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pass-the-bechdel · 5 years

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Homicide: The Movie

Does it pass the Bechdel Test?

Yes, once.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Eleven (28.94% of cast).

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Twenty-seven.

Positive Content Rating:

Three.

General Film Quality:

Definitely not a strong finish to the series, but then again, neither was anything in the final season of the actual show, either. You could skip this and not really be missing out. In fact, you might be better off that way.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) UNDER THE CUT:

Passing the Bechdel:

Howard interviews Mrs Desassi.

Female characters:

Dawn Daniels.

Helen Lucaitis.

Terri Stivers.

Laura Ballard.

Kay Howard.

Nonna Giardello.

Megan Russert.

Rene Sheppard.

Mrs Desassi.

Billie Lou Munch.

Julianna Cox.

Male characters:

Al Giardello.

Paul Falsone.

Meldrick Lewis.

Mike Giardello.

Frank Pembleton.

George Barnfather.

Tim Bayliss.

Stuart Gharty.

Stanley Bolander.

John Munch.

Roger Gaffney.

Robert Hall.

John Komen.

Karl Miller.

J.H. Brodie.

Terry.

Robert Gessner.

Dr Williams.

Salerno.

Jasper.

Bernard Weeks.

George Griscom.

Mike Kellerman.

Eric Thomas James.

Ed Danvers.

Steve Crosetti.

Beau Felton.

OTHER NOTES:

Considering this film is set not long after season seven ended, it’s kinda weird that Gee has apparently gone from his newly-appointed Captainship to campaigning for Mayor in that time. I mean, I’m not surprised that he would be bored out of his mind in Property Crimes, but this is quite the sudden leap for a guy who never expressed a desire or inclination for a political career.

The old credit sequence is back! Wouldn’t have been right to finish without it.

SPEAKING OF OLD THINGS THAT ARE BACK:

Forget about Gee’s career shift being weird: what the heck with fucking GHARTY being Homicide’s shift commander now? Remember four years ago in-show, when he was introduced as a cowardly derelict-in-his-duties uniform officer just trying to make it to his pension (only a few months off at that time)? How does that guy make it to Lieutenant in four years? Seems fucking ridiculous.

Mike Giardello going on a rampage beating the shit out of people is objectively uncool, but the decision to have Mike Kellerman tagging along watching him while casually snacking makes the whole sequence hilarious.

It’s been so many hours since Gee was shot, where the heck are his other kids, huh? I feel like they’re conveniently pretending they don’t exist so that they can focus on making his bond with Mike seem especially ~profound~. It’s too late in the game for the father/son Ultimate Bond cliche, y’all.

Why the fuck Gharty talking about putting up with being a ‘stooge’ in order to get off the street, instead of just taking that Goddamn retirement? What a tiresome man. I can’t believe we wasted literally any scenes at all on giving him a weak excuse for a subplot-esque thing, when we’ve got all of these other great characters running around getting about three spoken lines and zero functional purpose. Urgh.

Bayliss confessing to the Ryland murder to Pembleton is a great scene, but it feels out of place in the film, and disingenuous as a plot development for the characters - considering it’s the last development they ever get, I really don’t think it’s a meaningful conclusion (individually or as a partnership), and it takes a mainstay of the series at its best - the writing, acting, and chemistry that made Pembleton and Bayliss the show’s flagship team - and perverts it with the kind of dramatic contrivance that was a mainstay of the series at its worst.

Lewis just gotta bring up Bayliss’ sexuality, coz he’s a jerk.

The afterlife scene is super weird and not a strong ending for the entire series in the slightest (the dialogue there feels especially stilted), but I am delighted that they took the excuse to include Crosetti and Felton, and complete the set by getting every single major character from the series back again, living and dead.

I mean, yes, I am delighted that I got to see EVERYONE one last time, but it made for a wildly overstuffed hour-and-a-half film, and almost none of those characters were used to meaningful effect. Essentially, having the entire cast back is a gimmick - and a gimmick that I love - but consequently the plot has no idea what to do with itself, characters drift in and out of it and mostly achieve nothing more than just physically being there for the sake of it, and thus there’s almost no building of emotional resonance or even the natural tension which should arise from having our beloved shift commander shot. More than anything, this feels like an excuse to bring Bayliss and Pembleton together one last time, and I certainly understand that temptation, but it’s a bad move in terms of actually telling the story of the film (which involves thirty-six other named and speaking characters who are not Bayliss and Pembleton, lest we forget).

