Madame Web - Feb 15

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Recently, we were setting down to discuss yet another Pathfinder (1^st ed.) campaign, set in Osirion, when one of our party people came distinctly disgruntled: he found a book of Greek and Norse myths, dated 1987, written for fifth and sixth graders… and it talked how the readers can use the mythical names in their own fantasy RPG games. Which games, what games, it is unsaid, but our friend did not handle this state of affairs too well, and spent all of our planning time half-ranting and raving. Sad and awkward, let me tell you. Onto ‘Madame Web’?

‘Madame Web’ – I will try not to get into the spoilers’ territory, but regardless – has several major flaws. First, its’ plot is taken, lock, stock and barrel, from the very first ‘Terminator’ film. People are not calling the movie out on it, but this is what happens. Mr. Ezekiel is the ‘Terminator’ analogue, while the female characters are something of a collective Sarah Connors instead.

Second, unlike ‘Terminator’, ‘Madame Web’ comes across as asexual, regardless of whether it was intended to, nor not. This is not new, there are plenty of films that had this sort of thing, and not just ‘CATS-2019’ – there’s ‘Over the Moon’, there’s ‘Quiz Lady’, there’s plenty of other equally forgettable films… though Disney isn’t a part of this tendency. ‘Frozen-2’ – there are Anna and Kristoff; ‘Encanto’ – there is Dolores and her own swain; ‘The Marvels’, (come on, they are also a part of Disney) – there’s Carol Danvers and her new husband (?); and so on. Romance does make a movie more memorable in the minds and memories of fans and audiences, you know! ‘Madame Web’ tries to avoid that, and so it does, and so many people just do not know why they should root for the titular character and her posse…

This brings us to the third – the feminist angle. These days, it is not enough to win an audience over and become a socio-political darling; you actually need to work to accomplish this and ‘Madame Web’… does not. Instead, it tries to tie into Peter Parker himself to push itself above the rest… whatever ‘the rest’ are. The first Tom Hardy ‘Venom’ was, in fact, original, even if it struggled with its’ script and everything else – and so, it was the movie’s originality that enabled it to work. The second ‘Venom’ film, featuring Carnage, was actually more of a reboot of the franchise, and ‘Morbius’ was… bad, but more of ‘Doolittle-2020’ rather than ‘CATS-2019’ bad, i.e. lackluster and lazy rather than a burning trash fire. On the other hand, ‘Madame Web’ is… cut out of the same cloth, in fact, as ‘Morbius’ is – lackluster and kind of directionless. In fact, some of the crew from ‘Morbius’ have, apparently, worked in this movie too – not exactly a good sign.

Again, the ‘Terminator’-like premise of ‘Madame Web’ is not bad, self-fulfilling prophecies and all. Its’ execution, however, is bad, simply bad, and the aromantic angle, (the Parkers aside), does not help it. Consequently, it just collapses, as our latest RPG attempt had, a teenage book of Greek and Norse myths notwithstanding.

…This is for now, then. See you all soon.

Wish - Nov 22

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about the ‘Wish’ movie instead.

Where to begin here? Good question, for the ‘Wish’ feels all over the place. One spot is the ‘star-stuff’ angle: it looks as if Disney took it from Pamela Travers’ ‘Mary Poppins’ novels. See, in one of the storylines, the children that Mary Poppins nurses/raises/takes care off, learn that everyone and everything – birds, beasts, people, flowers, stars themselves, and et cetera – are made from ‘the same stuff’, i.e. everyone is connected. In another storyline – or maybe the same one, I am not the biggest expert on MP – the children and Mary Poppins meet two sisters and their elderly mother, who run a store during the day, and stick the stars to the sky at night. Pause.

No, the ‘Wish’ has quite different takes on both of those concepts, but the idea might have been lifted from Pamela Travers’ books. What next?

Um, the female lead looks like a variant of Isabel Madrigal from ‘Encanto’? Perhaps, but the overall feel of the films is quite different. See, ‘Encanto’ runs most of its’ time in isolation, but at the end of the movie that isolation ends, the titular place is ready to be re-connected with the rest of the world… something that also raises a premise of a sequel, (and how it will go, at least at the start). ‘Frozen’ has already done something similar: Arendelle is not isolated, not exactly, and both movies have done some world building, albeit to varied extent and so on. ‘Wish’, on the other hand, does not do that: it begins on an isolated setting and ends in the same manner, but, hey, the villain is defeated, that is good, right?

Hard to say. On one hand, the people of the island learn that by mastering their power, they can defeat any single individual, no matter how powerful the latter is, individually. That is very democratic… but the endgame in the ‘Wish’ is that while the king got captured in a magical mirror and looked in the dungeon, his wife, (or ex-wife), continues to rein as the island’s queen, making this development less of a revolution and more of a palace coup. European society and history knew plenty of both, so they should not have problems differentiating between the two. The U.S. society and history, conversely, do not have too much experience… but still. After the Donald’s mess during 2020, you would think that they began to learn the differences and all. Anything else?

The ‘girl power’ angle. Regretfully, this was done in the ‘Wish’ so clumsily, that all the ‘witty’ critics, who make puns such as ‘M-She-U’ regarding MCU, will have a field day here, since this is the late 2023, and making all the movie’s villains male doesn’t really fly anymore; it is less progressive and more retrograde these days.

In addition, speaking of MCU… my apologies in telling that CD the captain Marvel perished at the end of ‘The Marvels’. She has not. She has merely retired, it seems, leaving MR stranded in a parallel universe on one hand, and KK jump-starting the next Avengers on the next. Again, the entire ‘Miss Marvel’ mini-series got ignored, and it’s anyone’s guess where ‘The Marvels’ will take MCU next, but still, it is a more inspiring and upbeat movie than the ‘Wish’ is, which feels rather flat and uninspired instead. The ‘Wish’ just does not look right, it does not feel right, and its’ message does not really come out right either. Overall, it feels inferior to both ‘Encanto’ and ‘Frozen’. C’est la vie.

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

Loki & The Marvels - Nov 10

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about the ‘Loki’ S2 finale instead – or not. How about we talk about ‘The Marvels’ movie in its’ place.

First, ‘The Marvels’ work. They work because the film is part of MCU’s current transition theme, and ‘The Marvels’ executes it on the level of AoS’ S4, which is to say, very well. ‘The Marvels’ movie has three main leads, (not counting Nick Fury), and all of them share the Marvel name. This is one of the reasons as to why MCU used all three of them together – to simplify the Marvel-ous situation, and to resolve several of the problems that had haunted this aspect of the MCU franchise.

Moreover, what did MCU do with them next? Carol Danvers, who was played by the problematic Ms. Brie Larson, (remember the commotion around the first ‘Captain Marvel’ film?), seems to have heroically sacrificed herself so that the Karee new home planet could have its’ own sun. She is off the board, at least for now.

Then, there is Ms. Photon, who is associated with S.W.O.R.D., which is not a part of MCU anymore, apparently, since there was neither hide nor hair of it since ‘WandaVision’, (WV), but that didn’t stop ‘The Marvels’: S.W.O.R.D. had a brief (re)-appearance, amounted to nothing, and now that Photon is in a parallel/alternate universe, odds are that S.W.O.R.D. will never appear in MCU ever again. (Not that the new S.A.B.E.R. was any more important to ‘The Marvels’, yeah). This way, a knot is quietly resolved in the ‘old’ MCU, and we get another shy introduction into the multiverse…

Speaking of the multiverse, what about Loki, ‘Loki’, and the TVA? This resolution was less satisfactory: Loki ended up taking over HWR’s old job, while Sylvie and agent MMM are running/not-running TVA. Pause.

In the ‘Loki’ S1 finale, Sylvie was in HWR’s old digs, doing his job, (maybe), while Loki was trying to get all of the TVA armed and armored against the new Kang, (and we got a Kang in the ‘Ant-Man 3’ movie, remember?). Well, ‘Loki’ S2 arrived, we had Sylvie back out in the wild again, we barely had any Kang in the person of Victor Timely, and the (ex)-judge RR became a mini-villain, who got sent into the Void. Agent MMM, Loki and Sylvie can attest that that is not as permanent as it might appear. Where is the multiverse, though?

Nowhere in sight, unlike ‘The Marvels’. Somehow, despite all of its’ talks about the ‘sacred timeline’ and what else have you, we never got to see any alternate timelines, aside from an occasional glimpse and all. Fair enough, but back to ‘The Marvels’?

Back at ‘The Marvels’, we got Carol Danvers safely taken off the board, (with enough wiggle room to bring her back, if needed), and Photon equally safely re-positioned in such, well, position, to introduce the multiverse, and the X-Men, into MCU if necessary. Finally, we have KK, the youngest Marvel, in a position to re-start the Avengers with Kate Bishop and a few others – but keep in mind that MCU’s Avengers are a mess since the ‘Endgame’ movie, so our heroines would need to re-start from almost a blank slate, and, in addition…

In addition, ‘The Marvels’ had no characters from the KK previous TV show at all, (aside from KK’s immediate family)? Obviously, no characters from overseas would appear, given how Pakistan has backed the Taliban in the real life to drive the U.S. from Afghanistan, but you would think that Bruno or some other Kamala’s classmates would make an appearance, however briefly – but they don’t, so the odds of the KK series having an S2 is unlikely. What else?

