The Blue Salt Road - Jan 29

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and especially because of your family, and while there is something that you can do, other times – not so much. Instead, let us talk about Ms. Joanne M. Harris’ novel ‘THE BLUE SALT ROAD’, and I am warning you, there are spoilers ahead! Now, if the name sounds vaguely familiar, it because it is – we have discussed her other novels, ‘The Gospel of Loki’ and ‘The Testament of Loki’ a while back. What of this one?

It is an abrupt departure from her ‘Loki’ novels…mostly, as there is a reference to ‘nine worlds’ in the ‘Road’, which is a direct reference to the Norse mythology and its’ nine worlds, (look it up). That said, there is no other sign of the Norse in the ‘Road’, as instead it is focused on Celtic, or more precisely – Scottish – folklore, that of the selkies.

What are the selkies? In the Scottish folklore, they are beings that look like seals in the water and like humans on land, they are shapeshifters, and Mercedes Lackey’s ‘Elemental Masters’ series depicted them at length in a couple of earlier novels.

…As a matter of fact, there were several species of underwater humanoids that came into contact with ‘the Folk’, including the merrow, which is a typical mermaid/merfolk type of entity, (while in various RPGs it is the name of an aquatic ogre variety, weird), and the finnfolk, which don’t have anything to do with Finn the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy’s character, but are rather a variety of Fair Folk or elves, albeit they live under the sea. Both of those races are more powerful and more hostile towards humans than the selkies are, and they do not really appear in the ‘Road’, so they are not relevant to our discussion of the novel.

What is relevant here, then? Well, the novel isn’t just about ecology and living in harmony with nature – a large portion of the novel takes place abroad a whaling ship called the Kraken, (the italics belong to Ms. Harris), and how the novel’s protagonist, the male selkie, tries to fit in with the crew and failed, first unintentionally and then intentionally, finally sabotaging the ship and setting it afire – but we are getting carried away. The novel is also about male-female relationships – the twist is that Flora’s family, (she is the female lead of the novel), entrapped selkie men for three generations now – first her grandma, then her ma, and finally Flora herself. This process culminated in a girl named ‘Moire the Star’, but first let us acknowledge the direct mention of ‘the maiden, the mother and the crone’, which is a pagan trinity of a pagan Mother Goddess, (one of them, as there are several, and this one is more of Wicca tradition than anything else is). As the Star implies in her monologue of the novel’s epilogue, she is someone special, and she is destined for greatness. She is right, of course, but here we come to the novel’s flaw – not unlike the SW sequel trilogy, it had been rebooted, somehow.

Throughout most of the novel, Moire’s father interacted with a girl of his clan, the Grey Seals. (Apparently, this group of selkies transforms in grey seals, rather than any other seal species. Okay then). She was the Flounder to his Ariel, until she just vanishes from the pages of the book with nary a reference or an explanation as to what happened to her – and the Captain dies.

Now, for most of the ‘Road’, the Captain is really a non-entity, he is little more than a placeholder; he may be an authority figure, but nothing else; he is hard, callous, cruel, but not intentionally evil, not a villain, as Elsa and Anna’s grandfather was in ‘Frozen 2’, for example. And then Ms. Harris writes his death scene – he was about to shoot the selkie protagonist ‘cause the latter set the Kraken aflame, but his pistol exploded killing him instead – and the scurvy sea dog falls into the flames of his burning ship. Given how little he had mattered in the previous chapters, this sort of a deliberately written-out death scene is surprising and kind of stands out. Anything else?

The ‘Road’ quotes often pieces of ‘Child Ballad 113’ – one that is about the Great Selkie of Sule Skerry, except that one of those reference points has a typo and claims that it is ‘Child Ballad 133’ instead. It isn’t, for that ballad is about Robin Hood and his latest face-off with the Sherriff and you can be certain that neither Robin nor the Sherriff appear in the ‘Road’ – it’s a different story altogether. More importantly, it shows that while ‘Road’ is presented beautifully, complete with a lot of illustrations by Ms. Bonnie Helen Hawkins, there were some mistakes and issues in making it – the typo regarding the ‘Child Ballad’ is one of them, and the re-write is the other.

Now, I do not know what got re-written by Ms. Harris – the last part of the novel where the Captain died so dramatically and the selkie girl disappeared, only to be replaced by ‘the Star’ and her girl power, or the first part, with the selkie girl being an important part of the novel and the Captain is a non-entity, barely more than a placeholder. In either case, ‘THE BLUE SALT ROAD’ is a very impressive-looking book, beautifully illustrated and talking about not just the evils of whaling done in a fairy-tale-like manner, but also about the relationships between men and women and marriage, (as Flora’s grandma says, they don’t call it ‘wedlock’ for nothing, emphasis on the ‘lock’, cough), and about freedom and captivity within a relationship as well as about love, (though again, that element vanishes in the last part of the novel, only to resurface, sort of, in the epilogue-monologue, pun intended). Yes, there is the gender inversion of the stereotype, in the folklore canon, the selkie is usually the wife that is married to a human husband and once she gets her seal-skin back, she leaves for the sea and never comes back. There are gender-flipped versions of it, but again, once the selkie gets the skin, they leave forever. Here, though, it is Flora’s father leaves with the baby Star, and Flora and her husband get a second chance to get it all right between them. Let us wish them luck!

