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Pop Culture Catch-Up: X-Men: First Class (spoilers)

2013-11-26 Trisha Lynn

Want to get excited about a new thing, but aren’t completely up to date on the fandom and don’t mind spoilers? We here at Geeking Out About are happy to help provide you with everything you need in order to stay current with your geeky passions in our new column, “Pop Culture Catch-Up.”

X-Men: First Class
Directed by Matthew Vaughn
Starring James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Kevin Bacon, Jennifer Lawrence, and more
Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of action and violence, some sexual content including brief partial nudity and language

Two men fight for truth, justice, and genetic equality in X-Men: First Class. © 20th Century Fox/Marvel Studios — Two men fight for truth, justice, and genetic equality in *X-Men: First Class*. © 20th Century Fox/Marvel Studios

When I first saw the X-Men: Days of Future Past trailer, I expressed a ton of confusion about it, and was told that I needed to see X-Men: First Class to really understand what’s going on. I was a little reluctant at first, but upon remembering that my local library has DVDs you can rent, I immediately requested it.

See, while I saw and loved X-Men when it came out in 2000, the two subsequent sequels left me with a bitter taste in my mouth. However, with the help of some friends who were kind enough to let me know that First Class was a much better movie than X-Men: The Last Stand I dove into this viewing of the DVD with much pleasure. Continue reading “Pop Culture Catch-Up: X-Men: First Class (spoilers)” →

You Had to Be There: “An Evening with Patrick Rothfuss and Paul & Storm” in St. Paul, Minneapolis

2013-11-21 Trisha Lynn

An Evening with Patrick Rothfuss and Paul & Storm

November 14, 2013
Amsterdam Bar and Hall
Saint Paul, MN
Performed by Patrick Rothfuss, Paul and Storm

When we moved to Minnesota this year, my husband and I made a deal with each other: If there was a live event that sounded interesting and the ticket price was reasonable, we’d try to go. After all, what better way is there to learn how to navigate your new metro area than attending great shows in great venues?

Both individually and together, we’ve seen musical comedy duo Paul and Storm perform many times, and they always put on a good show. Money’s been a little problematic for us recently, though, so I made a decree that if we were going to see them perform again, there would have to be a real good and compelling reason. So when we learned that the next leg of their shows would not only swing through the Midwest but also bring fantasy author Patrick Rothfuss along for the ride, we snapped up the tickets quicker than you could say, “When’s Book Three coming out?”

This is not because we’re particularly strong Rothfuss fans. In fact, until that night, we’d never bought any of his books before. However, judging from the set that he did at w00tstock 5.0 this year, I knew that I’d love to hear what Rothfuss could do with a smaller audience and whether or not he’d be reading snippets from the new book. (A person can always dream!)

Suffice to say, neither my husband nor I were disappointed. Continue reading “You Had to Be There: “An Evening with Patrick Rothfuss and Paul & Storm” in St. Paul, Minneapolis” →

Around the Water Cooler: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – “The Well” (spoilers!)

2013-11-20 Trisha Lynn

And the awesome guest star streak continues with Peter MacNicol. © ABC/Marvel Studios

Beware of the spoilers in this commentary on the latest episode of “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”, now available to watch on the official website. Continue reading “Around the Water Cooler: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – “The Well” (spoilers!)” →

Trisha’s Take: Four ways I would fix the second season of “Heroes of Cosplay”

2013-11-19 Trisha Lynn

Anime/Star Wars mash-up cosplay before it was cool © Geeking Out About — Anime/*Star Wars* mash-up cosplay before it was cool © Geeking Out About

See that picture up there? The girl in the purple cheongsam wielding the double-bladed lightsaber? That’s me as Darth Shampoo—an irreverent take on a character from the Ranma 1/2 franchise—the first cosplay costume I would ever do. That picture was taken during the second Anime Expo I ever attended back in 2000; since then, while I’ve worn outlandish outfits to conventions, I’ve only cosplayed one other time at an anime or other genre convention.

