My Review of All Phase Three Marvel Movies So Far

After I got my appendix out, Favorite Cousin texted me and informed that I must have angered the Marvel gods by saying that I don't like Winter Soldier.

My response? Maybe. But obviously the Marvel gods were appeased by the sacrifice of my appendix, because during my surgery, Robert Downey Jr. announced that Avengers: Infinity War was going to be released a week earlier than planned.

The crowds went wild! And by crowds, I mean Baby Brother. Though it doesn't take much for him to get wild about Marvel movies. He texts me about Avengers: Infinity War almost every day. 

All Phase Three movies that have come out so far share a common quirk: they all seem more like they're building up to Avengers: Infinity War than being a complete movie. Like, the entire phase is just working itself up to one big payoff. Which I guess is all a series ever does. But still. Part of me feels like I've somehow been cheated because I had to watch six mostly unrelated movies just to be able to watch one action-adventure flick. The other part of me enjoyed the journey too much to care.

Without further ado, and before Avengers: Infinity War arrives on the scene, here are my reviews of Phase Three (so far).

Captain America: Civil War: Okay, I loved this movie a lot. It whetted my appetite for Infinity War because it proved that the Marvel peeps can handle a huge ensemble with a deft hand. Everyone got a good moment. Jokes were made. Cool fights were had. Water trucks were thrown. This movie is super long, but it doesn't feel long. Even if it did, it's worth sitting through just for that airport scene.

My only real complaint about this movie? The central conflict wasn't resolved by the end of the movie. And Captain America can't stop being Captain America! That's not okay! (All right, that's two real complaints, I guess.)

Also, Cap was right about everything. Tony was wrong. His motives were good, but he was wrong. Don't fight me on this. I am prepared to defend myself. #teamcap

Doctor Strange: So the first time I watched this movie, I was underwhelmed. Dr. Strange's character evolution was not convincing. I didn't believe that he was willing to sacrifice himself for all of humanity because he didn't seem to have grown that much. On a second viewing, though, I realized that everything in the movie pointed to him not actually changing but just transferring his arrogance to his magic. He sacrifices himself for all of humanity because he believes he's the only one who can, not because of humility. Was he wrong? No, I guess not, but he's still kind of a jerkface. Maybe someday he'll learn. Maybe.

The movie had a bit of a spiritual bent, which I enjoyed. Though I'm still confused about why they can do magic without the sling rings but they can't cross dimensions without them.

Completely unsubstantiated criticisms: footage of car accident and surgeries was gross and disturbing. Car accidents scare me. I do not like medical stuff. My mom does like medical stuff. She enjoyed this movie when we forced her to watch it with us last month. She also commented on how realistic Dr. Strange's arrogance was.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2: The first Guardians of the Galaxy pushed the definition of a superhero movie a bit. They cast a comedian in the lead role, had a cast of seemingly underwhelming characters, and added unparalleled amounts of crassness and schmaltz (and 80s references). The product was unusual—but people loved it. So for the second go-round, I guess they decided to do what they'd done before, just with more. More crassness! More schmaltz! More 80s references! Were they successful?

(Full disclosure: I saw this movie immediately after a sort-of breakup; I cried on the easy chair for half an hour and then took my brothers to the theatre. So that incident might be coloring my perception, but frankly I think that the answer to the question "Were they successful?" is a resounding) NO! This time, they hit too many wrong notes. I was embarrassed by the overabundance of sex jokes, particularly since I was watching with my teenage brothers. The plot was too predictable. Good things included: the opening sequence. Mantis and Drax's weird interactions. Peter and Gamora's weird interactions. Yondu's character arch. Digging deep into Rocket's issues. But everything else was the worst.

P.S. Am I the only life form on this planet who doesn't like Groot?

Spider-man: Homecoming: I thought this movie was pretty close to perfect. Tom Holland's version of Peter Parker is adorable. I was having all of the protective big sister feels about him. Also, the movie actually managed to somehow be a superhero movie while accurately capturing the reality of being a teenager: Weird unspoken romantic connections. Going on that long-anticipated date and being awkward as all get-out. Worrying about what your crush's dad thinks of you. Not ending up with your romantic interest at the end of the adventure.

Thor: Ragnarok: My feedback about the first two Thor movies was mostly that they were boring and took themselves too seriously, but that Darcy was pretty cool. This movie has no Darcy (boo) and no Jane (meh). But everything else got better (yay)! The characters were better. More characters and settings were added. Everyone stopped taking themselves so darn seriously. Like, the whole movie just exuded fun. I could tell everyone was having a good time. Of course, there was a split second at the end of the movie where it was unclear whether Loki was still alive. Because it's not a Thor movie if Loki doesn't die at the end.

Black Panther: I honestly was not sure what to expect from this movie. It definitely didn't feel like a superhero movie. It was good, though. Like Doctor Strange, it got pretty spiritual (although it didn't ever quite get into magic). It also got pretty political. Civil War was kind of pseudo-political, but there were no pseudo-politics in Black Panther, just real ones. However, it wasn't so political that I hated it, and I thought that, like in Civil War, they did a good job of balancing two schools of thought.

Now let's talk about the best part of the movie: Princess Shuri. I loved her. She's great. I just want her and Peter Parker to meet and be friends forever.

The One Where I'm Short

So somewhere in this blog, I believe I mention that Little Sister likes to call me "little sister." I don't remember exactly where because like wow I don't know where anything is anymore. There are just too many posts!