And as for us back in real life? It sucks and sometimes you cannot even control it, because of reasons. Therefore let us at least enjoy ‘THE GREAT SALT ROAD’, as it is a fun book, especially if not taken too seriously, (kind of like the second ‘Frozen’ film, remember?).

…This is it for now, see you all soon!

Doolittle-2020 - Jan 23

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. It sucks just because, and your family, as well as yourself, are a part of it. Yes, every new day is different, one way or another, but as a rule – real life sucks. You may want to discuss the long-tailed duck or something, but you cannot, simply because real life sucks, and your personal life sucks, and you suck. Plus – priorities. No matter how much you love nature, sometimes you just cannot master the enthusiasm to write about the ducks, (or the woodpeckers, hedgehogs, squirrels, etc.). So, let us talk about something else – the doctor. He, (i.e. Doolittle), is in the house!

…And apparently, he sucks almost as much as real life does, according to many reviews and critics. They are wrong. ‘Doolittle-2020’ is not bad. It is insipid.

Does anyone remember Marvel’s ‘InHumans’ that’d aired several years back? If not, it is not surprising – the show lasted for a single season, and it numbered only eight episodes. Yes, in the pre-Disney+ era Marvel TV shows didn’t last for more than two or three seasons, (AoS is the exception, period), but even so, ‘InHumans’ stood-out: they were that bad.

And yet… there did not appear to be something that was specifically damning that prevented them – in theory – from continuing from another season or two. (Marvel’s ‘Runaways’ ended after 3 seasons, for example). Instead, it was an entire assimilation of small flaws, including bad script and rushed acting that did Marvel’s ‘InHumans’ in. In different hands, under different management and circumstances, they could have been good, but because real life, they failed to launch instead. ‘Doolittle-2020’ is in the same boat, even though it is a single film and not a TV series instead.

On one hand, it had a lot going for it, actually, starting with the Iron Man being the titular character and a story plot that sounded good on paper. On the other, with such an illustrious name playing the main lead in a film that just couldn’t be anywhere near the level of the last two Avenger films, (let’s be honest – even in the best of circumstances ‘Doolittle-2020’ wouldn’t be anywhere near the level of ‘Infinity War’ and ‘Endgame’), enough people would feel gipped, as if this was a step down or something – and they were probably right.

 …And top of those failed expectations and the subconscious feeling of being cheated out of something that is Avenger-level film, the film itself is flawed, let’s be polite. The plot felt rather like Stark’s new Welsh accent – completely unnecessary and a straight-out failure. Queen Victoria is poisoned, so Stark – er, Doolittle – is off to bring back the miracle cure? What is this – the Avengers, Victorian era? Well, maybe – we did also get Sony’s current version of Spider-Man voicing a dog, so it could have been a start. Instead, we got a failure with a bunch of grown-up jokes in a decisively pro-child film, (children under the age of 10 will enjoy ‘Doolittle-2020’ moreso than their parents, yes), the titular character farted by a dragon, (what is this – mockery of GoT? If so, then ‘Doolittle-2020’ is excessively late for this party), and, oh yes, a gorilla fighting a tiger, (sort of) among other things.

Off topic, if a gorilla fought a tiger for real, who would win? In AFO, when a gorilla faced-off with a leopard, it actually won, but a tiger is much bigger and heavier than a leopard is and carries a much heavier punch than a leopard does. In a feline clash, tiger will triumph over a leopard, as ‘Jungle Book-2016’ showed openly and clearly – even though it is fiction, it actually did a good job of being realistic, at least to a point. But a gorilla is completely different beast than a leopard is. A tiger is a professional hunter and killer, but if it fails to get a drop on the modern world’s biggest and strongest primate, period, then it can go either way – and, of course, ‘Doolittle-2020’ went in a completely different direction to begin with. What next?

Well, for me, Chee-Chee the gorilla brought back memories of the Soviet adaptation of Doolittle, (where Chee-Chee was actually a capuchin monkey instead). To wit, this adaptation consisted of one large poem where the Soviet Doolittle went to Africa to cure all the cute animal babies there, because they all were sick; and of another large poem, where the good doctor comes to Africa to rescue a couple of human children from the Soviet analogue of Rassouli; and also a couple of novellas for children where the good doctor crosses swords with the pirate leader time and again, until he defeats the villain for good. Not such a small assimilation, especially by children’s standards, after all.

…And then the Soviet cinematography produced a cartoon series, and a couple of movies, all about the good doctor confronting the wicked pirate and his crew, and frankly, one of them, ‘Soviet Doolittle-66’ is just as crazy, but much more coherent and enjoyable than the U.S. 2020 version. Not unlike the gender-flipped ‘Ghostbusters’ reboot, ‘Doolittle-2020’ is just bad as in uninspiring and insipid, which brings us back to Marvel’s ‘InHumans’ TV series – they had the same problem and collapsed, though compared to them, ‘Doolittle-2020’ is better, (and it is certainly better than ‘Cats-2019’, cough), simply because the younger children will enjoy it with all the poop and fart jokes as well as periodic clothing, and, hey, the Iron Man is riding an ostrich in this universe, while a giraffe is talking to him in voice of Selena Gomez. Fun! Anything else?

