Movie Moments XLIII: August 2020 (MCU Phase 3A Edition)

I’m closing out the summer with MCU Phase 3! There are ELEVEN of them, people, so I split ‘em in half. Even so, this is a very long post, my friends. There are many GIFs. So. Many. GIFs.



Captain Amerca: Civil War, 20 August 20, streamed via Disney+

• I don’t know, man, Bucky killing Tony’s parents feels very Waynes-at-the-Opera to me.
• This vision of young Tony is uncanny valley disturbing. But also, Tony’s mom doesn’t seem to have very much personality? Which seems unlikely, given her family. ALSO, I don’t care how much more emotionally competent Tony’s become--no WAY does he share his most painful memory with a bunch of college kids.
• Alfre Woodard, what are you doing here? You’re supposed to be Mariah Stokes, running the hell out of Harlem from your nightclub.
• Vision wearing regular people clothes will never stop being hilarious. Also, apparently he’s made a habit of walking through walls into Wanda’s room, which means they’ve already started boning, right?
• The Sokovia Accords, in hindsight, was pretty inevitable now that SHIELD is out of the picture. BUT you can’t treat human beings like they’re weapons that need registration.
• ” And if we come to a decision you don’t like?” “Then you retire.” LOL. Yeah, sure, dude.
• I cannot BELIEVE nobody’s yelling CORRELATION DOESN’T IMPLY CAUSALITY at the pro-registration-of-humans-like-objects folks. Look, Tony, I know you feel guilty about inventing an AI that tried to destroy the world, but that’s no reason to make everybody else pay for it. (Y’know, Tony, it’s easy to sign off on registering enhanced humans when your “enhancement” is a thing you can take off and put in the garage. Keep your fascism off the folks who don’t have a choice in the matter.)
• PEGGY.
• And T’Challa, I love you, but it’s also easy to sign off on the Accords when your entire nation has been misrepresenting its resources and advances for the past few centuries. (Because does anybody believe that Wakanda would dismantle their own enhanced mechanisms after signing the Accords?)
• Steve, it is, in fact, incredibly weird that you’re dating Peggy’s niece.
• Are EMPs incredibly rare or relatively easy to acquire? Because all these movies are giving me mixed messages.
• PETER PARKER. He is the purest, softest boy and we are all blessed that he exists. (Also, the Peter and Mr Stark relationship goes a long way towards making Tony not completely UGH in my eyes, honestly. Tony being bad with kids somehow makes him awesome with kids.)
  
  
  
• ” You wanna mope, you can go to high school. You wanna make amends, you get off your ass.” Truer words, Hawkeye.
• WANDA MAXIMOFF, WORLD BREAKER.
• Sam and Bucky competing for who Steve’s best bro is remains perfect. Y’know, Steve: The most anti-bro that ever existed.
• Scott Lang seems like he shouldn’t fit in with any of these folks, but it’s nice that they have a bright-eyed superfan to hang with. Also, Peter, working for Tony, but giving Cap a salute. Peter, for some reason trying to Mirandize Falcon. I LOVE YOU PETER.
• Widow and Hawkeye, keeping things professional, aw. “We’re still friends, right?” “Depends on how hard you hit me.”
• Rhodes getting injured is extra-horrifying because, aside from T’Challa, nobody’s actually fighting for real so much as, like, showing off for each other.
• This film is such a rough one for T’Challa--sure, he thinks that Bucky murdered his father, but DUDE, once you’re a king of something, some extrajudicial vengeance killing takes on some meaning I think you don’t want out there.
• I am sympathetic that Tony’s put a face to the dude who killed his parents, BUT ALSO, he is familiar and friends with folks who have been brainwashed before, so. (I mean, Clint’s not so into the friendship now, but honestly, why would he be? Like, Tony asking Clint whether he thought about his wife and children had ME seeing red.) And for a dude who waged war on his closest friends for superheroing outside of the law, Tony shifts into extrajudicial vengeance killing AWFULLY fast.
• Oh, Zemo. There are so many easier ways to get revenge than framing a hundred-year-old brainwashed super-soldier for blowing up a gathering of the United Nations.
• Even with all the nonsense surrounding it, the Tony vs. Cap and Bucky fight choreography is brill.
• T’Challa saving Zemo FOR JUSTICE is a nice button on that arc. “The living are not done with you yet.”
• ” He’s my friend.” “So was I.” I actually said aloud, “Oh, WHATEVER, dude.”
• ” If you need us. If you need me. I’ll be there.” YEAH PRISON BREAK. Also, so, like, were Clint and Scott just, like, “Nah, I’ll hang here and try to work a deal, but thanks”?
• WAKANDA FOREVER.

