tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32076922318501137812024-03-19T04:48:03.035-04:00The W DefenderSpider-Man, books, Barbie, more Spider-Man. It's all there.Walter Sojdahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00438496885700997187noreply@blogger.comBlogger153125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3207692231850113781.post-74323861149634578992024-02-19T11:30:00.002-05:002024-02-19T11:36:36.201-05:00Madame Web (2024)Movie of the year movie of the year MOVIE OF THE YEAR
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigHcgM_XKd91VMhcbpDygj2d30X4eDEnjZ_Y0yxPd2i55lFRRZQahLyh6GV1myiyQSBoovZob81F3HMz8Ci22sffqPeMhzQxQT-R-i4cEb9g4z-Ak_Pg5onAJDBczpvlpFea6zOeXVkQoRKuelIcIouAQCc-RWT5PUBLdb6lBlJE2cVICsDbWN2_duFJw/s16000/Madame%20Web%20Poster.pn" title="Her web... is actually kind of confusing I don't really know." /></div>
<br />
Madame Web is one of those movies I didn't know they made anymore. I laughed many times in this movie, but not once after an intentional joke. Any good performances are buried under the detritus of weird lines, awkward editing, and awe-inducing plot connections.
<br /><br />
The film stars Dakota Johnson of Fifty Shades of Grey fame playing Cassandra Webb, whose mother was researching spiders in the Amazon right before she died. The specific spider she was researching was one that for no explainable reason gives everyone it bites superpowers, so of course the man she hired for security on this research expedition shoots her and takes the spider. Don't worry though, there's a tribe of Peruvians called Las Arañas (or something) that all dress like Spider-Man and have spider powers, who try to save Cassie's mother's life by having one of their magic spiders bite her, but she dies birthing Cassie anyway. In present day, Cassie works with Ben Parker (?!??) as an EMT and after almost drowning at the scene of a car accident starts having psychic visions of the future. Her visions start to coalesce on three teen girls who are being hunted by Ezekiel Sims, the aforementioned spider-thief who thinks these teens are gonna kill him because he had a dream about it. Things go on from there.
<br /><br />
Cassie is supposed to be a socially awkward weirdo I think, but instead comes off as a robot who has a quiet contempt for every person around her. Her interactions with the three teens (who are destined to become Spider-Women because sure why not) mostly consist of yelling and strained silence. Based on a single sentence uttered by Julia Cornwall (they changed her name from Carpenter for some reason) the police have branded Cassie a kidnapper and nobody tries to rectify that situation for the whole movie. Despite this, Cassie easily flies to Peru to "find answers" later on in the film with no apparent issues.
<br /><br />
The Teens are boilerplate, Julia is the bookish shy one, Mattie Franklin is the rebellious skateboarder, and Anya Corazon is the science nerd. They really don't do much except bicker a little bit and follow directions after Cassie yells at them. The glamor shots in the trailer of all three as Spider-Women come from short flash-forwards at the beginning and end of the movie, so we don't see them actually being superpowered because I guess that happens later.
<br /><br />
But you know who does have spider powers?? Ezekiel Sims is the best part of this movie. Not because I think they did anything well with him, no no no. Ezekiel dresses like discount Kaine and can kill people with his poison touch, but he mostly just gets hit by cars. For a reason I cannot fathom, every single line he says is rerecorded. There are times that his lines don't match his mouth movements even though one must assume it's the same guy saying the line as when they filmed it. The kicker is: They don't even sound good! It's getting to Tommy Wiseau level of ADR, where every line is detached and uncanny.
<br /><br />
Speaking of which, that's where this flick shines. You thought the "He was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died." was a stilted line with a worse delivery, but believe me there is far more treasure in there. It's funny that they felt the need to take that specific line out of the movie, but left in where Cassie says, "I don't have a neuromuscular disorder." with the same tone as someone denying they're wearing mismatched shoes. Sometimes I repeat to myself, "The girls? The girls have powers? In the future?" I can't possibly list them all, they blaze by like an entire fireworks show going off at once, you're still goggling at the first one before five more fill the gap.
<br /><br />
Now there's no way of verifying this unless some actors decide to spill, but it seems like they added a bunch of extra scenes to reiterate things you should already have figured out. You get the backstories of each of the teens twice, the same scenes of Cassie's mom (who was in the Amazon researching spiders right before she died) and it's confusing because it's alongside the repetition they do to show Cassie is experiencing visions! But at the same time there's stuff buried in the movie like they want nerds to analyze it like the first Iron Man movie. So like the Parker family is in there. Emma Roberts plays Mary Parker, Peter Parker's mom, who is pregnant with little Petey, though they never ever say that the child will be named Peter. They only mention the name "Parker" once, even though Ben is Cassie's only friend and Peter's birth is the catalyst for the climax. Is it drilled into your head that the fireworks warehouse on the docks (sponsored by Pepsico) is a deathtrap no less than four times, but the fact that Peter Parker's birth happens in this movie is some kinda Agatha Christie caper for you to figure out.
<br /><br />
Now I'm gonna spoil some things because who gives a shit. At the end Cassie is blinded after getting hit in the face by some fireworks after she beats Ezekiel. They go to great pains to show you that she has become blind, with the gray eyes of movie blind, a big bandage over her eyes in the hospital, and sunglasses in the final scene. But also in that final scene, Cassie is suddenly in a motorized wheelchair. She has become paraplegic? I think? I have no idea why. I watched this fucking movie twice because I was sure that I missed something. The only possible explanation that exists within the movie is that Cassie does, in fact, have a neuromuscular disorder, only it skipped the first few decades of her life and caught up with her after she got blind.
<br /><br />
There's just so much in this goddamn movie. I haven't even started on Las Arañas and how they all paint themselves red and cover themselves in web patterns and that means Spider-Man is appropriating the culture of this Peruvian tribe of spider men. Or that it didn't even need to be a science spider that bit Peter because there just exists a superpower granting spider, which is great unless you shot a pregnant woman to get one because then you are cursed with dreaming of three hot women in spandex killing you. (Where's the downside?)
<br /><br />
It's great. I love it. Make more, please.
Walter Sojdahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00438496885700997187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3207692231850113781.post-77225131634497110602024-01-14T11:24:00.000-05:002024-01-14T11:24:26.122-05:00Ultimate Spider-Man (2024) #1HERE I GO AGAIN ON MY OWN
<br /><br />
DA NA NAAH NAH
<br /><br />
GOING DOWN THE ONLY ROAD I'VE EVER KNOWN
<br /><br />
BUH NA NAH NAAH
<br /><br />
AND I'VE MADE UP MY MIND
<br /><br />
I AIN'T WASTING NO MORE TIME
<br /><br />
SO HERE I GO AGAIN
<br /><br />
It's been a long time since I've read a comic. Superior Spider-Man happened and it made me so fucking mad that I didn't want to give any of these cretins money for their stupid bullshit ever again. And based on the reactions to the current Amazing Spider-Man run, I wasn't wrong. But then buzz started about a new comic. A new <i>line</i> of comics. They were doing another Ultimate Universe. That seemed a little trite, but they announced Jonathan Hickman was the architect, a writer renowned for his long-term planning and exquisite writing. I was intrigued. Then, the cherry on top. The new Ultimate Spider-Man would star a Peter Parker as an adult, already married to Mary Jane. And I was sold. It's no small feat that this made me drive over to my old comic shop for the first time in a decade and ask for a subscription. So I guess we'll check it out.
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><font size="4">Comic Review: Ultimate Spider-Man #1</font></div>
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWUDz5V_qqGBT0jrdj66DICYLbbC8WxuRyqvUcLCxfviGuisJR46lGM4jN9PuHBkMINib3TUwOHsDmQLNlf2aQgXQ9skyoXVh3n7rqvcMUiPrvFm3ZEBcWG1317efMqH6Pcld_epXVcfFjS9cWqsPIjntWSR2iKUqc3UrZiYM8HTYD5KsLxii6IFNvWhU/s16000/SpiderUlt1.png" title="Hey! I recognize that guy!" /></div>
<br />
Now, I didn't read the two preceding comics for this universe, Ultimate Invasion or Ultimate Universe. All I know is what the blurb told me, and that's that Peter Parker didn't get bit by no spider because of The Maker, and he's like mid-30's now.
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNtLfRp9sXZ0P26JXuBzDxcXghIff6dyKm_G2BJqDWqdw2s1QbQpLzWLOkGyfgXNm77Z8XigpkLO4JK0w4bTO2w84m1Ig2pkRyBC7GhnDhn_voo3Hm6q_oNa8947jhEsYUdk2bD80bPDMYZiYPOT7b0XRFGaDCCgZadsOylDr_fWhTuvlTDKCn1K9ygkM/s16000/SpiderUlt2.png" title="You and me neither, man." /></div>
<br />
The issue is really about setting up the world our Peter lives in. It's a far cry from the original Ultimate comics where we pretty much knew what was gonna happen, e.g. Peter gets bit, Uncle Ben dies, crime fighting. So Peter is around 35 years old, married with two kids, Richard and May, and he works at the Daily Bugle with... Uncle Ben??
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAwE4rmoHvApxpJqnBYbdA5Pmy2oYUL71CCiiLNatm_zYl8I6QQSKJ6OrXIF6uJmqRh4IsitVVbhfrPlyDrbWbgMWIR2vUmltsuWNqh3YDMqfyPzSs2NwnNRWvxdzTdd6YZzOx_5sHN-jZDSbjp5Kf34Aou31dJQLC_Ed7e2CuQIVCeT5GrkovOoNmU1g/s16000/SpiderUlt3.png" title="A managing editor? He supposed to be dead!!" /></div>
<br />
So yeah, I could go over every little change between this and the classic universe but you can read the comic for yourselves. The main point is: Tony Stark (who is a teen now I guess) gives Peter Parker the spider that was supposed to bite him, that apparently The Maker had locked in some science vault. Peter struggles with the choice to accept it. He's hesitant to make a change, scared to blow up his life, but his life so far has felt hollow, like he was supposed to be something but never did.
<br /><br />
After reassurance by Mary Jane, he takes the spider out of its vial, and it bites him.
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH2ygRSMaTCf7Qo_sxobYDOYPRLG72rr8XWWHfaB7Yio8t6JEz-dbGTfI2Vsmcn6lz9V-aIQEAN1vWDGbZ341ZOYYxNyI6VHQpPEQvynIt6bYdGeCw9cWbUlRPli7SPC1dxlE4iEQwyURa8obxYZou_-r91JeliX0t67hNxiLoFnVfREEVwKiHiqgWJos/s16000/SpiderUlt4.png" title="OW WHAT YOU DIDN'T TELL ME IT WOULD BITE ME" /></div>
<br />
So as I said above, I bought this because it had a married adult Peter Parker, I didn't read anything preceding this so I didn't know how different it would be. I appreciate the choice to make Peter powerless until he's like 35, and furthermore make the powers a choice he made. Think about current Amazing Spider-Man right now. In an attempt to keep Spider-Man "relatable" they've turned him into an unmarried shmuck who can't keep a job, keep any friends, or form any stable relationships at all. He routinely finds himself having trouble with situations he handled as a teenager. ASM is just spinning its wheels, too afraid to do much of anything with Peter's character, just holding him in stasis. But this comic is the first time in a long time that I relate completely with Peter Parker.
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9O1nwzbE-UkRd12XZ0IPWGAgG3gmzNFIE4WsZPquK4E4KHta6hpx8Ucv3yUHxs4QDtlCJzGncVFvJML9b9uyBr63sXs1tZiAMIv9naifGiBFt3Vf9iIrv7HMFUnpGm-yHiIqIdrsrLZeMK2EAYITErZkrQWoVn1eqA2h0kWKIO3lj0RTj_89eWcHmH0M/s16000/SpiderUlt5.png" title="Finally a comic for the over-30 demographic!" /></div>
<br />
He's aware something has been taken from him, he knows there's a big piece missing from his life. When the original Ultimate Spider-Man was made it was about a teenager who gained tremendous power, the kind I dreamt of when I was in high school. He faced a world that had grown cynical and compromising, adults who wanted to railroad him into their way of thinking. It resonated with me, especially when I started reading Amazing Spider-Man, who had just sold his marriage to the devil and was flailing through stories of wildly varying quality. So now, when all hope seems lost, we have another Ultimate. A Peter who's been around for a while, who's used to keeping his head down, given the power to make a change.
<br /><br />
It's only been one issue so there's only so much I can say. This sets up a lot of potential, like what will becoming Spider-Man mean for his family? There's important things at stake now, instead of just an elderly aunt who honestly should have died years ago. J. Jonah Jameson and Ben Parker are setting up a new newspaper, what will it be like if Ben has it out for Spider-Man? There's a whole universe of possibilities in store, and I can't wait to read it. If this ends up anything like the first Ultimate Spider-Man, we might get some grownup Peter Parker in adaptations again! No more high school!
<br /><br />
I have only two conditions:
<br /><br />
1. He cannot shave his beard.<br />
2. HE BETTER HAVE THE FUCKING SPIDER-SIGNALWalter Sojdahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00438496885700997187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3207692231850113781.post-48706009802071800082023-08-27T14:57:00.002-04:002023-08-27T14:57:44.066-04:00Enough With the Multiverse Shit AlreadyHave you been watching that new Superman cartoon? It's called My Adventures with Superman, and six episodes into the ten episode first season, I was quite enjoying it. You got some villains showing up, something to do with Kryptonian technology, and put the relationship between Clark and Lois at the forefront. Then they went and made episode seven. I'll get into it later, but the gist is they introduce a multiverse. Complete with universe numbers and a group made up of alternates of one person. Looking at the shit I watch, you might assume this is right up my alley. I certainly love the Spider-Verse movies, so why not? I'll tell you why. Enough is enough.
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHazcDMtogkzL5j-IY8doHTeqTv_e_c8Q_smq-V9VAbUWWSdUluxY2STEx7F1hCfOBwQNNMyALypJUkHc-9-siEumpaJRjj5OT0wK59KiDre9MjaIG6RFv1iR-iKq0onefz-lQN8zCh7w8AQADUq_Qrzd4XewXYJ5Udz-cvfRiEVUtTuujShW6cyqEK7A/s1600/EnoughMultiverse.png" title="Come with us, we are all slightly worse versions of you." /></div>
<br />
Comic properties are no strangers to multiverse shenanigans. Since DC had The Flash interacting with his previous iteration, each line has had a smattering of storylines that take place across different universes, such as DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths or Marvel's Captain Britain comics. That's all well and good, but the thing with comics is that there are a lot of them. There are a ton going on at any given time, and there was always a series going on that had nothing to do with the multiverse crossovers if you had no interest in them. Hell, the original Crisis was meant to dissolve the multiverse entirely, assumedly because writers didn't want to deal with it anymore. However, there's something that happens with adaptations that you don't have to deal with in the source material. Comics can have small stories that don't tie into anything big, what might be seen as filler to our current day, but necessary to build characters and a world for any comic. When adaptations come along, these sort of things are left by the wayside more often than not in favor of the big memorable stories, your Knightfalls and Kraven's Last Hunts. This has the effect of multiverse stories being more suited for adaptation, because they tend to have a bigger impact.
<br /><br />
The long and short of that is: When The Council of Reeds showed up I could ignore they existed and read my Spider-Man. Now I can't escape it. Because the first one did so well, there's always a Spider-Verse or a Spider-Geddon occurring, and they keep having crossovers with comics I was enjoying just fine before. And because they keep making more comics, they keep making more adaptations.
<br /><br />
I don't know if most of you can imagine a world before Rick and Morty. It was a naive age, where the concept of a deranged universe-traveling old man and his traumatized grandson having sci-fi parody adventures was a novel concept. It came out and it was funny and nobody was yet losing their shit about a McDonalds dipping sauce. Then the writers decided to do a parody of the Council of Reeds. The Citadel of Ricks had an episode, and for some reason things were never the same again. Later that year the Spider-Verse event in comics began, leading to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and now it's everywhere.
<br /><br />
Before we move on I should clarify some terms, namely Alternate Universe story, Multiverse story, and Multiverse Team stories. Alternate Universe stories involve one or more characters crossing over to a single different universe. These have existed forever, like the Justice Lords saga in Justice League, or that first story where Barry Allen met Jay Garrick. Certain time travel stories are a subset of these, like Back to the Future 2, or even It's A Wonderful Life. A Multiverse story is like an Alternate Universe story, but add more universes. Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse is an example, where a bunch of universes crossed into Miles' universe, or Crisis on Infinite Earths, where a bunch of heroes from different universes team up to fight the Anti-Monitor. Then we have the newest craze, the Multiverse Team story, which is similar to the Multiverse story, but specifically involves a team of people that are all alternates of the same individual. This is, of course, like the Citadel of Ricks, the Council of Reeds, and Beyond the Spider-Verse as well as its comic counterpart.
<br /><br />
I have no problem with Alternate Universe plots. I still like them, they've been a standard trait of fiction before people called them Alternate Universes. There's a lot of room there, for something as simple as the Mr. Bevis episode of the Twilight Zone or complex as Star Trek's Yesterday's Enterprise. Sure, the format isn't fool proof, but it's versatile enough that it can make well-thought, interesting stories. However, one just isn't enough anymore.
<br /><br />
Without the focus on just one universe, Multiverse stories are more apt to be scattershot, requiring a lot more restraint. A writer can just kind of put anything in there, the sky's the limit. If you haven't established multiple universes before the story it's almost too simple to chuck in a bunch of fanservice or solve conflicts by plucking an answer from another reality. Not to say it can't be done well, as Futurama's The Farnsworth Parabox starts with one alternate universe and turns into a chase through a bunch of them, made mainly as jokes. Into the Spider-Verse is probably the shining example of this kind of story, but as the exception, not the rule. Otherwise you get something like The Flash (2023), a hodge-podge of past characters in uncanny CGI and references to abandoned projects that never saw the light of day, all in the name of spectacle.
<br /><br />
Finally we come to the most contentious one of all, the Multiverse Team. These are far more prone to the deleterious aspects of the Multiverse plot, as the choice to have a bunch of different versions of the same character lends itself to excess. Once again, Beyond the Spider-Verse is our paragon. Even it has flaws, which can hopefully be mitigated by its sequel, but nails the premise a lot of others couldn't. It may surprise you, but the comic Spider-Verse, the one that lends its name to these movies? It's bad. The villains are pretty stupid, turning Force of Nature Morlun into just one of a family of Spider-Man eating vampires. The story is a string of attempts to enrage you by showing a Spider-Man you loved, like the title character of 1981 cartoon Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, getting murdered by a tired cliche. Spider-Girl's dad? Dead. Spider-Man Unlimited? Dead. Repeat ad nauseam. It's danging candy in front of a baby's face before stomping it into the ground. Rick and Morty got about two good episodes out of the premise before becoming the current "I'm smarter than you" sludge, and I ain't watching more to make sure. Then there's Spider-Man No Way Home, which had its <a href="https://www.wdefender.com/2021/12/spider-man-no-way-home-2021.html">own set of problems</a> that I don't need to reiterate here.
<br /><br />
You may have noticed an abundance of Spider-Man in these examples. Sure, it could be due to my obsession with Spider-Man, but I offer a different explanation. Once you let it out, you can't get the Multiverse cat back in the bag. Ever since Spider-Verse, the whole property is inundated with Multiverse stories, from the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon, to the new movies, and periodical new Spider-Verse comics. There's one going on right now! You can't do anything with Spider-Man anymore unless you at least acknowledge the Multiverse.
<br /><br />
So we come back to My Adventures With Superman. In the episode we're introduced to a team of Multiverse Lois Lanes (and one alternate Olsen) and a new Mr. Mxyzptlk. Through this we're shown a ton of cameos from past Superman cartoons, like Superman the Animated Series, or the Lois from Fleisher's rotoscoped cartoons. These characters don't interact with anyone or do anything, they're only on screen so you can point and say "I remember that!" I don't need to be reminded of another Superman cartoon! Now, to be fair, I would probably just be annoyed if all this amounted to was a couple of cameos, but that's not it. They introduce both kryptonite and the concept of an Evil Superman in this episode, the latter ostensibly being the reason the League of Lois Lanes even exists. It feels like they skipped some stuff! They didn't have to go the Smallville route of kryptonite being under every corner, but I thought it would at least get a proper introduction. Evil Superman, as a concept, has a lot of pitfalls, this more so due to this Superman being easily the softest cinnamon roll tumblr ever conceived, but they get to sidestep any establishment by just throwing in a scene of some Injustice knockoff or whatever. That's probably going to underpin the rest of the show! So out of nowhere this conflict arises, and there's no way the League of Lois Lanes won't be involved in the resolution. That scares me.
<br /><br />
I don't want Superman to be all about the Multiverse. The brushes with Alternate Supermans hadn't thus far transformed the franchise into that, but each time something like this happens I become wary. My Adventures With Superman was a nice simple show. For the first time in a long time we have a Superman I actually like, and I want to see where it goes. That simplicity is tarnished if a bunch of Alternate Universes get crammed into the first season of this show. Just let me have my cute Superman show, and stop chasing the Multiverse dragon. It's the least you could do after Man of Steel.Walter Sojdahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00438496885700997187noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3207692231850113781.post-44848131517227959702023-08-13T17:39:00.006-04:002023-08-13T17:44:10.125-04:00Life In Plastic: A Barbie Marathon Part 7Seven weeks ago I embarked on a quest, to see every Barbie movie ever made, to prepare for the live action film coming out soon. While in the preceding six articles I detailed my experience with each film, I haven't yet laid out my feelings on the Barbie series as a whole. That's what this is.
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqQTyAGcJPQkZf599fSCDMMcncBqRwkecb22AxbkSI0ZrMPx7uz6LO7NQD2tJjV6HuhDpqfMPqbjD2LVntkz0s9a-2iIaoOjl_zUUND2s7Y2Eskz1Iv7YKAVN0bPX6JTvedhTVZbi8V0nYdzhDXXTy4PP99CgUyg1LdNXuxTioQLv6uxiVztwrB5xra5I/s1600/Barbie%20MarathonPART%207.png" title="This isn't the final chapter. There is no final chapter for Barbie." /></div>
<br />
I made a tier list. Lists are dumb and I try to avoid them whenever possible, but I am nothing if not accommodating. (Keep in mind my standards are stupid and ever-changing.)
<br /><br />
<table style="border-collapse: collapse; border: 2px solid black; width: 80%;">
<tbody><tr>
<th style="border: 1px solid black; text-align: center; width: 50%;"><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Handwriting';"><span style="color: #e0218a;">Barbie</span></span></th>
<td style="border: 1px solid black;">The Princess and the Pauper (2004)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th style="border: 1px solid black; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Handwriting';"><span style="color: #8f409f;">Raquelle</span></span></th>
<td style="border: 1px solid black;">A Fairy Secret (2011)<br />Skipper and the Big Babysitting Adventure (2023)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th style="border: 1px solid black; text-align: center;">BARBIE</th>
<td style="border: 1px solid black;">Barbie (2023)<br />The Secret Door (2014)<br />A Christmas Carol (2008)<br />The Nutcracker (2001)<br />Princess Charm School (2011)<br />The Pearl Princess (2014)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th style="border: 1px solid black; text-align: center;">BARBI</th>
<td style="border: 1px solid black;">A Perfect Christmas (2011)<br />A Fashion Fairytale (2010)<br />Mariposa and Her Butterfly Fairy Friends (2008)<br />The Magic of Pegasus (2005)<br />Star Light Adventure (2016)<br />The Pink Shoes (2013)<br />Barbie & Her Sisters in A Pony Tale (2013)<br />The 12 Dancing Princesses (2006)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th style="border: 1px solid black; text-align: center;">BARB</th>
<td style="border: 1px solid black;">The Three Musketeers (2009)<br />Epic Road Trip (2022)<br />Princess Power (2015)<br />A Mermaid Tale (2010)<br />Princess Adventure (2020)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th style="border: 1px solid black; text-align: center;">BAR</th>
<td style="border: 1px solid black;">Fairytopia: Mermaidia (2006)<br />Swan Lake (2003)<br />Mariposa & The Fairy Princess (2013)<br />The Island Princess (2007)<br />Big City, Big Dreams (2021)<br />Rock 'N Royals (2015)<br />Dolphin Magic (2017)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th style="border: 1px solid black; text-align: center;">BA</th>
<td style="border: 1px solid black;">The Diamond Castle (2008)<br />Fairytopia: Magic of the Rainbow (2007)<br />Barbie & Her Sisters in A Puppy Chase (2016)<br />Spy Squad (2016)<br />A Mermaid Tale 2 (2012)<br />Fairytopia (2005)<br />Chelsea: The Lost Birthday (2021)<br />Mermaid Power (2022)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th style="border: 1px solid black; text-align: center;">B</th>
<td style="border: 1px solid black;">Rapunzel (2002)<br />Video Game Hero (2017)<br />Barbie & Her Sisters in The Great Puppy Adventure (2015)<br />Thumbelina (2009)<br />The Barbie Diaries (2006)<br />The Princess & The Popstar (2012)</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
HAPPY??
<br /><br />
<b>Voice Actors</b>
<br /><br />
There were a lot more VAs for Barbie than I thought there would be! Kelly Sheridan is, of course, the legend. She's the OG, you can't do better. She set the standard, especially in films like Princess and the Pauper, where she managed to make the two Barbies distinct enough to tell apart. Diana Kaarina, though only with four film appearances, certainly made her mark as the second voice for our favorite doll. Even matching up against Sheridan, she gave notable performances, especially in A Perfect Christmas, adroitly conveying the subtleties of Barbie's relationship to her sisters. Next we have Erica Lindbeck. She was on board for five films, though I don't know if she made as much of a mark as I remember. She's kind of sandwiched between Sheridan and the newest VA, and she only had one movie I really liked. She's a great actress in other properties, I loved her in the Broly movie, but Barbie didn't use her to her fullest. Lastly we have the most current Barbie voice actress, America Young. There's no way that's her government name. Like that's what you might name a patriotic Barbie knockoff. Anyway. Her performance is pretty far afield from how Sheridan voiced the character. It's a more obviously young voice, even cracking sometimes. I might dislike that if Barbie was like her previous iterations, but with a complete change of cast and age for Barbie, the voice makes sense. I disliked it at first, coming after getting used to the Sheridan-type voices, but it's grown on me as the Dreamhouse Adventures version of the character did.
