'Joker 2' and AAA - Oct 10

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so I watched the ‘Joker 2’ movie, and it might have given reality a run for its’ money – in a bad way. Compared to it, the AAA mini-series is merely hollow and pointless instead. Pause.

Taking a breath. The first ‘Arthur Fleck-Joker’ film was good. It was about a marginal member of the American/Western society who got his hands on a gun/handgun/firearm with bullets and suddenly his demands for respect couldn’t be dismissed out of hand, without consequences – the modern Protestant society hates that, and fears that, and so the Gotham society split into two by the appearance/manifestation of the Joker – the patricians (or the elites) hated and feared him, while the plebes (or the proletarians) made him their banner. This resulted in a social eruption in Gotham quite comparable to what happed in real life NYC during the 19^th century during the American civil war… and ‘Joker-2’ completely left it behind.

No, seriously, what the ‘Joker-2’ is about? ‘Joker-1’… see above, plus the titular character’s interactions with the Wayne family, which resulted in the tragedy that would enable Bruce Wayne, (just a child in the initial film) to become Batman and the Joker’s arch nemesis. More specifically, Batman and Joker are two halves of a whole, they work best when they’re dealing with each other, and when they don’t – say, the first Suicide Squad film – then it’s something else, and not for the better, either. The first Suicide Squad showed this, and so does the second JP Joker movie.

To make matters worse, it is a musical. Musicals – singing and dancing and what else have you – do not combine with live-action movies too well. Those who work are usually animated, as ‘Encanto’ was, or are just tolerable, like the ‘Mean Girls’ reboot. Most others, even such magnificent ones as the ‘In the Heights’ or the ‘West Side’ reboot, fail, and ‘Joker 2’ is certainly not ‘In the Heights’. Rather, it is a love story of Arthur Fleck and Lady Gaga’s character, who is not Harley Queen; rather, she is Lee.

Yes, the two women share a name – Harleen Quinzell, but nothing else. There is a saying: ‘How you name a boat, that’s how it will float’. Names do matter, and since Lady Gaga’s character was not named Harley Quinn, she did not become Harley Quinn, and so JP’s Joker fell in love with an OFC.

Let us elaborate. JP’s Joker himself is something of an OMC, but the truth is that there is no canon Joker origin story; the closest we have is ‘The Killing Joke’ story, a one-time comic book story, but even that is not always accepted by the DC-verse as the one true origin. More precisely, no one – not even the Joker – cares about the Joker’s origin story; he just is and that is it. He can both be and not be Arthur Fleck at the same time, it will not matter.

Conversely, Harley Quinn is Dr. Harleen Quinzell, the female psychologist, who fell in love with the Joker and became a Gotham Rogue herself. Her origin story is well established and well used, and so for the ‘Joker-2’ scriptwriters to reject it out of hand, it smarts, and it shows that whoever Lady Gaga’s character is, she is not Harley Quinn. In addition, for most DC comic-book fans to watch a variant Joker flirt with an OFC (and little more happens in this film), it just is not kosher, and so they turned on the film, just as the critics did, (though perhaps for different reasons). The result is a flop… onto AAA?

…What about AAA? This week’s episode, (‘Hour/Power’) is yet another episode where another OC dies; we are introduced to Agatha’s mum; and in general are we supposed to care for those people? The witches, starting with Agatha, are turning upon each other, and are killing each other…big whoop. This is the modern post-Protestant/neo-Pagan society, concisely. The Teen is Billy Kaplan the Wiccan, Wanda’s gay son… people suspected it all along. The miniseries are only halfway done, so Agatha and Rio should survive for a while yet, everyone else is up for grabs… who cares? ‘Joker 2’ came out, and it makes the remake of TLM look almost palatable. Sad, given just how good the first movie was. Ah well, real life sucks, just ask the barred and the spotted owls – but that is another story.

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

Solar Eclipse/X-Men - April 10

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, but the solar eclipse-2024 deserves a special mention, (and not just because X-Men ’97 are not all that either).

Where to begin? On Monday, April 8, 2024, the sky where my family lives – southern Ontario – was overcast. The people of science claimed that the skies will clear up because of the eclipse-2024 and all, but in reality the cloud cover just wasn’t breaking-up, not at all.

We went for a walk. The weather was quite cold, even if it was just early spring – the days before and after it were much warmer, in fact – and there were relatively few people outside. Still, we walked around, had our daily exercise, and returned home before three o’clock in the afternoon.

At 3:10 pm, it began to get dark, so we turned on the lights. By 3:15, it was as dark as it is in evening, about 20-30 minutes after the sunset. By 3:19-3:20, when the solar eclipse was complete, and it was as dark as… during an especially heavy local thunderstorm, when it come become almost as dark as night for a few minutes. Here, it was the same, as immediately it began to clear up, and by 3:25 or so, it was daylight as usual, or even more, as by 3:30 the sky actually began to clear-out from the clouds, and by 4:30 pm, it was clear completely. Mother Nature, (or God, or etc.) has trolled us.

On the other hand, the people who went to Niagara Falls, either from the Canadian or the American sides, got to see the same sight, (in a matter of speaking); only they paid several thousand dollars for this, so our family isn’t complaining too much. Real life sucks, as this blog mentions regularly, but sometimes it also rips people off.