Additionally, the movie is dotted with useless extras that have nothing to do with the core narrative and only serve to waste vital time which could have been better invested giving one of the many underused characters something to do (the pointlessness of Detective Hall, who was not part of the original series and has no impact upon this film now, is chief in my mind on this score - adding drama by having the shooter in the hospital was also a time-waster), but then again, even the scenes which DID use our old characters were largely red herrings that could be excised from the film completely without altering the story at all. In some cases, that really would have been an improvement, since the movie doesn’t even pretend to treat Little Gee’s rampage as anything other than a pointless dead end, nor Munch and Bolander’s visit to the African Revival Movement, Sheppard and Lewis’ interview with the white supremacist (who was never part of the original series either), or Howard and Falsone’s visit to the widow Desassi. All of these scenes exist purely so that those other characters can do One Single Thing as if it will magically legitimise their presence, while Bayliss and Pembleton unsurprisingly take up the bulk of screen time and are the only ones who uncover anything useful (seriously, they’re even the ones who notice the gunsmoke on the video, even though Ballard and Stivers were assigned to review the footage. Fucking script couldn’t even give some other characters just one genuinely useful thing to do in all this useless mess).

Altogether, the whole thing feels massively under-cooked as a story in its own right, and it has nothing to say about the show, its legacy, what it meant or why it existed in the first place. Homicide was never about Al Giardello’s command, any more than it was about Bayliss and Pembleton’s partnership. Then again, this movie isn’t really about those things either, they’re just the only aspects it manages to carve out with anything close to clarity. Ultimately, I’m not so sure this movie was about anything.

#Homicide: the Movie #Homicide: Life on the Street #HLOTS #Bechdel Test #female representation

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killbothtwins · 7 years

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All Aboard The Spaceship of Death

Find it on a03

One day Mick Rory wakes up in his room aboard the Waverider to the sounds of the timestream bumping the ship as they travel. It’s a familiar sound, and also not what had woken Mick. He lays in bed for a while, staring up at the ceiling. A thought had occurred to him. He’s on a timeship, why should he have to wonder about what he might have been able to do, when he could just go do it? He stands up, slipping his boots on. He gathers what few possessions he or his partner had brought aboard or ahem, acquired during the course of their travels, and makes his way to the jumpship.

“Destination?” Gideon asks pleasantly, and Mick sits down at the controls before answering. “Central City, 2017.”

Mick had been wrong, in his initial predictions. He’d thought that the Hawks would split up after three months, give or take. It had taken them four.

“What can I do for you?” Kendra asks, throwing the question at Mick over her shoulder as she busies herself at the espresso machine. It’s a pretty useless gesture, considering that the customers had fled from Jitters at a frankly astonishing rate as soon as they recognized the Heatwave entering the coffeeshop. People in Central were pretty paranoid.

“I need a copilot.” He tells her. “Figured you’d be bored with doing the barista thing again.”

Kendra considers it, finishing the espresso she’d been making and taking a sip. Turned out she was making it for herself. “Yeah, I could stretch my wings. You mind if we bring along my roommate? I think you’d like her.”

Mick grabs the frappuccino someone had abandoned on the completed order counter. It makes a slurping sound as he takes a drink through the straw. “The more the merrier.”

“Your grandmother kissed me.” Mick blurts out upon being introduced to Kendra’s new roommate. “On the cheek.”

“Okay, weird, but whatever.” Mari McCabe says. Mick would have been able to see the resemblance between the woman and Amaya, even if the costume and the necklace weren’t instant giveaways.

“Mick, why do you have to be weird with people you just met?” Kendra asks, shaking her head.

“Sorry.” Mick says. “It’s a character flaw.”

“I don’t mind.” Mari tells him. “Now, what was it you guys were saying about time travel?”

