Call of the Wild 2020 - Feb 21

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. One’s family makes it worse, and you hate them, you hate them, you hate them forever – onto the 30^th generation, onto the 20^th incarnation, and beyond! All hail Lilith and Sammael! …Where were we?

Ah yes, real life sucks, so let us talk about the 2020 ‘Call of the Wild’ film. We have discussed it last year already, when we only had just a teaser to go on, and it was released only this month, (aka February 2020), and what can I say? It is neither ‘Cats-2019’ nor quite as bad as ‘Doolittle-2020’, but it is certainly worse than the ‘Sonic’ movie is, and when you fail to surpass an anthropomorphic extradimensional blue hedgehog (supposedly) creature, then you suck.

Let us elaborate. The ‘Call of the Wild-2020’ movie failed on several levels. One is the CGI – oh, the technical side was done marvellously, we’re talking Cirque du Soleil quality, (a curse upon this abomination for 30 generations, for 20 incarnations!!), but regardless, you can still feel that the dogs are CGI very easily, so there’s that, and that’s a problem: just ‘like ‘White Fang’, the ‘Call of the Wild’ is a dog novel; humans play important roles, even critical ones, but the main characters are dogs and wolves. Considering that the 2020 ‘Call of the Wild’ film had only CGI animals, this means that it put itself at a disadvantage: the non-human characters just do not look real, no matter how authentic they were supposed to be.

The human characters have their own problem. The original novel was written in 1903, when political correctness was unheard-of, and so all of the human characters in ‘Call of the Wild’ were Caucasian, (technically speaking), and except for Mercedes, (played by Karen Gillian in this film) – male. So now, we got the two Quebecois mail workers played by Omar Sy, (an Afro-American) and Cara Gee, (an Ojibway woman). This is very politically correct and modern, but, sadly, ‘Call of the Wild’ seems to be one of those pieces that does not do transition to ‘modern’ too well in general. The original novel, just as its’ companion ‘White Fang’ was very, well, manly. The 2020 movie is anything but, and seems to be going for a more balanced, modern, politically correct approach – and instead got a pale imitation of the original novel.

Yes, Han Solo… I mean, Indiana Jones… I mean, Mr. Ford did his best to liven the movie, and may be its’ redeeming feature, period. (Chewbacca mutters and tells Han that you should never have a dog do a Wookie’s job, and can we try it again, in space, this time? Han points out that that is what the SW4 movie is for. Chewie sniffs and hugs his best friend. The end). However, you have to admit that his current incarnation – John Thornton – is rather manly himself, (possibly for the greater contrast with Dan Stevens’ Hal, who looks ridiculous in an unattended manner by the movie’s standards). The conclusion itself is also different, pause.

In the original novel, Thornton and his dogs, (except for Buck, of course), are killed by Native Americans, and in response Buck teams up with the local wolf pack and begins to kill them instead – this is how the novel ends. Here, the Thornton arc is resolved in a different manner, and Buck teams-up with the wolves in part because he gets into a relationship with a local she-wolf, black in color. Apocryphal Lilith much?

Now, about wolves – we talked about them before, when we discussed the AFO episode ‘Puma vs. Grey Wolf”, and the punch line here is that wolves aren’t just stereotypical grey color, they can range from white to black, why the great Audubon himself made a couple of paintings that featured precisely the white and black color morphs of the wolf, (he also made paintings of the so-called Inuit dog and Indian dog, but we won’t get into this here), but that’s it. Wolves may be of any color, but they are still the common or grey wolf, Canis lupus, the end. Why give Buck’s love interest an atypical fur color? It is anyone’s guess.

Speaking of love interests… first, Cara Gee? Is she pregnant in real life? If you look at the interview clip on the IGN YouTube channel, you see that she is caressing her stomach and the camera is angled thusly as to keep it out of the view. Maybe I am overreading this, but it still looks weird. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see if news of her pregnancy and/or childbirth hit TMZ or something similar.

Back to dogs and wolves… Yes, Buck is a hybrid dog to begin with, even in the original novel, (a St. Bernard-Scotch Collie mix), which makes himself something of a hybrid, which makes it kind of doubtful that he and a wolf would have viable offspring. St. Bernards are a derived dog breed, they are some of the biggest dogs around, and they are cases of gigantism from natural P.O.V., which may create issues if they are released in the wild. Yes, ‘Call of the Wild’ is fiction, a fairy tale, (sort of), but it can be noted that in the original novel Buck is not interested in any female dogs or wolves whatsoever, and there is no romance at all in ‘Call of the Wild’, (whereas in ‘White Fang’ the situation is different). Here, in the 2020 movie, the situation is different, and not in a good way – compared to the book, the movie feels diminished, a disappointment. Yes, political correctness is important, especially now, when the coronavirus, (yes, I know that it got renamed, but let’s not get too distracted here), is bringing the worst in humanity again, including the anti-Asians racism, (though apparently in Ukraine the native people are turning upon each other instead – how are they better than their Russian cousins, are again? That is right, they are not, apparently. Ouch!), but sometimes it just does not work, period. In ‘Frozen 2’, the socio-political agenda did not work, but it was still a good film, just different from ‘Frozen 1’.