As for this week’s X-Men ’97 episode ‘Remember’… listen. Magneto is dead – apparently. Gambit is dead – apparently. Uncle Ben Parker says hi and promises that they will be back. Cyclops still likes Madeline better than Jean even though the ‘real’ Jean is back. Can we bring back the JG/Wolverine relationship back, then? No offence, but now that the initial excitement is slowly wearing down, it is becoming more evident that the X-Men ’97 aren’t delivering anything truly new, but the same old delivered in a new way – not through comics, (ink and paper), but through cartoons, (2-D style, rather than the 3-D). Hooray for those who really love the X-Men franchise, for everyone else – not as much. (Not to mention that character deaths in cartoons just are not the same as they are in live action).

Anything else? Aye, the JP’s Joker part 2 is coming to movie theatres in October 2024. Already it promises to be something different from the regular Joker and Harley story. We will have to wait and see just what it actually is.

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

Harley Quinn and the prodigal son - Feb 25

Obligatory disclaimer… no, wait. Secondly, the ‘Harley Quinn’ cartoon TV show’s great, no doubt about it. Firstly – real life sucks. No matter what you try, no matter what you try to figure something out, real life will derail you, and then-

Pause. Let us talk about the Biblical parable of the prodigal son. No, we will not talk about the TV series of the same name, because I found it to be forgettable and meh; we are talking about the actual article. In it, the titular character lives his loving but traditional family, screws his life completely, returns home with tail between his legs, (metaphorically speaking), and is celebrated with a fattened calf, because, as both the narrator, (the Savior?), and the father of the family tell the audience and the other son, who dutifully worked at the family business all the time while his bro wasted his chance, Heavens are happier at one repented sinner than over many more people who neither sinned nor repented to begin with.

…You know, who sinned and then repented? Judas. Yes, that guy. Does it mean that he also ended up in Heaven and not, you know, in Hell, according to Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy’? Just asking, but the truth is that in the ‘Prodigal Son’ parable everyone is an asshole.

Let us elaborate. The titular character is an asshole because he had wasted all of his potential, literally and otherwise, and ended up being good for nothing but to herd pigs. When Jacob the patriarch, (son of Isaac, father of Joseph), ended up being a shepherd, he ended up making a fortune and married to Leah and Rebecca, (and not to mention a couple of concubines on top of them). The prodigal son? He did jack squat, other than bitch and moan about his fate & come crawling back to his family, as the parable intended to. Man, the Savior sometimes could be a jerk storyteller!

However, the rest of the family is not much different from the titular character…only they are. While he was doing nothing, they were doing the same thing repeatedly – running the family farm, (because of the fattened calf reference, because otherwise we got nothing to go on here). Yes, that is often hard, repetitive and boring, which is why the prodigal son ran away. And then he just partied hard and this is it, possibly because that is the only thing he had ever done? With his father if not outright enabling him, then certainly babying him, because he is the baby of the family, maybe? Pause.

Yes, something similar happened to Joseph back in the Old Testament, only our man Joseph did become the viceroy of Egypt or something similar, and revealed himself to be a bad ass. The titular character is an uninitiative waste of space and his father is okay with it, he is that forgiving. At least this time he gave his other some cock and bull excuse, dimly aware that this time he might have gone over the line.

…This isn’t the point of the parable? See above, cough Judas cough. St. Augustine supposedly once said that he believes in Christ and Christianity, because it is absurd, (or that absurd?). Fair enough, but proportionally, St. Augustine was closer to the time when the Gospels actually got written, (following the Word of God) than to our time in this time and space continuum, and it tells.

…So what does that have to do with me? Nothing, save that I am doing my best to find a regular job, (I may be no Old Testament Joseph, but still), and am having zero luck. My family, on the other hand, seems to be shoehorning me into the position of the parable’s older son, who works almost for nothing save for room and board. Did I tell you that I hate my life? Because I do. Arthur Fleck (cough Phoenix cough) was a genius if he was able to rework his life from a tragedy into a comedy, because I certainly cannot.

…Yes, I know that Joker in all of his incarnations is anti-hero at best and a villain at worse, as he was, or rather is, in the ‘Harley Quinn’ cartoon, which is doing all the same things that the ‘fantabulous emancipation’ film has done, but at a slower pace. Then again, it is a cartoon series, not a single-shot film, so it can afford to be prolonged.

One aspect that is affected by this is the Harley-Ivy relationship: the S1 finale ended with Ivy being dead, and/or resurrected, I am not sure. I.e., whatever relationship Harley and Ivy will have, this will be taken slowly, I suspect. Then again, DC is not Marvel, it doesn’t have Disney backing it up, (yet), so it’s not surprising that Ivy and Harley may be going the ‘Elsa met Honeymaren’ routine. Hell, Joker is outright absent in the ‘Superman: Red Son’ movie, and it is still a good one. (It just came out this February).

…Yes, SRS is focusing more on the Superman’s corner of DC’s Elseworlds than Batman’s, (cough spoilers cough), but still, the laughing prince of crime tends to pop up in unexpected places, but we digress. (SRS is not a bad animated movie either, incidentally). The point is that my life lately sucks more than it usually does, more family sucks more than it usually does, and I see no way out, period. I do not intend to be either the good or the prodigal son, while we are on the subject. For better or for worse, I am just trying to be myself, regardless as to what this entails, down to the end - now if only all my ads on LinkedIn, and Glassdoor, and Indeed, and Monster, and so on would come to a fruition. (Sad face emoji).