Doctor Strange, 21 August 2020, streamed via Disney+
This is the only MCU movie I didn’t watch in the theatre, largely because of the casting issues with the Ancient One, and Tilda Swinton’s marked ignorance of what white privilege means. The movie is...fine, I think? But it’s hard for me to shake the whitewashing.

• I mean, I guess it’s cool that these folks battle via Inception duel?
• I’m sure I’ve asked this before, but do you think Cumberbatch gets tired of being cast as witty sociopathic geniuses?
• I take a teensy bit of glee that Sherlock’s Sherlock and the movie Sherlock’s Irene Adler are here being flirtily and then wearily antagonistic?
• Are we supposed to feel bad for Stephen being ruined by that accident? Because three seconds after he was conscious again, I stopped feeling bad.
• Okay, the vision of Strange’s fingers becoming arms with hands of their own will give me nightmares for the rest of my life.
• Seriously, though, Ancient One, your “What Is Real” demo means nothing to me. I just watched the three two Matrix movies and you’ve got nothing on Morpheus.
• For someone who thinks y’all were “barely lovers,” Strange, you sure are holding tight onto that fancy engraved watch.
• ” People used to think I was funny.” “Did they work for you?” Aw, Wong. Bless.
• The New York sanctum is super cool. I wonder if we’ll ever get to see the Hong Kong or London sanctums, once they’re refurbished? (Also, wow, people, if we’re going to assume these sanctums were established eons ago, New York had probably not become one of the so-called great cities yet. Or, are they trying to claim the sanctums led to these cities becoming great?
• CAPEY You’re the real hero of this movie, Capey.
• How amazing it would have been if the “Mister Doctor” thing stuck?
• I love how they did the eye makeup on Mads. (Listen, Mads Mikkelsen is always Mads to me, so don’t come at me with this Kaecilius nonsense.) When you look closely, he’s clearly had his eyes burned out by reading forbidden texts at least once. There’s the outer cracked scaly skin, the inner charred magenta of burns, and his eyes never, ever stop being weepy.
• Stephen, you’d better be bringing Christine a bottle of wine and two dozen roses every Friday. (Oh no, am I going to end up writing this? Is my love of Rachel McAdams enough to overcome my vague exasperation about Cumberbatch? I’m totally going to end up writing this.)
• To be fair, someone who surrounds herself with acolytes who call her “the Ancient One” should probably not be chiding Strange about his ego.
• This Escher battle is pretty cool, but also it is deeply impressed with itself, which lessens the impact quite a bit.
• I, too, would break the laws of space and time to save Wong.
• Okay, Strange and Mads fighting while everything around them rewinds is pretty dope. And then having us reconstruct how the battle happened by watching it backwards? Dang.
• Watching Strange get himself repeatedly killed in order to annoy Dormammu out of his attack makes me like him a lot more. Kind of like how seeing Tom Cruise smushed by aliens repeatedly in Edge of Tomorrow helps the audience like him more.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, 22 August 2020, streamed via Disney+

• TINY GROOT. TINY GROOT. TINY GROOT. That entire sequence of tiny Groot dancing around while a gigantic monster fight is happening out of focus in the background is so good.
  
  
  
  
  Let’s be clear, I spent the entire runtime of this movie downloading Baby Groot GIFs.
  
• It’s Ben Browder! Covered in gold! Give that man his own movie!
• Ego is so obviously a villain that it’s hard to be enchanted by his weird fantastical planet.
• The slow reveal of all the Ravagers that got spaced is suuuuuuuper creepy. And then tormenting Baby Groot!
  
  
  
• Nebula’s got some legit beef with Gamora, geez. Winning because you’re awesome is one thing, but winning when you know it’ll result in somebody else being dismembered, over and over again, is pretty gross.
• ” Get ready for an 800-foot statue of Pac-man with Skeletor and Heather Locklear! I’m gonna make some weird shit.” Sometimes I love Peter Quill.
• MANTIS, GOD WHISPERER. I love her. I only wish they didn’t code her as a submissive Asian woman. Still: GOD WHISPERER.
• Like, Rocket, why would you put a death button if you don’t want anybody to push it?
  