<br /><br />
There's a couple actors who have been a main character in a Barbie movie without necessarily being a Barbie. What I mean is Chiara Zanni as Mariposa from the movie of the same name and Morwenna Banks from A Christmas Carol. I like both of their performances, Zanni as the unconfident Mariposa and Banks as the stuck-up diva Eden Starling. Both of them are good enough that they could have headlined another Barbie movie, though at least Zanni got cast as a supporting character again.
<br /><br />
<b>Music</b>
<br /><br />
This one's all over the place. Early Barbie movies had orchestral scores, done by the London Symphony Orchestra or the Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra. It's hard to go wrong with that, especially in the case of Nutcracker, given the time-tested nature of those tracks. In the middle things get a bit muddier, as the move away from orchestral music necessitated a digital approach, which took a while to find its legs.
<br /><br />
As far as sing-songs go, the first musical did it best. Princess and the Pauper has a classic Broadway musical style for its lyrics and performance, which provides it a timelessness some others in this series don't. Diamond Castle started the trend of including a Main Song for each film, a little pop number that could play over the intro and credits. I'm not a huge fan of these as a concept, since the style always seems behind the times when you get to it. There were a few good tunes in there, like Queen of the Waves from A Mermaid Tale, that infuriatingly gets stuck in my head sometimes. Most of them are forgettable at best.
<br /><br />
<b>Plot</b>
<br /><br />
There were a few unexpected plots going through this series, but the majority of these are pretty boilerplate. Fairies, mermaids and princesses. You could count the number of movies without at least one of these elements on one hand. Typically if those aren't involved it's about Barbie herself. Not that any of these plot elements are bad, mind you. I really enjoyed a few that had these in abundance, like Princess and the Pauper or The Secret Door. There's really not that much variety when it comes to themes here, but I suppose that's another requirement of the Barbie ethos. Overwhelmingly the point of one of these movies is that you should be yourself. Sometimes the obstacle to that is a system that is unfriendly to you, other times it's a fact about yourself you reject. If the actual Barbie isn't the main character, that's essentially what you're going to see. They only dipped into more meaty subjects on this line a couple of times, with The Three Musketeers dealing with sexism, and Mariposa and the Fairy Princess clumsily discussing racism. These aren't unworthy subjects to cover, but something about Barbie movies makes them ill-equipped to handle these very well. I don't know if it's because they're aimed at younger kids or if they just had restrictive brand requirements, but neither one of the more progressive messages come across very well, with one minor exception. In Princess and the Pauper and Princess Charm School, there's a little bit about economic class that's unusual for Barbie's oeuvre. It's not a lot, but having a main character grow up poor and then deal with princesses was more effective than other attempts at that sort of thing.
<br /><br />
The Barbie & Her Sisters plots tend to have a bit more going on with them, usually foregoing the fantasy elements and ending up a bit more grounded. The family dynamic is the focus, and with the sisters being different ages, they could include arcs relevant to different ages of kids at the same time. A theme I really didn't see coming is a sort of parental anxiety from Barbie when it comes to her sisters. In Perfect Christmas and A Puppy Chase their vacation goes awry and Barbie blames herself for not being able to fix it. It's weird for a kids movie to make the main character an ersatz parent with applicable problems. That's the stuff that really caught me off-guard while watching, even if some of it was interspersed with stupid puppy bullshit.
<br /><br />
<b>Wrapping up</b>
<br /><br />
There's not a lot of media franchises that can compete with Barbie. The doll line alone has an impressive legacy, and that's not counting the cartoons, animated films, and finally a live action movie. Sure, one could say the same thing about Transformers, but there's something special about Barbie you don't find in other toy-driven series. There's a versatility to the brand that keeps it going, so there's always a chance you'll see something you didn't expect. Any given Transformers property will hew closely to a pre-established story, but a Barbie movie can range from a grounded musical about a princess to a sci-fi story about the fate of the stars. I think that's why it took so long for a live action film to get made; in a comic book story you can adapt one of the long-running stories, but with Barbie there's so much potential, picking something to adapt is almost impossible. G.I. Joe can never have the same cultural cache, each generation remembers their own Barbie.
<br /><br />
I started this project as a big joke, and to be fair a lot of it is still that, but the adage holds true: The longer you perform a joke, the more sincere it's going to become. There's a lot of this that simply will never affect me the way it would a young girl, but you can't watch over 42 hours of something without taking a little with you. There's plenty of bad in there, don't get me wrong, but I still listen to the Secret Door or Princess and the Pauper soundtracks from time to time. I've learned a lot, and the most important part is that I will never have to watch another Barbie movie again as long as I live.
<br /><br />
Who am I kidding. I'm in too deep to stop now. When's that Stacie movie coming out?
Walter Sojdahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00438496885700997187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3207692231850113781.post-79288611041117624552023-07-22T12:34:00.000-04:002023-07-22T12:34:07.976-04:00Barbie (2023)You would think, being a guy that watched all 42 direct-to-video/streaming Barbie movies, that it would be easy to figure out what to say about the live action one, the one I did all that work for. Somehow, it's not.
<br><br>
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB2Osb3YxmoXHKG-n3Px9hEF1a-6AjHZESeffTd_XjOFgGFQphw2i9LM2f4hz4Vns3uzM_GOmPOTFrRdEUrWurRL69OUdPJwTtmrSJpj5YN5fAikan-oNFws6jeDmK4nBSqU9hZPzf22cTkMhuCua5_jx2kOqCw8nFCSXvHxOYUkKjlFbKbBTJC_e4PJE/s16000/BarbieMoviePoster.png" title="Hi Barbie!"></div>
<br>
Our hero is Barbie, or to be more specific, Stereotypical Barbie. She lives in Barbie Land with the rest of the Barbies, a bunch of Kens, one Midge, one Skipper, and one Allen. (Ken's friend (all of Ken's clothes fit him)) But one day, things start getting weird. Barbie has thoughts about death, she doesn't gracefully float from her dreamhouse to the car, and worst of all: Her feet turn flat. After consulting with Weird Barbie (the one that happens when you play with your Barbie too hard) she sets out on a quest to the real world, while Ken tags along.
<br><br>
In a way, this is what I expected from a live action Barbie movie, at least after seeing a few trailers. It's got a little bit of the "Barbie is outdated, Barbie has done more harm than good for women, Barbie is bad" stuff I was afraid of but, luckily for all of us, that's not the point. I don't know if I could call this a celebration of Barbie either. It's not so much about the character as it is about the doll. And it's less about the doll than it's about... being a woman.
<br><br>
Okay listen I could watch a million Barbie movies and it wouldn't qualify me to talk about this. It's simply out of my wheelhouse! I liked the feminist angle, but I can't really form any substantive critiques because I am not embodied in the subject matter. I can't be one of those guys that starts explaining feminism to anyone! I'm just a normal man. I'm just an innocent man.
<br><br>
Speaking of which, Ken was great. I relate to Ken, which was funny until it got sad. For me, specifically. He's a big part of the comedy, because he's a giant idiot the whole time. It's a good look for a Ken. All of the Kens are big idiots, and that's great. The preview of the song "Just Ken" made me excited that this could be a musical, but it's not. It's got a couple songs but the only one that's like musical theater is the Ken one. There's one by Billie Eilish that hits hard.
<br><br>
I really didn't need to watch all those movies for this one. I'm glad I did, but they didn't provide much in the way of context or easter eggs. If anything this is closest to Life in the Dreamhouse, what with the Barbie is Everything sort of stuff, but this is far more self-examining than that show was, since that was a funny cartoon for goofs. There's a lot going on in this film, it's surprisingly poignant given how goofy most of it is. One thing the film does is anticipate the reception from the more reactionary parts of the viewing public, and preemptively responds to those ideas. Like, the obvious surface-level critiques are practically a part of the movie. It was more instructive to someone like me, whereas it's more likely supposed to give voice to already-held sentiment for its audience, but the whole reason I watch this Barbie stuff is to get an idea of how the other half lives. (That's definitely the only reason.)
<br><br>
I could get into spoilers but I'll restrain myself. Suffice it to say: It's good. People who aren't me (and are women) will like it a lot more than I do. It's not made for me! In fact, this movie purposefully avoided one of those things I fixated on in the old Barbie movies. (Not Raquelle.) Oh, and there was no Raquelle. It wouldn't have made any sense for her to be there, but there's still a little disappointment. Maybe later they'll make a Raquelle live action movie and I will watch it 100 times.
<br><br>
If you're expecting nothing but a happy fun-time romp, you'll get more than you bargained for. I don't know if this would be the "palate cleanser" the Barbenheimer advocates are reaching for. If you want something with a bunch of funny jokes and some feminism that I'm not qualified to speak on, you'll enjoy this. There's some deeper themes in there, but maybe I can speak on those once it's been out on video and I can watch it a few times. I just have to accept the fact that this won't hit deep in my soul the way a Broly movie would. I still highly recommend it, even if it didn't personally resonate with me the way it would with others. It's got a lot to say about womanhood, society, and the overall human condition. In a way, this embodies the Barbie ethos: Just because it's unabashedly pink and feminine, doesn't mean you shouldn't take it seriously. It means a lot to a lot of people, and you can either accept that or choose to live in ignorance.
<br><br>
Rating: BARBIE/BARBIEWalter Sojdahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00438496885700997187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3207692231850113781.post-68620360438080842302023-07-09T17:54:00.004-04:002023-07-09T17:54:39.425-04:00Life In Plastic: A Barbie Marathon Part 6It's hard, being a pioneer. To be willing to do what nobody else can. I bet people said all kinds of shit to the first guy to climb Mount Everest. They probably said stuff like, "Why?" and "But that's for little girls," and "You're a grown man this is weird." But now I know exactly how he felt, after weeks of grueling work, feeling like it was all pointless and maybe he should have been watching Breaking Bad or something, only to see the summit, the pinnacle, the top of the world. It doesn't matter if nobody believes in you, nor think other people need to believe in you because what you're doing is inconsequential and kind of creepy. Because that summit is only a few steps away.
<br /><br />
And I am almost there.
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWHxUWPzrmQv45-1-atemMMDgnFc5XUauT57dMxeqcZ9SoKcrfSmrvkpnZ-uahJ9ZcOUZf6MfU3zo1o4ljlHVk61XoV4S0NnLLoW8ge3qOrlynOa3rP1hVnCK_1xlyL3OqONhJwcjVi5yIQ_3DSgc-aW2gAHbmLl7qi49R4QitO5ZXptX56j6zHr0WG0E/s16000/Barbie%20MarathonPART%206.png" title="One small step for an adult man, one giant leap for little girls." /></div>
<br />
<b>Film 36: Barbie: Dolphin Magic (2017)</b>
<br /><br />
So turns out Video Game Hero was the last Barbie movie to come out as a straight-to-DVD, and now they're all going to Netflix. So we have what I think is another iteration of the "Real Life" Barbie and her sisters. Maybe? The designs are pretty close to the Puppy movies, and the puppies are still there, not to mention we still got Erica Lindbeck voicing Barbie. I dunno. It's another mermaid flick, this time some evil marine biologist captures a magic dolphin and its mermaid friend tries to free it and runs into the Roberts sisters, who adopt her like some kind of lost child. Of course the mermaid has a magic shell that gives her legs, though she doesn't know what a sandwich is, which doesn't trigger suspicion for any of the sisters. Oh, we finally have Ken back, after who knows how many movies of absence. (I counted. 16 films.) Ken doesn't really seem like Barbie's boyfriend here, which may point to it being a new continuity. It's pretty boilerplate from there, evil marine biologist wants to sell magic dolphin, mermaid reveals she is mermaid, they all work together and everything works out. It's not great, but it could have been worse. At least the dogs don't talk, and surprisingly Barbie herself doesn't become a mermaid.
<br /><br />
Rating: BAR<s>BIE</s>/BARBIE
<br /><br />
<b>Film 37: Barbie: Princess Adventure (2020)</b>
<br /><br />
Woah! What!? That's a three year gap! This is unprecedented! So I had to do some research (I hate that) to figure this out, and it turns out there were no Barbie movies while the show Barbie Dreamhouse Adventures was running. I haven't watched that show because I got an episode in and there was no Raquelle so I have no reason to ever see it. So this movie is like a finale to that show, which means we got a new voice actress for Barbie, America Young. She's okay, but gives a very different feel to Barbie than the previous ones, which all had the same sort of voice. She's closer to Chiara Zanni than Kelly Sheridan or Diana Kaarina. The change in VA makes sense because this Barbie is significantly younger than a lot of Barbies we've had, she's still in high school and has parents and everything. She's also a Youtuber. This is too much background for a Barbie movie. At any rate, this is another riff on the Prince and the Pauper, but at least this one didn't insult me. Erica Lindbeck plays a princess who watches Barbie's vlogs and arranges for Barbie and all of her friends to go on a school trip to her kingdom so they can swap. It doesn't work great because we don't see her perspective of the switch the whole time, just Barbie dealing with princess shit. This one is also a musical, but all the songs are average at best. We got two villains, one is a media CEO who wants to exploit Barbie's online clout, and the other is a prince from a neighboring kingdom who tries to keep the princess from the coronation so he can take the kingdom using some technicality. The only time I laughed was when the media CEO took one of Barbie's videos and essentially made a YTP from it. Barbie didn't like it though. There's a sideplot of Ken trying to tell Barbie something but being unable to. He's definitely not her boyfriend in this continuity, so I assume he's trying to confess his feelings. If the whole show was a will-they-won't-they with Barbie and Ken there is no way I would be able to stand it. There's too many other side characters, like some asshole red haired guy who they gave a song for some inexplicable reason. A pale comparison to Princess and the Pauper, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been.
<br /><br />
Rating: BARB<s>IE</s>/BARBIE
<br /><br />
<b>Film 38: Barbie & Chelsea: The Lost Birthday (2021)</b>
<br /><br />
Yeah, from now on these all take place after Dreamhouse Adventures. I guess it's nice to have only one continuity for once? I'll get into it later. As you can see from the title, this is a Chelsea oriented movie, which can mean only one thing. This is baby shit. They're all on a cruise because of Barbie's mom and it's gonna be Chelsea's birthday but then they cross the international date line and skip a day and she gets sad and has a Wizard of Oz style adventure where she does a bunch of shit with talking animals that sound like her sisters but oh what it was all a dream who could have guessed. Okay, for a while I didn't catch the dream thing. I don't know the level of magic that exists in this world, maybe there are talking animals, who knows? Barbie is still on about her vlog all the time, but now that leaves Skipper without a thing to do. She's supposed to be the internet one! I guess now she just makes music. It was better before. The closest thing to a villain in this movie is the activities director on the cruise, who for some reason is actively malicious towards the Roberts family. It's not even funny, he's just creepy.
<br /><br />
Rating: BA<s>RBIE</s>/BARBIE
<br /><br />
<b>Film 39: Barbie: Big City, Big Dreams (2021)</b>
<br /><br />
Barbie's going to New York, baby! This is a weird one. Barbie goes to some performing arts school for the summer, where she's put in a room with another girl who is also named Barbie Roberts. The other Barbie is from Brooklyn, while our Barbie is from Malibu, so they refer to each other as such. Weird that middle names didn't come into this, but I guess nobody wanted the main character of the film to be called Millicent the whole time. The two Barbies become best friends immediately. Like, right after they meet they sing a song (which sounds a bit like a love song) and they're inseparable. They meet one of Brooklyn's old friends who's actually a super famous pop star but wants to learn more shit on the down low, but then her manager dad buys his way into directing the center and wants to make sure his daughter wins the solo at the end of the semester. They have the whole "Barbie is bad at things" montage that we got in Princess Charm School, but in this movie it's weird. This is the actual Barbie we're talking about, not some character she's playing. They're making her a more relatable figure, but to me Barbie should be more aspirational. Think Spider-Man vs. Superman. Spider-Man fucks up all the time, but it makes you feel like you could be him, while Superman is the idealized hero, he does the right thing all the time. On that note, while they're all dancing and being silly, Malibu Barbie knocks Brooklyn Barbie off a stage and she sprains her ankle, and Manager Dad tells the principal that Malibu did it on purpose, so she gets expelled and the two Barbies sing a breakup song. Luckily the pop star finds a video that shows it was an accident so Malibu comes back and both Barbies get the to sing a big song in Times Square. Manager Dad faces no repercussions. Brooklyn's gonna be in the rest of these, and they even got a whole teevee show that I'm not going to watch. (I'M NOT YOU CAN'T MAKE ME) I'm not sure how I feel about her. She's not a one-to-one copy of Malibu Barbie, like she's not hypercompetent in all skills or anything, she's almost entirely music-focused. I dunno, I just like it better when I can use names and don't have to put prefixes before them. There's probably someone out there who's really happy about Brooklyn Barbie and I can't hold that against them.
<br /><br />
Rating: BAR<s>BIE</s>/BARBIE
<br /><br />
<b>Film 40: Barbie: Mermaid Power (2022)</b>
<br /><br />
This is a sequel to Dolphin Magic, which I guess means that one had Dreamhouse Adventures Barbie all along. You would think that this, being a sequel, would make more sense while having less to introduce, but somehow they fucked that up. Right in the beginning of the movie Barbies and sisters are cleaning trash from the ocean and like a minute later they're all turning into mermaids. As if they all knew they could do that with Barbie's magic necklace already! Don't get me started on Mermaid Town where they have to do a magic ritual like in that Fairytopia movie or Mermaid Tale 2 but in order to do it they have to find the Mermaid Avatar. For some reason every mermaid has an elemental power, even the Barbie crew who just became mermaids like 5 seconds ago, except for one who gets all of them, and then they can do the mermaid ritual and save the ocean. The evil marine biologist is back, this time with a Mr. Crocker-like obsession with proving mermaids are real, and a badass crab sub. This movie has too much going on. It's gotta introduce the entire mermaid society, their magic powers, then there's racist mermaids who hate land dwellers, and to top it all off there's a giant trash heap in the ocean. Once again there's a million characters in this thing, all throwing fire underwater(?) or shooting air or talking to dolphins and I can't care enough to keep track of it all. Anyway there's a little girl mermaid who turns out to be the Avatar and she disintegrates the trash island and evil marine biologist becomes a mermaid and turns into a good guy. This showcases one of the problems with maintaining one continuity with these things, if this were made before the Netflix era, I'm sure it would have been a standalone film with Barbie playing a character. Instead they had to shoehorn the Roberts sisters into this plot and world all at once and it just kept throwing shit at you. One of the things that made the Barbie franchise so versatile was its ability to have unrelated movies, even if they all had the Barbie branding. I hope they move back towards that model with later releases.
<br /><br />
Rating: BA<s>RBIE</s>/BARBIE
<br /><br />
<b>Film 41: Barbie: Epic Road Trip (2022)</b>
<br /><br />
The only cool thing about Netflix is that once in a while they make a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure style thing, like that one Black Mirror special from a few years ago. I mostly like them if there's a way I can just fuck up the story, though a lot of these are on rails pretty hard. Surprise surprise, they made a Barbie one! Malibu Barbie, Brooklyn Barbie, Skipper, Ken, and a bunch of dogs are taking a road trip across the US to test out Skipper's dog adoption app, see the sights, and get to NYC for some backup singer audition. A lot of choices boil down to choosing between Brooklyn or Ken, because Ken still hasn't confessed his feelings to Barbie. Now, I know they didn't intend this, but it feels like choosing Barbie's romantic partner. I, of course, immediately speedran Ken% because I need to get my boy laid. I was the heteronormative devil on Barbie's shoulder, making her go to every little romantic spot Ken set up until they kissed on the Ferris Wheel in Pennsylvania and I cherished the small morsel of vicarious romantic fulfillment in my cold dead heart. Apart from the endings where it asks you to start from the beginning, there's a smattering of choices that set you just a little bit back in the story, like in Roswell they can be abducted by aliens which deposit them back at the beach in the beginning of the movie but with no memory of what happened before that. Or a haunted house in New Orleans that opens and trap door and sends them back a few scenes. My first ending was Brooklyn and Malibu move to New York with musical artist careers, while Boyfriend Ken moves to be with Malibu Barbie and be a malewife. I ran through it a few more times for completion's sake, where Brooklyn and Malibu live alone in London with a record deal, or one where Barbie goes back to Malibu without a job, Ken, or anything to show for the road trip. The multiple nature of this kinda works for Barbie, since she's yet to become her omni-talented self, it makes sense not to lock her down as a singer or whatever. I liked it more than I thought I would, if only because I could act as a spiritual wingman for Ken.
<br /><br />
Rating: BARB<s>IE</s>/BARBIE
<br /><br />
<b>Film 42: Barbie: Skipper and the Big Babysitting Adventure (2023)</b>
<br /><br />
I wasn't expecting a lot from this film, especially considering how the Chelsea one went down. The babysitting angle and the fact this began with a 2D animated segment that looked like cheap PBS anime didn't help either. But this film had a crucial component I couldn't even have imagined. THEY BROUGHT BACK RAQUELLE!! Well, kinda. Turns out the show has a character named Tammy who, as far as I can tell, is Raquelle with a different name. She's bitchy, entitled, rich, and a failqueen. Also she's got black hair and calls Skipper Mini-Barbie. I was completely blindsided, I thought they just weren't interested in the Raquelle archetype anymore, but here she was! (Mostly) She may have been reincarnated, but I know whatever lives we live we would find each other again... Ahem. So Skipper fucks up her babysitting job and since everyone else is leaving for the summer (Barbie finally being the Barbie I know and planting trees in the Amazon) Skipper decides to work at the local waterpark. But! Turns out Tammy's dad owns the place and put her in charge. Tammy's dad is great, he's the stereotypical businessman, talking on four phones all the time and rating any possible situation on whether it's good for business or not. The funniest joke in this movie is when he sees a pie chart, imagines it as pie, and leaves in the middle of a business proposal so he can go get some pie. He's a legend. Anyway Skipper and some friends get hired because nobody else wants to work for Tammy, and Skipper gets the idea to set up a daycare for little kids in the park. After Tammy tries to steal the idea and fucks up (As she should) Skipper and her friends have a little odyssey trying to get 6 kids back to the park without anyone catching wise. This was way funnier than any recent film has been, like the part where Skipper talks to dolphins by pointing her eyes in opposite directions and screeching, and the only reaction to this from her friends is, "Wow, she <i>is</i> a good babysitter." I think they're finally hitting their stride with this Barbie, which was a nice endcap to my own odyssey across the Barbie-verse.
<br /><br />
Rating: <font size="4"><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Handwriting';"><span style="color: #8f409f;">Raquelle</span></span></font>/BARBIE
<br /><br />
(But really like a 5 out of 6)
<br /><br />I... I did it! I watched every single Barbie movie! There were a lot of surprising moments going through this, I liked a lot more of them a lot more than I thought I would. Sure, there were plenty that fit the Barbie stereotype I had in my head, but the spikes in quality were very appreciated. Given the breadth of content here, I'm not actually sure any of this will give me insight to the live action movie coming up. But if there's one thing I've learned through all of this, it's that you can be whatever you want to be. Apparently what I wanted to be was a man in his thirties who watched the entirety of a franchise made for little girls. Thank you for following me on this journey, and hopefully I'll do something less insane next time. Come back for a little denouement later!Walter Sojdahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00438496885700997187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3207692231850113781.post-51422507886117035822023-07-02T18:16:00.002-04:002023-07-22T23:49:14.910-04:00Life In Plastic: A Barbie Marathon Part 5History repeats itself, doesn't it? Second week in I was locked in my house because the air outside was killing my lungs, and five weeks in I'm right back there. Things sure do seem bad, right? I hear there's widespread riots in France, but what with twitter down and me coughing my lungs out I don't have a good grasp of the world around me. However, like Nero before me, I am devoting myself to pointless frivolity while all I knew begins to collapse. Let's get back into it.
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhYtJUL2yRYl13ObKKTK0xE6MSNtGOGma6gAjjcZyVdVMAqU_J_yQo0arB8nOB2xEznZPzFLL4xhsOx0pIEvBKDcbZJDJp2JTluuS_tMGYWNb7-EjGSIQLZhfJaALW57M9khplvCKBdZEsDgh6Fdsl_Gt1StF5cTKpL2BybwaFSqBHyEzOXo1PVGVd9uA/s16000/Barbie%20MarathonPART%205.png" title="Oh yeah *cough cough* this is a good use of my *cough* time" /></div>
<br />
<b>Film 29: Barbie in Princess Power (2015)</b>
<br /><br />
Oh shit! This is the first Barbie movie I had ever seen! I even <a href="https://www.wdefender.com/2016/12/lets-watch-barbie-in-princess-power.html">wrote about it</a> in what would become a short-lived staple of this stupid blog. I was honestly pretty curious if my opinion would change after watching over two dozen Barbie movies before this rewatch. My feelings are complicated. On the one hand, to make a Barbie superhero movie is way out of left field considering the plots they've used so far, which were all fantasy stories that involved mermaids and fairies. I didn't really realize how far out of the ordinary this was when I first saw it, but now I can see they were going places. Not necessarily great places. The character designs are all kinda bad. Background design has gotten way worse than the heights of Secret Door, like the trees and buildings and whatnot all look pretty lazily rendered. The villain is more annoying than anything, especially since this is a rare example of a Villainous Bibble, with his stupid frog that I hate. The actress that voiced Raquelle in previous movies, Britt Irvin, voices Barbie's mean cousin, who eventually becomes another superhero. I am duty bound to inform you that I love Dark Sparkle. I had a really hard time figuring out where I fall on this one, the novelty of a Dragon Ball fight in a Barbie movie was somewhat dampened by the appearance of like 5 superpowered pets.
