D3: The Mighty Ducks
Dangle: We have now watched this entire trilogy, and in summary, I recommend it for its nostalgia value and not much else. But the nostalgia is pretty good—I was 13 when this movie was released, and I remember really liking it.
Deke: I can’t believe I didn’t see it when it came out. What was I doing? Well, it was 1996, so I was watching Xena: Warrior Princess and having confusing feelings about Lucy Lawless, no doubt.
Dangle: XD No doubt. We spent much of the film trying vainly to make slash pairings, but they kept fizzling—this movie is not about relationships, obviously. Well, except for the Bash Brothers; it is pretty cute when Fulton is sad because his boyfriend isn’t there and therefore he can’t beat people up anymore. :(
Deke: Yeah, Bash!boyfriend showing up at the end saved the film. Not sure how he was good enough to play on the team, though, since he wasn’t in any of their montages.
Dangle: I know, right? He can’t possibly have improved as much as the rest of them. Unless he was montaging at home on his own?
Deke: Let’s go with that.
D2: The Mighty Ducks
Dangle: Okay, so last week we watched D2: The Mighty Ducks for What the Fuck Ever We Want Wednesday and then were too tired/lazy to actually type up a review of it. So we’re doing it this week instead.
Deke: Mostly lazy. I’m pretty sure I stayed up that night reading fanfiction instead of doing more productive things.
Dangle: First off, let me just say how disappointed I was with this film, because Deke assured me that it was a good movie, and it really was not.
Deke: Omg, this movie is awesome! When you’re a pre-teen/teenager. I watched this movie at least 30 times between age 12 and 16. Maybe more.
The Mighty Ducks
Deke: We’re a day late. We figured you’d deal. WARNING: We’re about to break your most precious childhood memories.
Dangle: Yes, that’s right. We finally watched it, the movie that defined hockey for our generation. (That’s fifteen years before the rest of you kids on Tumblr. You probably only remember The Mighty Ducks as a relic of ancient memory. Fuck you, though.) I remembered this movie as being totally awesome, but sadly, it is not. My opinion of my taste as a 9-year-old has plummeted. *sigh* I used to have such a crush on that kid with glasses.
Deke: I am completely unsurprised.
Dangle: My type has apparently not changed since then. That’s horrifying and yet comforting. Anyway, as I was saying, this movie is really not good. And also it is extremely dated.
Deke: Fact. Ok, I was keeping a tally of the stereotypical late 80s/early 90s cliches in this movie. There are so many, I’ll only mention the most egregious: a nut shot, a spittake, and fart joke—and that all within the first 15 minutes. Add that to the blond, vaguely Germanic bullies, the three montages—one of which was a shopping one, and another of which was a chase scene through a mall on roller blades—and you have the concentrated 90s in a movie.
Bon Cop, Bad Cop
Deke: Holy freaking shit, I love this movie with all my heart and soul. I really really wish it had spun off into a series, I love the characters and the writing that much. I ship the two main characters really hard. They are totally doing it together. For srs.
So, plot time: a guy gets murdered and his body falls on the border of Ontario and Quebec. Of course this means that detectives from each province are called in to investigate. One is a by-the-book English-speaking Canadian detective named Martin Ward. The other is a loose-cannon French-speaking Canadian detective named David Bouchard. They get along just about as well as you’d imagine, with the requisite insults, sexual tension, and violence inherent in the buddy cop genre.
This movie reinforces and undermines almost every buddy-cop movie stereotype in existence, not to mention the dozens of language based puns and jokes, the cultural stereotypes and slurs, the witty bilingual banter, the sexual innuendo—this movie has it all and more.
Best of Hockeyfic (Part I)
Dangle: For our Wednesday post (which is happening on Thursday, because this week is cяaзy), we picked good, classic fics for you—stuff that we wouldn’t cover on our Fanfic Friday posts because those posts are only for what’s new each week. Our categories are pretty much arbitrary; we’ll probably do this again another week with different categories.
Best AU—“Where the Wild Things Are” by liketheroad (Patrick Kane/Jonathan Toews)
Deke: I seriously love the shit out of this story. I’ve described it and my love for it before, but let’s give it another go. This is a well-written, totally in character AU of Twilight. It slyly (and not-so-slyly) makes fun of the original story while tweaking the AU in a way that makes it more in character and satisfying. And while the sequel does get a little baby crazy, the original still stands out as a story I want to (and totally do) read again and again.