Ah yes, ‘The Marvels’ primary villain, Dar-Benn, whose motive was to… restore a Kree home planet, so that they would be able to live now that the Supreme Intelligence died, and their planet is dying. Hell, by dying herself, Dar-Benn was able to launch a process that caused Carol Danvers to complete the process and save the Kree. Hooray? Hooray. This makes Dar-Benn better – a better leader than Fury is, whose attempts to help the Skrulls failed epically on one hand, and on the other, no one is mentioning the events of SI either. There is no mention of Gravik, or Giyah, or Ms. Sonya, etc. Somehow, the Skrull separatists of SI transformed from MCU’s potential big bad into nothing – there’s no mention of them in the greater MCU anymore, just as there’s no sign of Marvel’s ‘InHumans’ anymore either. What else?

…Well, a ‘Mean Girl’ reboot is coming in 2024, and it might be a musical; ‘Cats-2019’ say hi from their distant past and remind people that musicals belong on stage, not on the big screen – but we digress from MCU.

If ‘The Marvels’ work overall, ‘Loki’ S2 feels more like a reset that MCU tried to do subtly, but failed – something that MCU is infamous for. We have discussed this before, (especially in AoS), so let us focus here on the fact that the final resolution has a feeling of being final – Loki’s (this Loki’s) journey is at an end; he found friends and love…and lost them, for good, it looks like. Sad, but MCU has been known to pull twists like this, and if this is so, then good luck to ‘Loki’, (and Loki), and a happy send-off to their respective stories!

…This is it for now, though. See you all soon!

Loki, Heart - Oct 27

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and most of the time you cannot control it, as it just goes on as it has intended to, and all of your attempts to interfere in it result in cosmetic, secondary, (at best), changes – now onto ‘Loki’ S2.

Here, unfortunately, the situation isn’t any better – this week’s episode, ‘Heart of the TVA’ brings us back to the ‘Breaking Brad’ mess, where it was all about destruction; this week it is all about killing – pardon me, pruning – of the various characters. General Dox and her people – gone. Timely – gone. The ex-judge RR – gone. Even Miss Minutes and a variant Loki are gone, (temporarily or not). What gives?

No, seriously, what gives? MCU has not treated its’ characters so badly since AoS’ S2 finale, (and no, that is just a coincidence, the two shows barely interconnected at all). Back then, AoS S2 resulted in a massive killing-off of characters, (some of whom were quite interesting, and who weren’t Kara Lynn Palamas, who is another story completely), and now, ‘Loki’ S2 is doing the same thing: we barely get to know people (ok, characters), before they’re gone. The ex-judge RR and Victor Timely, for example, could have been just as important in ‘Loki’ as agent 33/Kara had been in AoS, and now, they are just gone.

…Right, some people are pointing out to me that within MCU ‘killing’ and ‘pruning’ are two different things, (however superficially similar): the show’s titular character, (as well as Sylvie and agent MMM), was pruned in S1, and it revealed that the ‘pruned’ characters (and things) go into some sort of a subspace wasteland where they stay forever, (or until a giant fog dragon eats them). To this, I reply: small consolation, not to mention it looks as if general Dox and most of her minions were killed, rather than pruned. I.e.: was it worth to introduce us to Dox and co. in the ‘Loki’ episode 2x02 only to get rid of them two episodes later? This sort of ill-treatment of characters is reminiscent of AoS at its’ worst, again.

…In addition, ‘Loki’ is all about the multiverse – or it is supposed to. The episode 2x03, ‘1893’, has kind of embraced this – at last, but now, in ‘Heart’, we’re back in the TVA proper, where various factions are fighting for its’ control, never showing openly just what are the stakes they’re fighting for. In S1, ‘Loki’ did show bits and pieces of multiverse, but in S2, the multiverse is being downplayed even more. Why? Is MCU being rebooted, some fans are wondering? To this, I respond: yes. Look, for example, at the information about ‘The Marvels’, the MCU movie coming out in Nov 2023: it features Carol, Monica and Kamala, and-

No Skrulls. The Skrulls were a big deal in the first ‘Captain Marvel’ film, and they played a minor, but an important role, in WV, in which Monica got her powers. Since then, the Skrulls virtually vanished from MCU, and SI was an immediately forgettable show. It was also an insipid show… and it introduced Ms. Sonya, who took over from Countess Val with nary a comment. Put otherwise, MCU took time and effort in building countess Val, (Ms. Ross), as a character, only to replace her with Sonya when it really mattered. SI was supposed to be a milestone in MCU’s development and progress, and instead it became a forgettable side note – another sign that MCU is rebooting itself in mid-stride, not unlike how the SW sequel trilogy did do it. Moreover, there is no sign of Skrulls in the trailers and teasers for ‘The Marvels’, which further indicates a shift in the canon. What next?

Well, it is anyone’s guess, really. People are beginning to discuss for real that MCU is rebooting itself a-la SW. Of course, this reboot cost SW plenty of fans, but that does not matter: ever since ‘The Mandalorian’ S3, SW moved in the direction of the aforementioned sequel trilogy – that is the end game, to show how the SW world of the episode VI became the world of the episode VII and beyond. The SW fans did not like the world of the SW episode VII and beyond, but Disney/SW does not care, apparently, since it is returning its’ viewers there, albeit this time by a roundabout route. Will it succeed this time is an open question. What will this ‘rebooting in mid-stride’ approach/attitude do for Disney/MCU as well is another. ‘Loki’ S2 is already suffering from this, however, and that is not a good sign, for Disney/MCU or otherwise.

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

SI & FH - July 22

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, but SI does not fare much better either.

…Now, some of you are raising a point that while AoS was a show about a group of people, (i.e. the titular characters), SI is a show about Nick Fury and his entourage, just as the ‘Hawkeye’ Series had been about Hawkeye… and the other Hawkeye, (you decide which is which). This is reasonable, but, again, if you look at ‘Hawkeye’, it was more than just about Hawkeyes one and two, it was also about their families, (especially about Kate’s), and about Echo, (another Marvel character who may or may not getting their own series in the future). In other words, ‘Hawkeye’ was part of MCU’s zeitgeist of that time, that of transitions: the title of ‘Hawkeye’ passed from Clint to Kate, and the landscape of MCU itself changed: NYC got a new vigilante, Echo, while Fisk was on the out, (supposedly), and Yelena Belova got further established in MCU than compared to her MCU debut in the ‘Black Widow’ film. SI does nothing like that, it is just Nick Fury running around, trying to save the world, while his few allies are just dying, and he’s blithely ignoring them: ‘Jeeves is dead? Thanks for the update, bye!’ There is no hook to capture and hold the audience’s attention, no nothing.

…AoS had the same problem, as a matter of fact, even from the start, but because they had several core characters who didn’t die in the initial episodes, for example, this show began to generate plenty of drama by the second half of the first season, and that was what kept it going, especially in the first three-four seasons. SI doesn’t have that either – the characters are both new and forgettable, and the new ‘Marvels’ trailer only further emphasized that SI is less of a milestone for MCU, and more of an aside, forgotten as quickly as possible. Why? Because that movie is about the Kree, not the Skrulls, as villains.

The fact that SI has evil Skrulls for villains, (rather than plain-mundane Chinese, North Koreans or Russians – thank God for that), is also a problem: by now MCU has established that Kree are the bad guys out of the two, and the Skrulls are allies of Fury and Earth’s humans; to have them suddenly become evil has made things even more convoluted and uncomfortable for MCU and its’ narrative, so the odds of SI being shoved aside and forgotten after its’ run ends is perfect.

Pause. Going back to the new ‘Marvels’ trailer, we also see Fury there, but no other member of the SI cast, including Ms. Sonya, who is just a variant of countess Val, of whom there’s no sign, which is proof that SI is about to be done and gone in MCU. True, the first ‘Captain Marvel’ film also starred Phil Coulson, who ended his AoS run being more live than dead, and the ‘Marvels’ trailer ignores that as well, but AoS is apocrypha of MCU on one hand, and on the other, MCU is restructuring itself even regardless of AoS by now. Is that it?

For SI – yes. For FH – not so much. This week the game has released a depiction of a new PC character, the Ocelotl. Succinctly put, this character is based on a RL and fantasy versions of the Aztec Jaguar Knight caste, but because of copyright infringement, or because FH is trying to be fancy, the character is named after the ocelot wildcat instead.

An ocelot is a sizeable feline, true, after the jaguar and the puma it is the biggest cat in the American tropics, but the jaguar could easily have an ocelot for breakfast if the latter got unlucky on one paw, and on the other, the North/Central American bobcat could probably overpower it as well. There is no idea as to why FH ignored the jaguar, the American biggest cat, in the favor of the ocelot, but it still did.

As for the new character’s weapons… He wields a Macahuitl and Tepoztopilli. The first is a wooden sword/baseball bat studded with sharp shards of obsidian. The second is a wooden spear with a wide head, also studded with sharp shards of obsidian. In the original Mesoamerica, which had no metal armor, such weapons were formidable, tearing at a human body, and obsidian shards could and would splinter on impact, further hurting the human. Against metal, (ok, steel), arms and armor, however, as well as firearms, the Aztec weapon proved inefficient, and the Natives would acquire those weapons and armor quickly enough, though it wasn’t sufficient to save their empire from collapsing… from several reasons, actually, but none of them are relevant to FH. What is important, supposedly, is that the Aztec Jaguar was already featured in S2 of Deadliest Warrior, (DW), where he faced a Zande warrior of Africa, and lost. Now, under a new name, he is returning to mass media – it will be interesting to see how the ‘Ocelotl’ will fair in the game.

