Tag Archives: story

May 26, 2017

Review: Fast 8

By Rebecca M. Horner

Sometimes, I just want to veg out when I watch a movie. Lots of explosions, funny dialogue, great fight scenes, and I’m happy. (Ginny and I are best friends for a reason, ya’ll.) Extra bonus points? If Vin Diesel is in it. I have an embarrassing crush on his geeky butt, so if I get to watch him in any capacity, I am happy. The Fast and the Furious franchise is one of the ones where I get all of that, so of course it’s one of my favorites to watch, to the point I’ll even pay ridiculous theater ticket pricing to see it. (Of course, when I sat down to watch Fast 8: Fate of the Furious, I belatedly discovered that I somehow MISSED FAST 7, but I blame grief for Paul.)

Summary (non spoiler, but you best be warned there are some ahead): Things seemed to be looking up for Dom Toretto. He’s on his honeymoon with the girl he thought he lost, no one is after him, things are finally calm. Except they really, really aren’t. Secrets are coming out into the open, including the mysterious Cypher who has a personal stake in Dom’s happiness…or lack thereof. Dom is going to have to work against his team, the clock, and any doubts he may have about who he is in order to get out of this mess. But the rewards just might be worth it.

Okay, so one thing I love about Vin is how versitile he is, and this movie shows some of it. Dom has always been the mastermind in the group, and the big dog who isn’t afraid of joking around with his teammates. But this time, we get to see some of the doubt, and some of the anger, that Dom carries with him. This movie hints at some of the earlier comments earlier in the movie that had been left behind as the gang grew up, about living for the speed and the street racing. The concept of family has always been important to Dom, but this movie really hammers home where his priorities are. I loved seeing this different side of the character, seeing Vin really show his acting chops, and providing a solid contrast to some of the other characters.

Dwayne Johnson’s character, Hobb, got to show something beyond big and scary this movie. While they seriously hammed up his strength in some awesome ways, he’s less stiff and more amusing to watch now that he’s transitioned from being an enemy to being a babysitter on a job, to finally being part of the team. But really, the Brits were the best part of this movie and they completely stole the show. I won’t tattle on who belongs to who and what they do… But they steal the show and they are utterly priceless. I was in hysterics the entire time. I also liked a character who got introduced as I think the replacement for Brian’s character, especially since Hobbs has never been as by-the-book on legals and such as he was. Brian brought the cop-component to the team, understanding how that worked. Hobb is military and it shows. The new character seems to be bringing that cop element back to the team, provided he sticks around.

Sadly, there was a character who I didn’t approve of how they used her. Let it be known, I am NOT on team Lettie. I felt like she should have stayed dead, or taken on a sister-role when she did come back. The chemistry between her and Dom has never been there for me, especially compared to Elena who I felt fit him better, and who I loved as a character too. The route they take with her makes sense in some ways, because I can see her sacrificing her own happiness for Dom’s and the rest was just waiting for the best timing, but… I know why they killed her. It wasn’t even because it made the most sense story wise, because there was no reason to keep her alive for as long as they did only to kill her as a reaction. It was the writers trying to cut off a loose end because of people like me who hated the way they went and wanted to hold on to hope that Elena and Dom would end up back together. To the writers, Lettie and Dom is the way it is always going to be, and they wanted to be clear about it. Ugh. (BTW, George Lucas did this to shut the Luke/Leia shippers up too.)

Story and world building wise…the movie excels at ignoring the laws of physics and how things work, but it also knows how to laugh at itself about it. Tanks and orange sports cars, the ways you can blow up your engine and smoke your tires, and hacking car computers to make a zombie march… all of it is completely ridiculous, but it helps make for a fun movie as you wait for the next surprise. It keeps one-upping itself in terms of what is going to show up next, and I keep waiting for them to run out of them. (So far, they haven’t, but I haven’t heard of a Fast 9 yet either.) I do feel like the cast is getting a bit bloated. I love the characters, but it’s getting increasingly hard to focus on them in a story without relying heavily on the previous movies to know who they all are.

You don’t watch an action movie for its complex story telling or its plot twists. Most of the time, you know where the story is going and who is going to win in the end. You go for the characters, and for the sheer joy and excitement it gives you. So leave your logic at a door, and head off to see the snarky family love that is Fate of the Furious.

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February 19, 2017

Review: Age of Adaline

By Rebecca M. Horner

I remember being intrigued by the trailers for this movie but never getting around to seeing it theaters. Well, I’ve rectified that, and what do you know, a romance movie that doesn’t make me want to drill my brain out!

Due to an accident when she was twenty-nine years old (the first time), Adaline has stopped aging. Her daughter now has to pass as her grandmother. Her only friend who she has been able to keep through identities is only possible because she is blind. Adaline lives in fear of being discovered, but is she truly living? She starts to question that when she meets Ellis, who reminds her of what she once had. But there are complications with being immortal, and sometimes they come to catch up with you in the most unlikely of places.

The genre for this one is a little weird to nail down. Normally when you are dealing with immortals, some level of fantasy is involved. But this time, there’s an annoying little voice over guy who goes, “Noooo, there’s science involved!” Not real science, my sort of soft science that sounds technical and doesn’t rip me out of my movie experience by making me go, “Really?” and is from far enough in the future they may manage to avoid getting called out on it…maybe. (After self-tying shoes and hover boards happened on time, I can’t exactly argue against it.) So it’s sort of straddling the line between urban fantasy and soft sci fi with a heavy reliance on the butterfly effect.

