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Who didn’t grow up watching Power Rangers, wishing they could enter a world of colorful, action-packed badassery? There’s a new movie out to see too that brings the Power Rangers we know and […]

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Writer: Brian Wood / Artist: Mack Chater / Dark Horse Comics

Briggs Land is a sleeper hit if ever there were one. Well-developed, complicated characters mixed with faded arthouse color palettes and lightly seasoned political nightmare scenarios make for a crime drama book with tension thicker than the Sunday paper. By the time AMC is done developing this into a show and we’re well into its second season, we’re going to wonder why we weren’t raving about this before. Well… you might. I’m in on the ground floor.

Issue #2 of the Lone Wolves story arc picks up with the family contemplating what to do about the latest “visitors” to Briggs Land, attempting to prevent a bad situation from turning worse. Of course, in stories like this, that’s usually exactly when things get worse. The subtle character development happening is better than I thought. This is turning out to be more of a character study of Isaac Briggs adjusting to life back home from war than it is the Briggs’ family trying to maintain their legacy (although it’s that too). This issue in particular seems to zoom in and focus on how the world and his family views him differently as the man that war made him.

Brian Wood is really great at building tension quietly to a boiling point that happens in a single scene, dropping that glaring image in your lap and just letting you deal with it. Mack Chater is the lynchpin in bringing these telling snapshot moments. The stylized color palette he brings to Wood’s scripts makes for book that stands out from just about anything else like it on the shelves… not that there’s much else like Briggs Land on the shelves.

Bottom Line: A good story got better. It’s looking like we might as well view this as an Isaac Briggs solo run and I am completely fine with that. Aside from Grace, it’s looking like he’s the most interesting character in the book so far. If Sons of Anarchy were in all sepia tones, it would probably look a lot like Briggs Land.

9 Second Amendment Remedies out of 10

Reading Briggs Land? Find BNP’s other reviews of the series here.

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Critics are allegedly saying that Spider-Man: Homecoming is the best movie of the summer. Fans are allegedly saying that this is the best Spider-Man film, EVER.

What am I saying to all of this?

Thrilled by his experience with the Avengers, young Peter Parker returns home to live with his Aunt May. Under the watchful eye of mentor Tony Stark, Parker starts to embrace his newfound identity as Spider-Man. He also tries to return to his normal daily routine — distracted by thoughts of proving himself to be more than just a friendly neighborhood superhero. Peter must soon put his powers to the test when the evil Vulture emerges to threaten everything that he holds dear.

I’m so glad Disney decided to postpone the Black Panther film everyone has been demanding for over a decade for yet another mediocre hack of a film about a white superhero. Because the first five films about the white dude wasn’t enough. We had to go for a sinister six.

Despite all of this, I was willing to give Homecoming a shot. Tom Holland impressed me with his performance as the wall crawler in Captain America: Civil War. And let’s keep it 100, fellow 8-packer and Future Hubby #16 makes my spider sense tingle.

I was also sold when I learned that Zendaya was cast as the iconic Mary Jane Watson.

Leave it to Marvel/Disney to figure out a way to swoop in like a vulture and snatch the fail out of the jaws of win.

Tobey Maguire was more Peter than Spidey. Andrew Garfield was more Spidey than Peter. It probably had more to do with the way the roles were written and this is certainly no slight on the previous webslingers. Tom Holland might be the first actor who managed to be an excellent Peter and Spider-Man.

Zendaya got shortchanged with that MJ bait and switch. For those of you just joining us Zendaya was cast to play Watson which pissed off white fandom to no end. Similar to costar Tony Revolori who played Flash Thompson in the film and received death threats for doing the job he was hired for.

Mary Jane Watson has always been the breathtaking actress/model/girl next door. And they couldn’t have found a better actress in Zendaya, but the second they cast a black girl, they change her name to Michelle (who goes by MJ) so not to anger the white bigots and dress her up like a Daria, downplaying her striking beauty. Which would be completely fine if Zendaya was portraying a different character. However, it’s interesting that producers only want to get “creative” with a “new interpretation” of MJ which would’ve never happened had the actress cast been white.

That’s not even the worst of it by any stretch, sadly.

