superhero

Doctor Strange [spoilers within]…

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The latest installment from Marvel Comics and Disney Studios is 2016’s Doctor Strange.

It tells of Doctor Stephen Strange, who is a brilliant but egotistical neurosurgeon who through a twist of misfortune ends up crippled and unable to perform surgeries.

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Much like Bruce Wayne’s genesis as Batman, Dr Strange journeys into the Himalayas to search out the Ancient One and learn the mystical arts of healing. 

Also, like many comic book and hero stories, Strange learns of unique giftings hidden within him and an uncanny aptitude to learn magic and sorcery. With the aide of a side kick and several magical items such as a levitating cloak and necklace which can bend time, Strange becomes a serious force to contend with in the magical realm.

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The story is classic hero journey.  A skeptical scientist carries the audience with him on a journey into mystery, thrown from his comfortable reality into the depths of dream and deep psyche. 

On this journey, he discovers mentors, allies, enemies and magical weapons and touchstones.

Strange’s story reaches denoument when he faces a choice – he can channel healing into his hands and return to love and career – or he can stay and battle forces of evil, a broken man the rest of his days. 

His choice to remain, carries him to the very nexus of evil, to face the Dormammu or the Dark Dimension.

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Herein lies on the most startling hero motifs of any sci-fi or fantasy I have seen for a long time. 

Doctor Strange with the aid of his time bending amulet, creates a loop of time in which he and Dormammu are trapped without end. In doing so, he willingly condemns himself to infinite death so that humanity may live.

Our hero takes infinite death that humanity might live……..

This saviour motif resonates time and time again, throughout stories, myths and legends of many cultures. Too many to recount. 

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All in all, the film relies too heavily on computer generated effects and the at times the plot is clumsily narrated through longwinded dialogue. Nevertheless the cast are brilliant and some genuinely witty interchanges brighten the story.

I give it – three out of five stars.

 

Where Are The Female Superheros

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A strong theme of Bear Skin is how narrative both reflects the world and shapes it. Story is educative, story asserts a view, story informs and we viewers and readers engage, and re-tell and become.

Deeply truthful stories are vital to good and strong society. This wonderful TED talk by Christopher Bell sums up the importance of this fact by addressing the place of strong female role models in narrative, not only for little girls, but also for little boys.

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But here’s the question that I have to ask. Why is it that when my daughter dresses up, whether it’s Groot or The Incredible Hulk, whether it’s Obi-Wan Kenobi or Darth Maul, why is every character she dresses up as a boy? And where are all the female superheroes? And that is not actually the question, because there’s plenty of female superheroes. My question really is, where is all the female superhero stuff?Where are the costumes? Where are the toys?

Because every day when my daughter plays when she dresses up, she’s learning stuff through a process that, in my own line of work, as a professor of media studies, we refer to as public pedagogy. That is, it is how societies are taught ideologies. It’s how you learned what it meant to be a man or a woman, what it meant to behave yourself in public, what it meant to be a patriot and have good manners. It’s all the constituent social relations that make us up as a people. It’s, in short, how we learn what we know about other people and about the world.

Birdman

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Birdman is a 2014  comedy-drama with a stellar cast inlcuding Michael Keaton, Edward Norton, Emma Stone and Naomi Watts [among others]. It is an interesting commentary on being an artist in a celebrity mad world.

Most of Birdman appears to be filmed in a single shot.

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The story follows Riggan Thomson (Keaton), a faded Hollywood actor famous for his role as superhero Birdman, as he struggles to write, direct and star in a Broadway adaptation of a short story by Raymond Carver.

The parallels between Keaton [Batman] and Riggan [Birdman] overlap parrallels between the Raymond Carver play, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” and  Riggan’s own quest for affirmation.

 

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We follow his feeling of insignificance in an age in which comics make billions and anyone without a Twitter account “doesn’t exist”.

When Riggan is visited by his ex-wife but all he can think of is whether Clooney [another Batman] will be more remembered than him. His wife informs to him that he misunderstands admiration for love.  He is not alone in this delusion however. His charismatic costar Mike [Edward Norton] can only be himself on stage, off stage his life is a mess. Another co-star Lindsay [Naomi Watts], neurotically awaits to be told she has “made it” by performing on Broadway.

 

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Riggan faces the harshest of New York theatre critics, one who promises to destroy him and delivers the ultimate insult – he is  a celebrity and not an artist.

Ironcially, a mistake causes Riggan to be locked out of the theatre in his underpants and forced to walk through Times Square, causing tens of thousands of shares on twitter, and thus propelling him into the limelight.

Later a failed effort to commit suicide on stage results in him being declared an exciting new method actor by the same theatre critic.

 

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The film is a reflection on success in art, fame, celebrity and integrity of being. It looks at the pressures and anxieties artists face to have their work scrutinised and destroyed by critics, at the mercy of the twitterverse, seeking to hold onto a feeling of being a part from their artistic creations.

In a profound life learning, Riggan’s daughter [Emma Stone], a world weary rehab survivor, maps out the age of the universe in dashes on a roll of toilet paper. One small square equals the entire time humans have been in existence.

The illustration reduces human hubris to one insignificant square of tissue.