Avengers: Infinity War (relatively spoiler free)

You're gonna need therapy.

Directors: The Russo Brothers
Writers: Christopher Markus
                Stephen McFeely

Plot: The Avengers team up with Spiderman, Dr Strange, The Guardians of the Galaxy, Black Panther and the people of Wakanda and others to stop Thanos from getting his hands on all six infinity stones.

This is a BRAVE film guys, for real, this is a brave film. It's taken 10 years of build up, multiple different tones and styles, in multiple different films that are all connected in one huge universe. It's the franchise that has inspired the DCEU, the Star Wars extended universe, the wildly unsuccessful Dark Universe from Warner Brothers. This is the culmination of a huge plan and honestly, while it causes severe emotional stress and heartbreak and anxiety and you WILL need a therapist after, it's a damn good film.

This film blends every single film together as best as it can, I say as best as it can because from what I've seen of the Avengers films and the Spiderman (link it here) film, the Guardians of the Galaxy films and Dr Strange, they all have their own very specific style and atmosphere. Avengers seems more grounded in reality with strong sci-fi influence, as does Spiderman. Guardians still has a strong sci-fi influence but instead of it being bound to Earth, it's out in the stars, battling aliens and having sick dance-offs and Dr Strange is easily one of the trippiest films based on a comic, at least that I have seen while being based in reality but also focusing on the mystical elements of life. To break it down it's like a Harry Potter fan, a Star Wars fan and a Die Hard fan all hung out together, there's a disconnect but these people have connected enough with good chemistry that it works itself out a bit better.

The film is also brave because of how many heart attacks it gave me and a good few other people watching it, and most of that is down to the death count, it's mostly down to the fake out's. While I promise not to put in any spoilers and you've managed to avoid spoilers this far but want an idea of the pain you're in for, then I can help you with that. I can give you a survivor count, I can give you a fake out count. That's all. Just numbers.

Fake out count: 4
Survivor count: 10

Also, if you're new to this series or came in closer to the end or somewhere in the middle and haven't gone back and watched it all (like me), you don't need to. The story is surprisingly easy to pick up for people who came in late or just now and that's honestly such a good quality to have in such a big crossover. While the story has been built up over the past 10 years, it's involvement has been intertwined in a lot of the stories but there is a lot of backstory and exposition to catch people up and be it's own separate thing, while also being a continuation of multiple stories. It's good to see as a lot of big build up films like this could easily just isolate new audiences but this doesn't and I love it.

Finally, most of the CGI suuuuuuuuuuuucks. Whenever Thanos is touching something or someone it does not look at all like someone is there and touching something, it's terrible. I hope there's a Deadpool 3 that can just focus on reading films for their trash CGI. Please. Or, just a thought, make it look a little more convincing, I know it's down to budget and time but if some films can do it, a film that's had 10 years to build its brand and following can do it.

Anyway, I know I'm late to this party but some people probably haven't seen this yet so I've kept this as spoiler free as I can. If you've not seen it and want to go, then go as soon as you can, it's definitely worth it. If not, I hope you enjoyed reading this anyway, if you want spoilers you may have to go look elsewhere.

That's it from me today, I hope you have a good day, peace out, stay hydrated and I am Groot.

The Simpsons Tree House of Horror: Mmm...Homer

Always showing up late as fuck to the party bitches.

Ok so I've only just heard about this, the latest instalment of the Tree House of Horror series brought to us by America's forgotten favourite, jaundice family, and it...well it lives up to its name in its 28th episode. The rest of the episode isn't all that much to talk about, the opening is a parody of the Seth Rogan animated comedy Sausage Party. It's cute, not anything to write home about but it's cute. The family are candy snacks that are put out for Halloween, one by one the inhabitants of Springfield (also candy snacks), are taken and eaten and the morning after they're put on a shelf to be forgotten about, they speak to a chocolate Easter Bunny and basically eat him. Like I said, it's cute and has a couple cute character jokes, such as Lisa being an apple, Maggie one of those sweet rings, and Bart got to be a Butterfinger, a type of candy he would religiously promote from 1988 to 2001, however, Bart couldn't be a Butterfinger, he had to be a Bart-erfinger. Either for the name joke or Copyright issues, I guess.

The first two segments aren't much to talk about, the first is just a parody of The Exorcist, entitled The Exor-sis which I knew they would eventually do ever since I saw their Shinning segment, it was just a matter of time that they'd do that. It sticks to the source material in a way and makes fun of it in others. Personally, I wouldn't dare make fun of that film, scares the hell out of me thinking about it and all the rumours that the set was cursed. Don't be tempting fates...or demon Kings my dudes. The upside to this is that it brings to light some information about this ancient demon and also mocks it...now that I've put that out there it doesn't sound like an upside. It's a side at the very least, whether it's up or down is up to you.

