Movies - June 20

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Moreover, it is beginning to bleed into the media too.

Look at the movies, to be more precise. They are just going down. The Jurassic franchise? Surviving on games, which is separate, (in a manner of speaking, ok), from the films or the streaming series. The Planet of the Apes franchise? Also down to the ground. The upcoming Supergirl movie? It is the usual ‘cynical anti-hero find their wings and inner goodness to become the hero they were meant to be’. Given that ‘My Adventures with Superman’ cartoon has done this to Kara in S2 much more powerfully, there is no surprise that people are not too enthusiastic about the upcoming Supergirl movie. Not that DC had many options left – the CW Arrowverse Supergirl really rode the perky good-hearted superheroine aspect of this character to the hilt, making Supergirl look good too, so now the DC movies are trying to do something else with the character.

The Flashpoint Paradox live-action movie had a dark-haired Supergirl instead of Superman, which was not a bad idea, overall, but someone in the creative team behind the DC live-action movies decided that that idea was contaminated by Ezra Miller’s toxicity, so back to the blonde hair it is. Now Supergirl curses, swears, drinks, and the like, but never fear! Once push comes to shove, Supergirl will do what is right. …Whether the audience will appreciate it is another question. Next?

Well, this brings us to my main point of my rant: ‘Steps’. Pause. Here I mean not the stairs, (that is for Po Ping the Panda), but rather the upcoming Netflix movie. In this version of the Cinderella’s story, one of Cinderella’s stepsisters, (her name is Lilith), gets the fairy godmother’s wand, makes a hash of things, and has a tyrant named Priscilla take over the kingdom, so now she and Cinderella have to team-up to save it all. Pause.

Does this sound familiar? It kind of does. No, not the Lilith bit – thanks to the team Vivziepop the name of Adam’s first wife (in some religious traditions) is well known now. I am talking about the movie’s plot – it is heavily influenced by Disney’s movie ‘Cinderella 3: the Twist in Time’. There, Cinderella’s stepfamily stole fairy godmother’s wand and almost took over the kingdom, but never fear – one of Cinderella’s stepsisters, (Anastasia), reconsidered and helped Cinderella save the day. The delivery of ‘Cinderella 3’ and ‘Steps’ is different, but the latter was clearly influenced by the former. That said, while Disney’s movies often have plot twists, the plot of ‘Steps’ does not – not apparently. Rather, from the little we have, we will have Lilith help Cinderella defeat Priscilla and become a better person. The plot of ‘Kung Fu Panda 4’ did this sort of thing already. Still better than Disney. Pause.

Let me try again. Where is Disney in all of this? Making ‘The Stepsisters’, something new and edgy about Cinderella’s stepsisters, Anastasia and Drizella. It is supposed to be done a la ‘Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers’ reboot too. That particular reboot with Disney’s attempt to do something a la ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’ film. The original movie itself… is based on a book that has little to do with the film, and has its own fans and audience, not much more. The ‘Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers’ film – ditto; it made money, so Disney is keeping the crew busy with ‘The Stepsisters’ while it decides what to do next, and it can take a while.

Listen. Disney loves to make money. It hates losing money, and being involved in controversies and the like – even more. It wants to appeal to the sexual minorities, which is does by featuring them in various MCU properties, done in such a manner that they can be ‘cut out’ of the main MCU narrative and the latter doesn’t suffer; sexual minorities are the outlier, and the main heterosexual narrative is the main narrative.

Is Disney’s own universe, sometimes that cannot be done, as it was with ‘Raya and the last dragon’: there the same-sex relationship was plain to see. Therefore, Disney just ended that universe, the movie is a one-time, and it will remain a one-time, though Raya herself will appear in various other properties as a Disney princess. No girlfriend or anyone, though.

Conversely, there is the ‘Frozen’ franchise. The first film was quite traditional by Disney princess standards, with Hans being a traditional villain, albeit one with an open ending – he did not die, for one thing. However, ‘Frozen 2’ completely discard that story, having Elsa and her family go north, where they met Honeymaren Elsa’s not-girlfriend – right now Elsa is officially single, and as some person told us, she’ll remain single until she decides how she swings. I.e., Disney realized that they hit on something good with a blue-eyed blonde queen/princess/whoever and they do not want to ruin it by controversy. So they did not, Elsa remained conveniently single in ‘Frozen 2’, and now that the third and fourth movies of the ‘Frozen’ franchise are coming in the next few years, we will get to see what Disney does to poor Elsa next. Anything else?