This is it for now. See you all soon!

SI, series premiere - June 21

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about Marvel’s™ ‘Secret Invasion’ series instead.

The series’ premiere episode, ‘Resurrection’, is… no, it may be indicative of the series (mini-series), as a whole: it lacks heart.

No, let us try again. ‘Secret Invasion’ is a remake-reboot, not unlike TLM-2023, only if TLM-2023 is obvious, then ‘Secret Invasion’ is a ‘subtle’ way of rebooting both S.H.I.E.L.D., (AoS), and S.W.O.R.D., (WV, remember?). After AoS, WV, and – the ‘Ms. Marvel’ series, SI is the third attempt for MCU to develop a secret agency something or other. AoS was a spy TV series that veered into new pastures at the end of S4 or around that time and it took the titular S.H.I.E.L.D. with it. That series ended with S.H.I.E.L.D. flourishing… an ending that came from a previous incarnation of the show, and which ended in a metaphorical cul-de-sac as they were replaced by S.W.O.R.D. in WV. Skrulls also played a minor role in that series, but play they did, and as we’ve seen in the trailer for ‘The Marvels’ film, they, and S.W.O.R.D., were supposed to play a role in MCU – and so the Skrulls do. 

S.W.O.R.D., on the other hand, got replaced by something called S.A.B.E.R. with nary an explanation, though in ‘Ms. Marvel’ we just had surrogate S.H.I.E.L.D., represented by the government, chasing Clan Destine, aka surrogate InHumans, with Kamala being caught in the middle. However, by the end of MM, we learn that none of the above applied to Kamala, who had her own destiny, and who got swapped with Carol ‘Captain Marvel’ Danvers at the end – an act that ties-in directly with ‘The Marvels’ as the trailer shows – but there the villains are to be the Kree, not the Skrulls. Pause.

Going back to the first ‘Captain Marvel’ film, we learn that in MCU the Skrulls are good, while the Kree were bad. Therefore, now we got a splinter group of the Skrulls, who are bad after all, and Fury, Hill, and the good Skrulls need to stop them. Can we say ‘unnecessarily complex’? Whatever was going on in the heads of MCU’s creative team regarding them will remain unknown – it just too convoluted to be revealed.

However, the ‘plot development’, where the splinter Skrulls are beginning a conflict between USA and Russia is all too predictable: it is safe. Sure, MCU could have used China, North Korea or Iran, (to name a few), in place of RF, but RF is safe. Disney/MCU knows that it will not offend anyone by using RF as cat’s-paw for the main villains – the splinter Skrulls – and anything else is more risky.

Sure, USA is not too happy with China these days, for example, (just ask Biden the POTUS), but Disney/MCU is ready to commit to that train of thought and would rather be somewhere else. As it was written before, Disney loves to make money, but it hates to lose money even more, and controversies cost money, and so Disney prefers to end controversies before they begin. The result? Things like the almost featureless ‘Elemental’ that go down easy, go out easy, and are forgotten just as easily. You remember the Spider-society in Sony’s™ second Miles Morales film? On one hand, this organization is quite democratic - we got people of all shapes, colors, sexes, species, etc. On the other hand, this organization is quite inefficient, as Miles is able to avoid them… period. The Spider-society is less of an organization and more of a crowd that is not very efficient at executing tasks period. (The titular organization of AoS had a similar problem, but on a smaller scale). This is… not unlike the actual US society these days, which is quite democratic and politically correct, but not very good at executing various tasks; the fact that the RF’s ‘special military operation’ is floundering is their fall, not US’ achievement, and it shows. If RF ever gets its’ things together, (a tall order, true, but still), then Ukraine is in real trouble…

Leaving real world behind and going back to ‘Secret Invasion’… we got more of AoS, really. AoS had FitzSimmons to show the American unity with the U.K., and here we got Ms. /agent Sonya, who is a member of MI6 and Fury ally, (supposedly). In reality, the relationship between the two countries is more fractious, but Disney/MCU has nothing to do with reality, you know? Real life sucks as it is…

‘Secret Invasion’, on the other hand, is just lackluster – it isn’t as bad as ‘She-Hulk’ had been, but judging by the more than slightly subdued reaction from the media, everyone is aware that it isn’t ‘What if?’ or even ‘Sam & Bucky’. It is just a much-shorter clone of AoS, and people are treating SI as such. Pity, I would say, but there is nothing to pity – Disney/MCU should have just stuck with S.W.O.R.D. instead.

For now, then, this is it. See you all soon.

She-Hulk, Retreat - Sep 29

 

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and you can always count on your family to make it worse – especially for you. I am almost done with everything and everyone, and that thought is scary as fuck – I do not want to go, but I do not want to stay either…

On a more cheery note – the latest ‘She-Hulk’ episode, ‘The Retreat’, is out, and… how is this more cheery, exactly? Let us elaborate.

If last week our titular character tangled with Titania, this week the Abomination is back, and he is getting therapy? Therapy for super-villains (and others?) is a thing now? Then where it was in AoS – both Grant and Daisy could have used it, (even if for different reasons…

Why am I returning to AoS this time? ‘Cause ‘She-Hulk’ is showing us the Abomination going through his redemption, apparently… In the Marvel comics, the Abomination is a monstrous, twisted mirror of the Hulk, while the rest of the characters that’d appeared at the titular location are nowhere near as powerful, but here, in MCU, he’s one of the gang, and-

-And the show is about J.W., because she is the titular character instead – in this episode, she learns to let go and deal with rejection thanks to one therapy session. Of course she does. Did the showrunners and co. think that that would make their titular character slightly less Mary-Suish, maybe? If so, then congrats – they went down the other way and made her the ‘pathetic forerunner to a Mary-Sue’ cliché: J.W. genuinely does not do anything on the episode, she just is! This has rather happened already, in the episode 1x05, but there we had Molly Book and co. to carry the day, (metaphorically), here – not even that.

In addition, we got MCU’s Wrecker, from MCU’s Wrecking Crew, in the same place, also going for therapy. Does it mean that MCU’s Wrecking Crew is done and gone? In Marvel Comics, the Wrecking Crew was competent and powerful enough to fight the Avengers regularly enough; here, it is a joke, just as everything and everyone that becomes associated with MCU’s ‘She-Hulk’. El Aquila can’t be taken seriously because he is a swashbuckler? So’s the Swordsman, technically, but MCU’s ‘Hawkeye’ (the series) has given him some respect at least.

Actually, maybe ‘Hawkeye’ warrants some more mention here. The first MCU property that went into outright comedy territory had been… WV, actually, but that show quickly began to evolve past that in its’ fourth episode. ‘Hawkeye’, on the other hand, never took itself too seriously… almost. Once Yelena popped-up, then things began to sombre up, but the new Black Widow did only come and go… Pause.

Yeah, that ‘Secret Wars’ trailer – it starred Nick Fury and Maria Hill… and only them, really. You would think that some of the AoS characters, good or bad, would appear, but apparently not – clearly, Disney is done with that show.

…Yeah, I remember that ‘Hawkeye’ was also the show that brought back S.H.I.E.L.D. as Ms. Barton’s watch – but after the initial fandom’s excitement – clearly, they aren’t done with AoS, it all died down very fast, meaning that Disney/MCU have no intention of pulling SW – to wit, the latest installments in the SW franchise deal in the period set in the original trilogy, and not going into ‘the future’ anymore; they’re flat-out pretending that the sequel trilogy doesn’t exist, and also wait for the fandom to forget all about it, before going into the future once more. Barton’s watch might have been their attempt at doing the same thing with AoS, only it failed, so no more S.H.I.E.L.D in the MCU for real.

…Actually, the same might be said about S.W.O.R.D. as well – it’d been set-up in WV, true, but earlier in 2022 we had ‘Ms. Marvel’ and there was no sign of it either; instead, we had Damage Control, who did the same thing that S.H.I.E.L.D. and S.W.O.R.D. did, and there were no Skrulls either; given how the ‘Captain Marvel’ film was almost all about the Skrulls, this is just weird – but how does that connect to ‘She-Hulk’?

It does not, not really. There were some post-credit pics of J.W. working with folders that have the S.H.I.E.L.D. eagle logo on it, but nothing else. That is good, because everything and everyone associated with ‘She-Hulk’ becomes downgraded.

…Therefore, for now, let us wrap it up. MCU is having problems, and it had them for a while, probably because of RL issues. Did I mention that real life sucks and blows? Then I am repeating this, and I will see you all soon instead!

She-Hulk, Law - August 25

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about ‘She-Hulk’ instead. In the show’s second episode, ‘Superhuman Law’, the titular character continues to evolve…along the expected lines of a Mary-Sue: her family sucks, they are a different aspect of the patriarchy, (and their indoctrinated female lackeys, of course), and they are keeping our plucky heroine down, until she embraces her different, outlier, destiny of being a lawyer for the outsiders, such as Emil Blonsky/the Abomination. Fair enough, and J.W. got her girl Friday Nikki to help her along, so yay! And who needs Titania anyhow? …Anything else?

…Yeah, in the B-story B.B. the original Hulk is back in space, probably to re-enact MCU’s version of the ‘Planet Hulk’ storyline. A different studio – Lionsgate or something similar – has already released an animated movie version of that story some time before, so MCU has to do something much more complex to avoid any copyright conflicts… but what is the point?