  
• Between Loki and Thor and Gamora and Nebula (And Azula and Zuko), I am clearly a sucker for siblings who try to kill each other, but only when nobody else is trying to kill them.
• I would be so down with Peter being immortal because, let’s be honest, he’s reached his peak maturity.
• Peter’s flash of memories in total silence. USE YOUR HEART.
  
  
• OH MY GOD I FORGOT PETER TURNED INTO PAC-MAN
• I did not expect to cry about Yondu’s death AND the Ravager funeral on the third time I watched this movie, geez. (But also: MICHELLE YEOH.)

Spider-man: Homecoming, 23 August 2020, streamed via Amazon

• Once again, for the record: Tom Holland’s Peter Parker is the purest, softest boy in existence and we are all blessed to have encountered him.
• Ah, Stark Industries. Enemy of the working class. How do you manage to ruin everything every single time? (Yeah, ain’t nobody feeling bad about Toomes keeping as much of the salvage as possible. The weapons dealing and casual murder, though…)
• Video of superheroes being filmed on smartphones is my new favorite genre.
  
  
  
• Wait, Peter was in the marching band? What did he play?
• Stark, Happy, my dudes: If you start mentoring an eager youngster, you gotta keep on going. If you start ‘em up and then bail, they’re just going to rampage. You can’t freaking surveill the kid and not talk to him.
• So, like, Liz is a senior? And despite Peter being the purest, softest boy in reality, she is a senior. No way, no how. That is not how high school works.
• ”I just want to thank you for letting me be part of your journey,” Ned, bless you.
• What the hell kind of school are these kids attending? The students are all geniuses, the facilities are WAY too quality, and their teachers don’t notice when Peter’s concocting or deconstructing weapons-grade materials during class.
• “I was hoping to get in some light protesting in front of one of the embassies before dinner.” MJ, queen of my heart, adamantine splinter, never leave me.
  
  
• ”Activating instant kill.” What the hell, Tony?
• I was going to say that Peter’s suit AI, Karen, is way way too flirty, but then again, Tony made her, so.
  
  
• I love Donald Glover’s laconic neutral dude. I wish he was in every movie, giving Peter advice on how to be a good crimefighter.
• Tony Stark, trying to shame Peter for the ferry accident as if he wasn’t responsible for crushing a large chunk of New York, Sokovia, and an entire cliffside in Malibu.
• I remember reading someone’s theory that MJ was actually a SHIELD agent tasked with surveilling Peter’s movements and, honestly, it would explain a lot.
• Ballsy of Peter to tell Liz he likes her, but ALSO asking her to homecoming? Well done, my boy.
• May coaching Peter on how to go on a date is the most adorable.
  
  
• The first time I watched this movie, I was completely blown away about Toomes being Liz’s father. YIKES. I mean, it is a pretty traditional type of Spider-man complication, so maybe I should have seen it coming? And Toomes twigging to Peter’s identity almost immediately, geez.
• Peter leaving his phone in Toomes’s car is a frickin’ genius move.
• ” Those people up there, the rich and the powerful, they do whatever they want. Guys like us, you and me, they don’t care about us. We build their roads and we fight all their wars and everything, but they don’t care about us. We have to pick up after them. We have to eat their table scraps. That’s how it is.”
• The whole Come on, Spider-man, y’all. You just want to wrap the kid up in a giant blanket and bring him his favorite soup.
  
  
• FOUND: Flying Vulture Guy. - Spider-man. P.S. Sorry about your plane.
• The two-second shot we get of the kiboshed press conferences is possibly the funniest part of the movie.

Thor: Ragnarok, 24 August 2020, streamed via Disney+
This is, in fact, my favorite MCU movie thus far.

• We start off the movie just leaning the hell in to how completely meta-grandiose Thor can be. His words might be in a fancy runic font, but he knows it and knows how to play with it to imbalance others.
  
  
  
• The surprise appearance Matt Damon, Sam Neill, and another Hemsworth brother (apparently) in The Tragedy of Loki of Asgard is DELIGHTFUL.
• Loki-as-Odin muttering, “oh, shit” when Thor appears is possibly my favorite bit of Anthony Hopkins acting in, perhaps, ever.
  