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

The Harley Quinn Movie - Feb 6

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, pure and simple, and your family tends to make it worse – and it is also simple. So, let us talk about something more complex – the latest DC movie – instead.

Why it is a more complex subject? Because in reality, it is two movies stitched into one – first, we got ‘Birds of Prey’, (BOP), which deals with a group of anti-heroes, led by Harley Quinn, in a fight against a crime boss named ‘the Black Mask’, (DC’s answer to Marvel’s Red Skull, BTW), and the second is ‘the fantabulous emancipation’ of the same Harley Quinn as she gets over the Joker, (Jared Leto’s version). Pause.

Now, this is not the first case of two movies being stitched into one – I personally remember the ‘Lost World: Fallen Kingdom’ film, which was two films – the first being the team Owen/Claire (OC) teaming up with the minions of the Evil E to rescue several dinosaurs, (including Rexy and Blue), from the exploding island; and the second being team OC infiltrating/getting captured by the Evil E’s minions to get into the Lockwood mansion and stop the Indoraptor from…something – yes, it’s a killing machine, but nothing more; the movie heavily anthropomorphized it, but it still was nowhere as formidable as the I-Rex from the first ‘Lost World’ film was, and plenty of dinosaurs got out into the world… but we digress.

…And the second film was the SW8 movie, where everything from Rey and Ben’s final confrontation in the ex-Snoke’s throne room feels like a tag-on from an entirely different SW8 film – maybe it was borrowed from the original SW8 script? Or something? Hard to tell, and we have discussed the SW8 & 9 films before, so let us get back to the DCEU.

Did DC succeed with their latest film? As people have acknowledged, it’s no ‘Joker-2019’, and indeed, when the discussions about BOP-emancipation began, ‘Joker-2019’ was avoided. Not surprising, since on one hand, ‘Joker-2019’ is an outlier and not a part of the DCEU per se, and as such, it is a completely different film from the DCEU ones… and it had also won an Oscar. Not surprisingly, then, that team DC does not known as to what to do about ‘Joker-2019’ and tend to avoid it in their discussions, especially unofficial ones.

That said, ‘Joker-2019’ did try to discuss important social issues in real life…and the Harley Quinn double-whammy tried to be feminist! Feminist! Feminist! In addition, girl power! Rawr! …Did it succeed?

Leaving aside the impressive interweaving of the two films, BOP and ‘the fantabulous emancipation’, done in a way that would make Marvel’s Deadpool, (especially the MCU version), proud. That said, since people treat it as a single film instead, well… it is done by the book – women are good, men are bad, (or outright evil), and women are beating them down as soon as they are done being oppressed by them. Just look at Greta Thunberg, back in real life.

…What is this? Now that the initial shock value is gone, Greta seems to have met only a limited success – people are indulging her, going along and pretending that she matters. Since none of her efforts seem to have actually amount to anything beyond making this or that public statement and talking to this or that leader of some country or another… Greta is beginning to feel like a trained parrot that everyone loves but will forget as soon as the entire out of sight out of mind situation occurs – and this, atypically, brings us to Cassandra Cain.

Why? Here is the thing. Margot Robbie’s Harley is consistent with her depiction in 2016’s ‘Suicide Squad’ film. Dinah and the Huntress look nothing like their counterparts in the DC ‘Arrow’ TV-verse (or the original BOP TV series), but DC is inconsistent like this, so that is acceptable. However, for both Renee and Cassandra, this is their official entrance into the live-action DC depiction, (especially for Cass), so what, and who, was thinking? They took ‘Orphan’, one of Batman’s most formidable lieutenants, and turned her into a plucky extra from ‘Ocean’s 8’!

…Actually, the entire movie has a strong feeling of ‘Ocean’s 8’, especially in regards to girl power – ‘Ocean’s 8’ was ‘Ocean’s 11’ albeit gender-flipped and more edgy. Alas, as the ‘Ghostbusters’ reboot showed, gender flipping a movie plot is not always enough, (both it and ‘Ocean’s 8’ are largely forgotten by now), and as ‘Like a Boss’ proved, girl power on its own isn’t a miraculous money-maker either.

Does the Harley Quinn movie has anything else going for it? It is bright, it is loud, it verges on the absurd, and the good guys – that is, girls – win in the end. It is not trying to be intentionally deep if you move away from the titular heroine as she goes on a journey of self-discovery and the rest of team BOP is going for the ride as they need to work together to defeat the Black Mask and Zsasz. The latter are completely unsympathetic, (especially Zsasz), nonredeemable, and are killed at the end. 

Sigh. Even Marvel/MCU is moving past killing every villain in their movies – Loki is back and being redesigned, so’s MCU’s version of Zemo, (and maybe others?). Seeing how DCEU is trying to ape MCU still, maybe it is time for them to stop killing-off their villains… oh, right, Joker. Pause. Never mind. This version of the Black Mask was decisively influenced by the comics’ Joker, and it shows – the movie’s villains have actually more time on screen than its’ heroes – aside from Harley, and this brings us to Cass, but also – to the hyena.