~or~
“Hockey at the End of the World” by ionthesparrow (Jeff Carter/Mike Richards)
Dangle: As much as I love Deke’s pick, I love this one even more, and I’m convinced that Deke would have had a hard time choosing against it if she had read it yet. (It’s brand new this week, and I will definitely be discussing it on Friday!) It’s set in a dystopia, and the different ways the characters respond to living under a totalitarian regime are very believable and interesting—I like to cheer for people being resilient in hard circumstances, don’t you? Another thing I like about this fic is how naturally and slowly the relevant information is revealed. Good writing. ♥
Review of “The Blue Line Job”
Ok, so for this week’s What the Fuck Ever We Want Wednesday, I (Deke) have decided to review (criticize) the recent episode of the TNT show Leverage, called “The Blue Line Job.” As you may have guessed, this episode is about hockey.
Brief summary time: so this minor league player, Marko, is an enforcer on the Oregon Otters. His son goes to the Leverage guys because he thinks his dad has serious brain damage from all the hits and concussions he’s gotten that management is covering up for some nefarious reason (spoiler alert, it’s greed).
So, in order to protect Marko, they send one of their guys in (Elliot) as a French Canadian player, Jacques LaBere—which gets him the nickname Jack the Bear. The newly christened Jack somehow gets to play in every period despite being a literal unknown, and runs interference to basically protect Marko ala What-his-face from Goon. This is because, in truly dramatic fashion, Marko’s next fight could be his last. *gasp*
After a while, you start to notice that certain teams attract certain kinds of fic writers.
Every Avalanche fic: Not actually a fic so much as an ode to Gabriel Landeskog. [Insert older teammate] engages in long internal monologues about Landeskog’s perfect face and body, then sighs knowingly as Landeskog gets drunk and tries to makes out with him in a taxi.
Every Blackhawks fic: Tazer and Kaner have been dating for years, but neither of them realizes it because Kaner is drunk literally all the time and Tazer refuses to have feelings. Despite the comical interference of nosy!married!Sharpy and gay!mentors!Duncs’n’Seabs, our two heroes remain steadfastly ignorant of their own situation until wise!rookie!Shawzy uses the Socratic method to break the news to hungover!Kaner. Tazer and Kaner have disturbingly rough sex and then get married forever. Fun variation: soulbonds for everyone!
Every Blue Jackets fic: LOL, did you think this was a Blue Jackets fic? Sorry, Jeff Carter’s just passing through.
Every Blues fic: Psych! This is actually a Blackhawks fic. Thanks for the dealing-with-Tazer tips, T. J.
Every Bruins fic: [Insert manly forward of choice] is desperately in love with pure-hearted, blushing Tuukka Rask. His efforts to coax Tuukka out of his shell include saying things that make him blush, molesting him while he is sick and/or injured, and hugging him until he bursts into tears. Meanwhile, Tyler Seguin and Brad Marchand can’t figure out why the fact that they are obviously in love with each other makes everyone think they are in love with each other. Whatever, they’re just going to go into this bar bathroom and share sloppy blowjobs while everyone gets over their delusions.
The Seven Most Annoying Things in Hockeyfic
I (Dangle) think I can safely say that I have a good handle on the tropes of hockeyfic at this point. Obviously that’s because I love this shit. But occasionally (okay, more than occasionally), some things pop up that just drive me nuts.
Constantly Recycling the Same Phrases
How many times have you read the sentence, “He gripped his hips so hard, he was sure there would be bruises there tomorrow”? Or references to “the four layers of thin cloth between them”? How about “He could feel his hardness through the thin fabric of his slacks/boxers/whatever”?
Stop doing this. It’s lazy writing. Can you really not think of any other way for your characters to go from the couch to the bedroom without having one of them growl, “Bed!” at the other in a commanding tone? If you honestly can’t, just have them do it on the couch. For God’s sake, seriously.
The Abuse of Foreign Languages
There are a lot of reasons you might want to use foreign words in your fic. Some of those reasons are legitimate; for example, “Language issues are relevant to the plot” or “My audience is entirely made up of French speakers”. Some of those reasons, such as “Finnish is pretty” or “if I show off my Czech, everyone will think I’m smart”, are not.