Well, the second ‘To all the boys…’ movie is coming out on Netflix on Feb 12, 2020. Why before 2020’s Valentine Day – who knows; who cares, too – while the first film had its’ flaws, clearly, the entire franchise has proven to be tough, enduring and popular enough to bring forth a second movie. (Jenny Han wrote a trilogy about LJ’s adventures, so there is at least one more movie in store for LJ and her love life). By comparison, ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ franchise apparently hadn’t – so far there’s no news about a second movie in this franchise; maybe because it tried to be a pro-American propaganda piece among other things back when it aired and ‘Boys-1’ didn’t? Who knows, but ‘Boys-1’ was a very good romantic movie, surprisingly so, given all the flaws of both it and the original novel…but it was not insipid. It delivered. It gave enjoyment to the views. It made real life slightly more endurable than it is on its’ own. I am actually looking forwards to ‘Boys-2’ coming to Netflix next month. Yay.

…This is it for now, see you all soon!

Race to the Sun - Jan 17

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. It is tedious. So’s family. So are you, and it is up to you, and you alone, to do something about it. Sometimes you even succeed, and that makes all the difference. 

Now let us escape into the world of books – in this particular instance, it is Ms. Rebecca Roanhorse’s YA novel, ‘Race to the Sun’. Once more it is a YA novel associated with Rick Riordan of Percy Jackson fame, but this time it has something different, and no, it isn’t the fact that it is a self-contained, one-shot novel, but its’ intro – it is more open and expanded than before. This is important, because ‘Race to Sun’ is a much slimmer novel than, say, the previous installment – i.e. ‘Tristan Strong’, (remember him?), meaning… what?

First, what kind of a novel ‘Race to the Sun’ is? It is a straightforward imitation of Riordan’s own novels with none of the development or the effort that Mr. Riordan had put into his own novels. Ms. Roanhorse did an admirable attempt at this YA novel, yet somehow it feels perfunctory, empty, and pointless – kind of like popcorn for brain, put otherwise. When you are reading ‘Tristan Strong’, you really resonate with the novel’s titular character/narrator and the rest of the characters on their quest/journey; in ‘Race to the Sun’ – not so much.

…As a matter of fact, the issue of scope is another difference between the two novels: in ‘Tristan Strong’, the stakes are saving an entire world; in ‘Race to the Sun’ – not so much. Oh, sure, stakes are high and personal for ‘NIZHONI BEGAY’, her family and friends, but somehow, ‘Tristan Strong’ manages to do the same thing better, and it is a much thicker book too – 482 pages vs 298 for ‘Race’. Okay, and-?

And now we’re back to the prologue, where Riordan waxes much more poetically than how he normally does, talking about the Native American mythologies while being pointedly politically correct, and astute, and whatever else. For that matter, so’s the author, Ms. Roanhorse herself – in ‘Race’ she does her best for her novel and especially its’ main narrator to hit all the right notes while imitating Mr. Riordan’s novels to the best of her ability, with the supposedly added real life factor – ecology and pipelines. Pause.

…I know it’s weird, but Ms. Roanhorse, (and the rest of team Riordan), is beginning to remind me of another author – Ms. Ali Smith, and her latest novels: ‘Autumn’ (2016), ‘Winter’ (2017), ‘Spring’ (2019), and the upcoming ‘Summer’ (2020) are also fiction that is trying to facture in real life, including ‘the president of the United States’, who might be the Donald in Ms. Roanhorse’s ‘Race’ and who is the Donald in Ms. Smith’s series. Remember when we discussed the ‘Like a Boss’ movie earlier this January? How it tried to cruise easily by utilizing its’ politically progressive, (and also correct), race card? ‘Like a Boss’ ended-up failing as a movie; Ms. Smith’s novels moved from coherent and traditional in ‘Autumn’ to anything but in ‘Spring’, and while ‘Autumn’ was apparently ‘shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker Prize’, she didn’t win – a George Saunders did, and neither ‘Winter’ nor ‘Spring’ came anywhere near the more traditional ‘Autumn’ too. Put otherwise, Ms. Smith’s latest novel series started strong but grew weak, and so are the novels that ‘RICK RIORDAN PRESENTS’ – they started strong with Ms. Chokshi’s and Ms. Cervantes’ novels, relatively speaking, and then there was Mr. Lee’s YA novel of space opera, ‘Dragon Pearl’, and then Riordan’s own YA novels of demigods and monsters began to flounder and are no longer as politically progressive and correct as they once were, and now we got ‘Race’, where on one hand we have Mr. Riordan’s own kiss-up of a foreword, and on the other – the novel itself, which feels like a pale version of ‘Percy Jackson’ and co., with the ecological angle tackled on it… not unlike how it went down in ‘Frozen 2’, remember?

In ‘Frozen 2’, team Disney tried to present an ecological as well as a socio-racial utopia, in the best dreams of Greta Thunberg, until she made a verbal slip, that all those politicians who disagree with climate change, should be ‘put to the wall’ (and given a final smoke before they’re shot), and then she went home on a train and nothing has been heard of her ever since – this sort of speech must’ve sounded too Russian revolutionary for Greta’s grown-up supporters, and that’s the end of her as climate & social media darling, eh?

…Essentially, this is the problem with the West’s attempts to ‘revolutionize’ its’ youth slash the next generation: they want change, but they want to play it safe while playing at radicals. You cannot. Either you have radical change, but it will not be safe, or you will have it safe, but the change will only be cosmetic at most, or even less than that. Disney, Paramount Pictures, and etc. can churn any sort of utopic/propaganda/etc. films, but unless they are ready to put up and suffer where it hurts – in the wallet – it will not work. Instead, in reality, as soon as Disney/SW began to suffer financially post the SW8 film, their SW9 film aimed to rewind and erase most of the SW8 film’s impact on the SW-verse. It did not really work, and people are just as unhappy with the SW9 film as they were with the SW8 film, albeit for different reasons – but we digress.