Cass is simple – Harley decided to make her her protégé or something. Ask Harley. Maybe she knows. But the hyena is something else. True to the DC canon, it is a spotted hyena, which is the biggest modern hyena species, and the strongest. It can literally rip a person apart with its’ bone-crushing jaws, so seeing Harley interact with her new pet is something else. I really hope that she had picked-up her comic-book counterpart’s hyena managing skills, because otherwise, there will be trouble!

…As it is, there may be trouble already, as the movie shows no sign of a Poison Ivy. These days, in most incarnations, Ivy and Harley are a couple, a duo, a team – Ivy helps Harley the way that Joker did not, would not, or could not – take your pick. They are also a couple, the same way that Willow and Tara were on the BtVS TV series, for example, so her absence in the movie is glaring, and also telling.

In ‘Frozen 2’, there was Honeymaren, Elsa’s new potential love interest, and yet nothing came of it. Why?

Because Disney does not like to make statements that hurt it in the wallet; it does not like to be hurt in the wallet to begin with: their ‘damage control’ in the SW9 film is the latest evidence of that. Only, in SW9, this ‘damage control’ didn’t succeed, so for now no more SW movies, and especially trilogies; ‘The Mandalorian’ and the like will need to carry the SW-universe forwards for now.

For Disney, their ‘Princess’ series are even more important than SW is, so they have no intention of rocking the boat by getting either the same-sex issues or the sexuality issues involved. Yes, there is many fanworks that do just that, but they do not matter, especially not to Disney, whereas DC…

…Well, in DC, there is the current Harley Quinn cartoon series, which seems to be going precisely in that direction, by the means of an endgame. Yes, DC is not putting all of their eggs in one basket, and the HQ cartoon series is different, and much more balanced, than the HQ movie is, but the signs of this were there in the last trailer, so we were warned. Anything else?

No, not really. ‘The Fantabulous Emancipation’ gave a new dimension to the movie, which otherwise would have been just a more violent and psychedelically crazy ‘Ocean’s 8’. The gangster setting…well, ever since the Superman/Batman animated series of the 1990s, the gangster setting was the default for Gotham, which only served to make the Black Mask and Zsasz even more formidable. The fights themselves were nothing special, certainly not in 2020, and they were not any more feminist than the ‘Like a Boss’ movie was. So, yes, Harley Quinn saved the movie and the day, just not how she probably intended to… i.e., this her normal M.O., especially without Ivy around to ground her, cough. Hint-hint. Regardless, go Harley!

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

Like a Boss - Jan 11

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

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

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

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

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

This is it for now. See you all soon!

Knife or Death - Nov 15

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Sometimes it sucks because of your family, sometimes it sucks because you are the Donald, you are the 45^th president of the United States but are getting impeached all the same, sometimes it sucks because you have voted for him but he is getting impeached all the same, and sometimes it is simply hard to pin down a precise reason. Hate to sound self-centered, but look at me – at this moment, (Nov 15, 2019), my life really shouldn’t be that bad, technically speaking, and it isn’t, but yet it feels flat and uninspired – right now I should be honestly writing, creating something, but all I have is a great big zero: I got nothing and I don’t care.

…Only I do. Given our family’s life, such moments tend to be few and far between and are should be treasured, not wasted, yet when I sit down and try to write something down, all I have is nothing. Therefore, in order not to make this blog entry completely self-centered and vapid, I try to talk about what I see on TV…and what is there, but reality shows… and reality sucks.

Oh, sure, I could try to talk about the new ‘Batwoman’ show, (well, new-ish, I suppose), but the truth is that so far it is a gender-bent version of, well, Batman. From what I could glean, the S1 of ‘Batwoman’ the TV show is based on a comic-arc when the titular character went against a villain named Alice because she was sort-of based on Lewis Carrol’s Alice, (from the ‘Wonderland’ duology – read it), which possibly makes her some sort of a female analogue to Batman’s more obscure villain the Mad Hatter, but the truth is that I’m not as big on DC TV shows these days so again I cannot honestly make much of a comment on ‘Batwoman’ or any other live-action component of ‘Arrow-verse’.

With the cartoons it is slightly different: the upcoming cartoon adventures of Harley, Ivy, and ‘their crew’ (Dr. Psycho, Clayface, and King Shark, apparently), seem poised to make the live-action movie about ‘the fantabulous emancipation of Harley Quinn’ redundant at best: the live-action movie and the cartoon series’ aren’t intended to compete, (the top heads of the DC franchise aren’t that stupid), but because they cover the same material, they will be regardless compared and contrasted with each other by the fans. In the DC comics Harley has been ‘emancipated’ for a while now: she is her own woman, (or she is with Ivy) for several years in real life, and so odds favor the cartoon TV series’ format over the single-shot movie; plus, the DC franchise has had problems with live-action films in the past, (the ‘Justice League’ movie, for example), so I’m being pointedly pessimistic here. Anything else?

…Jared Leto is apparently out of DC as the Joker and is coming to Marvel/Sony as Morbius, the ‘living vampire’; considering that Mr. Phoenix appears to be content in making his Joker a one-shot movie, this can mean more trouble to DC, because with Leto out, and Phoenix no longer in, DC is left Joker-less again, which just isn’t right; the fact that they got a new Batman coming already in 2021 might put DC back into its’ pre-Wonder Woman days, and that would be just sad. Can we get back to the reality shows?