The point is that ‘She-Hulk’ is continuing the traditions, initiated the previous Phase 4+ installments, such as the Sam and Bucky show, or WV: the old heroes are leaving, new ones are arriving. Steve Rogers is out, Sam Wilson is in. Carol Danvers may be leaving, but Photon is entering, but…

…but I guess we’re re-saying once more: real life happened, and it sucks, and so the MM Disney+ series, instead of being feted as a breakthrough of the Pakistani-US relations, got downplayed to the max, and may even join AoS in being MCU’s apocrypha instead – but nothing like that is threatening the ‘She-Hulk’, no sir: there’re no contentious real-life racial issues or anything, just straightforward girl power, (with Wong and Blonsky being the titular character’s gay wingmen), and B.B. is heading back to the stars… What else?

I genuinely do not care anymore, in fact. MM was flat-out disappointing, with its’ substitute InHumans and S.H.I.E.L.D., (aka Clan Destine and DoDC, respectively), and ‘She-Hulk’ is just trite and predictable, in a genre sort of way. Oh, and this week’s episode had a hidden reference to Wolverine apparently too. This makes it all better, no doubt. MCU has mishandled the InHumans about as badly as it had S.H.I.E.L.D., so now they are introducing the mutants, (and also other beings, such as the Clan Destine), to do something about that. Well, good luck to them!

As for us… right now, this is it. See you all soon, instead!                                                                                                                       

She-Hulk, series premiere - August 18

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, the electronics in my life and my home are going berserk, so let us talk about the ‘She-Hulk’ series premiere – and… it is a Mary Sue!

No, seriously, she is – she is better than her cousin BB is, (and he used to be a cosmic gladiator, remember?), she is better than Titania is, she’s better than everyone else, and it’s the patriarchy that is keeping her down, nothing else.

Yes, I am quite aware that this version of ‘She-Hulk’ is a direct descendant of the early 2000s’ comic version, where Ms. Walters got fired by her old legal firm ‘cause of her skin color, (cough), and who became a freelancer instead, battling even Dr. Doom, (hint-hint towards MCU), matching wits with the Daredevil in the court of law, (and look who is back, even in the trailers)… over the old Captain Rogers; (it resulted in Cap being acquitted rather than condemned, and in him punching Dr. Faustus in the face – in MCU, this role belonged to Dr. Whitehall, who seems to be dead after all); and she’d confronted Titania, who’d been… actually in employ of some minor villain-hero, who was revealed not to be so minor after all… and who had altered the Marvel universe somehow…and the She-Hulk had to team-up with the Shocker to fix things… yes, Marvel comics can be really confusing sometimes. What next?

Well, MCU’s Titania resembles a reject from the World Wrestling Federation, and, apparently, fights like one, so pardon me for not being impressed as to how Attorney at Law: She-Hulk kicked her ass. Any true Mary-Sue requires having other female characters around to be the villains for her to easily defeat, or maybe even redeem, but they are still inferior to her, because she is perfect, (and otherwise? She will bugger-off into the sunset, leaving the authors with a gaping plot hole, ‘cause she’s that sort of an a-hole instead). What next?

Well, the 355 film, (remember it?), failed despite trying to show this sort of a female protagonist, (or several, actually), and the same can be said about the DCEU, such as the “Harley Quinn’ films, which have also vanished by now with nary a mark left. We will see how ‘She-Hulk’ will fair next, and there is also a statement about MM.

MM, by contrast, is less of a Mary-Sue, and more of a propaganda piece, aimed at showing just how well, and how domestically, Muslim immigrants are living in the U.S. Sadly, RL being what it is, this happened soon after the Taliban vanquished the U.S. army and the democratic regime in the Afghanistan, completely and utterly, so the American elite’s take on MM was underwhelming, but what could be done? Admit that MM is a propaganda piece with a message that not even its’ makers believe in? Yeah, that’s not how they do it in America; they adhere to their beliefs – in a half-ass manner that satisfies neither side; the result here is that MM got buried between ‘Obi-Wan’ and ‘Thor 4’, and the world moved on…

Therefore, let us move on as well; so far, MM offered little, and ‘She-Hulk’ offers less; as such, I’ll see you all soon instead!

FH: Medjai - July 22

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks; sometimes it sucks so badly, that you cannot sleep at night, but just lie there and wonder – just what are you doing, and where are you going, and where, and when, are you going to stop and get out of the groove – and go on from there to where?.. On a more lighter side, the ‘For Honour’ (FH) game has introduced the new character – the Medjai.

…Oh yes, undoubtedly, the Medjai – or rather, the Medjay, were a real-life organization, actually: first, they were a tribal group from Nubia, (a region located alongside the Nile river), and later on – something of a police organization during the existence of Ancient Egypt – something that the second incarnation of the ‘Mummy’ franchise used quite a bit. Yay?

Well, maybe – the Anubis-based armor used by FH’s Medjai clearly comes from that franchise, (as opposed to the aborted Tom Cruise one, eh?), as does this warrior’s double-axe, (double battle-axe, maybe)? There’s nothing original about the new guy, put otherwise, and what’s more, whereas its’ predecessors were taken – at least – from the now-defunct ‘Deadliest Warrior’ (DW) franchise, the Medjai doesn’t even have that – this is fiction at its’ purest. Ouch!

Finally, we return to MM for one last time – somehow we forgot to comment that MCU’s version KK is a mutant instead. Fancy that! In the original comics, MM was an InHuman instead, so now we got a flat-out switcharoo! Yay! Just kidding, but this is also one of the factors as to why the MM finale was about as bad as AoS’ had been – it is just flat-out incompatible with the rest of the show, just as AoS’ had been. However, AoS’ problems aside, in MM, the finale has rubbed-out the rest of the season – pause.

Let me start again. Throughout the first season of her show, KK was introduced and developed not as a mutant, or an InHuman, or some other Gifted, but as her own person, an independent and competent young woman, who has her own thing, and who does her own thing too. Great! She was also shown to have both her own allies and enemies, which is also wonderful – and then came the final scene, and all of this was flat-out removed, as not only Kamala was revealed to be ‘something else’ instead – i.e. a mutant, regardless whether a regular or an irregular one – but she has also found herself in an entirely different, non-connected situation from what she’d experienced so far…

…Something similar has happened to the Scarlet Witch too, in fact. Throughout WV, she has grown and changed as a character, and at the series’ finale, she actually began to return to her superhero roots – and then came the ‘Dr. Strange 2’ film, and all of that got thrown out of the window, with Wanda being reduced to someone not unlike the Wicked Queen from Disney’s original ‘Snow White’ animated movie. There is a reason as to why people are accusing Disney/MCU of mistreating their female characters, and this is a part of it. I do not know what will happen to Kamala next, has she just switched places with Carol Danvers, or if the two of them have switched their minds instead, but I really hope that she will get a better hand than the one that Wanda has received…

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

Avengers comics - July 20

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and MCU has taken a breather for 5 weeks – thanks God. Why?

Because MM, in particular, had been an uninspiring mess! MCU’s Phase 4 is about transitions and introductions…but it has stopped working in ‘Thor 4’, ‘cause Disney/MCU want to retain TW in their roster, and the latter didn’t want to work with the ‘Thor’ franchise unless CH remains Thor – so it was NP who got removed out of MCU for good instead. Well, not her, but her character – Dr. Jane ‘the mighty Thor’ Foster. Fun! However, never was it said that Disney/MCU would not step over their principles if they can achieve greater financial success! What next?

…So, in the absence of MCU, I tried to read some Marvel comics – especially the Avengers’ storyline, and it is the same old song, albeit done in different tune: initially, the Avengers had their own plotline, as they teamed-up with several other heroes to protect Earth from various beings, (who were being puppet-mastered by Mephisto). Eventually, that degraded into collections of one-shots, and cameos, and filler arcs, all of which clearly showed that Marvel themselves do not really know what to do with this version of the Avengers anymore, or why should it keep them.

Here, though, is an especial shout-out to the ghost rider, (the Robbie Reyes version). In the beginning, he became a ‘proper’ Avenger, (as opposed to a more vigilante type of crime fighter), with a burgeoning relationship with Captain Carol ‘Marvel’ Danvers. Why? Because he was about to get his own series in MCU, at that time. This did not happen, so by the time that the Moon Knight Story arc came along, Robbie got sidelined completely, and Carol teamed/coupled-up with Tony ‘Iron Man’ Stark instead, (complete with a fostered baby, who is more of a political statement, but that is another story).

Why the Moon Knight? Because he did get his own series at MCU, so his character did get some redesigning in the Marvel comics. Fun! However, this story arc had nothing to do with him anymore; rather it was all about the Phoenix.

…When the current Avenger incarnation began, Wolverine was the Phoenix, (do not ask, I do not know – or care about – the details). Then, abruptly, Wolverine was not the Phoenix anymore, and began to lead his own, ‘Savage’ Avengers, against a wizard named Kulan Gath (or something along those lines). Now there is no mention either of the Savage Avengers or of the wizard in question…and the Phoenix force resides in Maya ‘Echo’ Lopez instead.

Yes, that Maya, who starred in the ‘Hawkeye’ TV series, and who is about to get her own series, apparently. Therefore, now she is the new Phoenix in the comics, and Robbie is flirting with her, while Carol is with Stark, (see above). Frankly, the current Avengers should have their own soap opera by now, with Mephisto playing the main villain, which would be more appropriate for them… Where were we?