<br /><br />
Rating: BARB<s>IE</s>/BARBIE
<br /><br />
<b>Film 30: Barbie in Rock 'N Royals (2015)</b>
<br /><br />
I was worried I had another Princess and the Popstar on my hands here, but luckily it's not nearly <i>that</i> bad. This is a world where princesses and successful musical artists each have their own summer camp, and by wild coincidence these two summer camps are on either side of the same lake. Why would musicians (some of whom already have successful careers) need a summer camp? Why would princesses? But anyway one princess and one rockstar accidentally go to the other's camp and then the camp owners make a bet about who will win a sing-off and the loser cedes their land to the other camp. So the campgoers find out and work together yadda yadda. I feel a bit insulted here, they got Chiara Zanni to play the musical artist, but they couldn't get her back for Mariposa?? HOW DARE YOU. There's songs in this but it's not really a musical. It could have been worse.
<br /><br />
Rating: BAR<s>BIE</s>/BARBIE
<br /><br />
<b>Film 31: Barbie & Her Sisters in The Great Puppy Adventure (2015)</b>
<br /><br />
Barbie movies are a series of baits and switches. They lure you in with two good movies about Barbie and her sisters and then just as you think you know what level of quality you should expect you get this bullshit. This doesn't seem like it's from the same continuity as the previous two Barbie & Her Sisters movies. All the character designs have changed, presumably to match up with some Barbie Vlogs that I am not going to watch you can't make me. Everyone looks... younger. Which raises the Parent Question again. Why is Barbie bringing her sisters to see their grandma without their parents? How old is Barbie, exactly? She's old enough to drive, but now it's not clear if she's making a living by herself or what. At any rate they're all going back to their hometown of Willows, Wisconsin, where Grandma Roberts gives them a bunch of puppies, thus ruining this movie forever. Does anyone else remember that time in the 00's where a rash of talking puppies movies came out? Direct-to-DVD stuff like Air Buddies were everywhere, you couldn't escape them. Well someone at Barbie Entertainment looked upon that era with wistfulness and a decade later put that in their goddamn Barbie movie. Sure the sisters are trying to find some treasure, but then we have to follow around some cutesy dogs and their cutesy voices misinterpreting stuff and being annoying. Oh, the town has fallen on hard times? Too bad, look at these dogs fall down. There's a secret cavern under the town full of gold and jewels? Fuck that, this stupid dog needs to learn to believe in itself. Easily the worst talking animal movie yet.
<br /><br />
Rating: B<s>ARBIE</s>/BARBIE
<br /><br />
<b>Film 32: Barbie: Spy Squad (2016)</b>
<br /><br />
Did someone on the Barbie staff just come out of a 10 year long coma? Why else would they make a Totally Spies ripoff almost 10 years after it ended? This is supposed to be another "Real Life" movie, though with the new designs debuted in Puppy Adventure, and now Barbie has a new friend named Renee. But yeah, it's Totally Spies. The three girls become "spies" for some nebulous agency, use girl-themed gadgets and try to stop some jewel thief. The thief is obnoxious, though not as bad as the tech guy who looks like Scott the Woz and has a crush on Teresa and won't fucking shut up about it. We've changed VA's for Barbie again, now instead of Kelly Sheridan we have Erica Lindbeck. She's a good actress, but I think the direction in this movie hampers her talents where other work of hers showcased them more. A weird thing is that this movie teaches the Visualization therapeutic technique to deal with stressful situations. Like, an actual thing therapists teach. I don't think any other Barbie movies have done something like this. I guess it gets points for that, but loses points on everything else.
<br /><br />
Rating: BA<s>RBIE</s>/BARBIE
<br /><br />
<b>Film 33: Barbie: Star Light Adventure (2016)</b>
<br /><br />
Barbie Sci-Fi! Because of that it's another one I <a href="https://www.wdefender.com/2019/08/lets-watch-barbie-star-light-adventure.html">wrote about before.</a> This is the first time I saw a Barbie movie and went "Oh huh I guess Barbie movies can be good." It's a pretty solid film, the production design is really good here, especially the night skies with stars, nebulae, and planets all around. I guess they would have to be, since this movie is about the stars going out. The Space King thinks he's gonna fix it so he hires a bunch of <i>Radical Teens</i> to help him get to the center of the galaxy, but then he can't and Barbie fixes everything by dancing or something. This almost has a Barbie X-Men team, where all the team members are aliens with different abilities, like gravity manipulation or super speed. Barbie even has telekinesis. I could probably write a long pretentious article about how this movie explores the failure of authoritarian rule to cope with disaster while spontaneous humanity holds the solutions, but that's for another time.
<br /><br />
Rating: BARBI<s>E</s>/BARBIE
<br /><br />
<b>Film 34: Barbie & Her Sisters in A Puppy Chase (2016)</b>
<br /><br />
Have you ever been on a really bad vacation as a kid? One where everything seemed to fuck up and you couldn't do any of the stuff you wanted? You might have been angry at your parents and blamed them for the poor time. But as you get older, you think back on it and realize your parents were dealing with a bunch of shit themselves, and the anger evolves into something more complex. The sympathy and sadness you feel now makes the memories harder to deal with. You feel bad about how you acted when your parents were doing their best. Okay stop thinking about that now and look at some dumb goddamn puppies. In the second Puppy movie the sisters go to what I assume is Hawaii, though they only ever call it "The Island" for some reason. Shit goes haywire and they lose the puppies but Chelsea has to get to her dance contest! Barbie is surprisingly incompetent in this movie, like all the things she does lead to more misfortune. There's almost a poignant moment where she reveals she hadn't known what to do any more than her sisters, but she kept up an optimistic facade so they wouldn't give up. But then we have talking puppies and a couple talking horses and the talking poodle and you get my drift. This one has another therapeutic technique to deal with anxiety, where you seriously consider what would happen in the best and worse case scenario of a given situation and how you would deal with each. I just get taken out of anything meaningful when we have Paw Patrol-ass dialogue and surfing puppies. It seems like it's going for a Little Miss Sunshine type of ending, where Chelsea's dance performance, joined by her sisters, the puppies, the horses etc., loses the competition, but she learns that trying your best is the real reward. But no! She breaks the rules with all that other bullshit but still pulls out a win! That's not a lesson! That's just pandering!
<br /><br />
Rating: BA<s>RBIE</s>/BARBIE
<br /><br />
<b>Film 35: Barbie: Video Game Hero (2017)</b>
<br /><br />
The last Barbie movie <a href="https://www.wdefender.com/2017/03/lets-watch-barbie-video-game-hero.html">I'd already seen</a> before starting this whole project, I think actually forgot most of this one. And, watching it again, it was for good reason. This one is a mess. I'm supposed to believe Barbie (the actual Barbie, not a role she is playing) is some kinda Alpha Gamer and programmer, with the easily distinguishable line between those two roles made blurry in this film. The scene starts with Barbie playing a game with her friends, but then she starts coding the game while they're playing it? And she made that game? Later she gets sucked into a tablet and a cloud tells her she has to win the game to kill some evil emojis. Let's get one thing straight: This game doesn't make a single bit of sense. Level 1 is a race. That's fine, sure. Level 2 is Bejeweled. Huh? The artstyle even changes. Level 3 is Minecraft. Who made this game?? When I beat a race, I would like to do more races, not be shoved into some Roblox looking shit! All the characters are annoying. The only real life game mentioned in this movie is Just Dance, along with the most annoying song I've ever heard, some chihuahua song with barking that I found honestly difficult to get through. Once again our protagonist wins by cheating, though if they're honestly competing in Just Dance I don't think the competition was very rigorous to begin with. This movie ends with a music video for that terrible song and I will hate this movie until I die. (If you have watched the Emoji movie you may notice how they ripped off this one. Fun fact.)
<br /><br />
Rating: B<s>ARBIE</s>/BARBIE
<br /><br />
Things are looking pretty dire, folks. A noticeable downgrade from last week, only one movie even cracked five on my incredibly biased rating scale. No matter, Week Five is done! We're in the home stretch! Soon I will be able to watch something that isn't Barbie! I will know all! I WILL BE THE MASTER OF BARBIE NONE SHALL CHALLENGE ME ON MY HOT PINK THRONE! BEAR WITNESS!Walter Sojdahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00438496885700997187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3207692231850113781.post-62480565141266047982023-06-25T18:54:00.000-04:002023-06-25T18:54:21.634-04:00Life In Plastic: A Barbie Marathon Part 4I arrive at work on a Monday morning. My coworkers are talking about sports, camping, all the usual guy stuff.
<br /><br />
"What did you do this weekend?" asks one of my coworkers.
<br /><br />
"Oh, uh." I stammer, "Just, watched movies."
<br /><br />
"That's cool, man. I was camping with the boys. What did you watch?"
<br /><br />
I begin to sweat. I cannot think of anything but Barbie.
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm7bqfdb6l-UV5ZHh4JwVDxV4s1TTYZiVrBB_vXDtGcv3o6D8n_YByeviS8tfADm-T1GEno8NqJhLP_wosow6VIUCet8cD5Ot8VGigY958TL7MnFUPiy8Xzhb-G5TLWXRq-Ygybd-8tFaQFJ3DoTpSJ_O_OOODaPG4usoFmfOffN1jkqBLiB7uRMBx29c/s16000/Barbie%20MarathonPART%204.png" title="Barbie? Never heard of her. All I watch is football, and uh, grilling." /></div>
<br />
<b>Film 22: Barbie in A Mermaid Tale 2 (2012)</b>
<br /><br />
Oh goody. A sequel to a Mermaid Tale. This was the Fairytopia: Magic of the Rainbow of Barbie Mermaid movies. The fact that I not only understand, but wrote that phrase scares me a little. The mermaids gotta do some ritual bullshit to save the ocean but there's an Australian surfer chick who gets roped into letting the evil bitch out from the last movie and blah blah blah. The Australian chick wasn't bitchy enough for me, she gets too nice too quick. The mermaid witch had some spell that made people experience their worst nightmare, and I thought people would overcome it by conquering their fear or something but it just goes away when Barbie does the ocean magic thing. Eh.
<br /><br />
Rating: BA<s>RBIE</s>/BARBIE
<br /><br />
<b>Film 23: Barbie: The Princess and the Popstar (2012)</b>
<br /><br />
Okay this one actually pissed me off. I knew they were gonna do another riff on Prince and the Pauper, but this is just insulting. As you all know, Princess and the Pauper is a perfect movie and the standard by which I judge any other Barbie movie. The songs were good, the plot made sense, I liked the characters, it had everything. This one was dumb. The reason a Prince and the Pauper story works is because of the gap in privilege between the two people, if they're both rich girls who have a comparable slew of responsibilities to maintain it then there's not much point in switching them. The songs suck too, they cover "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" by Cyndi Lauper, but change it to "Princesses Want to Have Fun" then they cover "Perfect Day" from Legally Blonde like three different times. Those are bad enough. BUT THEN. THEN!!! THEY COVER "To Be a Princess" FROM PRINCESS AND THE PAUPER AND THEY RUIN IT!!! Pauper had the charm of a stage musical, this is overproduced pop garbage. The villain can't hold a candle to Martin Short, he doesn't even have anything to do with our leads until he steals the magical diamond bush from the secret garden of the castle in the last 20 minutes of the movie but it's fine because they stop him and grow another diamond bush and WHO GIVES A SHIT FUCK THIS
<br /><br />
Rating: B<s>ARBIE</s>/BARBIE
<br /><br />
<b>Film 24: Barbie in The Pink Shoes (2013)</b>
<br /><br />
Another ballet movie! We haven't had one of those in a long time. I think Swan Lake was the last one, since strictly speaking 12 Dancing Princesses was just a dancing movie, not ballet. The motion capture for dancing has gotten way better than it was, when characters are choreographed the same there's little variations so they don't just look like soulless robots following the same command. So Barbie's in a ballet... studio(?) and there's some big recital but Barbie keeps going off-step and freestyling, which is bad. Then her and her nerdy costumer friend get transported to Ballet World when Barbie puts on the eponymous shoes. There's like, four ballets referenced in there, Giselle, Nutcracker, Swan Lake, and The Snow Queen. They kinda traipse their way through some of these plots and change shit, which the Snow Queen don't like, but then Barbie beats her at the end because she can just dance <i>too good.</i> I don't really get the end. Barbie ends up freestyling at the recital but suddenly now it's a good thing? The only thing that changed after she went to Ballet-Verse was the mean ballet girl was suddenly nice to her after. Still, this might be the classiest Barbie movie since Nutcracker.
<br /><br />
Rating: BARBI<s>E</s>/BARBIE
<br /><br />
<b>Film 25: Barbie: Mariposa & The Fairy Princess (2013)</b>
<br /><br />
Is it just me or are they running out of ideas? A sequel to a previous movie isn't unheard of with Barbie, but then they did the same plot again with Princess and the Popstar, and now they're doing a sequel five years after the last one. I had some high hopes for this one, given how unexpectedly good Mariposa was, which as always with Barbie movies was a mistake. For the first time I wish Kelly Sheridan hadn't voiced the main character, since the first Mariposa had Chiara Zanni as main VA, and she had a great performance. Getting Sheridan for this one seems like filing off the edges to me. Not only did they bring back Sheridan, they GAVE MARIPOSA A FUCKING BIBBLE. I HATE BIBBLE SO MUCH. I WANT TO CRUSH BIBBLE IN A HYDRAULIC PRESS. <b>BIBBLE SHOULD BE SENT BACK IN TIME TO 1692 SALEM AND TRIED AS A WITCH.</b> The stupid thing isn't the same Bibble, it's just the same creature, an ostensibly cute annoying creature that sort of talks in obnoxious gibberish. Anything like that is a Bibble. Baby Yoda, for example, is a Bibble. In this one the queen sends Mariposa to the Crystal Fairy Kingdom as an ambassador, because for some reason they have hated each other for a long time but relations are possible again. Now this is what we in the biz call a Racism Movie. It follows a really boring structure. Fairy King says something racist, Bibble and Bad Bibble do something annoying, then Mariposa fucks up and knocks shit over with her wings and the king gets all mad. You really can't make an entertaining movie for kids when the message is something as tangible as "Racism is bad." It's too concrete a thing and you really gotta hammer it in so kids don't somehow think being a racist is great. If the message is, like, "Believe in yourself" you got a lot more leeway for story. Now I don't usually get in on this, but it seemed like Mariposa and the Crystal Princess might have been in Lesbians, even though the prince back home with a Burning Latin Passion was sweet on her. I will never check because I have already gone too far, but I feel like there could have been Edward or Jacob level shipping wars over this back in the day. The last thing that bothered me is that at the end, Mariposa magically gets different wings, when that's exactly what happened at the end of the other Mariposa movie. I get toys and all that, but does she really need to get new wings every time she accomplishes a task? It's like if I got a new hairdo every time I finished one of these articles.
<br /><br />
Rating: BAR<s>BIE</s>/BARBIE
<br /><br />
<b>Film 26: Barbie & Her Sisters in A Pony Tale (2013)</b>
<br /><br />
Okay I get the pun but there's only one pony in this movie, it's really about horses. You might not know this about me, but I don't like horses. Nothing made up of a ton of muscle with a brain the size of a walnut can be trusted. If a horse wanted me dead, there is not a single thing I could do to stop it. Sure, the same can be said about bears, but ain't nobody making movies about how cute bears are and how we should just ride them around! Unfortunately, this one is actually pretty good. This one is set in Real Life again, where the Roberts family goes to their aunt's horse school in Switzerland and they gotta win the big horse competition or the school will be closed down. That doesn't matter so much as the mythical wild horse that Barbie finds. There's a nice 2D animated section where a French guy tells Barbie the Horse Legend, and I was primed to believe these were stupid magical horses, especially since the French guy's evil brother, Napoleon, is trying to get the horses for himself. Turns out, it's just a really fucking fast horse. Barbie uses it to win the race at the end, but I feel like there's gotta be a rule against bringing a wild horse to a race. I ain't no horse guy. At any rate the dynamic between the Roberts sisters is just as good as A Perfect Christmas, which is nice to see.
<br /><br />
Rating: BARBI<s>E</s>/BARBIE
<br /><br />
<b>Film 27: Barbie: The Pearl Princess (2014)</b>
<br /><br />
What I want to say here is "Oh great another mermaid movie woohoo," but there really haven't been that many mermaid ones in comparison to the fairy ones. And I hate to say it, but this one was pretty good. It's got the same "Barbie is a secret princess" angle also used in Rapunzel, Island Princess, A Mermaid Tale, and Princess Charm School. Only this time her caretaker was hired to poison Barbie as a baby but couldn't bear to do it, so the poison lady raised Barbie secretly to protect her from the queen's brother who covets the throne. Meanwhile that brother wants to poison the king and set up his own son as the new monarch. Only problem is that the king's nephew is a fucking nerd and all he cares about are plants. He's great, give him a movie. Oh, and Barbie has the magic power to control pearls, which is apparently a part of the royal bloodline. So the plan gets stopped and Barbie becomes princess. The Evil Brother has an eel henchman that sounds like Peter Lorre, and he's really expressive and fun to watch. The bad guy's number two has a lot to do with whether I find a movie annoying or not. You got a good one in there and it's a lot of points. There's also a hairdresser mermaid who has a New Jersey accent, and I love her.
<br /><br />
Rating: BARBIE/BARBIE
<br /><br />
<b>Film 28: Barbie and the Secret Door (2014)</b>
<br /><br />
SECRET DOOR SECRET DOOR SECRET DOOR SECRET DOOR SECRET DOOR. At first this one seemed pretty unremarkable, Barbie is a princess with social anxiety who would rather read than be around people, until a book her grandmother gives her opens up a door to some Narnia/Wonderland and Barbie has to save all the fairies, mermaids, and unicorns, but it's a bunch of little things that raise it up. The animations are really snappy and expressive, especially the facial animations. Sure, there's some bouncing gopher things I find terrifying, but there's a few other creature designs I quite like. Against all odds, they made another musical I don't hate! It's no Princess and the Pauper, but the songs drive the plot forward and aren't grating. It's got a comedic dumb character, which as you know is the cornerstone of good comedy. Most importantly: The villain is an evil little girl princess, and she gets a villain song which is easily the best song of the movie. She's got a Darla Dimple vibe, and that's just good filmmaking. The world design, though admittedly oversaturated, is strong, probably the best since Mariposa. It's a charming movie, though it made me wonder when the trend of Barbie getting a new magical dress at the end of the movie started. It seems to at least have been the last few. Whatever, I'm not going back and checking.
<br /><br />
Rating: BARBIE/BARBIE
<br /><br />
Oh shit that's two 6's in a row. I thought the golden age was past when a second Mariposa showed up, but this week finished strong. I didn't expect there to be quality films this far down the line. Yeah, we got a lot of stinkers before, but given that I was aware of Barbie movies shortly after these came out, I thought they would mostly be trash. Speaking of which next week has the Barbie movies I've actually seen before! That will be the real test if immersing myself exclusively in Barbie media is affecting my brain and possibly giving me a B shaped tumor on my hypothalamus. We'll see next time!Walter Sojdahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00438496885700997187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3207692231850113781.post-46519405852970596042023-06-19T18:42:00.002-04:002023-07-02T21:35:36.718-04:00Life In Plastic: A Barbie Marathon Part 3I haven't been out of the house for a while. A friend invited me out to a bar for wing night. I accepted.
<br /><br />
"How's it going?" he asked.
<br /><br />
"Barbie movies." I replied.
<br /><br />
"Huh?"
<br /><br />
"I hate Bibble." I blurted out. "I want to throw Bibble off a cliff."
<br /><br />
He looked at me for a long, withering moment.
<br /><br />
"...What?"
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgMmyt2KzbKbfT-kMS2bK1nwNZDEYsFVRktMOTC3CoMO882IRMgstI_6vf85EHCxcOvCK4OKNmn31SHcqQZ_GZ8SxBelS21i6jg1ttadCYZan5BEF7xeNduLqEswpTNNl5GSKeXl2rZvm3AcI_F5XCkjdwBPj3xA0-TKlC8K6kWuiRchFNgAO4p78SsIs/s16000/Barbie%20MarathonPART%203.png" title="HEY BARBIE SO YOU FINE YOU SO FINE YOU BLOW MY MIND" /></div>
<br />
<b>Film 15: Barbie Presents: Thumbelina (2009)</b>
<br /><br />
I'm beginning to think watching a Barbie movie every day for six weeks is not a sustainable pace. There's only so much Barbie one grown man can watch before things start deteriorating. It certainly don't help when this is the shit they're serving. It's another with a framing device, Barbie telling this story to Kelly (Not yet Chelsea) about plants or something. Now I ain't no Thumbelina expert, but from my recollection she's supposed to be from like, normal people and her name is because she's as big as a thumb. Well in this Thumbelina is part of a race of teeny tiny people like the Borrowers, except they also have plant growing powers? That's like naming a normal girl Thumbelina! It don't make sense! They should have just been fairies. Thumbelina and her friends even make wings out of leaves they use to fly around the whole movie. They're just fairies! Not to mention the plot is just some Ferngully shit. Thumbelina has to teach this little rich girl empathy so her parents don't bulldoze the tiny people's home and put up a bullshit factory. This is the first Barbie movie to have cellphones and stuff in it, it's jarring after all the fantasy stuff. I found everyone annoying. This is for babies, and I'm not a baby. I'm an adult man who watches Barbie movies.
<br /><br />
Rating: B<s>ARBIE</s>/BARBIE
<br /><br />
<b>Film 16: Barbie and the Three Musketeers (2009)</b>
<br /><br />
Now, this might be me losing my mind from the strictly Barbie media diet and all, but this film felt like a fever dream. This is the first Barbie movie to have, like, actual sexism in it. Everyone's all "Girls can't be Musketeers!" and so Barbie becomes a cleaning lady at the castle instead, and it turns out all her coworkers want to be Musketeers. Then it turns out the old lady who works cleaning the castle has like, a secret Musketeer training room, and also has the skills of a Musketeer? The prince is obsessed with hot air balloons, and Tim Curry is trying to kill him. Yeah, Tim Curry is back voicing a villain and I couldn't be happier. Barbie swordfights a dude, some other chick fights guys using fans, then Barbie's pet cat starts swordfighting a dog. I dunno man.
<br /><br />
Rating: BARB<s>IE</s>/BARBIE
<br /><br />
<b>Film 17: Barbie in A Mermaid Tale (2010)</b>
<br /><br />
It's Aquaman. Barbie's just Aquaman. She's the halfsies child of some land dude and a mermaid and she has a secret destiny to save the underwater kingdom from an evil queen SHE'S AQUAMAN. Weirdly enough this is probably the first movie that has a clothes try-on scene. I figured what with Barbies being dolls that you dress up it would play a more prominent role, but what do I know. There's annoying psychic mermaid teens that can tell the future. I guess an interesting part is that Barbie doesn't wanna be a mermaid, in contrast to every single little girl I've ever met. The villain is almost exactly the same as the one from Diamond Castle, and I think that's the only time I've seen them reuse a villain design so far. At one point to distract the evil queen the whole mermaid town starts singing a song and, infuriatingly, it gets stuck in my head sometimes.
<br /><br />
Rating: BARB<s>IE</s>/BARBIE
<br /><br />
<b>Film 18: Barbie: A Fashion Fairytale (2010)</b>
<br /><br />
SHE'S HERE! FINALLY! Yes, you guessed it, Rrrrrrraquelle, the one the only! They ditched her earlier design from Diaries and now we have her current design, more or less. She's got bangs though. (I don't know enough about what hairstyles say about a person to make a statement on whether this is more or less true to her character.) Okay now I'm probably mischaracterizing this movie. Raquelle is in it for maybe a couple minutes. However! She sets the whole plot off. See, this Barbie (No longer played by Kelly Sheridan, instead it looks like Diana Kaarina is taking over for a while) is the one who acted in all the previous movies. She mentions working on Three Musketeers, and has a poster for A Mermaid Tale in her trailer. After she gets fired for offering moderate suggestions to a director onset, she gets a call from Ken (YES KEN'S HERE BABY) where he breaks up with her, so Barbie decides to fuck off to Paris and spend time with her Aunt Millicent. But it turns out Raquelle faked the whole thing and now Ken's gotta get to Paris as a grand romantic gesture to get her back. Meanwhile Barbie finds out her aunt's fashion... shop? Fashion house? Boutique? Nakedness Refusal Center is closing down because nobody likes her clothes no more and also the French bitch across the road has been committing Clothes Plaigarism. So it's up to Barbie, a subtly enchanting shy bookish French girl who has a secret passion for designing, and three random fairies (sorry, <i>Flairies</i>) to set up a big fashion show to save the building. Ken's whole Planes, Trains, and Automobiles subplot is pretty funny, though there's also a subplot with a dog designer who's in love with Barbie's dog and I wonder why this is the one set in "real life" if magic and human-level intelligence animals were gonna be in it. On the other hand, I think this is the first kiss I've seen in a Barbie movie.
<br /><br />
Rating: BARBI<s>E</s>/BARBIE
<br /><br />
<b>Film 19: Barbie: A Fairy Secret (2011)</b>
<br /><br />
NOW THIS IS WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT! A full supporting role for the queen of queens, my creepy obsession, RAQUELLE! She's in full form this time, being a huge bitch almost the whole time. Even when she's not talking, she's in the background rolling her eyes or making blah blah motions with her hand. Seeing as how Raquelle (my love, my muse) is in there it should be obvious this is a sequel of sorts to A Fashion Fairytale, and since Magic is Real they can just go buckwild. See, Fashion Fairies exist. Listen, don't ask me. What's important is the Fairy Princess sees Ken and wants him so fucking bad she kidnaps him and plans to marry him the next day. Barbie, Raquelle, and two new characters who have been Fashion Fairies the whole time (GASP) go to the fairyworld to save Ken. Ken's subplot is even funnier this time, where the fairy princess keeps forgetting his name, and her previous suitor challenges him to a duel, which he almost refuses til it's implied he's not Man enough. I love how when Ken is in these he's just shit on over and over. Also all the ladies fall for Ken. He's just a poor himbo without a clue. They actually nail down the source of Raquelle's envy, where since high school she assumed Barbie thought she was better than everyone else, and Raquelle has just been paying her back in kind. It makes sense, Barbie's more human in this than Life in the Dreamhouse, like she gets genuinely mad at Raquelle at one point. I'm a little disappointed though, since getting all that out in the open makes Barbie and Raquelle actual friends, instead of Raquelle being a bitter envious bitch forever. Whatever, man. I got what I wanted.