This movie is a loving ode to San Francisco. The setting just breathes life and is almost a character in and of itself. They really took the time to find all these little historical nuggets of information and to portray them in such a way that we the audience could see why they were so loved by Ellis and Adaline. Maybe I’m just a history nerd, but I love a movie that acknowledges the past and the touches it leaves behind for all of us to discover. Plus they wove it into to Adaline’s history, and her own personal struggles, that you just felt like this movie couldn’t have been set anywhere else and been the same.

The characters are quirky and I love them. Adaline never stops learning, and she is so much fun to watch her use that knowledge to beat the ever loving tar out of the boys. I love how she holds on to her routes back in time but isn’t living in the dark ages of technology either. (I made a comment to Ginny about pluses of being a vampire, you hold on to your stuff until it becomes vintage and in and then you just have to refurbish/adjust it.) And Ellis doesn’t try to change her, he doesn’t want her to be anything less than who she is. And he can stand on his own too, as proven by his date choice, and he’s just as stubborn as she is which is probably a good thing. Even William hit you close to home because he was trying to grapple with this thing he thought he had dealt with and now it’s coming back at the absolute worst possible time.

I am a known hater of most modern romance movies, but this one is a smart one. There is definite humor, but it’s smart humor, not people being gross or overly sexual or idiotic. It’s little things like Adaline making the joke that she was reading Norwegian in Braille just to screw with Ellis, or really the entire Trivial Pursuit game, that was priceless. And what this allowed you to do was really focus on the emotionally moving parts of the movie. About Adaline still trying to mother her daughter, only to get the tables flipped. About the past, and how there are several great loves in a person’s life. Just…ugh. I could gush forever about this story. Is some of it really annoyingly vague, like what Flemming is supposedly doing in her life or has done in her life, and who the men who came for Adaline at one point were working for? Yeah, but at the same time, it kept its focus on what it wanted. On conquering fears and remembering the past without being afraid of it, to truly live.

As someone who has held on to parts of her past and struggled with healing, this movie really spoke to me on a personal level. I’m not surprised how hard it was for Adaline to stop running because I’ve been there myself. And she got a happy ending, which puts this movie about a couple of others I can think about that do similar things but go all tragic at the end. If you haven’t seen Age of Adaline and you like some smart, gentle romance, I highly recommend it.

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April 30, 2015

Tabletop RP: Gender and DnD

By Rebecca M. Horner

So. I play DnD. With a bunch of guys. No other girls in the group, and all attempts to add girls to the group have not been met well (one for other reasons, but yeah, hasn’t worked out). Now, I know other girls who play, and have groups that are much more mixed gendered. I just didn’t fall into those groups, and my schedule doesn’t mesh with them. Leaving me stuck with the guys.

And let me tell you, this gets uncomfortable for very quickly.

Now, it doesn’t get uncomfortable for these guys. Because I don’t talk about girly things with them and I work very hard to keep topics away from subjects that while I might enjoy them, I know will bore or make them uncomfortable. Because that’s what our society encourages in female behavior.

Now, if only I could get the same respect.

Frequently, things take a turn for the disgusting, the over-sexed, or sometimes a weird mix of both that really makes me uncomfortable. Especially when they start making references to certain animes and video games, which are notorious for being for the male gaze. And speaking up doesn’t get me any favors, not really, since nothing will actually change. Now, I could be overly sensitive, but I think my experiences and the conversations I have with other female players reveal some serious differences in how the genders play DnD.

For one thing, I’ve noticed that guys tend to go out of their way to make crazy characters. And by crazy, I mean mixing, matching, and combining races, classes, and feats in order to get the most over-powered character possible. Now, if I make something overpowered, it’s by pure accident (the wu jinja gestalt class comes to mind, though I haven’t had enough chances to play it to be sure). I tend to pick a class that fits with the kind of character I’m playing, sticking to classes I know I’ll enjoy playing rather than ones I know will irk me (…like the wu jin, not a good pick in hindsight). The more complicated it is, the more I have to keep up with which distracts me from the game.

So with these crazy characters, you would think the guys were just as invested in the games we play as I am, right? Well, sorta. Some of the group is just wanting to push to see how much they can get away with by terms of the rules. They don’t really do back stories or character investments, and are pretty blase about their characters dying. Even the others who do care about story are always ready to move on to the next thing. Which is pretty contra to Ginny’s understanding of other groups, which treat the characters as investments (which is how i would prefer to play). I create complex back stories for my characters for a reason, and to see it go to waste just frustrates me, so one DM has even lost the privilage for me to do that anymore.

More than anything, I’m noticing, at least in my group, that it comes down to differences in what they play for. Now, these are huge generalizations, but it seems to me that boys play for the laughs and the oh my gods. They want to see how outrageous they can get and the more crazy, the better. But for us girls, it’s about the story, it’s about the characters and the actual RPing.

I’m not saying that boys don’t enjoy the characters and story. They can, and do. But get a group of them together, and they are going to be forgotten in favor of seeing how much damage a fireball spell can do. I’m not saying girls don’t enjoy battles. I love blowing things up and getting critical hits too, but if you put me with a group of other girls, we’re probably going to focus almost entirely on the story and the rest of the system will be an afterthought. Groups need either balance or focus, depending on the set up. So in my case, I have one DM who understands my need for story, the others needs to blow things up. The other…can’t seem to figure this out.

And as a DM myself, I need to learn to read what a group needs. Obviously, I’m going to want to lean towards the story angle myself, but that isn’t going to work with this group of guys. I need to figure out how to feed their need for chaos and my own for story at the same time.

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