Ah yes, with the epiphany that while Disney/MCU have some idea of where they should go now that the Infinity Saga is over, but they are quite willing to diverge from it because of money, then Marvel comics don’t even have that, and just follow – vaguely – Disney/MCU’s lead. Yay for them, really. Sometimes, I authentically hate not only the real life, but everything else as well.

However, for the moment, this is it. See you all soon, instead!

 

 

Ms. Marvel, S1 finale

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about the ‘Ms. Marvel’ finale. Unfortunately, it is not an improvement over reality either; I am honestly confused if this is a season finale or a series finale, and I am admitting aloud: for the first time since involving myself with MCU, I do not care!

Can I elaborate? It is tricky to say: on its’ own, ‘Ms. Marvel’ wasn’t bad; it was just lackluster – more like the ‘InHumans’ than the AoS, if we used comparisons.

What was specifically out of what in ‘Ms. Marvel’? I would say that it tried too hard to be a superhero origin story, and a coming of age tale at the same time; the fact that it also tried to give itself an ‘ethnic’ flavor didn’t help either, as Disney/MCU is notoriously politically correct – and not always in a good way.

Where had it gone wrong in the opinion of most critics? Precisely there – in the original ‘Ms. Marvel’ comics, KK has to struggle with at least some racism, as she is a POC in the US. In the Disney+ series, this aspect was seriously downplayed, leaving quite a few viewers and fans wondering – then what is the point of making MM a POC? For Disney/MCU to put another (metaphorical) notch into their feel-good belt? FOX’s last X-Men films tried something along those lines, and it really backfired upon them; Disney/MCU seems to be going in a similar direction…

True, Disney/MCU doesn’t have to do this sort of a story – i.e. one where a POC defeats WASP opposition, but for the modern Western culture this is one of its’ basics, and when it isn’t followed, then the modern Western culture wonders as to what that POC is doing on screen and shouldn’t we be watching something else instead? It can also be argued that just as with women-based movies, (such as the ‘355’ or the ‘365’ – does anyone even remember it?), the Western audiences are no longer satisfied with watching POCs ‘merely’ succeed over their WASP opposition, but in that case people may no longer be satisfied with what Disney/MCU is offering them to begin with… yes, it can get real ugly for Disney+ and its’ universes very quickly – but we got carried away.

On a less ‘deep’ level, MM suffers from the fact that it is shallow – the lead actress may be carrying the show, but there’s little to carry as the show’s villains, the Clan Destine and the Damage Control, appear to be substitutes for the InHumans and S.H.I.E.L.D., but lacking their histories within MCU for the audiences. People just don’t perceive them as threats or care about them, and so MM falls flat once KK goes to confront them: she kicks their ass? So what?!

…And as for her love life – do not go there. Can you imagine a male lead with three female love interests? Wouldn’t go down too well, (unless the lead was James Bond, but still, it is squeaky), so why should the gender-flipped situation work? Oh, right, because these days the fanworks are full of Mary Sues, especially of the female variety, and, yes, this version of KK is a Mary Sue.

No, really, there is some justification for my proclamation: KK is a female lead, she gets the lion’s shares of the romance, and the rest of the female characters are much more peripheral. Since MM was written by professional writers rather than amateurs, MM is able to get away with it, (the brevity of the show helped too), but still there are strong elements of Mary Sue in KK too. What is left?

Ah, yes, the finale, where KK and Captain Danvers switch places in the universe: KK is elsewhere, and Captain Danvers is in KK’s bedroom. I have not cringed so hard, and not just because this situation is reminiscent of Disney’s humor at its’ worst, but because this situation was flat-out shoehorned into the show. Throughout MM, Captain Danvers was referenced quite a bit, because of the obvious reasons, but nothing else; KK was built into a superhero/vigilante who stood on her own two feet and did her own thing, getting free of Captain Danvers’ shadow – and then along comes the final scene, and everything is up-ended once more; seriously, what does Disney/MCU want with KK? She is a first Muslim superhero – fine, but there has to be more than that to her, right?

…And then there is the fact that that scene was also reminiscent of the AoS’ series finale – one that had nothing in common with the rest of the series’ S7. Rather, it was more reminiscent of where the show’s characters were at the end of S3 – the beginning of S4, save that now the cast seemed to include Kora, (whose story arc made no sense), agent Piper, (a character that seemed to have no real purpose, and was just a plug), and the LMD of agent Davis, (an act of dubious morality even by MCU’s standards for reasons that were discussed else when). Here, again, the brevity of MM works in its’ favor, as its’ disastrous epilogue is much more restrained and contained than AoS’ had been. Yay? – I do not know and I honestly do not care. Anything else?

 Sadly, no. ‘Ms. Marvel’ had been one of the most lackluster Marvel shows that I have ever seen, which is something of an anti-record. Ah well, real life sucks, remember? In any case – see you all soon!

WandaVision, s1 finale - March 8

 …And so, ‘WandaVision’ has ended, because of course it had. Everyone quite understands about it, but it seems that Disney/MCU tried some sort of a pre-emptive strike after this event, via the Collider and similar sites, (maybe). More about this in a moment, but first – real life sucks. Just ask the titular Scarlet Witch of the now-concluded mini-series.

…What were Disney/MCU worried about? That not enough fans would be appreciative of WV, or they would fail to realize that it was a show about grief, apparently. Yes, having Olsen and Hahn fly around in the sky, slugging it out like magical heavyweights, is so grievous, and the same goes for Bettany fighting himself.

…Actually, Bettany fighting himself has a distinct echo of Wen doing so in AoS’ S2, when she was both Melinda May and agent 33 at that time. Later on, in S4, this situation would be repeated, as Melinda, and the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D., would end up confronting their robot doubles, (the LMDs). Back then, Disney/MCU/AoS, just recycled an old plotline with mixed results, (S4 might have been the best AoS season, in the terms of story mechanics, but regardless…), and now WV had something similar, because of course it did. Disney/MCU is all about recycling…I mean grief.

On a more serious note, it means that the titular characters are done with each other for the moment, and yes, they were growing slowly but steadily apart since the episodes 5&6, but yes, it still hurts. The drama aspect of the WV is excellently done, as always, but what else is there?

The wokeness, I reckon. Agatha Harkness was mostly a dark reflection of Wanda, (pre-WV finale), but she had pieces of an original character as well. Director Hayward on the other hand, seems to be little more than a placeholder, aka yet straight white male character, who starts as a good (neutral) person, and then is revealed an evil one. Yes, his action of shooting the WandaVision twins was just wrong on every level, just as Monica’s attempt to protect them was right, but even the fans of WV admit that some character development for Hayward’s character would’ve been a good thing. Instead, we got a rush job, but that is because it is Monica’s corner of WV.

Let us admit. WV was about the titular characters and their children, but it was also about the development of Monica Rambeau/Spectrum’s position/place/plot in MCU. She, as well as her girl Friday and boy Saturday, Darcy and Jimmy, have been in preliminary stages of their superhero journeys, but now they are ready to launch, given how the Skrulls have contacted Monica, (remember, Jimmy listed the Skrulls as one of the possible reasons behind the Westview phenomenon), and the S.W.O.R.D. is now leaderless, so will Monica step in and become its’ new leader, (however eventually)? Given how the CM franchise takes part mostly in space, Monica probably will.

Put otherwise, WV was supposed to be about Monica Rambeau as well as it is about the titular characters, but it fell short. The same goes for the ‘recast Pietro’ angle – yes, the odds of WV introducing the mutants in the MCU proper were very unlikely, (cough, Deadpool 3 movie, cough), but still, Ralph Bohner? For a show that is supposed to be about grief, a penis joke is just what the doctor ordered, apparently.

Also – a missed opportunity: the scriptwriters could have made the fake Pietro some sort of a minor villain for Monica to take down – instead, he was just a harmless clown, who could have been defeated by Darcy alongside director Hayward. No, seriously, given how Monica have ran through Wanda’s Westview Hex, she could’ve been set-up as the next Quicksilver-like character, and her bond with Wanda, (remember our 1x03 discussion and beyond?), could’ve strengthened. Instead, that never happened, and all that Wanda did give Monica was a brief nod of recognition, (metaphorically speaking). Yes, there was not enough time, money, and what else have you to give Monica as much recognition – this time – as it was for Wanda and Vision, but still – a bad taste in my mouth if you will.

Let us conclude. ‘WV’ has finished with Wanda and Vision being finished for the moment, (though keep in mind that one half of Wanda in the last scenes is wearing white clothing, reminiscent of Vision’s new white get-up, so there’s some hope for them yet), with Tommy and Billy being safely away, (or at least just away)…somewhere else. Agatha has been defeated for now, though she is not dead, (ergo she might return in a future Marvel installment, just as Jimmy Woo and Darcy have). Monica might have proven that she might be Avenger material after all, (cough, the second Spider-Man movie, cough), and Jimmy and Darcy are her sidekick material too. Not bad for a brief 9-episode show, I would say.

