Quarantine entry #1 - March 22

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about something else – DW, for exactly. Why DW? Because I’m currently in the New York State, which is on lockdown at least for the next couple of weeks, and everything is closed, (well, almost everything), and there’s limited material to go on, so let’s pull out something out of the old dusty closet; might as well be DW.

So, what to talk about in DW? Let us try with another old chestnut – the Roman Centurion vs. the Rajput Warrior. After all of those years that had gone by after this episode was first aired, is there anything new about this episode?

Sadly, no. It is still a well written and an exciting episode, but nothing more. The only notable thing about RCRW is that it is also an honest and a non-prejudiced episode, but we have talked about this problem of the late DW a long, long time ago, so what there is left?

Firstly, yes, the Rajput had the advantage here – the ancient Roman, (as well as the Greek), army often had had problems with one on one fight. Yes, there are all of those one on one battles in the Iliad, aka, one of the first two authentic Western novels, but I must confess I have my own doubts about the novels’ authenticity, some things just don’t add up – but that is another story altogether.

Anyhow, the Rajput here has the advantage because his weapons are not so much advanced as better designed for a one on one fight – in a team fight, the situation would have been reversed. Of course, there is also the question as to why DW had the Centurion team (hey, remember his FH incarnation, incidentally?), bring forth a Scorpion – a stationary oversized crossbow, essentially, but, hey, they had something similar in an earlier S2 episode, when Alexander the Great’s ballista took on Attila the Hun’s Scythian battle-axe. It ended badly for Alexander – Attila won that showdown. What next?

The movies are being postponed, which is good – I was beginning to feel as if my blog is turning into a list of reviews, and I do not want that. I do not know what I am going to do with my blog yet, but it will be more than just a smattering of reviews – of movies, TV shows, Netflix shows, no! There will be something else! Maybe even discussions about something!

…For now, though, the best part of my day so far was that I saw a blue jay through the window in the yard outside. None of us is willing to leave because of the lockdown, unless it is for the grocery shopping or something similar, and the animals know it, somehow. Will they take over the world back from the humans? Probably not, simply because fear fades, and humans get tired of being scared all the time, COVID-19 or not.

To make matters worse, people are taking advantage of COVID-19, and usually for the worse. That is a part of real life, and especially of the American dream, with its’ individuality and entrepreneurship – both direct descendants of the Protestant, (especially the Anglo-Saxon version) way of life. Fair enough, but it means that there isn’t only good things stemming from this root, but bad ones too – and the same could be said about communism, as the Chinese seem to be having their COVID-19 issues well under control…no matter the cost. The Russians, of course, are a different story, but that is because they are a different story – they always tried to be a part of the West, culturally and politically speaking, but because the Russian proletariat and the elite were almost two different cultures throughout most of Russian history…things got muddled, and the West didn’t do anything to help either. The 1990s were just the latest example of that – the missed opportunity for the West to fix the Russian issue for good…instead the West got whatever it got in the person of Putin, and it can’t be fixed; maybe the West doesn’t want it to be fixed, but then all its’ those fiery speeches about the virtues of Democracy begin to seem fixed. What next?

Well, real life still sucks. The COVID-19 is still going strong, but because people are taking advantage of it in different ways, or just reacting to it differently, it is hard to differentiate truth from fiction; in this case, truth may not be subjective, but with everything that is going on around here, it is getting hard to figure out just what truth here actually is, and that is just as bad. Hopefully though, real life will get its’ head out of its’ ass and sort it all out, or else it’s going to be Italy all over again, (and Spain isn’t doing much better either), that’s all.

…And by that I mean that we’re done for now – see you all soon!

Superman: Red Son - Feb 26

Obligatory disclaimer: real life still sucks for all sorts of reasons. For a more specific explanation, see the previous entry. Now, about the latest animated Superman movie – the Red Son, (as opposed to the Red Sun and the Rad Son labels that I have seen on YouTube since yesterday).

…Ok, what about it?

It is one of the more depressing Superman and DC stories ever, one where Superman grows up in the U.S.S.R., (as opposed to the U.K. or in the darkest Africa, which are also DC comic stories, incidentally), has interactions with Bizarro, a variant Barman, Wonder Woman, a Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) and so on, and mows down the opposition, no sweat. Pause?

Yeah, the live action Justice League movie had something similar, only it was so bad, that it was actually funny, (when it was not being so lackluster that it was insipid instead. Cough Infinity War rip-off cough). SRS, on the other hand, is none of those things, it is actually well put together, and it is somewhat sad. Violent too, for an animated movie, even more so than the actual comic was.

True, I am not the biggest fan of DC and it has been a long time since I have read the SRS comic, but there are some differences between it and the movie. More importantly, reading the comic is not important to watching the movie, and the movie is…depressing, straightforward, simple and well made, from the technical side of things. And-?

And it is the simplicity that is the defining point of SRS – usually DC can do convoluted about as well as Marvel does, Disney baking or not. Here, conversely, everything is going from point A to point B, which concludes with Superman apparently finding a possible ‘redemption’ after his stunt as the flagman of communism. What?

…Here is the thing. SRS is not exactly a propaganda piece, because for any propaganda piece to work, the state/country in which it is released needs consistency, and right now, the US is in the state of flux, because of the upcoming elections. Nobody knows as to who will win, but the safe bet is the Donald, in no small part because the Democrats, a), can’t get their shit together, and b), now that it is coming together, the forerunner will be either Bloomberg, a variant of the Donald, or Sanders, a social-democrat, and neither man is very popular with the rest of the Democratic party’s leaders. Will they opt to instead give the U.S. to the Donald for another 4 years while they try to find someone better? Odds are very good on this one too. Will they continue to bitch about the Donald, even though they aren’t all that better than he is, (as surprising as that sounds)? Yes. Did I mention that real life sucks? Do bears shit in the woods?

Getting back to SRS, again, it isn’t intended to be propaganda, but you have to admit that its’ timing isn’t very good, and given that we’re talking about the Western society here, at least someone there will think so and act accordingly with unpredictable results – but for the majority, SRS will be just another DC animated movie and as such it will fade into obscurity, either becoming a classic or not. Go, team DC! Another solid hit for you, really. Anything else?

Sadly, no, not this time. See you all soon instead!

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.

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!