Tuesday, May 09, 2023

TV: No, MARVEL movies do not make stars

The Water Cooler Set?  A pack of mules that stumbles around together.  They can't tell art from their own asses. 

We've long realized that but it was especially clear after viewing HBO's LOVE & DEATH starring a miscast Elizabeth Olsen.
 
3 JESS

Olsen rode to fame on THE AVENGERS franchise.  She came on weak as Scarlet Witch's Wanda.  We don't know which was worse -- Scarlet as a delicate flower or that thick accent Olsen insisted upon using for the character.  After several films as Wanda, she ended up in the hideous MARVEL series WANDAVISION -- a sexist storyline, a sexist approach and yet because women were involved behind the scenes and these women told the press that they were 'tweeking' anti-women tropes, the sexist show was passed off as 'enlightened.'

Again, The Water Cooler Set.

That barely watched characterization hit a wall of criticism when it was carried over to DR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS.

We couldn't stop laughing as various critics declared their horror that Scarlet Witch was bad and that, as usual with a female superhero, she couldn't handle her powers.  

Exactly where did they think WANDAVISION was leading?

This is why we objected in real time.

B-b-b-but Elizabeth didn't object!

She's an airhead.  A little bimbo who attends The Met gala each year because she's mistaken herself for a model. 

Having viewed LOVE & DEATH, we're happy she spends a lot of time trying something other than acting.


If 2023 sees any name celebrity deliver a worse performance, we'll be shocked.  

It's not just the bad southern accent.  She can't do accents, someone should really bring that point home to her, but that's the least of the problems.

She's playing accused killer Candy Montgomery.  In real life, Candy wasn't convicted in part due to passing a polygraph.

Absorb that for a moment.

Now look at Olsen's 'performance.'

It's too broad, it's pitched too high, and she can't stop gesticulating.


Did she forget she was acting for the camera?


She's too broad for the stage.  

She really needed a director who could reign her in.  Instead, she's left to explore all her 'choices' and they're all wrong, every single one.

Have you ever had a polygraph?  Have you ever tried to pass a polygraph?  You need to be calm and still -- everything that Olsen's Candy Montgomery is not.

Quentin Tarantino received push back last winter when he noted that MARVEL films did not make stars.  

He was right.

Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Downey Jr., Chris Pratt?  They were stars before they appeared in MARVEL films.

Chris Evans?  One flop after another.  Elizabeth Olsen?  Same.  

These people you may accept as a superhero (or may endure a superhero film for) but they're not stars.  They can't deliver an audience.  

If Elizabeth isn't playing Wanda, people aren't paying money.  I SAW THE LIGHT couldn't make $2 million in North American ticket sales.  INGRID GOES WEST brought in $3.3 million in North American ticket sales.  WIND RIVER teamed her with fellow Avenger co-star Jeremy Remmer and made $33 million at the North American box office.  No, that's not a hit.  And, no, she's not a film star.

She could be a TV star.  But exactly how long people are going to indulge her is the question.  As people now hear her whine about what was done to Scarlet Witch (what she did to the character), they are realizing that, no, WANDAVISION was not a feminist work.  She participated in the destruction of that character and that is on her.  This will not age well for her.

And age.

At 34, it's a bit late for her to try to learn how to act.  Maybe if she'd spent less time at Met galas -- sporting too much skin -- socialites don't usually dress like hookers (Baby Jane Holzer's sixties phase notwithstanding) -- and actual time studying her craft, she could deliver an impressive performance.


She rode her twin sisters' name to fame and never actually worked at her craft.  By being pathetic, she got Joss Whedon to cast her as Wanda.  Reality, she didn't do the best reading and the studio didn't see any appeal.  But the other two actresses who were almost cast had ideas about the character -- one even called the written conception "rather pathetic" (she was right) not realizing Joss had written the pathetic script.  But Elizabeth just smiled and looked around and giggled as she read her lines.

She couldn't act then and she can't act now.  So she's doing a crime drama now and delivering her idea of acting -- the kind of performance that would be perfect for a remake of SEX KITTENS GO TO COLLEGE but one that's a joke when she's playing a possible killer.  Some may feel sorry for her.  We don't.  She's had over a decade to study acting.  Instead?  She devoted that time to pick out teddy outfits to wear in public.  Life is a series of choices and, she's about to learn, we're all responsible for our own choices.