Sweet Nothings

So the latest Marvel blockbuster looks set to bomb at the box office, while the rumblings of discontent about Marvel Studios’ output grow ever more ominous. Seems like a good time to take stock of the MCU. The Marvels: not bad 😐 Re The Marvels itself: C haracter overload? The MCU has so many characters now that this is no surprise. Brie Larson may well have been miffed to be sharing top billing, but when you choose to make a character so powerful, how else are you going to create jeopardy other than giving them weaker companions to look after? It’s more or less the whole premise of Doctor Who. Production troubles? Director Nia DaCosta has played down rumours of friction, maintaining that the movie was designed to last 105 minutes (super-brisk for a modern blockbuster). But a definite lack of coherence and skimpy character motivations suggest that several scenes have been cut. It was hardly worth Samuel L Jackson turning up. But: despite all this, it’s still enjoyable enough. If Marv...

Yes, we went to Disney World again. Get over it. As usual, for reasons of space and sanity let’s concentrate on what was new and different. The heat Florida in August is a furnace. No matter how many times you tell yourself this, the reality still blasts you in the face like an angry, sweaty fire god. On the first afternoon I was briefly reconsidering the entire trip. Being a shopping and entertainment district, Disney Springs was not designed with shade in mind; unfortunately, Gideon’s Bakehouse has carved itself such a unique artisanal niche that cookie-craving customers must line up in the sun-baked asphalt for aeons. Thank God for their Nitro Cold Brew’s immense restorative powers. Also, late stage capitalism offers innumerable heat-defeating products, from cooling towels to the ubiquitous neck fans, through rehydration tablets all the way down to chafing sticks. After the first couple of days, once we’d got into the rhythm of downing a bottle of water and reapplying our sun ...

It’s fun, obviously. Not everything works - a sub-plot with evil Mattel CEO Will Ferrell and his boardroom of male cronies goes nowhere, Helen Mirren’s narration gets mislaid for long periods. But considering the sheer weirdness of the marriage of IP and director, it’s an achievement for this movie to exist at all. Many have bemoaned the likes of Marvel hiring indie directors and subsuming them into their meat grinder formula. If only they were given (mostly) carte blanche! (Edgar Wright’s Ant Man is the Great Lost Movie in this regard). Greta Gerwig’s Barbie is the actual answer. But is it really as radical as you might think? Yes, Gerwig and partner Noah Baumbach are to be congratulated for making a subversive feminist parable about a plastic doll into a billion dollar movie. But the megalithic toy corporation who gave them full backing will be even more ecstatic. Rather than being damaged by this spotlighting of their flaws, Mattel and Barbie’s stocks have rarely been higher. The Ba...