Last night, (Nov 14, 2019), I got to see ‘Knife or Death’, sort of a special addendum to the previously-discussed ‘Forged in Fire’ show, and all that I can say is… what did I watch? As we discussed previously, ‘Forged in Fire’ itself is a mixed beast, kind of like ‘Chopped’ for bladesmithing, with elements of DW and ‘Man at Arms’ from YouTube mixed-in. It is not a flawless show by far, but it got variety and can be okay to watch sometimes. ‘Knife or Death’ is a different beast of a show: the knives/blades get forged beforehand, pre-show, and the show itself is an obstacle course, or several, where the bladesmiths run through it, hacking and slashing various objects to demonstrate their blades and blade-forging skills. The result is a much more repetitious and monotonous show than the actual ‘Forged in Fire’ show is, and that is not a good thing, in my opinion. Anything else?

A new exhibition is opening in ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) this weekend in real life, so I am off to there to see it. It is supposed to be about bats and the like, so the reason as to why it has opened now, in the middle of November, post-Halloween, as opposed to pre-Halloween escape me for now. Maybe after I will look at it this weekend it will make more sense.

...This is it for now; see you all 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.

Joker-2019 & etc - Oct 9

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. It sucks on a personal level, and you cannot escape it; you turn on the news and you see that the U.S. has brought the suckage onto an international level just ask the Kurds. Maybe this was a clever maneuver by the Donald, to tie up Turkey and Iran in struggle over Syrian control while he deals with his own problems back home, but it still kind of petty and unpleasant, especially in the Middle East. There are even rumors of ISIS coming back. Sigh. It is precisely this sort of mainstream media propaganda that causes outliers to presume that ISIS had been a creation of the U.S. all along, just as the Taliban had been back in the Cold War. As we remember, the Taliban eventually bit the U.S. in the ass so badly, that it might not have fully recovered even by now, and as for ISIS, it is anyone’s guess. The Kurds are not impressed with the Donald or the rest of the land of bold and free, it would look like. What is next?

Well, I would like to escape into TV land, but everything out there is either a rerun of a now-ended show, a Halloween cooking special, or something new that is so forgettable… or is memorable, for entirely wrong reasons. There’s ‘Stumptown’, whose best trait is the main character, who is played by Cobie Smulders, aka Maria Hill from the MCU. Alternatively, maybe she is actually Soren, a Skrull – an alien from the MCU. Either way, back in MCU, CS is not the biggest fish, so maybe ‘Stumptown’ is an attempt to recast herself as someone new – a main character in a TV series… that is based on a comic book series. Here the biggest difference from MCU (or any of the DC TV shows) is that ‘Stumptown’ is not all that well known, so it is anyone’s guess if CS’s strategy will succeed or fail.

There’s ‘Almost Family’, made by Fox. It is a nice, family-friend TV show about an atypical TV family… that may glorify rape. The main characters are all doctors of a medical doctor who ran an artificial fertilization clinic and used his sperm in place of others’. Even to a non-American this sounds rather yucky, and the American society itself is having hysterics and in a bad way. I do not like SJWs, but I am not an American; the people behind ‘Almost Family’ are, and they should have expected at least some sort of an unpredictable reaction behind their unconventional TV series. Instead, they seem to be almost ignorant of what they have done. Ouch.

There is also ‘Primal’ by Mr. Gennady Tartakovsky, which is, so far, about friendship between a caveman and a T-Rex. It’s not a bad premise, but between the duo co-existing with woolly mammoths, for example, and one of the show’s villains, a chimeric dinosaur that shows traits of a T-Rex, a Giganotosaurus and a Ceratosaurus at the same time on the other, I think I’ll wait for the next ‘Jurassic World’ movie (or maybe the ‘Kong vs. Godzilla 2020’) instead for this sort of quasi-prehistoric chimeras… oh wait. The next ‘Jurassic World’ movie will have no chimeras’ a-la Indominus Rex and Indoraptor. Score one for team JW!

In the movies, meanwhile, we have ‘Joker-2019’. I admit – I am not going to talk about it, the feelings are too raw. Essentially, this version of the clown prince of crime is a stereotypical loser, who lives with his mother, and then one day he gets a gun, and suddenly his violent dreams get a very realistic outlet. Arthur Fleck is that pathetic and insignificant, but then he gets a loaded gun, and suddenly he is brave enough, (or at least hysterical enough) to kill. And no one can resist him, because no one expects him to have a gun – he is that pathetic. There is enough of breadcrumbs in ‘Joker 2019’ for GCPD to make a conclusion and arrest Arthur Fleck before things get too out of hand, but they never do, and instead it is the Waynes who are killed. Why? What is the phenomenon that led Arthur Fleck/Joker-2019 to the top of the social order in Gotham-2019?

