Hacker Cinema
Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)
2020 · Film · 109 min
Directed by Cathy Yan
Harley Quinn joins forces with a singer, an assassin and a police detective to help a young girl who had a hit placed on her after she stole a rare diamond from a crime lord.
3 neutralfrom 3 commenters
Where to watch
No streaming data for this title.
3 comments on Hacker News
> It wasn't a genderbent Wolverine or Iron Man
But Huntress (Helena Bertinelli) was a genderbent Batman. Supergirl is gender-bent Superman.
In fact, every male superhero has a female counterpart. Captain Marvel / Shazam has Mary Marvel. Superman has Supergirl. Batman has Batgirl, actually 3 different batgirls.
---------
The only question for "longtime DC Fans" for Batgirl is: are they doing Cassandra Cain or are they doing Barbara Gordon? There's like 3+ long-running batgirl stories that go back decades.
Besides, both Cassandra Cain and Barbara Gordon are both unique characters who take up the "Batgirl" costume to the disdain of Batman. Its not like the "obvious" genderswap version (Huntress / Helena Bertinelli) who was kind of "obviously" written to be a female-version of Batman.
Cassandra Cain is League of Assassins originally. She never learned proper language / speaking skills and is overcoming illiteracy. She's unsocialized, extremely awkward, etc. etc.
Barbara Gordon is Commissioner Gordon's daughter, and is often a bit campier as a result. (The Police Chief certainly doesn't want his daughter in danger, but she goes out and helps Batman anyway). She's more of a fangirl of Batman and arguably connects with female fans in a more natural way.
Neither Cassandra Cain nor Barbara Gordon are rich, nor powerful, nor CEOs. Cassandra Cain was "League of Assassin" trained before Batman was (it was an interesting twist to have them train him in the 2000s era films, but that's really Cassandra / Damian's story)
---------
The first "Batgirl" was in the 1960s, and "Barbara Gordon" version of Batgirl was all over the original 1960s campy "Batman" live action TV show.
There's literally 60+ years of Batgirl history here. Its suddenly weird to complain of wokeism when the character has such a long history in comics and TV.
-----------
The only criticism I have, is that they didn't do Batgirl sooner. After all, there was the "Birds of Prey" movie, and Batgirl should have "graduated" into Oracle (her full-time superhero gig) for the Birds of Prey to get together. Batgirl is kind of the "awkward fangirl" thing she does as a kid. In my groups where I talk about comic books, everyone was wondering where the hell Oracle was in the Birds of Prey movie.
> Then there's "it's all remakes now"—but 1) it's not,
It really is, if by "remake" you mean all ways of leveraging existing IP. Here are the top ten box office films of 2020:
* Bad Boys for Life (sequel) * Sonic the Hedgehog (videogame) * Birds of Prey (comic book) * Dolittle (book) * The Invisible Man (book) * The Call of the Wild (book) * Onward (original) * The Croods: A New Age (sequel) * Tenet (original) * Wonder Woman 1984 (sequal, comic book)
Two originals. Now go back 20 years:
* Mission: Impossible 2 (sequel) * Gladiator (book) * Cast Away (original) * What Women Want (original) * Dinosaur (original) * How the Grinch Stole Christmas (book) * Meet the Parents (remake) * The Perfect Storm (book) * X-Men (comic book) * What Lies Beneath (original)
Four originals. Go back another 10 years:
* Ghost (original) * Home Alone (original) * Pretty Woman (original) * Dances with Wolves (book) * Total Recall (short story) * Back to the Future Part III (sequel) * Die Hard 2 (sequel) * Presumed Innocent (book) * Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (comic book) * Kindergarten Cop (original)
Five originals. Another ten years to 1980:
* The Empire Strikes Back (sequel) * 9 to 5 (original) * Stir Crazy (original) * Airplane! (original) * Any Which Way You Can (sequel) * Private Benjamin (original) * Coal Miner's Daughter (original) * Smokey and the Bandit II (sequel) * The Blue Lagoon (book) * The Blues Brothers (SNL sketch)
Five originals again. I'm going by top box-office gross here because I think that's a good proxy for what is successful. You can look at other years, but there is a very clear (but not overwhelming) trend towards movies based on familiar content. It's not clear whether studios are leading audiences or vice versa. Probably some iterative process of both.
There's also a clear trend away from dramas. I think that's because drama (and non-slapstick comedies) tend to rely heavily on specific cultural norms for their effect which makes them translate poorly. There is a very clear trend especially in the last decade or so of Hollywood focusing on movies that will also do well in China in particular.
I have frequent musical interludes in my own life, so I don't really see this as a problem. Music is important to a lot of people, particularly at difficult times in their lives, so I often find I can empathise with these moments.
I watched Birds of Prey a few days after seeing the finale opera house scene at the end of Season 1 of Umbrella, and I'm a big fan or Heart but both used Barracuda and I'm sure I came across it somewhere else recently as well. Oh well, great song.