Recently in Linky Goodness

February 23, 2010

Let's try this again: Links for February

So Grace and I were all excited about our new! weekly! posting schedule, and then my hosting company got infected and all my blogs went down and wow, it's really hard to get back to posting once the wind has been taken out of your sails by evil hackers right as you're staging a posting rally. Thanks to everyone who emailed to ask if everything was okay with us while the blog had completely disappeared. Y'all make us feel like rock stars.

Let's do some links, and then we'll get back on the whole "movie review" thing shortly.

Jennifer K. Stuller over at Ink-Stained Amazon has released her first book, Ink-Stained Amazons and Cinematic Warriors: Superwomen in Modern Mythology. She quoted Grace twice and me not at all, because Grace is more of a thinker and thus is more quotable, so I retaliated by keeping the review copy I was supposed to send Grace and buying her one of her own instead. (See? Not much of a thinker = terrible revenge plan.) We are planning to exploit Jennifer and her book ruthlessly to produce content for our blog in the next few weeks, so keep an eye out for that.

If you disliked my review of Book of Eli, which at last count included everyone, you will probably like Girls on Film: Women Are Doomed if the Apocalypse Hits by Monika Bartyzel on Cinematical much better.

If anyone out there reads German well enough to tell me what the heck this article is saying, that would be awesome: X-Men Origin: Wolverine. They totally quote us! And for the record, now that I have read a bunch of X-Men comics, I am WAY more offended by this film making Emma Frost anything other than the badass she always has been. Teenage captive for whom the diamond thing is her primary mutation, indeed.

Going Native: Avatar on Every Day I Write The Book and The Evolution of "Avatar" on Reappropriate (which you have all probably already seen) were my two favorite pieces on this film. I'm never going to see it, and I like to laugh, so these two posts together were pretty much all I needed.

Speaking of movies I will never see and laughter, The Buffy vs. Edward mashup video that I found via the post Bella vs. Buffy on Fouth Wave Feminism is hysterical. You've probably all seen that too, but if I post about it here then I can find it later.

On the upcoming film front, since I posted back in September (omg it was that long ago?) about what I was seeing on the horizon for 2010, I've unsurprisingly come across some additional items of interest.

The Losers (April 9th) somehow totally got by me until about a month ago. I think it's going to piss me off based on the trailer, and I can't decide whether to track down the comic first. When I saw the Whiteout movie before I read the comic, ignorance was bliss. Here's the trailer for The Losers:

The trailer for Salt (July 23rd) is not embeddable, so here's the link to the Salt trailer on YouTube.

Others on our possible 2010 list include Robin Hood (c'mon, Cate!), Jonah Hex (Megan Fox and "voodoo," surely this won't be problematic!), Knight & Day (yikes), Red Dawn, Red - and yes, Predators.

What else is going on out there, peeps? What have we missed while on fall and early winter hiatus?

September 09, 2009

Linky Goodness: September 9th

A few tidbits to share with y'all today.

Obviously we're behind on this one, but the Avatar teaser trailer is up at the official site. I am afraid of the CGI. (Hat tip to The Park Bench for the link, check out their blog if you haven't.)

One of my favorite new discoveries is Mary Robinette Kowal's Reel Fantasy blog over at AMC. I particularly liked Off With Her Head? Why Fantasy Hates Good Queens and The Worst-Dressed Women Warriors in Fantasy.

I disagree with his rejection of Lara Croft (while accepting some of his criticisms), but I Miss Sarah Connor is a good piece over at new blog The Guy's Guide to Feminism.

Real life "Stiletto Spy School" for women. Hmm. (Hat tip to guest poster d for this one and the next.)

Thanks to Entrepreneur Goddess for uploading video of this panel to YouTube: "Comic Con 2009. Sigourney Weaver, Elizabeth Mitchell, Zoe Saldana, Eliza Dushku on being female and breaking the glass ceiling in the entertainment world." I think Zoe Saldana is amazingly generous in her comments about how sexism isn't "on purpose" and "education" is the solution. You can find additional recordings of this panel as you're viewing this one. YouTube is magic that way. Or dangerous. I can't tell.

Skinny vs. Strong: Who Wins? at The Great Fitness Experiment. So interesting to read while thinking about casting of women in action films.

Faux Action Girl at Television Tropes and Idioms.

From 2001: Badass girls on film: Is it a good thing when women beat the crap out of men at the movies? by Gina Arnold in Salon.

July 13, 2009

Monday Links: July 13th (Matrix Edition)

If you haven't checked out d's guest posts on The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, and The Matrix Revolutions, you should!

And in honor of the 10th anniversary of the first Matrix film, here are some links that Grace and I particularly enjoy. Please feel free to share others in the comments!