There are two baseline suggestions. One is that Gotham’s poor, its’ proletariat, its’ plebeians, are sheep and less socially derived than their counterparts in Shakespeare’s play ‘Coriolanus’ that deals with the history of the Roman republic quite some time before the events in his ‘Julius Caesar’. True, Will Shakespeare was no more a professional historian than George Martin is, for comparison, but he truthfully transcribes and depicts the events described in his historical sources – they were not connected to the politics and power plays of his day and age, so he could risk it. And meanwhile, ‘Joker-2019’ tries to carefully depict the political realities on USA-2019 (albeit on a national level), and-

And you can really reach only a limited amount of conclusions. The first is already mentioned – that the downtrodden masses of Gotham-2019 are sheep who will follow anyone who has the loudest voice and the biggest, hardest shepherd’s staff with which to drive them into the kingdom of God, however they depict it. The communists in the first half of the twentieth century were especially like that, fully determined to drive humanity into some sort of a happiness utopia with a steel hand. These days they are largely vanished, with less than a dozen countries remaining true to this political doctrine – at least right now. Is Joker himself a communist? No. Well, maybe. A Bolshevik Joker decisively is not, but in the pre-revolutionary Russia there were other political leftist parties, such as the Anarchists-Maximalists, who, unlike their Bolshevik (and Menshevik, for that matter) counterparts didn’t care about government and politics at all; they just wanted to bring it all crashing down through sheer terror and overt assassinations, and then what will be, will be. The poor people of Gotham-2019 show something decidedly similar to such a political party – they just want to bring it all down, and then what will be, will be. The only question is – just who is in the driver’s seat.

This brings us to the next theory – that Joker is a cat’s paw, a stooge for someone else entirely. Think about it: Thomas Wayne is running for mayor. This version of Papa Wayne is extremely unlikable (and is somewhat reminiscent of the modern powerful men in light of ‘MeToo’ and similar movements), but he has a political program, a concrete and specific political program that he intends to implement when he is the mayor. However, guess what? Concrete and specific political programs tend to drive away people as well as attract them.

Thomas Wayne only told his true intention to the people of his class, to his immediate inner circle? And where do you think the true opposition to him began? Precisely, among the people of his class, of his values, who, however, have different ideas of how things are to be ran and resources to be shared and distributed than in Thomas Wayne’s vision.

Why didn’t they confronted him directly but rather did an entire song-and-dance with Arthur Fleck/Joker? Who knows. They might have misjudged the outrage and hatred of Gotham’s plebiscite, or they might have intentionally started it all so that the army might move in and pacify everyone in Gotham. They might be swept away with the old Gotham, or come on top of the new city. ‘Joker-2019’ is intended to be a one-time movie with no sequel, a latest depiction of Gotham City’s number one villain as well as a critique of the Western society in 2019. As a piece of fiction, it is very good. As something that tries to be more – not so much.

That is that for DC-world for the moment – ‘Joker-2019’ has its issues, but it is still a deeper movie than ‘Gemini Man’ is, one that is a self-love-fest for Will Smith. Kanye West is rightfully disliked for his narcissism and his support of the Donald; Will Smith seems to be staying out of political commentary for now, (not unlike Eddie Murphy), but ‘Gemini Man’? It is literally all about Smith, and the man just does not do good movies. There had been ‘After Earth’, that starred Smith and son, essentially, and it was just bad. ‘Bright’ the Netflix fantasy film had an interesting premise, but otherwise? Not that much better than ‘After Earth’. And ‘Gemini Man’? It follows the previous two. Unless you love Will Smith, ‘Gemini Man’ is not for you.

Finally, we come to the comics, because why not? Speaking of movies, you remember how ‘Spider-man’ franchise left the MCU, returned to Sony, but now is back in MCU on terms that favor Sony over Disney/Marvel? That’s Disney/Marvel life action universe, which is founded on movies, TV shows and streaming service shows & movies. What about the comics?

…In Marvel comics, fall 2019 is all about Carnage, one of the nastiest villains in ‘Spider-Man’ in particular and Marvel comics in general. Since the end of the summer 2019, Marvel comics went for the ‘Absolute Carnage’ story arc, which is essentially about Carnage and a lot of other symbionts taking over the Marvel universe, (well, trying to), with everyone else who had ever had contacts/encounters with a symbiont getting involved. It is a tangled mess, and then Spider-Man franchise was pulled out of MCU, and so the ‘Absolute Carnage’ plotline hit a hiccup, as several comic book plot lines appear to have been abandoned completely. Now that Spidey is back in in MCU, however tentatively, those plot lines might resume soon enough, but regardless, unless you are heavily investing, and closely following Marvel comics as such, it is not worth it.

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

Birds of Prey trailer I - Oct 1

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Now onto TV land?

Ok, first I need to address some issues that arose from my previous posts. What are they, as follows?

First, someone has commented that the end of BBR, we see the door of another motorhome open to release its’ inhabitant, who will help the Motorhome family of No Name get through the destruction of their own motorhome. Yay! …It is also supposed to show that humans do not have any great advantage now that the dinosaurs and the other prehistoric reptiles are out and about. Fair enough.

Now, the entire premise of the original JP movie was all about ‘life will find a way’, which echoed, however distantly, the message of the original JP novel, as spoken by that version of Ian Malcolm. Yay, (the novel’s version of Ian Malcolm does little more but blather after its’ version of the initial T-Rex attack; it has its’ own share of flaws, but we are not talking about them here), so what does the franchise’s reboot do?

…Bring back not only Dr. Grant, Dr. Sattler, and Ian Malcolm for its’ final film, but also Hammond’s grandchildren, Tim and Lexy, (do not confuse her with Rexy – Lex/Lexy is a human young woman, while Rex/Rexy is an aged female Tyrannosaurus. They are different). The fans are quite happy with this fan service, but will it help the franchise? Considering that they already have the ‘new’ characters – Owen, Claire, Maisie, Franklin and Zara – this leaves them with a lot of characters to juggle around, and killing any of them will likely backfire by enraging the fans!..