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

WW1984 trailer 1 - Dec 9

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. In addition, no, I am not talking about the Donald and his impeachment, which goes nowhere fast – Ms. Pelosi was able to use the hoopla surrounding it to prevent the Democratic party from breaking apart into several new parties, (all of which just as hostile to each other as they are towards the Republican party), so that’s it. She did the best of a bad job, but it was still bad. North Korea is still mocking USA, whereas Russia…

Well, the Russian bear had been insulted badly by WADA’s decision, and if it did want to abide by the Western rules, now would be the perfect time for it to start to come to its’ senses – but the problem that the RF’s president Putin doesn’t care about this at all – he just wants to bring the West down, and so he’ll continue to drive his country in this direction until he dies of his own causes, i.e. old age or he is offed. There had been variations of this chiaroscuro conclusion of the Russian rulers’ life, but not many and very rarely, so it is safe to say Putin will rule until he dies himself, or he is killed by someone else who’ll succeed after him… or not, because there’s always the Revolution. Contemporary Russian government is deathly afraid of the Revolution of 1905 and 1917, which is why they lost their shit over Ukraine when it experienced its’ own… hybrid of Revolution and Perestroika… but what does the West do?

Begin to dismantle NATO, that is what. Somehow, in all the excitement of the Russian bear getting punched in the face – hard, and the Donald being insulted by Korea’s great steersman of the state – comrade Kim – also hard, it was overseen as to what happened in Denmark. Something is rotten there, it looks like…but it is the U.S., again. An American critic of the Donald and his regime was supposed to participate in the NATO summit there, so the U.S. Ambassador to Denmark told him (it was a man), that no, you are no longer invited, period. Harsh! Moreover, the government of Denmark told Mr. Ambassador this, on top of ‘if this is how you’re behaving, then we’re done with NATO for now’ – and now there is not a peep about this piece of news on news’ channels and websites. What gives?

…EU has achieved the next stage of its’ being self-sufficient and independence from the U.S., that is what. NATO, just like UN, is still largely an American organization; EU is not. While WADA was punching the Russian bear in the muzzle, the leaders of France and Germany talked to Putin of RF and Zelensky of Ukraine with nary an interest in WADA. WADA is not impotent, but it is limited, it looks like. Now what?

Well, firstly, Putin fears EU the way that he does not the U.S. He has no interest in instigating WWIII – yet and so he is willing cooperate with EU at least to a point in a way that he is not willing to with the U.S. The problem that on the other side of the coin EU is not a big fan of the U.S. anymore – just read the news. While they have little to no in common with the regimes of North Korea or Iran, (China is different, let’s be fair here), again, they are also fed up with the way that the American government was doing things… since the infamous 9/11, while the U.S. sent its’ troops into Afghanistan and beyond. Surprisingly, cough, the only other major Western power that supported them properly was Great Britain. (Again, let us keep Israel out of the equation – but yes, it makes the situation more complex). These days, not surprisingly, Great Britain actually wants to leave the EU, (and remind me as to why did they want to do that in the first place, since obviously that isn’t Russia’s fault, even the Brits themselves admit it), and they got problems, again. I.e. Epstein was very much an American, not a Russian double agent or anything, and also? Prince Andrew of the U.K. was a good friend of his, apparently. The Royal family and co are denying everything, of course, but his highness was kicked out of the family regardless, his children – princess Beatrice and princess Eugenie – aren’t keeping the stiff proverbial upper lip either and the clouds are gathering over the fair isle of England and co. all the same. What is next?

As above as below, as in big things, so in the small – the actor who played the husband in the Peloton ad, (we have talked about it earlier this month) has received death threats, and his female counterpart, who played the wife, (aka Grace from Boston), did not fair too well either. The Hell? Yes, the ad was insensitive, stupid and vapid, but nothing more, and – death threats? People have time for this sort of thing. On with the show?

Yes, since the ad brings us back onto the other side of the silver screen, and to the upcoming ‘WW84’ movie trailer. What can be said about it?

It is funky, it is DC’s response to MCU’s ‘Captain Marvel’ film (set in the 1990s, remember?), and it got content. Most important, it got two new villains for WW to defeat – one is her archnemesis, Cheetah, aka Dr. Barbara Ann Minerva. The second is not as clear-cut: he’s Maxwell Lord, sort of a rip-off Lex Luthor in the original DC comics.

…Yes, there was a Maxwell Lord character in the first seasons of ‘Supergirl’, maybe there still is one, but by now it’s obvious that whereas Marvel is bringing all of its’ depictions to one source, DC doesn’t. There is a Maxwell Lord from ‘Supergirl’, there was a Maxwell Lord in the ‘Smallville’ TV series, there’s going to be a Maxwell Lord in DCEU, and so on… but he may not be the final big bad of the movie. Why?

Because this is how it went down in the first WW movie, where the final villain was Ares, the god of war, aka a male deity. Yeah, deities have a different relationship with gender than us mortals do, but in the first WW movie, Ares was very much male. And, since in this movie’s trailer we already see WW riding lightning, maybe we will get a visit from the old Zeus himself? First WW film – Dr. Poison, her German handler, Ares. Second film – Cheetah, Maxwell Lord, Zeus? And keep in mind, that as far as villains go, Maxwell Lord is usually a telepath/mental controller of some sort. Bring on Orwell’s 1984 dystopia!

No, seriously, one of George Orwell’s best novels is ‘1984’, and it was a Stalinist dystopia. These days’ people do not differentiate between communism, Stalinism, Trotskyism and socialism on top of it…plus they are beginning to thaw towards Russians again, so we probably will not get any Cold War vibes from the second WW movie. That said, we do see her destroy a camera as she is fighting, cough, a couple of robbers in a 1980s’ shopping mall, and later on she’s fighting more people in the White House, so – ‘big brother is watching you’, maybe? Something is rotten in the state of Denmark… and this brings us back to real life. It sucks, unless you are Bianca Andreescu, who had won another tennis trophy. You go, girl! Show the world what Canadians and Canada have!

…Apparently, it is just the right scenery for the upcoming ‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’ film, which was shot, in part, in southern Alberta. Already it is shaping up to be a different film from the previous ‘Ghostbusters’ reboot, which it ignores, at least in this trailer. It will be interesting to see as to how this particular film will unveil itself… especially since Warner Brothers’ ‘Kong vs. Godzilla’ movie has hit yet another snafu – some photos were leaked, (mostly of Kong fighting Godzilla on a ship), so now team WB is doing its’ best to bring them all doing, citing copyright and what else have you. How great for them. Did I mention that real life sucks?

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

MCU Spider-Man - Lion King with thumbs? - July 16

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Otherwise, where are we?

…Apparently, as we put ‘Spider-Man: Far From Home’ behind us, and TLK-2019 is in front of us, now we are in the perfect time to proclaim: the current incarnation of Spider-Man, the Tom Holland version, is TLK, just with opposable thumbs and different hairdos. Let us begin!

Peter Parker is Simba, with Tony Stark being Mufasa; previously, it was the late uncle Ben who’d been Peter’s father figure, but in the MCU, it’s more of Tony’s job; so far, the closest we came to Ben Parker is the BFP suitcase that Peter took upon his European vacation; we don’t even know how he looks.

…This isn’t actually such a great deviation: we still know next to nothing about Peter’s actual parents: his uncle Ben and aunt May had been present with us, alongside Peter, in all sorts of incarnations, but the actual Parker parents? Not so much. Adding Tony into the mix did change the balance…but not as much as it appears at a first glance. Tony is still Peter’s mentor and father figure, and he rescues Peter from the Vulture, (at first), just as Mufasa rescues the young Simba from the hyenas. Young Simba and Peter even have similarly optimistic and carefree attitudes pre-Vulture and the elephant graveyard, respectively – Peter may not have a musical number similar to ‘I just can’t wait to be king’ of Simba, but I kind of got a feeling in ‘Homecoming’ that if he could he would.

Same for the women – Simba got Beyoncé… that is to say, Nala, and Peter got Zendaya… uh, MJ. Yes, them. Do not know if that is woke or just personal preferences, but there it is, and both Nala and MJ are presented as having similarly spunky personalities, so to say. Yay?

Timon and Pumba in Africa and by Betty and Ned in NYC/Europe round up the entourage of our titular heroes. Zazu (Oliver) is balanced by Happy (Favreau), who, yes, got May to balance him out for further MCU romance, but honestly? That romance was the weakest of the three in ‘Far From Home’ and rather reminiscent of Ned & Betty back in Europe.

Both fathers die and are succeeded by villains, Scar and Beck. Both of whom are hypocrites, liars, and are especially successful at misguiding the titular heroes, in different manners but with similar results – Scar becomes king on one hand, and Mysterio gets the unlimited access to Stark’s technology on the other. Hyenas assist Scar, Mysterio got his own minions; hyenas turn on Scar, Mysterio’s minions just outlive him as Spider-Man defeats him for the final time…supposedly.

And then there are the sagely old advisors that take shit from no man or lion, Nick and Rafiki. Rafiki is more polite and subtle than Nick is, but conversely, he is more physical with Simba than Nick is with Peter.

Pause. Yes, Nick is actually Talos, while Maria is Soren, or is she?

Let us look away from Spider-Man to ‘Captain Marvel’ and one person that you do not see there is Maria Hill. At all. Maybe she was just busy elsewhere, or maybe she just had not been hired by S.H.I.E.L.D. in the 90s, or something else, but maybe there is no Maria Hill, but only Soren, pretending to be human. If so, then you have to admit that she is one kick-ass S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, is all that I am saying.