<br /><br />
Rating: <font size="4"><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Handwriting';"><span style="color: #8f409f;">Raquelle</span></span></font>/BARBIE
<br /><br />
<b>Film 20: Barbie: Princess Charm School (2011)</b>
<br /><br />
Holy shit how the hell did they do it. They made me like a movie called Princess Charm School. Either that or I'm losing my fucking mind. This one don't take place in "Real Life," instead in some fictional kingdom with a gamified royal system. At some point in the past the whole royal family died in a car crash, so they opened up some kind of school for noble kids and the best one gets to be princess. The real twist is that they have a lottery for commoners to get in, and who else should win but our friend Barbie. There's almost some class-consciousness here, beyond the "how am I gonna learn to be a princess" that's more common. At one point the prospective future princess (who is a mean girl) and her evil bitch of a mom say once they have the throne they'll demolish the slums for some upscale housing and a park. But, like, Barbie, her sister, and her sick mom live in those slums. It's like Princess and the Pauper, it ain't exactly The Jungle but any mention of economic class in a Barbie movie is something I didn't expect. But yeah we got redemption of the mean girl, we got the plot twist where it turns out Barbie is actually the not-dead princess like Anastasia, and I forgot to mention that each student of the charm school has an actual fairy as a servant. That's a bit weird. All of that don't actually matter because the highlight of this movie is Portia, a girl who looks and acts as if she's stoned out of her goddamn mind. It's true that a stupid character is easy mode for comedy, but it's not a guarantee. (See Ghostbusters (2016). She's great and should get her own movie.
<br /><br />
Rating: BARBIE/BARBIE
<br /><br />
<b>Film 21: Barbie: A Perfect Christmas (2011)</b>
<br /><br />
I want to preface this with the very real possibility that this project is actively altering my mind and you should all cut me some slack. Okay. This movie made me <b>think</b> and <i>feel</i> things. I know! I know! Hear me out! This is another "Real Life" sort of movie, but this time it features all of Barbie's sisters. We got Skipper for the first time, the oldest sister, Stacy the middle one, and Kelly has finally transformed into Chelsea. They're all going to New York City for Christmas to see their Aunt Millicent, but a bunch of winter storms happen so they're stuck in some Christmas hotel in Minnesota. It's interesting because each sister has a little emotional arc. Skipper wants to be out of Barbie's gargantuan shadow, Kelly wants to be left the fuck alone, and Chelsea is trying to navigate being her own person but ends up copying Kelly. Barbie herself has a notable one, which brought up some questions. So like where are these kids' parents? Are they dead? Barbie is their caretaker in this movie, and her turmoil is that she's letting down her sisters by not giving them the Christmas she promised. She's got a parent's anxiety, which is an oddity considering every single other movie before this. I thought the family dynamic would be the usual trite sort of thing, but the conflicts that show up make it feel lived in, like actual siblings would act towards one another. This is the second movie to show a character who makes poor decisions trying to exist outside of Barbie's enormous talent pool, and I don't know if I should expect a payoff to that or not. This is a musical, but the songs are just okay. I just didn't expect the Roberts family to be rendered in such an authentic way. It caught me off-guard.
<br /><br />
Rating: BARBI<s>E</s>/BARBIE
<br /><br />
I don't even know how to deal with this. 4 films in a row got a 5 or over. Is this the Golden Age of Barbie? If I start rating all of these that good, somebody call in a mental health check. This officially marks the halfway point of my Barbie Marathon! Will I make it to the end? Will there be a satisfying conclusion to the inter-movie story I entirely confabulated? Will my creepy obsession with Raquelle ostracize me from society? Find out next time!Walter Sojdahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00438496885700997187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3207692231850113781.post-5398414491759437182023-06-11T14:13:00.001-04:002023-06-11T14:13:17.875-04:00Life In Plastic: A Barbie Marathon Part 2I sit in my home. The sky has darkened, the sunlight shining orange through the hazy air. Wildfires in Canada have sent a dense, choking smoke wafting through the entire East Coast, and my home is not spared. I was supposed to have exercised, but I took an impromptu two hour nap after work. My mind is foggy. I find it increasingly difficult to focus or care.
<br /><br />
But it's Barbie Summer. And I have some movies to watch.
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7G1kHRR5xOUZB9jgG49TYvbarAZ9XoQMvB9Mt9YKbY8vRB4N82FH6arql4XVrXwgWMnqXmJb7MG_OyyHelsKNRQ0hlOpDWkXUPCEapDJ3GKELkVTxO7GwGLlceaEsh714XhVYjcJt5oCYNStIou0WcGa7NQHP8fUsvYpHL0IYUWkvXs4AdgBJnJdh/s16000/Barbie%20MarathonPART%202.png" title="However ruined this world has become, however mired in torment and despair, Barbie endures. Barbie Summer continues." /></div>
<br />
<b>Film 8: The Barbie Diaries (2006)</b>
<br /><br />
This week of Barbie movies did not begin well, AQI over 200 notwithstanding. You see, I had actual expectations for this movie. As you may be aware, this is the first appearance of the best Barbie character, <a href="https://www.wdefender.com/2015/11/sympathy-for-raquelle.html">Raquelle.</a> My queen, my muse. Of course what I didn't know was any other thing about this movie. It's a hard shift from the fantasy/fairytale genre that we've seen so far. Now it's that which chills me to my core. <i>Teen drama.</i> There are only certain conditions in which I can enjoy a teen drama, and that's if the main character is also a superhero or a teenage witch. Barbie ain't neither of those in this flick. Barbie is instead a high schooler who doesn't stand out, despite being in a band and a member of the school news station. Raquelle is still in the first draft of her character, she's your standard Libby without the deep pathos she would gain in later installments. It's really not important what happens, it's the standard teen drama paint by numbers where Barbie worries about being popular and dating the hot football boy but by the end she realizes her friends are more important and dates her annoying guy friend. This is replete with basic 00's style pop songs that grate on the ears if you aren't 13 in 2007. The animation leaves a lot to be desired, where none of the characters are all that expressive, and the whole film has the look of oversaturated cheap CGI. I didn't care for it.
<br /><br />
Rating: B<s>ARBIE</s>/BARBIE
<br /><br />
<b>Film 9: Barbie in the 12 Dancing Princesses (2006)</b>
<br /><br />
If I'm being honest any movie would have looked better after the Barbie Diaries, but we got the obligatory high-budget movie for the year this time! I can't believe they cranked out three of these things in 2006. I guess given the quality of the previous two, it's not really a stretch. We're back to background music by the Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, matte painted backgrounds, and expressive character rigging. The story's about 12 princesses, all sisters and the daughter of a widower king, whose wife must have died in childbirth because Jeeesus Christ that's a lotta babies to pop out. They're all unladylike and rambunctious, so the king calls his secretly evil cousin to teach them how to be ladies, but she just abuses them and tries to poison King Daddy. They find a secret magical garden which is never really explained, they beat the evil cousin, save their dad, and Barbie gets with a handsome cobbler. Speaking of the cobbler, I was like ten times more invested in this romance than the one in Diaries, and I'm not 100% sure why. Is it because I've seen the teen thing a million times before, or because I am more sucked in by a romance in a fantasy plot? I'm real glad this thing didn't come out in the 2010's, because all these sisters woulda gotten waifu'd and it would have gotten really weird. At any rate, Barbie wields a flail for a couple seconds in this movie, and that's all that matters.
<br /><br />
Rating: BARBI<s>E</s>/BARBIE
<br /><br />
<b>Film 10: Barbie Fairytopia: Magic of the Rainbow (2007)</b>
<br /><br />
STOP IT WITH THE FAIRYTOPIA ALREADY! I just hate this setting. Barbie's character is boring, the villain is overdone, and I wish Bibble was on fire. What's worse is they put another goddamn Bibble in there. Two Bibbles! You can't do that to me! There were a couple things I thought might catch my interest, but they didn't go anywhere. So Barbie is recruited to learn some rainbow ritual thing with a few other fairies or else Fairytopia is doomed or something. Evil Fairy comes back, a buncha shit happens but they win and make a big rainbow yadda yadda. One of the other fairies is a mean girl who hates Barbie, which, as I'm discovering, can be an easy highlight. But then she's replaced by Evil Fairy for like half the movie so it doesn't even matter. There's a boy fairy who seems to take a shine to ol' Barbie, but that's not really worked on either. There's nothing for me to grab onto! I mean yeah, it ends with Barbie getting the other fairies' energy like a Spirit Bomb and shooting it out as a rainbow which beam struggles against the Evil Fairy's evil beam and she's defeated like Gohan beats Cell. But worse.
<br /><br />
Rating: BA<s>RBIE</s>/BARBIE
<br /><br />
<b>Film 11: Barbie as the Island Princess (2007)</b>
<br /><br />
I made a grave error. I forgot there could be bad musicals. "Oh," I said mournfully, "Why can't they make another musical? It will be just like Princess and the Pauper again!" Then a finger on the monkey's paw curled. They must not have gotten the same songwriter because these songs are painfully mediocre. Barbie's got a song, the villain has a song, even some fucking rats have a song, and I don't like a single one. The plot is also really weird. Barbie was marooned on a deserted island as a little girl, so she was raised by a red panda and a peacock into some kind of Tarzan. Then a prince finds the island and she goes back to civilization for some fish out of water tropes. The prince is in love with her, obviously, but the king doesn't understand why his son wants to marry some insane wild woman that thinks she can talk to birds. Instead the king wants to set him up with some normal princess, and her mom is evil? Like, this was all part of Evil Mom's plan to take over the kingdom, due to some needlessly elaborate backstory and grudge against the king. Evil Mom is exposed and it turns out Barbie was a princess all along so none of it mattered. It looks better than something like Diaries, but when the songs in a musical are bad you're gonna have a bad time. The romance didn't do anything for me either.
<br /><br />
Rating: BAR<s>BIE</s>/BARBIE
<br /><br />
<b>Film 12: Barbie: Mariposa and Her Butterfly Fairy Friends (2008)</b>
<br /><br />
This week is full of surprises! The first thing I saw in this movie inspires more hatred in me than is probably healthy: Bibble. I want to trap him in an airtight soundproof bottle for all of eternity. I was ready to check out, but then Barbie started telling him a story and I realized this was just the framing device! We haven't had a framing device in ages! Beyond my imagining, it was genuinely good! Like, all the characters are still fairies, no getting around that, but the setting is way different, and Kelly Sheridan isn't even voicing the main character! Wait, does that mean she's not a Barbie? I guess she's just a Mariposa. I could honestly write a full-length review of this, it's got a lot going on! There's a weird unstated class system where some fairies have jobs serving other fairies, they all go to parties and balls every night like the Russian Aristocracy, and for some reason all the royals are Latina. They all live on an island and are preyed upon by big flying monsters that can't stand light, and the queen powers all the light emitting flowers. I like Mariposa, even. She's an introverted bookworm who stays outside of parties to read her books. I could pull Mariposa. When the queen gets poisoned Mariposa has to find the magical antidote with the two faires that employ her, everyone learns about themselves, there's some valley girl mermaids(!!!) and the antidote is found in some mystical cave that reflects your insecurities back at you. It's a way better story than the original Fairytopia, I was actually interested in what was going to happen. It's held down a bit by the intermittent interruptions so we can see how fucking Bibble responds to the story. I want to throw Bibble off a cliff. Apparently there's one more Mariposa movie, and I'm actually anticipating it!
<br /><br />
Rating: BARBI<s>E</s>/BARBIE
<br /><br />
<b>Film 13: Barbie & the Diamond Castle (2008)</b>
<br /><br />
Now I haven't done any research on these movies before watching them, so this may be an overdone point, but: Barbie's a lesbian in this movie, right? Her and Teresa (in her first movie role) live alone in a cottage outside of town where they sell flowers. It's the Sapphic Cottagecore dream. They find two rocks that look like hearts and wear them as matching necklaces! THEY'RE GAY! I KNOW IT! There's even two dudes who could be romantic contenders, but the girls just use them for transportation! There is a scene where Barbie and Teresa ride away from the two fuckbois on a shining rainbow. I guarantee there were little girls who learned essential facts about themselves from this movie. Anyway, it's not that good. It's another one that has a framing device with Barbie and Teresa telling Barbie's sister Stacy a story. This is the first appearance of Stacy, though she doesn't have a character in the story. There's songs in there, but this isn't really a musical. Barbie and Teresa just sing the same few bland pop songs over and over again because they're also musicians. Blah blah evil witch blah blah friendship and magic they save the day.
<br /><br />
Rating: BA<s>RBIE</s>/BARBIE
<br /><br />
<b>Film 14: Barbie in A Christmas Carol (2008)</b>
<br /><br />
I was apprehensive about this. It's been a while since we've had an adaptation and the ones we had before were pretty hit-or-miss. Along with that, this is the third film released in 2008, and we already had the good one. Imagine my surprise when this hit all the marks. It's not a straight adaptation of A Christmas Carol, it just has the basic structure with different characters. Barbie only appears in the framing device, telling this story to Kelly (who has yet to become Chelsea), It's a bit regrettable, I would have liked to see how Kelly Sheridan would voice a more malicious character. In any event the main character is an opera singer who also owns her own theater troupe, I guess. She's an angry bitch with a sad past and I am discovering those character traits are like catnip to me. Sometimes as you learn about Barbie you learn about yourself. So she hates Christmas and makes all her employees work on Christmas but then three ghosts show up and all that. There's not an emphasis on greed here as it is in the Dickens story, instead it centers on selfishness, how Scroogette was taught from a young age to put herself first and never more so than on Christmas. The Christmas Past and Christmas Present segments are well done, different enough from the original to fit the new characters, but recognizable as the same basic story. The Christmas Future segment let me down a little bit, it pulls its punches and ends up more comedic than tragic. I guess with the age demographic for this movie they were hesitant to blatantly state that Tiny Tammy died because of the actions of Scroogette. Even so, it was a pretty enjoyable movie, and as a Christmas Carol adaptation it far outpaces something like Scrooged.
<br /><br />
Rating: BARBIE/BARBIE
<br /><br />
Week Two is complete! Barbie movies still find a way to surprise me, like how the fourth Fairytopia movie was actually pretty good. The first appearance of Raquelle was a disappointment, but I know she appears in at least one more movie, so there's still a chance she develops into the character I'm familiar with. I know what I said about Princess and the Pauper, but at this point I think Barbie movies should steer clear of musicals. You really gotta be on your A-game to make one of them work, and that sort of effort is sporadic at best in Barbieland. Of course I'm not even halfway through yet, so who knows what awaits! Until next time!
Walter Sojdahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00438496885700997187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3207692231850113781.post-73834046082146944802023-06-04T17:30:00.007-04:002023-06-10T21:50:51.533-04:00Life In Plastic: A Barbie Marathon Part 1I've never believed in destiny. There are things that happen, but the reason they should happen at a specific time to a specific person has always, to me, been the arbitrary conditions of our universe. But sometimes, maybe, I can feel something close.
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3wEGtjRLx9j936z4KaskrqH5qI4thtdNd6cVuPs0J4xMwfXT7kXj8pHc2V7T2ixQvqMENOVo5LjpDfVLtGCq7sOAKAiNPqdseF6LnSa-4VAYyLkfQHWVFc7EQcK-B0O6L10zCr-vIdpbMBr3AcAHGzMwiNUAp0mfNOcEnSoaSfSngPnavDvfyJEpO/s16000/TwitterBarbie.png" title="I have never felt so directly addressed by something not even remotely directed at me" /></div><p>
<br />This tweet. It stirred something within me, something longing to spring forth, a hidden goal that one day, I knew, would be fulfilled. The time has come. It's Barbie Summer, bitches.
</p><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy7NOvVBTlax_VXjQ94HChiIdnQx7_MzzQuICg3ewB4jJCj659pRY4jTnVMArRV7BHZghk-Z4DWSMXtXGXOibcJtCVLWqanaydlKu1-0zGg-Anhx_FFzVs-dO1PqA8xavtL9LPZd6GPfmjSMQLznBVGDbaw1aBW3d-6_zAodafr4HVyBq07Tx-dKU4/s16000/Barbie%20MarathonPART%201.png" title="Every journey starts with a single Barbie movie." /></div>
<br />
There are currently 42 Barbie animated movies. Watching one each day, I will get through them all in 6 weeks. A lesser man would quail at such an idea. I am not that man. This is the first of six such parts, where I will detail my experience with each movie and provide a rating that will have very little to do with objectivity and the standards will vary wildly between entries. I hope you'll stick around. I hope <i>I'll</i> stick around.
<br /><br />
<b>Film 1: Barbie In the Nutcracker (2001)</b>
<br /><br />
Somehow, before even starting this project, I was a day late. That meant on my first day watching I would have to watch two Barbie movies, while through unfortunate coincidence, dealing with a hangover. That's probably a representative moment in this whole project. Anyway, the movie itself is a strong start to the whole Barbie movie thing. I've never actually watched a Nutcracker adaptation before, so if this were the most accurate retelling or a butchering of the story I wouldn't know. That said, the story is simple and clean. A short framing device in the beginning and end shows Barbie telling the story to her little sister Kelly (Who will later be renamed Chelsea) to motivate her to keep trying at ballet. There's an evil mouse king, there's a guy who got turned into a Nutcracker, there's a journey through a fantasy land where everything gets fixed, and then it's all a dream. (Or is it?) The London Symphony Orchestra performs the classic Nutcracker songs, which surprisingly even I recognized. There's a lot of actual ballet in the film as well, motion captured from professional ballet dancers. The real orchestra and ballet performances elevate what could have easily been a forgettable movie. Kelly Sheridan plays the Barbie role in this movie, which she will continue for almost every single film going forward. The Mouse King is played by Tim Curry(!!!) which assuredly influenced my overall opinion of the film. A very strong start to this franchise, I could see viewing this movie becoming a Christmas tradition for people.
<br /><br />
Rating: BARBIE/BARBIE
<br /><br />
<b>Film 2: Barbie as Rapunzel (2002)</b>
<br /><br />
Watching Nutcracker, I thought perhaps I had these movies all wrong, maybe they were just good movies and I was blinded by stereotypes and never gave them a chance. Barbie as Rapunzel disspelled that notion. I know enough about Rapunzel to know that this is pretty far from the source materal. SHE DON'T EVEN LET DOWN HER HAIR! Barbie's like, some sort of maid or something for an evil witch, but also Barbie has a talking rabbit and talking purple dragon as friends. Painting is, for some reason, the big theme of the movie, and Barbie gets a magic paintbrush that lets her escape from the tower. There's motion capture used here as well, but since they use it for action scenes instead of dancing scenes, it comes off as awkward and off-putting. Kinda like Food Fight. Actually, the animation looks like Food Fight too. Did the Barbie people make Food Fight? Perhaps it was the hangover or heightened expectations from Nutcracker, but all this movie did was make me annoyed.
<br /><br />
Rating: B<del>ARBIE</del>/BARBIE
<br /><br />
<b>Film 3: Barbie of Swan Lake (2003)</b>
<br /><br />
I was expecting a return to form here. The "form" being the standard set by Nutcracker. It's another Tchaikovsky ballet, they got a celebrity to do the villain, so my hopes were high. I wasn't entirely disappointed, it certainly turned out better than Rapunzel, but it lacked the snappiness of Nutcracker. Once again, I am completely unfamiliar with the source material. The weirdest part of this movie was the pacing, ostensibly the stakes are high where the evil wizard man is going to take over the Magical Grove(??) but long stretches of the film go by where it seems like nobody really cares about that. There's talking animals again in this one, but with a twist: They turn into children. Or like, elves, I guess. I'm starting to think talking animals are a real bad omen for these movies. One good thing is they got Kelsey Grammer to voice the bad guy. They got a dang ol' Frasier in there! He's an evil wizard or something, but what I noticed is his evil spoiled daughter with black hair. Perhaps the first appearance of the Raquelle architype? The motion capture dancing is back, which while pleasant to look at with orchestral music in the background, made it difficult to care about what was actually supposed to be going on in the movie.
<br /><br />
Rating: BAR<s>BIE</s>/BARBIE
<br /><br />
<b>Film 4: Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper (2004)</b>
<br /><br />
Now this is the good shit. The first Barbie musical! And the songs are good! AND THE STORY IS GOOD! Kelly Sheridan voices two Barbies this time, and she makes them distinct enough that you can tell who is who, even when they're disguised. This movie has some <i>bite</i> to it. I didn't think I'd see even the most facile complaints against the class system in a Barbie movie, but by gum they did it. That's not even to mention they got goddamn Martin Short for the villain. They did everything right! It had stakes, tension, good pacing, and I didn't even hate the talking animals! The difference here is that the animals could only talk to one another. And the best part: Two romance plots for the price of one! You got the Feelings Held Back Because of Social Differences and Romantic Feelings That Shine Through Even Though There is a Deception. They even had a fake blooper reel during the credits! There is yet hope!
<br /><br />
Rating: <font size="4"><span style="font-family: 'Lucida Handwriting';"><span style="color: #e0218a;">Barbie</span></span></font>/BARBIE
<br /><br />
<b>Film 5: Barbie Fairytopia (2005)</b>
<br /><br />
And we go right back into garbage. I haven't exactly been rating these based on their production value so far, but this one is noticably worse. They didn't bother with matte paintings for the sky or background, the character models seem more uncanny than usual (Not helped by the myriad of weird creatures in this) and there's no orchestra playing the background music. It sounds like a synthesized soundtrack, and not a great one at that. The plot is oddly dense with lore, like they made a whole cosmology for this movie when the rest were pretty simple Fairytale Fantasy. This seems like it has Lord of the Rings style aspirations, of which it falls very short. There's no talking animals in this one, just some weird fuzzy flying creature named Bibble that I will hate for the rest of my life. He makes gibbering noises that sometimes sound like words, and he never ever shuts up. There's a big butterfly man who looks horrifying, and some evil goblin minions who all look exactly the same. The plot is weird, there's some evil fairy kidnapping fairy lords to steal their power, but she never leaves the one room of her evil lair, and never directly does anything to our protagonist. Barbie starts the movie as a wingless fairy freak, at which point I knew she would get wings at the end. As a character in this she's really boring, just a nice person who's a little unsure of herself, but does the right thing in every instance anyway. Even though the point of the movie is ostensibly that your differences make you special, Barbie's reward is that she gets to be just like everyone else. After the good scriptwriting of the previous movie, the faults are all the more apparent. This was just a dud in every sense, which is concerning because it's the first of a four movie series within the Barbie canon.
<br /><br />
Rating: BA<s>RBIE</s>/BARBIE
<br /><br />
<b>Film 6: Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus (2005)</b>
<br /><br />
It's weird how inconsistent these are. Like there's not some point where they all dip in quality, they just go back and forth. Case in point: This movie is actually pretty good. They got an orchestra again, this time the Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, they got matte painted backgrounds, Barbie is a sassy teen(!!) and they got a nice romance plot in there again. The villain is way better, he's an absolute dickhead who fucks with Barbie's family for no reason except that he just hates women. There's a clear goal and stakes, Barbie's gotta get three parts of a thing to make a thing before some spell turns her parents to stone forever, and her sister-turned-Pegasus helps her travel all around to do that. Oh, remember how everyone said it was so clever when Frozen had "true love" be the love between the two sisters? Well this movie did it first! A component of the MacGuffin is a ring of true love, and it's with love for their parents that Barbie and her horse sister make it in this. Take <i>that</i> DISNEY! The cute animal polar bear in this had the gibbering sort of noises like Bibble, but much less annoying. The male lead swordfights a gryphon. When Barbie gets the magic MacGuffin one of the first things she does is try to fucking kill the villain with it. It don't work, but I appreciate the attempt. The second film to have a blooper reel at the end!
<br /><br />
Rating: BARBI<s>E</s>/BARBIE
<br /><br />
<b>Film 7: Barbie: Fairytopia: Mermaidia (2006)</b>
<br /><br />
I don't know why, but I had the hope that the next Fairytopia would be dramatically better than the first one. It's not. It's better in some aspects, but it almost all of the same issues as the first. The backgrounds are bad, everything that's not a standard humanoid is terrifyingly rendered, and Bibble continues to evoke my hatred. They couldn't even get an orchestra for this one! Are these just the cheap stopgaps between movies that have a budget? The plot is at least a bit better. The evil fairy from the first one is having her minions steal some other MacGuffin from the mermaid place, so they kidnap a merman and it's up to Barbie and some blue mermaid to save him and get the MacGuffin back. About the blue mermaid: She's a bitch with low self esteem and I love her. Barbie is, once again, perfect in a boring way, so having an asshole mermaid to bounce off of her is a refreshing change of pace. There's not really romance, except that Bitchy Mermaid is in love with Merman, and thinks he loves Barbie, but no he loved Blue Bitch the whole time so whatever. There was at least more drive to the plot this time, even if there were some absolutely bizarre moments, like when Bibble eats some sea berry and starts talking like Barry White. That was uncomfortable. I think there's like, two more Fairytopia movies? I'm not looking forward to those.
<br /><br />
Rating: BAR<s>BIE</s>/BARBIE
<br /><br />
Week One of six done! I'm honestly surprised how much I enjoyed some of these. I was expecting the trite nonsense of Fairytopia the whole way through, but Nutcracker, Princess and the Pauper, and Magic of the Pegasus were legitimately enjoyable. The ratio of good to bad isn't great though. If there's more musicals (and they aren't terrible) I may actually enjoy myself! Until next time!