On the contrary, and this brings me to my other critique, ‘Insatiable’ the Netflix series has gone the other way around – it seems to have largely removed the entire WG/WL issue from its content, (there’s a scene of Patty compulsively eating, but this it so far), rebooting itself as a standard black humor drama/comedy; the trailer for S2 is much better and far less messier than it was for S1. It still is not for everybody, but least it is not offensive. So kudos to ‘Insatiable’ here and now; sorry for bitching about you in my previous blog entry.

…And now that we have this out if the way, let us move onto the main event: the ‘Birds of Prey’ first main trailer. What can be said about it? The 2016 ‘Suicide Squad’ movie was a mess. It was not a bad film, but it had plenty of room to improve, and apparently, it is going through a reboot now. By contrast, the upcoming ‘Birds of Prey’ film will be focusing on Harley Quinn’s character, and her emancipation. This is not a problem; the problem is that it appears that they will be cramming several years of worth of her emancipation in the comics into a single film. Compounding this is the fact that the BP movie itself already feels chaotic, in a bad way: there are characters from all strata of DC comics – there’s HQ herself, there’s the Huntress, there’s officer Montoya, there’s the Black Mask, there’s Cassandra Cain, whose version in DCEU clearly has a long way to go before she reaches her kick-ass levels in DC comics, (where she is one of the Bat-family, BTW). The trailer itself gives surprisingly very little exposition for such an action-filled piece: I think that Harley and her posse will be saving Cassandra from the Black Mask and his people? Yeah, there are worse films in DCEU, including the ‘Suicide Squad 2016’ itself, let along the ‘Justice League’ film, but still. I am of the mixed feelings when it comes to BP.

A special shout-out should be done for the hyenas that we also see in this trailer. Obviously, just as in the TLK-reboot, they are CGI – they may not be as impressive and regal as the African lions are in real life, but their teeth and jaws can crack bone, so it is hardly unlikely that any movie will be featuring them as real life animals. They are supposedly not that easily trained either.

…There are rumors that the beast of Gevaudan, a much-discussed wolf-like cryptid of the pre-revolutionary France, had been either a spotted, or more realistically a striped, hyena, released into the French wilderness. How probable is that is debatable, but this is one of the more popular theories when dealing with this monster, and I felt that it should be mentioned, because Joker. He is not in the BP movie, it seems. Considering that we are talking about the Jared Leto version here, it isn’t too surprising; regardless of how you feel about the 2016 movie in general, its’ Joker had certainly sucked. Not surprising, then, that BP feel probably not feature him in person, but trying to cram several years’ worth of Harley’s character development in comics into a single film is not the best solution either. Ah well, we will just have to wait and see what will be revealed regarding the BP movie next.

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

It Chapter 2 - Sep 3

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Now, back to the evil clowns. Here, we are talking about the Steven King novel that was adapted into movies/TV series in the 1990s, and now into another two movies – the first one was in 2017, and the second one coming to the cinema screens later this year (2019). It is ‘It’, to wit. …Pennywise the clown, being the titular character-villain, (look it up), rocked in his white and red make-up, as opposed to his (its’?) natural form, which is something shapeless, grotesque…and not so evil at all. Somehow, being altogether all too human made It the Pennywise clown more evil than whenever it/he, well, was an invertebrate instead.

…Do I want to discuss the details of the movie/movies, past and present and future? No. While ‘It’ was not a bad film per se, neither it was very debatable, at least not by me. Horror movie genres aren’t my thing, and I wouldn’t be mentioning ‘It’ at all, save for it being about an ultimate evil clown, (as opposed to, say, an ultimate evil werewolf – the titular monster can do a convincing lycanthrope too, BTW), which brings us back to ‘Joker 2019’, of whom we talked recently, and to the fact that ‘It Chapter Two’ comes back from its’ 90s incarnation later this year too. Does it make ‘It’ deserving of a mention? Yes, but nothing more. Anything else?

…’Pathfinder’ continues to churn out more ‘2^nd edition’ rulebooks and game books and stuff, but so far people are not being very overwhelmed. On top of anything else, the second edition had broken down the old structure: in an adventure path book, after the actual adventure description, there was an NPC gallery, then some supplementary material, and finally info on the new monsters that appear in this adventure, (if any). Intersecting the adventure path were the descriptions of various special treasures found during the adventures, as well as some sidebars – comments and advice from the adventure’s author. Now, this structure is gone, or at least – simplified, as NPCs, treasures and monsters are jumbled into one cluttered mess, though there is some supplementary information in the second edition adventure paths, I was told. However…

…However, the point is that the 1^st edition ‘Pathfinder’ was different; it stood out from its’ competition due to their dissimilar layout; as I have written before, ‘Pathfinder’ had more in common with the d20 Modern games than with D&D, which made it special and noticeable, but now that aspect of ‘Pathfinder’ is gone, and I cannot help but to question the logic of that move – is it really a good thing? Judging by circumstantial evidence, I cannot help but to wonder if the ‘Pathfinder’ cast itself is having problems adjusting to the new shift, time to prepare for it be damned… but that is their issues, and they will resolve them somehow. Alternatively, ‘Pathfinder’ will go down for good and people working for this franchise will lose their jobs. Pity, but that is real life for you. It sucks, and here ‘it’ is not Stephen King’s novel. Period.

