Quarantine entry #84 - June 13

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and that is why the media is doing their best to create their own… one that is even worse. No, I am not talking about ‘Artemis Fowl-2020’ – we’ve already talked about it; I wouldn’t say that it is ‘Cats-2019’-level bad, but it is still a disaster, and one that Disney & Disney+ were glad to get over with – it could’ve been the launch of a new franchise, but instead, it’s just a dumpster fire and it is over now. What next?

While Disney+ epically failed with ‘Artemis Fowl’, (it made even the ‘John Carter’ movie look good, in my opinion), the other mass media outlets do something else – release a metaphorical torrent of news about cops acting badly. Sigh. Their actions may look convincing, but I cannot help but to feel that this is not quite what the real situation in the U.S. is, period. What next?

Let us talk about wild donkeys instead, or wild asses, though I am not certain if that term is PC enough. As they were mentioned before, these animals are close relatives of zebras, very distant – of rhinos and tapirs, and middling to horses, hence why donkey-horse hybrids, (mules, etc.) are sterile. Zebra-donkey hybrids are less known, but they occur in captivity, because in the wild, wild asses and zebras do not really interbreed. Why?

Well, firstly, what are the wild asses/donkeys? There is the African wild ass, Equus africanus, (two subspecies). It – well, its’ Nubian subspecies – is the most likely ancestor of the domestic animal. The wild Nubian ass is considered to be extinct, by the way, while its’ cousin the Somali wild ass is critically endangered, and it lives on the African Red Sea coast, where few, if any, zebras are found instead.

The other two wild donkey species are Asian animals instead. They are the kiang, (or the Tibetan wild ass, Equus kiang, 3 subspecies), and the onager or the Asian wild ass proper, (Equus hemionus, 5 subspecies). There are no species of zebras in Asia, so they are clear from hybridization. Pause. What next?

While the rhinoceros species of the world are all doing badly, with the wild asses, the situation is more heterogeneous. The African wild ass is critically endangered, as it was said before, but the onager is ‘only’ near threatened and the kiang is actually ‘least concern’, as far as IUCN and the like are concerned. Go donkeys! In the world, where people are going stupidly insane, the donkey, which used to be a near synonym for being stubborn and/or stupid, seems to be fairly well, on some level at least. There are even some specialized pet breeds of domestic donkey in the modern world, so this version of the African wild ass seems to be doing well.

…Of course, it all might have to do with good karma or the like – in particular, in the New Testament portion of the Bible, the donkey is considered to be one of the ‘good’ or ‘sacred’ animals, so, who knows? Maybe there is some substance behind the style?

…Then again, the same could be said about the 2020 ‘Artemis Fowl’ movie – while its’ plot seems to be really thin, the movie’s style almost becomes substance on a certain level, giving AF at least some positive aspects. …And also JG’s performance and looks – he appears to be almost a variant Hagrid, I reckon. No offense to dame Judy Dench, but this is not her best appearance slash performance; it is not ‘Cats-2019’, but neither is it anything good.

What is good are ‘Barkskins’ on NatGeo, but people are largely ignoring them for whatever reasons, and that’s just weird. Ah well, it is also real life. It sucks.

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

Quarantine entry #21 - April 11

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Fortunately, yesterday, (aka April 10, 2020), we got the ‘Trolls 2’ movie, which offered an escape from reality… into what? Let us disassemble.

First, the disassemble part. Or the dismantling part, if you rather. As soon as the professional critics saw it, they noted the similarity to the last two ‘Avengers’ films, save that the Infinity Stones became replaced by six magical soul strings or whatever, (though still, whoever gets the all six will rule them all). That is one, for Marvel.

Two is for Disney proper, or more specifically – for the ‘Frozen’ franchise. As we talked about the ‘Frozen 2’ movie last year, in this franchise, Disney did a complete reboot – ‘Frozen 2’ fully abandons most of the premises built up at the end of ‘Frozen 1’ and goes off in an entirely new direction, while completely unacknowledging this fact. What reboot? Where? There is no reboot, everything is the same!..

And as for Elsa’s sexuality? Do not go there. Disney gave its’ audiences a teaser with Elsa and Honeymaren, but nothing else. Disney does not intend to officially rock the boat for their blue-eyed blonde breadwinner, and so they leave it to the fans to hype it up – whether Elsa is gay, straight, asexual, bisexual, etc., etc. The Disney execs themselves are not talking. One of them outright claimed, “Elsa herself will tell us whom does she like”! Great, she is a swinger then! …Oh wait, she is an animated character this Disney property. Quit acting coy people and just admit that you want the best of both worlds and do not want to rock the boat at the same time!.. Where were we?

