80s for the Wonder sequel, with the Cold War and USSR factoring in. Jenkins has also teased another love story.”
Am I the only one who’s noticed an uptick in movies where Russia (in one of its embodiments) is a bad guy? But: puh-leeeease stop writing forced love interests in movies! Love is great, but we don’t have to have an example of romantic love in every. single. story. Some stories work better without it, or with other types of love than the romantic variety.

Image: photo from the movie Widows from Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation via IMBD

In the Seen on Screen occasional feature, we discuss movies and television shows of interest.

Quotes: Finland Is Weird. Finland Is Different

July 13, 2018July 13, 2018Eppu1 Comment

I first became aware of Adrian Tchaikovsky when he won the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2016. I’ve been meaning to check out his writing since then. Ironclads, a limited-edition hardcover novella, finally made it to the top of my TBR pile last month.

The novella was great in several respects, but I was especially tickled by the American POV character’s descriptions of Finland and Finns. For example:

“All the middle of Nordland is the bit we’ve got problems with, basically: Sweden and Finland, say the maps. Sweden is where the fighting is, and the other place… Finland is weird. Finland is different.“

– Adrian Tchaikovsky: Ironclads

The version of U.S. in the story is fighting in Scandinavia, and, due to having laxer laws on genetic modification, Finland apparently has become home to very interesting types of special forces.

But the best, the absolutely best detail is mentioned in this section:

“[F]or a long time I couldn’t even work out what was on her screens. Then it started animating, frame by stilted frame, and I worked out that some parts of what I was seeing were a satellite view. The vast majority of what should have been contested Swedish soil was smeared with roiling dark clouds that obscured any sight we might have had of what the enemy was doing.

“’Seriously,’ Sturgeon hissed, ‘what is that?’

“’Is that the flies?’ Lawes asked gloomily.

“’Yeah.’ Cormoran gave us a bright look. “Gentlemen, this is a gift from the Finns. They breed these little bugs, midges, they chip ’em and ship ’em, and every so often the Nords release a batch. There are millions of the little critters each time, and they basically just block the view of our satellites – and we can’t see a thing – no one can. So every time our forces advance, we’re going in blind. Makes for all kinds of fun.’

“’They bite?’ Franken asked uneasily. We were all thinking it: mosquitoes, disease, some kind of Finnish labgrown plague that zeroed in on the stars and stripes.

“’Not yet,’ Lawes told us. ‘Jolly thought though, ain’t it?’”

– Adrian Tchaikovsky: Ironclads [original emphasis]

The militarization of mosquitoes! We already joke—as a way of dealing with an irritant that’s just a part and parcel of life—that mosquitoes are the Finnish air force. Finally, someone did it! 😀

It makes perfect sense in a world with aggressive biological research to turn a ubiquitous pest into an asset. Come to think of it, it sounds very much like the strategies that Finns used in the Winter War of 1939-1940 against Soviet forces—making native conditions work for you and against the enemy.

Of course, no one person can disapprove or approve of any characterization on behalf of their whole group. However, in My Official Opininon As a Finn, Tchaikovsky managed to balance well the view of Finland as part of Scandinavia with Finns being distinctly different from their Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish cousins. Also, he got so many little details right, like the way the Finnish language sounds, or our deep appreciation of nature.

I practically tore through the book. Kudos!

Tchaikovsky, Adrian. Ironclads. Oxford: Solaris, 2017, p. 22 and p. 29.

This post has been edited to correct a typo.

Serving exactly what it sounds like, the Quotes feature excerpts other people’s thoughts.

National Museums Scotland Online

July 11, 2018June 24, 2018Eppu

National Museums Scotland have made their collections available online.

First, you can tour the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh through Google street view. Around 20,000 objects on display at the permanent galleries can be seen this way.

In addition, over 1,000 objects from the National Museums have been added to the Google Arts & Culture online collection. They are arranged in groups that work much like online photo albums. Clicking on an image opens a detailed view of that item with additional information.

Four separate museums form the National Museums Scotland: in Edinburgh, the National Museum of Scotland and the National War Museum, plus the National Museum of Flight in East Lothian and the National Museum of Rural Life in East Kilbride.

This is so great! I’ve been lucky enough to be able to visit the National Museum of Scotland in person, but that was years ago and I couldn’t get to everything I wanted to see. Now I can patch those holes in my not-quite-a-bucket-list. 🙂

Image: screencap from National Museums Scotland Google Arts & Culture webpage

Built-in Brick Space Invaders

July 10, 2018June 24, 2018Eppu2 Comments

When you really love a game: Klopper & Davis Architects in Perth, West Australia, built Space Invaders critters into the walls of this house. The critters are made with depressed brick, and appear both indoors and outdoors. Take a look:

Not an easily DIY-able project, but very neat.