Now, ‘Like a Boss’ didn’t try to pull anything as ‘Frozen 2’ did – it just tried to coast on political correctness and that’s it. Ms. Smith’s novels tried to do the same thing – to utilize real world issues in lieu of the novels’ shortcomings, (whatever they are), including the world’s hatred of the Donald. Marvel comics tried to do something similar in their ‘Defenders’ mini-arc and it didn’t appear to have worked in regards to their sales either, and so that comic series ended with a panorama of all the ‘Defenders of NYC’ instead. Frankly, I sometimes wonder if there is any other city in the Marvel world that comes even close to NYC – at least in DC you got several cities, (Metropolis and Gotham at least), so it somehow balances out – in Marvel, not so much.

And where does ‘Race’ fit in here? Why, right next to ‘Like a Boss’, and Ms. Smith’s novels and the like. Ms. Roanhorse tries to have it all while doing minimum, and as a result, her YA novel feels perfunctory and hollow: when you have read it, you do not want to re-read it, as you do with ‘Tristan Strong’ or even ‘Dragon Pearl’ for example. Those novels you want to re-read, YA audience or not. ‘Race to the Sun’ – not so much… but you still should try it, because real life sucks, and reading novels – YA, grown-up, etc. – helps you escape it, period. Anything else?

Well, yes, there’s a lot of other things to talk about, including the ‘Doolittle-2020’ movie that got released today too, but for now let’s just acknowledge that Mr. Riordan and his book franchise is suffering and degrading; from the truly memorable YA novels it had devolved into not-memorable instead; like so much of American youth culture lately, ‘Race’ wants to inspire, but it doesn’t want to offend, and you cannot have one without the other, as so ‘Race’ doesn’t offend anyone, but neither it will inspire anyone either. Ah well, I’m sure that Ms. Roanhorse got her commission or what else have you, Mr. Riordan got another (one shot) YA novel associated with him, and everyone is happy. Or not, but it is unknown what Mr. Riordan will do this time – the last time he was unhappy after the initial two Percy Jackson movies, and he spoke his mind, and that was the end of that. No more adaptations of his novels, (save for comics, but that is the same thing, really). No one wants to mess with the Riordan-man. No one wants to have anything with the Riordan-man. Take your pick, (and the fact that those movies were just plain bad does not the affairs help either). How will Mr. Riordan get out of this mess, will he be able to get out of this mess, we will not know, especially not immediately, but hopefully we will.

…This is it for now – see you all soon!

Morbius trailer 1 - Jan 13

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Extra clause: I hate myself for being me. I still hate my family for making everything worse, but, sadly, after this weekend I re-examined myself and realized that I am a worthless, pathetic, pitiful man myself that rather deserves this wretched life… New topic, then?

So, Sony, in association with Marvel™, (and maybe Disney), will be releasing ‘Morbius’ this summer, (aka 2020). My first encounter with him was in 1990’s ‘Spider-Man Animated Series’, where he was one of Spider-Man’s tougher and more resilient foes, from S2 onwards. Why, he was something of a foil to Parker for a while – just as a radioactive spider bit Peter, so a radioactive vampire bat bit Michael! In the 2020 film, there is no Parker/Morbius rivalry, even though the film is taking place in the Marvel™ universe: there are Easter eggs showing that this happened after Peter got framed by Mysterio in the second Tom Holland ‘Spider-Man’ film, there are direct references to both Tom Holland ‘Spider-Man’ movies and Sony’s ‘Venom-2018’ film, meaning that MCU and ‘Sony’s Universe of Marvel Characters’ are beginning to merge. There are talks of Vulture or Scorpion, (from the first THSM film) building MCU’s version of the ‘Sinister Six’ posse, an informal gathering of six villains who aim to destroy Spider-Man, so who’s to say that this version of this gang won’t feature Morbius, the living vampire?

Of course, since this is only the first trailer of what is shaping to be a really good film, it is too early to tell if the Sinister Six is coming to the silver screen anytime soon. Instead, obviously, this film will be focusing on Morbius and his backstory – so far it’s too early to figure out as to who will be Morbius’ opponent this time, but apparently, one of the characters shown in the trailer might be MCU/SUMC version of Hunger, another vampire villain from the Marvel™, so why not? Yes, it is rather reminiscent of ‘Venom-2018’, where the titular character had to face-off a villain who was a bigger, badder and stronger version of him, (Riot), leaving us wondering as to what Carnage will bring to the next ‘Venom’ movie: among the Marvel™ villains, Carnage isn’t the smartest one, he just prefers to run around and kill everyone, while sprouting claws, blades and spikes – just as Riot did in ‘Venom-2018’, so we’ll have to wait and see as to what MCU/SUMC Carnage will bring to the table. Back to Morbius?