…Not unlike the ‘Dark Phoenix-2019’, this version of ‘Call of the Wild’ just is not a good film, and political correctness just makes it worse, period. It may not be as bad as real life, (cough the coronavirus cough), but it is not very good either, both because of the CGI dogs (and scenery) and not. Go and see ‘Sonic’ instead.

…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.

The Blue Salt Road - Jan 29

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and especially because of your family, and while there is something that you can do, other times – not so much. Instead, let us talk about Ms. Joanne M. Harris’ novel ‘THE BLUE SALT ROAD’, and I am warning you, there are spoilers ahead! Now, if the name sounds vaguely familiar, it because it is – we have discussed her other novels, ‘The Gospel of Loki’ and ‘The Testament of Loki’ a while back. What of this one?

It is an abrupt departure from her ‘Loki’ novels…mostly, as there is a reference to ‘nine worlds’ in the ‘Road’, which is a direct reference to the Norse mythology and its’ nine worlds, (look it up). That said, there is no other sign of the Norse in the ‘Road’, as instead it is focused on Celtic, or more precisely – Scottish – folklore, that of the selkies.

What are the selkies? In the Scottish folklore, they are beings that look like seals in the water and like humans on land, they are shapeshifters, and Mercedes Lackey’s ‘Elemental Masters’ series depicted them at length in a couple of earlier novels.

…As a matter of fact, there were several species of underwater humanoids that came into contact with ‘the Folk’, including the merrow, which is a typical mermaid/merfolk type of entity, (while in various RPGs it is the name of an aquatic ogre variety, weird), and the finnfolk, which don’t have anything to do with Finn the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy’s character, but are rather a variety of Fair Folk or elves, albeit they live under the sea. Both of those races are more powerful and more hostile towards humans than the selkies are, and they do not really appear in the ‘Road’, so they are not relevant to our discussion of the novel.

What is relevant here, then? Well, the novel isn’t just about ecology and living in harmony with nature – a large portion of the novel takes place abroad a whaling ship called the Kraken, (the italics belong to Ms. Harris), and how the novel’s protagonist, the male selkie, tries to fit in with the crew and failed, first unintentionally and then intentionally, finally sabotaging the ship and setting it afire – but we are getting carried away. The novel is also about male-female relationships – the twist is that Flora’s family, (she is the female lead of the novel), entrapped selkie men for three generations now – first her grandma, then her ma, and finally Flora herself. This process culminated in a girl named ‘Moire the Star’, but first let us acknowledge the direct mention of ‘the maiden, the mother and the crone’, which is a pagan trinity of a pagan Mother Goddess, (one of them, as there are several, and this one is more of Wicca tradition than anything else is). As the Star implies in her monologue of the novel’s epilogue, she is someone special, and she is destined for greatness. She is right, of course, but here we come to the novel’s flaw – not unlike the SW sequel trilogy, it had been rebooted, somehow.

Throughout most of the novel, Moire’s father interacted with a girl of his clan, the Grey Seals. (Apparently, this group of selkies transforms in grey seals, rather than any other seal species. Okay then). She was the Flounder to his Ariel, until she just vanishes from the pages of the book with nary a reference or an explanation as to what happened to her – and the Captain dies.

Now, for most of the ‘Road’, the Captain is really a non-entity, he is little more than a placeholder; he may be an authority figure, but nothing else; he is hard, callous, cruel, but not intentionally evil, not a villain, as Elsa and Anna’s grandfather was in ‘Frozen 2’, for example. And then Ms. Harris writes his death scene – he was about to shoot the selkie protagonist ‘cause the latter set the Kraken aflame, but his pistol exploded killing him instead – and the scurvy sea dog falls into the flames of his burning ship. Given how little he had mattered in the previous chapters, this sort of a deliberately written-out death scene is surprising and kind of stands out. Anything else?

