Lady & Tramp 2019 - Nov 12

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. In the ‘Canadian’ edition, this was demonstrated by Don Cherry, who was fired after he was carried away and said some distinctively politically incorrect & unsanctioned statements on the sports’ channel.

Here are the facts: as far as I can remember, Mr. Cherry was spouting this anti-immigrant bull-crap since the 1990s, and no one did anything about him. That said, under Mr. Trudeau’s leadership, the Canadian government changed its’ views on immigration, especially that of POCs, but there are plenty of Europeans also still coming to Canada, i.e. Ukrainians and the like. As the numbers of ‘new’ immigrants and their immediate descendants continues to grow and to accumulate, Mr. Cherry’s statements grow increasingly politically tone-deaf, and so he was given the old heave-ho, aka the boot. Will he be missed? I have no idea, but aside from his ‘political deafness’ the fact is that a sports’ channel isn’t the most appropriate place to discuss socio-political issues that aren’t related to sports at all, either.

No, seriously, Mr. Cherry did not even try to pretend that his rant is sports-related – he just vented his spleen, his own personal opinion, on his job. Seriously, man – get an online blog and do just that, rather than confuse it with your work. No wonder than he got fired – he is either politically incorrect and unprofessional, or old and marasmatic, (chronologically and biologically speaking). People are trying to pretend that this is an end of an epoch, but in reality, it is anything but – merely an old man, who either took his privilege too far, or who had simply lost ‘it’. Onwards to the TV shows?

…No, let us talk about a Disney+ movie – the 2019 remake of ‘Lady and the Tramp’. Unlike TLK-2019, Disney did not put this remake into theaters, but rather – into its’ own new and personal streaming service, aka Disney+. Yay?

Well, certainly ‘yay’ on a certain level – on some level, L&T-2019 is better than TLK-2019, in no small part because it does use real-life animals, (at least some times), and only adds CGI-facial features to them when it is necessary, rather than uses precise and accurate, (realistically authentic?) CGI models as they did in TLK-2019.

Of course, the difference is understandable: proportionally, domestic dogs, (used in L&T-2019) are much more trainable than the African lions and similar animals are, but regardless, it kind of makes TLK-2019 even more redundant, unnecessary and etc., when compared to L&T-2019 – honestly, what was Disney trying to prove with it? When ‘Dumbo’ was remade, for example, it was really remade – we’re talking about a different movie entirely from the old one, (which was good, because the original ‘Dumbo’ didn’t age well at all – just as Canada’s Don Cherry didn’t), whereas TLK-2019 wasn’t, not really: it was the same movie just with some cosmetic changes.

True, you can say the same thing about L&T-2019 – it is the same movie that was made in the 20^th century, but with some cosmetic changes – i.e., in the original film, it were some live beavers (from a zoo) that freed Lady from her muzzle, whereas in the 2019 version, it is a beaver statue in the park; or in case of the cats, in the original film, they were Siamese, (and also racial stereotypes, let’s be honest), while in 2019 they’re more like hairless Sphinxes, or some similar breed, (still creepy as Hell though), instead. Disney does know political correctness, it seems, but then we come to the human aspect and this is where things took a strange turn, as IGN noted on its’ own review of the movie.

I’m not the biggest fan of IGN these days – it seems to be at least partially paid by various movie companies to review its’ movies and give them ‘the right’ reviews; in a not-too-distant past someone was actually fired from IGN for given a ‘wrong’ review, but here we’re not talking about the ‘quality’ of reviews, but more about their content, what they’re talking about, and in case of the L&T 2019-reboot, it is the fact that Lady’s owners, are an interracial couple. Considering that L&T took place in the first half of the 20^th century or so, when interracial relationships and marriages were illegal in some countries and states, this is simply an anachronism – and also a case of ‘wokeness’ done wrong, not unlike as to how it happened back in ‘Dark Phoenix-2019’, (remember, the Mystique-Xavier interaction scene? Yeesh), only more blatantly so. This is nothing new for Disney, of course – for example, the current ‘Spider-Men’ films try to match up the Anglo-American Spidey with ‘people of color’ – Elizabeth Toomes, (herself a daughter of an Anglo-American father and an Afro-American mother) in ‘Homecoming’, and MJ herself in ‘Far From Home’ – but because these movies are good movies and are set in modern times, rather than in the past, unlike a ‘King Arthur’ or a ‘Robin Hood’ movie, this works.

Again, in real life, there are several aspects to the interracial issue, especially in North America. In Canada, I have seen plenty of interracial couples – on bus stops and in buses, in stores and on streets, and so on – and no one cares. Even Don Cherry seems to have issue not with the interracial aspect of immigration; rather he is rejecting all immigrants outright, by claiming that they are not true Canadians, but are rather taking advantage of them and Canada itself as a whole. This… is clearly the case of the horseradish that is as bitter as the bitter radish is, but while we seem to be splitting hairs between the rotten apples, it seems that Hollywood has gone the other way around, and lumped this current stage of social affairs with the past.