Because Marvel/Disney can’t seemingly come up with an original and decent idea that isn’t a rehash of Iron Man, they essentially columbussed Miles Morales’s storyline and cast. We’re talking everything from Iron Man training Spidey to his bestie being a heavyset Asian fanboy of a best friend. Essentially Homecoming erases Miles Morales from his own story and replaces it with a white character. You almost have to admire the lengths Disney will go to be as racist as they are. But when you have Ike Perlmutter, a Trump supporter, as Marvel CEO, we shouldn’t be shocked. Especially when you couple that with Amy Pascal serving as one of the executive producers. You remember Pascal; the raging bigot whose racism got exposed in the Sony email hack? For a movie that’s supposed to be diverse, it’s telling how everyone is comfortable with black people getting the short end of it yet again. By the by, tokenism and window dressing does not equal diversity. Homecoming DOES NOT get props for having a bunch of throwaway PoC characters, especially given that they ripped off the story of a Blatino superhero.

If your “diversity” is comprised of racism and anti-blackness, it’s not diversity. It’s white supremacy. As I had to remind Jim C. Hines when I called him out on his gaslighting and victim blaming.

Oh but wait there’s more. Sadly, there’s more.

In addition to the diversity being little more than window dressing so white movie-makers can pat themselves on the back, the writing was absolute garbage. Oh you don’t believe me?

One example. In one scene, Spidey “accidentally” racially profiles and assaults an Asian citizen who was getting in his car when the car alarm went off. The scene was played up for laughs. Now had the victim been white or if this film was made 5 or 10 years ago, it could’ve been funny. But in the age of Black Lives Matter and having a white supremacist as an executive producer, this is hella problematic. But when you consider that Civil War was essentially Stark’s campaign to legalize racial profiling… well…

Sill not convinced? Oh wait, there’s more.

At one point in the film Stark tells Spidey that he is too inexperienced to fight super villains and needs to stick to street criminals until he gets more experience.

Okay that’s fair.

Yet this is the same Stark who took that inexperienced teenager halfway around the world and had him fight in a major superhero brawl which resulted in a decimated airport and Rhodey (a career decorated soldier) being paralyzed. And as a buddy of mine so accurately pointed out, “Considering that he coerced that same inexperienced adolescent into fighting for him by threatening to inform Parker’s aunt about his exploits as Spider-Man, Stark doesn’t have a moral leg to stand on. Then again, that is nothing new.”

So what was Stark’s bright idea for dealing with Vulture? Call the FBI. Because Stark couldn’t be bothered to fly back to New York to help, he sends ordinary law enforcement to try to apprehend a flying armored super villain who’s armed alien tech.

Now speaking of Vulture, Michael Keaton delivers what might be his best performance to date. Couldn’t tell half the time if he was playing Vulture or Batman but either way, I’m not complaining.

The worst part about Homecoming. The potential was there. This movie could’ve been amazing. The elements were there but this film read like the rushed first draft of Iron Man 4: The High School Years.

The fact that Wonder Woman, a far superior and more progressive film, is being nitpicked among the self-proclaimed fauxial justice fauxgressives while this fustercluck is given a pass is a reflection of white privilege, misogyny and homophobia. People were jumping at the chance to bitch and moan about a movie featuring an iconic queer superheroine yet these same folks were doing mental Spidey acrobatics to defend the gaping plotholes in this movie. As they do with every movie from the MCU.

Seriously Disney? THIS IS WHAT YOU POSTPONED BLACK PANTHER FOR??????

The Sam Raimi  Spider-Man still holds the title for the best live action Spidey flick.

This has just not been Marvel’s year.  First Iron Cyst, then Guardians of the Galaxy 2, and now this fustercluck. Meanwhile the DCEU has been on point and then some.

I’ll definitely be following Tom Holland and Zendaya who are both immensely talented and delivered with what little they had to work with.

As for this movie. I’m giving it a C-/D+.

Do yourself a favor and go watch Wonder Woman or one of the old Spider-Man films. It’s not like there’s a shortage of them.

Homecoming? More Like Go Home.

After the Emmy Nominations were announced earlier this morning, I posted this status on my Facebook page: “If Westworld doesn’t win every Emmy it was nominated for, I quit.” A friend of mine posted “Girl, it’s up against The Handmaid’s Tale in some cases. Nope.” And so, a conflict was born.

I adore both shows, and am so grateful that we’re living through a moment in television during which two high-minded, female-led genre shows about female bodily autonomy can not only exist, but be critically acclaimed and both be up for the Outstanding Drama Series Emmy.