In some ways, the movie Morbius and the already-mentioned Eddie from ‘Venom-2018’ are not too different: Eddie is, or was, a formidable journalist, Morbius is a brilliant doctor. Eddie is suffering from unemployment, Morbius – from some disease that is reminiscent of polio. Eddie got a long-suffering girlfriend/fiancé that is supportive, but has some reservations, and so does Morbius; Eddie’s Anne ends up helping him with Riot, and Morbius’? There’s already some speculation – in the comics, Morbius’ girlfriend tends to end up a living vampire herself, and then tragically die, whereas in the 1990’s ‘Spider-Man’ animated series Morbius ended up teaming with the Black Cat, (Felicia Hardy) and Blade, (yes, think Wesley Snipes here), to take down vampires back in Europe and beyond. Blade is returning to Marvel movies after the Wesley Snipes trilogy, (also back in the 1990s), though he will not be played by WS, but there is no sign of him here, in this trailer.

Instead, we get a glimpse of someone named Simon Stroud, who used to be an S.H.I.E.L.D. agent in the comics, but here he will probably be a FBI agent or someone similar, given that SUMC, MCU in general, and AoS in particular have a rather complicated relationship with each other, but then again, we’ll never know until the movie is released in summer 2020. Still, there already is supposition that this Stroud character will be helping Morbius out of tight spots, so yay for him! Eddie could also use someone like that, and with the evidence that Vulture – or Scorpion – building a criminal posse, who is to say that their paths – and that of Tom Holland’s Spider-Man – will not cross anytime soon? It would certainly be cool!

…In other words, Tom Holland will be voicing a dog character in the upcoming ‘Dolittle-2020’ movie alongside other illustrious actors, including his old friend Robert Downey Jr., cough, who will be playing the titular character, aka the Iron Man without armor but with a Welsh accent. Also (kind of) yay – Tom Holland was really good as a voice actor in ‘Spies in Disguise’ film back in 2019, and here, judging by the clips, he sounds quite promising. Good for him and the rest of his co-stars in the upcoming 2020 ‘Dolittle’ movie, because as we have talked before, real life sucks.

Well, this is it for now – see you all soon!

Like a Boss - Jan 11

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, for a variety of reasons – at least my illness is over. Yay! Therefore, to celebrate it, I went to see the premiere of ‘Like a Boss’ (2020), and here is my impression: it also sucks. Practically as bad as reality itself does, even though for a non-superhero, sci-fi, or fantasy movie it is not very realistic at all.

…Let’s start at the beginning: why did I watch it? Firstly, because of Salma Hayek – any film with her is fun; she is a good comedic actress. And secondly it was because the duo of Tiffany Haddish and Rose Byrne looked good, in trailers and all. Moreover, guess what – they do.

Pause. Remember that reality sucks? Tiffany (Sarac) Haddish voice might have something to do with it, (among other things). I have no idea as to what is its’ state of affairs, but as far as I am concerned, she sounds perfectly asexual, neither man nor woman, so all of you who give the transgender people a hard time? Shut up, because Ms. Haddish is completely ‘natural’ woman yet she sounds anything but, while being a successful American actress, comedian and author at the same time. Where we were?

‘Like a Boss’ tried to be woke, just as ‘Dark Phoenix-2019’ did: its’ main leads are an Anglo-American, an Afro-American and a Latin-American, with the supporting cast being both WASPs and POCs, and the premise itself – sisters are doing it for themselves – isn’t so bad, but the way it is delivered? Is. There are plenty of ‘risqué’ and ‘R-rated’ jokes and somehow they undercut the movie’s main message, it is very hard to talk about ‘girl power’ when you are talking about ‘chocolate pubes’ and what else have you got. These days, it isn’t 1990s or even the early 2000s – people aren’t going to give you a pass just because you’re a woman and/or a person of color, something that ‘Like a Boss’ failed to realize. You need both talk the talk and walk the walk, and this is something the cast of ‘Like a Boss’ fails to do. Yes, the cast, especially the supporting characters, are full of all colors and body shapes, but, again, none of this goes anywhere but some tasteless jokes. ‘Like a Boss’ might be safe, it might be playing it safe, but the result fluctuates from being insipid when Salma Hayek isn’t on screen, and to her stealing the film when she is. Considering that her character is the movie’s main villain, this probably was not what the team at Paramount Pictures expected to happen, but what can you do? Even the aforementioned jokes tend to fall flat thanks to Ms. Haddish’s peculiar voice. ‘Like a Boss’ comes across as both a proper paint-by-numbers picture and a yucky mess that is located in place of a proper paint-by-numbers picture at the same time. That is worth a Razzie, I would say. Anything else.

…People are upset that ‘Joker-2019’ won an Oscar and ‘Hustlers’ didn’t. Live with it. It is not just Marvel movies that are landing hard punches these days, you know! There are worse things in life – for example, Bianca Andreescu is withdrawing from Australian Open. Did I mention that real life sucks? Fans of ‘Hustlers’ should realize it and move on. ‘Like a Boss’, which features Salma Hayek in place of ‘Hustlers’ J-Lo, isn’t liable to win any Oscars or be even in a consideration for running, though.

This is it for now. See you all soon!

'Birds of Prey' trailer 2 - Jan 9

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. There is still sickness in my family, and we all keep on fighting with each other, making sure that we all feel worse. Human beings are complicated, my family is my family, and I hate my life. Ergo, I look for ways to escape it, and what I find is the second ‘Birds of Prey’ (DC Movie) trailer. Yay?