Found via Desire to Inspire. (Visit the DtI blog post for additional Space Invaders views!)

Images: Klopper & Davis Architects, via Desire to Inspire

In Here is an occasional feature highlighting geeky spaces created by our fellow geeks all over the world.

Gleaned from Bodleian Libraries Workshop on Ultramarine Blue

July 6, 2018June 22, 2018Eppu

Did you know that the Bodleian Libraries at the University of Oxford have a Tumblr micro blog? I didn’t until just recently. And oh my, it’s a treasure trove!

A short post gives a few tantalising details on lapis lazuli, the mineral that was ground down to get bright blue pigment for example for illuminating Medieval manuscripts:

“In his travels Marco Polo vividly described the cold province of Badakhshan, a prosperous land where horses that descended from Alexander’s horse Bucephalus were once bred and where priceless rubies and the finest lapis lazuli were found.

“Since ancient times lapis lazuli has been sourced in this remote region, north-east of modern Afghanistan, and exported over vast distances. Its mines on the steep Hindu Kush Mountains, above the Valley of the Kokcha River, can only be reached through a tortuous and dangerous route.

“Lapis lazuli consists of a large number of minerals, including the blue mineral lazurite, the white mineral calcite and golden specks of iron pyrites.

“A laborious process transforms this composite mineral into the pigment ultramarine; various grades of ultramarine can be obtained, from the purest extremely expensive deep blue, composed mostly of lazurite particles to the pale grey so-called ultramarine ash.”

The conservators at Bodleian (Anita Chowdry, David Margulies and Marinita Stiglitz) learned how to make pigment from scratch in a two-day workshop, and shared their notes in a longer post.

Both the historical process and conservators’ efforts are fascinating! Did you know, for instance, that before explosives were developed, lapis lazuli was mined with the help of large fires and cold water?

Visit the Tumblr post for more photos, and read more in the Bodleian blog post “Exploring Ultramarine”.

Found via MedievalPOC on Tumblr.

Images via Bodleian Libraries: Young man picks a blue rock, Bodleian Library, MS. Elliott 287, fol. 34a. Workshop image collage screencapped from Tumblr. Detail of Bodleian Library, MS. Arab. d. 98, fol. 1B.

How It Happens is an occasional feature looking at the inner workings of various creative efforts.

An Extant Map as Evidence of Native American Cartography

July 4, 2018October 11, 2020Eppu

In the U.S., and indeed more widely in the Anglo-American world, Meriwether Lewis and William Clarke are known for their two-year expedition of the Louisiana territory (purchased from France in 1803) and the land beyond the “great rock mountains” in the west.

Less commonly remembered in cursory mentions is the extent of Lewis and Clarke’s interactions with local Native Americans. (Apart from Sacagawea, who is known at least in the U.S.) The whites didn’t just exchange gifts or talk about trade or clash with the local population; they received invaluable help and information (like when the expedition wintered with the Mandan people in present-day North Dakota).

Now it seems that western historians need to re-evaluate that extent.

According to The Jefferson Watch, cartographers have identified at least ten places in the journals of Lewis and Clarke where the captains talk about the maps by Native American hosts to help them figure out the lay of the land.

Christopher Steinke, at the time a graduate student at the University of New Mexico, found one of those maps at the archives of the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) in Paris. It was drawn by Inquidanécharo, a chief of the Arikara (in French, Ricara), who was apparently also known as Too Né.

LudditeLabs on Twitter did some of the heavy lifting and linked to the BnF digital copy of the map:

An article by Steinke is available at JSTOR, where this abstract comes from:

“The Bibliothèque nationale de France contains a hitherto unnoticed map attributed to Inquidanécharo, a Ricara chief. Lewis and Clark knew him as Too Né, an Arikara village leader who accompanied them upriver to the Mandan and Hidatsa villages in 1804. The map, which Too Né showed to playwright and artist William Dunlap when he visited Washington in 1806, is the most detailed surviving Indian representation of the Great Plains from this period. It invites scholars to reorient early American exploration and cartography from indigenous perspectives. Too Né interpreted his map as a work of history and cartography and situated the American explorers in the historical and religious landscape of the Arikara people.”

In “Here is My Country”, Steinke outlines some of the main features of Inquidanécharo’s map, and recounts some history surrounding it. He also lists a few other Native American maps from the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

What most struck me, though, is that Native American maps seem to have contained more information than just geographical details—they also depicted cultural connections and ethnographical information.

