Showing posts with label Karen Gillan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Karen Gillan. Show all posts

Nov 27, 2017

Ranking Marvel Films by Villain Bangability: Part 2 [Top 10]

Loki Bad | High-Key Hot

Above all else, Tableau Your Mind endeavors to entertain, enlighten, and exhaust its readers. So, in our entertaining and enlightening efforts to look at the bangability of Marvel Villains, we have also exhausted the patience of many by waiting to put up the second half of our two-part series. Well, wait no more! We've looked at the also-rans in Part 1. Now it's time for Tableau (along with Guest Bloggers Square Peg and Christmas Pug) to look at the certified hate-able hotties of Part 2:

Bangability: 5.14
Logan Marshall-Green as Jackson Brice / Montana

Really, Michael Keaton’s Vulture is the only real villain in this bish, and he’s about as bangable as any version of Michael Keaton that’s ever existed. So, medium? Donald Glover’s villain Aaron Davis barely gets to do anything, but he also elevates the bangability scale by just existing and being Donald Glover.

Tableau: Everyone’s just so angry in this movie. I don’t need that energy around me. 
Square Peg: I love Michael Keaton as an actor, but he often has this expression on his face like he just smelled something repugnant while also sucking on a sour candy. 
Christmas Pug: Donald Glover, please take me.

#9 Thor
Bangability: 5.66
The Destroyer

Lil Baby Loki’s film debut is also his least sexy, but he’s still doing it for the two women on this jury. What he provides is a preview of the bangability to come, and Loki’s mix of suave Britishness and good bone structure do seem to carry a lot of his films into the upper echelon of the bangosphere.

Square Peg: If anyone has a way to get in touch with Tom Hiddleston to let him know that I want to bang him, please do. Put it through the grapevine. 
Tableau: I feel like I added The Destroyer to the film’s list of villains to bring the average down a little and be a better representation of the quality of the movie. It’s fun and Shakespearean, but it’s not the best. And The Destroyer, while displaying some great leg and arm definition, loses points due to the fact that he shoots fire out of his only opening. He’s literally unbangable. 
Christmas Pug: Hole or no hole, you can’t really deter me from wanting to eff Tom Hiddleston.

Bangability: 5.77
Alexis Denisof as the Other

Loki’s back from the dead and ready to sexually frustrate all our heroes. As a central villain, he’s great, and he’s also at his most sexually alluring. His fun outfits, the way he teases The Hulk, that weird ball-gaggy headpiece he has to wear at the end -- he’s a sexual force with which to be reckoned. And while square-jawed Thanos and cage-masked The Other bring the average down a bit, the power of Loki easily breaks this film into the top 50%.

Square Peg: I’ll be singing this until the cows come home, but Thanos does nothing for me in any of his incarnations. 
Tableau: This is definitely Top Loki, and really the last movie where he’s the clear villain. After this, he veers into ‘shitty brother who is a little villainous’ territory.
Christmas Pug: Said it once and will say it again: would eff.

Bangability: 5.80
Daniel Brühl as Helmut Zemo
Frank Grillo as Brock Rumlow / Crossbones

This movie is just full of sexiness. At the core you have mastermind Helmut Zemo, a grieving father and husband who is pretty hot to trot with that sexy widow stank on him. And then, on the periphery, you have Tony Stark, whose sexiness is elusive to some, dom-gear Brock Rumlow, and zaddy/daddy Thaddeus. All told, it’s a pretty bangable group of whiteys.

Tableau: I’m not into any of this, really. But I understand, objectively, the attraction to these dudes.
Square Peg: Daniel Brühl is just so attractive. Look at how that one lock of hair flops so perfectly over his forehead!
Christmas Pug: I’m literally bored just thinking about banging these dudes (boom, roasted).

Bangability 6.07
Kurt Russell as Ego
Chris Sullivan as Taserface

For a movie as unevenly written and produced as GOTG2, it still manages to have a ton of extremely attractive and alluring villains. Ayesha, the High Priestess of the quasi-master-racey Sovereign, gets more attractive the more unhinged she becomes. And Kurt Russell as Ego the Living Planet maintains the high level of bangability he’s had since the beginning of his film career. And a huge part of his character is sexing up as many species as possible. That's hot (tm Paris Hilton). Taserface’s scrotal visage brings the score down considerably, as does Ego once he goes true baddie and gets all grey and sandy.

Tableau: Taserface gets no respect, even on this board. Without him, this movie would definitely have ranked higher on this list.
Square Peg: There’s no denying the appeal of that twinkle in Kurt Russell’s eye.
Christmas Pug: Yes to Ayesha. Yes to space ladies in general.