Let me just point it out – I liked the first trailer better, this one seems to be the new old ‘Suicide Squad’ movie with a mostly female cast that seems to be developing into an inferior version of ‘Ocean’s 8’ movie instead. The film in question wasn’t so bad, it just was a reboot slash remake of the original ‘Ocean 11’, just with much more girl power, and just like ‘Charlie’s Angels-2019’ film, (itself a reboot of the 2003 CA film that no one talked about just because, cough), ‘Ocean’s 8’ never developed into anything more, even though it was much more compact, proportionally speaking, than ‘Hellboy-2019, for example. Where were we?

Oh yeah, ‘Birds of Prey’ are in-between Scylla and Charybdis. On one hand, there’s the established ‘Harley Queen’ cartoon for grown-ups, which is already dealing with ‘the fantabulous emancipation of Harley’, literally, among other meanings, but because it is a cartoon series, it can better pace itself and take its’ time to do that, unlike the ‘Birds of Prey’ film, which can’t, because of the differences between a film and a cartoon series. However, on the other hand, today’s trailer, (aka Jan 9), revealed that the film may have problems with its’ own.

First, there is no Poison Ivy. While that is not a problem, it is a disappointment – these days DC comics have made Harley and Ivy practically gay BFFs, if not an outright couple. The HQ cartoon seems to be working in this direction as well; yes, it is taking its’ time, again, but it uses this time to give both Harley and her new crew character development, (not to mention the Bat-family, of course), and it does a good job of it too! We are talking the complete opposite of the old ‘Suicide Squad’ film here. Put otherwise, while Harley is slowly becoming emancipated, (alongside Ivy), Dr. Psycho is becoming less crude and toxically masculine, King Shark is leaning to stand up for himself, a giant anthropomorphic shark or not, and Clayface is beginning to come into his own as well – and at the same time their depictions, initial and derived, are still fairly consistent with those in the DC comics, whereas in the trailer…

In the trailer, we got Harley, who is directly transplanted from her ‘Suicide Squad’ flashback depiction, (cough Jared Leto left DC franchise in a bad way cough), we got Huntress and Black Canary who seem to be only coming into their superhero selves, (not that that’s a problem), we got a bespectacled Renee Montoya, (which is very different from how she is usually depicted in the DC comics), and finally we got Cassandra Cain. In the DC comics, Cass is Batgirl, and one of the most formidable members of Batman’s crew. She is also a mostly silent semi-homeless ninja, because it is comics. Here, in the trailer, she seems to be nothing more than a pickpocket who begins to look up to Harley as the movie develops, (or this is how it looks like in this trailer), someone, who is more like Linus from ‘Ocean’s 11’ or Constance from ‘Ocean’s 8’. Why?

Because DC and co. could, that is why. Fair enough, they own the franchise, they can reboot their characters however they like, but the problem is that it’s not necessarily a good thing either: Disney rebooted the SW franchise after the SW8 film in order to appease the fans – the ‘fan service’ – but the resulted SW9 film wasn’t really an improvement either. Official-unofficial mouthparts for the Big Mouse may claim that the SW fans do not know what they want, but somehow when George Lucas had been in charge, he never had that problem, not even in the prequel trilogy, and everyone knows it. He also – and now it is officially known – did not like the SW9 movie when he saw it, so there is that. SW – or at least its’ sequel trilogy – has ended with a whimper rather than a bang.

This brings us back to the ‘Birds of Prey’ movie. Just as the SW9 movie tried to distance itself from its’ predecessor,  so ‘Birds of Prey’ is setting itself to be apart from both the old ‘Suicide Squad’ movie and its upcoming reboot. The SW9 movie did succeed…just in wrong ways…so who has to say that ‘Birds of Prey’ won’t? DC had a bad run with movies, until ‘Wonder Woman’, and ‘Shazam’, and ‘Aquaman’, and to a lesser extent – with ‘Suicide Squad’. It was not a great movie, but neither was it horrible, so where this leave ‘Birds of Prey’ does is anyone’s guess. If MCU makes great movies, and everything else is second rate, with DCEU it is the other way around – the movies are usually the underdogs in this franchise. Considering that the ‘Harley Queen’ cartoon, (also a part of the DC franchise, remember), is proving that – it is very good, in my opinion – then the ‘Birds of Prey’ film need to struggle twice as much and twice as hard to top it…period. Otherwise, they will end up as the old ‘Suicide Squad’ did – maybe not as a bad movie, but one that is flawed, and mocked for those flaws all the same. Real life – and it includes movie critics, (just look at ‘Cats-2019’) – sucks, remember?

This is it for now; see you all soon!

Prothero's Princeton Guide to Prehistoric Mammals - Jan 7

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Therefore, I look around for means to escape this, and what do I come across but Donald R. Prothero’s ‘Princeton Guide to Prehistoric Mammals’. Yay?

Mmm, no. As we have discussed back in 2019, I am not the biggest fan of Mr. Prothero these days, and the ‘PGPM’ did not really challenge this opinion, though not for the reasons you think. You see, ‘TPGPM’ is not exactly a field guide; it is more of a reboot, done in a manner not unlike what happened to the SW franchise after it merged with Disney!