I knew Native Americans used symbols and pictograms, and had to have—like people everywhere—a way of talking about and remembering locations outside their immediate surroundings. I had no idea, however, that Native American cartography was as polished or wide-reaching as it was (a hint for the Finnish school system), let alone that their maps might still be extant. Fascinating!

Found via bluecorncomics on Twitter.

This post has been edited to correct a typo.

In Live and Active Cultures we talk about cultures and cultural differences.

Black Panther Is Coming to the Smithsonian African American Museum

June 29, 2018June 25, 2018Eppu

Earlier this year, the Smithsonian African American Museum of History and Culture screened the superhero movie Black Panther as part of their programming.

Now the museum has plans to incorporate the movie into their collections in a larger way:

“The museum acquired several objects from Disney’s record-breaking film Black Panther, including the hero costume worn by actor Chadwick Boseman; a shooting script signed by Ryan Coogler (co-writer; director), Kevin Feige (producer, president of Marvel Studios), Nate Moore (executive producer) and Joe Robert Cole (co-writer; producer); two pages of spec script; and 24 high-resolution production photographs. Plans for display of the objects are under consideration by the museum.” […]

“Black Panther is the first superhero of African descent to appear in mainstream American comics, and the film itself is the first major cinematic production based on the character. Black Panther illustrates the progression of blacks in film, an industry that in the past has overlooked blacks, or regulated them to flat, one-dimensional and marginalized figures. The film, like the museum, provides a fuller story of black culture and identity.”

Interesting! “Plans for display … are under consideration” definitely sounds like museum speak for planning a permanent exhibit. 🙂 In the meanwhile, the collection spotlight blog post, “Wakanda to Smithsonian”, includes a few images of the Black Panther hero costume (armor) on the premises.

Found via File 770.

Image by The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

Ant-Man and the Wasp Trailers

June 27, 2018June 10, 2018Eppu

Ant-Man and the Wasp opens July 06, 2018—in about ten days! I didn’t know anything about Ant-Man going into the first movie, and I liked it a lot more than I thought I would. Just on the basis of that, I have high hopes for AM&tW.

This French poster certainly rocks:

Here’s the trailer from January:

Marvel Studios’ Ant-Man and the Wasp – Official Trailer #1 by Marvel Entertainment

And one from the beginning of May:

Marvel Studios’ Ant-Man and The Wasp – Official Trailer by Marvel Entertainment

Basically the new one is the same as the January trailer except with more info. Still looks like great fun, though.

As for favorite side characters, Michael Peña returns as Luis, Judy Greer as Maggie Lang, and Abby Ryder Fortson as Cassie Lang—it’ll be great to see them all. Laurence Fishburne makes a first-time appearance as Dr. Bill Foster / Goliath. I didn’t realize that Michelle Pfeiffer is in the movie, too—cool cool cool. Hannah John-Kamen I haven’t seen before even though she’s been in Ready Player One and Game of Thrones; at least I don’t remember spotting her as a First Order officer in The Force Awakens.

Also, I just want to officially say that the GINORMOUS HELLO KITTY PEZ DISPENSER IS SO AWESOME! 🙂 😀

Image: Ant-Man and the Wasp poster via IMDB

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Happy, WoW-y Midsummer!

June 20, 2018November 15, 2022Eppu1 Comment

Juhannus is the Finnish celebration of midsummer. People usually go to a summer cottage, burn bonfires, sauna bathe, and enjoy fresh food.

Or… in our case, this year, stay in town and play! I’ve just started cleaning up my quest lists and churning out the last Legion achievements etc. in earnest before Battle for Azeroth launches in August.

I could even have a juhannus sauna in game. I’m pretty sure one of the Pinchwhistle Point huts in Spires of Arak is a sauna:

Tile floor, wooden benches, a large wood pail, and a stove for heating and making steam—sounds like a sauna to me!

Happy Midsummer! Hyvää juhannusta!

Images: 3-laptop evening by Eppu Jensen. Screencap from the MMORPG World of Warcraft, Warlords of Draenor expansion.

Of Dice and Dragons is an occasional feature about games and gaming.

Quotes: Comic Books Should Be in Every Library

June 15, 2018June 11, 2018Eppu

Stan Lee, the creator of several superheroes, opines on libraries:

“A library should be a way for a child—for anybody—to get the sort of reading that he or she wants, and hopefully that will benefit them. Not all stories in comic books are great; some may seem silly or ridiculous or a waste of time. But the youngster has to be able to read the book. And for that reason, comic books should be in every library.”

– Stan Lee

Did he just describe comic books as a gateway drug? 🙂

From an interview with Stan Lee for the American Library Association by Mariam Pera, found in American Libraries May 2014, p. 16.

Serving exactly what it sounds like, the Quotes feature excerpts other people’s thoughts.