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

Joker 2019 - Take I: Sep 2

Let us now speak of the Joker, that ‘merry prankster’ of ‘Batman’ the franchise. Switch off the sarcasm? Maybe. Now onto the main event.

Firstly, the obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. In this particular case, it is also one of the messages of ‘Joker 2019’, as the titular character, initially known as Arthur Fleck instead, gets to be life’s bitch – even without spoilers we can admit that he got more than he received, at least initially. Therefore, he became the Joker. The end?

Well, no, not at all. Why ‘Joker 2019’ is already a success, a month before the public can see it for real, (and we should not worry about spoilers either)? Because it’s zeitgeist. In canon, Joker is even eviller than in the 2019 movie incarnation, but here, he is more chaotic than the average. (Which is very low, given that it is the Joker, but still). He either does not care about right and wrong, or perceives them in such a manner that most people on the street, (even in Gotham), cannot relate. He is unpredictable; he might get inspired for his new op by his itchy left (or right) heel, or by the fact that it rained on Thursday, (and we are talking about a completely natural rain here), and go onto his latest rampage, (or whatever). Back to real life – and we see that the US currently have the POTUS Donald, who is also unpredictable, uncontrollable, and just hated. Now what?

Well, you would think that by now the Democrats would start an impeachment process regarding that man, but no. They do not. In part this is because in that case the Donald’s most likely political heir will be Mike Pence, whom the Democrats and co. hate and fear even moreso than they do the Donald – but that is their problem, and if they have principles, they should be acting upon them – right? They do have principles, correct? This is their main difference from the Republicans, who lack them… Wait. What? The ‘Joker 2019’?

…The ‘Joker 2019’ movie depicts a Gotham that is a mess. Yes, it is the default social setting of this city, but here it is less of a gothic, film noir, crime-ridden horror story, and more of a painfully mundane, banally evil, everyday soulless city. It is realistic, very reminiscent of reality, (especially in the phase 1 Marvel movies), and not really like the Gotham canon, (if there is such a thing). Into this morass come two men – the Joker/Arthur Fleck, who is clearly determined to bring laughter into this world, and Thomas Wayne, who is just as clearly determined to do something about Gotham, in a manner that seems to be based on that of the real life Donald. Now what?

And now, there’s a fight in Gotham, over its’ soul, with no winner in sight, as there’s no hero per se – Joker may be the titular protagonist, but he’s still the Joker, he is still not a hero, for he isn’t good or evil – he’s chaotic; he’s been mastered by chaos rather than master it, and as such, whether for good or for evil, he’s unpredictable. And an asshole. Just look at the current Batman meeting the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for example. And Thomas Wayne?

…He comes across as a soulless corporate douche instead. Mind you, this isn’t your typical depiction of the elder Wayne; he is usually a better person, and sometimes even – the Batman himself, (but then again there are worlds in DC where Joker’s role is carried out by Martha Wayne, as in Batman/Bruce’s mom, so there is that), but in this 2019 movie? He is dislikable, he is unpleasant, and while he is saner than Arthur Fleck is, (but then again, anyone is saner than the Joker is, even the rest of Gotham’s villains are), he is not any better for Gotham city and its’ state of being than Joker is.

Pause. The truth of the matter is that for all of Joker’s different aspects, he is never a creator, always a destroyer. Period. Even in the 2019 version, he is not trying to create anything; at first, he is just trying to survive, and then he just goes berserk, spreading out his rage, insanity, misery, and what else have you into the rest of his world, (Gotham city). And Thomas Wayne? He is trying to preserve the society that had created the Joker out of Arthur Fleck; in the first half of the movie, Arthur is harmless, but as the external factors add on, he becomes Joker instead, a revolutionary. Pause.

Joker may be a revolutionary, but he is no communist; rather, he is an anarchist-maximalist by the Soviet classification chart; he just wants to destroy the old world down to the basement, and then what will be, will be. Yes, Arthur Fleck is almost certainly politically obtuse, even by the modern American standards, but that is exactly what kind of a revolutionary he becomes and it is precisely what kind of a cult following Joker gets in the second half of the film. Put otherwise, the social order in the 2019 Gotham city is unjust, unfair, and bad and etc., so the Joker just wants to destroy it, plough the land with salt and seed it with lime, and Thomas Wayne… just wants to preserve it, in part because Joker wants to destroy it and in part because he’s benefitting from it, (the Waynes are one of the most powerful Gotham families in the DC canon). Yes, he wants to implement some superficial changes to the society, but this is it, and quite a few of Gotham’s citizens don’t like it; so where does the real world come in?

Oh, the real world is there already, at least USA-wise. Half of the people are fed-up with the current status quo and just want to tear it down; half the people want to preserve it, regardless, or maybe even because, of its’ flaws, because they are benefitting from this, and the rest can go hand; and the rest want to do something without going to either of those extremes, but they are being overwhelmed by the noise from the above two extremes. Will the US get out of it? Judging by how ‘Joker 2019’ is already crazily famous, (and that is even before we get into the entire unreliable narrator/fake media aspect of the film), it is a long shot. We will have to wait and see what will happen to the USA (and the rest of the world) next before making any predictions.

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