…The current state of casual interracial affairs has taken years, if not decades to develop, and both U.S. and Canada underwent a lot of hard effort to reach it. By comparison, in the time set in L&T, both the original and the remake, this effort – aka the integration – was not even in the works, though it must be acknowledged that it is there, sort of: we’re talking about a relationship between a ‘posh’ Lady and a ‘street-smart’ but ‘poor’ Tramp: a social interaction slash integration… minus the racial angle. In the 2019 remake, Disney tried to take this one-step further, to the modern level, but because the movie is still set in the past, it does not really work. God knows why, the movie is primarily about dogs, rather than people, they could’ve just set it in modern times and then an interracial human couple would’ve seen perfectly natural, but there you are, a genuine social anachronism in a Disney movie, one that not even IGN couldn’t ignore.

This brings us to the upcoming Sam & Bucky ‘Captain America’ Disney+ show, again because of the entire interracial issues in the USA. From what we were told, Sam & Bucky will not have it easy by transitioning to the new Cap – on one hand, MCU’s version of Zemo is coming back, complete with his trademark purple mask now, (but keep in mind, that in MCU he isn’t supposed to be Hydra, unlike in the comics), and on the other, we’re going to get introduced to MCU version of John Walker, the US agent. He is supposed to be one of those Captain America variants done wrong, who is violent and prejudiced and evil and so forth. I remember a comic arc when Cap encountered this sort of a character – it was Nuke. That comic arc was set in the so-called ‘Ultimate Universe’ (Earth-1610 if anyone cares), and so Nuke was Frank Simpson rather than William Simpson… as he is known in MCU. In MCU, Nuke/William Simpson was part of Netflix’s ‘Defenders’, but it does not mean that he could not appear in its’ other parts, (especially since his part in JJ was not that big, actually), but instead we are getting John Walker/US agent in Sam & Bucky. Fun.

…Rounding out the cast is MCU’s version of Sharon Carter, (agent 13), who, for a while, was supposedly a love interest for Steve Rogers, but sometime after the CA: CW film she just vanished from MCU. It will be interesting to see as for how long she will stick around this time. Anything else?

…Well, people are beginning to compare the conclusion of MLP: FIM series to MCU’s AoS, claiming that both shows used plot twists and turns incorrectly, but they are wrong. Rather, MLP: FIM is Hasbro’s answer to HBO’s GoT, as both were great and long-lasting shows that did more poorly in their finales, as both were about gone and done officially and for good, while pissing-off the fans in the process. …But it does not matter! They are over! Only not! They are still around! Hasbro is already talking about the G5 ponies, while HBO is already working on the Targaryen family saga, as presented by one George Martin, so yay, really. Pause.

We have steered far off course, and it is time for us to take a break. This is it for now, see you all soon, (hopefully).

S.H.I.E.L.D. 'Inescapable' - June 21

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. I try to catch a garter snake in our local park – it gets away, I try to catch an American toad – same story, and the leopard frogs in the park’s swamps are mocking me, I say! So I turn to the world of fiction, and what do I get? ‘Men In Black: International’, where Thor and Valkyrie – I mean, Henry ‘H’ and Molly ‘M’ get to save planet Earth from Hive. The fuck?!

No, this is exactly what is going on: Hive in MIB4 (let us call this move that here) may be depicted differently from how it did on MCU’s AoS, but its’ M.O. is the same, its respective roles on AoS and MIB4 are practically the same, and this incarnation of MIB (the titular organization, not the movie), is essentially the good old S.H.I.E.L.D. of MCU, just, again, depicted somewhat differently – just enough to avoid copyright infringement issues.

Now, let us be completely honest – on one hand, MIB4 did have some references to Marvel™, especially Henry-H’s connection to Marvel’s™ Thor, and on the other, MCU itself is known by now to remake the comic characters, but, uh, the MIB franchise isn’t part of Disney/MCU, not now, so their appropriation of AoS isn’t kosher, I bet. So far, I have not heard anyone calling the MIB team on this, but judging by how the – commotion regarding MIB4 is dying down, (unlike the ‘Dark Phoenix 2019’ film, which has its’ own share of problems, but regardless), I am guessing that someone did. Someone was not happy, and called the people in the MIB franchise out, and now the odds of the MIB franchise returning anytime soon are not very good – a long-term long show is better.