Bangability: 6.37 
 
Frank Grillo as Brock Rumlow
Robert Redford as Alexander Pierce 
Toby Jones as Arnim Zola (computer)

It makes sense that Bucky Barnes has been in suspended animation, because his hair and overall gravel-y sexiness is more reminiscent of early 90s Kurt Cobain or Ethan Hawke than any present-day dreamboats. But, because it’s a Marvel movie, he’s also jacked AF. Rounding out the trio of sexiness is Brock Rumlow (less charred than he is in Avengers 2) and forever Sexiest Man Alive Robert Redford (playing secret Hydra agent Alexander Pierce). Though Pierce’s smoldering sexiness is anything but agreed upon (Tableau is the cheese that stands alone on that one), everyone agrees that Computer Zola isn’t really much to bang home about. 

Christmas Pug: I don’t care what you say, Alexander Pierce is basically dead in “sexy woman years,” and I can’t stand behind a society that would sexualize him and not a lady counterpart of the same generation. 
Tableau: I’m all for pudgy elf Zola in the first Captain America, but the Commodore 64 version is more floppy disk than hard drive. I've never had a sexual thought about The Oregon Trail, and I don't intend to start now.
Square Peg: Brock Rumlow is definitely attractive, but he’s such an asshole that it cancels out.

Bangability: 6.43
Lee Pace as Ronan the Accuser
Michael Rooker as Yondu Udonta
Karen Gillan as Nebula
Josh Brolin as Thanos 

For the first Guardians film, it’s the battle of the sexy blue baddies. Since all the protagonists are also criminals, it’s a little hard to parse out the true villains. Still, if you’re blue in this movie, you’re at least on notice. And Ronan the Accuser definitely tries to kill a whole planet full of people, so his villainy is not under dispute. Neither are THOSE ABS and DAT BUTT:

Tableau: This whole movie is filled with a bunch of Sexy Smurfs. 
Square Peg: I definitely have a Lee Pace thing, but the cakey black blood on his face and his overall growly nature makes him a lot less bangable. Even if he is the first Marvel Villain to give us a butt shot.
Christmas Pug: I don’t know what it is about alien women that just GETS ME. All the points to Nebula.

Bangability: 7.17
Rebecca Hall as Maya Hansen 
Ben Kingsley as Trevor Slattery/The Mandarin

Once again, Tony goes up against a business rival who’s not as smart as him and hates him for his intellect and suaveness. Yawn. Thankfully, the rivals (Aldrich Killian and Maya Hansen) in this movie are bangable, which makes the high-stakes business one-upmanship a little more fun to watch. Maya Hansen was originally going to be the main villain of the film, which would have been a welcome change of pace for Marvel films (so few have a female villain, let alone a female MAIN villain). Thankfully, even with a diminished role, her bangability remains at an all-time high. This film’s hot quotient is ultimately done in by Aldrich’s awkward tattoo placement and Trevor Slattery’s general existence. Only Square Peg’s high score for Faux-Mandarin kept him afloat.

Tableau: Maya Hansen is incredibly attractive and has believable sexual chemistry with both Tony Stark and Gwyneth Paltrow’s Pepper Potts.
Square Peg: There’s something oddly appealing about The Mandarin, and we do literally see him post-coitally getting out of bed. So, we know he bangs.
Christmas Pug: Maya Hansen is v bangable, and I wish I could say I wouldn’t bang someone with Aldrich’s tattoos, but we all know I would.

Bangability: 7.67

The only movie on this list with only one villain, its bangability ranking is firmly high because the single bad guy is also extremely attractive. Sure, he kills without mercy and uses Ant-Man’s daughter as a hostage, but you can’t deny the swagger.

Tableau: I’m not going to really comment on the attractiveness, except to say that he is seemingly a psychopath. So that maybe knocks a point off?
Christmas Pug: I love da baldies!!!
Square Peg: Corey is an attractive fella, but I don’t go in for suits.

Bangability: 9.0
Cate Blanchett as Hela
Jeff Goldblum as Grandmaster
Karl Urban as Skurge

Without much competition, the latest Thor movie is the sexiest film through and through. You’ve got sexy-ass Thor, super sexual (and bisexual) Valkyrie, and Hulk butt. And that’s just on the good guy side. On the bad side, you have sexual chameleon Jeff Goldblum as the Grandmaster, noted hottie-with-a-body Tom Hiddleston, and Cate Blanchett as the Goddess of Death (and God’s Sexual Gift to Humanity), Hela. The heat coming off this movie is intense, and it’s basically hemorrhaging horniness. This movie is a bang-fest, and that’s without even mentioning the long sequence where the heroes ride around in an orgy spaceship. Genitals are basically exploding off the screen.