The Matrix: Coding Counter Racism by Josh Wickett.

The Pornocracy of "Fate": Moms' Tricks in The Matrix by Matt George.

Holy Trinity - female characters in The Matrix: Reloaded by Anna Sandfeld on The F-Word.

A future worth fighting for by Andrew O'Hehir on Salon.com.

The Matrix Reloaded Makes Strides in Racial Diversity on BlogCritics, and the comments section on this one is also worth a read.

Matrix Revolutions: Imbalance by Cynthia Fuchs on Pop Matters.

These posts by Steven Barnes:

The Taming of the Shrew:The fall of Trinity in the Matrix Trilogy on Beyond Pandora. (This is actually closest to my interpretation of Trinity of all the writing I've seen online -Skye)

The Matrix and the Mater by Stephen Faller.

May 18, 2009

Monday Links: May 18th

First of all, it's time for everybody to get involved with Racebending.com, the protest effort over the casting of Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Please go ahead, I'll wait.

Thanks!

Allrighty, so here are some links about items we've discussed lately, which you may already have seen since you probably read these blogs, but presented for completeness:

Some older pieces I enjoyed:

How movies/TV help to change social norms (for better or worse) at Anthro Goggles.

Stories for Men. Just go read it, seriously.

The 9 Most Racist Disney Characters on Cracked.com. (This one's for Grace, love ya!)

The Day the Earth Stood Still Would've Been Great, If it Hadn't Been So Underwhelming by Mana G at All Mirth and No Matter. I was totally sympathizing with the "wow look at all this non suckiness and yet this movie is so boring oh well" vibe.

Babylon AD: Yet Another Scifi Flick About the Virgin Mary by Annalee Newitz on io9.

Terrified Waitresses and Chicks Who Kick Ass at Brutal Women, about the Terminator series.

Also don't miss the 3rd Tell It WOC Speak Carnival, Voices Have Power, and the first Asian Women's Carnival.

And that's it for this time. Coming up in a couple of days, I think we'll do a little preview of the rest of 2009 in new releases...

May 02, 2009

It's Amazing What Modern Tools Can Accomplish

New Video Game Technology Finally Allows Rendering Of Smaller Breasts

April 27, 2009

Monday Links: April 27th

Zoe Saldana's Playing Uhura! on TransGriot. (I don't know how I missed out on reading TransGriot until last week, but if it's not in your feed reader yet, you should fix that immediately.)

A Call for Diversity in Web TV on Everyday Goddess.

Especially in light of the conversation in the comments on Grace's review of Dragonball Evolution, I found A Chocolate Coating to make the Bitter White Pill Go Down Easier by nojojojo on The Angry Black Woman quite informative. And freakin' depresssing.

The Incredibles by Mz Razorblade at The F-Word.

Best. Starship Captain. Ever. at OverMediated.

Media Ethics, Blogging & "Battlestar Galactica" at Megan's Minute. What I find so interesting about this is how anyone writing about BSG and feminism had NOT come across the Feminist SF post in question.

Movie review: Watchmen at WriteBlack.

That's why it's called go-go, not cry-cry by Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon, regarding Tarantino's Grindhouse.

April 13, 2009

Monday Links: April 13th (but first, a bit about Observe and Report by Seth Rogen)

I put this together over the weekend, and was all set to publish it this morning, when I found this post about Observe and Report by Seth Rogen over at Tiger Beatdown, via this post at The Curvature. I feel sick now. If you're a sexual assault survivor and you're not in a good place, take a pass on reading about this movie, but everyone else really needs to head over there, read, and then tell me that feminism is no longer necessary because everything is peachy keen for women living in this society.

Moving on...

-

It's been a long, long time since I did one of these, and I'd like to get back in the swing of things. So here are some links, old and new, for your perusal and enjoyment, and links back to our reviews of some of the movies referenced in case you missed them the first time around. Cheers!

I will not die for your amusement by Yonmei over at Feminist SF - The Blog, about Lesbian Vampire Killers and Watchmen.

Danger Gal Friday: Mary Embrey by Lisa Paitz Spindler, on Charlize Theron's character in the film Hancock. Her take on it is definitely worth reading, though I ultimately feel differently about the character.

Revisiting 'Dollhouse' by Arturo R. García at Racialicious. (Grace's review of Dollhouse.)

Women Directing Action Flicks at Women and Hollywood

unsettling moments in resident evil: extinction (triggering and spoilered) at the LJ feminist film community, written by a person. (my review of Resident Evil: Extinction.)