As for the MIB4 movie itself…listen. The first movie was especially a cop-buddy film, not unlike another movie series starring Will Smith, ‘Bad Boys’. It worked, mostly because Will and Ian had amazing chemistry together, as odd as that was. So, a second movie – a reboot of the first one – was made, and then a third, which was more of the same, with time travel and further elaboration of the J & K’s relationship, and then it took a rest. Now, along comes MIB4, which is not really a space cop movie, unlike the first three films, but more of a spy thriller, though less ‘James Bond’, and more ‘Man from U.N.C.L.E.’ and ‘Get Smart’. Both were TV series about spies belonging in paramilitary organizations fighting other, more evil organizations, cough – yeah, one can see how AoS could get unintentionally conflated into the mix…but that epiphany doesn’t make anything better.

…On a different note, both ‘Get Smart’ and ‘Man from U.N.C.L.E.’ got to be rebooted and rebranded from TV series into movies, but unlike, say, ‘Godzilla 1998’ or even ‘MIB’ in question – in case of ‘Godzilla’, the animated TV series (lasting for at least 2 series) were much more popular than the movie was, while in case of ‘MIB’, set after the initial film…and one of their episodes had almost the same plot as MIB3 movie did, so there’s that.

Back to MIB4 film proper? As flawed as it was, but between it and the last season of Netflix’s JJ show, I did skip last week’s AoS episode, and as for this week’s episode – ‘Inescapable’ – it was meh. It was focused on the FitzSimmons on one hand, and introduced plenty of exposition regarding the FitzSimmons pre-show history, (in a manner of speaking), and also the audience got to fill-in the gaps between S5 and 6. It was a well-balanced episode – it had drama, action, horror, romance and humor equally balanced – but is it enough? Judging by the numbers of the previous S6 episodes – not so much. AoS has become established well-enough among its’ fan base that the latter don’t need it anymore – they can ‘play’ with its’ characters to their hearts’ desires without being concerned about canon anymore. It’s harsh and unfair, but that’s real life for you, sometimes it’s just unfair and there isn’t anything you can do, other than to try again to catch that mocking leopard frog!..

Ahem. This is it for now. See you all soon!

'Dark Phoenix', C&D, and etc - June 6

…Let us not talk about the ‘Dark Phoenix’ movie for now. The original ‘X-Men: Last Stand’ film was decent enough, but plenty of people have hated it all the same. There is no reason as to why ‘Dark Phoenix 2019’ should be any different, but I here want to talk about something else – namely, C&D. Just as the actors from AoS had appeared at the premiere of CM the movie, so has Emma Lahana, from C&D, appeared at the premiere of ‘Dark Phoenix’; and-?

Firstly, it makes the contrast between ‘Dark Phoenix’ and CM look even more in CM’s favor. Ms. Lahana gushed enthusiastically about ‘being a part of the Marvel family’, or ‘the MCU family’, or whatever, but keep in mind that Ms. Lahana is a very talented actress, as she has shown in C&D S2: although they looked, well, identical, both Brigid and Mayhem have come across as two very different people – without the use of CGI, or any special effects, or whatever. Just different clothing…and a lot of acting skill. Ergo, how could you tell that Ms. Lahana wasn’t acting here, acting all happy and etc. about ‘being a part of the Marvel family’? When you got talent, you got talent, and when it is a great acting talent, then you are a great actor, well – actress, but in real life trusting you can be kind of tricky, I reckon.

That said, Ms. Lahana was apparently the only ‘outsider’, MCU or otherwise, who had appeared at the ‘Dark Phoenix’ premiere – and CM has Simmons (Mack) and NCB (Yo-Yo), Ward (Deke) and Wen (Melinda). That is 4 people from AoS as opposed to C&D’s only one, though that’s a great one, no doubt about it. However, many people are already pointing out that the ‘Dark Phoenix’ clearly had some issues regarding MCU on one hand, and that it had to reshoot its’ second half to make itself different from CM, which brings us back to MCU. Whatever is going, or was going, or will be going behind the scenes between Disney and FOX merger, it clearly was not as clear-cut as Disney, FOX, and mass media, want you to believe, but that is real life for you.

On the other hand, there is Netflix. No, not because the second season of C&D made a direct reference to Luke Cage the Marvel character – it was in the penultimate episode of S2 or the one before that – it lasted for about a minute and was kind of blurry; blink and you miss it – but rather about the upcoming final season of JJ that is coming to Netflix, as a part of an original series. In this season, the titular heroine is coming against a man named Gregory Salinger. In the comics, he’s a Deadpool-related villain, (yes, that Deadpool), but clearly in MCU, which is an entirely different Marvel ‘Earth’, he’s going to be a completely different character from what he is in the comics – and Disney cannot really do anything about it or the entire JJ S3. Go Netflix, stick it to the man!

…As for the ‘Dark Phoenix’ movie in general? We will talk about that at another time, preferably after it becomes available to a wider slice of populace than just the movie critics. Until then – see you soon!