…What is the punchline, you may ask? Good question and the answer is located right in the very first chapter of ‘TPGPM’, the ‘How Do We Classify Animals?’ subchapter. It promptly and directly tells the book’s readers, (aka us), that the old classification model of, well, classifying the animal kingdom, (plants and fungi are left beyond the brackets of this book & discussion), is outdated and is going to be rebooted, even if the lay public is not aware of that yet. Moreover, ‘TPGPM’ is an attempt to introduce the lay public to this reboot, one faction of animal kingdom at a time, in this case – it is prehistoric mammals…as well as their modern descendants and/or relatives. The end result is… a picture book for adults, illustrations in ‘TPGPM’ overwhelm the text, though yes, let’s be honest – the chapters are very heterogeneous, and uneven, which is quite reasonable, because the internal factions of the mammal ‘kingdom’ aren’t really equal to each other either. That said, Mr. Prothero may’ve called this book of his a ‘guide’, but it feels more like an encyclopedia, a book that tried to encompass everything that’s mammal-related… and this brings us to another book on prehistoric mammals – Mauricio Anton’s ‘Sabertooth’, which is an encyclopedia on prehistoric mammals and mammal-like reptiles that utilized sabre-teeth as a hunting weapon (& technique). The book approaches this topic from all sorts of angles, but the titular topic is always constant and remains unchanged. Fair enough, since the prehistoric sabre-toothed hunters were a mixed bunch: there were the mammal-like reptiles of the Paleozoic, several creodont species, (more on them down below, maybe), the marsupial Thylacosmilus (and maybe its’ relatives), and the nimravids, the barbourofelids and the true cats slash felids – six major animal groups in total. And?

And nothing, ‘Sabertooth’ is an informative and entertaining book that features not just text, but also illustrations and graphs – Just as ‘TPGPM’ does, though it isn’t mentioned in the list of ‘Further Reading’ in ‘TPGPM’, (though several other books written by Anton and Turner are). Fair enough, though did I mention that I do not like Mr. Prothero lately? Just checking! What next?

‘TPGPM’ seems to follow the approach of ‘Sabertooth’, but because its’ subject is so much broader, the result is a mess. The first chapter is an intro to the book, really; the second cover the mammal-like reptiles, proto-mammals, or stem mammals of Paleozoic, but mostly – the mammals of the Mesozoic; the third – the marsupials of Australia and South America, existing and extinct, (though given the monstrous fires of Australia telling which group is which is trickier than it looks, sadly. Real life sucks). It is only from the fourth chapter onwards to the penultimate seventeenth that we get to see the ‘new’ classification of mammals, and it is as follows: the Xenarthrans – sloths, armadillos and anteaters of the Americas; the Afrotheres; and the Laurasiatheres. Mazel Tov! More precisely, proportionally speaking, we got the Afrotheres – elephants, sea cows, hyraxes, aardvarks, elephant shrews, tenreks, and several other mammal orders, both extinct and still existing. We got the already-mentioned Xenarthrans – and we got all the other placental mammals, aka the Eutheres, which are more closely related to each other than to the Xenarthrans or the Afrotheres. Fair enough, but the result is a great unwieldy mess that doesn’t seem to serve any practical function other than to tickle the egos of various men and women of science – I seriously doubt that anyone else will be particularly impressed by it. Mr. Prothero may state that such outdated terms as ‘Reptilia’ and ‘Amphibia’ (and ‘Mammalia’?) will soon vanish from the professional scientific nomenclature and works, even though the lay public does not know it, but just because they do not know it, does not mean that it will accept it, certainly not easily or graciously.

True science doesn’t need that, science is science, it is its’ own reward? Maybe, but given that Mr. Prothero has released a very thorough and visually impressive picture book for adults, (it includes even images from Wikicommons – really, Mr. Prothero? Really?), trying his best to sell it to people not just literally, but figuratively as well. Considering that the book is a heterogeneous mess, I am not so sure that he had succeeded. True, unlike most Western books, ‘TPGPM’ has both an intro (the first chapter) and an epilogue (the last, eighteenth chapter, which talks about prehistoric mammals and their extinctions, and of course it is the humans’ fault), and it has done its’ best to be professional, entertaining and the like. The problem is that human beings are contrary and unpredictable and you just cannot be sure that they will swallow whatever you try to sell them no matter how pretty the wrapper is or how sweet you consider your product to be. Professional scientists may be retiring the old terms of ‘Reptilia’, ‘Amphibia’ and so on, but odds are that the public will transition to this product will take much longer, and will be much rougher, than how Mr. Prothero and his fellow scientists, expects – real life sucks, remember? (Just look at the Disney/SW mess, for an example!)...

…Well, this is it for now; see you all soon!

The New Mutants trailer 2 - Jan 6

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. In this particular instance, it is because I got sick, apparently, and this makes real life worse, for the obvious reasons. (Man, I hate common cold). Therefore, I look around, and what do I find but the trailer for this year’s ‘New Mutants’ movie. And?

And nothing – the trailer for the ‘New Mutants-2020’ film is a dark, horrific mess, with ‘horrific’ showing the genre – the ‘New Mutants-2020’ is shaping to be a horror film, so far. Belay that – it is a horror film, it looks like.

Well, FOX’S mutant movies were always a mixed bag – for every ‘Deadpool’ or ‘Logan’ we got ‘Dark Phoenix-2019’, for example. That said, we’re talking not about quality here, but genre, and my statement stands – for every traditional superhero movie we got something atypical, whether it was the very first ‘X-Men’ film, or ‘Logan’, or even ‘Deadpool’. It brings Illyana Rasputina, aka ‘Magik’, who is also the sister of Colossus, which had appeared in both ‘Deadpool’ movies up to date, so who knows? Maybe we will get some sort of a reference. It brings Wolfsbane/Rahne Sinclair, who might have been around the earlier X-Men films – I am not so sure. It brings Sam Guthrie/Cannonball, (ditto), and a new incarnation of Roberto da Costa, (Sunspot, who was in earlier X-Men movies, I am sure), and Danielle Moonstar/Mirage, (people claim that she appeared in the past X-Men films). They will be dealing with an incarnation of a mutant doctor named Cecilia Reyes, (who also might have appeared in the past films) and an entity named the Demon Bear, which is a giant demon bear, (duh), and who is certainly a new villain in the Marvel movies, regardless of genre, universe and whoever is making them. What is next?