…’Trolls 2’ got nothing like that, this movie is for an even younger audience than ‘Frozen 2’ was, yet just like the ‘Frozen’ franchise, they became fully rebooted. ‘Trolls 1’ was about the titular trolls, who were captured and eaten by some ogres or whatever they were called in the universe. Princess Poppy and her sidekicks (one or several – it does not really matter here), befriended an ogre laundry maid, helped her win the ogre prince’s heart, and freed the rest of the trolls. The end.

‘Trolls 2’ acknowledges none of that; this movie is all about the titular trolls and only about trolls, as ‘Trolls 2’ delivers a politically charged message about unity and self-identity, conquering and domination, good and evil. Pause. ‘Frozen 2’ did it as well, and in a much better manner – i.e. with a good deal less songs. This brings us to number three: ‘Cats -2019’.

‘Cats-2019’ are not the worst movie that came across me; ‘Doolittle-2020’ is not anything worth being smug about. However since it was not a musical, it ended up being just an insipidly unsuccessful movie, that is all. Tony Stark should stick to engineering, and not go into medicine after all, weird accents notwithstanding. ‘Cats-2019’ on the other hand is a musical – it is loud, it is stupid, it is proud, it is overwhelming, and in a large amount – it is intolerable and unendurable. ‘Trolls 2’ went down the same path – it is a glorified musical, or a variety show, about as intense as ‘Cats-2019’ were, and not in a good way either.

…Yes, ‘Trolls-2’ are designated for a younger audience than ‘Cats-2019’ were, (at least in theory), but the delivery method is the same – musical. The end result is still the same, though given the current circumstances, ‘Trolls 2’ came out on digital rental, and not just in the movie theaters, as ‘Cats-2019’ had, so thank the Lord for small mercies. Anything else?

Hard to say; I wanted to talk about this ibis today; the ibis is a cousin to the stork and the heron, differing from them mostly in its’ bill – the heron’s is straight and thin, the stork’s is straight and thick, while the ibis’s is thin and curved down.

Also unlike storks and herons, the ibises are tropical birds: storks and herons are found in Europe, including quite far up north, whereas the ibises are not – only the glossy ibis is found in the U.S., for example, while its’ relatives, including the members of the same genus, are found in the American tropics instead. With the spoonbills, it is the same story.

…The spoonbills are the closest relatives of the ibises, they look like herons or storks, whose bills got squished into spoon-like shapes, (hence the name). They are not very numerous in the U.S. either, nor in Europe – out of six species, only one is found in the U.S., and another on – in the European part of Eurasia. Storks, and especially herons, are represented by more species there. Why is it so? Is it because of humans? Hard to tell, though trolls, and especially – ‘Trolls’ aren’t really a part of it. Ah well, that is life for you. The snow is melting, the birds and other creatures are coming back, and (human social) life may begin to return to normal in May 2020. We will just have to wait and see.

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

JW: motion comic part 4 - Dec 20

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. One’s family sucks even worse. When both of those factors combine, life becomes practically intolerable but what can you do? You take what you can, of course, and screw everything else. What is left after this approach, aside from reality, (such as it is)?

Well, there’s ‘Cats’, the 2019 edition, but we’ll talk about it later, maybe even in 2020, because so far this perfidy exists to ensure that life becomes even worse, if you spend roughly one and a half to two hours watching this… thing. Ergo, let us talk about the fourth part of the JW motion comic instead.

What can be said about it? Spoiler alert: judging by the ominous ‘the end’, white on black, at the final part of the motion comic, it is suggested that this is ‘it’ – an Allosaurus ate Rebecca Ryan. The end.

Pause. Here is the thing. This particular installment of the JW motion comic has made Rebecca Ryan be genuinely stupid – she wastes valuable time first trying to listen to her husband on the cellphone ignoring the obvious signs of danger – her frantic video crew, the park’s rangers, the helicopter circling overhead – and then, when idiot’s luck strikes and it’s her – well, the news’ – van that gets taken by the Allosaurus, and she gets to scamper to safety, she actually tries to get the still-active cell phone, (it gets stepped-on by the carnivore in the process), and so she catches Allosaurus’ attention. The end.