Eh, ‘Cinderella 3’ made a bit of a mess itself, as it cancelled out the events in ‘Cinderella 2’. Maybe ‘The Stepsisters’ will fix it, or they may not. Netflix’s ‘Steps’ might be a fun fresh (relatively) take on the ‘Cinderella’ story, or it might just be an insipid and pointless generic piece of junk about a redemption of not quite a villain. We will just have to wait and see. Real life sucks, remember?

This is it for now. See you all soon!

Endlings 'akikiki bird - June 10

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about this week’s ‘Endlings’ episode – the ‘akikiki bird? Pause.

By now it is evident even to the BB cast and crew that ‘Endlings’ came to a dead end – there’re only so many variations of the story that you can have when it comes to endlings – to extinctions. In the story of ‘akikiki, the extinction occurred in the wild – in captivity, this bird is still managed and raised and controlled by the people; how will those birds act when they are released in the wild isn’t talked about.

Right, the eventual return of the ‘akikiki. The reason why it is extinct in the wild is the introduction of the avian malaria, made worse by the climate change. Right now, the mosquitoes are being managed – people are trying to swamp the Hawaii mosquito population with genetically incompatible males so that the mosquitos would lay infertile eggs and die out. Pause.

Let me try again. The ‘akikiki birds are being raised in captivity – it costs money and the people who are raising the ‘akikiki birds are getting paid. To breed incompatible mosquitoes, you need money, and so the breeders are being paid. Somehow, the ‘akikiki birds became cash cows, and even the people at BB/’Endlings’ sense this, and are uncomfortable by this, and so they spent talking, (for only 10 minutes), how hard it was to acquire the ‘akikiki eggs, and how hard it is to raise them in captivity, and so on. They are right, but it does not deny the fact that the ‘akikiki birds and all that’s related to them became a money-making process, and people are good at keeping money-making processes going, you know?

The BB/’Endlings’ people know this too, and so they wrapped-up the ‘akikiki bird story quite fast – maybe one day it’ll return to the wild, and maybe it won’t – the climate change situation is still unresolved. Real life sucks, you know?

This is it for now. See you all soon.

New story - June 6

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, hence why I've been so quiet lately. Ah well, for a change, here's a new story of mine.

It was morning, the sky was clearing up, but the wind was blowing hard and strong and cold, even for early summer. John watched the mourning doves at his birdfeeder with a familiar, simmering irritation – why did he invest into this contraption anyhow? He did not want to remember right now, as the doves cooed and pecked at the scattered birdseed with an almost offensive leisure, their plump bodies almost an affront to his own taut nerves as they stored birdseed in their crops.

As a particularly corpulent bird hopped closer to the window, John turned away. Bloated, self-satisfied creatures, he thought, projecting all his irrational irritation onto their feathery forms. Where’s a hawk when you needed one? He got onto his feet and walked outside. Maybe elsewhere something better was going on?

 

 “Honestly, Rebecca, those tattoos are just… a lot,” Donna said, her voice dripping with an elegant disapproval that always grated. Rebecca, her arm a canvas of vibrant, swirling blues and greens, merely arched an eyebrow. Donna, emboldened, continued, “I mean, there’s subtle art, and then there’s… that.” She gestured vaguely at Rebecca’s forearm. Rebecca just smiled a slow, knowing curve of her lips. Then, with a theatrical flourish, Rebecca pushed up the sleeve of Donna’s own silk blouse. Beneath, a magnificent, intricate serpent-dragon, its scales shimmering with metallic thread, snaked from her shoulder to her wrist, each detail a testament to hours of meticulous, painful artistry, was connected to other tattoos, still hidden beneath Donna’s blouse. Rebecca’s earlier ink looked like a child’s crayon drawing next to Donna’s masterpiece. Donna’s face, usually so composed, went slack with panic. “Where, where did they come from?” she twitched as she turned to Rebecca, because the latter was the closest. “Rebecca, this isn’t me, this isn’t me, and you know it!” Rebecca, who carefully covered her own arm with her own sleeve, said nothing. To be honest, she felt rather jealous of the older woman’s tattoos, now that she saw them.