The ‘Road’ quotes often pieces of ‘Child Ballad 113’ – one that is about the Great Selkie of Sule Skerry, except that one of those reference points has a typo and claims that it is ‘Child Ballad 133’ instead. It isn’t, for that ballad is about Robin Hood and his latest face-off with the Sherriff and you can be certain that neither Robin nor the Sherriff appear in the ‘Road’ – it’s a different story altogether. More importantly, it shows that while ‘Road’ is presented beautifully, complete with a lot of illustrations by Ms. Bonnie Helen Hawkins, there were some mistakes and issues in making it – the typo regarding the ‘Child Ballad’ is one of them, and the re-write is the other.

Now, I do not know what got re-written by Ms. Harris – the last part of the novel where the Captain died so dramatically and the selkie girl disappeared, only to be replaced by ‘the Star’ and her girl power, or the first part, with the selkie girl being an important part of the novel and the Captain is a non-entity, barely more than a placeholder. In either case, ‘THE BLUE SALT ROAD’ is a very impressive-looking book, beautifully illustrated and talking about not just the evils of whaling done in a fairy-tale-like manner, but also about the relationships between men and women and marriage, (as Flora’s grandma says, they don’t call it ‘wedlock’ for nothing, emphasis on the ‘lock’, cough), and about freedom and captivity within a relationship as well as about love, (though again, that element vanishes in the last part of the novel, only to resurface, sort of, in the epilogue-monologue, pun intended). Yes, there is the gender inversion of the stereotype, in the folklore canon, the selkie is usually the wife that is married to a human husband and once she gets her seal-skin back, she leaves for the sea and never comes back. There are gender-flipped versions of it, but again, once the selkie gets the skin, they leave forever. Here, though, it is Flora’s father leaves with the baby Star, and Flora and her husband get a second chance to get it all right between them. Let us wish them luck!

And as for us back in real life? It sucks and sometimes you cannot even control it, because of reasons. Therefore let us at least enjoy ‘THE GREAT SALT ROAD’, as it is a fun book, especially if not taken too seriously, (kind of like the second ‘Frozen’ film, remember?).

…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!

Race to the Sun - Jan 17

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. It is tedious. So’s family. So are you, and it is up to you, and you alone, to do something about it. Sometimes you even succeed, and that makes all the difference. 

Now let us escape into the world of books – in this particular instance, it is Ms. Rebecca Roanhorse’s YA novel, ‘Race to the Sun’. Once more it is a YA novel associated with Rick Riordan of Percy Jackson fame, but this time it has something different, and no, it isn’t the fact that it is a self-contained, one-shot novel, but its’ intro – it is more open and expanded than before. This is important, because ‘Race to Sun’ is a much slimmer novel than, say, the previous installment – i.e. ‘Tristan Strong’, (remember him?), meaning… what?

First, what kind of a novel ‘Race to the Sun’ is? It is a straightforward imitation of Riordan’s own novels with none of the development or the effort that Mr. Riordan had put into his own novels. Ms. Roanhorse did an admirable attempt at this YA novel, yet somehow it feels perfunctory, empty, and pointless – kind of like popcorn for brain, put otherwise. When you are reading ‘Tristan Strong’, you really resonate with the novel’s titular character/narrator and the rest of the characters on their quest/journey; in ‘Race to the Sun’ – not so much.

…As a matter of fact, the issue of scope is another difference between the two novels: in ‘Tristan Strong’, the stakes are saving an entire world; in ‘Race to the Sun’ – not so much. Oh, sure, stakes are high and personal for ‘NIZHONI BEGAY’, her family and friends, but somehow, ‘Tristan Strong’ manages to do the same thing better, and it is a much thicker book too – 482 pages vs 298 for ‘Race’. Okay, and-?

And now we’re back to the prologue, where Riordan waxes much more poetically than how he normally does, talking about the Native American mythologies while being pointedly politically correct, and astute, and whatever else. For that matter, so’s the author, Ms. Roanhorse herself – in ‘Race’ she does her best for her novel and especially its’ main narrator to hit all the right notes while imitating Mr. Riordan’s novels to the best of her ability, with the supposedly added real life factor – ecology and pipelines. Pause.