Another pause. Yes, this motion has promptly tied into the BBR short feature – remember it? The motion comic refers to it directly, featuring a surprisingly wooden re-enactment of the Allosaurus vs. Nasutoceratops battle, it doesn’t resemble how it went down in the BBR at all, but that’s not the point – the point that we’ve discussed the two dinosaurs featured in this short feature when we’ve discussed BBR itself, and you know what? Compared to Rebecca Ryan (and her skeleton crew), this nameless family proved to be pinnacles of common sense, competence, intelligence and teamwork! Really, the first three installments set the standard bar low – did part four need to get character assassination involved? Rebecca Ryan and co. barely had any character at all! Literally! Why did they have to add stupidity to her mix?..

…Wait, it ill behoves to speak poorly of the dead? Well, we haven’t seen Big Al eat Ms. Ryan yet – maybe she’ll have her great escape when the Nasutoceratops family makes its’ appearance. Otherwise, I am sorry, but this I am not very sympathetic for her plight. Anything else?

…Been reading Mercedes Lackey’s ‘Elemental Masters’ series lately. Cannot say that I am impressed by the latest version of it. To wit: the first seven books were written by one author, maybe even Ms. Lackey herself, but then they began to meander: first it were blatant imitations of the first seven books (book 8), then it was over to continental Europe (books 9-10), and now, the last four books are really the best reboot yet – ‘adventures of Sherlock Holmes and friends’, the magical edition, really. It is not as annoying as Ms. Patricia Briggs’ situation, for example, but bad enough. From truly exotic and intriguing novels, the ‘Elemental Masters’ have devolved into popcorn for brain – you read those novels once, and move on.

…Earlier in the ‘Elemental Masters’ series, there were even two anthologies – collections of stories written by other authors, set in this Mercedes Lackey’s universe – this particular universe was so good. Now it is not. Sad, but that is real life for you. It sucks… and that is before ‘Cats 2019’ got released today, (Dec 20, 2019). Between the bizarro take on the titular critters in question and the already problematic plot, (especially in regards to coherence), ‘Cats’ in particular isn’t a musical that takes well to the movie screen media, period. ‘Into the Woods’ was bad enough, but it had a plot that was both cohesive and coherent…more or less, but it was still hard to swallow on the Big Screen; even the ‘Phantom of the Opera’ does, and it’s the king of all musicals, (so far). And ‘Cats’ is a musical based on a poetry anthology of T.S. Elliot, a classic of English literature that these days is virtually unknown in the world outside of English language and literature academia, which is what the world deserves – there is a God. …Andrew Lloyd Weber and his team combined the anthology into a single musical – the anthology itself is just that, a collection of nonsensical poems about various cats in London-town, (that’s London, Great Britain, not London, Ontario, Canada), and the result is just that – ‘Cats’. A musical… or rather a series of musical numbers performed by actors, singers and dancers in cat costumes with some plot going-on. This… is not encouraging or easy to transfer to the movie screen, and, apparently, during the adaptation process, many things went wrong…to a point where a blueberry-blue Will Smith from ‘Aladdin 2019’ begins to look wholesome and realistic. Anything else?

No, not really, not right now – real life still sucks, though the ‘Cats-2019’ rant did make it better. Maybe more some other time, but for now? See you all soon instead!

S.H.I.E.L.D. 'Leap' - July 19

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Sometimes you seem to get what you want, but the price is not what you have expected; karma just might be real, and if you try to play it…it will be played, but so will you. There is a reason as to why Gandalf tended to downplay his magical skills, and he was a Maiar, i.e. – not a human at all, more like a demigod that inhabited a human shell – but more on that later.

As we suffer from family problems and other issues, we turn to the magical world of make-believe to make us feel better, and what do we discover there? Disney is owning a large part of National Geographic franchise, which is why the latter is advertising TLK-2019, a movie so…unsatisfying, that there’s a man on YouTube, who made a video about 30 minutes long if not slightly more so, just ranting about how bad TLK-2019 is.

…TLK-2019 is not the best movie of 2019 so far, but neither is it the worst; it certainly does not deserve a 30+ minute rant either. If you do not like it, that is fine; the fact that the bloody Disney owns a large part of NatGeo franchise – not so much. Seriously, what does the House of Mouse want? To become real life’s analogue of the SW empire? Yeah, not cool, not cool at all.

Looking away from TLK-2019, which is an inferior remake of the 1994 film with some variant dialogue that doesn’t do anything, we see… the trailer for the upcoming ‘Cats’ movie… and what in seven Hells did we see?