Frank Miller's "300″ and the Persistence of Accepted Racism by Jehanzeb Dar of Broken Mystic, also published on Racialicious. (Grace's review of 300 and her addendum on the rape issue.)

Kill Bill by Aideen Johnston at The F-Word. (Grace's review of Kill Bill.)

The Girly Gun: Gender in Mr. And Mrs. Smith by Revena at The Hathor Legacy. (Grace's review of Mr. and Mrs. Smith.)

The Girls Who Lived by Sigrid Ellis at Thinking Too Much.

Badass Feminist of the Week: Sarah Connor‏ by Sabina at Not Just Movies. (Grace's review of Terminator 2.)

Also check out the first Asian Women's Carnival.

September 05, 2008

Hollywood's 5 Saddest Attempts at Feminism

Over at Cracked, Jennifer Liang has posted a list of Hollywood's 5 Saddest Attempts at Feminism. She identifies five female action movie characters who were inserted into the plots to fill the "feisty woman" role, but didn't quite deliver as heroines. You'll have to go on over there for yourself and see who she chose, but I can't help but share one quip, about Cleopatra, whom Liang mentions in passing:

...regardless of what actually happened, [she] has always been fictionalized as having seduced the world with the sheer force of her boobies.

August 01, 2008

Friday Links

Since I haven't done one of these for, oh, I don't know, eight years, there's a lot here.

Summer Movies - Wall-E and Wanted by Latoya Peterson on Racialicious. She links to a couple of good pieces about Wanted (in addition to Grace's review) and adds her own thoughts - not to be missed.

Also not to be missed is A Fat Acceptance Activist's take on "Wanted" at one of my new favorite blogs, Big Fat Deal. I don't know who Lucinda, the author of the review is, but girlfriend can write.

Then there's Comic-Con Diary: Where the Girls Are by Karina Longworth, which I found via Women & Hollywood. Wow. Wow. Wow. So much there, I don't even know where to start.

On a lighter note, I disagree with 5 Ways Superhero Movies Would Be Different if a Chick Wrote Them on #5 and #2, but I endorse the other three.

That link came to my attention via Superheroes and Women: How About Some More Women Superheroes, Already? by SuperJive on BlogHer. My favorite quote is by Alyssa Royse (disclaimer: she also pays me to blog on one of her sites):

I want a female superhero that people swoon over for what she does, and can non nonchalantly walk away smacking her own ass saying, "oh, this old thing, i forgot i had it!"

As you probably already know, Hellboy totally sucked. Thanks Patrick at the Hathor Legacy for a solid review. WOC PhD also took it to task.

Not been a surprise, but depressing anyway: Sienna Miller wore fake boobs to play The Baroness in G.I. Joe.

Slant Eye for the Round Eye thought Chocolate was good, but I still have suspicions about having an "autistic" action heroine. I need to dig around and see if anyone in the disability community caught this and what they thought.

Jessica Barnes of Cinematical thinks the teaser trailer for The Mutant Chronicles looks bad, but I'm still holding out some hope for some ass-kicking heroine-ism from Devon Aoki.

Scott Weinberg of Cinematical and Meredith Woerner of io9 think there should be a Resident Evil 4. Apparently the increasing levels of racism and sexism in the franchise has escaped their attention. I can't imagine how RE would top itself after the third one.

Women's roller derby comedy: action or embarrassment? I'm sure Grace won't be able to stay away, so our faithful readers will probably find out.

June 13, 2008

Friday Links

On three hours of sleep last night, this is what I have for you:

Raiders of the Source Material on Sloganeering.org.

Zoe Saldana Talks To io9 About Star Trek And Avatar. Here's the bit that got me:

io9: Tell me about being a one of the few women on the Enterprise?

Saldana: I think it's awesome. To be on the Enterprise with all these guys, the message speaks loudly. She's a female, she's of high rank and she has her shit together. And never is it ever about, or was it ever about her female presence. It was pretty great. I loved being the only girl.

Yes, yes it does speak loudly. I just don't think it says what Saldana thinks it says.

I don't always agree with Elisabeth Rappe on Cinematical, but I'm glad she's writing there. Latest: Re-Raiding the Tomb, No Actress Yet for 'Witchblade' -- But We've Got the Teaser Poster. Monika Barytzel also posted pics from Street Fighter. (Ohmygosh, three posts actually written by women about women in action movies on a mainstream movie blog? I'm obviously dreaming.)

Bring On The Bond Girls? at the f-word Blog

Danger Gal Maybes. We'll See. by Lisa Paitz Spindler.

Coming soon to a theater near you: Immortal Kickboxer by Bao Phi, posted on Racialicious.

I'm sure there have been some carnivals and stuff. Maybe next week I will find them.

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