It’s not that Leonard Snart is upset by the fact that he hadn’t died. He’d extremely happy about that, actually. He’s just a little confused, that’s all.

“Weren’t you unconscious one minute ago?” Leonard asks, squinting up at his partner, who looks entirely too happy to see him than the situation calls for. Also, Leonard’s a little motion sick. The new lady apparently channeling the power of a cheetah to run him to safety isn’t the strangest thing to happen to ever him, but it’s pretty weird.

“We’re time travelers, idiot. I’m from the future.” Mick says, pulling him to his feet. The new girl watches, her darkly shaded lips pulled into a smile.

“Oh, cool.” Leonard says. “Anything exciting happen while I was gone?”

“This is kind of gross.” Kendra says, using her shovel to poke the dirt of the grave she’s digging up.

“Looking good.” Leonard encourages, giving a thumbs up from where he’s seated on the grass.

“So glad you’re helping us out.” Mick glares halfheartedly at his partner.

Leonard, wearing a pair of sunglasses despite the fact that it’s night, shrugs. “I just had a near-death experience. I shouldn’t be putting any unnecessary strain on my delicate person.”

“Wow, you’re terrible.” Mari says. “Move over you guys, I’ve got this.”

She touches her necklace and several animal forms present themselves at once. Mari attacks the task with a new vigor, and the grave has been properly desecrated within a minute.

“Useful.” Mick approves. He opens the casket a crack, only to close it again a second later with a grossed-out look on his face. “Ew, yeah, she’s in there. Why couldn’t we go get her while she was still fresh?”

“Ew, phrase that better next time.” Kendra tells him.

“Yep.” Mick agrees.

“Because.” Leonard draws out the word longsufferingly. “Rip said if you went back to help out then you’d die. Then we’d have another problem on our hands. The resurrection process is just so much easier these days.”

“Sara’s girlfriend destroyed the pit.” Mick says, levering himself out of the grave and onto the cemetery grass.

“Mick.” Leonard says. “Time travel.”

The ghost of Laurel Lance pumps her fist, because finally, someone figured it out.

“Hey, John Constantine.” Mari says. “Come get on this spaceship to help us bring this girl back to life.”

John Constantine, only mildly upset to find strangers in a spaceship landing in the middle of his living room, shrugs. “Okay. Hang on, though, let me finish my lunch.”

He finishes up his cup-o-noodles and tosses it into the trashcan, pumping his fist as it makes it in. “Alright, I’m ready. Zed, you want to come?”

The girl who had been sitting on the counter, enjoying her own snack, jumps down. “Sure. Friends of yours, John?”

“I’ve met maybe two of them in my life.” Constantine says. “Let’s go.”

As they board, Constantine looks around the ship, nodding to himself. “I didn’t know spaceships were a thing. A bit weird, that.”

While they’re stopping by the League of Assassins’ hideout in 1958, the group makes a quick stop to pick up Chronos’ old ship and send the Jumpship back to the Waverider on autopilot. The AI, Gina, takes an instant liking to the newly resurrected Laurel Lance. Mick is concerned by this.

“Time travel is cool.” Laurel declares, before setting off for the kitchen and completely devouring just about everything in it. Apparently being dead for a while makes people very hungry, though hopefully not for brains.

“Thanks for your help.” Leonard tells Constantine, shaking his hand.

“No problem, mate.” Constantine tells him, the cigarette in his mouth bobbing as he talks. “Odd family, the Lances. Second one that’s been brought back to life.”

“Yeah.” Leonard says. “They’re weird.”

Zed, happily exploring the timeship with Mari, pokes her head in the room. “Hey, this place is cool. Mind if I stay?”

“The more the merrier.” Kendra grins at her. Laurel enters the room, spraying a can of space whipped cream directly into her mouth. “Wazz happenin?”

“What should we do now?” Kendra asks, as their new timeship hurtles through the timestream.

“I’ve got a suggestion, if you guys don’t mind.” Laurel says.

“Of course we don’t mind.” Zed says, patting her shoulder.

“You know, this is my ship?” Mick asks.

“Of course it is.” Mari assures. “Plot a course, would you?”

Tommy Merlyn dies in his best friend’s arms. He wakes up in the middle of an episode of Star Trek. A hologram spits out a medical display over his head.