In any case, there's a significant age gap between Little Sister and me. Naturally, that age gap came with a significant height gap. Then one day, my parents were videotaping their four daughters in a production of Annie and realized that Little Sister was now closer in height to me than she was to Baby Sister. Within two years, she'd overtaken me.

P.S. They stopped making S'mores by Dreyer's a while ago. But they brought it back for a bit. So I grabbed some for me and for Little Sister. And she called me "little sister." Thus I am reminiscing.

Sorry

The first couple of weeks of the month, I was out of town/living on a crazy schedule. This last week, Bliss wasn't operating correctly due to an update problem. I have fun blog posts coming, I promise!

In Which My Mad Internet Sleuthing Skillz Come in Handy

I was scrolling through Twitter when I saw a photograph from an article in a local paper.

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: I know those people!!!

That's what I exclaimed, though it technically wasn't true. I only knew one of the people. Which also technically wasn't true. I didn't know him...I'd just Internet stalked him.

Let me explain. A few years ago, I regularly read an anonymous LDS dating blog. I was curious about the authors, so I did some Internet sleuthing on one of them. And let me tell you, I gots some mad Internet sleuthing skillz. I figured out this girl's true identity, and I figured out the identity of her most infamous ex-boyfriend.

I won't explain what made him so infamous, but suffice it to say that after the blog author broke up with him, she mentioned that he married a teenager. (Which, come to think of it, may be enough in itself to cause infamy. But I digress.) I found this man and his teenage bride on Facebook, and sometimes when I'm bored I look in on them.

Anyway. They were in the paper. And apparently I've stalked them enough times that I recognized them immediately. So coooooool.

Recovery

For the first few days after my appendectomy, my shoulders hurt. Turns out that because your abdominal cavity is not supposed to see the light of day, weird things happen when somebody cuts it open. Namely gas gets trapped inside and, having nowhere to go, it rises and settles on your shoulder muscles and sits there and hurts.

Standing was rough. Exercising was impossible. I slept with an ice pack on my belly.

My incisions were covered with tape for a week or so; they were also covered with dressings for 48 hours. When everything was peeled off and I saw my abdomen for the first time, I sobbed. I sobbed because I suddenly found out that I was vain about my belly button. Pre-surgery, it was about as adorable as a belly button can get. Post-surgery, it was no longer adorable. It had been necessarily mutilated with a surgical incision to allow my appendix to be pulled out through it.

Eventually, the pain levels went down, and I was able to mostly return to normal activity. But I was still officially healing.

Now, as of this last Thursday to be precise, I am officially recovered and will now do all things I previously did in the manner in which I previously did them!

That's not to say that things are completely normal. My belly button may regain a more adorable shape, but it will take a while. And my abdomen still aches on and off. Apparently, nerve damage is common in abdominal surgery, and I seem to have suffered a fair bit of it. There's a decent section of skin that is either numb or achey almost all of the time. I was told that would go away eventually, but the healing process is slow.

But I made it! No complications. Nothing weird turned up in my appendix; they didn't find any cancer or anything. (I didn't even know cancer was an option until I was informed that it was good news that my appendix wasn't cancerous.) I was watched over, and I got through it!

Not Our Place

Season Two of A Series of Unfortunate Events just came out. Once again, the series has reminded me to consume media and use social media platforms in a responsible way.

Several years ago, following some kind of national tragedy, a classmate posted something on Facebook that I’ll never forget. (Disclaimer: by that I mean, “I’ll never forget the gist of it,” not that I have it memorized or something.) The classmate said something to this effect: one of their family members once passed away in a violent incident. People of all different political views seized the incident to promote their preferred political causes. The classmate said that while all of these people had points, using this classmate’s family member’s death to promote their own agenda was incredibly insensitive and interfered with the family’s grieving process. Basically, the classmate suggested that we not use tragedies that didn’t personally affect us to further our political causes. At least not right away. There should be a space that’s private and only for grief before political rallying begins.

That perspective deeply affected me. Over the years, I've come to agree that space is needed for people to grieve after tragedies. In fact, I would argue that maybe the political rallying should never begin. Obviously there's value in talking about the meaning of things, but is it our place to decide the meaning of someone else's personal experience? Is that really okay?

When my classmate shared their feelings on the topic, another classmate retorted that they believed the personal is political. It's okay to believe that, and it's okay to use our own personal experiences to promote our political agendas if that's what we want to do. But it's not really okay to decide for other people that their personal experiences must be politicized.

Five Years and Some Changes. Or Not.

On March 22nd, 2013, I wrote these words in my very first blog post:

Well, here I am. And here you are. And here's the blog.

Now what?

Now what indeed.

I'm here because a post on an LDS blog said something that really struck me. The post reminded me (in a loose paraphrase) that people are wondering about the LDS Church right now. They want to know what we're all about. If I'm not willing to tell people what I'm all about, then someone else will. And the things that someone else says about me and about my church--well, they might not be true or fair.

That's why I'm here. I'm here to represent.

And so it began.

For five years, I've striven to tell you "what I'm all about." I've told you of my friends, my family, my travels, my obsessions, what I believe and why I believe it. I've waxed philosophical, melancholy, and hyper. I've written some stuff that I'm really proud of and some stuff I don't really like.

I hope you've learned something. I know I have. It's been a good run.

When I began this post, I had every intention of announcing that I was going to cut back on blogging significantly. That is, decrease the blog's output by half—average one post a week instead of two. Start to phase things out. It seemed like time. And I'm so busy.

But.

I don't feel right about that. I don't think it is time.

I guess I'll give it another year.

After five, what's one more?