…I know it’s weird, but Ms. Roanhorse, (and the rest of team Riordan), is beginning to remind me of another author – Ms. Ali Smith, and her latest novels: ‘Autumn’ (2016), ‘Winter’ (2017), ‘Spring’ (2019), and the upcoming ‘Summer’ (2020) are also fiction that is trying to facture in real life, including ‘the president of the United States’, who might be the Donald in Ms. Roanhorse’s ‘Race’ and who is the Donald in Ms. Smith’s series. Remember when we discussed the ‘Like a Boss’ movie earlier this January? How it tried to cruise easily by utilizing its’ politically progressive, (and also correct), race card? ‘Like a Boss’ ended-up failing as a movie; Ms. Smith’s novels moved from coherent and traditional in ‘Autumn’ to anything but in ‘Spring’, and while ‘Autumn’ was apparently ‘shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker Prize’, she didn’t win – a George Saunders did, and neither ‘Winter’ nor ‘Spring’ came anywhere near the more traditional ‘Autumn’ too. Put otherwise, Ms. Smith’s latest novel series started strong but grew weak, and so are the novels that ‘RICK RIORDAN PRESENTS’ – they started strong with Ms. Chokshi’s and Ms. Cervantes’ novels, relatively speaking, and then there was Mr. Lee’s YA novel of space opera, ‘Dragon Pearl’, and then Riordan’s own YA novels of demigods and monsters began to flounder and are no longer as politically progressive and correct as they once were, and now we got ‘Race’, where on one hand we have Mr. Riordan’s own kiss-up of a foreword, and on the other – the novel itself, which feels like a pale version of ‘Percy Jackson’ and co., with the ecological angle tackled on it… not unlike how it went down in ‘Frozen 2’, remember?

In ‘Frozen 2’, team Disney tried to present an ecological as well as a socio-racial utopia, in the best dreams of Greta Thunberg, until she made a verbal slip, that all those politicians who disagree with climate change, should be ‘put to the wall’ (and given a final smoke before they’re shot), and then she went home on a train and nothing has been heard of her ever since – this sort of speech must’ve sounded too Russian revolutionary for Greta’s grown-up supporters, and that’s the end of her as climate & social media darling, eh?

…Essentially, this is the problem with the West’s attempts to ‘revolutionize’ its’ youth slash the next generation: they want change, but they want to play it safe while playing at radicals. You cannot. Either you have radical change, but it will not be safe, or you will have it safe, but the change will only be cosmetic at most, or even less than that. Disney, Paramount Pictures, and etc. can churn any sort of utopic/propaganda/etc. films, but unless they are ready to put up and suffer where it hurts – in the wallet – it will not work. Instead, in reality, as soon as Disney/SW began to suffer financially post the SW8 film, their SW9 film aimed to rewind and erase most of the SW8 film’s impact on the SW-verse. It did not really work, and people are just as unhappy with the SW9 film as they were with the SW8 film, albeit for different reasons – but we digress.

Now, ‘Like a Boss’ didn’t try to pull anything as ‘Frozen 2’ did – it just tried to coast on political correctness and that’s it. Ms. Smith’s novels tried to do the same thing – to utilize real world issues in lieu of the novels’ shortcomings, (whatever they are), including the world’s hatred of the Donald. Marvel comics tried to do something similar in their ‘Defenders’ mini-arc and it didn’t appear to have worked in regards to their sales either, and so that comic series ended with a panorama of all the ‘Defenders of NYC’ instead. Frankly, I sometimes wonder if there is any other city in the Marvel world that comes even close to NYC – at least in DC you got several cities, (Metropolis and Gotham at least), so it somehow balances out – in Marvel, not so much.

And where does ‘Race’ fit in here? Why, right next to ‘Like a Boss’, and Ms. Smith’s novels and the like. Ms. Roanhorse tries to have it all while doing minimum, and as a result, her YA novel feels perfunctory and hollow: when you have read it, you do not want to re-read it, as you do with ‘Tristan Strong’ or even ‘Dragon Pearl’ for example. Those novels you want to re-read, YA audience or not. ‘Race to the Sun’ – not so much… but you still should try it, because real life sucks, and reading novels – YA, grown-up, etc. – helps you escape it, period. Anything else?

Well, yes, there’s a lot of other things to talk about, including the ‘Doolittle-2020’ movie that got released today too, but for now let’s just acknowledge that Mr. Riordan and his book franchise is suffering and degrading; from the truly memorable YA novels it had devolved into not-memorable instead; like so much of American youth culture lately, ‘Race’ wants to inspire, but it doesn’t want to offend, and you cannot have one without the other, as so ‘Race’ doesn’t offend anyone, but neither it will inspire anyone either. Ah well, I’m sure that Ms. Roanhorse got her commission or what else have you, Mr. Riordan got another (one shot) YA novel associated with him, and everyone is happy. Or not, but it is unknown what Mr. Riordan will do this time – the last time he was unhappy after the initial two Percy Jackson movies, and he spoke his mind, and that was the end of that. No more adaptations of his novels, (save for comics, but that is the same thing, really). No one wants to mess with the Riordan-man. No one wants to have anything with the Riordan-man. Take your pick, (and the fact that those movies were just plain bad does not the affairs help either). How will Mr. Riordan get out of this mess, will he be able to get out of this mess, we will not know, especially not immediately, but hopefully we will.