However, I’ve always appreciated the art and artistry of people who do choose to go to conventions and dress up as their favorite characters for an entire weekend. In the several years since I started going to genre conventions, I’ve watched the fandom cosplay community grow and change in part due to the Internet and rise of dedicated forums and social media as well as the change in conventions themselves.

Nowadays, instead of waking up and hoping to see your picture in the galleries of the now defunct A Fan’s View website run by Kevin Lillard, a cosplayer attending a convention can hope that their picture made it into cosplay galleries of national media outlets like Business Insider, websites for internationally funded cable channels like BBC America, or even your local Fox affiliate station such as this one in Salt Lake City, Utah.

And then, of course, there’s the reality TV series called “Heroes of Cosplay.” Continue reading “Trisha’s Take: Four ways I would fix the second season of “Heroes of Cosplay”” →

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Around the Water Cooler: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – “The Hub” (spoilers!)

2013-11-13 Trisha Lynn

"If a scene could launch a thousand 'ships, then where is your fanfic?" © ABC/Marvel Studios — “If a scene could launch a thousand ‘ships, then where is your fanfic?” © ABC/Marvel Studios

Watch before you read on, for spoilers abound abound in this commentary on the latest episode of “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”, now available to watch on the official website. Continue reading “Around the Water Cooler: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – “The Hub” (spoilers!)” →

Around the Water Cooler: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – “F.Z.Z.T.″ (spoilers!)

2013-11-06 Trisha Lynn

I love how Simmons' face says what we're all thinking about Ward's machismo. © ABC/Marvel Studios — I love how Simmons’ face says what we’re all thinking about Ward’s machismo. © ABC/Marvel Studios

After a one-week delay, spoilers abound abound in this commentary on the latest episode of “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”, now available to watch on the official website. Continue reading “Around the Water Cooler: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – “F.Z.Z.T.″ (spoilers!)” →

Trailer Watch: X-Men: Days of Future Past

2013-10-29 Trisha Lynn3 Comments

Piggy-backing on my comments from last week, if I were a more ardent fan of the X-Men comics, I’d be rightly pissed off that instead of Kitty Pryde being sent back to her younger self to warn the X-Men of 1980 of a horrific war that would spell the end of mutantkind, they chose to use Wolverine. However, I’ve come to accept that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is its own continuity and it’s okay.

While some of the shots in the trailer look gorgeous, I have to wonder if in order to watch the movie, you need more than just a Wikipedia-fed knowledge of who the X-Men are. There were people in the scenes in the “past” that I didn’t recognize and if I have to watch X-Men: First Class just in order to understand this movie and it’s not available to stream on Netflix, then I’m probably not going to bother.

The iTunes price is $14.99, which to me seems steep for a title that isn’t even in HD. And both Marvel Studios and Fox are crazy if they can’t find a way to bring that price down a bit before the new movie comes out or maybe do a limited streaming on Netflix or somewhere else for a month or two prior to the new film’s release so that the fans they lost with X-Men 3 (like me!) can get back up to speed.

Directed by Bryan Singer, X-Men: Days of Future Past is scheduled to be released in the US on May 23, 2014.

Trailer Watch: Captain America: The Winter Soldier

2013-10-24 Trisha Lynn

I loved seeing Captain America interact with the Black Widow in these scenes from the trailer, and it shouldn’t matter to me that in the comics they worked together; their relationship now seems to be just as interesting and still as exciting as those old stories were when they were first published. I may be the only person in my household going to see this movie during the release weekend, and I think I’m totally okay with that.

The more I cover “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”, the more I internalize that the new Marvel movie-verse is for folks like me who like their properties and their heroes but don’t want to be bothered with umpteen years of comics continuity or having to catch up with all the comics continuity on a weekly basis. And there should be nothing wrong with that.