Across the room, Anna, a friend of Donna’ began her own verbal assault, thinly disguised as a concerned speech. The bohemian lifestyle of Jenna, (Donna’s daughter), her endless backpacking trips, her "spiritual journeys" – it was all just so pointless, according to Anna. Jenna was not a child or even a teen anymore; she had to settle down; whether here, in her hometown, or elsewhere was another story. Clearly, Jenna seemed happier abroad, so perhaps it was time to move on and stop giving her mother more grey hairs?

However, as she began to speak, Jenna carefully inserted herself into the rant, recounting a story of how Anna helped people in the past, and what a shame that people started to ignore Anna now that the latter has aged a bit and no longer looked as flamboyant as before. Looking into Jenna’s eyes shining with a genuine compassion, Anna’s planned words crumbled. Jenna’s empathy was a force, a warmth that Anna, with her cold judgments, was missing lately. Anna found herself not criticizing, but asking questions, truly listening for the first time, as the two women sat down and talked. They had their differences, mental and physical, yes, but there were similarities too – both women shared a lean body plan of those who exercise a lot and do plenty of physical activities, and their faces showed the same tan – of those who spent a lot of time outdoors; honestly, Anna looked quite good for her age, as Jenna pointed out…

Anna ended up hiring Jenna as her receptionist, and never regretted it. Donna never really realized it – her own friendship with Anna rather faded, but her own hairdo now sparkled to match her tattoos.

It helped, in a small way, with her identity crisis.

 

The heat was a living thing in the Balkan Mountains, baking the dry earth to a cracking crisp. An extra-large and powerful Vipera ammodytes, its horn-like snout twitching, slithered across a sun-baked rock, its patterns a perfect camouflage against the speckled stone. Down, down, towards the shade of a fig tree, it moved its intentions purely predatory, and its existence utterly indifferent to human concerns. There, a couple of little owls made their nest in a tree hollow – it was dark and comfortable, but also too close to the ground. The owlets and their parents did not realize this, but the world did not care.

A trio of owlets were in the hollow, warming each other, waiting for their parents to come with their regularly scheduled meal. The noise outside could have told them that that would never happen, but the owlets were too little, and too sleepy to realize this.

…Few hours later, when their calls for food became truly desperate – they were that young anyhow – a couple of park rangers found them and got them out of the hollow into an appropriate holding container. They were given a small mouse each, and immediately relaxed and huddled together, as they did not know much about the world.

The snake was long gone, digesting its own meal in peace.

 

Miles away, off the coast of Turkey, a sleek, grey shadow cut through the turquoise water. A shortfin mako shark, a ghost of the deep, patrolled the ancient currents, its primeval instincts honed over millions of years. A tourist boat, oblivious, chugged towards a picturesque cove, its passengers laughing, their world a million miles from the silent, powerful hunter beneath the waves.

The mako’s nose twitched as some of the tourists made all the right, or wrong, splashes and other noises to attract it. Slowly, circling, it began to surface. Another mako, a younger one, zoomed by, almost hitting the first shark, who began to chase it. Things could have gone in any direction, when a bait ball of sardines or similar fish appeared from the blue. The sharks stopped their confrontation and began to hunt instead, keeping a distance between themselves, but getting along well enough, even though one of them was visibly bigger and older than the other one…

 

John found himself sitting on his couch in the living room, an unfinished bottle of beer in his hand and a bunch of forgotten and faded memories and dreams in his head. He vaguely remembered Jenna, now handling a mid-life crisis by shedding her metaphorical skin, as well as Anna and Donna, who found their home in each other; he remembered the Balkans and the Turkish coast, but could not make heads or tails of those memories.

He looked outside. The doves were gone, the birdfeeder was mostly empty. He will try different birdfeed next time.

 End - and what do you think? Please let me know, because real life sucks.

'The Tapestry of Fate' - May 20

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. So, I look at ‘The Tapestry of Fate’ by Ms. Chakraborty, and what do I think?

…A complete re-making of the franchise, that is what. In the series debut (2023), ‘The Adventures of Amina…’ the novel was extremely influenced by Disney’s PotC franchise. (Remember it? Mr. Depp was acquitted, aye, but so far, he kept a low profile regardless). It was not a bad novel, but the Daevabad series was better.