Walter Sojdahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00438496885700997187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3207692231850113781.post-62113504406296544182023-04-04T18:08:00.001-04:002023-04-04T18:08:16.931-04:00Across the Barbie... Land... Verse (Trailer Talk)Like a phoenix, but a really pathetic one who looks like shit—okay wait no—like a lone cicada, I rise from my slumber to make a bunch of annoying noises because we're living in a weird time where trailers for Spider-Man and Barbie movies drop on the same day and at this point only the combination of those two things can make me feel more alive than dead. Listen, I didn't expect that this is how I would end up either.
<br><br>
ANYWAY
<br><br>
<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/shW9i6k8cB0" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<br><br>
Now <i>this</i> is the good shit. For starters:
<br><br>
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRKfq2fFWmF2JRd5Yhu-2qeGR9WYkrL5aC7ib4xORKjJ4jxo61kjpdRd6dSKqEu6jYmVq8yBlNznn3blQ_9_rYfzTjsGkLv8rrEGEpISdEUMVu-12kWV47riDMtKiYLNLUnzWElPp6GBxAvqQ2dbzrFmH0Cmvl2FgYFSDAI_ErOGzM0mqN2OT62fuD/s16000/BarbieVerse1.png" title="Finally, some good fucking food."></div>
<br>
IT'S THE FUCKIN' SPOT HELL YEAH THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKIN ABOUT
<br><br>
Okay, yeah, sorry. I just, I love the Spot. He is all that is pure and good in this godforsaken world.
<br><br>
So what's new in this? We got Miles Spider-Manning it up in the neighborhood, which is great, A+, just what I need. The convention center of Spider-Mans is apparently set up by Miguel O'Hara, probably after the first film where the multiverse almost broke. As I've said before, I'm not a huge fan of a giant Spider-Team when they could all be in their own universes doing Spider-Stuff, but whatever. We got some Peter B. and animated footage of Mayday, his Spider-Baby who, in a truly irresponsible move, has webshooters.
<br><br>
Now, I could go over all the little details, like Miguel calling MCU Spider-Man a little nerd (HAHAHAHA) or Ben Reilly (my only other source of hope and joy) but instead let's take a look at the plot details we're finally getting.
<br><br>
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizxBhHpKHeQgXI8XFwDiL1RZGBGNXx8jr-dzKLsgPN2le9_0YoHJIQKIyAq2Gqz91IF1C9waN4GGQBnJghjE5EVMRXIXUtEp4WxC4asz3vsVhgfhhW0KL0OSFr2btH-Dhx351X7HdzaEJt1FIlTioMdHWT_PCGyduesi42JYAc76IRS_I3yTLzpVK4/s16000/BarbieVerse2.png" title="I wish I had 90's shading."></div>
<br>
Looks like Miles is going to be rejected from the Spider-Society, possibly because he's too young and/or attached to his home reality. The main conflict will probably be something to do with the Spot fucking up the multiverse, but in order to stop that Miles has to let someone (probably his dad) die. And this will make the Spider-Society fight him. I'm pumped! This is exactly the shit I want out of Spider-Man! If I have this right, Miles (and maybe Gwen) will be the only one willing to contradict the dogmatic ideals of a bunch of old Spider-Men, choosing to find his own solution and save everyone.
<br><br>
Sure, the ones set in their ways are also Spider-Mans, but in this case it just means Miles is the most Spider-Man of all. I'm more excited for this movie than I was last trailer, which is good because there ain't a lot else out there. EXCEPT FOR THIS
<br><br>
<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GRyt3Ov4zz0" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<br>
I, uh. What? Huh?
<br><br>
What's happening?
<br><br>
I have no idea what's going on here. That's good! Instead of some sort of Malibu, we start in Barbie Land (Shoulda been Barbie World) where everyone is either Barbie or Ken. Huh. But why? I guess every iteration of the Barbie doll is another person? I guess I prefer it when Barbie is an unstoppable polymath, but this concept has legs.
<br><br>
Judging from the way everything is, Barbie Land is a child's view of reality, given that Barbie and Ken haven't had a sex ed class yet. Is this a real place, or is this Lego Movie rules?
<br><br>
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6VgtkhhA0YSAh5hLihI0LMWbywXZSJafQ5ShyaRPMLoYq_Xtl7CMalAZDmBK1ofisx8_vHsx-MjklmYx8CbOmlrDjaKHzgx7oz78WGVYg4qkcZ2up1hnWGx87goI1UHhEaodJSvFM1H3k6BqvD29lD81oek6aSzejvoqkimybx3IRCHFwux_ywQwh/s16000/BarbieVerse3.png" title="COINCIDENCE? I THINK NOT."></div>
<br>
Oh god it might be Lego Movie rules.
<br><br>
Okay, fine, I don't have any insights here! This film is a black box! Where's Raquelle?? Is this a musical?? GIMME SOMETHING HERE!
<br><br>
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNQGbOVmRdYw8k6dlkaOcfuL19gMLlZbEfPoWyQegEISQ9hU4COXGSfwFOlPVlw6nJmSHl-WoRLWC10hDKE2zKi4f4WXWeDas1v4kVBEvDLj1cD9Ky1N0O-4mQKgmwXOspEOb55Wy2tkVVJE23Oem5XiSO5ndvQhBdO_oxjOWgF5dP-WyPciYecuy-/s16000/BarbieVerse4.png" title="George Michael?"></div>
<br>
Oh shit is that Michael Cera?Walter Sojdahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00438496885700997187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3207692231850113781.post-34275655866124792272022-12-18T14:02:00.002-05:002022-12-20T16:34:34.125-05:00These Trailers Are For Me (Spider-Verse and Barbie)Wow! Trailers and teasers galore! Okay, well, two of them. But two trailers highly relevant to me in particular have released in the same week, and I know my take is highly sought after, so here we go!
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cqGjhVJWtEg" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div>
<br />
Second trailer for Across the Spider-Verse Part 1! (Geez that's a mouthful.) There's a bit to unpack there. What we knew from the first trailer was the involvement of Miguel O'Hara, Spider-Man 2099, as well as the return of Gwen Stacy, Spider-Woman. Miles still has the new suit, which is growing on me, and we got some new stuff character-wise from this trailer.
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdeXAa6Plrp9BelGXKKfYVi8HMuEklST-_mLNmAcwj6vQcsrbwSh7srBZwYS5pG-ILTzhT5-Om3DJwE7i3RC-P6xlU1PZudDceNkQfzcA6Jd85HR4vHOriaKxTAs3C6p5muluNsVoWBExb4rNQ1KNFl3qEjOQDgC4hbYpT-grCXNZOblw_KlyI_6jL/s16000/BarbieSpider1.PNG" title="She's preggers mcgreggers" /></div>
<br />
Another Spider-Woman is in the picture, this one being a variant of Jessica Drew, the mainline Spider-Woman right now. There's a lot of hubbub about the character design, and that she's noticeably pregnant, but that's a can o' worms I do not wanna get into.
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim5sKyplMif17TVPjhiqBp-L3enMdALL-xzt8UAJXVCV1_rWGSe93m9QBOVNwW95plgi8b4LBiyQ2N7X2v_HoLNtbnXmiXT0nvRPQv22aRrZ5AR3oIzHJ6A4CIssXtmnq-45dN5pBIBhfNilGVvr1_z3XB3x9J0Yz89ab7O1NIQeBqPQrKwgzBF2p6/s16000/BarbieSpider2.PNG" title="Please disregard the obviously removed baby footage" /></div>
<br />
Peter B. is back! And with a little baby carrier. Shortly after the trailer came out, the film team released concept art of his kid, who is a little baby Mayday. I was sort of hoping we'd get more of a timeskip for him, maybe with a teen Mayday. I just want Spider-Girl, guys. But baby Mayday is better than nothing.
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbhNXHmCyatBYJhhpai33ql5TQ6cyusdlMqAU0jm-CpAaPoHlNTiyrT46GLMp6xxw_C0YI5aCW3OeAmVA2ifB0MzPY6a5BqEImU2HhdgTBMrSRJ7FHXyWs66bqKkX9VYUYDw8NSc6KpZ03qjqxY2_KdoRWRyPNKdZF_aJ5HFcJmGY5OH3ErnPGNig5/s16000/BarbieSpider3.png" title="I can confirm. That is indeed a baby." /></div>
<br />
Plotwise, this doesn't give us much, but we can glean something. Looks like Gwen and Miles find themselves in some sort of multiversal Spider-Folk convention center, which is disturbingly close to the comic Spider-Verse. (Which I hate.) I really hope they're not going all-in on that, because Morlun is stupid and I don't like that plot.
<br /><br />
It's probably more complex than that, given that it seems Miguel and Jessica Drew will have a more antagonistic role. Perhaps what Miles and Gwen want to do to fix whatever's happening clashes with what the larger group of palette-swapped Spider-WhoGivesAShits so there's some conflict about that. From what we know now, I like the idea. Spider-Man is about defying the orders of authority, so Miles contradicting what he thinks is an immoral course of action is exactly what I like in my Spider-Men.
<br /><br />
Truth be told, I was a lot less hype about this trailer than I expected to be. I have three theories for that.
<br /><br />
1. This trailer just isn't exciting<br />
2. I over-hyped myself earlier and am working on a hype deficit.<br />
3. I am the hollow shell of a human being and at the pit of my heart lies an incinerator that burns up everything pure and joyful, emitting only a dark, acrid smoke that fills every wrinkle in my brain.
<br /><br />
All of these are possible.
<br /><br />
I just don't like how there's now a giant mass of anonymous Spider-Folk running around in the background of this trailer. The first movie had 5 (6 if you count the dead one) Spiders, which allowed time for each to be a unique take, with distinct personalities, artstyles, and quirks. Hell, it gave Spider-Ham a dramatic moment.
<br /><br />
With the new one, however, you got a ton of Spiders back there. And I can bet that some character designer spent months on all these background characters, but in the end that don't matter because they're like background noise. It's like the Conservation of Ninjutsu principle, one ninja is an unstoppable badass, but a giant mass of ninjas is an easily defeated goon squad. It's the problem you always run into when you introduce an infinite multiverse. Individuals cease to matter when there's a million slightly-different copies of that same person running around. The variety in Spider-People was what made Into the Spider-Verse so good, but I feel like when you make a faceless mass of Spider-Men, you lose something.
<br /><br />
It's always possible I'm overreacting (re: the black incinerator in my heart) but I've been hurt before. We'll see.
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8zIf0XvoL9Y" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div>
<br />
Now I haven't actually brought up the Barbie movie here yet, that's been confined mostly to twitter as paparazzi shots of shooting days were put out there. Now there is no way I'm not watching the Barbie movie. At some point my brain broke in a very specific way, and now Barbie movies are my coping mechanism.
<br /><br />
The Main Question running through my mind has been: WHAT IS THIS MOVIE ABOUT??
<br /><br />
There are so many ways to take a Barbie movie, a lot of them probably bad. I <i>need</i> to know. This movie's being directed by Greta Gerwig, who previously wrote and directed Lady Bird, which won a bunch of awards I'm too lazy to look up. You don't get that kind of talent on a toy movie. Except, I guess, now.
<br /><br />
Unfortunately this teaser doesn't give us much to work with to determine the movie's plot. Yeah there's a cool 2001: A Space Odyssey reference, but for all I know that was made specifically for the teaser and will have nothing to do with the final film.
<br /><br />
I would like this movie best if Barbie is portrayed like in Life in the Dreamhouse. Where all the Barbie dolls are canon, she lives a gifted life in a doll Malibu, and she's not meant to be like a real life human person. Given the acknowledgement that she is a doll and the hyperstylized shots we see of what is assumedly Malibu, this film might be on that track.
<br /><br />
What I really wouldn't like, but is very likely, is if this follows the standard plot structure of your basic Hollywood film. Barbie shouldn't have a character arc. What does she have to learn? There's a very real risk that this film will have the theme of "Barbie is unrealistic" which would be a damn shame considering just how much there is to work with regarding this property.
<br /><br />
Given that this is just a teaser, there's a lot that's still open. Really we'll just have to wait for a proper trailer before predictions can really begin, but god damn if I'm not seeing this on opening day.Walter Sojdahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00438496885700997187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3207692231850113781.post-17072430048539809292022-10-09T15:32:00.000-04:002022-10-09T15:32:25.766-04:00Books from the Bin: MindscanIf you've read <a href="https://www.wdefender.com/2019/08/lets-watch-barbie-star-light-adventure.html">anything</a> I've <a href="https://www.wdefender.com/2021/09/madea-goes-to-jail-and-transience-of.html">written</a>, you probably know that I like to think about the confines of identity, how it changes, what constitutes it, and all that. So maybe you can understand my mindset when I saw a certain book in the fabled bin, and why I had to read the whole goddamn thing. So here we are.
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><font size="4">Books From the Bin: <i>Mindscan</i> by Robert J. Sawyer</font>
<br /><br />
<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA79Sp7nsRLIL5-6i92wzABlM9IetYH0sKLD72uC689so5VGzhr9l6dvYKN0GyuPXyjHFyYaHgc1ZPR2K1xPmrngd8qa4b1x_l93do3uKHrYx6a_qg91ZAr7MNpJ7yvdK66_WNG2uL50DHFWA1NPZjymhiVqwaRTqHZ-smO6orskWeUszYlWHTW9Td/s16000/Mindscan.png" title="Mindscan of the Mindman with the Mindplan" /></div>
<br />
Now that we're looking at the same cover, I hope you can see what I saw. To my mind this was probably a Dickian or Asimovian sci-fi book, with the questions of what constitutes artificial life, what makes a person a person, and what happens when there are two of you?
<br /><br />
I don't think I would be writing this if it was that. Lemme lay out the plot for you. In the far off future year of 2045, the corporation Immortex has created a way to copy the mind of a human being into a robot duplicate. It's still very early work, so only the wealthiest can afford the procedure. One of those wealthy is our main character, Jake, who has a terminal brain problem and pays a fuckton of money to get a robot duplicate, while his original is shipped off to the moon to die. Turns out the original guy's brain condition has a cure, which he promptly gets on the moon, but they refuse to bring him back to Earth, as the robot is legally him now. Now, what you would expect is an exploration of the psychological impact of being replaced by a robot version of you, that, at least from the moment of transfer, was you.
<br /><br />
You would think that, but instead most of the book is about how great it is to be a robot, then a court case which somehow ties the legality of a robot duplicate to abortion(???) and the original Jake actually gets psychosis from the brain surgery so we don't actually have to grappel with that viewpoint and yes of course the robot is the original shut up.
<br /><br />
In Asimov, the ideas are told straightforwardly, but the concepts are big enough that it's interesting to see them through. A good portion of his original robot stories are just two scientists arguing, which gives you the context and information you need to know to start guessing what's going on yourself, until the ending where it's revealed. With Philip K. Dick, the ideas are big and convoluted and scary. Frequently he'll confuse your sense of what is actually real, a lot of his stories star or feature a character with schizophrenia or hallucinations. It's anyone's guess where any of these stories are going to lead, but they almost always provide good questions about the nature of reality.
<br /><br />
Sawyer, on the other hand, has simple execution and boring ideas. The concept of this book is that robot bodies are the future, are better than organic bodies, and should be recognized as the original whenever possible. One might think there would be a treacherous philosophical path to lead here, but what appears instead is a broad scientific idea of what creates consciousness (not what constitutes consciousness) and an even broader legalistic look at personhood.
<br /><br />
The court case that makes up the crux of this novel consists of Jake's new robot girlfriend, an old, famous, witty, filthy rich author of young adult novels who gets a robot body so she can live forever and never lose copyright on her books, versus her son who posits that his mother died on the moon and the robot cannot legally be his mommy. The robot lady is both an author mouthpiece and an erstatz J. K. Rowling. She's a beloved author worth billions who is never wrong. I call her J. K. Robot.
<br /><br />
It is this court case that's meant to contain the real meat of this novel. It's not inheretly a bad idea. There are plenty of pieces of fiction that use a court structure to discuss speculative concepts of this nature, and it's not all that different than Azimov's scientist arguments. The trouble with <i>Mindscan</i> is that it tries too hard to make the court behave like an actual courtroom. It's about laws and precedent, and since it takes place in a speculative future of the USA, these aren't even laws we're familiar with. It never really tackles the fundamental issues at play in a way that makes you think.
<br /><br />
There's an episode of <i>Star Trek: The Next Generation</i> called "Measure of a Man." It centers on a court case deciding whether an android character, Data, has the rights of a sentient being. The sides argue back and forth about what makes up a person, eventually coming to the question of what comprises sentience, and how to determine if something embodies it. It's deep, it's allegorical, it leads to the realm of philosophy and can change your perspective.
<br /><br />
In <i>Mindscan</i>, however, it comes down to two sides. The Robot side calls a neuroscientist/robot brain man, who goes into technical detail to explain where consciousness resides on the brain. The opposing side calls a philosopher, who turns out to be a Christian, who essentially asserts that robots don't have souls. There's nothing to sink your teeth into here. Sure, I may now be aware that the prevailing consensus of neuroscientists in the year 2006 was that consciousness was created in the nanotubules of the brain. But where does that get me? There's no food for thought here, you're just meant to accept that the robots are people, and those who disagree are unscientific.
<br /><br />
What about the human guy who wants his life back? Surely that must have some meat we can sink our teeth into! But no, that, too, ends up with a shallow conclusion. Beyond having much less page-space dedicated to it, the moral conundrums are sidestepped by two very important points. 1. The guy signed a contract, dude. And 2. He got psychosis from the brain surgery so he's too unstable and violent to bring up a cogent argument, and it's fine when he's killed by J.K. Robot. Reading the sections with him makes you feel like maybe you have psychosis, because obviously anyone would want their life back, especially if Robot You has alienated your friends and family by being a robot, but nobody else in the Moon Hotel cares! They're all "Well you signed a contract sir" as if that's the most sacred law devised by man. It's written as if it's unreasonable to want to have your life back after you give it to your robot copy! And it's extra sad for me, because this book missed a perfect opportunity for Clone Angst. I love Clone Angst! And I can't find it anywhere but Spider-Man!
<br /><br />
Think about it! It's a perfect analogue to Ben Reilly! What do you do when you lose your entire life to a copy of yourself? If everyone around them sees them as the real you, what do you have left? Think of the tragedy, the isolation, the unmooring of your very identity and the rebuilding that must be done in order to continue. But nope! He signed his personhood away and got psychosis and died anyway so we don't have to think about something actually interesting.
<br /><br />
And it's certainly not limited to these two examples, the book is filled with little opportunities to explore this topic, but shuns them aside or ignores them entirely, making the act of proposing them nothing but frustrating. To wit: Robot Jake and J.K. Robot are watching the news as Canada makes multiple marriages legal. Jake, being a younger guy, is glad for the social progress, but J.K. Robot, being old as shit, is apprehensive. But she sees the disparity in their opinions on this, and brings up the difficulties immortal robot bodies bring to social change, when inevitably you'll have the same rich powerful people and their outdated ways of thinking forever. So what happens? Is this discussed again? Of course not! At the end they go to Mars where it's a bohemian paradise and I guess J.K. Robot just changed her mind about this sort of thing.
<br /><br />
Oh, what about the idea that once you've made a digital copy of a brain, you could replicate it infinitely? There's some ethical quandaries there, right? Worry not, that very thing happens to our main character! Through some quantum bullshit he can psychically communicate with his other robot duplicates, and at the end an Immortex scientist reveals they've been performing experiments on his brain using these duplicates. Oh shit! There could be a whole book just about that! Well Jake is just sort of upset but takes no definitive action on it. He has some stern words for the scientist who does not give a single shit.
<br /><br />
Something else keeps popping up and I cannot for the life of me figure out why. Characters keep bringing up old pop culture, and it's completely mystifying. It's comparable to Ready Player One, but at least that wove it into the plot! They mention Cats, Harry Potter, Finding Nemo, Lord of the Rings, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, Steven King, Magnum P.I., Superman, The Six Million Dollar Man, and probably even more. I don't think I've ever read a sci-fi book that mentioned real world media so often and so jarringly. It's ironic, I think, to directly mention so many other properties, when author mouthpiece J.K. Robot has a little spiel against the very notion of public domain. Maybe it's just the way I am, but once she suggested that copyright should be held by estates forevermore and it should be illegal to use characters from those media unless you own that copyright, I was sure she was going to be the villain. How naive I was.
<br /><br />
Over and over again this book only disappoints. Halfway through the book, my mind was awash with possibilities! None of them bore fruit. I had it wrong, this book wasn't supposed to be a meditation on the self in a world where one's brain is replicable. It's not meant to go through the ethical or philosophical implications of this process. I shocked myself that in all actuality, <i><a href="https://www.wdefender.com/2020/04/books-from-bin-warpath.html">Warpath</a></i> had a more thorough and cohesive concept of the whole brain copy conceit. This book is just there to provide the same thing transhumanists have been saying since their inception: Being a robot is fucking awesome and anyone who doesn't think so should go to jail or die.
<br /><br />
And I didn't like it.Walter Sojdahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00438496885700997187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3207692231850113781.post-15158570713063919452022-09-24T12:44:00.002-04:002022-09-24T12:44:53.477-04:00Barbie Girl in a Pointless WorldDoes life have a meaning? A sophomoric question to some, but the only important question to others. In those for whom the answer is simple, there is some sort of faith, an assurance deep inside of them that there is a reason for each travail and setback. They intrinsically have the will to persist, and no discussion need be brokered.
<br /><br />
The other half of that equation is where things become more complicated. When life's meaning is an open question, it demands an answer. One must either find an external reason for being, or accept that there is none, and persist regardless. Philosophers have debated this point for centuries, among their ranks being Friedrick Nietzsche, Albert Camus, Viktor Frankl, and... Barbie?
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1Nu-XB_rPgCXEhJK5Gp9B-m2gYuQ3xS-h5mjhFP-WpmDHdvCOD5gg6LC5tUEl3htCykMmnJaEz18E08Xso6qs9EPEzDARN2TFr11Kp2875UnmIpyI7zHHTcIbPoXTP1LKzq1YyVk-9sOD_D4DF4qGPXDXwcUBfgCXnaF3SXxap4weLRF-afoUQGAj/s16000/BarbieNihilism1.png" title="An endless fractal of facets." /></div>
<br />
Yes, her.
<br /><br />
In the dark of night, in the throes of a deep depression, I thought, as I often do, about Barbie. What drives this woman? She takes on so many guises, can accomplish any task, but why? What is her purpose? The query stuck in my mind, overwhelming more important things like signing up for health insurance or buying food. I have tried to know. I must know.
<br /><br />
In an <a href="https://www.wdefender.com/2015/11/sympathy-for-raquelle.html">earlier article</a>, I claimed that Barbie perfectly embodied the Ubermensch. I feel as if this holds enough explanation within itself to preclude any further discussion. No, we will find our explanation with French philosopher, Albert Camus. In his text, The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus describes the condition of life that makes it unbearable. It is the random, meaningless nature of the events that surround us. You live for no reason, you will die for no reason. You have a unique consciousness to experience the world but it has no purpose for anything else, and will fizzle out one day with as little import as it began. It is the Absurd. He envisioned our lives comparable to that of Sisyphus, a figure of Greek legend, who, punished by the gods, was tasked with pushing a gigantic boulder to the crest of a hill. But no sooner did he accomplish this than the boulder rolled back to the foot of the mountain, where his quest began anew. The trials and tribulations we face are no more meaningful than putting a rock on top of a hill where it will not stay.
<br /><br />
But what if you could choose to find joy in that act? Camus proposed three methods with which one could cope with the Absurd. The first is the Don Juan. Experience as much love and romance as one could, at every moment. The newness of love would refresh itself each time, holding the utter pointlessness of it at bay. The second is that of the actor. With each new identity adopted, one struggles against the banal face of reality, each one a new boulder for Sisyphus to carry. The third is of the conqueror, one who acts without hesitation, succeeding in every horizon that is encountered. Simply placing a mark on history is enough to justify continued existence.
<br /><br />
So now we must ask, what does this have to do with Barbie? Well, she fulfills two of the three methods Camus proposed for dealing with a meaningless existence. She has forgone the Don Juan route, which we will address later, but the remaining two fit her to a T. First, the actor. In the majority of Barbie movies, it is not specifically Barbie that we follow. Rather, she is cast in the role of another character altogether. Barbie in Princess Power is not about Barbie. It is about Kara, a princess of Windemere who is <i>played</i> by Barbie. The same is true of Barbie Star Light Adventure, where though the character is named Barbie, it has nothing to do with Barbie herself, she is merely another role that Barbie plays. In that way, Barbie transcends the limits of reality to inhabit the personas of many different iterations of herself. She does not live in a world where she is a super spy, but by acting in these films, she can broaden her horizons, if only in fiction.
<br /><br />
The most relevant to Barbie herself is, surprisingly, the conqueror. Though not a conqueror of territory or resources, what else could you call the unending succession of professions Barbie has mastered over her lifetime? It's not as if she has a personal connection to each of these jobs, as she quickly moves onto another after mastering it. People spend half of their lives training to be a doctor, with the expectation that the other half will be spent living in that role. Barbie gave it up to be a racecar driver or something. What the job is does not matter, what matters is that there is always more, always another summit to climb. She can continue to stay occupied, never really having to face the Absurd.
<br /><br />
Next you may wonder, could it be that Barbie does in fact create meaning in her life? In a meaningless world, how could one do so? For that we must look to Viktor Frankl, a holocaust survivor and creator of logotherapy, the idea that to survive difficult times, one must latch onto their own purpose. He formed these ideas while being held in a concentration camp, and tried to figure out why some people survived the abhorrent conditions and others did not. He realized his findings were relevant to people across the world, whether dealing with inhumane conditions, or the suffering inherent to life. Suffering, he found, acts like a gas, where no matter its mass, it expands to fill the human heart.
