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! 

Doolittle-2020 - Jan 23

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SW: TROS - Jan 5

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

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

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

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

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

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

Doolittle-2020 & etc - Oct 14

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. You may try to alleviate some of this suckage by trying to do something new…but the U.S. government does something entirely different as judging by the Middle Eastern mess. It just is not good, and it makes the situation back in D.C. worse. Is the Donald getting impeached or not? For a while, there were even rumors of Mike Pence being the next Republican president, but this is it. Now there’s the Middle Eastern situation with the Kurds, there’s the story of a police officer shooting an Afro-American woman in her home in Texas, there are rumors of an Epstein-Trump connection, but nothing concrete about the impeachment.

The most likely possibility is that it had died down again. As the recent events showed, the Democrats are not that cohesive themselves as a political unit – the ‘old guard’ and AOC and her ‘new squad’ are not getting along, and there may be other factions inside that party as well. That said, none of them are all that enthused about Mike Pence’s presidency, so that might be an extra motivation for the Democrats to back down from the impeachment push and return to the previous plan: tone down the internal aggression to define and decide as to who’ll be the next presidential candidate for the next election. With the Democrats backing down, so will the Republicans – they don’t care much for the Donald either, but gives them the main advantage against the Democrats for the moment, and so they’re keeping him, if they can and if he continues to provide them the advantage. Otherwise, they will give him the boot themselves, the end. The only end that is left loose are the U.S.’ Mid-East politics, which are left in disarray while the big chiefs back in D.C. resolve conflicts of their own making and pat themselves on the back for doing this, but that is neither here nor there. What is next?

Let us talk about movies instead. ‘Gemini Man’ was expectedly bad unless you are a diehard Will Smith fan; the ‘Addams Family 2019’ was surprisingly good, though the live action ‘Addams Family’ 1991 movie is still the best, in my opinion. That said, the animated 2019 film has clearly been influenced by the live action movie series, (I think it was a trilogy), and did its’ best to capture the Addams family magics, (metaphorically speaking), and it succeeded so yay! Anything else?

There is going to be a ‘Spider-Man meets Venom’ movie after all, so far, there are no discussions of the ‘Addams Family 2019’ film online, (oddly enough), and then there is the ‘Doolittle 2020’ movie trailer. In regards to the latter, what the Hell? It is a hot mess that is almost as bad as the trailer for S1 ‘Insatiable’ Netflix series had been; supposedly, the movie is about the titular character going on a journey to save queen Victoria, (yes, we’re talking about a character based directly on the real-life monarch here) from some mysterious illness after his wife died some time later. An assembly of sidekicks, both human and animal, are assisting him…but the trailer does a bad job of explaining this, all it is so far is a mess of movie action shots that just do not tell a coherent story, nor do they introduce any characters aside from the titular character who is played by Robert Downey Jr., also known as the Iron Stark – sorry, the Iron Man – who gets to ride a CGI ostrich in this movie instead. At least I hope that the ostrich is CGI, because while you can ride a real ostrich in modern times, you will probably be sued by ASPCA or some similar agency afterwards, and I doubt that Disney wants that.

…Disney doesn’t appear to be openly involved with the ‘Doolittle 2020’ movie? Not surprising, because already the movie is off to a bad start, involving massive reshoots and changing dates to avoid conflict with the Disney/SW ‘SW9’ movie, which doesn’t promise anything positive for this particular film. Of course, keep in mind that I, for one, am more used to the Soviet adaptations of the original novel, which got to be very different from the original; in it, the titular character usually goes to Africa to treat some ill monkeys slash apes, encounters an atypical animal called Pushy-Pulley, and becomes an arch nemesis of a pirate leader… it really is a lot more child-friendly and less exciting than how it sounds, but the Soviet cinematography really loved it, and there were several versions of ‘Doolittle’ adaptations during the existence of USSR – cartoons, live-action movies, animated movies, etc. By contrast, in the West, (ok, the U.S.), ‘Doolittle’ adaptations are even more free-style than the Soviet ones were, often going completely off-script, but this is justifiable: in the original novel when the good doctor went down to Africa, for example, he encountered a kingdom of cannibalistic savages…which is really inappropriate for the twenty-first century for all sorts of reason, we all can agree. Even this misbegotten trailer for ‘Doolittle 2020’ movie seems to skip this plotline, though there was a shot of someone who might be this movie’s version of a pirate chief – and we see the Iron Doctor, sorry, the Doolittle Stark – facing-off with a man-eating tiger as well. If ‘Doolittle 2020’ will be able to keep itself together, it can be a really good movie, but otherwise? It risks becoming a mess on par with the ‘Insatiable’ S1, only worse so, since ‘Insatiable’ is a Netflix series, and in S2 it seems to have fixed itself and has become less controversial and edgy and more mainstream instead. ‘Doolittle 2020’ probably will not get the chance to do that via a sequel. Anything else?

The second ‘Frozen II’ movie trailer was mostly all about Olaf and didn’t give anything new regarding the plot of this film, and then there’s the trailer for the upcoming ‘Harley & Ivy’ cartoon series, starring Kaley Cuoco as the voice of Harley Quinn. It is not too coherent either, but it does not need to be – it depicts clearly enough that it will be about Harley breaking up with Joker and becoming her own woman, probably with a romantic plot line involving her and Ivy. The first attempt to team up those two had been back in the 90s, in an episode of Batman: the Animated Series’, where Harley had had enough of Mr. J for once, tried to strike out on her own and ended up teaming up with Ivy instead. The pair had had some fantabulous adventures of their own, though because it was the 90s, there was no Harley/Ivy romance…but from then on, the pair had increasingly more and more girl time together especially in the animated DC works. Ergo, this particular development in the DC cartoons is only natural and expected, but where does it leave the upcoming ‘BP 2020’ movie?

…Potentially high and dry and unrequested, because Harley will already have her fantabulous emancipation in the cartoon series, and the live-action movie will be the 2020’s analogue of the 2016’s ‘Suicide Squad’, where several years of character development in the comics tried to be crammed into a single movie, so is it any surprise that the result was not so much good or bad, but mangled? If it does not work, the 2020 ‘Birds of Prey’ film will end up in the same way, and that would be sad, especially since Jared Leto is already upset that he and his version of Joker was apparently kicked out of DCEU for good. Ah well, maybe he will do a better Morbius in MCU instead.

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