The second segment is a parody of Coraline, titled Coralisa and it's the most absolute bare bones basic excuse of a parody I've seen in my life. Lisa is sick of her family so goes through a tiny door, finds a perfect alternate family but they want to sew buttons on her eyes. She refuses so goes back to her old family who immediately drives her away so she goes and gets the button eyes. The rest of her family soon follows and...that's the joke. Hope you laughed at that simple plot reversal you could see coming a million years in advance. 

Finally, our main talking point, the final segment: Mmm...Homer. 

In short, the Simpson family go away without Homer, Homer eats all the food, instead of going out and buying food like any other episode, he accidentally cuts off his finger and eats it.

Disgusted? Horrified? Confused? Intrigued? Allow me to go on and blow the whole damn segment for you.

So it starts quite dramatically, in a similar way that Marge would walk onto a stage and warn viewers at the beginning of an episode that it's quite scary and you should put your kids to bed, however, in this case, it's Lisa who walks out onto the stage, dressed in a little suit and accompanied by orchestral music. She tells us that what we're about to see is "so disgusting you'll have to watch Game Of Thrones" to calm down. Now that our warning is out of the way we can move on to the true terror.

The episode starts out with Homer spouting exposition that the rest of the family is going away to stay with Marge's sisters, Pattie and Selma while he is stuck home having to work. Marge tries to make him feel better by saying they don't have to go but Homer's way too eager to get rid of them, pushing them into the car saying that it had heard them saying goodbye and you shouldn't disappoint it. He watches them leave and as soon as they're out of sight he undresses and heads into the house singing to the tune of Willie Nelson's On The Road Again. The lyrics are obviously changed to reference his current situation of being home alone. 

During his little musical number, we see Homer eat the entire house out of its entire stock of food, that is except vegetables. He eventually starts throwing, throwing cupboard doors open and the fridge, screaming each time he finds one empty. Eventually, he finds a lone hot dog way in the back of the freezer and decides to cook it on the barbeque? I don't know, cartoon logic I guess, don't throw it in the pan when you can send shit loads of smoke into the atmosphere. The hot dog is on the grill for a good 5 to 10 seconds, all while being lathered with sauces and beer for extra nutritional value obviously. He takes it off the grill and tries to cut it, discovers that it's frozen still so tries harder to cut it rather than putting it back on the grill. He accidentally cuts through his finger which, while it is a horrific image, there isn't any blood. In an interview with EW (Entertainment Weekly) the producers basically said that they wanted to put the horror back into the series, but not have it too gruesome, which is understandable. We gotta take baby steps, guys.

The hot dog lands on the floor and Homer panics, first because of the finger being cut off, then a bigger reaction for the hotdog being on the floor and then in Santa's Little Helper's (the family dog) mouth. Homer then notices his finger on the barbeque, bulging and turning darker with the heat. Homer instinctively drools over his own finger, has a brief debate over eating the finger and then obviously eats it, and it seems to taste so damn good that even though he vows to not do this again, he thinks making it even on the other side doesn't count, then later when Ned Flanders invites Homer next door for some food, Homer is disgusted by it and then claims to be a "me-gan". Cue a fun little montage of Homer cutting himself up and eating away, I mean they tried to be funny with it but to me, it was just gross.

The family then comes home, Marge makes a note of it that Homer looks like he's lost "about 20lbs" and Homer makes a joke about cutting back and how it means something else to him, causing the family to look a little bothered but it seems to be dropped as it cuts to Marge in bed sleeping to be awoken by the sound of cooking. She gets up and goes downstairs while telling him he shouldn't be snacking in the middle of the night only to be cut off by her own scream at the sight of her Husband cooking his own whole leg in a tiny frying pan. In the background, there's a chart of Homer's body, similar to what you'd see in a butcher's of a cow's body. Pretty funny detail to add in and I only noticed it on my second time watching it. The couple look at each other for a couple of moments in total silence, Marge has no idea what to say or how to react and Homer just stares at her blankly. Eventually to break the quiet Homer gives the pan a little shake, prompting Marge to tell him that this is the worst part of their marriage. 

Marge takes him to see an addiction counsellor which is putting her enabling and door mat personality at the forefront for a second. If that was my husband, I'd be calling the police and every single mental health ward in the country. The therapist suggests that this new "diet" of his can be seen as him not liking Marge's cooking, and she admits that that's a part of it. Cute joke but honestly it's not needed really is it? You're in a segment of TreeHouse of Horror, come on, don't be cute be scary. The Therapist then excuses himself saying he's off to go be famous by talking about them. There's a short conversation where Marge essentially breaks up with Homer and he seems confused as to why.