Now we came to ‘The Tapestry of Fate’, and the entire premise we were given in ‘The Adventures’ gets not-so-subtle dismissed. For example, Captain Amina’s first mate, Timbu, was in the same-sex relationship with a man named Joseph, who was also of the Judaic faith – and now that plotline is not mentioned at all, and Timbu himself has a much-reduced role – for the bulk of ‘The Tapestry’ he is not there, not really. Many other characters, introduced in ‘The Adventures…’ became sidelined or removed or barely mentioned in ‘The Tapestry’, leaving the spotlight not just on the novel’s villain, queen Lab, (no, that’s not a typo, that’s her moniker; at least Ms. Chakraborty and her team didn’t name her queen Lab O’Ratory, as that would be just silly), but also on Amina, Dalila, and Raksh.

…Raksh (I’m quite sure it’s an abbreviation of ‘Rakshasa’) was decidedly an enemy of captain Amina and her crew in ‘The Adventures’; now, in ‘The Tapestry’, he’s part of the team instead. Pause.

Listen, I can list the differences as how the novels in captain Amina line treat the characters, the plot, everything else, but what for? Let us just assume that Ms. Chakraborty hired a ghostwriter, or re-hired an old ghostwriter, or hired a new one, and move on. To where?

That is a good question. What else is out there? The ‘Twisted Disney’ series, where various respected authors are paid to create book-length fanfics about various Disney characters? If you like Disney, you will probably enjoy the different adventures of Jasmine, Mulan, Lilo and Stitch, etc., and buy those books; if you do not, you probably will not.

Ms. Patricia Briggs keeps on releasing the novels about Mercy, but not all. This brings us back to the topic of ghostwriters – on her own, Ms. Briggs’ novels are an endless parade of Mary Sue – one is called Mercy, and the other is called Anna or Ann, depending on which of the Marrok’s two sons a novel focuses. Ms. Briggs did not have something to name her Mary Sue three distinct names – one can be called Mercy, another Anna (or Ann), and the third – Betty or Cherry, off the top of my head – but no. Clearly, if Ms. Briggs’ Mary Sue is not named Mercy, her name has to start with the letter ‘A’, or else it just does not work.  

…Like all Mary Sue novels, the female characters who are not the main lead are villains, who are treated much harsher than the male characters, or else are bitchy and redundant. Fair enough. Ms. Briggs owns a ranch, she can release as much fiction as she can afford. Huzzah. What next?

MCU itself does not know what to do with ‘Punisher: One Last Kill’. BB has released their second S2 ‘Endlings’ episode – this one on the giant Galapagos tortoise. Again, they dutifully took the Wikipedia article – or just asked one A.I. or another – read the results, and, well, read the results to us via YouTube.

Aye, it is somewhat curious to think how people moaned the fate of Lonesome George, when just a few miles in one direction or another his cousins flourished, and, in this case, extinction didn’t get to be forever, and it is interesting to learn just how easily giant Galapagos tortoises crossbreed/hybridize with each other, and how tricky is conserving those species/subspecies, but-

Pause. I enjoyed watching this episode. It was straightforward, simple, and fun to follow. Whether or not it was original, is another question, but after reading Ms. Chakraborty (seriously, the woman does not even look the part – are we talking cultural appropriation here, or has it been relegated back to empty noise?), I do not really care. BB

Endlings S2 premiere - May 14

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, but I am just beginning to master it. Maybe. Where were we?

Well, let us see. DDS2 is done and gone. The ‘Punisher: One Last Kill’ – ditto, and both left me feel… just as the new, second season of ‘Endlings’ left me feel – uninvolved. Pause.

Here is the thing. The A.I. is getting everywhere, short of YouTube and TV, and it is beginning to be felt. It is just a tool that ought to be mastered, and so it is – it is being mastered, but that means that, yes, the old crafts of painting, writing, etc., are being pushed out, but also the tense is important. The A.I. has not been mastered yet, so there are many crappy works out yet, or at least – soulless ones. DDS2, ‘One Last Kill’, and ‘Endlings’ S2 (so far), all feel like they were made with the use of A.I., perhaps masterfully, perhaps not, but also – soullessly. They hit all the right notes, but there is no music.