However, I have to admit that Westworld is my personal favorite. When pressed to talk about why, though, I needed to give it some serious thought. After all, there’s a lot that these shows have in common and do well, and there are some things that The Handmaid’s Tale, both as a narrative and as a production, does better.

For sheer female participation behind the camera (and in front of it, given the nature of the show), The Handmaid’s Tale definitely has the edge. Of the five directors working on the series, only one is male, and he directs two of the ten Season 1 episodes. Reed Morano directs the most with three, Kate Dennis and Floria Sigismondi direct two each, and Kari Skogland directs one. They have a majority female writers’ room, too—seven out of ten writers are women, not counting Margaret Atwood herself, who is a consulting producer. 

However, the show has a white, male creator and showrunner in Bruce Miller, whereas one of the showrunners and creators on Westworld, Lisa Joy, is a woman of color (she is half Chinese). Whereas with The Handmaid’s Tale, we’re getting a story that was created by a woman told through the prism of a male creator, in Westworld, we get a story that originated with a man (Michael Crichton) through a partly female prism (Joy is the co-creator of Westworld along with Jonathan Nolan).

From the conscious decision to make the figure in the Westworld logo a female one, to making the two main characters through which we get to see the hosts’ struggle and oppression female, Joy has helped deliver a unique and nuanced depiction of femininity to television. The role of creator and showrunner is important, as that voice is the one that guides the writers’ room.

While it makes sense that Miller saw fit to ensure that there were women in his writers’ room to, as he put it in an interview with Elle, balance his deficits, his is still the voice that guides the ship.

Emmy Nominations for Writing: 

The Handmaid’s Tale – Bruce Miller for “Offred” (Pilot)

Westworld – Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan for “The Bicameral Mind” (Season Finale)

Still, the vision of The Handmaid’s Tale is in large part in the hands of its female directors, whereas Westworld only had one female director in its entire 20-episode first season: Michelle Maclaren, who directed “The Well-Tempered Clavier.” While the showrunner(s) of a television show are where the buck stops on any and all decisions related to narrative, the decision to see the world through female eyes is an important one, and necessary for a show like The Handmaid’s Tale.

Emmy Nominations for Directing: 

The Handmaid’s Tale – Reed Morano for “Offred”; Kate Dennis for “The Bridge”

Westworld – Jonathan Nolan for “The Bicameral Mind” 

Now, let’s get in front of the camera and talk story, performances, and visuals.

As I said above, both Westworld and The Handmaid’s Tale are stories about female bodily autonomy. In Westworld, that theme is explored through sci-fi tropes and metaphor, with Dolores and Maeve experiencing oppression as hosts that looks very similar to what women experience out in the world. In The Handmaid’s Tale, the constant refrain is that the show is scarily relevant. While technically a genre story in that it’s set in a dystopia, it’s much more literal and straightforward than Westworld.

One of the things that appeals to me most about Westworld is its artful storytelling. While individual episodes were often mysterious and/or confusing, there is not one moment or image wasted, and it’s all leading somewhere. Seen as a whole, seeing how all the pieces come together, Westworld Season 1 is a work of art that’s very much like looking at a beautiful watch, and the equally beautiful and intricate clockwork inside.

The Handmaid’s Tale is an artful adaptation, but the risks and successes of the storytelling come less from the show itself and more from its place in history. We love The Handmaid’s Tale in large part because of conditions outside the show; because it accurately captures the world in which we live, not necessarily because it is, on its own, particularly creative or innovative.

Both Westworld and The Handmaid’s Tale are based on other source material, but whereas The Handmaid’s Tale is very firmly an adaptation of the novel, Westworld merely uses the film on which it’s based as a jumping-off point, creating an entirely new world and cast of characters instead.

And here we get to the amazing nuanced female characters both shows gave us to enjoy.

Elizabeth Moss’ Offred in The Handmaid’s Tale is breathtaking and raw. Moss has always been an amazing actress who always chooses wonderful projects to get involved in, and Offred is definitely a case of the perfect actress aligning with the perfect role. Her Offred is both fierce and vulnerable, jaded and hopeful, beaten-down and determined to survive. Watching her ups and downs as she experiences Gilead is an amazing experience.