“The afterlife is strange.” He says, looking at the grumpy-looking man staring down at him.

The man grunts. “Your guy’s awake.” He calls into the other room, and there’s running footsteps.

“Tommy?” Laurel flings herself at him, hugging tightly.

“Hi, Laurel.” Tommy says. “Are we dead?”

“Not anymore.” Laurel tells him. “Well, you were never actually dead, technically. As soon as Oliver left we swooped in and Gina restarted your heart, healed up everything else.”

“Gina?”

“The AI. We’re on a spaceship. Timeship, actually.” Laurel grins, like this is normal.

“Oh, okay.” Tommy says. “Why does that woman have wings?”

The woman in the corner shoots him a sheepish smile.

“She does that when she gets excited.” Laurel explains.

“That’s nice.” Tommy tells the woman for lack of anything better to say. Her smile becomes flattered.

“Also, I’m psychic.” Another woman says, standing in the doorway. “Just thought we should get that out there.”

“Oh.” Tommy says. “I think we’re going to have to start at the beginning.”

“So we’re just a bunch of dead people flying around in a spaceship?” Laurel asks.

“I’ve never died.” Zed says, smugly.

“Me neither.” Mari says, and the two high-five.

“Does presumed dead count?” Mick questions, sitting at the helm of the ship.

“Yes.” Laurel decides.

“I’ve died more times than all of you combined.” Kendra brags.

They hit a bump in the timestream, and Tommy almost falls out of his seat. “Congratulations?” He offers unsurely.

“We need a good name.” Leonard decides. “Like Ghost Ship or something.”

“That is literally the most uncreative thing I’ve ever heard.” Zed says, and Leonard pouts.

“The Charon.” Kendra says. “In mythology, he’s the one that carries souls of the dead into the afterlife.”

“I like it.” Mari says.

“Me, too.” Tommy agrees.

“Yeah, whatever.” Mick rolls his eyes.

“I liked Ghost Ship.” Leonard slumps in his seat, arms crossed.

“Hey, guys.” Zed says. “I got a vision of someone else we could snatch up, if you guys are interested. Not in like, a creepy stalker way, but like, a saving their life way.”

“Whatever.” Leonard says. “The more the merrier.”

Dante Ramon had been kidnapped by Captain Cold and Heatwave, once. It was a fairly traumatic experience, and he’d nearly had his hand frozen off, plus his brother had nearly died. So you can excuse him if his response to being pulled from a car wreck by none other than Heatwave himself is less than positive. He screams. A lot.

“Wow, maybe you should get my job.” A woman says, impressed, and peers down at him. Dante recognizes her; she’s Black Canary, a superhero.

“As much as I wanna see this car explode, I don’t really want to be right next to it.” Heatwave says. “Let’s grab the dork and split.”

As soon as they’re a reasonable distance from the wreck of Dante’s car, it explodes. Spectacularly. Heatwave laughs.

“What is happening?” Dante asks, a little hysterical.

Tommy Merlyn, who Dante recognizes on account of he’d been hired to play the piano for the man’s funeral, smiles reassuringly at Dante. “Hey, you’re dead. Welcome to the Charon!”

“Who should we snatch from the jaws of death next?” Leonard questions, sprawled across at least three of the Charon’s seats in a physics-defying manner.

“I dunno.” Mick says. “Any suggestions?”

“I’m sure there’s someone.” Kendra says. “The lives of superheroes are very depressing.”

“True.” Zed agrees, giving her a fistbump. “In the meantime, you guys want to go do some stuff that’ll mess with archeologists?”

“Of course.” Laurel says. “Mick, plot a flightpath.”

“Now, this is a plan I can get behind.” Mick grins, sharing the look with his previously dead partner.

They blast off into time, a bunch of dead people and two living ones in a pranking mood. (Although they don’t know it, their group will be singlehandedly responsible for Nate Heywood’s nervous breakdown)

It’s a good time for all.

#legends of tomorrow #mick rory #leonard snart #laurel lance #kendra saunders #mari mccabe #tommy merlyn #dante ramon #zed martin #fic #fanfic #my writing

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