Of course, on the other hand, there is the individualism and the digitalism of the modern world. The first means that there is a market/audience for everyone, but it is a relatively small and select one – you need to know which notes to hit. It is a hit and miss game, and not everyone is winning.

The second means that it is easy to find what you are looking for online in general, and you can order it online too, rather than buy in a bookstore or wherever. The bookstores that I know in Toronto sell office supplies, tableware, and similar paraphernalia and not just books and magazines & newspapers anymore. They are trying to survive – just not as bookstores. Fair enough.

A special call out to the various RPGs – they are going especially digital especially fast, and the physical aspect of their franchises, such as books (rulebooks, modules, etc.) are fading. Well, they are a specialist luxury market, so is anyone surprised here? Given that the world economy itself is going through some tough times? I am not.

Where does this land the ‘Endlings’, S2? The S2 premiered with an episode about Japan’s wolves – they were specific subspecies the grey wolf species that lived only in Japan, and now one subspecies is gone for good, and the other… may or may not be surviving, in fact – people aren’t sure, and they may not be looking on purpose – some things are best left alone for everyone’s sake…

My point here, meanwhile, is that Ms. Suta and her cohorts just might have downloaded the wolf articles from Wikipedia, fed them to ChatGPT, and Ms. Suta just narrated the resulted, uh, result, in her trademark tone of voice. There were hardly even any theatrics that ‘Bizarre Beasts’ (BB) are famous for – this time, apparently, team BB had a contract to executive, an obligation to fulfill, a job to be paid for, and they are beginning to do it – the ‘wolf’ episode is just the premiere of S2. S1 of ‘Endlings’ had variety in it, as team BB authentically explored the themes of extinction, de-extinction, and conservation… with limited success, but they still did it… probably without the use of A.I. Now… I am not so sure; where BB will go with ‘Endlings’ S2 from here is an open question (besides the obvious). Since this is real life, however, it just might suck…

This is it for now – see you all soon!

About Nolan's 'Odyssey' - May 7

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so what does Mr. Nolan do? Plans to make an ‘Odyssey’ that will make RL even more so.

What is the biggest beef of people with the ‘Odyssey-2026’ (upcoming?). The American accents of the characters/cast and the contemporary language. Mr. Nolan openly refers such pieces of modern movie history as MCU and DCEU, (the latter is somewhat defunct now) as his role models. Pause.

MCU, in particular, tried to ground itself in realism, especially the first three phases, but it was ‘realism’, not ‘reality’- Pause. Stop.

Let us look at the trailer again. What do we see? For example, Antinous, treating Telemachus how Jaime Lannister could be treating Jon Snow (in the opening episodes of GoT). The problem here is not in Antinous treating Telemachus badly, but that it was already done in this style, Mr. Nolan is not creating something original, but borrowing someone else’s ideas.

Look at Mr. Nolan’s ‘Odyssey’-related interview. He is referring to Ms. Emily Wilson’s version of the ‘Odyssey’ as his source material. Stop.

Ms. Haynes – remember her – claimed to re-tell some original myths from a supposedly more woman-friendly approaches, but she did it in a manner that was inoffensive and intellectual. Yes, in her novels, (non-fiction is somewhat different) women are good (with exceptions), and men are bad (with exceptions), but those exceptions undercut her entire narrative on one hand, and on the other by offending no one, she is winning no one’s approval either. People, especially literary critics, are singing her praises, but pretty words butter no parsnips and all.

…Ms. Wilson’s re-telling/translation of the ‘Odyssey’ feels a lot like a sister project to Ms. Haynes’ novels – it allegedly might be more gender-equal, woman-friendly, but in reality, it is just another re-telling/translation of the ‘Odyssey’, as a translation/re-telling isn’t the same as writing an original work; Hollywood might be struggling with original works, but so does literature, it seems.

Moreover, just because Mr. Nolan is reading Ms. Wilson’s version of the ‘Odyssey’ does not mean that he will adapt it directly – since his characters are already talking like an average American does – he will not. In translations of the ‘Odyssey’, the characters – and the narrator – do not talk as modern people do; that is the epic’s charm. Well, a part of it anyhow. In Mr. Nolan’s film this will not happen – people are talking in modern American English, referring to the modern American culture (i.e. GoT), to begin with. Huzzah.