Enter Mario Batali, a chef and writer from the States. Homer asks why he's in therapy, Batali replies that he got depressed because he ran out of exciting ingredients, that's a deep one that I don't want to go into. There's a dark joke made about them talking and Homer plays on the phrase "walk and talk" with "wok and talk" which, it's dark but also pretty cute. I like this joke because as soon as it's passed it cuts to a shot of Batali cooking Homer's whole head in a pan and Homer acting like he's in a hot tub.

The next scene is of the family sat in a small room with Marge's sisters, a not is slid under the door with "To My Family" written on it. Homer has written a note begging his family to come home and he has worked out how to get their forgiveness. They get in the car, minus Marge's sisters (what was the point in having them here?) as they get home they're surprised that their home has been turned into a restaurant. Batali reveals that Homer's final words to his family were that he had failed as a man but succeeded as an ingredient, a very Homer thing to say. Bart calls eating the brain which...is just fucking gross and the episode ends with a comment on the fast food industry, brands such as Burger King, Taco Bell, KFC and a couple others. Homer's up in heaven, back to his bulky weight having a chat with Jesus. The final joke of the episode is Homer ripping off one of his angel wings and Jesus commenting that you don't get any more of them.

And that's the episode.

Honestly, I'm so conflicted on this third segment because I've been so sad about the fact that the series had lost its edge, I remember being so afraid of these episodes as a kid that I wouldn't watch them after dark and I outright refused to watch the one with the segment parodying The Shining. Ya girl watched it once when I was like 6, took me another 4 years to able to watch that shit again. Another segment that scared me to death was Nightmare Cafeteria, it's such a logical progression in a twisted way, schools get too full, one kid has an accident and teachers discover that they're oh so delicious so they become cannibals and serve the children up as meat, turning the children into cannibals also. Those scared the hell out of me and I was sad to see in later years that this series of episodes lost it's creativity and decided that they would go more the comedy route than the horror route. Was it just me growing up and building an immunity to cartoon horror? Was it the writers for not writing something scary like we know they could do? Was it a combination of both? Maybe answers all of those questions. I'm glad to see that this segment, Mmm...Homer is scary and lives up to its predecessors.

On the other hand, while I really am glad to see this segment and its intensity, I'm just wary of the time it's aired and the age group most likely to watch it. In America, the show airs usually around 8:30pm which is fair enough, little tiny kids who only watch it to be entranced by the colours and kept busy for a while, these kids are safe from this episode. However, kids of about 6-7 and upwards are probably able to understand what's going on in this segment and possibly be afraid of it. It's something that, back in the day, parents would be fine showing their kids this sort of thing, but now? Boy, you best believe this shit won't fly on a 6pm airtime in the UK. We kick off when a channel airs a classic film about rabbits when we know exactly what this film is about, we let our kids watch it and then we complain that it's on the tv at that time and scarring and traumatising our kids. We don't think ahead and chose to turn the channel or make sure we know what our kids are going to be watching, we just put it on to shut them up and when they get scared well...that's televisions fault not ours. Either way, in this day and age I think it would be dangerous to show this to a child.

On the third hand, I personally think it's good for kids to be exposed to stuff like this, it's not as bad as it seems and yet...I grew up with worse. Granted I watched The Exorcist aged 8 but that's neither here nor there. Look at any of the classic Disney films and you'll remember being scared of something in them. Look at the rabbit film I mentioned earlier, Watership Down is a truly harrowing film to watch but I watched it and I turned out...fine, I guess. Most of my issues aren't because of what I grew up watching, they're because of lots of other contributing factors. What I grew up watching made me way stronger emotionally and intellectually than I would have been if my parents babied me and shielded me from any kind of fear or pain. Kids need this sort of fear to build them up, kids can tell you what they're scared of and what they're not and if you listen to them you can help them get past those fears at their pace. If you just shield them, like many parents are doing now, they're going to grow up entitled, wanting to completely avoid any kind of fear, wanting places set up for them to actively get away from something that even mildly scares them, they will allow the horror industry to die and that is something I am not here for. Fear is what makes us human, you cannot take that away from future generations.

So to close out, I both like and dislike this episodes final segment, I think it's a wonderful return to form for the cartoon series that's gone so far downhill that it's probably only salvation is the THOH series.

I tried for ages to make a joke using the Green Eggs & Ham rhyme but all I got was "I do not like Homer's leg as lamb" and it's not that funny and I'm not good at the rhyming thing to make a whole little poem based around that crappy joke, however, I like the line and I spent ages trying to work out how to use it. This is gonna have to do I guess.

Have a good day kids.

Stay hydrated... just...don't self-cannibalise in order to do it.

This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this film. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this film then go and support its creators by buying the DVD or Bluray.