Christmas Pug: Five thousand stars to Cate Blanchett! 
Tableau: Like every young person who watched Jurassic Park, I’ve been low-key sexually attracted to Jeff Goldblum for most of my life. And this is just the cherry on the sexy sundae. 
Square Peg: The horns only make Cate more attractive. Plus, I’m weirdly turned on by the fact that, if I were banging Jeff Goldblum, he could kill me at any moment with his weird melty death stick.

***

This whole list started as an experiment to see if a Marvel film's villain bangability matched up with the overall quality of the film. And, with a few exceptions, things do line up nicely. Maybe Ant-Man and Thor: Ragnarok aren't the best MCU films, but they are the most fun. Perhaps Iron Man 3 isn't the best Iron Man movie, but it is the most artfully directed and deep. And maybe we shouldn't look too hard at this list. Let's instead look to Hollywood and the entire celebrity-fueled industry and thank them all for being so bangable and willing to be exploited for our pleasure (and their extreme financial gain). And then, after you've heaped praise onto the already overpraised, go out into the world and bang on.

Aug 4, 2014

'Guardians of the Galaxy' Is The Space Epic We've Been Waiting For

"When we are in our infancy, we look to the stars. We look to the sky, stretched out above us, full of mysteries unexplored, dangers untold, and thirsts unquenched. Space is the future; space is hope; space is where all the cool people are hanging out without us." -  Helen Keller

It would be an astronomical understatement to say that I really love Guardians of the Galaxy, the most recent – and buoyant – film in the Marvel franchise. Following a ragtag group of underdogs as they fight against seemingly unbeatable foes, the film is a love letter to movies about space, movies about friendship, and movies about kick-ass soundtracks.

The ragtag group in question is led by Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), a Terran (film-speak for 'from Earth) who, after his mother dies of cancer, is abducted by a race of bluish, alien thugs and grows up as a thief,  with an awesome mix tape as his only keepsake of home. He's joined by a  sassy raccoon named Rocket (Bradley Cooper), a somewhat-sentient tree named Groot (Vin Diesel), the overly-literal and revenge-bent Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista), and the genetically-modified assassin Gamora (Zoe Saldana, joining yet another space-film franchise). The plot is dense, and pretty MacGuffin-laden, but basically there's a super-bad dude named Ronan (Lee Pace, completely unrecognizable without his lustrous eyebrows) who's aided by Gamora's quasi-sister Nebula (Karen Gillan, a little out of her depth here) and an even badder dude named Thanos (who will feature heavily in many of the Marvel movies to come). Though their motivations are murky and full of backstabbing and frontstabbing, they all basically want to get their hands on a mysterious orb, which Quilly has just stolen, in order kill a bunch of people. Oh, yeah, and for a fun bit of back-story, Thanos killed Drax's family and happens to be Gamora's adoptive father. The 'Guardians' have to band together to stop Ronan, and save an entire planet of people, including a bunch of space cops holed up at the base of the Nova Corps, which is run by the stellar Glenn Close.

Now, I really liked this movie, but I'm afraid that, if I start to review it, I may never stop talking about it. So, instead, here is a list of  points worth talking about:

Jun 23, 2014

Talkin' About Philly Comic Con, With Square Peg

Tableau and Square Peg Take On Comic Con
This weekend, I had the privilege of attending the Philadelphia Wizard World Comic Con with my good friend (and occasional Guest Blogger) Square Peg. It was may first Comic Con, and, though we only attended for one day, we were able to see a lot of events, panels, and art:

Sep 30, 2012

AFTERWORD by Amelia Willams

from "The Angels Take Manhattan" on Doctor Who.

Hello old friend.

And here we are. You and me on the last page.

By the time you read these words, Rory and I will be long gone, so know that we lived well, and we’re very happy, and above all else, know that we will love you. Always.

Sometimes I do worry about you, though. I think, once we’re gone, you won’t be coming back here for a while and you might be alone, which you should never be.

Don’t be alone, Doctor.
And do one more thing for me. There’s a little girl waiting in a garden. She’s going to wait a long while, so she’s going to need a lot of hope.

Go to her. Tell her a story.
Tell her that if she’s patient, the days are coming that she’ll never forget. Tell her she’ll go to sea and fight pirates, she’ll fall in love with a man who’ll wait two thousand years to keep her safe. tell her she’ll give hope to the greatest painter who ever lived, and save a whale in outer space.

Tell her, this is the story of Amelia Pond, and this is how it ends.

Sep 29, 2012

Amy Pond Week Comes to a Close


It's the final journey of Amy and Rory with The Doctor tonight. 

We are freaking out.