Pause. Aside from the language, my main problem are the Lestrygonians – what did they do to them? Listen, if for Homer the Phaeacians were the elves, the Seelie court, then the Lestrygonians were their opposite, the orcs/the Unseelie – and Mr. Nolan is ignoring it; his take on the ‘Odyssey’ already feels ‘inoffensive’ – just like Ms. Haynes’ novels, just like Mr. Serkis’s ‘Animal Farm’, (you didn’t think that I’ll forget it this soon?), despite his words and his allegedly politically progressive opinions, he isn’t trying to convert/convince anyone to join the party; he just wants to make a buck.

No, seriously, the books, the TV series, the movies, the mass media of the centuries past tended to be opinionated if not controversial; each work of fiction, (or non-fiction) tended to push/promote the views of the author (and their cohorts, sometimes), and now this isn’t happening. In the past, mass media often stirred the pot on purpose, and now it does not. Instead, it stirs the pot unintentionally – just look at the Lestrygonians. Just who was the idiotic genius who came up with the medieval knight/Robocop™ idea here?

Alternatively, look at Mr. Nolan’s Scylla. It is supposedly a cephalopod-crustacean creature, according to him. Right, well, the crustaceans – crabs, lobsters, crayfish, and woodlice – are arthropods; they are related to spiders, scorpions, and insects. The cephalopods, on the other hand – octopi, squids, and cuttlefish – are mollusks; their relatives are snails and oysters, (broadly speaking). ‘A cephalopod-crustacean’ creature is just as unreal and mythical as the centaur or a harpy is. (Not the harpy eagle, ok?). Mr. Nolan is trying to be original. He is failing.

What else? No, this is pretty much it. Just as Ms. Haynes, Mr. Nolan is trying to be inoffensive, just as Mr. Serkis tried with the ‘Animal Farm’. The latter was a tire fire that everyone is ignoring, unlike ‘Prada-2’, because ‘Prada-2’ is actually well made from a technical angle; so are Ms. Haynes’ novels. Only, because ‘Prada-2’ is also much more visible than Ms. Haynes’ novels are, it is being discussed more than the latter…

In addition, consequently, will be Mr. Nolan’s ‘Odyssey’ – already people are divided about it, and that is just the trailers. Of course, there is also the final trailer for the latest ‘Minions’ movie, and for the love of Zeus, why would anyone release this abomination on the screen? By now, it is the minions vs. the monsters based on Howard Lovecraft’s works, and this is just wrong. When the Western cinematograph tries to come up with something original, this is the best they can come up with? Maybe they should adapt Ms. Haynes’ novels instead – they’re just bland, the ‘Minions’ are worse… That is real life, however. It sucks.

Well, this is it for now. See you all soon.

TDWP-2 and Mr. Serkis's AF - May 5

 

  On May 1, 2026, two very different films hit the movie screens in West and elsewhere: ‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’, on the one hand, and a new adaptation of George Orwell's ‘Animal Farm’, on the other. Pause.

   What do they have in common, it would seem? Nothing, at a first glance. One film was shot live, with live actors, while the other was animated; one is almost entirely original and independent, while the other is not; one is celebrated and actively promoted, while the other is being quickly and quietly forgotten; one is about the modern Western elite, while the other...

   Let us start with this. It has been forgotten for a while now, but the first "Prada" (2006) was based on a book of the same name, just as the ‘Animal Farm’ movies are. This, as I wrote earlier, is already the third adaptation to date – the first came out in the 1950s, the second in the 90s, and this one (set in 2026) is the third, and the least successful (for now). Why?

   Because ‘Animal Farm’ was entirely political— Orwell, I swear, was a Trotskyist, he had a decidedly negative attitude toward Stalin and Stalinism, as well as toward English capitalism, and so ‘Animal Farm’ ends with a fraternization between Stalinists and capitalists. History showed that Orwell was not entirely right, but he was not entirely wrong either—but the important thing for us is that Mr. Serkis, who brought ‘Animal Farm’ to the screen this time, does not have that plot line at all. His version of ‘Animal Farm’ is completely apolitical, and as a result, it failed. ‘Animal Farm’ without politics—especially international politics—is of no particular use to anyone.