Well, from a literal P.O.V. we have seen a number of famous actors and actresses singing around in digitalized anthropomorphic cat suits, singing and dancing. And why were they singing and dancing in digitalized anthropomorphic cat suits? Only the Lord knows. Well, maybe Nick Fury – the original Nick Fury – also does, but we’ve been already subjected to the above-described spectacle, even if in the previous incarnations of ‘Cats’ the cast wore real-life, regular cat suits and make-up, and it was just fine. ‘Cats’ is a musical, after all, so who the Hell cares about the suits, beyond their basic function of them?

…As for the main plot of ‘Cats’… listen. It’s a bunch of cats – literally speaking – who come together as a single tribe and debate via song and dance as to who will ascend to Heaven (for that is what it is, even it’s called differently here), and be reborn into someone new. Guess all of them are out of their nine lives or something, because otherwise? It makes even less sense than it does in the canon – but that is okay. It is a musical. It does not supposed to make sense! There already was an attempt to adapt it into a movie format, and it was not very successful – it was a direct-to-video format, and that never really works. Why should Cats-2019 be better? As TLK-2019 shows, a movie cannot get ahead on CGI alone; TLK-1994 is still the better version out of the two, (so far; maybe in another 25 years we will get TLK-2044 or something).

In addition, you must remember that ‘Cats’ is a musical, and they don’t transform into movies too well from the start. Does anyone remember the latest one, not a biopic of Barnum Brown or someone like that? Judging by the crickets chirping – no. There is no indication that Cats-2019 will endure any better, ‘Cats’ or no ‘Cats’.

I remember when Cirque du Soleil made a film, about human life from birth to death. The first dance was depicting the – fertilization of an egg by sperm; then the protagonist’s childhood; his first love, depicting by two statues dancing, (we’re talking a heterosexual couple here, BTW); then his maturity; then the scene where a bunch of proletarian types (the turn of 20^th century, here), confront the protagonist in his mansion; and the final scene, our protagonist, now an old man, leaving with a crowd of children for Heaven or someplace similar. All of the above was executed by nothing but dance and music. After going through it, I promptly went to the radio and listened to contemporary pop songs (J-Lo – at that time she was more of a singer than an actress unlike these days) until I returned to normal. There’s only so much edgy progressive culture that I can take – and movie musicals like that Barnum Brown piece, ‘Rocketman’ (sort of), and the upcoming Cats-2019 (we’re talking December of this year), have all that plus singing. What joy. Not. It’s really almost enough to make a blogger return to real life… just in time to see and hear POTUS the Donald open his maw and emit a series of racist insults that have no business being emitted by a POTUS; you motherfucking Yankees, impeach him now!

Try to escape back into mass media? To AoS, to be more precise? Oh wait, AoS is being cancelled at last – the upcoming 7^th season will be its’ end. So far, AoS is trying to give all that it has…more recycling, this time of the Ghost Rider plot arc. Further compounding the situation is the fact that Gabriel Luna does not appear to be returning to AoS, especially for the finale of S6 – he is busy preparing for his own ‘Ghost Rider’ TV series… Gregg is doing the best he can, playing a Coulson clone that has Ghost Rider powers… AoS has officially jumped the shark. It made sense for Luna and his character – Robbie Reyes – to return to AoS back when a fear dimension that is not a fear dimension after all, but he never did. Rather, Deathlok made his obligatory appearance – one per AoS season or even less – and that was the end of that. Only it is not, and Izel is about to take over the world via her alien space bats…sorry, shrikes. In real life, shrikes are carnivorous songbirds with some rather gruesome and disturbing feeding habits: when they catch a small animal, they impale it on a thorn, and strip flesh from the impaled corpse at their leisure. Real life can be stranger than any science fiction, and for North America, there are two main species of shrike, the loggerhead and the northern shrikes – but we have digressed.

No, not really. Not unlike S5 and especially S4, AoS is trying to combine several plot lines into one, just in time for the explosive mid-season finale. Yes, it is supposed to be the season finale, but this is just AoS being cute, among other things. They are losing cast members again – agent Davis has apparently died for good – and the numbers still are not so high, and the enthusiasm is on the decrease, now that the cast and the crew know that the gravy train has almost ended. Will AoS end up in an equally big mess as the last two seasons of GoT did? Since this week’s episode – ‘Leap’ – forgot/ignored about Snowflake’s existence completely, odds are that yeah, they will be, forgotten coffee cups and water bottles aside.

…So, for now, this is it. See you all soon, people!

PS: Do not try to play the karma, please, unless you are that sort of a wizard/cleric/theurge. If you are – go ahead; if you are not – eventually you will lose control and then it will be really bad for everyone.

Now – see you all soon!