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

Morbius trailer 1 - Jan 13

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Extra clause: I hate myself for being me. I still hate my family for making everything worse, but, sadly, after this weekend I re-examined myself and realized that I am a worthless, pathetic, pitiful man myself that rather deserves this wretched life… New topic, then?

So, Sony, in association with Marvel™, (and maybe Disney), will be releasing ‘Morbius’ this summer, (aka 2020). My first encounter with him was in 1990’s ‘Spider-Man Animated Series’, where he was one of Spider-Man’s tougher and more resilient foes, from S2 onwards. Why, he was something of a foil to Parker for a while – just as a radioactive spider bit Peter, so a radioactive vampire bat bit Michael! In the 2020 film, there is no Parker/Morbius rivalry, even though the film is taking place in the Marvel™ universe: there are Easter eggs showing that this happened after Peter got framed by Mysterio in the second Tom Holland ‘Spider-Man’ film, there are direct references to both Tom Holland ‘Spider-Man’ movies and Sony’s ‘Venom-2018’ film, meaning that MCU and ‘Sony’s Universe of Marvel Characters’ are beginning to merge. There are talks of Vulture or Scorpion, (from the first THSM film) building MCU’s version of the ‘Sinister Six’ posse, an informal gathering of six villains who aim to destroy Spider-Man, so who’s to say that this version of this gang won’t feature Morbius, the living vampire?

Of course, since this is only the first trailer of what is shaping to be a really good film, it is too early to tell if the Sinister Six is coming to the silver screen anytime soon. Instead, obviously, this film will be focusing on Morbius and his backstory – so far it’s too early to figure out as to who will be Morbius’ opponent this time, but apparently, one of the characters shown in the trailer might be MCU/SUMC version of Hunger, another vampire villain from the Marvel™, so why not? Yes, it is rather reminiscent of ‘Venom-2018’, where the titular character had to face-off a villain who was a bigger, badder and stronger version of him, (Riot), leaving us wondering as to what Carnage will bring to the next ‘Venom’ movie: among the Marvel™ villains, Carnage isn’t the smartest one, he just prefers to run around and kill everyone, while sprouting claws, blades and spikes – just as Riot did in ‘Venom-2018’, so we’ll have to wait and see as to what MCU/SUMC Carnage will bring to the table. Back to Morbius?

In some ways, the movie Morbius and the already-mentioned Eddie from ‘Venom-2018’ are not too different: Eddie is, or was, a formidable journalist, Morbius is a brilliant doctor. Eddie is suffering from unemployment, Morbius – from some disease that is reminiscent of polio. Eddie got a long-suffering girlfriend/fiancé that is supportive, but has some reservations, and so does Morbius; Eddie’s Anne ends up helping him with Riot, and Morbius’? There’s already some speculation – in the comics, Morbius’ girlfriend tends to end up a living vampire herself, and then tragically die, whereas in the 1990’s ‘Spider-Man’ animated series Morbius ended up teaming with the Black Cat, (Felicia Hardy) and Blade, (yes, think Wesley Snipes here), to take down vampires back in Europe and beyond. Blade is returning to Marvel movies after the Wesley Snipes trilogy, (also back in the 1990s), though he will not be played by WS, but there is no sign of him here, in this trailer.

Instead, we get a glimpse of someone named Simon Stroud, who used to be an S.H.I.E.L.D. agent in the comics, but here he will probably be a FBI agent or someone similar, given that SUMC, MCU in general, and AoS in particular have a rather complicated relationship with each other, but then again, we’ll never know until the movie is released in summer 2020. Still, there already is supposition that this Stroud character will be helping Morbius out of tight spots, so yay for him! Eddie could also use someone like that, and with the evidence that Vulture – or Scorpion – building a criminal posse, who is to say that their paths – and that of Tom Holland’s Spider-Man – will not cross anytime soon? It would certainly be cool!

…In other words, Tom Holland will be voicing a dog character in the upcoming ‘Dolittle-2020’ movie alongside other illustrious actors, including his old friend Robert Downey Jr., cough, who will be playing the titular character, aka the Iron Man without armor but with a Welsh accent. Also (kind of) yay – Tom Holland was really good as a voice actor in ‘Spies in Disguise’ film back in 2019, and here, judging by the clips, he sounds quite promising. Good for him and the rest of his co-stars in the upcoming 2020 ‘Dolittle’ movie, because as we have talked before, real life sucks.

Well, 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!