  
  
• The nice thing about having watched Doctor Strange before this movie is that Strange is CLEARLY using all the random teleportation magic to fuck with Thor and Loki. Like, just for funsies. (Kudos to Thor for using Mjolnir-the-umbrella to smash some shit before he leaves.)
  
  
• Man, I dig these fangirl-bait formerly-villainous handsomely tall dudes. Like, Loki is responsible for thousands and thousands of deaths, but then TPTB realized, oh, damn, dude is a total snack and decided to rehabilitate him. (I KNOW IT’S A PROBLEM, but geez. Ask me how much time I’ve spent this summer thinking about Kylo Ren’s emotional arc.)
• Odin confesses to imprisoning their older sister eons ago, then follows it up with, “I love you, my sons.” Odin, my dude. You are an incredibly bad father. (Also: Loki’s face when Odin says he loves him. OW.)
• Hela walking in like a badass. “Kneel before your queen.”
  
  
  It’s kind of funny that Thor looks like his parents, but Hela looks like Loki, who is not Odin and Frigga’s blood. (Later, we see that she also does a fan-of-knives thing that Loki does sometimes, too.)
• Too bad about all of Thor’s friends getting slaughtered. Oh, boys. We barely knew ye. (Thank goodness Sif’s actor wasn’t available to film, right?)
• Valkyrie, queen of my heart, last of the...Valkyries...never leave me.
  
  
• There must be footage somewhere of Skurge standing off to the side, with just the sound of Hela killing the entirety of Asgard’s armies in the background. An occasional soldier flying through the frame, maybe. For, like, three whole minutes.
• The creepy intro to Sakaar being scored to Willy Wonka’s “Pure Imagination” is a snippet of diabolical genius.
  
  
• Hela taking down the happy murals to reveal the imperialist murals was chilling--and, honestly, kind of accurate to how history gets recorded normally. Also, all the dead warriors and Fenris are just, like, in the basement? WTF, Odin?
• Loki trying to convince Thor (and himself) that he’s being helpful instead of cunning is adorable.
  
  
• So, like, for once it looked like Thor might beat Hulk? BUT WE WILL NEVER KNOW, I GUESS. (Being stronger than Hulk being, as far as I can tell, the one thing Thor is sincerely, sincerely sincere about is an endless delight.) Also: Thor trying to mimic Widow’s lullaby to Hulk is sweet.
• Whoever decided to put Sakaar and Loki on the faaaaaar ends of this sofa was a genius.
  
  
• Heimdall fighting the zombie vikings was pretty darn LOTRish. Like, pretty much that entire side plot is totally LOTR.
  
  
• Is it weird that the Avenger Thor has the most in common with is Hulk-as-Hulk? Anyway: Thor getting knocked over: Still hilarious.
  
  
• Hulk turning into Banner was surprisingly emotional, ouch. And Bruce’s face when he realizes two years have passed, OUCH.
• I can’t with Valkyrie and Loki, y’all. I can’t. My brain cannot compute.
  
  
• The entire Valkyries vs. Hela scene is frickin’ gorgeous.
  
  
  
• BRUCE. Having seven PhDs is not a good thing. That’s….that’s a perilous lack of focus.
• I would watch an entire franchise that was ONLY Thor talking about his childhood with Loki. ”Do you truly think so little of me.” “Loki, I thought the world of you.” BOYS. JUST HUG ALREADY. Also, how exactly did you develop “Get Help”?
• Okay, so, like, is Asgard a planet? Or just the city? Because there is no sense of scale here.
• The whole eye removal thing is gory, but Asgard was ever cyclical, after all.
• It’s pretty great that Loki opts to bring the revolution to Asgard instead of scampering. Also, I mean. Dang.
  
  
• I mean, there’s something to be said for Thor not being a duplicitous asshole like the rest of his family.
• I’m not sure why Skurge has an emotional arc, but who am I to say nay to extra Karl Urban?
• I’d like to think that Hela and Surtur are locked in a never-ending battle over Asgard. Like, it just keeps regenerating and being destroyed, over and over again.

It legit took me twice as long to watch this movie as it actually is because I kept rewinding to rewatch bits. Anyway, doesn’t it suck that Thanos kills everybody on the ship two movies from now?