It also alters the disposition of both the initial two seasons of AoS and the very first Avengers movie, (aka the one where Loki invades Earth with Thanos’ army). As humans, Fury and Hill may have had only the slightest idea, as to what the GH formula will do to Coulson, (it was made based on Kree blood, remember?). As Skrulls, Talos and Soren may have had a much better idea, and then there is the issue of how does the rebooted post-Hydra and cap revelation S.H.I.E.L.D. fit into the entire Kree vs. Skrull conflict. At the end of ‘Far From Home’ film, there are mentions of Kree cells on Earth. Sigh. Looks as if Kree will be replacing Hydra as the main secondary villain in MCU and possibly AoS.

…Here is the thing. From AoS S3 onwards, Hydra and the Kree were increasingly mashed together, until the final quarter of AoS S5, where the Hydra were revealed as being the minions of the Kree. Yes, it contradicts the second half of AoS S3, where Hydra was supposedly founded by Alveus, who was an InHuman or an alien space worm, rather than a Kree, and who really didn’t like them, but that’s AoS for you: it had its’ back story broken and reset about as many times as ‘Lost Girl’ had, only ‘Lost Girl’ was finished after five seasons; AoS is currently in its’ sixth. Yay, really.

That aside, at that period MCU and AoS were in a bad place, as their fan base were divided over whether Hydra was Nazi or only evil, whether S.H.I.E.L.D.’s treatment of Grant and Kara was justified, who was in the right – the Iron Stark or Cap’n Rogers… wait, sorry. The Iron Man and/or Captain America – there, that is the correct versions, right? Anyhow, the Hydra issue proved to be much more divisive than MCU imagined it to be, so around the time of CA: CW movie they retired it from MCU as well as from AoS – we are talking the S3 finale here. Only by the second third of AoS S4 Hydra came back in a different incarnation… as opposed to the second half of S5, where it was in its’ classical depiction instead: apparently, MCU cannot really function well without Hydra, yet with it, the old controversies come back. Whereas SW tried to just steamroll over them and it backfired, MCU is trying to fix them – first it tried to get rid of Hydra, and now it is trying to replace it with the Kree. Squee, and let us see as to how it will work out for Marvel. Back to the main topic?

Both Peter and Simba struggle with their fathers’ death, both Scar and Mysterio try to make them worse with verbal bullshit, and both times it backfires – Simba learns that it was actually Scar who had murdered Mufasa and is able to overpower him and throw him off the Rock where the hyenas turn on him and tear him to pieces, while Peter gets his own shit together, gets to Mysterio, and overpowers him, even as the latter’s handgun misfires and he dies. What next?

Simba gets to be king. Peter gets to be a true hero slash Avenger for real, finally. Of course, nothing good lasts forever and Peter know gets to deal with the new incarnation of the Daily Bugle, as well as any other shite that comes his way, (such as MCU’s version of the Scorpion), while Simba will eventually have to deal with Scar’s widow and children in TLK2 movie, (which hadn’t been re-worked with CGI yet). Go them, I say!

What next? Hard to say. No Marvel movies are coming in the next 10 months or so, and AoS is being all over the place; plus real life sucks, so it’s doubtful that we will be able to discuss AoS in the upcoming weeks, especially the end of July and the beginning of August, but what can’t be cured, must be endured, right?.. And Disney in general is in a similarly confused place, seeing how it is has driven itself in a difficult situation with those remakes of its old classics, rather than making genuinely new movies, as it has done in MCU and SW. At least Spider-Man has returned to his roots, faced his fears, and became a hero after trying to avoid it, just as Simba did in his movie. Hakuna matata!

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

Dark Phoenix proper - June 8

Obligatory disclaimer of this blog: real life sucks. As for the ‘Dark Phoenix 2019’ movie proper… it works. That is all there is to it.

Here is the fact – the previous ‘Phoenix’ movie version worked too, and I actually liked it better than this one. People are already talking about how even CGI of the 2019 movie was lackluster, and I have to agree – the previous version, where Magneto even took a certain bridge flying through the air, was better, especially given how CGI had improved from then till now. By modern standards, especially after ‘Infinity War’, and ‘Endgame’, and even ‘King of Monsters’, (which is a monster movie, and not a Marvel-related one, but we are talking about CGI here in general), ‘Dark Phoenix 2019’ is an underdog, in a bad way.

…Yes, if we are talking about Marvel, people are already pointing out how the CM movie has undercut ‘Dark Phoenix 2019’ in a bad way – again. As the previous X-Men movie – ‘Apocalypse’ – showed, Jean Grey was already the Phoenix, so what was with that space cloud shite? ‘Dark Phoenix 2019’ had been reworked from the very beginning, but it was better in the first act, so the reworks were not so glaring.

Then again, we have the D’bari – the aliens of this movie. In the Marvel comics, they were, well, alien plant people that hated humanity after the Phoenix destroyed the sun to fuel her powers. They didn’t have any shapeshifting powers, and though one of them – Vuk, who was a female in this 2019 movie and played by Jessica Chastain – became something of a villain known as the Starhammer – they never became shapeshifters, ever. That was more of a Skrull thing, I bet.

…Of course, movies have remade and restructured comic elements, Marvel more so than DC, but on that note, unlike those movies, the X-Men films were de-facto set in ‘our’ world, with just mutants added for extra flavor – nothing more was necessary. Yes, the ‘Logan’ (Old Man Logan) film also had cyborgs…but, apparently, it was set in a world apart from the other X-Men movies – Earth 17315, while the rest of the films took place either on Earth-10005, or on Earth-TRN414. Seriously, FOX’s take on the mutant world was a mess, and that is before you factor in ‘the Gifted’, and ‘Legion’, and anything else that FOX threw forth mutant-related. However – and that is the point – it always was an ‘ordinary’ world, just with mutants in it. No aliens or extradimensional elementals or what else have you required. Yes, ‘the Gifted’ ended with the show’s heroes following Blink somewhere, even though she was dressed as some sort of an alien space princess – but ‘the Gifted’ got cancelled before we could learn as to what was up with that, so that state of affairs is nullified.

And now we have ‘Dark Phoenix 2019’ that has outright aliens in it and their alien-ness did not do anything to further the film. In the trailers and clips, Jessica Chastain’s character looked more like a subdued version of Emma Frost/the White Queen than an alien and she acted similar to Emma Frost in the comics, too.

…It should be noted that there was already an Emma Frost in the X-Men movies, but we are talking about the old Earth-10005 world, not this TRN414 one, so there was no reason as to why her character could not have gotten a reboot. In addition, this version of the White Queen was not really a telepath – she could turn into living diamond, (something that the main basic White Queen versions also can), but she never had any mental powers. There was also an Emma in the ‘Wolverine Origins’ film, but it was a different Emma, a Silverfox rather than Frost, sister to the movie version of the Silver Fox character… Where were we? Oh yes, that Emma has also died in that movie, so Earth-TRN414 was still decisively Emma Frost-free, so why not have her and the rest of the Hellfire Club instead of aliens in ‘Dark Phoenix’? (As they were in the comics and in the 1990s X-Men cartoon series)?

Well yes, the Hellfire Club seems to have some problems of its own – mainly an identity crisis. These days, especially on TV, (whether real life action series as ‘the Gifted’ or various cartoons), it is referred as the Inner Circle club or something similar instead. That isn’t the problem, the problem on ‘the Gifted’ was that the show was kind of understaffed, but they still managed the best they could, and it was proportionally just as good a TV series as ‘Dark Phoenix 2019’ was a movie, so there!..

This, I suppose, brings, us to Mystique. No, it is not regarding her comment about the X-Men being the ‘-Women’ instead, that just was something of a SJW-fail in my opinion. The thing is that Mystique has never really been an X-Man, and while sometimes she was a frenemy of theirs, as Magneto was, other times she was an outright enemy, as when she worked for Apocalypse, (as she did in the 1990s cartoon). When she became an X-Man in the ‘First Class’ movie…it kind of left me rubbing my hand and wondering – ‘now why would they do that’? If they needed a mutant shapeshifter, why not bring Morph – but we digress.

The problem with ‘Dark Phoenix 2019’ was that it was re-written, that that re-write clearly was clumsily done, and that there were strong traces of Disney/Marvel behind this re-write. (Something similar went down with ‘the Gifted’ in S2 also, but since the show is cancelled, it does not matter anymore). The Earth-10005 movies were always very different from the Marvel Cinematic Universe films, with a darker, less colorful, more Gothic feel to them. The Earth-TRN414 films too were different, with various historical ‘flavorings’ to them, from the Caribbean Crisis onwards. The ‘Dark Phoenix 2019’ film lacks that element, especially in the second half of it. FOX wanted to make ‘Dark Phoenix 2019’ different from the CM film? Then it certainly took a wrong strategy, or went in the wrong direction, to do so!

What else to say? Real life sucks, as it was said in the disclaimer. The ‘Dark Phoenix 2019’ film is slightly better than that, but only slightly. The fact that it comes on the coattails of the latest Avengers films does not help, but most of its problems are its’ own design, and sadly, it will likely to be remembered as CM’s poorer cousin, unlike the previous Phoenix film, which, at least, was its own movie. (Let us not even get started on the agelessness of the characters – let us just assume that mutants do not age as regular people do, and leave it at that).

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

Avengers: Endgame and etc. - March 15

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. In this particular case, you can ask the folks down in the island nation of New Zealand – that was just wrong as to what went down, it was just wrong. Admittedly, I do not know as to why Andrew Scheer is under attack – his statement is as politically correct as it comes, but that is real life politics for you. What next?