<br /><br />
In Frankl's book, Man's Search For Meaning, he outlines three different ways one can create a sense of meaning in one's life: The first is to create a great work, as in Frankl's case was a book on the very subject I am writing about, which motivated him onward when conditions pushed him to the brink. The second is a great relationship or experience, to truly love another person and create a unique bond that surpasses all tribulations. The third is to simply bear great suffering nobly, to be in the midst of agony but hold oneself steadfast, and act with grace in the worst of situations. We can dismiss the third condition outright, with regard to Barbie. Suffering seems all but banished from her life. She's a Barbie girl, in a Barbie World. Her every physical need is met, and she has the time, energy, and motivation to pursue whatever career suits her fancy. So this can be disposed with.
<br /><br />
What of the first method? One may assume that Barbie's various occupational forays would fit this condition, but I disagree. Each is surmounted and discarded, one after the other. The content of each job is irrelevant, otherwise why not focus her efforts to only a couple? And the quantity itself is not a goal, as it's difficult to find an accurate figure for her careers, and in no piece of media is she really all that motivated to collect more before her time is up. The jobs she has taken are so numerous so as to be functionally meaningless, like trying to bring value to a single footstep on an aimless walk.
<br /><br />
The second option seems closest to correct. The mention of relationship brings to mind Barbie's constant paramour, Ken Carson. Through most media, Ken is there at Barbie's side, usually seen as quite a catch himself. One may even believe this relationship is important enough to create meaning for Barbie. But let us not fall prey to romantic delusions. Barbie is a polymath, constantly on the move, ever pushing forward, ever changing. What is Ken? At best, he is The Boyfriend. An accessory. What could a mere mortal hope to provide to one such as Barbie? His assistance is taken in jest, the way one might praise the art of a child. There is nothing he can do that Barbie could not surpass. Barbie broke up with Ken and the two were not together for seven years, but that changed nothing for Barbie. She loves him in the manner of a pet, a less intelligent lifeform that can provide intermittent amusement, but nothing truly substantial. Barbie stands alone.
<br /><br />
So we see, Barbie does not have the kind of life to create meaning for herself. In each of the ways Frankl described, she acts contrary. She holds no faith, expounds no philosophy, but we can tell by her actions what she believes. There is no meaning for Barbie. What she enacts is the endless treadmill against boredom, against the desolate truths that underpin her existence. She has no reason to persist, none more than your office lamp or toaster, but unlike those objects, she has a choice. Yet persist she does. Despite the desperate banality at the core of her life, Barbie surpasses all of us.
<br /><br />
Just a minute, I'm being told now that Barbie isn't real. Shit.
<br /><br />
Fuck.Walter Sojdahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00438496885700997187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3207692231850113781.post-91643864220517751022022-09-18T11:03:00.000-04:002022-09-18T11:03:26.103-04:00Hard Up For Mountain Dew<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw8FnsFRWqQYHmVkhhJ-fomAvJIu5bOy3F8emOpgl46cRGvvX9UBJQwnylpF2mUVixGKSvqznTnep63twFiQrGEm8PrRjSjPQmjwIpzK-wDScAhR0j4s6W-QNbp38cuIcu0EZWSn7iL2hvmMouocr7QLxSaRkvlSYgrVtVuIvqvtsIgCDlIadPw4Xb/s16000/HardDew1.png" title="I sure ain't ready." /></div>
<br />
It was one of those weeks.
<br /><br />
You could see it all over my mug. Hardly a jitney to my name, crabbed my chances with the last skirt I knew, and I was jonesing for a spot of hooch real serious. Yessir, I was out the fundamental D's, no dime, no doll, and no draught. All I had to take my mind off things was the ol' Twitter rag. They'd found some new patsy to dogpile, but that ain't none of my business.
<br /><br />
That's when I got a telegram from an ol' pal of mine. Said he got a hookup for some new giggle juice from out of state. I asked him, what kind? I ain't no hop head, but nobody's calling me a bluenose neither. He told me it's no jake, some brewer made up something like Mountain Dew, that old fizzy we used to drink. Seeing as how I was dryer than the last broad I was stuck on, I was in no position to say no. He said he'll give me a ring when he's got the shipment.
<br /><br />
With a new spring in my step I legged it down the main drag. Finally, something going my way. I passed by the drugstore, which gave me a hint of nostalgia. I could while away a little time in there, til my guy got the goods. I walked in and ordered a Dew from the soda jerk.
<br /><br />
After my bit of refreshment, the soda jerk came up to me and said, "You look like a cat who likes novelty."
<br /><br />
I looked him up and down. "So what if I am?"
<br /><br />
"Well," he smirked, "We got a new one of them Dews in. Brand new."
<br /><br />
"Oh yeah? What's it called."
<br /><br />
He gestured to some bottles behind the counter. "It's called Mountain Dew Zero."
<br /><br />
I threw my hands up. "Well if you ain't got any why you offering it to me?"
<br /><br />
"That ain't it, it's got no sugar, see?"
<br /><br />
"No sugar?! Sugar's good for you! Next you'll be telling me they're taking the tobacco outta my cigars!"
<br /><br />
I put up a stink but the kid had me pegged. I'll try anything once. He gave me a bottle and I was on my way.
<br /><br />
Later my pal let me know the stuff came in and arranged the transfer. Had to be real hush-hush, couldn't let any coppers catch on. So on a certain street we were gonna hand it off real subtle-like. On the stem I saw him, looked like he got a cat on his back. Rushing through like he had somewhere to be in a hurry. But when he got close he shot me a little wink, and quick as a cannon we made the handoff. I hammed it back to my place before any dicks could catch wind, and settled myself down to get zozzled.
<br /><br />
Once I got settled a took a look at my stash. Pretty sad to look at, but when you're a flat tire like myself you take what you can get.
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj04I1ICFRjIuM9Lzl95qFRV7sww27ssNtPnyOEWGYhJI8b1kK2yKvAUKggu6o-pY7FDfgr_xd2aqEzzEOCKVELwqc7xBrfmrv2GY61tYeidlvcrnoTs7F6JfYhKo-ToMfXv0tEfPjB3qF8w7kGMrwrkrqLTvCEE9UxzNuNhK7WRND0lA44dDQRgQZx/s16000/HardDew2.png" title="If this ain't a sad sight I don't know what is" /></div>
<br />
I figured I may as well get a move on. Let's see what this brewer made up. I poured it into one of my ritziest glasses.
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj81IDKmrBwHlTnCGHWxOm64jcKxg40UI3MjDbkPXzOua0AsWp-Do8-mKtjQcp0_esKt-YnhOgOuPVeE6VAs-wKTxiaJ_tZzYRtAaxejVElfOxWJihA0K97I66iqiGbjAht1JO1wjRnk6yVOaxO25_lmrccMVz99ogotrGsyx-lJlDj2DekEBikiuW/s16000/HardDew3.png" title="Hooch or hooey?" /></div>
<br />
Now I don't care where you are, that's a dingy color for a beer. Last time I'd seen anything like that was that French giggle juice, it was called abcess or something. I gotta tell you, one sip of that and I gained a lot of respect for those Frenchies, if they're guzzling that down on the regular. So I had flits of the green fairy in my noggin when I took a swig.
<br /><br />
Now, I've had some rotgut in my time, even a spot of bathtub gin or two. But one slug of this and I got the heebie-jeebies and started checking my vision. I don't know if I've ever tasted anything so bitter in my life. My ma used to wash out my mouth with soap when I cussed, and that's the closest I think I've gotten. I needed to get this taste outta my mouth, so I popped open the Zero. Any other time, I think I would have hated it. Had an odd taste to it, but it didn't taste like poison, so it may as well have been the finest bourbon to me.
<br /><br />
The whole deal looked like it was a put on. I got some kind of tainted brew and a soda that weren't much better. That put me in the dumps, which made me want a drink. I think you probably know where this is going.
<br /><br />
Yeah, I drank the whole thing. I didn't like it, but I sure don't like being sober neither. And there's good news, I ain't blind yet. But that don't mean I'm gonna have it again.
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxLuAWXgZ746uOexf70Fnp6PDRXmsh2u6GAFPEP8DCFhBlUjCYQjl2B_ALHgoM9DCCa_KK58qmrxtzr8oqrOcRAdwa0AmkECo5YyZoFezc5lrTekQiB3NtD5TDrmjUsEV7ln6BZPyQFT9QdJ4IK_33tlnK2aw9IinNAJZ8l3oLaVedFlRnzrx7iR76/s16000/HardDew4.png" title="As soon as you're out, they pull you back in" /></div>
<br /> Hold on, there's a cherry one? Lemme call my pal.Walter Sojdahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00438496885700997187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3207692231850113781.post-39514404824669034952022-07-17T11:46:00.000-04:002022-07-17T11:46:41.690-04:00Spider-Man Sequel Speculation SpectacularIt's been a while, hasn't it? What with everything happening, sometimes I forget about the important things. Like Spider-Man. Luckily Marvel is here to put No Way Home back in theaters, this time with more stuff. Am I gonna watch it? Probably not. I got my jollies, and if there's an extended cut, I'll just buy it later and watch it when I've finished Spectacular again. But with the re-release of this movie, it got me thinking about all the buzz regarding potential sequels.
<br><br>
Given that Spider-Man has three separate live action reboots, something even the X-Men don't have yet, and now they've all been incorporated into the current corporate umbrella, there's really no telling what we could get next. Yeah, a Tom Holland film is pretty likely, given the last scene of NWH, but people have been speculating on a possible Amazing Spider-Man 3, or even a Spider-Man 4. Since I have nothing important or relevant to share with anyone, I will instead talk about what I would want from these properties, should they ever see the light of day. Who knows, it might happen.
<br><br>
<b>Tom Holland Sequel</b>
<br><br>
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRz5gQt-Rg0BNocEVylr3T8ExjFgwwjvX-TgK9YM2svcVlsUGH0GkKOCtYoXl5miMYkZkuer4g7xeIYVN87QHqMxwYzmnRbuADebOk60Iqs13mtl5FMaKERkxxwAKd8u3U1UdDWapBuMyKzPFnjjeki9z-s1lEidyusEymTZQXKhOUokzTw3VFpQd0/s1600/SpiderSpeculation1.png" title="You got me hooked, but only juuuuuust barely." /></div>
<br>
I'll start with this since it's the most likely to happen. Oh and uh, spoilers for NWH I guess, but if you haven't seen it yet why are you even here?
<br><br>
So at the end of No Way Home, we find Peter Parker at a very low point, but one with a lot of potential. He has no access to high-level technology, he's made his own suit out of actual fabric, and he's poor and alone with no friends, no money, and a shitty apartment. It's a great starting place! If they don't screw it up.
<br><br>
What I would like to see is a street-focused plot. No big cosmic stakes, no magic, no involvement with other heroes. Something that threatens the normal people of New York, and Spider-Man has to stop it. It would be a good chance to have some of the weirder villains, some of the lesser-known Silver Age stuff. My dream would be to have Big Wheel as a villain, even if he's not the main one, ideally played by Brendan Fraser. I would nominate The Spot, but Across the Spider-Verse picked him already, and will likely do a better job than any live action film could hope for. Maybe someone like the Crime Master or Tombstone, crime lords that hold a grudge, raising the stakes in a more believable way.
<br><br>
Since the entire supporting cast has been cut off, it would be nice to have a spotlight on some as-yet-unseen supporting characters. Maybe Randy Robertson lives in the same apartment building, and he meets Debra Whitman during his travels. The supporting cast for Spider-Man over its run is just tremendous, but we've been stuck with the same Coffee Bean cast for every iteration so far. There's more options than just Mary Jane, Harry Osborn, and Flash Thompson here!
<br><br>
I've seen a lot of suggestions for Black Cat to appear, and while I don't think that would be a bad idea, it would conflict with ideas I have for the other Spider-Men, but I'll get to that later.
<br><br>
Mainly, I want this film to be about Peter Parker making it on his own, struggling with his split time, his money, and trying to keep his life going through personal tragedy. It's what I like best from Spider-Man and they've finally set up this particular iteration to fulfill that. Instead of using Iron Man technology, I want what the Insomniac Spider-Man game referred to as "guerilla science," Peter using scraps to create what he needs in the moment, without support from higher up. A scene where after losing a fight, he has to whip up some gadget from a disassembled radio, a DVD player, and a sewing machine instead of accessing another function on his highly technological suit. That's the shit I like.
<br><br>
I don't know what he could do for work that wouldn't rehash the stuff from Spider-Man 2. He ain't exactly got credentials, so college might be out of the picture. Does he have a social security card? Can he get a job? The magic fuckery makes it unknown what exactly he can do to put food on the table. Photographer is the standard backup, and I guess I can't disagree, but there's gotta be something else he could do. It's up in the air, and I don't really have strong opinions about it,
<br><br>
<b>The Amazing Spider-Man 3</b>
<br><br>
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaMN33wKYPmSejseE0HXHWpbMCWagRK0f75Nq7X-6qMhd1DLWr_DMowpPQp5H5dhxAmqwZvRbip80-0vK1FKg8J2hiyOfizyAqcE3Kf8eWIG9JAXbh4ry0QE2KxJcoPkGiFJ8RdWb991j2D5YAJrMOAqYfrUbQ3bwQDFJkHNkdH2itV7Radyqf80ZK/s1600/SpiderSpeculation2.png" title="I just got out, you want me back in?!" /></div>
<br>
So this is much more of an open question. The mere possibility of this film is fan speculation, mostly people demanding it after No Way Home made everyone love Andrew Garfield. It's not even clear if Garfield would be willing to do this, as I've seen unsubstantiated stuff from that Sony leak a few years back that suggested he was fed up with the Cape Movie machine. But! He did come back for NWH, so not all hope is lost.
<br><br>
The suggestion I've seen the most from fans here is the addition of Spider-Gwen, to which I must respond: Please no, god, no, no. Absolutely not.
<br><br>
If they're going to have a Spider-Gwen (or Spider-Woman or Ghost Spider) in live action, just make a solo film for Pete's sake. Gwen <i>just</i> died in the last film, and it would be much more interesting to see Peter deal with another romantic interest in the wake of his grief than bring an alternate version of her over, only she has spider powers now. Just give us someone new! I just want grief without any multiversal shenanegans to make it stupid!
<br><br>
So, who could we have instead? I would nominate Black Cat. Felicia Hardy made a cameo in ASM 2, working for Oscorp, which is easy enough to explain as one step in some heist Hardy was pulling off. Maybe some technology she stole could make her a more effective thief, I dunno. I think the dynamic would be nice, if Black Cat is only interested in Spider-Man instead of Peter Parker, and Peter deals with his grief by being Spider-Man more often. Not to mention the best thing about the Amazing films have been the romantic chemistry and Black Cat was a major romantic interest for Peter, so it could work out quite well.
<br><br>
Now, for supporting cast, Harry Osborn is out the window, seeing as how he got Goblin'd up last movie. I say: Bring back Flash Thompson. He's been the only movie Flash I'd want to see again, and there's a lot you can do with him. Maybe he joined the military offscreen, and has to deal with that at the same time he deals with Gwen's death. There's a strong friendship between Peter and Flash in the comics, which has never been portrayed well in other media, as far as I can tell. Let's finally get some of that in live action! If they get Flash, I don't care as much about other characters.
<br><br>
Since Peter was doing photography for the Daily Bugle in ASM 2, it would make sense for him to continue that and even make it his full-time gig for this one. Though that would involve yet another iteration of J. Jonah Jameson and the Bugle crew, I'm not sure if they'd go for it. Maybe Robertson could run the show, and you spotlight other reporters, like Ben Urich. If the newsroom stuff is more centered, it could work. I could see some shenanegans where Peter has to convince a seasoned journalist that he's not Spider-Man, and there's ambiguity as to whether it actually worked.
<br><br>
I just want this film to reckon with what happened in ASM 2, see Peter deal with his loss and continue his life beyond it. Andrew's portrayal of Peter in NWH was one of the best, and I want to see more. Hopefully they don't screw it up, if a third installment is even in the cards.
<br><br>
<b>Spider-Man 4</b>
<br><br>
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSA28RPyVcjQPqDnYtQiGbVoHjJZga65MEMGNRrkPiFBJEIxzotgK8fj-lLKthtgIwdvNhv3_JgOmwKye_Yr1c4EGYRSfqy0gae-P3mOjkFmpO8fcMriqVcD7tf5ESrXeFYA4V3ed2i5tfYBlU3j_C_H3Mz2Mc8LkO3hBnQQ2OOJ0PC3iphtfTdM8Y/s1600/SpiderSpeculation3.png" title="Now just hold on there bucko." /></div>
<br>
Yeah so this one is just completely out there, very little chance of this ever happening. But why not! A man can dream!
<br><br>
Now, an older Spider-Man is not something we've seen here much. The best example is something like Peter B. Parker from Spider-Verse. I don't think Tobey could pull it off the same way though. A suggestion I've seen thrown around a lot is to bring the focus away from him, and onto his daughter with Mary Jane, effectively making this a Spider-Girl film. I'd be all up for that! Of course, this is also my hope for Across the Spider-Verse, and if I had to pick one it would have to be in Verse.
<br><br>
If we had a bit of a timeskip showing Peter eventually giving up being Spider-Man and starting a family, you could effectively do a Spider-Girl origin story, though without a lot of her extended cast, because they have either been killed off (Normie Osborn) or never existed (Kaine, Dark Devil, Black Cat, the rest.) It might be nice, though if it's under the Marvel umbrella I would likely be disappointed.
<br><br>
Honestly, I think I'd like a TV show for Spider-Girl more. Yeah, the continuity might be confusing, but it serves well enough as a standalone for people sick of the interweaving complexities of current Marvel TV. Gimme some teen drama! I'd be surprised enough that anyone even remembers Spider-Girl exists, since Spider-Gwen showed up and took all the limelight owed to Mayday. This is all a pipe dream anyway, so just let me have this one.
<br><br>
So yeah! Without any announcements or rumors, all we really have to go on is our own hopes and dreams for any of these films. And if I know anything, it's that my specific hopes and dreams do not happen. I may have prevented any of these things from occurring simply by writing this. Oops. I sure hope you wanted something different than I did.Walter Sojdahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00438496885700997187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3207692231850113781.post-7056802553337767852021-12-28T15:47:00.001-05:002021-12-28T15:47:48.058-05:00Spider-Man No Way Home (2021)Spider-Man No Way Home is the final film in the (presumably first) MCU Spider-Man trilogy. As I've said before, I'm not a fan of MCU Spider-Man. And there's a lot to dislike. To be honest, I kind of expected to hate this movie, especially since every one else loved it and I'm a hopeless contrarian. But then something happened.
<br /><br />
A strange warmth filled my heart.
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEglGFURptIblTv2BeGuCaDuhqSuxZTZYXRIxZ0MB7Nug6GYxIz73N3wsWEG8aB2J5sAabR9r5WZSWV-YOKeYY75Iu2Xbr4T9nk8KsgaW5Ivo7VperA9wRVIwIh-JKjnhD01ykYn7oI3Sdf9NVzt5QgSwrt5-IjNRG5pe6S3uF5wnAwEr0wgrRxhjlDN=s16000" title="Doc, this is pretty heavy!" /></div>
<br />
(SPOILERS AHEAD EVERYBODY)
<br /><br />
So turns out I'm a fucking rube. I can't help it! You put multiple Spider-Mans on a screen and I giggle and clap like a baby. Andrew and Tobey together on screen, in a lab, swinging around, it was great. It was mostly just fanservice, but goddamn if I wasn't serviced.
<br /><br />
But, you know, that wasn't the whole movie.
<br /><br />
Let's be real with ourselves, the rest of the movie was still MCU Spider-Man. You know, the one that didn't even seem like he wanted to be Spider-Man for most of this trilogy. The one with the extended cast that did little but annoy me. With Blondie Brant and Flashcard Thompson. The first part of the movie took a long time without a lot of meat on the bones. It's weird that legal troubles came up and very quickly got swept under the rug. Like, Mysterio's whole case seemed pretty tight, but Matt Murdock shows up and everything is fine.
<br /><br />
Remember Back In Black? It was the comic story where Aunt May is shot after Peter revealed his identity in Civil War. And then he goes on to commit a bunch of crimes to track down the man responsible and try to keep his aunt alive. It's why Spider-Man's identity becoming public was such a big deal, why you knew some bad shit would go down once it did. But MCU Spider-Man just has to crash at Happy Hogan's place and gets sad about college. Instead Alex Jones-- Er, Jameson (who only now exists) gets people mad enough to throw rocks through Peters window. Even though Spider-Man only did one thing after five years and it was the Mysterio thing which didn't even matter legally. It's just weird that there's no real bite to this.
<br /><br />
I mean, think about how that three movies in, MCU Spider-Man doesn't have any villains that would come after him. Not even like, a mob boss or some shit. What the hell did he even do? Did Spider-Man fight any crime that wasn't the Vulture? For the first two movies he had Iron Man villains and in this one he has to borrow villains from the Spider-Man movies that were actually good. Not to say that situation actually makes sense.
<br /><br />
So the magic spell is supposed to summon people who knew Peter Parker is Spider-Man. But like, why is Electro there? He don't know who Spider-Man is. Venom had more reason to be there. But then you wouldn't have a villain from every movie, and that's what's more important.
<br /><br />
I did like that, in a departure from the other two films, Peter actively went against the adult in this situation. In Homecoming he just wanted recognition from Iron Dad, and in Far From Home it was all under the direction of Nick Fury, but he actually fought Dr. Strange so he could try to save lives. And I like the idea that three Spider-Mans worked together to cure the villains. (like andrew did in TASM but sure let them die for the rest I guess it don't matter) And Tobey being able to whip up a Goblin Fixing Serum makes sense, since his best friend died because of it, more or less.
<br /><br />
Of course, the Lizard and Sandman seemed like they didn't work very well as part of this ensemble. What point in time was Sandman taken from? Why was he so pissed off so often? At some point Spider-Man caught aggro and couldn't shake it. And with Lizard, what was his plan? He stayed in the van while Peter and Osborn had their little science class, and you think he has some master plan when he says, "It begins." But all he does is sort of run away once Green Goblin is wrecking shit up. He didn't even turn anyone into a lizard. C'mon, he just wants the whole world to be lizards. Let him have one. And I guess they couldn't get their actors, so they were just CGI the whole time, til their cures came up and then they got Bully Maguire'd in. Though honestly that was a separate concern from how they were written, but it didn't help.
<br /><br />
Electro really came out on top here. He wasn't blue! Plus a design I like more, though if I had my way he would've had the lightning bolts around his head the whole time. Plus he talked with Andrew and that made me happy. Green Goblin was pretty great too. Dafoe's still got it baby! It's weird that they just fixed him at the end. Especially after May stuck him with some kinda green fluid earlier in the film. What did that do? It was like a Chekhov's gun that fell behind a couch and everyone forgot about.
<br /><br />
Fixing the villains doesn't really make sense if you try to place them back in the movies. Because, like, the same shit still happens, right? Did Osborn just pop back in right before the glider stabbed him? Am I supposed to assume this is why he said that deadpan, "Oh." Was that a sane Osborn getting stabbed? How would the Lizard getting cured before it happens in TASM fit anywhere? Just don't think about it I guess.
<br /><br />
I am glad they didn't make any Aunt May Is Hot jokes this time. Though she did die. And they shoehorned in stuff from the video game, like FEAST and her gravestone quote, which she never actually said in this film series. Why was it May who gave Peter the Great Responsibility speech? I remember when Homecoming came out, all the fans of that movie said Peter's "If bad happen and I not help, then bad my fault" line was supposed to be that line, as if he already learned that lesson. But apparently not, and he had to learn it now.
<br /><br />
This movie kinda disassembles a lot of defenses people had towards MCU Spider-Man, which is odd to see. People said we didn't need to see Holland's origin, because we had seen it before in other incarnations, but now this whole trilogy was his origin. People said he didn't need an Uncle Ben, because Stark was his Uncle Ben, but no, turns out it's Aunt May now. Fans disagreed with the criticism that Peter was too reliant on Stark technology, but now he's completely disconnected with it and they praise that. "Peter <i>is</i> poor!" they said, despite much evidence to the contrary, but now we see what it looks like when he doesn't have any money and it ain't what we've seen before in this trilogy.
<br /><br />
How about that ending. Peter Parker erases himself from... memory? The world? The bounds are confusing and unclear. So if it were just memory, yeah his friends wouldn't remember him, but anyone could look up the Daily Bugle archive on youtube and see the hours of coverage about Peter Parker, so we have to assume its more than that. Was it all physical media? So there would be no Daily Bugle coverage or that shrine in the high school, but then Peter does not legally exist. He would have no birth certificate, no job history. How did he get an apartment? Could he get deported? No wait, he's white. He's fine. I guess he has to get his GED, but he's a fucking ghost. How does this work? Don't think about it.
<br /><br />
You run into these logistical nightmares with any large-scale retcon like this. And it's worth noting that this is the first such event in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I predicted such a thing in my 2015 article, <a href="https://www.wdefender.com/2015/07/making-movies-into-comics-and-vice-versa.html">Making Movies Into Comics</a> though really it wasn't that hard to surmise. This has officially been branded as a three-film origin story for MCU Spider-Man, but I think that's a misleading assumption. They've relaunched the series with a new numbering, the next film will be a #1 again. And in comics this can lead to an initial increase in sales, but eventually they always go back to the old numbering. Is this merely the beginning? Time travel and magic are viable possibilities for further retcons, which are gonna be pretty necessary as public interest wanes and actors get sick of playing the same character forever. We have reached another step in movies becoming as alienating as comics.
<br /><br />
I think its worth noting just how derivative this film is from other recent Spider-Man media. Aunt May, with her job and epitaph and the ending shot with Peter swinging out after looking at the police scanner on his phone are straight from Insomniac Spider-Man. I wouldn't be surprised if they copy that incarnation real closely in the future. Then the whole plot of this film, which is cribbed straight from Into the Spider-Verse, an origin for Miles Morales, and this is touted as an origin for Peter Parker. And the borrowed villains from the Spider-Man films I genuinely enjoy. I worry future films might a similar hodgepodge of adaptations of adaptations. I doubt the people involved have real original ideas here.