…I am actually looking up to this movie, that is what. SW9 proved to be as bad as it was supposed to, and the crew blaming it on the fans, (aka ‘fan service’) did not do any wonders to the movie. Yes, it went down the collective throat, but again, you have to be ‘Cats-2019’ level bad to fail at this achievement. SW9 was not, and so it went down and out. Yay. Now does anyone have any idea as to where Disney/SW will go next, or will it just fizzle out instead? My money’s on the latter – as far as movies go, SW9 was broken and reset once too many times. Anything else?

Sadly – no. Real life sucks. I feel rotten. Ricky Gervais made a ‘roast’ at the Golden Globes awards – really? Does anyone care anymore? Probably not, but did I mention already that real life sucks? If not, here is another reminder.

This is it for now. See you all soon!

SW: TROS - Jan 5

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Our family’s holidays were the pits, and my family are bleeps that I hate with all my life and soul. I myself am no prise, but regardless I hate them, I hate them, I hate them forever!.. Gollum, ‘The Hobbit’. What next?

SW9, that is what. As far as escapes from real life go, this one was only marginally better than ‘Cats 2019’, but that is because nothing is as bad as ‘Cats 2019’ were. SW9 is… bad. It is not too bad, but neither it is that great. It’s ‘fan service’, according to the official statement that explains as to why SW9 proved to be so bad. Here is my response: that is a lie. What do fans want? For Rey to have a relationship with anyone, (with whom exactly is another question), but what do they get? Rey pulling an Elsa from ‘Frozen 2’ and ending up single and free as a bird instead. Did the fans want this? Judging by their reaction – no. So, how is this ‘fan service’? The honest answer – it is not. So, what is it, instead?

Let us start with the beginning: from the SW7 onwards, the SW sequel trilogy was a mess, especially from the plotline P.O.V. As for relationships… do not start – the SW7 movie had ‘shipped’ Rey with Finn, (not Ben or Poe), so hard! So, why didn’t it work, and instead Finn was ‘shipped’ with Rose in SW8? …It is anyone’s guess, but the fact that Hollywood and the rest of America’s elite has plenty of issues with interracial relationships, probably played a role. In SW9, we get briefly introduced to a character named Jannah, who is former Stormtrooper who is aiding the Resistance against the First Order. Now, why does it sound familiar? We look at Finn, who decisively ignores Jannah in favor of his Rose. Good for him. In the canon, Jannah was shown interacting with Lando Calrissian, maybe because she is supposed to be his long-lost daughter, but Lando’s own role got diminished severely in SW9, as did Rose’s own, BTW. …Yes, on one level it can be explained by the fact that Rose’s actress, Kelly Marie Tran, received her own amount of hate, as did Rey’s actress, Daisy Ridley, after the SW 8 film, so it’s probable that she didn’t want to appear in SW9 one, but the fact is that many characters, not just her and Lando, got diminished in the SW9 movie, which implies that the SW9 film is a bad, unsatisfying one, not just to the viewers, but to its’ crew and cast too. Why? Moreover, what next?

Firstly, the conclusion – the entire main cast of SW films four through six is dead, and it is now a blank slate, with or without Ben Solo. Fair enough, but considering that the problems of the franchise began precisely because of this – after the merger, Disney/SW promptly dismissed all of the old info, declaring them to be ‘Star Wars: Legend’ instead, and it promptly began to fracture SW’s original fan base – and not because of U.S.A’s current racial or gender problems. The old SW fan guard got angry, didn’t back down or mince words, and by the time of the SW8 and ‘Solo’ films things were quite bad, especially by Disney’s standards. They tried to alter this situation by flooding the comic market with the SW comics, but apparently it was not enough, especially on its’ own. ‘The Mandalorian’, of course, is a different thing entirely – emphasis on ‘different’: it does not appear to connect with the SW sequel trilogy at all!.. Anything else?

For now the SW universe is calming down; instead we got Robert Downey Jr. returning to the silver screens this month, (January 2020) as the titular character in the ‘Dr. Doolittle 2020’ movie. So far, it is a mess, the final trailer shows a gorilla fighting a tiger and later on – the Iron Man and his new animal Avengers – some sort of a dragon, straight from an RPG (think Smaug from the ‘Hobbit’ trilogy earlier this century). So far, the next most memorable thing after the Iron Man himself is Selena Gomez, who will be voicing Betsy the giraffe, (CGI, not real life). Considering that Ms. Gomez herself was down in the dumps lately, this is a step up for her nevertheless. Real life sucks, remember? Even for Disney & SW, it seems – SW9 tried to be a soft reboot ala ‘Frozen 2’, (remember, we discussed it in November 2019?), but it failed. The two franchises are just too different, and the similar approaches to them were different as well.

Ergo, for now this is it. Maybe real life will perk up further down in 2020, but I am not so sure. Until then – see you soon!