Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. You may try to
alleviate some of this suckage by trying to do something new…but the U.S.
government does something entirely different as judging by the Middle Eastern
mess. It just is not good, and it makes the situation back in D.C. worse. Is
the Donald getting impeached or not? For a while, there were even rumors of
Mike Pence being the next Republican president, but this is it. Now there’s the
Middle Eastern situation with the Kurds, there’s the story of a police officer
shooting an Afro-American woman in her home in Texas, there are rumors of an
Epstein-Trump connection, but nothing concrete about the impeachment.
The most likely possibility is that it had died down again.
As the recent events showed, the Democrats are not that cohesive themselves as
a political unit – the ‘old guard’ and AOC and her ‘new squad’ are not getting
along, and there may be other factions inside that party as well. That said,
none of them are all that enthused about Mike Pence’s presidency, so that might
be an extra motivation for the Democrats to back down from the impeachment push
and return to the previous plan: tone down the internal aggression to define
and decide as to who’ll be the next presidential candidate for the next
election. With the Democrats backing down, so will the Republicans – they don’t
care much for the Donald either, but gives them the main advantage against the
Democrats for the moment, and so they’re keeping him, if they can and if he
continues to provide them the advantage. Otherwise, they will give him the boot
themselves, the end. The only end that is left loose are the U.S.’ Mid-East
politics, which are left in disarray while the big chiefs back in D.C. resolve
conflicts of their own making and pat themselves on the back for doing this,
but that is neither here nor there. What is next?
Let us talk about movies instead. ‘Gemini Man’ was
expectedly bad unless you are a diehard Will Smith fan; the ‘Addams Family 2019’
was surprisingly good, though the live action ‘Addams Family’ 1991 movie is
still the best, in my opinion. That said, the animated 2019 film has clearly
been influenced by the live action movie series, (I think it was a trilogy),
and did its’ best to capture the Addams family magics, (metaphorically
speaking), and it succeeded so yay! Anything else?
There is going to be a ‘Spider-Man meets Venom’ movie after
all, so far, there are no discussions of the ‘Addams Family 2019’ film online,
(oddly enough), and then there is the ‘Doolittle 2020’ movie trailer. In
regards to the latter, what the Hell? It is a hot mess that is almost as bad as
the trailer for S1 ‘Insatiable’ Netflix series had been; supposedly, the movie
is about the titular character going on a journey to save queen Victoria, (yes,
we’re talking about a character based directly on the real-life monarch here) from
some mysterious illness after his wife died some time later. An assembly of
sidekicks, both human and animal, are assisting him…but the trailer does a bad
job of explaining this, all it is so far is a mess of movie action shots that
just do not tell a coherent story, nor do they introduce any characters aside
from the titular character who is played by Robert Downey Jr., also known as
the Iron Stark – sorry, the Iron Man – who gets to ride a CGI ostrich in this
movie instead. At least I hope that the ostrich is CGI, because while you can
ride a real ostrich in modern times, you will probably be sued by ASPCA or some
similar agency afterwards, and I doubt that Disney wants that.
…Disney doesn’t appear to be openly involved with the ‘Doolittle
2020’ movie? Not surprising, because already the movie is off to a bad start,
involving massive reshoots and changing dates to avoid conflict with the
Disney/SW ‘SW9’ movie, which doesn’t promise anything positive for this
particular film. Of course, keep in mind that I, for one, am more used to the
Soviet adaptations of the original novel, which got to be very different from
the original; in it, the titular character usually goes to Africa to treat some
ill monkeys slash apes, encounters an atypical animal called Pushy-Pulley, and
becomes an arch nemesis of a pirate leader… it really is a lot more
child-friendly and less exciting than how it sounds, but the Soviet
cinematography really loved it, and there were several versions of ‘Doolittle’
adaptations during the existence of USSR – cartoons, live-action movies,
animated movies, etc. By contrast, in the West, (ok, the U.S.), ‘Doolittle’
adaptations are even more free-style than the Soviet ones were, often going
completely off-script, but this is justifiable: in the original novel when the good
doctor went down to Africa, for example, he encountered a kingdom of
cannibalistic savages…which is really inappropriate for the twenty-first
century for all sorts of reason, we all can agree. Even this misbegotten
trailer for ‘Doolittle 2020’ movie seems to skip this plotline, though there
was a shot of someone who might be this movie’s version of a pirate chief – and
we see the Iron Doctor, sorry, the Doolittle Stark – facing-off with a
man-eating tiger as well. If ‘Doolittle 2020’ will be able to keep itself
together, it can be a really good movie, but otherwise? It risks becoming a
mess on par with the ‘Insatiable’ S1, only worse so, since ‘Insatiable’ is a
Netflix series, and in S2 it seems to have fixed itself and has become less
controversial and edgy and more mainstream instead. ‘Doolittle 2020’ probably will
not get the chance to do that via a sequel. Anything else?
The second ‘Frozen II’ movie trailer was mostly all about
Olaf and didn’t give anything new regarding the plot of this film, and then
there’s the trailer for the upcoming ‘Harley & Ivy’ cartoon series,
starring Kaley Cuoco as the voice of Harley Quinn. It is not too coherent
either, but it does not need to be – it depicts clearly enough that it will be
about Harley breaking up with Joker and becoming her own woman, probably with a
romantic plot line involving her and Ivy. The first attempt to team up those
two had been back in the 90s, in an episode of Batman: the Animated Series’,
where Harley had had enough of Mr. J for once, tried to strike out on her own
and ended up teaming up with Ivy instead. The pair had had some fantabulous
adventures of their own, though because it was the 90s, there was no Harley/Ivy
romance…but from then on, the pair had increasingly more and more girl time
together especially in the animated DC works. Ergo, this particular development
in the DC cartoons is only natural and expected, but where does it leave the
upcoming ‘BP 2020’ movie?
…Potentially high and dry and unrequested, because Harley will
already have her fantabulous emancipation in the cartoon series, and the
live-action movie will be the 2020’s analogue of the 2016’s ‘Suicide Squad’,
where several years of character development in the comics tried to be crammed
into a single movie, so is it any surprise that the result was not so much good
or bad, but mangled? If it does not work, the 2020 ‘Birds of Prey’ film will
end up in the same way, and that would be sad, especially since Jared Leto is
already upset that he and his version of Joker was apparently kicked out of
DCEU for good. Ah well, maybe he will do a better Morbius in MCU instead.
…This is it for now – see you all soon.
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