However, the slow-burn awakening of Evan Rachel Wood’s Dolores on Westworld is a revelation, precisely because she spends so long naive and “asleep.” Whereas Offred starts and continues to be a fighter. The role, and Moss’ performance are a destination we want to visit. Wood’s Dolores is a journey we want to embark on. We get to watch Wood’s finely-calibrated performance as Dolores realizes there’s something off, follows it, goes crazy for a while, and ultimately makes her way to full-on host revolution.

Where Westworld has an edge character-wise is in the role of Maeve, played by the incomparable Thandie Newton.  The Handmaid’s Tale also has a prominent female character of color in Samira Wiley’s Moira, and Moira (not to mention Wiley’s performance) is awesome. However, she’s very much a supporting role to Moss’ Offred. All of the other female characters and actors, while brilliant, are all in service of Offred’s story. This isn’t a bad thing, simply the nature of the story being told.

Maeve on Westworld is a co-lead. She doesn’t exist to support Dolores, she exists parallel to Dolores, with her own arc and interests. When we’re watching Westworld, we’re watching both their stories.

As Dolores makes her way to the idea of host revolution slowly, Maeve has gotten there much more quickly, and spends much of the season taking matters into her own hands. By the end of the season, as Dolores seems to embrace the idea of the world belonging to the hosts (and the hosts lining up behind her as she charges), Maeve seems to have a different approach, giving each host she comes across the choice to join her. I feel like Maeve and Dolores are going to go head-to-head in Season 2, as each woman has very different interests when it comes to rebellion. The fact that Westworld has two female protagonists, one of which is of color, is a huge plus for me.

Emmy Nominations for Best Actress: 

The Handmaid’s Tale – Elizabeth Moss

Westworld – Evan Rachel Wood

Emmy Nominations for Best Supporting Actress: 

The Handmaid’s Tale – Samira Wiley; Ann Dowd

Westworld – Thandie Newton

And on a side-note re: the performances, Alexis Bledel gives The Handmaid’s Tale a boost with her Guest Actress nomination, and both Anthony Hopkins and Jeffrey Wright (one of two men of color in his category, out of seven) were nominated for their brilliant performances in Westworld as Lead Actor and Supporting Actor, respectively.

What struck me as interesting when looking at the technical awards that each show was nominated for is that there were many for which The Handmaid’s Tale just didn’t qualify, simply because of the nature of the show. After all, you can’t expect a show about a society that doesn’t value hair and make-up to earn hair and makeup awards. It’s also not the kind of show that requires prosthetic make-up or very many VFX. So, as far as that stuff goes, Westworld has the edge just for being a big sci-fi show.

Westworld snagged nominations in: Outstanding Special VFX, Outstanding Sound Mixing, Outstanding Sound Editing, Outstanding Prosthetic Make-up, Outstanding Main Titles, Outstanding Interactive Media (for the awesome Discover Westworld site), Outstanding Hairstyling, and Outstanding Editing.

Meanwhile, The Handmaid’s Tale got a nod for Outstanding VFX in a Supporting Role (I have no idea what that means). Both shows got nominations for Outstanding Period/Fantasy Costumes for a Series, because of course they did.  Have you seen those costumes?

So, why am I #TeamWestworld? Female showrunner, female-led series with two strong, nuanced female characters, an original story that is an artful metaphor for female oppression, and brilliant performances, storytelling, and production value all around.

There’s also the matter of it being more sci-fi. I will always have a soft spot in my heart for fictional stories about science, robots, evolution, and the implications of human being creating technology that eventually causes more problems than it solves.

I’ve always loved dystopias, and am a huge fan of not only The Handmaid’s Tale as a novel, but of YA fiction like The Hunger Games and Divergent. But that’s the thing. People have come to expect female-led dystopias, so much so that there are parody Twitter accounts to that effect. Feminine and female-led sci-fi is still much more rare, and so I would love to see Westworld take home the big Outstanding Drama Series prize if for no other reason that I wanna see female-created sci-fi win.

That said, I would not at all be upset if one of The Handmaid’s Tale‘s brilliant female directors took home the Best Director prize. Specifically Reed Morano, who’s work is awesome.

As for all the rest, I would happily see Westworld take everything. The Handmaid’s Tale is great, but Westworld is a triumph.

What do you think? Am I nuts? Are you #TeamWestworld, too? Or do you think another one of the Drama nominees deserves the top prize more? Let’s talk Emmys in the comments below!

(image: HBO/Hulu/Teresa Jusino)

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