<br /><br />
So I enjoyed myself, but almost entirely because Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire were together in Spider-Man suits and they webswung and I have a simple mind. Normally I would be angry that they got rid of the entirety of Spider-Man's extended cast, easily the best of any comic character, but with these versions I'm actually pretty okay with that. Please, anything to keep me from ever seeing Flashcard Thompson again. I've seen a lot of takes that this movie invalidates any of the Iron Boy Jr. criticism by fixing all of that. But that remains to be seen. Peter alone, poor, in a shitty apartment and a better suit all point to the possibility of a better future film, but does not guarantee it. It's like The Force Awakens, where how good this film could be hinges entirely on the next one. And they could very easily fuck it up. It's the easiest thing in the world, two whole franchises before this one failed. It's more than likely Peter will make MJ and Ned remember who he is in the next movie, and who knows what else would be undone?
<br /><br />
I'll watch the next one, which means nothing because I have to watch every Spider-Man film because I have a dangerous obsession. It could actually be better, even though all of reality got fucky. Really gotta tiptoe around how little this makes sense for the next movie to be pure Spider-Man and not just exposition around the nature of Strange's magic spell. Maybe he'll actually fight a crime!
<br /><br />
But we all know there's only one thing that could redeem all of this, make me sing the praises of this studio from the tallest hill.
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgSQmN-3kk84XJykRlahf0Ciou6V1vNkk87a_BiNXIbBL0IVuXqC6D6tkVpnx5wAu5dqlbZ1pgQyWGEKSTi2pcMTCqaCWu5u1y2mK43ygRRahKTLOeM6NYQB8Wuaqr8Hn9pe3w9DVmcVRlBBoZoWQA2fWvs6OwpVuFKZJUsNPRbDSrRSMKnXKXUk8op=s16000" title="I stand and place my hand over my heart." /></div>
<br />
DO IT YOU COWARDSWalter Sojdahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00438496885700997187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3207692231850113781.post-42676867141518794232021-12-06T13:33:00.000-05:002021-12-06T13:33:51.108-05:00Moments with Miles (New Teaser and Game Thoughts)WOOOOOOOO
<br /><br />
SPIDER-VERRSE TWOOOOOOOOO!!
<br /><br />
I'm fuckin' jazzed, folks. Yeah, we knew it was gonna happen but seeing actual footage makes it more real, more than even just believing in it really hard would do. Wait, what am I talking about? The new Spider-Verse trailer, you nimrod. Geez, it's almost like you don't obsessively follow every Spider-Man related development with a desperate sad passion unfit for a human being of your age.
<br /><br />
Well anyway this is that.
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BbXJ3_AQE_o" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div>
<br />
Not a whole lot there, but there's some! The designs for Miles and Gwen have changed somewhat, in-costume and out. They definitely look older, both with longer hair, and Gwen still has the undercut she had in most of Spider-Verse 1. I like the hair! Then there's costume design, where Gwen hasn't seen much of an overhaul, the most noticeable difference being her gloves now have the webbing pattern whereas before they were pure white. Miles has a pretty substantial change, with the red shoulders gone in lieu of a red band going down each his sides, going up the interior of his arms and outside his legs, each connecting the with little red patches on his hands and feet. The spider insignia looks a little cleaned up, but still appears to be spraypainted on, which I like.
<br /><br />
One big hope for this movie is that they add Mayday Parker, Spider-Girl from the MC2 Universe that was running for a while. It would fit with Peter B's whole kids dilemma leading to his estrangement from Mary Jane, but seeing as how he figured out he wanted kids and ostensibly got back together with MJ in the end, he could very likely have had a daughter who inherited spider powers. It's either her or Spiderling from Renew Your Vows, the miniseries about what if MJ and Peter had a different kid and they all fought crime, which I now realize I haven't read for some reason.
<br /><br />
And, before I forget, SPIDER-MAN 2099!! MIGUEL O'HARA IS IN THE HOOOUUUUSE!
<br /><br />
I'm real happy they kept him in after the little cameo in the stinger of Spider-Verse 1, I love 2099 Nueva York, I love the costume, and I love the way the swear word of the future is the word "shock". I love Into the Spider-Verse with every ounce of my empty withered heart, and this being a definite two-part sequel, I have enough reason not to lose my mind eating pizza for a while.
<br /><br />
Coincidentally, I just finished Miles Morales for the PS4 (I am biding my time for the Spider-Man PS5 to come out I know it will I just have to be patient) and, listen, sometimes I just gotta quarantine my Spider-Man thoughts into one post so the rest of them can be taken up with existential crises involving pizza.
<br /><br />
Anyway, good game! Short, but that was pretty much the deal going in. I platinum'd it in a fraction of the time Spider-Man 1 took me, but more Spider-Man content is all I need to keep going. I'm glad I didn't purchase a PS5 to play this, considering how much effort it would take to get one and that I only really want Demon's Souls otherwise. I don't need no ray-tracing! I'll take my huffing, chugging PS4 that forgets to load textures on a cat.
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg0UcoHe1Kee2T1jt1LB0eqbjkOTH-7Sa9A6AIAB4ZFsft6MnWKPFfuuDu0724jwbUhFpyl-MOvabXgq4fxF6T8I1T7bH0NEoiuCXUZ_hIMCLFWlrqB4Y2d70XvWq6uoiuWeRNaHPX9qiyOtYgmS-6AyI0e5KB2u32Y6YAkFOUJPkG0p4Fx0TllQ7QK=s16000" title="Ooooh, that's why he's called Spider-Man." /></div>
<br />
Playing through really made me think about what I want from Spider-Man 2, and I can't bring myself to make a whole article for a stupid list and I want it out of my head.
<br /><br />
<b>1. Suit loadouts</b>
<br /><br />
I want to be able to assign a suite of mods to a suit, ideally 2 or 3 loadouts. I figure most people already switch out all their suit mods when they switch from stealth to combat, or if they're fighting street thugs vs. tech enemies. All this would just make it quicker and easier. I'm surprised they didn't add this in Miles Morales, but they have another chance with the next game.
<br /><br />
<b>2. Co-op</b>
<br /><br />
I don't care if it's local or network co-op, I just want to play with a friend who is also Spider-Man and we both swing and fight crime and have a dang ol' time.
<br /><br />
<b>3. Less Tokens</b>
<br /><br />
In Spider-Man 1, there was like 6 different tokens you could collect by doing stuff around the city, and remembering what upgrade needed what token and where to get them became a chore. Miles Morales had 2, which maybe was too few. I think 3 or 4 would be a good amount so you're not overburdened with either a single type of token or scrambling trying to find the one type you're missing to make webs better.
<br /><br />
<b>4. Less Cops</b>
<br /><br />
In Miles Morales, all your crime data came from the Friendly Neighborhood app, so users reported a crime which you would then fight. I like this a lot more than Spider-Man 1 where Spider-Man fixed police surveillance towers, and also sorta hacked them, and that's where you got crime reports. Spider-Man is best if he has an at-best ambivalent relationship with the police, where they pretty much think he's a criminal as well. They shouldn't be too cozy.
<br /><br />
<b>5. Big Wheel</b>
<br /><br />
I love this stupid villain. He's no frills, he rides around in a giant wheel with arms and calls himself "Big Wheel". I want a big setpiece chase through Manhattan trying to stop a ferris wheel from blowing up a bank or something. Either him or The Spot.
<br /><br />
<b>6. Bring back the old face</b>
<br /><br />
Worth a try.
<br /><br />
<b>7. Spider-Signal</b>
<br /><br />
You know the drill. Please, do it for me. You guys know it exists! I saw it! LET ME SHINE A STUPID LIGHT ON PEOPLE FROM A ROOFTOP! PLEASE I AM AT YOUR MERCY!
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEinX4t93ib4c9Gd8wsWupIdSKKJdGh2sHSyNpywF_K2h33XvWbwJJcPL_jVxwvPaM4JWTYNwBMBnE0_lIPSgi20mAhtsfpvaw0IsFmq__cmscyjxTUK2nqybFEr4uxRSDB5De_Bc4x1kCJ144fN2EDdmO-kXVDbNtMpbQCVRRXUmToyWCkCye2sdE7R=s16000" title="YOOOOOU'RE THE MEANING IN MY LIFE, YOU'RE THE INSPIIIRRAAATIOOON!" /></div>Walter Sojdahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00438496885700997187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3207692231850113781.post-14246721625225799732021-11-11T13:20:00.001-05:002021-11-11T13:20:33.530-05:00Little Caesar's Crazy Calzony Pepperoni PizzaI am hanging from a thread. At the very precipice of sanity, my mind and body on the verge of breakdown. I am numb to the extreme pain I am in. I know, somehow, that one more push will send me careening over the brink. And yet, I crave it. What would it be like, to be freed from the shackles of consciousness? I feel l'appel du vide.
<br /><br />
Or is it
<br /><br />
L'appel du pizza?
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><font size="4">Little Caesar's Crazy Calzony Pepperoni Pizza</font></div>
<br />
Like a gambler who bets their last dollar, I navigate to the Little Caesar's website. There is no future for me now. Only the unraveling agony of the present. This will not make me happy. Far from it. This is a tool of destruction wrought from the minds of the spiritually diseased. But I proceed.
<br /><br />
The squat prison-like structure that houses my next mistake looms unassumingly on a dark highway. The sign out front flickers. I feel a deep kinship with it. At its characteristic Pizza Drive-Thru Window, I am handed my square box of regret. I am not mad. I chose this.
<br /><br />
I arrive home. It is dark and cold, but the box's warmth is not reassuring. It is the heat of infection. Though I can feel it spread, I hold it close. Inside, I hesitate opening the box. It comes with a cup of marinara. That means something to me now. I could turn back. I imagine a better world, one that does not exist. I look to the bag of breadsticks. It has a message for me.
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkoGZH1vnNvCFrAiOfFsix90g2207mc7EeXMGZv6cP-UQzrGim2q0EcIdre2OjXSfH9SxXXA4EH371DsDZrtKPPrpiBJ5dwBXQpgdVxouahJ_Ly3SjDEpcYT5V-IazSwQ4-_7o-0i0r_0/s16000/Calzony1.png" title="LOSE YOUR MIND" /></div>
<br />
As you wish, Tiny Czar. I let go and gaze upon the error I have made.
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaFnZmAKCq9_1ipVBLQmCZ0Sz8Z-OQKDWvZG5CQ5FsONlyNumomuY5WkTsR-uyjvnHhEcaeCWpMB0GOGUu-XLNv1F_3aKsVCt5vDfuZWa2GOFhMInffCLIOUwr1-FUsf4mlEE4ebZ96OU/s16000/Calzony2.png" title="I gazed into the Mouth of Madness" /></div>
<br />
The gossamer thread that ties me to reason loosens. Something has gone horribly wrong. My entire life, for one. I find a perverse satisfaction in the parallel. With an iron grip on my gradually decaying resolve, I reach forward to pry off a slice. I encounter a problem. I cannot tell if this had ever been, or had meant to be, sliced. Madness pulling at the edges of my awareness, I grasp an oozing fold and find no purchase.
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU7YlnUg1gXILqHmU5_h_mxS7VRgWWkjaxs79LzGkgo9BGXKaOs4-WvfyYPFMRGE3foJIOA-Fn8BX_zsoz1zQ_A5-_9l9eKE45ka4sO5C_iMQAyUtNtc1JQKCttoBeQ4-UNna-JCk7Srs/s16000/Calzony3.png" title="Here it is warm and pulsing and we never die." /></div>
<br />
I lose it. The weight of the absurd strains me to my limit. I cannot figure out how to eat this ridiculous pizza I bought at 10PM after working for twelve goddamn hours. The latest punchline in the interminable joke my life has become. With animalistic fervor I rip a piece from the profane oblong. I hesitate a moment. The poor, atrophied part of my brain concerned with self-preservation delivers a desperate entreaty. I ignore it and take a bite.
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbvzku1uiG-L7Jl2-KMxkrxlbs4NVkfajMPI9xFgXxyeYr4cT7zub1q99dPIOlB7qkeklBD7eihC_7sXUWxBfM7e0jcqAjakPZkhQadLDSNBbzvle8gF8P5UKhyphenhypheneD7P8TMNsTIsPkeMXs/s16000/Calzony4.png" title="Please, don't look at me that way." /></div>
<br />
It tastes like nothing. Everything. Very salty. I hate it. I need it. In a frenzy all is devoured, the pizza, the sticks, an unhealthy amount of marinara. I distantly note the fervent protests of my digestive tract. The bread is crazy, the pizza is crazy, and I, too, am waving goodbye to bittersweet sanity.
<br /><br />
In the condemned house that is my mind, I feel the last support beam give way. But do not worry.
<br /><br />
I am the only one inside.Walter Sojdahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00438496885700997187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3207692231850113781.post-19790960117727186952021-09-25T12:18:00.002-04:002021-09-25T12:18:46.760-04:00Madea Goes to Jail and the Transience of IdentityPicture this: It's late on a Saturday night, you are bored and want to watch a movie. But not a good movie, because there is something wrong with your brain. So you head over to [STREAMING SERVICE] and you see a film you've heard of, and one you're pretty certain you have a good hold of despite that. Madea Goes to Jail. What follows is a harrowing experience that can hardly be represented in words. But I guess I'll give it an shot.
<br><br>
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLVIF4LGAs0PBA_wAkiUQ-hLfTL8yyZMoKE06J3aEKMUcmvFVobUoS8dFofTo523qAzzbQ65g1pxZOBa34bRJ3yvTKDqtb7ELwwOLZeHafCKp0fR3rkv6WIGTpgtOVs2tr3ewDDVD5k64/s16000/MadeaPoster.png" title="We see but shadows, cast on the cave wall."></div>
<br>
Initially, the film presents itself as what one might expect. Madea, played by Tyler Perry, is an ornery old lady who apparently fucked up one too many times, and now is going to jail to meet a wacky cast of characters and learn a lesson or something. But then Madea leaves the courtroom. We stay and watch some completely separate characters. The <i>actual</i> main characters. Candy is a sex worker brought in on prostitution charges, and the prosecutor, Joshua, recuses himself as he knew her at some point in the past. What follows is a crash course in human misery, as every bad thing that could happen to a person happens to Candy. After one night back working on the streets, she is abducted and raped by a pimp, who plans to hold her captive until she escapes and seeks shelter with Joshua. When a local minister sets Candy up for a job interview, the man interviewing her sexually assaults her.
<br><br>
I could go over the laundry list of calamity that befalls Candy, but I think you get the point. What makes this film so bewildering to watch is that each of these scenes of tragedy is interspersed with scenes of Madea and her family being zany. You settle into the tone being dark and emotionally wracking, then Madea shows up for a sassy back-and-forth with Dr. Phil. It is impossible to get your footing with this movie. The listing says "Comedy." The description mentions nothing of tragedy.
<br><br>
What is the deal with this? I must mention I had never seen a Tyler Perry film before. Everyone I spoke to who has seen one of his films sat back like a jaded old schoolmaster and said, "Oh yes, they're all like that." One person's only comment was that it was a "funny movie." How could someone see every heart-wrenching event that takes place and come away with a bunch of yuks? It's simple. It's all in the name.
<br><br>
This film is billed as a comedy, and so that is what people see of it. Once they see Tyler Perry's name, they gloss over the details. Madea is a (supposedly) funny character, and her name is in the title, ergo the movie is a funny film. The content is almost irrelevant when we have nice little titles and genres to tell us what it is.
<br><br>
When does description cross the line into prescription? Is the film a comedy simply because it is labeled as such? Is it a comedy because it has some funny parts? Can it be a comedy even though most of the runtime would be better described as drama? Too often we take things by appearance, by how we think they should be sorted on first glance.
<br><br>
Most of the time with media, that works. If a movie is billed as a comedy and stars a comedic actor, we get what we expect. Sure, one or two sad things might happen in the film, but its primary purpose is to make you laugh. You pick what you want and that's the end of it. Life is rarely that simple.
<br><br>
The worst experience of your life can follow a moment of rare gaity.You can find yourself laughing at a funeral, mere minutes after crying the hardest you have ever cried. People can call you one thing your entire life and one day you realize you never fit in that mold at all. Films are made with intent. Indie or mainstream, somebody wrote a script and a bunch of people took their time to pick what parts they wanted in it until it appeared on your screen. Life has no intent. Things just happen. People just are.
<br><br>
The moral of Madea Goes to Jail arrives late in the film. While Madea and Candy are both incarcerated, Madea tells the group that you cannot be a victim, that you have to take responsibility for the things that happen to you. Shortly afterwards, both Candy and Madea are released from prison when it is revealed that the prosecutor has been padding charges, making all the cases she litigated invalid. Not a single thing about their escape from that situation was in their control. The film expects you to believe this moral it espouses while directly contradicting it with events portrayed in the film itself. It bills itself as a comedy, while bombarding me with more unfortunate events than those billed as dramas.
<br><br>
The labels we use are so inadequate at capturing life. So few things can be boiled down to a couple easily comprehensible terms. But we need them. You can't just think about everything all the time. We have hobbies, jobs, people to meet and things to do. You have to boil things down to handle everything being thrown at you day-to-day.
<br><br>
But there are times when you can't. When the words you used to describe yourself turn into a prison, a list of dos and don'ts. When the things people have said to you don't match up with what you can plainly see. When you've been submerged in an ocean of easily classified Comedies and Dramas, there falls into your lap that which defies these conventions. And though every signpost and label says it's one thing, you know it's not. It is not so easily categorized. The only question is:
<br><br>
Where do we go from there?Walter Sojdahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00438496885700997187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3207692231850113781.post-40652973760632517882021-09-16T13:52:00.000-04:002021-09-16T13:52:00.122-04:00Some Spider-Man Trailers (2021)I hear the calls, the pleas, for people to know what their most obscure Spider-Man obsessed weirdo thinks of these new Spider-Man properties on the horizon. Worry not, for I have come to answer the call. Let's see what this shit's about.
<br /><br />
We're gonna start off with the thing I am less likely to hate entirely, and that's the recently announced sequel to the PS4's Marvel's Spider-Man, called Marvel's Spider-Man 2.
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qIQ3xNqkVC4" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div>
<br /><br>
Seeing as how I really liked the first game, I have high hopes for this one. I haven't played Miles Morales yet because the PS4 version seems to be not-great in terms of performance, and I'm not buying a PS5 until they make a Spider-Man version that bundles with the new game. No Elden Ring for me until 2023.
<br /><br />
For obvious impressions, looks like we'll get Kraven and Venom as villains in this game, which in most other media I would find to be too much, but the first game balanced a lot of villains at once and did a real good job, so I'm not worried. Kraven as a big bad would be cool, but he might just be a first act villain to be replaced by... Venom? Doc Ock wasn't in the trailers too much, so there's likely a lot of surprises ahead.
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhr_6ud0K63AluTAHlycQo22ycsyZA6qxvpdtEScmMy2t-0ExY1Twl-_Wd791GW1QLXQ-uTcKvbG6bvKdc-4nHxhBCSS7B4yJw6n55LdsWPhbdHLOEwapwJ6JCwi1ikxbF2ZpnxDElxOA/s16000/ManyTrailers1.png" title="he he he choklate" /></div>
<br />
Now, who's gonna be Venom? The post-credits sequence of the first game hinted the symbiote was being used to cure Harry Osborn of whatever disease he had, so he might be a likely candidate. They could introduce Eddie Brock, flesh him out as a normal guy before the symbiote gets all gooey on him. It's pretty much a sure thing that Peter will get it first, because that's the kind of blatant fanservice the first game was so good at.
<br /><br />
On a more speculative note, how's Miles Morales going to factor in here? In the middle of the trailer it looks like Peter and Miles are performing a takedown together. Could this mean co-op? It could just mean Miles is an AI-controller partner, like your Last of Us or something, but co-op is my dream. Two Spider-Mans, working together! That would be so rad. Normally I'd be a bit mad at the 4 robot legs Spider-Man sports during a couple clips in the trailer, seeing as how they're either a Superior thing or a MCU thing, but there was already a suit in the original game that gave you robot legs for a short time, so I can't be too mad.
<br /><br />
At any rate, glad we're finally getting something about it, and hopefully we're all still alive by 2023.
<br /><br />
On a more recent note, (And I mean really recent)
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-FmWuCgJmxo" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div>
<br /><br>
Venom 2! I had some problems with <a href="https://www.wdefender.com/2018/10/venom-2018.html">the first one,</a> but over time I've come to appreciate it a bit more. At least they didn't make the symbiote some symbol for inner darkness, instead it's just a shitty asshole in the form of goo who calls Eddie a loser. You take what you can get.
<br /><br />
Carnage has been a sore spot for me since they announced that Woody Harrelson would be Cletus Kasady. For reasons I do not have time to explain, I hate Woody Harrelson. For reasons I have just enough time to explain, he's not great for Carnage. Cletus is supposed to be a young, wiry guy, full of twitchy psychopath energy. Harrelson is old. I honestly think Robert Pattinson would have been a better choice, but unfortunately for all of us, he's Batman.
<br /><br />
I was wondering how they would give Kasady a symbiote, since it's not like Cletus and Eddie would be sharing a jail cell, and it looks like they just had him fuckin' bite Eddie. It's pretty a pretty crazy thing for a crazy man to do, but... does it make any sense? I might be asking the wrong questions.
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWFSfdgIjdk6UYDCwROnwcTrpZ9hgY33ogswmizvVPbCmuZEEZ8xUozcyDpUTM3vaiAkK8fcJ_E6i2liJlEwtcyJe7fz3AS4uSIGq9mnBVAvwI-3v6vl-COpDY5HA8Cm4p24pUoluywVk/s16000/ManyTrailers2.png" title="C'mon Kasady! You don't know where that's been!" /></div>
<br />
I like how even though Venom is clearly the symbiote wrapping around Eddie and making him all buff and big, Carnage looks to be made entirely of goo, so much so that he can just open a hole in his chest. Hopefully when the fight starts it's a little less confusing than two very similarly colored lumps of goo smashing into one another.
<br /><br />
There's a couple shots of Shriek in the trailer, probably in the same prison as Carnage. In the comics they had a relationship, and it seems pretty likely here too. I'm anticipating what they'll do with that whole thing. Since the first Venom wasn't so bad in the end, I'm not dreading this. Whether or not I'll see it in a reasonable timeframe is a different matter.
<br /><br />
Now for the bad one.
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rt-2cxAiPJk" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div>
<br /><br>
Maaaaaaan.
<br /><br />
Listen, I am willing to admit this is just me. I'm the malcontent here. But MCU Spider-Man. I don't like him. The last two movies have been him fighting Iron Man villains, either trying to impress Iron Dad or following the orders of Grandpa Fury. Hell, in Far From Home it seemed like he didn't even want to be Spider-Man. And don't get me started on the glasses!
<br /><br />
The point is: MCU Spider-Man and I don't get along. And I wasn't too enthused by the reveal of yet another new suit before the trailer even dropped. So, in the context of my regard for the previous two films I want to say:
<br /><br />
This doesn't look as bad.
<br /><br />
Sheesh, at least this is Peter doing a thing on his own that he just wants to do, even if it's not crime-fighting. It really seems like he doesn't want to fight crime. But! Dr. Strange is more like your free-wheeling uncle who takes you to the old record shop and lets you have ice cream for dinner, instead of someone telling Peter what to do yet again. That doesn't utterly offend my sensibilities.
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifn6Lb0HG-vuWSknsvrUIQE3YnYOdvO8ETluDv-j2ljjR2v3zMB6hivKuvpeGduWzGxTZK64Q4JM-bb4FrfR0NOETeuccds5wcsV4F-AeVKm5r0vg37JAp3Fj49LJOQ9B2pTVG0878lYU/s16000/ManyTrailers3.png" title="Dude you heard this Pink Floyd album? It'll blow your mind." /></div>
<br />
By now everyone's heard the rumors about this film featuring the two previous Live Action Spider-Man iterations, and every day that seems more likely. Especially considering Alfred Molina's back. I know a lot of people are real hyped for this, but once again I'm the needless contrarian. I want to make this clear, I loved Spider-Verse. It was phenomenal, the best Spider-Man movie ever made. So the last thing I want is a watered-down Disney bullshit take on it, where nobody on the production <i>gets</i> Spider-Man the way I do. Into The Spider-Verse <i>got</i> it.
<br /><br />
I don't care to speculate too much on what form this multiverse is going to take. Maybe they'll just mash up all the previous universes by the end so we get Electro and Doc Ock in the MCU. It would be fitting if Spider-Man's new villains aren't even his again, they're just the villains of alternate-universe Spider-Men. I would like to see Andrew Garfield again, since he's my favorite. But overall I'm just not that excited. In any case, I don't know what the release situation is gonna be for this, theaters? Streaming? Both? It looks like they're aiming for a theatrical release, but as I think we've all seen the deadly virus propagating through the countryside doesn't really care what movie studios want. Ah well. I'll see it eventually.Walter Sojdahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00438496885700997187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3207692231850113781.post-29172330121071637492021-09-10T18:13:00.002-04:002021-09-10T18:15:04.336-04:00Hell is Flamin' HotAs I have gotten older, I find myself drawn towards interests of the mind, rather than those of the senses. But on occasion there arises the aesthete within, that which cares only for the novel, the decadent, an as-yet unknown sensation. This frame of mind arose upon hearing of a new beverage, one of limited supply. One that promised danger, a warning I would fail to heed. Mtn Dew: Flamin' Hot.