CD, 'B Sides' - May 2

Obligatory disclaimer: real life is not very good, to put it lightly. Now onto C&D.

In this week’s episode, ‘B Sides’, the script writers took ques from the C&D comic arc ‘Shades of Grey’, complete with a villain who enslaves others by getting into their minds and draining them of their energy, in a matter of speaking. Put otherwise, this is a variant vampire mixed with Killgrave from Netflix’s JJ, complete with a female minion (ala JJ), who has been completely brainwashed, in a matter not unlike how Kara/agent 33 was brainwashed on AoS S2.

…Yes, AoS S6 is returning to TV next Friday, (May 10, 2019), and from the current trailer, we can already see that Gregg’s new character is a villain of some sort, rather than a hero; or at least – an anti-hero. Gosh! How new and exciting! Not.

Since S1, AoS had had the following themes in its plot: doppelgangers with different alignments often played by the same actors. Dalton did it with Ward…period, and also with Hive in S3. (Hive was never Ward; Ward may not have had any powers ever in AoS TV canon, but he was the more dangerous villain out of the two by far; I am a fan of his, but how he destroyed Coulson’s morals at cost of his own life? Brutal. This is what Coulson got from messing with a suicidal man – but we have digressed). Wen did in S2 as Palamas, (primarily in the first half of the season), and then in S4 as the LMD version of herself. Actually, everyone in the ‘main cast’ of AoS S4 got replaced by LMDs at that time – and later on they got to play slightly different versions of themselves, (including Dalton as Ward, cough), so Gregg playing a different character that just happens to look like someone else, cough, from the past is nothing new.

…Furthermore, Gregg’s new character just happens to look exactly like the old main male lead who had conveniently died between S5 and S6, so there’s no conflict of interest, and no need to juggle two roles and being the showrunner for at least the S6 premiere episode either. Consequently, odds are he will not be killed-off in the first few episodes, because AoS needs Coulson.

Well no, not really, but the cast and crew of AoS clearly consider Gregg to be an integral part of the team or something, so he is going to stay at AoS for S6 at least. I may be wrong, but I am still making this bet. (There are noises that AoS is going to be cancelled in summer 2019, but considering that it just got revamped by being associated with the MCU’s CM movie, it is not very likely). Ergo, his new character will probably be redeemed or something along those lines, as the AoS S6 title promo implied. AoS already planned to do something like that in S2 with Ward, but then they threw a curveball…the end of that. Coulson/not Coulson will probably be luckier, cough, but where were we?

…Talking about movies, I suppose. A trailer for yet another film came out today – ‘Crawlers’. Basically, it is a monster movie about an Anglo-American heroine, her father and dog, getting stuck in a hurricane-driven flood with some monstrous alligators who eat people. Oh Hell.

Where to begin? First, there are supposedly three species of crocodilians living in the U.S.: the American Alligator, (2-5 m long), the American Crocodile (2-4 m long) and the Spectacled Caiman (1-2 m long). The latter is an introduced species, yet another exotic reptile that escaped into the wilds of Florida and the rest of the southeast USA. Of the three, the American Alligator is the most common, but also – is the most retiring and does not like to attack, kill and eat humans as a rule. The American Crocodile and the Spectacled Caiman are more aggressive, but they also have a smaller range than their Alligator relative does; plus I am honestly not sure that there are wild/feral Spectacled Caiman living on the USA territory – the sources are controversial and can go either direction. What is the point?

…My point that the alligators of ‘Crawlers’ are unrealistic, and given that we see the movie’s main character destroying their eggs, they are unreal. Unlike the eggs of fish and amphibians, the eggs of reptiles must be kept dry and out of water; the nest of crocodilians, (including the gharials, the most aquatic of them all) are always kept well away from the water, and the mother crocs and gators bring the young to the water via a journey, (short or otherwise), in their jaws – just look at a BBC or a NatGeo crocodile special, for example. If there was a flood in a crocodile or alligator nesting area, it would be a disaster, as their nests and eggs would be lost. (Yes, just as their bird/dinosaur cousins’ crocodilians make nests. They are different from bird nests, but still nests). Ergo, no gator (or croc, or caiman) nests in a hurricane/flood area – they do not really exist. ‘Crawlers’ reptile monsters’ offspring just wouldn’t be able to survive – baby crocodilians are really fragile and vulnerable, unlike their parents…

Back to C&D, since on one hand, they already have a doppelganger of their own – Mayhem, via detective O’Reily – and on the other, they are located in the southeastern USA, where alligators and etc. live, but not really. It is already clear that Dy is in trouble and Ty is going to save her, and she will save him, and together they will rock, as they rocked in the ‘Shades of Grey’ comic. Good luck to them!

…This is it for this time; see you next time!