Captain Marvel don't need (to be in) no Civil War!

So as I kinda predicted, the latest entry in the MCU - Captain Marvel* - is going to be another billon dollar movie.
Great movie - already seen it twice. I liked the mystery/detective nature of the plot, even if we all knew she would work out who she was eventually. The unleashing of her power at the end was exceptional. The twists and turns were great. Ben Mendelsohn's character was fantastic (and I love how his Skrull accent is just his straight Aussie one!). And the Stan Lee cameo was pure gold.
I also thought the 90s setting worked really well, and loved Easter Eggs alluding to the broader MCU before and after the events in this movie (especially with Nick Fury ... I mean ... just "Fury", Phil Coulson and a certain Tesseract). 
And the music was pretty much spot on. 
Pretty much...
And this is where the rant begins.
The ONE musical cue that didn't gel for me was "Come As You Are". It came off as someone trying to be cool and grungey by putting in Nirvana's probably most-accessible song, without actually being OG fans.
Not only that, but it just doesn't make sense - it comes on when we're inside Carol's head when she sees the Supreme Intelligence in 1995 (one year after Kurt Cobain committed suicide, incidentally), but she hadn't been back to Earth since 1989. How would she know this song?!? It just doesn't make sense (unlike ever other thing that happens in that movie)!!
So, what to replace it with?
Well, she DID wear a Guns'N'Roses shirt back when she was on Earth - how about a G'N'F'N'R song?
And that's when I got it - "Rocket Queen" from the awesome Appetite for Destruction (which just happens to be my favourite song from that album back in the day). 
If you're unfamiliar with it, please enjoy:


Not only is the title perfect for Captain Marvel, but even the lyrics work (kinda) when she's meeting the Supreme Intelligence:

"Here I am 
And you're a rocket queen 
I might be a little young but honey I ain't naive" 

Feel free to play it over Come As You Are when you're in cinemas going forward.

Can't wait to see her (and the rest of the gang) in Avengers: Endgame! 

* For those unfamiliar with the Captain, this is a good intro: Marvel's Captain Marvel Prelude

All Liars are Liars

I hate to say "I hate to say I told you so", but: 'Madden attended meeting over Hotel Windsor sham'
I told you I hate to say I hate to say I told you so.

Bah, humbug

I know I should probably do something about how Xmas is a con, that 25 December was a pagan holiday stolen by the Roman church, blah, blah, bah, but I haven't posted for ages and simply couldn't resist a classic Scrooge-ism.
Speaking of Scrooged, if you haven't seen it before, watch Bad Santa for Xmas. Best Xmas movie ever (second best is Scrooged).
Hope you had a rantastic 2009, and I'll try and get back on the rant-wagon in 2010.
rilestar out

Theocrazy

A quick one - due to an article on Barney Zwartz's blog on The Age website about a proposal to allow limited sharia law for mediations between muslims - all voluntary and subject to Australian law at all times (apparently).
Provoked some hearty discussion, most of it ill-informed and of the bad-rant-variety - y'know, racist, xenophobic stuff (not like the good-rant-variety: "Here's why you're wrong and I'm right (add gag)").
Anyhoo, when a bloke called Harry stated the following:

"Our constitution made Australia a Christian Theocracy (in fact). Moslem's in Australia have been saved, in this life only, because of our Christian culture and Heritage. Like it or lump it their fleeing the horror of Islam, arriving in Australia literaly means Moslems have been saved by Our Lord Jesus Christ and the teachings Australia has followed.
We are a Christian nation', 'Christian culture' with to which newcomers should conform, while enjoying freedom for their own beliefs."
All sic as.

The rilestar can't let that slide:

"I know I shouldn't bite when crazy people say crazy stuff, but Harry from Sydney's comment that Australia is, constitutionally, a Christian Theocracy, needs some rebutting: the constitution says quite the opposite, and preserves the secular nature of Government - section 116: "The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth."
The original white settlers of Australia may have been Christian themselves (although I know that at least one of my convict ancestors was Jewish), but that doesn't mean it's a theocracy run by religious nutjobs in accordance with the Christian Bible (Kevin Rudd notwithstanding) or that everyone who subsequently comes here has to be Christian, just as everyone who has arrived since 1788 doesn't have to be a convict or a prison-guard.
Newcomers should only conform to our rule of law, not to any particular religion or culture (especially Harry's) - culture naturally evolves anyway, and every individual has the potential to change our culture, whether they were born here or not. I was brought up a devout Catholic but have rationally chosen to be an atheist (or Pastafarian, according to the latest census). And now I'm commenting on a blog!
And speaking of the rule of law, I agree with Godot that taxpayers of other/no religions should not have to pay for setting up these types of tribunals that may entrench discrimination on the basis of a certain person's reading of 1400 year old texts.
But apart from that, why the hell not?"

Why the HELL not, indeed.

Discriminating discriminators

Victoria's anti-discrimination laws are currently being reviewed, and a suggestion has been made to remove the exemption allowing religious bodies to discriminate.
First, this is a bit of what our former Treasurer and Exclusive Brethren apologist had to say about this very reasonable proposition:

"The Christian churches want to continue current practice. But a host of community organisations wants to change it. The Federation of Community Legal Services told the parliamentary review that the law should change, claiming: "To allow religious organisations a broad exemption for conscience encourages prejudice..."
"Just think about the moral vanity of that statement. According to these lawyers, a religious conscience leads to prejudice. How did the church arouse public conscience over slavery? How did Florence become a haven for the arts and letters? How did civilisation develop in the past couple of millennia without the Community Legal Services to guide it?"

My response in letter format:

"It was ironic that, in the same edition of the newspaper that Peter Costello used as his vehicle to promote intolerance for people who don’t subscribe to the exact same religious viewpoint, another article reported that yet another child has died for religious reasons: “Dead girl's mother: sickness caused by sin”
"Peter, do you really think we should let decisions on what is or is not right to be dictated by people like this?
"The fact is, our society has progressed despite religious doctrine, not because of it. Religious authorities, comfortable with the status quo, are always resistant to change. But thankfully, our secular society has been able to make leaps and bounds in terms of democracy, precisely because it has not stayed in the dark ages of superstition and entropy.
"Made-up religious reasons should no more be a basis for discrimination than made-up racial reasons."

Although my letter didn't get published (possibly because I never sent it), many other reasonable people replied and were published on my behalf (though no-one made the clever link to the crazy lady article), such as this one from Janine Truter de La Basin:

"PETER Costello seems without irony when he talks of the benefits that religious conscience has brought to society, and fails to mention the oppression of women, the biblical endorsement of slavery, the Crusades, the jihads, the Inquisition and, more recently, the sexual and physical abuse of thousands of children in church homes and parishes, and terrorist attacks around the world.
"If religious institutions truly uphold human rights, they will have nothing to fear from this review. But for those who want to sack a pregnant female teacher because she is unmarried, on the grounds of religious conscience, legal standards for human rights are clearly timely and necessary."

I know, I know: "Religion, blah, blah, TV, blah, Lance Armstrong, blah." That's the Rant O'Clock Way.