   Let us turn to ‘Prada’. Where is the politics there? That is right – nowhere.

   What were the book and the first film about? Contrary to popular belief, the "devil" in the title is not Miranda; her last name, Priestley, suggests she's "only" a priestess of the devil. The devil there is the entire fashion world: rich, glittering, energetic, dynamic... empty. Miranda, Emily, and Nigel spend their entire lives "running" to stay current, afloat; there's no time left for family, personal relationships, or simple human happiness, and that's why Andy/Andrea departs from Miranda quite rudely (by the standards of the English language and manners anyhow) at the end of the book and leaves the fashion world. Already in the first film, all of this was toned down and reduced to the relationship between Miranda and Andy (Emily and Nigel are a bit different), and now it is completely gone.

   What is there instead?

   Let us look. On the one hand, we have Andy, an accomplished journalist who... was cut (like her entire department), and needs to reinvent herself. On the other hand, we have Miranda, who has finally realized she has to be accountable for her words and who is in trouble, from which Andy and... Emily will help her out, only it turns out the latter has only a Very Cunning Plan, according to which the ‘Runway’ magazine will end up in her hands, and Miranda will be screwed. However, with Andy's help, Miranda turns the tables and remains the head of ‘the Runway’; only the owner changes...

   On the one hand, it all reminds me of the Westeros from Martin's books—there, all those lords, knights, and other aristocrats actually fighting, warring, and scheming with each other, while the "third estate"—mostly peasants—is just somewhere in the background, of no use to anyone...

 Except that the aristocrats become less and less necessary as time goes on—in the books, everything was heading toward Jon and Dany taking the throne—but the ending of IT turned out pretty badly, it messed everything up, and now the books of this aspect of the franchise have gone quiet as well. Pause.

   Nevertheless, in "Prada 2," too, everything that happens is a game played by the elite, the patricians; the world of "Prada 2" is rather limited—it is all about fashion, from America to Italy, and so on. None of the "outsiders" care about these games played by Miranda, Andy, and Emily; Andy, having dealt with Miranda and "the Runway," is ready to be friends with Emily—and why not? Who knows what the future holds, and Andy no longer has her old friends (from the first film)...

   In addition, there is no politics either, just as there is not in ‘Animal Farm-2026’—it is just that ‘Prada 2’ is made several orders of magnitude better than Mr. Serkis's ‘Animal Farm’, and that is why people like it—many people want to see beautiful actresses and actors dressed in expensive clothes... and preoccupied only with themselves. Pause.

   So, I don't really want to talk about politics, especially old politics—more than a hundred years have passed since the 1917 revolution described in 'Animal Farm'—but! Vladimir Ilyich having enlightened the Russian-Soviet proletariat, turned it Red, and with their help, his team defeated the Whites, who were patrician elitists from a political point of view; and for quite a long time, the USSR had something like a "dictatorship from below," when everything (at least in words) was for the workers, peasants, and so on. Then everything became "ruined." Read that same Orwell—he blamed everything on Joseph Stalin; how right he is, I do not know...

   Leo Trotsky, on the other hand, was for permanent revolution, meaning an ongoing global (without quotation marks) war, similar to what is already happening around the world: in Europe – Putin’s Special Military Operation, in the Middle East – Iran vs. the USA, further east – India and Pakistan, and so on. Perhaps a shadow world government does exist... and it has composed of Trotskyists? That would be an interesting scenario for a film... and it will not happen, because by now the concepts of "politics" and "culture," especially for the masses, have become somewhat divided.

   ... The last Sovereign Emperors of the Romanov dynasty, and their European relatives—aka their uncles, aunts, cousins, etc.—also tried to keep the "cook's children," etc., out of politics. The outcome is well known. Read Orwell... and do not be like Mr. Serkis, who released a useless monster onto the silver screen. ‘Animal Farm-2026’ and ‘Prada-2’ are not twins, not twins at all, but they are siblings in their apoliticality, and that is sad.

   No matter how much you remove the people from politics, a new leader will still appear who will enlighten them, and then you will be hit on the head with the "Runway".

   After all, the Trotskyists run the world behind the scenes, it seems.

   End