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9JhZHz_GV7dyLTkuqhHk-Lzqns4oUFh7FWlnIG3SysunhyphenhyphenahzR4GVCD6Xp4TFaw9wH4fGbm5scF5ktZoI7LXweNMUHoKdG6twJ2tnTm0SWCGEbwtUvtQH06BVTLvoeQD_TLkcDaNRbfY/s16000/Flamin01.png" title="The fiery imp cast a petulant gaze in my direction." /></div>
<br />
This is not the first such offer made available for special Dew. The first, my own personal white whale, was Cake Smash, a cake flavored soda I may never taste. Filled with such regret, I purchased the premiere beverage with unaccustomed zeal. Despite the dubious nature of the intended flavor, I ordered two six-packs, the maximum.
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYx1awMfPa6FCyKSDRGsvrLARvKNCPzyG1u9quEVIQVRTNlCRE-BhTVoTB6-gx4S3_1EW_a5gZb_FJtduvHZ2xIN1UAoT1hwzSugyin3i09xEWvQOxloanZJ26Uuhy6pgDX4EDwHgdQbA/s16000/Flamin02.PNG" title="This should have stopped it." /></div>
<br />
Remember that.
<br /><br />
When one's future is primarily anticipated with an overtone of dread, a single notion of optimism shines all the brighter. And if one makes a bright spot their focal point, it is liable to hurt the eyes.
<br /><br />
A week I waited with high expectations. Each hurdle met with the knowledge that soon, soon I would have something new. Each UPS notification was met with delight. I dreamed of ginger beer, of piquant spiced cider, all in preparation for the arrival. In the middle of the seventh day the two packages arrived.
<br /><br />
It was mediocre.
<br /><br />
The color is an unnatural, radioactive orange. The fragrance can politely be described as chemical. The primary taste is that of ambiguous citrus, neither orange nor lime nor a noticeable combination. Once one has quaffed a mouthful, there remains the question of spice. One may have forgotten. One could; for a moment. The heat remains beyond grasp of the senses until the very end, when its appearance is masked, subdued. It may be interpreted as the body's own response to what has entered it, such as heartburn or a more malignant reaction.
<br /><br />
In short, it could have been worse. I was in no rush to drink the remaining eleven cans, but I had adequate storage, and the expiration date was months away. That could have been the end of it.
<br /><br />
That should have been the end of it.
<br /><br />
The following morning I brought a can for my coworkers to sample, with most impressions mirroring my own. I received a strange notification of an upcoming delivery from UPS.
<br /><br />
"How odd," I mused. "I don't remember purchasing anything else."
<br /><br />
I put it out of my mind. It may be from a crowdfunding campaign I had forgotten, or something bought while inebriated. Surely, nothing to get fired up about. The day passed in relative mundanity. Arriving home that evening, my mind lit upon the delivery that had occurred. I had but a moment to muse on possibilities before I saw what had arrived. A chill crawled up my spine. It was the same box as the day before. The tell-tale tape fastening it shut, emblazoned with an impudent fire imp. How odd. Perhaps it was a secret addendum to the soda, a gift pack if you will. I tore off the tape and opened the box, only to be greeted by the same six cans I had unveiled the day prior.
<br /><br />
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet tw-align-center"><p dir="ltr" lang="en">Why did ANOTHER SIX PACK OF SPICY DEW SHOW UP AT MY HOUSE</p>— The Shape of Walter (@W_Defender) <a href="https://twitter.com/W_Defender/status/1435748411752472580?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 8, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
<br />
I was overburdened with Dew. My refrigerator was already packed to the brim with a soda I did not have much incentive to drink. But I merely shrugged. It was only soda. Perhaps there was an error in shipping. I set it, unpacked, in the basement. I had to go to bed. Another day of work awaited.
<br /><br />
The next day began in my usual sleep-deprived stupor. I regaled my coworkers with my tale of renegade Dew, secure in the fact that this was only a single incident, an anomaly I could laugh in remembrance of. But my cachinnation was short lived.
<br /><br />
My phone sounded with another UPS notification.
<br /><br />
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet tw-align-center"><p dir="ltr" lang="en">Just got another UPS notification.<br /><br />I... I think it's more Spicy Dew.</p>— The Shape of Walter (@W_Defender) <a href="https://twitter.com/W_Defender/status/1435998051060027397?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 9, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
<br />
It was identical to the previous message. But it couldn't be. There was no possible way I could get three shipments of soda on three subsequent days, almost entirely in error. A shadow clouded over my mind. Every limb became heavy with cold, carbonated, liquid dread. I had to know. But I was terrified to find out.
<br /><br />
It was dark when I returned. A bone-chilling wind cut through my jacket. My hands shook as I approached my door. And there it was, sitting on the porch. More Mountain Dew.
<br /><br />
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet tw-align-center" data-conversation="none"><p dir="ltr" lang="und">AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA <a href="https://t.co/Ks5ukM9ZbI">pic.twitter.com/Ks5ukM9ZbI</a></p>— The Shape of Walter (@W_Defender) <a href="https://twitter.com/W_Defender/status/1436109044654161920?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 9, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
<br />
I refused to believe it. Who did this to me? The light left my eyes. I saw my future in this Dew-saturated purgatory. Each day a new delivery of a soda I was beginning to resent. I sat down, staring blankly at the floor.
<br /><br />
And cracked open a Mtn Dew Flamin' Hot.
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpWPBWdCGex53G2j05svpbd2jJDqL5Cl_OKtTOZ7rPpXDpZqbJEjZqN6CXks-JvPLvFX3-BETnr_4jfOgJimIVTlxAfLCFgi8Ry4eoCiV421wuR0qya7_yNT41omwPBWu4Zc_cHr_4skQ/s16000/Flamin03.png" title="His pernicious grin lingered in the forefront of my mind. His haunting had only just begun." /></div>Walter Sojdahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00438496885700997187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3207692231850113781.post-62646897370619634742021-04-06T12:22:00.001-04:002021-04-06T12:22:40.329-04:00Concept Corner: Jesus Christ SuperstarTis the season! For guilt! That's right, with the changing of the weather comes the least celebrated Christian holiday, Easter, all about that wild cat Jesus and that whole dying and resurrecting thing he did. Most people who celebrate have a tradition of easter egg hunting, or maybe a big ham dinner, but for me it's been returning to an album (and subsequent film adaptation) that covers our boy JC in an interesting (and arguably heretical) light. Of course I'm speaking of:
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><font size="4">Concept Corner: <i>Jesus Christ Superstar</i></font></div>
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXwMod2LuRRy7aUWQEbBp55kWKNe88b2DpQMQOnu270fhj1ajFKimCJOfVdGnsLmipffQEFryauzGxbs8T1Z1Emfz8ZllohWgj1j0pJMAbC6CrWB_SAX2DjPNcdrc_KmoDdzS9dDCcq1E/s16000/JesusChristSuperstar.png" title="JESUS CHRIST! JESUS CHRIST!" /></div>
<br />
<i>Jesus Christ Superstar</i> was written in 1969 by aspiring musical composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyricist Tim Rice, both of whom went on to become household names, Webber with stage productions like <i>Cats</i> and <i>Phantom of the Opera</i> and Rice writing lyrics for Disney films <i>Aladdin,</i> <i>The Lion King,</i> and <i>Beauty and the Beast.</i> But those were far in the future for this pair, who at the time were at 20 and 24 years old, respectively, with only one success to their names, <i>Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.</i> They wanted their next project to continue the biblical theme, and after the prospect of a musical theater run was rejected by producers, the duo decided to make it an album instead, recruiting talent from both rock bands and musical theater. Of course, the album did gangbusters, leading to a theater run, a film adaptation, and numerous revivals. But we'll be narrowing the scope to the initial album, because that's what I do on this thing.
<br /><br />
<b>The Story</b>
<br /><br />
Disc 1
<br /><br />
We open in the town of Bethany with Judas Iscariot, a disciple of Jesus, voicing his growing concerns about the man and his movement. He worries about peoples' idea of Jesus' divinity, and how there could be backlash from the Israelites and the Roman government if things continue on their present course. [<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZD9b-NRfN8&t=239s">2. Heaven on Their Minds</a>] Later on, the rest of the disciples badger Jesus with questions about their plans and future, to which Jesus rebuffs them that not only do they not want to know, they likely won't care if Jesus came or went. Mary Magdalene soothes Jesus' face, which prompts Judas to ask why he'd associate himself with someone of her profession (prostitute) since it will only hurt their cause and hasten retribution from the state. Jesus responds angrily. [<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZD9b-NRfN8&t=499s">3. What's the Buzz/Strange Thing Mystifying</a>] Mary Magdalene calms Jesus with myrrh for his head and feet, which again Judas criticizes, stating that an expensive oil such as that could have been sold to feed the hungry and poor instead of wasting it on one man. Jesus counters that the poor will always exist, but he will not, so cherish what is there for the present. [<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZD9b-NRfN8&t=753s">4. Everything's Alright</a>] We're then brought to Jerusalem a couple days later on Sunday, where the Pharisees and High Priests have a discussion on what to do about this new messiah everyone's talking about. The possibility that his popularity leads to his followers crowning him King, provoking a violent response from the Roman authorities worries the Priests to the extent that they conclude Jesus must die to protect themselves. [<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZD9b-NRfN8&t=1067s">5. This Jesus Must Die</a>] Upon arriving in Jerusalem, Jesus is greeted by a crowd of excited followers and chastised by the High Priest Caiaphas for the rowdy nature of the mob. [<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZD9b-NRfN8&t=1284s">6. Hosanna</a>] Simon, one of the apostles, eggs Jesus on, extolling that with his current popularity, Jesus could easily overthrow the Roman government. Jesus chides Simon, explaining how he has knowledge that far outweighs Rome and Jerusalem. [<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZD9b-NRfN8&t=1413s">7. Simon Zelotes/Poor Jerusalem</a>] The next day, Pontius Pilate, Roman governor, wakes from a dream he had of a Galilean with an unfortunate fate, and the feeling that he would be blamed [<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZD9b-NRfN8&t=1701s">8. Pilate's Dream</a>] Burdened by the knowledge of the future, Jesus has an outburst at merchants in the Jerusalem temple. Upon exiting, he is overwhelmed by the unfortunates that plead for his help, claiming, "There's too little of me," and "Heal yourselves!" [<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZD9b-NRfN8&t=1789s">9. The Temple</a>] Mary Magdalene comes to calm Jesus and lay him to bed. [<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZD9b-NRfN8&t=2072s">9. Everything's Alright - Reprise</a>] Apart from him, Mary thinks about how she has fallen for Jesus in a way she hasn't for any other man, and is even frightened of him and her feelings for him. [<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZD9b-NRfN8&t=2101s">10. I Don't Know How to Love Him</a>] On Tuesday, Judas comes before the High Priests to do something about Jesus despite his immense guilt for having come to that decision. They agree to have Jesus arrested, and even to pay Judas for his services. While he refuses the money, he tells the Priests where they can find Jesus and when. [<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZD9b-NRfN8&t=2322s">11. Damned for All Time/Blood Money</a>]
<br /><br />
Disc 2
<br /><br />
That Thursday night, (Passover to be precise) the Apostles luxuriate on their position and the future success it will bring. Jesus, becoming increasingly agitated, cries out that one of those seated before him will betray him, and another will betray. This makes Judas confront Jesus, bewildered that Jesus would even let the betrayal occur if he knows of it, as if he wants to be arrested. Jesus exhorts him to get on with it, so Judas leaves, his enmity towards Jesus and the way he led his movement prevailing. [<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZD9b-NRfN8&t=2634s">12. The Last Supper</a>] At the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prays feverishly. He pleads to avoid the path set out before him, to be beaten and killed, or at least to know what will come as a result. After being granted no answer, he relents and accepts his coming execution. [<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZD9b-NRfN8&t=3061s">13. Gethsemane</a>] Judas arrives with the Roman authorities and High Priests. He identifies Jesus, and the disciples are ready to defend him violently before Jesus stops them. The emerging crowd wonders why Jesus does nothing to resist his detainment, becoming excited by the events. [<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZD9b-NRfN8&t=3394s">14. The Arrest</a>] People in the crowd identify Peter as someone close to Jesus, who denies the connection to three people. Mary Magdalene reminds Peter that Jesus foresaw what he just did, but how did he know? [<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZD9b-NRfN8&t=3595s">15. Peter's Denial</a>] Friday morning, Jesus is brought before Pontius Pilate as a revolutionary, a new king for the Jews. As Jesus is from Galilee he's not under Pilate's jurisdiction, so Pilate sends him to Herod. [<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZD9b-NRfN8&t=3683s">16. Pilate and Christ</a>] When Jesus is brought before him, Herod asks for a show of Jesus' divinity. Jesus refuses, which sends Herod into a rage, refusing to deal with him. [<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZD9b-NRfN8&t=3847s">17. King Herod's Song (Try It and See)</a>] Judas sees Jesus's condition, bent and bloody from the beatings, and feels ever more remorse for what he has done. The Priests try to reassure him that what he did was just, but Judas knows he will be known as the man who killed Christ. After echoing Mary Magdalene's words about Jesus, he cries out in anguish that God chose him for such a task. As a choir chants, Judas commits suicide. [<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZD9b-NRfN8&t=4029s">18. Judas' Death</a>] Back before Pilate, Caiaphas demands that Jesus be crucified. Pilate is reluctant, and questions what Jesus had even done to deserve it, while the crowd demands crucifixion. Pilate relents, giving Jesus 39 lashes in the hopes it will quench the mob's bloodlust. He tries one last time to get Jesus to say any words in his own defense, but Jesus demurs. The mob calls upon Pilate's devotion to Caesar, so he washes his hands of the matter and allows the execution. [<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZD9b-NRfN8&t=4284s">19. Trial Before Pilate</a>] The afterworldly voice of Judas and an ethereal choir question what made Jesus come to the world at that time and that place, why he had to die, or if it all worked out according to plan. [<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZD9b-NRfN8&t=4597s">20. Superstar</a>] Jesus is nailed to a cross and dies, crying out in agony to God. [<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZD9b-NRfN8&t=4851s">21. The Crucifixion</a>] Jesus' body is taken from the cross and laid to rest in a tomb in a garden. [<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZD9b-NRfN8&t=5098s">22. John Nineteen Forty-One</a>]
<br /><br />
***
<br /><br />
Well geez that got pretty heavy! Well, any Passion-play is going to end like this, but how Jesus Christ Superstar gets there is what makes it special. Most people (at least where I'm from) are pretty aware of the whole Crucifixion thing, but most of the time Judas' role is simply that of the bad guy that make Jesus go bye-bye. By showing the political and personal motivations behind it, you're much less quick to judge Judas in this telling. Everyone is scared of Rome. They're the occupiers, the police, the main state power. And the way some of the disciples seem raring to go overthrow Roman control, it's understandable why the Pharisees and Judas would be so apprehensive at Jesus's following. Of course, with the High Priests, they definitely show more of a cowardice than a sincere concern for the Jewish people. It's interesting how Judas justifies all his actions by first saying it's what Jesus would want him to do, and once he sees the results of what he's done, blames God for manipulating him. Oh, and he might be in love with Jesus.
<br /><br />
Jesus himself is a departure from how one would expect. Seeing as how this is his last week of life and he knows it, the stress is kinda getting to him. A lot of the more controversial Gospel passages are displayed here, with Jesus (essentially) dismissing the plight of the poor, wrecking up a bunch of vendors in a Temple, then telling a bunch of blighted people to heal themselves. Really it looks like those are to provide context for Judas' betrayal, but they paint Jesus in a pretty human light. Like, shit, ain't nobody gonna be real stable when your expiration date is less than a week away.
<br /><br />
It's interesting to note that the nature of Jesus' following mirrors that of the Beatles. This came out on the tail-end of the 60's, where mobs of frenzied fans would meet the Beatles anywhere they went. People even came up to them with the belief they could heal the sick. The thing the High Priests remark upon when Jesus arrives in Jerusalem is how much noise the people awaiting him make. When Jesus is arrested by the Roman,s the crowd of people outside act as mass media reporters, questioning Jesus on his next move, or how this happened. I haven't seen any interviews confirming this, but I have to believe they wrote Jesus as this sort of Superstar because of Lennon's claim that the band had become "more popular than Jesus." The familiar (to listeners at the time) scope of Jesus' following certainly helps one understand the magnitude of it all, and why those in power would be worried.
<br /><br />
At the time a lot of religious figures found the album (and subsequent play) to be heretical in nature, primarily because it doesn't show the resurrection, the main thing people know about JC. It goes a little deeper than that, his divinity is questioned a few times through the album, primarily by Judas, who thinks the God stuff is megalomania from becoming so popular. Of course, the evidence is there, if you look. It's chiefly in JC's prognostication, like knowing that he's going to die, or that Peter would deny him. But really, the album is more about the people and culture around Jesus, rather than Jesus himself.
<br /><br />
<b>The Music</b>
<br /><br />
The orchestration is your general late 60's rock deal, with lead guitar, bass, drum set, and Hammond organ, but with some additions like piano and some big band instruments like flutes, brass, and clarinets This is likely what Webber was familiar with given his stage background, and that he likely planned on making this into a stage show eventually anyway. Though the style is pretty clearly of its time, like most musicals it gets away with feeling like a classic rather than dated.
<br /><br />
Something Webber does with the composition is fill the first half with a bunch of motifs that come up again in the second half, so a few songs are reprises of earlier ones, but you get little callbacks during certain moments. "Judas' Death" takes its tune from "Damned For All Time" but takes the motif from "I Don't Know How To Love Him" and ends with the guitar riff from "Heaven On Their Minds." The theme from "What's the Buzz" returns in "The Last Supper" when the apostles get ready to defend Jesus from the Romans. All of this lends the album its own sort of language, where the echos of previous songs inform the latter ones. It's something musicals do more often than concept albums, and it's a trick Webber would use later in his more popular stage productions.
<br /><br />
As for individual songs themselves, "Heaven On Their Minds" is a marvelous opening track, a thesis statement for the rest of the album. The staccato guitar lends a tension to the song, the feeling that a dam is about to break. It transitions to a piano and bass arrangement as Judas pleads to Jesus, a more conciliatory tone. Murray Head, a singer and actor who had been in a production of <i>Hair</i> before being approached by Webber and Rice, makes an excellent Judas all the way through. From soft crooning to anguished cries, his range adds a soulfulness that's needed to humanize Judas.
<br /><br />
"Gethsemane (I Only Want To Say)" is one of the big standouts, a tormented song about a man facing his own inevitable death. Regal, yet mournful horns are joined by soft strings, punctuated by fervent questions to God.
<br /><br />
<blockquote>I'd have to know I'd have to know my Lord<br />
I'd have to see I'd have to see my Lord<br />
If I die what will be my reward?<br />
I'd have to know I'd have to know my Lord</blockquote>
<br />
Then Ian Gillan graces us with one of the best wails I've yet to hear. That "WHYYYY" is pretty much your benchmark for how good your JC is. (That NBC Live production did not make a good impression.) Gillan is most known for being lead singer of Deep Purple, and that metal connection seals the deal as my favorite singer for the part.
<br /><br />
<i>Jesus Christ Superstar</i> is just a damn good album. Even though it's had many stage adaptations by now, none have had the same cast and energy of this initial release. If you don't have any exposure to this production, or even if you're familiar with the Live show or 1973 film, this album is worth a listen. The story, even with its Biblical roots, manages a new perspective, and provides food for thought even if one isn't religious. In short, it's easy to see how Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice got to be where they are today when they could make an album of this caliber at such a young age. I highly recommend you give this one some time yourself, or at least the film, which gave us gems like the one I'll leave you with, devoid of context:
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nlOxUcTcUH0" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div>Walter Sojdahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00438496885700997187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3207692231850113781.post-30052862930365757962021-03-18T13:13:00.003-04:002021-03-18T13:13:27.269-04:00Max Lord: From Chaos to ReasonYou don't need me to tell you that Wonder Woman 1984 is a bad movie. By now I bet most of you have either watched it, or seen a million takes from every internet film reviewer desperate due to lack of superhero movies, laughed at how silly and bad it is, and then forgot about it entirely. But not me.
<br /><br />
WW84 is one of those films that leaves you with a lot of questions (in the bad way) such as: Why did Kristen Wiig become a Cheetah lady? What was the point of the golden armor? Why were the questionable ethics of the body-swap thing with Steve Trevor never really addressed? What's the deal with Max Lord?
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibHINt_ioUl-Ahp9gK03bI-dolYo6tlt9RGt7T-RQY2ASrB4vfZVLlJ2sQhMedwpUMrhbceVpGzhiPQF2f7e_6LyDO2a08fkgBUedWgeD67mftpn-E69EbubuIjApWCp3At4uoV5GHlzI/s16000/WW01.png" title="Yeah, not touching this." /></div>
<br />
The latter question has plagued me for months. Superhero movies are usually pretty simple with regard to their villains. Pick a random Marvel movie out of a hat and you'll find a boring one-note villain that exists just be be an obstacle for our hero. And the weird part is, I'm usually the first person to complain about that, but it does confer one big advantage: It's easy to understand. I'm not at all confused by Ronin in Guardians of the Galaxy. He's evil, he explodes at the end, I don't need to know anything else. So what's the deal with Wonder Woman?
<br /><br />
The main(?) villain of Wonder Woman 1984 is Max Lord, and it's pretty apparent from the outset that he's supposed to be Trump. I don't think I'm breaking new ground here. He presents as wealthy, while actually in horrible debt, he responds to accusations that he's a con-man by claiming to be a "television personality." The final scene of the film is Lord ranting like a lunatic in front of the Presidential seal while broadcasting all over the world. He even changed his ethnic-sounding name (Lorenzano, Drumpf) to something plain and triumphant (Lord, Trump). It isn't subtle. But it had me asking: Why? What are they saying with this?
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-xAcuU0087uRYITwdmkOnsR3xHIPG2Dpw2AEez19URMtku-G8S6tlr0EAW_Ip5mdxaYtDdTA-WQeuedcF3kVB7Sxr7W2r51oqiEy8PxaEj6spcw3Z4gDTT69V-th9xFYnJZm7g4VzN8A/s16000/WW02.png" title="Life is as good as it's gonna get, don't ever ask for more you ungrateful swine." /></div>
<br />
It came to me like a bolt from the blue. If we start with the obvious, that is, that Max Lord is Trump, the plot of the movie starts to come together. By becoming a wish-granting man, Max is able to take something from anyone uses him to grant a wish. He exploits these wishes, working his way up from failing oil magnate. Is there a goal in mind? Of course not! In a normal superhero flick, the villain always has a clear objective for the hero to stop, which made this confusing on first watch. But the answer lies in the typical Centrist position on Trump; the proverbial dog chasing cars, amassing power by utilizing other peoples' short-sighted desires just to have it.
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlf_f9MmOK94eFikl4mzHi19jUn9LUBtOu_sHmi0NSNQsnFV7iwPUUfrUkzX2UpWke65pSp14kZBcNQXdSPHDmZ-OpkX2G-iU5S5vWjmr6Z5h7bPdQTXyuTNzUFfO2LWthH6Yx03KlKsw/s16000/WW03.png" title="Going real subtle with it here, man." /></div>
<br />
So Max Lord works his way up to the President, getting access to some satellite thingy where the aforementioned ranting takes place. This is pretty clearly Trump becoming the actual President, what with his many rambling press conferences and announcements. It whips everyone who receives the broadcast into a wishmaking frenzy, causing chaos, riots, and imminent nuclear annihilation. None of this is particularly revelatory, I know. But the whole situation is resolved when Wonder Woman shows up to speak some goddamn reason into these selfish impulsive wishmakers.
<br /><br />
And they all just... do it. Once Wonder Woman makes her long, exhaustive, platitude-laden speech, everyone just listens to reason and undoes their wishes. Max himself decides it was all a bad idea and runs off to his poor sad son. And somehow, miraculously, everything is better after. The whole event was shrugged off, nobody even bothering the remember that one time where a crazy man on the teevee granted everyone's wishes but also it was bad and the world almost ended. Lord got off scot-free, he wasn't apprehended by anyone, he just went off with his son never to be heard from again.
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidu2xUIUR2CW5153mFwaZh3986VZvdT-fGvmyp2nHdkGCU5xUnnoNzoxNsVj1fJsPoiSJUq_EYDZoEmsOPsrLm6F867sBQ2vN4dLrzp6neG0wI3SuI8ZYPNSKC1Maru7zKwrjLXcogkI0/s16000/WW04.png" title="He's just a pretty messed up loser guy." /></div>
<br />
Now, going by superhero movie logic, this makes no sense. Usually the villain is killed by their own failure, or at the very least ends up in jail. They don't just get to go free. But with the framework we've observed, it starts to make sense. Within the analogy this film creates, once Trump is out of power, everything will just go back to normal. It espouses the Bidenesque notion that the forces harnessed and exploited by Trump and his associates will just evaporate once he's no longer in power. Trump himself doesn't need to be punished, you can just let him go.
<br /><br />
It makes no sense in the movie because it makes no sense in real life. This naive fantasy (even for a superhero movie) that we could all move past this era of history without doing anything to address the issues that arose is the whole point of the movie. Almost killed everyone with nukes? Forget about it! A sizeable portion of the population has desperate desires which would lead to an end of life as we know it? That don't matter, everything is instantly back to normal! Orange Man gone!
<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinI7TZ8vfXDPfdDJpL0jFIS7Y1_OsFz4O5yTJ6WxQkK9bOF3UlmHcWSflFjvrIeUdjTFXRGeEvrMNkJzHI1kyPf_PsI57Z_ucvPQSQ3TXcDao_OibhUgZyhZWg2XT03W-PM-JNHf699DU/s16000/WW05.png" title="Eh, that's all water under the bridge. No big problems to address here!" /></div>
<br />
So that's it. Woman Woman 1984 is a mess of a movie because it relies on an erroneous assumption about how reality works. Superhero movies may be facile and simple, but at least we know who the bad guy is, why he is bad, and why he should be stopped. And now I can rest easy that I've deciphered this tangled headphone cord of a film.
<br /><br />
Wait, why is he a POC? GOD DAMMITWalter Sojdahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00438496885700997187noreply@blogger.com0