No, we are not going to discuss the upcoming ‘Avengers: Endgame’ movie, because by now it has been established that people love or hate the MCU films (and associated franchises, aka Sony), but they will still go to watch them, which means that they spend money, which means that Disney makes money, and that, in the end, is what counts for Disney. Disney is not progressive or regressive, it just wants to make money, and it is really good at doing so, and it is almost just as good at detecting factors that hinder it from doing just that, aka controversy. This time, in ‘Captain Marvel’, the only twist was making Skrulls the good guys, but…

But if you’ve watched AoS, you would’ve seen that while, admittedly, in S1 the Kree had been mentioned as ‘blue angels’ and their blood helped S.H.I.E.L.D. to create the GH formula which was an important factor in S1, but from S2 onwards AoS cast Kree as villains, up to S5, where they were the Big Bad in the first half of that season, so here ‘Captain Marvel’ wasn’t exactly coming out of the left field either; we’ll need to see any follow-up to this movie, (and yes, it includes A:E, let’s be honest here), before making any final conclusion as to what goes where in Earth’s position of the Kree-Skrull warfare.

Anything else? The ‘Boom Buffy’ comic series have begun to come out already, (I think that this series is on its’ third installment already), and… so what? Yes, the obvious part is that the BtVS-verse was rebooted: Anya, (or rather – Anyanka) is running the Magic Box in Sunnydale already; Drusilla is much less insane than she was in the canon and is more of a straightforward, stereotypical villain; Buffy and Spike got chemistry already, (seriously?); and Willow and Xander seem to be more street-savvy and vampire-savvy to begin with. That is fine, but so what? The previous comic incarnation was working just as well; ‘Boom Buffy’ does not appear to be bringing anything better to the table. 

...Yes, all of those DC and Marvel reboots/re-incarnations that are the same old thing in a new package (and maybe new depictions) are annoying, but ‘Boom Buffy’? This was fixing what was not broken, and kind of reminds of the new ‘Charmed’ reboot – yes, it is going for its second season, but somehow it is not talked too much anymore, and people just are not as excited about it as the big wigs who brought it back to begin with thought that they would. Sometimes reboots work, other times people are just mystified: what was the reason behind this decision? Just ask the Disney/SW merger – that seemed to have backfired in a bad, sad way. ‘Boom Buffy’ is not as bad as that, but neither it seems to be flourishing – the old guard are not exactly happy with the reboot, (or at least – not unanimously happy), and the new aren’t so interested in the reboot to begin with. Whether ‘Boom Buffy’ will flourish or not – we will just have to wait and see.

Anything else…no, this is it, actually. With ‘Captain Marvel’ out, MCU is taking a deep breather before unleashing the next ‘Avengers’ movie, and C&D S2 are coming out only next month. Real life being what it is, there’s no guarantee of steady updates of it – or AoS S6 – yet, and with ‘Aquaman’ being out and ‘Shazam’ only coming forth, the same can be said for DCEU as well. Therefore, see you all next time!

Captain Marvel, AoS and etc. - March 9

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, but sometimes, it is somewhat tolerable, and other times it is downright weird. Now, let us talk now about ‘Captain Marvel’. The movie. Is it controversial?

No. The ‘issues’ have risen because people may have conflated, deliberately or not, Brie Larson and her personal beliefs, the movie, and its’ titular character. Ms. Larson is entitled to her own opinions, but then, she should also remember that not everyone will agree with them, and some people may even do something about them. Of course, those people then should expect their own backlash…and so on. It is a vicious cycle, really.

However, the movie itself? It is a straightforward origin story, not that different from… ‘Venom’ back in 2018. That movie was good, but also divisive, seeing how some people loved it, and some people hated it, and no one could agree on it, but most people enjoyed it, period. ‘Captain Marvel’ is no different, so as long as people remember that Ms. Larson is not her character – any of them in any movies – there should not be any problem. Unless you just straightforward dislike the movie, but that is just a matter of a personal opinion, so it is the turn of Disney/MCU to just buck up, grin and bear it. Instead, there was a crazy-ass story regarding ‘Captain Marvel’, its’ initial reviews, and ‘Rotten Tomatoes’ the site that didn’t do the latest Marvel movie any favors. It takes two sides to tango, and while Disney would love to blame all of the blame on Internet trolls, it does not work like that. At least they are not blaming the Russian Federation for ‘Captain Marvel’ problems.

No, seriously, look at Canada. For a while now, PM Trudeau’s cabinet is embroiled in the SNC-Lavallin scandal, and it is quite intense, quite serious, and no one is joking about it. Proportionally, it is just as bad as any of the messes that the U.S. president has done. The difference? No one is blaming any foreign powers for it, and instead are doing their best to resolve it ‘within the house’; whether or not they’re successful is another thing, but even so, Canada as a whole, remains a more cohesive and politically healthy country than the U.S. Undoubtedly, RF is guilty of many things, but the problem is that the U.S. just blames for anything and everything, for what they did and didn’t do, and that just muddies the picture – unnecessarily – and so, instead of getting anything done, the American people are revving for an All-American fight in 2020 already.

No, seriously, on the Internet, there are people that are planning to vote for Trump no matter what, and there are people who plan to vote against Trump no matter who, and many other people besides those two groups. Internet is awesome, if it was not around, I would not have an online blog, now would I, but it is also ambiguous, and it divides people as well as unites. Even in the last years of Obama’s presidency, the American people were preparing to fight each other, then they fought each other, in the first year of Trump’s presidency they continued to fight, and now they are almost back to it, as the first four years of Trump’s presidency are winding down.

Will Trump go for the full eight? It is very likely. The Republicans do not intend to rock the boat at such a sensitive point in time; they want ‘their man’ to remain in charge for another 4 years, and them to remain on top in D.C. Moreover, the Democrats do not appear to have a problem with it either, since by now, no strong single leader of their party had emerged, and they are just as messed-up as they were before. In addition, since the 1990s the U.S. seemed to have formed some sort of an unspoken agreement that each 8 years the Republicans and the Democrats switch their presidents, and everyone else can go hang. What will happen in the U.S. in 2020 is anyone’s guess right now. Real life sucks, I will say it again.

Back to ‘Captain Marvel’? The reason as to why I’m writing about it, is because its’ connection to AoS and S.H.I.E.L.D. Nick Fury, and to a lesser extent – Phil Coulson, played important roles in this movie and brought us to the beginnings of S.H.I.E.L.D.; AC talked about its initial incarnation as SSR (Strategic Scientific Research or something similar) instead. Between this renewal of S.H.I.E.L.D. in the MCU movies and the changes in the format (sort of) of AoS itself, odds are that S6 will see the show rebooted. Will it work? Since ‘Arrow’ got cancelled, (sob), it just might. 

Alternatively, it might backfire instead: Marvel Entertainment’s YouTube channel uploaded, among other things, a brief interview with Ming-Na Wen (aka May) and Jeff Ward (aka Deke), who, among other things, confessed to really not get along with Iain. The latter plays Fitz, aka Deke’s grandpa-to-be, as well as one of the main characters, (Deke just appeared in AoS S5, so Fitz got seniority easily), and so this got to sting, especially since Jeff the Deke said this on the red carpet for CM. Few people really know as to what is going on behind the scenes in AoS, but you got to admit – none of the actors from ‘the Gifted’ or C&D, for example, ever said anything like this, so the upcoming (summer 2019) S6 of AoS will be interesting…

Anything else? Well, speaking of YouTube, the National Geographic Wild channel released some sort of a ‘Wolves 101’ video, where it claims that there are two species of wolves in the world. One of them is the grey wolf, which is correct – it is the wolfiest wolf that has ever wolfed, aside from the now-extinct dire wolf, (on Earth – on Westeros it is another story).

However, the other wolf, according to NGU? It is the so-called Ethiopian wolf, and here we have a problem. The genus Canis has several members. There is the domestic dog, the grey wolf, the coyote, and coyote’s Old World counterparts, the jackals. There are three or four different species of them, and the Ethiopian species is one of them. It lives a life…similar to a coyote’s or the common jackal of Africa and Asia – it lives solitary or in pairs, in a family group at most, and hunts small animals – in the East African mountains, it’s various rodents – the Ethiopian jackal doesn’t go after bigger animals like the local mountain sheep or the geladas, the mountain-dwelling cousins of the baboons, who have formidable fangs of their own, but who feed primarily on the local grasses instead. No, the other true wolf of our times is the so-called red wolf from the American south; it is somewhat bigger than a coyote is, (though it should be noted that the Canadian coyotes are slightly bigger than the U.S. ones, really), but smaller than the grey wolf is, it doesn’t live outside of the North American continent, and it is more reddish in color than an average grey wolf is, (whose coat can vary from almost pure white to almost pure black and anything in-between). The red wolf’s lifestyle is not much different from a coyote’s, either.

To somewhat complicate the picture there is another species of ‘red wolf’ or ‘red dog’, one that is now known moreso as the dhole. It is also a wild dog, but it belongs to a much more ancient lineage than that of wolves, jackals and coyotes, and it does not have any close modern relatives either. It lives only in Asia and is not really domesticated. It is quite rare too, in modern times too. Now what?

Well, NGU got its’ wolves mixed-up, (it never mentioned the American red wolf at all in its’ video), ‘Captain Marvel’ is a good enough movie to enjoy (or not, depending on whether or not you like this sort of movie), and real life still is much more messed up than any movie is.

This is it for now; see you all soon.