Sep 26, 2012

Amy Pond's Greatest Foes [Amy Pond Week]

Amy's Enemies - Exhaustive, Frightening.
Over the past two and a half series of Doctor Who, the Doctor, Amy, and Rory have had quite a few adventures. They've saved tons of people's lives, including a Star Whale, Silurians, and, of course, humanity. And they have done so by fighting, running away from, and trying to understand their many antagonists. In honor of Amy's last adventure with the Doctor, we're looking back at the best villains, the ones who have affected Amy the most:

5. Daleks
The Daleks have found their way into many of Amy Pond's adventures with the Doctor, and each time they manage to be just a little bit more terrifying.  As the Doctor is fond of saying, they are his oldest and greatest enemies. First, they were Winston Churchill's secret army

Sep 24, 2012

Amy Pond: Goofy, Sexy, Cool [Amy Pond Week]

In our continuing endeavor to bring you all Amy Pond, all the time (along with aaallll your Classic Rock favorites), here is a video of Amy Pond being goofy, flirty, and, as the uploader mentions, a little bit of a pervert.


Brilliant.

It's Amy Pond Week at Tableau Your Mind! [Doctor Who]

Near the End, Let's Go Back to the Beginning
In case you didn't know, this Saturday will mark the last episode of Amy Williams (nee Pond) and Rory Williams as the regular companions of the 11th Doctor on Doctor Who. A companion is a person who travels with the Doctor on his many journeys, acting as anything from his assistant to his therapist. Since Amy has been the Doctor's companion for the entirety of this blog's existence, it is only fair for us to devote an entire week to the hours and years we spent with Amy, The Girl who Waited, and her Raggedy Doctor. We actually (accidentally) preemptively said goodbye to her almost exactly one year ago, much to our eternal embarrassment.  But now it's really happening, and mum is the word about how she will make her final exit. But we do know that she is leaving. For sure this time.

So here it is: the Amy Pond Week on Tableau Your Mind, which we're sure will get about as many viewers as it will have writers (like, 4). Still, we're willing to do it, because we

Sep 19, 2011

A Moment, Please, for Amy Pond

Spoiler Alert if you aren’t caught up on this season’s Doctor Who.


(Seriously, it's a pretty big spoiler)

Amelia Pond Williams, wife of Rory Williams and mother of Melody Williams AKA River Song, ended her two season run in last Saturday’s episode of Doctor Who.

Companions of the Doctor seem to serve a few functions. First, they are constantly asking questions, which makes the exposition in Doctor Who (of which there is a lot) seem less clunky. Secondly, they act as an audience surrogate, providing a relatable entry point into the series. Sure, some companions aren’t exactly relatable, but they’re certainly more human than The Doctor.


What I find to be the most important function for a companion, though, is her own journey with The Doctor and the lessons and character growth along the way. Each of the Doctor’s companions has a story to tell, and Amy Pond’s was always one of maturation, of growing past being ‘the girl who waited’ and into the girl who lived.

This season (or series), however, Amy has seemed, more than ever, to be spinning her wheels. Once she chose Rory over the Doctor, the writers didn’t seem to know what to do with her.  Karen Gillan is absolutely wonderful in the role, but this season has found very little for her to do, especially these second-half episodes. Even her (possibly) penultimate episode, which focused primarily on her, was just rehashing old material about her life and the choices she’s made.

Amy Pond was a wonderful character. She was delightful and fun, which was a nice counterpoint to Matt Smith’s more tortured Doctor 11 (though nobody did tortured Doctor better than David Tennant). I look forward to her return.

But -- for now -- goodbye, Amy Pond, most whimsical of all the Doctor Who companions.  You will be missed.

And goodbye, Rory.

UPDATE: Okay, so I was totally wrong about this. Not only were Amy and Rory back in a small way in the last episode of this season and the Christmas special, they will both be back with the Doctor for another half season. I literally have no idea how their story lines are going to continue any further, but I know better than to look a gift Doctor Who in the mouth.

Apr 23, 2011

Doctor Who: New Season, Higher Stakes

To quote Neil Diamond, Doctor Who is "coming to America...today!" The new season, following everyone's favorite Doctor, kicks off tonight in Monument Valley, and boy is it going to be crazy. We here at Tableau Your Mind haven't opined openly about our love of the good doctor, but the show has been a growing obsession of ours for quite some time (the new version: still haven't gotten to watching Doctor Classic. And each season (or series), we've seen the stakes get higher and higher. The first season was about a battle on board a fake game show ship. Last season saw the Doctor recreating ALL OF EXISTENCE to ensure that Amelia Pond survived. Needless to say, things have gotten more intense and way more complicated. So, in this game of higher stakes, what kind of crazy - and usually family friendly - antics can we expect this season? After the jump, check out the top eleven possibilities for this year, and the probability that each will occur.


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